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  Ugh, what a Southern-fried cornball.

  “This is beautiful,” LaTangie squealed as we stood in the center of her new office. It was beautiful, with its plum-colored walls and emerald green accent furniture.

  Like my office, this one also had an in-suite marble bathroom complete with bidet.

  I was about to excuse myself when LaTangie turned toward me and said, “Damn, looks like I hit motherfucking pay dirt!”

  My heard jerked with surprise.

  LaTangie lifted her right hand into the air and said, “This office is the bomb, girl, give me some dap—we livin’ large, yo!”

  My mouth dropped open. LaTangie Fox was nothing more than a ghetto rat!

  I took a hesitant step backward.

  “You gonna leave me hanging like that? A’ight, sis, I’ll remember that when I’m running this shit.”

  I just blinked. I couldn’t believe the transformation that had taken place right before my eyes. There was no way in hell Anja would have hired a lowlife chickenhead like her.

  LaTangie turned toward the row of floor-to-ceiling windows, spread her arms out at her sides, and yelled, “I’m on top of the world, Ma!”

  Me, I got the hell out of there.

  Crystal

  i hadn’t told Geneva that I would be flying out Saturday, which was tomorrow. I figured I owed it to her to give her the news face-to-face.

  So here I sit at the Blue Water Grill, awaiting her arrival.

  I’d purposely put off telling her because she always got so stressed out whenever any of us flew, especially now that her boyfriend and son were darting around the globe.

  She was afraid that we’d all go down in flames, leaving her alone in the world. I figured if one of us could get her on a plane, she’d shake that fear.

  I also delayed telling her because she was far from thrilled about my continued relationship with Neville. She liked him well enough but just thought it didn’t make any sense to continue flying down to Antigua to be with him, since it was clear he wasn’t interested in settling down, and sleeping with women was eighty percent of his livelihood.

  Yeah, he’s a gigolo.

  He doesn’t like that term, but no matter how you call it, it all means the same thing.

  Neville likes to think of himself as a therapist, lover, and physical trainer all wrapped up in one. He claims he could take an emotional wreck of a woman, a woman with no self-esteem, and in less than a week send her home with so much confidence that one could see it spilling from her pores.

  And he could. I’m walking proof of that.

  He didn’t come into my life because I was low on self-esteem—he came into my life because I’d been celibate, and celibacy—for me, anyway—turns into bitchiness, something my mother, Peyton, just could not deal with.

  So, as outlandish as it may sound to you, my mother (with the assistance of Noah) arranged it so that Neville would visit with me and, well, to put it plain and simple, fuck me.

  I have to admit that when I found out about what they’d done—all of them, including Neville—I was not a happy camper. But what was done was done, and the reality of it was that Neville was a real cool guy.

  We laughed a lot together, and I had a genuine deep affection for him and the island of Antigua. I didn’t know if it was Neville or the island that made me feel alive, safe, and calm. Maybe it was a combination of the two. Whatever it was, I was addicted and in need of a fix.

  I looked at my watch; Geneva was already fifteen minutes late. I ordered a glass of wine and passed the time by watching the other patrons around me. To my left a young couple sat across the table from each other, holding hands and grinning foolishly into each other’s eyes. To the right an older couple, salt-and-pepper hair, sat side by side, smiling and whispering to each other.

  I could tell just from their body movements that they’d been together for years. They looked so in love, so happy.

  I dragged my eyes away and forced back the feeling of self-pity that was welling up inside me.

  I concentrated instead on Geneva and the situation at hand.

  I’d have to choose my words carefully. She’d seemed overly sensitive lately. Maybe it was because Deeka and her son, Eric, had been on the road for nearly a month and I’d been too wrapped up in my own dismal life to spend any time with her.

  Noah was in London, and she and Chevy never did the one-on-one thing. They loved each other, but their tolerance for each other was almost nonexistent.

  And anyway, Geneva couldn’t afford to go to any of Chevy’s haunts, and Chevy didn’t feel that Geneva was sophisticated enough to go to the corner store with her.

  But I’d noticed that since Geneva had started dating Deeka, her sophistication altitude had climbed a few levels. She was now able to order wine by the label and her palate had expanded to include food other than fried chicken and smothered pork chops. She’d even started to read more, albeit those booty-slapping-gun-wielding-drug-pushing-baby-momma-drama-ghetto-life-glorification books, but reading is reading, I guess.

  I was concerned about her weight, because in the month Deeka had been gone, she’d gained quite a few pounds, even though she claimed she was on some new diet regimen.

  “Hey, girl!” Geneva rushed in like a storm. Her greeting boomed through the restaurant.

  “Hey, mama,” I said, and then my breath caught in my throat. “What the hell happened to your hair?”

  “Girl, I just got up the other morning and whacked it off,” she said brightly, throwing her hands up in the air before wrapping her fat arms around me. She reeked of Jean Naté.

  When we broke the embrace I took a step back in order to take her all in.

  For the past twenty years Geneva had worn her hair pulled back into a rinky-dink ponytail. Every now and again she’d get one of the girls in her building to throw some extensions in, but the ponytail had been her signature do since high school.

  “You like?” she said, spinning in place.

  I did.

  The short Afro fit her melon-shaped face. “I do. It suits you.”

  We sat and Geneva began to talk about everything—I’d never heard so many run-on sentences in my life. It was as if she’d snorted cocaine or had too much Pepsi.

  I looked on with amazement. Geneva’s mouth was moving a mile a minute, and not only that—as she talked her hands flailed about as if she had no control over them, while her left leg bounced rapidly beneath the table.

  I removed my cloth napkin from my lap and waved it frantically in her face.

  “Geneva, time out,” I said. “What’s up with you?”

  “What?”

  “You’re going a mile a minute. Shoot, I haven’t said a word and I’m tired.”

  Geneva face unfolded. “Am I?” She giggled. “Oh, I guess I’m just excited to see you. It’s been a while.”

  It had been a minute since we’d spent time together.

  The waiter approached and Geneva ordered a Diet Pepsi.

  “How’s that going?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “The diet, silly.”

  “Oh, it’s slow going—you know how it is. Anyway, what’s going on with you?” she asked as she plucked a whole-grain roll from the bread basket.

  “Well, I um, I’m going down to Antigua—”

  “Again!” Geneva wailed and threw the roll down onto her plate. Her lip turned in and her eyes went dark.

  You would have thought I told her I was sleeping with her man, the way she was glaring at me.

  “Yes, again,” I said, reaching for my wineglass. “Tomorrow,” I added.

  “Tomorrow!” she shrieked, and the elderly couple shot us an annoyed look.

  “Keep your voice down, Geneva,” I demanded through clenched teeth. “Stop making a scene.”

  Geneva gave me a long, hard look and then her face went slack and the tears started to roll. “I-I’m sorry, Crystal, I’m sorry,” she blubbered.

  Noah

  maybe she
’s premenopausal or something?” I suggested to Crystal. “I hear that makes women crazy.”

  “I dunno, Noah—I mean, she was crying like someone had died.”

  “Look, girl, don’t let Miss Geneva and her mood swings spoil your little getaway. You go on to Antigua and have yourself a fucking good time—oh, I don’t have to tell you that. That’s your whole purpose of going, to have a fuck—”

  “Okay, Noah.” Crystal giggled. “I get it already.”

  “Call me when you get back, okay?”

  “Will do.”

  Crystal and I said our goodbyes and I hung up the phone and turned to look at Zahn, who was brooding in the corner of the living room. He was sitting in the chair, legs crossed, staring out the window. We hadn’t said more than two words to each other all day. Things between us were getting worse.

  “Hey, babe,” I called over to him, “how about we go out for dinner tonight? Maybe that new place on North End Road.”

  Zahn grunted but didn’t look at me.

  I started toward him. I just wanted us to get back to who we used to be before all this baby talk started pulling us apart.

  “It’s called 1492. You know, babe—Gerta and Shawn have done nothing but rave about the paella.”

  Gerta and Shawn were the new couple living above us. It seemed all the two of them did was screw and eat, eat and screw. We’d been begging them for months now to lay down carpet so we didn’t have to hear the thumping and bumping of their excessive lovemaking.

  I eased myself down onto Zahn’s lap, took hold of his chin, and turned his face toward me. Zahn’s eyes met mine for a brief moment before dropping away. They were empty. It seemed as though all the love he had for me had drained out of him. His lap was stiff beneath my legs, and he couldn’t even find it in him to wrap his arms around me.

  “Zahn?”

  Was this really happening to us?

  Zahn gently pushed me from his lap, rose from his chair, and walked to the bedroom, where he quietly shut the door behind him.

  I stood there, my mouth open, hands on my hips, in shock.

  This was really happening to us.

  Chevy

  what the hell was Anja up to?

  She was up to no good, that’s what! I could feel it in my bones.

  Anja never introduced a new employee to me, not ever. And what of Dante—where had he been banished off to? I thought as I stormed down the street and toward Melu-Melu.

  Melu-Melu was the gym owned by La Fleur Industries, our parent company. It was an exclusive gym, where regular members paid one thousand dollars a month and were entitled to two free full-body massages every twenty days, as well as unlimited access to the organic juice and fruit bar, as well as three sessions a month with a personal trainer.

  Membership for La Fleur employees was two thousand dollars a year. La Fleur employees were on the honor system and were required to make installment payments at their discretion as long as they were paid in full by the end of the calendar year.

  Melu-Melu was frequented by the behind-the-scenes crowd. People you wouldn’t know were “important” from looking at them because they were the power brokers behind the celebrities, the ones that wanted to have the ka-ching—without the ka-problems and publicity that come along with it.

  These people were very rarely photographed and the Post’s Page Six didn’t even know who they were.

  I pushed open the rose-colored glass doors and walked across the marble reception area and up to the black granite counter. Pulling my ID from my wallet, I waved it in front of the scanner.

  What normally followed was a chime of sorts, and then the metal arms would swing open, allowing me to pass through to the work area. But today a croaking sound resonated and I looked up to see the right eyebrow of the Japanese receptionist, sitting high on his forehead.

  His eyes went to the flat-screen monitor in front of him.

  “Try again, please.”

  I did and got the same croaking sound. “Let me see your card, Ms. Cambridge,” he said, smiling.

  I handed him the translucent card and sucked my teeth in disgust. I wanted him to know that I was annoyed.

  “Please step to the side, Ms. Cambridge,” he said, indicating the line that had formed behind me.

  “What is it, bent or something?” I asked, standing on my tippy toes, trying to see what had come up on the computer screen. The receptionist was fumbling in an open drawer.

  “No, not bent,” he said, retrieving a pair of scissors. “Declined.” He began snipping my card to shreds.

  “What the fuck are you doing!” I shrieked as I tried to lunge for my card. The receptionist used the scissors to point at the sign on the west wall that stated NO PROFANITY, PLEASE.

  “Your account is seriously delinquent,” the receptionist began. “When you catch up, we will issue you a new card. Until then, I’m sorry,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

  “You’re not serious. I work for La Fleur Industries—they own this place!” I screamed. The receptionist just stared. “I am the personal—” I shouted, raising my index finger for emphasis, “personal assistant to Anja!”

  “That’s nice,” he mumbled.

  “Is this some type of joke?”

  I just couldn’t believe that this was happening to me. All the work I’d done for that fucking company. All the hours I’d clocked under that slave driver Anja.

  “No, it’s not, Ms. Cambridge. Now please lower your voice and leave the premises before I have to call security.”

  My mouth snapped shut. This must be a dream. I pinched myself. “Ow.” I guess it wasn’t. I folded my arms across my chest. “Call the security, ’cause I ain’t going no-fucking-where.”

  Crystal

  the pilot announced that the flight attendants should prepare for landing. I closed my book and pressed the button along the sidearm of my seat, sending the back of my chair erect.

  Outside my window was the blue Caribbean ocean, and wedged in the middle of all that aquamarine glory was Antigua. My heart leapt in my chest as the excitement I had suppressed for most of the four-hour trip began to bubble up inside of me. In just fifteen minutes we would touch down.

  As soon as the Fasten Seat Belt sign went black, passengers jumped from their seats and began popping open the overhead luggage compartments. It would be another five minutes or so before the hatch would open.

  I remained seated, sliding my hands across the shiny cover of my paperback. I would not cram my body into the aisle like my fellow passengers. I would not. I would not. I told myself this even as I felt my behind lifting from the seat and then wrenched myself between a Korean couple who had five different types of cameras hanging from straps about their necks.

  As I reached for the carry-on I’d stored overhead, my elbow barely missed blinding the elderly gentleman who’d made his way beside me.

  I wasn’t fooling anyone but myself. I was just like the rest of them. I wanted out of the plane and into Antigua’s glorious sunshine. But like all good things, a wait would be involved, first this one, then the mile-long lines at immigration, then luggage, and finally, customs.

  I shifted my weight from foot to foot. The captain had turned off the air-conditioning. Perspiration was trickling down my underarms, gathering around my temples, springing from my scalp. A baby cried behind me in row thirty-seven, someone yawned loudly, and a young green-eyed boy meekly asked, “Mommy, what are we waiting for?”

  Finally the hatch opened and the people closest to the door rushed forward but were halted by the petite hand of the first-class flight attendant. Her passengers would file off first. They had paid triple what we coach passengers had paid. They were royalty and we were but the lowly subjects.

  Twenty of them—most clutching straw hats and over fifty-five.

  The women, their chicken necks draped in gold and fingers lavished with diamonds, expensive coral-colored lipstick smeared across their lips, chattered happily as they walked ahead of their husban
ds.

  The men, dressed in khakis and flowing linen shirts or T-shirts that declared their love for some other vacation destination, followed obediently behind.

  They owned homes in Antigua, beachfront property with perfect views, 365 beaches—a beach for every day of the year.

  Finally it was time for the coach passengers to disembark.

  My stomach churned. I was starving, I was excited, I was queasy with joy!

  When I stepped out onto the metal staircase, the heat wrapped itself around me. The air was heavy with the sweet scents of hibiscus, coconut, and the Caribbean Sea.

  Before my feet touched the black tarmac, the grimy stress of New York had already slipped away. I could stay here forever, I thought, feeling my insides glow. I could quit my job and live happily ever after. Leave everyone and everything behind, throw caution to the wind—say fuck you and dump my old life for this new one!

  “Fuck you!” I said aloud.

  A woman in front of me turned around and said, “Pardon?”

  “Not you.” I laughed and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “New York.”

  “Indeed,” she said, and winked at me.

  Half an hour at immigration. A dark fellow with graying temples and bright teeth flipped through my passport and looked up at me. “Sixth time, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “What keeps you coming back?” His question was tinged with innuendo. He knew what kept me coming back. The island, the simple lifestyle, had seduced me. Okay, yes, and the man.

  “The weather.” I smiled.

  He shot me a sly smile and stamped my passport. “I’ll be at the Boat House Bar at the harbor, if you ever get lonely,” he whispered as he handed my passport back to me.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  And I would.

  I was someone different here in Antigua. I was a short skirt–wearing, bustier-toting vamp. At least that’s how I saw myself. When I was on the island I felt sexy in a way that being in New York had never allowed me to feel.