on a little weight? Yep. One jerk can make a woman insecure about all men.
I’d given myself permission to leave those foolish thoughts behind.
That night had been beautiful. Snow covered Central Park. Cold as hell, but I was wrapped around Claudio. In his bed, my head to his chest, his breath on my skin, all snuggled and warm. Tipsy because we had been out partying at Nell’s, had a night filled with sweet wine and friends, then made love as a nightcap.
Screams came into my dreams.
I woke up, woozy and slobbering, with Tia hovering over me, in her blue flight attendant uniform, crying and wailing like Busta Rhymes.
To this day, I don’t understand why the skank went off on me. I tried to stay cool and tell her that we’d been sharing a man, that this was a love triangle and nobody knew about it but him.
She doubled up and came at me talking shit, shoved me so hard I fell and almost cracked my face on the heater.
When I got up, I tilted my head, looked at her like she’d lost her mind. It wasn’t about Claudio anymore. Nobody pushes me around. If she couldn’t respect me, then fear would be a good substitute.
Her insults screeched to a halt when I picked up a knife, chased her big titties, had her bouncing from wall to wall.
Claudio grabbed me, wrestled me until I was tired, my braids were every which-a-way, had me looking like snake-headed Medusa. He pinned me and tossed the knife to the side. While I tried to wiggle myself free, Tia’s bitch ass ran to the phone yelling bloody murder. The neighbors woke up screaming for one of us to go ahead and kill the other so they could get some sleep. NYPD came, brought a new level of humiliation. Took me for a little ride. Crackheads were on every corner, people selling bootleg videos and pirated CDs out of every bodega, but they locked me up.
Two days later I met with Claudio, listened to him explain what couldn’t be justified. He told me Tia didn’t mean a damn thing to him.
And of course he reminded me of the on-ness and off-ness of our relationship, of how my phone rang from time to time with the jingle of an old lover. Nope, over that five-year stretch Claudio wasn’t the only man I’d been with. He pleaded insane on the grounds of insecurity. I ended up in his bed that night.
We’d had twenty seasons of history. He’d been there for me when Momma died, and I couldn’t handle the love being over just like that.
Yep. Reason had jumped out the window, and when the damage was done, I had stooped to that girl’s level and met ignorance with anger. Resentment, when you don’t control it, only leads to misery. Claudio made a fool out of me, then I turned around and made a bigger fool of myself. That’s what I hated the most. Not the people, not what my daddy did, not what my momma allowed, not Claudio, not Tia, just the feelings they left behind.
I left New York. Called myself leaving all of that behind.
That was then, this is now.
Outside was cloudy, still overcast with a marine layer that made the morning cool, right at seventy degrees. I’d been blessed. I was seeing the perfect man in a perfect land.
I headed for the shower.
Vince’s silk boxers were on the bathroom floor, bundled next to the black satin pajamas I never had the chance to slip on last night. A hurricane of pleasure had come through there.
That was only a few hours ago.
And this morning another man was clogging up my mind.
I had been tracked down like I was a runaway slave.
I stood under the hot water, no candle, no music, soaped my sleep-deprived body down, wanted Vince to come back and save me from these uninvited feelings. Needed him to crawl inside me, fill me with sweet pain, and steal my mind away from New York once again.
5
Vince
I was heading south on the 405 freeway, zooming underneath the DC-10s, 747s, and FedEx planes coming into three runways at LAX, passing the HerbaLife building, and the strip of mega-hotels, car dealerships, and fast-food joints on Century Boulevard.
I’d left Dana’s ten minutes ago, was doing at least seventy-five, but most of the cars, SUVs, and minivans were passing me like I was driving a Pinto with three tires.
Whenever I was troubled, Womack was the man I called. So, that’s