and anger I thought I’d feel if I ever saw him again.
In a rattled tone all I could do was say his name, “Claudio?”
His thick-lipped smile was so close I could taste his wine.
Claudio said, “Damn, you’re looking good, Dee Dee.”
My mind told my legs to move, but my foot had landed in the snare of a memory that would not let me go.
Claudio adjusted his green suit jacket, his high-fashion, multicolored tie, and said, “Didn’t think I’d run into you.”
“Surprised to see you too, Claudio.”
“Chris Rock asked about you.”
“Tell him and his wife I said hello.”
“Saw him at the VH-1 Music Awards. Hard to get his ass now that he’s blown up. No time for the little people who gave him his first work.”
For a moment we were frozen, memories swimming in both of our eyes.
Yep, once upon a time I had left him hanging, waiting for my call.
His pretty eyes fell down on my ring hand, and that happy-to-see-me grin vanished. “Guess you wasn’t joking. You got engaged to a West Coast nig.”
I raised my ring, moved it side to side. “No joke.”
“You didn’t waste no time.”
“Well, my eggs weren’t getting any younger.”
I’d never seen a big man look so hurt.
The crowd wormed by and bumped me into Claudio, pretty much made us into a sandwich. My soft breasts rubbed all over his hard arm. I backed away.
“You never did tell me how Tia was doing.”
“C’mon. That was over before that night. I told you she was trying to get back with me, mad because I wouldn’t return her calls.”
“I should’ve kicked her ass again when I got out of jail.”
Emotions rolled those words off my tongue.
Claudio sulked. “Look, what about Timothy, Charles, or what was that other dude I found out you were seeing?”
“Anybody I was seeing was when you were MIA. Nobody walked in on you in the middle of the night and went psycho. You didn’t go to jail. I’ll never forget how they sprayed me between my legs like I was an animal.”
I stopped, killed that memory, raised a palm in a way that said I wasn’t going to create a scene, that I was cool and back in control.
He said, “That’s over and done with. Let go. Look, let’s move on. I’m doing a show at the civic center in Carson next week. Edwonda White, Emil Johnson, D’-Militant, a few other West Coast comics on the show.”
“Good for you.”
“I’m gonna be in L.A. awhile.”
“What’s awhile?”
“Few weeks. I’m kicking it at the Wyndham in Fox Hills.”
He said the name of the hotel like he wanted me to get in contact with him in the wee hours of the night.
I responded, “That’s a pretty expensive hotel. What’s up with that?”
He licked his lips. “Let me buy you a drink. We’ll talk.”
I wiggled my engagement ring in his face.
Claudio said, “Where’s your man?”
“He’s that fine brother over by the piano.”
Claudio saw Vince. Saw my thick-armed man dressed in all black. Claudio’s bushy eyebrows knitted; he made an unh sound, amplified his voice, “Dee Dee, can he take you farther than the A train and higher than the top of the World Trade Center?”
My trite grin turned upside down. “Did you have to go there?”
We stared at each other, knowing what that meant.
Years ago we had made love on top of the World Trade. An exhibitionist sort of thing, brought on by a dare from Claudio. Back when he was my teacher in the department of freaky deaky. On the A train, late one night when we were coming home from an event we’d put on with WBLS down at Le Bar Bat on West Fifty-seventh, I’d dared him and he’d given me oral love on the subway.
Those old feelings of yesterdays and yesteryears stirred in my chest, tightened my throat, created a sudden swelling in my breasts.
My tongue spat out words that were nothing but business: “Let’s cut to the chase. Do you intend to pay me back for all of those charge cards?”
“Whoa, now a lot of those charges were yours too.”
“Most were because of you.”
“I told you to be patient, but you were the one who jumped up, ran out here, and filed bankruptcy. Nobody told you to do that.”
“Well, you weren’t the one getting stressed every time the phone rang. I had to disguise my voice when I answered my own damn phone, then lie and tell people I had moved. Creditors didn’t garnish your wages, call your job all day, or ring