Champagne Life (14 page)

“Wouldn't that make me a male prostitute?”

“It doesn't have to be all about cash. You said so yourself. She's generous with gifts. She will be so grateful to have someone around to talk to; she'll lavish you with a few little trinkets here and there. We'll sell 'em and pay off a few bills.”

He shook his head. “I am not doing that.”

I released my embrace and flopped back down onto the bed. “Yeah, I guess you're right. It was a stupid idea.”

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how idiotic the idea was. I tried to rationalize the idea by believing that we'd be doing that poor little old lady, Mrs. Herjavec, a favor by providing someone for her to hang out with. DeShaun was right, it would never work.

DeShaun hopped out of bed and grabbed his boxers from the bed post. “Do you want some breakfast?” He stepped into his shorts. “You need some food in your body to fuel that brain of yours. You're talking crazy this morning.”

“Nah, I'm not really hungry.”

“Suit yourself, but I'm going to make me some grits and bacon.”

“You hate grits.”

“Not really.”

“And you don't eat bacon like that either,” I told him. “You think you are so slick.”

He grinned. “I wanted you to eat something. Don't take this the wrong way, but you've been looking kind of beat down lately.”

“Gee, how can I not take that wrong?”

He sat down next to me on the bed. “Are you feeling okay?” He reached over and placed the back of his hand on my forehead, like my mother used to do when I was a child, sick in bed.

“I'm fine,” I reassured. “I'm a little tired. If I get hungry later, I'll grab something.”

“Okay. You stay home and relax. I'm heading out to see if I can hook up a job someplace. I should only be a few hours. If you need anything, call.”

“On what?” I asked.

“My phone's working, remember?”

“Yeah, but the house phone ain't.”

“Shit! I forgot. I'll be back in a few hours. You should be good, right?”

“I guess I'll have to be.”

We both laughed.

He reached for his jeans, hanging on the handle bars of the exercise bike neither of us used, and stepped into them. “Got anything planned for today?”

“I'm going to try to get in contact with McIntyre, Roth and Associates to find out if I got the job. I haven't heard from them yet.”

“Good luck, baby. You need my phone?”

“Nah. I'll get my lazy butt up and call from around the corner again. Besides, they probably won't be in the office until nine, at the earliest.”

He leaned down and kissed me. His lips lingered on my cheek for a few seconds and then, he looked at me with such intensity, I thought he was going to give me more bad news. Instead, the corners of his mouth turned slightly upward as he said, “I promise you, everything is going to be all right.”

“I know.”

He stood up and left, gently closing the door behind him.

I rolled over in bed, releasing a sigh of relief. It was a strange way to feel right now, but, through all of this, I was glad of one thing—we still had each other's backs. If being broke and a day short of homeless didn't break that, nothing could.

T
he clock on the dash read 11:27. The sun was high in the sky as he headed home. When he spotted the turn-off for his old restaurant, he thought about Stiles and how he would be there, unloading boxes of stock before the lunchtime rush.

During his job hunt this morning, the thought about asking Stiles for his job back crossed his mind at least a dozen times, but as soon as he considered it, he kicked the thought right out of his head. Stiles had fired him without a second thought. DeShaun hadn't even bothered explaining that the wine was paid for. At that time, he really didn't care. If he had not been fired, DeShaun probably would have ended up quitting that crap job eventually—but that wasn't the point. He should have left on his terms, not Stiles'.

It sucked even more because even with all of DeShaun's experience in the restaurant business, the reality was, he couldn't find a job.

So this was what it had come to? Him driving around, looking for decent restaurants to apply to? And it didn't matter whether or not there was a hiring sign in the window. He needed a job. This morning, he lied to Naomi, telling her that he had a few prospects in the works. She had looked so worn out and defeated, he wanted to give her some hope, false or not.

Then, when she started talking about the Herjavecs again, he realized that he had to get out of there early, before her hypothetical situation turned into reality. He needed to give her time to see how ridiculous of an idea that was.

Of course, when you thought about it, he was already taking a little extra from Mrs. Herjavec, who handed him an additional hundred or two on several occasions. But that was different. That was for his party services. What Naomi was speaking of was a whole other situation.

Why was he even still thinking about it?

There it was. Paoli Pike, the turn-off to his old restaurant. Maybe he'd pop in and see how the guys were doing. He started to turn his car onto the exit ramp, but couldn't do it. He stepped on the accelerator and kept straight. He was less than ten minutes from his house when his cell rang.

“Yo', man. How you doin'?”

It was M.J.

“I'm good, man,” DeShaun said. “How you been?”

“Ah, man, you know Old Man Stiles. If it ain't one thing, it's another. He's yelling at everybody, accusing them of stealing.”

“Still?”

“Yeah. He even fired Scott.”

“You serious?”

“Yup, and you know Scott was the only guy that kissed that old fart's ass,” M.J. said. “So, how's my girl, Mimi?”

“She's good.”

“Did that catering gig work out for you?”

“It's in the works,” DeShaun lied. He didn't want to tell him he had absolutely no prospects on the horizon.

“Good. Maybe when you get that job, you can hook me up.”

“Sure.”

“Oh, the reason I'm calling is because Fancy Nancy has been asking about you.”

“Who?”

M.J. had a nickname for all the usual partygoers. Some lady with
a big butt who flirted with everyone, male or female, M.J. called Apple Bottom Tart. There was a short, stocky guy with a bald head M.J. nicknamed “The Penguin.” DeShaun had no idea who Fancy Nancy was.

“Jackie, Olivia, man, I forget her name,” M.J. said. “It's that woman with the dark hair married to the gun dealer.”

“Jenn Herjavec?”

“Yeah! That's her.”

“What's she sayin'?”

“Every time she comes in here with Mr. Megabucks, she asks where you are. Now see, I could've picked up where you left off,” M.J. said, laughing. “But, noooo, she only asks about you.”

“Me? Why?”

“That's what I'd like to know. She gave me her number to give to you. She claims you're supposed to work a surprise party in her honor. My question is, if it's a surprise party, how she know about it?”

DeShaun completely forgot about the surprise party Mr. Herjavec had asked him to service. That would be a good gig for decent money. “She leave a number?”

“Five-five-five-three-four-five-three.”

“You memorized her number?”

“Hey, Mrs. Megabucks is looking good lately. If you can't tap that, I wanted to be there to help out.”

DeShaun reached into the glove box, grabbed a worn napkin and a pen and wrote down the number. “And for your information I'm supposed to be working a party for them next week. No tapping here.”

“An intimate party for two?”

“You always have to take it there, don't you?”

“Yes, I do,” M.J. said proudly. “It's what I do.”

I
woke up again at eleven o'clock in the morning. After DeShaun left, I went into the kitchen and whipped up a fresh batch of chocolate chunk cookie dough, but, by the time I was ready to pop them into the oven, I had lost the feeling. Instead, I stashed the bowl in the back of the fridge and headed upstairs for a quick nap.

That quick nap lasted three hours.

While still in bed, I reached up and extended my fingers and toes, stretching each limb to capacity. I felt like I had a bad hangover, the kind you got after mixing liquors all night long. My head ached, my body hurt, but mostly, my spirit was damaged. A month ago we were late on one or two bills simply because we hadn't gotten around to paying them. Now, we were late because we
couldn't
pay them.

DeShaun wasn't back yet, and I hadn't felt like making the hike down the few blocks needed to make the call to McIntyre and Roth and Associates to find out if I got the job. Part of me didn't want to make that call. If I didn't get the job, there went the last bit of hope I had left. On the other hand, if I did get the job, that meant DeShaun and I could stay afloat and stop this sinking ship from crashing to the bottom of the ocean. The best-case scenario; DeShaun would walk through the front door with a secured job and McIntyre and Roth would inform me I start early next week. That little bit of hope prompted me to roll out of bed and make that call.

I picked up the house phone, hoping for a tiny miracle. Nope. Still dead.

Earlier, before DeShaun had left, he kept reassuring me everything would be okay, stating, “We're smart people. Everything will work out.” While lying in bed, I believed him. The minute I stepped out from the comfort of my bed sheets, that security blanket DeShaun fitted me with had been pulled off.

I went to the refrigerator and opened it up. Besides three Kaliks, a half crate of eggs and the cookie dough I'd stashed in the back earlier, the fridge was empty. I slammed it shut. My head was beginning to hurt again.

“You can do this,” I told myself. “Something good will happen today.” But they were only words I couldn't force myself to believe.

I lugged my body to the bathroom and opened up the medicine cabinet. I grabbed the bottle of aspirin, which may or may not have been expired. It took at least four tries before I was able to pry open the childproof cap. It was empty. I chucked it across the bathroom floor, where it bounced off the toilet and landed in the tub. I thought back to my senior year in college when I wrote a dissertation on the struggle and plights of African Americans in the United States. When I first started researching, I couldn't understand how people in the ghetto allowed themselves to live like that. My paper took the position that we are not a product of our circumstances and that we were the ones in control of our situation.

I didn't understand. I had never been in that position.

Most of those people I researched and wrote about, had great jobs one day, and the next day, found themselves slipping further into poverty. Once you reached the last rung on the ladder, you looked up and then down, realizing it was much less of a fight to hit the ground than it was to climb all those rungs to reach the top again. That's where I was—on that last rung, with one foot on the ground. What was my next move?

Early last week, I had taken the train into Philly and applied for food stamps. I had to admit, it was the most demoralizing thing I had ever gone through. After filling out tons of paperwork, I stood in a line a mile long. Two hours later, when I finally reached the clerk, who was smacking on her gum, she stamped my paperwork and told me, “We'll be in touch.” I'd give them another day or two before I phoned them since the number I left was shut off.

Later that same day, I made the trek over to the unemployment office in downtown Philly. After giving them some information and filling out yet more forms, they too told me, “We'll be in touch.” The office called later that week, when our phone was still on, telling me my application had been denied because of the reason for the termination.

I splashed a handful of cold water on my face and glanced up in the mirror. I had dark patches under my eyes and my skin had a dull, greenish tint to it. My hair hadn't been wrapped or combed in days and was a mess. Within the last week, I had lost some weight. Of course, I lost weight. We didn't have a crumb of food in the refrigerator!

At first, I didn't care that I got fired. I figured I would find another job right away.

Mistake number one.

My second blunder was not kicking the crap out of Jeremy for his big mouth, causing me to lose that bullshit job in the first place. If I ever saw him again, I would take my fist and jam it down his throat without hesitation. In fact, if I had a friggin' working phone, I would call him and cuss him out. I would go down there and slap him around a couple of times, him and his bitch auntie manager, who came up in that place smelling like fried catfish every day.

Screw wasting energy and calling McIntyre and Roth—a job I probably didn't get anyway. I decided to get dressed and go down
to the bank. I was going to tell off all of those motherfuckers for trying to destroy my life over some crappy job. I was going down there all right, but first I had to take a shower. The last thing I wanted for them to see was me defeated and broken with stinky, mussed-up hair.

As I turned the faucet and stepped under the hot streaming water, I wondered if this was how those people that went postal at their jobs started their day.

I
was standing in front of the bank, but a funny thing happened on the bus ride down here. I wasn't angry anymore. This wasn't the right job for me. If I hadn't been fired, I probably would have stayed in that position, miserable, for the rest of my days. Jeremy did me a favor.

I turned around, about to leave, and bumped right into Jeremy. He stood there with several shopping bags in his hands, smiling at me.