Cheaters (19 page)

Chanté’s eyes were burdened. She took Peaches’ hand. “Let’s chitchat for a moment.”

“Peaches,” Thaiheed tried to grab the other hand, “we just got here. Let’s kick back and enjoy the music for a few.”

It was too late.

Chanté dragged Peaches through the crowd. Karen followed but gazed back at me two or three times. Smiled a smile of wonderment and wanting.

I had a bad feeling. Not about Karen, about the situation.

“Where you know Chanté from?” Thaiheed asked.

“Met her tonight,” I said. I could hear him sucking on his tongue, tapping his foot, again not in rhythm to the music. At first I thought something was up between him and Karen.

“Didn’t she say something about you and her somewhere?”

I cleared my throat. “Her car broke down; I helped her out.”

Just then Peaches stormed back over. She existed on a different plateau. The sound of her butt smacking the seat when she plopped down definitely wasn’t friendly. Not at all. She sounded like a bull snorting right before the charge.

Thaiheed asked, “Wanna dance?”

She snapped, “How long you been knowing Chanté?”

“What?”

“I thought you said you stopped seeing Nina.”

People at the closer tables were watching. Peaches dropped the stuff Chanté had given her—pictures of Chanté and Thaiheed. Dropped the photos on the table and spread them around like they were tarot cards and she was about to tell his future.

Peaches pointed at the pictures. “This is you and her at Sea World. See the damn date. Universal Studios. Look at the date on the picture. Raging Waters. Look at the date.”

Thaiheed rubbed his face. “Let’s step outside. Not here.”

“Just take me the fuck home.”

Chanté and company were all watching Thaiheed. At first I thought Chanté was crying, but she was holding back laughter. Peaches stormed out like a hurricane, and Thaiheed followed like a gentle breeze, cutting his eyes at Chanté before he exited. Vindictiveness was written all

over his face. Chanté flipped him off with a finger so stiff half the women in the room probably got turned on.

Chanté waltzed back to my cubbyhole, sat down and smiled.

I asked, “Boyfriend?”

She laughed.

I smiled. “Why you dog ‘im like that in public?”

“Because he’s a dog. And a dog gets what a dog gets.”

“What does a dog get?”

“Dogged.”

The music picked up, switched to an African beat. The percussionist was working overtime. The keyboard emulated a flute.

Tammy was back up, wailing a tune about a “see line woman.”

The African Village of the Inland Empire came to life.

People danced in the aisles. Anywhere the spirit hit.

Chanté pulled my hand. “C’mon, show me what you can do.”

I loosened my tie and accepted the challenge. “What’s this, a Caribbean tune?”

“Another Nina Simone. Tammy worships that woman.”

“You don’t like her?”

“I like Nina. She sings the hell out of
Porgy and Bess.
Stephan, check Tammy out. She’s getting it on loose up there.”

Tammy slapped one hand on the waist of her skirt, hiked her dress thigh high while she made some exotic moves. With sweat dripping down her neck over her pearls, she threw down some serious choreography on the music’s break. Other sistas accepted her challenge, kicked off their shoes, left the brothas behind, yanked their skirts up a few inches and grooved their way into the impromptu dance competition.

Everybody was dancing close to fornication.

Cheering.

Shouting.

When the song was over and the applause came down, Jake left the girl he’d picked up and came over. Chanté’s friend Tammy came over too, fanning herself, sipping on a soda, ignoring all the men who were trying to get her attention, and gave her eyes to Darnell. He showered her with

compliment after compliment. Tammy touched his arm, leaning all in his face.

A moment passed. I looked out the window. Brittany was sitting at a table near the fountain that separated this spot from the restaurant next door. Dressed in a black leather mini, black hose, black pumps, lipstick the color of the night. She was with somebody. A brotha who had his hands all on her legs, on her thighs. More people were in that party-hearty group. Her golden hair was straight, hanging down to her back.

I didn’t know when she arrived, or how long she’d been watching me. Didn’t know she was coming.

She toyed with her golden necklace, nodded.

I nodded.

“You want that drink?” I asked Chanté.

“No,” she said. “I’ll take a rain check on my ten dollars.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want the money.”

“I changed my mind. I’m exercising my woman’s prerogative. As long as you owe me, I’ll never be broke.”

I excused myself, then walked through the carpeted restaurant section, slipped around the corner toward the men’s room, and picked up a pay phone, pretended to be talking.

A couple of seconds later, hands squeezed my buns, then long and slender fingers ran around to my crotch.

I said, “I hope that’s a woman, touching me like that.”

“Hey, sexy,” Brittany whispered. Her voice was as innocent as the smell of the Coco Chanel perfume that surrounded her. “You were dancing your ass off.”

“I did my best.”

“Who’s the cute girl who was all over you?”

“Don’t know. Just met her.”

“The way she was all over you, I thought you were trying to get a Siamese twin award.”

Three sistas came around the corner. By then Brittany had sidestepped and picked up the other pay phone and turned her back to me. The bathroom door closed behind the sistas.

I asked Brittany, “Who you with?”

“My boyfriend, Tony.” She made an irritated face. “Going home alone tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“Alone alone?”

“Alone alone.”

She whispered, “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve been calling you. Why don’t you ever call back?”

Her lip curled up at the corner. She gave up a one-shoulder shrug, lowered her voice. “Can I come over tonight?”

We stalled our conversation when a brotha came out of the bathroom. Held off talking until another went in.

Brittany said, “I have extra clothes in my car.”

“What about Tony?”

She smiled. “I drove my own car. I’ll get rid of him.”

She hung up the phone and walked away.

I blew a couple of minutes, called and checked my machine.

Stephan. This is Toyomi—

I erased that message before it played all the way.

My momma had called. No word from Samantha. I called her one more time. Got the damn answering machine again.

When I got back to the table, the singer was sitting on Darnell’s lap, cat-stroking his back.

Jake was back at the bar. Some girl was writing down her number on a napkin.

Chanté turned to me. “Walk me down to the coffee shop. I’m in a cappuccino kinda mood.”

“Okay.”

“You’re buying.”

I asked Darnell if he wanted to stroll with us.

He smiled like heaven was resting at his table and said, “You go ahead. I’m cool right here.”

Tammy tapped her watch. “Don’t be gone long, Chanté. Karen has to work eight hours tomorrow.”

I made brief eye contact with Karen. She shot a subtle snarl at Chanté, then switched up and smiled at me. Wanting eyes. She made a disturbed face that said, “Oh, well.”

I nodded and headed toward the door.

The beat was still strong. Everybody had loosened up. Couples were dancing closer than close; sistas were rubbing their bodies all over their partners; brothas’ hands were creeping down feminine spines drifting toward magical backsides.

These same people would be at church bright and early on Sunday morning, shouting for salvation. The sinner in every man and woman was buck wild and running free.

Chanté grooved with the music, jitterbugged out in front of me. Maybe my mind had been too ablaze with other thoughts and distractions. Too busy to notice the shapely figure enhanced by her cat suit. Her hips dipped and rolled and bebopped a few moves that could set the room on fire.

Nice personality, nice calves, very feminine persona.

But with the capability of being a bitch.

I stumbled into a chair. Knocked over an empty glass.

Without looking back, she said, “Stop gawking at my booty.”

“Stop shaking Mother Africa like that.”

“Such a man. I bet you’re a dog just like the rest of ‘em.”

“Look who’s talking.” I grabbed a napkin off a table and wiped the sweat off my neck. “The way you just played Peaches.”

“She was asleep. Somebody needed to wake her up.”

We lucked out and found two empty chairs outside Rose’s Caffe Luna, sat on the concrete walkway, underneath support beams that supported ivy and other greenery used to create slivers of shade in the heat of the day.

People were passing by, so I moved the round table over a few inches for space. Chanté pulled out her white plastic chair, made a craving sound, then said, “The coffee aroma is strong. I smelled it down at the club.”

“If it’s kicking like that, won’t it have you up all night?”

“Coffee makes me sleep,” she said. She’d picked up a napkin and was wiping down the top of the table. The table was round and white, had designs in it that looked like short red worms.

I said, “Makes me restless.”

“Makes me suck my thumb and sleep like a baby.”

That created a sensual image in my mind.

We wiped the sweat off our brows and necks. This was much better. All of that exotic and erotic energy inside Shelly’s had thickened the air down there. A more innocent, collegiate crowd was out this way. T-shirts, sandals, shorts. Kids with that surfer-boy look were lounging, flirting, reading Yeats. I bought Chanté a double cappuccino. I had a cup of decaf with raw sugar. No cream; I’m lactose intolerant. Tiredness ran over me. Like mine, Chanté’s voice dragged. She looked a little weary.

I asked, “Long day?”

“Long life.”

“Get your oil changed yet?”

“Can you do it for me? I’ll buy the stuff.”

“I could.”

“Will you?”

“Depends. Where you live?”

“Diamond Bar. You?”

“Pomona.”

“I’ll pray for you.”

“The Phillips Ranch section.”

Her mouth showed she was impressed. Since I didn’t live on the roughneck, gang-banging side near Garey High School, it felt like I’d been bumped up into a better category of Negroes.

She asked, “Condo or house?”

“Condo. Have to work my way up the hill into the multimillion-dollar homes that have a panoramic view of Los Angeles.”

She raised a brow. “I think the new racist term the media’s using for minorities with potential is
upwardly demographic.
”

I sipped my coffee, said, “We’re upwardly demographic then.”

“Yeah. That we are.”

Diamond Bar and Pomona were neighboring cities, so no matter what part of the city she was resting her head in, we lived no more than ten minutes away from each other. And that’s taking the surface streets. Not that it mattered. ‘Cause it didn’t.

We kept the conversation shallow, found out that we both went to the same local clubs, like Savannah West and Little J’s and the Golden Tail and Tilly’s Terrace, even to Pinky’s in Moreno Valley, but we’d never met before now.

I said, “Maybe we just never noticed each other.”

“True. You ain’t my type.”

“I’ll consider that a backhanded compliment.”

“Just wanted you to know where we stand.”

“You ain’t my cup of tea either.”

She said, “Because I can see right through you.”

“Because you
think
you can see right through me.”

She said, “I think we dated in another lifetime.”

“Why you say that?”

“Because you’re a chauvinistic jerk.”

I said, “No, you’re an opinionated
jerkette.
”

“Jerkette?”

I said, “Yep, and we were divorced in another lifetime.”

“Who got the house?”

“You did. You’re materialistic, cynical, and pretentious.”

She sipped her brew. “At least we agree on something.”

We laughed.

I liked her. Liked her a lot. Something about her personality was pushing the right buttons. And I didn’t like for my buttons to be pushed, not at all.

She lived minutes away from me, which was a definite no-no. Too convenient was inconvenient. She tried to act rough around the edges, but she had soft eyes.

I wrote down my number and gave it to her. After I finished my yawn, I said, “I can do it almost any evening. Just call me and either you can come by or I can drive over and hook you up.”

“Okay.” She yawned too. “I’ll make you something to eat.”

“Cool.”

She saw her friends coming our way and called for them to hold up. They stopped and waved for her to hurry up.

I said, “Bouncing so soon?”

“Yeah. Nice to meet you again, Stephan Mitchell.”

“Likewise, Chanté Ellis.”

“You have a middle name?”

“Nope. You?”

“Marie. More than likely I’ll call you from work Monday.”

I asked, “Where do you work?”

“I’ll let you know when you need to know.”

“Okay.”

She laughed. “Ciao.”

“You want to give me your number?”

Real quick, she said, “Negative, partner.”

She floated toward her friends. Her hips owned a slight sway like a palm tree’s leaves in a mild summer breeze. She moved with glee, was charged with an erotic tenderness, but the energy I received told me that deep within her body was singing a song of sorrow. About halfway she

turned around, saw I was watching the movement of her mystery.

She said, “Stop staring. I told you to be discreet.”

“Stop walking like that.”

“It’s in my blood. I walk like my beautiful mother.” Without looking, she yawned, waved. “I’ll call you.”

Chanté and her friends blended into the shadows. I heard them laughing and talking at the same time. Sounded like young, anxious girls having overlapping conversations at a pajama party. Then the sounds they made dissipated.