No Ordinary Love (23 page)

Catrina frowned, mentally calculating the damage control she’d had to run to soothe all the egos of her brides who would not get her personal attention today. “You fucked my day up. You know my clients will be disappointed that I will not be in to assist them. They’re paying me a lot of money for my services.”

“Oh, God, Perfect Perceptions will be servicing them.” Briannah turned back to Casey. “When did your best friend become so damn snotty?”

Casey shrugged. “I think somewhere after that first wedding. She getting all this money now and her head all big because they all want her and nobody else.”

“My head has always been big,” Catrina let out, giving up on her scheduled work day. “I didn’t even bring anything suitable for a pamper day,” she murmured as the idea of being pampered settled. Why not get her feet massaged before sliding them into her brand new red bottom shoes by Christian Louboutin? Catrina wondered. She deserved something nice.

“That’s okay. Shawn packed a bag for you. It’s in my car.”

Catrina stared at them both, and sucked her teeth. “Y’all some sneaky bitches. Where are we going first?”

Laughter erupted from both her friends. “See, I told you, she easy,” Casey whispered to Briannah.

She was getting married to the man of her dreams, her best friends were making it all possible and she had a hell of a night to look forward to, Casey thought as she pulled them all in for a group hug.

“Wait, don’t mess up the dress,” Catrina laughingly ordered.

Pampered Princesses

This is just what they all needed, Briannah surmised as she watched her friends relax at the hands of the professional masseuses. She could already feel the stress of being a wife and mother of two children and successful boutique owner slip away with each masterful knead of the masseuse.

“God, Austin” Catrina breathed out. “You are the one man I would pay to have his hands on me,” she murmured as the “hands” momentarily massaged away some of her worries about turning thirty.

The group had affectionately named their favorite masseuse “hands” because he used his so very well. Since it was Catrina’s birthday, they had paid to have him do her massage.

“You haven’t been here in a long time, Trina,” he told her. “Case and Briannah be up in here all the time, but not you. They tell me you too busy working,” Austin said to her. “Too much work and not enough play, I’m putting in work to get these kinks out. Your boy not banging them out either? Ummm, child, ‘cause he fine.”

Briannah laughed as she lifted her head from its resting hole. “That’s right! Tell her ass that this is therapeutic and should be a part of her monthly schedule. You know she got the money.”

“It’s not about the money,” Casey said when she heard her friend grunt. “She never has the time. She keeps that Blackberry attached to her hip just in case she needs to talk some crazy ass bride into not calling it all off.”

Catrina’s response was a high-pitched shriek. “I’m not even indulging y’all right now. I’m just going lay here and let the hands work me,” she said, turning her face away from them.

They emerged from the room fifteen minutes later feeling loose and almost fluid like.

“I’m ready to get my feet done,” Casey said, looking down at her flip flop covered feet. She’d painted over her last polish in order to extend her pedicure an additional four days until this girl’s day.

“Me too,” Briannah added.

“Well, I got mine done yesterday, and I’m not about to soak them in no water. Now I’m mad that I wasted my twenty-seven dollars yesterday when I could’ve gotten them done on y’all,” Catrina said, looking down at her pearly pink toes. For a free treat she would have been willing to forfeit her weekly trip to her regular nailery at Broad and Susquehanna.

“We’re eating after this, right?” Casey asked. Briannah and Catrina both eyed their friend and shook their heads.

Casey hunched her shoulders in defense. “What? Y’all try eating nothing but lettuce and see how hungry y’all be.”

Their morning passed lazily into afternoon with talk of Casey’s upcoming wedding plans, family, current news events, music, movies, clothes, shoes and handbags. They were joined by Alieas during the pedicure and manicure session. It was surprising to the people outside their circle that age, personal growth, success and economic status hadn’t changed them. Not at their root or core, not what they were to one another as childhood friends, nor to the women they had become.

“Remember… God, what is that girl’s name? She live right on Huntingdon and Chadwich Street and she hated Lieas’s ass. What was it? Tarain, right?” Briannah laughed as she sampled her chipotle salmon.

“Yes, she did and you too heffa,” Alieas laughed, recalling the troubled girl who now had five children, was on welfare and still lived in the same Philadelphia Housing Authority house she grew up in with her drug dealing boyfriend.

“We stopped by there to see my Aunt Lizzy last week, and she lowered her eyes just as I was about to speak, and kept walking like she didn’t know me,” Briannah went on to say. “Behind her went her stair-stepping children. All five of them.”

“You are mean, Bri,” Casey told her.

“What?” she asked surprised. “She the one who always had that I’m the shit attitude and could’ve kept it up, if she actually went to school and graduated. I never acted like,”

“Oh, please, you were, and still are, the queen of high saditty,” Catrina exclaimed as she picked at her unappealing and colorless rice pilaf. “Your food looks so much better than mine,” she said, to Briannah, whose salmon looked so tempting with its bright tomatoes and corn served on a bed of rice pilaf and some very green broccoli. Even Casey’s chicken salad wrapped in romaine lettuce and Alieas’s shrimp Caesar salad looked better than her own tilapia dish. “Let me get some of yours,” Catrina said to Briannah already dipping her fork into the salmon.

“That’s why I hate eating with you, cause your ass is so spoiled. You always complain when you eat at regular restaurants,” Alieas accused, pointing her fork.

“I do not,” Catrina whined. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she added and excused herself from the table.

“Aww, shit,” Casey said in a hushed whisper when Catrina stepped away from the table. “How ‘bout she said Dave called her this morning.”

Briannah frowned. “Something happened between them. She’s not saying but something happened. That’s why she so moody.”

“Y’all think she will be mad that he will be at the party tonight?” Alieas questioned, sure that her line sister’s feelings for him still ran deep. Deeper than she led on, or allowed herself to show them.

Briannah shook her head. She’d agonized back and forth over the very same thought. “At this point, I don’t think it’s enough to make her have a bad time. She might feel some type of way about it, but she would never complain knowing her pride. It is about her, so I was against it, but her mom and dad said that it was okay to invite him. They paying more than half their money for it and they know their daughter, so it was out of my hands.”

“Hate to be y’all hoes tonight,” Alieas commented.

Chapter Twenty-One

The Big 3-0

Catrina

Time passed by so quickly, Catrina mused as she sipped on her favorite drink of pineapple juice and Grand Marnier. It seemed like just yesterday she had graduated from college and planned her very first wedding. In the eight years since she’d built a very prominent event management firm, she had employees, and people who depended on her. Professionally, she had everything she’d ever dreamed of, and could honestly say that her reality surpassed her childhood dreams. Even now Perfect Perceptions was being auditioned for a new wedding planning show on a local network set to broadcast in the fall of next year. The audition process was exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. The filming crew could be found documenting the last details of Casey’s upcoming nuptials. The pressure was on, and Perfect Perceptions would finally be where she’d wanted it— in the spotlight.

Three years before her parents had given her the money from the sale of her North Philadelphia home to Temple University developers eager to rent to Temple students. Between that and a few lucrative investments she was able to purchase her Range Rover, put a healthy down payment on her dockside condo, and buy larger space for Perfect Perceptions office spaces.

Catrina considered this success beyond her own dreams, but sadness still managed to creep into her heart when she thought she had no one to share it with. All the women in her life were in love and happy.

Chantel and Chris were married, with two children and had moved to New York. Briannah and Tyree were married and in love with their two children. Casey and Daemon were getting married, and well, Alieas was content being a flirt.

Then there was the lack of children. She was sure she could spend the rest of her life lavishing gifts on her little cousins, Briannah’s children. In the end she was still unfulfilled because they weren’t children of her own.

And oh, how she wanted children, but at this point could see the likelihood of that happening slowly pass her by. She wanted to be married, but didn’t think Shawn would willingly ask her in the near future. Nor was she certain that she wanted him to.

Sexy Shawn she jokingly called him. He was sweet and attentive, self-confident and sometimes arrogant, aggressive, intelligent and oh so male... all six foot two inches of his chocolate body. Catrina had fallen for him quickly, but pulled back when he seemed to not be interested in anything more than causal dinner dates, movies, museums, and night time pleasures. Every time she felt herself getting comfortable enough to relax and slide into the idea of them, Shawn would find a way to put on the brakes. The hints were subtle; he’d say how he needed to focus on his career and getting himself together. That hadn’t stopped him from accepting the key she’d given him to her condo.

Nervous like a teenager she’d went to him and let him know that she’d suspected that she was pregnant, after missing her period. At the time, he seemed unaffected, all but letting her know that he wasn’t ready for children.

After going to her Doctor, Catrina had been tested only to be disappointed to find that she wasn’t expecting. Then he became the knight in shining armor assuring her that when it was their time, it’d happen. He only reiterated that they’d both have to be ready and looking toward marriage at that point. His fear to seriously commit to their relationship did not give him pause to demand exclusivity from her. Another point long thought by women of men: they may not want you but kept you close enough so that no other man could have you was proven by his actions. What Catrina got out of that was that she was great but Shawn just wasn’t ready for marriage, or she just wasn’t “
The One.
” So three months ago after heartfelt bargaining with herself, Catrina had finally placed them in the going nowhere file.

Then there was David and her ever complicated feelings for him. Nothing she did could erase the memory of him from her heart. The time apart did nothing but nag her. The distance did nothing but mock her. Her memories served as a constant reminder that she could still live with a broken heart, but that it hurt like hell every day.

At times she’d been sure that he had did more loving than hurting, but the amount of hurt was enough, she concluded. It proved to be enough to keep her tucked away in her condo in Philly and away from him and all his eagerness to maintain their friendship. It did nothing to help that social networks made him so accessible.

As lowering as it appeared to her, Catrina had to admit she’d taken advantage and had indulged in some Facebook stalking when she just wanted to see him without his knowledge.

David, on the other hand, made no excuses or secrets that he indulged in the same practices. He’d inbox her on a regular basis, or send her a friendly email under the guise of investment business.

Why does he always get to have everything?

“You okay, babe?” Shawn asked, surprising her with his presence. She’d assumed he was still sleeping from their early evening love making.

She nodded. “Yup, just thinking,” she said as he wrapped his arms around her waist and leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

“Must be serious. Anything you’d like to share?” he asked, pulling her to him so that she could lean into him.

“I’m thirty.” She laughed, tilting her head back.

“Yes, you’re thirty; you still look twenty-something, though,” he teased. “You actually look very delicious. I love little black dresses.” He played with the hem of her dress.

“You’re crazy,” she said, pulling herself free. “But it is a nice black dress,” she admitted with a confident smile. “I’m sorry ‘bout dinner and all, but I didn’t know the girls had something special planned.”

He shook his head, happy that she still had no idea of what her night held in store. “That’s okay. I got the earrings to wow you, because I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to party with you.”

The earrings. Damn, I didn’t even notice how exquisite they were
. “Shawn, they are absolutely my new best friends. Thank you for thinking of me,” she praised. “I’m wearing them tonight, and all the girls will be jealous.” He had let her know that he and her jeweler had spent countless hours on the design. The platinum set diamond hearts were very detailed but classically romantic. This was the part of him she loved, the man who would purchase extravagant trinkets to please her and add to her jewelry collection.

“I thought about making love to you with just these on tonight, so be ready when you come home.”

Catrina’s cell phone rang. “Hold on to that thought, Daddy,” she said as she answered. “Wassup, where y’all at?” A bright smile appeared. “I’ll be down in a second.”

Shawn stepped closer to her, wrapping his arms around her waist again. “I really want you to be able to unwind and just have a good time. But no niggas on your ass,” he told her.

Catrina tilted her head to the side and eyed him. “For real, Shawn?”

The hold tightened. “I’m serious.”

Catrina leaned into him and placed a light kiss to his lips. “I know, babe. And as always, I don’t need rules on appropriate behavior,” she reminded him sarcastically.