The Next Best Thing (13 page)

I finally made it to the edge of the dance floor, just as Missy Elliott went off and a slow jam came on. Some random guy grabbed my elbow and gestured to the dance floor, but I turned him down because I wanted to dance to something up-tempo, and wasn't in the mood for bumping and grinding with a total stranger.

So I squeezed, turned, and maneuvered my way through the crowd, until I finally made it to the bar for a cool, refreshing drink. Once I got there, I was surprised that my shoes had only been stepped on twice.

I told the bartender, “A mai tai, please,” and slid fifteen dollars in front of him, as he slid the drink in front of me.

Since it was so crowded, I did not want to take the chance of spilling the drink on me or anyone else, so I hopped up on an empty stool and scanned the bar area, searching for a guy to get my swerve on with. While I was searching, Simone emerged from the crowd and joined me at the bar.

“There you are!” she said, taking my drink from my hand and taking a sip.

“You having fun?” I asked.

“I'm having a ball!” she said, grooving to Kanye's latest hit song. “I just got through dancing with a cutie that almost made me forget that I have a man at home.”

Simone has had a man at home for the past nine years, though they haven't gotten around to getting married yet.

Rasheed is a poet, playwright, painter, musician, and just an all-around renaissance guy who does everything except bring home a steady paycheck. The two of them are neo-soul cute and very
Love Jones
together. And because Rasheed loves Simone so thoroughly, she doesn't mind being the sole breadwinner while Rasheed pursues his creative endeavors.

“Oh, there's Reggie from my writer's group!” Simone said, pointing out a good-looking guy with horn-rimmed glasses. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, and wore a New York Yankees baseball cap, with a charcoal gray Armani suit and crisp white Air Force Ones.

“What else do you know about him?” I asked, and Simone was all too eager to fill me in on Reggie's background as far as she knew it.

Apparently, he is a screenwriter who recently completed a fellowship with the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been making the rounds in Hollywood, where there is talk that Columbia Pictures wants to buy one of his scripts for John Singleton to direct.

“Come on, I'm gonna hook you up,” Simone said, ushering me over to Reggie's table despite my efforts to stop her.

Reggie smiled big when he saw Simone approaching.

“Simone! What's up, girl? I haven't seen you in a long-ass time.”

“Too long, right?” Simone said, giving him a hug. “I hear you've been taking care of business, though.”

“Oh yeah, got to, got to…” he said, while looking me up and down. “Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?”

“I most certainly am,” Simone said, pulling me front and center. “Reggie, meet my best girlfriend,
Miss
Tori Carter. Tori, Reggie Tyler.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, offering a handshake. “Congratulations on your success.”

I felt naked as Reggie's gaze roamed from my feet to my head.

“Tori,” he said, gazing into my eyes. “A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

You would think that after thirty-three years, I would know how to take a well-deserved compliment, but I was grateful that the room was dark so that Reggie could not see the flush in my cheeks.

I told him, “Thank you,” and when I looked over to my right I noticed that Simone had conveniently disappeared, taking my mai tai along with her.

Reggie shooed one of his buddies away, and offered me the vacant seat next to him.

“Would you like some champagne?” he asked, referring to the bottle of Ace of Spades that was chilling in an ice bucket.

Reggie turned one of the flutes that came with the setup, right-side up, and poured me a glass.

“I hear you're on the verge of selling a script,” I shouted over the loud music. “What's it about?”

“Oh, it's about an ex–Black Panther who tries to restart his life after serving almost twenty years in prison. The title is
The Revolution Was Televised
.”

“Hmm, sounds like it might be controversial,” I said. “I can't wait to see it.”

“Yeah, it's definitely going to rattle some cages and get people thinking, you know? If all goes well, it should be released in about a year or so.”

“Good luck!” I said, crossing my fingers for him. “I've heard how hard it is just to get a toe-hold in the film industry; especially for black folk.”

“Oh, most definitely,” he said. “That goes without saying. But once I get all the way in there, my goal is to somehow open the doors even wider for other minorities to come in after me.”

“Bravo!” I said, clapping for him. “I respect that. Not saying any names, but some of us forget to keep paving the way, which is partly why we don't have more power and control than we do in this day and age.”

“Sad, but true,” Reggie said, refilling his champagne glass. “But you know, Spike Lee is one of my mentors in that respect; but it's unfortunate that as much as he's done to advance opportunities for us in Hollywood, it's still not enough.”

“Well, just do me a favor and keep consistently writing brilliant roles for our veteran black actors, because Lord knows they deserve better roles than they're being given,” I said.

“I like you!” Reggie said. “You have what is the dopest combination in the world to me, and that's beauty
and
brains. Do you have a man?”

“As a matter of fact, I don't,” I said.

Reggie leaned in close to me. “Well, we're just gonna have to change all that, huh?”

“Maybe so,” I smiled. “But then again, you're moving to L. A. soon, aren't you?”

He shrugged. “That's why they have frequent flyer programs, right?”

Hey, now!

Mary J's bouncy new tune came on, and there was a rush to the dance floor.

Reggie asked, “Would you like another drink?”

“No, thank you, but I would like to dance,” I said.

“Let's do it,” he said, taking my hand.

I felt safe and protected as Reggie effortlessly navigated the crowd and guided me out to the dance floor.

He turned out to have pretty good rhythm. We danced and flirted with each other for four songs straight until the music slowed down to a Mariah Carey ballad.

I turned to leave the dance floor, but Reggie gently grabbed me by the waist and pulled me closer to him. “Just one more dance. Please?”

I nodded, and allowed Reggie to envelop me in his arms while I wrapped my arms around his back. My head came up to the middle of his chest, and he held me just right: not too far away and not close enough where I could feel the outline of his package. I deeply inhaled the scent of his Burberry cologne, and sighed.

If I never see another bottle of champagne in my life, it will be too damn soon.

I woke up this morning—or rather this afternoon, feeling like I had been beaten up and tossed out of a moving vehicle at a hundred miles an hour. My head, my neck, my back—everything hurt. It didn't help that I had forgotten to close my blinds last night and now the living room was bathed in sunlight, which was torturing my eyes.

The last thing I remembered clearly was all four of us coming back to my place where we drank, laughed, and bashed no-good men, until the wee hours of the morning. It was fun. At least it was at the time. But now, I'm paying for it. Big time.

I knew a cold washcloth would do my throbbing head some good, but it took a few minutes for me to work up the strength to get my ass up off the couch. When I finally did, I almost tripped over Yvette, who was camped out on my stowaway futon. My girl was knocked out and snoring so loud that I placed a pillow over her face to drown out some of the noise. It didn't work.

I went into the bathroom, and loathed what I saw in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes, wild hair, and smudged makeup. Not a good look. Especially since I heard that every time you go to bed without washing makeup off your face, it ages your skin seventeen days. This aging is irreversible and it adds up, so if you go to bed 30 times without washing the makeup off you have aged yourself almost two years. Ugh! I quickly washed my face with Neutrogena and cold water, hoping that it wasn't too late to deduct a few days off that seventeen.

When I went back into the living room Yvette was sitting up on the futon, trying to get her bearings.

“Tori's got a man…” she teased as she stretched.

“Puh-leeze!” I said, but secretly wished it was true.

“Shit, I was checking you out with ol' boy last night,” Yvette said. “You still got game, girl!”

Reggie and I had flirted and danced the night away, then exchanged numbers, agreeing to keep in touch and go out sometime.

I must admit that I like Reggie. A lot. Not only is he attractive, but he also has an aura about him that makes him irresistibly sexy.

I don't want to get ahead of myself like I have sometimes been known to do, but I can definitely see myself with a rich, famous screenwriter for a boyfriend.

“Where is Simone, by the way?” I asked, starting to clean up some of the mess we made last night.

“Girl, you know she had to run home before that fool put out a missing persons report on her,” Yvette laughed.

“Shoot, you just wish you had a man to keep tabs on your whereabouts.”

“I do, I'm not gonna lie, but I'll be damned if I juggle two and three jobs and foot all the bills while he plays the starving artist role,” Yvette said.

“Well it works for the two of them,” I said. “And that's all that matters.”

“I'm baaa-aacck. Wake up, wake up!” That was Nadia, letting herself in the front door. Unlike Yvette and me, Nadia had showered and looked well-rested.

“Alright ladies, here it is.” Nadia said, placing a clear plastic bowl of what looked like gumbo on the island counter. “My mother's surefire hangover remedy.”

Yvette and I joined Nadia at the island. She removed the lid from the bowl and a foul, funky stench filled the room. The smell was so repulsive it gave me the dry heaves, and if I had already eaten something, it surely would have come right up.

“Ooh, girl, don't nobody want that shit,” Yvette said, covering her nose.

“Try it before you knock it,” Nadia said, shoving a heaping spoonful of the concoction into Yvette's mouth.

“Mmmm!” Yvette said, helping herself to another spoonful. “Mama Chen can throw down!”

“I told you!” Nadia said proudly. “Come on, Tori, try it. Why do you think I'm so perky right now? And I probably drank the most out of all of us.”

I was still skeptical. Not only did it stink to high heaven, but there were also too many unidentifiable objects floating around in there for my liking.

“No offense to your mama,” I said, holding my nose and fanning the air with my latest copy of
Gourmet
Magazine. “But what's in that stuff that makes it smell like week-old assholes?”

“That, my friend, is an ancient Japanese secret,” Nadia said, mysteriously.

Ancient
Korean
secret is probably closer to the truth.

Either way, I wasn't about to eat that mess.

But my stomach had other plans. It made this loud, weird grumbling noise that I've never heard it make before.

“Damn, Tori!” Nadia said. “You're obviously hungry, so you might as well try it.”

“It really is good, girl,” Yvette told me, slurping her bowl and reaching for yet another helping.

“Well, if Yvette said it's alright…” I sampled the concoction, which was so tasty, I went ahead and fixed myself a big bowlful. The taste reminded me of hot and sour soup, and I had eaten half of it before asking, “Nadia, what is this spongy, noodle-looking stuff?”

“That's tofu.”

“No this…” I said, brandishing the spongy, noodle-looking thing in question.

“Oh, that?” Nadia said casually. “That's just cow brains.”

I am at least grateful that I made it to the bathroom without throwing up all over myself.

Nadia's hangover remedy worked like a charm for Yvette. But because it was nearly four in the afternoon, and I still felt like stir-fried shit, I was forced to place the dreaded phone call to let the folks know that I wasn't coming for dinner.

It is an official rule in my family that the only acceptable excuses for missing Sunday dinner at my parents' house are:

 

1) You are dead

2) You are working

3) You are on your deathbed

 

It took nearly twenty minutes to convince my mother of the latter, and before I knew it, Junior was beating down my door, sent over by Mama with a plate of food and a get-well kit, which consisted of 7Up, a bag of oranges, and a jar of Vicks VapoRub.

My brother noticed right away that I wasn't fever-and-chills sick, just hung-over sick.

“Ah, damn!” Junior said when I opened the door for him. “I can smell the booze seeping from your pores!”

“Well, you ought to know what it smells like,” I said. “Weren't you king of the frat boys?”

“For three years straight,” he said with pride. “Q-Dogs in the house!” And he topped it off with those loud, irritating barking noises.

“Alright, settle down, Rover,” I said, popping two more Advil and swallowing them dry.

Junior put the bag in the kitchen for me, then immediately made himself at home by flopping down on my couch and putting his feet up on my glass coffee table.

“So, you kicked it last night, huh?”

“Just a little bit.” I put my fingers up to represent an inch.

“Well, I don't know what you told Mama, but she was running around acting like you were on your deathbed, or something.”

“I sure feel like I am.”

“And you look it too,” he joked, ruffling my hair even more with his huge mitts.

“Who-all showed up for dinner?” I asked.

“The usual: Uncle Woody, Aunt Rita, Aunt Vera, a few of the cousins; plus I had my little soldier with me for the weekend.”

“Oh yeah? How's my nephew?”

“Ah, Trey's cool. I just dropped him off with Ashley.”

“You two getting back together?” I asked.

“Nah, it's over for good this time. I'm not trying to be with somebody who calls me a nigger every time she gets mad.”

Fucking with them white girls! Like Chris Rock said in his routine, it just doesn't pay off in the end.

Junior is twenty-five, and has had a rocky on/off relationship with Ashley since he was a star athlete at Kansas University. I liked the girl initially, but I soured on her when it became clear that she was only with my brother because it looked like he was on his way to making millions in the NBA. After Junior blew out his knee and wasn't picked for the draft, it was all downhill from there. By that time, Ashley was already pregnant with Trey.

Junior reached into his back pocket and handed me a couple of envelopes. “Here, I brought your mail up.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking the mail and sorting through it. “But I want my keys back, Junior, and I'm not playing.”

“Come on, sis. You never know when I'll need them again,” he said, trying to keep the keys out of my reach.

“You'll never need them again,” I said. “Believe that!”

Junior is my heart, but the eight months he lived with me and Roland was a hellish experience that need not be repeated. Ever!

The boy is just trifling for no reason.

During the time Junior stayed with us, he didn't help buy groceries or contribute towards one bill. His nickname was Captain Couch Potato, because he slept well into the afternoon, and didn't budge an inch when I cleaned or vacuumed around him.

But aside from all that, trifling was taken to a whole new level when Roland and I came home a day early from our Jamaican vacation and walked in on Junior and Ashley screwing in our bed like wild monkeys.

And I
know
Mama and Daddy raised him better than that.

“You think you're slick, don't you?” I said. “Mama already warned me that you are on the verge of losing yet another apartment, so don't even try and butter me up for a place to stay.”

Junior picked up the remote control and turned the television to BET. “That's what you said last time. And the time before that, and the other time before that.”

“Well I mean it this time, because I can't afford you anymore,” I said. “It's time for you to finally get yourself together, and stand on your own two feet for more than just a few months at a time.”

Junior waved me off. “I ain't trying to hear all that, Tori!”

“Well that's just too damn bad, because you're gonna hear it,” I said, holding my hand out. “Keys please!”

“You don't even have to do me like this,” Junior said, giving a wounded hound-dog look before dropping the keys in my palm. “We're family, man.”

“It's called tough love,” I said, knocking his feet off my coffee table. “Get used to it.”