The Next Best Thing (8 page)

I finally decided to start doing something about the excessive pounds that have been rapidly piling up on my ass and thighs, the clear result of late dinners, midnight munching, and all those wine and cheese parties my neighbors like to throw every other week.

As soon as I got home from work this evening, I went and jogged for an hour at the fountain park near my building.

Afterwards, I walked over to Barnes & Noble to get myself an ice-cold lemonade, and to find something educational for my nephew's upcoming third birthday.

Junior's son, Trey, has tons of DVDs and video games, but not one book, which is a damn shame.

So there I was, sitting at one of those wooden tables, leafing through a stack of children's books. I have heard that bookstores are the new nightclub, but since I was dressed way down in workout gear, a sun visor, and no makeup, purposely attracting men was clearly
not
why I was there.

Yet, there he was, staring down at me with soulful brown eyes set in an attractive chestnut-brown face.

“Oh, Bother! Someone Didn't Say Thank You,”
he said, reading the title of the Winnie the Pooh book sitting on the table. “Wow! Not only is she beautiful, but she's an intellectual too.”

Okay, who is this fool, and what is his angle? I thought, as this complete stranger took it upon himself to move my lemonade aside and sit his ass down in the chair right beside me.

“Ha, funny!” I said. “Actually, these aren't for me. I'm trying to find something for my nephew.”

“Okay, cool,” he said, trying to sound suave and sexy. “So what is your nephew's auntie's name?”

“No, no. Not so fast, slick,” I said. “You came over here and made yourself comfortable, so I think it's only right that you tell me who you are, first.”

“Oh, I like that!” he said with excitement. “Pretty, sassy and bold. Now I know I'm gonna fall in love with you!”

“Love? Ha! No way that's gonna happen,” I said.

“And why not?” he asked, as if I had seriously broken his heart.

“Because you still haven't told me your name.”

He flashed a wide smile, and chuckled. “You're a handful. I can see that already.”

“So what's your name?”

“Anthony Matthews,” he said, offering a handshake. “It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Looking him over, I surmised that his style is shabby bohemian chic. He was sporting a plaid, thrift-store jacket over a green Jimi Hendrix T-shirt, baggy jeans, black-and-white converses, and the hair was an interesting combination of dreadlocks and a short Afro. Definitely a free spirit.

See? There's that serendipity I was talking about.

 

Cease to inquire what the future has in store, and take as a gift whatever the day brings forth.—Horace

WEDNESDAY

It has been a little over a week since I met Anthony, or Ant, as I call him, and surprisingly, we have really hit it off. He is a cool, neo-soul type brother who seems like he has a good head on his shoulders.

The two of us have talked on the phone every day since we met, and what I have learned is that he is a thirty-six-year-old aspiring comic. Ant was living down in Atlanta where he was just starting to make a name for himself, when his mom became gravely ill. Being an only child with no one else to care for his mom, Ant put his comedy career on hold and came back home to care for his sick mother.

I like him, I think. And I say, “I think” because Ant is always “on,” which isn't a bad thing because he keeps me cracking up with his zany sense of humor. But at the same time, it is hard to tell if I am getting doses of his real personality or if what he's putting out there is all just an act.

Whatever the case, we have been getting along great, and I am really looking forward to our first date tonight.

 

Anthony said his Jaguar was in the shop getting new shocks and brake pads, so I agreed to pick him up at his mother's house, which turned out to be nestled in a quiet middle-class neighborhood not far from Swope Park.

Anthony came out of the house within a few seconds of me pulling into the driveway, and I breathed a sigh of relief that he didn't try to drag me inside to meet his mama.

“Damn, you look good!” he said, settling in on the passenger's side of my truck.

My look for the night was sexy-casual, with a black Zac Posen minidress and four-inch Gucci stilettos.

“You look pretty spiffy yourself,” I said, noting that Ant was dressed in a slightly different variation of the bohemian chic ensemble he had worn when I first met him at Barnes & Noble. This time it was a tweed, thrift-store jacket over an orange Bob Marley T-shirt, baggy jeans, and orange Converse high-top sneakers.

Our date consisted of checking out Sheryl Underwood's standup routine at Stanford & Sons Comedy Club in Westport.

The comedy show was hilarious! Seeing Sheryl do her thing seemed to energize Anthony to the point where he could hardly wait to get home to write some jokes, and fine-tune his act.

After watching Sheryl act a fool, Anthony suggested we drop in on some friends of his who were having a little get-together.

“But I thought we were going to get something to eat,” I reminded him, hoping he couldn't hear my stomach growling.

“We are,” he said, playfully kissing me on the cheek. “Just as soon as we leave the spot.”

Instead of giving me the address to where the party was, Ant just said, “Make a right here,” and “Turn left up at the light.”

That went on until we were East of Troost Avenue, and right in the heart of one of the most dangerous hoods in the city.

“This doesn't look like much of a party,” I said, as Anthony instructed me to stop in front of a dilapidated house that looked like it would collapse if the wind blew too hard.

“Trust me, it's on and poppin'!” he said excitedly, then jumped out of the truck and ran around to open my door for me.

As I stepped out of my vehicle, it felt as if we had been thrust into Michael Jackson's “Thriller” video, with all these scary, zombie-looking folks coming out of nowhere.

I reluctantly followed Anthony inside, where the condition of the house was just as raggedy as the outside.

My first thought when we walked in that house was that I hoped nobody actually
lived
there because it was funky with a capital FUNK. The smell of ass, feet, mildew, and stale cigarette smoke was so powerful, it almost knocked me to my knees.

And there wasn't much of a party going on, either.

No music, food, or even a sip of Chardonnay to be found anywhere. Just six mean-looking cats playing Madden football on a big-screen television.

“Tori, this is everybody,” Anthony said. “Everybody, meet Tori, my new woman.”

His new woman? This was definitely news to me.

The fellas threw their chins up at me, and said “whassup?” through halos of ganja smoke.

“Have a seat,” Anthony said to me before disappearing into a back bedroom, leaving me to fend for myself.

I looked around the small, shabby house, and the only place to sit was a worn-out recliner that smelled as if somebody had peed on it. No thanks.

Loud, animated voices were coming from the kitchen, so I wandered in, and was amazed at what I saw.

It was like a workshop. Several guys were sitting at the kitchen table using little digital scales to weigh, then bag up their product.

No. He. Didn't.

I could not believe that my date with Anthony had segued into a drug run, which at any given moment could turn into a drug raid.

The only other time I had been in a drug house was when I rolled with my date on prom night to get a dime bag of weed.

Now, here I was, a professional woman right in the middle of crack alley after dark.

It would have been just my luck for the cops to kick the door in at any minute.

Now it all made sense.

Laughing when nothing was funny, the red glassy eyes, frozen smile and overabundance of energy that kept him practically ricocheting off the walls—Anthony was always “on,” because his junkie ass was always
high
.

I don't smoke cigarettes, but I said, “Damn! I left my New-ports in the car,” to no one in particular, and calmly walked out onto the porch where I took a much-needed breath of fresh air.

With keys in hand, I sprinted to my truck and burned out of there so fast that I left tire marks.

I was so furious I couldn't see straight. I decided that the best thing for me to do was to go home and decompress, then afterwards, maybe go to City Tavern for a late dinner.

I was waiting for the elevator to take me up to my condo on the ninth floor, still fuming about the Anthony situation, when a male voice said, “Whatever happened isn't worth having that pretty face of yours all scrunched up like that.”

I whipped my head around like the girl in
The Exorcist
and had the evil eye ready for whoever just said that, but I softened when I saw that it was Nelson, the caramel-dipped cutie who lived directly across the hall from me.

“Oh, hey, Nelson,” I said, calming down a bit. “You know, come to think of it he's not worth it. At all!”

“Uh oh. He? Why is it always a ‘he' who's responsible for pissing you women off?”

“Good question! Maybe you can enlighten me.”

Nelson leaned in front of me to jab at the up button, you know, to try to hurry the elevator along, and damn he smelled good! Once I got a whiff of his Issey Miyake cologne, I immediately started throbbing down in the panty region. That had been happening to me a lot lately.

I had gone without sex for so long, it didn't take much to get my juices flowing. It had been three months since I had been properly screwed, and three months is an eternity when you are used to having in-house dick, and getting it whenever you want it.

“I don't know,” he said. “I think males get a bum rap the majority of the time because some of you women are just impossible to please. So, it's like we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't.”

“That may be true,” I said. “But since when did being sane and drug free become too much to ask for?”

Nelson laughed, and I noticed for the first time that he had this sliver of a dimple on the apple of his right cheek, and his teeth were so perfect it made me wonder if they were all his.

“You're right,” Nelson chuckled at me. “Those things are never too much to ask for. Especially sanity.”

Ding!
The slow-ass elevator finally arrived.

Nelson and I got on, and we inadvertently pushed the 9 key at the same time.

The elevator doors closed and I leaned back against the mirrored wall, feeling my body relax for the first time since I got rid of Anthony's tweaking ass.

“So, just what did this idiot do that's got you so upset?” Nelson asked, shifting the grocery bag he was carrying to his other arm.

“He had me drive him to a crack house,” I said.

“Oooh,” Nelson winced. “Not a good look.”

“I know, right? And what makes it so bad is that I was kinda digging this guy, too,” I said. “Quirks and all.”

“Well, that's the way it goes sometimes,” Nelson sympathized. “But hey, when it comes to dating, men get the short end of the stick just as often as women do.”

“Now, I have a really hard time believing that,” I said.

“No, it's true!” he insisted. “Dating nightmares are a two-way street. Unfortunately, I've had some recent dates with women who didn't have any home training, either.”

“Umph!” I said, genuinely feeling his pain. “It's hard out there, ain't it?”

“Most definitely,” he said wearily, as the elevator delivered us to the ninth floor.

We stepped off the elevator and walked together in the same direction until we reached our respective doors.

I paused to sniff the air, and breathed in an aroma so delicious it made my stomach rumble. “Somebody's cooking something that smells good.”

“That would be me,” Nelson said, opening his door, causing the mouthwatering aroma to escape and assault my senses even more. “I was in the middle of putting dinner together when I realized I was out of a few things.”

“Well, your dinner smells divine, that's for sure,” I said, wondering if I had any turkey salami left to make myself a sandwich.

I put my key in the lock, and was just about to say good-bye when Nelson said, “Tori, listen. I'm sorry you had such a lousy evening, but on behalf of the entire male species, I would like to make it up to you.”