The Playa Chronicles (2 page)

“You just don’t know. So, what are you doing?” Laura asked.

“I’m at home.”

“I’ll meet you there when I’m done.”

“No, April’s gonna meet me here.”

“April,” Laura said in disgust.

“Yeah. April.”

“I guess it’s my fault. If I had made it last night, I’d be layin’ there next to you right now. No point crying about it. What about tomorrow?”

“Going to a play.”

“Don’t tell me, with Miss April,” she said sarcastically.

I had something that I wanted to say to her, but I wasn’t sure whether I should. I decided to go for it. Right here and right now, was as good a time as any. “Listen, Laura, I like you, but you—that’s not fair—neither one of us has time for the other. Maybe if we did, things might be different.”

“You’re not trying to kick me to the curb, are you?” Laura asked. “’Cause that’s sure what it sounds like. I should be the one kicking you to the curb, but I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.”

I thought this was my chance—end it now, before things went any farther. I knew that with her work schedule, I would have to spend less time with April to be available when Laura had time to see me. I wasn’t willing to do that. I like Laura, but our relationship was sex and nothing more.
Me
and April, on the other hand, had gotten into a real good groove lately. I was spending more and more time with her. We had reached a point where I considered April my best friend. We share everything with each other—well, just about everything. “No, that’s not what I’m saying.” I wasn’t willing to cut Laura loose either. “All I’m saying is
,
I really like you.”

“Well if you really like me so much, make some time for me. Meet me down here; I’ll get a suite. I’ll bring a bottle of Moet and we can make love in the hot tub.”

“That’s sounds real nice. But I can’t. As much as I want to, I can’t.”

“I know, you promised little Miss April.”

“Exactly, and I’m not gonna
dis
her. I wouldn’t do you like that: Tell you I’m gonna spend time with you and
dis
you for April,” I said, even though that’s exactly what I do. “Anyway, how much longer you gonna be there?”

“I told you I gotta cover this function. So I’m gonna be here for at least two, maybe three more hours. But you’re not gonna call me back.”

“You don’t know that. I may just surprise you.”

“Whatever, Rick,” Laura said as she hung up the phone. I laughed and hung up thinking about
dissin
’ April to be with Laura. I gave thought to the timeline it would take to be with April and still see Laura later in the evening. “No!” I said out loud. “I’m not gonna start that. If I do, she’ll expect it all the time.” That would take me down a road I have no wish to be on. But I’d never met anyone quite like Laura. She was a lot like me in many ways.
No
, I thought. April is too important to me to risk our relationship to accommodate Laura.

It had been a particularly busy day, and I spent the entire day in the office. Around eleven o’clock I had a free minute, so I called April, but she was away from her desk. I left her a message and I called Victor.
“What’s up, playa?”

“Lighten up, Vic. I’m tired of runnin’ ho’s. I really just wanna kick it with April.”

“Hello, who is this? No I didn’t hear a true playa say he was tired of runnin’ ho’s?”

“You heard me, man.”

“I gotta stop calling you playa now. But I understand. The game does get old after a while. It did for me, anyway. But I thought you were a die-hard.”

“Nah, Vic. I’m gonna get old with April. She’s a good girl.”

“I know that, playa. Excuse me, ex-playa. We were all just wondering how long it was gonna take for you to realize it. I always thought April was too good a girl for the way you treat her.”

“Damn, Vic.” I knew he was right. I should have realized this a long time ago, but there’s something about the game that keeps telling me that I could get any woman I wanted. But what did I have to prove, and exactly who was I trying to prove it to? It would be different if I didn’t have April and she wasn’t so cool about—well, about everything. She’s my best friend. I can talk to her about anything and she always understands. Things I’m not good at, April’s right there picking up my slack.

Well if all that’s true, what are you doing with Laura?

“You didn’t have to go there.”

“I know that, man. But, you know, honesty is so liberating. I’ve wanted to tell you that for a while. I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.” Victor laughed. “So what you gonna do with Laura?”

“She gotta go.”

“Not that I don’t believe you, but I’ll be interested to see. I know you really dig Laura. Anyway, I gotta go, but why don’t you meet me after work for happy hour at the
DoubleTreeDoubleTree
on Peachtree Dunwoody.”

“Can’t do it. I’m supposed to be meeting Laura tonight.”

“So I’ll see you there, ’cause you know she’s lying. Some people steal, some people gotta drink. Laura gotta tell lies, she can’t help herself.”

“I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up the phone and got back to work. I skipped lunch for a conference call and ordered Chinese food around three, half eating it between calls. It was six o’clock before I realized it. Everyone in the office had gone or was leaving for the day and I still hadn’t heard from Laura.
No surprise there,
I thought while I finished my paperwork and called it a night. When I passed the receptionist desk on the way out, I noticed that there was a message slip in my box. It was from Laura, saying she wouldn’t be able to make it tonight. “She’s getting better. At least it was the same day.”

I got in my car and decided to meet Victor at the
DoubleTreeDoubleTree
. When I got there Victor was already there and had found a table close to the buffet. As soon as he saw me come through the door, he stood up and started laughing. All I could do was smile and drop my head. “Okay, so she stood me up.”

“Correction, playa . . . again. She stood you up again.” Victor stuffed another shrimp in his mouth. “She stood your dumb ass up again. I don’t know why you bother making plans with her. She’ll call you when she wants you.”

“Yeah, but this time it was her idea.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t make it,” Victor said as the waitress arrived. “Bring me another Long Island Tea.”

“Make it two,” I said, getting up to hit the buffet. I got back to the table just as the waitress arrived with the drinks.

Victor and I sat and ate quietly until out of nowhere Vic said, “Me and Keisha been talking about gettin’ married.”

“Get the fuck outta here!” I said, much louder than I should have.

“Well, it’s more like Keisha talking and me listening.”

“You ready to get married?”

“I don’t know, Rick; I really don’t know.”

“It’s not the end of the world. Besides, marriage ain’t so bad if you marry the right person.”

“How do you know? You’ve never been married.”

“Yes, I have.”

“You been married? When? To who?”

“Ten years ago. Her name was Donna. Donna Price.” I still get chills every time I say her name, after all this time. “It didn’t last long.”

“Ten years. How old were you then?” Victor asked. I could tell he was shocked. I’d known Victor for a long time and I’d never mentioned it. Never even told my mother. Didn’t want to talk about it; don’t know why I am now. “I was nineteen.”

“Young and dumb. How long were y’all married?”

“Seven years on paper. Actually, it was about eight months.”

“Rick, I’m serious, I just can’t picture you being married. Why’d you get married so young?”

“Thought I was in love. I was more
pussywhipped
than anything else. Damn, that girl could fuck. She turned me out, Vic, man.” Everything I know about the sex, everything I know about satisfying a woman in and out of bed, I know because of Donna. “I moved down here from
Boston
when I was eighteen years old.”

“I know the story. You got here on a Wednesday with two hundred dollars in your pocket and everything you owned fit in your knapsack; got a room in the
West End
and had a job working the grill at McDonald’s by Monday.
Yada
,
yada
,
yada
. What that got to do with you getting married?”

“Her and her friends used to come by McDonald’s. Vic, I’m telling you Donna was the finest woman I had ever seen. She was the total package. She was beautiful. Pretty smile, with the cutest dimples. She had the kind of eyes that got your attention and looked through you; you know what I’m saying? And a body that makes
Tyra
Banks look like just another skinny girl from
da
hood. I caught her eye and smiled at her, and she smiled back a
coupla
times, but I couldn’t talk to her ’cause I was always on that grill.”

“Can’t exactly get your mack on smelling like burgers.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think she’d wanna be bothered a with a burger boy anyway. She was older than me and like I said, she was so fine.”

“She was that bad, huh?”

“Hell yeah!”

“How old was she?”

“Twenty-two. She lived with her parents a few blocks from me. She didn’t really have a job; she just hung out with her girls all day. They used to boost stuff from stores at the mall. One night after work, I’m sitting out in front of the house, drinking a quart of Olde E, talking shit with the old heads, still dressed like burger boy, when Donna and her crew walked up. I wanted to run in the house, but I figured why bother. I didn’t have
no
shot at her anyway.”

“So how’d you get her?”

“Well, they start talking shit with the old heads. She had a real sexy voice. So I sat there quietly, sucking it all up, and after a while she says, ‘Hey, why you so quiet over there? I don’t trust
no real quiet nigga’.”

“What you say, Rick?”

“’Cause if I was talkin’, I couldn’t concentrate on lookin’ at you.”

“Smooth line, Rick.”

“Wasn’t it? So she says, ‘Why you gotta concentrate to look at me?’ I said, ‘’Cause you the
baddest
muthafucka I’ve ever seen, that’s why.’ Then I stood up, trying to be cool, drained the quart, nodded my head, and walked off. She said, ‘Hey, where you going?’ I said, ‘I’m going to the store, get me another quart.’ I started walking down the street and she says, ‘Hold up, I’ll go with you.’ ”

“You
was
in there.”

“Big time. On the way she says, ‘So you think I’m fine, huh? Is that why you
be
staring at me every time I come to the burger stand?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ I didn’t think that she even noticed; much less gave it a second thought. She said she’d been checking me out too. Said I looked kinda cute in burger wear. Picture that. So we get to the store and she asks me to buy her one too. We get back to the house and her girls are gone. So we
leaned
up against a car, talking and drinking and shit. We drained those quarts and went and got two more. On the way back, she asks me if I smoke weed.”

“Stupid question.”

“Anyway, she says she got a
coupla
joints. So I said let’s go up to my room. Next thing I know, I’m
tasting
all parts of tongue and rubbing titties.” Now I’d gotten some pussy before I met her, but I swear
,
I was like a virgin to her. The first time I fucked her, or should I say the first time she fucked me, she put her foot in my chest and kicked me out the pussy. Told me she didn’t know what I was doin’, but it wasn’t fuckin’. She was right. I was just poking and stabbing at it. Donna taught me how to move in rhythm with her. Picture that. It was Donna that made me understand that there was more to sex than just busting a nut.

“Take your time, Rick. Get into the actual act,” she said.

Told me that penetration was fine, but she didn’t get off on just fuckin’. Donna taught me how to do that too—how to use the flat of my tongue and the tip of it to make a woman feel different sensations; to pay attention while I was down there; to listen to her moan and the sound of her breathing; to open my eyes and look at the expressions on her face. That’s how you know what’s working from what’s not: feeling her thighs on your arms and feeling them quiver; the sounds of her toes curling up against the sheets.

“We were married six months later. She was gone eight months after that.”

“What happened?” Victor asked.

“She left me.”

“How come?”

“She found out the grass was greener
some place
else. We were living in that little room. She wouldn’t work; me working at Mickey D’s. We never had shit, just fucked all the time. That wasn’t enough for her. She met this nigga who was
ballin
’—had money and shit—so she left me for him. For a couple of months after she moved out, she’d still come by and fuck me. Tell me that she loved me, but that a girl’s gonna do what a girl’s gonna do.”

“Huh? Where have I heard that before? All of them got that same rap, Rick.”