B-Sides and Remixes, page 10
“What, nigga,” Rochelle says, her voice flat.
“Rochelle? Is that you?”
“Yeah. What you want?” She sounds as if I am a guy who’s calling just to bug her.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask.
“Not a damn thing.”
“I heard that people are talking about our date all over town.”
“Yeah. So what?”
I pull the phone away from my face and look at it incredulously before speaking again. “Did you do that?”
She laughs in a strange voice and then says, “Fuck you, nigga.”
“Whoa,” I start, “Talk to me. At least do me that favor. What the hell is going on?”
I hear her sigh. “I just had to set the fucking record straight. You got me looking all green and square in your article. All you had to do is tell the fucking truth, but you couldn’t do that. I thought we was connecting. But you just a weak nigga tryna play a sista out.”
I squeeze my phone so tightly I fear it might explode in my hands. “I was trying to protect your privacy,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Naw, nigga. You was trying to protect yo own ass.”
I’m confused by all of this, and I have no words for her. This makes absolutely no sense to me at all. I have no idea of where all of this venom is coming from.
“Okay,” I finally say. “I guess I fucked up. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or anything.”
She doesn’t respond.
“You still there?”
“Yeah.” She’s quiet for a moment. Finally, she speaks again. “You know I didn’t say nothing except that we had hooked up. You know you can still pick me to be your girl.”
You have to be fucking kidding me, I think to myself. This is all about the fucking website?
“At this point, I don’t think I could do that even if I wanted,” I respond, my jaw so tight I can feel my TMJ starting to bother me.
“A’ight. Whatever,” she says, and she hangs up on me.
Angie looks at me, her eyes focused on mine. “Breathe, Cool. Breathe, baby.”
I drop my phone onto the table and it sounds like a brick slamming against the hood of a car. “She played me,” I say. My head is throbbing, and I just want to go somewhere and lie down.
“That seems like some street shit there. Trying to muscle her way into the spotlight. You gotta just let that shit roll off your back,” Angie offers.
My thoughts are bouncing back and forth in my mind like waves slamming against rocks.
“I’m sorry, Angie. I have to go.”
She nods and stands up with me. “Hey, it’s gonna be all right,” she says.
I blink hard and say, “I hope so.”
As I start to walk to the curb to hail a cab, Angie follows me. “Hey, Cool. I just wanted to let you know that me and Tracy and Aaron are headed to Birmingham to see Mama this weekend.”
I turn around and look at my younger cousin. Her doe-like eyes remind me of when she was that cute little tomboy growing up. She hugs me tightly.
“We’re some kind of family, aren’t we?”
“You know that,” she says.
As she turns to walk away, she smiles at me. I know that she is pulling that smile from the depths of her being, so I give her a smile that she can take with her, too.
18
My one-bedroom apartment is like a cave, dark and cool. That’s the way I’ve always liked it. I even prefer the use of candles to running the lights. Although I have a television, I don’t have cable, so most of my energy usage is strictly for my computer and wireless connection, as well as my microwave.
I have gotten to the point where I can walk into my apartment and my eyes adjust to the darkness easily. With only the mild illumination of streetlights creeping through the cracks in the window blinds, I can easily navigate the apartment for hours without actually turning on the lights. My running joke with J is, “I’ll be damned if Con Ed makes a sucker out of me!”
Now this cloak of darkness is like a familiar welcome from the world. Right now it feels like my only refuge. As I grab a soda out of the fridge, I find myself wondering how I’m going to deal with all of this. I still have yet to really clean up what happened with J the other day, and while I know he’s my boy and will probably shake off all of that madness as just us being too stressed out and in the heat of the moment, I do want to follow up with him—especially if he’s having second thoughts about us keeping our business going. And then there’s this mess with Rochelle. My head hurts even when I try to consider the implications of what she’s done.
Rather than wait to get put on in a legit way, she had simply decided that she would take matters into her own hands. I call myself having done her a solid by keeping the details of our date low key. I would’ve never thought that she was the kind of person who was so starved for media attention that she’d tell all of her business (and mine) just to shine the spotlight on herself. Wasn’t there a rule out there against kissing and telling or has Karrine Steffens’s handbook inspired a new league of women who are hell-bent on changing the game? The raw hustler in me can actually respect what Rochelle did, but the pragmatic businessman in me—the one who has to suffer in behind all of this—does not care for it at all. Right now, I can’t even fathom all of the different ways this situation can come back to bite me in the ass.
I know this is not going to go well with Sarah, assuming that she’s not living in a bubble somewhere and didn’t hear any of this madness. I know I’ll still need to follow up with her, just to close things out for the magazine, though. I kind of hope that I can do some Svengali shit that will give me a chance to deal with her on my own merits and not in the defensive mode of responding to Rochelle’s comments. I won’t hold my breath though.
And then there’s the business. If what J said is true about business increasing in behind my doing this Soul Sista blog, then not only will readers start to rebel against me, but we’ll feel that in our bottom line, too.
I polish off my drink and head into the bedroom to lie down. All I want to do is sleep. If I can just clear my head long enough, I might be able to figure out how to deal with all of this.
I wake up and my apartment is pitch black. Even beyond the blinds it is dark. I have no clue what time it is, but my stomach grumbles, begging to be fed, so I put on a pair of sneakers and grab my wallet and keys.
It’s not until I am standing beneath the street lamp in front of my building, my eyes squinting at the light, that I even check my watch for the time. It’s only eight, but in my mind it feels much later. I walk down the street to Ray’s Pizza, which is just my shorthand for the actual title: THE Ray’s One and Only Original Pizzeria. The irony is that Ray’s pizza is far better than the other six Ray’s farther down, which all have different owners and origins and slightly different names. I grab two cheese slices and a Coke and cop a squat on one of the stools facing the front window. Outside, people are still milling about in small groups, mostly people from the neighborhood coming and going. Occasionally a group of kids will migrate together on a corner for a few minutes before moving on.
After I finish eating, I pick up my cell phone and call J. When he answers, I can hear Earth, Wind & Fire in the background, so I know he’s still at the store.
“Dude,” I start. “I’m sorry. It’s just been that type of day.”
“I feel you,” he responds. “You coming back before we close.”
“I hadn’t planned on it.”
“You okay?” he asks, his voice tinged with concern.
“Dude, I’m just out of it,” I respond.
“I tell you what,” he says. “Come back to the store, and when we close, we can go and get some drinks somewhere.”
My eyeballs are still dry with sleep, but I know I don’t want to go back into the cave just yet, so I tell him that I’ll meet him in a few minutes.
It only takes about fifteen minutes for me to get there, and when I walk into the store, J is wrapping up his laptop cords to put in his computer bag. Rarely do we have any customers in the store requiring us to keep the shop open past nine, so we tend to lock up like clockwork when closing time comes.
“J,” I say, walking over to him. “About the other night. Dude, I don’t know what got into me.”
“Hey, whatever it was, it got into me, too. I was straight tripping. I guess this shit is a little crazy. It’s all like an x-factor. Like no matter how much planning I do, something can just come out of nowhere and play a bigger role than anything else.”
I reach out and dap him. “I just wanted to let you know I’m sorry.”
“Cool, you didn’t even have to say those words. Baby, we go way back. Some shit you just understand without even having to move your mouth.”
“But I really fucked us with this Roxanne thing. She all but killed this blogging gig.”
“Think so?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t see an up-side to any of this shit?”
I shake my head.
“I suspect even more people are reading your blog entries today than at any other point in time. Soul Sista can’t be mad at you for driving all of that traffic to their site.”
I look away. “They are probably going on there to crucify me for lying about the date.”
“Really?” he says. “Have you looked at the site today?”
“No.”
J pulls out his laptop and opens it back up. He types in the website information and turns the screen to face me. I scroll through the comments on my blog entry and my jaw almost drops on the floor. While the comments are divided between me being a typical dog, there are other comments defending my fibbing of the last date. One commenter says, “Cool was just being respectful and trying not to paint Roxanne into a corner. The fact that she came back over the top on him has more to do with how classless she is, not him!”
J smiles. “Yeah, Cool. They’ve been debating you all day, and a lot of people are saying that you did the right thing. Even Michael Baisden put the question to his listeners today on his show. It went something like this: When is it okay to tell a white lie in your relationship? This situation is really putting both you and ol’ girl out there.”
I continue reading all of the different comments, surprised at the diversity of what’s being said.
“And there were some calls for you earlier. A few reporters were trying to get statements, but I told them you weren’t here. It’s actually a good thing you left, because a lot of people came to the store today hoping to see you and give you their two cents worth. Oh yeah, and Denise Mallory called from the magazine. She’s been trying to get at you all day. Man, you need to call her back. At least find out what they’re doing on their end.”
I hadn’t even considered that any of this would happen, and I’m still having trouble digesting it all.
When nine o’clock comes, we lock up the shop and J makes good on his promise to get me drunk.
19
I stumble into the store earlier than usual and take care of inventory while trying to shake the remnants of my micro-hangover. By the time J comes in, I am already in full productivity mode. He smiles and starts making calls to follow up with our vendors. Ray-Ray comes in and surprisingly starts dusting the shelves. I suspect he feels bad about yesterday, but he doesn’t say anything. Neither do I.
When I finally call Denise Mallory back, I am immediately patched through.
“Hi,” she answers. “My, you’ve been busy.”
“You have no idea.”
She doesn’t waste time and cuts right to the chase. “Do you have plans for lunch?”
I shake my head before realizing that she can’t see my face. “Uh, no. I don’t.”
“Can you meet me at Blockheads on 33rd and 3rd at around 12:30?”
“Sure. That shouldn’t be a problem.”
When I hang up the phone, J immediately asks what she wanted. Apparently he has invested himself in the process to the point that he wants the blow-by-blow whenever there is any update.
“She wants to talk over lunch in about an hour down in Murray Hill.”
“For real? That’s crazy. No telling what they’re coming up with down there. They could be putting together something even bigger than this blogging thing.” He pauses and considers all of this. “What if they are looking to pitch a TV show idea or something? That would be straight crazy!”
I laugh under my breath. “That doesn’t make a lot sense, but I’ll walk in there with an open mind and hear out anything that they throw at me that could help us out here.”
“That’s what’s up, Cool.” J looks at the Michael Jackson clock on the wall. “You might want to get your ass moving, though. You got a little ways to go if you’re trying to make it there on time. Don’t want to keep Denise waiting. If she lays out a plan that can take this shit to the next level, she’ll be my new favorite person—and you can tell her I said that shit.”
I laugh. “Don’t tempt me, dude. You know I will.”
I start walking toward the door, but I stop and turn toward Ray-Ray. “So what’s my popularity rating today?” I ask, my smile undermining my attempt at a serious tone.
Ray-Ray laughs, relieved. “Son, I think you might be up in the polls. Folks wasn’t feeling that Bohemian chick you hollered at, but the niggas is really feeling this Roxanne thing.”
“What about Sarah?” I ask, just to see what he will say.
“She a’ight, but word is that you done already won the jackpot.”
I consider this as I walk out of the store and down the sidewalk to catch the bus. I guess I should, at the minimum, be thankful that Roxanne didn’t dog me while she was telling our personal business.
Still the whole situation feels a little foul. I’m game to make lemonade from all of this, but I still recognize what the deal is and what kind of game she’s running. Clearly she won’t be the pick, and now that I think about it, she probably never had plans to be the one anyway.
Denise is already seated in the restaurant checking her Blackberry when I walk through the front door. She looks up and smiles, and I remember just how much I enjoy seeing that smile.
She stands. “How many of those things do you have?” she jokes, pointing to my C&J Rare Grooves t-shirt.
“You don’t want to know,” I respond, shaking her hand.
“Well, no one can ever accuse you of failing to market your business.” She chuckles and returns to her seat.
“Why should Russell Simmons have all of the fun? I mean that brother hasn’t been seen wearing anything other than Phat Farm since the mid-nineties.”
“True.”
“I’ll get you one of these—in any color—but you’ll have to promise to wear it.”
“I see,” Denise says, smiling. “If you send me one, I will definitely wear it.”
“Outside, I mean. You have to do more than just sleep in it. I have a cousin who uses hers to cut grass in.”
She laughs and promises me that she won’t use the t-shirt as a dust cloth either.
I sit down perpendicular to her, still unsure if this is an “Everything’s going well, glad to see you” meeting or if this is a Bill Duke/Menace II Society “you know you fucked up” kind of meeting. She seems in good spirits, so I’ll suspend judgment until she gives me a reason to get on high alert.
“You ever eat here before?” she asks.
“Not since I first moved here. These burritos are big as hell though.”
“Definitely not for the feint of heart,” she offers, smiling.
A server appears at our table and proceeds to take our order. We both order the giant world famous Blockheads burritos and sodas.
When the server walks away, I say, “Watch out now. Eating a meal that big will have you falling asleep all over your desk this afternoon. Just wait until that ‘itis’ creeps up on you.”
“I really don’t even need to be eating any of this. I’ll have to work out extra time at the gym just to take it all off.”
“Are you kidding?” I ask. “You look like you could run a marathon this Saturday if you wanted.”
“Ha ha,” she says, each syllable pitched in sarcasm.
“Ha ha hell,” I respond, laughing. “You know you look good.”
“Yeah. Whatever.” She offers a smile, before taking a sip of the soda the server has just placed down in front of her.
I take a sip of my own drink and suddenly think back to Sinbad’s comedy routine when he says it is impossible for a man to look macho while pursing his lips and sipping from a straw. To hell with it. I take another long swallow, not caring if I look like a brown Fraggle with a doozer stick in his mouth.
“So,” she starts. “Cool, please tell me what’s going on here.”
“What do you mean?” I say.
I know it’s really too late to play dumb, but I’m not jumping out there blind. I don’t know what she knows, and I would rather take my cue from her rather than incriminate myself for no reason.
“Did the date with Roxanne really happen the way you say it did?” she asks.
I pause for a moment and consider this. Her phrasing of the statement is probably the most diplomatic way that she can muster for asking me if I straight-up lied on my blog entry. My mind races with how I want to answer her question. I guess that’s the problem when you start shifting the truth: you find yourself continually having to shift it.
As I take in Denise’s solemn facial expression, I decide that I should be honest with her. After all, she doesn’t seem like she has a desire to burn me at the stake and sacrifice my ashes to the townspeople.
“I might’ve taken a few creative liberties,” I say. “But it was because I was trying to be respectful.”
Denise’s expression doesn’t change. It’s as if she already knows everything that I’m going to tell her before I open my mouth. When she finally speaks, she asks, “So you did have sex with her?”
I start to wonder how any of this came to matter, but then my mind goes directly to Rochelle and I realize that the moment she made her statement to whomever it was, she gave everyone permission to ask whatever they wanted to know about that third date.
