Authors: J.J. Murray
“Well, I’ll be.”
“I’ll be what?”
“They don’t see Arthur as a threat. Here’s yet another wrinkle.”
“Quit saying ‘wrinkle.’”
“Jazz and Arthur are older than the others. They have wrinkles.”
“Larry, your wrinkles have wrinkles older than me. The Crew should be reacting! Arthur has gotten intimate with their princess. Get Graham in here.”
“Why?”
“We need to stir up a hornets’ nest in there. This … this is one big nothing.”
“Wait … Aaron’s up to something. He just said, ‘That ain’t right.’”
“Finally.”
Aaron loomed over John. “What you up to, man?”
And so it begins, John thought. “And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.” How should I handle this? However I do this, I need to do it quietly. These guys look seriously hungover.
“Up to?” John said. “Right now I’m eating. This apple is delicious.”
A few of the Crew turned their heads in John’s direction.
“I mean,” Aaron said, his eyes two little brown dots, “what were you up to last night?”
I sense wrath, John thought. Better give soft answers. “I couldn’t sleep. Y’all sure made a lot of noise. Justin, a locomotive has nothing on you, man. I thought a train was in the room.”
“I have sinus problems,” Justin said. “Didn’t bring my Breathe Right strips.”
“Yeah, man, I hear you,” John said. “And I still hear the echo.” He paused to listen.
Justin laughed.
No one else laughed.
Aaron moved closer. “I am not going to ask you again. What are you up to?”
Just trying to win a wife. “I couldn’t sleep, so I came downstairs to read my Bible. Jazz came in, we talked a bit, her feet hurt, and I rubbed them.”
“Nothing else happened?” Aaron asked.
“Let’s see … she said good night, I said it was morning, she said good morning, I said, ‘God is good,’ she said, ‘All the time,’ and I tried to return to studying the book of Nehemiah, but I really couldn’t concentrate.” I better not bait him. He’s not smiling. “I eventually got up, took a jog down to the beach—fantastic view of the ocean down there. Y’all really ought to see it. And now I’m back watching myself rubbing Jazz’s feet. She has very nice feet. Nice calves, too.” Okay, I couldn’t resist rubbing it in.
“What you really up to, man?” Aaron asked.
This man is a broken record. “I just told you.”
Aaron scowled. “You know what I mean.”
“Nope.” Although I think I do. I just want to hear him explain it.
“Look, Artie.” Aaron put his hands on the arms of the recliner. “You don’t belong here.”
I was just thinking the same thing last night, but now I think I belong here. “I don’t?”
“Nah, man,” Aaron said. “Jazz isn’t going to choose you.”
“She’s not?”
“No,” Aaron said.
John shrugged. “Oh. I’m glad you told me that, Aaron. I guess I should just pack up and leave, then.”
“You shouldn’t have even come here in the first place,” Aaron said. “You don’t have a chance. None. You’ll be the first to go. Home girl was just slummin’.”
Nah, man, she wasn’t. I think she was even doin’ a little hummin’ when she walked out of the room. “Jazz seemed perfectly content to be in the same room with me.”
“Cuz you’re harmless, man,” Aaron said.
“Oh, I get it.” I think. “So if you were in a similar situation, you know, sober, smelling like soap and shampoo instead of alcohol and cologne, reading a Bible, untattooed and unpierced and restraining yourself from pawing at her and staring at her cleavage, you would have been harmless, too.”
And once again the room is silent, John thought. Why are they hanging on my every word? Maybe it just takes them a little longer to process what I say because of my accent.
Justin chuckled. “Dag, Aaron. Whoo! Artie can talk.”
Aaron let go of the recliner’s arms and stood. “Man, I am anything but harmless, and when Jazz and I get together, and it’s gonna be soon, like Saturday night, I will be rubbing more than her feet, know what I’m saying?”
“Nope.” It got quiet again! All I said was “nope.” That was surely a short enough word for them to process in a few seconds.
“What do you mean, ‘nope,’ country boy?” Aaron said.
“I mean, nope, you won’t be doing more than rubbing her feet,” John said. “Jazz is a lady, and she’s a Christian.”
“What you trying to say?” Aaron asked.
I just said it. What is this, twenty questions? “I’m just saying that she obviously liked hanging out with me, and I am nothing like you, Aaron. She obviously prefers late-night conversation with me to whatever it was you were trying to do last night.”
Aaron puffed up his chest. “And what do you think I was trying to do last night?”
I really shouldn’t say this, but … “Before or after you groped her with your eyes?”
Aaron blinked. “What you talkin’ about?”
“Aaron, the eyes are the window to the soul, and your soul had some unholy intentions last night,” John said. “Jazz won’t go for that.”
Gary stood. “He’s right, Aaron. Jazz is righteous.”
Aaron wheeled around. “How do you know that?”
Gary shrugged. “She ain’t like any woman I’ve ever met.” Aaron looked at the others, shaking his head. “Can you believe this guy?”
My turn to shrug. “All I know is that I have gotten more time with her being ‘harmless,’ as you say, than you have being unholy around her. I got some foot time, too. I mean, it’s not every day that a woman gives up her feet to a guy she just met.”
“This is some classic stuff, Bob. This is sensational! We have to show this to Jazz.”
“What for?”
“So she can see what a jerk Aaron is and what a gentleman Arthur is.”
“Isn’t Aaron the former basketball player from Houston? Didn’t she play college ball at the University of Houston? This is one of her people.”
“That doesn’t make him any less of a jerk. I like the way Arthur is handling this. I can only imagine how good his sermons are. Very quick-witted and under control.”
“Larry, listen to yourself. You want to ask him out?”
“Of course not. I just think Jazz should know—”
“Jazz will not know anything about this conversation,” Bob interrupted.
“She’ll know we showed the foot-rubbing scene.”
“How?”
“You mean … we won’t tell her?”
“Hmm. Maybe we should. Yeah. We’ll tell her we showed the scene, and then she’ll get embarrassed about it. Maybe she’ll even stay away from Arthur because of it.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She betrayed her people, Larry.”
“What?”
“We have eleven black men and one white man. She’s betraying her race just by talking to Arthur.”
“Bob, I told you from the beginning that I didn’t want this show to have anything to do with race.”
“I know, I know. It has to have romance and puppies and flowers and orchestra music. But where is the ‘rainbow’ cast you were trying to get for this show? Nowhere.”
“And you’re not worried that we’ll lose our white viewers if Arthur leaves the show?”
“Of course I’m worried about that, Larry! But if what you’re saying is true, she’ll keep Arthur on the show a while, and that will raise ratings.”
“I don’t understand. You now want Arthur to stay on the show?”
“All the way to the end.”
“But before you said—”
“I know what I said before,” Bob interrupted. “But that was before.” Bob sighed. “Okay, um, maybe not to the very end. Either he makes it to the end or he’s the first to go.”
“You promised him four weeks.”
“And he breached his contract by telling Jazz the truth about himself. All bets are off.” Bob looked at the monitor. “Hey, this is good. Look at Aaron trying to get the Crew to back him up. This is classic stuff. This is sensational.”
Aaron stood in front of the TV. “Are we gonna let this white boy disrespect us like that?”
“Hey, now, Aaron,” Tony said. “This doesn’t have to get racial. That’s a man sitting there. I don’t feel disrespected. He was a man in the right place at the right time.”
“Arthur got game, yo,” Justin said. “Mad props, Artie.”
I got game, John thought. And mad props. Should I thank Tony and Justin? No. Better just to let all this run its course.
“And anyway, Aaron,” Tony said, “who’s us?”
Aaron pointed around the room. “Us.”
“Speak plainly, man,” Tony said.
“Us black men,” Aaron said. “We got a white man trying to steal our queen.”
“She’s a princess,” Justin said.
“Whatever,” Aaron said. “It’s wrong, all right?”
“He has the same chance as any of us,” Gary said. “What century are you living in anyway? Arthur didn’t do anything wrong. Every last one of us probably wishes he was the one rubbing her feet last night.” Gary smiled at John. “I underestimated you, man. I gotta try not to let it happen again.” Gary walked out to the pool.
“I am definitely not drinking tonight,” Justin said. He stood and stretched. “Gonna take me a nap so I can be awake later.” He looked at his hands. “Gonna lotion up my hands, too. They are seriously ashy.” Justin left the room for the foyer.
“Am I the only one who knows what’s going on around here?” Aaron asked.
“The man is playing the game,” Tony said, “and he’s playing it well.”
But, John thought, it’s not a game to me. Maybe that’s why I’m “winning.”
“The rest of us have to step it up,” Tony said. “This is a wake-up call.” Tony went into the kitchen.
The rest of the Crew milled around in the great room for a few minutes before heading in all directions. Only John and Aaron remained in the room.
“Anything else?” John asked.
“What you mean, anything else?” Aaron asked.
“I am just dying to take a shower and then take a dip in that pool.” He stood. “I think I will.”
“Just watch your back, man,” Aaron said.
“Why?”
“Cuz I’m gunnin’ for you.”
Is he serious? He sure looks serious. “Why waste your time gunning for me, Aaron? Shouldn’t you be gunning for Jazz instead?”
Aaron’s eyes popped.
“Just a thought,” John said. “Have a good day.”
“Now we’re cooking.”
“You see why we need Arthur on the show? He’s the voice of reason.”
“You’re wrong, Larry. We need Arthur for the arguments and the conflicts, and I have a feeling they’re going to get louder, and if we’re lucky, there will be a fight. This is just the beginning. Aaron definitely has it in for Arthur.”
“Arthur acquitted himself very well. He didn’t even raise his voice.”
“That will change, trust me.”
“Why will it change, Bob?”
“Because you are going to prep Aaron to argue with Arthur every chance he gets. I want to see steam coming out some ears, Larry. I want to see men bucking on each other. I want to see fists flying. I want to see the rest of this sleepy Crew taking sides.”
“I think a few lines have already been drawn, Bob. Gary, Justin, and Tony have shown respect for Arthur. I can’t speak for the rest of the Crew. Only Aaron seems to have a problem with Arthur.”
“Well, I want this to build into a battle royale. Yes. I want to see fireworks, and Aaron obviously has to be the catalyst.”
“I’ll, um, try to help Aaron with his argumentative skills.”
“He doesn’t need any help. He was doing fine.”
“He lost the argument.”
“That was just one battle,” Bob said. “This is going to be a war.”
Sonya woke, swiveled out of bed, and scrunched her toes into the carpet. No pain, no throbbing, no aches. Even my pinkie toe feels joy. I’ve been healed. I have to hand it to John.
I’d hand him my feet anytime.
After a quick shower, she left the bathroom and walked into two makeup artists and two hair stylists milling about in her room.
I cannot abide this lack of privacy, and I will not need them today. “I won’t need your services today. Please leave.”
And now they’re frozen in place and blinking at me.
“Shoo,” she said.
They trooped out.
They all must share the same mind. I’ve never seen four people moving in unison like that before.
A minute later, Larry was at the door. This time she let him inside her room despite the mess.
“You’re not going to put on the dog today?” Larry asked.
“Not today,” Sonya said. “Or any day.”
“As you wish.”
“No more wig either,” she said.
“Fine.”
I like the sound of that. “And I don’t like anyone in my room without my permission. Everyone has to knock from now on.”
“As you wish.”
I am the princess, after all. He seems so agreeable today. Maybe it’s Give Jazz What She Wants Day. Or he’s just setting me up for something. “And I have decided that I want my, um, my sister here now.”
Larry pursed his lips. “That’s not supposed to happen until you get down to the final six.”
Those stupid rules! “She doesn’t have to be on camera until then. I just want her around. I want to spend some time with her, okay? I don’t get to see her very often.”
“I’ll talk to Bob.”
Who will say no. “There’s nothing to talk about. I won’t leave this room …” Until she’s here? It’s such a nice day, and I don’t want to waste it. She looked out the window and saw John swimming. Very muscular for a guy my age. I wish I could swim like that. He makes it look so easy. She faced Larry. “I won’t leave this room until you tell me she’ll be here by dinner tonight.”
“I don’t have a problem with this, but Bob—”
“No sis,” Sonya interrupted, “no this.”
Larry bowed, said, “I will make your demands known,” and left.
Sonya turned to the window. John was out on the diving board. Nice lines. Great form on that dive. Justin was next. That poor diving board! But when Justin executed a flawless swan dive, Sonya smiled. Now Justin and John are talking. John seems to get along with everyone. It must be the pastor in him.
No.
It’s the Christian in him.
The rest of the Crew spilled out from the kitchen. All I see are tattoos and ripped bodies. And Aaron has more tattoos than anyone. I wonder how close he was to making it to the NBA.