“It’s on and popping,” I tell my best friend, Leon, as I put the finishing touches on our submarine sandwiches.
“What’s on and popping? And when did you say the fight was coming on?”
“Pops is fronting me the money for Atlanta, and the fight doesn’t come on until eleven.”
“Seriously! All right, now. Atlanta is the home to lots of fine, thick black women! As soon as I get a chance, I’m visiting.”
I laugh as I watch Leon rub his hands together hungrily. He is obsessed with what he calls “thick” women, but he and I have totally different ideas on our definitions of thick. To me, thick is no larger than a size twelve, but to Leon, thick begins at size sixteen. It doesn’t help matters that Leon is all of one hundred fifty pounds on a six-feet frame. The brotha has a Jack Sprat complex.
“You are not coming down to my crib and filling it up with all of your big girlfriends.”
“Don’t hate just because I want me a girl who can fry chicken and make a sweet-potato pie.”
“Thin girls can’t cook?”
Leon raises an eyebrow. “How many do you know who can?”
He always wins this argument, because he’s right. Out of all the model types I’ve ever dated, not one of them has even been able to boil a hot dog. Shayna is probably the worst. I knew she was a lost cause when she tried to bake a can of Pillsbury biscuits in the microwave.
I take a bite of my sandwich. It’s perfect. “So Priscilla is going to find an apartment for me and have it all decked out when I get there.”
“Must be nice, man.”
Leon always finds a way to make me feel uncomfortable talking about my family’s money. He grew up in a single-parent household with his mother working two jobs to be able to save enough money for his college education. Every time I mention anything about my parents giving me money, Leon’s quiet contemplation makes me feel materialistic.
Leon asks, “So what are you going to do about Shayna when you leave? She’s making wedding plans, you know.”
“Man, listen! I don’t know how many different ways I can say ‘Baby, let’s slow down.’ She ain’t hearing it.”
“I told you to stop cooking for these women, man. That’s what gets you in trouble. All that cooking and sweet-talking, and you’re right out of every black woman’s fantasy.”
“Here you go.”
“Man, I’m serious. How many women do we know who grew up with a bunch of women and not one man in sight? To them, the ideal man is the one who is going to cater to their every whim while they sit up and eat that pasta stuff you be fixing.”
“Man, you are a fool!” I can’t help but laugh, even though I’ve heard this all before.
“I speak the truth, man.”
My doorbell rings, and I jump up to answer it. I’m not expecting anyone; tonight is fight night. Usually me and Leon kicking it in an estrogen-free environment. I look out the peephole.
Speak of the devil and she’ll appear. My head starts pounding with a frustration headache. This woman insists on making our bedroom romps permanent, and I’m not there yet. Don’t know if I’ll ever be there.
I hesitate before opening the door, but she ain’t having that. “Darrin, you better quit playing!”
“Shayna … what’s up?” I ask with the fakest smile ever.
She kisses my lips like she doesn’t see my boy and our grub. She knows this is the “no ladies” night. She purrs, “Baby, I was just thinking about you, and I had to see you. I haven’t heard from you all day.”
She hadn’t heard from me, since I hadn’t called. I’d spent the whole day packing for my Atlanta trip. I hadn’t even thought to call. And I don’t feel like being smothered with her ‘love talk.’
“I know. I’ve just been busy.”
“Hey, Leon,” she says to my friend. He grumbles under his breath.
She glances over at three boxes in the corner, then looks at me for an explanation. “You giving some stuff away to the Purple Heart veterans?” she asks.
Okay … trying to think quickly. I don’t want to tell her about Atlanta yet. Want to wait until the day before I leave.
“No … not exactly,” I reply as I nervously shift my weight from leg to leg.
She notices my jitters and is immediately suspicious. She hits me with rapid fire, her red curls bouncing like flames. “Looks to me like you’re moving. Or is someone moving in with you? You cheating on me, Darrin? Who is she?”
How did we get from Purple Hearts veterans to cheating? I will never, ever understand this woman’s thought process.
Might as well tell the truth and get it over with. “My father is giving me the money to go to Atlanta.”
“I can’t believe you are still on that. You’re really going to write a story on Bishop Prentiss?”
“Yes, I am, and I cannot wait to get started.”
“So when do we leave?” Shayna asks timidly.
“We?”
I knew this was coming; that’s why I didn’t want to tell her. But Shayna can go on somewhere with that noise. The only word I’m feeling for her is lust, so there is no way I’m bringing her to Atlanta with me.
“Yes, we! As in you and me,” she replies indignantly.
“You are not going to Atlanta with me.”
I say this slowly, calmly, deliberately. Don’t want her to have a scene in front of my boy. I want to end the conversation without any casualties, but the deep frown on her face is telling me that battle wounds are on the way.
“Baby, did you forget you have a job?” I ask, “baby” slipping off my tongue like I really mean it. “I have no idea how long I’ll be gone.”
“No, I didn’t forget about my job, but you’re rich. I shouldn’t have to worry about working if we’re together.” Shayna’s bottom lip protrudes in a juvenile-looking pout. I hate when she does this.
“My father is rich. I am not.”
Leon rolls his eyes and sucks his teeth. Shayna glances at him with much attitude and continues, “Same difference. I don’t know if I can do a long-distance relationship, Darrin.”
I wince like she’s stabbed me with a knife. “There you go with that word again.”
“What word? ‘Relationship’?”
I wince again and clutch my side. Leon snickers and takes a giant bite from his sandwich.
“If we don’t have a relationship, Darrin,” asks Shayna, “then what do we have?”
“Why do you have to define everything all the time? Why can’t we ride things out and see how they go?”
With a burst of angry energy, Shayna spins on her heels and heads for the door. I half want to let her go and forget we ever met, but the view of Shayna leaving is too much for a brotha like me. I can’t let that fine woman walk away hating me. As wrong as I do them, most of the women I lust and leave still want me. Shayna won’t be any different.
“Don’t you even want to know when I’m leaving?” I ask, trying to stall her while I think of something good.
Shayna takes a pause but doesn’t reply. I know she’s thinking about it. She doesn’t want to let me go so easily, either.
“Baby, why don’t you come over here and give me a hug? I am going on the road, remember? You don’t want me to be all love-deprived when I get to Atlanta, do you?”
I watch her anger subside and the frown melt away from her face. I’ve still got it.
She turns and hugs me, punctuating the action with a slow grind. I almost want to tell Leon to scram so we can finish what Shayna is trying to start. But that would be counterproductive. Plus, I really want to see this fight.
I try to reassure her. “Look, girl, I’m not going to Atlanta to hook up with another woman, I’m going there to work.”
“I know you, Darrin,” she replies.
“If you knew me, then you’d know this is not about finding a woman, Shayna. It’s about my career.”
Convinced, she wraps her arms around my neck and squeezes me again in a tight embrace. This time her exclamation mark is a deep tongue kiss that weakens my knees.
She says, “Don’t forget about all this while you’re in ATL.”
“How could I?” I respond truthfully. “I’ll call you from Atlanta.”
Shayna walks out of my door, maybe out of my life. I will call her once or twice while I’m in Atlanta, to smooth the transition and keep her from doing anything nutty. But I’m cooling this down. I’m not trying to be anyone’s husband or, worse, baby’s daddy, and Shayna is getting way too serious for my comfort.
Leon shakes his head.
“What?” I ask.
“Told you, man … all that French toast and pasta. You be having them chicks feening over you.”
“It’s not just the food, my man. I have many talents.”
DIARY OF A MAD BLACK BLOGGER
Guess what, yo? I’m on location. Can’t tell y’all where, but this whole bling-bling-but-I’m-a-man-of-God thing has got me bugging. So, I’m going Malik Yoba (NY undercover, for the televisionally challenged) on this mega-church pastor. I’m gonna get the goods and see if this one particular shepherd is for real. Don’t worry, though, I’m gonna keep y’all posted on all the developments. And if I find out some dirt, I’m gonna help “shine the light of heaven” all up in that piece. Real talk. Maybe, in the meantime, I’ll meet a nice church girl and settle on down. Let me quit playing. I’m out, y’all. Hit me up in the comments section.
Emoni
I
am not a pretty girl. I’m saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost … but I’m not pretty.
I stand back from my full-length mirror and squint. Every Sunday morning I do the same self-appraisal, and every Sunday I come to the same conclusion. I’m not a pretty girl.
Wait, let me qualify that statement. I’m not some low-self-esteem-having, fishing-for-compliments basket case. I just know what I see in the mirror.
Daddy says I’m cute, and my mother calls me handsome, as in “Emoni, you are a handsome woman.” But handsome is not pretty. It might actually be the opposite of pretty.
The state of my looks is relevant information because as of right now I am the president of the singles’ ministry at my church, but I’d much rather be the president of the married couples’ ministry. I’m ready for the Lord to bless me with a husband, but obviously, He and almost all of the eligible brothers at my church feel otherwise. And we’ve got a big congregation, too. I just can’t understand how, out of ten thousand members—three thousand of those being men—the bishop’s oldest daughter can’t seem to find a man.
Must be my looks, because everything else in the package is right.
I look like my father. I have the same close-set brown eyes and short lashes, same short stature. I’m twenty-four, with a teenager’s acne and thick hair that looks good in a roller set or bone-straight. My skin is the color of coffee with a little bit of cream, but not enough to make me high yellow, like my sister, Sascha.
Sascha is the pretty one. And my brother, Tyler, is the pretty boy.
The youngest two Prentiss children can stop traffic with their looks. Nineteen-year-old Sascha is the spitting image of our mother’s Creole ancestors, with long, wavy jet-black hair set against skin the color of a porcelain doll. Tyler is twenty-two and has the same complexion as Sascha but wears his curls cut close to his head. His thick eyebrows and lashes accentuate the green eyes that I call a blessing and he calls a curse.
Even though I’m not pretty, I have my own set of blessings. My tiny waist and pop-out behind can stop a little traffic, too. I turn around in the mirror and view myself from behind to confirm that fact. And to top it all off, I have great teeth. Don’t think great teeth are a blessing? Well, wait until you see a cute girl smile with teeth like a shark’s.
Plus, I’m smart. Honestly, my intelligence wasn’t something I really valued until recently. I’d always tried to dumb down when I met men, but that gets old quickly.
I know my daddy, Bishop Kumal Prentiss, values my brainpower. I work full-time for his ministry, and truth be told, I’m the one who keeps everything operating smoothly. I’m the planner of conferences, the queen of damage control, and the go-to person for all questions and complaints.
I have time to do all of this because I don’t have a man.
Sascha swings my door open, like she always does. “Emoni! We are about to be late for Sunday school! How long are you going to stand in front of that mirror?”
Right. Like she really wants to go to Sunday school. She’s just in a rush to see her tacky little boyfriend, Kevin. Not even Sunday is sacred for those two fornicators. They sneak off in between services to park in a borrowed car and do whatever it is they do that leaves passion marks all over Sascha’s neck.
Am I just a little bit jealous of them? No. I’m really jealous. More like seven-deadly-sins kind of envious.
I take one last look in the mirror, let out a sigh, and give up on waiting for my reflection to transform into a pretty one. “I’m ready.”
“Well, then, let’s roll,” calls Tyler from the hallway.
The three of us walk downstairs single file to meet with our parents in the foyer. Even though we don’t ride together, Daddy likes us to leave the house as a family.
My sister and I are wearing standard church apparel. I have on a tailored navy blue suit, and Sascha is wearing a cream-colored dress. Tyler, on the other hand, has on baggy jeans and a Karl Kani button-down shirt.
After appraising his outfit, I comment, “You could’ve at least put on a tie.”
Tyler rolls his eyes. “Don’t start, Emoni.”
“Don’t start what?” I ask. “I’m just trying to remind you that we’re going to church and not the bowling alley.”
I can’t help being a little judgmental. I wouldn’t be a big sister if I weren’t.
Daddy and Mother finally join us in the foyer. Their outfits are color-coordinated, as they always are. A taupe suit for Daddy with an olive-green patterned tie. Mother is wearing an olive-green suit with hat, shoes, and purse to match. They complement each other perfectly.
Our mother, Diana, is a tiny woman, not even five feet tall. Her round face is the same porcelain shade as that of her two youngest children, and her eyes are greener than Tyler’s. She wears her hair in a chin-length roller set and never ever goes a Sunday without wearing one of her pretty hats.
Bishop tries to mediate. “It’s all right, Emoni. Your brother is fine.”
“She’s right, Bishop, he should put on a suit. He looks like a hip-hop hooligan,” retorts Diana.