Baby Brother's Blues (22 page)

40

I
t had seemed like a good idea at the time. General had stopped in at Justin’s to do some business over drinks. After his associates departed, he decided to stay and have dinner. He was seeing Brandi at her place around midnight, but it was only ten o’clock and he was suddenly hungry. He checked in with Blue to let him know the meeting had gone as planned and asked the manager for a table. The place was filling up, but the tuxedo-clad brother showed General to a table in one of the restaurant’s prime spots, accepted the fifty-dollar bill General pressed into his palm, and left him in the capable hands of the smooth-faced young server who identified himself as Randy. General half listened as Randy described the specials, took the drink order, and glided off with a promise to be right back.

One of several restaurants owned by entertainment and fashion magnate Sean Combs, Justin’s had managed to maintain the high-quality service, creative cuisine, and eclectic brew of beautiful people, stars (real and imagined), tourists, and trendsetters that had first put it on the map when it opened six years before. Although there’d been a few isolated incidents, more often than not involving a visit from pop-singer-turned-reality-TV-star Bobby Brown, most of the time the hip-hop crowd mixed and mingled with a maximum of style and a minimum of confusion.

As General waited for his scotch on the rocks, a musical luminary he recognized, but couldn’t have named, created the kind of stir that always swirls around stars. The manager embraced the young man. The model-thin hostess with the razor-sharp cheekbones and the sexy black dress turned up the wattage on her twinkle and the eyes of every woman in the place turned in his direction, staring unabashedly as he and his date, a cocoa-colored lovely in a sleek white suit with a bored expression, made their way to a table not far from General.

The young superstar held his companion’s chair like a perfect gentleman before sitting down and earned an appreciative sigh from his captive female audience, who turned back to their dinners and drinks, wishing such behavior was the rule rather than the exception. From where he sat, General could see the light bouncing off of the large diamond studs in the young man’s earlobes. He smiled to himself. There were so many people for whom such proximity might be the highlight of a day, or of a lifetime. For General, it was just another of Atlanta’s young millionaires, out on the town.

Randy presented the scotch and took the order with equal aplomb, then left again as General felt his phone vibrating in his breast pocket. There were only two people who had this number, Blue and Brandi. He glanced at the caller ID and smiled.

“Hello?” he said quietly.

“Hey, baby.” Brandi’s voice was a sexy purr. “Is this a bad time?”

“Never a bad time. I thought you had to work. Where are you?”

They sounded more like lovers than two people who traded sex for money and called it even.

“Niggas started fightin’ all up in the place. Somebody called the cops and they sent us all home, told us to come back tomorrow. Johnny was too pissed, but it wadn’t nothin’ he could do.”

“You okay?”

“You know I know how to get out of a situation, baby!” She laughed. “I been around niggas fightin’ all my life. If they ain’t fightin’ me, they ain’t my problem.”

She played so tough, he thought, and she wasn’t big as a minute. “Where you at now?”

“In my car,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you I was goin’ home. You can come on by whenever you get ready.”

“You eat yet?” he said as an idea presented itself to him.

“Not yet,” she said. “You hungry? Want me to stop and pick up something for us?”

“I’m at Justin’s,” he said. “I just ordered. Want to join me?”

She hesitated. They didn’t usually go out and the invitation surprised her. “Hello?” he said.

“You mean join you for dinner?”

“It’s a little late for lunch.”

She laughed. “Hell, yeah, I’ll join you! I’m just trippin’ a little ’cause you so good to me, baby. That’s all. I’m on my way.”

He put the phone back in his pocket, already kicking himself. What was he thinking? He wasn’t
dating
Brandi. He was
fucking
her. What had possessed him to invite her out to dinner? Was he turning into that foolish old man he didn’t want to ever be? Lord knows what she might be wearing when she arrived. Looking at the stylish women around him, he hoped she wouldn’t be dressed in a way that made it obvious that she was a hooker. Unfortunately, it was too late now for him to do anything about it. He signaled Randy, asked him to hold that steak, and ordered a bottle of champagne.

Fifteen minutes later, Brandi stepped in the front door dressed in a crimson micromini dress with a halter top that was hardly enough to cover her breasts, and a pair of five-inch stiletto heels, also red. Her hair was an upsweep of quivering ringlets and her makeup was more suited to stage lights than a candle’s glow. The manager took one look at her and signaled the hostess, who began moving toward Brandi with a sense of purpose and an air of disdain. There was no mistaking what she was, he thought, but he’d invited her and he wasn’t about to let some haughty little bitch in a black dress disrespect her.
Juanita would never forgive him.

General stood up quickly and raised his hand in greeting. The manager caught sight of the gesture from the corner of his ever-watchful eye and reached out to intercept the hostess before she created an incident. He didn’t need to worry. As soon as Brandi spotted him, she headed straight for his table without waiting for assistance. Twice in one evening, Justin’s female patrons were treated to a man holding the chair of his dinner companion. The fact that this woman was clearly on the clock did not diminish their appreciation of the gesture.

“Hey, baby,” she said, hanging her oversize fake gold purse on the back of her chair. “I didn’t have time to change. I look okay?”

Only a true cad would have told her the truth. “You’re the finest woman in here.”

She giggled, pleased he had affirmed her own assessment. Randy appeared to open the Cristal with the appropriate
pop,
took Brandi’s order for Justin’s Caribbean chicken, and disappeared. They clinked their glasses lightly and General tried not to notice the other patrons smirking in their direction. Brandi took a long, greedy swallow of the sparkling golden liquid like it was a tall glass of red Kool-Aid on a hot summer afternoon. She was so young, he thought. Juanita was easily ten years older when they’d first gotten together. Brandi was a baby.

Draining her glass, she extended it for a refill. General repressed the urge to tell her she wasn’t at Montre’s now. She didn’t get paid by how many bottles she sold.

“I used to dream about comin’ in here,” she said, looking around appreciatively. “This place is the
bomb.
Niggas always used to promise to bring me, but you know how shady people can be.”

“So how do you like it so far?”

“It’s perfect,” she said, drawing out the word until it became a
purr
of satisfaction.

“Look behind you,” General said, knowing she hadn’t yet glimpsed the superstar whose name she would surely know.

“What?” She twisted in her seat to see the singer calmly enjoying his shrimp cocktail while his still-bored companion picked at her salad. She whipped back around in her seat so fast, General had to smile.

“Do you know who that is?” she whispered urgently.
“That is Busy Boy Baker!”

The name conjured up media images of a local boy who’d hit the big time, but never forgot his roots. General vaguely remembered him promising to send a group of Mandeville Maids to college if they got their GEDs. It was a big story when the first group graduated.

“The one who started the scholarship program?”

“The one who got those supersexy abs on top of all those hit records,” Brandi said.

The significance of the scholarship program was lost on her. She half turned around to sneak another look. Busy Boy was oblivious. He was probably accustomed to flustered females by now. That was how he made his money.

“Did you see those earrings?” Brandi shook her head in awe and took another gulp of champagne. “And what’s up with Miss Thang? That bitch need to put a little pep in her step before somebody swoop on that man.”

Randy reappeared with their dinners. They were both starving, and for a few minutes, Busy Boy and company had to take a backseat to a perfectly broiled steak and a half chicken slow-cooked the Jamaican way with plenty of spices. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad, General thought. All he had to do was keep trusting his instincts. Juanita had said, “Don’t talk yourself out of the truth of what you see, no matter how far-fetched it seems.” He smiled to himself. You couldn’t really get more far-fetched than taking a neighborhood stripper out for a nice dinner in the middle of Buck-head on a Saturday night. He bet Juanita was somewhere, looking down at him, laughing her fine ass off.

“More champagne?” he said when Brandi came up for air.

“Sure, baby,” she said, but this time when he handed her the glass, she took a small sip and put the glass down. “You know what else I dream about?”

General was not a man who invited women he was paying for sex to share their dreams with him, but Brandi was different. He was still trying to figure out exactly how different. Maybe her dreams would give him a clue.

“What?”

“Vegas.”

“You like to gamble?” The possibility flooded him with memories of all those weekends he and Juanita had spent in New Orleans, playing blackjack all day and making love all night.

“No, baby,” she cooed. “I don’t have that kinda luck, but out there, I won’t need it. You know how much money a dancer can make in Vegas?”

“I have some idea.”

“Well, so do I. And as soon as I can put my little coins together, that’s where I’m goin’.”

“Oh yeah?” He smiled at her determination.

“Absolutely. Atlanta’s gettin’ tired anymore. Even Usher moved to New York!”

He looked at her, sipping her champagne with her pinkie extended, and wondered how the residence of another of the city’s musical superstars had any relationship to any aspect of Brandi’s life. Suddenly he felt sorry for her. She wanted so much and had settled for so little. Las Vegas would eat this girl alive.

General had taken Juanita to Vegas once. She’d been a big Sammy Davis Jr. fan and he surprised her with a weekend trip when Sammy was still playing the hotels on the strip. The day before they left, he treated her to a shopping spree and she came home from Saks with a sophisticated array of outfits that wedded class and sass to Juanita’s personal style in a way that made General proud to have her on his arm.

They saw Sammy’s show twice. They made love in a suite with a mirror on the ceiling and a black marble Jacuzzi in the bathroom and ordered room service. The only thing they didn’t do was gamble. Juanita said water was what brought her luck, so she wasn’t about to waste her money trying to gamble in the middle of the desert. General was used to playing blackjack by East Coast casino rules and found the Vegas way distracting. That gave them more time for sightseeing, including a day trip to the Boulder Dam because Juanita couldn’t believe they had actually dammed up a whole river just to be sure people in Vegas could flush their toilets.

He took a picture of her backstage with Sammy after the second show, courtesy of a horn player who had traveled with one of Blue’s tours years earlier and was now part of the Davis ensemble, and got back on the plane to Atlanta. They had a great time, but they never went back. New Orleans and Atlantic City were more to their liking and a whole lot closer.

Everything he heard about Vegas today made him know it wasn’t for him. All those gigantic hotels and amateur, wannabe gamblers who wouldn’t know a real card game if they pulled up a chair and sat down to it. Kids in the restaurants, old ladies at the slot machines, and bachelorette parties at the crap tables. This was not a place he wanted to see again,
but so what
? Brandi, he knew, had never been out of the state of Georgia. She would have a ball in Vegas if they went there together. He’d call some of the guys he still knew out there and get a nice weekend package. Limo, champagne, flowers in the suite, the whole deal. It would probably be the only fantasy she’d ever have whose realization would exceed her expectations.

The intensity of his sudden desire to make this happen surprised him, until he realized
this was another message from Juanita
! He’d been feeling her presence all night, especially remembering that one great weekend in Vegas. Maybe she wanted him to go back. Maybe she wanted him to go back with Brandi.

“You know what I think?” he said, watching her wiping the corners of her mouth delicately with the white linen napkin and leaving bright red lipstick splotches behind.

“What’s that, baby?” she said, reapplying her lipstick carefully. In front of her sat a plate filled with the bones that were all that remained of her meal. He had never seen anybody strip a chicken bone that clean with a knife and fork.

“I think if you’re going to move there, maybe you ought to take a couple of days and look around first.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I’m going to take you.”

Her mouth was a perfect
O
of surprise, but her eyes were wary. “Don’t tease me like that, baby.”

“Have I been teasing you?”

“You gonna take me to Vegas?”

She said it like he had just promised her a trip to paradise.

“I got some business I need to take care of first, but how does the first of next month sound to you?”

“It sounds
perfect
!” She let out a little squeal of pleasure. “Oh my God! That’s only two weeks from now! Wait till I tell Madonna! She ain’t gonna believe this!”

He chuckled, pleased at her enthusiasm, happy he had trusted that this was what he was supposed to do.

“What kind of clothes do I need to pack, baby? It’ll be hot there, right?” Brandi was so happy she was almost squirming in her chair. Her right breast was about to pop out altogether and the complete inappropriateness of her outfit both embarrassed him and gave him an idea.