Chardonnay: A Novel (13 page)

“I can give you a ride home if you didn’t want to go.”

I really wasn’t in the mood for another club scene and then again
I wasn’t trying to be caught up again in some mesmerizing man’s touch. I took a
deep breath and turned Jase’s offer down.

“Just make sure you call me, okay?” I said before walking away.

“Yes ma’am,” he said and watched us all strut to the next party.

10

Girl
Fight!

The next
morning I found my face buried in a host of pillows. I looked around and all my
girls were in some of the most awkward sleeping positions as well. Fianna was
hanging off the side of Konstance’s sister, Konsuelo who had left home two
years ago, old bed and Katura and Zasmyth were lying near the bath room.
Unfortunately for me I had to rush from Konstance bed were she lay next to me
and jump over both of them to get to the toilet in time for a major
resurrection of my food and drinks from last night. I heaved out clear liquid
for about two minutes before anything real came up. Tears drowned my eyes and I
couldn’t catch my breath for nothing. The only person that managed to awake in
time to see me hovering over the stool like it was my best friend was Katura.
She looked up from the floor and wiped her eyes.

“Chardonnay, you okay?”

I shook my head no. I fooled myself into thinking my body was done
purging my insides and tried to sit down on the cold floor only to hurry back
to the lone some friend. She got up and walked into Konstance’s huge princess
bath room and sat on the lounge seat that sat across from the toilet.

“You think you caught something?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I must have drunk too much last night.”

“The only thing you drunk was orange juice. Don’t you remember?”

“Uh, yeah now that I think about it.”
I said
reaching up for the sink and pulling myself up. I looked in the mirror and
turned my nose up at the bags under my eyes. I turned on the water and splashed
it’s coldness into my face to elude the warmth smothering my face. Katura
watched me as I tried to cool my face. She went in the linen closet and got a
towel to help me dry it. As she patted my face she looked me in the eyes and
said,

“So how long have you known about Jersey and Mystro?”

My eyes popped opened and she turned one half of her face up at me
with hurt in her eyes.

“Tura,
look ,
I—”

“I know it’s not your fault. But I would think you would
of
tried to help the situation.”

“I didn’t know until my little sister came to me and broke the
news that some boy took her virginity! Jersey didn’t tell me until last month
when we came back.”

“He took her virginity?!”

I spoke too
much,
obviously, there was
some things that Katura didn’t know about their dealings.

“Katura, I didn’t want to get in the middle of it. I already have
too much stuff going on.”

She saw the contempt in my eyes and shrugged her shoulders. I
honestly didn’t have any more nerves left to deal with someone else’s emotions.
Tears formed in her brown eyes and she turned and walked back into Konstance’s
room where everyone now was awoke from our bickering. I sluggishly dragged my
feet along the carpet rubbing my eyes when Fianna jumped in my face spatting, “You
knew. You should
of
did something! You Houston girls
just want the Kent’s to yourself—that’s all that is!”

“Look, I don’t know what Jerry Springer shit you are on—but you
best to leave me out it! I got in Jersey’s ass for it, but I can’t help it if
she has feelings for Stro.”

“All these years I’ve been there for him...and the way he’s loved
me...I knew he was seeing her when I saw her number pop up twice on his cell
the other night.” Katura sobbed.

“You better fix this.” Fianna advised.

“I’m not fixing shit! I told y’all!”

“Then we gone kick Jersey’s little ass.”

Zasmyth and Konstance jumped up.

“Woe homey—you not kicking no ass as far as family go!” Zasmyth
yelled out as she got in between us.

Konstance went for their purses and threw them at them both.

“Get out.” she said plain and simple.

Katura listened but Fianna still wanted to treed shallow waters.
She rushed for me and Zasmyth slipped out her razor under her tongue that
always
stay secluded under there, and went for Fianna’s pretty face. I jumped back as
blood splattered the white floor and Konstance yelled for her maid to get up to
the room quickly with a damped washcloth or even a new swab.

“You bitch!” Fianna growled and it was on. Katura tried to call
the police but I snatched the phone out her hand. I looked her dead in the eyes
and said,

“If you even
look
at my baby sister the wrong way your face
will be sliced up as well—try me.”

When the maid got up to the room she looked on in horror as
Zasmyth and Fianna tore Konstance room up fighting. They both were bull headed
and as far as who was winning, there was no fair and square answer. That’s when
Konstance and I jumped in and pulled them both away. Fianna snatched from
Konstance and spat in her face.

“Get off me! I want Chardonnay’s ass! Yeah bitch you! You can’t
fight like a man so you get ya home girl to do it. Y’all not friends for real
because y’all fake ass hoes!”

The maid cleaned up around the madness and I was sure she was
making note of this to inform Konstance parents when they got back in town,
evidence that she wanted a raise. Fianna went on until Zasmyth grabbed her by
her hair and dragged her down the stairs. Katura was screaming as she followed
behind.

I opened the front door and Konstance pushed Katura out first and
then Zasmyth let Fianna go outside. She slammed up against the wood framed
doors leaving more of her blood. Konstance shrugged her shoulders as she pulled
out her iPhone chewing on her gum and yelled, “Maria-front door!”

11

Naughty
Girl

This was the time of year that we usually planned our annual
summer break party. With no Fianna or no Katura it wouldn’t be quite the same;
yet and so we still went on with the plans. Zasmyth and I drove back to her
house in her mustang to get showered and dressed. While I was painting my toes
I could hear strain in Zasmyth voice as she talked on the phone to one of her “co-workers”.

“Whatever—just don’t do this shit gain—man! This is a big event—yaur
going to be sorry ya missed
it
.” she said and hung up.
She suddenly turned and looked at me with pearly eyes.

“Nay, can you do me a favor?”

Zasmyth’s favor usually consisted of huge favors. I looked her
over and asked,

“What kind of favor is it?”

She sat down and pulled her red hair back out her face with her
red French tipped nails and started with, “Well last night at the industry
party Micah invited us to—”

“
Me
to—”

“Whatever—I met this guy there and he and I were talking. Come to
find out he
heard my name before through the stripping scene from another
friend of his who had seen me work. He’s throwing a party for his boss who is
also his friend...
it’s
tonight.” she said not fully
asking me her intended question.

“And what do you want me to do?”

“Ain’t it obvious?! Rosie called me at the last minute talking
about her babysitter canceled...couldn’t tie the little mother fuckers up and
leave em’?”

My eyes bugged out and I said,

“Um, if you have kids I will be first in line to get full custody.”

“Anyway!
She messes up my theme if she doesn’t show
Nay.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“You can’t possibly be serious! I’m not even cut out for that kind
of work.”

She chuckled,

“Girl your cut out better than me!
I wouldn’t
of
asked if I thought otherwise! And you’ve done a
little for Slim...”

“I don’t think I would want to experience it again...I—I’m too shy
anyway.”

Zasmyth walked around me and whispered in my ear,

“How you going to pay for school? I heard your conversation with
Konnie. Nay, baby girl, you could do this for me one good time and be alright
for a good minute. We’re talking about a lot of money here, these guy are
executives and stock brokers!”

I thought about it and said, “Hell no.”

Zasmyth began to wine and fall out in the floor. I looked at her
with a smile and shook my head no. It wasn’t that I was afraid I didn’t have
the body. I knew that was irrelevant. I was just shy.

 
But looking at Zasmyth and
with her suddenly saying,

“Your clothes won’t be all the way off and it will be FUN! You’ll
get paid and in control of you wealth!”

I was in. “Yes! Girl, thank you! Yaur an aungel!” she said then
called Konstance and told her we would resume planning the annual summer party
tomorrow. Konstance was cool with it.
 
Zasmyth called the other girls that would be flowing with us tonight and
began to get me ready. As she pressed and curled my hair and we sat and watched
Oprah
my cell phone rang. I sighed knowing it was Slim but when I looked
at the number it was from a different area code.

“Hello?” I said.

“May I speak to Chardonnay?”

“Speaking...may I ask who is calling?”

“This is Jase.”

“Jase?”

The voice sounded business like; threw me off.

“Jase from the hotel and launching party for Superior Ethnic
Models the other night.”

I froze.

“Oh
..oh
...hello.
How
you doing?”

“Fine.
I called to see how you were doing.”

“Great. Perfect.
Absolutely magnificent.”

I lied. And I think I pushed it a bit.

“Good. So, I guess what I really called to see was if we coul—”

“Look, Jase...I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about you and I
just got out of a really bad relationship.”

The silence that thickened between our lines could have been cut
with a knife.

“Damn...I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s not for you to be sorry about. Just don’t need any
more...confusion.”

“I understand. But, you gave me your number. You know, usually if
a woman doesn’t want to talk to me she gives me a fake number. Not her real
number so I’ll call and...
hear
her voice...remember
how she stole my good sense with her beauty.” he said so damn sweet and
seductive.

I smiled and sighed. Fuck. I sighed and smiled hard. He heard me
and I
bet
 
could
sense the smile forming on my face. He chuckled and said, “You there?”

“Yes. Just on the rebound, you know?”

“Yeah, I do know. It will all configure itself out for you though.”

I bit down on my bottom lip and closed my eyes. In my hearts of
hearts, I knew if I had met this guy just even three months ago, Myron would
have been an afterthought. Not that I didn’t love Myron as much, but this dude
had me intrigued. It may have been theoretically because he seemed like a man-about-
town. That itself excited me, to say the least, what girl wouldn’t be
interested. However I wasn’t born a gold digger and didn’t plan on investing in
the business. I just knew the ends and outs of how to sniff a well-endowed
wallet out. Jase had every quality of a man who was established and secure. And
after dealing with a man that had everything hand fed to him and knew nothing
of hard work and diligence, the fresh essence was invigorating.

“So you know of ...heartbreak?” This was a steep move on my part
this early in our getting to know each other stage, but I needed to know.

He chuckled and stated with a firm genuineness in his tone,

“I know that the heart can never break, but yeah, I’ve experienced
what you’re speaking of.”

I took a minute to think about what he was saying and then
responded.

“Hmm, very different view on a man’s part.
But why the coolness about it?”

“Because you eventually get over it.
I’m sure
this isn’t your first heartbreak.”

And just when I thought he was making sense he bit his tongue. I
corrected him quickly.

“Actually, it is.”

“Oh—I—I—”

“I know you didn’t know because you don’t know me.
Just like I don’t know you.
That’s why we’re talking,
right...so you can get to know me better.” I said to sooth the panic in his
tone.

“Yes...it is. But I never meant to say it like that, as if it did
not matter.”

“You
wasn’t
? Then what were you going to
say?”
I asked, feeling slightly annoyed.

“I want to know how long you’ve been with this dude.”

“Why is that any of your business?”

Jase sat silent on the phone for all of a minute before he
answered the question. For us to have never spoken to each other before besides
the prior introduction to each other at the club, this was a premature conversation
that I let my emotions carry me into. I had no clue what his excuse was. He
took a gentle breath and said,

“Because I can’t stop thinking about your smile.
I just
wanted to know...that’s all.”

I felt bad for the empathy in his tone for me. In the beginning of
our conversation I believed Jase was trying so hard to connect with me that I
hadn’t realized how much I was actually connecting with him. But yet and so,
his timing was horrible.
 
I adjusted my
seating position in Zasmyth’s chair, as she turned my head to her to curl back
my bang, for what I was preparing to do. I was going to tell him what he wanted
to hear and then...let him go. He seemed like a man that deserved a much better
established woman who was able to take him head on the way he was fondling my
brain. So with that I said,

“I have been with him for some years.”

“And how many times...has he broken your heart?”

I smiled. This dude was slick.

“Jase—you got me, okay?”

“Naw, not just yet.”

“I guess you are right. This isn’t my first heartbreak.”

“It’s not about me being right, Chardonnay. I just have been
around the block a time or two.”

“You old so you’ve probably been around that block a million
times.” I joked.

We laughed and I said,

“I’m playin’!”

“You cool. That’s all to the good. But let me tell you about
myself. I live in New York. I’m fresh out of graduate school, gaining my
doctorate in marketing.”

“Wow, seems like you know what you want.” I said actually inspired
by his accomplishments.

“And...I always get it.” he said softly.

Zasmyth’s ease dropping self could hear him talking through the
phone since she was standing right over me. She peered in my face and raised an
eyebrow. I blushed and let out another soft laugh.

 
“Can we meet at least?
Drinks or something?
For some reason your hard to forget. I
mean I could move on, but something won’t let me.”

“Sure. I guess it won’t hurt.”

“Then let’s make it dinner—my place!”

“Cool. But uh, when?”

“Well tonight I have a meeting with a colleague of mine and it may
run late.
How about Tuesday evening?”

“Sounds good.”

“Alright then.
Talk to you later.”

“Oh, uh, Jase?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re
hard to forget too.” I said with a girlie smile and hung up.

Zasmyth and I both screamed like school girls and the thrill of me
dating a guy that had his stuff together ignited our motivation for tonight
more.

It didn’t take much time for her to persuade me, but now that I
was rolling down the street with her on our way to pick up the other girls,
anxiety kicked in. Then sheer hate and madness took over as I thought about how
my mother didn’t give me a choice but to be thrown out on my ass. And then
there was Myron whose ring I was wearing...and for what? He had actually broken
up with me.
A first.
I vowed that from now on I would
control the man—he wouldn’t control me. My attitude changed. With no one
controlling me and telling me what to do—I felt this would be the first step in
me being free. If Zasmyth could get big exec’s talking about her and make fast
big cash while doing it—I was all in!

We arrived at the Marriot. As we began to walk down the hallway to
the room, I noticed a room full of men to my right. It looked as if they were
watching a basketball game.

“Zas is that the room?” I said

“Yeah but were changing in this room.” She pointed to the room across
from it.

When we entered there was dim lightening, up tempo music playing,
Cristal on ice placed on a round table the sat in the middle of the medium
sized suite, and four 14 karat gold plated vases with twelve dozen blood red
roses in each one. Alongside each of the vases was a black folder with the
imprint of
a
S on them. Zasmyth ran over to the table
like a gullible child and with the brightest smile on her face opened the
folder with her name written in gold cursive. The rest of the folders were
nameless. She read off the little note and then took out the crispiest bundle
of hundred dollars bills I had ever seen in my life. And from what I was
looking at I knew it was more than a grand. Tonya got antsy and blurted out,

“When do we get paid? My baby daddy check didn’t come!”

“You’ll be getting paid after the party. See what’s in my hand?
Dis is four thousand—for me. But in each of des folders is four thousand for
each of you—not including what
you’ll
 
make
during the party.”

“Four thousand!
Thats
a
lot of money.” I said while Tonya and Keisha ran over to their folders
screaming.

“Of course!
Ya didn’t think I do private parties fa chump
change? How’d ya think I can afford Gucci and Vera Wang?” said Zasmyth,
alternating a whole another personality.

Zasmyth’s family had money from the ground up as hard as her
mother worked. I figured her mother was giving it to her. I didn’t understand.
Then I thought about me. I was doing the same thing. Money was the root of all
evil. It had gotten me into the depths of its womb. I opened my folder and
looked at the words myself. At what seemed a sweet gesture by whoever was over
this party, was actually a down right derogatory embellishment to us.
 
It read: