Real Wifeys: Get Money (3 page)

Goldie was running the pole game in the tristate area and the streets knew it.

That’s why our asses got robbed at gunpoint last month during one of our shows. And to really make shit fucked up, besides robbing everybody in the apartment, they pulled a
Let’s Do it Again
move and made us all strip before they hauled ass.

That was one of the craziest nights of my life . . . and the last time I stripped. Missy was still doing private shows for Goldie.

Me? I was off the pole. Once me and Make$ got serious he put pressure on me to quit stripping. I tried like hell to sneak and do it, but no haps. He started accusing me of messing around on him on them nights I told him I left but I really snuck and went right to shake all my tits and ass in men’s faces. I knew I had to dead that shit . . . especially when word hit the street about the robbery.

Besides, I got tired of lying to him about it, and Goldie got tired of me missing shows. It was him or the pole. So I chose my man over my money.

“So you wouldn’t dead that shit for a man willing to take care of you and give you a better life?” I asked, feeling a little defensive because Goldie’s opinion really mattered to me. Even after I stopped working for her we remained friends.

Goldie leaned back in her chair as she laughed a little—kinda sarcastic and shit. “I been there and it got me nowhere but with my ass wet and my face cracked when his wife made him choose,” she said. “Choosing a man would have me still getting fucked
and
fucked over by Rick. That’s nothing.”

The waitress came and refilled our glasses. I took that moment to send Make$ a text:

LOVE U. HAVE A GOOD SHOW. XOXOXO

Goldie rolled her eyes as she watched me. “That nigga got you sprung,” she teased, smiling even though her eyes were filled with pity for me.

I hated when Make$ was touring. I wasn’t crazy. My man was in the middle of groupie central. Straight pussy patrol. But being onstage was how he made his money—shit,
our
money—and I didn’t want to knock his hustle. Still, all the wondering about just what his ass was up to when he was out of my sight had me feeling like I was losing my mind sometimes.

I sat my BlackBerry on the table next to the python Gucci hobo Make$ surprised me with just last week. It was just material shit and I’d take one hundred percent of his heart over all the shit he laced me with.

Not that being the wifey of a hip-hop star didn’t mean enjoying a nice shopping spree or being able to open my walk-in closet and pick out clothes that would make most chicks salivate. But there’s shit in the world more important than the latest red-bottom heels or designer labels. Still, it was a nice surprise. To me it was more about the gesture than the actual gift. It could’ve been a single rose and I would’ve smelled it every day and tried to water it and cut the stem to give it as much life as I could. And even when it died, I would press the rose in my memory book and keep it for the rest of my life.

Like I said, I loved that ninja.

Bzzz . . . Bzzz . . . Bzzz . . .

I looked down at my vibrating BlackBerry. I couldn’t lie. I felt mad disappointed that it wasn’t my man, my heart, my love, Make$, calling.

Not really in the mood to yap it up with my cousin Eve, I let the phone go to voice mail. That chick was all about her three G’s: gambling, gossiping, and going shopping. I was enjoying my wine-and-dine with Goldie, and even if I wasn’t, sitting on the phone talking about how much she won at bingo, cute clothes, or rumors about this one and that one was irrelevant to me.

Not like my heart.

That
was mad important.

“So there’s no one you would risk it all for?” I asked.

Goldie pushed back her chair and crossed her legs in the distressed denims she wore with a pair of navy suede heels that perfectly matched the color of the jean. I didn’t need to see the bottoms to know they were red-lacquered. “Honestly, I was really feelin’ this dude I was in business with, a dude named Has. Fine motherfucka. Dreads. Tall. Dark. Swagger. Nigga was on ten for real.
But
. . . I’m glad I followed my head and not my clit, because a few months later that nigga got caught up in a Fed raid and I’m not the prison-wifey type, you know? Writing letters, putting pussy on lock, sending care packages, and putting my hard-earned money on his books and shit? Nah, I’ll pass.”

She picked up her cell phone and scrolled through it with her thumb before she pushed the BlackBerry across the table at me. I turned it around and looked down at the photo of a dude with long, neat and slender dreads. The picture wasn’t that clear, but there was no denying that this tall man posted up outside a corner store was hella fine. I pushed the BlackBerry back at her.

“It’s blurry ’cause I snuck and took a picture of him when he wasn’t looking and he moved,” she said, looking down at the picture. The look she made, twisting up her mouth and waving her hand to fan herself, made me laugh.

“But . . . I still think about what if,” she admitted, picking up the billfold our waitress sat on the table. “I just know that nigga can do a serious fuckdown. He walk like he gotta keep his thighs open ’cause his dick swinging. You know? One of them dangerous dicks.”

Their waitress smiled as she began to clear our plates.

Goldie winked up at her as she slid a folded fifty-dollar bill into the woman’s lean hand. “That’s your tip. I don’t care what they say—you don’t split your shit,” she said with a “so there” look.

I gathered up my bag, keys, and BlackBerry as the waitress thanked Goldie. She always tipped heavy—probably remembering her days on her feet at Dino’s.

“Did Make$ talk to you about Goldie’s Girls dancing for him?” Goldie asked, sliding on a pair of oversize shades as we left the restaurant.

My steps faltered and I flashed back to my birthday party last month. I’d walked outside to find Goldie and Make$ talking alone. That shit had fucked with my head and had me feeling some kind of way for a sec, like “What’s up with
this
shit?” I couldn’t help it: Goldie was the type of chick you imagined every man wanted.

I questioned Make$ later that night but he got me straight that a redbone, half-breed chick like Goldie wasn’t his type. He liked that deep chocolate he found all over me. And that night I fucked and sucked him extra hard just in case he forgot the quality of pussy he had at home.

“When did that go down?” I asked as we strutted in our stilettos to our cars. A spring breeze pressed our clothes against our bodies and these two white guys—probably Portuguese—took in the free show.

We both deactivated our alarms.
Boo-doop.
Hers a convertible cherry-red Lexus, and I was whipping Make$’s shiny black Jaguar XF while he was out of town.

Goldie tossed her oversize clutch onto the passenger seat before looking at me over her shoulder, her shades still in place and shielding her eyes. “His management heard about the shows and didn’t even realize that me and Make$ met through you,” she said with ease. “He made an offer and the money was too good to turn down. Fuck that.”

I nodded like I understood even though my mind was racing as I opened the door to the Jag. “Good thing I quit working for you, huh?” I said. “I don’t think Make$ want his girl up onstage like that.”

Goldie shrugged. “You good?” she asked, still looking at me.

I knew damn well she wasn’t checking if I was full from my meal of garlic shrimp and yellow rice. Before I could answer her truthfully I had to do a little gut check for myself. Did I want my friends to dance for my man? Dancing onstage wasn’t stripping but I knew damn well Make$’s manager, Chill Will, wasn’t hiring Goldie and the crew because they could dougie they ass off.

I had to remember that Goldie didn’t want Make$. I couldn’t even see them together, plus she could be my eyes and have my back to make sure my man wasn’t on a straight pussy mission when he was away. “I’m real good,” I assured her, feeling my worries drift away.

Goldie nodded before she slid into her Lexus and drove away with a brief toot of her horn.

It wasn’t until I was behind the wheel of the Jag sitting at one of the million lights along the stretch of the Ironbound section that it hit me. Make$ didn’t even bother to ask me if I wanted my friends dancing for him or to answer my text. . . .

A horn blared behind me and I cut my eyes to the rearview mirror to see some big dude in an SUV behind me. I shifted my eyes back ahead to the green traffic light before I pulled off, deciding he wasn’t worth me even flipping his swollen-neck ass the bird.

Besides, wasn’t no need taking my mess and stress out on some nondescript Negro. Wasn’t his fault that there was anything I’d rather do than drive to our two-bedroom apartment in the Twelve50 luxury apartments. Wasn’t his fault that there wasn’t shit waiting for me but another lonely-ass night.

The towering streetlights lining the downtown Newark street flickered on as the sun faded. The sidewalks were filled with people finishing up their shopping and rushing to their cars or waiting at corner bus stops for whatever bus got them closer to home. Newark was a smaller version of New York with just as big a heart.

As I drove the Jag into the parking garage next door to the regal-looking high-rise we called home, I picked up my BlackBerry and called Make$’s phone again, knowing even as I dialed his number that I was wasting my time.

“I’m somewhere making money. No time to talk. Get at me.”

“Terrence, this Luscious,” I began, meaning to use his given name to make sure he knew I was testy as hell as I climbed out of the car with my bag in my hand and popped the trunk. I grabbed the glossy shopping bags from my mini shopping spree at my favorite boutique in Montclair. Soon the five-inch heels of my sandals clicked against the hard concrete as I left the parking structure.

I made my way into the lofty apartment building with the phone pressed to my face with the same urgency I felt to hear from him. “Yo, I haven’t talked to you all day. This shit is damn bananas. You know? I can see not answering when you practicing or performing, but that shit is not all day, Terrence, so why you playing? Why you keep acting fucked up and shady when you touring—”

As I noticed the concierge stare openly in my face from his spot behind a large wooden station in the middle of the grand lobby, I bit back the rest of my words and gave him a polite smile. The Twelve50 was a long way from the apartments in the other wards across the city—in more than just distance. It was a stylish building for young up-and-coming professionals in downtown Newark. Our neighbors were young attorneys, businessmen, and local politicians. I knew I couldn’t put my nigger on in front of these bougie folks. I pressed a glossy thumbnail to the PDA to end the call. Hell with it. I was just parroting the other twenty messages I left since Goldie and I parted ways at the restaurant. I felt like a fiend chasing a fix.

Wishing I was there. Feeling out of control. Thinking all kinds of crazy shit.

Truth be told, sometimes it felt like I was losing my mind worrying about what he was up to. I loved that nigga. We was a team out there. I had his back and there wasn’t a damn thing I wouldn’t—or hadn’t—done for or to him. Nothing.

I just didn’t know if he was holding me down with the same ferocity . . . or loyalty.

“Welcome home, Miss Jordan.”

I pushed my sixteen-inch jet-black weave behind my ear as I nodded my head in greeting at the uniformed concierge and kept moving across the polished floors to the elevator lobby. It was hard to ignore the sophisticated beauty of the décor. Twelve50 wasn’t shit like the Pavilion over on Martin Luther King Boulevard, where I had a shitty studio apartment that was smaller than Goldie’s living room in the low-rise projects where we used to strip on the weekends.

The Twelve50 had a twenty-four-hour doorman and concierge service, a state-of-the-art health club with locker rooms and saunas, a six-lane bowling alley, an indoor basketball court, and an entertainment room complete with flat-screen televisions.

Not bad for Newark. Not bad at all.

Now I wasn’t crazy. I knew the building wasn’t touching the high life of those luxury apartments on New York’s Upper East Side. Far from it. Our rent was twenty-five hundred, not twenty-five thousand. Still . . . I was happy to leave that studio apartment on MLK behind when we moved in two weeks ago.

As soon as I walked into our spacious apartment I immediately felt at home. The interior designer we hired took Make$’s need for dark leather and my love of soft neutrals to create a spot for us that was stylish and comfortable. I kicked off my heels and padded barefoot from the foyer. I stopped just long enough in the gourmet kitchen to set my hobo on the granite countertop and to pour a goblet of premium moscato before moving into the living room. The row of windows offered up views of the cityscape. Being on the thirty-first floor had us looking down at the city that raised us.

Humph, he moved me up like George did Weezie, but as beautiful as our apartment was, the loneliness I felt? There wasn’t a damn thing pretty about that.

I let out this pitiful-ass sigh into my glass, feeling sick and tired of my damn self.

Brrrnnnggg . . . Brrrnnnggg . . . Brrrnnnggg . . .

I took another sip of my wine and looked over my shoulder at the ringing cordless phone. Setting the goblet on the windowsill, I made my way across the hardwood floors to pick it up. It was the doorman.

“Yes.”

“Uhm . . . Ms. Peaches and guests are here,” he said.

I rolled my eyes heavenward. “Okay, thank you,” I said, even as a fire fueled by irritation burned my stomach.

Peaches and them was Make$’s mother and two sisters.
All
of them bitches had issues that kept them hopping on my last damn nerve. Lonely as I was, them hood hos was company I could do without.