Riding the Corporate Ladder (Indigo) (7 page)

She slipped on her robe and made it to the bedroom door, walking a little bow-legged. Boogie looked up at her when she opened it, and he had that same accusatory look he always wore the morning after. Deena wondered if he was pissed because he couldn’t sleep in her room last night, or if he was jealous because she spent time with another man. Knowing Boogie, it was probably the latter.

She found her purse on the floor next to the entertainment center. Her phone wasn’t ringing anymore, but she fished it out to see what call she missed. She left the room and closed the door behind herself so she wouldn’t wake Keshaun. She called Yesenia back when she got to the kitchen.

“Dang, girl. Were you still sleeping?” Yesenia was Hispanic, but she spoke with no discernable accent, a product of the private schools her father insisted upon when she was young.

“No,” Deena said. “Well, yeah.”

“Who’s over there?”

“What do you mean who’s over here?”

“I know you, girl. You’re not sleeping this late unless you were partying last night.”

“We didn’t party.”

“Was it Keshaun?” She said his name with all the Ebonics she could muster.

“Yeah. He’s still here.” Deena went to the refrigerator and grabbed a carton of orange juice. Boogie followed her every move, whining a little. “What?” she asked him. He looked over at his water bowl, and Deena saw that it was empty. “I swear this dog is a genius,” she told Yesenia.

“You know he’s a dog, and you’re still sleeping with him,” her friend pointed out.

“I was talking about Boogie.”

“Yeah, well, if it was up to me, I’d rather have Boogie than that other dog.”

Deena grinned. “Keshaun’s not so bad.” She got Boogie’s bowl and took it to the sink.

“You’ve never told me anything good about him,” Yesenia noticed.

“He’s—”

“Something that doesn’t involve sex.”

“Why you gotta be a hater?” Deena filled Boogie’s bowl and took it to the corner next to his food dish. He immediately began to lap pleasantly.

“I thought you were going out with that guy from the office,” Yesenia said.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Some lawyer you were talking about.”

Deena’s dating schedule was so busy, even her best friend couldn’t keep up with it.

“Are you talking about Arthur?”

“Yeah, him.”

“I didn’t tell you? He wasn’t working with nothing.”

“You slept with him already?”

“I didn’t sleep with him,” Deena said. “We were fooling around at the movies, and I stuck my hand in his pants. Girl, I don’t know why he didn’t stop me. He was sitting there, smiling like a damned fool. But I’m feeling around, and I’m like, Hello? Anybody there? His shit was so little.”

Yesenia laughed. “So that was it with him?”

“Hell, yes. If he had something I wanted, maybe I could have worked with it. But I’m not messing around with Mini Me recreationally.”

“You wrong,” Yesenia said, but she was laughing a little.

“I’m not wrong. I’m a realist. Niggas have been doing that to us since forever. Oh, I don’t like her; she ain’t got no ass, or Naw, her titties too little, or She too fat, or whatever. If they can do it, we can do it, too.”

“So you’d rather be with a thug instead of someone who has something going for himself?”

“I’m not with anyone,” Deena reminded. “Just having fun.”

“Sounds like a blast.”

Deena knew her friend was being sarcastic, but she couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah. I’m having a real good time.”

* * *

Deena took a shower and put on denim capris with a white camisole. She woke Keshaun up after she got dressed and told him it was time to go. It took him a little while to roll out of bed, but once he got to his feet he was pretty much awake.

Deena thought he’d want to bathe, but her man for the moment put on the same funky clothes from last night—without even inquiring about a shower. That disgusted the hell out of Deena, but she didn’t say anything.

Keshaun followed her into the kitchen a few minutes later and asked for a plate so he could roll another blunt. Deena gave it to him and sat across from him with a cup of coffee while he broke down the weed. He was disheveled, but he was still very good-looking, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

“You get high before you go to sleep and as soon as you wake up?” she teased.

“Wake and bake,” he replied.

“Excuse me?”

“Wake and bake,” he said again. “You ain’t never heard that before?”

“No, but it sounds like you’re aware of the fact that you’re baking your brain.”

“Actually, white people came up with that,” he countered. “Weed don’t mess up your brain.”

If he really believed that, Deena knew he was a fool, but she wasn’t his mama.

“What are you doing today?” she asked him.

“I’m going to the studio,” he said quickly. “I feel good about my shit. I know when you give them niggas my demo, they’ll want to hear more. I got some fire tracks I ain’t recorded yet. It’s gonna blow them away.”

Deena knew she could just lie; all she had to do was wait a few weeks and tell him they didn’t like his demo. But she did have some feelings for the boy. “Keshaun, I’m not giving them your demo,” she told him.

He stopped cold and looked up at her. “Say what?”

She leaned forward with her elbows on the table. “Keshaun, I’m a lawyer. What would I look like trying to use my clients like that?”

“Huh?”

She sighed. “It’s unprofessional, Keshaun. I don’t know those people like that. They come to me for legal services. If they want a new talent, they have agencies set up for that.”

“But you said—”

“Listen to what I’m saying now; I’m not doing it.”

Keshaun was clearly upset, but he tried not to show it. He lowered his head and went back to crumbling herb. “What are you doing today?” he asked.

Deena shrugged. “I don’t have any plans. I was thinking about going to the mall with my homegirl.”

“You gonna be gone a long time?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I guess I don’t need to go to the studio if you’re not going to give ‘em my CD,” he said. “Can I stay here till you get back?”

Deena grinned and shook her head. She wondered how he was going to vent his frustrations, and now she knew; Keshaun wanted to argue. “You know you can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” he asked without looking up.

Deena threw her hands up in exasperation. “What’s wrong, Keshaun? Why do you want to go through this again?”

“I’m just asking a question.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Don’t you like being with me?” he asked.

Only in the bedroom.

“You know I do.”

“Then why can’t I stay here so we can kick it later?”

Deena sighed and rubbed her forehead. “The only one who stays here while I’m gone is Boogie.”

“You think—”

“You are not my husband,” she said. “You’re not my man, and you’re not my roommate.”

“Well, what the hell am I then?” He looked up at her. Deena saw the pain in his eyes, but she held fast.

“Nothing if you keep this up.”

A deep sneer creased the right side of his face, but it went away just as quickly. He stood and snatched his keys from the table. Deena stood, too. She caught up with him in the dining room.

“What about your drugs?”

“You can throw that shit away.”

She grabbed his arm and turned him around.

“If you walk out like this, don’t ever come back.”

He jerked loose from her grip but didn’t turn away. “I’m sick of this,” he spat.

“Sick of what?”

“Sick of not meaning shit to you.”

“Keshaun—”

“If you cared about me, you’d give them people my demo. I’m just trying to do right. I’m trying to make it.”

He was close to tears, and Deena couldn’t bear to watch a grown man cry. She stepped to him and wrapped her arms around him, mostly so she couldn’t see his face. Much to her surprise, he held her back.

“Keshaun, even if you were my mama, I wouldn’t give your demo to my client. It has nothing to do with how I feel about you. And by the way, I care about you a whole lot.”

Like the rest of her lies, Keshaun swallowed that right up. “Really?”

She held him tighter. “I don’t want you to be mad at me. I had a good time last night, and I don’t want it to end like this.”

“I’m…I’m sorry.” His body shuddered against hers. “I just…I just wish we could be…”

She reached up and put a finger to his lips. “No one knows what’s going to happen,” she said. “What we have now may not be the same in a few weeks. My wants and needs change all the time, and yours do, too. I didn’t say we would never have the relationship you want. I just think we should enjoy what we have now and let tomorrow happen on its own. Anything’s possible.”

He nodded and held her closer, but Deena knew she had only put his questions off for a few days. He wasn’t too bothersome now, but she was starting to see serious bugaboo tendencies in Keshaun. She knew she’d have to get rid of him within the next month or so.

* * *

Deena called her friend back when Keshaun was gone. Yesenia was just as eager to get out and do something, so they met at the mall around noon. Neither of them had any real needs, but you can always find something you want at the mall—especially when Nordstrom’s is having a shoe sale.

Deena and Yesenia first met over a decade ago when they were both sophomores at Texas Lutheran. They became quick friends after sharing a humanities class together and had been very close ever since, even though their careers took totally different paths: Deena went into corporate law, and Yesenia became a grade school teacher.

The two were also polar opposites physically, but Deena never saw her homegirl as pudgy or plump. Yesenia was just Yesenia. She was smart, focused, a good listener, and a good judge of character.

Deena knew what her friend’s advice would be, but she told her about Keshaun’s latest antics as they tried on a variety of shoes that were close to perfect but not quite worthy of a credit card swipe.

“So did you bring his demo with you?” Yesenia asked with a snicker. “Can I…can I listen to it?” She looked away, unable to stop her chuckles.

“Mmm-hmm,” Deena said. “You keep playing, and I’ll hire him to perform at your next birthday party.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Yes, I would,” Deena said. “I’ll tell him to bring his whole posse. And they all smoke weed and got the munchies, so your cake will be half gone before you blow out the candles. They’ll go through all of your snackums.”

Yesenia laughed. “Is that how it is at your house?”

“I can’t keep a box of Little Debbie’s,” Deena confirmed. “Unless Keshaun’s on that lean. Then he won’t eat at all.”

“That lean?”

“You know, sippin’ on that sizzurp? DJ Screw? Big Moe? Purple Stuff?”

Yesenia shook her head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Drugs,” Deena said with a grin. “Just talking about drugs.”

“I don’t see why you’d let somebody in your house that’s on drugs,” Yesenia said. She wasn’t always preachy, but there was always a sermon tucked in her brain somewhere, just waiting to get out.

“If it was crack or speed, you know I wouldn’t,” Deena said. “But downers are cool—for other people. Unless it’s heroin. That one will mess you up for real.”

“I guess you learned all of this from Keshaun?”

“No, I learned it from my own family,” Deena said. “Don’t forget, I am from what bougie folks call the ghetto.”

“I know,” Yesenia said. “That’s why I like you so much. You’re a real-life success story. I just wish you’d leave those ghetto boys in the ghetto.”

“I will,” Deena promised. “As soon as these bougie niggas start growing bigger dicks!”

The girls went out for burgers and shakes when they left the mall, and Deena made it back home before six. After dinner, she curled up with Boogie and her Blood Money case files for the remainder of the night. It felt good to be home alone in her nightgown and bunny slippers.

Her thoughts wandered back to Keshaun every now and then, but no matter how much Deena enjoyed her time with him, it wasn’t enough to make her consider having a man there on a full-time basis. Boys were like diapers to her; they were all full of shit, good for only one thing, and always disposable.

* * *

On Sunday, Deena woke up with a hard knot of dread in her stomach, even though she looked forward to this occasion all week long, every week. This was the day the Newman family would gather at Mama Bernice’s house for Sunday dinner. Deena loved it there, but she and her older sister, Sheila, got into a big fight thirteen years ago at Christmas dinner. They never got over it, and ever since then just the thought of the place gave Deena conflicting emotions.