The Last Street Novel (3 page)

Shareef walked out of the green room behind her, and as soon as they entered the recording room, with all the cable wires, three large cameras, and several colorful background sets, a makeup artist checked the radiance of his skin and touched him up with dark brown powder to take away his shine.

Shareef then looked over at Heather Cooke, the entertainment host. She was a mixed-race, cream-colored woman with long, dark hair and sharp features. Shareef’s old friends from the neighborhood had told him about her the night before at Friday’s when he told them about his interview that morning.

“That girl Heather Cooke is
bad.
You might want to try and slide her your number after the interview, son. Hooking up with her would be good money,” they told him. And they would all be watching, including his grandparents, who had recently moved to Harlem’s West Side in Morningside Heights near Columbia University.

Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers loved to watch the New York Cable Network news in the morning. NYCN gave them a stronger rundown on the local news and events as opposed to the ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliates, who focused more or national and international news with only a slice of the local. So plenty of urban New Yorkers would see his interview that morning.

The pressures of fame never fazed Shareef Crawford. He was perfectly at ease in the limelight. He craved it, as much as he craved good-looking women like Heather Cooke, who wore a dark gray business suit with a purple blouse.

Yeah, she do look good. She look like a Brazilian or some shit, which means she got black blood in her,
he smiled and assumed to himself.

Right before the commercial break, Heather introduced a tease of their upcoming interview.

“Next up in the world of books and publishing is a new hot summer beach read from Shareef Crawford,
The Full Moon.
We all know what happens to our hormones during a full moon. And we’ll be back to talk to the author about his latest hot novel after the break.”

The key words to Shareef in the introduction tease were “summer beach read.” He hated hearing that shit. It made his books sound like bubble gum, pop culture songs from suburbia. However, it was what it was, and he had made millions of dollars writing it. So he had to suck it up and accept it.

“Okay, we’re ready for you,” the assistant told him again. She led him over to the news set where a sound technician slid a mini microphone under his sports jacket. He didn’t have to say much before Shareef had taken care of the microphone and clipped it into place.

“Looks like you’ve done this a few times before,” the technician assumed.

“Yeah, about twenty-five to fifty times on different shows,” Shareef joked to him.

The news anchor, James Callahan, a tall, middle-aged and graying white man, stuck out a manicured hand from his dark suit to greet the author before Heather could.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he commented.

“Good things?” Shareef asked him, taking his hand.

James hesitated with his grin. “Well, let’s just say I hear you have a way of expressing yourself with the ladies.”

That meant the man knew nothing about Shareef except what he had heard from women going crazy over his books. However, misperceptions were part of the fame game. Some people heard everything but knew nothing for sure. And again, Shareef was forced to let it slide.

“Well, don’t believe everything you hear. But sometimes you can believe it,” he joked within earshot of Heather. He knew she had heard it. It was his preliminary flirtation with her.

Finally, he slid into the guest chair next to her. She looked at him, touched his knee and smiled.

“I started reading your book last night and had to stop myself to get some rest for work this morning,” she told him.

“That means I was on your mind all last night, hunh? You know we have dreams about the last things we do at night,” he told her.

She grinned, shook her head, and faced the cameras. It was the only thing she could do to avoid his advances. Shareef figured as much and backed off. He was there to do an interview and to pitch his new book to thousands of his New York fans, thousands who had heard of him but had never read his work, and thousands more who had never heard of him and never cared. Such was the life of an artist.

“As soon as you see the red lights go off on the cameras, that means we’re on,” she commented without facing him.

Shareef thought about red lights, cameras, and being on with Heather and began to smile. She felt it without looking at him and continued to grin. But now it was time for business, for both of them. Heather wouldn’t allow herself to be distracted by him. She was a professional.

A producer began the countdown, “Five, four, three, two…”

The red lights of the cameras popped on, and Heather Cooke went to work with great face, posture, and diction.

“Well, if you haven’t heard of him yet, you soon will. His new sexy summer novel is called
The Full Moon,
his seventh in the genre of African-American romance, and he’s back home in New York to talk about it, and to sign your personal copies.

“He’s the
New York Times
and
Essence
magazine bestselling author Shareef Crawford.”

She then faced him with the cameras turning in his direction.

“Well, we’re glad to have you this morning on New York Cable Network. Welcome to the show.”

He said, “I thank you for having me. I also want to thank you for giving such a great introduction to my new book.”

She held up her copy of the book for the cameras and smiled.

“Well, I must say, I started to read it and it’s quite engaging.”

“Like a good black man should be,” he told her.

She laughed and stumbled over her words, the color rising on her flawless cheeks.

“Well, it’s, it’s your fifth, excuse me, your
seventh
novel, and they just seem to keep getting better.”

He said, “Yeah, that’s my intention. We all want to keep getting better at what we do in life, don’t we? That’s how I keep my readers coming back for more.”

Heather smiled and couldn’t seem to close her mouth. Was he that frank, or was she misreading his comments? She then looked at the teleprompter for something else to say.

“Well…I guess, you heard it right here from the author himself, ladies.”

U
P IN
the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, above 165th Street, Polo, Shareef’s longtime friend from the old neighborhood, watched the interview on his flat-screen TV and screamed, “
Aaaahhhhh,
that’s my nigga! That boy is crazy, God. He got her fucking up her words. She don’t even know what to say to this nigga.”

Polo was ecstatic and enthused with energy before eight in the morning. He was standing in the middle of his living room in a purple bathrobe and slippers, with only a pair of colorful boxers on underneath. His hairy belly hung out over his boxers, while he absently scratched the side of his balls. Wrapped over his head was a black do-rag.

He hollered, “Yo, Shareef is a pimp, son. Let me call up Trap to see if he watchin’ this shit.”

A skinny, ten-year-old boy ran out into the room to ask what was going on with all of the racket.

“What is it, Daddy? What is it?”

The boy was still in his tight underwear himself, with a white T-shirt and socks on.

Polo grimaced at his son and snapped at him. “Boy, get the hell out of here and finish gettin’ dressed. Ain’t nobody call you out here. How many times I tell you ’bout ear hustlin’ when grown folks in here talkin’? I dun’ told you ’bout that, didn’t I?”

The boy nodded, “Yes.”

“Well, get your li’l ass out of here and finish gettin’ dressed then.”

Before the boy left, he looked around the room and mumbled, “I don’t see nobody out here.”

Polo started in his direction with a stomp. “Nigga, if you’on get your li’l ass out’a here…”

His son took off running back up the apartment hallway toward his room.

“Smart-ass li’l nigga. Just like his motherfuckin’ pop,” Polo grumbled. “He makin’ me miss the interview. Let me call up Trap,” he told himself with his cell phone in hand.

B
ACK DOWN
in Spanish Harlem, below 115th Street, the slim brown man named Trap grinned at the small color television screen at the foot of his bed and laughed. Shareef was still the cocky, go-for-it cat he grew up with on the East Side, not far from where he lived now.

When Trap’s cell phone went off next to a semiautomatic handgun and a large bag of weed on the nightstand, he picked up the phone and read Polo’s number before he answered it.

“Hello.”

“Yo, B, are you watching this interview?”

“Yeah, I’m watchin’ it.”

Polo yelled, “Yo, is this nigga Shareef a pimp or what, son? Just let me know.”

Trap held the phone away from his ear a few inches and shook his head.

He said, “It’s a little too early for this screaming and yelling shit in my ear in the morning, man. I still got a hangover from last night.”

“Aw, stop girlin’ and get the fuck up. You ain’t even drink that much last night. You see Shareef up bright and early. Now don’t tell me that nigga can outdrink you and still get up and do a interview in the morning.”

Trap continued to shake his head. Polo needed some Ritalin for attention deficit disorder. The man was far too hyper, and he had been that way his entire life.

I
NSIDE THE LARGE FAMILY ROOM
of the Morningside Heights home that Shareef had bought for his proud grandparents, Charles and Wilma Pickett watched their grandson from their twin rocking chairs that sat in front of their forty-six-inch, floor model TV, another gift from Shareef. They were both fully dressed, gray-haired, walnut brown, wearing reading glasses, and ready for their early-morning walk after the news. They had been married for forty-seven years and he had just recently retired from work at the post office. They had been together for two years before marriage when Wilma got pregnant with Shareef’s mother, Patrice, and asked Charles if he would marry her. Watching their only grandson, who had become a celebrity author, on the New York Cable Network news was an extra treat for them.

“He sure is a fresh somethin’,” Wilma commented with a giggle.

All Charles did was grin. He was fresh, too, once. That was what a vibrant man was supposed to be. After holding his tongue for a minute, he decided to speak up about it.

“If somebody else wasn’t fresh, that boy wouldn’t have been here. None of us would have been here,” he added. “So just let that boy do what he do now.”

Wilma eyed her husband through her glasses and grunted, “Mmm, hmm. Sounds like somebody still thinking about his middle age. Well, just don’t let me find out you bought no Miagra. ’Cause them wild and crazy days are over for me.”

“The word is
Vi
-agra,” he corrected her.

“
Mi
-agra,
Vi
-agra, whatever. You know what I’m talking about.”

Charles shook his head and grumbled, “You ain’t never been wild and crazy. Maybe in your own mind, but definitely not to me.”

She continued to stare her husband down.

“Now what you mean by that, Charles? Speak your mind.”

He said, “I already spoke my mind. Now cut it out, I’m trying to hear the rest of this boy’s interview. You know they ain’t gon’ have him on there much longer.”

“Mmm, hmm,” she grunted again. “Well, we gon’ finish our conversation as soon as his interview is over with.”

Charles decided to ignore his wife and listen to his grandson from the TV. He could fight with her anytime. And he did, every day of the week. But their fights had somehow kept his blood pumping, and his views had done the same for her.

B
ACK ON AIR
at the NYCN station, Heather Cooke had regained her composure.

“So, you were the first recipient of the Black Hearts Book Award.”

“Yeah, I won the first three Black Hearts awards for contemporary male romance before I asked the voters to honor someone else. I wanted to give other brothers a chance to show and prove with their writing.”

Heather nodded to him. “Well, that’s pretty nice of you.”

Shareef grinned at her. “Yeah, I try to be nice sometimes, you know. People like you when you’re nice, nice and bad,” he flirted with her again, and chuckled.

Heather smiled it off and got back to business.

“Okay, so you have a lunchtime signing at the Virgin Records store in Times Square.”

“That’s right, from twelve noon to two,” he filled in.

“Then you have a reading and Q and A tonight in Harlem at the Hue-Man bookstore at seven.”

Shareef nodded. “Yeah, that one’s gonna be big fun, back to the home turf again in Harlem.”

“Well, it’s been great talking to you this morning, and we all wish you the best of luck on your new book.”