The Man in 3B (27 page)

“Excuse me, what’s the damn hurry?” I shot off, but neither of them said anything. They just ran down the block.

A few minutes later, they came riding past us in a shiny Mercedes. They actually circled the block three times before disappearing.

“Isn’t that Avery Mack’s car?” one woman asked.

“Uh-huh.” Bertha nodded. “Her daddy sure does spoil her, letting her ride in his car like that.”

“Didn’t I hear you say the other day that the cops were looking for him?” the woman continued.

“Mm-hmm, sure did. Probably looking for that car too.” I shook my head.

“You know that girl ain’t got no damn sense. What kinda schoolteacher dates a drug dealer anyway,” Bertha said. “Humph.”

“A drug-addicted one,” I concluded. “He’s got her ass so strung out. That boy’s gonna be the end of her one day.”

“She’s too damn pretty to be so stupid,” one woman said.

“Her and her daddy,” I replied.

“You know, I could have sworn I saw her daddy creeping out back last night,” Bertha added. “But Mister told me to get my nosy-ass head from around that damn window and mind my business before someone blows it off.” She chuckled. “I took that as good advice, but now I wish I had seen who it was for sure.”

“You know, I can believe it was him. Now that he’s robbing folks and got a little money, Connie might be letting him in the back door. I bet you that’s the reason why her and Daryl broke up. That Avery always did have a spell on her,” one woman speculated.

“Well, I’d love to stay here and chat it up with you ladies a little longer, but I got a meeting in apartment 3B.” I winked. “So, ta-ta, ladies. I’ll see y’all later.”

I loved rubbing it in their faces that I was about to go live out what for the past few months had been a fantasy for each of us. There was nothing but hate for me out on the stoop, but if those heifers hated me now, then this afternoon, when I strolled outside glowing from head to toe, they would absolutely despise me.

“Have fun,” someone called out sarcastically.

“Yeah, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Bertha added.

“Don’t worry. I will,” I shot back as I opened the door. Just the thought of wrestling naked with Daryl was making me moist. I was about to show him things he’d never seen before.

I walked into the lobby and froze. Connie was standing by the mailboxes, staring at me as if she knew exactly what I was up to.

“Hi,” I said, lifting my hand in a weak greeting.

“Hey.” She nodded curtly and headed for the door.

I was thankful that she wasn’t headed up the stairs but also concerned about whether Bertha and the rest of the haters outside would keep their mouths shut about my little rendezvous with Daryl. So for good measure, I hung out in the lobby for a minute or two, just in case. When Connie didn’t come stomping back into the building, I headed for the elevator.

As I rode up to the third floor, I realized that Connie might not be the only person I ran into on my way to Daryl’s. What if I saw Ben? After all, he lived on the third floor too. This wasn’t the first time I’d snuck into a man’s apartment in this building, but it was definitely turning out to be the most stressful.

What would I say if I ran into Ben? Part of me thought,
Who cares? It’s not like I belong to Ben, and besides, he’s not talking to me anyway. It would serve him right to see me going into another man’s apartment.
But the truth was I did care. All of a sudden, I wasn’t sure I could go through with this rendezvous with Daryl or if I really even wanted to. As much as I talked a good game in front of the girls, that’s all it was—talk. Sure, being with Daryl was a nice fantasy, but if I was being honest with myself, I was more in love with Ben than I was with my own husband. Being with Daryl would be cheating on Ben, and I didn’t know if I could do that.

As it turned out, I did meet Ben on the third floor, but it didn’t go down anything close to the way I’d imagined it. The third-floor hallway was filled with a cloud of thick, black smoke that came billowing into the elevator as soon as the doors opened. I staggered out, confused and frightened. All of a sudden, Ben came out of nowhere, guiding me toward the staircase door and away from danger.

I could feel Nancy’s eyes on my back as I retrieved the mail from my mailbox and walked out of the building. It wasn’t hard to tell she was up to something from her lack of eye contact and uncharacteristically timid behavior. I didn’t pay her much attention, though, because I had other things on my mind—like the fact that my crazy, gun-toting ex-husband had broken into my apartment the night before to confess his undying love and to plead with me to go on the lam with him. Of course, I turned down both offers, only to find out that his main objective was to get back the money he’d given to me. To say he didn’t take it well when I finally admitted that Daryl was holding the money is an understatement.

I was still kind of in shock over the whole incident. I couldn’t believe that he’d actually had the balls to break into my place, then storm into Daryl’s apartment with a gun, threatening to kill him if he didn’t give him my money. It was touch and go there for a minute, but Daryl gave him what he’d been asking for and Avery was gone. I just hoped the whole incident didn’t come back to haunt us one day.

When I brushed past Nancy and stepped outside, I heard one of the hens out there whispering, “Oh, Lord, speak of the devil,” loud enough for me to hear. It was obvious my name had just been on their tongues. It was safe to assume that Nancy had been out there instigating. If this was any other day, I would have given these broads a real piece of my mind, but I didn’t have time for their pettiness. So instead of going off on them, I decided to take the high road. Besides, if I stayed out on the stoop and made small talk, one of those gossiping
fools would eventually spill the beans and I’d know exactly what had been said about me.

“Hello, ladies. How’s everybody doing?” I leaned against the concrete banister halfway down the steps and thumbed through my mail.

“Oh, we’re all just fine,” Bertha answered. “How you doing? I’m sorry to hear about your recent split.”

I waved away her comment. “Thank you, Bertha. Don’t you worry about me. I might be big, but I always land on my feet. Besides, breaking up with Avery might be the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Avery?” Bertha looked even more confused than usual. “I wasn’t talking about Avery. I saw him creeping around the fire escape to your place last night. I know what was going on with that. I was talking about your breakup with Daryl.”

And that’s when the lightbulb went off in my head. They must have noticed I’d been keeping Daryl at a distance the past few days, and Bertha must have seen Avery when he snuck into my apartment last night.

“Daryl.” I let out a laugh. “Oh, you really don’t have to worry about that. We’re fine. As a matter of fact, we’re better than fine.” I looked over my shoulder and lowered my voice. “And as far as Avery’s concerned, he just wanted me to give Krystal his car keys.” No way was I gonna tell them about his demand for my money.

Marie, one of the ladies from the second floor, said, “So you and Daryl are good, huh?”

“Mmm-hmm, I just had him on pussy punishment is all.” I straightened up and smiled. “But I think it’s about time for him to get off punishment.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s on his way to doing just that.” Marie looked at the other women and snickered. They all wore similar smirks on their faces.

I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that, but I could tell when someone was taking a jab. My first instinct was to whip her ass, but after last night’s confrontation with Avery, I didn’t think I could handle any more stress.

I turned my attention to Bertha. “What is she talking about?” I asked.

Bertha raised her hands and lowered her head at the same time. Without making eye contact, she said, “Look, Connie, I’m really not trying to get involved in your personal business, so maybe you should be taking this up with your man.”

“Yeah, maybe you should take it up with him right now!” Marie said excitedly, prompting every woman on the stoop to laugh. Bertha shifted in her seat and cut her eyes at Marie the way a parent looks at a child who’s been misbehaving in public.

“What, Bertha? I was only making a suggestion.” Marie lifted the palms of her hands as she proclaimed her innocence. This ignited another round of laughter, pissing me off even more.

“Will somebody tell me what the hell is going on?” I’d lost my cool. I could no longer sit there and wait for them to spill the beans. I was ready to pull out a sharp object and cut the damn can open!

I shifted my head, surveying each woman on the stoop and looking for the weak link. None of them looked like they were going to crack. These heifers were a tough bunch, and they were damn sure loyal to each other.

We were at a standstill with me feeling like the outcast up against a group of mean girls. They looked like they were determined to torture me. I was ready to play hardball by threatening to tell some of their secrets, but a loud, blaring sound came from inside the building, startling us all. A few seconds later, Nancy burst out the front door with five or six other tenants on her heels.

One of them screamed, “Fire! Fire! The building’s on fire!”

“Somebody call 911,” Nancy sputtered as she ran toward us.

With our little rivalry forgotten, all of us on the stoop remained frozen for a few seconds, watching in shocked confusion as people ran out of the building.

DeLisa, whose apartment was on the first floor, was the first one to finally react. “Oh my God! My kids are in there!” She jumped up from the stoop and ran into the building.

“Where’s it at?” Bertha asked as she was jostled from her seat on the top step by tenants rushing out of the building.

“Somewhere on the third floor,” Nancy said, panting and panic-stricken. We looked up in the direction she was pointing and saw smoke pouring out of a third-floor window.

I shouted in a panic, “Oh my God! That’s Daryl’s apartment!”

I made a move toward the door, but Nancy grabbed my shoulders. “No, Connie, it’s not safe.”

“No, you don’t understand. Daryl’s up there.”

“It’s okay,” Nancy said calmly. “Ben’s up there too. He’s a fireman. He’ll know what to do.” She took my hand, and it comforted me for a second until I realized how much she was trembling too.

I sat on the roof, feeding the super’s pigeons and finishing off what was left of the bottle of Hennessy I’d been nursing ever since I came back to the building. I hadn’t been up there in a while, but for years the roof had been my sanctuary whenever I had an argument with Pop. There was something about being on the roof alone with those birds that helped me put things into perspective. I was there now because I was trying to figure things out, not with Pop, but with Daryl.

Thanks to a night of drinking, I’d finally gathered the courage to talk to him about the day Pop found out I was gay. I wanted to tell him that I knew he wasn’t to blame and to make sure there were no hard feelings between us.

I hated to admit it, but it was partly my own damn fault that Pop found out. I figured that out when I saw my computer smashed to bits. That’s when I knew that Pop had read my blog. I’d never protected my stuff with a password because Pop was so ignorant when it came to computers. He barely knew how to turn the damn thing on. Who would have thought he’d find a way to access my blog? Turns out I forgot to factor in his meddling bitch of a girlfriend, who Pop admitted later was the one who opened it for him. So now I knew who had been doing most of the detective work into my personal life, and I wanted to apologize to Daryl.

Truth is, part of the reason I blew up on Daryl that day had nothing to do with Pop. It was about how he rejected me when I came on to him. I was hurt and humiliated by the rejection, and more importantly, embarrassed, so it just made my anger ten times worse when I
saw him with Pop. Now I just wanted to be around him again, to hear him say that our friendship was still intact even though I’d tried to come on to him.

Unfortunately, when I knocked on his door this morning, things didn’t turn out how I’d planned. Daryl wouldn’t even let me into his apartment. He barely stuck his head out the door to say, “Listen, Benny, I’d love to have a drink and sit down and talk, but can we do this another time? I’m kinda busy right now.”

“Look, man,” I said, “I want to make sure you and me are cool. I’m only asking for five minutes of your time.” I didn’t think that was too much to ask from your best friend.

“We cool, man. Listen, why don’t you hit me up later tonight? I really don’t have five minutes right now.” He looked over his shoulder, but I couldn’t see what was in there because the door was only cracked open a little. Whoever was in there with him, he damn sure didn’t want me to see.

I thought I was cool with being friends, but the thought of him with someone else—plus all the alcohol in my system—set me off. I stuck my foot in the door so he couldn’t close it on me, and I tried to grab the doorknob “Why the fuck are you trying to play me? Just fuckin’ let me in! I gotta talk to you!”

Daryl pushed my hand away. “I’m not trying to play you, Benny. I’m busy.”

“Bullshit. You don’t wanna have a fag in your apartment, isn’t that right?” I’m embarrassed to say it, but I felt like I was about to start crying.

“That’s not true and you know it. Now, let me finish up what I’m doing here, and we’ll talk tonight.”

“Fuck you, you fake-ass Israelite. I’m not gonna kiss your ass anymore.” I had to get out of there before Daryl saw my tears. I flipped him the bird with both fingers and headed for the stairs. At the time it had felt good cursing his ass out, but now I was sitting on the roof, regretting the argument. I only wanted things to go back to the way they were before I let my feelings about Daryl be known.

My plan was to go back down to see him once I’d sobered up. I
threw some more feed to the pigeons, thinking about what I could say to make up for the way I’d acted a little while ago. That’s when I heard the fire alarm go off.