Valentine's Day Is Killing Me (5 page)

“It’s
not
a date,” she told him later, after they had showered and he had pulled on an old, baggy sweatshirt of hers to wear with his boxers. The sweatshirt that dwarfed her and came to her knees was just this side of too small for him. “I told you. You’re too young for me.”

“Oh, who cares? Do you really think something like that matters? Do you think this sort of thing happens every day?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “I like being single. I don’t seek out dates.”

“Well, you’re going to now. With me.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest. “You can’t honestly say after tonight you’re never going to see me again.”

“My, my, don’t we think a lot of our dick.”

“I was referring,” he said with great dignity, “to all the excitement earlier, but you’ve got a one-track mind, I must say.”

“Shut up.”

“I should get kidnapped every week,” he commented, sitting down on the couch and pulling her down with him. She had changed into the sexiest night-wear she had, her green flannel gown. It made her look like an extra on
Little House on the Prairie,
but what the hell, Scott didn’t seem to mind.

She snorted. “Sure.”

“No, really. This has been the weirdest, scariest, coolest, sexiest, most amazing night of my life.”

“Yeah, but you’re still young.”

“Oh, quit with that.”

“But you are,” she said, laughing. “You’re a baby, an infant.”

“A law-abiding infant. I can’t believe you’re going to get yourself in trouble in a misguided attempt to keep me out of jail.”

“What can I say? V-Day makes me do weird things. Look at it this way: if I hadn’t gone out with you, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Worth it,” he said, rubbing her shoulders.

“You dumb-ass.”

“Flattery will get you laid again.”

“You—” Her doorbell interrupted what was going to be a spectacular insult, and they both froze and looked at the clock. It was four o’clock in the morning.

“My sister,” she decided, getting up. “She couldn’t bear to wait for the gory details.”

“Mmmm.” He got off the couch as well. “You’ve got a peephole, right?”

“What, you think the killer tracked us down?” she joked. She went to the side door and pulled the shade. “See? No problem. It’s—oh, shit!”

“It’s worse than the killer,” he observed, then thumbed the lock and pulled the door open. “Hi, Detective Hobbes.”

Hobbes opened her mouth.

“Don’t arrest him!” Julie Kay shrieked.

“She’s all right,” Scott said, grabbing her elbow and pulling her out of the way so Hobbes could come in. “Just stress, you know.”

“Nice underwear,” Hobbes commented. “Listen, I tried calling you, but—”

“Julie Kay accidentally dropped her phone in the toilet,” Scott said helpfully. “Five or six times.”

“Anyway—”

“He didn’t do it! He’s innocent! You don’t have to take him, you just have to get ahold of his lawyer! Just call his lawyer!”

Hobbes rubbed her head. “Do you have to scream? It’s been a long fucking night, pardon my French. You going to offer me a seat or just keep me standing here?”

“Sorry, sorry. Here, take the couch.”

“We don’t have to let her in,” Julie Kay said frantically. “Where’s your warrant? Where’s your writ? Where’s your—your—”

“Where’s my Advil,” Hobbes muttered, rummaging around in her bag. “Ah!”

“You want some milk with that? That’s all we’ve got. Well, there’s some orange juice that looks questionable, but—”

“Milk’s fine.”

“Scott, for crying out loud! Why don’t you just go lie down in the back of her car and put the cuffs on yourself?”

“That’s okay,” Hobbes said cheerfully. “I had my date earlier.”

Scott brought her a glass of milk and she gulped it down with three Advils. “Okay,” she said, setting down the empty glass. “Like I was saying. I tried to call you earlier but couldn’t get through, so I thought I’d stop by in person—I’m sorry for the late hour, but I didn’t think you’d want to wait to hear—”

“He’s too tall to be the killer!” Julie Kay blurted.

“Julie Kay, will you let the woman get a complete sentence out?”

“Scott, shut up and let me handle this. Detective, check his shirt! Check the dead guy’s wound! They won’t match. He’s innocent!”

“Yes,” Hobbes said, rubbing her temples. “We know. That’s why I’m here. We got the guy. Once we figured out the stains didn’t match up, we went out with our handy-dandy, police-issue tape measures and figured out how tall the killer was, then questioned him at the restaurant. He confessed. We got him. Stop screaming.”

“You
got
him?” she yelled, completely taken by surprise.

Hobbes rolled her eyes. “Yes, that’s what we do: catch bad guys.”

“Did my lawyer get ahold of you?” Scott asked excitedly.

“No, Mr. Wythe, we figured it out all by our lonesome. It’s not like the movies, you know. An amateur sleuth doesn’t figure everything out and eventually enlighten the cops, who then gratefully see that justice is done and put the bad guy in jail.
We
enlighten
you.”

“There’s no need to be snotty about it,” she muttered.

“There’s all kinds of need,” Hobbes retorted. She stood and slung her bag over her shoulder. “Anyway, since you were never charged, you don’t have to come back for an arraignment or anything. Just wanted you to know you can skip your one o’clock appointment.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, uh, thanks, Detective.”

“Don’t mention it.” Hobbes stepped to the door. “Or, if you do, mention it
quietly.”

“Wait!”

Hobbes groaned.

“Sorry,” Julie Kay continued, softly. “But who did it?”

“Oh. Gerald McDougal the Third. He—”

“—was the manager, right? Oh, I knew it! He was totally trying to cover it up. And he’s completely wrecked your crime scene,” Julie Kay added in a self-righteous tone.

“No. The manager is Gerald McDougal the Second. The killer—”

“Was his son?” Scott asked, an amazed expression on his face.

“Yes—second in line to take over the restaurant.”

“Why’d he kill Charley?”

“Charley was a regular at Tables; they’ve known each other for a year. Tables is a real family operation—the coat-check girl is McDougal the Third’s wife. Apparently Charley was having an affair with her.”

“Oh, ouch,” Scott said respectfully. “That’s harsh.”

“To put it mildly,” Julie Kay added.

“Harsher: she picked tonight, of all nights, to confess. McDougal the Third took it badly.”

“That sucks.”

“And,” Julie Kay added, “that would explain why he—McDougal the Second—was trying to cover everything up. Protecting the family name, or whatever.”

“We arrested his son earlier, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about when you said he’s wrecked the—”

“He had cleaners and vacuums in there. Took down all your crime-scene tape. Like that.”

“Oh.” Hobbes looked unsurprised. “Well, I’ll go back down there and book him for that, then. But I’ve seen it before. The mindset of the cover-up. He couldn’t stop his kid from being arrested, or his daughter-in-law from screwing around, but he could protect the restaurant’s reputation. Try, anyway. It never works. I don’t know why they bother.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Scott commented.

“Love makes you do stupid things.” Hobbes tipped them a two-finger salute. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

She left.

“You didn’t get that hysterical when the I.T. guys were ganging up on you,” Scott commented, hours later after they were snuggled into her bed. “This bed blows, by the way.”

“I live alone and I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t need anything bigger than a twin,” she pointed out.

“Remind me to get you a double bed for Easter.”

“Getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?”

“No. You lurrrrrrrrrrrrv me! My God, I thought you were going to pop Hobbes right in the eye. I was torn between anxiety and sexual arousal.”

“Pig. I just didn’t want to see an innocent man go to jail,” she grumbled.

“Suuuuuure. Total altruism on your part. Sweetie, you’re a jingle writer, not a homicide detective, but you got yourself ass-deep in my problem, and how come? Because you lurrrrrrrrrrv me.”

“Stop saying that,” she said, “or I’ll pull off your testicles. I just thought it would be nice if, just once, V-Day wasn’t the worst day of the year. Although, it sure as shit didn’t start off too well…”

“Ah, but the ending.” He stroked her thigh. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Working.”

“Call in sick. Let’s stay home and make love and buy something to drink besides milk.”

“And miss a single day of my wonderful job? Just to stay home and have sex with you?”

“Well…yeah.” He sounded uncomfortable…almost tentative? Like he wasn’t sure she would want to?

“I’m teasing, dumb-ass. Of course I will. I’d much rather bone you than write get-well jingles.”

“Oh, God,” he sighed, pulling her on top of him. “That’s so romantic.”

“But you have to get older in a hurry. I’m not dating someone in his twenties. It’s just…yech.”

“Now you’re just being annoying for the sake of being annoying.”

“Yeah,” she sighed happily, resting her forehead on his. “I guess you don’t mind, though.”

“I guess not. I overlook all kinds of bad behavior on Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh, shut up.”

At a little café on Twentieth and Chestnut Streets,

Philadelphia, PA

Who needed a man on Valentine’s Day? The species was more trouble than it was worth! Jocelyn Jefferson held up her wide-mouthed teacup and clinked it against three other mugs in the all-female soul-renewal fest. She glanced down at her chamomile tea, smiling as it almost sloshed on the table.

“This year,” she announced to her three best friends, “we’re gonna have a ‘no drama’ Valentine’s!”

“I heard that!” Tina said, raking her fingers through her long braids and tossing her hair over her shoulders. “Look at us. We’re all in graduate school; therefore we’re all obviously trying to do something positive with our lives. All of us are under thirty, and not bad on the eyes,” she added with a mischievous grin. “Don’t have kids, have a future, and shouldn’t have to put up with the ‘Oh, baby, see, what had happened was,’ rhetoric.”

“No lie,” Jacqui chimed in, talking with her hands as her rust-hued dreadlocks bobbed. “I am so sick of it. Every year it’s the same thing. Disappointment, long stories about why he didn’t come through. A bunch of la-la. And, I’m always scratching my head, wondering why it has to be all of this. Why the games?”

Freddie shook her head with disgust, making a profusion of shiny, onyx curls dance as she spoke. “Chile, pullease. I hear it all, working down at the Galley Mall. Brothers fall into the store, run game while buying their woman or wife perfume. Dawgs. Hear what I’m saying, ladies? Dawgs. And they think because I’m ringing a department store register that I don’t have anything else going on in my life, so I was just waiting for them to come along and blow my mind.”

“Right, that’s what I’m talking about. Over at the supermarket, just because I’m in the checkout line ringing customers, they think I must be waiting on them to go to the Wizard to get a brain, okaaaay,” Tina said, laughing. “I’m always like, man, if you don’t get outta this sistah’s face with that tired yang—”

“Oh, girl,” Jacqui said quickly, “just because I’m at the library with a security guard’s uniform on, they try to crack, thinking they have me all figured out, but when I drop on them that I’m currently in an engineering master’s program, and just finished my law degree, they get all funny-acting and back up.”

“That’s because they can’t deal with intelligent women who aren’t needy,” Jocelyn said decisively, her gaze narrowing as it shot around the quaint little vegetarian café and tea salon. “So, what are they going to do with an engineering lawyer who’s blowing up the dean’s list at Drexel University, huh, J? Or, one of the baddest designers I’ve ever known, rocking her thing over at The University of the Arts.” She slapped Tina a high five. “You can’t even take a brother to your fly-ass apartment that looks like something out of a Manhattan showroom. And I know they can’t deal with Freddie—what, a Fox School of Business MBA who could probably run circles around Sir Donald, if she had some money? Once you get out of Temple U, sis, you’re gonna shake up the business scene, for real. Pullease.”

They all laughed.

“That’s the point, chica,” Freddie said. “Today, I can barely pay for my grilled vegetable salad. But tomorrow, when I graduate, I’ma show them what they should have been doing on
The Apprentice
—but I’ll be playing for keeps. Shoot, they thought Omarosa was bad, but they haven’t met me yet.”

Companionable laughter erupted and kept their spirits buoyed. No, this didn’t make any sense for them to all be good-looking, educated, young, but so very single. Jocelyn refused to allow herself to go down that slippery slope of depression. Nope. Not for a dreaded Hallmark holiday that was only a consumer-ruse-turned-nightmare created by the greeting card and floral industry, any ole way. As the conversation built to a male-bashing crescendo, Jocelyn honestly appraised her friends, quietly battling despair.

Jacqui was tall, regal, with a dark walnut complexion and slender, athletic build that commanded attention and respect as much as her no-nonsense personality did. Girlfriend was destined to be a judge, or maybe a top manufacturer’s technical legal counsel, and she deserved a serious brother who could pull his own weight. That sister didn’t have time for games, and shouldn’t have had to be subjected to them.

Then there was Tina. The sister was artistically fly, unique, and her petite five-foot-four frame was that of a lithe dancer, but her effervescence gave her a pixie-like quality. Bottom line was, Tina was fun, culturally deep, and would one day be a force to be reckoned with, no doubt. Jocelyn could see her girlfriend on the cover of
Essence
magazine, or in there as
the designer
to the celebrity circuit, just like she could imagine Fredericka one day on the cover of
Black Enterprise
as one of the nation’s top African-American women in business. Freddie had the Midas touch when it came to entrepreneurial exploits, and from the time she’d known her, Freddie always had a moneymaking hustle going on the side of whatever else she was doing—plus, her girlfriend had the supermodel corporate looks to go with it. The fact that Freddie was still single gave Jocelyn serious pause.

But it wasn’t just the concept of being single, or serial dating, that made Jocelyn and her girls feel so sad. She knew it was the long, dry spell for years that was probably giving them all a nervous tic. Just because they were very clear on their dating parameters, and had each vigilantly held the line, had put them in isolation. It wasn’t fair. Yet they’d each made a vow not to denigrate themselves: No married men reduced the percentage of dates by fifty percent, right off the bat.

Then, by excluding roughneck homeboys who had prison records, nefarious business operations, and baby momma drama, cut that number by a third. Then, by employing the “no gay men” rule, also known as “no brothers on the down low,” the odds got even slimmer that a sister could find a legitimate date. Instinctively she knew that the last parameter had cast them into the veritable dating desert: No polygamous philanderers who had five women at the same time. No potential STD, typhoid carriers. That was it. Game over. So, they sat together at a place where there were no available men to be found, trying to cheer each other up on the day before
the big one
.

“Listen, ladies,” Jacqui said, taking the conversation hostage and holding court, “it’s not about lowering one’s standards. Think about it. They don’t.”

Tina nodded. “And I don’t care what your female coworkers show you, all that glitters isn’t gold.”

Jocelyn sighed. “See, by working in telemarketing, I don’t have to deal with jackasses approaching me in the street all day, but working with all women is a trip.” She let out another weary breath. “It’s like they’re all in there secretly competing and trying to convince themselves that they’re safe, just because some fool gave ’em a tennis bracelet or dropped some roses on their desk like a trophy. Every year it’s the same ole mess. They show off their treasures like they’d won some kinda contest.” Jocelyn wrinkled up her nose and made her voice squeaky. “Oh, girl, look, he brought me flowers.” She put her hand out and brandished an invisible ring and bracelet. “Look what my baby brought me!”

Again, the table erupted into a hailstorm of hard laughter—but bitterness singed the edges of it.

“Oh, I know it must be
deep
on your job, Joce,” Jacqui said, shaking her head. “All those married women and airheads in there? Girl, I don’t know how you, a doctoral candidate working on a dissertation about social and economic injustice, can sit in a telemarketing pit with
them
? It’s absurd. They’ve all allowed their power to be co-opted!”

“It’s good research,” Jocelyn said, forcing herself to laugh. “Everybody’s crazy and is a candidate for a section in my paper. Consumerism and the buttons the system pushes to keep people spending what they don’t have, is part of my dissertation. I’m going to devote a whole section to manufactured holidays.”

“Yeah, but girl, how do you keep your sanity in there with the people on your job? I know they floss their Valentine’s Day trinkets in your face to make themselves feel whole. Shoot, as pretty as you are, lady. The Bally gym body, honey-brown skin, hair might be in a bun to go to work, but it ain’t acrylic when it drops to your shoulders—and smart? If you ever take off the horn-rimmed glasses and go to contacts, they’ll be in trouble. So, I know they give you the blues,” Jacqui argued, laughing. “Those women can’t even begin to deal with you, much less any man—you need a heavy brother, and those are in short supply. Oh, where oh where has the black intelligentsia gone?”

Tina swooned at the table, showing off her hammered metal earrings, and mimicked the girls on Jocelyn’s job. “Girl, two karats—you know I’ve got him on lock,” she said, teasing the group and pretending to have on huge diamond studs.

“It’s a farce. One day a year to make the female species forget all the horrible things they’ve done to us for the other three hundred and sixty-four days. I say we boycott!” Jacqui shouted, suddenly raising her teacup, almost making the raspberry zinger in it christen the group. “Reparations!”

“That’s right,” Freddie agreed. “What is so romantic about a day that the mob wiped out a rival gang—I believe the St. Valentine’s Day massacre comes to mind, hmmm? Absurd.”

Again, hearty but weakening chuckles shot around the small huddle of women.

“Jacqui is right,” Jocelyn said. “We need to take proactive action. I say, why sit around this Valentine’s Day, watching a tearjerker chick flick,
alone
, wringing our hands, drinking wine,
alone
, and being morose? Why allow the lusty calls from cheating spouses or the O-T-O, one time only, booty call brothers who just wanna get their swerve on, disrupt our Zen and make us weak? We do not have to be victimized by this cultural insanity. Not for one freakin’ night of the year.”

“No justice, no peace!” Tina yelled, making heads turn in the vegetarian restaurant as her girlfriends screamed with laughter.

“Girl, you crazy, hush,” Freddie said, laughing but glancing around. “You don’t want people thinking they need to call Homeland Security on your behind.”

“I ain’t playing,” Tina said, laughing so hard, tears came to her eyes. “I ain’t had
none
in over a year, and I’m ready to jihad. It ain’t right!”

Jacqui clasped a hand over Tina’s mouth, almost falling out of her chair as she laughed harder. “TMI, girl. Way too much information!”

“It’s the truth,” Tina mumbled from behind Jacqui’s hand.

“Oh, say it ain’t so,” Freddie giggled. “Don’t start with the celibacy Olympic records, y’all, ’cause next thing ya know we’ll be holding up number cards for the no-dick months. Ten! Nine-point-five! That’s an eight-seven!”

Jocelyn laid her head on the table and covered it. “Shut up, girl, before you make me pee myself.”

“Tell the truth. What’s your number?” Freddie said, laughing harder as Jocelyn waved her away.

“I’ma need Depends if y’all don’t cut it out,” Jocelyn wheezed.

“Our American contender looks at the line, readying herself for the competition,” Tina whispered like a sports announcer.

“She’s a pro, been through many events,” Jacqui said, going into character with Tina and leaning into the table, her voice low and serious as the others roared with laughter. Jacqui allowed her voice to gain in momentum as she moved silverware around an imaginary track. “The gun fires, and she’s off, rounding the corner, taking out the girls on the job, has the lead, and her time is
unbelievable
! We might just have an abstinence record, folks! The judges are furiously calculating. We might even have a world record. Since she began graduate school…wait, wait, the numbers are coming in.”

Jocelyn threw her head back, laughing, and did a victory dance in her chair. “Thirty-six-point-four! Yes!” When her girlfriends laughed so hard they nearly fell out of her chairs, Jocelyn donned an invisible ribbon, blotting at tears that weren’t there. “First, I wanna give all honor to God. And, if it weren’t for my mother…thanks, Mom!”

Jacqui spit out her tea in a laughing spray. Tina was coughing, and Freddie was hiccup-laughing so hard that her mascara was beginning to run.

“Girl, if you mess up this year and lose your mind, and take a booty call from some worthless male, we ain’t gonna be mad at you. Dayum…that don’t make no sense!” Jacqui dabbed her mouth with a napkin, and the table exploded with new rounds of mirth.

“No, see, girl, this is the thing. I’m not going out like that. One has to plan,” Jocelyn said, shaping her curly Afro with her palms. “You only get victimized by the system when you don’t understand it. So, this year, I propose that we do something different to end the cry-all-night-be-horny-all-night cycle.”

“You got a plan, girl, then I’m down,” Freddie said, her smile fading to a serious but curious expression.

“For real, I’ve already got a nervous tic every time I go into CVS to buy toiletries, and I see
the red aisle
,” Tina said, laughing hard. “Styrofoam cupids and big paper hearts give me the shakes like a junkie. What’s the plan?”

“I almost broke down last night for some fool, and y’all know I’m studying for the bar!” Jacqui shook her head. “Don’t they have some drug that can just kill libido? I need a ’script, bad. What is wrong with modern medicine?”

“I might turn to cybersex before the night’s out,” Freddie said, wiping her brow. “But I’m trying to ignore my sister Brenda’s advice—she’s outta her danged mind.”

“Stay strong,” Tina said, giggling as she raised a power-to-the-people fist.

“All right,” Jocelyn said, putting her hands flat on the table. “We do a Pollyanna. Get each other gifts, since women are better at picking out stuff than men, any ole way. Why sit up in our apartments waiting on some guy that isn’t going to do that for us?”

“That’s deep,” Jacqui said, nodding her agreement with the others. “Go, Joce.”