Sinful Page 4

  “Getting?” Marvin said, suggesting that was her most notable personality trait. He craned his head to peer over the tall shelves. “Naw, I don’t see him. Tell you what, though, take Lem with you and dash out. He’s wrapping up something and I’ve talked to him already. I’ll get Reeka’s back while y’all skate. She’s a selling machine when she’s hungry. I’ll slide her some lunch money and make it cool with her. Now, beat it before the old man gets done with one of his…meetings.”

  “Oh, Mercer’s in freak mode? It figures. He’s been cracking a whip until you showed up. I just want to be around when wifey rolls up on him like she did last week. I ain’t gonna tell you who he had bent over the sink in the restroom because I don’t like to gossip, but Lem’s mama left with a crook in her back and something in her sack, no charge, no tax.”

  “Ahh, man, I could’ve lived my whole life without knowing that,” Marvin whispered regretfully. “A single momma don’t stand a chance around him.”

  “Humph, not if she wants something nice for baby boy’s twenty-first birthday, on the house. Yep, Lem’s legal on Friday. I’m taking him out for a few. See if you can get a hall pass from Chandelle.”

  “Man, I don’t need a pass,” Marvin huffed adamantly. “Shoot, I’m running things at my house.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Rodney chuckled. “See you in a minute. Bring you something back?”

  “Naw, I’m straight. Just don’t get lost out there. Reeka’s on the prowl.” Rodney headed left as she stormed in from the right. “Hey, Reeka,” Marvin greeted, with a manufactured grin. “Here’s twenty dollars on your lunch, but first I want to see who can rack up the most sales in a half hour. If you can beat me, I’ll make it forty.” Of course she bit, made an immediate U-turn, and shot off in the other direction. Within the first ten minutes Marvin had arrived, he’d arranged a workable lunch schedule to spell valuable associates he cared about, learned more than he ever wanted to about Lem’s mother, a mere sixteen years older than her son, and he convinced Reeka to shine brighter than she thought probable on an empty stomach. Marvin was talented like that. His uncanny ability to spot a dilemma and resolve it with little effort was invaluable. But for the time being, he was proving that no one could match his prowess on the sales floor, including Reeka on her best day while hyperfunctioning on fumes.

  When the doors closed, Appliance World had amassed a record sales day. Mr. Mercer didn’t give a flip who took a break after seeing the cash register printouts. All he could see was money rolling in, more than ever before, and he had a dedicated team to thank for it.

  At Dooney Does It barber shop, chatter resonated in the five-chair salon. During his last eighteen-month stretch in the state pen for check kiting and credit card fraud, Dooney learned a trade. His skills with shears were legendary by the time he made parole. With a dream and a barber starter kit from Wal-Mart, he began cutting neighborhood heads in his tiny apartment bathroom. When the booming traffic sent the police to his door, they expected to make a drug bust. Although none were found, Dooney was forced to become a legitimate operator and find a place to accommodate his loyal clientele. Blessed with friends in low places, a city councilman persuaded him to throw every cent he had into an abandoned storefront, to access the city’s revitalization program in impoverished neighborhoods. Within two years of barely making ends meet, Dooney was awarded the deed to the building free and clear. He’d been living that dream and laughing about his good fortune each and every day since.

  This Saturday night was no different. The shop was humming with hip-hop music and black men catching up on old news and discussing current events. Children were not allowed to hang around after seven o’clock because there was no telling what topic might have jumped off once the sun set.

  Dooney howled loudly when his seven-thirty appointment strolled in with a dinner box from Maylee’s soul food down the street. “That’s what’s up! Rocky, you came through.” Dooney snatched the box, wrapped in a plastic bag, from the tough-looking customer. He pulled out a roll of money and passed a crisp ten-dollar bill to the man for his trouble, and then held the package up to his nose. “Did they put the extra syrup on my yams?” he asked, hoping they did. “Oh man, I’m on time for this! All y’all got to wait. My man Rocky is next.” To a chorus of complaints from those who’d waited longer than anyone should have, Dooney held his arms outstretched. “What? Did any one of y’all cut for a brotha? That’s what I thought. Then quit your yapping. Rocky, go ’head on and get in the chair. This here is gonna feed me like two fat females. Ain’t nothing like yams and big women. Ooh!”

  “I know you gonna let me sample some that baked chicken,” Tim, the grossly overweight barber standing nearest to him, suggested, rubbing his pot belly that appeared to be more than full as it was.

  “Huh? Did somebody say something?” Dooney smarted. “Brotha, you’s gonna have to get your own.”

  “Come on, Dooney, don’t be like that. I’d run on over to Maylee’s myself but my feet hurt.”

  “Your feet hurt? So!” he shouted dispassionately to a roaring herd of customers who saw not a war of words but of wit whereby to the winner went the spoils. “You think bad feet, bunions, and corns got anything on what I have to deal with. You don’t want to get started. Can’t no man up in here outcomplain me.”

  “Put that hot plate on it, then,” Tim chided. “I got more stuff wrong with me than going to war with them Iraqis.”

  “If y’all’s going at it, I want in too,” asserted yet another busy barber, two chairs down.

  “Uh-uh, this is between me and Tiny Tim,” Dooney objected. “Please believe, you don’t want this.”

  “But I do want that,” Tim replied, staring down Dooney’s meal.

  “All right, then, there’s only one rule, no cussing ’cause I’m tryna quit. You cool with that?”

  “It’s on, then,” Tiny agreed. “Do your thing.”

  Suddenly the shop fell silent with anticipation.

  “Okay, you said your feet hurt. Yeah, but…my dogs are barking and I got a hitch in my back from standing all day.”

  Tim’s stomach shook as he chuckled. “Too easy,” he smirked. “Okay then, my feet hurt…my back is tight, and my momma told me last night that I was adopted.” A quiet band of “oohs” rose into the air.

  “Okay, okay, my feet hurt, my momma told me I was adopted, and I woke up this morning missing a kidney.”

  “I still got you beat, my feet still hurt, my back is so tight I can’t stand up straight, this morning my kidney just fell out, before I came to work I watched Brokeback Mountain thirty-seven times, and I cried because two grown men who love one another can’t just do their thing and be left alone.”

  Once again silence played loudly over Tim’s daring offering.

  Dooney stared at the barber, gritted his teeth, grunted loudly, and then reluctantly handed over the sack of food in defeat. “Here you go, man. I just lost my appetite and now my stomach hurt.”

  The assortment of customers clowned Dooney noisily as Tim raised his short stubby paws in the air triumphantly. “And once again the challenger goes down, down, down,” he cheered.

  Dooney waved his friend off dismissively. “Naw, podner, that’d be you and them two white cowboys going down, down, down.”

  Everyone in the shop was rolling when Marvin entered through the front door.

  Gazing over the boisterous clamor, he inquired, “What’d I miss?”

  Dooney snatched a pack of Newport cigarettes from his black barber smock and headed for the door. “Nothing but Tim coming out of the closet, butt naked in cowboy boots.”

  “You lost to him again, didn’t you?” Marvin surmised.

  “Yeah, how you know that?”

  “Because he’s the one licking syrup off his fingers.” Marvin watched the big man gloat through the large-paned window. “Turn around, it’s all running down those thick wrists of his.”

  “Kinfolk, I can’t even much watch. He got me out here
hungrier than a hostage and working on getting past losing my vittles.”

  “Talk about getting over, Chandelle had me all house shopping today. She didn’t like a doggone thing.” When Dooney blew smoke into the air and then cut his eyes sharply at Marvin, he sneered in disgust. “You don’t even have to ask. She punked me into raising the stakes. We can get a handle on it, though, but it won’t be easy.”

  “Serves you right for marrying my cousin,” Dooney joked. “She’s been pimping egos since we was kids. Now she got you caught up. Didn’t you know she’s a thoroughbred? High minded, high stepping, high maintenance. You’d better yank on the reins or rope her in before it’s too late. That’s why I don’t ease outside the hood. You let a woman see too much, sooner or late she’ll want it all. That’s the cost of doing business, I guess.” After a sidewalk philosophy session, Dooney flicked a lit cigarette into the street. “I hope Tim done finished with them yams by now ’cause I might have to clock him.”

  “Yeah, you have a full house. I’ll come by for a cut early next week. Want me to swing by Maylee’s for you?”

  “You got enough on your own plate with house gazing and whatnot. Tell Chandelle I said what’s up.”

  “I will,” Marvin said, slapping palms as a parting salutation. “Oh yeah, I haven’t seen Dior in a while.”

  “And you won’t neither until she needs something,” Dooney answered knowingly. “You can bank on that.”

  5

  She’s a Crowd

  “What do you mean I need to find some other place to be?” Dior yelled, waving her finger in Kevlin’s face. “After I’ve been cooking for your sorry butt and cleaning this nasty apartment for you, now I’m supposed to gladly accept my walking papers and bounce? Man, you’re crazier than you look.”

  Dior had been on her best behavior since arriving unannounced at Kevlin’s door. After playing house over the weekend, he was merely conducting himself the way he always had before, and in the same manner Chandelle had predicted. That was the worst part of it, Dior reasoned, as she stared at the furious Kevlin. “My cousin told me you’d be stuntin’ like this, but I told her she was wrong about you. Well, you’re not making a fool out of me. I ain’t going nowhere,” she’d concluded firmly.

  Danger, was the expression Kevlin wore when he pushed the mute button on the remote control to silence the football pregame show on the stolen big-screen television, much too large to be in a living room that small. “I let you lay up for free. I even took you to the city pound to get your ride, so that ought to cover the cooking and cleaning, since you’re making a big deal about it. Humph, like you didn’t have to eat too. If I say you’re leaving, that’s it,” he told her, his voice thickening with contempt. “I didn’t ask you to come here; you just showed up and like a friend I took you in, but this ain’t no rest haven for hoochies.”

  “You can’t be squawking at me because I ain’t hooch,” Dior argued, before sucking her teeth. She swung her behind in his face and then snapped her fingers. “You wasn’t calling me that when breaking your neck to get all up in this.” Kevlin tried to look away but the way those tight workout shorts hugged Dior’s thighs held his gaze in check. “Uh-huh, that’s what I thought,” she challenged. “You can’t say no to this, never could.”

  “Watch me!” he snapped, leaping from the sofa. He darted past her toward the bedroom. “Get your purse, you’re leaving,” Kevlin barked. “I’ve got company coming and there’s some things I need to get a handle on before that.”

  Dior smirked at him defiantly when he returned with an armful of her clothes stuffed in the only luggage she owned. “Wait a minute!” she screamed. “You bet’ not throw my stuff out, Kevlin. Why you doing this to me?” Dior hustled behind him as he headed for the front door, dug in her house slippers, and wrestled the bag away from his hands. She recoiled like a frightened child when he raised his fist. Suddenly, he caught himself and lowered it. The beating Dooney put on him was still fresh in his mind. Dior was not worth going through that again, he’d decided.

  Slowly, her eyelids fluttered. Dior squinted nervously, then fully opened them. The look she saw on Kevlin’s face didn’t fit. He was scared, not of Dior directly but what trouble she could bring to his door.

  “Well, well,” she said slyly, realizing a change in his demeanor. “I guess the mad dog done got his shots because he ain’t so bad no more. Yeah, this is what’s up. I like the way you checked yourself like a smart little doggie. You didn’t like what happened when that man from animal control rolled up on you at the car wash. See, I tried to protect you, but Chandelle wasn’t having it. Now, you get the chance to protect me. Feel me?”

  There was a time when he’d have popped her across the face for such insolence, but times had changed. Dior laughed at Kevlin, huffing mad and doing nothing about it. He simply stood there, glaring and wishing she was gone.

  “Naw, not quite,” he answered, wearing a mask of resolve. “See, you will leave or I’ll have you put out.”

  “What? You’re threatening to call the police? That’s a laugh. With all the dope you got stashed around this tacky place? Huh, go on and dial them up.”

  Kevlin rubbed his hands together, playing the card he’d hidden up his sleeve. “That’s where you’re wrong again. All I have to do is pick up the phone and tell that lady where you are. Who knows, animal control might sneak up on you too.”

  Now it was Dior’s turn to shudder. Her prideful eyes dimmed the moment she believed Kevlin might follow through on his threats. Oddly enough, she dealt with it better when he intimidated her with violence. At least that was something she understood. “You’re really making me go?” she asked, with a single tear staining her cheek. “Knowing what I’m up against, I got to get out?”

  Kevlin was hard but nowhere near as sinister as Dior was when she had the upper hand. “It’s like I said, we kicked it. That was well and good, but I’ve got company coming.”

  Assuming he was trying to make room for a gaggle of beer-guzzling homeboys to watch the football game, Dior pleaded with him. “You know I hate to beg, Kev, but please don’t do this to me. I’ll help you entertain the fellas. I can put some hot wings on if they’d rather have that than the roast in the oven, and…and…there’s brew in the frig and…” she rambled, in a feverish attempt to grasp at straws. A faint knock at the door brought her back to reality. “Wow, look at me,” Dior heard herself say. “This ain’t it…not even close. What was I thinking that you’d have my back and stand up for me?” As if nothing happened at all, Dior glanced at the door before walking over to the bar area to retrieve her purse and car keys. “You should keep an eye on the meat before it overcooks. It’ll dry out if you don’t watch it. The cornbread is ready and on the stove. I hope you and the boys have a good time.”

  Kevlin’s face softened, but he was unwilling to change his mind or his ways. “You need to put on a coat,” he said as she reached for the doorknob. “It’s cold out.”

  “Yeah, but it can’t be no colder out there than it is in here. You don’t have to worry about me coming back, I won’t. Bye, Kevlin.” Dior lowered her head and opened the door. The young woman, fair-skinned and pretty who looked to be about 24, standing on the other side smiled politely when their eyes met. Dior turned back to look at Kevlin, finally realizing that he wasn’t expecting a crowd of friends to watch the game and that he’d pushed her out to make room for a replacement, someone who would soon be stuffing her mouth with the roast she’d prepared. Dior hauled off and slapped the taste out of his mouth, exhaled her frustration, and then stared down the woman she hadn’t seen before. “Sooner or later, he’s gonna hurt you too,” she asserted thoughtfully and without malice.

  “Yeah, I know,” the woman replied, sidestepping Dior to get in through the doorway. “Something sure smells good, baby,” she sang to Kevlin before he closed the door and locked it.

  Dior’s stomach growled as she hoisted the bag from the ground. Her arms and legs sprouted goose bumps when t
he winds scraped against her skin. “Shoot, I was wrong. It’s just as cold out here.” She scurried down the sidewalk to her Ford Escort and jiggled the key until the lock tumbled. While waiting for the car heater to manufacture warmth, Dior winced and growled. She dug into the bag, flinging clothes about until running across a pair of sweatpants. Her teeth chattered as she pulled them up past her hips. “It’s cold,” she yelled, “too cold to be out here without a coat.” Before Dior knew it, Kevlin’s visitor was strutting down the path toward her car, waving the jacket that she’d been too proud to go back for and carrying something covered in aluminum foil in her other hand. Dior lowered the window, having no idea what to think then.

  “Hey, girl, you forgot this,” the woman said, handing it to her. “Sorry how things went down back there. Oh, here’s a plate to take with you. Kevlin said you were hungry too. It’s the least…you know.”

  Dior imagined a thousand vile things she could have said after Kevlin had his new plaything deliver a mere portion of her dinner curbside but “Thank you” came rolling out instead. Dior raised the window and shrugged on her leathered sleeves, all the time watching the woman rushing back to Kevlin like she had done all the times before. “So that’s what a fool looks like from behind,” she said, thinking of herself.

  Twenty blocks and a world away, the choir at Fellowship Union belted out a final number from behind the pulpit. Chandelle gazed at Marvin and squeezed his hand. She smiled thank you at him, then leaned against his broad shoulder as if she wasn’t sitting close enough.

  Chandelle’s immediate boss and mentor, Grace Peters, who was sitting with her husband in the next pew, caught a glimpse of their tender moment. She had a lot to be thankful for as well, a wonderful marriage to Wallace, a wardrobe of designer maternity clothes, and a baby growing inside of her. It was Chandelle’s brainchild that had inspired Grace to take stock in her life and envision it with a husband. Dating woes, men’s lies, and alibis plagued her throughout a tumultuous journey. However, she stumbled onto something great and subsequently has been enjoying it.