“Oh, and don’t make any plans for after choir practice tomorrow—you’re all mine,” Donald gushed as he gingerly put his knapsack into his immaculately maintained locker. He grabbed his blazer and picked and swiped at imaginary lint on the shoulders before tucking himself into it and checking his mustache and hair in the mirror he’d hung on the locker door. Lauren’s hot-pink lipstick kiss dotted the mirror’s corner. “I’ve got to hit Phipps Plaza to find the perfect gift for my new boo, and I just can’t do it without you.”
“Um, okay, time-out,” Lauren said, shaking her head and shifting from one foot to the other. Her pink round-toe Louboutins were literally squeezing the blood from the tips of her toes. She’d said a silent Thank you, Jesus when the final bell rang, because it meant she could hobble to her locker for the wholly inappropriate, but comfortable, yellow Chanel ballet flats she’d been dying to change into since about third period. Alas, they just didn’t go with her House of Dereon jeans and purple Proenza Schouler belted sweater, but they’d make do for walking to her car. If Donald would keep it short and let her get to her locker, that is. “You’re taking me too fast,” Lauren insisted. “Who is this new ’boo’?” What happened to the Morehouse boy you were cavorting with at the Jack and Jill luncheon last week?
“Oh, honey, come on, that wasn’t serious—he was just a beautiful distraction. My new booby boo holds the key to my heart,” Donald said, waving his hand dismissively, and then pointing to a picture of his latest conquest. He was Latino, with dark almond-shaped eyes and long, curly red-streaked hair that swept over his eyes. Four round earrings hung from his lower lip—each of them a different color and size. His muscles peeked from beneath the tight gray spandex jeans that hugged his thighs and waist; a black T-shirt that hung just down to the top of his pants read, COME TO THE DARK SIDE. WE HAVE COOKIES.
Lauren raised an eyebrow. “Name?”
“Jose Lexy,” Donald said. “I call him Sexy Lexy.”
“Alrighty, then,” Lauren said slowly, struggling for words. “He’s, um, a goth Mexican?”
“Actually, he’s from El Salvador—not everyone you see with olive skin and dark hair is an illegal from across the border.”
“Wow—let the record show that I never questioned his legal status,” Lauren said, raising a finger and laughing. “So, um, details.”
“Oh, he was too cute—mixing smoothies at that sweet ice-cream shop down in Little Five Points. I was just parched from the shopping and needed a quick liquid fix, and there he was behind the counter, fingering the bananas. Too sexy, my Sexy Lexy. He’s not all that smart, but he has his moments of brilliance. He’ll do. For now.”
Lauren rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Okay, then. So Sexy Lexy is working it enough for a Christmas gift, huh?”
“You betcha!” Donald said, shrugging his shoulders as he giggled. “Let’s just say his cookies are well worth it.”
“Please,” Lauren said, lifting her hand. “No more, no más. My virgin ears are starting to singe.”
“Uh, huh, speaking of virgin, how’s Jermaine?”
“Ugh, I’ll have to fill you in on that drama another time, but it can’t be now because my feet are k-i-l-l-i-n-g me, and I need to change out of these shoes, pronto,” Lauren said. “And about tomorrow: No can do. The decorators are coming to put up the Christmas lights and trim the tree, and for some reason, Altimus and Keisha want to have a kumbaya moment with the neighbors once everything is lit. There’s gonna be eggnog. You in? Say you are, because I’m not going to be able to take Keisha and Altimus prancing from one neighbor to the other. The mere thought of going it alone makes me want to throw up a little bit in my mouth.”
“Ewwa, sucks for you,” Donald said, wrinkling his nose. He slammed his locker shut. “Then let’s go now,” he said, grabbing Lauren’s elbow. “It’s Friday, your sked is clear, and you’re working those H.O.D. jeans. Let’s go be cute at Phipps.”
“But my feet…” Lauren started.
“Oh, we’ll buy some cute new comfortable shoes at the mall—you’ll live,” Donald said, locking his arm into the crook of Lauren’s. “Shall we?”
Phipps Plaza. Shopping. New shoes. Who was Lauren to resist? She did need to pick up some makeup and a new pair of Spanx for the upcoming Benefit next week, and she just couldn’t think of a time in her schedule when she’d be able to make it back over to the mall, so what better time than now? “Let’s go,” she bubbled.
Within minutes, Donald and Lauren were headed down Peachtree Road NE, taking in the bright, crisp Christmas lights dotting the specialty shops and sidewalks crowded with holiday shoppers. It was a time of year that always made Lauren’s stomach twirl; Buckhead literally buzzed with the electricity that came from the throngs of people who descended on the chichi town and its two main malls in search of the perfect present. She could do without the present hunt—she always got hung up on what exactly to get people who pretty much had everything they could possibly want and then some—but she always managed to reward her hard work with a few presents for herself. Okay, a lot of presents. But who was counting?
Donald pulled Lauren’s car up to the valet stand and waited for the skinny white guy dressed in a tragic, standard-issue red Christmas blazer and black earmuffs to open his door. “Oh, aren’t you a dear,” he said, giving a halfhearted smile. “The keys are in the ignition. Merry Christmas,” he added with a quick wave and a body glance that swept from the top of the man’s head to the tip of his black sneakers. Donald pressed a five-dollar bill into the man’s hand. “Take good care of my friend’s baby.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” the man said, rushing around the car to open Lauren’s door. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”
“So,” Donald said, turning his attention back to Lauren after giving the man’s butt a look-see, “tell me about what’s going on with Jermaine.”
“First things first,” Lauren said, standing aside so Donald could open the door leading to the main entrance of Phipps Plaza. “I haven’t had the chance to tell you about Dara and her trifling, preggers behind.”
“Ewwa, what you know no good about Dara?” Donald asked, taking Lauren’s hand and picking up the pace of his stroll. His shopping sense was leading his legs to Hugo Boss; he was thinking a hot pair of sunglasses would be mucho appreciated by Sexy Lexy. “Do tell.”
“Well, let’s just say that her love child with my sister’s ex is a little less than loved,” Lauren dished, leaning into Donald and running her hand across his muscular arm.
“Ooh, are we surprised by this?” Donald asked, gazing at the mannequin in the Giorgio Armani display window. “I mean, anybody could have guessed that baby was the product of a hit-it-and-quit-it hookup gone terribly wrong. But I always thought Dara was one fry short of a Happy Meal. She wouldn’t know she was being played if you slapped her with a Monopoly board.”
“Well, to hear Dara tell it, she thought it was much more than that, the dumb ass,” Lauren smirked. “I mean, come on. After all the conversations we had about Marcus and how fake and over-the-top he is with that up-with-the-people posing and stuff, she still fell for his foolishness. Now she’s praying to the porcelain god and he’s ho-hopping with Caroline and company.”
“Ugh,” Donald said, doing a massive mock shiver. “At least Syd is recovering nicely. That hottie Jason Danden could get it, fo’ sho’.”
“Um, yeah, something tells me that Mr. Footballer shot caller ain’t switch-hitting for the other team—sorry, baby,” Lauren laughed, leaning into her friend as they strolled past a line full of rowdy little kids waiting to take a picture with Santa Claus.
“Humph, you’d be surprised about them little boys on the football team,” Donald giggled. “Let’s just say some of them are quite comfortable in those tight little pants for a reason—hut one, hut two! Omigod, we have to sit on Santa’s lap—come on, let’s get in line,” Donald insisted, pulling Lauren toward the end of the massive procession.
Lauren stopped short and would not budge. “I absolutely cannot walk another inch in these shoes,” Lauren said. “They are squeezing the life out of me. Seriously, I think they’re going to have to amputate my pinky toe. And my feet are much too cute for corns and bunions. We gotta get to Saks, pronto.” Lauren took another step, and pain shot like a razor through the tops of her toes. “On second thought, Juicy is closer, isn’t it? Let’s go there. They have those cute, bedazzled ankle rain boots. They’ll look a little crazy but like I mean it. Anything to get my feet out of these shoes and into something comfortable, without looking like a fashion tragedy.”
“Not even on your worst day, but you know I’ll never turn down a romp at Juicy,” Donald said. “Shall I lead the way?”
With Donald doing everything short of carrying Lauren to help her walk, the couple weaved through countless shoppers slogging through the mall with arms full of Tiffany, Nordstrom, and Saks bags, husbands and boyfriends who clearly weren’t into it, and crying, snotty babies ready to get out of Dodge. Despite the onslaught of attitude, though, there was an air of glee everywhere—couldn’t be helped with the twinkling trees and gaudy gold-and-white decorations hanging from literally every corner of the building. Christmastime indeed.
Lauren was giggling about Donald’s predictions of what Dara and Marcus’s baby would look like when they walked through the double doors of the Juicy store; the hee-hee haw-haw came to a dead stop when Lauren looked up and saw Brandi walking out of the dressing room toward some roughneck posted up on the couch like he was at home watching a football game with the remote in one hand and a beer in the other. Or a dough boy out on the bench waiting for the next customer.
“What?” Donald asked, tugging on the arm of his friend, who wouldn’t—couldn’t—budge.
Lauren couldn’t find the words.
“Lauren? What the hell?”
“Shh,” she said, staring wildly at Donald. “Look, let’s just go.”
“But what about…”
“Well, well, if it isn’t Altimus’s baby girl,” Brandi called out. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Yeah, um, hey, Brandi,” Lauren said meekly. “What up?”
“Going somewhere?” Brandi asked, strutting toward the door. She touched her boy’s knee on the way over.
“Uh, no, not particularly—just getting a little holiday shopping in,” Lauren stuttered.
“Yeah, me, too,” Brandi said, looking down at her Juicy sweat suit. “I just love early presents, don’t you?”
“Uh, yeah.” Lauren shrugged, sneaking a glance at Donald.
“So, who’s your special friend?” Brandi said, tossing her chin at Donald. “You two looking awfully cozy together.”
“This is my friend Donald,” Lauren said simply.
“Your friend Donald, huh?” Brandi said, giving him the once-over. “Isn’t that special. He buying you some early Christmas presents, too?”
“Who, Donald?” Lauren laughed nervously. “No, no, he’s not here to buy me anything. He’s, um, picking out presents for a friend of his.”
“A friend of his,” Brandi said, her eyes shifting from Lauren to Donald and back to Lauren. “Well, speaking of friends, let me introduce you to mine—I’m so rude sometimes.” She turned back toward the dressing room. “Ki’anna, Dre, Lisa, Fly,” she yelled out, making everyone, including the already jittery saleswoman cowering behind the register, jump. “Come here,” she continued yelling, waving her friends over. “Come meet Altimus’s girl.”
With a quickness, the four of them shot over to where Brandi, Donald, and Lauren were standing, each looking more angry than the next. Though her instincts told her to let go of Donald’s arm, she held on for dear life, feeling a little woozy by the sheer number of people—people who were friends of her man’s ex—who were now crowded around her. Lauren felt very, very small.
Brandi cleared her throat and folded her arms. “Lauren Duke, this is everybody. Everybody, this is Lauren Duke, Jermaine’s, um, lady, though it looks as if she may have moved on.”
“What? No, no,” insisted Lauren. “This is my friend Donald—emphasis on friend. You know, boy? Road dog? Ace?”
“Uh-huh,” Brandi said. “Sure, and, um, has Jermaine been introduced to this ’friend’ of yours?”
Lauren squared her shoulders; she was ready for a hasty exit—ready for this to be over already. “Look, I have some shopping to do, and obviously, so do you and your friends, so why don’t we just all go on back to what we were doing. I didn’t come in here for any trouble; I came for the boots.”
“Oh, trust, sweetie, won’t be no trouble from this end, either,” Brandi said. “If you stop causing it.”
“If I stop causing it?” Lauren asked. “You’re the one who’s got me surrounded in the Juicy store.”
“Girl, ain’t nobody surrounding you. We’re just having a friendly chat. And as a mutual friend of your man—Jermaine, I mean, not Donald—I thought you should know that it’s time you opened your eyes and realized what’s going on. I mean, we’re not surprised that Altimus is all mixed up in Rodney’s beat down and all, but we didn’t know how deep the dirt goes in your family.”
Lauren sucked her teeth and sighed. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
“I’m sure, sweetie,” Brandi said. “Go on ahead and keep that pretty little head in the sand. But the hood knows what’s up with the Dukes and the extended family…”
“Look,” Donald interjected. “Really, we’re just going to get the boots…”
“Yo, who asked you, playboy?” Fly boomed, stepping toward Donald. “You not about to stand here and disrespect my girl.”
Donald shrieked and put his hands up to his face like he was blocking a punch; Lauren reared back. Brandi and her friends let out a series of huffs and giggles and head shakes.
“Oh,” Fly said, a little more tenderly. “I see, I see. Y’all were here to buy the boots. Who are the boots for, homegirl here, or you?”
Donald didn’t dare open his mouth; Lauren squeezed his hand in hopes that it would calm him. Hold on, Donald, she said to herself. It’ll be over soon, hopefully without us being carried out on a stretcher.
“Like I was saying,” Brandi said, turning serious again. “I’m beginning to think Jermaine could teach your family a thing or two about class and how to be legit.”
Lauren’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“What, you didn’t know?” Brandi asked. She leaned in some more. “Yeah, Rodney may have been the wild child, but Jermaine is The One. While y’all are spending Altimus’s dirty money, he’s getting the grades, scoring the points on the court, working with the kids, taking care of his mom, and doing the right thing—trying to be somebody special. No, matter of fact, he is special—to all of us.”
“And what makes you think he’s not special to me?” Lauren insisted, albeit with a tone much less threatening.
Brandi’s friends groaned; she sucked her teeth. “If he’s so special, why you locking fingers with ole Armani boy, here?” Ki’anna asked.
“He must be some kind of prince of Buckhead or something,” Lisa chimed in.
“But, you know what?” Brandi said. “Jermaine is our prince, and we’re tired of girls like you coming around and slumming it with thugs to get mommy and daddy mad, and then going back to your big houses and your cozy little lives up under the people who forgot where they came from and ain’t interested in doing anything but staying clear of the hood. Jermaine is ours.”
“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” Lauren said. “Jermaine is my friend, too.”
“Did. I. Stutter?” Brandi said, getting in Lauren’s face.
“Excuse me, you’re going to have to take this somewhere else,” said one of the saleswomen, cautiously creeping up on the group. The walkie-talkie in her hand squawked; a deep male voice warned that security was on the way.
Mortified, Lauren raised her hands in mock surrender. “No, no, we were on our way out—it’s okay,” she told the woman.
“Yeah, so are we,” Ki’anna said.
“Not without paying for that,” the saleswoman snapped, pointing at the lime-green sweat suit Brandi was rocking.
“Yeah, we’re gonna take that—and all that other stuff she tried on, too,” Fly said, whipping his finger in the air. He pulled out a wad of cash like he was going to hit the saleswoman off right there at the door.
“You’re going to have to come to the cash register with the clothes so that I can ring them up,” she said.
“Okay, Lauren, let’s head for the car—don’t want to miss that appointment, right?” Donald grinned nervously.
“Yeah, see you around—but not in the West End, correct?” Brandi said through clenched teeth.
Lauren simply turned on her heel and grabbed Donald’s hand.
“Oh, and tell your Uncle Larry the crew said what up,” Fly said.
Uncle Larry? Lauren asked herself. What the…
Before Lauren could begin to consider how Fly knew her uncle, Donald snatched her arm and practically dragged her out of the store. “Come on, dammit,” he said, looking over his shoulder wildly. “Are you waiting for them to tear us from limb to limb?”
“Donald, I’m gonna need you to calm down,” Lauren said, doing her best to walk fast, despite her sore toes.
“We could go to the valet and get the car and skedaddle, but I’m afraid they might catch up to us there. I think we should make a break for one of the restaurants.”
“They may be heading to dinner after the big Juicy splurge,” Lauren said, hobbling alongside Donald as best she could.
“Right. My guess is they’ll be grubbing at Johnny Rockets or Chik-fil-A,” Donald deadpanned. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his iPhone. “We should head over to TWIST. I’ll give my uncle a heads-up to let his staff know not to let anyone who looks like they’re from the set of Menace II Society through the front door.”
“And what if they’re still here when we leave?” Lauren asked nervously.
“Good point,” Donald acknowledged. He thought for a moment. “Okay, I’ll have my uncle send a car that’ll meet us out back. We can have some tapas and a cocktail and head out before they figure out we disappeared.”
“Wait,” Lauren said, stopping short. “Not another step.” She braced herself on Donald’s arm while she snatched off her Louboutins. Under any other circumstance, Lauren would never have run barefoot anywhere but the beach. However, desperate times called for desperate measures. The stilettos were dangling from her fingers when she and Donald rushed to a waiting booth in a quiet corner toward the back of the dining room. Almost as quickly as they were seated, their waiter brought over steaming plates of the roasted herb gnocchi, the crispy calamari, the beef-and-olive empanadas, and two miniburgers.
“I’ll have the peach martini,” Donald said nonchalantly, like he’d been ordering liquor for years.
Lauren gave him the side-eye. “I’ll have a Sprite, thanks.”
“Look, sweetie, I just almost got my behind whipped in the middle of Phipps Plaza, like we were walking through Greenbriar Mall. I have never.”
“I know, I’m still shaking,” Lauren said. “Every time I run into that girl, she comes this close to stomping me to a pulp,” she added, holding her thumb and pointer finger together. “I just can’t figure out what about her makes me such a punk. I mean, I stared her down and gave her a piece of my mind once, but…”
“But she’s, like, a foot taller and from the West End—no need to explain,” Donald said.
“Yeah, but I don’t usually back down for anyone. And then I run into Brandi, and all of a sudden I’m ready to scream like a little girl. I can’t call that.”
“The question is, why do you keep running into her?” Donald asked.
“What do you mean? She lives in the West End, near Jermaine. They hang out in the same places…”
“Yeah, but if you didn’t go see Jermaine, you wouldn’t have to deal with the cast of New Jack City. Aren’t you tired of her? I mean, really, is Jermaine worth all of this?”
“He’s a good guy,” Lauren said weakly.
“Yeah, but good enough for you that you can take the beat down from his friends and yours, too?”
Lauren thought about how she ditched him after dance squad practice rather than introduce him to her girls. Remembering the look on his face made her stomach queasy.
“I like him a lot, Donald—the first guy in a long time that I’ve even remotely considered calling my boyfriend,” she said. “Well, the first one who really is my boyfriend. You don’t count.”
Donald laughed and took a bite of his empanada.
“I think he’s worth fighting for,” she added.
“Uh-huh—but is he worth getting your ass kicked for—that’s the question,” Donald said, barely letting his martini hit the table before he took a sip. He swallowed hard and took another sip. “Altimus and Keisha can’t stand him, your father is in jail because of him—well, kinda—and the first and last time any of our friends peeped him, he was running through your lake house like an escaped convict. I’m just trying to figure out what you’re hanging on to, because at this point the only connections y’all got are a couple of kisses, a funeral, and bail money.”
“Wow, you just took a left and went all the way there, huh?”
“Donald is always going to tell the truth, baby,” he smirked, popping a piece of calamari into his mouth.
“Yeah, I guess that’s why I keep you around,” Lauren laughed. “You’d be the perfect boyfriend for me. I need to figure out how to bump off Sexy Lexy.”
“Oh, please, not until after Christmas,” Donald cooed. “I’m looking forward to my thank-you after I get him those shades. I guess I’m going to have to make it back over here to get those, huh?”
“You can go back out there if you want to,” Lauren started.
“Nah, I’m just fine right here with my girl and my snacks and my drinks, thank you,” Donald laughed. “You couldn’t pay me to go back out there—not today, not now.”
“I feel you on that one, fo’ sho’,” she said. “Fo’ sho’.”