I WILL SURVIVE
The gang was at Tommy T’s in Pleasanton. Derrick was performing. I caught the eyes of one of the bouncers staring at me. He was a bouncer, meaning bigger than I like, but he kept smiling and he wasn’t bad on the eyes. He was just too big for my liking.
I was feeling good that night too. My new hair color was the bomb and it couldn’t have come at a better time, now that my twin was swimming in the other pond. I just wished I had got it earlier. Maybe that would have saved me from doing a night in jail with heroin addicts, and playing bid whist with a 22-year-old girl who would never see the light of day because she killed her baby daddy at a party. He had pushed his luck with her and she shot him straight in the head.
She was so sweet though.
I didn’t understand why they had me in the holding tank with a murderer. Lucky for me, Chris dropped the charges and I dropped mine too. That wasn’t the way to go, but I guessed it was alright to say we settled it out of court. She gave Jordyn a check for $1500 to give me. She knew she was in the wrong in the first place. I didn’t wanna get put in another cross like that ever. But I was glad to know that I can still chunk ‘em, even though my knuckles were sore for two days. My lip healed in about a week with some Neosporin and my eye took about two weeks with the help of Preparation H.
By the time I healed, my hair color settled down. It was bright at first but I was loving it now. Jordyn said the cuticles had to shut down.
I was happy she was finally out. She was out to her friends, clients, colleagues, and the family. Her clients didn’t care; they just wanted their hair done. Pop almost had a stroke and Mama wasn’t buying it, but they are both praying hard for her return to heterosexuality. That was those old school folks for ya. I didn’t know what to think. I just loved her and that’s all she required. I was praying also.
Kalena ordered rum and coke. Chelsea ordered a Shirley Temple with extra cherries. Najah and I went for the house wine. Chelsea said she didn’t feel like drinking.
She still seemed a little down. It had been four months since her break-up with Greg. She was suffering from heartbreak. At this moment, we needed to let our hair down and have some fun. The topic of conversation the last two weeks had been my fight at Chevy’s, the case that was dropped and of course, Jordyn’s new sexuality.
It was shocking, but we all adjusted to it. Chelsea said she wasn’t shocked at all. Najah was worrying she wasn’t going to heaven and wouldn’t bear her own children. Kalena was neutral like me. Everyone was gay to Kalena. She thought everybody in Tinseltown was on drugs and having gay sex. She swore Jamie Foxx and P. Diddy were together, and 50 Cent and Tony Yayo too. She was funny and kept up with all the stars. She caught Kevin Brown’s Hollywood Minute everyday on KBLX. She read all the sites on the internet like Mediatakeout, Bossip, and Allhiphop.
Derrick thinks it’s funny that Jordyn is “carpet munching”, as he calls it. Of course, a comedian would find pleasure and jokes about someone else’s life. But he really thought it was a phase. We kept the conversation light.
Every chance Kalena got, she was trying to turn every girlfriend moment into a wedding meeting. She chose our dresses and shoes. We went to the bridal shop to purchase the dresses and had to get them altered, which was another expense. It seemed like highway robbery to me.
We would have done better by hiring a dressmaker and paying for the right fitted dress, instead by buying a dress that ran too big and having to take it the cleaners to get altered. Kalena wanted Najah to pick out our jewelry to wear: earrings, necklace and a bracelet. Kalena was paying for that, and she wanted Chelsea to pick the song we march down to. Chelsea told her she was the “bitter bitch” right now and suggested Jordyn do it, since she’s the musicologist in the group. It made sense to me, ’cause I would pick anything by Stevie and be done with it:
Ribbon in the Sky, As, Overjoyed . . . take your pick Kalena.
Jordyn was set to do our hair and makeup too.
Kalena let us know invitations had gone out. She went back to Elvira’s and picked out her dress. She wanted me to go back to do the fitting. I was glad that she got the ball rolling. Prayer works. The wedding was November 8th, only a little over two months away.
As soon as the show was about to start, Chelsea kicked me under the table. “Three o’clock.” She pointed with her head.
We looked and searched the audience in the dimness. Najah spotted them first, then Kalena and then me.
“No, this nicca ain’t here with Sherry,” Najah said.
I shook my head and looked to see the expression on Chelsea’s face.
“Are we gonna have to leave Chelsea, ’cause you know you’re my girl?”
“No,” Chelsea belted with much attitude. “I will survive,” she sang in her best Gloria Gaynor voice.
“This calls for a round of Patron,” I announced. “’Cause this nicca Greg is cramping our style and he ain’t finna fuck up our night.”
“Whoa with the f bombs,” Najah said.
“Oops, sorry y’all. Blame it on the alcohol.” I said.
“Well, this is what we have in common. We like the same movies, restaurants, singers and church.” Chelsea said.
“Yeah, I saw them at Souls Restaurant a few weeks ago when my mom and I went.” Najah said.
“Todd and I saw them at Yoshi’s in the city when Mint Condition was here. I think that was last week.” Kalena said.
We turned our heads in the direction of the stage hoping he wouldn’t see us, but then we are some divas. What man wouldn’t notice us? My nosey self had to take another look back. I wanted to see the expression on his girlfriend’s face. Was she aware that her man was just with my girl before and they were in love? How could he just do Chelsea like that? Old funky black dog!
Sherry looked innocent and helplessly in love.
That’s probably the same look I had when I was with Drew. Sigh.
When I turned back around, something with Kalena’s face didn’t look right. It was dim in the club but something looked like it was hanging from her lips. Along with her dark blue slip dress and silver strappy heels, she was wearing Mac Lipglass ’cause she had smokey eyes. I understood her wearing the neutral lip, but as I looked harder, I realized this girl’s straw was stuck to her lips.
“That lip glass is thicker than Murray’s.” I said out loud. “Kalena, you can’t feel that?”
“What?”
I referred to the red straw stuck on her lips. We looked at her and fell out laughing at her. I guessed she really couldn’t feel it. She looked for her compact inside of her purse and we were still laughing. Najah removed it from her lips. She and Kalena laughed too. That was just the beginning to what was in store for us that night.
The dim lights went off and the show began. I Can’t Believe It by Lil Wayne and T-Pain came on. A tall light-skin man came out and introduced himself as the host of the show. His name was Big T. I’ve met him a few times at the house so I clapped for him. Our waitress came by and I ordered our shots. We made Chelsea’s a double.
The waitress gave me a folded napkin.
It read:
Drinks on me boo! Jules
I looked towards the door but he wasn’t standing there to see my facial expression when I got the note. I was plenty surprised. I asked her was Jules one of the bouncers, and she said yes.
I asked her for a napkin, and she left to go put our orders in.
The girls wanted to know if their drinks were included or was it just mine.
I laughed. “Now, y’all know it’s a recession. Be easy on the gentleman.”
Chelsea said, “That’s why we asking.”
We all laughed.
As Big T brought out the first comedian, I reached in my taupe patent leather Coach and pulled out a pen. I wanted to write a thank you note.
It read:
Thanks sir! I appreciate the kind gesture. Nee
When the waitress brought our shots to our table, I slipped her the napkin and asked her to deliver it to the bouncer by the name of Jules.
Jules and Journee. That sounded cute to me. I looked around and caught a glimpse of the love birds. They were enjoying themselves.
Chelsea positioned herself so that she had her back to them. When he saw me, she didn’t see him look to see who I was with.
He spotted her and I looked away. I didn’t want to witness his reaction. I wanted to give him a mean look, but I ain’t taking no more for the team. No thanks. We toasted to loving and living and letting life be. We ordered more drinks.
Derrick tore the stage up again. He is fire, and the comedy stage is where he belongs. He is gonna blow up soon. I really hope so. He has been doing comedy for six years and is really sticking to it. He never found happiness in the corporate circle so when he left his collections job, he never looked back. I don’t know how he does it. I could never get on stage in front of a large audience and try to make people laugh, because there’s a 50 percent chance that they won’t laugh at all. He wants the fame bad, and everything that comes with it. He wants it all: Hollywood, the women, the cars, the traveling, and the money. He says he has groupies now. Trust me, being his roommate, I know.
Now, he’s dogging out this heckler. I love when comedians talk back to the audience. That’s when the comedian gets some freestyling in and it’s a great way to see if they really have talent. He asked the guy his name.
“Donald,” said the heckler.
“I can’t understand the other Donald when he talked either.”
“I don’t know what the heckler said next because we weren’t close enough.”
“No, dude I’m talking about your daddy, Donald Duck!” Derrick said.
The crowd laughed loudly.
The rest of the show was great! We had shared many laughs with all the comedians. It was so needed, with the blow up I just had with Drew, I was still mad about the way Jason left without saying anything, the fight with Chris, going to jail for a weekend, and accepting Jordyn’s new lifestyle.
All of these situations had taken their toll on me. Heartbreaks are the worst. I needed more good times. There’s nothing like sharing good times with good friends. I love these girls. No matter what we go through, we are there for each other.
At least I had one good thing going on and that’s Sean. Sean is my stress reliever. He’s a pretty good guy and I wouldn’t mind being with him, but he doesn’t want a relationship. What a bummer. He has his head on straight and when we have sex, I see fireworks. He’s so passionate but it’s all fake as hell.
But he’s such a man’s man. He has an old soul but he has swag. The perfect sin is quick gratification followed by guilt in the morning. Well, if the nicca would marry me I could scratch that sin off my short list.
After the show was over, we congratulated Funnyman Derrick and the other comedians. As we were all standing in our own crowd talking and laughing, I watched the love birds exit. I didn’t want to risk walking out with them and Chelsea going off on them ’cause she had had a few drinks tonight.
She was really hurt because he was talking marriage and they spent a lot of time together. She was pretty close to his parents and his son. I couldn’t believe him. Their relationship seemed so close-knit. I thought she would have been the first of us to get married and she did too.
As we said goodbye, Derrick let me know he probably wouldn’t be coming home tonight. I quickly texted Sean to see if I could get a good fix. I had to take advantage of having the house to myself. We could do it wherever. I wanted to do it in Derrick’s room just so I could have something to smile about, but Sean isn’t freaky enough to do it.
He texted back, “that’s cool. Gimme an hour.”
I got tingly and I was ready to bounce, but I got stopped at the door by Jules.
Oops, I forgot about him already. Damn.