Before I let Tasha and Tamia out, we discussed step one of the plan. Hearing Miata’s voice on Julian’s cell phone had my blood boiling, and I was ready to put the “Take Her Man Plan” into action. After polishing off the last bottle of wine, the three of us agreed that it would be best to begin with a phone call. I was to call Julian, sound extremely light—yet friendly—and invite him to the reception for my Nana Rue’s new play. While Tasha said she didn’t exactly like the idea of me inviting Julian out to an event that included my family (we’d all seen that go completely wrong a few times), I talked her into it, explaining that Julian was a huge black theater buff and he’d always wanted to see my father’s mother, none other than the one and only Ms. Rue Betsch Smith, perform.
During the ’30s and ’40s, my Nana Rue was known throughout the world as a stage actress and classically trained opera singer. Like most African-American performers back then, Nana Rue despised the American theater and critics for how they treated African-American entertainers. Even established performers like Nana Rue, who’d been trained at Fisk University and traveled all over the world as a Fisk Jubilee Singer, simply couldn’t find good roles in the States. While Nana Rue was a child of Harlem, growing up at Sugar Hill’s 409 Edgecomb Avenue alongside the likes of Roy Wilkins and W. E. B. DuBois, she didn’t want to settle for the “Negro actress” roles that were offered to her after she returned home from school in 1935. She said she wanted no parts of the new “en vogue” Harlem that she felt put the people she loved so dearly under a self-sacrificing microscope that allowed in any ear with a dollar for a cheap thrill. The daughter of a Harlem insurance man, Nana Rue was very proud of the Harlem she’d grown up in and she never wanted to share it with the voyeuristic white faces she saw tucked here and there when she returned. She was no racist, but it was hard not to hate the segregated crowds, the black roles written by black writers who were being fully supported by white patrons. She once told me that she thought she’d left the Jubilee Singers behind at Fisk and she wanted to be seen as an entertainer, separate from her color. It was nearly impossible to do that at that time.
So Nana Rue spent most of her career touring Europe, finding much of her success in Paris, where she married a fellow black actor and gave birth to my father before being forced to return home to Harlem in 1948 when my father was just two months old. By that time, the Renaissance that had what Nana Rue called “spectators and speculators” roaming the streets of Harlem had all but left. She and my grandfather, who died a few years ago, settled back into the home she’d always loved and took on new roles by new Negro writers with new Negro attitudes. Bringing to life their depictions of Negro culture, in all its defiance and resilience, was an honor even Nana Rue couldn’t turn down.
Though she stopped touring decades ago, Nana Rue still took on small parts from time to time to “keep her blood young.” Everyone in the business knew her, and most of her shows were completely sold out during the first week. When Julian and I had started dating, he’d begged to meet Nana Rue and said he had to see her perform before, God forbid, she left this earth and her legacy behind. Laughing, I informed him that there was no way that feisty firecracker of a woman was going anywhere anytime soon.
Before Tasha stepped into the elevator, she gave me a few last-minute pointers about step one. “Block your number when you call,” she said. “You want this to be a sneak attack. You don’t want him to be prepared or he’ll close up. Also, you don’t want him to know where you are. He shouldn’t think you’re sitting at home waiting for him to call. Avoid talking about the breakup, only saying that you’re fine and you want to be friends. Say you agree with him about the split and that you’ve just been too busy to call. Then, after he agrees to come to the reception with you, make sure you make it clear that you’re meeting him there. Tell him you’re having dinner beforehand and you may get ‘tied up.’ This will not only make him wonder whom you’re dining with, but also reinforce the friends thing—only couples arrive at places together. And last,” Tasha went on after reapplying her lip gloss, “the final and most important point is that you must hang up the phone first. Are you listening, Troy?” I nodded my head. “You have to rush him off of the phone. This will keep you in control of things. Don’t allow the conversation to get too deep. That’ll lead to an emotional disaster. You don’t want that.” Tasha stepped back and gave me a quick once-over. “You’ll be fine, Ms. Lovesong. Go get your man back.” She blew me a kiss. “Good luck.” She pressed the button for the elevator, and she and Tamia and their pink Puma sweat suits disappeared.
The sun woke me up the next morning. After spending the night stuffing my face with Chinese food and cheap wine, I slept like a baby until the midmorning sun came blazing through my blinds. I ran over the night’s events in my head, recalling Tasha’s news, and climbed out of bed. My situation with Julian seemed so small compared to the journey Tasha was about to begin as a mother. Within the small amount of time I’d spent with the girls at the community center, I’d learned one thing about children: They’re hard work. I couldn’t even imagine having one of my own. It was an insane idea, but as Tamia and I explained to Tasha after she finally came out of the bathroom, we would support her decision.
I rolled over and looked at the time. 10:37 a.m. It was time to make the call. I had to be at the settlement to meet with the girls by noon, and I wanted to call Julian before I left. I picked up the phone and pressed speed dial 1—Julian’s cell. The phone was just about to ring but I hung up. I threw the phone on the bed. I wasn’t ready. I missed Julian, but I wasn’t ready. How was I supposed to talk to him without bringing up Miata? I couldn’t act like she didn’t just answer his phone. What the hell was I going to say?
Okay, courage. You need to have courage, Troy, I reasoned with myself. I picked the phone back up and looked at it. “I have to have courage,” I said aloud. I got out of my bed and turned on the radio. I wanted to play music so Julian would think I was someplace having a good time—yeah, right, at 10 in the morning. An old Jay-Z song was playing. Good enough. As long as it wasn’t Donny Hathaway. He’d think I was really losing my mind then. I blocked my number and dialed his cell. Round two.
“Julian James,” he said, answering on the third ring. He sounded kind of tired. Maybe even sad.
“Hey…um. Hey. It’s Troy.”
“Troy, wow. Hi.” He actually perked up when he heard my voice. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. I’m on my way to teach my class at the center,” I managed.
“Oh, yeah, the ballet class, right?”
He still remembered my schedule! Okay, calm down, Troy. It’s only been a few days.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I wanted to call you, Troy,” Julian whispered into the phone. I could tell by the people talking loudly in the background that he was walking through the hospital. “I wanted to say I was sorry for the other day. About how I acted. There are just some things going on.”
I was thinking: What things? What things? Come clean, fool! Come clean now and we can kill the trick together!
But I said: “Oh, it’s fine, Julian. Really. That’s why I’m calling. I wanted to tell you that it’s okay.” Light as a feather, I reminded myself. “I’m actually glad you did what you did. I agree with you.”
“You agree?”
“Yeah. I mean, I could use some space too, with school and everything. I’m very busy,” I said.
“You’re busy? It’s been, like, three days since the breakup.”
“Yeah, well, I’m very busy.” I couldn’t believe he was making me sound so…available.
“Cool, I guess,” Julian said awkwardly. I had him right where I wanted him. Tasha was right. It was working.
“In fact,” I went on, “I want to be friends.”
“Friends?” He sounded like someone had dropped a ton of bricks on his Benz. “What are you talking about, baby?”
Let me just say here: There should be some kind of rule about men calling you “baby” after a breakup. It’s kind of like playing the wild card in Uno—if you use it enough, you can’t lose. He had no right to call me “baby”…but I confess, I liked it.
“What I’m talking about, Julian, is us moving on as friends.”
“Are you okay, Troy? This isn’t like you,” Julian said. “To be honest, and don’t take this the wrong way, I expected you to be a bit more upset and less…well…breezy about all of this. It’s kind of scary.”
“Ju Ju.” I used his childhood nickname, knowing he hated that. “We’re cool. There’s no reason to panic. In fact, I wanted to invite you to a reception for my Nana Rue’s new play this Saturday. It’s in Harlem at the Harambee Theatre.”
“Oh, I really don’t know if that’s a good idea. So soon.”
A good idea? What in the hell did he mean “a good idea”? But then I reminded myself: Light as a feather. Light as a feather.
“Well, that’s fine. I’ll just speak to you later, then,” I said, wanting to toss the phone in the toilet. It was the “lightest” thing I could think of. Then, just as I was about to say goodbye…
“Wait. I’ll go,” Julian cut in. “You’re right, Troy. We can be friends, and I’ve always wanted to meet Rue. So I guess this is my chance. When and what time?”
“Well, it’s next Saturday at 7 p.m.”
“Cool. I’ll pick you up at your place?” he asked.
“No…” I remembered Tasha’s instructions. I wanted him to come pick me up so badly. Maybe he’d come upstairs for a drink…maybe we’d end up in bed and…Oh shit! Who am I fooling? “No, I need to meet you there,” I said. “I have a dinner thing before and I may be a little late, so it’s best if I catch up with you at the theater.” I struggled not to sound like I was reading a script.
“Well, okay,” Julian said, obviously a bit thrown with my suggestion. “I guess we’re set, then.”
“Yeah, we’re set.” I smiled, thinking of his hazel eyes. For one moment I thought I’d never see them again.
“I’m really happy we’re”—he stopped and there was a short, lingering, utterly painful silence—“doing this thing and I—”
“You know, Julian, I’m late and I have to go.” I cut him off. I had to cut him off. I felt the silence Tasha was talking about. We were about to start talking about “us.”
“Damn, girl. Can a brother get a second?” He chuckled.
“I’m serious, Julian. I need to go. Chat with you later.” I hung up the phone before he could respond and threw it on the bed. I did it. Step one was in full effect. I just had to keep my mouth shut. Now it was time for a little bit of change…but I had to get through the rest of the weekend alone first. As the plan said, I had to go on with my life.
“You called him?” Tamia asked, taking a seat next to me in class on Monday morning. To my surprise Saturday and Sunday had flown by without a kink. I had a lot of studying to do since I’d missed three full days of class, and I was able to keep Julian out of my mind by burying my nose in my books. I took Pookie Po to the doggie gym and got to work.
I ignored Tamia’s question, continuing to go over the case notes I’d spent the weekend compiling. I knew the suspense would kill her.
“Well, did you?” she asked again.
“Tamia, I’m trying to study,” I said, trying to sound as lame as possible. “Class starts in fifteen minutes and I really need to catch up.”
“Heifer, don’t play with me.” Tamia slammed a pen on her desk. “Tell me everything, blow by blow.” She waved the pen in front of me as if it was a fork she was about to dig into a big slice of pie. “I wants the dish…I needs the dish.”
“Okay, okay.” I turned to her. I felt like I was back in high school, sitting in the back of the classroom gossiping about my first date with Adam Ramsey, the captain of the basketball team. “I’ll tell you everything.”
“I’m so happy for you, girl.” Tamia smiled at me after I’d given her the details. “I’m happy this is going how you want it to, so far.”
“I thought you hated the plan, Tamia.”
“Well, I still think it’s ridiculous and all that. I mean, you can’t make anyone love you, but Tasha was right. If you really believe this man loves you, which I do believe is true, then do whatever will make you happy. No one wants to spend the rest of their lives wondering what would’ve happened if they did this, that, or the other. I’m your friend and I’ll be here for you.” Tamia locked her eyes on mine. “And if things don’t work out the way you’d planned and you need a shoulder to cry on, I’ll still be here.”
“Oh, Tamia. That’s so sweet. Thank you.” I reached over the space between our desks and hugged her.
Tamia opened her bag and put her notebook and a recorder on the desk.
“And as crazy as the plan is, it’s exactly why I admire Tasha,” she said.
“How so?”
“I know I can be hard on her, but Tasha’s a fighter. She doesn’t just accept stuff. You know?” Tamia explained, slipping a tape into her recorder. “She’s no one’s doormat. She calls her own shots and makes her own reality…no matter how crazy it is.” We both laughed. “No, I’m serious. I really look up to her for that. For her spirit. I wish I had some of that courage.”
“Wow, Tamia. I bet Tasha would really love to hear all that,” I said. “That would make her happy—to know that you feel that way.”
I looked at the door in the back of the classroom just in time to see Alex, Tamia’s pigment-challenged admirer, walk in.
“Alex is here,” I whispered to Tamia.
“Oh shit,” she said.
Alex, whom I also called “Tamia’s Rainbow Connection,” nearly broke his neck trying to make it to the front of the classroom where we were sitting.
“Rainbow Connection in three seconds,” I said. Tamia slumped down in her seat. I counted, “One, two…”
“Hey, Troy,” Alex said, walking up. He actually looked kind of fine. He had a tan. He must’ve spent the weekend in the Hamptons.
“Hey, Alex,” I replied, hiding my laugh behind a wide smile.
“That was a great case presentation you did last week. I was blown away,” Alex went on. I could tell he was nervous. “Hey, Tamia.” She forged a smile. “I called you yesterday. Did you change your number or something?”
“Um…yes,” Tamia answered. There was a pause. This was the part where Tamia was supposed to take out a piece of paper and give Alex her new number. I counted to ten in my head…nothing. Still silence. Alex stood there looking like a cheap prostitute waiting on a john to pay her. I wondered if he’d checked his e-mail in the past twenty-four hours.
Still silence…Okay, I had to say something. Anything. They were killing me. It was like an Old West standoff.
“Well, I need to study before class,” I said, breaking the silence. Good call.
“Me too,” Tamia said. She pulled some flash cards from her bag.
“Well, I’ll be in the back,” Alex said. “I’m not as brave as you ladies.” He gave Tamia, who was staring at her flash cards like we were about to take a final exam, one last look and walked away like a wounded cowboy. He’d lost the draw.
“Damn, girl. I guess you’ve already done your spring cleaning.” I looked at Tamia. “You had his ass wrapped around your finger.”
“Oh well. He’ll get over it,” Tamia said coldly.
“Tamia, why are you acting like that about Alex? I didn’t know things were that bad between you two. I thought it was just a color thing,” I said. I was really surprised by how blunt Tamia was being. It just wasn’t like her.
“You want the truth?” she asked without looking up from her flash cards.
“Hell, yeah.”
“I’ll tell you, but then you must promise to never tell anyone or bring it up again.” She finally looked up at me. I nodded my head. “I had sex with him.”
“What? When? Where? Why? How was it?” I asked, recalling all the important questions one asks after they’ve found out a friend has slept with someone.
“It was on our first date,” Tamia said, turning red. First-date sex was really not her style. “I mean there was something between us. Like sparks.”
“And?” I interrupted. She wasn’t giving me the good stuff.
“Well, we stopped by the library so he could pick up a book for class. We went down into the old book stacks and started kissing. It was playful at first,” she said, “but then we started touching each other.”
“And?”
“And…I put my hand in his pants. And I touched it.” My mouth fell open and I could tell I was blushing now too. Not Tamia! The good girl fucking around in the old library stacks! Why didn’t I think of that first?
“And?” I was begging like Pookie Po did for her treats.
“It was so big! It was, like, perfect. Just hard and…perfect,” Tamia said. I could see by the look in her eyes that she was reminiscing about how it had felt. Her look was deep and longing, as if he was standing in front of her.
Now, this is a bad place for Tamia to be in. Though she is the “good girl” of the bunch, Tamia loves oral sex. It’s just how she gets off. I, along with most of the other sisters I knew, were brainwashed to believe that enjoying oral sex (and a bunch of other myths about sex) made us “nasty girls,” but Tamia was the first woman I knew who openly said that was a bunch of bull. Our junior year, she left our Black Feminism professor speechless when she said our sexual desire as women wasn’t something we should be ashamed of or allow anyone to prescribe to us. Tamia stood in front of the entire class (men included) and said it was time for sisters to embrace their desires and figure out what they liked most in bed. After that outburst, she was on a one-woman mission to find her sexual passion, one self-fulfilling head job at a time. She didn’t have many partners, but when she did, it was definitely all about what Tamia wanted to do in the bedroom. Her 3T secret code name was “Head Mistress”—pun definitely intended.
“I had to taste it.” Tamia playfully slapped herself on the forehead.
“You went down on him?” I teased. “In the stacks at the library?”
“Yes,” she said coyly. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.
“And?” I asked, trying to figure out where things had gone wrong. The story sounded great so far.
“Well, after he came—”
“In your mouth?” I stopped her. I had to ask. “Yuck.”
“Hell, no,” she answered. “You know I don’t do that. Anyway, after he came, he pulled a condom from his wallet and whispered in my ear, ‘Please let me feel you, please.’ It was so hot.”
“Damn, girl,” I said. “I’m feeling hot my damn self.” I started fanning myself.
“I know, it was like he was begging…. It was so erotic. I looked around and I didn’t see anyone, so I said yes,” Tamia went on. “Girl, he put that thing in me and I don’t know what came over me. I just went crazy. He had me up against the bookshelf, standing up, but I was riding the shit out of him. All he had to do was stand still. I was all over him, Troy.”
The gum I was chewing fell on my desk. Tamia’s sexual exploits always sounded like a damn porno movie. I was about to ask her if I could call Alex myself. I was on the market.
“Then he turned me around and we started doing it doggy style. I nearly pushed the damn bookshelf over, so I had to hold my ankles.”
“Damn,” I said. Was there really this much fun to be had at the library?
“That’s when he said it,” Tamia whispered.
“What. What did he say?”
“He was stroking me—and I mean stroking me good, like better than I’d ever expect from a damn white boy.” I let out a little laugh and covered my mouth. “And then he said, ‘I knew this black pussy would feel good.’”
“What?” I said a little louder than I should have.
“Exactly, Troy.”
“What did he say? Say that shit again.”
“His white ass said, ‘I knew this black pussy would feel good.’”
I turned to look at Alex, my mouth still hanging wide open. I turned and looked back at Tamia.
“What?”
“I know. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Hell, I can’t believe it now,” I said. I really couldn’t.
“I mean, I felt like a damn slave girl. Like Halle Berry in Queen. Like he was out at the old slave quarters or something.”
“Getting some of that black-girl juice.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know, Mia,” I said, running through the situation in my mind. While Alex’s comment was a little out of place, in another place and time…and with someone else…it would’ve been a turn-on for me. “To be honest, I used to call Julian all kinds of black shit in bed.” I laughed. “He called me names too. I loved it.” I grinned slyly. “Nothing wrong with a little Roots bedroom action. I am not afraid to help my man make it to freedom.”
“Now that’s just wrong and nasty,” Tamia said, laughing. “For real, though. I’ll admit that I’ve been called ‘caramel’ and ‘chocolate’ in bed before, but always by brothers. It just felt different coming from a white man.”
“I’m saying, Tamia, I just think maybe you’re being a bit unfair. Alex should be able to appreciate your body, your blackness, just as much as any black man. Hell, he should appreciate it more. Just imagine how that poor white boy felt looking at that big black ass in front of him?” We both laughed. “He must’ve felt like he was at Disney World. It’s a wonder he didn’t climax in the middle of the first stroke.”
“I know, Troy. I guess I just wanted Alex to want me for my mind is all,” Tamia said, still laughing. “Like I didn’t want to feel as if he was just seeing me to experience the whole ‘sex with a black girl’ thing.”
“Tamia, who gets the best grades in this class?” I asked.
“Me,” Tamia replied.
“And who did Alex choose as a study partner last month because she was ‘so brilliant’?”
“Me.”
“And you’re still wondering if he sees your mind? The two of us have known Alex for almost two years that we’ve been in the program together. You two are friends.” I paused. “I’m just saying, make sure you’re not making this about Alex’s color complex, when it’s really about your own insecurities.”
“I know…I know.” Tamia picked up her bag and put her flash cards back inside. “I just can’t seem to put it out of my mind.” When she went to put the bag back down it fell to the side and a little red pill bottle with the words “Stay Up” written across the front fell to the floor.
“‘Stay Up’?” I read, bending over to pick up the bottle. “What’s this?”
“Give me those.” Tamia took the bottle from me and stashed it back in the bag.
“You know that shit is bad for you, Tamia,” I said, looking at her. Our senior year I caught Tamia following four No-Dozes with two scoops of freshly ground coffee (no water) to stay awake to study for a midterm. While it certainly was not odd for any of us to take something to stay up, I noticed that it had become a nightly routine for Tamia and it was really bad for her since her mother had died of a heart condition. Tamia never had symptoms of her own, but her doctor told her it was a possibility and that she should avoid stimulants that affected her heart.
That night Tasha and I cornered Tamia in her dorm room for a 3T Intervention. We didn’t want things to get worse for her. We certainly had problems of our own, as neither of us were quite as focused during the semester as Tamia, but as her girlfriends we decided that we couldn’t sit by and watch her risk her life. We sat up with her for hours, comforting her as she cried and explained that she couldn’t take all the pressure her father was putting on her to be number one in the class (she was number two). She’d promised she would talk to him about it and stop taking the pills right after midterms.
“It’s no biggie,” Tamia said now, putting her bag back down. “I know what you’re thinking, and don’t worry about it.”
“Just promise me you’ll stop taking them, Tamia,” I said. “Do you promise?” I wanted her to say yes and hand me the bottle, but she wasn’t a little girl and we weren’t in college anymore, so I had to tread lightly.
“Troy, please. I have it under control. Maybe you should stop worrying about me and worry about yourself.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that maybe you need to be more focused on school,” she snapped. “You’re just getting by, as usual.”
I sat back in my seat and looked at Tamia. While her words hurt, it was more out of the element of timing than ignorance of her opinion. We’d had the same argument before about my grades. I’d always been a solid B+ student. I excelled just enough to get my professors’ attention in most of my classes. Learning came easily to me and I didn’t have to put much effort into my studies to excel. I studied enough to get enough A’s to keep my G.P.A. above 3.7. I was perfectly okay with that. I liked being social and enjoying life. Tamia was the opposite. While she was no stranger to partying with me and Tasha, she took her studies very seriously. She spent most of her nights locked up in the library learning like it was going out of style. Whenever I pointed out that she needed a break, she usually snarled at me and pointed out my own academic shortcomings. Often I listened to her and promised to spend more nights nestled up to books, but most times I told her I’d be waiting for her by the bar when she would be done. Sometimes I thought she resented me for this. I mean, while I put in a little less effort than her, we did both get degrees from the same school and we were both attending the same top tier law school. She was at the top of the class, but I wasn’t far behind. The good old B+ was still paying off.
“That was uncalled for,” I said, as the professor walked in. “Don’t try to turn this around.”
“Look,” she whispered, “I have it under control. Just let me handle it.”
“Okay, everyone, close those books and put the notes away,” Professor Banks said, standing in the front of the room.
“Are you serious?” I asked, still looking at Tamia.
“Just leave it alone, T—”
“Ladies, can I please have your attention?” I looked up to find Professor Banks looking at me and Tamia.
“Sorry,” Tamia and I said together.
“Great.” Professor Banks turned and walked toward her podium. “Now we can begin, since we’re all focused.” I traded another stressed look with Tamia and put away my notes. I still wanted to talk to Tamia, but Professor Banks wasn’t exactly the kind of professor you wanted to mess with. She was the only black female law professor at NYU. She was known throughout the school as one of the hardest professors to have. Tamia and I had specifically signed up for her class. We thought she’d make a great mentor even if we had to struggle to pass her class.
On the first day, she’d said, “Five of you will drop my class by next week and five more will drop out of law school because of me, but those of you who make it will be the top attorneys in this country. You won’t lose a case, because you survived me. You decide which group you’ll be in, because I really don’t care.” From that day on, Tamia and I sat in the front of the class and studied our asses off.
“Now, let’s see who knows the law and who doesn’t. Tamia Dinkins, stand up and brief me on every case you read last night,” Professor Banks said. Tamia stood up without flinching and starting discussing each case, near verbatim (her line name when we pledged). Something told me—and every other person in the class (including the woman at the front of the room)—that Tamia would be in the last group Professor Banks had spoken of on the first day of class. She was going to be a good attorney. It was her destiny and Tamia was fighting, even against herself, to claim it.
Super Friends: The 3T Intervention
It’s not always easy to tell a friend the truth about a bad habit. From advising her to practice safer sex to snatching her credit card when she’s about to buy the third Prada bag she can’t afford, it seems that opening an unwelcome can of worms will either lead to your best bud pulling out the old defensive armor or, worse, cutting you off completely. With this in mind, it appears that taking a bullet or turning a deaf ear are better options. But, as the old saying predicts, just as surely as there will be some good times, there will be some bad times. The best gal pals must be prepared for both—to get their hands dirty in the name of good old-fashioned, soul-saving sisterhood. So stand your ground and remember that sometimes girlfriends are the only people willing and able to tell the truth—and provide help along the way. Should you find yourself in a situation where telling the truth may make the difference between prosperity and plague, you may need to put on your “Super-Save-A-Friend” cape and have an intervention.
When and How to Intervene