Chapter 12

Monday

Betty checked the time as she drove into the mall’s parking lot. With a quick glance at the entrance she noticed Jacqui talking on the phone as she paced. She was over fifteen minutes late for their window-shopping excursion, partly due to office business and partly due to Jane. Jane was a secretary who had just received her wedding portraits, and as Betty had passed her desk, she’d had an urge to look through her cream and silver remembrance album from the wedding. When Betty had attended the ceremony alone, although love had been in the air, she’d been unaffected by it. Unlike the other single women, she had not stood in the crowd to catch the bouquet or make eyes at the single men as the newlyweds shared their first dance. But that was pre-Evander. Betty had looked at each photo as Jane narrated, and she’d thought of the possibilities.

“I’m sorry, girl,” Betty said, walking toward Jacqui as she brushed wrinkles from her silk blouse and straightened the pleats in her wool skirt.

“One sec,” Jacqui replied, cupping the phone closer to her ear. “Willie Mae? I took care of that. Are you all gonna need me to come in and help a little? Are you sure? All right, you call me if you have any problems. I’m only about fifteen minutes away, okay? And also get me the names and numbers of a few vegetable suppliers in the area. Have them on my desk and remind me to call them when I get in, okay? Thanks, honey. ’Bye.” She put her cellular back in her purse and looked at Betty. “Where the hell have you been!”

“Girl, let me tell you,” Betty said as they headed toward the entrance of the mall. “Renfro wanted to meet with me this morning. So I’m thinking it’s about the partnership, right, because it’s supposed to go down this week I think.”

“Really. And it wasn’t?” Jacqui asked, as they entered the mall.

“No, it wasn’t, but in a way, it was better.”

“Better than a partnership? Now, this I have to hear.”

“Yeah,” Betty said, excited. “I’m gonna sit second chair in this large lawsuit against North Florida General Hospital. It’s a class action suit, worth more than eighty so far. They’ve already tendered an offer for ten, so it’s going to be large.”

“Yeah, that’s nice, honey, but how is that better than a partnership? Do you get a cut of the reward or something?”

“First of all, it’s not a reward, it’s an award, and this is how it works. They never let an associate sit second chair in a case of this magnitude. Especially when the team is being lead by a senior partner,” she said, leading Jacqui into Ann Taylor and admiring the suits without stopping the conversation. “Usually you go into a battle of this size with two or three partners leading the charge. Associates are only used on cases like this for the grunt work no one else wants. You see,” she continued as they strolled the aisle, “I think my partnership is a done deal. I think they are giving me the second chair because by the time we go to court, it should already be official.”

“That’s good, that’s really good,” Jacqui said as she headed toward the designer skirts. “But you didn’t answer my question. Of all these millions being bantered about, do you get a percentage for working on the case?” She looked at a price tag on the sleeve of a tweed blazer and tossed it down in disgust.

“No. No, I do not get a cut, today. But if I am a partner by the time the verdict is awarded, then yes, I’ll do okay.”

“And you really think they would make the partnership official before the verdict? Isn’t that literally taking money out of their own pockets?”

“I know where you’re going and it doesn’t work that way in this firm.”

“Well, tell me this,” Jacqui said as she declined a sales associate’s offer for assistance as they left the store. “Could he have picked you for any other reason? What I mean is, have you checked to see if the judge is black or most of the defendants are black or the jury is going to be black or something?”

“Well, that’s another reason why I was late getting here. I wanted to see who the players involved in the case were. The judge who was assigned the case is Travsky, but that’s not really a big deal. I tried the Lopez case before him, but he’s old school. He won’t cut us any slack for that. The defendant’s attorneys are all white and most of the women involved are white. So I tried to look at it through Renfro’s eyes and it suddenly occurred to me. They are bringing in a high-profile jury consultant from the West Coast, and I guarantee you they are going to try to stock the jury with nothing but older black women.”

“Why?”

“Well, they say black women are usually more anti-corporate-America and lean more toward the underdog in cases like this. I say sisters are just more humane. Then it made sense as to why he’s giving me this shot. I mean, let’s face it. Renfro has a lot riding on this, and I think he wants to cover all his bases. There’s a move to allow Burt Collins to lead the firm since he has more trial experience. Most of the partners just think of Renfro as a pencil pusher with a law school sheepskin.”

“Really,” Jacqui said as her eyes followed a gentleman into a clothing store. “I thought he was the man around there.”

“Please. Not hardly. I think that’s why no one really said anything about the way his office is decorated or how he acts or anything. Until this situation with Jack, he was a nonfactor. He was just the person who made sure the firm ran efficiently. Everyone thinks Jack was grooming Burt to lead the firm anyway. Now all of a sudden Mister Nobody has become somebody. Nothing short of an act of God . . . or losing this case could leapfrog Collins into his position.”

“So you’re comfortable being the token?”

“I don’t look at it like that at all. I know the only reason he picked me is because I’m black, but I don’t have a problem with that because—”

“I hate to cut you off,” Jacqui said, “but why is it we only say ‘African-American’ when white folks are around?”

“Child, I don’t know, but like I was going to say, let’s face it, if race was not an issue, with my record I would have been on the case anyway.”

As the gentleman disappeared behind a rack of slacks, Jacqui cleared her throat, rubbed down the hairs on the nape of her neck, and said, “Well, it sounds good. Sounds like you’re in a good position no matter what. But like I always say, watch your back in there. Don’t take anybody for granted. You just never know where the arrow will come from in a place like that.”

“Collins has been getting a little cozy with me, too, I noticed. I think he’d like me to complain about Renfro’s attitudes and then he could move in with the threat of the NAACP or something. I know what he’s up to, but I’m not gonna play that card.”

“Betty, I don’t see how you do it. Wait a minute!” Jacqui whispered. “Look at that one in the jeans.”

“Girl?” Betty said, and looked at her friend. “That child’s half your age!”

With a squint Jacqui said, “Oh. I gotta get my contact prescription changed. Although I still say he’s gonna be fine as hell when he grows up. But like I was going to say, I don’t see how in the world you put up with all of the politics and stuff around there. Don’t you get tired of it? Don’t you ever wish you were in business for yourself?”

“Not really. Starting a law firm has a lot of advantages, but liabilitywise it has a greater downside. I’m not ready to deal with that at this point.”

“Well, when I grow up? I wanna be just like you.”

Later, as they walked down the center of the mall, Jacqui eyed a gentleman in biker shorts at the pay phone. “You see, now, that’s what I’m looking for in a man. You see them legs, that chest, and most of all, girl,” she groaned, “that brother gotta have a U.S.D.A. card, ‘cause I know he’s packing nothing but meat.”

“Girl, you’re crazy.”

Jacqui and Betty sat down in the café area of the eatery so Jacqui could have an unobstructed view of the brother in the biker shorts and tank top at the yogurt counter. “And he must wear a size-fourteen shoe,” Jacqui continued.

“How can you tell? You can’t even see his feet from here.”

“Ahh, who’s looking at feet?” Jacqui laughed. “Let me tell you another little something else I notice about men. If you’re at a club and you see a guy who cannot dance, just can’t catch the rhythm, do not, I repeat, do not sleep with him. Brother will be going off beat all night long. That’s how old Harry was. Now, don’t get me wrong. He was blessed physically, but he moved like Lawrence Welk or something, all off-beat. Can you imagine Lawrence having an orgasm? Eeeeschhh. And I get sick of saying, ‘That’s not iiiit.’ Well, that was Harry. And to top it off, he always slept all over the bed. Just like a pair of open scissors. I mean spread out everywhere. Is it just me or doesn’t it look nasty when a man is all flung out? I mean give me a little mystery, for goodness’ sakes. I hit him about four o’clock one morning and said, ‘Harry, Harry, wake up!’ And he didn’t move. So I yelled and said, ‘Harry! Get up and get dressed!’ So he jumped out of bed and grabbed his drawers and said, ‘What! What! Somebody coming?’ So I said, ‘Hell no, fool. You just look stank! Put on some clothes or take your ass home!’”

“See now, you had me going for a second there, but then you had to start lying,” Betty laughed. “I gotta get you to church with me sometime. Get some salvation in you.”

“Ah, excuse me, Ms. Ann, but I go to church, thank you very much! I was just in—”

“Jacqui. Weddings and funerals don’t count.”

“Oh. Well, I was—”

“Jacqui? Don’t start lying about going to church, honey. Like I said. Weddings and funerals do not count.”

“Oh.”

Betty gazed in the distance with a reflective smile on her face, then looked back at Jacqui and said, “Tell me something. Why do we do that? Why do we prejudge people as if they were livestock or something?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do people reduce each other to such . . . to such menial terms?”

“What you mean is why do I say guys with big feet got big dicks and stuff, right?”

“No! Well, not only you. People in general. I mean it just gets a little old, you know? Men with long thick fingers got this kind. Fat men and white men got this kind. Skinny guys got this kind. I mean, where do you draw the line? It’s like saying all black people are lazy and all Chinese are good at math. It’s just stupid to me and I don’t know if we should be buying in to it.”

Jacqui’s smile melted as she pondered her response. “I don’t know about others, but I can speak for myself. I just don’t give a fuck anymore. As far as—”

“I wasn’t talking so much about you. I was just saying—”

“Since that mother left me, Betty, I just don’t care. You know, I still wait for the phone to ring four years later? That makes no sense, since I’ve had the number changed three times since he left, but I do.”

“Really?” Betty whispered. “I never knew.”

After a pause, Jacqui said, “I never told you this, but I called his mom one time and asked her to give him a message for me. Actually, I just wanted to hear his voice again. I didn’t expect him to call back. But he called me all right. Called in the middle of the day when he knew I would be at work and left me a message on the recorder that basically said stop fucking with him. To get over it.” After licking her lips slowly, Jacqui said, “You wanna know why I have an unlisted number after all these years? I don’t wanna wait for him to call me again. As long as it was listed, I knew if he wanted me, he could call information and get me at any moment. So I got it unpublished and what do I do? For some strange reason I still wait for the mother to call.”

Betty wanted to say something comforting but was speechless as Jacqui continued. “Girl. I have never gone through anything like that in my life. When my granddaddy died at our house, as close as I was to him, it didn’t hurt like losing Yancy. To this day when I hear a date I think about it in context to our relationship. Someone will say a year and I think, that was two years before I met him. Or that was the year he left.”

“Hello, Miss Jordan,” a lady who was a frequent visitor to Jacquetta’s said in passing.

After Jacqui waved and smiled, she said, “You see, Betty, you know how it feels to be in love now. To be really and truly in love. I know you are not ready to admit it, but I can see it. But imagine if you were planning to marry Evander and one day you called, and the nigga just never called you back. Imagine if you called the bakery, his mom, his cellular, and beeped him to ask him about invitations to a wedding that was all his idea in the first place, and he never called you back. I never wanted to get married to him. Everybody talking about getting married to start a life. Hell, I had a life!” Jacqui shouted, then lowered her voice and narrowed her eyes. “But then this Negro just never said anything else to you again, ever. Never told you he was not interested, never told you if you had said something to upset him, never said he didn’t like the way you looked, the way you fucked, the way you smelled. Just never said shit to you.

“Now, mind you,” Jacqui continued, and leaned back on the two hind legs of her chair as her eyes reddened. “This is a man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with and thought you knew like the back of your hand. This is a man who held your hand for three nights after losing the baby. This is a man who would kiss you as you told him of not going full term twice and how you feared you would never be able to have a child. A man you would have died for in a second. I mean, given your life for. So you call and call and call and call, and you don’t know if he’s dead, alive, or nothing. I don’t know how brothers can do that. After all that we had been through, it’s as if he just left me on the side of the road half alive, half dead.” She chuckled and looked away to avoid the tears.

Closing her eyes, Jacqui seemed to search for a word or phrase and then discovered it. “Remember that song by Stevie, and at the end he says, ‘I wouldn’t do that to a dog’?” As she squeezed her eyelids together to block the pain, her voice weakened, but she obviously showed determination to finish the thought. “Well, I lay there bleeding for almost two years with no closure, and that’s how I felt. After getting his call, I sent the ring to his mother, and you know what? Four years later it still feels like I have it on.” She looked down at her barren ring finger and then stiffly rubbed the inside of her palm with her thumb. “I still catch myself feeling my finger, subconsciously hoping it’s there. So I decided at that very moment that I would never be left alone again. Never. I know that’s just crazy and I know that’s not healthy, but that’s just me. I leave their ass before they ever get the chance. Call it self-preservation. So now to be completely honest, Betty, I don’t care anymore. If I reduce them down to dogs, so be it. Life’s a bitch and then you die. Let’um deal with it. I wanted a happy ending. But that only happens in fairy tales, old movies, and bad novels.”

Silence reigned between them as kids ran by playing tag, lovers kissed in front of the fountain in the center of the food court, and a custodian swiftly scooped up little slivers of wadded-up paper from the tile floor. “You know,” she concluded in a whisper as she looked at her nails, “he told me he loved me. The night we lost Cayla, he held me so close I could feel his heart thump and he told me he loved me.” And then Jacqui paused to swallow. “He told me that he had never loved anyone as much as he loved me. Ain’t that something? He even told me that he didn’t think he could ever love anyone as much as he loved me. I mean, I know men say stupid shit sometimes. But after a while, I don’t care who you are, you start believing them. Guess what.” She bit her lip as she looked at Betty. “He got married a year after we broke up. Not just dating again. Not engaged. Married. One year later. But yet he told me he loved me.”

As the biker walked away, Jacqui sighed, cleared her throat, and said with a smile, “Damn, I could’ve used me some of that.”

Betty returned Jacqui’s smile. She always knew Yancy had hurt her when he left just months after she lost the baby prematurely. She knew how he’d gone through her money, gotten one of their friends pregnant at the same time, and even pointed a gun at her one night when he’d had too much to drink. But she could never get her to talk about it. Betty wanted her to go to counseling, but Jacqui always refused, saying that white folks did that and she wouldn’t give Yancy the satisfaction. But as they watched the biker leave, a part of her wanted to cry for her friend. Being strong, Betty said with a fake smile, “There will be other biker shorts, girl. Let’s go.”

They walked into another boutique and Betty saw an accessory that she knew would go perfectly with an outfit of hers. While she did not need another purse, she found it immoral to walk out of a mall without at least one shopping bag.

“Yeah, that’s nice,” Jacqui said.

“I like it too,” Betty said without blinking. “Guess what. I’m gonna let you buy it for me. We’ll call it my congratulatory gift from you for getting the big case.”

“Thanks, heifer. I like the way you spend my money.”

Jacqui walked toward the counter and handed the purse to the cashier. As she admired a few of the assorted earrings, she fished for a credit card. “Hey, Betty?”

“What?”

“What kinda credit does Evander have?”

“Pretty good, I guess. I mean he drives that Land Cruiser and has a nice house and all. But we never really talked about it. Why?”

“Run a credit check on that fool. I got a friend who could run it for free. All you need is his address and he can do it without the Social.”

“I can’t do that, it’s illegal.” Then Betty walked closer to Jacqui, “Why? Should I?”

Jacqui, who was preparing to sign the credit slip, looked at Betty as if she were purple with yellow polka dots on her face. “Child, most of these brothers now’days could not borrow a quarter for a glass of water if their mammy were on fire.” The young black clerk behind the counter blurted out a laugh with Betty. “Ask her,” Jacqui said, looking at the clerk. “Ask her how many brothers come in here and use a gold card. Damn a gold card, any card. Am I right or not?” she said, looking at the giggling teenager. “I’m serious. You remember that song, you gotta have a J-O-B if you wanna be with me? Forget that,” she said quietly. “If he don’t have a J-O-B, he just gotta walk on B-Y. Nowadays you gotta have a T-R-W if you want me to love ya. ‘Cause it ain’t nothing going on but the mortgage.” Both the clerk and Betty laughed loudly now as another customer glanced over. “Come on, girl,” Jacqui said, and grabbed her bag. “Let’s get out of this place before they call security on both of us.”

Walking out of the store, Jacqui caught the eye of another gentleman. He was tall, athletically cut, with a fair complexion and dressed in a denim shorts set. As they passed, he watched Jacqui intently, and she never looked in his direction. “I can’t believe Renfro is giving you this opportunity with no strings attached,” she said. “I know you are talented and know your stuff, but something is up with him.”

Puzzled, Betty said, “Did you not see what was just looking at you?”

“Of course. I saw his married, yella ass,” Jacqui said as she glanced at her watch.

“How you know he was married? You didn’t even look up. He wasn’t wearing a ring.”

“Betty. Didn’t you see the tan line on his finger?”

“Oh,” Betty said, feeling stupefied. “But I didn’t even see you look in his direction.”

“Honey, all it took was a glance. I can smell a ring or a tan line a mile away. Now, as I was saying, I can’t believe Renfro is doing this, no strings attached.”

“He knows this can make my career. But with them it’s all about money. Karl Marx once said a capitalist would sell you the rope to hang himself with, and that’s Renfro. He’s a racist, but he can count.”

As they headed toward the exit, an obese man walked in front of them wearing a shirt stretched to the max and a quote on the back that said “Abortion Means Never Having to Say I Love You.” Jacqui laughed. “That fat sum bitch don’t even get coochie, yet he trust to tell me what to do with mine? Please.”

A young man stepped up behind them as they walked, and cleared his throat. “Excuse me, ladies, I was just noticing you all from across the way and I wanted to step up and say hi.” The brother was wearing a suit that was clearly expensive with what appeared to be Italian shoes and expensive jewelry. Unfortunately he also wore a Radio Shack name tag as well. He was a little on the short side, but he was impeccably groomed with S-shaped waves in his hair, and he appeared to have a nice body under his clothes. The first thing Betty did was look for a tan line. There wasn’t one.

“Hello,” Jacqui said, and then she glanced at the name tag, but apparently decided to hear his game as they walked before she dismissed him.

“So,” he paused nervously, “how are you all doing?”

“We’re fine,” Jacqui said, trying to calm him down a little with her smile. “Just out here spending a little money before going back to work.”

“So,” he said, glancing at Betty, “what, ahh, what store do you all work in?”

“We don’t exactly work here. But I guess we spend enough time out here to be employed, huh?” Betty said, laughing in Jacqui’s direction.

“So, ahh, you all from around here or what?”

“Yeah,” Betty said, and remembered the workload back at the office as she glanced at her watch and then at Jacqui.

“Yeah, honey,” Jacqui said, “we need to go. Nice talking to you,” as they walked faster.

“What y’all gonna do, just dis a brother like that?” he said, somehow gaining more confidence in himself and stopping in his tracks.

As they continued to walk, Betty said to Jacqui with a smile, “Now you know you wrong. Don’t come crying to me when you want that clock radio on discount.”

They could hear the little salesman, still standing in the spot where they’d left him, saying, “You all ain’t shit! Black bitches!”

Jacqui turned around, but Betty grabbed her arm. “It’s not worth it, child. We have to go.”

“No, he did not go there! Childish punk!” Jacqui said. “We were nice to him and everything with his broke, midgety ass. Besides, he raps like an old white boy anyway, trying to front like he’s black. I bet you money he watched ‘Seinfeld’ instead of ‘New York Undercover’ anyway, with his wanna-be white-boy self. You see? You see, that’s why I reduce their ass down to dawgs.”

“Hey, I used to love ‘Seinfeld,’” Betty said to avoid the previous subject.

“Well, you can watch it ’cause you my girl,” Jacqui replied as another young man walked by wearing tight button-fly jeans. “Now, see that skinny brother there?”

“Jac, stop it!” Betty said, and laughed as she noticed her friend looking at the obvious.

“Wait a minute,” Jacqui said, grabbing Betty’s arm and slowing their pace as they were about to exit the mall. “Seriously, did you really watch ‘Seinfeld’ and that big doofus Kramer, instead of Malik Yoba on ‘New York Undercover’ with his fine-ass self?”