Take Her Man. Grace Octavia

eyes and I could tell he was sincere. For the first time since we’d left the park, I looked at his face and noticed that his eyes were red. “I would never hurt you and I’m just mad you had to find out about her like this.”

      “Who is she, Julian?”

      “I did meet her at the hospital, like I said.” Julian took a deep breath and put his hands in his pockets. “I only wanted to be friends at first but she wanted more. She made a pass at me and…I guess I just went for it.”

      “But why? What do you see in that girl?” I asked. Other than the fact that she was going to be a doctor, which, if they got together would make their union the eighth of its kind in the James family—something I always knew Julian wanted—she just didn’t seem like his type.

      “I don’t know. She’s just different—not what I’m used to.” He paused. “But it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t mean anything to me. I just hope you can forgive me.” Julian took Pookie Po from my arms, put him on the ground, and pulled me close to him. “You forgive me, baby?”

      “Yes,” I said. I closed my eyes and vowed never to bring up the incident again.

      “Earth to Troy…Earth to Troy,” Tasha said. I opened my eyes to find both her and Tamia looking at me intently.

      “No,” I answered, remembering that night at my apartment. “No, he doesn’t love her. He loves me.”

      “Exactly. That’s just what I wanted to know,” Tasha announced.

      “And?” Tamia asked.

      “And…my point is this: Troy loves Julian, Julian loves Troy, and Julian doesn’t love Miata.” Tasha counted off each of the points on her hand.

      “So why is he in there with Miata?” Tamia jumped in again.

      “Exactly, and what’s Troy going to do about it?” Tasha said, whipping her head around to look at me.

      “What’s Troy going to do about it?” I asked, referring to myself in the third person—Tasha’s rationale does that to you sometimes.

      “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do…. Oh, I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” Tasha said, sitting back in the center of the backseat. She sounded like the Wicked Witch of the West putting together a plot to kill Dorothy. “You’re going to take her man.”

      “Now I know you’re crazy.” Tamia tried to turn the ignition again. “We’re leaving. Where’s your car, Troy?”

      “No, listen,” Tasha said, stopping Tamia from turning the ignition. “Troy gave us all of the facts. This is real love. While Julian is confused right now by that hoe, what they share is real love. I don’t know about you, but I believe her. I believe her and I’m going to support her.”

      “No, you want Troy to be desperate and chase some man around. That’s childish. I say, and I do believe I’m the only sane one in this damn car right now,” Tamia said, looking at me, “I say, if Julian loves Troy he’ll come back to her on his own. She’ll have him if she waits.”

      “See, that’s what I’m talking about, Tamia. Why do we always have to wait? I don’t know about you ladies, but I’m tired of waiting to exhale. I’m ready to beat down that hoe! She clearly has some kind of voodoo spell over poor Julian.” We all laughed. “All I’m saying is, anything worth having is worth fighting for, Tamia. Like how I fought for my husband,” Tasha said, waving her wedding ring in the front seat.

      “You didn’t have to fight for shit with Lionel. He loves you so much he’d drink your bathwater,” Tamia said. She had a point. Lionel loved two things: basketball and Tasha. He showered her with all of the love any woman could desire—the one thing I know in my heart she was in search of when she jumped in that car and left L.A. all those years ago. Due to her insecurities, Tasha was used by old boyfriends, but Lionel adored her. And he wasn’t a bad catch either. He was Haitian and Peruvian and had the kind of impeccable dark chocolate skin that you had to look at twice to be sure the man wasn’t wearing some kind of makeup. He was well over seven feet tall, with a hunky build and had the cutest dimples I’d ever seen on a grown man. He was more than easy to look at. While I was sure a baby was nowhere in the near future for him and Tasha, between the two of them, when it did happen, the baby would be born with the kind of unearthly cuteness that would make all of the other babies born on that day refuse any nursery photos.

      “Yeah, how do you think I made that happen? Lionel loves me, but Lionel has a dick. We had some drama along the way, just like everyone else. I’m not stupid. Now, listen to me, ‘smart girls.’ When you meet a man, you plan your outfit, what to eat so you don’t look stupid at the table, when he can kiss you, when you will accept another date, and when you will invite him to your bed. You plan everything,” Tasha said.

      Tamia and I couldn’t help but nod our heads along with her. She sounded like she was giving the “get-a-man gospel.”

      “So why not plan a way to get and keep your man? That’s our damn problem. We get a man and stop damn planning. Stop getting our nails done, complimenting him, dressing nice, talking about interesting things. Pretty soon, we stop planning interesting things to do in the bedroom. You know what happens then?” Tasha pushed her head back into the front seat. “Your man ends up at some damn half-fancy black restaurant with a bitch named after a fucking cheap car. And why?”

      “Why?” Tamia asked.

      “Because the other woman had a plan,” Tasha said. “See, you two don’t experience dealing with chicks like Miata, but I do. I know those girls like the back of my hand. She’s a hustler. She’s a smart hustler who’s hustled your doctor away from you.”

      “That’s crazy,” Tamia said. “The girl is going to be a doctor herself. She’ll have her own money. Why would she need to marry a doctor?”

      “Girl, what’s better than one doctor? Two! Please, from the moment I laid eyes on that girl I knew she was a ghetto girl on the come up. She’s smart. She’s smart and she had a plan…a plan to take Troy’s man. Trust me. I know all this time she’s been in that hospital, she’s been dragging her thang around Julian, looking all sweet and smart, going over medical stuff out loud like a damn dictionary. Black men love that stuff. Especially the ones who know what in the hell she’s talking about. She’s probably being everything Troy isn’t.”

      “What are you saying about me?”

      “I’m not saying you’re dumb, sweetie;” she said with a smile, “but come on. Julian is your man. He knows the fun you; he doesn’t see you in the classroom playing super lawyer. He doesn’t really get to see on a daily basis how smart you are. Miata knows that and she’s probably been trolling her ass around the hospital, giving him advice about you and making you seem like the most vain, superficial person in her world. She’s been telling Julian her stories about getting out of the ghetto, making herself look like the best thing since sliced bread to your man. I know it. Trust me.”

      “Well, what am I supposed to do about it?” I asked.

      “No, Troy. This is so unhealthy,” Tamia interrupted.

      “Listen to her and you’ll be alone, with her.” Tasha put her hand up in front of Tamia’s mouth and Tamia pushed her away.

      “What do you want me to do?” I asked again. To be honest, I thought both of them were right. But I wasn’t ready to give up my man just yet. Like Millie Jackson said in that old song, “Ain’t no woman in her right mind gonna sit back and let another woman come in and take her man—if he’s really worth having.” Julian was worth having.

      “Listen very closely, because I can’t repeat these words and you must do them in this exact order,” Tasha said in her usual theatrical fashion.

      “Why can’t you say it again? Is that from The Book of Hoes or something?” Tamia giggled.

      “Tamia!” I said, annoyed