Take Her Man. Grace Octavia

Julian’s name out loud. It was dramatic and it wouldn’t make me feel better, but at least then people could see my pain. I got played by a man I thought was going to marry me. “You have to move on,” Tamia went on over Luther. “And I know it’s kind of harsh, but clearly Julian has.”

      “Bullshit,” Tasha said from the backseat. I could tell she was a little intoxicated from the excess of sass in her voice.

      “What?” Tamia turned to her.

      “That’s bullshit, what you said, Tamia. Something else is going on.” I could see Tasha’s hands moving around in my side mirror. She was getting riled up and ready to fight. While Tamia was always trying to see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the good in mankind, Tasha was the drama queen of controversy. If you needed to find out if your man was cheating, if your boss was stealing money from the company, if you were lying to your damn self, Tasha was on the job. She trusted no one and she could smell a dubious dilemma like doo-doo on a shoe. When we first met, Tamia and I wondered where Tasha got all of her street savvy. The girl could curse better than a sailor and I once saw her jimmy a lock faster than anything I’d ever seen on MacGyver. Apparently, her 90210 existence wasn’t as “totally awesome” as her mother’s career choice promised. When Tasha grew tired of sitting in hotel rooms and playing cards with her nanny, she slipped out to the streets to play gangster girl to get even with Porsche. From stealing clothes she easily could afford, to hanging out with boys that might have been featured on America’s Most Wanted, Tasha said it felt good to be out in the street doing things that could get her killed or at least force Porsche to have to come to the police precinct to bail her out.

      “What do you think’s going on?” I begged, desperate to find out what Tasha was talking about.

      “Oh, don’t listen to her ass, Troy. She’s going to turn this into some craziness.” Tamia tried to turn on the engine.

      “No, girl.” I put my hand on Tamia’s to stop her from turning the ignition. “I want to know what she thinks.”

      “Did you love that man?” Tasha pushed her head into the front of the car like a bobblehead. “Like really love him?”

      “Yes, of course.”

      “And did he love you?” she asked.

      “Yes.”

      “Are you sure?” Tasha stressed the last word. “I mean, we all thought Julian loved you, Troy. We really did and you could not have told us any different.”

      Tamia nodded her head in agreement.

      “But the important thing is,” Tasha went on, “do you think he loved you?”

      I turned to face the huge glass window that separated the people inside of Justin’s from the rest of the world. I squinted to see if I could see Julian standing by the bar. He wasn’t there.

      “Yes,” I answered Tasha, searching the rest of the restaurant. I remembered the first time I met Julian there for dinner. It was raining outside and he’d just completed some residency requirement. “I need to celebrate, baby,” Julian had said to me on the phone. By the time I walked into Justin’s, he was already there, sitting in the waiting area. “I did it. I did it,” Julian said. He jumped up from the white leather sofa and opened his arms. My baby was looking fine, like a young Billy Dee putting the moves on Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues. I ran to him and jumped into his arms like I was Billie Holiday getting out of rehab. He held me close and kissed me on the forehead. “And I have you to thank,” he whispered into my ear. “Now everything’s going to be perfect for us.” I believed him then. I still believe him now.

      “Tasha, get to your damn point,” Tamia said.

      “I will, if you calm down.” Tasha put two fingers in front of me. “So that’s two points: You love him and he loves you. Now, let’s see if we can get to three.”

      “Yeah, let’s see if three makes any sense,” Tamia jumped in again. Tasha and I looked at her. “Okay, okay. I’ll shut up. Go on.”

      “One: You love Julian. Two: Julian loves you. Question three: Does he love that bitch?” Tasha pointed toward the restaurant.

      “Wait, I’m not having that,” Tamia said. “This is not about that girl. We’re all black women and she’s not a bitch. Her name is Miata.” Tasha sucked her teeth and waved her hand at Tamia. “No, I’m sorry, ladies. I will not let you all make this about that girl. Julian broke up with Troy. Julian brought someone else to the restaurant. Not Miata. She’s innocent in this. We have no clue what kind of person she is.”

      “We don’t need to know what kind of person she is. What we know is that she’s the kind of person who’s in the freaking restaurant with our friend’s man—”

      “Ex man,” Tamia said.

      “What-the-hell-ever you want to call him,” Tasha said. “All I want to know is, is that bitch—I mean Miata/bitch or whoever or whatever you want to call her—really innocent in this, Tamia? Is she innocent or smart?” Tasha sounded like a lawyer cracking a witness. “Now, answer the third question, Troy. Does he love her?”

      “You don’t have to answer that, Troy.” I could feel Tamia’s hand on my leg. “I know it’s hard for you right now.”

      “Leave her alone, you corny ass,” Tasha said to Tamia.

      “I love you anyway,” Tamia teased.

      I leaned my head on the headrest and closed my eyes.

      It was just before we were about to leave for a three-day vacation in Key West that I found out about Miata. It was innocent, really. Julian had left both the two-way pager he used for work and his cell phone on the bed that morning when he’d left for the hospital. I picked the up two-way, trying to find a message from the hospital so I could give him a buzz there to see if he wanted me to drop off his stuff. I checked the messages, figuring he had to have at least one text message from the hospital within the past ten hours. He had been on call the night before.

      “Miata” was the first name I read. “What kind of name is that?” I thought, scrolling past the name. But I didn’t stop. After realizing that there were no messages from or to the hospital, I took a mental note that the last seven messages were from Miata and tossed the phone and pager back on the bed.

      “He’ll come back,” I thought, slipping off my nightgown and heading to the shower. Along the way, I kept saying to myself: I’m confident. I didn’t have to worry about my man, whom he was seeing and why in the heck she’d sent him so many text messages.

      I wasn’t the type to go through a man’s pager. That was child’s play. That was for insecure little girls who had nothing else to do with their time. Drama queens. Chickenheads. Baby mamas. Those were the kinds of women who went through pagers. Not me. I was different. I had things to do. In fact, I had a class that afternoon and I needed to get to the library to study. No time for little games. But, as I said, that’s what I kept saying to myself. What I was thinking was, Who in the hell is this woman, paging my man? I was trying to be mature but something in the atmosphere clearly was working on me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned thus far in my short life, is that when there’s something working on you—when your old inner phone is ringing—you’d better answer.

      I turned to walk to the shower, going over my busy day in my head, and the two-way started vibrating. “Keep walking,” I said to myself, recalling the time Tasha’s telephone spying on one boyfriend led to her unknowingly calling his mother and accusing the old lady of sleeping with her man. Clearly, they broke up.

      “I have no reason not to trust my baby, right Pookie Po?” I said, bending down to pet the dog. That’s when it happened…The damn two-way went off again. Even Pookie Po looked at the vibrating device that time. “Should I read Daddy’s message, Pookie? Do you think it’s important?” I asked, looking at the dog’s tiny face. Now, I know it sounds like I’m tripping, but I swear the dog shook his head “yes.” It was a sign! And