Live And Learn. Niobia Bryant

Armani, and Dolce & Gabbana—just to name drop a few. Fresh hairdos and nails were weekly necessities. And when it came to the men who flittered in and out of their lives with the longevity of a lit match, only those who could afford their taste got a second look: celebrities, athletes, and wealthy warriors of the streets who had blown up like a keg of TNT. Unless he had that “turn your straight roots nappy” kind of sex that the women enjoyed. But those sex-you-down brothas didn’t get any of their real time—just late night calls to supply them with a nut, if their more financially set man at the moment couldn’t do the job.

      Alizé, Moët, “Dom” Perignon and Cristal—a.k.a. Monica Winters, Latoya James, Keesha Lands, and Danielle Johnson, respectively—were four childhood friends. They were sisters without the blood lineage with plenty of lessons to learn.

      PART ONE

      “Friends…how many of us have them?”

      —Whodini

      1

      “Whassup y’all? I’m Alizé.”

      I’m anything but a morning person, especially this particular morning. Rah’s king-sized water bed felt too damn good, and my body felt hella bad. A late night of drinking, partying, and then having sex until three in the morning will do that to you.

      Last night my girls and I all met up at Lex’s apartment—that’s Dom’s boyfriend—to celebrate his twenty-fifth birthday. Whoo! We got so tore up off Henny—ahem, Hennessey—that I didn’t want to see any more liquor for a minute. I could feel the effects of it all up and through my body. Trust.

      There was no way I was ready to face the world yet, but I had a ten o’clock class.

      Trying like hell not to wake my man up, I eased up the arm he had over my waist. I couldn’t do nothing but roll my eyes when he stirred in his sleep and tried to hold me tighter. Rah and I were cool. We were basically happy with each other, but when I wasn’t in the mood to fuck, I just wasn’t—in—the—mood—to—fuck. Too bad I couldn’t get his ass to understand that.

      “Rah, I gotta get up. Move.”

      He shifted closer to me and pressed what I hoped was a piss hard against my bare ass. “Where you goin’?” he asked, his voice full of sleep and his morning breath reaching me like a slap in the face. His hand rose to tease my nipple as he started kissing my shoulder.

      Now I was wishing like hell that I’d gone home to my mom’s and not spent the night at his apartment. My own mother wasn’t this aggravating, and she was Mrs. Persistence with an extra large, extra tall, big and bold-ass capital P. My daddy swears it’s one of the main reasons they got divorced. I couldn’t front on my father; my mother could be hell to reckon with.

      But let me repeat, when I wasn’t in the mood to fuck, there wasn’t shit anybody could do to get me in the mood.

      I shifted his hand from my breast, but he just moved it down to lift my leg up to play in my moistness. “Rah, I gotta go to class. Let me up.”

      I was a senior at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ, majoring in business finance. I loved money and all of the nice things it bought, so my major was an easy choice for me. Oh, trust, I’m a sistah with a plan when it comes to my career. I will graduate this May and then take full benefit of my two-month summer internship at one of the top investment firms in the country. Then in the fall it will be back to the grind at ole SHU to work on the all-important MBA—Master of Business Administration to some and More Banking of Assets to me.

      I’m headed to the top of the corporate ladder with my MBA in one hand and my Gucci briefcase in the other as I take no prisoners and accept no shorts. I’m going to be part of the next wave of African-American women bursting through the glass ceiling. My name will be on Fortune magazine’s Fifty Most Powerful Black Executives. Black Enterprise magazine will do a spotlight on me and my rise to the top. I ain’t playing.

      One thing I know about myself: if I set a goal I will reach it. Anyone not with my program can either ride with me or get run the fuck over. Period.

      “Skip class.”

      See, that ain’t a part of my program.

      “Roll over, baby,” he moaned against my neck as his hand rose again to claim my breast. Neither my body, mind, nor spirit was in the mood.

      See, money is power, and right now Rah was thinking—whether he said it or not—that he was the money man in the relationship, so he could get this pussy whenever he wanted.

      He thought wrong.

      I turned on my back and looked up into his fine face with “the look”—a mix of faked sadness and regret that gets ’em every time. Trust. “Baby, I wish I had time, but I’m running late and I have a big test today that I can’t miss,” I lied with ease. “You know I get sleepy after sex.”

      Rah pulled me atop him and slapped my ass with a quick kiss to my cheek. “Get goin’ ’fore I change my mind.”

      I felt like a prisoner who got a “get out of jail free” card. I didn’t hesitate to roll out of bed and dash into the bathroom.

      I literally jumped back at my reflection in the mirror. I looked like a cross between Don King and a raccoon with my thick shoulder-length hair all tangled and sticking up over my head. There were telling circles under my red-rimmed eyes that didn’t look good at all against my bronzed cinnamon complexion. Drool was dried on my face.

      Too much partying. Too much drinking. Too much damn fun. And it showed big-time.

      After a long hot shower, a facial, a few eye drops, and getting rid of the tangles in my hair with a ventilated brush, I felt a little better. I could only shake my head at the condition of my hair. Even though I’d just been for my weekly appointment to the hairdresser yesterday, I would be on my cell at nine sharp making an appointment for later today. There’s no way I’m sporting a dang-on ponytail all weekend.

      Looking and dressing my best was important to me. See, my girls and I always made sure we stepped out of the house with our shit together from our hairdos to our Jimmy Choo shoes. This was a must.

      All through high school and our entrance into early adulthood we were the popular ones. Other girls either hated us or wanted to be one of us. We kept our hair in the latest styles, and our gear was always the trend. We wore nothing but designer fashions: from the stonewashed Guess jeans and Timberlands of the nineties to Prada and Manolos in the new millennium.

      Ever since our freshman year at University High there were always just the four of us. We looked out for one another. We had each other’s back. There’s an unbreakable trust between us built on ten years of friendship and sisterhood.

      There’s Latoya, Keesha, and Danielle, a.k.a. Moët, “Dom” Perignon, and Cristal. Dom came up with the nicknames one day back in 2000 while we were eating lunch in the caf. She got the idea from the late and great rapper Biggie Smalls’ 1994 classic “Juicy.” Those nicknames made us even more popular, and they’ve stuck ever since.

      Six years later, although no one was really popping Dom as much, and Jay-Z had called for a boycott of Cristal because some bigwig had dissed hip-hop, we kept those names.

      Oh, me? I’m Monica, but everyone except my parents calls me Alizé. No, I don’t have a fancy champagne name like everyone else, but that’s cool. Just like the drink, I’m the sweetest of the bunch anyway.

      I didn’t leave his bathroom until I wrapped a towel around my body because there was no need to tempt fate. I was too happy to open the door and find the bedroom empty. I heard him in the kitchen.

      Good. He loved to catch me fresh from the shower or a bath and eat me out.

      I grabbed my overnight bag and pulled out some fresh undergarments to hurry into. My cell phone rang. As I sprayed on the only perfume I wear—Happy, by Clinique—I picked my phone up and flipped it open, forgetting the mandatory check