Live And Learn. Niobia Bryant

feel light in my chest, and I would become out of breath but never tired, not with the energy that filled my body as I easily moved through the dance steps. And sometimes, as the music wound down, I would end with a swaying of my hips and find that I was crying.

      I never missed a dance class. No parties, no classes, no fellas, and not even a mad clearance sale at Saks could keep me away from that dance studio.

      I loved dancing. I was in love with it. It was my passion. No man would ever compete.

      Yet unlike the twenty or so other dancers in my class, I had no interest in dancing professionally. I’m not a member of the Screen Actors Guild. I don’t have an agent mailing me scripts or sending me and my head shots on auditions and casting calls.

      Hell, I don’t even have a head shot.

      When some of the kids read off their resumes and sounded like the Who’s Who of the Great White Way, I had no envy. Dancing was in my soul, in the air I breathed, and in the blood that pumped through my veins. I didn’t want it to become my means of financial support because that would dim the love and passion.

      The owner of Dance with Dana Studios, Dana Shanes, was a Dance Theatre of Harlem alum. She allowed me free usage of one of the twelve studios in her converted warehouse. Usually once a week after classes ended, I patiently waited for the kids to empty out of the dance studio. And it was during that hour that the dance steps in my dreams came to life.

      Although no one would ever see it—I did it just for me—I still wanted it to be tight. So tonight after class, I started the CD player and walked to the center of the hardwood floor. It didn’t matter that my hair was pulled up into a bun or that I didn’t have on makeup. My favorite leotards were well worn, and when I danced in my bare feet I sometimes chipped the perfect polish on my pedicured toes. But see, none of that mattered in here.

      The music began to play. I closed my eyes and let myself get lost in the notes playing around me. Every spin, every split, every lift of my legs and arms made me feel like I was soaring. My heart pounded from the exertion. Sweat trailed down the crevices of my body.

      With one last touch of my fingers to the sky, I slid down into a frontward split before curling my slender frame into a ball.

      Sudden applause pushed me back into the real world with a jolt. I opened my eyes and looked up to find Rah leaning against the ebony baby grand piano, his hands still clasped together.

      He’s my man, true enough, but I don’t like anyone messing with my time to dance.

      Nobody.

      “Hey, Rah, whassup?” I swallowed back my irritation.

      “Nothing. I was in Manhattan handling some business, so I dropped by to give you a ride home.”

      “Thanks, baby,” I said, turning my back to him as I rolled my eyes heavenward. I turned off the CD player and removed my disc.

      Inside I was pissed the hell off, but this man was my bread and butter right now. I put on this fake smile, pretending I’m happy to see his intruding ass.

      Rah was only twenty-seven, and he already owned several thriving businesses in Newark. There was the beauty supply store on Springfield Ave., the upscale clothing store on Broad Street downtown, and Sweet Things, the shoe store on Halsey Street. He took the money he had made slinging dope across the Tri-State area for the last ten and put it into profitable businesses.

      And I had to admit that the brotha was fine.

      He was six feet of solid muscle, and looking so good in a Sean John velour jogging suit. His platinum and diamond jewelry was sparkling like crazy. His “I don’t give a fuck” attitude, with that tilt to his chin and the hooded lids of his eyes, was what first drew me to him.

      I saw it in his eyes now that he was getting turned on looking at me in my tight-fitting leotards, but sex in the studio was a definite no-no. This was my private place. Mine alone.

      “Let me get my stuff.” I walked over to the corner where my purse and duffel bag sat. I pulled my pale blue JLo sweat suit over my dance clothes and pushed my feet into my newest pair of sneakers.

      “I got a surprise for you,” his deep voice echoed over to me.

      I looked up from my cell phone as I turned it back on. The smile on his handsome face—think Morris Chestnut—was teasing. I wondered if my surprise was the tropical strapless dress I showed him in BCBG last week. Or the ABS wrap dress at Saks. Or was it that cute Gucci camel hobo bag we saw at Short Hills Mall?

      “What is it?” I finally asked as we left the brick warehouse building together.

      “Patience,” was all he said.

      His silver Mercedes sat at the curb still as clean as the day he drove it off the lot. Our reflections shone in the polished chrome of his twenty-four-inch rims.

      As I climbed in, I peeped out the backseat for any signs of shopping bags, but I didn’t see a blessed thing except the usual CDs and Philly blunt cigars scattered about.

      “Come on, Rah. What’s my surprise?” I asked again, unable to fight my curiosity.

      Rah just smiled as he pulled into the busy New York traffic with a soft purr of the motor. He reached down on the side of his seat and tossed a bag of weed onto my lap. “Roll one for me, baby.”

      I did a double take. True, back in high school I smoked weed like that shit was my lifesaver, but I slowed up on it big-time once I started college. I smoked it only twice with Rah back when we first got together, but no more since. My plan for success, remember?

      Hell, back when I was smoking Dom under the table, I still wasn’t the type of chick to get excited over a man giving me weed.

      Was this fool for real or just stupid?

      Even as I busted the cigar down the middle with my thumbnail and emptied the leaves out the window to scatter in the wind behind us, I was steady thinking, This better not be my surprise ’cause he know I don’t play this dumb shit.

      Our relationship worked so well for me because he liked to give and I loved to receive. We were a perfect match on that point, right?

      “This is my surprise?” I asked.

      “Hell no. Patience, remember?”

      Rah drove his whip smoothly through the New York traffic and into New Jersey, smoking the entire blunt by himself like it was a cigarette. He was steady profiling for any onlookers with his tinted window down, leaning back in the seat with his arm straight as he steered the wheel and showed off his new diamond-encrusted Jacob & Co. Five Time Zone watch.

      Of course, I was showing off, too. My window was down so that all the females on the cramped buses and walking the streets could see me. They were all hating on me; I knew it and loved it.

      “You staying with me?” he asked, already pulling into the parking garage of the high-rise Harlequin Apartment building in downtown Newark.

      “I guess so, since we’re already here.” I laughed as I got out of the car.

      He climbed out as well and went to the trunk. My heart raced. Disappointment slowed the rate as I watched him pull out his massive CD case.

      I didn’t say a word as we rode the elevator upstairs.

      Cristal failed to understand why a man with his own businesses wouldn’t want to own his own home or at least move into a higher end apartment building. She said, “Why do people care more about what they are driving than where they are living? Just ghetto.”

      She acted like the man lived in the projects or something, but that was just Cris being her usual bougie self. She liked to pretend her ass wasn’t from Newark like the rest of us. Always talking proper. Hell, I haven’t heard her use a contraction since high school. I still love her stuck-up butt, though.

      Rah and I walked into his apartment. It’s decked out and you could tell it’s a man’s space with the ebony furnishings, glass