Sinatra is the fabric that holds her family together. Her world begins to unravel when she finds lipstick on her husband’s briefs that isn’t hers.
Excerpt
“Sweet Pea?” My wannabe comedian husband, Tyrelle, popped open the flip cap on my latest Bath and Body Works purchase and sniffed its contents.
“Umm, that smells tasty,” he said, giving the lotion his stamp of approval, as he placed the bottle back on my-heavily-cluttered-and-in-dire-need-of-a-good dusting
dresser. “But I wouldn’t have named it that,” he said, twisting his mouth as if he were giving it real serious thought.
“What would you have named it?” I rolled over in our bed to face him. Fifteen years of marriage and thirty-something years on this planet gave me the insight to know that what was about to come out of my husband’s mouth was definitely linked to pumps and a bump. Men are to coochie as Pooh is to
Hunny.
Tyrelle rubbed his chin for a second and gave me a devilish grin. “How ’bout Sweet Poontang?” He wriggled his eyebrows at me and palmed my ass as I got up and made my way into the bathroom to run water into the tub.
I hardly ever took long, luxurious bubble baths due to the lack of time to actually enjoy one, but I attempted to just soak for a while. Within the first ten minutes, I squashed three quarrels amongst my litter of teenagers: a set of thirteen-year-old twins and a sixteen-year-old wannabe soldier. Then I attempted to return some phone calls of daily gossip check-ins””nothing serious, I hoped. I dialed my favorite cousin, Roz, in the Big Apple to see what was so urgent that she called twice in the same evening. She answered on the second ring, sounding like she was xpecting Ed McMahon.
“Hello?” she answered hurriedly.
“Girl, whassup?” I knew Roz was waiting for her boyfriend to be sentenced by the Feds for tax evasion amongst other things. She hesitated before speaking, which I took as a prelude of bad news to come. “Oh, hey, Sinatra,” she said drearily. Obviously, I wasn’t who she hoped would be calling.
“Um, what’s going on?” I pressed on, ignoring her tone. I put her on speakerphone and slid further down in the warm water. It felt so good to just sit and soak. I needed to consider mounting a plasma in here so I could really get my
relaxation on, now that’d do a body good. Sit, soak and watch my favorite television shows?When I hit the lotto, that’ll be the first thing on my “to do” list, I planned.
“Humph, nuthin’s up but fifteen to twenty.”
My jaw could’ve caused a splash larger than Shamu the Killer Whale, Sea World’s most famous attraction, when she spit that one out. “They offered Jamal fifteen to twenty? Ain’t that a bitch?” What kind of raw deal was that? I
know a brother been in jail five or six times for the same thing, but damn. They want to release a brother when he’s blind, gray, crippled, and crazy? The man will be ripe for SSI, if there’s a dime left. I secretly hoped she’d reconsider her previous plans of marrying this fool. She barely accepted the first collect call when he began pledging his undying love to her and their two-year-old son
whom we called Bookie. Can you say conjugal visits? But still, she was my relative and I loved her dearly. I felt her pain like it was my own. “So, whatcha gon’ do?” My phone call was interrupted by Tyrelle’s entrance into the bathroom, carrying a DA REALEST RIDES car audio and
half-naked chick magazine in hand, and a wrapped sweet-smelling Philly blunt dangling from his slightly parted lips. I knew what time it was; he was about to blow out the bathroom. Damn, and I was having such a good time soothing
and soaking. See, this is why folks nut up. Here I am, minding my own business, trying to let Calgon take me away, and in comes Shabba Stanks messing up my program. I was too through with my husband.
“How you just gonna come in here funking up the bathroom while a sista is trying to get her relax on?” I playfully but seriously asked my husband, who ignored me and plopped his sexy brown ass right on the commode, magazine in hand.
A recent refinance allowed us to upgrade our house a little bit here and a little bit there. Unlike most or probably all of the houses on our block, we had purchased the small four bedroom house nearly twelve years ago as a fixer upper.
It wasn’t in bad shape at the time of purchase but it definitely needed a little love. Most of the houses on our block had beautiful manicured lawns maintained by Spanish-speaking landscapers, non-leaking roofs, stucco that
was the same color all over, windows that open, carpet or hardwood floors that glistened and a yard that didn’t resemble a gravel pit. So, after sacrificing for many moons and growing tired of the endless petty conversations with neighbors about “doing something” with our yard we chopped off a large area of the gravel pit for a small family room, a half bathroom between Kerry and TJ’s room which allowed babygirl to have damn near complete control over the
main bathroom. What was left of the gravel pit is now lush and green and maintained by Beto and his crew and lastly, expanding my bathroom to include double sinks, double showerheads and a nice deep tub. If MTV’s Cribs could set-up shop in my bathroom I’d fit right in with the rest of the ballers but the remainder of my house wouldn’t make the cut. But, hey it’s a work in progress. So when I say a sistah is trying to get some peace and tranquility
within the sanctum of her bathroom, I’m serious as a heart attack. My mortgaged jumped up $500.00 a month. Them kids and Tyrelle’s stankin’ ass better leave me the fuck alone when I’m in my tub and that’s real shit. He pulled an incense from behind his ear and winked at me. “I came prepared, see?” Tyrelle lit his blunt and the incense and placed the scented stick in an incense holder close to my near-death Boston fern. The plant looked like an octopus dying a slow death by strangulation. Limp arms drooping and tongue all out, the whole nine. A green thumb I did not have. Now, my mother could grow some shit. National Geographic ought to consider shooting a cover from
her living room; throw some buttnaked Pygmies up in that bad boy, and no one would know the difference. I dismissed Tyrelle’s single incense.
“Bro, you need a whole pack of those, some candles, and a can of odor neutralizing spray. We might as well have a siance in this muthafucka while you trying to hold back some funk.”
He and I both started laughing, completely forgetting about Roz, who was running up my bill just listening to Tyrelle and me. “What scent is that anyway?”
I asked out of curiosity. The names of incense
always tickled my funny bone.
“Mystic Haze,” he said slowly, trying to invent an aura of mystical haze, I guessed. I just shook my head and slid the shower doors as close to closed as possible, leaving only a slit open so I could hear Roz.
“Ah-hem!” she interrupted. “Sinatra, I’m gonna let you go. Sounds like y’all got some personals going on.” She sighed long and heavily, her voice echoing loudly, making her sound even lonelier.
“I’ll call you when it’s all said and done.”
I scowled at Tyrelle. “I’m sorry, boo-boo. How’s Bookie?”
Here we were kicking it cozy when my poor relative was living in her own world of solitary confinement.
She sniffled a bit. “He’s fine.”
I could practically hear her lip trembling, see the tears rolling down her face. Good lawd, I thought, feeling like I needed to cheer her up.
“You know what? I’ll see if I can get away soon and come out for a visit. In the meantime, keep me posted, okay?”
Tyrelle shot me a “˜oh no you ain’t’ look which, of course, I ignored. She sniffled a bit more, but accepted my offer as a temporary Band-aid.
“Okay, cuz. Peace out.”
“Peace,” I responded and ended the call. “Damn. I wish Roz would hook up with someone else, but that ain’t my business,” I thought out loud. Which was true. If I could choose mates for folks every time some shit went down because I thought they deserved better, folks would be changing lovers like wireless services. I looked to Tyrelle for his two cents, but he was engrossed in his car stereo magazine, or ignoring me, one or the other. I was about to step out of the tub when the phone rang again. It was my
other favorite cousin, Berta. I hoped she didn’t have any depressing man drama to throw my way. I didn’t think my mood could take it. I went from feeling good and fancy free to “whatever” in less than fifteen minutes.
“Girl, I just got off of the phone with Roz. The woman needs an attitude adjustment or something.”
“Pah-leeze. She’s Jamal-matized. She’ll be his wife by the first of da month.”
She sang the latter to the tune of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s welfare anthem The First of the Month in which the group invites folks to cash their checks and get their hustle game for the month crackin.
“I hope not,” I said, disgusted. “If she marries dude knowing he’s about to do a gazillion years, she’s on her own emotionally, financially, and so on and so
forth. Believe dat,” I announced. I don’t know why because I knew good and damn well if my cousin needed anything, whatever I had to give would be hers. And Berta did too. Her
response to my last statement was a dry, “Whatever.”
“Anywho, I called because I wanted to know how long before you get to the shop.”
“Soon. Why?”
“Just to be nosy.”
“Well, probably an hour or so.”
“Cool, I told dude to meet me there in about an hour to get his shit.”
Humph, here we go. The real reason for the phone call: man drama. Dude was obviously her baby daddy, Orlando or Londo as she referred to him, the niggaro she most loved to hate. This was an every day thing, so I played it off. No questions, no inquiries about the situation, no nothing. I acted as if I didn’t hear a thing.
“Okay, well, I should be there shortly.”
“Okay, because he is getting on my last nerves with his bitches and bullshit.
That nigga needs to roll up outta here, pronto.”
My phone line beeped. “Um hmm, girl, that’s my other line.” Since I wasn’t giving Berta the quality attention she wanted, she hung up, no goodbyes, just a click. “Right back at cha,” I said to the phone, as if it could respond. I answered the other line. “Hello?”
A nervous sounding little boy answered back, “Yes, ma’am, can I speak to Shirelle?”
Ma’am? Who was this little knucklehead calling ma’am? Now that was on the old school tip, for real. “Certainly,” I answered back and yelled to my daughter to pick up the phone. This little heifa was only thirteen years old.
Nobody told her to be giving out my number. Time for a chat I thought as I stepped out of the tub and grabbed a towel on my way into my bedroom. Tyrelle stuck his head inside the bedroom long enough to blow me a kiss goodbye and inform me that his company, TNT Audio, was entering some
type of contest and would be having a little sit down at Tiggy’s in the Valley later on this evening. And if I felt like sliding through, we could meet for drinks. Good looking out, I thought, the idea of a cocktail later with my husband sounded good to me.
Once dressed and ready to go, I summoned my kids. “Little darlings?” I called out, walking down the hall. “Mommy’s little precious babies “¦ where y’all be?” I probably scared them off, sounding like a June Cleaver wannabe.
Where in the heezy were they hiding at? The house was kind of quiet, but I didn’t expect to be calling out and searching and stuff. Shirelle, one of my twins, came running down the hall to meet me as if I needed to be escorted into the living room. She put her finger to her lips and told me to hush as she yapped into the phone.
I don’t know whom she thought she was talking to, “Who’s that?” I asked with a wrinkled expression, “and why are you telling me to shush?”
“Um, Zenobia, this girl from my cheer squad, she, um, gave PK, this other boy not from my cheer but, um, the football team, my phone number and he called me!” she said in all of two seconds while shaking her fingers as if she just
burned them. Acting all willy nilly.
I gave her a Valley Girl expression, “Like, um, okay.”
The boys, Tyrelle Jr. or TJ, Shirelle’s twin, and Kerry my eldest, sat nonchalantly on the couch playingMadden on the PlayStation which had been muted, by Shirelle I was sure. They gave me sideways glances and hunched their shoulders,
like who knows and who cares. Shirelle was huddled in the kitchen corner, laughing and giggling. Too bad I had to interrupt her afternoon delight. It was time for me to go to work and that meant going to Grandma’s or kicking it
at the shop, both of which the boys enjoyed. Have PlayStation, will travel. Shirelle was harder to please.
She took the phone from her ear and looked at the caller ID screen. “Mama, who’s Bertarene Samms?”
Samms? I recognized the last name as Londo’s. This heiffa was really trippin’.
“That’s your big cousin Berta. Gimme the phone.” As I reached for the phone, Shirelle made a screwed up face that almost got her choked. “You better hand over my phone, Miss Thang.”
Shirelle told her friend to hold on and handed over the phone. “Hello?” I answered. “Hello “¦ Berta, hello?” The sounds of bouncing bass and clinking items were all I could hear. Berta’s phone must have been in her purse along
with who knows what and something must have pushed the send button.
“Folks need to lock their keypads,” I said, handing the phone back to Shirelle.
She clicked over before my hand left the receiver. “Dayum, girl. Let’s go,” I
mouthed in her direction. “Tell Parkay bye.”
“His name isn’t no Parkay, its PK,” she huffed.
“Whatever.” I collected everyone else and shot Shirelle the evil eye.
“Aw, Mom, just five more minutes?” Shirelle begged. Was this a sign of things to come? The twins were only thirteen years old.
Copyright 2008 Nikki Nicole. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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