“I’m so sorry,” I offered.
“Jada, that you girl?”
I snapped my head toward her hidden face. I didn’t catch the voice, but she definitely knew me. When she snatched off the shades and pulled her hat’s brim back, my mouth dropped. “Diane?”
Diane and I worked together at the marketing company for nearly a year. She rarely showed up to work and, at that time, hadn’t been there at all for a couple of months.
“Yeah, girl! What’s up? I ain’t seen you in a minute!” she said like she was really glad to see me.
I instantly felt self-conscious. There I was dressed in some raggedy jeans and an old sweatshirt that I usually wear when I clean the apartment on weekends.
As Diane spoke, my brain kept trying to understand how one goes from barely coming to work, to being dressed in the finest gear and sporting a look that dripped money. When she pressed the alarm button and that pretty ride beeped, I was too through.
“You okay?” she asked.
I looked at the car then back at her, still dumbfounded. “Um, I ah-” I stuttered, but I was taking in everything fabulous about the new Diane. At five feet seven and one hundred and forty pounds, Diane was beautiful. Her once short hair had been replaced by long wavy and flowing tresses. She blinged from her ears to her neck to her wrists. The chick was iced out, and she looked good. “Ah, Diane, what’s up? I mean, did you hit the number or something?” I needed to know.
She scrunched up her pretty face. “Number? Nah, girl, I ain’t hit no number.” She chuckled.
I looked at the car again and then back at her. This time her eyes followed mine.
“Oh shit!” she started. “Girl, that ain’t nothin’,” she testified, motioning toward the car. “You ain’t gonna make any real money punchin’ no damn clock. I can tell you that much for sure,” she said.
“Well, what do you mean?” I asked her.
She pulled me to the side, closer to her car. “Look, why don’t you go get you soma Fat Larry’s chicken,” she suggested.
I shook my head reluctantly. It was like I didn’t want to leave her for fear that when I came back, she, that car, and my chance to make some real money, might be gone.
“Go on, I’ll wait right here for you,” she promised.
I glanced at her and the car one last time before going inside. When I walked outside and saw Diane sitting behind the wheel of her car, I gladly climbed into her luxury car and leaned back in the passenger seat like I belonged there.
“Are you ready to make some real paper?” she asked.
“Girl, you just don’t know,” I said.
Little did I know what she had in mind would change my life in ways I never imagined possible.
2
I thought about the conversation Diane and I had that day, after we left Fat Larry’s.
“Girl, I swear, I was you about a year ago. You remember, I was sneaking in and out of my cousin’s dorm room, barely able to eat and shit,” Diane shook her head at the awful memories she described. “I just got tired of tryin’ to play it straight,” she admitted.
“Yeah, but the ride-I mean look at you, girl. You’ve got to tell me what you doin’ to get paid like this.”
“It’s simple,” she said. “I dance at this little club called Ecstasy on Friday and Saturday nights,” she said calmly.
I leaned in to her.
“What you mean, you dance at a club? What kind of dancin’ are we talkin’ ’bout here?” I wanted to know.
“I’m an exotic dancer,” she said without so much as a whisper to her voice.
“What?” I screamed.
She didn’t seem the least bit phased by my shock. It was as if we were discussing Larry’s chicken. “Say what you want, but I never leave with any less than five hundred dollars a night,” she said and eased back in her seat. I could sense she was studying my reaction. I let the figure roll around in my head. “I know what you’re thinking,” Diane said.