Playing Hard To Get

“What is this? Are you still upset about that case?”

“The case?” Tamia looked at him. “No, it’s not about the case. It’s just…I didn’t know you didn’t believe in marriage. That you didn’t want to get married.”

“I was trying to get Nathaniel off of me. Of course I believe in marriage.” Charleston’s cell phone vibrated and he took it out and dismissed the call before texting a message. “I just don’t see it for myself. Especially not right now. I have a lot going on. I would think you would understand that. We’re in the same position.”

“Yeah, I think that’s something I should’ve known. That you should’ve told me.” She kept thinking about all those foolish women who sat around for years with the man who was never going to pop the question.

“Look, if it makes you feel any better, Tamia, I’m not going to say that I’m never going to get married. I’m just not getting married right now.”

“Hmph.” Tamia shrugged her shoulders. She wasn’t sure what kind of response she was supposed to give to this revelation. Really, Charleston was saying nothing new that he hadn’t already said at the table. He was just saying it in a different way to a different audience. He was speaking to his jury. It was an old trick she’d learned in law school.

The phone was vibrating again when the car pulled around the drive at Trump Towers. There was another dismissal and text message.

When Curtis opened Tamia’s door, she thought she felt Charleston moving along out of the car behind her, but he only pulled her arm and kissed her on the cheek.

“What’s that for?” she asked, confused.

“I’m not coming up.” His phone was in his hand and he was typing another message. “I have to go back to the office. Looks like it’s going to be a late night.”

“But it’s already after nine and we’re both a little tipsy,” Tamia tried. “You should just come up.”

“What’s all this from a woman who needed her space just hours ago?” Charleston chuckled. “Look, just do your thing and I’ll see you in the ’morrows. Okay? I’ll send the car in the morning.”

The “okay” was more of a send-off than a question. It neither needed nor required conversation. Charleston just kissed Tamia on the cheek again and she got up and out of the car and within seconds the luxurious tank was merging into the yellow ribbon of taxi cabs in front of the building.

Tamia stood there, icy. Her mind was a Dumpster and everything from the car, the dinner, the job was being tossed around in it like month-old Chinese food. Something was rotten and the smell was growing stronger by the second.

“Shall we call the elevator for you, Ms. Dinkins?” Bancroft questioned, standing beside her in his night coat and hat.

“Yes—no,” Tamia answered. “Let’s try a cab. I need to go by my office.”

?

“So?” Tasha posed. She was sitting beside Tamia at the 3Ts’ latest New York find, Azya. A swanky bar that specialized in fine wine and decadent chocolate, it was a depressed woman’s dream. The only thing missing was an ice cream station and male strippers.

“So, he wasn’t there,” Tamia revealed. “I waited at the office for an hour. He never came. He lied.”

“So, he lied. All men lie. You know that.” Tasha forged a diabolical laugh but really her mind wasn’t on Tamia’s lying man, but rather the man she’d left lying in bed to come meet Tamia.

“I guess you’re right.” Tamia sighed. In addition to the wine she’d had earlier at the Blue Note, she was sipping on her third glass of Malbec. It was dark, peppery, complicated, all of the things she’d felt when she’d gone back to the office to see if Charleston was really returning to do work, as he’d said. “I don’t know why he would lie to me…about something so small. He could’ve just kicked me out of the car and left. That would’ve been fine.”

“Whatever, Tamia. You can cash that bad check at someone else’s bank, because I know you better than that,” Tasha teased. “There’s no way that man would’ve gotten you out of that ca

r without either hurting your feelings or getting his own feelings hurt. Two reasons men lie—to avoid tears or an argument.”

As an unsteady Tamia considered this, Tasha looked over at a svelte twenty-something strawberry blonde, dressed in an all-black bodysuit, who was being hit on by a man who had to be twice her age and half as attractive. While the woman seemed disinterested at first, the man whispered something in her ear that made her perk up and giggle girlishly. The man stepped in and leered at her knowingly, like a baby pig he was about to dissect. He’d gotten in. Just that fast.

“Anyway, the real problem isn’t that he lied or what he was lying about. It’s what made you carry your drunk ass over to your office to spy on him,” Tasha said, still watching the new couple as the man leaned his wineglass to the woman’s lips so she could have a sip. “Weren’t you the one saying you wanted space? What happened to you giving him space anyway?”

“I know. I know. And I do want space. I did want space.”

“So why the sudden change? How do you go from wanting space one minute to stalking the office at nine o’clock at night and dragging me out of my bed at ten?”

“I know, girl, and thanks for coming,” Tamia said. Her voice was so heavy it seemed to draw her head toward the bar top. “You didn’t have to drive an hour out here, but you did it for your girl!”

“No biggie. I couldn’t leave my girl hanging. You sounded like you were on your way to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and I knew Troy couldn’t get out of her prayer closet long enough to save you,” Tasha said dutifully. “There wasn’t a whole bunch going on at the house anyway…nothing really.”

“You know what he said at dinner? He said he doesn’t want to get married. That he doesn’t even believe in it. What in the hell is that?” Tamia wasn’t looking at Tasha. Her mind was somewhere in space, churning around in her disbelief. In the cab on the way to the office, she’d kept thinking about Ava and how snuggly and happy she seemed.