Take Her Man

Prologue

I’m Not Crying…It’s the Wasabi in My Eyes

Meet the 3Ts: Troy, Tasha, and Tamia

The Babbling Bourgeois Baboon vs. the Democrat Octoroon

It’s Ladies Night…But I’m Not All Right

The Plan

Jesus Loves Harlem, Too

The 3T Intervention

Step One: Light as a Feather (Not Stiff as a Board)

Step Two: Change, Change, Change

Step Three: Say You, Say Me

How to Kill Two Birds with One Lip Liner

Girl Fight

Bloody Mary and the Soap Opera Baby

One Confused Man and One Confused Womb-Man

3T Guy Lie List: Twenty-one Slick Signs of Shammery

Step Four: Fella’s There’s a Jealous Boy in This Town

Smart Girls Rule

Amen, That Man Is Mine

Mother Still Knows Best

(The Remix)

Where My Girls At?

Out with the Girls, L.A. Style

Hangover

Step Five: The Damsel in Distress

Step Six: Let Your Feelings Be Known

It’s a New Day

Epilogue

Prologue

Put the Jimmy Choo on the Other Foot

Iknow what you’re thinking: How does a fine, successful, educated sister find herself mixed up in a situation where she actually believes she has to try to take her ex-boyfriend back from another woman? Shoot, I’d be thinking the same thing if the Jimmy Choo was on the other foot, so I can’t even blame you for initially judging me. I mean, if I would’ve heard any other sister even whisper the words “Take her man,” I would’ve immediately asked her what kind of ghetto situation she was involved in. What happened to black sisterhood? We’ve come too far to be scratching each other’s eyes out like there’s only one brother left on the plantation. Trust me, there are plenty of fine fish-in–the sea—especially in the sea known as New York City. In this city I call home, brothers come in all shapes and sizes, colors and hues. They have multiple degrees and talents that range from the boardroom to the bedroom to the kitchen. So why would any sane sister be stuck on one?

Like most sisters caught up in this kind of love triangle, I didn’t see it that way at the time. It didn’t just come to me all at once. It was slow…gradual…like the damn fat that starts to grow on top of your perfect abs after you turn twenty. You sisters who broke down and bought the Ab Lounge

know what I mean. Yep, in the beginning, everything was going fine between me and Dr. Julian James. I had “a man and a plan” and I was about to get my “ring by spring.” Everything was perfect. Nothing could hold me back.

But then something went stupid somewhere along the way and I watched as my perfect world began to fall apart one tiny piece at a time. I’m still not sure exactly when it all began, but if I really focus, I’m pretty sure it was somewhere around the time I heard my future groom utter four very ugly words we all hate to hear: “I need a break.”

Is it starting to sound familiar yet? I know I’m not the only sister in the world whose heard that bull crap before. Well, it should’ve been the end for me. But, again, like most sisters with even the tiniest bit of pride and ego—the other eight million Queens of Sheba, I took those words as an inevitable bump on the road to marriage, a temporary predicament, a moment of confusion, a blip. He’d wake up. His ass had better wake up. And why wouldn’t he? Like I said in the beginning: I’m a fine, successful, educated sister. A blind man wearing black shades in a dark room could see that. I didn’t believe that I had to “try” to take my man back from anyone…. He was mine in the first place. It was quite simply a matter of reclamation. An ego challenge. Like my best friend said, “It might take three days, it might take three weeks or three months.” Either way, I would get my man back.