Take Her Man

I looked down at the phone to see if I’d dialed the wrong number, but it said “Julian” on the screen.

“Is anyone there?” the voice said, giggling. At first I figured it was Julian’s mother, but then I realized that I knew the evil voice well. It was the ghetto-ass voice of the chick from the park. It was

Miata! “Stop tickling me, Julian,” Miata said into the phone. I almost drove off of the bridge. “Someone’s on the phone. It could be someone important. Helloooooo?” It was like she was taunting me, like she knew it was me on the other end and she wanted me to hear her voice. “I guess it’s no one…no one special or they’d answer.” She laughed again and the line went dead.

I threw the phone into the backseat. What the hell was going on? It hadn’t even been a week since Julian broke up with me and that bitch was already answering his phone? It took him ten months to give me a key to his place and Miata was taking phone calls? Something was wrong. Tasha was right. The hussy had my man under some kind of spell, some kind of sick Louisiana spell. I didn’t know what it was, but what I did know was if Miata wanted a man war, she had one.

When I walked into my apartment I headed straight to the refrigerator for my emergency stash of Rocky Road ice cream. I forgot about the bowl and climbed into my bed with the gallon and a spoon. Who needs a stupid bowl? I thought, spreading myself out on the bed. I picked up the phone to see if I had any voice messages. There were two: One was from Nana Rue inviting me to a reception for the new play she was headlining, the other was from Daddy, making sure I’d made it home. None from Julian. None from Julian. None from Julian. None from Julian. I shoveled ice cream into my mouth.

After watching people parade down the street, laughing and smiling, going on with their lives, like Julian, I lowered the blinds in my bedroom and slipped the saddest CDs I could find into my CD carousel, the kind of music every woman listens to when her heart is broken by a man cheating with another woman. There was Jill Scott, Betty Wright, Mary J., Whitney, and, of course, the Waiting to Exhale sound track.

Next I put on an old dingy high school T-shirt, pulled my hair up into a lopsided ponytail, and got back into bed.

I must’ve plowed through half of the gallon of ice cream before deciding to force myself to sleep. I couldn’t cry any more. I couldn’t call Julian and I couldn’t see him. I just wanted to say goodbye to the world for a little while. Since I was just depressed and not psycho enough to kill myself over some man, sleep was the only option. I didn’t care if it was just 2 o’clock in the afternoon. I listened to the sad songs on the CD player and rocked myself to sleep.

The 3T Intervention

“Open up, trick,” I heard someone who sounded just like Tasha holler like a mad woman. And it was so weird because I was in a park, sitting on a picnic blanket making wedding plans with Julian.

“Open up the damn door or we’re coming through it,” I heard the voice call again. I looked to the trees and still couldn’t see where it was coming from. Then I heard a banging, a loud banging that woke me up from my lovely picnic dream and put me back in my apartment.

“Come on, Troy. These bags are getting heavy,” called a voice that sounded like Tamia.

“Hold on. Hold on,” I answered.

I opened the door to find Tasha and Tamia, both of whom I can now call crazy, standing in front of my apartment dressed in matching pink Puma sweat suits.

“What are y’all doing here?” I asked, noticing that both of them were carrying paper bags. They pushed their way past me into the apartment. “Why do y’all have bags and why in the hell are y’all dressed alike?”

“Well, we have Chinese food and wine in the bags,” Tamia answered. “And we just came from the gym.”

“We dress alike at the gym,” Tasha said, unloading an arsenal of food on my countertop. “It draws attention, you know, from the guys.”

“They always stop and ask if we’re twins and drool over our breasts.” Tamia giggled. “They can’t help it. It’s so funny.”

“You know, the whole male fantasy thing, twins,” Tasha said, handing me two bottles of wine. “Open these.”

“But you two look nothing alike.” I unscrewed one of the corks. “And you’re married.”

“I’m married, not blind. Plus, I get a good workout, because they always want to help us, and I get to help Tamia meet men,” Tasha said.

“She does,” Tamia chimed in. “It really works.”

“Oh, my God,” Tasha said, dropping a carton of what I could see was shrimp lo mein in one of my big serving bowls. She looked at me with apparent shock.

“What?” Tamia and I said at the same time.

“The transformation has already begun.” Tasha sucked her teeth.

“What transformation?” I asked, looking down at my outfit. “Look at you,” she said. “You look awful, baby. Where the hell did you find that old-ass T-shirt?” Tasha pointed at my shirt with disgust and looked at Tamia.

“But it’s my favorite T-shirt,” I said, defending my fashion choice. It was retro. It had a few small holes in it, but other than the bleach spots, you still could make out my school’s emblem. But looking down at it, even though I loved the old shirt, I knew Tasha was right. It had to go.

“She’s connecting with the past…bad symptom,” Tamia jumped in, sounding like some fake-ass heartbreak nurse.

“Tamia, go and get this girl something that’ll make her look and feel beautiful, stat,” Tasha said to Tamia.

“Make that a T-shirt,” I called to Tamia as she walked toward my bedroom. “What the hell am I going to be doing walking around you guys looking all cute?”