“What are you afraid of?” I asked.
“I’m not afraid of anything. I just want to do this my way. That’s all.” I could tell we were aggravating Tasha. Her eyes were tearing up. “And it’s not open for discussion. That’s it,” she said, wiping a tear. “I was just telling you guys so you would know. I was thinking about making you two the godparents. But if you don’t want the job, just let me know. But I’m having my baby.” Tasha jumped up from the table and ran toward the bathroom.
I looked at Tamia from across the table.
“Who was that woman?” I asked just as the bathroom door slammed. “Must be the hormones kicking in already.”
“Well, she won’t be needing this anymore,” Tamia said, picking up Tasha’s abandoned wineglass. She tipped it up and took the last sip.
The Spring Cleaning: Out with the Old Men, In with the New
“Because a man is like a tissue in a box…if you pull it out, there’s another one waiting right behind it.”
When your love life is in desperate need of a jump start, it may be time to do some old-fashioned spring cleaning. Get rid of those old duds and start anew with a fresh batch of contenders. Think of it as if you’re the coach of an NBA team, a losing NBA team, and the only thing standing between you and the championship ring is five lame starting players. The smartest thing you could do is clean off the bench and draft some new blood.
Now, simultaneously dumping each and every one of the men you date is harder than it sounds. Men don’t like being dissed (especially the ones you’ve slept with) and they may get a little defiant. Therefore, you must be quick with the split. Break out your broom and sweep them all up in one fell swoop.
Instructions:
1. Make a list of all of your soon to be exes and why they have to go (e.g., Michael=cheater, Kevin=cheap bastard, Frank=bad breath).
2. E-mail each of them the same note saying that it’s over and you don’t want to talk about it. Tell them your feelings are not negotiable and not to call, because you’ve changed your number.
3. Change your number immediately. This step may sound drastic but, remember, you can’t get a new future if you’re holding on to the old past. Call your closest friends and family to let them know your new digits. Anyone else probably doesn’t need to have your number anyway. It also stops you from having to deal with those awful defiant phone calls from men who can’t take no for an answer.
4. Overnight any connections (e.g., boxers, casserole dishes, CDs, DVDs) to the men you dumped. Meeting to return items will only make things harder. If you’re a true bad girl, there’s no way you left anything at his place.
5. Get a few of your friends to go out with you to start recruiting, wear that one thing you know always turns heads (that dress that hugs all the right places, the stilettos that make your legs look amazing and inspire you to walk like a supermodel, those jeans that make your behin
d look like Beyonce’s), and let the tryouts begin.
Top Four Reasons to Do a Spring Cleaning
1. You don’t see yourself marrying any of the men you’re dating.
2. None of the men you’re dating is really good for you.
3. None of them has any one stellar quality that you absolutely cannot find in another man: amazing sex, engaging wit, or the ability to make you laugh until you cry.
4. It’s been two years and none of them…not one of them…is talking about settling down. Stop wasting your precious time.
Step One: Light as a Feather (Not Stiff as a Board)
Before I let Tasha and Tamia out, we discussed step one of the plan. Hearing Miata’s voice on Julian’s cell phone had my blood boiling, and I was ready to put the “Take Her Man Plan” into action. After polishing off the last bottle of wine, the three of us agreed that it would be best to begin with a phone call. I was to call Julian, sound extremely light—yet friendly—and invite him to the reception for my Nana Rue’s new play. While Tasha said she didn’t exactly like the idea of me inviting Julian out to an event that included my family (we’d all seen that go completely wrong a few times), I talked her into it, explaining that Julian was a huge black theater buff and he’d always wanted to see my father’s mother, none other than the one and only Ms. Rue Betsch Smith, perform.
During the ’30s and ’40s, my Nana Rue was known throughout the world as a stage actress and classically trained opera singer. Like most African-American performers back then, Nana Rue despised the American theater and critics for how they treated African-American entertainers. Even established performers like Nana Rue, who’d been trained at Fisk University and traveled all over the world as a Fisk Jubilee Singer, simply couldn’t find good roles in the States. While Nana Rue was a child of Harlem, growing up at Sugar Hill’s 409 Edgecomb Avenue alongside the likes of Roy Wilkins and W. E. B. DuBois, she didn’t want to settle for the “Negro actress” roles that were offered to her after she returned home from school in 1935. She said she wanted no parts of the new “en vogue” Harlem that she felt put the people she loved so dearly under a self-sacrificing microscope that allowed in any ear with a dollar for a cheap thrill. The daughter of a Harlem insurance man, Nana Rue was very proud of the Harlem she’d grown up in and she never wanted to share it with the voyeuristic white faces she saw tucked here and there when she returned. She was no racist, but it was hard not to hate the segregated crowds, the black roles written by black writers who were being fully supported by white patrons. She once told me that she thought she’d left the Jubilee Singers behind at Fisk and she wanted to be seen as an entertainer, separate from her color. It was nearly impossible to do that at that time.
So Nana Rue spent most of her career touring Europe, finding much of her success in Paris, where she married a fellow black actor and gave birth to my father before being forced to return home to Harlem in 1948 when my father was just two months old. By that time, the Renaissance that had what Nana Rue called “spectators and speculators” roaming the streets of Harlem had all but left. She and my grandfather, who died a few years ago, settled back into the home she’d always loved and took on new roles by new Negro writers with new Negro attitudes. Bringing to life their depictions of Negro culture, in all its defiance and resilience, was an honor even Nana Rue couldn’t turn down.
Though she stopped touring decades ago, Nana Rue still took on small parts from time to time to “keep her blood young.” Everyone in the business knew her, and most of her shows were completely sold out during the first week. When Julian and I had started dating, he’d begged to meet Nana Rue and said he had to see her perform before, God forbid, she left this earth and her legacy behind. Laughing, I informed him that there was no way that feisty firecracker of a woman was going anywhere anytime soon.
Before Tasha stepped into the elevator, she gave me a few last-minute pointers about step one. “Block your number when you call,” she said. “You want this to be a sneak attack. You don’t want him to be prepared or he’ll close up. Also, you don’t want him to know where you are. He shouldn’t think you’re sitting at home waiting for him to call. Avoid talking about the breakup, only saying that you’re fine and you want to be friends. Say you agree with him about the split and that you’ve just been too busy to call. Then, after he agrees to come to the reception with you, make sure you make it clear that you’re meeting him there. Tell him you’re having dinner beforehand and you may get ‘tied up.’ This will not only make him wonder whom you’re dining with, but also reinforce the friends thing—only couples arrive at places together. And last,” Tasha went on after reapplying her lip gloss, “the final and most important point is that you must hang up the phone first. Are you listening, Troy?” I nodded my head. “You have to rush him off of the phone. This will keep you in control of things. Don’t allow the conversation to get too deep. That’ll lead to an emotional disaster. You don’t want that.” Tasha stepped back and gave me a quick once-over. “You’ll be fine, Ms. Lovesong. Go get your man back.” She blew me a kiss. “Good luck.” She pressed the button for the elevator, and she and Tamia and their pink Puma sweat suits disappeared.
The sun woke me up the next morning. After spending the night stuffing my face with Chinese food and cheap wine, I slept like a baby until the midmorning sun came blazing through my blinds. I ran over the night’s events in my head, recalling Tasha’s news, and climbed out of bed. My situation with Julian seemed so small compared to the journey Tasha was about to begin as a mother. Within the small amount of time I’d spent with the girls at the community center, I’d learned one thing about children: They’re hard work. I couldn’t even imagine having one of my own. It was an insane idea, but as Tamia and I explained to Tasha after she finally came out of the bathroom, we would support her decision.
I rolled over and looked at the time. 10:37 a.m. It was time to make the call. I had to be at the settlement to meet with the girls by noon, and I wanted to call Julian before I left. I picked up the phone and pressed speed dial 1—Julian’s cell. The phone was just about to ring but I hung up. I threw the phone on the bed. I wasn’t ready. I missed Julian, but I wasn’t ready. How was I supposed to talk to him without bringing up Miata? I couldn’t act like she didn’t just answer his phone. What the hell was I going to say?
Okay, courage. You need to have courage, Troy, I reasoned with myself. I picked the phone back up and looked at it. “I have to have courage,” I said aloud. I got out of my bed and turned on the radio. I wanted to play music so Julian would think I was someplace having a good time—yeah, right, at 10 in the morning. An old Jay-Z song was playing. Good enough. As long as it wasn’t Donny Hathaway. He’d think I was really losing my mind then. I blocked my number and dialed his cell. Round two.