Take Her Man. Grace Octavia

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СКАЧАТЬ mother’s footsteps by being the next chapter president.

      Soon after we graduated, she moved to New York with me to go to law school at NYU.

      Tasha, who will curse out anyone who calls her by her birth name, Natasha, is a different story. Though I met her at Howard, I’m still trying to figure out how she got there, and how in the hell she managed to graduate. Tasha was a West Coast escapee who ran away from home when she was in high school. Okay, that sounds dramatic, but it’s Tasha. She did “escape” from L.A., but it was from a Beverly Hills mansion with an American Express card and a BMW in tow. Her mother, Porsche St. Simon, is a black soap opera star who raised what Tamia and I call a “Hollywood brat.” Tasha spent most of her childhood getting to know nanny after nanny after nanny. She got to wear cool clothes, drive nice cars before she was of legal age, hang on the beach, and eat fine food, all of which she despised—along with Porsche St. Simon for giving it to her.

      “It’s all so fake. They’re all so fake there,” Tasha explained to me in the lobby of our dorm one evening. She revealed that one morning she got in her mother’s BMW and drove until she couldn’t anymore. Alone and seventeen, she found herself at her grandmother’s house in Washington, D.C., which is only a few blocks away from the university. Somehow her grandmother, talked her into using her AmEx card for good and not for evil and she enrolled at Howard the next semester. While it’s rumored that some strings were pulled by her grandmother, who had a lot of money wrapped up in the school, I can confirm that Tasha did go to class (at least the ones she had with me) and she did buy the books (even though they never really left the bags from the bookstore). If Tamia was the brains of our little threesome, Tasha was certainly the brick house beauty. Porshe St. Simon’s beauty queen/ soap opera starlet genes led to Tasha having a bodacious body that left grown men salivating whenever she passed them by. She had one of those hourglass shapes that demanded attention even when she was wearing a sweat suit and sneakers. Her buttery sand colored skin never revealed the markings of one popped pimple and her smoky brown eyes were mysterious.

      Somehow the class diva who refused to pledge with Tamia and me made it through all four years and when we said we were heading to my hometown for law school, Tasha said she was coming too. While Tasha found little work with her Communications degree, she did manage to find a fine catch of a husband. Tasha’s eye-catching curves caught the attention of her new groom, New York Knicks starting player Lionel Laroche.

      As a friend, I’d say Tasha evens Tamia and me out. She knows how to have a good time and if you need to curse someone out, she’s your girl.

      Love them or leave them, those were my two best friends. We’ve been joined at the hip since our days at Howard when everyone on the yard knew of the 3Ts. We were notorious. Together, we raised hell all over Washington, D.C. From frat parties to road trips, we had a ball. Tasha still can’t operate a vehicle in Washington, D.C. over some stunt we pulled our senior year.

      After taking the ticket from the parking lot attendee, I reached into my purse to pull out Julian’s picture for one last look before I said goodbye and delivered it to the ladies for shredding. I decided to offer up my favorite picture of us at Tasha and Lionel’s last New Year’s Eve party. Julian looked so adorable in the black and gray suit we picked out together to match my sexy black dress that would do Halle Berry proud. He was intoxicated by the time Tasha took the picture of us standing by the bar, so his face was a little red. “Smile for our picture, Mrs. Julian James,” he whispered to me. Needless to say, that got my juices flowing and my ass is grinning from ear to ear in the picture, looking like I’d just won an Academy Award.

      I shook my head and slipped the picture back into my purse. “I can’t believe this shit,” I said aloud. For one second I thought of turning the car back on and heading over to Julian’s place to talk about things. Then my phone rang. It was Tasha again.

      “Get out of the damn car and walk into the restaurant,” she said. “You can’t turn back now.” The phone went dead. It was a 3T intervention. Tasha was right. I had to get moving. Talking to Julian would only make things worse and I was not about to play myself. Walking toward the restaurant, I took a self assuring deep breath and looked down at the sexy copper colored halter dress I decided to wear. I didn’t pick it because it looked more than fantastic on me—although it did. I chose it because the tight, yet forgiving fabric wrapped around me like a second layer of skin—a tougher, thicker layer I needed to make it through the evening. It was the perfect choice for the less than perfect occasion. It certainly didn’t look like a breakup party dress. It looked like a birthday party dress, and the way I saw it, if I was going to celebrate my new birth as a single woman, I may as well look good doing it.

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

      I could see those two crazy chicks waiting for me toward the back of the restaurant as soon as I walked in. I wanted to walk right over to them before Tamia guzzled down the last of the champagne, but, in perfect “walk of fame” tradition, I had to pretend not to see them. This was all part of the game we used to attract attention from guys standing around by the bar. We believe that men like it when a woman looks lost and alone. It gives the guys a reason to talk to the woman without fear of looking obvious and being obviously rejected. No, they prefer to look concerned and helpful, so they say silly stuff like, “You look lost, sweetie. Can I help you?” or “You came here all alone?” It never fails. So sisters who claim they can’t meet a decent brother simply need to stop sitting and socializing with the group and look a little more single.

      I looked down to make sure my tatas hadn’t somehow found their way to freedom out of the top of the halter dress I’d forced them into, and then I made my way to the bar. I strutted slowly and deliberately, pretending to search for my lost friends. I scanned the faces of each female I saw.

      “You looking for someone, sweetheart?” a bald cutie asked as I struggled not to laugh at how ridiculous this entire tradition was—but, then, I guess that was the point, because I was laughing and, therefore, not crying anymore.

      “Yeah, I’m looking for my girls,” I said, looking him up and down and silently comparing every inch of his body to Julian’s. I hated doing it, but a long time ago I realized that the whole “compare the next to the ex” thing was just a part of the breaking-up process.

      “There she is,” I heard rowdy-ass Tasha yell from the other side of the room. “There’s that fine-ass movie star who’s my friend.” Tasha and Tamia began to clap. Everyone, and I mean everyone, in the restaurant lifted their heads and looked at me. All I could offer was a weak wave to all of these celebrity gazers who’d obviously flocked to Justin’s in hopes of seeing someone of more fame.

      “There they go,” I said to old Baldy. I walked to the table with all eyes on me. “Y’all are so crazy,” I said, quickly squeezing into a seat next to Tamia.

      “Don’t act, because you were worse when I broke up with Corey before Christmas,” Tamia teased, handing me a bouquet of roses—another tradition. Tasha nodded her head in agreement.

      “So…” Tasha looked down at my hands.

      “So?” I said, playing dumb. I knew what that trick wanted, but I wasn’t offering it up that easy.

      “Hand it over,” she said, putting out her hand.

      “What?”

      “She’s right, Troy. Hand it over,” Tamia chimed in. I looked away from them. “Was I this bad with Corey?” Tamia asked Tasha.

      “No, girl. Ms. Troy Lovesong over here is just wrong. She’s breaking all of the rules. But she’d better act right before I have to cut her.” Tasha СКАЧАТЬ