Chapter Twelve
Twelve
I was still laughing when my taxi pulled up to my three-story brownstone on Stuyvesant Avenue in Brooklyn. I could see, before I even stepped out of the cab, a week’s worth of mail spilling out the brass mail slot of my mahogany door and the browning petals of my potted yellow and white petunias.
“Shit.”
Hadn’t I asked Chevy to take care of this for me? Water the plants, collect the mail, and feed the fish. Was it so fucking hard to do?
I shuddered at what I would find floating at the top of the fish tank.
Geneva was right. Chevy was like some type of high-maintenance, unruly stepchild. Always between jobs, apartments, and only God knew how many men.
“Keep the change,” I said as I shoved a fifty-dollar bill at the turban-wearing cabdriver.
I stepped out onto the sidewalk, barely skirting a little girl on her roller skates. “Hello, Mr.Noah!” She beamed and waved at me as she struggled down the sidewalk.
“Hey, baby. You be careful now.”
Stevie Wonder was blaring from my open parlor-floor windows. And as angry as I was, I found my head bopping to the music as I fumbled for my keys.
I slowly opened the door and was met by the pungent scent of marijuana.
Stevie was louder inside, and I could hear Chevy singing off-key to “Sir Duke.” I walked into the entry hall and dropped my suitcase to the floor.
Turning right and into the parlor, I expected to be greeted by my reflection in the nine-foot pier mirror on the wall, but instead my eyes collided with Chevy, who was spinning awkwardly toward me, one hand gripped tightly around a forty-ounce bottle of Old English beer while the other clung to a lit joint.
“What the hell are you doing?” I screamed over the music as I watched beer splatter across the shiny wood of my parquet floors.
As I surveyed the room, I saw that she’d practically turned my home into her very own walk-in closet. There were pieces of her clothing everywhere. A bra across the arm of the sofa, a pair of gym shorts on the ottoman, and a mountain of sandals and stilettos piled in the corner of the room.
Chevy stumbled over to the wall and pressed her shoulder against it to steady herself as she waited for the world to stop spinning. I marched over to the stereo and pressed the off switch.
“Hey, Noah! You’re back!” she screamed as if the music was still blaring.
“Yes, I am. And you’re high.”
I looked around for something to clean up the mess Chevy had made on the floor, but there was nothing available that I was willing to sacrifice.
“You know I don’t allow drugs in my house,” I said tightly.
“ Suuuuuure you don’t. Where the hell do you think I got it from?”
I balled my fists and pressed them into my hips and said, “You went into my private stash?”
Chevy just grinned wickedly and held the joint up to my face.
There was never any shame in Ms.Drama’s game. I walked toward her and plucked the joint from her pinched fingers, put it to my lips, and puffed.
Passing it back to her, I walked through the cream-colored living room and into the family room to examine the damage.
The family room was intact, thank God, and the soft sage-colored walls and large, inviting silk floor pillows reminded me that I was severely jet-lagged and needed sleep.
I walked over to the fish tank, and the colorful tropical fish rushed the glass, pleading with their eyes for me to feed them.
“They’re starving!” I yelled at Chevy, who was in the midst of a drunken Electric Slide.
“How can you tell?” She burped and then turned the forty up to her lips. “I fed them,” she whined after she burped again and took another puff of the joint.
“Liar.”
“They’re still alive, aren’t they?”
“Barely,” I said and gave her the finger.
Chevy, finally exhausted, plopped down onto the living room couch and threw her legs over the ottoman.
I spied her clothing everywhere and said, “Chevy, did you move in or something?”
“No,” Chevy sang back to me as she pulled herself up from the couch and strutted up the stairs toward the bedrooms.
I followed her, ready to give her the best piece of my mind, but she ran into the bathroom and locked the door. I could hear her giggling madly.
“You really shouldn’t do drugs if you can’t handle it,” I screamed through the locked door. “You gotta come out sometime.”
In my room now. My sanctuary. No television here. Just my king-size sleigh bed, a wine-colored comfortable chair with matching ottoman. Nightstands piled high with books. Wall fountain. “Ahhh.”
All I wanted was to get a shower, some Thai food, a glass of Chardonnay, and some sleep.
I stripped down to my boxers and walked down the hall to the extra bedroom, where my treadmill, a small library, and a pull-out sofa were.
But as I walked in, it seemed that the room’s contents had grown to include three large suitcases, a duffle bag, dozens of boxes of shoes, and black Hefty bags bulging with clothes.
I was heated and charged back out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom. I’d have to get her out of here in less than thirty days or before she started receiving mail. After that, the law would see her as a tenant and I’d have to evict her, and that could take six months or more.
“Bitch, you did move in!” I said as I banged heavily on the door. “Chevanese Cambridge, you better open this goddamn door now!”
I could break it down, but I’d just had these new oak doors hung two months ago.
“Chevy!” I screamed again. “I ain’t playing with you, girl. Don’t let me have to get a locksmith, ’cause I will!”
Nothing.
“I want you out of here tomorrow!”
Still nothing.
I panicked. Maybe she’d fallen and hit her head on the toilet and was bleeding to death. “Chevy?” I gave the door a gentle rat-a-tat-tat.
I pressed my ear against the door and listened.
Snoring.
Was I hearing right?
I dropped down onto my knees and peered through the one-inch space between the door and the floor. Chevy was seated on the floor, her back resting against the tub, the joint burned down to a roach and resting alongside the half-empty beer bottle.
Her legs were stretched wide open and, good God, she wasn’t wearing any drawers. Damn. I just couldn’t seem to get away from pussy.