Chapter 2 #2
Joseph continued as if I hadn’t said a word. “And you’re not the only one making life choices that have real consequences.” He spun around and cupped my chin in his hand. “Right now, I’m choosing you. Not because I have to, because I want to. Now please open your gift.”
I wished that my first thought wasn’t that he had a point.
I saw the looks women on the street threw Joseph’s way.
And I also knew by the way he would pull me closer when he caught the thirsty glances that Joseph Burke III, for all his high-handedness, truly did care for me.
I opened the box to reveal an elongated diamond-encrusted triangle dangling from a thin flat silver chain. It was both elegant and slightly edgy.
“Joseph, this is so cool. It’s gorgeous,” I said sincerely.
“It reminded me of you the second I saw it,” he said, fastening it around my neck. We both assessed my reflection in the mirror. It sparkled against my chest and picked up the shine of the gloss I’d applied over my lipstick.
This had happened so many times before: The presumptuous self-assurance that I’d initially found so fascinating would irritate me.
Then Joseph would call to invite me out to some hot new restaurant I never could have afforded on my own, or he’d give me an extravagant present, and my resistance would crumble.
He was generous and smart and attractive.
And I was damaged goods, a jumbo shrimp with imperfect morals and a mountain of credit card debt.
Joseph made me feel like a better version of myself—in part, I hated to admit, because he thought I deserved him.
“I do love it,” I said quietly. “And I love you.”
The restaurant was right across Central Park from Joseph’s apartment, so we were only a few minutes late.
I’d grown up in a house governed by the laws of CPT, which meant that my family was indiscriminately late to everything: movies, flights, graduations, weddings.
In college, I’d been called out by more professors than I could count for lurching into class ten minutes after they’d begun to lecture.
I couldn’t tell them that I’d grown up watching my professor parents race to their own classrooms, clutching their jackets over invariably disheveled outfits, papers spilling out of their respective weathered leather briefcases.
I don’t know what was more surprising: seeing my parents waiting at the table or that they had made it there on time. I stopped in my tracks, but Joseph’s hand on my lower back gently propelled me forward.
“What are they doing here?” I whispered over my shoulder as Joseph and I wove our way through the tables, the suited and bejeweled diners watching us appraisingly.
It was one of the most expensive French restaurants in the city, and to the Upper East Side regulars, the Black folks coming into the dining room that evening must have seemed as endless as clowns streaming out of a Volkswagen Bug.
“I invited them,” he whispered back. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d find some reason to cancel.”
He wasn’t wrong. It had taken my mother months to start speaking to me after that fateful night at Krispy Kreme, and, even three years later, she hadn’t fully gotten over the incident.
There had been no point trying to explain the anxiety I reflexively felt whenever Alonzo’s name hit the industry trades; Mom had no sympathy for me.
My dad’s reaction was a little more protective, but I knew they both thought I had gotten myself into that mess and would have to deal with the consequences.
Spending too much time with them was exhausting.
They had at least saved me some embarrassment by not telling Joseph why our relationship was strained. The downside was that he never understood why I rarely wanted to hang out with my sweet, scholarly mom and dad.
With just a few feet left before we got to the table, I could only grimace at Joseph before turning my head to my waiting parents with a bright smile.
“Joseph, come over here and give me some sugar,” Mom said as soon as we got within hearing distance.
Her dark middle-parted bob was tucked behind both ears, and she turned her head from side to side, revealing the delicate gold earrings that Joseph had given her for Christmas.
It didn’t matter that my mother’s heavy wool A-line skirt swirled awkwardly around her legs as she stood to embrace him or that she wore a shapeless white blouse and clunky oxfords.
A slender five eight with taut mahogany skin stretching over high, wide cheekbones, huge black eyes that seemed to both absorb and reflect the low light of the dining room, and pouty lips, my mother was striking.
She never wore makeup and still managed to outshine most women in the room.
My dad was wearing his customary night-out getup, straight from an L.L.Bean catalog: a shabby suit jacket, navy khakis, and brown penny loafers.
He and my mom were the most handsome perennially rumpled couple most people had ever seen.
Dad stood, gave me a big kiss, and twirled me around.
“Ravishing as usual, Nikki,” he said, beaming while I hugged my mom.
“Except you’re wearing your hair up again,” my mom said as she took her seat. “What is the point of having all that hair if you never wear it down?”
Her barbs about my hair never failed to take me back to my childhood.
When I was twelve years old, I made my mother remove me from Jack and Jill, an exclusive organization for future members of the Links and the Boulé and their well-heeled parents.
My brown-skinned mama hadn’t passed their paper bag test when she was a girl but thought her light-skinned daughter would fit right in, not processing that my smudgy glasses, rubber-band braces, bony knees, and pimply cheeks were impressive to literally no one.
“Whatever for?” she’d grumbled when I told her I’d had enough.
“The kids are snooty, and there’s a girl with blue eyes that all the boys freak out over.
At the last meeting, this one boy made me get out of a chair because he wanted her to sit there.
That’s when I called you to come and get me, and I’m not going back!
” As I braced for potential retribution, Mom’s face remained weirdly expressionless as she processed the apparent premium blue eyes carried over my frizzy hair.
We never spoke of Jack and Jill again, but she stopped allowing me to even get a trim.
By the time I went to Howard University, my hair was a waist-length mess.
One of the first things I did as a freshman was chop off six inches, which elicited such endless haranguing from my mom that going for a haircut still gave me hives.
Hair had remained a touchy subject, so it didn’t help when Joseph chimed in, “Hear, hear,” ignoring my glare.
My mom smiled at Joseph while I calculated how many days of “No, honey, I have a headache” he deserved for that comment. But when he gave me a mischievous wink and pulled my chair out for me, I subtracted a day. That man trafficked in charm.
“This necklace is beautiful,” Mom said, reaching out for the diamond sparkling in the restaurant’s soft light. “Is it new?”
“Just gave it to Nikki tonight,” Joseph proudly announced. “I like it when she sparkles.”
I expected my mom to deliver a lecture on the disastrous ramifications of blood diamonds, but she gave him a playful smile. “So, when is she going to get a big diamond to wear on her hand?”
“Whoa, whoa,” I broke in. “We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here.”
Thankfully, Dad noticed the sweat mustache starting to form above my lip. “So, Joseph, tell us about your fancy new job,” he said diplomatically.
As Joseph plunged into a long description of capital structure and accounting operations, all I could hear was the “wah wah wah” of Charlie Brown’s teacher.
I hadn’t eaten since my morning bagel, and I was starving.
The aroma of butter, garlic, and herbs was making me dizzy, and I fantasized about my steak frites until I felt someone shaking my shoulder.
“Hello, hello? Are you with us?” Mom was asking.
“Of course,” I said, having no idea what we were talking about. “Um, Joseph has been working so very hard for this promotion,” I tried.
This time everyone laughed at me, including my dad.
Mom shook her head. “You will never change, Nicole. I asked you how your job is going.”
“Oh, that. Great. Fabulous. Amazing,” I said unconvincingly. “In fact, today I came up with the theme for our January issue. Lucinda loved it. And now I’m in charge of a huge project.”
“You didn’t tell me that, Nikki. I thought you had a tough day,” Joseph said, looking slightly offended. “What was your idea?”
“The ageless issue. And my editor put me in charge of a national sex survey where we look at the sexual habits of women from twenty to sixty.” My mom raised her eyebrows, but I kept talking, digging my hole deeper.
“I’m on a crazy deadline. I have to find two thousand women who’ll answer explicit questions about what they do in bed, and I only have two weeks to finish it… ” I trailed off with a nervous giggle.
No one said anything for a minute, avoiding eye contact. Finally, Joseph said unconvincingly, “Well, that sounds fascinating.”
“Good lord, Nikki,” Mom said. “I got a little excited when I heard the word ‘study,’ but it’s about sex?”
“Yes, it’s about sex.” I sighed. “And it was a big deal that my boss entrusted it to me.”
“It just seems so”—she paused, searching for the right word—“vulgar.”
I could almost feel the specter of Alonzo Griffin hovering over our table, and I wished the waiter would reappear so I could order a stiff drink. “Mom, you’re acting like it’s porn or something.”
By the time the waiter returned with our appetizers, Mom and I were glaring at each other.
As everyone else started talking at once about how great the food looked, I gave up and dug in, finishing every bite of my salad and then my filet mignon and fries in silence.
No one noticed because Joseph spent the rest of the night going on and on about his new responsibilities, clients, and office space.
Mom kept encouraging his monologue, interjecting with “Tell us more” and “Go on, dear” whenever he took a breath.
And when he plunked down his platinum American Express at the end of the meal—without even glancing at the bill—my mom beamed.
Later that night, I sat on the sofa next to Joseph, braiding my hair into long plaits as he watched the news.
He’d been too busy regaling his appreciative audience with elaborate stories about his work to notice that I was still upset.
I knew I should have been impressed and proud too, but, truthfully, I was a little resentful of the whole thing.
He’d invited my parents to dinner without telling me, and then I’d been treated as if I edited Penthouse letters for a living.
What was worse was how jealous I felt. Joseph’s voice never had quite the same passion when addressing me as it did when he talked about his job.
Joseph absent-mindedly reached out for a braid to play with as he drank his scotch, but I pulled it out of his hands, suddenly annoyed by his fixation with my hair.
“Joseph, what if I cut it all off?” I asked, the words rushing out of my mouth. “Real short, Halle short.”
“You’ll never do it,” he said, taking another sip. “You’ve never had short hair in your life.”
“What if I did?” I said with manufactured conviction.
“Please. You won’t, Nicole. It’s just not you,” he said firmly, getting up and walking toward the kitchen. I heard him pour more scotch into his glass.
When Joseph came back into the living room, he shut off the TV and put Portishead’s Dummy on the stereo. “If anything, you should wear your hair out more,” he said. Or straighten it sometime. Do you realize that I’ve never actually seen your hair straight?”
Naturally, I thought. Every Black man worth his salt seemed to want a woman with flowing locks on his arm. It made their dicks longer or something. I raised my eyebrows and said, “So, you think I wouldn’t look good with short hair?”
“All I’m saying is that your hair is beautiful, and I’d like to see it more often.” Joseph reached for my hand. “I always figured I’d propose on a boat with your hair whipping in the wind.”
“Whatever,” I snapped, his presumption making me feel powerless.
Joseph dropped my hand, and I was instantly ashamed; for all Joseph’s arrogance, he always looked hurt when I dismissed his periodic hints at marriage.
Before I could apologize, he rose and walked toward the bedroom, his face totally unreadable.
I hated when Joseph’s expression went blank, which I thought of as his “game face.” I imagined him pausing to get that face together before entering the old boys’ club that was his office.
Pausing in the doorway, Joseph turned and said, “I told you what I like and how I’d like to see you.
Either you can continue to be right all by yourself, or you can consider the possibility that not everyone around you is wrong all of the time.
” With that, he shrugged, downed his scotch, and left the room to shower.
I sat still for a minute, then rose when I realized he expected me to follow him.