Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Walking to the train station, I called Teresa to tell her how hideous my morning had been.
She must have heard it in my voice because next thing I knew, she and I were sitting in a hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown, tearing through an early lunch.
The criminal court building where Teresa worked was a few blocks away and this was her favorite local cheap eat—a good find for her since she could barely afford Mickey D’s after her latest purchase of Jimmy Choo boots.
“I can’t believe how hungry I am,” I said, finishing off a lettuce-wrapped spring roll in two huge bites. My stomach had finally calmed down and I couldn’t eat fast enough.
“Sounds like you have reason to be. You basically ran a marathon this morning,” Teresa said as she dug into the lemongrass beef.
She’d reacted just as I expected to my exchange with Luna: pissed as hell.
She shook her head through the whole story, saying when I was done, “That bitch does not want me coming in her office. I will get so goddamn Bronx on her ass.”
I smiled to myself, thinking that Teresa vs. Lunatic would be like Alien vs. Predator.
“Shit, it did feel like a marathon,” I replied, helping myself to seconds of pan-fried noodles. “I’m just so mad I didn’t see it coming.”
“Yeah, well, Barbara is obviously hazing you.”
“I don’t know about that, Tee. She seemed dead serious about NuVoices shutting down.” I stopped eating long enough to take a big swig of my Singha beer. “I really don’t know how I’m going to ‘turn the ship around’ while dealing with that team.”
Teresa nodded. “You’re going to have to work on your street smarts for this gig, Ms. Park Avenue Publishing. NuVoices could really be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But you gotta play the game.”
“You got that right. I need to stop thinking StyleList and start thinking Sugar.”
“And fast,” Teresa said, staring intently out the window onto the street. Suddenly, she started waving.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked as Teresa banged on the glass.
“My boy is walking by,” she said, standing up to greet a tall man in a narrow-cut charcoal-gray suit who strolled in and swooped Teresa up in a hug.
Judging by how far down he had to bend, he must have been at least six foot three.
With his muscular build, flawless chocolate skin, and neatly trimmed goatee, he was one helluva sexy man.
I watched enviously as Teresa planted a kiss on his cheek.
“What’s up, Tee. Nice to see you out here slumming it.”
“You got jokes today? This is the cheapest restaurant in the neighborhood, and Jimmy Choo stole my lunch money.” She socked him in the arm.
“Derek, meet my best friend, Nikki. Nik, this is Derek Mills from New York County Defender Services. We tried that four-month serial burglary together. Thank god for second chairs because it was in the middle of my breakup with the psycho boy. Derek held me down so I wouldn’t tank the trial.
And then he knocked it out of the park with his summation.
” Teresa turned to Derek, who was waving away her praise.
Then she looked at me. “Actually, you and my brother from another mother over here were giving me the same relationship advice that whole time. It was like being in the most annoyingly sensible echo chamber ever.”
Derek chuckled and leaned forward. “First of all, there’s no way we would’ve gotten the acquittal if you hadn’t beat up that detective so bad on cross.
” He rested the book he’d been holding on the table to shake my hand.
“Nice to meet you, Nikki. Any annoyingly sensible friend of Teresa’s is a friend of mine. ”
As I shook his hand, I snuck a peek at the book title: Joan Morgan’s When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost. It had been published a few months ago and I’d already read it; the author’s layered observations about hip hop culture and the modern Black woman made me realize anew just how fucked-up my relationship with Alonzo really was.
“That your book?” I couldn’t resist asking.
“Yeah, the title caught me in Barnes and Noble and I couldn’t put it down.”
I stared at Derek, processing that he’d voluntarily bought a book about feminism. “I read it in one sitting. It really, um, hit home for me.”
“I bet it did,” Derek replied carefully. “The book was very clear about how complicated the world is for educated, goal-oriented, independent Black women. And while I love hip hop from my soul, Joan made me think about misogyny in the lyrics in a totally different way.”
I nodded slowly, unwilling to reveal more to a total stranger—even as I had a feeling he might understand.
“Sheeet, you put a good beat under ‘Bitches and hoes and hoes and bitches’ and my ass will be on the dance floor.” Teresa shrugged as we all started laughing.
“That might be part of the problem, girl,” I said lightly, although I wasn’t entirely kidding.
“We’re all a little bit complicit, right? But no disempowered community should bear the responsibility for fixing the dominant culture.” Derek sounded so earnest that I started to feel the edges of suspicion. No man could be that damn evolved.
“Well, I’m not relying on a man to end my oppression,” Teresa shot back, clearly used to sparring with Derek.
He raised a power fist. “Hear! Hear!”
“All this advocating for the underdog makes you guys sound so public defender-y.” I smiled at them, clearly in their element.
After shifting gears to chat with Teresa for a few minutes about a new case he had, Derek kissed both of us on the cheek and took off toward the courthouse.
My girl normally had indiscriminate taste in men: knuckleheaded gym rats, lying adulterers, sheltered Upper East Siders looking for an exotic thrill; Teresa had dated them all.
But this time, I thought she’d hit the jackpot.
This guy was handsome and smart and gentlemanly.
I held up my hand to high-five Teresa. “Tee, that man is hot,” I said.
“You did good this time. Why didn’t you tell me about him? ”
She laughed. “He’s my boy, not my man. We’re just friends.”
“Yeah, right. He is way too fine to waste on some platonic nonsense.”
“I swear. We’re not each other’s type. He’s too geeky for me, always reading in his spare time. And I keep it way too real for him.” She signaled the waiter for our check.
“Whatever, Teresa. Just because you have a photographic memory doesn’t give you the right to make fun of the rest of us who actually have to read things.
” I rolled my eyes and pointed at her. “All I know is that you need to get in there and help yourself to a big serving of Derek Mills before some other chick does.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I saw the way you were looking at him,” she said. “You want a lil’ spoonful for yourself?”
“Nope. I’m heading home now to get ready to meet my own man for a date later.”
She shot me a knowing look. “Okay, chica. My bad.”
When I called Joseph to fill him in on my morning from hell, he “oh no”ed and “oh wow”ed through the story, making me feel for a minute that he might have understood how deflating the day was.
But then he said, “Well, at least they didn’t pat you down or make you pass through a metal detector on your way in,” chuckling at his own joke.
I swallowed my irritation at his snarky tone, but then he reminded me that we were going to dinner with another one of his bank’s managing directors at seven.
I had been looking forward to going to his house, ordering a pizza, and watching a movie.
The very last thing I wanted to do was hang out with some suit and his trophy girlfriend of the month.
But it was obviously important to Joseph, so I told him I’d meet him at the restaurant.
I figured if I closed my eyes for a few minutes, I’d be fine.
But a few minutes turned into a few hours.
I woke with a start at 6:30. I’d crawled out of my suit and into comfy pajamas and gathered my hair into a messy bun.
My makeup was smudged and would have to be redone.
Hell, I probably needed to shower. No way was I going to make it to Midtown in thirty minutes, so I called Joseph to let him know I’d be late.
“Dammit, Nicole,” he exploded. “This is not some random dinner. We’re meeting Peter Boatswright and his girlfriend, Nina Hilman—you know, of Hilman hotels.”
“Well, tell Peter Boatswright and Nina Hilman that I’ve had a stressful day and I will be along shortly.”
“And how am I supposed to explain your day?” he huffed. “Should I say that you nearly had a bathroom accident on day one at a media company they’ve never heard of?”
I was so stunned by the venom in his voice, I almost couldn’t respond. My hurt quickly changed to anger. “You know what?” I spat. “Why don’t you and your socialite friends have a lovely dinner tonight. And don’t bother calling me this weekend. I’m not in the mood.”
I slammed the phone down as my fury turned to disbelief. But I was also almost grateful we’d fought because my brain was still fried. I really didn’t want to reapply mascara, put on heels, and come up with pithy small talk. Pepperoni pizza and a night of DVDs sounded much better.
I rolled into CeCe’s Studio the next day with my unfortunate morning at NuVoices still looping endlessly through my mind.
I tried to refocus on what I could possibly do to get the Sugar staff to trust me, but all I could think about was their downcast eyes as Lunatic mocked that stupid suit, everyone snickering at the slander that I slept my way to the top, the bathroom bitches trying to revoke my Black passport, and Barbara staring into my eyeballs as she told me that I could either save or tank NuVoices.