For the Love of Money

  Raheema’s older sister Mercedes showed up before we were finished with the rehearsal, but Raheema didn’t seem to have too many words for her. I found my way over to Mercedes just to say hi. She had been through a lot of changes in her life, but she was still my girl.

  She said, “How you doin’, Tracy? I hear you out in Hollywood now. Have you had any luck out there yet?” Whenever Mercedes asked you something, it always seemed like a loaded question with ulterior motives involved. She thought way too fast to have a normal conversation.

  “A little something came my way,” I answered her. I asked her on the down low, “How come you’re not in the wedding?” I didn’t want to embarrass Mercedes or make a scene by being too loud about it, but I did want to know.

  Mercedes grunted, tossed her head back, and laughed.

  She said, “Shit, Tracy, I wasn’t paying no damn hundred and fifty dollars for some African dress that I wasn’t going to wear again. To hell with that.”

  “Watch your mouth in this church, girl,” I reminded her.

  She looked up toward the brown Jesus with long woolly hair at the front of the church and said, “Forgive me, Lord.” She looked again with large eyes. “Damn, when did Jesus turn black? This must be one of them radical churches.”

  I just shook my head at her. Raheema pulled me aside.

  “What did Mercedes say to you?” she whispered.

  “Oh, I just asked her why wasn’t she in the wedding.”

  “She said something about the dresses, right?”

  I smiled. “She said she wasn’t paying a hundred and fifty dollars for some African dress that she would never wear again.” Actually, most bridesmaid dresses were disposable from what I knew, just like with prom dresses. Unless you were old-fashioned and into saving and recycling them.

  Raheema sighed and said, “She can be so daggone petty sometimes. I would do it for her in a heartbeat. This is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion.”

  I put my hand on Raheema’s shoulder and said, “Don’t let it get to you, girl. We both know how Mercedes can get sometimes.”

  While I held my hand on her shoulder, I noticed that Raheema’s hair was trimmed into a perfect V at the back of her neck, with big attractive waves that flowed on top. Damn my girl looked good in her natural! She even had me tempted to try it, but on second thought, my hair was never quite as flowing as Raheema’s and Mercedes’, I just had the fancy eyes, so I chose to keep my hair permed.

  Before I stepped out of the door and headed on my way, my girl’s husband-to-be walked over and shook my hand.

  “Well, it’s good to finally meet the woman behind the book,” he said with a knowing smile.

  I was tempted to tell him I wasn’t that little fast girl anymore, but like Kendra and Yolanda had told me out in Cali, I had to stop sweating it and go on with my life. After all, I did agree to publish my life story in a book, so I damn sure couldn’t keep complaining about it.

  Raheema asked me if I would hang out with her and her bridesmaids later on that night. I didn’t make her any promises though. I wanted to make plans of my own.

  I took a quick taxi ride to pick up my rental car from downtown, and bought a cheese steak and fries for lunch. By the time I had stuffed my face, it was slightly after four o’clock, so I left to pick up my brother from the basketball game at his school. I figured that finding 19th and Norris Streets would be simple. Maybe if I had remembered to pay attention to the street signs like my girl Kendra had told me, it would have been.

  Well, I started on my way, driving through the ruggedness of North Philadelphia, and I kept running into one-way streets, construction, and slow traffic. It seemed like everything that could possibly slow me down and make me late to pick up my brother was happening to me. I got completely turned around and was frustrated. I finally stopped and asked for directions, and this talkative fool that I asked sent me the wrong damn way. I only found that out when I asked for more directions at a quarter to five. When I finally made it to Engineering & Science High School (after five o’clock), I noticed that I had driven right past the school earlier.

  “This is a high school?” I asked myself out loud. It looked more like a middle school to me. It didn’t look as if the building could hold more than five hundred students.

  Jason was long gone. I would have to catch up to him at home, and with that being the case, it gave me a perfect opportunity to stop off on Wayne Avenue to investigate Victor’s health food store. My heart started racing like a young girl’s again to even think about it. I totally forgot about the rush-hour traffic I would have to fight through after five o’clock. So by the time I arrived in Germantown, my energy was all burned out. Nevertheless, I parked the car on Wayne, and went ahead and walked inside of Victor’s health food store.

  It was a clean place compared to the other stores on that block, and the fresh paint job was all white with green trim and a shiny black tile floor.

  “Can I help you with something, sister?” a smooth-looking brother wearing a white headpiece asked me from behind the glass counter.

  I don’t think they were Nation of Islam Muslims, but regular followers of Islam.

  I said, “Let me look around and see what I want first.”

  “Okay, take your time, sister.”

  I’ll be honest with you: health food never looked too good to me. It didn’t have enough color to it. Everything looked brown, green, or white, so the only thing I felt safe with was the vegetable platters. They needed to make health food look healthier. Or maybe I was too Americanized with the brainwashing of artificial colors and flavoring, but who was I fooling. I was not there for food anyway, I was there for a man.

  I stopped the bullshit and just went for broke. “Is Qadeer Muhammad around?”

  “Oh, yeah, he’s in the back.” The brother stopped, stared, snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “I knew you looked familiar. You’re the one in the book, right? Flyy Girl.”

  It seemed like all of Philadelphia knew my face. It was my hometown, but it wasn’t as if I was famous. Yet.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” I told him.

  He stared at me and smiled.

  I said, “And I’ve made changes in my life just like the brother Qadeer has made changes in his.”

  The brother nodded to me. “I understand, sister. We all have to take those dark paths before we see the light.”

  Okay, well, stop fucking staring at me like you want something and go get your damn boss! I thought to myself. Muslim or not, that brother was as human and imperfect as the rest of us. I could tell where his mind was, right inside of my damn panties!

  “All right, I’ll go get the brother,” he said, leaving the counter area.

  “Thank you,” I told him.

  He reappeared shortly after. “He’ll be right out to see you.”

  For a second, it all seemed unreal. Victor Hinson, a Muslim with a health food store, the same Victor who drank, smoked, got high, and screwed every pretty girl in the neighborhood who looked at him too hard. It was unbelievable! I had to look away to stop myself from laughing.

  “How are you doing today, sister?” Mr. Qadeer Muhammad addressed me.

  I turned to face him and looked again for his ring. I found it on his left hand, as plain as day, big, gold, and shiny. He was dressed as casually as any other brother in jeans and a sweater. He didn’t even look like a Muslim.

  “I’m doing fine. I just stopped in to see what your place looks like,” I answered.

  Before I could say another word, a little hand pushed me aside.

  “Dad-dee?”

  “Say excuse me. What did I tell you about pushing through people?” Victor told his son sternly.

  I looked at the boy to see if he had his father’s looks, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t! He was a shade or two lighter, but he definitely had the looks, and I was jealous as hell! He could have been my son.

  “Excuse me,” he looked up at me and said. I think he was five years old.
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  “That’s okay,” I told him, smiling.

  Low and behold, in walked the wife with the second son, looking like twins. They were both walnut brown and small. The second son looked up and smiled, and it lit up the damn room. I was so, so weak, hating all of them for stealing my family!

  Victor, or Qadeer, I guess I should say, introduced us right there on the spot.

  “Malika, I guess it’s time for you two to finally meet each other. This is Tracy Ellison.”

  His wife nodded her head and extended her small hand to me. She must have been around five foot three, and was very dignified and calm.

  She said, “I’m pleased to finally meet you, sister.”

  I took her hand and was at a loss for words.

  “I, ah . . . same here. I’m pleased to meet you.”

  I wasn’t pleased at all! She took my damned husband!

  Qadeer said, “Malika, give me a minute, okay.”

  She looked at him and nodded before gathering her sons with authority. “Let’s go.”

  I was just about ready to fall down and die, but Qadeer led me out of his store and into the cold before I had a chance to.

  “So, how long are you back in town?” he asked me.

  I was daydreaming about rewinding the last twenty minutes of my life and never walking into his store and asking to see him.

  “Hunh?” I mumbled.

  “How long are you in town?” he asked me again.

  “Until Sunday.”

  He nodded. “You want to talk to me, don’t you?”

  I looked at him to read his eyes. They were steady and serious.

  “What do you mean?” I asked him.

  “I mean, we could sit down and talk and clear the air between us. That’s what you want, right?”

  I was numb, and freezing, but his words were keeping me warm. He would still see me.

  “Remember Raheema, my next-door neighbor and Mercedes’ little sister? She’s getting married tomorrow near downtown,” I told him.

  He nodded again. “Oh yeah? Well, that’s a beautiful thing.”

  I ignored his comment and said, “We’re all staying at the Four Seasons.”

  “Is that where you want to talk?”

  I read his eyes again.

  “Ah, we don’t have to,” I mumbled, “because I don’t want any disturbances.”

  He smiled and said, “I agree with that. It should be just us and our words.”

  “Can you meet me at the Doubletree on South Broad Street then?”

  I could not believe what I was saying! Or what he was saying, right out in front of his store with his wife and kids inside. I was becoming weak again, and the man was married.

  “Ten o’clock,” he told me.

  I finally stopped the craziness and asked, “What about your wife? What will she say about this?”

  He said, “Tracy, as you mentioned yourself, we have some unfinished business to take care of, right? My wife knows this. It’s not a secret. You wrote a book about us.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, I keep forgetting about that, but other people keep reminding me of it.”

  He ignored me and said, “Okay, so ten o’clock at the Doubletree.”

  I was still unsure about it. “Are you serious?” I asked him, glancing inside of his store and feeling like a thief.

  “Ten o’clock,” he told me. “I’ll see you then.”

  He walked back inside of his store and left me standing there in the cold. I hustled back to my rental car to drive away.

  “Okay, so now I have to get a room at the Doubletree,” I told myself. I thought, But what if that’s too much? He just wants to talk it all out, so what the hell am I thinking? In all actuality, I wanted to sex it all out. I mean, God, the man hadn’t touched me at all in ten years. My body was unfinished business too. I yearned for him. Deeply.

  I arrived at my parents’ house at six-thirty. The first thing I did was call the hotel to make a reservation.

  “You’re supposed to be taking Jason to the movies tonight?” my mother asked me in my old room.

  Jason was getting himself ready for it, but most of the movies started at close to eight or after eight, which wouldn’t give me enough time to get back down to the Doubletree to check in before ten o’clock.

  I said, “Actually, I’m gonna have to take him tomorrow because something else came up.”

  Jason overheard me while out in the hallway. He asked, “What, you got a date with a guy now?”

  I paused, feeling guilty about it. I said, “Raheema’s getting all of her girls together tonight. She does have a wedding tomorrow. This is her last night of the single life.”

  “You knew that before you promised Jason a movie,” my mother said, instigating.

  Jason said, “Aw, Mom, don’t make it sound like I have my feelings all hurt, because I don’t. I don’t have to go to the movies with her.” He was wearing your typical baggy jeans and extra large sports gear with a ski jacket that teenagers of the nineties wore.

  “Well, I don’t think it’s right,” my mother sulked. “You don’t go out of your way to make promises to somebody just to break them.”

  I sighed and said, “Mom, he’ll live. Okay? If he would have waited around a little longer for me to pick him up from school today, we could have been at the movies right now.”

  “I did wait. I waited until like five o’clock, and by that time, it was time for me to go, because I’m not just gonna stand around in North Philly all day when I didn’t know how long you were gonna be.”

  “Yeah, you did the right thing,” my mother told him. “She should have left earlier to pick you up on time.”

  I said, “Well, if you feel that strongly about taking Jason to the movies, Mom, then why don’t you and Dad take him?” She was really getting under my skin about it.

  “Aw, naw, I’m not going out like that,” Jason responded.

  “That’s a good idea. What’s so wrong with that, Jason? We could use a good movie outing together.”

  I started laughing.

  Jason said, “Naw, you don’t go to the movies with your parents.”

  “Not as a high schooler you don’t,” my father walked out from his room and put in.

  “Well, do you want to go to the movie with me?” my mother asked him.

  I figured it was time for me to sneak away in the chaos. I could check into the Doubletree before eight and have plenty of time to gather some of my more intimate things from my room at the Four Seasons. So I took off from my parents’ house to plan the rest of my night.

  I made it back to the Four Seasons after getting my room key at the Doubletree, and packed up my sensual clothing to take with me. Even married, Victor did not fail to add excitement to my life, like he had done so many times while we were both still teenagers. No other man could compete with the excitement that he gave me. However, on the way out with my things, I was caught red-handed by Raheema’s bridesmaids.

  “Where are you going, Tracy?”

  Out to mind my own business, I thought to myself.

  I said, “I have to make a last-minute run up to my house in Germantown so my mother can help me sew a few things for tomorrow. I want to make sure I look just right.”

  “Talk about last-minute alterations,” someone said. It was close to nine o’clock by then.

  “It’s not that late, and I don’t want to have to do this in the morning,” I commented. Imagine that. I was even lying to be with Victor again, and I definitely felt guilty about it, but so what? I couldn’t stop myself. I was possessed by the dream again, the dream of Victor and I together forever.

  Instead of going point for point with Raheema’s girls, I just kept stepping. “Tell Raheema I’ll see her later on.”

  Of course I felt bad about not hanging out with my girl that night, but she had her man, and I wanted mine back.

  I drove over to the Doubletree, parked my rental car in the garage, and went up to my room on the eleventh floor. I had all
of the things I had planned for a rendezvous with Mike, but I hadn’t even called him back, and I didn’t care to.

  He’ll get over it, I told myself. Life goes on.

  I was screwing over everyone just to be with Victor again. Nevertheless, I was jumping the gun. Qadeer only wanted to talk things through. He didn’t want to jump my bones or come back to me or anything, I just wished that he did. So I kept my things inside of my bag to make sure I didn’t embarrass myself. I guess I wanted him to go back to being plain old Victor from around the way, with no wife, no kids, and no Muslim name, if only for one night.

  The minutes between nine and ten o’clock seemed like hours. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at the clock. Every five minutes I looked. The closer it got to ten, the more anxious I became. At ten of, my crazy behind decided to slip on the electric blue, form-fitting dress that I planned to wear out on a date with Mike. Boy was I desperate for some loving from my old flame. I was just like those silly-behind women in those relationship novels, but I could not stop myself. Like I said, real life was stranger than fiction.

  The telephone rang while I adjusted my dress in the mirror, and it shocked the hell out of me. That’s just how on edge I was. I walked over and answered it after calming my nerves.

  “Hello.”

  “Sorry, I’m late. I had to find a parking spot.”

  I looked at the clock. It was eight minutes after ten.

  I said, “That’s okay, as long as you’re here.” However, since he had searched for a parking spot instead of using the hotel’s garage, I guess he didn’t plan to stay long. Of course he didn’t, he was married. My heart dropped an inch inside of my chest, weighing low with that final reality. Qadeer only wanted to talk.

  I gave him my room number and thought of changing back into something more casual. What difference would it all make?

  When he arrived and tapped on the door, I took one last deep breath, while still wearing my sexy blue dress, and let him in. He was wearing the same sweater and blue jeans that I saw him in a few hours earlier. Why should he have changed when he only wanted to talk?