Boss Lady

  I moved on to Maddy and Alexandria’s room. They were nowhere near as loud as Sasha and Jasmine. I didn’t expect to hear much out of their room. Most likely, they were all out with Robin anyway. But then I caught a feeling. I leaned my ear up against the door to listen in on the room like a spy. And I thought I heard something. I readjusted my ear to the door to listen again.

  Real faintly, I thought I heard soft moaning. I tried to concentrate on bed noises and movement inside the room, but I couldn’t hear any. So I went back to concentrating on the moaning.

  “Mmm . . . mmm . . . ooh . . .”

  I leaned back away from the door and was shocked. There was moaning going on inside the room. But I had to give it to them, they were being real discreet about it.

  I thought about knocking on the door to bust things up, but what right did I have to do that? Then I got curious and listened again.

  “Oooh, Jason . . . oooh, yeah.”

  Alexandria’s moaning was getting louder, and the bed was beginning to squeak. I guess I had caught them at the perfect time. Even Jason began to moan.

  “Ahh, ahhh, ahhh, oooh, ooh, oooh.”

  “Yeaaah, yeah, yeaahh.”

  “Oooh, ooh, oooooh . . .”

  That was enough for me. I had heard all I needed to hear. Alexandria and Jason were surely getting into things, full throttle. So I walked back to my room and took out my cell phone to call Maddy.

  “Hello,” Maddy answered with plenty of noise in the background.

  I cut straight through to the chase. I asked her, “Is Alexandria with you?” I knew the answer already, I just wanted to make sure.

  Maddy answered, “No, she got sick on us.”

  “She got sick? What do you mean by that?” I asked her.

  “What do you think I mean?” Maddy snapped at me. “She said she didn’t feel good.”

  I guess Maddy and I were not on the best of terms with Shamor between us. I wasn’t even feeling the boy like that.

  “What time was it when she said that?” I asked.

  “As soon as we got back to the room. Look, why don’t you call her and ask her yourself? Better yet, why don’t you go knock on the door?”

  Once Maddy asked me that, I realized that I had made a mistake. I wasn’t supposed to call and drop the bomb on Alexandria. I was supposed to beat around the bush and let my girls tell me what I wanted to know on their own. But it was too late for that. But at least I called Maddy instead of Jasmine. And there was no way I was going to call Sasha about it. Because if Alexandria was sick, there was a good possibility that my cousin Jason was involved in her sickness. Sasha would have known that, but I believe Maddy did as well.

  I asked her, “When are you guys planning on getting back?”

  “Why?” she asked me back. Then she said, “Look, I don’t have time to sit here talking to you, I’m trying to enjoy myself. So you figure things out on your own.” And she hung up on me.

  I then thought about calling Alexandria and Jason on the hotel phone. That girl had some nerve to do my cousin right there in the hotel room that Tracy had provided for her. Miss High and Almighty turned out to be quite raunchy. And she had only known him for a few days.

  I couldn’t believe it. In fact, I snuck back out in the hallway with my cell phone in hand to call her hypocritical behind. I stood right by the door and listened again, and they were still both at it. I guess they were on their next round of moaning or whatever, and they were both making more noise.

  “Ooh, yeah. Ooh, girl. Yeah . . .”

  “Yes, baby, yes. Ooh, Jason. Ooh, baby . . .”

  I froze like an iceberg. My heart was racing like I don’t know what. I just couldn’t believe it. Alexandria was giving it to my cousin when she had just met the damn boy. I thought again about calling her to bust their damn groove, but the idea seemed silly and useless at that point. They were already doing the do. So I just walked back to my room and left them alone.

  When I closed and locked my door, I was seriously conflicted. What was Alexandria’s real purpose with Jason? Did she really like him, or did she have ulterior motives? And what about Jason? Was Alexandria really the bomb for him, or just another notch on his ho’ belt?

  I thought again about her question to Jason concerning Tracy’s book, his family life being public knowledge, and about the whole movie production. I thought that maybe Alexandria Greene had slipped right by me as an undercover groupie. I don’t know. Maybe I was just underestimating my cousin’s pimp skills simply because he was my cousin. I mean, Jason did have the look, the height, the gift of bullshit, and confidence for days. But he was just . . . my damn cousin! How could Alexandria fall for him?

  “They both got some nerve,” I mumbled to myself as I paced inside my room. “They’re gonna do it right here in the hotel room that Tracy paid for, and where anybody can come back to the rooms and bust them. Stupid!” I expressed to myself.

  My room phone rang and startled me. I had no idea who it could be.

  “Hello,” I answered.

  “I got good news, Vanessa.”

  It was Tracy. My heart started beating fast again, as if I was the one who had done something slimy.

  “What?” I asked her.

  “I finally talked to Bruce tonight, and he said that he can make it to dinner with us tomorrow night.”

  I said, “I thought we were gonna go out with Kiwana.”

  I didn’t really want to be around my cousin with old flings of hers. It just didn’t feel right. It felt like I would be in the way or something, whether she still had feelings for them or not. I would rather just hang out with her and her old girlfriends.

  She said, “No problem, we’ll meet with them both, and I’ll introduce them to each other. They’re both married now anyway,” she told me.

  I guess she realized what I was feeling.

  I said, “Oh, okay.”

  Tracy paused. Then she asked me, “What’s wrong?”

  “Hunh?”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing,” I lied to her. I couldn’t tell her the truth, that my friend Alexandria, Miss I’m-Too-Good-for-Anybody, was giving her brother Jason some you-know-what in her hotel room.

  “Nothing’s wrong, hunh?” Tracy asked me. She chuckled and said, “Well, I may not be a parent yet, but I do know when people have something on their minds. So you’re telling me that you don’t have anything on your mind right now?”

  “I’m not saying that, but . . . you know, I may not want to talk about it.”

  And I didn’t.

  Tracy said, “Okay. That’s fair enough. We all have a right to privacy. But where’s, ah, Alexandria? Have you talked to her since you’ve been back to the room?”

  “No. Why?” I answered as calmly as I could.

  “She’s not with the girls. And I talked to Robin. She said that they told her Alexandria was sick.”

  “Oh yeah? What, she had a headache or something?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But when I called the room, she didn’t answer. So I may need you to go over there and check up on her.”

  My heart jumped in my throat again.

  I answered, “I’m already in bed, but if you call her again and she still doesn’t answer, I’ll get up and go over there.”

  “Well, why don’t you call her?” Tracy asked me. “She’s your friend. You’re not concerned about her?”

  I was stuck again.

  I said, “Okay, I’ll call her.” I couldn’t keep going back and forth about it. Tracy might have gotten suspicious.

  “All right. And call me back once you find out where she is and how she’s doing.”

  “Okay.”

  I was just about to hang up when Tracy said, “Vanessa.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Has she met somebody here?”

  Oh my God! I thought to myself. Why me?

  “Why do you ask me that?”

  Tracy said, “I just have a feeling about that gir
l.”

  Interesting. I wondered what her feeling was.

  “A feeling about what?” I asked my cousin.

  She said, “I don’t know, I just . . . that girl just seems sneaky to me.”

  That’s probably why Tracy never paid Alexandria much attention. And now she was creeping with Jason. Was it my fault? All I did was introduce them after Jason had begged me to.

  “I’ll go ahead and call her,” I said, just to get off of the subject with my cousin.

  “How well do you know that girl?” she asked me.

  All of a sudden I became defensive.

  “I mean, you act like she did something to you.”

  Tracy thought it over and paused.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I have no reason to jump to conclusions about her. But I just don’t like how quiet she is sometimes, like she knows something.”

  “I’m quiet, too,” I reminded my cousin. As soon as I said it, I remembered why I was staying in L.A. with Tracy in the first place, for defending myself against my abusive mother. But no one else saw it that way. They all thought I was crazy.

  Tracy didn’t bring it up to rub it in my face, but I know she was thinking about it.

  She said, “You go ahead and call her then.”

  When I hung up the phone, I took a deep breath and prayed that Jason and Alexandria were finished doing what they were doing so she could answer the phone and lie to me, or whatever she planned to do.

  So I picked up the phone and dialed, assuming that she probably wouldn’t answer it. It rang once. It rang twice. It rang three times, and then I went ahead and hung up the line.

  I waited a few more minutes, itching to either call Alexandria back or make another snooping visit to her door for a listen. I was hoping that Jason would be making his getaway soon.

  I even got up and walked to the door to look through the peephole. The elevator was in the direction of my room, so Jason would have to walk past me to leave. So I wanted to see if I could at least see or hear him walking past.

  Sure enough, I could hear faint voices in the hallway, but I dared not investigate. I didn’t want to catch them in the act of the escape. So when the voices stopped, and someone walked toward the elevators, I made it back over to the phone to call Alexandria again.

  “Hello,” she finally answered, sounding sleepy.

  I guess she had to get her little act on. I acted right along with her.

  “Hey, girl, where have you been? Everybody’s been calling for you.”

  She said, “I’ve been in bed. They didn’t tell you I was sick?”

  I said, “I called you and nobody answered the phone.”

  “Yeah, I fell asleep for a while.”

  “Well, what’s wrong with you?”

  “I just had a headache. I mean, I’m not really used to working this many long hours.”

  Alexandria came from a wealthy California family. I even wondered if her family tree was linked to the first California gold rush or something. She sure acted like it sometimes.

  I said, “Ain’t it the truth. Tracy said I was asking for it. Now she’s giving me all the work I need, and some.”

  “Yeah, and you included us in this mess,” Alexandria commented.

  I said, “So what happened with you and my cousin Jason? Y’all got to talking that night and I have no idea how long you two were up.”

  It was the moment of truth.

  She answered, “Not long after you went in. Your cousin is funny though.”

  “You think so, hunh? Well, did you give him your phone number to stay in touch?”

  She hesitated. She said, “Why, you wanted me to?”

  “No, I didn’t say that. I was just asking.”

  “Oh,” she responded. And that was it on the subject. She spoke no more about it.

  “So, how come you didn’t go back out with everybody else?” she asked me.

  Because I wanted to catch you in the act of banging my cousin, I thought to myself evilly.

  But instead I told her, “I was too tired to go back out.”

  “I hear you,” she commented. “This trip is wearing me out.”

  Yeah, I bet it is, I thought to myself.

  I said, “All right, well, let me call everybody back and tell them that you’re okay.”

  “Who was asking about me?”

  I wanted to be careful with my answer at first, but then I figured, what the hell. Alexandria had gotten herself into her own mess, so she would have to get herself out of it.

  “Tracy called me about it,” I told her. That was all I planned to say.

  “Why?”

  “Because you didn’t answer your phone when she called your room earlier.”

  “Why was she looking for me?”

  “Because you wasn’t with everyone else.”

  “Yeah, I was sick.”

  “So, what is that supposed to mean?” I asked her. “We can’t talk to you because you’re sick? We can’t wonder how you’re doing? I mean, what is the matter with you? My cousin was just worried about you, and when she got no responses from her calls, she asked me to check up on you.”

  I said, “Actually, she wanted me to knock on your door, but I told her I was in bed already.”

  I wanted Alexandria to know just how close she had come to being busted. In reality she was busted, she just didn’t know it yet.

  “How long ago was this?” she asked me.

  “About twenty minutes ago, maybe longer.”

  She said, “Well, I probably wouldn’t have answered it. I mean, I’m just waking up now.”

  Yeah, whatever, I thought with a grin. She was tripping. I was getting a chance to see Alexandria’s true colors. Tracy was right about her. I guess my big cousin had had enough interaction with women and girls through the popularity of her book to know all different tendencies and types.

  I said, “All right, well, let me go ahead and call everybody back then and tell them that you’re okay.”

  “All right,” she told me.

  “You are okay now, right?” I asked her to make sure.

  “Yeah, I guess I just needed some rest, that’s all.”

  “Well, whatever the doctor orders, you just make sure you get it,” I bullshitted to her.

  She said, “I know that’s right.”

  * * *

  When I hung up the phone with Alexandria, all I could do was shake my head. I felt like calling my damn cousin Jason and asking him how it was, just to let him know that they were busted. Then he would call Alexandria and let her know that I knew. Then she would call me and either get mad about it, or continue to lie like it never happened. Then I would feel even worse about her than I was already feeling. I mean, if you’re going to be a ho’, at least be honest about it. I guess she was trying to be a discreet ho’.

  I don’t know how long I sat there thinking about it, but the next thing I knew, Jasmine, Sasha, and Maddy were back. You could hear all of their noise through the walls. I jumped up out of bed in my nightclothes to return to Sasha and Jasmine’s room.

  I knocked on the door, just to see someone looking through the peephole.

  “I’m sorry, but we won’t be having any booty calls here,” Jasmine joked through the door.

  “Are you sure?” I asked her. “What if I was Allen Iverson?”

  Jasmine damn near broke her arm to get the door open.

  “Hi, A.I. Is there anything I can get or do for you?”

  We all broke up laughing. Jasmine was a big Allen Iverson fan, especially while we were still in Philadelphia.

  She said, “Oh my God, don’t let me see him while we’re here. Because I swear, I will go there in a heartbeat.”

  I looked at Sasha and said, “See that. That’s where a girl gets into trouble.”

  “Whatever,” Jasmine huffed at me. “So, you wouldn’t let A.I. in if he was knocking on your door?”

  I asked, “Why would I? I don’t know him.”

  “Whatever,” Jasm
ine said again. She said, “Okay, would you let Nelly in your room then?”

  I smiled. I was a big Nelly fan.

  Sasha said, “Now how are you gonna like Nelly and not like Allen Iverson? They could practically be cousins.”

  Jasmine and I looked at each other.

  I said, “Okay, what are you trying to say, they all look alike? You better watch yourself, Sasha.”

  “Yeah, because people always say that about Asians,” Jasmine joked.

  “Well, you know I look good, so that must mean that all Asians look good,” Sasha bragged.

  “What, just because you got a black butt? You still can’t dance,” Jasmine teased her.

  “I don’t have to. All I do is move to the beat, and the guys swarm me every time. ‘Can I get a dance, Ma’? Can I get a dance?’ ”

  “Oh, like I don’t get that,” Jasmine commented. “That’s all night long, honey. All night long.”

  I really wasn’t there to shoot the breeze with them all night. I really wanted to make my way over to Alexandria and Maddy’s room to look Alexandria in her eyes and sniff her room. I had never been there to home base before, but I could imagine things based on what I had heard about it.

  I said, “Well, I haven’t seen you guys all night, I just wanted to check in with you.”

  “Aww, now aren’t you a good mother hen,” Jasmine joked to me.

  “Shut up,” I told her. “Now let me go check on Maddy and Alex.”

  “Make sure you tuck them in good,” Sasha added to the joke.

  I looked back at her and said, “Don’t even start.”

  I walked to Maddy and Alexandria’s room and took a deep breath. I had to get my act together. I knocked on the door and waited. Maddy answered the door.

  “What’s up?”

  Maddy seemed to be holding me up at the door, not intentionally but just standing in front of it.

  I pushed her out of my way and said, “Let me come in, girl. What are you hiding, a man up in here?” I was just about to say Shamor, but I stopped myself. That wouldn’t have been in good taste.

  Maddy remained stoic and said, “No comment.”