After The Dance Read online

  AFTER

  the

  DANCE

  LORI JOHNSON

  All copyrighted material within is

  Attributor Protected.

  DAFINA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  850 Third Avenue

  New York, NY 10022

  Copyright © 2008 by Lori D. Johnson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  All Kensington titles, imprints and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational or institutional use.

  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Special Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 850 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022. Attn. Special Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Dafina Books and the Dafina logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-6847-1

  eISBN-10: 0-7582-6847-5

  First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: April 2008

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Al

  Who never stopped believing

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  PART ONE

  HER

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  PART TWO

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  PART THREE

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  A READING GROUP GUIDE AFTER THE DANCE

  Acknowledgments

  I’d first like to thank the Muse-Maker for blessing me with a passion for the written word; my parents (Bobbie and Leo Johnson) and my brother (D. Steven Johnson) for nurturing my addiction to books and storytelling; my extended family (the Johnsons, Hunters, Hawkins, and Hams) and in particular, my grandparents (Ethel V. and Larther Johnson and Zenna and Edgar Hawkins) for providing me with so much great material and unconditional love; and my in-laws (the Morris family) for their support and encouragement.

  I’d like to thank the following for always being in my corner; my LeMoyne-Owen sisterfriends (Charlotte P., Violet S., and Susan B.); my play-cousin and all-around bud (Dr. Yvonne Newsome); my Memphis writing pals (Alice Faye Duncan, Ayo Jalani, and Dwight Fryer); Da Fellas in my circle (Stanford L. and Martin W.); my Memphis Go-To-Girl (Michelle F.); my Memphis Go-To-Guy (Michael R.); and Dee-Dee, my North Memphis confidante.

  To all of the guys and gals who “worked” the magazine’s desk with me at the main branch of the Memphis Public Library when it was still on Peabody & McClean (Cathy B., Griff, Astrid B., Pam B., Michael S., and Joy B.), I am deeply indebted to every one of you for all of the laughs and moments of inspiration—especially Joy B., who helped plant the seed for this project and who was among the first to give it a big thumbs-up.

  I’d like to offer a special thanks to Memphis Magazine (former editors, Leanne Kleinmann and Ed Weathers in particular) for publishing my first short story; Robert P. Kleinmann, Jr. for penning my first fan letter; Sharon J., Shelley S., Sandra P., and Angelia L. for being a part of my Cleveland Crew and Dr. Sara and Mr. Nate Wilder (of Cleveland, OH) for treating me and mine like blood kin.

  I will be forever grateful to Arthur Flowers for pointing me in the right direction; Anita Diggs for the advice that made all of the difference; Stacey Barney for inviting me to Kensington; my current editor, Selena James, for guiding me through the process; and my agent, Janell Walden Agyeman, for all of her ongoing reassurance, advice, and tireless efforts on my behalf.

  A thousand thanks to all of those unnamed and nameless folks I’ve encountered along the way who’ve encouraged me, prayed for me and believed in my dreams. This book is as much yours as it is mine.

  Last, but not least, I want to thank my husband, Al, for putting up with me and all of my idiosyncrasies for the past twenty plus years and my son, Aaron, for being my best work ever.

  PART ONE

  HER

  I had never really paid that much attention to him before, even though he lived right next door. Usually when we ran into each other we’d nod, speak our hellos, and keep on ’bout our business.

  Nora, my roommate, was the one who told me his name was Carl. She’d talked to him on several different occasions. She also told me he’d tried to hit on her—like I wouldn’t have guessed it. Nora’s got this, well, this sluttish quality about her. And I’m not trying to talk bad about the girl or anything, it’s just that I don’t know how else to describe it. She kind of puts you in mind of some of those girls you see dancing on Soul Train. You know, the ones who look like their titties are about to shake outta their clothes? Or, the ones who are always turning their asses up to the camera? And that’s cool when you’re twenty-three and under, and don’t have the good sense to know any better.

  Anyway, according to Nora, our tall, dark-skinned, bearded neighbor was sweet, but not her type. I kind of looked at her sideways when she said that, but I didn’t say anything. Me and Nora go way back. I know all about her “type.” It’s dog. Straight up and down, dog. I’m telling you, she’s not satisfied unless some guy’s smacking her upside the head, taking her money, whoring all over town, or some combination of the three.

  Problem with Nora is that she’s still under the impression that there’s actually something called love out there, and if she searches long and hard enough, she’ll event
ually find it. I don’t have any such illusions. See, I know ain’t nothing out there but game. And having played hardball with the best of them, I also know the secret to winning is knowing how not to get played—something Nora has yet to learn. That’s why every other month, just like clockwork, you can find her sitting up in the living room of the condo we share trying her best to kill off a fifth of scotch, looking crazier than Bette Davis did in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and playing them same old sad-ass songs over and over and over again. And Lord knows I’d go to bat for my girl Phyllis Hyman (God rest her beautiful soul) any durn day of the week, but listening to “Living All Alone” fifty times straight on a Friday night, with no interruption, is enough to drive even the sanest sister out of her cotton-picking mind.

  And that’s how it happened that Carl and I had our first real conversation—if you want to call it that. I had just stepped outside for a break from the music and the madness and was settling comfortably into my patio chair with my pack of Kools, a chilled glass of wine, and a romance novel, when he opened up his back door, stepped outside, and noticed me sitting on the other side of the fence.

  He said “Hey” and I said “Hey,” and I thought that was gonna be the extent of it before he went on his merry little way. But no! He decided he was going to be sociable.

  “Must be Nora in there jamming to Hyman.”

  I said, “Yes. If it’s disturbing you, I’ll ask her to turn it down.”

  He said, “No, I was just wondering ’cause you don’t exactly look like the Hyman type to me. No, you look more like a—let’s see—Millie Jackson. Yeah, you look like the kind of woman who could really get into some Millie Jackson. Am I right?”

  I guess he was banking on me not knowing about Miss Millie, the late ’70s and early ’80s trash-talking forerunner to the likes of today’s Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown.

  No, you ain’t right, smartass, and you must be blind is what I started to say but didn’t. Instead I blew my smoke, swirled the wine in my glass, cut my eyes, and said in my coolest “don’t mess with me, man” voice, “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  HIM

  I knew I was taking a risk when I opened my mouth. My Uncle Westbrook was the first to warn me, way back in the day. “Son,” he told me, “you never know how a woman’s gonna react to what you say. Sometimes you’ll get a smile, sometimes you’ll get an attitude.”

  But really, I should have known better ’cause every time I see this chick, she looks like she’s got her jaws tight about something. I mean, we’ve been neighbors for nearly six months now, and she still acts like she don’t hardly want to speak.

  Some women are like that, man. If you didn’t know any better you’d swear they were born with permanently poked lips. Have to say, though, I’ve noticed it more in fat women. Not that I have anything in particular against fat chicks. Matter of fact, I’ve gotten right close to one or two. But a fat chick with an attitude—hey, that’s something else altogether.

  Yeah, she’s one of them feisty big-boned girls, man. She’s got a pretty face, though. Actually, she’d probably be a stonecold fox if she lost, say, thirty or forty pounds and smiled every once in a while. But I guess that’d be asking for too much, huh?

  So I was standing there, right, trying to figure out how I was going to work my way out from under this Millie Jackson comment, when Nora came out and got me off the hook by informing the fat would-be-fox with the pretty but unsmiling face that she had a telephone call.

  Now, me and Nora, we’re cool. She kinda puts you in mind of a young Lola Falana with a double dose of spunk, you know? Though I’ll be damned if she ain’t always crying the blues over some dude. And this particular evening was no exception. Before I could even get out a proper hello, she’d launched into an all-too-vivid, blow-by-blow account of her latest hellacious affair. I don’t know, man, I guess it’s just something about me that brings out the worst in a woman. But being the polite fool that I am, I stood there nodding, grinning and grunting in all the right places, until both boredom and curiosity got the best of me and I walked over and picked up the book left by her roommate.

  Call me a proper bourgeois if you want to, but I still say you can tell a lot about a person by what they read. And it wasn’t like I was expecting the big sister with the bad attitude to be into something as heavy as Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth or anything, ’cause I’d seen her sitting out on the patio enough times with her head propped up behind a Harlequin to know better. But yet and still, I wasn’t at all prepared for anything on the level of a Jungle Passions either. I mean, the title alone was a bit much, but on the cover was this crazy Tarzan-looking character who’s got this even crazier-looking, big-breasted blonde wrapped up in one of those back-breaking, humanly impossible embraces. And you know me, I wasn’t about to let something like that pass without comment.

  “Excuse me for interrupting, Nora,” I said, “but might this be the type of relationship you’re looking for?”

  She glanced at the book and rolled her eyes. “Honey, don’t even try it! I’m into real-life, flesh-and-blood romances, not paperback ones. But yeah, Faye, she’s always reading that junk. And then got the nerve to tell me I live in a dream world. Ain’t that a blip?”

  HER

  I heard them out there talking about me. Didn’t faze me any more than him taking the book did. Yeah, girl, when I went back out there the next morning, the book had mysteriously vanished into thin air. Nora tried to play dumb and acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about when I asked if she had seen it anywhere. I guess the way they had it figured, I’d eventually get around to asking him—you know, Carl—about it. Give me a break. Like I said before, I know all about games, and anybody with half a brain could peep that one a mile away. And as far as my indulgence in romance novels is concerned, let it suffice to say that I read them purely for their entertainment value, and I’m perfectly capable of distinguishing the carefully drawn lines between fiction and reality.

  I didn’t bother to listen long enough to find out, but I’m pretty sure their trite little conversation concerning moi ended somewhere along the lines of “Poor, poor Faye, if only she had a man …”

  Yeah, I’ve heard it all before and really couldn’t care less. It’s not hard to get a man—if that’s what you want. I just don’t happen to want one—not to keep, anyway. To me, having a man is about as emotionally satisfying as having a fish in an aquarium or some other kind of pet. I’m not into pets. That’s not to say that I don’t have, well, certain needs and desires. Yes, there are those times in a woman’s life when all the tender finger-stroking in the world just ain’t gonna get it. Okay? But I’ve yet to meet the man whose stuff was so good I wanted to trade my heart in for it. Uh-huh, when I go out, I do what any sensible woman would—I leave my heart at home, locked away for safekeeping.

  Really, it’s better that way. It evens out the exchange. And in my book that’s about all a relationship boils down to anyway—a simple exchange of goods and/or services, a sexual contract, if you will. I think my deal’s a pretty simple and fair one. I don’t expect them to take me out to expensive places or buy me gifts. I don’t expect any displays of affection outside the bedroom. And they don’t have to worry about any discussions having to do with commitment, babies, or the like. In turn, I fully expect them to come equipped with adequate protection. I expect them to make an honest attempt to satisfy my sexual needs. But most important of all, I expect them to exit my life promptly after the contract’s expiration, which with absolutely no exceptions is after the third lay.

  Why three? Well, to be perfectly honest, after the third time, the thrill of it all has begun to dissipate. And if you think about it, that’s about the point at which most guys want to try and take the game to another level. I don’t play that. So I’m very careful about whom I choose to negotiate with.

  HIM

  We’ve bumped into each other a couple of times since the night of the infamous Millie Jackson comment, but s
he has yet to say anything to me about the book. I know she knows I have it. The chick really baffles me, man. There’s something ’bout her game I haven’t quite figured out. As it stands now, I’m putting my money on split personality because the last time I saw her she did an almost complete about-face.

  It was another Friday evening, right, and I was just getting back from the video store with a weekend’s worth of entertainment—a soft porn flick, a couple of Eddie Murphy movies, and something educational for the kids to watch when they came over Saturday night. I was getting out of my ride with my goods when I saw homegirl hunched down beside her car trying to change a tire.

  So, thinking man that I am, I paused and deliberated on the situation a moment before deciding upon an appropriate course of action. Like, should I (a) do the honorable thing and offer my humble assistance? Or (b) keep on walking and pretend like I don’t see her big ass all pressed up against the curb? Yeah, you know me, man, sucker city all the way, I went for (a) and asked the chick if I could give her a hand.

  Instead of thanking me with a big pretty smile and a few kind words, she said—without even looking up, mind you—“I’m perfectly capable.” Can you believe that?! “I’m perfectly capable.” You know I wanted to cuss, man, but hey, I played it off like a gent.

  I said, “Well, I can see that, Ms. Fix-it, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have a couple more hands on the job. Or would it?”

  Chick hoisted her big butt off the ground, tightened her grip on the wrench she’d been using, looked me dead in my eye, and said, “Look, the name’s Faye, okay?”

  Now, I could see the sister was ’bout ready to go into this nut act on me, so I backed up a bit, but I wasn’t about to be deterred from my program. I said, “Okay, Faye, okay! I’m Carl. Nice to finally make your acquaintance. So tell me, Faye—are you planning on handing me that wrench or smacking me with it? No offense intended, mind you, just thought I’d ask.”

  So I was standing there waiting for her to take a swing at me, when the miracle happened. I’m not lying, man, the chick actually smiled. Came right out of nowhere! And it was so quick I almost didn’t catch it. But it was definitely a smile. Okay, if that wasn’t strange enough, after we’d finished the job, she actually thanked me and invited me inside for some lemonade.