“Okay.” I paused a moment. “What do you wanna do?”
“Anything, have
a drink, see a movie, walk in the park. I don’t care. Just as long as you and I do something.”
“I’ll see how serious you are, Lana. I’ll leave it on you. Call me tomorrow at work. We’ll go for walk at Piedmont Park. Then we’ll go have a drink at one of those sidewalk spots in Buckhead. And then we’ll go see a movie.”
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” she said, nodding her head with a satisfied smile. “I like the way you do things, Zack.”
“Yeah right, sure you do. All you gotta do now is call.”
Lana started her car, and started to back up. “That’s right. I’ll call you. ’Cause I’m gonna take your fine ass from Miss Angelique.” Lana was an aggressive woman. Once she decided that she wanted something, she went after it. And Lana was used to getting exactly what she wanted.
I walked back toward the building and looked at my watch. It was after three o’clock. I knew that Lana had no intention of calling me the next day. She would probably call the day after with some story about a meeting that she had to go to, or some client she had to see. “Same old, Lying Lana.” I heard a horn honk. Thinking it was just Lana saying good-bye, I looked back to wave but it was Tee. He was in his car, waving for me to come on. I got in the car and he drove off.
“Take your time. I ain’t in no hurry,” I told him.
“You ought to be, it’s almost four o’clock,” Tavarus said.
“And?”
“Never mind, I forgot, Angelique don’t trip.”
“It’s not that she don’t trip, it’s that we accept each other. I don’t question her; she don’t question me,” I said, and Tee took me home. When I got there, I went inside to find Angelique standing in the middle of the living room flipping channels. “Hi, baby.”
She walked by me without a word and went in the kitchen. I knew she was mad ’cause it took me so long to get there. Angelique was still uncharacteristically quiet. Even when she’s mad at me, she’ll still say something.
When she finally got around to speaking, Angelique sat listening quietly while I recapped the gentler moments of the previous evenings’ activities. She did, however, question the need to have dancers at the party. Finally, she got around to saying what was really on her mind. “What took you so long to get here, Zack? That condo ain’t but so big. I don’t care how trashed it was; it shouldn’t have taken you and Tee that long to clean up.”
“So what are you saying, Angelique?” I asked, cutting my eyes at her, hoping she wasn’t going where I thought she was going.
“It’s not what I’m saying. It’s what you’re not saying.” I started to unveil my cover story, but before I could say anything. “Had me sitting up here waiting on you to get here. The least you could have done was call me and say, ‘Angelique. It’s gonna be a while before I can get there.’ That’s just common courtesy. Sometimes I wonder if you have any respect for me at all, Zack.”
I smiled and looked over at Angelique. “Sorry,” I said calmly, trying not to sound guilty, and defuse her anger at the same time.
“That’s it? Sorry. At least you could lie to me and say you won’t let it happen again.” Cheap shot, but I deserve it. I have never stood her up. But I have kept her waiting more times than I could remember. “You better be glad I love you,” she said.
“But you do love me and that’s what’s important. And I am sorry, Angelique. You should have called and I would have been here sooner; but you made it seem like you weren’t in any rush, so I didn’t rush to get here.”
“You’re missing the point, Zack. I talked to you more than four hours ago. I could have cleaned our house and that cracker box condo in four hours. You were over there messing around instead of cleaning up. That’s what you were doing, ain’t it?”
I paused and looked at her for a moment before answering. Angelique had asked a double-edged question. Did she mean that I was messing around with Tee or did she suspect that I had been with Lana for the last couple of hours?
“You’re right, Angelique, I was just messing around. It was inconsiderate of me and I’m sorry, I should have called.”
“It always bothers me when you agree with me so easily.” The questions in her mind showed plainly on her face. “Just what were y’all doing, anyway? Y’all probably still had some of them hoochies over there, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, right. Try me and Tee went to get some brew, and so we had to burn one before we got started.”
“Whatever,” Angelique said, as she got up and started for the room. She looked back at me. “You coming.”
“Where?”
“To eat. I’m hungry.”
We had dinner at Ray’s on the River. It’s her favorite restaurant. After dinner, we stopped at Blockbuster and picked up a couple of movies. For the rest of the night, we watched movies, laughed, and talked.
Angelique and I had gotten into a real good groove lately. We had reached a point where I considered Angelique my best friend. We shared everything with each other—well—just about everything.