The waitress returned with our frozen margaritas and chips. Mexican happy hour once a week had been a ritual of ours for years. I reached for the homemade salsa and poured some on my plate.
Trinette grabbed a chip and popped it in her mouth. “I’m thinking about buying a new car.”
She had to be kidding. “Your Mercedes is less than two years old.”
“You just said it. Old. I want that new E-550 I saw on a commercial last night.”
“Oooh! I love that car.” I’m sure the envy was apparent in my eyes. “What color?”
“Red, of course. I think while Leon’s here I’ll convince him to go over to the Mercedes dealer with me.” I watched her eyes wander briefly across the room again. I snapped my fingers in front of her face, drawing her attention again.
“So in other words, you need him to buy you this new car. Have you even started working on fixing your credit yet?”
“For what? As long as I got a generous husband, who needs good credit?”
I brought my untouched drink to my lips. “If you fixed your credit you could buy stuff yourself and not have to depend on Leon or all those other men to buy you the things requiring credit to purchase. The last thing I’ll ever be is dependent on a man,” I replied between sips.
“Leon loves me depending on him.”
“No, you love depending on him. All you have to do is work on one debt at a time and start paying off all those damn credit cards along with whatever else you have on your report.”
She rolled her eyes. Trinette hates me talking about how fucked up her credit is, but come on. She’s a grown-ass woman and it’s time she started standing on her own two feet and stop using men to provide all her needs. She’s married to a financial executive, yet her finances are jacked up. “You need to get it together. You’ll be thirty-one next month.”
Her face suddenly became serious. “If it’ll make you happy, I will order a copy of my credit report and start working on fixing some stuff.”
“Sounds good.”
You would never guess we grew up in the same neighborhood. Englewood Park housing projects. Two skinny kids with big dreams of living the good life. The path I followed took me a little longer than Trinette. Marriage. College. Years of struggling to make ends meet. Donovan opened a barber shop. A Cut Above the Rest took three years before we finally saw a profit. Then two years ago, I took the plunge and opened my bookstore. Afterward, I started my radio segment, Truth Hurts. Life had been a struggle, but finally I’m starting to see the light.
But things were different for Trinette. She knew what she wanted from the beginning—a man who was going to do big things, and skinny-ass Leon was her answer. They met in college. He was smart, was good with money, and had a job, Trinette’s top requirements in a man. Back then he let her run over him, and ain’t much changed since. However, her behavior was getting out of control. She was screwing brothers for money when she had a husband who was loaded. It wasn’t because she needed the money. It was because she enjoyed the thrill of fucking around without getting caught. She also loved the control she had over other people’s money.
“You heard anything from Donovan yet?”
Trinette changed the subject, which meant she was tired of me getting in her ass. I decided to play along. I waited until our waitress delivered our food—chicken quesadillas—and moved to the next table before I responded. “Nope. It’s pretty clear at this point…. My husband isn’t the least bit interested in me or our marriage anymore.” I reached for my knife and fork and focused on my food.
Trinette knew she had hit a sore spot with me and gave me a sympathetic look. “Maybe it’s time. You said yourself Donovan pretty much ended the marriage before he was deployed.”
“I know, but I had hoped distance would have made the heart grow fonder.” I gave a rude snort. “Obviously not.”
We’d been having problems for some time, but I had still tried to support my husband and had hoped the time apart was all it would take to bring our marriage back together, but apparently it was all in my head. Our marriage had been dead for a long time. There was too much pain and neither of us knew how to fix it, and I no longer had the energy to keep trying.
For several seconds we ate in silence. I thought about my life a year ago and compared it to life at that point. Sadly, not much had changed.
“The Minority Business Association is having a party next weekend. You wanna go?”
Usually I don’t go to social functions like that. Mostly bougie black women trying to outdress each other while acting like they’re all that. But I didn’t have anything else to do. Tristan said it was time for me to move on, and possibly find some dick in the process. It’d been so long since I’d had sex, I had cobwebs between my legs. “Maybe.”
“It will be fun. We can eat and sit back and talk about folks. You never know, you might meet yourself a nice professional man.”
I frowned at Trinette. She had never considered Donovan’s barbershop a true profession. “We’ll see.”
“Well, don’t wait too long. I need to buy tickets in advance. And it’s dress to impress, so we can hit the Galleria if you want.”
I nodded. Shopping sounded like a fabulous idea.
After happy hour, we said our good-byes and I watched Trinette walk to her Benz while I moved to my Lexus. “Don’t forget. We’re going shopping Friday before Leon gets here.”
“Okay,” I yelled over my shoulder. I didn’t have the will or the enthusiasm it was going to take for me to move on with my life. I put my key in the ignition and sat there in the parking lot warming up my car long after Trinette was gone. Only a fool sits around and waits on a man, but something kept nagging at me that my marriage just wasn’t quite over yet. And as long as I had that feeling, it was going to be hard to let go.
4
Trinette
Let me just say I love my job. I really really love my job. I work because I want to, not because I have to, and I make sure everybody knows it.
I strolled in on Wednesday before eight A.M. looking fierce of course. I found a slamming burnt orange pantsuit on clearance at Nordstrom for seven hundred. I paired it with a pair of chocolate Jimmy Choos and a thick chocolate belt, showing off my narrow waist. As usual I strolled into the office carrying my morning latte. There was absolutely no other way to start my morning.
“Good morning, Trinette.”
I waved at Chuck, our building security guard, before I turned the corner and stepped into our suite.
The moment I did, I looked over at our receptionist, Claudette, and I almost spilled my latte all over me. And you better believe I would have sent that chick the dry cleaning bill. I don’t know what possessed that girl to get red tracks sewn in her head over the weekend. Don’t she know she looked like Homey the Clown?
“Good morning, girl.” I swung my fabulous three hundred dollar weave over my shoulder. Showing her how it’s done. Only the best for me. Obviously she knew nothing about that.
I strutted through the office waving, being fake. I know half the hoes I work with are hating on my ass. And I’m all right with that. See, I walk with my head held high and strut like my shit don’t stink, because it don’t. Hell, I can’t help it if I care about how I look and they don’t. Most of the other case managers at the Division of Children and Family Services walk in looking like they just rolled out of bed. Not me. I get up extra early to make sure I look extra good.
“We’ve got a meeting at ten today,” Patricia called from her chair as I moved in the cubicle across from her.
“What