Jaded Read online

  “So,” Trina said. “What’s going on? Surprised you called me for lunch today when I haven’t heard from you since when? New Years?”

  “Let’s place our lunch orders first.” Syeesha flagged down a waitress.

  The chatter in the restaurant was at full pitch now and the smell of coconut milk and chili peppers made her mouth water. Her stomach grumbled and the image of her lonesome turkey sandwich sitting in the back of the fridge at Clarke reminded her of the uncertainty of life. Never would it have occurred to her upon awakening that last morning for work that she would be be sitting here today unemployed and buzzed.

  When the waitress appeared, Syeesha selected from the menu like a child making a wish list from a Toys “R” Us catalog. “For starters, I’ll take the crispy shrimp and also the spring rolls with extra sauce on the side. Then let’s have the fried calamari–”

  “Sy, I’m on a diet. I’m not eating fried shrimp.”

  Syeesha blinked, confused for a second. “I’ll just get it anyway,” Syeesha finally replied. “In case you change your mind.” She turned back to the waitress. “The pad Thai noodles and shrimp fried rice. No, make that beef fried rice. Did I mention the calamari?”

  The unsmiling waitress nodded as she scribbled the order.

  “And I’ll take that fried rice with brown rice instead of white.” Syeesha handed the menu back to the waitress. “I hear that’s supposed to be better for you.”

  Trina placed her order of green tea, soup, and house salad.

  “That’s it? That’s all you’re having?”

  “Unlike you, I have to watch my weight. I can’t eat like I’m preparing to swim in the Olympics and still walk around in a size six.”

  Syeesha heard the roughness in her big sister’s tone so she didn’t bother to tell her that she was actually a four.

  “I like your new haircut. You trying to ‘jack Michelle Obama’s style?” Syeesha asked.

  “The twenty extra pounds on my backside would prove that no, I am not hijacking her style.”

  “And work?”

  “Eh. Market’s rough. Only the really good agents will survive this one. I already know a couple of people who’ve packed up their for-sale signs and left New York.”

  Trina went on to tell tales about her colleagues’ antics to survive the killer real-estate market, using words like “slacker” and “unmotivated” to describe those who couldn’t cut it.

  If Trina thought the agent who only brought in “a quarter mil” last year was “sitting on the sidelines of life,” what would she think about my being fired from a legal secretary position?

  The appetizers arrived and Syeesha dug into the food, anxious to have it absorb some of the alcohol.

  “How’s the hot professor doing?” Trina swished water in her mouth as if she was taste-testing wine.

  “He’s still hot,” she said. Just the thought of her gorgeous professor—an anomaly in law school—brought a warm feeling to her stomach.

  “And your studies? How’s it going?”

  And then the warm feeling turned cold.

  “Still interesting.”

  “Like hell. I’m the one who taught you how to lie, little sister, and you suck at it. You still flunking out?”

  “I’m not flunking out, Trina. No one ever said anything about flunking out. It’s hard working full-time and attending night school. I cannot wait to finally be a lawyer so that I won’t have to sit at lunch and hope my sister will pick up the tab.”

  Trina chuckled, pushed a bit of her sleek bob behind her ear and asked, “How do you like my new ice? Pretty hot, huh?”

  “They’re gorgeous,” Syeesha replied. The plump diamond drop earrings were fat as grapes and were even more brilliant against the simplicity of her black dress. Trina would never let her miss seeing them. Syeesha placed her elbows on the table and played with her ponytail, now wishing that she had worn her long hair down to hide her twenty-dollar studs. “Gift from . . .?”

  “Myself.”

  Syeesha could’ve sworn she saw her sister’s chest protrude in her usual self-congratulatory style as she responded.

  Then Trina played with her soup for moment. Her mood turned pensive. “I just wish Daddy . . .”

  A heaviness hung in the air. Syeesha swallowed hard, rolled her eyes, and took a long, deep sip of her Bellini. She played with the straw inside her water glass, staring at her sister until she could no longer bear the sight of her pathetic trip down woe-is-me lane.

  “He would’ve been very proud of you, Trina.”

  “You really think so?” Trina’s eyes remained fixed on the pea-green liquid in her bowl.

  Instead of responding, Syeesha stuffed her mouth with breaded shrimp and chewed the warm shellfish without really tasting it. Trina was really something. Hell, a six-figure salary would be all the validation Syeesha needed.

  “Well.” Trina took a few more sips of her soup. “I’m really proud of you for sticking with law school. It’s a smart choice. Although at the pace you’re going, you’ll be in the market for a set of dentures before you graduate.”

  Syeesha marveled at how the woman sitting before her—the very same woman who had smoked pot with her high school chemistry teacher while letting him tattoo his name on her inner thigh—was now the bastion of conservatism.

  “I didn’t want to say anything,” Trina continued. “But you’re a cute girl, Sy. So why do you insist on walking around looking like your wardrobe is compliments of Tar-zhay? Throw on some more jewelry, at least.”

  “First of all, I can’t afford to be concerned with high fashion. I’m a legal secretary.” Syeesha felt her patience trickling away like the sand in an hourglass. Grains of irritation began to pile high. “Second of all, I don’t much care for fashion. Third of all, what’s wrong with clothes from Target? Or as you like to put it, Tar-zhay?”

  “You’re right,” replied Trina. “I’ll shush. I guess I’ve taken over where Dad left off. He used to harp on my ass for every little thing.”

  “God in heaven. Please tell me you’re not about to start on that again. I heard someone say you only get permission to blame your parents until you’re thirty-five. I think this is the year you need to start looking for better excuses. Besides, even if you insist on lamenting that I was the favorite, you haven’t turned out too badly for all of your extra effort. Me? I’m twenty-eight years old and coasting along as an expendable secretary, studying courses at night that instantly induce sleep, in hopes that I will stumble into a career that is—as Dad would say—secure and honorable. Stop with the pity party.”

  Trina’s back arched a little straighter and her plump lips curved into a tiny smile.

  “Yeah, you’re right. In some crazy way I guess I have come out ahead, haven’t I? Not that we’re keeping score or anything.”

  “No.” Syeesha stuffed her mouth with calamari. “Of course we’re not.”

  ***

  After lunching with Trina, Syeesha spent a few hours in the library that amounted to her staring at a weathered-looking man, dressed in a dirty army coat and sporting a long, matted beard. He was reading War and Peace while conversing with an invisible, albeit argumentative, friend. When their debate became violent, Syeesha decided to give up the pretense of studying and head home.

  When the number-five train stopped at Newkirk Avenue, Syeesha hurried up the steps to the street. The chilly March air burned her chest as she ran across the lanes, narrowly dodging a Cadillac racing by on shiny dubs. Her sensible, fur-lined boots with their half-inch rubber soles and square toes splashed on the melting snow. The boots were far more appropriate for a middle-aged woman conscious of things like value, comfort, and dependability. But they served their purpose of keeping her toes warm and dry.

  East Flatbush didn’t resemble the neighborhoods of her youth. From as early as she could remember, Syeesha had lived on military bases in Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, Germany, and countless other countries. None, however, felt as foreign to her
as East Flatbush. How nice it would be to live in Manhattan, steps away from a fruit stand that sold locally grown produce, or a corner coffeehouse that served organic teas, or a bar that specialized in thirty types of beer. Manhattan was a hybrid of quaint and cutting-edge, as opposed to the low-income section of East Flatbush, a tiny pinprick in Brooklyn, where predominantly West Indian and African-American residents were crammed together like crayons in a box. On any given day, they filed into queues at Kennedy Fried Chicken and Golden Krust to order deep-fried death in paper containers.

  Every week, Syeesha pushed her four-wheel cart to the local grocery store, dreading the reek of raw meat she’d encounter the moment she stepped inside. Packs of meat oftentimes had methodically rubbed-out expiration dates. Mold on bread was hidden by “Sale” stickers. Boxed cookies were hit or miss. Prices were impossible to find. It was routine for the cashiers, their unsmiling faces prominent beneath colorful hijabs, to hold up grocery items while the portly store manager standing at the front of the store rattled off bullshit prices as though he had an encyclopedic memory of store inventory.

  Inside the three-story walk-up, Syeesha trekked to the top floor. Her roommate, Kiki, was reclining in her usual spot in front of the small television set.

  “I need your half of the rent money,” Syeesha said. “We’re late again.”

  Monster, Kiki’s appropriately named cat, strolled past Syeesha with all the indifference of a princess in a room full of minions and jumped on her mistress’s sunken belly.

  You overprotective puss, Syeesha thought.

  Kiki’s eyes never left the television screen. “I thought I gave it to you already.”

  Her leisurely attitude pricked Syeesha’s last good nerve.

  “You didn’t.” Syeesha removed her gloves and loosened her scarf. “I need it now, Kiki. Mrs. Leachum is getting sick of us being late with the rent.”

  Kiki shooed the cat from her torso, rolled herself off the torn pleather sofa and strolled to her bedroom with the casual pace of a bride heading to the altar. Kiki’s messy bedroom was at the other end of the hall but could have easily have been on the other side of the planet from Syeesha’s well-tended sanctuary. Since New York apartments were famous for their lack of closet space, Kiki improvised by keeping her clothes in boxes around the small room. In permanent black marker she’d labeled them: shirts, pants, skirts, winter, summer. Syeesha followed Kiki to her room, where the pungent smell of tuna fish and sweaty clothes lingered in the air. Kiki reached under her bed and slid multiple shoeboxes from under it. She opened one after another, looking for cash and finding nothing but shoes.

  “Three months, Kiki. You’ve been here three months and you’ve been late every month.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that.”

  “Why didn’t you give me your rent money earlier if you had it stuffed away in one of these shoeboxes all along?”

  “Because I never see you long enough to give it to you. You’re always working, at school, or sleeping. And sometimes I work the late shift at the restaurant.” She shrugged. “We’re like those boats that pass on the ocean.” Kiki removed the lid from a box of black leather booties and dug out bills balled up and stuffed inside one of them. “God, I gotta remember where I hide my money.”

  “From now on just leave the money in the kitchen drawer so I don’t have to hunt you down for it.”

  Kiki looked up at her. “But what if someone breaks into the apartment?”

  There was nothing sarcastic or ironic in Kiki’s tone. Syeesha marveled at how Kiki’s sharp, well-thought-out style was in total contrast to her empty head. She was never seen without her thick black eyeliner and mascara, an all-black outfit, and glossy black nails. Her jet-black bob showcased her sharp, angular features. Her look teetered between Goth and Fifth Avenue chic. She looked as if she could be anything from a high-fashion model to a heroin addict.

  Syeesha cursed The Lion King’s touring company for taking her former roommate Leslie across the country. She was happy for Leslie’s rising success, but her bailing on her portion of the rent had left Syeesha in a less than desirable situation. One Craigslist ad later, Kiki and Monster had become her new living companions, each as torturously annoying as the other.

  She took the money from Kiki and counted it. It bought them another month with a dilapidated roof over their heads. Syeesha unlocked her bedroom door, wrote a check for the full amount of the rent, slid it inside an envelope, then preceded downstairs to drop it into the landlord’s drop box.

  As she neared Mrs. Leachum’s front door, Syeesha heard the holiday music coming from her apartment. Mrs. Leachum had no regard for the fact that Christmas had passed more than two months ago. The old woman kept the music playing year-round as a not-so-subtle reminder that every day was Christmas in her home.

  I guess it would be when you’re collecting an outrageous rent every month for a building that’s probably been paid for ten times over, Syeesha thought.

  The poor woman’s neighbors stood the chance of hearing “The Chipmunks’ Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)” shrieking at six in the morning and—Syeesha looked at her watch—six-thirty in the evening. What an excellent case for a reduced rent. Tonight Syeesha hummed along as she tiptoed to the front door to slide the envelope into the slot.

  To her dismay, she saw the doorknob move slightly.

  “Oh, please don’t open the door,” she whispered.

  Chains rattled. Locks unhooked. The door opened.

  “You’re late.”

  The slim woman wore her silver hair in a raggedy bun. Wisps framed her ruddy face. An oversized red velvet bow hung precariously from the top of her head. Her ruby-colored cotton nightgown, dotted with green pine trees and white snowflakes, hung loosely from her petite frame. The long sleeves nearly swallowed her polka-dot-speckled hands while the rest of the material covered every inch of skin from her neck to her toes. It pooled around her feet and dusted the floor, reminding Syeesha—for some inexplicable reason—of the Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz.

  Slumlords sure aren’t what they used to be.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Leachum. Kiki’s job was late paying her again.”

  Mrs. Leachum set her glass of creamy (and undoubtedly spiked) eggnog on a table beside the door. She eased the envelope from Syeesha’s hand.

  “You’re full of excuses.”

  “I promise it won’t happen again.” She grovelled as the Chipmunks grated. This was no time for fun and no time of cheer. “Mrs. Leachum, I’ve been a good tenant–”

  “I’ll be the judge as to who’s a good tenant or not. Three months in a row you’ve been late. You think because I’m an old woman you can push me around?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Good. Because my kindness has its limits,” she warned, pointing a crooked finger at Syeesha. “Don’t take advantage.”

  Syeesha wanted to throttle Kiki. “No, ma’am.”

  “You only have a few months left on your lease, and if you expect to renew then you’d better get her under control.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m old. I have arthritis in both knees and I’m half-deaf in my right ear.” Mrs. Leachum pointed to her cloudy eyes. “But I can see better than a woman half my age.” She leaned forward and pointed a crooked finger at Syeesha’s chest. “And I see everything in this building.”

  “Have you seen my leaky kitchen faucet?” Syeesha said, half kidding. “Because it really needs to be fixed.”

  Mrs. Leachum picked up her eggnog from the side table and took a sip while Vanessa Williams playfully flirted on the song playing in the background. She was already forgetting about Syeesha and, based on her swooning posture, getting lost in Christmas circa 1996. She turned to shut the door and then stopped. “And the next time you’re this late . . .” Mrs. Leachum hooked her thumb toward the front door and made a quick you’re-outta-here sound with her lower lip and denture. It sounded like a failed attempt to whistle.

  By the time
Syeesha dragged herself back up the three flights of stairs, her quads burned from exhaustion. She ditched her coat, knocked Kiki’s feet off the sofa, where she was sprawled once more, and plopped down. Her one small piece of fortune was that there was no school that night. Tomorrow she had to start her job search.

  “Everything’s cool, I assume.” Kiki’s laconic speech was reminiscent of a hip Californian rather than a born-and-bred New Yorker.

  “Everything’s cool this time, Kiki. But we can’t afford for this to keep happening.”

  Kiki put her chapped feet back on the table. Her toes were painted to a high black shine while her feet smelled like the bowl of black beans Kiki had once left rotting on her nightstand.

  Syeesha could feel her lunch execute an impressive series of forward somersaults and backflips.

  “My feet bothering you?”

  Syeesha shook her head. Her eyes drifted from the wagging toes to the television set. “I’m tired. I need to write.”

  “Something for school?” Kiki asked, without taking her eyes from the television set.

  Actually, Syeesha wanted to work on the latest novel manuscript she was cooking up. But now that Kiki mentioned it, yeah, getting in a little studying probably wasn’t such a bad idea either.

  “There’s pizza in there,” Kiki said.

  “I just ate Thai with my sister.”

  The afternoon was still early, so Syeesha put on a pot of coffee. With her light, sugary brew in hand, Syeesha escaped into the sanctuary of her bedroom, dragging her backpack of books behind her. She slid between the cool sheets and made a half-hearted attempt to digest the finer points of employment law. After a half hour of dry reading, she swapped her law book for her MacBook and pulled up the latest story she had been working on. Maybe she didn’t have a promising career or a great guy with whom she could snuggle up in bed. But what she did have was a laptop and her imagination.

  Through the words she put to paper, she could always experience the perfect kiss. One that blended the right amount of tenderness with the exact firmness that always made her swoon. The man she created would always the right word at the right moment and never needed to ask what she wanted or how she wanted it. The man on the page knew.