Ever After, page 21
Videocamera, cameras, Brandon’s cell phone, and pens with ample paper in hand, the crew was unleashed upon Freaknik at its zenith. The streets had been turned into a three-ring circus. So much was going on at the same time, it was entertainment overload for the senses. Everything Nick’s mother had warned him against was the norm here; Sodom and Gomorrah revisited. Just that image brought a smile to Nick’s face.
But all was not well with Nick. Even though he was having a good time—it was hard not to during Freaknik—his heart was still heavy. He still reminisced about earlier that day when he thought he had seen Jasmine’s twin. The experience had shaken him to his core. Why did that girl have his mind so twisted? Could he still not be over her? A woman voluntarily removed her top for Mal, who now held Nick’s videocamera, but Nick paid no attention. Jasmine. Jasmine, Jasmine, Jasmine. Damn her for ruining his Freaknik.
For the next three hours, the crew entertained themselves on the gridlocked streets of Atlanta. They sauntered up Peachtree at a glacial pace, carousing at every possible opportunity. Initially, LaShawn was shocked at the graphic, unedited, and unadulterated truth of Freaknik. After two malt liquors, she went from tipsy to drunk, and she became a part of it. She would join in on Desiree and Kecia as they freak-danced some guys they had just met or be the first to hop on the trunk of a car and shake her butt. With minimal alcohol, LaShawn was comical. Whenever one of the crew needed a laugh, they sought her out visually, catching her doing something totally against her conservative nature. Kecia and Desiree, however, knew what Freaknik was all about. In short, these girls were ’bout it. They flirted outrageously, collected numbers, and enjoyed dancing to the ubiquitous booty shake beat. When he could, Marvin began to zero in on Kecia while Craig made moves on Desiree. But both girls knew that Freaknik was about partying and excess, and would not allow themselves to be limited to just the men in the crew. At least not while out on the streets.
By this time, well past two in the morning, the crew was hungry. They had walked far enough up Peachtree to cross over a few blocks to the unofficial Freaknik eating spot, IHOP. The International House of Pancakes overflowed. They were told the wait would be forty-five minutes, but the crew didn’t care. They took great pleasure in hanging out in the claustrophobic waiting area, meeting people from all across the country. Mal busied himself chatting to a young lady who went to Cal State Fullerton. Tank snuggled up to a group of women from Columbus, Ohio. Marvin and Loq combined forces again while talking to two ladies from Denver who were pig happy just to be around so many black people at once. Brandon kept LaShawn, in her drunken haze, from falling asleep on his shoulder, while Kecia regaled a group of young men from New Jersey with tales from her school, South Carolina State. Miraculously, Nick found himself next to Desiree, who was tottering.
“You alright, sweetheart?” Nick asked her nicely, steadying her with his hands.
“I’m straight,” she lied.
“You scraight?” joked Nick, mocking a speech pattern he had grown accustomed to during his tenure at Morehouse.
That produced a smile from the college-educated woman, who attended South Carolina State like her friends Kecia and LaShawn. “I’m straight.”
“I certainly hope you’re not tired. The night is still young.” Who was he fooling? Although the night was young for Freaknik, two in the morning was still two in the morning.
“A little bit. But I’m more hungry than anything else.”
“I’ll distract you enough so you don’t have to think about it. What’s that tattoo on your stomach mean?”
“This?” she said, straightening up and proudly exposing her flat midriff with the Chinese writing on it. Nick appreciated the opportunity to gawk unabashedly at her body. “It means ‘Destiny’s Child.’ ”
“Deep.” I guess. “And what does destiny hold for you, Dezzy? May I call you Dezzy?”
Look at you, tryin’ to be smooth. Keep talkin’ like that, and you can call me anything you want. “You good, boy,” she authorized. “Well, I plan on being a computer programmer, possibly with some company on the East Coast or in Houston. But I’d love to work at Microsoft.”
A computer programmer. Wow. Nick never would have guessed that as she rolled her hips into some poor guy’s hot groin an hour ago. Instances like these reaffirmed Nick’s assertion that Freaknik was the largest collection of intelligent young black men and women. “You sure about that? I’m from Seattle. Not a whole lot of us up there.”
“So I’ve heard,” she acknowledged in that sexy Southern accent. “But I’ve lived in the South all my life. I think it’s time I got out and spread my wings a lil bit. As it is, I ain’t even been past the Mississippi yet. Time to broaden my horizons a bit, you know?”
“I feel you,” Nick agreed. A woman with ambitions. Admirable. “That’s a good attitude to have.”
“As I see it, I’m going to be successful wherever I’m at.” Had she not lived in South Carolina and had he not seen Jasmine’s twin, Nick really would have made a play for her. But she was a nice girl, and he did not want that image tarnished by his trying to sex her down. Besides, as freaky as she had been acting on the streets, he had a sense that Desiree had a good head on her shoulders, knew the line between playing and penetration. “Excuse me,” she said, standing up. “I’m going to use the restroom.”
As she disappeared in the bathroom, Nick leaned over and tapped Brandon. “Eh, man, lemme use your celly.”
Brandon handed Nick his cell phone and then returned to his task of keeping his cousin upright. Nick unfolded the number that Tawanna had given him earlier and dialed it. Surprisingly, the number was correct. Tawanna answered the phone. She was alert and not the least bit sleepy. Bass music blared in the hotel room background. “Hello.”
“Hey, girl,” Nick greeted, as if she were an old friend. “This is Nick. I met you today over at Clark. I had a videocamera.”
“I remember you,” she acknowledged. “What’s goin’ on, baby boy?”
“You, girl. What y’all up to tonight?”
“We kinda in for tonight,” Tawanna said, with an odd lightness and bounce to her voice. For some reason, Nick imagined her on the phone, bobbing to the booty shake beat as she talked to him. “We done had our fun earlier.”
“Y’all not accepting no visitors?” Nick fished, hopeful.
Nick could practically hear the smile through the phone. “We might be,” she returned, diplomatically. “How many and when?”
Quickly, Nick did the math, dismissing the spare wheels from South Carolina. They would most likely want to go home after being full and tired, anyway. “Six. And around four.”
“Four o’clock?” she verified. “You pushin’ it, baby boy.”
This conversation had gone on too long for a Freaknik convo. Was she in or out? “You down or what?”
“I’ll run it by my girls, but I’m down. Come on through,” she invited.
Southern hospitality. Nick could only beam. “Room 203, right?”
“Yep yep.”
“See you later.”
“Bye.”
Nick clicked the phone off. Desiree had just returned to her seat next to him. “Who was that?” she asked curiously.
“I was just gettin’ up with some friends,” Nick circumvented the truth.
Finally, their table was ready. As large as their group was, they weren’t nearly the rowdiest. A group of raucous men with distinct New York accents occupied the corner booth, obviously drunk, cursing loudly, harassing the waitress, and generally discrediting the race. The crew ate without incident, discussing for the most part their activities for tomorrow and how this Freaknik ranked with Freakniks past. For the veterans of the crew, this one ranked up there.
When they had finished their meal and paid the tab, it was time for them to go their separate ways. The girls were tired (LaShawn was all but passed out) so Brandon agreed to take them back to Loq’s place. The original six of the crew were ready for action. They set out on the long walk toward the Days Inn on the other side of Downtown. Along the way, they encountered more Freaknikers in the vanishing party of the night. But even at almost four in the morning, there were ample cruisers, only the pace of traffic had picked up. The police were speeding things along now, wanting to call it quits for the night. For the most part, the fuzz had been pretty cool about Freaknik. In years past, the boys in blue had been known to be intolerant, confrontational, and power tripping, throwing people in jail for looking at them cross-eyed.
As the Days Inn came into view, Nick began to worry. Just what the hell was he doing? True, Freaknik thus far had more than lived up to its billing. Only two days into it and Nick had a summer’s worth of stories to tell. It was four A.M. and here they were, six guys trekking across Downtown Atlanta to go hook up with some females they did not even know. Walking up into a hotel at this time of the morning, the crew could be on only one kind of mission—booty call.
And that was the dangerous part. Of course Nick had protection, as if the rest of his crew weren’t a walking pharmacy themselves. But the near sighting of Jasmine was still messing with his mind. With great resignation, as the crew entered the hotel and waited for the elevator, Nick realized that he still had astounding issues with Jasmine. These were issues he had swept under his mental carpet, deferring them while he ran crazy dating half of black female Chicago in his effort to forget. Yet here he was, in Atlanta, less than three miles from the campus where she attended school and her nearby off-campus apartment. And here he was, ringleader of a bunch of hormonally charged boys, ready to embark on a nefarious booty call with some women he did not know and whose names he would not remember once the weekend was over.
As the elevator opened on the second floor, Nick exited thinking, What are you doing here?! He wanted to scream. He wanted to back out. He wanted to hide. But he couldn’t. These girls were his hookup. This adventure had been his brainchild. Five guys and five girls were rearing for sex, and it had all been his idea. To deny his boys at this point, after a thirty-five-minute walk, would be an act of lunacy, not to mention a personal health risk. Room 203. Nick exhaled. Time to lie in that proverbial, and literal, bed he had made. He knocked.
No answer. Nick knocked again. No answer. Mal, Tank, Marvin, and Loq began to glare at both Nick and Craig. This had been their call. Nick knocked again.
“Who is it?” demanded a female voice Nick did not recognize as Tawanna’s.
“It’s Nick. We came to see Tawanna and her friends. We heard the party’s over here.”
The woman sucked her teeth. “Tawanna’s asleep. You heard wrong!” And with a sudden clicking of the deadbolts on the door, the conversation was over.
As soon as the crew assembled themselves back in the elevator, everyone save Nick burst out laughing. “You heard wrong!” they all took turns cackling. The crew fell all over themselves expressively, laughing until they were gasping, sucking in wind. Outwardly, Nick feigned indignance. Inwardly, he felt relief.
The crew did not make it home until after six that morning. After their denial at the door, they had wandered the streets of Downtown Atlanta, which were slowly and reluctantly clearing out. The odd carload of young people careened by but the streets were quiet for the most part. Around five that morning, MARTA’s trains were running again and the crew had been one of its first customers, along with a host of other all-night revelers who had boarded the train at Five Points station.
Nick woke up two and a half hours after falling asleep at Loq’s, disturbed. Jasmine. He had dreamed of Jasmine. This was getting ridiculous. Before he had a chance to stop himself, Nick was up, walking into the kitchen and huddling in a corner with the phone to his ear, dialing her up. It was nine in the morning.
“Hello?” an alert voice answered.
“Hi,” Nick breathed.
Jasmine evaluated her emotions and then took the softest route. “Hi.”
Suddenly, Nick felt foolish. This had been a mistake. “I don’t know why I called.”
“I do,” Jasmine said confidently, yet sweetly at the same time. “You miss me.”
She had said it so upbeat, so innocently self-assured, Nick had a hard time chastising her. “Don’t trip. I just . . . I just . . .”
“Wanted to see me?” she supplied hopefully.
Exhaling, Nick considered that proposition. Was he ready to see her? Could he see her? How would he act? He was scared. Just that fact alone made him steel himself. If he was ever to get over her, it had to start here, it had to start now. He had to see her to see if he was over her. “Yes,” he admitted. Then, stronger: “I want to see you.”
Jasmine did not waste any time. “I live in those student apartments on Northside Drive. Right by the Georgia Dome—”
“I know where those are,” Nick assured her. “What apartment?”
“G-6.”
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.” Nick hung up and just stood there. He could see his sad reflection in the silver metal of the stove. Shaking his head before finally moving, Nick wondered, Just what have I gotten myself into?
“Hi.” Jasmine answered the door in a pair of sweats and a long nightshirt. She clung to the side of the door as she examined the man she had not seen in more than four months, the man who had wanted to marry her. Even in his wrinkled, haggard, Freaknik-induced state, he still looked gorgeous to her. “Come on in.”
Jasmine was equally elegant. It took quite a woman to still look fine when she was doing her best to appear bummy at ten in the morning. Damned morning looks. Instantly, Nick wanted her. What made his urge worse is that he had had her once, and, if he weakened himself and pursued her, could probably have her again. One step at a time. As dizzy as his head and heart were, Nick concentrated on making it inside the door without incident.
Invitingly, Jasmine glided down to her modest couch in the living room. Nick suppressed a grin as he joined her, at the opposite end of the couch. This place was not her. For Jasmine, this place was small, drab, and barely livable. Her usual personal touches of art and decor were kept to an economical minimum. Obviously, Winnie had not assisted her daughter in her move. Bougie brown princess from Bay Ridge roughing it in small one-bedroom apartment. The mere thought amused him.
Nick was hesitant to speak, since he really did not know what to say, how he should say it, nor why he was there, so Jasmine broke the ice. “Looks like you’ve been enjoying yourself,” she mused.
“Huh?” The question had caught him off guard.
“Freaknik,” she clarified, with a bemused smile. “Looks like you’ve had a good freak—Nick.”
“Original,” Nick dismissed dryly.
“What time did you and Malloy drag yourselves back to Loq’s?”
“How did you know where we were staying?”
“How else? Mia, of course,” Jasmine answered.
“They’re getting pretty serious, aren’t they?”
Jasmine snorted. “As serious as Mal can get.”
“The best friend does not approve?” Nick teasingly inquired.
Jasmine shrugged. “What difference does it make? Mia does her thing, I do mine.”
“And just what is ‘your thing’ these days?” Nick snooped.
“You mean am I dating someone,” she amended firmly, with the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She was so in command of this conversation, as well she should be. Nick did call her, and he was sitting in her living room.
Resignedly, Nick capitulated. “Yes.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Have you been dating?”
“I’m not a nun, Nick,” was her wry response.
Okay, he had deserved that. Nick shut up and continued to examine her apartment. Jasmine followed with a question of her own to ease the tension she had created. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“No one special.” Which was the truth.
“Why did you call?” He had been so brisk with her over the phone back in Chicago. “Did you get second thoughts once you got here?”
A friggin’ look-alike. That was the only reason why Nick was here. Nick was off to a great start for Freaknik when he had seen her. Someone shared Jasmine’s physique and that was all it took to start Nick regressing. But it should not have taken so little to make him feel so much. “Maybe.”
Without thinking, Jasmine asked, “Do you miss me?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“I miss you,” she conceded openly.
Nick feigned disgust. That was great to hear from her, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing it. “Well, I should hope two and a half years of my love and affection would not be for nothing.”
“Nick . . . please try to understand what went on in December. I wasn’t ready for all that. You asked me to marry you. To have and to hold until death do us part.”
“I was there,” Nick said vapidly.
“I still had questions, lingering doubts . . . I wasn’t ready,” she explained.
“Jacque?”
Jasmine lowered her head. “Yes.”
“Were you seeing him while we were together last year?”
“No, no. Nothing like that,” she assured him. “But I couldn’t commit myself to you for eternity with some doubts in my head like that.”
“But now you can,” stated Nick sarcastically.
“No, I cannot. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“But do you still love me?”
From her bent head position, she raised her eyes earnestly. “Yes.”
Nick kissed her. Hell, it seemed like the right thing to do. Trembling at first, Jasmine let him kiss her, nonresponsively. When he made a move with the tongue, Jasmine’s mouth involuntarily slackened and summoned him in. They made out for twenty minutes off and on, crying periodically from pleasure, pain, and both.
As Nick fondled her and kissed her, he realized that things would progress no further than this, emotionally. She still was not ready for him. Vainly, he wondered if she ever would be. He loved her with all his heart and soul. He had loved her so much that he had lost a part of him inside her. At the best of times, their feelings were inseparable, their moods indistinguishable. She had been his heartbeat. But now she was gone. Distant, remote, separate, alone. Alone. She had emotionally isolated herself and now he was alone. This woman he was making out with no longer belonged to him, nor he to her. Nick was ready to share his life with her and she wasn’t. He needed more, he wanted more. He wanted his heartbeat back.
