Читать книгу If I Was Your Girl - Ni-Ni Simone - Страница 10

I’d been working at IHOP part time, every day and every other weekend, for about six months.

As I pushed through the double glass doors the sweet aroma of pancakes and maple syrup floated through the air. The lobby was mad crowded and the floor was overflowing with customers. I was a few minutes late and my manager shot me the eye and pointed to his watch. I went in the back, placed my purse in my locker, and headed to my first table.

“Hey girl!” I waved at Tay, who was passing by me.

“Five o’clock, baby girl,” she smiled, “five o’clock.” Immediately, I looked to my right and there was a table full of cuties. “Either they college dudes or big ballers.” She batted her eyes while waving hi to one of them. “I tried to take them off your hands and get them moved to my section, but you know Mr. Stick-Up-The-Ass,” she pointed to our manager, “was all in my grill.” She circled her hand in her face. “Needless to say, they all yours. Just save li’l Idris Elba, the one sitting in the corner, for me.”

“Alright Tay.” I turned toward the table and as soon as I made eye contact with the cutest one in the clan, I took a step and some kind of way I ended up splattered…all…over…the restaurant’s floor.

“Help me.” I heard a scratchy voice say from beneath me. “Please Jesus, save a pimp.”

And when I looked down, I could’ve punched this dude in the face. It was Percy. Three and a half feet tall, Midget Mac, aka Percy Elwood Jenkins and two members of his too short crew: Cle’otis and Shim-daddy. And yes, Shim-daddy was his real name.

Be thankful that this crew wasn’t in your ’hood, because I swear to you they were the world’s best stalkers. Everywhere we went, they went. Following us, calling our names, tapping on our knees and begging us to please to go out with them. But Percy was the worst. And it wasn’t because he was a dwarf either. Nobody paid any mind to that. It was because he was aggravating as hell, was always trying to get with somebody, and every time I looked at him, in the great words of Cousin Shake, he tore my eyes up.

He had a perm, Snoop Dogg curls in his hair, Lil Jon’s glow in the dark grill (that spelled his name on the top row of his teeth), T-Pain’s sweat socks to his knees, Andre 3000 plaid short-set, and Bishop Don Juan’s rhinestone-studded-corduroy flip flops.

“Why is yo’ li’l retarded ass,” I said as Tay helped me up, “always in my way?”

“’Cause you want me in your way.” Percy growled.

Instead of cussing him out, I crouched on my knees, squinted my nose, and barked like a German shepherd right in his face.

And in true Percy fashion, he passed out, spread out on the floor in front of all the customers like he was Jesus on the crucifix. I wanted to smack him. But instead I left him laying there.

“Psych homie. I was just playin’.” He magically appeared before me. “But your breath was a little tart.” He waved in front of his nose, “Don’t worry, we can get you some Altoids and hook that up. Can’t have you parading through the Little People’s Convention and ya breath stink. People be like, ‘there go Beyoncé, stank-ass breath and all.’”

God must be punishing me.

“My little brother,” Tay rolled her eyes at Percy, “is the same size as you.”

“Then ya mama need to bring him to see his daddy and stop playin’.” He smiled and his mouth lit up. “Ask her what she waitin’ on.”

“Lil’ Bootsy!” Percy’s mother, who always seemed to appear out of nowhere, screamed. “Why are you always embarrassing me! Boy, get yo’self over here and sit down in this booster chair! And you better put this seat belt on. I swear I can’t take you nowhere. You gon’ mess around and I’ma have to bust you out. I see that comin’.”

Me and Tay fell out laughing. “Ladies,” my manager said in a warning tone, causing us to separate and service our customers. I walked over to the table of cuties.

“Welcome to IHOP. Would you like something to drink?”

“Nah,” the king of cuties said. “Your number will do.”

“973—” I said almost immediately without thinking. What the heck was I doing? Usually, I had more control then this. But damn, he was soooooo fine. And not that Chris Brown, pretty boy fine, but that rough rugged, 50 Cent fine, the kind of fine your mama doesn’t want anywhere near your house, but you can’t seem to do without. That kinda fine was right here in the flesh. He was like Juelz Santana…but finer. Six-two, tattoo on the side of his neck and a few sprinkled across his forearms, slanted eyes and thousands of spinning waves.

“What’s good ma?” he asked. “You gon’ finish hooking me up with the number or what?”

“Boy, please. I ain’t thinking about you.” I did all I could to suppress my blush. “You want something to drink or what?”

“Damn ma, you feeling me like that?”

“Yes—no….” Why was I stuttering?

He stroked my hair away from my face and pushed it over my left shoulder, “You real pretty. You know that?”

I took a step back. This whole deal was a hot mess. I sucked my teeth. “Coke or Sprite?”

“Coke.”

I wrote his order down and before I could get to his pot’nah, he said, “I’m Harlem. So what’s your name?”

I ignored the question. “You wanna order your food now?”

He looked at my tag. “Toi. I like that.”

“Me too.”

One of the dudes sitting with him said, “Can I play with you?”

“Whatever.” I blushed. “Are you ready to order or you still hooked on phonics?”

Harlem laughed, and oh what a cute laugh.

There were about three girls at the booth behind them who started snickering.

Harlem gave me a one-sided smile. “You wanna take this outside?”

“You threatening me?” I said jokingly.

“You want me to threaten you?”

“I do. You can threaten me.”

Tay, who was standing behind me, turned away from her customer and said, “And you can threaten me.” She started pointing around the table, “and you, and you, oh, and definitely you. You can threaten me any way you want.”

“Tay,” I said, tight-lipped. “Stop it.”

“Oh.” She smiled and turned back toward her customer. “Hollah.”

“Ai’ight, ma,” Harlem said. “Ask my boy what he orderin’. I ain’t sure yet.”

I looked at him out the corner of my eye. “Whatever.” Was I still blushing? I looked at the dude sitting next to him. “What you orderin’?”

He pointed to Harlem, “The same thing he is, but if I can’t get that, I’ll take one of your friends on the side.”

“Somebody call me?” Tay practically tripped over to the table. “I mean,” she said, straightening her apron out, “I’m here…” She stared at one of Harlem’s friends. “Dang boy, is Idris Elba yo’ daddy? ’Cause you fine as hell.”

“Thank you.” The guy blushed. “But my name is Ibn.”

“Heyyyy,” Tay said with a twang. “You like the moon—the stars—and all that shit put together. You so fine, I know yo’ daddy pretty.”

“Tay,” I said again, still tight-lipped.

“I’m just sayin’.” She smiled. “Just keepin’ it real—hollah!”

“Why don’t you keep this real?” Sounded over my shoulders. Instantly, my heart started thundering in my chest. I turned around and Quamir was standing there. Immediately, I took a step back.

Quamir looked Harlem dead in the face. “Listen, li’l dude. Unless you looking to get hurt, you’ll back away from my girl. ’Cause trust and believe, you don’t want none of me.”

Harlem laughed as he looked at Quamir. “Is this the part where you want me to be scared or what?”

“What you say, pot’nah?” Quamir snapped, obviously caught off-guard. “’Cause I will put a cap right in your ass. Try me. I ain’t nothin’ to play with.”

Harlem looked at Quamir like he was stupid. “Whatever, man.”

“I got your whatever, man. You better relax and step away from my girl.”

Harlem frowned. “‘Let me kick this to you real quick. Unless you gon’ take her out of here now and have her follow you around, telling me you’re her man doesn’t mean shit to me, ’cause everywhere and every time I see her I’ma kick it to her and that very day she’s missing and you’re wondering where she is,” Harlem slipped the pen out my hand and wrote a phone number down on a napkin, “call me and I’ll be sure to let you hollah at her for a minute.”

“Oh damn,” Tay said. “What’s really good?”

“Shut up.” I looked at her.

“You talkin’ all that,” Quamir spat, “but I betchu he won’t take it outside.”

“Not right now,” Harlem said, “’cause I’m ’bout to order my food. But when I step out that door and you bring it outside, then it’s whatever.” He looked at me. “Now, can I place my order?”

“Yes,” I looked down at my order pad, hoping Quamir would get the hint to leave. “What would you like?”

“Oh, you just gon’ take his order right in front of me?”

I’m a waitress. What does he expect me to do? Usually I would’ve taken this on, but this time I ignored him. I couldn’t lose my job because I had to take care of my son. It was a rare occasion that anybody besides my mother helped me do that.

“Oh ai’ight, Toi. This how we rollin’?” Quamir asked in disbelief.

I turned to him. “Baby,” I said as soft as I could, “please let me work. Give me five minutes and I’ll meet you outside.”

“Five minutes? Oh, I ain’t good enough for right now? I got to wait five minutes to be somethin’ around here?”

He was embarrassing the heck outta me. “Sweetie, please,” I said as nice as I could, doing everything in my power not to cause a scene.

“That’s all you gettin’ too is five minutes.” And he stormed out.

I didn’t even turn to look at him. I guess he expected me to drop everything and run behind him. Well, how was I gon’ do that when I needed my job? I mean, yeah I loved him, and yeah I’ll go hard for him, but I need my money—especially since he stopped giving me any a long time ago. Besides, why was he at my job anyway? Last I checked, he was playing me to the left in the middle of Rector Street.

Once I served Harlem and his friends their orders, I asked my manager if I could get a break and he said no, I had to wait for my scheduled time, which was forty-five minutes later.

Between serving my customers and looking outside, I could see Quamir watching me from the parking lot. I glanced at the clock and my break was coming up soon. I picked up a few tips from the empty tables and checked on several of my customers before I was finally able to step outside.

I took a deep breath as I headed over to Quamir’s truck.

“You a comedian now, huh?” he said, sounding ridiculous. “Don’t you ever have me waitin’ like this again!” He grabbed me by my collar.

I slapped his hand. “Get offa me! I couldn’t go on break.”

“You couldn’t go on break,” he said as his hand fell, “but you could find time to talk to playboy. You must think I’m stupid. You couldn’t give me five minutes but ole boy can get your whole lifetime.”

“What are you talking about? I was doing my job!” My throat started to swell with tears. “Did you really have a baby on me?”

“Don’t try and change the subject. Who was that dude? I told you I ain’t like that dude and you still hanging around him.”

“He’s a customer. I can’t tell him to stop coming here.”

“Oh, now you got new customers?”

“What?”

“I thought I was your number one customer?”

“And I thought you were my boyfriend!”

“So you admit you’re cheating on me?”

“What?” I was confused.

“So you don’t have nothing going on with this dude? Never? Ever?”

“No.”

“Now you lyin’—you told me y’all went together in the third grade.”

“I never said that! I said I went with a dude named June in third grade.”

“Well damn, how many cats you kicking it with? You just a ho, huh?”

“I’m not a ho. Your mama’s a ho. She’s the one who gave birth to a pimp.”

Quamir mushed me on the side of my head. “What you say? That’s exactly why we ain’t back together, ’cause Shanice is more of a woman than you’ll ever be.” He palmed my face and knocked me to the ground. “Stupid ass!”

He hopped in his truck and sped off, the screeching tires leaving smoke behind.

I did all I could not to cry. I cleared my throat and tried to smooth out the wrinkles in my uniform. I sniffed, and as I turned to go inside, Harlem was standing there. “You know you don’t deserve to be treated like that.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“I know Toi.” He sighed. “It never is.”

“You don’t understand. He’s going through something.”

“Whatever you say ma.” He fixed my collar. “I left my number on the table. Hollah at me when you get it together.”