After The Dance by Lori D. Johnson Page A

with him that day.
    Nora shot me a look and lowered her voice to just barely above a whisper, like she does when she’s about to dispense a bit of her own special brand of advice and wants to be taken seriously, which, thank goodness, isn’t very often. “Faye, how many times am I gonna have to say this? Youjust can’t be playing with folks’ feelings. One of these days while you’re out there, just kicking it, you’re bound to trip up and fall so hard on your face, even I won’t be able to help you put all the pieces back together again.”
    “So what would you have me do?” I asked her. “Go over and apologize to him?”
    “Sure, why not?” she said. “It couldn’t hurt.”

HIM
    Hey, man, as hard as I ran up on that doggone curb, it’s a wonder I didn’t break a toe or two. After a stunt that stupid, wasn’t nothin’ left for me to do but tuck tail and hop on into the house, where I could drop the bad-boy act and express the full extent of my pain in private.
    I’d all but finished my cursing and crying and was in the process of doctoring my busted foot, nursing my wounded pride, and trying to convince myself that the crowbar and the spare I had sitting up in the center of my living room were all the company I needed, when who but Ms. Thang should show up at my door looking to do even more damage.
    Still full of herself, she came in talking ’bout “I take it you’re upset.”
    I told her, “You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve, you know that?”
    “What?” she said, trying to act all innocent. “I told Nora to tell you something had come up.”
    “Oh, she told me all right,” I said. “And I told her to tell you to just forget about it. So why are you here? What part of ‘forget about it’ do you not understand?”
    The sister pulled the old hands-on-hips routine on me and said, “I know you’re not fixing to cop an attitude over this.”
    I snapped back at her with, “And why shouldn’t I? It’s bad enough you didn’t tell me you already had a boyfriend, but then you had to go and flaunt him all up in my face. You ever heard the word ‘discretion’?”
    At that point she dropped what little was left of her polite veneer and came at me swinging hard, fast, and loud, like a straight-up gangsta “b”. “First of all, he’s not my boyfriend. And secondly, even if he was I don’t owe you an accounting of my time or who I choose to spend it with. I told you from the git, I wasn’t trying to be down with you like that.”
    “True dat,” I said. “I know it’s your game, but I mean, come on, Faye. Before I step up to the plate, I think the least you could do is let me know just how many players you’ve got out here running the bases.”
    Her face softened for a second and in a more conciliatory tone she said, “Carl, for all it’s worth, the guy you saw me with tonight is an old acquaintance. And what happened between us was over with a long time ago.”
    I have to give it to her—the girl tried, at least in that particular instance. And if anybody’s to blame for what quickly turned into a failed attempt at a peace negotiation, it’s me for being knuckleheaded enough to try and sneak in a sucker punch.
    “Well, of course,” I said, dishing out the sarcasm with a smile, like it was ice cream. “I suppose that explains why you stood me up to spend half the doggone day with dude. Hey, if you want to hump slick for old times’ sake, that’s your business. Who am I to say anything, right?”
    “Right,” she said, slinging a big scoop of my own mean-spiritedness right back at me. “Especially given the fact I had every intention of humping your tired, stuck-in-the-past behind, and you’re definitely not all that.”
    Hopping around her on my one good foot, I said, “No, but you, my dear, most definitely are all that and a big, fat bag of cheese puffs to boot!”
    My intent had only been to crank it up a notch and show her I wasn’t about to be shouted down in my own