The Playa Chronicles by Roy Glenn Page A

reason to let her stay.
    I stopped.
    “Is that enough for you?”
    I stood completely still and thought carefully about an answer. I fought the impulse to yell “yes” out loud, ’cause I was just as preoccupied with fuckin’ her as she was with fuckin’ me.
    I walked to the couch and laid down. If that’s the case, what needs to happen here is that I need to get a grip on myself and take this thing for what it’s worth. Stop trippin’ about what she’s gonna do and “get a life.”
    Then it hit me. If I was gonna get a life, why does it have to include her? I had one before I met her, and she was the reason I didn’t have one now. That was a lie and I knew it. I was the reason I didn’t have a life anymore. But the fact of the matter was she had to go. There was no reason for me to believe that things would ever change between us. And if it did, it wouldn’t be anytime soon. If I allow her to stay, I know that even with a refreshed attitude on her part, I would still want more.
    “She gotta go!”
    It felt better saying it loud. So I said it again. “She gotta go!”
    I got up and went to bed. Every once and a while I’d say it again. The more I said it, the more pumped I got. The next time she calls I’ll lay it all out for her. Tell her . . . What will I tell her? That I don’t want to see her anymore because she turned me out and I can’t take it. That she got me so turned out that I just sit around here and hope that she’ll call.
    I don’t think so.
    I’ll just say that I’m not interested in dealing like this and hang up. And what if she calls back and asks me to explain what this means? Let her catch voice mail.
    Coward.
    Be a man and face that woman. I said it again, “She gotta go!” And that’s all there was to it. I rolled over and the phone rang.
    “Can I come over?”
    “Come on. I’ve been expecting you.”
     

12

The End
    Things couldn’t be any worse. April finally got around to calling me back. She called to say, that as much as it hurt her to say it, she couldn’t see me anymore. “You’ll never change, Rick.” So, in spite of the fact that I really have changed, it’s over between me and April. I can’t honestly say that I blame her. I did dog her, and dogged her for years. And to make matters worse, I haven’t heard from Vanessa in weeks. I guess she moved on too.
    So now I’m alone.
    I sat at my desk staring out the window at nothing in particular, when the phone rang.
    “Rick, you need to get down here right now and do something about that fool, before I have to hurt her,” Laura said excitedly. She was mad, shaking mad; I could hear it in her voice.
    “Calm down, Laura. What’s Yvette doin’ down there?”
    “About to get her black ass kicked, that’s what she’s doing down here. You just need to come get her.”
    “All right, all right; just chill out for a second, Laura, and tell me what happened.”
    “It started yesterday. She just walked up to me in the lobby and introduced herself—get this—as your new, other woman. Then the fool just walked away. But for the rest of the day she would just be there. Every time I’d turn around, there she’d be with this stupid ass grin on her face.”
    “Why didn’t you call security?”
    “I did. But by the time they’d get there, she’d be gone. So this morning she calls me. Mad, ’cause I put the ‘ poo -lice’ on her. And all morning I’ve been getting pages to call a number, but when I called, nobody there had paged me or there’s no answer. I know it’s her.”
    “How do you know she’s down there? She’s probably calling from somewhere else. I don’t think she’s stupid enough to come back down there, when she knows security is looking for her.”
    “Rick, you just don’t know. That bitch is crazy. I just saw her at the escalator. I called security and told them what she was wearing, but they won’t catch her. This is a busy hotel. She’ll just blend in with the rest of the crowd.