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I’d been expecting that request. “No.”
While I practically live at Bloomingdale’s, Saundra always wants to go poking around in some seedy little thrift shops. The girl lives for grandma-length skirts, foreign textiles and eccentric jewelry. It’s amazing that just six years ago she used to be a miniskirt and leather pants-wearing club kid who didn’t give a damn about anything except having fun. Now she’s a spiritually conscious vegan with ancient words of wisdom constantly dripping from her lips.
After showering, I jumped into a pair of tight fitting boot cut jeans and my favorite clingy maroon sweater. I walked back into the living room to put on my boots and was appalled to find Peaches on the couch resting near Saundra.
“What the hell . . . get off the couch!” I screamed and gestured at the scared pooch.
He hopped down and looked at me with confusion.
I saw Saundra’s mouth turning down at the corners and I wasn’t in the mood for a goddamn PETA speech when this fleabag was on my nice leather couch.
“That was completely unnecessary. He wasn’t hurting the couch,” she said, snapping her fingers for Peaches to come over to her.
“Whatever. Let’s go,” I snapped.
“Asha, can I ask you a question?”
I rolled my eyes in frustration because I didn’t want my treatment of Peaches to become the subject of the evening. “What?”
“Did you put those jeans on with a spray gun?” She laughed.
“You’re so silly.”
We decided to go to a nice restaurant around the corner from my house.
A couple laughing softly, holding hands and a couple of drunk Mexicans leaving the billiards room were the only people who gave the block life. Next to the Chinese restaurant it was the opposite. A noisy crowd of people was standing on line waiting to get into a karaoke bar next door and some teenagers with a boombox stood in front of a rollerblade shop blasting techno.
To our relief, as soon as the glass doors of the restaurant closed behind us, the noise vanished, leaving us peacefully to the light tinkle of traditional Chinese music. We were greeted cordially by a tiny woman with a short haircut and escorted to a small red booth by the window. The restaurant was dimly lit, warm, and practically empty except for the oil paintings of magnificent pagodas and bronze life-sized statues of ancient Chinese gods.
Saundra and I caught up on three weeks worth of gossip while we ate. As I sipped my tea, I noticed twinkles of mirth in Saundra’s dark brown eyes.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I’m thinking about how you’re using that poor man.”
“Randy?”
“Duh, yes, Randy,” she said, badly imitating my soft voice with her deep one.
“I don’t use anybody. I can’t help it if men give me things because of the way I look.”
“You know you don’t care about them but you’ll take and take and take. Have you no conscience at all?” Saundra asked as if we hadn’t had this dialogue half a dozen times already.
“No, I don’t rob or steal. They like giving me things.”
“They’re giving you those things in the hope of a commitment.”
“That’s not true in every case. Brent is a married man and Randall would have to be out of his mind to think that I’d be willing to walk into a lifetime of money worries just because he can screw.”
“What about Nick?”
I shrugged. “Nick has promised me a beach house. I’ll decide what to do about him after I get it.”
“You are a walking karma time bomb, you know that.”
“Whatever.”
I took another sip of my tea and looked at Saundra’s soft dark face. It had that I’m warning you look on it that she always gave me whenever she saw disaster. Her long ebony locks grazed her shoulders like beautiful threads of yarn. The small silver nose ring and her sterling hoops glimmered with every flicker of the red candle on the table. I decided to speak first so she wouldn’t think her threat shook me.
