Basketball Jones Read online

  I was curious to know if she was connected to the Hornets, so I decided to listen to as much of their conversation as possible and bought time with the clerk by asking him to bring me other gift boxes of skin-care products. I handed him back the package, which he set on the glass shelf behind him. I pretended to browse the showcase.

  As if on cue, the older blonde summoned the clerk. “Listen,” she began in a manner so confrontational I couldn’t tell whether she was about to ask a question or pimp-slap him in the face.

  “Look, honey, it’s my husband’s birthday. Now he’s not big on this stuff,” she said with a sweep of her hand, “but he plays for the Hornets and I’m trying to teach him the importance of proper grooming. What would you suggest?”

  The clerk graciously indicated the array of products in front of her, taking care to distinguish one from another. She was only half paying attention, however, as she brought her jeweled cell phone to her ear. As the clerk presented item after item, she kept talking on the phone.

  “I won’t know until he’s home. They’re in Philadelphia today, but he’ll be back tomorrow. Next week is his birthday and I know he’ll want to do something special. I might even have to give him some special sex. He can be such a chore.” She shook her head impatiently at the last comment, though it could have just as easily been in response to the products being shown to her.

  Then it hit me. I knew who she was. The floor might as well have opened from under me. How did I not put two and two together? Of course, who else could she be but Judi? I stood there dumbfounded, trying to decide my next move. Although there was no way she knew what I looked like—much less that I even existed—standing only a few feet from her so suddenly was like waking up with a cool puddle of water in your bed. Was it better to leave immediately or wait her out calmly and purchase my gift as if everything were normal?

  I looked at her from the corner of my eye. She was not what I expected. She wasn’t pretty or plain. Like many women she had learned that with money she could create the illusion of some sort of sorority-girl-pretty look with the right makeup or hairstyle. I guess the best way to describe her was as a slightly younger version of the lady who played Edie on Desperate Housewives. Thank God I wasn’t competing with the character played by Eva Longoria, although with Tony Parker as the prize I might give it a shot.

  Dray had dropped bits and pieces about Judi during pillow talk. I knew that Judi’s father was loaded after selling his hedge fund for close to a billion dollars. A divorce from Judi’s mother had taken care of half of that and Dray told me Judi’s father had cut her off when she started dating Dray. He wasn’t crazy about his only daughter shacking up with a black guy and told her she was now on her own. I knew she liked to shop and often left town for shopping sprees.

  “How long is this going to take to gift wrap? I need to go to the jewelry counter and look at some rings. Maybe I’ll use Drayton’s credit card and buy you something, Amber. Just because I’m nice,” Judi said, flashing a smile as phony as her hair color.

  “And because you got a rich husband,” the other woman said.

  “So true. How lucky can a girl get? Rich daddy leaves, rich hubby appears magically out of thin air.”

  “I thought you said you met him at some black club in Miami.”

  “I did. Where else was I going to meet him, at the country club? I don’t think so. Daddy’s club was so sixties, Amber.”

  Finally I couldn’t bear the pressure any longer, and as casually as I could, so as not to let Judi know how closely I was studying her, I stepped away from the counter. I made my way slowly for the door with my heart beating faster than my footsteps the whole way.

  It looked like Dray would get his favorite skin-care products for his birthday, even though they wouldn’t be from me.

  Two

  One of my three cell phones rang with an Atlanta number I didn’t recognize, but I answered it anyway. “Hello.”

  “What’s up, bitch?” It was my good friend Maurice Wells, who lived in Jonesboro, Georgia, but had been raised in Selma, Alabama.

  “Mo, what’s good, boi?”

  “Child, I still can’t believe you upped and moved away from me. Now who am I gonna shop and gossip with? You know I don’t trust these Atlanta sissies. Can’t shit be going on in New Orleans.”

  “New Orleans is going to be all right,” I said, as much to reassure myself as assure Maurice.

  “You moved out of here so quick it was like the FBI came and moved you into the witness protection plan. Are you still hanging with old boi?”

  “Yeah, we still hanging in there,” I said.

  Maurice was my closest gay male friend and one of the first people I had met when I’d moved to Atlanta. Still, he didn’t know who “old boi” was. Maurice didn’t know that Dray was one of the NBA’s biggest superstars. It wasn’t that I felt I couldn’t trust Maurice. It was that I’d given Drayton my word that I would never tell anyone about our relationship.

  I did share with Maurice that the man I was seeing was in the public eye, but I led him to believe that he was somebody in the music business. Maurice was always trying to guess Dray’s identity and once he almost caught us when he showed up at my house a few minutes before Dray was expected to arrive. I panicked and went off, yelling at Maurice about how dare he come to my house unannounced. Maurice is no shrinking violet, and so he started cussing me back, asking me who in the fuck did I think I was.

  Maurice left in a huff and it took several calls and a few gifts before the friendship was back on track. At least I never again had to worry about Maurice dropping in. We both learned our lesson after that incident.

  Maurice and I met years ago at a B. Smith seminar at the Ritz-Carlton in Buckhead. He came up to me during the break and acted like he had known me for years. By the end of the seminar he was calling me “girl” and “bitch,” two words I don’t like, but I quickly realized he meant no harm. It was just the way he used them with his dramatic hand gestures when he talked.

  He was also an interior decorator and event planner with a growing business. When I told him I did all my work for charity, he realized I wasn’t a threat to him and seemed relieved. I never talked about him to Dray because Dray was always warning me about trusting people, especially gay men. But that didn’t stop Maurice from quizzing me for clues about Dray.

  There were times when I felt like I could trust Maurice because he shared so much of his personal life with me. He told me that when he was younger he was a crafty bitch with more scams than the Mafia. One day Maurice also told me, “I’d just as soon cut a sissy than speak to him. And I didn’t do shit unless it was going to put some money in my purse or benefit me in some way. I leave the charity work for the white ladies.”

  I wouldn’t have ever guessed that he was a recovering crack addict until he told me by saying, “I was the kind of functional drug addict that would wake up some days with my draws under the seat of my car.”

  “What would you do when that happened?”

  “I’d ball them up and put them in the glove compartment of my car and go on to my meeting.”

  I looked at him to make sure he was serious and then both of us just burst out laughing. I adored him and knew I could trust him with my life. And he knew the same was true of me. With Maurice I could be myself, and felt like I did when I was writing in my journals as a young man trying to make sense of life.

  “So did that phantom boyfriend move to New Orleans too?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are you sure he’s not a drug dealer? Maybe he’s a member of the Black Mafia.”

  “I wouldn’t date a drug dealer,” I snapped.

  “So when are you coming back to Atlanta?”

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to get things settled here.”

  “Do I need to come down there and see what’s up? I bet you could get trade down there for a Popeye’s two-piece dinner. Extra spicy, of course.” Maurice laughed.

  “I’m scared of
the bois down here. They are desperate and without much hope. What’s going on in Atlanta?”

  “Besides trying to run my potential new husband out of town?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Child, you know who I told you I was going to marry if I could ever meet him.”

  “I forgot.” Maurice had crushes on all types of Atlanta men, popular and not. They always had one thing in common, besides being dark and masculine. They were all straight, or what were known as gay-for-pay guys.

  “Mike Vick, bitch. They are trying to run that fine man out of town.”

  “Yeah, I heard that. Looks like he’s in a lot of trouble, but we all know they going after him because he’s a big name. I hope that shit’s not true,” I said. For a second I wondered what would happen to Dray if word ever got out about us but quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen, because my lips were sealed and so were Dray’s.

  “I tell you what, bitch. If he goes to jail then I’m gonna throw a brick through a police station or smack a rich white lady so I can end up in the cell next to him.”

  “You think he’s gonna get any time if he’s convicted?”

  “Oh, hell yeah. And I know you think I’m playing, but if I have to go to prison to meet Mike Vick, then it’s going to be skip to my Lou, my darling. I could also spruce the place up while I’m there like my girl Martha did when she was in the pen. I ain’t scared of no jail.”

  “Did you send me the last of those boxes I left in your garage?” I asked.

  “Oh, shit, I knew I’d forgotten something. I’ll get them out tomorrow,” Maurice said.

  “That’s cool. It’s not stuff I can’t live without, just personal papers I like to have close by.” Maurice had saved the day by holding on to my belongings that I couldn’t risk leaving unattended on a moving truck.

  “Those boxes heavy as dried-up shit, but I’ll get one of my bois to help me take them up to UPS or FedEx,” Maurice said.

  “Cool, and don’t forget to let me know how much it costs.”

  I looked at the time and realized that it was almost three o’clock. One of the candidates interviewing for the position of my assistant was due any minute, so I told Maurice I needed to run.

  “Okay, bitch. Now don’t let me have to track your ass down again because it won’t be pretty. You hear me?”

  “I hear you, Mo. Take care of yourself.”

  “You do the same thang, baby.”

  Three

  There was a knock at my door and I figured it was my deli order of a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel along

  with some black coffee. When I opened the door, a

  humid August breeze slapped my face and there stood a young man with a wide grin. He was wearing a warm-up suit with a gym bag slung over his shoulders, but he didn’t seem to have my breakfast.

  “What’s good?” he asked, walking into my home like the place had his name on the deed.

  Stunned, I asked, “May I help you?”

  “Are you …” He stopped and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. He looked down at the slip, then up at me. “You Aldridge Richardson?”

  “Yeah, that’s me, but you still didn’t answer my question.”

  “Cisco is my name. I’m your new trainer. I understand you have your own gym here. Where is it, upstairs?” he asked, looking toward the staircase.

  “Who hired you?”

  “I do some freelance work for the Saints and I got a call from somebody in their office telling me that I was your new trainer. Got paid three months in advance and I thought to myself, ‘Shit, I love these kinds of gigs.’ You know, dealing with big ballers again.” Cisco pulled the gym bag off his shoulder and laid it on the table where I kept my mail.

  “You sure I’m the right person? I didn’t ask anyone to call a trainer,” I said, thinking I’d been called a lot of things, but never a big baller.

  “This is the address they gave me. I was told to come straight over. Your name is the one I was given, so I guess you’re my new client.” Cisco smiled.

  I hadn’t yet had my breakfast so I figured this was as good a time as any to get started.

  “Okay. I was waiting for some coffee but that’ll have to wait. Would you like some water?” I asked. I figured Dray had tried to be helpful and hired me a trainer. It wasn’t unlike him to do things like this without telling me, so I guessed I could trust this guy. I hadn’t heard from Dray in about four days but this was typical of the ways he let me know he was thinking about me. He also did stuff like this to show that he was in charge, even though I was three years older.

  “You know that caffeine shit ain’t any good for you. And thanks, but I carry my own water with me.”

  I was getting ready to tell him that was cool when there was another knock at the door. Breakfast was here. I pulled a ten-dollar bill out of my wallet, opened the door, and paid a small Asian man the money. He handed me a brown paper bag that was warm from the coffee.

  Cisco gave me the disapproving look that trainers seem to wear permanently as I placed the bag on the counter.

  “That smells greasy,” he said.

  “I sure hope it is.”

  “You gonna eat that?” Cisco asked.

  “Sure am.”

  “You know, you might not want to do that.”

  “Stop tripping. You don’t even know what it is.”

  “I can smell the coffee and the bagel.”

  “Okay, let’s get this over with,” I said, pointing to the stairs. My bagel and coffee would have to wait.

  “Lead the way.”

  When we reached the second floor, I gestured to the room at the end of the hall and told Cisco I would meet him there after I’d changed into some workout clothes.

  I went into my dressing area and pulled out some black sweats, along with a white V-neck T-shirt. I put on some white ankle socks and my bright red Converse throwback sneakers. I walked down to the room I’d converted into a gym to find Cisco looking out the window. I noticed he’d removed his jacket. He was built like a football player, muscular and compact at about five-nine. He was wearing a white tank that hugged his upper body like spandex, and some baggy black warm-ups. His hair was done in little twists the length of Cheetos.

  He pulled out one of the blue mats lying against the wall, placed it on the floor, and instructed me to lie on my back.

  “I’m going to stretch you out real good,” Cisco said, with what sounded like a double meaning.

  I lay down and Cisco took my right leg and pushed it back into my chest until I grimaced in pain.

  “That’s you?” he asked.

  I nodded my head to let him know he had indeed reached my pain threshold.

  “How often do you work out?”

  “I used to work out at least four times a week. I’ve been slacking off since I moved down here.”

  “Where you moved from?”

  “Atlanta.”

  “You ever play sports?”

  “A little tennis, and I used to be a gymnast.”

  “That’s what’s up. I can tell you’re real limber.”

  “Not like I used to be.”

  “What do you do? If you don’t mind my asking,” Cisco said. He moved behind me, pulling my arms behind my neck.

  “I’m an interior designer,” I said.

  “Must be money in that because this joint is hooked up like a baller’s pad. This looks like one of them houses on MTV Cribs. You seen that show?” I could feel his warm breath on the back of my neck with each of his words. I wanted to tell him if he thought this was something, he should have seen my house in Atlanta. Now that was something special.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen it once or twice.”

  After a couple of sets of ab work, we moved to the weights. Within minutes sweat poured into my eyes as I lay on the bench. Cisco gave me a small white towel to dry my face.

  As we went from station to station, Cisco was so close to me I noticed the faint smell of his soap-scented deodorant. W
e finished the workout with Cisco throwing a twelve-pound medicine ball to me over a hundred times. After all that I was so tired I thought I was going to tumble down the stairs. I needed some water and food. I suddenly remembered my cold breakfast bagel and hoped it would be the answer to my hunger.

  “You all right with the water?” I asked.

  “I’m straight.”

  While I was removing the cap from the bottle and taking several swigs, Cisco hit me with a barrage of questions: “You live here by yourself?” “You got a female?” “You think Mike Vick going to jail?”

  “What do you think?” I asked, wondering which question he wanted me to answer first.

  “About what?”

  “Mike Vick. You think he’s going to jail?”

  “Shit, that would be some foul shit if he did. Kobe didn’t do any time. And we talkin’ ‘bout some dogs. This ain’t no white girl shit. Maybe if he had some white girls mud wrestling naked and him pissing on them he might have to give the man some time, but he ain’t done no shit like that as far as I know.” Cisco took a gulp of water from the clear gallon jug he was carrying with him.

  “So what days are we going to work out?” I asked.

  “It’s on you, playa. Tell me and I’m here.”

  “I like to start early in the morning. Is that a problem?”

  “Like I said, my dude, it’s on you. Say the time and I’m here.”

  “Is this all you do?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, slightly defensively.

  “Is training your only job?”

  “For right now. I was hoping to get into somebody’s training camp before the season starts, but nobody has called yet.”

  “You play football?”

  “I played at Southern down in Baton Rouge. A couple years ago I got invited to the Saints camp, but I got cut right at the end. I thought at least I’d make the practice squad. I played in the Arena League but that shit is lame. You have to play two positions and they don’t pay shit. It’s like peewee football for grown-ass men.”