Dating Games Read online

  Her mom couldn’t become a nurse, but her baby was going to be a doctor. “Take that!” Livvy said, steering her car, thinking about her daughter someday giving orders to the very nurses her mom once worked for. But almost immediately, Livvy became despondent when she thought about her other daughter, Alizé. Her daughters were twins, and they were both beautiful. But Livvy always asked herself, how could they have turned out so completely different?

  Where Hennesey was confident about her intelligence, Alizé was confident about her looks. The child had grown breasts, it seemed, before she grew teeth, and she was very proud of that. She’d started wearing a bra when she was ten, makeup when she was eleven, and clothing that made men think she was twice her age when she was fourteen. Whereas the most important thing to Hennesey was her education, Alizé didn’t care. The only thing important to her was how men felt about her, how much attention—and whatever else—she could get from them.

  Livvy had noticed a difference in their behavior way back when they were toddlers. Alizé would finish all her food and start reaching over the table and taking her sister’s. Seventeen years later, that behavior hadn’t changed much. Only instead of Alizé’s taking Hennesey’s grapes, now she was taking her boyfriends.

  Livvy tried so many times to convince Alizé to let her sister tutor her in school, help her try to find a career she would be interested in, or just to get away from her worthless friends and spend more time with her sister. Alizé wasn’t hearing it. “What? You just want me to be like her! Well, let me tell you something, Mama. I ain’t! We might look the same, but we ain’t the same. All right.”

  Fine, Livvy would always think. She would smile a little bit, thinking about what her mother had told her before she had died. The girls were only five years old then, but her mother said to Livvy, “That Alizé is going to be a handful. That’s payback for all the hell you gave me, child,” she’d said, smiling. After the girls were a year old, Livvy’s mother finally made her way over to her daughter’s apartment. She said she couldn’t have stayed away any longer. Livvy’s mother had five good years with the girls before she passed, and even though Livvy and her mother weren’t always the best of friends, she was glad her daughters had time to get to know their grandmother.

  Livvy could remember the day she put her mother to rest, could remember standing there, looking down into her casket, both her daughters holding either of her hands.

  “She sleepin’, Mommy?” Hennesey asked, always the inquisitive one.

  “Yeah, baby. She’s sleeping, but it’ll be forever,” Livvy told her, still staring at her mother’s waxen face. She thought about the hell they had been through with each other, the things that shouldn’t have been said, shouldn’t have been done, and then Livvy thought about the few good times they had together. Livvy promised herself that day that she would do everything in her power to give her daughters a better life, to give them more good times to remember than bad. On the day of her mother’s death, she made that promise to her daughters.

  Livvy turned into the parking lot of her apartment building, a smile reappearing on her face, as she thought about what was going to happen later tonight. She got out of the ’91 Hyundai Excel, looked around, then slammed the door. She always had to look around to make sure there wasn’t anyone trying to run up on her. She wasn’t worried about the people who lived in the buildings. She knew all of them, even the roughneck little boys and the teens, most of them probably destined for jail. For the most part, she felt perfectly safe. She’d lived in this worn-down project building since the girls were babies, but this was still the ’hood, and many bad things could happen here.

  Livvy walked up the stairs, greeting a group of boys.

  “Hey, Ms. Rodgers,” a couple of them said. Another boy in braids nodded his head.

  “Boys, you stayin’ out of trouble?” Livvy asked, as she walked past.

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t want to see none of ya’ll at my hospital, rollin’ through the emergency room, okay?”

  She stepped into the building, eyeing the fresh graffiti that had been applied to the fresh white paint that had just been applied yesterday over the old graffiti. She hoped the elevator was working, because after the long day at work, she didn’t feel like climbing eleven flights of stairs, padded hospital shoes or not.

  She pressed the button, listened for a moment, and smiled when she heard the noise of the machine starting to operate. The doors opened, and she was grateful that today, nobody had decided to empty their bladder in there or use it as a trash receptacle. The doors closed in front of her, and the elevator moved slowly, allowing her time to think about later tonight once again. She let her eyes fall closed, and the smile lengthened across her lips as she thought about Carlos. Make the best of things, her mother had told her. Well, that’s what Livvy was going to do tonight.

  Carlos Tillman was a beautiful, medium-dark-skinned man, with fine, wavy hair. His mother was Cuban, his father black, and Livvy would never have guessed that that combination could create a specimen as fine as Carlos. Carlos and Livvy had been seeing each other for eight years now. They met when they were twenty-five, and she couldn’t wait to get into his pants and let him into hers. But she wanted to be respected, and didn’t want him to think that just because she’d had two children when she was sixteen, she was giving booty away to every brotha who blinked his eye at her.

  So Livvy waited. A whole two weeks. But when they finally got together, she wished she had given it up after two minutes. For the first month, they made love every day, twice sometimes. He made love to her like he really meant it, like his heart was into it, not like some of those other boys who would hump long enough to get off, then a second later go reaching over the side of the bed for the jeans they had just taken off.

  Carlos would tempt her, tease her, and when they got to the lovemaking, it was slow, meaningful, and pleasureful. And when it was over, she wasn’t looking at his ass as he slid his drawers up; she was looking into his eyes as he looked into hers. They would cuddle, and Carlos would tell her how he wasn’t always going to be poor. He would speak of his dreams to change things around the projects, to start a real estate company, to give people of color in the community the opportunity to buy and own their own property.

  “Because you know this is prime real estate, don’t you,” Livvy remembered him saying once after they made love. “This is Chicago lakefront property. And although the white folks are allowing us to live here now, one day they gonna realize that driving way into town from the burbs ain’t cool no more. They gonna realize the water is nice to look at, and they gonna move us up out of here. You know that, don’t you?”

  Livvy didn’t know none of that, but she smiled and kissed him on the lips, because she liked the way he spoke so passionately about the business. “I’m gonna make it, and you and the girls gonna be with me. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Livvy said, knowing that one day Carlos would actually make it, as he said he would.

  Carlos did. Five years ago, he started a small real estate company, after buying an old apartment building that the city had sold for little. He bought the building with money he borrowed from family, friends, and anyone else who would loan him a dime. He rehabbed the place, rented the spaces out, and was on his way.

  Now Carlos’s company was thriving. He was buying and selling properties, giving loans, and even building. He had made good on his promise, but only part of it: he had not taken Livvy and her girls anywhere. But a year ago, he did move to a beautiful big house in a nearby historic district and since then had been seeing less and less of Livvy. It was business that was keeping him away, Carlos always said. Over the last two months, Livvy was lucky to see him once every two weeks.

  A couple of her girlfriends told her that they had seen him with other women, but Livvy knew they were just saying that because they were jealous of her.

  “That’s why they sayin’ that, right?” Livvy always asked Sharika, who lived upstair
s from her.

  “Yeah, I guess that’s why they sayin’ that,” Sharika answered, saying what Livvy wanted her to say, and Livvy knew that’s what she was doing. But until Livvy saw Carlos cheating with her own two eyes, these were all lies.

  Carlos had called yesterday and apologized for faking the last two times he was supposed to have taken her out. He said that he would drive her around in his new Cadillac and show her the town.

  “You look extra pretty for me, all right?” he said before hanging up.

  Livvy was blushing as red as the dress she had rushed to the closet to pull out. She stepped in front of the mirror, held it up in front of her, and knew that it would cling perfectly in all the right places.

  She had turned to the side, imagining how the dress would stick to that curve back there, and she knew that Carlos would be drooling. If he had been with other women, she told herself, he’ll forget all about them after tomorrow night.

  Livvy stepped out of the elevator, keys in one hand, purse and lunch bag in the other. She walked down the hall, toward apartment 1105. When she opened the door, Hennesey was stretched out across the floor, lying on a big pillow. The TV was on, but the volume was low, and her attention was focused on the pages of a big reference book.

  “Hey, baby,” Livvy said, smiling to herself, thinking, My daughter never stops learning. Livvy set her keys and bags down and received the hug that Hennesey gave to her.

  “How was your day, Mama?”

  “The typical, baby. All I can say is that I got dumped on in more ways than one. I really got to take a shower. Did you eat? Want me to fix you something?” Livvy asked, walking toward the bathroom.

  “No, Mama, that’s all right. I fixed something earlier,’ Hennesey called back.

  After turning on the shower, Livvy stepped into her bedroom, stripped off her clothes, and with a turned-up nose dropped the soiled articles in the hamper. She really should’ve taken them down to the basement to burn them in the furnace, but washing them would have to do.

  She walked back into the living room, wearing a bathrobe, asking herself why she was bothering to ask the question she was about to ask, when she knew the answer. She asked anyway.

  “Hennesey, is your sister at home?”

  Hennesey pulled her head out of the book, looked up at her mother as if she should’ve known better than to ask such a question. “Yeah, right, Mama.”

  “You know where she’s at?”

  “I don’t know. She said she was going over to JJ’s place.”

  Livvy shook her head, thinking about JJ, and the rest of Alizé’s little no-good friends.

  “Why, what’s up?”

  “Nothing. I just wanted to talk to her before I went out.”

  “Ooh, we going out, are we?” Hennesey smiled slyly. “I haven’t heard anything about this.”

  “That’s right, baby,” Livvy said, sticking a hand on her hip, waving the other at her daughter. “Carlos is coming by here to pick me up soon, and he’s going to show me the town. Gonna wear my little red dress that’s just going to knock his socks off.”

  “Well, you do it, Mama,” Hennesey waved back at her mother.

  “It’s already been done, he just don’t know it yet.” They both laughed, then Livvy hurried to the bathroom to get ready by nine-thirty, when Carlos said he’d pick her up.

  LIVVY sat in the living room, her jacket on over the red dress she was so excited about. Her purse lay on the other end of the sofa. The television had been turned off, the same for the lights, save for the light over the kitchen sink. Hennesey had long ago taken her book into her bedroom.

  “I don’t want to wreck your flow when Carlos come to pick you up,” Hennesey said, kissing her mother on the cheek, about two hours ago. “Have a good time, and I want you back in here by eleven-thirty,” she said, joking.

  This would’ve been impossible considering it was eleven-thirty now, and Livvy hadn’t even left the house. All this time, Livvy had been sitting there, flicking the TV on and off, watching for ten minutes, then turning it off again, afraid that she’d be distracted and wouldn’t hear Carlos knocking at the door, or calling her to let her know he was right outside. That was ridiculous, of course, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

  She rang his home phone a zillion times, his business phone more than that, and his cell even more, but all she got were recordings. She didn’t bother to leave any messages because she knew he knew where he was supposed to be. He just hadn’t made it yet. He must’ve gotten caught up in something … like some other woman’s panties.

  Livvy scolded herself for thinking like that. He would have a good reason for being late. She knew he would. And he would tell her when he came, because she knew he was still coming.

  But would he really come? This would be the third time in a row that he had stood her up, so why should she think that he would come this time? Sad thing was, getting stood up was something that Livvy was getting used to, and not just by Carlos, but by other men she cared about as well.

  She could remember when Avery finally reappeared after abandoning them. She was twenty-four, the kids were eight, and he had dropped back into her life like he had just fallen from the sky.

  After opening her front door, finding Avery there, as thin as ever, his facial hair growing out of control, she couldn’t believe the moment was actually happening. She wanted to claw his eyes out, but she also wanted to throw herself into him, wrap her arms tightly around him, tell him how much she still loved him. She did neither.

  “I missed you,” he had the nerve to say, and opened his arms for a hug.

  Livvy did not move.

  After getting no response, Avery just walked into the house, as if he figured she always knew he would be coming.

  “I want to meet my girls.”

  “How did you—”

  “Mama told me.”

  Livvy narrowed her eyes at him. “Your mama could tell you everything that was going on here, but she couldn’t tell me where you were?”

  “It’s a long story, Livvy.”

  “I got time.” Livvy crossed her arms, anger on her face.

  “I don’t want to get into it right now. Besides …,” Avery said, nodding toward the hallway where Hennesey and Alizé were peeking their little heads around the corner.

  “Come over here, girls,” Livvy called. The girls came, Hennesey somewhat reluctant, Alizé almost running, a big smile on her face.

  “There’s someone I want to introduce you to.” Livvy tried to break the news gently, but before she could, Avery said, “Girls, I’m your father.”

  A short gasp of surprise came from Hennesey, as a wide smile grew across Alizé’s lips.

  Livvy looked sharply at Avery, wanting to drag him toward the door, throw him out of her apartment for giving the news so abrubtly, but he paid her no attention. His focus was on the girls. He had stooped down and opened his arms, bidding the two of them forward. Alizé ran quickly toward the man she had never seen before and jumped into his arms. Hennesey stood back, her arms crossed over her chest, scrutinizing the man with a cautious stare.

  “It’s okay,” Avery said, holding tightly to a smiling Alizé. “I won’t bite.” He extended his hand out to Hennesey.

  Hennesey looked up to her mother. Livvy nodded her head, giving her the okay to step closer.

  Hennesey moved into Avery’s other arm.

  “Now,” he said. “What are my daughter’s names?”

  “Hennesey,” Hennesey said, softly. “And I’m Alizé!” Alizé said, almost yelling her own name.

  Avery looked to Livvy as if to ask, Why did you go and name my daughters after liquor?

  Livvy shot him a look back saying, It’s what we got fucked up on when you got me pregnant, Yo’ ass wasn’t around to stop me, so there!

  That same night, Avery announced that he was moving back in to help raise his daughters so they could be a family, even though all he ever brought was a half-empty gym bag full of cl
othes. He immediately started sleeping in Livvy’s bed, butt naked, because that’s how he said he always slept now. She hadn’t had sex, decent sex, in over a year, and although she tried to fight it, she succumbed to his very first attempt at having her. And honestly, she didn’t even know if it was a real pass or not. He brushed her nipple with his hand while raising it to scratch his cheek, and she was all over him after that.

  Avery was there a week, spending huge amounts of time with the girls, because he was “in between jobs.” Hennesey was indifferent. She had always been independent. Her head was always in a book before her father reappeared, and it was still in a book while he was there, so this new “dad thing” wasn’t even interfering with her reading schedule. Alizé was loving every minute of the attention she was getting. She seemed like a different girl, laughing and smiling all the time, when normally she was frowning and finding a problem with every little thing.

  Avery told Alizé he loved her after the second day he showed up, and Alizé told him she loved him back. All she talked about was how much she loved her daddy—until the day he disappeared again.

  He disappeared as magically as he had reappeared, like the sky had sucked him back up through the clouds he had initially dropped down from. Nothing changed for Hennesey. She just went back to her books. But Alizé was in despair. Livvy would’ve been in just as bad shape if she didn’t have to focus her attention on bringing her younger daughter (by one minute and thirty-six seconds) out of her funk.

  Livvy tried locating Avery again, if for no other reason than to tell him how much both his daughters (that was a lie, just one of them, really) missed him, and to tell him he needed to start paying child support. But after a couple of halfhearted failed attempts, Livvy didn’t bother anymore. A few months later, she met Carlos.

  Livvy fidgeted with the buttons on her jacket, thinking that she would take it off, when she heard the doors of the elevator open. The sound was faint, but the elevator was just outside her door, so when there was no noise in the apartment, she could hear the doors slowly grinding open.