Valentine's Day Is Killing Me Read online

  “Oh, God,” he sighed, pulling her on top of him. “That’s so romantic.”

  “But you have to get older in a hurry. I’m not dating someone in his twenties. It’s just…yech.”

  “Now you’re just being annoying for the sake of being annoying.”

  “Yeah,” she sighed happily, resting her forehead on his. “I guess you don’t mind, though.”

  “I guess not. I overlook all kinds of bad behavior on Valentine’s Day.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  A “NO DRAMA” VALENTINE’S

  Leslie Esdaile

  Chapter One

  At a little café on Twentieth and Chestnut Streets,

  Philadelphia, PA

  Who needed a man on Valentine’s Day? The species was more trouble than it was worth! Jocelyn Jefferson held up her wide-mouthed teacup and clinked it against three other mugs in the all-female soul-renewal fest. She glanced down at her chamomile tea, smiling as it almost sloshed on the table.

  “This year,” she announced to her three best friends, “we’re gonna have a ‘no drama’ Valentine’s!”

  “I heard that!” Tina said, raking her fingers through her long braids and tossing her hair over her shoulders. “Look at us. We’re all in graduate school; therefore we’re all obviously trying to do something positive with our lives. All of us are under thirty, and not bad on the eyes,” she added with a mischievous grin. “Don’t have kids, have a future, and shouldn’t have to put up with the ‘Oh, baby, see, what had happened was,’ rhetoric.”

  “No lie,” Jacqui chimed in, talking with her hands as her rust-hued dreadlocks bobbed. “I am so sick of it. Every year it’s the same thing. Disappointment, long stories about why he didn’t come through. A bunch of la-la. And, I’m always scratching my head, wondering why it has to be all of this. Why the games?”

  Freddie shook her head with disgust, making a profusion of shiny, onyx curls dance as she spoke. “Chile, pullease. I hear it all, working down at the Galley Mall. Brothers fall into the store, run game while buying their woman or wife perfume. Dawgs. Hear what I’m saying, ladies? Dawgs. And they think because I’m ringing a department store register that I don’t have anything else going on in my life, so I was just waiting for them to come along and blow my mind.”

  “Right, that’s what I’m talking about. Over at the supermarket, just because I’m in the checkout line ringing customers, they think I must be waiting on them to go to the Wizard to get a brain, okaaaay,” Tina said, laughing. “I’m always like, man, if you don’t get outta this sistah’s face with that tired yang—”

  “Oh, girl,” Jacqui said quickly, “just because I’m at the library with a security guard’s uniform on, they try to crack, thinking they have me all figured out, but when I drop on them that I’m currently in an engineering master’s program, and just finished my law degree, they get all funny-acting and back up.”

  “That’s because they can’t deal with intelligent women who aren’t needy,” Jocelyn said decisively, her gaze narrowing as it shot around the quaint little vegetarian café and tea salon. “So, what are they going to do with an engineering lawyer who’s blowing up the dean’s list at Drexel University, huh, J? Or, one of the baddest designers I’ve ever known, rocking her thing over at The University of the Arts.” She slapped Tina a high five. “You can’t even take a brother to your fly-ass apartment that looks like something out of a Manhattan showroom. And I know they can’t deal with Freddie—what, a Fox School of Business MBA who could probably run circles around Sir Donald, if she had some money? Once you get out of Temple U, sis, you’re gonna shake up the business scene, for real. Pullease.”

  They all laughed.

  “That’s the point, chica,” Freddie said. “Today, I can barely pay for my grilled vegetable salad. But tomorrow, when I graduate, I’ma show them what they should have been doing on The Apprentice—but I’ll be playing for keeps. Shoot, they thought Omarosa was bad, but they haven’t met me yet.”

  Companionable laughter erupted and kept their spirits buoyed. No, this didn’t make any sense for them to all be good-looking, educated, young, but so very single. Jocelyn refused to allow herself to go down that slippery slope of depression. Nope. Not for a dreaded Hallmark holiday that was only a consumer-ruse-turned-nightmare created by the greeting card and floral industry, any ole way. As the conversation built to a male-bashing crescendo, Jocelyn honestly appraised her friends, quietly battling despair.

  Jacqui was tall, regal, with a dark walnut complexion and slender, athletic build that commanded attention and respect as much as her no-nonsense personality did. Girlfriend was destined to be a judge, or maybe a top manufacturer’s technical legal counsel, and she deserved a serious brother who could pull his own weight. That sister didn’t have time for games, and shouldn’t have had to be subjected to them.

  Then there was Tina. The sister was artistically fly, unique, and her petite five-foot-four frame was that of a lithe dancer, but her effervescence gave her a pixie-like quality. Bottom line was, Tina was fun, culturally deep, and would one day be a force to be reckoned with, no doubt. Jocelyn could see her girlfriend on the cover of Essence magazine, or in there as the designer to the celebrity circuit, just like she could imagine Fredericka one day on the cover of Black Enterprise as one of the nation’s top African-American women in business. Freddie had the Midas touch when it came to entrepreneurial exploits, and from the time she’d known her, Freddie always had a moneymaking hustle going on the side of whatever else she was doing—plus, her girlfriend had the supermodel corporate looks to go with it. The fact that Freddie was still single gave Jocelyn serious pause.

  But it wasn’t just the concept of being single, or serial dating, that made Jocelyn and her girls feel so sad. She knew it was the long, dry spell for years that was probably giving them all a nervous tic. Just because they were very clear on their dating parameters, and had each vigilantly held the line, had put them in isolation. It wasn’t fair. Yet they’d each made a vow not to denigrate themselves: No married men reduced the percentage of dates by fifty percent, right off the bat.

  Then, by excluding roughneck homeboys who had prison records, nefarious business operations, and baby momma drama, cut that number by a third. Then, by employing the “no gay men” rule, also known as “no brothers on the down low,” the odds got even slimmer that a sister could find a legitimate date. Instinctively she knew that the last parameter had cast them into the veritable dating desert: No polygamous philanderers who had five women at the same time. No potential STD, typhoid carriers. That was it. Game over. So, they sat together at a place where there were no available men to be found, trying to cheer each other up on the day before the big one.

  “Listen, ladies,” Jacqui said, taking the conversation hostage and holding court, “it’s not about lowering one’s standards. Think about it. They don’t.”

  Tina nodded. “And I don’t care what your female coworkers show you, all that glitters isn’t gold.”

  Jocelyn sighed. “See, by working in telemarketing, I don’t have to deal with jackasses approaching me in the street all day, but working with all women is a trip.” She let out another weary breath. “It’s like they’re all in there secretly competing and trying to convince themselves that they’re safe, just because some fool gave ’em a tennis bracelet or dropped some roses on their desk like a trophy. Every year it’s the same ole mess. They show off their treasures like they’d won some kinda contest.” Jocelyn wrinkled up her nose and made her voice squeaky. “Oh, girl, look, he brought me flowers.” She put her hand out and brandished an invisible ring and bracelet. “Look what my baby brought me!”

  Again, the table erupted into a hailstorm of hard laughter—but bitterness singed the edges of it.

  “Oh, I know it must be deep on your job, Joce,” Jacqui said, shaking her head. “All those married women and airheads in there? Girl, I don’t know how you, a doctoral candidate working on a dissertation about social and
economic injustice, can sit in a telemarketing pit with them? It’s absurd. They’ve all allowed their power to be co-opted!”

  “It’s good research,” Jocelyn said, forcing herself to laugh. “Everybody’s crazy and is a candidate for a section in my paper. Consumerism and the buttons the system pushes to keep people spending what they don’t have, is part of my dissertation. I’m going to devote a whole section to manufactured holidays.”

  “Yeah, but girl, how do you keep your sanity in there with the people on your job? I know they floss their Valentine’s Day trinkets in your face to make themselves feel whole. Shoot, as pretty as you are, lady. The Bally gym body, honey-brown skin, hair might be in a bun to go to work, but it ain’t acrylic when it drops to your shoulders—and smart? If you ever take off the horn-rimmed glasses and go to contacts, they’ll be in trouble. So, I know they give you the blues,” Jacqui argued, laughing. “Those women can’t even begin to deal with you, much less any man—you need a heavy brother, and those are in short supply. Oh, where oh where has the black intelligentsia gone?”

  Tina swooned at the table, showing off her hammered metal earrings, and mimicked the girls on Jocelyn’s job. “Girl, two karats—you know I’ve got him on lock,” she said, teasing the group and pretending to have on huge diamond studs.

  “It’s a farce. One day a year to make the female species forget all the horrible things they’ve done to us for the other three hundred and sixty-four days. I say we boycott!” Jacqui shouted, suddenly raising her teacup, almost making the raspberry zinger in it christen the group. “Reparations!”

  “That’s right,” Freddie agreed. “What is so romantic about a day that the mob wiped out a rival gang—I believe the St. Valentine’s Day massacre comes to mind, hmmm? Absurd.”

  Again, hearty but weakening chuckles shot around the small huddle of women.

  “Jacqui is right,” Jocelyn said. “We need to take proactive action. I say, why sit around this Valentine’s Day, watching a tearjerker chick flick, alone, wringing our hands, drinking wine, alone, and being morose? Why allow the lusty calls from cheating spouses or the O-T-O, one time only, booty call brothers who just wanna get their swerve on, disrupt our Zen and make us weak? We do not have to be victimized by this cultural insanity. Not for one freakin’ night of the year.”

  “No justice, no peace!” Tina yelled, making heads turn in the vegetarian restaurant as her girlfriends screamed with laughter.

  “Girl, you crazy, hush,” Freddie said, laughing but glancing around. “You don’t want people thinking they need to call Homeland Security on your behind.”

  “I ain’t playing,” Tina said, laughing so hard, tears came to her eyes. “I ain’t had none in over a year, and I’m ready to jihad. It ain’t right!”

  Jacqui clasped a hand over Tina’s mouth, almost falling out of her chair as she laughed harder. “TMI, girl. Way too much information!”

  “It’s the truth,” Tina mumbled from behind Jacqui’s hand.

  “Oh, say it ain’t so,” Freddie giggled. “Don’t start with the celibacy Olympic records, y’all, ’cause next thing ya know we’ll be holding up number cards for the no-dick months. Ten! Nine-point-five! That’s an eight-seven!”

  Jocelyn laid her head on the table and covered it. “Shut up, girl, before you make me pee myself.”

  “Tell the truth. What’s your number?” Freddie said, laughing harder as Jocelyn waved her away.

  “I’ma need Depends if y’all don’t cut it out,” Jocelyn wheezed.

  “Our American contender looks at the line, readying herself for the competition,” Tina whispered like a sports announcer.

  “She’s a pro, been through many events,” Jacqui said, going into character with Tina and leaning into the table, her voice low and serious as the others roared with laughter. Jacqui allowed her voice to gain in momentum as she moved silverware around an imaginary track. “The gun fires, and she’s off, rounding the corner, taking out the girls on the job, has the lead, and her time is unbelievable! We might just have an abstinence record, folks! The judges are furiously calculating. We might even have a world record. Since she began graduate school…wait, wait, the numbers are coming in.”

  Jocelyn threw her head back, laughing, and did a victory dance in her chair. “Thirty-six-point-four! Yes!” When her girlfriends laughed so hard they nearly fell out of her chairs, Jocelyn donned an invisible ribbon, blotting at tears that weren’t there. “First, I wanna give all honor to God. And, if it weren’t for my mother…thanks, Mom!”

  Jacqui spit out her tea in a laughing spray. Tina was coughing, and Freddie was hiccup-laughing so hard that her mascara was beginning to run.

  “Girl, if you mess up this year and lose your mind, and take a booty call from some worthless male, we ain’t gonna be mad at you. Dayum…that don’t make no sense!” Jacqui dabbed her mouth with a napkin, and the table exploded with new rounds of mirth.

  “No, see, girl, this is the thing. I’m not going out like that. One has to plan,” Jocelyn said, shaping her curly Afro with her palms. “You only get victimized by the system when you don’t understand it. So, this year, I propose that we do something different to end the cry-all-night-be-horny-all-night cycle.”

  “You got a plan, girl, then I’m down,” Freddie said, her smile fading to a serious but curious expression.

  “For real, I’ve already got a nervous tic every time I go into CVS to buy toiletries, and I see the red aisle,” Tina said, laughing hard. “Styrofoam cupids and big paper hearts give me the shakes like a junkie. What’s the plan?”

  “I almost broke down last night for some fool, and y’all know I’m studying for the bar!” Jacqui shook her head. “Don’t they have some drug that can just kill libido? I need a ’script, bad. What is wrong with modern medicine?”

  “I might turn to cybersex before the night’s out,” Freddie said, wiping her brow. “But I’m trying to ignore my sister Brenda’s advice—she’s outta her danged mind.”

  “Stay strong,” Tina said, giggling as she raised a power-to-the-people fist.

  “All right,” Jocelyn said, putting her hands flat on the table. “We do a Pollyanna. Get each other gifts, since women are better at picking out stuff than men, any ole way. Why sit up in our apartments waiting on some guy that isn’t going to do that for us?”

  “That’s deep,” Jacqui said, nodding her agreement with the others. “Go, Joce.”

  “Right,” Jocelyn said, gaining confidence as the plan formed in her mind. “All the clubs and places to go out will be catering to the Valentine’s Day groove, which will only be depressing. Couples, lovers, yada, yada, yada. The music alone will make us weak and all teary-eyed. Then, just watching folks all hugged up will bring on very dark thoughts of self-annihilation. So, we should make our own party.”

  “Like invite people? But who?” Freddie’s expression was incredulous. “Everybody will be otherwise hooked up, so who will come to a party—”

  “Us, girl,” Jocelyn said with a weary sigh. “Look. They have these visit-your-house spa-party places that will come out to your home and beat your hair, give you a facial, do your toes and nails, liquefy you with a massage…that’s what we’re missing. Pampering. We must honor the goddess within. So, why not throw a pamper party, just for us?”

  Astonished glances passed around the table. Mouths opened. Jaws went slack. Jocelyn had them, she knew it, and pressed on.

  “We need it. We deserve it. And just because some guy doesn’t have enough forethought, caring, or is too cheap to do that, hey. Why wait? Why deny ourselves sensual pleasures? We can get a lovely gourmet food platter from Fresh Grocer, where Tina works. We can use Freddie’s eighteen-percent employee discount at the mall, to keep gifts for each other to a reasonable level. Jacqui could research on the fly at the library and find a great in-home spa service for us that has solid references. Since I’m on the telephones all day, I can coordinate it all and let my fingers do the walking…and tomorrow night, whi
le every other woman in the city is either home alone weeping, with some man that ain’t actin’ right, or is on her cell phone, blowing up his, hollering into voice mail for her man to show up—we’ll be sitting back, drinking wine, laughing, getting done by pampering professionals, eating good food, relaxing, kicking back, listening to great music, and opening presents.”

  “Damn, girl,” Jacqui said in a reverent whisper. “That is scary brilliant.”

  “I’ma get snot-slinging toasted, right in the middle of the work week,” Freddie declared. “I’m gonna come to work the next day, moving slow, dark shades on, and give the girls on the job something to really talk about! But I’ll never divulge the trade secret of Miz Jocelyn’s ancient Chinese secrets of Zen.” She bowed slightly with both hands pressed together, giggling. “Master teacher, I shall grasp the stone of knowledge from your hand, and purge every errant male being from my black book, returning revived and renewed and pampered.”

  Jocelyn laughed and bowed toward Freddie. “And you will also receive the red rose of truth, grasshopper.”

  “You’re gonna buy roses for us, too?” Tina squealed. “Yo go, gurl! Sho’ you right!”

  “We shall laugh,” Jocelyn said in a phony Asian accent. “We shall dance! We shall dog every no-good male that has ever walked the planet. We shall have roses…to show them heifers on the job the next day,” she added with a wink, and then changed her voice to the around-the-way patois designed to make them all hoot with laughter. “’Cause we ain’t all metaphysical, now—sometimes ya gotta pull your blade, ladies.”

  Laughter rang out as the plan became manifest. High-fives passed as high-calorie dessert was ordered to seal the pact.

  “Who’s in?” Jocelyn asked, not needing to. Four friends simply giggled at their own mischief and hugged each other hard.