her purse and made a beeline for the coat room.
Forty minutes later, Leonard turned his battered sedan into Tangela’s apartment complex. “Can I come in for a while?”
“Sorry, but I have an early-morning flight,” she said, discreetly scratching her arm. Tangela had fallen in love with the cat-woman suit on sight, but after five hours in it, she wanted to set the stupid thing on fire. Sweat, leather and shea butter made for terribly itchy skin, and although she’d won the prize for best costume, she’d decided that the hundred-dollar Nordstrom gift card wasn’t worth all the trouble.
“Tangela, I really like you,” Leonard confessed, stretching his meaty arm across the back of her seat. “I know we agreed to see other people, but I don’t want anybody else. I want you.”
Right words, wrong guy, she thought, unlocking the passenger door. Warrick’s face popped into her head, but Tangela cleared the image from her mind. Thinking about him would lead to fantasizing and she didn’t want to go down that road again. Marriage was on the horizon, not hooking up with a man with whom she’d once shared an incredible passion. They didn’t have a future, and that was reason enough for her to stay far away from him.
“Come here.” Eyes closed, lips puckered, he moved in for a kiss. Minuscule pieces of spinach were trapped between his front teeth and he smelled like onion dip.
Looks like I found another winner! Convincing herself it was his bad breath and not seeing Warrick again that was turning her off, she twisted her body toward the window. His lips grazed her cheek. His mustache felt like hard, brittle whiskers and made her think of her foster mother’s cat, Rufus.
“I’m attracted to you and I know you feel the same way, so what are we waiting for?” Shifting in his seat, he licked his thin lips. “A man has needs, you know.”
Tangela almost choked on her tongue. Leonard had said a lot of funny things since they’d met last month, but that took the cake. “Good night, Leonard. Take care.”
At the door of her apartment condo, she waved, then turned the lock and went inside. “Whoever said dating was easy ought to be shot!” she complained, slipping her aching feet out of her black stilettos. Tangela considered calling Sage to vent. Before meeting her husband, Marshall, her best friend had dated a long list of losers, and if anyone would understand how she was feeling, it was Sage. Tangela reached for the phone, but remembered that Sage was in Los Angeles watching her stepson, Khari, play in the regional basketball championships.
Fifteen minutes later, Tangela stretched out on the bed and allowed India. Arie’s voice to shower her with self-love and tranquility. Warrick looked good tonight. Good enough to take home and make love to. Startled by the thought, she rolled onto her side, searching the room for a suitable distraction. Something. Anything that would take her mind off her ex.
Sitting up, she reached for the stack of magazines on her night table, and plopped them down on her lap. For the third time in days, she scrutinized the People magazine cover. When she’d opened her mailbox and seen it lying among her bills, she’d actually danced around the kitchen. But when she read the interview, her excitement had waned.
“Food addiction, my ass,” she grumbled, tossing the magazine onto the floor. She was fit and fabulous whether she was a size eighteen or a size ten. Just because the editorial staff didn’t believe her didn’t mean it wasn’t true. She’d lost the weight without even trying. Having been to Guadalajara numerous times, she’d felt comfortable walking from her host family’s house to the institute where she taught English classes and studied Spanish.
Her host mother, Ima, was weight-conscious and took great pride in preparing tasty, low-calorie meals for the family. Three weeks after arriving in Mexico, Tangela had lost twelve pounds. Six months later, she was down to a size fourteen and by the end of the year, she was at the lowest weight she’d ever been.
Tangela wished she could curl up in bed and watch TV, but she had to get ready for work tomorrow and her clothes weren’t going to pack themselves. After trading in India. Arie for the Black Eyed Peas, she grabbed one of the suitcases from the back of her closet.
As she heaved the suitcase onto the bed, it fell open, sending photo albums, stray pictures and DVDs crashing to the bedroom floor. For a moment, Tangela stood there motionless, unsure of what to do. She’d been meaning to get rid of these old mementos, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Warrick wasn’t her boyfriend anymore, but it just didn’t seem right tossing perfectly good pictures into the trash.
Tangela had always considered herself a fairly with-it per son. In spite of having been raised by a woman who had a laundry list of psychological problems, Tangela had graduated high school with a near-perfect GPA and worked full-time to put herself through college. But when Tangela had met Warrick, she’d fallen hopelessly in love. Moving in with him had cemented their commitment, and he became everything to her, the only real family she’d ever had.
Against her better judgment, she picked up the tape marked Spring in New Orleans. Tangela still remembered the time they’d spent in the Big Easy. They’d shared passionate kisses, made love on the beach and eaten at the best Creole restaurant in the city. It was there, while they celebrated their fifth anniversary, that Warrick had proposed. Tangela had been too mesmerized by the sight of the pink canary diamond to notice his tense body language, but months later, when she’d watched the video he’d secretly had taped by a hotel concierge staff person, she’d seen the uncertainty in his eyes.
Enough memories, she decided. To purge her thoughts, she turned up the music and forced all images of Warrick from her mind. It was time to cut her ties with her ex once and for all. As much as she hated destroying the video and other mementos, she couldn’t hold on to them any longer. If she was serious about getting married by her next birthday, she had to quit thinking about Warrick and make room in her heart for the right man to come along.
Scooping up the albums and videos, she marched into the kitchen, dumped everything into the trash bin and slammed the lid. “There,” she said, smacking her hands together. “Goodbye and good riddance!”
“Attention, passengers. The pilot has switched on the seat-belt light and we ask that you remain seated for the remainder of the flight.” Stepping out from behind the curtain that separated the two cabins, Tangela delivered a smile to the sleepy-eyed passengers occupying business class. “On behalf of the pilot and the entire American Airlines crew, we’d like to thank you for choosing American Airlines and we look forward to serving you in the future.”
For the remainder of the flight, Tangela handed out cups of water, retrieved headphones and collected garbage. When the plane touched down promptly at six forty-five, passengers broke out in applause, drawing chuckles from the flight attendants.
“Thanks for flying with American Airlines,” Tangela said cheerfully when the final passenger disembarked. “Have a great day!” Her mouth ached from smiling, and she could feel a migraine coming on, but she kept her smile in place until the last businessperson was out of sight. After catering to a hundred and thirty people on a flight from Chicago, then bidding them all goodbye, Tangela needed an ice pack, two aspirin and an apple martini.
“You’re one heck of an actress,” Mr. Connelly teased, patting her on the back like a proud father. “I thought you were going to lose it when that snot-nosed kid started banging on the cockpit door, but you held it together. Good job, Tangela.”
He returned to the cockpit, and Tangela glanced around the first-class cabin. This morning, the Boeing 737 had been clean enough to eat off the floor, and now it looked as if a twister had ripped through it. Scraps of papers, wads of tissue
