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He held up his hands in frustration. “She’s lying. If I had wanted Diane, I would have never started seeing you.” Marshall had dated Diane for about two months and then Veronica for three...about a month longer than he should have. But he enjoyed companionship on his business trips, and Veronica had been fun to hang out with. So, he’d kept the relationship going a little longer than he should have.
“Yeah, right. Then why aren’t you taking me to this retreat?”
As far as Marshall was concerned, Danetta look-alike or not, he would never take this woman anywhere again. But she had that mad-black-woman look in her eyes, so he wasn’t about to let her in on his little secret. He just wanted to keep the peace, and get her out of his house. “It’s business, Veronica. That’s why I’m not taking you. There’s no other reason.”
She picked up one of his Italian leather shoes and threw it at his head. “You’ve taken me on business trips before,” she said, as she ran out of the bedroom.
He ducked like former President Bush and then, Marshall thought about running after Veronica, but he needed to figure out how to maneuver his way around the room without getting broken glass in his feet. He jumped on his bed and then climbed down on the opposite side of the room. He really didn’t want to go after Veronica. The only reason he was even attempting to find her was in case she was in his kitchen grabbing a butcher knife. He’d seen Fatal Attraction and all those other some-man-did-me-wrong-and-I-done-lost-my-mind movies. “Veronica, where are you?”
She didn’t answer, but he heard footsteps that were headed toward his living room. He just hoped that she didn’t decide to break up any of the valuable antiques in that room. Most of the antiques and portraits in his living room had been purchased during trips outside the country. So, it wasn’t as if he could just run over to Italy or England and replace the stuff. “You’ve got it all wrong, Veronica. I’m not taking you to the retreat because my business partner doesn’t think it’s a good idea. I’m not taking anyone else either.” He tried to smooth things over before his mad black woman went Madea on him...found his electric saw and then cut his leather couch in half. Even though the guy in that movie was completely wrong for the way he’d treated his wife, Marshall had still cringed when Tyler Perry’s Madea had started tearing up the house. No man wants the stuff he’s worked hard for to get torn up. And every guy he knew could think of at least one woman with reason enough to tear his stuff up.
“Liar,” she screamed as she opened the front door and slammed it behind her.
Marshall pumped his fist in the air. “Yes!” he said, as he heard the door slam. But he wasn’t taking any chances. He rushed over to the front door and locked it before going back to his bedroom. He grabbed his cell phone off the nightstand and called his cleaning lady. She agreed to come back to the house and take care of the bedroom. He then threw on some clothes, pulled his overnight bag out of the closet and grabbed his keys. When he stepped outside and saw the key marks on his midnight black Cadillac SUV, he simply shook his head. This wasn’t his first time dealing with a woman who couldn’t handle the end of a relationship, but he hadn’t gone through this kind of drama since his late twenties. At thirty-two, dealing with a scorned woman was getting a bit old.
* * *
Danetta had done five miles on her treadmill. Two was the most she normally did in the morning, but after eating both of those brownies and half of her bucket of ice cream last night, she figured she needed those extra miles. She towel dried her face and neck as she stepped off the treadmill, and then walked upstairs to her home office.
On Saturday mornings she normally kicked back and tried to relax after her workout but she had work to do today. Today’s work had nothing to do with the advertising agency. Although, maybe some of the skills she’d acquired as an advertising executive could help her out with her manhunt. After all, she was skilled in product placement and creative design. Some of her knowledge would come in handy for the task at hand.
Opening her file cabinet, Danetta searched for the file labeled Husband Material. As she pulled it out, a picture of her and Marshall tumbled out and fell to the floor. As she bent down to pick it up, a smile crept across her honey-toned face. They had been hugging as they sat on the steps that led to the Howard University student library and a friend had snapped a picture of them. Danetta’s head lay on Marshall’s chest, while he put his arms around her and drew her closer to him. Danetta had hoped that Marshall would open his eyes and see her as more than a friend. But the night she threw herself at him, he’d made it abundantly clear that he was just not that into her.
Humiliated after that crushing blow to her self-esteem, Danetta had gone from one man’s bed to the next, trying to take back her heart. But none of the men she’d dated had measured up to Marshall Windham, and her heart remained broken. So, she finally stopped trying to date and just concentrated on her career.
And now she needed to move on with her life. She opened the file and began reading the list she had created about five years ago that detailed her perfect man. At the top of her list was the fact that she wanted to spend her life with a man that she could trust with her heart.
“So why’d you keep this picture of Marshall inside your Husband Material file?” she wondered out loud. Marshall was his own number-one fan and couldn’t possibly do right by her. But as she read the rest of the list and was reminded that she wanted a man who would be about his business, charming, handsome, adventurous, financially secure and someone who was able to make her smile...who enjoyed the same things she did, she realized that Marshall fit every characteristic but the first one.
Then Danetta got to thinking about where she had gone wrong. She reasoned that no one was perfect, and if she continued to wait for a man who satisfied her every hope and dream, she might be alone for a long time to come. But what if she threw away her list and just began to date men whom she found interesting. She jotted “lose the list” on the notepad on her desk.
She stood up and began pacing the floor. “Okay, I can forget about everything but my number-one item. I have to be able to trust the man I marry...bottom line.”
She walked into her bedroom and stood in front of the full-length mirror. Danetta knew she wasn’t beautiful or what men would consider sensual or alluring by any means. She had long hair that she mostly put into a ponytail or in a tight bun atop her head. It was just too much trouble and too time consuming to worry about styling her hair every morning. Since she had just finished her morning workout, Danetta was wearing a jogging suit, but her normal attire was business casual with an emphasis on below the knee or calf-length skirts or loose-fitting navy blue, black or brown pants.
Her face was devoid of makeup. In fact, Danetta rarely wore anything more than her favorite Crème d’ Nude lipstick from M.A.C. and a little mascara. She’d never understood how or why women took the time to put all that war paint on their faces, when they would just have to wash it all off later that evening.
The longer she checked out her image in the mirror, the more confused she became. Danetta had no clue what men were looking for in a woman. It had simply been too long since her last date. She needed help from an expert.
Her phone rang. She saw that it was Marshall so she picked it up. “Hey, whatcha doing?” he asked.
Danetta grabbed the remote and hurriedly turned on her television. “Nothing much, just watching TV.”
“Whatcha watching?”
She hit the guide to see what channel her TV was on. “The Hallmark Channel.”
“One of those love movies, huh?”
“What if it is?” Rolling her eyes, even though Marshall had watched these movies with her on more than one occasion, he thought the whole thing was a joke and that the kind of love they showed on television didn’t really exist. Although she could swear that she heard him sniffling during An Affair to Remember.
“Don’t get testy. I was just asking. Which one is on today?”
“It’s called Love Begins. I read the book. It was written by Janette Oke.”
“So, why watch the movie if you know how it ends?” Marshall asked.
Irritated by the question, especially since she was only pretending to watch the movie, she said, “Was there a reason for your call?”
“I always call you when I’m out of town...well, unless I’m having a real good time.”
“Yeah, I know all about your real good times. Look, I’ve got to go.”
“All right... I was just checking on you.”
Danetta wanted desperately to ask him how a woman would go about finding a man, but she was too embarrassed to let Marshall know that she had lost her groove on the dating tip, so she just hung up and called Ryla.
Her best friend was not only beautiful and savvy when it came to business matters, but she knew how to handle men. Lately, all Ryla did was turn men down, but she even did that with panache. Danetta picked up the phone and dialed her friend’s number. When Ryla answered, she said, “I need your help.”
“What’s up, girl? I was just about to take Jaylen to her ballet class.”
Danetta took a deep breath and rushed out her request. “I need to know how to get men interested in me.”
“What... What did you say?”
“You heard me. I told you last night that I was going to adjust my plans. And my new strategy is to go on as many dates as possible. But I have to get someone to ask me out first, and I need help with that.”
“It sounds like you need Surry; she’s the serial dater.”
“Yeah, but I’d never get away with wearing some of the outfits she puts on. And besides, I need help finding a man to settle down with. Surry isn’t interested in that.”
“Wow,” was all Ryla could say.
“Stop acting as if this is some big deal. I just need to figure out how to get men interested in me.”
“I’ve known you for five years, and you’ve never gone after men. I mean, you’ve seen Marshall naked, and you can’t even look him in the eye and tell him how you feel.”
“I’ve only seen Marshall’s bare chest, and that’s it. And anyway, this has nothing to do with Marshall.” Danetta nearly screamed those words at the top of her lungs.
“Don’t kid yourself, Danetta. Everything you do has something to do with that mongrel boy.”
“Okay, well let’s just say that what I’m doing now is about moving on with my life and finding someone who wants to be a part of it.”
“I’ve never seen you bat one eyelash in another man’s direction. So, are you really telling me that you are now ready to go find you a man?”
Ryla had a point. Danetta was definitely stepping outside of her comfort zone. She’d always been shy when it came to the opposite sex. Especially after being shot down by Marshall, Danetta made sure to never approach a man...every date she’d been on, the man had asked her out. And that was the problem, because no man had asked in quite some time. “That’s why I need you, girl. You know how to flirt. You know how to attract a man’s attention. I haven’t tried to do anything like that in so long that if I started winking and blinking, the guy would probably think I had a nervous tick or something.”
Ryla laughed. “Girl, shut up. Okay, if this is what you really want to do, I’ll help you. Matter of fact, meet me at Adorable Hair and Nails at one o’clock this afternoon.”
“What’s going on there?”
“I have a hair appointment, but I’m going to reschedule with Marlene and ask her to do you up instead.” Ryla sounded excited.
Danetta frowned. “I don’t know if I need to spend all that time in a hair salon. I was thinking that you could help me put a few outfits together. I have tons of clothes, but I don’t think I’m wearing them in a manner that will attract men.”
“You can say that again, Ms. Baggy Pants. And just the fact that you don’t understand the value of pampering yourself at a hair salon lets me know that I need to be charging for my services ’cause this is going to take a while.”
Chapter 3
Marshall ran into another scorned woman during the retreat. He’d been having lunch with a couple of Fortune 500 CEOs, regaling them with tales of his college misdeeds, when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned in his seat and immediately plastered a smile on his face as he stared at the mocha-chocolate beauty in front of him. “Well hello,” Marshall said, thinking that his weekend retreat just got a bit more interesting.
“Hello, Marshall, it’s been quite a while,” the woman said.
Her voice was so sexy that all conversation stopped at his table as the other men turned and stared. Marshall was flattered that out of all the powerful men in the room, this chocolate goddess chose him. But she spoke his name with familiarity, and he honestly didn’t remember her.
At his silence, she continued to speak. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
“I’d like to know.” He turned back to the men at the table and said, “Would you all excuse me for a minute?” He stood up, placed his hand on the woman’s back and walked toward the lobby with her. “So, would you like to tell me where we met?”
She sat down on the couch in the lobby, ran her hands through her long coal-black hair and waited for Marshall to sit down next to her. “You really don’t remember, do you?”
He wished that he could tell this woman that he not only remembered their meeting, but he’d kept the memory of her close to his heart. But he got nothing when he looked into her face. He met beautiful women all the time. He shook his head in defeat.
“Five years ago I met you at a conference just like this one. You took me out to dinner, whispered in my ear and then we went to your hotel room and you made love to me. I wouldn’t normally consider a one-night affair to be lovemaking, but I honestly thought we had connected in a special way.”
Marshall wanted to rub his hands together in sweet anticipation. He was about to get his freak on. He was about to ask if she wanted to go to his hotel room now and share a little afternoon delight with him, but she interrupted his thoughts.
“At least I thought we had a special connection. But after waiting by the phone for the call you promised to make, a call that never came, I realized that you don’t have a heart. And you had only been playing with mine.”
“Now wait a minute. You’re trying to make me out to be the bad guy, but if you just met me that weekend and went to bed with me, then you knew what time it was,” he argued.
Her voice rose. “You promised to call me.”
Marshall shrugged. He couldn’t understand what the big deal was. Five years ago his motto had been “love ’em and leave ’em, no strings attached”. And he made sure every woman he got involved with understood that. If this woman hadn’t received the memo, he didn’t know what to tell her.
Fire flared in her eyes as she stood up. “You’re so smug and confident. It probably doesn’t bother you at all that I dreamed about you that night.”
He leaned back and stuck his chest out. “Thank you,” he said with a smile that said, oh yeah, I’m the man.
She smacked him.
That took the smile off his face, but he didn’t retaliate. He didn’t believe that a man should hit a woman under any circumstance, but Veronica and this woman right here were seriously trying his patience.
“One day some woman is going to break your heart. She’s going to use you, and then discard you as if you’re nothing. After that, maybe you’ll finally be housebroken.” And with those lovely words she turned and strutted off.
* * *
The thing Danetta loved most about Houston was the subtropical weather. They were ten days into February and it was sixty-one degrees. As Danetta got out of the car at Adorable Hair and Nails, she left her jacket in the car and allowed the cool breeze to move her forward. Ryla, Marlene and a few other workers in the salon were standing outside holding balloons in their hands. As she approached, they each let go of the strings, and the balloons floated heavenward. “What’s up with the balloons?”
“Girl, we are celebrating the end of that tired ponytail you wear almost every single day,” Ryla said.
“Whatever,” Danetta said, as she walked into the salon. “I like my ponytail. It’s quick and easy.”
“And unattractive,” Marlene countered.
“Did I come here to be insulted or to get my hair done?” Danetta asked.
“Girl, just sit yourself in Marlene’s chair so we can tell you how this is going to go,” Ryla said, as she grabbed Danetta’s arm and guided her to the shop chair.
Danetta sat down. “Now what do you have up your sleeve?”
Ryla grinned as she looked at Marlene and then back to Danetta. “Here’s the deal. I’m paying, so I don’t want to hear any complaints.”
Danetta shook her head. “I can’t let you pay for my hairdo. I’ve got this.”
“Oh no. I know how cheap you are—”
Danetta held up a hand. “Frugal...not cheap.”
“Okay, Ms. Frugal. I’m paying because you are getting a cut and color. You’re also getting your nails done, a pedicure and that bush you call eyebrows waxed. I’m going to drop Jaylen off at my mom’s, and then I’ll be back, so don’t try to chicken out of anything,” Ryla said, as she pulled the keys out of her purse and headed toward the door.
“Ryla already picked the style and color that she thought would look best on you. So, the question is, do you trust your girl or not?” Marlene asked.
Danetta looked at her reflection in the salon’s mirror. She was tired of her ponytail also, but just didn’t know what hairstyle she wanted. “Since I have no idea what hairstyle will look best on me, I guess I’ll have to trust her.”
“Yea!” Marlene clapped her hands like a giddy schoolgirl. “Let’s get this party started.” She pulled the rubber band from around Danetta’s ponytail and threw it in the trash. She then put a cape around Danetta and a plastic bag with holes in it on her head.
As Marlene began pulling strands of Danetta’s hair through the holes in the plastic bag, Danetta scrunched up her face. “That doesn’t feel so good. Why do you have to pull my hair through those tiny holes?”
“Girl, haven’t you ever had highlights before?”
“What’s that?”
“Danetta, Danetta, Danetta, what am I going to do with you?” Marlene asked while shaking her head. Then she began to explain, “I’m going to put this golden-bronze color in your hair. Since your hair is a dark brown, this color is going to lighten your hair up quite a bit, so we’re not going to do a full head of color. I’m pulling the strands of hair through the holes, because I’m only going to color the hair on the outside of the bag. All the rest of your hair will mostly remain the same color. But the colored strands will highlight your hair in a dramatic way.”
It took all the strength Danetta had to stay glued to her seat. She wasn’t sure if she could handle anything dramatic. And what would her clients say when she showed up at work with golden-bronze highlights?
“You look nervous, hon. What’s up? Speak now, before it’s too late,” Marlene warned.
“This just seems like such a drastic change all at once,” Danetta admitted.
“From what Ryla told me, it sounded as if you were looking for a change. Is that right?”
No, that’s not right, Danetta wanted to scream. She wanted a man, not a new hairdo. But maybe Ryla didn’t think she’d be able to get a man unless she made a drastic change to her appearance. Plus, she did ask for Ryla’s help. She leaned back in her seat. “Yeah, I guess that’s right.”
For the next few hours, Danetta moved from one salon chair to the next, getting color, a cut, a French manicure, a pedicure and her eyebrows waxed. When Ryla walked back into the salon, she did a double take as she stared at the vision in front of her.
“Danetta, girl, you are smokin’ hot.”
Danetta touched her hair as she glanced in the mirror, then she moved her head from side to side. The cut was an improvement from the ponytail she’d been sporting. It brought out the intensity in her eyes. Danetta didn’t just look like another pretty face, the style was boardroom savvy and she liked that. But she wondered if the cut was too much about business and not enough about her as a woman. “You don’t think she cut off too much of my hair?”
“The layered look fits you. And your hair is not short at all. It’s shoulder length.”
“Yeah, but my hair used to flow down my back. I thought men liked women with long hair?”
Ryla received the bill and then paid the receptionist. She turned back to Danetta and said, “Trust me, you still have enough hair to make any man happy.”
“What about the highlights? Do you think it’s too much? Should I get it toned down a bit?” Danetta peered in the mirror. She didn’t know if she could get use to the shimmery color that caught the sunlight every time she moved her head.
“Don’t change a thing,” Ryla argued. “You’ll see just how much this new ’do suits you, once we get everything else in place. Now come on, we’ve got some shopping to do.”
“Shopping? Oh no, Ryla. You know I hate shopping,” Danetta complained. “I wanted you to come over to my house and help me mix and match some outfits in my closet.”
“Girl, we are going to throw some of those tired, old, granny clothes in the trash. Now, come on. You can ride with me, and then I’ll bring you back to get your car when we’re done.”
Danetta hesitated. “I’m not so sure I need to go this far.”
“Look, you’ve got the dinner cruise coming up. And take it from me, girlfriend, upgrading your wardrobe will be like bringing the honey to the bee,” Ryla said while snapping her fingers. “And anyway, the dinner cruise is an old-school event, and I know you don’t own anything from the ’70s or ’80s.”
“I’m going to wear this flower-child dress I wore to a costume party a few years ago.”
“Look, Danetta,” Ryla said firmly. “Every one of your clients purchased an extra ticket to give to a business associate of their choice. Simply put, your future husband could be attending this event. And since I’m the party planner this year, I refuse to let you attend this event in a flower child’s dress.”
Ryla worked full-time at an energy company as director of the marketing department. However, a year ago she started a party planning business on the side. So, Danetta decided to help her friend out by providing her with some business. For the past four years, she and Marshall had been hosting a Valentine’s Day event for their clients. The event also served as an annual fundraiser, from which the proceeds went to the local charity of Danetta’s choice. This year, Destiny Home for Girls would be receiving the funds collected.
Every year, Marshall arrived with a beautiful goddess on his arm. Since Danetta hadn’t been asked on a Valentine’s date in years, she normally brought Surry or Ryla so that they could get their networking on. The fact that this event would be held the weekend following Valentine’s Day, eased a bit of the I-need-a-special-occasion-date pressure. However, watching Marshall play with his latest black Barbie doll always made Danetta feel frumpy and dumpy. But Danetta was throwing frumpy off a cliff this year. She couldn’t wait to see Marshall’s reaction to her new look. “All right, let’s go,” she said as she got in Ryla’s car.
Chapter 4
What was wrong with women these days? Marshall wondered as he stretched out on the king-size bed in his hotel room, completely alone. He had high hopes of meeting up with a fine sistah and spending about twelve hours of quality time with her. But he’d been knocked off his game and didn’t have the energy to pursue another woman.
First Veronica busts up the ceramic lamp Danetta bought him for Christmas, then the crazy woman keyed his car just because he was okay with her breaking up with him. What was he supposed to do, cry over her...call and beg her for another chance?