A good meal would lull him into a compromising moment, but when she opened the door, she noticed changes in the apartment. In the living room, a bright red leather sofa and a coffee table. A white bed frame with a shelf and mirror as the headboard and matching end tables for each side. On one of the end tables, there was a phone; no longer would Dante have to drive to Miss Opal’s house to call her. In the bedroom, the scarred chest of drawers had been replaced with another dresser, also white. Everything gleamed.
At dinner, when Lydia asked Dante where the new furniture had come from, he told her he got it on sale.
“So, Dante, you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“What you mean?”
She lost her temper, shouting. “Dante Alexander Anderson, don’t you play with me! I spent two hours making this goddamned meal!”
“Aw, baby, thank you. It was delicious.” Her raised voice didn’t rattle him. He took a toothpick from the holder—this was another new item on the dining room table. A table that was no longer an unsteady place for playing cards. This one was a sturdy, oak piece of furniture. “I ain’t want to tell you about this, but they cut my hours at the store. So what you saw? I’m selling that part-time, till I can get back on my feet.”
“So you’re saying you’re not smoking crack?”
Dante shifted the toothpick to the corner of his mouth. “Oh, naw, baby. You know I try to keep it light. I mean, weed is one thing, but that other? Naw, I ain’t going out like that.”
“And what about the police kicking down my door?”
That was funny to Dante. This wasn’t some big deal. It was only a side hustle, and nothing more. Tim was fronting him, to help Dante out, and it was easy money. Tim was the one who had to be careful.
“I’m just trying to take care of you, woman,” he said. “Like a husband should. I’m head of this household. I got responsibilities now.”
“No, we are the joint heads of this household. I don’t play all that male chauvinist mess.”
He removed the toothpick. “Wait a minute. The Bible says the man is the head, and I’m—”
“The Bible don’t say nothing about you selling crack, though. So you can hush up with that bullshit.”
Dante laughed, and asked, could he have another pork chop? Hers were better than his mama’s, but don’t tell Miss Opal. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
She wanted to keep talking, to let her husband know, the matter of selling drugs was serious, but that evening, there would be no further discussion, because Tim knocked at the apartment door. He’d brought a couple of his other boys, too. When Lydia offered them dinner plates, Tim pulled out a roll of cash from his pocket. He declared he didn’t want no regular dinner. He felt like some pizza, and Lydia placed the leftovers in the refrigerator instead. Then Tim demanded, who was gone make a run to the liquor store? Don’t bring back that clear liquor, though. That shit fucked him up. Unlike his boys, he had brought a date to the set, a brown-skinned young woman with not enough flesh on her curvy frame. Tim gave the girl abrupt orders: Pour him a drink. Come sit on his lap while he played his hand of bid whist.
At midnight, Lydia tried to give cues to let these men know they needed to leave. They’d been there since eight p.m. Lydia asked, what time was it? though she knew: she wore a watch. She sighed loudly when Tim began to make a homemade pipe from materials that Dante found at his request. The pipe was for Tim’s date. Her full lips were painted a glossy wine, and she bit at the color as she watched Tim poke an extra hole in the side of an empty soda can. He took a cheap pen and pulled the insides out until it was a shell, placing it into the can’s side. He molded foil on the can’s top, poked smaller holes into the foil, and carefully placed a crack rock on top. When Tim lit the rock, the date sucked at the smoke, making satisfied noises. Then she went to the couch and sat. She didn’t seem to mind that she was by herself. Somebody pulled out some weed, and Tim had a packet of powdered coke and used some to make a joint. When the primo came Lydia’s way, she reached for it, but she slid a glance at the girl, staring blankly on the couch. Without taking a hit, Lydia passed the primo to the left.
After playing a couple more hands of bid whist, Tim put his cards down on the table. He called to his date, come get some more, and he set her up again and he laughed as she sucked greedily at the smoke. Then he announced that he had to take a piss. He pulled his date from the couch, and she walked meekly behind Tim into the bathroom. No one said anything, until Dante asked, Lydia, you want to play the hand? Let me teach you how to play. She sat in Tim’s chair, and when the cards were dealt, she proceeded to run a Boston. She patted the table, crowing, and the other two guys at the table said, man, you said she couldn’t play. And Dante smiled: his wife had been keeping secrets.