LITMIR.BIZ

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you know that I have a fetish for small, light-skinned women with Chinese eyes and straight black hair and foreign accents?” he asked while flashing his yellow toothy grin. “It’s a coincidence that you fit that description, isn’t it?”

      “Yes, it is. I’m flattered. Listen, how about you come by in two weeks and get the money I owe you?” Dior suggested, trying to brush Jerome off.

      “I’ll do you one better,” Jerome began. “How about you give me your number and we call it even?”

      “No, that won’t be necessary. I can pay you the money back. It’s just that I don’t have any cash on me at the moment.”

      “Oh, so I can’t have your number?”

      Dior shook her head no, told Jerome good-bye, and attempted to close her door.

      Jerome put his hand up on the door, keeping it open.

      “Well, you’re going to have to give me the money now. I’ll stand right here and wait,” he said.

      Dior was irritated beyond words. She had already gone through a mess with the cabdriver and now Jerome was pestering her with nonsense. She couldn’t believe how he had gone from a charming gentleman to an ignorant jerk in seconds. She wanted to tell him to go to hell, but she was in his debt, so she played nice.

      “I can’t give you a number that I don’t have,” she explained. “I just moved in, remember?”

      “Oh, well, let’s try this,” Jerome said. “I’ll leave you alone if you promise to give me your number when you get a phone or the money when you get the cash, whichever one comes first.”

      “Deal,” Dior agreed. Anything to get you off my doorstep, she thought.

      The minute Jerome walked away and Dior retreated to her air mattress in relief, her doorbell rang. Annoyed, she got up and walked to the door to see who it was and what they wanted. It was Margie, standing with one hand on her hip and the other bringing a cigarette to her mouth. Dior opened the door and forced a smile. Before she could say hello, Margie started talking.

      “Hey. Listen, I just thought I’d tell you a few things that will help you out in the future. Number one, if you can buy Gucci, but can’t afford a cab ride, walk or take the bus. Number two, I warned you about Jerome yesterday. Give him more than a minute of your time and he’ll be at your door every day. And number three, Margie doesn’t play when it comes to collecting rent, so you better not think about trying to get over on me like you did that cabbie. Okay?”

      “Okay,” Dior said wearily before Margie cued her to close the door.

      Exhausted and confused about how she had overspent, Dior went back in her bedroom and plopped down on the floor. Her shopping bags were scattered about before her, but she didn’t even have the desire to go through them and try on all her new stuff like she normally would. Not even her new pocketbook made her feel better about what had just happened.

      The sun burst through the windowpane, disturbing Dior’s sleep. Squinting, she stretched her arms above her head and let out a yawn. She felt around on the floor for her cell phone and picked it up. Despite the bright sunrays, she was able to make out the time. It was 7:15. She couldn’t believe that she had woken so early on her first weekday off in months. She lifted the quilt off her and stood up from the air mattress.

      She went into the kitchen and grabbed the half-drunk twenty-ounce bottle of orange juice that she had bought the day before in the airport. She finished it off and placed the empty bottle on the counter. Maybe I should have bought a trash can instead of that Gucci bag, she thought.

      She grabbed her laptop computer and set it up on the kitchen counter. Since she was up so early she decided to spend some time on the Internet. While she only had that hundred dollars on her Visa, she still had her American Express card. She hated using it, because the balance had to be paid in full every month, but she did need something to sit on, after all. Besides, by the time the bill came in she’d have received her first paycheck, so everything would be all right. She found a quaint leather sectional that would go perfect in her living room. She also ordered a glass coffee table and two leather chairs to complete the modern look she was going for. For her bedroom, she came across a low-to-the-ground bed and the dresser and nightstands to match. It was all black/brown wood and sleek. She couldn’t wait for it to be delivered.

      After making her purchases and checking her e-mail, she Googled nightspots in New York to see which Harlem club she should check out that weekend. A spot called MoBay Uptown seemed interesting, she decided. It was right on 125th Street and had jazz on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Usually she liked going to dance clubs, but she’d always heard that the jazz spots in Harlem were something else, and this was her chance to find out firsthand. Besides, it probably wasn’t as expensive as the downtown clubs, and she was going to be cash poor for a while.

      She scrolled down the page to check out more links about the club and in the process a link for a MySpace profile appeared. Dior clicked on it to see what the MySpacer thought of the nightspot.

      According to Mr. Good Black Man 2008, it was a hip spot for African-American professionals and a perfect place for meeting attractive singles. She chuckled at the thought of going in and seeing wall-to-wall cute men in suits. That would be heavenly, she thought. She started to close the profile page but decided to read more about the person giving this bit of networking advice. She was disappointed to see there was no picture, and no description except that he was “a single black entrepreneur who lived in Harlem.”

      Hmmm, she thought, he lives in Harlem, I live in Harlem. Might be worth checking him out.

      She clicked on the link that said Send Message, but a blurb came up saying You must be logged in to do that. She’d always toyed with the idea of becoming a MySpace member, and since it was free, and she wasn’t doing anything else, she figured this would be as good a time as any. Twenty minutes later she had put up her own profile page. It was only bare-bones, but she could hook it up later, she decided. Right now she was on a mission. She clicked back on to Mr. Good Black Man 2008’s profile page again.

      Hi. I’m new to Harlem and new to MySpace. I came across your page when I was looking for advice about MoBay’s. Do you really think it’s worth checking out?

      Kind of lame, but it would do as an icebreaker. She hit the Send button, then retrieved another bottle of juice from the refrigerator. She had gone back to the computer to turn it off when she saw that she already had a MySpace message. She smiled when she saw it was from Mr. Good Black Man 2008. That was fast. She noticed his online now cursor was blinking.

      Hey, Newcomer, welcome to the neighborhood. Yes, MoBay’s is a great place. You should really try it on a Thursday night. The saxophonist is off the hook.

      She took a sip from her juice, then typed:

      I didn’t expect to hear back so soon. Thanks. How do you like living in Harlem? I just moved here from Montreal.

      A few minutes later she received another message:

      I’ve traveled almost all over the world, and I can tell you that there’s no place like Harlem. You’ll love it here.

      They went back and forth with polite niceties for a while before Dior finally typed:

      I notice that most people have their pictures on their profile page. Why don’t you?

      Ten minutes later:

      I used to have my picture up here but I kept getting messages from women telling me how cute I was, and how they wanted to meet me. I’m not into superficial people who only care about what someone looks like, so I decided to take it down.

      Wow, Dior thought. He must really be good looking if women were on him like that. Wish I knew what he looked like, though.

      Mr. Good Black Man 2008 must have been reading her mind, because just a few minutes later came another message:

      You sound like a nice person, so just between you and me, I’m tall,

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