Read an Excerpt
A Love Noire
A Novel
Chapter One
See No Evil ...
Noire was in the wrong place at the wrong time, an Afro in a sea of perms. Regretting her decision to wear a thong that rubbed her cheeks like industrial-strength dental floss, she adjusted herself surreptitiously and cut her eyes at her lacquered, perfumed, and coiffed business-casual brethren and sistren at Brown Betty Books clutching copies of Marcus Gordon's bible on black folks and finance.
First, Jayna lied. Second, Jayna was late. Noire rammed her hand into the pocket of her waterlogged overcoat, crumpling the copy of Jayna's e-mail message that disingenuously proclaimed the evening to be about black empowerment and a magnet for progressive brothas. Instead, she was stuck trying to amuse herself amid a swarm of coffee-colored men whose tailored trousers and five-hundred-dollar shoes attracted equally well-heeled women with hungry eyes. Noire hated the pose.
Even Brown Betty herself -- her head a cascade of golden dreadlocks and her body awash with purple fabric and musk-scented cowrie shells and crystals -- looked at, through, and past Noire in the time it took her to say hi. Clearly, her hair was not political tonight.
Her disdain mounting, Noire railed against the ready display of brand-name degrees, six-figure salaries, and gentrified addresses that smacked of a latter-day slave auction. Was this what the Civil Rights Movement was all about?
"Don't hate, congratulate!" she heard one of her sistas tell an empathetic friend. She imagined they were corporate lawyers.
Noire made a plastic cup of white wine her temporary companion. She sipped it too fast and scanned the bookshelves lining the walls. Her eyes flitting over the haphazardly stacked volumes, she consoled herself with the presence of books by Maya Angelou, Ben Okri, Toni Morrison, and Edwidge Danticat. She jotted down a few titles in her Filofax, crammed it into her mini-backpack, and refilled her cup with seltzer before reclaiming her mantle of righteous indignation at the scene. Measuring the smugness of those around her with the yardstick of her own discomfort, Noire wondered about Jayna. Where was homegirl?
Jayna was straight-up wrong. She just was. Fifteen years of friendship with Noire should have taught her that, at twenty-eight years old, Noire had no time or interest in the self-congratulatory games of "name-that-Negro" that the newest generation of the talented tenth had a particular fondness for. Wasn't the biggest argument that Jayna and Noire ever had over love and money? Then high school seniors, they had fanatical obsessions with Terrence Trent D'Arby (Noire), Blair Underwood (Jayna), LL Cool J (both), and half the boys in their Queens neighborhood. At seventeen, Jayna was then a recent nonvirgin and reflective.
"Sex is no big deal. Mama says it's as easy to love a rich man as a poor man. I plan to marry rich!"
"Jayna: Sold to the highest bidder!"
"Let's hear you say that when you're shacked up on skid row!"
"Fuck you!"
"At least someone does want to fuck me! And, Nicholas is going to Stanford, too! I suggest you check your attitude."
Noire remembered the sting of Jayna's words. She had masked her hurt with anger over the Jayna-Nicholas hookup; she would have done anything for just a kiss from him. Shrugging off her thoughts, Noire became annoyed with her unplanned solitude at the bookstore and resolved to pass the time near a ripe discussion between Brown Betty's yards of purple fabric and a buppie poster boy. Amusing herself with her role of infiltrator, Noire nodded at both parties who, as recent Harlem residents themselves, vigorously debated the effects of the latest wave of multicultural homeowners into "their neighborhood." Her interjected comment about the displacement of longtime Harlemites because of the steep increase in rents received a cool glance from Buppie Poster Boy and a huff from Brown Betty. She wondered if they bought their groceries in lower Westchester.
Jayna was still missing in action when, at seven-thirty, Brown Betty asked everyone to sit for the start of the reading. Buppie Poster Boy glared at Noire before revealing himself to be the center of attention by propping himself against a stool at the front of the room and holding a much book-marked copy of his tome. His face looked important and solemn, his thirty-two privileged years filling the air. Five rows of mismatched chairs ringed him in a tight arc. Noire claimed a place toward the back of the store and attempted to hold the aisle seat to her right for Jayna. She figured that Jayna was trying to be slick, timing her arrival so as to miss the start of the reading and thus the brunt of Noire's venomous response to her. Planting her bag on the chair, Noire surveyed the assemblage of about forty-five people and caught the eye of Jayna's friend Alan. He was too far away to say anything so she mouthed a tepid hello.
Marcus Gordon had already shared five of his ten commandments of creating wealth in the black community when someone approached Noire. "Is this seat taken?" he whispered, handing Noire's bag back to her and lowering himself into the chair. He raised his right fist in an abbreviated black-man salute to the pontificating Marcus and settled into immediate concentration upon his words.
Arrogant, she thought, settling her bag onto the floor in front of her. She stared ahead but noticed his well-defined profile in her peripheral vision. Probably full of himself.
"Number Five is 'Own instead of rent.' Too many of us have spent too much money on our sound system, our silk sheets, and our summer vacation without first investing in our futures. If you don't own your spot, you're just making someone else rich."
Noire thought about the late rent check she had put in today's mail and the vacation she and Jayna were taking to New Orleans in a couple of days ...
A Love Noire
A Novel. Copyright © by Erica Turnipseed. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
