Free Caviar Dreams: The Prequel Novella to Champagne Life by Nicole Bradshaw Page B

for having a coconut in your suitcase.” She looked down at my bag. “You ain’t got a coconut in your case, do you?”
    “First off,” I began. “That sentence had at least four derogatory stereotypes in it. Second, how would I have a coconut in my suitcase? We’re coming from Philly. Ask me that dumb question when we leave! Wait, on second thought, don’t.”
    “Good morning, Ladies.”
    Ticia leaned her head back and whispered, “Keep an eye out for these guys too. They are desperate to get a hold of some unsuspecting American chick to wife up so they’ll get a green card.”
    “Are you serious?” I asked, incredulously. “Would you stop, please? I don’t know which is worse, insulting them with that green card mess or insulting me by even thinking I’m that stupid.”
    “You are the one that is dating Kevin, not me. I’m just sayin’ . . .”
    I grabbed her elbow and steered her toward the American Citizens sign, the longest line, of course.
    After having our bags ransacked—her word, not mine—by Bahamian custom agents, we stepped out once again into the dazzling sunshine. Not a cloud in the sky.
    I thought about telling Ticia that Kevin and I decided to take a break right before he dropped me off at the airport, but then rethought that. The night before the trip, he told me he needed “time to himself to get his thoughts together.” He never mentioned another woman.
    “With everything that’s going on,” he had said right after coming out of the movies one night. “I need time to concentrate on my job.”
    The funny thing was, I never even broached the subject in the first place. You can best believe I called him out on his lie, though. Apparently, he forgot he told me two days prior that he’d been laid off from his job. He quickly retracted his statement. “I meant that I was concentrating on my job search .”
    Reluctantly, I agreed with the intention of getting back with him when I returned. Desperate, I knew, but what else did I have? But as I stood in the warm tropical breeze, I felt a sense of relief that Kevin and I were on the outs. Call it intuition, but it felt like I was destined to meet someone here. Ticia must’ve felt my fate too, because at that exact moment, she leaned over to me and whispered, “I think I’m gonna get me some here. Watch.”
    Close enough!

DeShaun
    DeShaun watched her naked body stretched out between the sheets. Shaneille’s light-brown skin was butter smooth and her curves, simply amazing. Her auburn-streaked hair gently rested on her shoulders as she slept. He never had a girlfriend so beautiful before. When he first asked her out, he had no idea she would say yes because he had only approached her as part of a lost bet.
    A couple of years back, one bored, drunken evening, DeShaun bet his buddy, Fabian, that he could drink a pint of Jamaican rum faster than him. DeShaun should’ve known he would lose. Fabian was the same guy that drank himself drunk every night to avoid listening to his girlfriend, who he referred to as, “Naggy Maggie.”
    “Since you lose,” Fabian had told him, “You have to run down the street buck nekkid!”
    “Man, c’mon with all that,” DeShaun said. “That’s some bull right there! I’m twenty-one years old, not some sixteen-year-old spring breaker.”
    “Okay then. Call Shaneille and ask her out,” Fabian had dared.
    DeShaun had searched his memory rolodex for any excuse. Finally, he came up with one—an obvious one. “I don’t have her phone number.”
    “I do.”
    “You’re lyin’. How in the hell do you have Shaneille’s number?”
    “Don’t worry about it. You gonna call her or not?”
    “Hell no, I’m drunk. I’d rather take the run-down-the-street- ass-out, dare.”
    “Too late for that. That’s the bet. If you want to back down—”
    DeShaun didn’t back down that night.
    He called her and made a date to meet up the next evening. On his date, DeShaun took Shaneille to Doc’s Conch