Free Flip Side of the Game by Tu-Shonda L. Whitaker Page A

two, she almost died, and if it wasn’t for her being ashamed, I do believe that she would’ve cussed the black tree out.
    â€œWhat is your problem, Cookie Turner?”
    â€œNothing,” she snapped. “I just gotta go.”
    â€œWhy are you going out the back door?”
    She placed her hands on her hips and said, “Didn’t you just see what the dog drug in? You’ll never have me be a part of that.”
    At worse, I figured the man was married to one of Aunt Cookie’s girlfriends’ daughters or something.
    â€œIs he married, Lee?” I called her to the back and asked.
    â€œNo, he isn’t married. Not yet anyway,” she said, laughing and wagging her ring finger.
    â€œJust be careful.”
    â€œGirl, please,” she said, waving me off and blowing kisses at him from my office door. “I got this.”
    And what she got was a fine mu’fuckin’ dog. Now, he was fine. Let me repeat that: he was extremely fine. Black as a coal mine, with a body that wore the essence of Africa. His eyes were a deep dark brown, and his eyelashes seemed to be the crowning of his strong, chiseled face. He spoke as if he had invented confidence, and all of this man stood about six foot three. And when he walked, Jesus! When he walked, he seemed to float above the floor, and he would slither in with his Versace double-breasted suit and his lips would glide as he said hello. Therefore, as you can imagine, when he walked in the shop, the entire operation shut the fuck down.
    There was very little attention being paid to the fact that he was slowly taking control. When he told Lee that she needed to lose weight, she thought the shit was great. When he told her that she needed to carry Ucchi instead of Gucci, she thought he was considerate. But what did it was when the nigga called me on the phone, with Angie and Shannon on the three-way, telling us that we needed to practice “minding our business,” because the tongue was a serpent, and the way he saw it, Eddie Murphy had a point and Oum FuFu needed to stay the hell away from the girlfriend crew!
    Now, that straight set the shit off. After he hung up on us, Shannon called Angie and me back, and we had our own conference call, better known as the get-’im-girl session. That’s when we decided it was on like popcorn!
    â€œAll right,” I said, while lying on the bed. “I’ll make Roger think he’s getting some ass so I can get some background information.”
    â€œGood,” Angie said, “and I’ll try and screw the li’l twenty-two-year-old security guard downtown at the Prudential Building.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œGirl, you got to see him. He got an ass like butta!” she screeched.
    â€œWhat does that have to do with Lee?”
    â€œNothing. I just figured since we were discussing men in law enforcement that I would throw that out there.”
    Anyway, Angie screwing the li’l security guard did nothing for Lee, and me making Roger think he and I would always be together didn’t do shit either. Instead, it aggravated the situation between Roger and me, and as the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. So, I had to swallow my pride and beg the truth out of Aunt Cookie.
    All she said was, “You, Angie, and Shannon need to meet me at the church for revival tonight.” So, we obeyed and went dragging along.
    When we arrived at church, we slid in the last pew on the left side, all the way in the back, near the section where most people eat and go to sleep.
    When the choir started singing, I turned to Angie and gave her explicit instructions. “If you get in here and start beatin’ that tambourine and hollerin’ out in tongue, I’ma slap you!”
    â€œYou have officially lost your mind,” she said. “Now, mess with me and I’ll make the old ladies come back here and lay hands on you.”
    Before I could