Gingersnaps Hardcover - 1998

Excerpt

"And the nominees are . . ."

Aletha leaned back and slowly rotated her head, feigning a stiff neck, at
the same time sliding her eyes--heavily lashed for the
occasion--discreetly about the huge auditorium. It was a controlled and
practiced act of self-conscious discretion, as she did not want to appear
so wide-eyed and childishly starstruck, especially after all these years.
Famous and infamous faces were everywhere!

Elegantly and not-so-elegantly clad in other famous people's haute
couture, these show business folks were trying to mask their quite natural
and inborn lust for public accolades with bogus airs of insouciance.

"It's all pretty political, you know . . . doesn't mean a thing," most of
them had said at one time or another . . . usually after having lost,
Aletha thought, smirking to herself.

Aletha returned her gaze to the stage. She looked up at the podium with
rapt attention, her large, black eyes swiftly frisking the two
celebrities. One of them was about to announce her name, along with the
others on the list of the very best of the season. The long, dark, tall
one--a veteran of the industry--with what looked like silver dust
elegantly sprinkled around his temples, clad in a fabulous-looking Brioni
tuxedo, used to star in her teenage erotic fantasies. Now there he was in
person, about to acknowledge her--from those full, plum-colored, juicy
lips, acknowledge her as one of the contenders. The female copresenter, a
dowager queen of a daytime soap opera, was wearing an inadequate little
frock. It looked like something that Bill Blass might have sketched during
his off-hours. The recent face-lift was a bit too obvious as
well--girlfriend was looking a little Chinese tonight, Aletha mused,
giggling.


"What are you laughing about, Aletha?" her escort asked, lightly touching
the hand which had been resting on her lap.

"Shhh . . . Reggie," she snapped, placing the index finger of one hand
over her lips and slapping his hand away with the other.

Even though she was one of the famous ones too, she still found herself on
those occasions pinching the tight flesh of her forearm from time to time
in order to confirm the reality of her situation.

". . . The Veronica Stone Show, Bob Dennison and Kathy Myerson, producers
. . ."

A large wad of mucous had knotted up in Aletha's throat. She wanted to
cough but had to seize control; only hours ago she had slithered into a
too-tight Azzadine Alaia number, and she had no intention of bursting out
of it for all of America to witness. The gossip columnists would have a
field day . . . but then, they probably already were. They always managed
to come up with something . . . even in a vacuum. She had to remind
herself, though, that those same vultures were the very people who had
helped make her who she was--rich, famous, powerful, and a more familiar
presence in most homes than Lemon Fresh Joy.

" . . . The Dabney Wilkin's Show . . . Maxine Tyler, producer," Ms.
Dowager Queen continued.

Reggie, her friend and lover for over five years, reached over and
reassuringly held her hand. Aletha gently removed her hand from his,
placed it on his cheek, and adoringly stroked the smooth, tan flesh. He
jerked his head away from her in response.

Aletha's brow furrowed for a moment, and she pursed her lips as she was
about to register her displeasure with Reggie. She was hurt and annoyed
that he had pulled his body away from her, but she had a much more
important issue to think about at that moment.

". . . and The Aletha Brown Show . . . Veronica McPherson, producer . .
." Juicy Plum Lips added. Finally!

Aletha glanced quickly around the auditorium to see who was looking at
her--with envy, she was sure--then her eyes locked with Geraldo's.

He winked.

She looked away from him, her chin raised to a point just below smug, and
she
relished the fact that he was not among the list of nominees for the first
time in who knew how many years, and she was. Of course, he had won the
damned thing zillions of times and she had yet to get the award, despite
being nominated five damned times in a row. She had no doubts that this
year would be the year of The Aletha Brown Show. She looked over at her
producer, Veronica, sitting next to her escort, Derrick, whose arm was
supportively draped around her shoulders.

Aletha grabbed Reggie's arm, then awkwardly and comically ducked her head
beneath it and placed it around her shoulders.

It was a far cry better than cheek rubbing.

Aletha slipped her stockinged feet back into her Charles Jordan pumps as
she positioned herself to get up to accept her award--the acceptance
speech was readying itself in her brain.

"The envelope, please."

At that instant, something Aletha couldn't see caused the Soap Star to
stumble to the floor. The envelope then flew from her hand and landed
across the stage. Juicy Plum Lips went over to help the actress up, and
then he had to walk a mile and a half--or so it seemed to Aletha--to
recover the envelope.

"Damn! What's wrong with the old broad anyway? What's she got? Some kind
of joint disease in the old knees or something? Some people just don't
know when to step down! She should just retire. Look at her!"

"Aletha, calm down!" Reggie commanded.

"And the winner is . . . " Juicy Plum Lips began as Aletha leaned the heel
of her hand into Reggie's thigh as a support to get up, negotiating as
elegantly as she could around her constricting gown.

"Ouch! Aletha, be careful! What are you doing?" Reggie whispered, grabbing
her hand and trying to ease her back into her seat.

". . . The Victoria Stone Show!!!"

Thunderous applause and Aletha's own anger exploded in her head. That
nitwit hussy Victoria Stone, with all those fist-fighting guests, had won
the statue, Aletha raged to herself.

Tears threatened to leap from her eyes.

She glanced over at Reggie, who had a look of alarm on his face as he
noticed that hers was now fixed in a contorted portrait of outraged
disbelief.

"Are you okay, Aletha?" he whispered, taking her hand in his and raising
it to his lips to kiss it.

She snatched her hand away.

Silence.

She couldn't believe it! Her fifth loss in five years. She didn't care how
many people said that it was all purely political.

It didn't matter that she was as rich as milk chocolate, or that she had a
gorgeous man who loved her--Althea Brown wanted that statue!

"The Victoria Brown Show my ass," Aletha hissed, loud enough for her
producer and a couple of others to hear. " Who in the hell is she sleeping
with?"

"Shhh! Aletha, look . . . You know you are fabulous. You're still in prime
time, baby!" Reggie soothed. If he couldn't massage her damaged ego by the
end of the ceremony he knew he'd have one big, high-drama, angst-filled
evening--perhaps week--even month--ahead of him. "Look, your show has a
lot more integrity than that Victoria Stone's, honey," Reggie lied, trying
to pacify her.

"You've got that right, Reg."

She looked around and caught Geraldo's eye.

He winked, again.

She turned away, sucked her teeth, and crossed her legs. Her right foot
hit the seat in front of her, breaking the heel of her expensive Charles
Jordans.

"Damn! Look what you've made me do, Reggie!" she hissed, needing at that
moment to blame the person closest to her for anything and everything.

Reggie knew it was going to be a long night.

His eyes fell on her beautiful breasts, which were swelling with
indignation. At that instant he smiled to himself, thinking that just
maybe when they got back to her place he'd tear that tantalizingly tight
gown from her body and mollify her with some ardent and libidinous
gymnastics.

Months passed.

The windows of Aletha's spacious New York City bedroom were frosted with
ice. On the fireplace mantel was the gaping space and the naked elegant
pedestal where the statue had been intended to reside. She had every
intention of leaving that space there, a ready and welcoming shrine
prepared for the day that her statue finally found its way home.

Staring over at the empty space, tangled in her musk-scented linen sheets,
she focused her attention again on her lover's most recent grievance.

"What do you mean, I'm too manipulative and pushy? What are you trying to
say, Reggie baby?" Aletha had started to get angry, but as usual, his
reassuring touch melted her into that same cozy, blithe submission that
only he was gifted enough to induce. Sometimes his harsh criticisms hurt
her, but she reminded herself that he was the only man she had ever known
who knew exactly how to calm her impetuous spirit. She knew that he said
those things because he simply wanted her to become a better person.

Aletha surrendered to his sumptuous oral embrace.

A faint moan rose from the depths of her chest as she lightly rested her
strong, dark legs on his smooth, muscular, golden brown shoulders,
pointing her toes toward the ceiling.

"Ohh, Reg . . . I . . . love . . . you . . . " gasped Aletha, her hips
rocking gently beneath him, expressing a familiar all-consuming yearning.

Her gorgeous lover looked up at her, his greenish hazel eyes merging with
her deep brown ones, and responded with a fervent sincerity, "You know I
love you, too, Aletha." He let his full, moist lips linger on her thigh.

A dulcet cadence of soft, steadily escalating rhythmic sounds filled the
room for a long while.


"Go . . . open your present, Reggie," she sighed breathlessly, as their
sensual symphony concluded. Momentarily satiated, she snuggled in his
arms. Her lips grazed in the soft down of his chest hair, savoring the
moist salty-sweet aftertaste of their lovemaking. She reached up and
caressed his thick, curly hair with her long possessive fingers.

Aletha Brown certainly knows how to trash a mood, Reggie thought, a
familiar charge of vexation shooting through his body.

"I thought I just did," he responded provocatively, pulling her warm body
gently back underneath his strong hard one, entering her again with a
commanding thrust. He guided his moist lips across her chest, leaving a
glistening trail on her full, firm breasts, and then bounded abruptly from
her bed.

Reggie's got a sadistic streak, she thought at that moment, startled by
the curious gesture. Her body had begun to ache for more, but she
remembered that he had told her that she should try and put a governor on
her insatiable passions. He said that they were intimidating.

He was probably right. Reggie was always right. That was why she had
fallen
irrevocably in love with him. A woman in her position rarely met people
who could be so openly candid with her. Most were nothing but groveling
hangers-on, more than happy to immerse her in unsolicited bootlick
flattery and yes-ma'am platitudes, hoping she might feel obligated to
offer them something, money most likely or perhaps a glamorous,
high-paying job.

She watched Reggie reluctantly tear open the gift-wrapped package on her
dresser. She smiled in anticipation and said, "You know, baby, I'm really
not materialistic, as you say . . . just rich! Why shouldn't I share my
wealth with the people I love? When you start making your big bucks I'm
sure you'll do the same kinds of things for me, right?"

"Umm . . . hmm," he answered, distracted by the exquisite leather-bound
book she had given him for an occasion he couldn't recall. Pre-Christmas,
right?

He had told her time and time again to stop buying all these presents for
him. He couldn't afford yet to give her all the things he knew she liked,
but Aletha persisted. Reggie had become convinced that the woman didn't
think that men had any feelings at all.

Reginald Pinkney was no gigolo!

He loved her--more than he knew how to express--which was probably why he
found himself pulled into this manipulative madness.

In fact, he adored her.

He couldn't believe it, way back then, when the glamorous and famous Miss
Aletha Brown had shown a serious interest in him--a mere neophyte and much
younger writer. Nevertheless, he had always been strongly attracted to
forceful, high-powered, older women. Those women knew exactly what they
wanted and were direct in their approach to achieving their goals. Most of
the men that he had known were intimidated by that sort of woman, but
Reggie felt more comfortable with them than those scheming,
behind-the-scenes, undercover, self-centered Jezebels, who smiled in your
face, picked your pockets, and then complained to their vindictive
girlfriends about the games the brothers were playing.

Besides, he had found that women like Aletha were also powerfully present
and utterly rewarding in the bedroom--and anywhere else they chose to be.

Aletha could be so direct sometimes, though--words shooting out of her
mouth like loose cannonballs that a lesser man would find his member
retreating in horror into the lower intestinal tract in response to her.

Lately, though, he had become aware that the marriage issue was causing
her already aggressive personality to take on a weird bent. She had eased
up on the gift-giving for a while, but now it had picked up again and
she'd started creating her own holidays in order to justify her actions.

What was so important about marriage, anyway? She was rich, beautiful,
independent. And she had him anyway. He just wasn't ready for marriage
yet, because he knew that Aletha would want the nuptials immediately,
followed by the onslaught of a brood of offspring. He was definitely not
ready for fatherhood!

Aletha had known that he would love the book--The Illustrated Diaries of
Casanova. Her brother Marshall had brought it back from France on one of
his business trips. When she saw those fabulous watercolors inside, she
knew it would be the perfect gift for Reggie. She had paid Marshall a
handsome price for it, knowing that her brother had probably bought it to
give his own lover--whoever she was. Reggie liked art, especially
paintings, and she wanted him to know that she understood the kinds of
things that he needed for inspiration.

"The Illustrated Diaries of Casanova, Aletha? Is that what you think I
am?" He chuckled, a hint of resentment catching in his throat. He turned
and threw a caustic glance of disappointment over at her.

She was devastated.

"No . . . no, Reggie . . . It's the . . ."

"How much did you pay for this anyway, Aletha?" he asked, his back still
to her, leaning over the book as if it was as intriguing and valuable as
she.

She was jealous of the book now and wanted to take it back, because he
used to look only at her like that! Now he was looking with lust at an
inanimate object.

As Reggie reflected on the previous year, he realized that he was
beginning to feel more as if he was servicing her than loving her. It
wasn't his fault, as far as he could make out. The dilemma was that he
didn't know how to explain it in words that would not cause her to get all
upset and start freaking out.

He was no fucking gigolo!

Also, another daunting situation had begun to take shape in recent
years.


He thought he had slowly gotten sucked into some kind of sibling rivalry
between Aletha and her sister, Desiree. It also seemed to have been
initiated by Aletha, not her sister, who was apparently completely
absorbed in her life up in Connecticut with her husband, David, who was a
writer, too. Each of the last three times that one of David's books had
come out, Aletha would start canceling dates with him and weird shit like
that--leaving messages on the answering machine, asking him if he had seen
David on this or that panel or interview show.

What did a man do with shit like that? Didn't she realize that he had
enough problems with folks thinking that he was with Aletha Brown only for
her money? The last thing he needed was for her to go around measuring his
achievements against another man's. A white man's at that!

She had become even more dominating and high-handed.

Like a rich, manipulative white man.

He laughed at this revelation. Food for a future novel, he thought,
smiling to himself.

"What are you smiling about, Reggie? What's so funny?" she asked him with
an insecure tremble in her voice.

"You, Aletha!"

Nope. He wasn't going to allow her to manipulate him and turn him into a
submissive, faceless white woman right out of a John Cheever novel or some
such pitiful muck! No way!

"Thanks, Aletha. The book is great. I love it," he said dryly.

After a long moment, he jumped back into bed with her and kissed her
everywhere, from the hairline of her forehead to the tips of her toes.

Aletha reveled in his reassurances.

"Reggie, baby . . . why don't you just take a couple of days off and go
down to the Bahamas with me? It could be real fun, don't you think? We
could get away someplace where no one would know who I am."

"You know I have these deadlines, Aletha. I wish you would stop asking me
to run off with you on one of your frivolous jaunts. I just don't have the
time," he said gently, running his fingers through her thick, long, bushy
hair.

Aletha was well aware of the difficulty that he and many other men would
have had going out in public with a nationally famous woman, but in the
Bahamas most people had never even heard of Aletha Brown. She had tried
not to nag him about the fact that, since the awards ceremony, he never
went out to public places with her anymore. She couldn't understand why he
wouldn't jump at the chance to spend a romantic few days on a secluded
beach with her.

Perhaps his insecurities ran deeper than she knew. She'd just have to
become more sensitive to his ego. She curled her body into his and nestled
her face into his soft hairy armpit, inhaling the warm masculine scent of
his flesh. She kissed him there.

Aletha Brown was who she was, professionally, and that would never
change--if she could help it. But she was determined to create a
fulfilling personal life for herself, despite it all.

"Gorgeous lady . . ." he began, jumping out of bed again, this time in
order to put on his clothing.

She always loved it when he called her that.

"Yes, Reggie?"

He stood in front of her in such a way that allowed her big brown
searching eyes to absorb the sight of his compelling physical gifts.

Was it her imagination, or was the balance of power tilting in the other
direction in this relationship?

It was probably just her imagination, she thought, quickly sweeping a
nagging discomfort from her mind as easily as she plucked pieces of lint
from her blanket and let them fall to the floor.

He leaned over her, completely dressed. The sunlight that streamed through
the window onto her bed spotlighted her complete and vulnerable nakedness.
It made Aletha shudder and quickly bury herself beneath the covers.

He bent over and kissed her on the nose.

He straightened up, stepped back, and stared at her, frowning.

Those hazel eyes of his squinted in the afternoon sunlight as if there
were a wall of smoke separating the two of them, frighteningly distorting
their view of one another.

Reggie was exhausted in more ways than one. He needed a break, which had
nothing to do with running off to the islands with Aletha. Reginald was
not the sort of man to drag his problems along with him.

The vibe she picked up from Reggie at that instant caused her to imagine a
humongous, cold butcher with a dull blade stabbing her through the
heart--twice.

"I gotta go," he said, grabbing his book and his leather overcoat from
Aletha's closet. He then swaggered like a caramel-dipped-cowboy out her
bedroom door.

As he headed toward the door to leave the apartment, Aletha's fox terrier
ran from the kitchen, where he'd been taking his afternoon nap, in order
to see Reggie out. He stood up on his hind legs and, after a friendly
bark, grabbed the left sleeve of Reggie's coat. All a part of their usual
routine.

"See ya later, Sparky." Reggie smiled and petted the dog on the head.

"I'll talk to you later, baby," Aletha yelled out from her bedroom.

Silence.

Media reviews

"Two snaps for Gingersnaps! . . . Extremely hilarious . . . Irresistible."
--CHARLENE A. BERRY
   Author of Love's Deceptions

"All of the women . . . engage and interact in a world filled with jealousy, ambition, love, and hate, yet each possesses that inner strength to overcome adversity and rebound with style."
--Booklist

"Delorys Welch-Tyson makes a dramatic debut. Gingersnaps draws readers into the world of highly successful black women who seemingly 'have it all.' But behind the facade of fame and fortune, amid the peaks and valleys of passion and success, she peels away the layers to reveal real women--resilient, funny, dynamite."
--ROBIN ALLEN
   Author of Hidden Memories and Breeze


From the Paperback edition.