As soon as the girl began to walk up the street toward her destination, I made a swift U-turn and headed the other way. Then I called Danni back on my cell phone. I had to call and tell her something. She had paged me fives times with no response.

“Oh, you finally decided to call back,” she answered. I could hear loud music in the background.

“Where are you, at a party?” I asked her. I needed to sound perfectly normal.

“I got tired of waiting, so I took myself out to have a good time.”

“Where?” I repeated. I planned to pick her up if I had to, and turn my cell phone off. After the incident with Nicole, I needed some comforting for the night. Who said a man can’t use a hug?

She said, “I’m at Visions on Peachtree.”

That was all I needed to hear.

“I know where it is. I’m on my way to come get you,” I told her.

She stumbled and said, “Ah…okay.”

I didn’t need to hear anything else. She had called me five times that night. No one else mattered to her.

A Lot to Think About

IARRIVED OUTSIDE of Atlanta’s popular Visions nightclub and watched the line move from inside my car. I definitely didn’t want to pay to go inside just to tell Danni to leave with me. That Visions place could get greedy on you and charge forty dollars a head, depending on what hip-hop star had shown up to party that night. I wasn’t even into the hip-hop crowd like that. And if you weren’t one of them, they made you feel like a dissed groupie, male or female, which led to a clan of drug-selling egoists, who would spend hundreds of dollars a night to be a part of the in-crowd and VIP section, with video chicks and bottles of every expensive wine on the drink list. It was a big waste of money and effort if you asked me, but that was how those folks made themselves feel important.

I called Danni on my cell phone to let her know that I was outside, and that I was not coming in.

“Come on, just for a minute,” she begged me.

“Look,” I said, “I’m not waiting in that line to pay forty dollars after standing around like some sucker.”

I had done it in my youth, like every other American guy, but I wasn’t that young anymore. I didn’t have the temperament for it as an older man.

Danni said, “Come on now, Terry, you know me better than that. I know the owner. I’ll come right out there and get you with no money and no waiting in line. Terrance,” she corrected herself in her tipsy swagger. I could hear it in her voice. It didn’t take much to get her tipsy.

I said, “I’m really not in the mood for the club tonight, sweetheart. I just wanted to be with you.”

“Awww, ain’t that sweet. Now you wanna be with me after ignoring my phone calls all damn night. I know you saw my calls on your cell phone. So which one were you with tonight?”