Once Tasha and I had our first round of drinks in hand, we found a table to sit and relax for a while. It was then that she gave me a suspicious once over. "So, are you going to tell me about this guy, or what?" she said, shooting me a knowing look.
"What are you talking about?" I said, almost choking on my drink.
"I'm talking about this guy that has my cousin a thousand miles from home on a Friday night, acting uptight and, if I could call it, a bit sad at the moment."
"What do you mean, Tasha?"
"Look, I know that you love me. I also know you didn't travel into town a day early for a Saturday meeting, just to surprise me with free drinks at your hotel. You're a planner. You would have called me, unless you had other plans."
"You think you know me, huh?"
"Like a book. You plan your business so that every minute is accounted for. If you wanted to hang with me tonight, we would have had a game plan. You might as well go ahead and spill your guts. You sounded a bit pathetic when you called me, too." Tasha tilted her wine glass toward me and continued. "Go ahead and give it up. Give up the who, what, when, where, and how about this gentleman. If my gut feelings are correct, you may need a coochie intervention."
"A coochie intervention? You know what; I'm not even going to chase that one." I ran my fingers around the rim of my glass, while deciding what I wanted to share with Tasha. I could have lied and said that there was no man involved, but what was the use. We grew up in the same house, like sisters. Tasha knew my emotions were all over the place, even though I was trying to hold it together.
I remember when I was a little girl and I took my first five-finger discount. It was a bag of chips from Red and White Grocery Store. She looked at me with the crumbs all over my face and said, "You didn't have money for that." I finished off the chips and threw the bag in the trash.
"Yes, I did! Grandma gave it to me," I answered, before swiping my tiny hand across my lips to wipe away the crumbs.
"'Who, what, when, where, and how did Grandma give you money and not give me any? I'm finna go ask her. And you better not be stealing," Tasha had said as stomped back to Grandma's house. She was as aware, then, as she was sitting at the bar, of what was going on with me. She would say her crazy little saying of 'who, what, when, where, and how', whenever I was messing up. I thought about how much I hated that her second grade teacher taught her the five "Ws".