Family Ties

Peyton had never been one for family drama. She’d been thankful when her parents moved from Cleveland to Philly in her teenage years because it separated them from the Cleveland Fosters and their madness. Somehow the work ethic and sense genes had skipped the majority of her father’s siblings, because few of them could ever hold on to a job or behave with any couth.  And since Peytons’s father, Perry was the sibling who was married, owned his home and had a well-behaved child, he and his family were often the target of the other Fosters’ anger and jealousy.  Perry was a man of few words who commanded enough respect to keep his siblings at bay. But young Peyton, as the daughter of the family member that everyone secretly hated and the smallest child of the Foster clan was regularly subjected to torture from her cousins. It was those fights that had contributed to her toughness. Even her young ego was too fragile to take too many losses so she learned quickly how to fight harder and smarter than larger foes.

Peyton had been surprised a year ago when her father had agreed to take in one of his troubled nieces from the Cleveland clan. “This one’s got some hope,” Perry said of the fourteen year old. “She kinda reminds me of you, Pey. She just needs a lil discipline and structure.”  As a high school teacher and basketball coach, Perry had a knack for spotting children with potential and typically had the recipe for getting the unruly ones in line. Unfortunately, his recent retirement had put him out of touch with the ways of the modern teenager. Perry and his wife had put up with young Tanisha’s eye rolling and sharp tongue for about a year, but they lost their patience when they’d caught her on their couch with a 22 year old drug dealer.

“I think Tanisha needs to come live with you for awhile,” he’d said to Peyton during an early morning phone call.

Peyton felt her tongue and throat burn as she choked on her Carmel Macchiato. “Are you crazy?” she shrieked.

She heard her father pause. “I’m gonna give you a minute to collect yourself and remember who you’re talking to.”  

It was Peyton’s turn to sigh. She felt like she was fifteen all over again. “Sorry Dad. I mean, excuse me?”

“Me and your mother talked and we think it would be a good idea if Tanisha spent some time with you. All she hears when we talk is old folks nagging. You can get through to her.”

Peyton instantly envisioned her hands wrapped around the teenage girl’s neck. “Now you know I do not have the temperament to deal with a teenager. I will end up in jail from beating the sh–daylights out of that little girl.”

Perry chuckled. “You like that cushy NBA job too much to risk jail so quit sellin wolf tickets. And she needs an example Peyton. She needs to see what she can have if she gets her head on straight. Because us threatening and punishing her ain’t workin.”

“I don’t know Dad,” Peyton searched her mind for more excuses. “I work like 60 hours a week, I don’t have time to keep up with her. How am I gonna keep her from runnin the streets if I’m never home?”

“Look,” Perry said sternly. “You are an adult so I can’t make you do anything. But I want you to keep in mind the sacrifices that people made to keep your little narrow behind on the straight and narrow. You’ve created a lot of success for yourself and your mama and I are proud. But you are 28 years old and you have yet to contribute anything of substance to the world outside of that ritsy New York crowd that you run with. Problem with these kids now is everybody runnin’ around tryna have it all that nobody makes time to talk to ‘em. Now I raised a tough cookie and I know that. But I didn’t raise you to be selfish and not care about folks, Peyton Quinn Foster.”

Peyton closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. The reason she’d stayed single and childless was so that she wouldn’t be responsible to anyone. Her life was arranged so that she could always put herself first.  And while she had meaningful friendships, they were with adult women who didn’t require more than the occasional ear and drinks every week or so. A kid? A smart-mouthed, hot-assed teenage girl nonetheless was more than she was ready to deal with. “Dad, I hear you. I really do. But you need to let me think about this. Can I call you in a few days?”

She heard Perry smile through the phone. As much of a bitch as she could be, she was still her daddy’s little girl. “Sure Pey. I’ll talk to you in a few days. Love you.”

“Love you too, Dad” Peyton replied as she turned off the speaker phone in her office. She already knew that she couldn’t call her father with a no. The only question was how she’d keep from slapping the child upon her first eye roll.  

Peyton and the Party People

If there was one bain of Peyton’s profession, it was the industry party.  The scene was so very tired. Egomaniacal basketball players, pathological agents, the token “hot” rappers of the moment, pretentious PR girls tryng to get ahead, naive unassuming girlfriends, and of course, the groupies that keep the whole sports industry afloat. If Peyton wasn’t being hit on by some rookie hooper who didn’t know better, or pushed up on by some slimy agent, she was being glared at by girlfriends and groupies alike who wanted to know exactly “Who this bitch thought she was” that she could mix and mingle in crowds of these so-called superstars unaffected.

The latter scenario was currently playing itself out in the ladies room at the 40/40 Club.  Apparently, some peon’s “babymama” wasn’t thrilled about the “short bitch in the black dress”  who was “all up on” her man.  As the girl, who Peyton figured out was named Charmaine, went on her restroom tyrade, Peyton was in one of the bathroom stalls using the facilities.  She’d actually been finished for a few minutes, but she was so fascinated by what these girls had to say, that she couldn’t help but eavesdrop just a tad as Charmaine talked about wanting to “slap the taste out of her mouth.”  Peyton tried her best to hold back laughter, and thought to herself how lucky these girls were that she’d gotten in a game of raquetball earlier that day. Had she not released her well-documented agression, Charmaine might have found herself a victim of Peyton’s fiery temper.

“I just can’t stand these groupie bitches!” Charmaine said to her girlfriend. “I mean, like she didn’t see me come in with him and she just gonna be all up in his face.”

“Girl, you know that comes with the territory. You’ve gotta get used to it. All kinds of hoes are going to be all up in his face,” advised the girlfriend.  “I wonder who she is though? She didn’t look like a video girl.”

Charmaine smacked her lips. “I don’t give a fuck who she is. If I go back out there and see her with Tyrell again, there’s gonna be some problems.”

By now Peyton had had her fill. She stood up, straightened her pinstriped pencil dress and strutted out of the stall. “Well apparently, that won’t be necessary since she is right here,” Peyton quipped as she walked up to the mirror. She slowly sat down her clutch and reached for her MAC for a reapplication.  She smirked as she looked at the girls in the mirror. “Doesn’t this whole situation remind you of something that would happen in college?” Peyton paused. “Unless of course, you’ve never been to college.”

Charmaine and friend were speechless as they watched Peyton meticulously apply her MAC Lip Glass.

“Well, I know back in college, I was good for smacking the taste out of the mouths of bitches who talked shit about me behind my back. These days, though I’m more the type to slap the shit out of bitches in bathrooms, and then have said bitches removed from this party. Because when you’re a senior level NBA executive, you can do that. I’d then have them banned from all NBA parties and what a shame that would be. Because if I did that, then that just might make room for one of the six video hoes who have conspicuously slid their numbers to a certain basketball player via his agent to take the place of a certain girlfriend.”

Peyton carefully blotted her lips as the two girls glared at her. She couldn’t tell if they were more angry or embarassed and nor did she care. Little did they know that the exchange had been her source of entertainment for the evening. As much as she hated these parties, she loved putting stupid people in their places. She placed her make up back in her clutch and strutted towards the door. “It was nice chatting with you girls,” Peyton said. “Enjoy the rest of the party.”

Want to know Peyton’s back story? Meet Peyton here.

The Girls

“Sooo, you couldn’t just say ‘No Marcus. I am not ready for you to lock me down and impregnate me with your rugrats.’  You had to pass out?” Peyton said in her usual sarcastic tone as she walked past Mya into the apartment.

“She had to pass out because she knew that a medical emergency was the only way you’d let her get away with being late to lunch,” Cherise stopped to hug Mya as she entered the apartment. “Hey, Cuzzo.  You alright?”

Mya had to chuckle.  Leave it to her girls to make light of her panic attack without pissing her off.  “I’m cool,” she answered as the three friends settled into the living room of her Brooklyn brownstone.  Between the incident at the restaurant earlier that day, hashing things out with Marcus and fielding her mother’s 1000 questions, Mya was emotionally exhausted.  A visit from her two closest friends, Peyton and Cherise was exactly what she needed to get her in better spirits while she figured out her next move.

As the three of them sat in her living room laughing and exchanging banter, it was hard to believe that they hadn’t all been friends forever.  Mya and Cherise were cousins and had been close since they were children, despite the fact that Cherise lived in D.C. while Mya lived in Atlanta.  Spending summers visiting her cousin and aunts had played a huge part in Mya’s wanting to come east for college and the two were always traveling back and forth between D.C. and Philly to visit each other during their college years.  They had also moved to New York together after graduation and were roommates their first two years in the city.  Cherise still lived in the tiny Harlem walk-up that the two of them used to share.  Though Mya had never been a fan of the apartment, Cherise had definitely given the place character with her funky decorative touch.  She was indeed a free spirit and had always encouraged Mya to go after what made her happy, even if it meant going against the grain.

Mya and Peyton had met during their sophomore year at Temple, when they were on line together for their sorority.   Peyton was the fiery ace on their line who withstood some of the more physically grueling experiences with ease while Mya had been the emotionally stronger number two who was able to keep Peyton’s temper in line during the more emotional hazing.  With Peyton’s take no shit personality, Mya never understood exactly why she’d pledged, but Peyton later explained that it was to prove that she could.  She’d been told that she had too much attitude to make it online and if anyone knew Peyton they knew that more than anything, she loved to prove people wrong.  Years after having crossed the sands, she and Peyton remained the closest of their ten line sisters.  Peyton had always been an advocate of Mya doing her own thing and it was that thinking that brought her and Cherise together as friends when they all first moved to New York.  While Peyton and Cherise had had some personality differences at the beginning of their relationship, they had developed a closeness over the last six years.  Most people who met them assumed that the three of them had all grown up together.

“So, now that Aunt Linda is in a tizzy and you’ve got Marcus waiting with bated breath, what you are going to do?” Cherise asked.  Mya had just caught them up on the rest of the story.  She’d asked Marcus for some time and space to consider his proposal.  Though he wasn’t crazy about the idea, it was clear that he didn’t have a choice in the matter. If he wanted to be with her, he’d have to play by her rules.  Her mother on the other hand had been a different story.  Apparently, Marcus had told her that he was going to propose so she was shocked to hear that Mya hadn’t readily accepted.  Mya believed that her mother was more upset about her turning down the ring than she was about the fact that her daughter had been so panicked at the thought of marrying Marucs that she had passed out in a restaurant.

“I’m leaving town,” Mya replied nonchalantly as she walked into her kitchen for a glass of water.  Predictably, Cherise and Peyton were on her heels two seconds later.

“Leaving town?” Cherise asked. “To go where? And for how long?”

“I’m going to California for a week.  I’ll spend a few days in San Francisco and then shoot down to San Diego to chill on the beach.  I really need to clear my head and I can’t do that with Marcus breathing down my neck and my mother pressuring me,”  Mya answered.  “Which is why neither of them is to know where I’m going.  I’ll tell them that I’m going out of town, but that’s it.  So I need you two to keep quiet.”

“What is there to think about?  You know good and damn well that you do not want to marry that man,” Peyton said.  “Passing out at the sight of a ring is indication enough of that.  You have to spend a week on a totally different coast to figure it out?”

Mya sighed.  “It’s not just about Marcus.  I have spent the last ten years of my life making compromises between what I want and the life my parents laid out for me.  I mean, I’ve done my own thing here and there, but only to an extent.  I need to make some serious decisions about the next phase of my life.  And that requires time and space, Peyton.”

Peyton nodded with understanding.  That was the nature of their relationship.  Mya was one of very few people who could occasionally shut Peyton up.

“Escaping to find yourself, huh?” Cherise said with a chuckle.

Mya shrugged. “Something like that.”  What they didn’t know was that she was actually escaping to find someone else.  And that her trip would include a stop in Los Angeles to do just that.

“So other than keep our mouths shut,” Peyton said. “What else do you need us to do?”

“Drive me to the airport in an hour,” Mya replied with a smile.  “My flight leaves at eight.”

Peyton Quinn Foster

New York City was supposed to be a fast-paced city.  Peyton Quinn Foster never understood how a city full of people moving at hyper-speed managed to be so damn late all the time.  She abhored tardiness.  She blamed it on all those years of strict basketball practices in high school and college. Peyton smiled as she remembered those times.  The good old days.  She’d moved to the East Coast from Cleveland at age 14 and found solice on the basketball court at her high school.  She had been one of the fastest, toughest point guards in the Philadelphia area and was recruited to Temple University for college. Peyton was a tiny 5′4″ Freshman, but she let it be known from day one that she was not going for any of that Freshman hazing crap.  She was instantly pegged as a fighter.  A girl with a Napoleon complex that was not to be screwed with, an attitude that served her well both on and off the court.

But then came the career ending injury in the middle of her sophomore year.  That season, Peyton watched with a broken heart as her team made it to the Sweet Sixteen without her. By the end of the season, however, she’d found a new place in Temple athletics as an intern in the marketing department.  A position where her toughness and hardcore work ethic came in handy as she competed with the male interns.  Peyton was a natural competitor with sharp sales instincts.  By the end of her junior year, she’d been offered an account manager position and had become a part-time student, working in the office during the day and completing her degree at night.  It had required a lot of hard work, but two years later, it paid off when she was hired by the Philadelphia 76ers as a marketing rep.

Now, at 28, Peyton was a senior marketing rep for the NBA.  Though she missed the thrill of the game, she didn’t believe in regrets and was more than satisfied with her career.  She had shed her tomboy looks over the years in favor of a classic, no nonsense style, but even that had a level of discipline and organization to it.  Peyton still favored a powerful suit over a dress, but her suits were tailored perfectly to fit her petite body.  No bright colors, they were too girly.  She mostly stuck with black, white, and gray, with the occasional red when she wanted to make a statement and remind people that she was indeed all woman.  Her hair stayed styled in a short, blunt bob that barely grazed her chin.  Where Peyton allowed herself to play was with her collection of toys.  Nothing made her feel more powerful than rolling like a big boy, especially since she was the youngest senior marketing rep and the only woman.  She loved pulling up in her black Infiniti truck with her system blaring early 90s era East Coast hip-hop, then stepping slowly out of the truck, allowing her designer black pumps to hit the pavement as men  watched in shock.  Even her apartment looked like a bachelor pad with its black leather furniture and black and white photos of the Rat Pack decorating her walls.  She absolutely loved it. Not bad at all for a petite 28 year old Black girl from Cleveland.

No matter how far removed Peyton was from her hooping days, that player’s discipline still lived within her.  She often wished she could take it back to the days of basketball practice and make people run suicide drills when they made her wait.  Maybe then they’d learn to respect her time.  Peyton pulled out her Blackberry Curve and sent a warning text to her lunch dates, “You bitches have 10 min to get here before I roll out.” So what if they were only five minutes late? That was five minutes of her life that she could never get back.