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If This World Were Mine - Hardcover

Harris, E. Lynn

 
9780385486552: If This World Were Mine
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0385486553 ISBN 13: 9780385486552
Verlag: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

Reuniting for a weekend nearly a decade after their graduation from Howard University, four friends--and their spouses or significant others--play a game called "If This World Were Mine," a diversion that brings to light sexual tensions, dark secrets, failed dreams, and hidden animosities. 150,000 first printing. Tour.

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Aus dem Klappentext

e circle of friends. A sexy stranger. How strong are the bonds of friendship?

With a nine-week stay on the New York Times bestseller list, E. Lynn Harris's third novel, And This Too Shall Pass, put his "sizzling and fast-paced" books at the top of everyone's must-read list. Readers across the country were thrilled to watch his true-to-life characters wrestle with questions of faith, family, and love. In his new blockbuster, If This World Were Mine, Harris introduces four new characters whose friendship and deep bonds of intimacy are threatened by conflicts of career and romance.

Friends since their days at Hampton Institute, the four group members are as different as the seasons, yet they all share a love of one another. Yolanda, a media consultant, keeps it going on with a no-nonsense attitude and independence that are balanced by the theatrics of Riley, a former ma

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I've just stepped out of the shower and I'm standing in front of the full-length mirror on the bathroom door of my junior suite at the Omni Berkshire in New York City, near Fifty-second and Madison.  I like what I see.  Thanks to a steady regimen of diet and exercise, plus enough vitamins and beauty aids to keep a small drugstore chain in business.

Everything is just as it should be--firm and tight on my tall frame with just enough hips to keep the boys looking.  My red linen suit with pearl buttons should do the trick.  Red looks good against my chocolate-colored skin.  I'm meeting another potential client for lunch, but to be honest, my red suit isn't just to impress a client.  I don't want to be caught short like I was last night.

My name is Yolanda Diane Williams, and I'm from Chicago.  Well, that's not totally true.  I live and work in Chicago, but I grew up in Des Moines.  Now, how many Black people do you know from Iowa?  Like I always say, it's a good place to be from.  I get defensive when people ask me where I'm from.  I'm afraid I sound like a white girl, so I lay some ebonics on them: "Whatsup wit cha dippin into my buziness?"

I'm presently single, and, unlike most of my female friends, I haven't been looking for a man.  Besides, I get more than my share of date requests, and I've got a great ex-husband, Chauncey, for conversation when I'm feeling a little blue or when my batteries are low.  The only reason we aren't still married is because Chauncey wanted a life of traveling all over the world, playing his saxophone.  Which, when I was younger, seemed exciting.  Me, I need something a little more stable, like a regular mailbox to receive my letters and bills.  I want a home, not a different hotel room every night.

After working for over ten years in the advertising field at Burrell Communications, Inc., I started my own business about five years ago, called Media Magic, A Consulting Concern, Inc.  The years I spent at Burrell were among the best in my life.  I learned a lot there from people like the founder, Tom Burrell.  But I wanted a job where I could call me the boss! I figured out a way to get paid doing something I absolutely love: preparing entertainers and aspiring artists to deal with success.  I advise them on how to deal with the press and their adoring fans.  I handle special events like musical showcases when they come to the Midwest to promote their latest project.  And I do crisis management when some of these music stars get their celebrity butts in a sling.  And I'm good at what I do.  I have several major record and video companies under contract.  I come to New York twice a month to meet with regular and prospective clients.  New York is my second favorite city--after Chicago, where I feel safe and have several good, make that great, friends.

Around the time I started my business, me and five friends from college renewed our friendship at a Hampton alumni reunion.  We had such a good time, we decided to start getting together socially and writing journals like we had in an English class at Hampton.  Keeping the journal and meeting with friends at least once a month couldn't have come at a better time for me.  I had just lost both my parents within a year.  My daddy to a heart attack and Mama, nine months later, to a broken heart.  So now it's just me and my baby sister, Sybil, who lives in Iowa City.  I was nervous about stepping out on my own, and more than money, I needed friends I could count on and who believed in me.

Right now the group includes me, and my best friend in the whole world, Leland, make that Dr. Leland Thompson, single and gay.  Then there's Riley (poetic justice) Woodson, who could best be described as a BAP (Black American princess) from the day she was born.  I call her my high-maintenance soror.  She's married, but I'm not convinced she's still in love.  Her husband, Selwyn, used to be cool, but now he's strictly business.  And there is Dwight Leon Scott, a computer engineer, divorced and mad at the world.  He was married to one of our former members, Kelli, who left the group when Dwight wouldn't.  I think Dwight stayed just to spite Kelli.  We lost one of the original members, Dana, to marriage and Atlanta, Georgia.

Our monthly meetings are big fun.  We eat, drink a little wine, listen to music, and read from our journals.  We talk about our lives and our dreams, then share affirmations that might help us in times of need.  Most of my journal entries that I share with the group (I also keep a private journal) have been about my career, good dirt on some of the celebrities I've worked with, and my dreams for the future.  Dreams that, quite frankly, have not included a Mr. Right.  Like I said, I have a great ex-husband and a wonderful male friend who listens to every and any thing I have to say.  And I had a wonderful relationship with my deceased father.

I've already exceeded my goal for this trip by landing not one, but three new clients.  Pretty soon I'm going to have to hire someone to help me and Monica, my assistant, with the extra workload.  I've got a whole file of rÚsumÚs from recent college grads looking to get in the media music business.

Today is Thursday, and I've been in New York for four days.  Usually by day five I'm ready to return to my adopted hometown.  Day four and suddenly I'm not in such a hurry to leave the Big Apple.  In fact, I'm standing here humming Toni Braxton's "I Love Me Some Him," and thinking about this truly over man I met last night at the Motown Cafe.  I'm still trying to figure out exactly what happened.  Now, it's not like I'm a believe-anything-you-tell-me type of woman.  I mean, I'm in the twilight--make that pitch black--of my thirties.  In other words, I'll be forty in February.  I've been to the Male State Fair a few times, rode a few rides, then got off.  In fact, I'd forgotten what the tunnel of love looked like, when Mr. Fine walked into my life.

I was feeling tired and probably looked like it after three days of meetings and presentations.  I'd spent about an hour on the phone with Sybil.  It was her thirty-fifth birthday and I was telling her what she had to look forward to.  But Sybil already has her stuff together.  My little sis is working on her Ph.D. in social work while raising two children and a husband.  Sister got it going on strong.

I could've ordered room service, but I'd been in the suite most of the day and figured fresh night air would do me some good.  It must have been fate, because I wasn't planning on eating at the Motown Cafe.  It's not the kind of place I would choose to eat alone, something I hardly ever do, since I usually find a way to combine my meals with meetings.  I wound up there because I couldn't get a reservation at my current favorite restaurant, CafÚ Beulah in the Flatiron District.

So there I was, sitting in a booth and enjoying some tasty catfish fingers with a little macaroni and cheese on the side.  I was gazing up at this huge ceiling, at a platter of the Supremes' single, "Stop! In the Name of Love," and listening to the Motown Moments sing all the hits I love.  I have to admit I...

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Verlag
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
1997
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0385486553
ISBN 13 
9780385486552
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
318
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Verantwortliche Person
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