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was also waiting for a customer’s plate.
    “Aren’t you going to wait and take these both out together?” Jermaine asked.
    “Yeah,” Chardonnay said over her shoulder. The head chef frowned slightly as he watched Chardonnay walk around the corner to the pantry.
    As soon as Chardonnay turned the corner, she did what she’d planned—gave Shyla Martin a little something extra to eat. She returned quickly, just in time to see the chef set down Toussaint’s order. She balanced the two plates expertly as she walked out of the kitchen.
    Chardonnay hummed the Supremes track that had been playing in the bar when she’d walked past it on the way to the restroom. She laughed out loud as she imagined Shyla enjoying her extra creamy mashed potatoes.
Now, you haughty-ass heifah, that’s just what you get!
She danced up to the counter to key in her next table’s order. “I saw you.”
    Chardonnay huffed as Bobby “Butt Stank” Wilson came up behind her. The man had been trying to get in her pants ever since being hired as a line cook two months ago. “Boy, quit jaw jacking and get outta my face.”“Baby, I’m getting ready to get all into yo fine ass. Unless you want me to just go ahead and tell management what I saw.”
    “Okay, nucka,” Chardonnay said, putting a hand on her hip as she turned around. “Just what in the hell do you think you saw?”
    “Not what I think, what I know. I saw you spit in that plate of food. And that was
after
you’d stuck your finger in your panties and then swirled it in the cabbage.”

6
    Z oe’s phone rang. She crawled across the floor to answer it, trying to catch her breath along the way. She’d been laughing for a full two minutes, ever since Chardonnay had told her what happened at the restaurant earlier. She’d laughed so hard and so long that Chardonnay had finally hung up on her. At least that’s what Zoe assumed. As she looked at the caller ID, she realized she was right. It was Chardonnay calling back.
    “It ain’t that damn funny,” Chardonnay said as soon as Zoe picked up. “Zoe! I know your ass can hear me.”
    “Ooh, girl, wait a minute.” Zoe took another calming breath. “I’m trying to catch my breath … wait.” She took a couple more deep gulps and squeezed her eyes tightly together to shut out the picture that Chardonnay’s story had created, the one that had her rolling on the floor laughing. “Did you really do that?” she asked once she could speak. “Did you really season a sistah’s cabbage with some pussy juice?” The question sent her howling again.
    “You ain’t got no damn sense,” Chardonnay chided. But Zoe’s laugh was infectious, and pretty soon, Chardonnay found herself laughing again as well.
    “Girl,” Zoe said, wiping her eyes. “When you texted methat you needed to talk, I was expecting anything but this. Whew! That’s some hot ghetto mess action right there!”
    “She asked for it,” Chardonnay said as she fixed plates for her two young children. “Tangeray! Cognac! Come on in here and eat! Hold on a minute, girl. I’ma have to do a beat-down to pull these heathens away from the television. Tangeray!”
    Zoe used the time it took Chardonnay to gather her kids around the dinner table to further compose herself. She went into the bedroom where she’d deposited her purse on the nightstand, pulled out a pack of Newport longs, and lit one up. Taking a deep drag, she slipped into a pair of bright yellow Pooh slippers and headed to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of her friend’s namesake. Taking what was once a Peter Pan peanut butter jar, she filled it halfway and took a long swallow.
    “Zoe, you there?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Good, because I need your advice on part two of this shit.”
    “You mean there’s more?” Zoe took her glass and headed back to the bedroom, wishing she’d copped some weed earlier, as she’d planned.
    “Probably not, but a sistah can’t be too careful.”
    “Chardonnay, I’m not