Part Two: The Surprise Party
They pulled up to Club Webb and Tyson reached for the door handle like it was just another regular night. Tracy smoothed out her dress, Danielle fixed her lip gloss in the visor mirror, and Marcus was already talking about what he was drinking first.
Tyson pulled the door open.
“SURPRISE!”
The whole club erupted. Somebody hit the lights. Somebody else started the music — that classic wedding music, the one everybody knows — and just like that, the whole room was on their feet, cheering and raising their champagne glasses.
Tracy’s hand flew over her mouth.
She turned to look at Tyson. He was already looking at her, with that slow smile stretched all the way across his face, that’s the version of him she kept for herself.
Tracy: “You knew bout this”.
Tyson: “Yes I knew.”
She shook her head and laughed and he walk her into the room like they were royalty, because tonight, in Club Webb, they were.
The night went up from there. Family members came out of corners. Friends materialized from the back. Ms. Coffman had clearly been in on it too because her sister Aunt Pat was there with a camera and Aunt Pat doesn’t go anywhere without knowing a week in advance. The love in that room is all real.
Tracy had one sip of her beer and set it down.
The DJ was on point all night — with some old school, new school, everything in between, reading the room the way only a good DJ can.
Then he took us back to the early nineties.
You down with OPP?
Damn Naughty by Nature. The original. The one that made you say ‘Yeah you know me’.
Tracy grabbed Tyson’s hand before the second bar even hit.
Tracy: “Come on baby dance with me.”
Tyson looked at her like she said ‘Boy you sink’.
Tyson: “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Marcus, who had been mid-sip.
Marcus: “She must be drunk.”
Tyson: “I’m not dancing to that shit with your drunk ass.”
Tracy blinked. Then she blinked again. Then she held up one finger.
Tracy: “Drunk. I took one sip. Out of my beer. A sip, Tyson.”
He wasn’t even looking at her anymore.
That was the part that didn’t sit well with her. Not the words — this was the first time had talked to her like that in all the four years they were together. It wasn’t so much of what he said but the way he said it. Loud.
Dismissive. Like she was just another woman in the club. Like there wasn’t a whole room full of people who had just watched and cheered them getting married standing ten feet away.
Like she wasn’t his wife.
She felt her body get hot and caught herself before causing a scene at a party for them.
She picked up her purse off the bar.
Tracy: “Give me the keys. I’ll be waiting in the car.”
Tyson dug in his pocket without a word and dropped the keys them into her hand.
She walked. Head up, back straight, through the crowd, through the celebrating, through the music that was still playing like nothing had happened.
Danielle caught her at the door.
Danielle: “Girl, where you going?”
Tracy smiled — sometimes you gotta smile to keep yourself from crying.
Tracy: “To the car. My feet hurt.”
Danielle looked at her for a half second, and read everything Tracy wasn’t saying.
Danielle: “Okay.” “I’ll come with you.”
Thirty minutes passed inside Club Webb.
The music kept going. The drinks kept coming. Tyson moved through the room doing what Tyson did to — working the crowd, laughing loud, comfortable in his element.
He patted his pockets.
Empty.
He found Marcus and grabbed his arm. “Damn. The keys she got them you think she left us?”
Marcus was about to take a shot and stopped halfway sat the shot glass on the bar table and turned around slowly.
Marcus: “What the fuck you mean she left us?”
He started scanning the club.
Marcus: “Where the hell Danielle at?”
He looked back at Tyson.
Marcus:“Man — what the fuck you did now?”
Tyson: “Nothing, fool. Let’s go.”
But before he walked out, Tyson’s eyes cut straight to the bar at a woman who had been watching him all night — like she had been watching him for longer than tonight, if the truth was being told — caught his eye.
He gave her a small smile. A wink. She smiled.
Then he turned and walked out the door.
They were both there.
Tracy in the passenger seat. Danielle in the back. The car quiet and still with the parking lot lights on.
Tyson got in. Marcus slid in behind him.
Nobody said anything.
He pulled out of the lot and drove. The city lights moving past windows. The tires making noise while sharply turning corners.
Tracy looked straight ahead.
Not at him. Just forward.
The silence sat between them the whole ride home — they were loaded and eyes heavy and stomach growling.
Only thing you might hear is “Go through a drive-thru”hadn’t been said yet.
To be continued…