Tuff by Paul Beatty Read Free Book Online

sandwiches, light on the dressing.”
    Yolanda repeated the order into the microphone, hiding the thrill she felt in the back of her throat. “Will there be anything else, sir?” Oops, she walked into it, the lounge lizard’s classic window of opportunity. Yolanda gripped the microphone tightly and steeled herself for the inevitable pickup line.
    “Yes—large onion rings and two apple turnovers.”
    Yolanda felt both relieved and disappointed. Maybe he didn’t like her. Maybe he wasn’t staring at her but at the conveyor belt of greasy burgers behind her. She looked into Winston’s cupcake-brown face and repeated his order. Remembering her customer protocol, Yolanda pushedthe fries and beverages. “Would you like to try our new cheddar cheese curly fries and something to drink?”
    “I’ll take an orange soda.”
    “What size?”
    “ ’Bout your size.”
    Yolanda blushed but didn’t waver a second. “That be about a medium.”
    Winston laughed, leaned over the countertop, and shouldered his way into her life. “You from Queens.”
    Normally Yolanda would ask a customer to step aside so she could take the next order. Now she glanced from Winston’s face to his hands, marveling at the smoothness of his skin. “How can you tell?” she asked.
    “The dolphin earrings, the cellophane-crimped bangs, more silver than gold on your wrists. Might even have a little Long Island in you.” Though Winston’s deductions were correct, Yolanda pretended to be unimpressed with a sassy “Sooo.”
    “Where at? Hollis? Kew Gardens?”
    “Queens Village, near the track. That okay with you?”
    “Long as you ain’t from Brooklyn, I’m straight. You got a man?”
    Yolanda held up her hands, showing off her collection of department-store promise rings.
    “But can he be burnt?” Winston asked.
    “Light a match.”
    Holding trays of lukewarm burgers in wax paper and brimming with more jealousy than they’d care to admit, Winston’s boys chided him into hastening his mack.
    “Let’s be out, Chubbsy Ubbsy.”
    “Oh, Miss Crabtree, I have something heavy on my heart.”
    “You going to have something heavy on your lip in a minute.”
    “Baby girl going to have something heavy on her lap in minute.”
    Winston struggled to resist the gravitational pull of his boys. He didn’t want to succumb to the forces of friendship physics, huddle up and get into a bitch-this-and-bitch-that round-table synopsis. Yolanda rescued the conversation by acknowledging the nappy-headed ballast hindering the weightlessness of puppy love. “Your team cock-blocking and shit.”
    “Yeah.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Winston.”
    “What they call you on the streets?”
    “Tuffy.”
    “Yolanda.”
    Yolanda slid Winston a brown tray overflowing with food he didn’t order. Jammed into a forest of french fries, a two-inch figurine of the Burger King surveyed his cholesterol domain. Impaled on the king’s lance was the receipt with Yolanda’s phone number scribbled over the subtotal. Winston dropped a bundle of crumpled bills in her hand and assured her of a phone call that evening. A macho “All right then” and he was off to share his spoils with the homies, forgetting the change. As Yolanda watched him plod away, she wondered what her friends would say when she showed up at the club with a big-boned roughneck. She could hear Tasha now: “That huge nigger sure is ugly, hope he can sing.” With a smile at her musing, she called out, “Next,” and without looking back Winston answered, “Me, goddammit!”
    Their first and only date was a Christmas Eve boat tour circumnavigating Manhattan. Yolanda and Winston met at the Battery Park marina, Winston punctual for the first time for an appointment that didn’t involve a court proceeding. Yolanda arrived an independent woman’s mandatory fifteen minutes late. Winston flashed the tickets he’d bought a week in advance and the giddy couple ran down the gangplank, elbowing past the