"After Midnight"
by Robyn Amos

Chapter One

"Tracy! Trace, come on. Open up!"

The impatient shouts finally filtered through Tracy Prince's flu-induced coma. Her eyelids creaked open, and she waited for the colorful blurs before her to shift into focus. The door rattled again. She fought to lift her head from the couch where she'd collapsed earlier that day . . . or week . . . or month. At this point, Tracy couldn't be sure.

She aimed her gaze at the door that shook with another round of forceful knocks. It looked so far away.

She would have felt better if someone hadn't mistaken her for an aspirin bottle and stuffed her head with cotton. She tried to suck in a deep breath and released a weak moan instead. Where had the elephant come from, and why was he standing on her chest?

The pounding grew louder.

"I'mb cumbing!" she shouted, but with her throat dry and sore, the sound was barely louder than a whisper.

Her legs nearly gave out twice, but Tracy managed to make it to the door. It took all her strength to pull it open.

"What took you so long?" John Fitzgerald strolled right past her, already shrugging out of his jacket. "I'm having a crisis here. I just got dropped."

"Valerie dropped you?" she croaked, collapsing against the door.

"Valerie? No. Actually, we broke up two months ago. I'm talking about the newspaper. Good. You still have it." John grabbed the remains of her three-day-old Sunday paper and sank down on the sofa, spreading it open. "They're dropping my column. This is the last edition of ‘Consumer Watch' by John Fitzgerald."

Tracy felt herself slowly sliding to the floor, but she lacked the power to stop herself. "Dat's terrible, ‘Jod."

"Hey, what's wrong with your voice?" He looked over his shoulder, really seeing her for the first time. "Oh, my God!"

She leaned her head back as she finally slumped to the floor in a sitting position. "I have a duffy dose. It cumbs with the flu. The sinus pressure and chest congestion was a bonus."

He tossed the newspaper aside. "Aw, honey, I'm sorry. I had no idea you were sick." He scooped her up into his arms. "And here I was going on about my problems."

Tracy let her head roll into the warm comfort of John's chest as he carried her to the couch. He'd been her best friend since they were eight years old. Of course, it had been three months since she'd seen him. But that's the way things were now that they were adults, struggling with their careers.

Nevertheless, whenever something came up, one showed up on the other's doorstep, and it was as though no time had passed between them. Good news or bad, they were always there for each other.

John eased her onto the sofa. "What are you taking?"

She pointed to the assortment of pharmaceuticals on the end table.

"What? No Fitzgerald miracle broth? I guess I'll have to make you some."

Two hours later, Tracy was sitting up, wrapped in a comforter John had pulled from her bed. She sipped the last of John's miracle broth and sighed. "It feels good to be able to breathe again. This stuff is wonderful."

"I told you." He took her empty bowl and tucked the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

"Thanks, John. I'm actually starting to feel better, but I hope you don't catch this from me."

Returning from the kitchen, he nudged aside the edge of her blanket and sat beside her. "Don't worry. I had my flu shot. I couldn't afford to be sick this year."

"Oh, John, your column. What happened?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. "They're actually replacing ‘Consumer Watch' with another one of those horoscopy advice columns. After three years, I'm losing my primary source of income."

"That's outrageous." Tracy poked a hand outside her cocoon to squeeze his shoulder. "When did you find out?"

"Yesterday afternoon." He widened his dark rum-colored eyes like a cocker-spaniel. "Just before I found Shaq belly up in the fish tank. I couldn't even give him a decent flushing. Jordan and Rodman ate everything but his tail."

She shook her head, sharing his frustration. As much as John loved his pets, she knew losing a fish didn't compare to losing his column. "What are you going to do? Anything happening at Spotlight?" she asked, referring to the comedy club where he occasionally sold jokes to some of the comedians.

"No. Things are slow right now. Hopefully, my material will be hot again in a few months."

She made a sympathetic murmur. "And for a while, I was sure you would make your first million selling jokes. Remember how you used to treat us to pizza and movies with the money you made selling momma jokes in high school?"

"That's right." John snapped his fingers at the memory. "But you carried us through the summer selling hand-painted T-shirts and homemade comic books."

"Yeah. I painted your momma jokes on some of the T-shirts."

He put an arm around her bundled shoulders. "We had our own little enterprise going back then, didn't we?"

She smiled. "It beat the heck out of a lemonade stand."

He tucked his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. "How come we can't make easy money like that anymore?"

"We can," Tracy said, grabbing a tissue just as she sneezed. "But remember, back then thirty-six dollars for a day's work was big money. Now it wouldn't put a dent in my car note."

"I know. I just feel like I'm wasting my time." He stretched his arms, trying to alleviate the tension Tracy could see knotting his shoulders. "I want to write what I want to write. My screenplay is a hundred pages from the end, but I just can't get through it because little things like heat, water and food keep getting in the way."

Tracy burrowed deeper into the comforter. "You probably don't want to hear this, but my temp agency is always looking for people."

He twisted his lips into a smirk. "Yeah. I got your E-mail about that chili pepper suit."

"I know dressing up as a chili pepper for Pepper's Bar & Grill wasn't a high point in my career, but, most of the time they work really hard to give me jobs that let me exercise my creativity."

John gave her a knowing look. "And I'm sure that was your father's priority when he hooked you up with them."

"My father's priority was making sure his only daughter didn't make the phrase ‘starving artist' literal." Tracy's father, who had always been militant on the issue of supporting Black-owned businesses, had been thrilled to connect her with a temp agency that had built its client base on that principle.

"Unfortunately, temping was supposed to supplement the income from my artwork, not substitute for it. In the past three months, I've spent more time grooming dogs, answering phones and waiting tables than I've spent sketching."

John shoved a stack of folders aside so he could prop his feet on the coffee table. "Thanks for the offer, Trace, but I'm not that desperate yet. I have some freelance articles out that will hopefully turn into sales."

"It's really not that bad. My latest assignment is with a wedding coordinator. I was hired to help her prepare for a local bridal fair, but she asked me to help her with some marketing ideas, too. She's just starting out and she needs to attract clients. I think it will be fun."

John ran his hands over his face, shaking his head. "Yeah, but you just said yourself, you haven't been sketching. It's been at least three months since I've touched my screenplay. What are we really accomplishing? I'll probably have to dip into my L.A. fund again just to eat next month."

Tracy stared at the floor. John had been living on hot dogs and tuna fish for years, so he could afford to move to California and make contacts for his screenplay. It hurt him any time he had to borrow from his savings. She knew he'd taken out more money lately than he'd been putting in.

She sighed heavily. "John, we have this conversation at least once a month. We knew it wasn't going to be easy. Either we go out and get ‘real' jobs, or we wait for our big shot."

He answered with a weary nod, and she decided to change the subject.

"So, what's this about you and Valerie breaking up two months ago?" She swatted him on the shoulder. "How come you didn't mention it?"

"Whoops." He grinned, giving her a sheepish look. "Really, it wasn't a big deal. It just didn't work out."

"Translation: she wanted more than you were willing to give her."

"Look, I tried to be honest with her right up front. I told her what my plans were. She kept dropping hints about our future together. Did I like kids? Would she like California? I couldn't take it."

He turned to her, searching with his eyes. "Trace, why do women insist on getting their hearts broken?"

Tracy bit her lip. Why indeed? She could have made a quip about John being too irresistible for his own good, but she knew he was serious. He didn't want to hurt anyone. Eventually, he was leaving. Period. He tried to be open about that, but some women couldn't help falling in love with him anyway.

"I know you don't want to get into anything serious because your leaving, but it sounds like Valerie wanted to go with you."

"No, I need to do this on my own. I can't have someone tying me down, making demands on my time." He slumped against the back of the couch, playing with a corner of her comforter. "Besides, I can't think about a relationship right now. I have nothing to offer a woman except a bowl of grits and a tuna sandwich."

Tracy laughed.

John raised his brows, pinning her with a heavy look. "And what about you, Ms. Prince? What ever happened to Abubakar, Shaka Zulu or whatever his name was?"

"His name is Shakir, and I stopped seeing him a long time ago. He was the one I met in that Egyptian art class last fall." She reached out to trace the colorful patterns on her comforter with her index finger. "He had no respect for my pencil drawings. He kept telling me that if I wanted to be a serious artist I should focus on painting."

He waved that off. "Nah, he sounds like a jerk. You're better off without him."

She nodded. "I think so, too."

Tracy looked over at John, slouched in his favorite position at the other end of the sofa, and a funny thought hit her. This was probably the first time in years that neither of them were in a relationship.