Waiting to Exhale

Robin invites Troy over for a date, but he gets a page and asks to use the phone. He tells her he has to go see his partner and asks Robin to go with him. He claims the man is a lawyer who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. When they arrive, Robin is shocked to see a group of men gathered around a crack cocaine pipe. Troy and the other men use the pipe, then Troy buys a drug from the owner of the house. They leave, and Robin tells Troy she doesn’t like that he uses drugs and that he should have warned her. Troy insists that he only uses drugs on occasion and tells her he could stop if she wanted him to.

Troy invites Robin to his house the following day, telling her that his mother is barbecuing, and he’d like her to meet his mother and son. Robin agrees, and they have sex, but the following day she is bothered by his behavior. Robin talks to Savannah about it, and Savannah encourages her not to go to the barbecue. Robin tries to call Troy, but he doesn’t answer at work, so she calls his home. Troy’s mother answers and tells Robin that the barbecue has been planned so the whole family can meet Robin. When Troy shows up that night to pick Robin up, she refuses to go with him, telling him that she’s not ready to meet his family and doesn’t like that he lied about the purpose of the barbecue. Finally, she tells Savannah that on top of everything else, her wallet is missing. Savannah suggests that Troy took it.

The ladies attend a meeting of Black Women on the Move that was called to discuss committees for the upcoming Sisters’ Nite Out. However, due to the fact that the luncheon they’d recently had hadn’t earned enough money, they didn’t have the funds to have Sisters’ Nite Out. They discuss ideas on how to make the following years’ luncheon more successful, including asking higher profile women to be the speakers. They also discuss better advertising and fundraising, but acknowledge that the recession makes it more difficult to afford their events. They discuss a few of their other programs, touching on several issues that Black families in the Phoenix experience on a daily business. When the meeting ends, Robin announces that her relationship with Troy is over and that she found her wallet stuck under the back tire of her car.

Kenneth comes to Savannah’s apartment to pick her up for a dinner date. She invites him inside and they talk for a few minutes, catching up on each other’s lives. Kenneth tells Savannah about his child, showing Savannah a picture of her. Kenneth expresses unhappiness in his marriage, and when Savannah asks why he got married, he confesses that his wife was pregnant before the wedding. Kenneth asks Savannah how she felt about him when they were together and she admits that she cared for him, but felt he had trouble fitting her into his schedule. Kenneth claims he thought Savannah was seeing other men. Kenneth tells Savannah he was in love with her when they were together. Savannah asks why he wanted to see her, and he says he was just curious to see if she was doing well. Savannah tells Kenneth to leave when he suggests he wants to become intimate, but she does promise to go to Sedona with him the next day.

Alone in her apartment, Savannah changes out of her dress and orders a pizza. After she’s eaten, Kenneth calls and tells her he’s across the street and he wants to come back to her apartment. Savannah invites him back and they become intimate, but she regrets it the next day. When she expresses her regret, Kenneth claims he’s planning to divorce his wife, but he’s concerned about losing custody of his child. Savannah asks Kenneth to leave.

Robin gets a message on her machine from each of the three men in her life. Troy claims he’s stopped using drugs and wants to try again. Michael expresses a desire to see her. Russell asks Robin to stop calling his home and claims to have married Carolyn. Robin is devastated by Russell’s message, hurt that he married Carolyn after she begged him to marry her over and over. Robin goes on a shopping spree to soothe her feelings at the same time she’s fielding phone calls from the company that holds her student loan contract. She calls Michael, but a woman answers the phone. When Robin gets ahold of Michael later, he claims the woman is an old friend who is having a hard time and staying with him for a month. Robin expresses jealousy, so Michael asks her to dinner that Friday, but when Friday comes, Michael forgets and doesn’t show up. They make another date for the following Friday. Then Robin invites Troy over.

Bernadine is restless and lonely because the children are spending the summer with John. Her relationship with Herbert ended despite his confessions of love. Bernadine thinks back on the dog the family once had, remembering how it only liked her, but when it tried to bite her, she got rid of it, much to John’s chagrin. Bernadine cleans the house, taking time to clean the toys up in each of her children’s rooms. She thinks about how she’s tried to spend more time with the kids each day despite having to eat lots of fast food and take them to the office with her in the evenings so that she doesn’t get behind in her work.

Bernadine gets a call from her lawyer telling her that John’s lawyer requested a bifurcation hearing so that they can be divorced before the settlement is reached. Bernadine is legally divorced and wants to celebrate, but none of her friends are available. She takes herself out to dinner but decides she doesn’t like the place she chose, so she checks into a suite in a hotel instead. She sits down in the bar to have a drink and is joined by a lawyer from Virginia. The lawyer, James, tells her that he and his wife were going to divorce, but she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, so he stayed. As they talk, Bernadine and James feel a connection and decide to take it upstairs. In her suite, Bernadine and James have an intimate night that changes Bernadine’s perspective on the potential of finding love again.