My Best Friend and My Man (9 page)

—13—

V
ERON

If I could clearly
see into my future,
I’d know right now if I am making a mistake or not. He asked me to meet him so quickly and unexpectedly that I abruptly said yes—but it’s so last minute I’m afraid I’m messing up.

And I don’t want to screw this up. God knows I am attracted to this man. I like that he is a black, professional, degreed male who seems strong and in touch with who he is. I love the sound of his voice, a voice that is slightly baritone, that is friendly and welcoming but still no nonsense, not down for tons of BS. There’s something about Seaphes that makes me feel safe. And I want this safe feeling to continue, to wrap its arms around me and squeeze me tight. I kinda wish I had Demetria’s brain and instincts inside of me right now. She’d know exactly what to do and wouldn’t have any problem executing it. But when I attempted calling her an hour ago, she told me she couldn’t talk. She was in the middle of something, and she’d get back with me tomorrow. So I’m on my own. But I think I got enough of this book in my head now that I’ll be okay.

When I finally walk into Panera restaurant, Seaphes is casually browsing
USA Today
. The aroma of freshly baked bread and bagels fills my nostrils and gives me a sense of peace and satisfaction. I immediately feel more relaxed than I initially thought I would. Maybe it’s because he’s offering me a warm, connecting smile.

“Hey, there. You look nice,” he tells me with a nod.

“Oh, thank you,” I say, blushing. “So do you.”

“So what did you want to nibble on? I’m getting that cheesy French onion soup and a sierra turkey sandwich and am going to wash it down with some honeydew green tea.”

“I’ll have the same.”

Seaphes invites me to go have a seat while he attends to our order.

I find a brightly lit corner spot near the front entrance and sit down in a seat that allows me a chance to stare at Seaphes. He’s dressed casual tonight, in some tan Dockers and a black short-sleeved polo that shows off his arms’ bulging muscles. When I was getting dressed to meet him, I made sure to wear a twirly black and white skirt in that same cut as the purple dress, with a short-sleeved white blouse and some cute black strappy heels.

Seaphes juggles our drinks in each of his hands and approaches me. He walks with a little strut, which greatly turns me on.

“So,” he says. “Let’s get to know each other.”

That’s so quick. Again, I’m caught by surprise, and what I’ve actually been wondering about all day bursts out. “How many women have you been with?” I ask.

He just stares.

I cough and clear my throat. “I guess that info is none of my business, huh?”

“Veron, even though we’re just getting to know each other, you can take one look at me and tell I’m not a virgin.”

I blush. “I know that. I’m not, either.”

“Okay, so we’re even.”

“I beg your pardon. For all you know I just gave up my virginity a year ago.”

“For all you know I could’ve done the same.”

I nod slowly, staring intently at this intriguing man.

“When were you born?” I ask, deciding to shift gears.

“March twenty-eighth.”

“And you’re in your thirties? Never married?”

“Why are you looking at me like that? I’ve been in love but haven’t found the right woman yet, but don’t worry, I’m one hundred percent pure man.”

“I can see that.” I laugh. We loosen up, and soon the conversation turns to past loves. He tells me about his ex, Murenthia, that they were going to get married but things didn’t work out. She took the breakup hard, especially when he asked her to return both the engagement ring and a secondhand car that he was nice enough to let her drive.

“She kept the ring, fine, but ain’t no way I’m obligated to give her a car. It was the first car I ever owned, a Mazda RX-7. Very old but in tip-top condition.”

“What color?”

“I don’t care if it was pink with white polka dots, it was my car and I did her a favor by letting her drive it.”

“So the million dollar question is…”

“Did I get back my car? Let me tell you, Veron, I had to go through hell to get it back.”

“What happened?” I am still smiling at him, not because I am gleeful about his past drama but because I love to hear him talk. He has a tendency to stare deep into my eyes while he’s explaining himself, something that I find intoxicating and reassuring.

“Murenthia may not have been the sharpest cheese in the dairy section, but she was very much a routine person. So after politely asking her for the car for the tenth time, I decided I had to do what I had to do. It was a Friday night, and I knew she’d be at Supercuts. So it was in November, you know, when it gets dark early. I had my buddy drive me. Sure enough, there was my car sitting a few yards away from the front entrance of Supercuts. Thankfully, I had an extra key; I hopped out of his ride, quickly popped open the locks to my ride, started the car and drove outta there like a volcano was erupting behind me.”

He actually throws back his head and starts laughing so hard his shoulders shake.

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re laughing about it all now.”

“At the time it wasn’t funny. She pissed me off, you know? This is a woman who claimed to love me and she acted foul like that? Love does crazy things to people.”

“Tell me about it.” We are having such a good time talking that I can barely enjoy my sandwich.

“Seaphes, did this Murenthia chick scare you away from being with women?”

“What?” he scowls. “Never that. I love women.”

I skeptically raise one eyebrow.

“I
love
women,” he insists, looking into my eyes.

I smile and feel heat warm my face. His pure boldness and confidence arouse me. He refuses to apologize for who he is, and I respect that. He’s not trying to hide himself from me.

But at the same time, I wish Demetria could see this man in action. She could probably assess him in ten seconds and determine if he’d be a good match for me.

“I am not afraid to fall in love,” he continues. “At this point in life, my philosophy is to let the woman be herself, tell me what she needs me to know, good or bad, and I’ll do the same, and we’ll figure out whether we’re meant to be. That’s about all anyone can do, you know what I’m saying? No point in playing games, pretending to be something you’re not, wasting everybody’s time. ’Cause one thing that’s never going to change is tomorrow is not a promise, so we gotta make the most of the little time that we’re given.”

Suddenly my stomach feels queasy. I wonder if Seaphes considers me a fake. But I don’t want to drop the games—Demetria and the book and everyone else have been telling me I’m wrong, and I want to be right with this man.

His cell starts ringing, but he doesn’t even look at it. Instead he stares intently at me and says, “Now, if it’s okay, may I ask you a question?”

“Go ahead.”

“What exactly made you want to call me?”

“I, uh, jeez, it was just something to do,” I say tapping my foot against the floor as if I’m listening to a fast song. I am being nonchalant. Can’t tell him. Can’t tell him. “I was, hmmm, bored, I guess and…”

“Sorry, but I don’t believe you, Veron.” He grins at me with reassurance. “Tell me the real answer.”

“I beg your pardon,” I squeal.

He pauses for a beat. “Do you like me?”

“Oh, my God, I can’t believe you’re asking me this.”

“Look at you, you’re blushing, you’re covering your face with your hands, you look like a cute young high school girl. Your body is telling me what your mouth won’t.”

I stand up on wobbly legs. “Uh, I’m so sorry, but I need to go to the ladies’ room. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

I can hear him loudly chuckling behind my back while I sprint to the rear of the restaurant, my heels noisily clanging across the floor. Thank God, no one else is occupying any of the stalls in the ladies’ room. I barricade myself in one of the empty ones and breathlessly lock the door. I reach inside my cell-phone pouch and manage to dial Demetria. The call goes straight into voice mail. I dial Michael West. When a woman picks up the line, I hang up.

What would Demetria do? What would she say? How would she make herself come out on top in this situation?
I allow myself three minutes to dwell on what happened and what needs to be happening, then I emerge from the stall.

When I get back to the booth, Seaphes is turning the pages of the
USA Today
.

I calmly sit back down and clear my throat.

“Seaphes, to answer your question, I just find you intriguing. That’s it. That’s the truth. And that’s all I’m gonna tell you for now. Is that cool?”

He just grins and nods his head, and I am happy that I knew not to say too much or go too far. This is so hard, but I am managing to keep my instincts pushed down and do right.

—14—

V
ERON

It’s Friday, exactly
one week since
Seaphes and I met at Panera Bread. Our March of Dimes subcommittee agreed that I’d bake and sell delicious slices of frosted carrot cake, so after work I head to the HEB Pantry to buy ingredients, as well as supplies for our book-club meeting, which I’m hosting on Sunday.

When I get there, I see there’s only one available shopping cart. I rush to grab it, but another hand lands on the cart at the same time as mine.

“Michael?” I gasp.

“Veron!”

I laugh and give him a hug. “What you been up to?”

“I’ve been around, doing my thing.”

“So you wanna share this cart? I don’t have too much stuff to get.”

“Hey, I don’t need it. I saw you and was just messing with you. I only gotta get some washing powder, some of those dryer sheets, bleach, and some furniture polish. All that can fit in two hands.”

I giggle. “Dang, Mike, you sound so domesticated. What happened to the player-player?”

“Even players gotta wash clothes sometimes.”

We start walking toward the fresh-vegetables section. “So.” I clear my throat and peer about my surroundings. “Is it safe for us to be seen together?”

“What you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.” I pretend to crack a whip.

“Awww, don’t even try it.” He chuckles. “She ain’t got
that
much control over me.”

“Hmmm, then why did she answer your phone when I tried to call you last week?”

“Say what?”

I don’t know if I should buy Mike’s look of surprise. I know how prideful men are. They will deny the truth just to save face and seem like they’re on top of their game.

“What you talking about, Veron?”

I explained how I called him on his cell last week and the person who answered the phone definitely wasn’t Mike.

“I didn’t know that. I had my phone all the time and never heard it ring.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t make sense. Man, there’s some weird shit going down lately with my phone. It didn’t ring all last weekend, but a bunch of friends told me they tried to call.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure it was her who answered when I called.”

Suddenly Mike stops walking. “Damn, you know what? On Monday, Francine was acting real funky. She had attitude all up and down her face. And when I asked her what’s wrong, she tells me, ‘You know exactly what’s wrong, you liar.’ And I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about!”

“Well, I did notice that I got a couple of hang ups on my phone from a private caller the next day. You think she…”

“Francine is the queen of pulling stupid mess. She probably got ahold of my cell when I didn’t know it and forwarded my calls to her number. She probably figures I’m messing around, ’cause a bunch of my friends that tried to call were females.”

I giggle with amusement. “Can men and women be just friends, Mike?”

“You wanna know the truth? Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s gonna be a fuck naw. Men are always thinking about sex. The minute a man meets an attractive woman he’s figuring out if he can get in the panties. No man wants to be just a friend.”

“Mmmm, I find that hard to believe,” I say, my eyes glazing.

“Why’s that?” he says, craning his neck to stare at a cute Vietnamese woman wearing a thin line of sky blue eyeliner.

“Because,” I say loudly, irritated. “There are men that you meet who never make a move on you. You feel that they aren’t attracted to you. They don’t even try to kiss you, let alone try to have sex with you.”

“Awww, boo. That make you feel rejected?”

“Well,” I pout, “of course it does. Who doesn’t want to be desired?”

“Listen, little mama, don’t be upset just because a man may not want to do the nasty with you. That’s nothing. A man can have sex with any woman. So let me hip you up on something,” he says leaning in closer. “Sex just don’t matter. Now if the man wants to make you his wifey, that’s what’s up.”

I stare at Mike while he continues talking. And in those few seconds I realize that I have been undervaluing myself. I’ve been thinking that getting to have sex with my dream man equates the largest achievement in life. Horrifying! I barely want to think about it.

“Have you ever been married or engaged?” I ask.

“No, ma’am. Never will.”

“Why not?”

“My folks divorced when I was three. Daddy had four other kids by three women and two of his women weren’t black. Both my brothers divorced, and they are paying child support out the ass. One lives in a halfway house ’cause he can’t afford rent. The other can’t stand his ex and he hates women, doesn’t even have sex anymore. If marriage does that to people, destroys them to the point that a man can’t even raise his head proud ’cause his life is stripped away, I don’t want any part of it.”

I nod my head, realizing that men harvest deeper feelings about love, family, and sex than I thought. “I feel bad for your family, Mike, but just because…”

“No, Veron, I know what I want and what I don’t. I can live to be fifty without a wife, and they can call me gay as Richard Simmons, I don’t care.”

“So what do you want from life?”

“I love women, period. I want to find a chick that backs me, builds me up, and lets me be the man.”

“I hear you say you love women, but you don’t love them enough to give them your last name.”

“I don’t need to be married to have banging sex, to laugh with my woman, to take her out. That’s just how I feel, Vee.”

“But, Mike, a few minutes ago you just told me that marriage is honorable, more honorable than just having a sex partner…”

“Listen, I’m just not going to get married. It’s fine for other people, but if you do it, do it right. That’s all I’m saying. Make sure it’s with the right person for the right reasons. I guess more than anything, I haven’t experienced that yet. Don’t know if I ever will.” And he once again glances at another young woman, barely out of her teens, sporting some tight Apple Bottom jeans. He smiles for a second, but when he turns back to look at me, his face bears such a sullen, empty look, and my mouth can’t form anything appropriate to say to him.

But he speaks up. “Enough about me. How’s your love life going? You kicking ass and taking numbers?”

“Well,” I say feeling more relaxed, “one of the two.”

“Meaning?”

“A guy that I really like gave me his number. We both work for the city. Last week we hooked up and everything was cool,” I tell him, my voice tapering off.

“But?”

“But this week while at work he was oddly polite. Said hi to me. Made small talk. I mean like ‘how you enjoying this weather’ talk. It confused me. As if our date didn’t even happen.”

“Did he consider it a date, or is that just you?”

“Look, Mike,” I say, my face feeling warm with humiliation. “We ate at a restaurant.”

“Did he pick you up?”

I look down and don’t say anything.

“Veron, wake up. I hope you didn’t think that just because you meet up with a man and y’all chitchat and share a cup of coffee that that’s a date, especially if he hasn’t called you since.”

I place my hands over my ears. Mike removes my hands from my ears.

“Listen up, Vee, I know it’s hard to understand. But forget this dude. If he hasn’t followed up, he ain’t anybody to be following. Always let the man chase you.”

I swallow deeply, and my vision becomes cloudy. Why does this man mean so much to me when I barely know him? I really felt something special the other night and I can’t imagine that he didn’t.

With that Mike takes my shopping cart and says, “Okay, I’m helping you shop. Let’s go.”

I reach in my purse and hand him a lined sticky note that lists the specific items I need to purchase, and we go. Mike ventures down the aisles and waits for me to point out my preferred brand of confectioner’s sugar, cinnamon, and granulated sugar. When he’s done with the spices he continues rolling the cart and picks up two dozen eggs, opening the carton and making sure none of the eggs are cracked. On the produce aisle, he places carrots in my cart and then takes a deep breath and faces me.

“You really want this man?”

I nod vigorously.

“Then ignore him. Lose his number. Don’t talk to him at work. Always have something going on, like you don’t have time for him.”

“But that just feels so wrong, especially since I want to talk to him all the time!”

Mike reminds me of everything that I’ve told him about Ferris. “Remember that the more you ignored Ferris, hung up on him, and cussed his ass out, the more he called.”

I hate this, I hate the games. “Okay, I do remember that,” I finally agree. “But Ferris isn’t my guy.”

“You gotta treat your guy like he’s Ferris, though. I know it makes no sense and it’ll be harder than hell, but trust me on this one.”

We walk to the checkout line. Mike pays for all my groceries, walks me outside with them, loads them in my car, and then asks for my keys and starts the car for me.

“You make me feel like Demetria,” I tease him.

“If you wanna really feel like Demetria, treat that dude like you don’t give a damn about his ass.”