Vulnerable (3 page)

“Now you're tryna insult me. Who don't know who Monica is!”

“Who is
Monica?”

“Monica!” Her head moved in a circular motion to give emphasis to her meaning.

“But
who
is Monica?”

“Girlfriend went down on the president.”

For a split-second the classroom went completely silent. A student in the back of the classroom, with nothing to lose, blurted out a surprisingly calm, “Wow!”

The comment got a rise out of the students. They all broke out in effusive giggles. One student, whom Rawn vaguely recognized as a student even enrolled in his class, yelled out, “The president up in the House gettin' blow jobs…” A series of high-fives followed. In terms of classroom discussion, it was the most feedback Rawn had ever gotten from this class of would-be underachievers. The reaction produced a wide grin from Rawn. Unconsciously pleased, he stood in the front of the classroom observing their strange elation, and he sensed a level of renewed hope. There was a palette of potential sitting before him. With his arms crossed, new ideas began to take root.

A young girl raised her hand and exclaimed, “And Monica got her own lipstick. I mean, it ain't
her
lipstick, but she made it celebrity. I mean, like, Club Monaco sold out 'cause she wo' it in a interview. She got some game.”

With a nod Rawn said, “Okay, okay.” While his eyes rested on Lakeisha, he was speaking to the entire class when he said, “Since you seem to know something about Monica Lewinsky, let's discuss Monica Lewinsky and the president. But let's look at it from more than the salacious perspective.”

“What salacious mean?” Jamaal asked no one in particular.

“Duh!” Twisted said. “Like sexy, man.
Yo!”

“Come on, like ain't that what the whole thing was about? Sex and some damn dress with yuk stains on it?” said a female student seated in the rear of the classroom.

“That's actually a practical question. Your name again?”

The student, wearing braces on her teeth, grinned. “Shanequa.”

“Yes, Shanequa. But no, there's much more to Monica Lewinsky and the president than a dress and lipstick and all that other sensational—‘sexy'—stuff. I want us to look at the multifaceted issues—the subtext—surrounding Monica Lewinsky and the president…”

“Like
whu?”
The student shrugged flippantly.

Rawn sat at the edge of his desk, captivated. “Like politics.”

Fourteen Months Earlier

I
t was a slow and quiet Saturday and steady rainwater fell over Crescent Island. Rawn waited in Café Neuf hoping that it would lead to light drizzle—spit, they called it in the Pacific Northwest. He nursed the end of an iced coffee while he caught up on some reading he had put off during the school year. A sensuous, striking woman entered Café Neuf. She had take-notice features and was model tall, although not too tall, slender, with a delicate yet visible cleft in her chin, and seductive olive-colored eyes. She wore a silk pimento-colored all-weather coat cut less than an inch above the knee, and her shoulder-length hair was damp and limp.

Perturbed, she said loud enough for Rawn to hear, “Dammit!”

Jean-Pierre rushed up to greet the woman making a miniature puddle at the entrance of his popular bakery-café.
“Bonjour, bonjour. Vous désirez quelque chose? Une table, oui?”
Jean-Pierre was a handsome, stunted man with dabs of gray in his thick coal-colored hair. Next to the woman, she towered over him. Rawn guessed she was a regular because typically Jean-Pierre slipped in and out of French to those he knew, either by face or by name.

“It started pouring!”

“Oui-oui,
the weather…” the baker said, and he shrugged. “You take-away?”

“No, Jean-Pierre. I don't have an umbrella. And I didn't mean
to snap. I could afford to relax.
Oui, une table.”
Her pouty mouth shaped into a quiet smile.

“Après moi, mademoiselle.”

He pulled out a chair at a table next to Rawn's.

The tables at Café Neuf were intimately positioned, and having a private conversation was next to impossible without someone eavesdropping. It was the bakery-café's most noted appeal. Rawn had overheard his share of Crescent Island gossip.

The wet woman flopped in the chair and exhaled her breath like she was fed up and plain disgusted.

“Un
café au lait?”

“No, Jean-Pierre. Something forbidden. Something—I'll have a brevé-latte. Oh, and Jean-Pierre, sprinkle a mixture of nutmeg and cinnamon,
un peu, s'il vous plaît.
And make it a double, and dry.”

“Certainement, mademoiselle.
I know how you like your
forbiddu.”
Jean-Pierre's grin revealed a pair of crooked, tobacco-stained teeth.

“By the way, Jean-Pierre, how's Imani?”

“Bon,
good!”

Jean-Pierre left hurriedly. The woman, whose entrance shifted the energy in the room, could sense Rawn's eyes judging her.

“What?” she stated. A quizzical brow lifted.

The corners of his mouth curved a bit. He reached for his iced coffee and took a sip. The sound of the last drop of liquid oozing through a straw broke their stare, and he returned to his book.

“You think it's funny?”

Rawn knew the remark was directed at him, but he was not necessarily in the right state of mind to deal with this uptight white woman in a bad mood.

“It's not funny!” she declared.

He let a few seconds slip by before he turned to look at her. “Have we started a conversation?”

“Excuse me?
No!”
She frowned.

“So…exactly who are you talking to?” Unbeknownst to him, intrigue began to play out between him and the wound-too-tight woman. Rawn looked closer at her. He was amused by the fact that she behaved liked a spoiled child unable to get her way.

In a casual demeanor she looked over her shoulder at the unusually empty bakery-café, seeking out a patron or two. “I spent three hours in Gene Juarez.” She combed her fingers through her moist hair to stress her point. “And these are two-hundred dollar shoes! Look, now they're ruined.” When she inhaled deeply, her small nostrils flared.

Rawn took a fleeting glimpse at the scarlet suede mules, but his eyes lingered on the woman's long, bronze-colored legs. Although casually dressed, she was classy, even if she acquired it somewhere along the way. Her style was more East Coast; definitely not Pacific Northwest.

“Voilà, mademoiselle.
You like something more?” asked Jean-Pierre.

Rawn observed Jean-Pierre closely. The baker was obsequious toward the woman; his authentic French charm was overkill. Granted, the customer was striking and mysterious, but her body language alone insinuated she was like many beautiful women—insecure.

“No,
merci
,” she said.

She did not bother to meet Jean-Pierre's kind gray-blue eyes. She dismissed him by sipping her brevé-latte with her back to him. The café owner glanced over to Rawn, shrugged with that audible turndown mouth so characteristic of the French, and with a wink, left their tables. The woman took off her rain-soaked coat and reached for a cellular in the pocket. She dialed a number, waited while she drummed her French manicured nails against the stunning wood table, and it was obvious she received no answer. Exasperated,
she exhaled deeply and made another call. Because she was not getting an answer, her frustration was all the more demonstrative. The whole scene—her behavior—was dramatic, like her entrance, and Rawn sensed the mysterious lady was putting on a show for his benefit.

When he closed his book, he watched her while she examined her reflection in a compact mirror. Her deep cinnamon-colored hair with wheat and straw highlights, thick and bluntly cut to meet her broad shoulders, started to turn into wiry curls. While a white woman was not his type, there was no doubt Rawn was curious who she was. Did she live on Crescent Island or was she passing through? He had seen some fine white women, to be sure. But Rawn was naturally drawn—and soulfully connected—to women of color.

Coincidentally, he had a conversation about that very thing a few days ago. He and his good friend and colleague, Sicily, were roaming through shops at Bellevue Square Mall. Let Sicily tell it, every other couple in the mall was mixed. In general, she would get worked up when she saw a black man with a white woman, and Rawn told her: “You're overreacting, Sicily.”

“It's not like a black man can't find a black woman. Come on, everywhere I go in Seattle I
see
black women. You'd think there was some kind of shortage. I've met plenty of black women here. It's raining single black women in Seattle. But what can they do? There are sisters that will always be alone in this town.”

“Come on, Sicily. Aren't you being a bit dramatic…parochial?”

“Statistics don't lie. Besides, you're a man. It doesn't affect you.”

“Why should you care? I mean, you don't want those men anyway.”

“Thank Goddess you aren't into white women.”

He finished what was left of his cold espresso. Standing, Rawn said to the woman in a sullen mood, “Take care.” He headed for the French doors leading out of the café.

With a slight turn of her head, the mysterious woman stated in a quiet voice, “You, too.” Through her compact mirror, her soothing olive-colored eyes traced his exit. She attempted to be discreet yet wanting to get a closer look.

From the time he left Café Neuf until he reached his front door, Rawn thought about the woman in a bitchy mood, with her ruined two-hundred-dollar shoes and stylish pimento-colored, all-weather jacket—her long legs and silky, thick hair. Rawn, unconsciously, thought about her for days.

S
icily was tired. The day was way too long. Not to mention she was still feeling a sense of betrayal by her always-reliable empathy. She had a knack for contemplation. She was not the melodramatic type. An hour ago, while sitting in end-of-day traffic, Sicily reflected back on the afternoon. She could imagine what she might have looked like, not to mention how she may well have sounded, to the other members of the board. She came
this close
to speaking her mind at the monthly board of directors meeting. By now she knew full well her ideas—which were brilliant—and suggestions were going to be pooh-poohed. She did not personalize it, though. According to the board's president, her contribution was “very valuable” and “very creative,”
but,
Sicily,
where will we get the funds?
always followed. Not only did Sicily bring her
name
to the board, she was headmistress of a top predominately all-white private school. But even with a Ph.D., she knew deep down that was not enough. There were two black male professionals—a computer game designer and a software entrepreneur—but she was the only black female on the board. For that very reason she tried to maintain a reasonably composed demeanor, because if she was not mindful, her homegirl façade could slip, easily.

Whenever the high-profile
brothers
leaned forward and offered any “input,” rarely were their ideas “tabled.” It might come as a surprise should she have shared this tidbit with any one of her friends, seeing as how the common thinking was that black women
had it easier in the business world more so than black men.
Was that some urban myth?
So when Sicily recommended something she considered vital, and the board president said yet again, “Where will we get the funds?,” Sicily sighed, pushed her seat away from the desk and stormed out of the meeting. She was sick and tired of hearing
Where will we get the funds?
The hierarchy of the board earned serious six figures. They certainly took home a good chunk of change more than Sicily. Half the members rubbed elbows with wealthy people who had their names on buildings or donors with hospital wards named after them. Sicily had no lifeline. In more ways than one, she was in a lonely place.

She tossed her silk pashmina to the plump polyester sofa. With her arms crossed over her chest, she bowed her head, unable to shake her anxiety. Sicily looked out at the close of another day—cool, breezy, and a trickle of late-day sunshine. There were three, sometimes four days before she saw even a hint of sunbeams, and at times the bleakness of the days made her nearly lose her mind. Yet Seattle had finally started to feel like home. More than Philadelphia. More than Manhattan. She made some discoveries about herself and she liked what she uncovered in this—what her brother called “way up in the Boondocks town!” It took a minute, but meditation really helped her to be
still.
Besides, she could not go back to Philly. Not now. And New York? That's what drove her to relocate to the Pacific Northwest in the first place. Taking a deep breath, she flopped in the sage-colored armchair. Her living room and dining room faced Elliott Bay; her bedroom and spacious bathroom looked out over Pioneer Square. That kind of view did not come cheap. No, she worked too bloody hard. Seattle was home now.

She loved the Pacific Northwest backdrop this time of year; especially Seattle: in between a gentle summer and the traces of a
serene autumn. “But I'm lonely.” Her eyes bulged. The sound of her own voice ricocheted off her ears. Sicily was taken aback.
Did I say that aloud?
She certainly did not mean to. Verbally putting it out there meant that she was consciously aware that she was indeed lonely. If it stayed in her head, it was only a thought, not necessarily a reality. When was the last time she did not have a serious conversation with a woman who was not lonely? Her life could be busy as all get-out, but she knew.
She knew.
When Sicily passed women on the street, in their faces she witnessed the loneliness, the sorrow, the regret, the lack of something unnamable in her life. These were women from a myriad of socio-economic backgrounds. When women wept from an empty place, color, class and education had little to do with it.