Can I Get An Amen? (28 page)

One side of his face tightened a bit. “Through the grapevine.”

As he spoke, I noticed a small, framed photo on the table next to the lamp. It was Mark standing between an older couple and a black woman, who looked a little younger than me, with high, full cheeks.

“That’s my family,” he said, following my eyes. “My sister Ebele is adopted.”

I studied the faces of his family. “You look like your dad,” I said. His parents were old hippies. His father had a bushy beard and Mark’s knowing, wise brown eyes. His mother had long gray hair that was parted down the middle and pulled back into a ponytail. They stood flanking their children with beaming smiles, looking proud and healthy and carefree.

“Yeah, I think I’m starting to look like the old guy.” He smiled fondly at the picture. “That photo was taken the last time I was home.”

“Do you still think of Africa as home?”

He considered it for a moment. “Not really, I guess. I’ve been in the States for a long time.” He paused before adding, “I definitely don’t plan on moving back.”

I nestled in closer to him, more relieved than I expected.

He shifted to face me and put his hands on either side of my head, looking almost troubled. “You are so beautiful, Ellen.”

I felt something rise from my heart into my throat, almost choking me with emotion. Shifting onto my knees, I slowly drew one leg over him. He sank back on the couch and looked up at me. Straddling his lap, I felt my heart race. He let out a long, slow breath. I kept my eyes focused on his as I took his hand and brought it to my lips, feeling its rough texture, feeling him beneath me. He ran his hands down my body, between my breasts, over my stomach, until both palms came to rest on my hips. I leaned down and kissed him, my hair falling on either side of our faces like a curtain. His body lifted into mine; I pressed down on him. Our exhalations were mingling, twisting, our kisses becoming more urgent. It felt inevitable, unstoppable, as our feelings built. And then a dull, anemic-sounding kitchen timer rang with nagging insistence from the other room.

His lips paused but did not leave mine. “Dinner’s ready,” he said into my mouth.

I pulled back reluctantly. “Dinner, huh?”

He straightened himself up. “I better…”

“Yeah,” I said, swinging my leg off him, unreasonably, illogically disappointed. “Let me help you.”

. . .

Since Mark’s dining room was occupied by a weight bench, we brought the spread into his living room and ate sitting on the floor around his coffee table.

“Oh my God,” I said, covering my still-full mouth with my hand as I chewed my first bite of the lamb. “This is delicious. I can’t believe you made this.” There were almonds and raisins and tender hunks of lamb that pulled apart in succulent shreds. It tasted like an incantation of the exotic, the sensual, and conjured up colors, warm and dense and saturated. I sopped up some of the sauce with a piece of a flat, naan-like bread.

“I can’t believe the lamb was actually edible,” he said, smiling, his modesty ever present. “The last time I made it, the meat was like rubber bands.”

I let my fork skate over my plate, scooping up another bite of lamb, some couscous. “Your mom cooks like this?” I asked.

“Sometimes. But she used to make American food, too. Whenever I go home, she always gives me a shopping list from the States, things that she misses.”

Nodding, I thought about the flavors and tastes that were home to me, the foods I would miss if I found myself a world away. It wasn’t about a food being good or bad, just familiar, nostalgic. “Like what?” I asked.

“Like grated Parmesan cheese. Bottled ranch dressing. Nilla Wafers.”

“Oh, I hate Nilla Wafers,” I said, laughing. “They remind me of Sunday school.”

“You hate Nilla Wafers?” he asked in disbelief, pretending to take it as a personal affront.

“I can’t even look at the box.”

“Well, so much for dessert,” he joked.

I blushed even before I spoke. “I have something else in mind for dessert.” Realizing that I had just resorted to the most clichéd of seductions, I looked shyly down at my plate. Now, of course, I wish I had forced myself to look at Mark. I wish I had seen his reaction.

All through the meal, as we were loosened by the wine, the food, the conversation, our bodies kept finding their way back to each other. Mark’s palm would rest on my thigh; I would brush my foot against his. Each time, I felt the charge that I had always heard about.
It’s like sparks,
I had heard women say, never really knowing what they meant. Now I understood. And in my bones I knew that tonight was going to be important.

After the meal, we lingered around the table, leaning back on our hands and extending our legs. It was a delicious interlude before what we both knew was coming next, an anticipation that would make everything that much more pleasurable.

Finally Mark reluctantly gathered his body up and stood. I followed suit, picking up the plates and silverware that were scattered over the table.

“I’ll do the dishes,” I offered as I set the pile down into the sink and turned on the water. Standing in front of the sink in the bright white kitchen was a shock to my senses. I blinked my eyes to adjust, feeling like I had been abruptly jolted from a blissful sleep.

From behind me, Mark set down a few more dishes, then reached and turned off the water. “I’ll get them later,” he said as he brought his hand around my lower stomach and pulled me into him.

And that was it. I turned and our lips met furiously. His hands ran up my shirt over my bare back, leaving a trail of heat. I let my fingers snake through his thick hair.

“Let’s go to your room,” I whispered.

Without a word, he swept his arm beneath my legs and I was being carried. He set me down on a soft, white bed in a sparse room. He was instantly on top of me and I felt his weight melting into my body. I pulled off my shirt. He sat up and looked at me, running his fingertips over my breasts, breathing my name. The moon looked almost full and was huge outside the bedroom window, flooding the room with light through the rice-paper shades. And then he was on me again, his hands sliding underneath my back and unhooking my bra. I lifted his shirt over his head and gasped as I let myself feel his warm skin on mine, chest to chest. I felt desperate to have him inside me; I needed to feel that again. I needed to feel that from him. I worked open the button of his jeans, and he hesitated only for a second before slipping them off. His body was amazing, the way it looked, the way it fit into mine.

“I want to be with you,” I whispered as I unzipped my own pants, hooking my thumbs along the waist and pushing them off my hips.

His body instantly tensed and he rolled to his side, looking at me with a silent plea. Our eyes remained locked as I tried to slide off my panties, a final dare. His hand met mine, holding it in place. “Ellen,” he said with a new gravity in his voice.

“What is it?” I asked, trying to hide the panic in my voice, feeling the physical sensation of all my suppressed fears being freed.

He broke our gaze and reached for my hand. “I just… can’t let this go too far.”

I took a sharp, painful breath and held it, nodding with pursed lips and reaching for my clothes.

“Ellen, please,” he said, trying to hold me in place. “Just sit. I need to explain. I should have explained a long time ago.”

I wriggled free. With my back to him, I stood and pulled up my jeans. “You really don’t need to explain.”
I’ve known this was coming all along,
I thought. He didn’t need to verbalize it. I knew why he didn’t want me. He was too good a man to sleep with me when he knew we had no future. I fumbled awkwardly for my bra, trying to cover my body.

He was buttoning his pants. “I
do
need to explain. Please, Ellen.”

Don’t say the words,
I thought.
Just don’t say it out loud.
I wanted to get out of the room without having to endure hearing him tell me the same things that Gary had.

He blocked the door with his arm.
“Ellen,”
he pleaded, trying to meet my eyes. “Just
listen
to me. I don’t understand why you won’t listen. There are just some things you need to know.”

Unable to look at him, I squeezed my eyes shut to keep the tears at bay. “I have to go,” I said as I pushed past him.

He followed me down the hall.

Slipping into my shoes, I grabbed my bag and coat in a bundle and held them in front of me. Mark stood next to the front door. I gripped the brass knob. He extended his hand across the door to keep it shut. “Don’t leave, Ellen.”

“I’m so sorry, Mark,” I said, then yanked the door open. I knew that I should stay and hear him out, but I just couldn’t bear it.

As I hurried down the walkway to my car, I heard his fist slam into the wall, once, twice, and then a third time. Only once the car was started in reverse did I let myself look up at him. He was sitting in the doorway, shirtless in the December cold, with his head in his hands.

H
e called me three times on the way home. With my phone lying in the passenger seat, I watched his name light up on the screen through the dark. I was right, I had always been right, and I felt the hollow, aching satisfaction of knowing it. Everyone had set me up with their empty encouragement and false hopes, their talk-show platitudes about love and grace and understanding. But I knew what would happen.

Though it was only half past nine, my parents’ house was dark when I pulled up, with even the exterior lights turned off. It looked uninhabited compared to the neighbors’, whose front doors still glowed with welcome. My footsteps echoed uncomfortably on the stone floor in the kitchen, so I walked with deliberate force through the house and up the stairs, making my presence known. But no one stirred.

I lay in bed, unable to sleep, for what felt like hours. Letting myself relive those few blissful moments with Mark, I
remembered the sensation of his bare chest against mine. It couldn’t hurt, I decided, as I allowed my hand to slip down my stomach, mimicking his. Only then did I sleep.

By the time I woke up, the house was empty again. I must have missed the morning clatter of Aunt Kathy and my mother as they prepared for the day, and of my father reading the paper at the kitchen table while eating his standard Saturday morning fare of a bagel, yogurt, and a cup of coffee. There was not a dish in the sink, the TV was off, and mail wasn’t scattered over the kitchen counter. Everything was static, still, and quiet.

Finally dialing into my voice mail, I listened to Mark’s message. Though he had called a total of five times, he had left only one voice mail. “Ellen, it’s Mark.” He sounded exhausted. “Please call me. I want to try to explain things.” And I could almost hear him say it; I could almost hear him telling me that I was great, really great. And that he hoped we could be friends, or even more. He just wanted me to know where he stood before things got too serious, before I got too attached.

. . .

“You realize that you could be totally wrong,” said Jill as she sat cross-legged opposite me on her huge velvet sectional.

I shook my head. “I’m not wrong.”

“I think you should call him back.”

“Okay, Jill, let’s just say that you’re right,” I began, playing the devil’s advocate, “and that there is some other reason why he didn’t want to be with me. It doesn’t even really matter, because after I flew out of his house like there was an air raid, I might have set off some psycho alarms, don’t you think?”
That chick is
nuts.
Ted’s words echoed in my head. That was what he had said that night in the parking garage.

“I don’t know why you assume that
you
are the issue. Maybe it’s something about him.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe he has his own issues, Elle.”

I recalled Kat’s warning about how long he had to call me after our first date.
He has three days. Tops. If it goes longer than three days, then he has some weird baggage… like a wife and kids.

Jill read the expression on my face. “What?” she asked.

“I don’t know. His place is pretty spartan. It doesn’t even really look like he lives there. There isn’t a dining room table or anything. It’s like…”

Jill’s eyebrows lifted. “Like maybe his wife has it?”

No,
I thought. I couldn’t fathom that Mark—
Mark—
would have such a secret. This had to be about me. I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re done.”

Jill somberly considered this for a moment. “All right, if that’s how you feel, you’ve got nothing to lose anyway, so why not hear what he has to say?”

I imagined Mark’s handsome, guilt-ridden face as he struggled to tell me the truth. “I just don’t want to hear another man tell me that he doesn’t want to be with me. Not yet,” I said, shaking my head. “I just don’t want to know the reason why.”

Jill looked away and I waited for her to contradict me, to offer me salvation. After a few seconds of silence I changed the subject. “I have to go with my parents to this party at the Arnolds’.”

“Why do
you
have to go?”

I worked my foot underneath one of Jill’s throw pillows.
“Lynn invited me and so my mother begged me to accept. After the fiasco with Kat that night, my Mom’s being overly gracious.”

“Well, we’ll stalk the caterers with the passed hors d’oeuvres and shoot Parker dirty looks.”

“Wait—
you’re
going to be there?”

“I told you that.”

“No, you didn’t,” I said, marveling at Jill’s ability to omit critical information. I knew that she knew the Arnolds—
everyone
knew the Arnolds—but I had no idea she was going to be at the party.

She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, her shirt lifting enough to reveal the navy blue band at the waist of her designer maternity jeans. “Oh. Well, Greg’s father invested in Ed’s company way early on and they’ve known each other for years. Greg always goes, so this year I’m being roped into it.”

“Thank God,” I said, smiling genuinely for the first time all day. “That evening just got so much more bearable.”