After The Dance (21 page)

You know, it was one of those upbeat “this here brother has got it going on” sort of pieces meant to inspire, if not make envious, those of us who ain’t quite there yet. So, never one to deny some hardworking dog his
props, when the newsfolk finally flashed the visuals, I glanced over, intending to give dude a quick thumbs-up, only to find myself sitting straight up and thinking to myself, “Say, I know this guy—”

Before I could even fully form the thought, the camera angle shifted ever so slightly and the sister at dude’s side, who just so happened to be my good neighbor and occasional bed buddy, Margaret Faye Abrahams, burst into clear view.

Yeah, she was looking quite the picture of contentment, cuddled all up against dude, while the two of them conversed with some other fake-looking couple.

Both my head and my heart started pounding something fierce as the real of why Faye hadn’t gotten back with me yet slowly sank in. Besides having access to a brother who owned more than his share of good looks and had obviously come into some serious bank, ol’ girl was far too busy hobnobbing with the upper crust to want to be bothered with the likes of some ol’ stale, tired, broke, regular-crust brother like me.

And who could blame her? It wasn’t like I had anything particularly special to offer Faye outside of infrequent companionship, a whole lot of talk, and an occasional good time in bed.

Yeah, man, I know. I’m supposed to play it hard, like I really don’t give a serious f—-. Like there’s plenty more coochie out there where that came from. But on the real money, no brother who’s got any kind of pride about himself ever wants to get caught coming in second—especially to some dude who underneath all the fancy wrapping ain’t nothin’ but a jerk.

Not wanting to add insult to injury by letting dude torment me in my own damn house, I clicked off the tube just as the a-hole was getting ready to deliver his well-rehearsed response to some supposedly off-the-cuff question. Afterward, man, I rolled over right there on the couch and fell
asleep, only to wake up a few minutes later in the middle of a nightmare—a nightmare about that fool laying up in my bed with my girl Faye, straight working her body into a frenzy with some of my doggone strawberries. If that in and of itself wasn’t bad enough, who do you think was standing up there next to the bed holding an empty fruit basket and looking right stupid?

After the party, girl, is when things really got interesting. I’d planned to leave the same way I’d come, bumming a ride in the backseat of Ray-Ray’s rim-spinning pimp mobile. But when Scoobie noticed me following Nora’s lead as she got ready to go, he pulled me aside and was like, “What’s your hurry? I was sort of looking forward to sitting down and talking with you after everyone had left.”

So I asked him, “Does that mean you’re planning on driving me home later or do you intend for me to stay the night?”

He assured me that all he wanted to do was talk and as far as anything else was concerned, according to him, we’d just play it by ear. Yeah, I know, girl, lame, huh?

And it wasn’t like he had me totally convinced of anything at that point. I just let curiosity get the best of me. I couldn’t help but want to see at what point he’d drop the good-guy masquerade and revert back to the hustling, hedonistic, “hurry up and give me some” Scoobie I knew and had grown to hate. The way I had it figured out, the sooner I gave homeboy an opportunity to really muck up, the sooner I could give him one last good cussing out for ol’ times’ sake and be on my merry little way.

When I peeped Nora to my plan to hang out with the
brother just a little while longer, she had the nerve to frown all up and say, “Why in the hell do you keep setting yourself up like this? You get a kick out of letting him play you or something?”

I told her to chill. I could handle it. I knew exactly what I was doing.

She was like, “Fine, but when your ass realizes otherwise, don’t come running to me for help, hear?” Girl, I was too intent on trying to uncover flaws in this new and improved Scoobie to be studying Nora.

Shortly after he saw his last guest out, Scoobie strolled over to the bar and poured us both a drink before joining me on the couch. On sitting down, he pulled this remote out of a small case on the table in front of us and with a series of clicks, dimmed the lights, switched on the gas-log fireplace, and activated the stereo.

And get this, after adjusting the volume on the Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. set he had crooning in the background, dude clinked his glass against mine and said, “Well, I guess it’s just you and me, babe.”

Rather than tell the brother I was going to need something a whole lot stronger than the high-priced sparkling spring water he’d poured into my glass if he was going to have me sweating in front of some durn fireplace, listening to the likes of Sammy, Dean, and Frank all night long, I just smiled and said, “Yes, I guess it is.”

He slid an arm around me, gave me a peck on the lips, then said, “You have a good time tonight?”

I told him the truth. “You did a nice job. Seriously, everything from the little talk you gave about your book, the food, the music, even the decor—deserved at least three stars.”

“Only three?” he said, pretending to be insulted. “And what could I have possibly done to have earned a fourth star in your book?”

Ignoring the swelling of the brother’s already big head—
and I do mean the one on his shoulders—I said, “Well, for one, you could have been just a tad more understanding about your young guest’s mishap with the vase. And two, you know how you were going out of your way to introduce me to everyone tonight as Dr. Abrahams? Well, I kind of prefer to just leave my title at the hospital. Really, when I’m not on the j-o-b, plain ol’ simple ‘Faye from around the way’ works best for me.”

He touched my face and was like, “You earned that title, baby. I say you ought to wear it proudly and as often as you’re able. Besides, ‘Dr. Abrahams’ has a certain ring of authority and power to it that to me is downright sexy.” With that, he leaned over and kissed me. I mean really kissed me, girl, like he used to way back in the day, okay? And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t stir just the teeniest bit of something within me.

But rather than let any of those old-time feelings get the best of me, I eased away from him, pulled myself together and said, “I thought you didn’t indulge in that sort of thing anymore.”

He said, “I don’t. At least, not to the extent to which I think you’re referring. I just didn’t want you to think that I’d forgotten how.” He caressed my lips with his bandaged finger and said, “I still know what you like, Faye, and I’m still very much capable of giving it to you.”

Given his arrogance, I couldn’t help but chuckle and say, “Well, now, is that a fact?”

“It is indeed,” he said in a tone that let me know he didn’t think there was anything funny about it either. Then he added, “But like I told you before, babe, all of that is going to have to wait.”

When I ventured to ask, “Until when?” his response was, “Until after you’ve decided where you want to go with this.”

I told him, “If the
this
you’re talking about is
us,
Scoobie, I’d have to say in large part that depends on you.”

That’s when he got up, walked over to the fireplace, and rooted through one of the large baskets decorating the hearth. He brought the small wooden box he’d pulled out of the basket over to the couch and placed it in my lap.

On opening the box, the first thing I saw was what looked like handwritten letters—some folded, some stuffed in envelopes. Scoobie pulled one from the bunch, handed it to me, and said, “Go ahead.”

I unfolded the stationery, took in the “Dear Scoobie” salutation, and immediately recognized the scrawl as my own. Yeah, girl, the box was full of, among other things, all the love notes, letters, cards, and things I’d given home-boy over the years.

He smiled and started reading from some mess I’d scribbled to him back when he had me believing our puppy love was the real thing, “My dearest, sweetest Venard. Words can’t express the depths of my love for you. Every night I pray that our hearts will always beat in sync—”

Even though I couldn’t help but laugh, I snatched the paper from him and said, “Stop! We were in the ninth grade. I’d dare say neither one of us knew any better.”

“Oh, I always knew,” Scoobie said, giving me that same look he’d given me right before he’d pressed his lips against mine and swept me back down memory lane.

“Knew what?” I said, shifting my gaze from his.

“That you were the one” is what he told me. “That you and I were destined to end up together. My mama knew too. In the years before she passed, she was always asking me, ‘Whatever happened to Faye? She was such a sweet girl. When you get ready to settle down, promise me you’ll look her up.’”

You know I started to roll my eyes and say something sarcastic, but in a glance I could tell, at least when it came to that part about his mama, the boy was being completely sincere.

He fished a bracelet out of the bottom of the box and asked me if I remembered it. Of course I did. It was the
bracelet I’d given him on his sixteenth birthday. The one I’d saved up for and bought with my allowance and babysitting money. I’d even gone so far as to have the durn thing engraved with both our names—Margaret and Venard—as well as the words “forever” and “always.”

Scoobie took my hand and guided my fingertips over the bracelet’s lettering. “I was thinking that maybe one day soon we could give this to our son.”

Since I didn’t trust myself to respond to that without getting emotional, I didn’t say anything. I just sat and listened as Scoobie made his plea. “I want another chance with you, Faye. I think we owe it to the child the Good Lord gave to us to at least try.”

All it took was one look at her face to know that I was all but done for. “I’m not sure how to say this” is what she sputtered after coming in and having a seat next to me on the sofa.

“You don’t have to say it” is what I told her, hoping to spare us both the pain and embarrassment of an “it’s me, not you” speech. I said, “I already know. I saw you on TV with him the other night. Isn’t he some big-shot chef who works for the rich and the famous and lives in some big-ass mansion on the hill?”

“It wasn’t something I planned, Carl,” she said, sounding genuinely remorseful.

“I thought it was over between you two” is what I told her. “I thought you weren’t in love with him. So what happened? You spent the night with him and some of those old-time feelings that you didn’t even know you had resurfaced, or something?”

She said, “It’s not what you think. I haven’t slept with him or anything. We’ve just been talking, really, about a lot of different things. And after thinking long and hard about some of those things, I’ve decided that it might be best if I tried to work it out with him.”

Feeling like I’d just been kicked in the stomach, I said, “I see.” But not wanting her to know just how bad she’d hurt me, I tried to be smooth with it. I said, “So I guess this means I don’t get my third time at bat, huh?”

She stared down at a spot in the carpet, shook her head, and said, “Carl, did you hear anything I just said?”

I stood up and looked her in the eyes. “Sure, I heard you,” I told her, “and that’s fine. Go on. Be with him. I just don’t see why that means I’ve got to be cheated out of my third strike, is all.” Then I kissed her, and to my surprise instead of pulling away or going passive, she responded in kind.

But as soon as I made a move to draw her closer, she said, “Don’t do this, Carl. It’s only going to make it harder.”

Rather than go for the obvious joke about it already being hard, I told her, “I don’t see how. It’s just a game, remember? And we’re both adults.” When she didn’t say anything, I eased up off her, sat back down, and said, “Is this how you’re gonna play it? You tell me one thing and then you up and change the rules and go and do another?”

She looked toward the door like she knew she really ought to be leaving, but when I tugged on the one hand of hers that I was still holding, she sat down with me. Before I could say anything she reached over, stroked my cheek, and said, “This isn’t at all how I thought things would work out, Carl.”

Man, now you know that was all the doggone incentive a brother needed. I buried my face against her neck and as I worked my hand beneath the back of her blouse, I told her, “Right now, right now, baby, all I want to hear from you is whether you’re going to abide by the rules and play this thing with me all the way through the end or not?”

Rather than put forth any type of resistance, she went along with my advances—from my fingers on her breasts to my tongue’s persistent forays between her lips. It wasn’t until she heard me fumbling with my belt buckle that she muttered so much as a single word of protest. “Carl,” she said, “if you think this is going to change anything, you’re wrong.”

I drew her hand against the bad boy in my pants, who at that point was all but begging to be let out, and I told her, “Baby, I just want my third strike. That’s all I’m asking.”

She ran her palm up and down my pride and joy a couple times before she searched my eyes and said, “And you promise you won’t try to make any waves afterward?”

“Not a one,” I said, knowing that she knew doggone well at that point I would have promised her near ’bout anything.

Yeah, girl, I wanted it. Ain’t no use in me trying to pretend otherwise. I did tell him I wanted to take a shower first, to which his laugh-riddled response was, “Dag, girl, I’ll be dog if you ain’t the cleanest woman I’ve ever met.”

So anyway, I’m in the shower, right? And I guess I’m taking too long for him, because before I know anything he’s jerked back the curtain and is stepping in to join me.

“What?” he said when I reached for the shower curtain and used part of it to cover myself. “We’ve been together twice already, remember? It’s not like we haven’t seen one another in the buff before.”

“Carl, I was almost done. Do you mind?” is what I asked, even though what I really wanted to say was,
Excuse me,
but if you think I’m the kind of girl who’s going to play out some triple-X sex in the shower fantasy scene with you, you’ve got me pegged all wrong.