Dare to Love (10 page)

Even though she not my type, I still feel satisfaction that she like me. I’m wearing jeans and a long sleeve Ralph Lauren jersey stretch tight across my muscles. I decide to turn on the charm and enjoy the night.

I let my hand touch hers when I give her the drink. She don’t miss the intention. She give me a big encouraging smile. She have nice teeth, small and white and even. I like her teeth. She have nice lips too, not as plump and fleshy as Jeanette’s but softer than Mel’s. She look like she wearing a corset.

‘You work out, don’t you?’ She squeeze my left bicep.

I always wonder how women think they can just feel up a man when they want. If we do the same they slap our face, call their man or threaten to report us to the police for harassment.

I can tell she like what she see; like what she feel. I check out her hips, about three times Mel’s. She would take some handling, but I’m up to the job, taken on bigger. I just don’t think I want to be working so hard for two years, and God knows what kind of appetite she have. She could have me as a sex slave; threaten to turn me in if I don’t service her. I wouldn’t mind being a sex slave, but not hers.

Roxanne call us into the dining room.

‘Oh my what a spread!’ shriek Sophia.

‘Real plates and wine,’ Tyrol says, ‘you guys should feel honoured.’

There’s so much food on the table. That’s one of the things I don’t like about New York. People waste so much food. There’s enough ribs, chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, rice, noodles and crackers to feed us three times over. Roxanne will throw the leftovers in the garbage. She never used to be like that, used to only buy what she need.

‘Grant, you’re there, Sophia, you’re there, Tyrol, here, Cora, there and Courtney, there.’

‘Oh I get to sit next to you, Grant! Isn’t that sweet?’ She sound pleased. I know Roxanne arrange it that way, so does Sophia.

Tyrol say grace; thank the Lord for the food, for the means to provide it, for family, for friends, for his love and grace. We all say ‘Amen’.

Sophia talk about her business.

‘It was busy today, black heads never stopped coming all day.’

‘Guess you should be happy business so good in a recession.’

‘Wait up though, they’re not having the expensive treatments, no weaves or twists or human braids. Too many wash and cut and simple relax. Black women trying to look good on the cheap.’

‘At least you still have them coming through the door,’ Roxanne say.

‘Can I have my hair relaxed at Sophia’s Mom?’ Cora ask.

‘When you’re older baby’

‘What’s wrong with now?’

‘Might damage your roots.’

‘If you ask me it might damage your roots any age you are,’ Tyrol say.

‘That’s why nobody asking you.’ Sophia give him a “don’t knock my livelihood” look.

He look at me for help. I point to my shaved head. ‘Don’t have any roots to damage.’ Everybody laugh, like I cracked a big joke on stage. In a way, I’m the star of the show, the one everybody come to see.

I let my arm touch Sophia’s when they move to another topic. She press back to let me know. I wonder if she feeling anything because I’m not. No rushing in my pulse, no tingling on my skin, no stirring in my boxers. Maybe I just have to work on it, after all, I just meet her.

They eat fast. The girls want to get back to their TV show. Their parents excuse them. There’s a bit of paperwork Roxanne and Tyrol have to attend to urgently – won’t take more than and hour. Me and Sophia both know they leaving us alone to get to know each other.

‘If we’re going to get to know each other you have to come spend some time with me.’ She say quite matter of fact.

‘I guess that make sense.’ I’m trying to figure how that going to work. ‘How you see that working?’ Might as well ask.

‘I have a spare room, come and stay by me for a week, see how I live, see how I work.’

‘I’m still on these jobs. How…’

‘You can use my car. I can walk to work.’ She slap her thigh, laugh. ‘Might do me good.’

Silence.

‘How come a good looking woman like you not married?’

‘Never found the right man, I guess.’

‘Let me get this straight; this is a business arrangement right?’

‘Sure is, but if the mood takes us, and we both feel the same way, nothing stopping us having a little fun along the way.’ She wink at me, like she playing with me.

‘I have to talk to Roxanne and Tyrol, about the work and everything.’

‘Sure hon, wouldn’t expect any different.’

‘You been in New York long?’

‘All my life, Brooklyn born and bred. Mind if I have a sneaky smoke?’

‘We have to go outside. Roxanne don’t…’

‘I know, just out the back here, where it won’t blow back in the house on the girls.’

I stand with her as she take a deep drag on her cigarette. I purposely tell Roxanne I don’t like smokers. Like she read my thoughts, she say, ‘Only once in a blue moon.’ I look up at the sky. She laugh. ‘I like your sense of humour.’

One week isn’t enough to get to know someone. Both of you on your best behaviour, both of you showing what you want the other person to see and trying to hide everything else.

Sophia have a nice first floor apartment in a converted house. It bigger than my house, square footage wise. Master bedroom with bathroom, big high spec kitchen, quality bathroom with power shower and bidet. Living room with flat panel TV, cream leather suite that you just sink into, cream rugs on hardwood floor. In fact, the whole apartment is like a giant cream marshmallow, quiet and padded.

As soon as I see the apartment I have two questions for her.

How she see children fitting into all this white?

Why she doing this cause it don’t look like she need the money?

‘We can cover over the sofas, buy different colour rugs and paint the walls if we need to.’ I notice the “we” but let it pass. ‘Secondly,’ she continue, ‘things aren’t always what you see.’

‘So tell me cause I’m not seeing a need just from looking.’

‘I’ll tell you if we agree the deal.’ She look uncomfortable.

‘Let me get this straight, you know everything about me before the deal but I get to know about you after the deal?’

‘Well, it’s personal. If you say no then you take all that information with you.’

‘My business is very personal too.’

‘Shall we just see how this week goes?’

There’s still a lot you can learn about a person even when they trying to hide things. Like how trusting she is handing her car keys over to me every day. Like how she like to cook for somebody at night, like how much of her time she spend in the salon, shopping for the salon, talking about the salon, the customers in the salon, the bills at the salon, plans for the salon. Like how jealous she can get if somebody else invite me to a party, even if its one of her friends from the salon.

The week goes quick. If I have a job and don’t have to spend too much time with her it could work. But if Darron have the spare room where she expect me to sleep? After a week I’m still not feeling it for her in that way.

I spend six weeks in New York, should be two month but Jeanette ring me to tell me she need some papers from me for the divorce. Look like she want to cut the ties pretty quick. I think her folks pushing her, telling her she can’t stay with a violent man. She don’t know how it hurt. One mistake. I bet she don’t tell them her part in it. Well, I’m going to need a divorce anyway if I want to take this thing with Sophia any further.

As the extensions finish, I tell Roxanne I need to go back. She want me to make a decision about Sophia. I tell her there’s still things I don’t know about her. She say there’s things Sophia don’t know about me.

‘Like what?’ I challenge her.

‘Like you’re living with some girl nearly half your age who might mess up the arrangements.’

‘It’s not really about Mel. What she hiding?’

‘Trust me Grant. I’m your sister and I care about you. It’s nothing big but I promised I wouldn’t disclose it until you made a decision to go ahead. I have to keep that promise. I like her Grant, she’d be good for you, give you a stable base to build a life here.’

I don’t say anything.

‘And she likes you.’

I look at my sister and wonder if she know me anymore. She want the best for me but I don’t think this is it.

She think the trip was a ‘huge success’. By that she mean Sophia can see herself married to me even if it’s by arrangement and she getting paid. She like the sound of my children, will be happy to look after Derrick and Marcie when they came to visit in the summer. Darron sound ‘delightful’.

I feel like this is a long computer date, where someone else did the matching. I wonder what system they used to put me and Sophia together when her profile read like this:

Name: Sophia McQueen

Age: 45 (but like to think I look younger)

Height: 5ft 6ins

Weight: 160 pounds

Eyes: Light brown

Skin: Light brown

Hair: I’m a hairdresser so it changes often, braids, weave, twists, relaxed

Occupation: Business woman (owns hairdressing salon)

Hometown: New York

Current Home: New York

Travelled to: California, Miami, Orlando

Interests: Hair, beauty, eating, dieting, eating. Partying occasionally if I believe the right kind of man is going to be there.

Looking for: Man to marry, will consider arrangement for a fee. Will respect arrangement unless he happens to look fit and has the ability to earn good money. In that case I will be possessive, demanding to know where he’s going and with whom whenever he’s not with me.

Special skills: I’m very good with children. I would have loved some of my own. Happy to look after yours.

And mine like this.

Name: Grant Spencer

Age: 36 (but lately looking older due to stress)

Height: 5ft 10ins

Weight: 165 pounds

Eyes: Dark brown

Skin: Dark

Hair: Shaved

Occupation: Civil Engineer, Quantity Surveyor, Construction Site Manager

Hometown: Guyana

Current home: Silver Hill, Barbados

Travelled to: United States, Canada, Jamaica, St. Kitts

Interests: My children, football (passionate about it) cricket, track and field, partying, y wife.

Looking for: A job so I can take care of my children, less pressure from my children’s mothers.

Special skills: Football, I play a mean game of snooker. I’m a loyal friend.

By the time I land back at Grantley Adams Airport, I still don’t know what to do. But it’s hot, life is slower, I have some money in the bank, can stop relying on Mel so much. And for now its home.

Two weeks later, I get another call from Jeanette. They suspect Marcie have sickle cell. She need some urgent test. She need money. I feel like I’m in a giant game of snakes and ladders and I just gone back to square one.

Grant

I tell Mel I’m going to shoot some pool. Truth is, the house stifling me. I’m here all
day. I take Mel to work, wait for her call, pick her up. I chase HR managers, chase contractors I give quotes to. I’m trying to go it on my own, set up as self employed. I get cards printed. Surveying and Construction Services. Make myself look as versatile as possible. I’m a Managing Director. It look good, it take money to print the cards and I don’t get a single job from them yet.

I find myself sipping on too many Hennessey and coke. I need to do something, but I have to watch the dollars. On the way to pool, I realise I don’t want to spend time with guys. I need some female company, need to feel a woman in my arms who’s not paying my bills, somebody who don’t want anything but a dance. I think about the Gap but it expensive, full of tourists and the clubs full of young people. After spending so much time with Darron and Mel, I feel like being with people my own age.

Then I remember The Plantation. Is a while since I go there. Is twenty dollars to get in but it won’t be full of seventeen year olds trying to look like twenty-five and still sounding like fifteen. Don’t want to meet my son’s friends. I can relax and enjoy the music, get one or two dance and forget everything for a few hours.

I’m at the bar chatting to a man I used to manage on my last project when I see three women walk in. They’re definitely women, the way they carry themselves, straight, elegant, confident. One wearing a pair of tight white pants and a pink top. She have a nice arse. One in a orange strapless dress, nice shoulders. But there’s something frisky about the one in the very high heels and the short grey rara skirt. Something about the way she swing her hips, about the way her skirt swish from side to side. She have on a tight black see through top and long curly braids to the centre of her back. Sophia flash in my head. The hairstyle not cheap. This woman have class but she dress for fun.

I watch them try a few tables before they find the one with a good view of the floor. A good sprinkling of couples on it doing ballroom dancing to the old time music. I sip my drink and wait to see if any man join them. I watch her go to the bar with the one in the white pants. She have athlete’s legs, strong and muscular. I like the way she move her hips, like her little waist. I can tell from her arms, her shoulders, her back that she work out. I pray she not with a man. ‘Dear God be nice to me tonight. I need a break.’ I take another sip of my Hennessey and coke, scan the room for the exits in case a jealous man show up at some point.