“That’s where you’re wrong,” she says to me. “I have to. It was my accident. It was my fault. I ran that stop sign. I can’t let you pay for something I did wrong.”
She’s right. She’s absolutely right. “Okay,” I say. But she won’t like the terms.
But my decision to let go seems to lift yet another burden off of her. “Thank you. I wish I could pay back all of it at once,” she adds, “but I can’t. I don’t have it. But if you let me make monthly payments, I can swing it. It just depends on how much.”
“Give me twenty-five per month,” I say to her.
“Twenty five dollars?” she asks me. “That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“But how much is the bill?”
“I haven’t received it yet.”
“But you said it could be hundreds of dollars. If I only pay back twenty-five dollars a month, I’ll be paying back for . . . for . . .”
Her math, apparently, is as bad as mine.
“A long time,” she finally says. “It’ll have to be at least a hundred a month.”
“Can you afford that?” I ask her.
She can’t. I can see it in her eyes.
“I think so, yes,” she says instead.
“With all of your other bills? I don’t know if you know this, but Jericho is not a cheap town to live in.”
She knows it. I can see the sticker shock of this bedroom community in her eyes too. That’s why I stick to my guns. “Twenty-five a month,” I say. “We can increase it as your salary increases. But don’t bite off more than you can chew right now.”
She smiles. That sounds reasonable to her. “Yes, sir. Twenty-five a month it is. Beginning next month?” she asks me, and her eyes become circular, like she’s afraid I might not agree and want my twenty-five bucks right now.
But I already know her dire straits. I saw it with my own two eyes at the Hub. “Next month is fine,” I say to her and again, she smiles. As if another burden’s been lifted. Just like that.
“Anyway,” she says, “I’d better get my son to school and then get myself to work.”
“You started already?”
“Yes. Isn’t it great? She asked when I could start, and I told her right away. I got laid off from my previous job, and I told her I could start right then and there. So, she said come in tomorrow morning at nine. Which was yesterday. I started yesterday. I was thrilled.”
Yesterday. While I was fighting for my life in Boston, she was beginning a new part of hers. “I’m happy for you. Congratulations.”
She thanks me again for helping her, and turns to leave. And I’m standing there stuck in place. Because she’s leaving and I’m not satisfied. I want her to stay. I want to talk to this lady. I want to find out more about her, and what makes her tick. I want to get to know her.
Why I need to know her is beyond me. Yes, she’s attractive and sexy as all get out, and she’s moral too. But she also has baggage. And lots of it. She carries it around like a ton of bricks. Given my own baggage, what in the world do I need with hers?
But instead of letting her and her overstuffed suitcases walk on out, I call her back. “Renita,” I say to her. “Rain.”
She turns back around. “Yes?” she asks me.
For some reason I freeze. Do I really want to go down this road? “Where does that come from?” I ask her instead.
She stares at me. She’s confused as hell. “Excuse me?”
“Your nickname. Rain, instead of Renita. Who gave you that nickname?”
“Oh.” She smiles. She gets it now. “My mother.”
“Really? But why Rain? It’s not exactly a short version of Renita.”
“I know. But my mother seems to think that all her troubles started when I was born. She said I brought the rain. She said I took away her sunshine and brought the rain.”
What? Her mother told her that? Damn. That’s some heartbreaking shit.
When I’m just staring at her, probably looking like I pity her, she gets uncomfortable. “Is that all you wanted to ask me, sir?” she asks me. You called me back to ask me that, she probably wants to say.
I unfreeze. And I decide to just do this shit. “Do you have plans for this evening, Renita?” I ask her.
She’s staring at me now. “Plans?”
“For tonight, yes.”
She’s cautious. Why would I ask her such a question? But she answers me. “No,” she says.
“How about dinner?”
She looks as though she’s shocked. Absolutely blown away. She didn’t see that one coming.
But then I see something else in her eyes. I see a kind of fear, as if I’m asking her out as some sort of payback for taking on her debt. As if she has to fuck me now because she owes me. And I’m kind of hurt by the insinuation. I’d never do that to her. I’d never do that to anyone.
“I’m not asking you for a payback, Renita,” I feel the need to say to her. “I’m just asking you on a date.”
My explanation seems to help, because her eyes, and her serious-as-hell look, lightens the hell up.
“If you’re free tonight,” I say, “I really would like to take you to dinner. Are you free?”
Suddenly it sounds like a loaded question. Like it’s not just about tonight, but about many nights to come. Are you free?
If she’s feeling that same energy, however, she’s good at hiding it. “Yes, I’m free,” she says, but she says it as if she still doesn’t quite know where this is headed.
But I don’t give a shit. I want to see her tonight. I want to get to know this woman. I’m not passing that up. “How’s seven?”
She nods. It’s fine with her.
I ask for her address, but she doesn’t want to give it. I’m the fucking mayor, and she doesn’t want me to know where she’s living? That’s what Street does to you. It makes you mistrustful of everyone. I should know. When I was on those streets, I was the same way.
“I’ll meet you at the restaurant,” she says to me.
All the women I’ve ever dated loved for me to pick them up and be at their beck and call, but not this one. I tell her the name of the restaurant, tell her I’ll see her at seven, and she leaves.
But instead of feeling giddy, or that excitement I felt earlier, I’m a little alarmed. Like I’m the one holding the bag now. Like I’m the one who might just have bit off way more than I can chew.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Why did I agree to this?”
I’m panicking. It’s already half past six and I’m still trying on clothes. And on top of that, I’ve got to drive to a restaurant I’m not all that sure I know how to get to. I hate being late, but it looks like that’s exactly what I’m gonna be.
“I don’t know why you’re trippin’,” Ayden says. “Everything you’ve been trying on looks great. It’s you that’s got the problem. Not those clothes.”
He’s right, as usual. But I can’t help it. I look so . . . so . . . I don’t know how I look, even though I’m looking at myself in a full-length mirror. We’re in a motel room in Jericho, in a motel that lets you pay by the week. It’s cheap and rundown and we had to do some serious scrubbing just to feel comfortable in it, but it’s all I can afford in a high-priced town like this. And after this week, we’ll be homeless again until I can get my first paycheck.
This girl at work told me about this day labor place that’s looking for temp workers to work the graveyard shift for a few months. I’ve decided to do that for a few weeks, at least until I get that first paycheck, and then I’ll be straight. We’ll stay here, since utilities are included with the weekly rent, and save up for a place of our own. It’s a plan Ayden and I worked out all last night, we were so happy and thankful to God that I now have a job. We have hope now. We’re in a good place now.
But my clothes aren’t doing a damn thing for me. It’s gets so bad that I just give up. This is ridiculous anyway! And put right back on what I took off twice already: a pair of purple, flare-legged pants,
a loose, sleeveless white blouse, and my heels.
I look at Ayden for the third time in this particular outfit. “How do I look?” I ask him.
“The same way you looked the first time, and the second time.” Then he smiles. “Like a boss,” he says, and I laugh. Always joking around. That’s Ayden.
But I’m running late, so I grab my purse and my keys and hurry to the door. “Keep it locked,” I say to him, “and put that chair up to it after I leave. If somebody calls and says I was in an accident and I want you to come to the hospital, don’t you believe it. You stay put, you hear me?”
“Um, do I look like I have stupid on my forehead?” Ayden asks me.
“Just do what I said.”
“I will. You know I will. You didn’t raise a dumb kid.”
I know I didn’t.
“Bring a doggie bag home with you,” he says to me.
And I’m stopping and looking at him. “I thought you said you ate at school.”
“I did.”
“And I bought you dinner.”
“I know.”
“Then what’s with the doggie bag?”
“Just in case I get hungry later,” he says.
That’s what poverty does to you. It makes you afraid that you might not get another meal so you want to put in a request every chance you get. “I’ll bring one home if they let me.”
“What do you mean if they let you? Just tell them to put your leftovers in a doggie bag.”
“This restaurant might be a buffet kind of restaurant where they won’t let you walk out with food.”
“Ma,” Ayden says to me in his let me school you voice, “you’re going on a date with the mayor of this town. The mayor, Ma. He’s not going to take you to no buffet!”
“You don’t know that, Ayden.”
“I do know it, Ma! He’s the mayor.”
I smile inside, but I don’t let him see that. “Whatever, child,” I say to him, and then hurry out the door. Only I stand at the door outside and wait until I hear it click lock, and until I hear him putting that chair up to it like I told him. Then I hurry for my car, and take off.
Ayden’s right. It’s no buffet. They even have valets parking people’s cars, but I’m not about to drive my wreck up there for those boys to pick at. I park on the street, on the side of the restaurant, and then walk across the grass up to the door. Some of those valets saw what I was driving and where I parked, because they’re smiling like they’re so superior to me even thought their asses are just valets, and I say fuck’em anyway. I’m late, I’m scared, and I’m still trying to figure out why would a man like Robert Sinatra, the mayor of an entire town, want to take me on a date? Why would a great-looking dude like him be this hard up?
But I catch myself. Because back in the day, I was considered a catch. But those days are way back there now because something called Life happened to me and changed me. Now all men want from me is sex. That’s all they want. They don’t see me anymore, just my body.
That’s what I call sexy right there.
That body’s got it going on girl!
I can do all kinds of things with that underneath me.
It’s like I’m not human anymore. Just body parts. Because it’s never about me. And as soon as they find out I’m not giving it up, that same body they were so into is never enough to keep them around. I’m not worth waiting for. They got lost.
Which, I guess, is why this gorgeous mayor wants to have dinner with me. Maybe he wants my body too. And he’ll be getting lost just like the others, when he finds out he’s wasting his time.
I walk into that restaurant with about as much hope of this going somewhere as a dead-end street.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I look at my watch again. She’s late. And now I’m second guessing myself, wondering if she’s worth all this trouble. It’s not like I have time for this shit. I don’t. I had to cancel a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce president and a meeting with my Super-Pac in order to make this date. And she’s the one who’s late? I almost want to say forget it and leave. I don’t need this headache. But then she enters the restaurant.
As soon as I see her, my heart starts acting weird, like it’s skipping beats or something. And the way she walks in, with her head held high, with her long strides that juggles her breasts just enough to turn men’s heads. I see them checking out her ass, too, as she passes, the way I checked it out at the Hub the other day. And my cock’s throbbing already.
I try to tell myself that this is all it’s about. I want to fuck her. I want her naked, in my bed, fucking the shit out of her. But I’d be lying to myself. That’s a part of it. Girl like her with a body like that: that will always be a part of it.
But it’s not the main part.
The main part, as I see it, goes a whole lot deeper. Because good looking bodies have never had my heart doing beat skips and flips. Good looking bodies are a dime a dozen in Jericho. Guy stand on a corner and fifty women walk by, half of them will have nice looking bodies, and half of those will have nicer looking bodies than Renita’s. It can’t possibly be only about that.
But because I can’t verbalize what it’s really about, I don’t try. I just stand up, as she approaches my table, and pull out her chair for her. We’re in the VIP section, which means we’re sitting on a raised platform with other uppity mucks in town, and I’m feeling this still isn’t good enough for her. I should have taken her to my country club. I should have taken her somewhere better!
“Hi,” she says with that infectious smile. “Sorry I’m late.”
I kind of wait for more explanation. Sorry I’m late because . . . But nothing else comes. She’s late and she’s sorry. In her mind, I guess, that’s enough. And because it’s her, it’s enough for me too. I make sure she’s seated, and then sit my ass down too.
After ordering drinks and the waiter bringing them to us, we order dinner. It’ll take them a good hour to prepare it, I tell her, and she laughs like it’s a joke. But at this particular restaurant, it’s not. But I laugh with her anyway.
“So,” I say, “you’re Renita Hopson.”
“That’s me.”
“What do I call you? Miss Hopson? Ms. Hopson? Or is it Mrs. Hopson?”
“It’s definitely not Mrs.,” she says. “But call me Rain.”
“That nickname your mother gave you.”
She smiles. “You remembered. That’s right.”
“The nickname she gave to you because, according to her, you took her sunshine away.”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t get that. Sorry.”
“What don’t you get?”
“Why you want to have anything to do with a name with such a negative meaning behind it. My biological mother was a pile of shit, too, believe me, but if she would have given me a nickname, that would have been the last name I would want to use.”
She sits there, thinking about what I just said, and then she nods her head. “I understand what you’re saying, but that’s not how I see it.”
“Oh, yeah?” I’m staring at her. “How do you see it?”
“There’s this man in the Bible,” she says. “His name’s Jabez. His name means pain or sorrow.”
“Pain or sorrow?”
“That’s what they interpret his name to mean, yeah,” she says. “But Jabez prayed to God and asked Him to turn his name around. Instead of being a person filled with sorrow, or being a pain to society, he asked God to bless him and enlarge his coasts. To make him a success rather than a burden or a pain. To turn it all around.”
I stare at her.
“And that’s what I’m trying to do,” she says. “Because I prayed to God too. I asked Him to turn my name around. I’m not Renita. My grandmama named me that after some lady she knew. I’m Rain, the name my mama gave me. I grew up as Rain. Everybody called me Rain. So that’s what I call myself. Because I trust God and I know that one day, just as sure as I’m sitting here, He’ll turn my name
around too. And it’s gonna be something special when He does.”
I still don’t understand it. I still wouldn’t touch that name with a ten-foot pole. But I leave it alone right then and right there. My biological mother wasn’t worth a damn either. We might just have that in common. But I move on. She’ll have to unpack that luggage all by herself.
“Your name’s Robert,” she says to me, “but most people around here call you Bobby. At least that’s what I’ve been hearing. Bobby Sinatra, not Robert Sinatra. Which name do you prefer?”
“Mayor,” I say, and she laughs.
“But for real,” she says, “is that what people mostly call you?”
“People who work at City Hall, or people in town who don’t know me like that, they call me that, sure. But my friends call me Bobby. Call me Bobby.”
She smiles. I can tell she feels honored that I put her in the friend category. We aren’t friends. We barely know each other. But that, to me, is for future reference. I intend to get to know her, and get to know her really well. I’d sworn off women. My job was going to be my woman. But then she came along. Out of the blue she came along. And now I’m curious.
“Tell me about yourself, Renita.” Then I catch myself. I will honor her request. “Tell me about yourself, Rain,” I say to her, instead. It’s standard date material. If she brings up her mother issues again while telling me, fine. If not? That’s fine too.
Since tell me about yourself is a line I always use on a first date, I fully expect her to go off on that nothing to tell tall-tale ladies like to begin with, but she doesn’t even go there. “Where do I begin?” she says instead, which makes me smile. She’s definitely different than what I’m used to. No pretense with her.
“Where were you born? Here in Maine?”
“Yep, I’m a Maine girl. Born in Bangor, Maine. But my parents kept moving around all the time. From one town to the next. Then I moved in with my grandma.”
Bobby Sinatra: In All the Wrong Places (The Rags to Romance Series Book 1) Page 10
