Another Time, Another Place

by Zane

  Virgil acknowledged his wife’s assessment with a nod. Indeed, it was a shameful bounce of his head.

  “I also understand,” April continued, “why you once stated you wouldn’t mind if I slept with another man. You already knew I had because the trainer had told you. Didn’t he?”

  Virgil’s head lowered again. He was embarrassed. He suppressed speaking the horse–and-water thought again, but at the same time understood the leading part of the phrase.

  “I was wrong in surrendering to the flesh,” April confessed. “You were wrong for putting me in a position to surrender.”

  Virgil gazed at his wife with a passion she’d never seen before. She felt a certain sympathy for him. She tried desperately to understand his motive, to find an appreciation in his action, but nothing surfaced. Both personalities within her tried to rationalize the angry feeling inside.

  “You don’t give a diabetic sugar,” April said. “Just like you don’t give a sex-starved person a chance at sex. Virgil, I wronged you. You wronged me, we wronged each other.” A thought of liberation developed within her. “I want a divorce,” she stated unexpectedly.

  Virgil understood her anger, yet hearing her talk about divorce was the last thing he wanted to hear.

  “You can’t be serious,” Virgil stated out of shock.

  “Why can’t I be?”

  “Because you’ve never worked a day in your life,” Virgil stated a little too sarcastically for his own taste.

  “I work,” she responded. The words felt true, but after she considered Virgil’s statement, she continued, “I mean, I have an education. I have a skill and I’ll find a way to take care of myself.”

  “April, think about it,” Virgil pleaded. “Starting a first job at your age…”

  “What!” April snapped. “You think I’m too old to find a job?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. Times are hard out there. Most companies, mine included, seek the college grads because we can get them cheap. We both know you’re accustomed to a grander lifestyle than what the salary of a person starting out in the workforce will bring.” Suddenly, Virgil’s head lowered, as did the tone of his voice. “I suspect I’m headed for a nasty court battle.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way. Besides, I don’t want your money. Being liberated means me taking care of me. However…” She paused. “I’ll initially need your help. So, let the love you claim to have for me guide you to do the right thing by me.”

  “My love for you wants you to stay. We can work out our troubles.”

  “I can’t be with you right now. There is so much I need to sort out.”

  “Sort it out,” Virgil pleaded. “Find yourself; just don’t divorce me…not after you’ve shown me how to be a real man.”

  April’s anger lessened to the point where she could think logically. She wasn’t convinced to stay, but she’d take his words into consideration.

  “I’d like to explore all of my options,” April responded. “So, why don’t you come up with an amicable solution? I promise you, I’ll contemplate both options. Let’s talk later, okay?” she suggested.

  Virgil was troubled by thoughts of his precious April’s departure. The loss of her love was enough to tear his heart into pieces.

  Eddie, I want half, popped into his mind.

  The comedic thought relieved some emotional tension for a quick second, but the bitter reality of the thought became something greater to be concerned about. His company was successful, a Fortune 500 top one hundred. He had worked too hard, for far too many years, to simply give up half of everything, thus, he sat for hours contemplating the predicament. After much debate, he rumbled through a file box in his home office for a specific piece of paper. He joined April in her favorite spot in the bow window. She made room for him and they sat silently.

  “Virgil, I’m not feeling good about myself at all,” April spoke. “I’ve broken my vows, tainted your trust in me…I know I’ll never be the same if I stay with you.”

  “We can learn to trust one another again,” Virgil responded.

  “I’m just not in a good place right now. I’m me, but not me,” she said. Her eyes never left the window.

  Virgil watched his wife struggle with some sort of inner turmoil and realized pressuring her to rekindle their marriage would be like two positive ends of a magnet forcing each other away.

  “I have a suggestion,” he stated. “Why don’t we start from the beginning?”

  April’s head turned toward his. She gave him her full attention with her eyes and waited for him to continue.

  “Hello, April,” Virgil said as he stood, faced her and extended his hand for a formal greeting. He concealed the other hand behind his back. “I’m Virgil Jonston, president and CEO of Innovative Solutions.”

  April’s mind went back to their interview many years past.

  “You studied at Penn,” Virgil continued. “You seem to be over-qualified for the position you’re applying for. Are you sure you’d like to work for I-S?”

  Is he playing with me, April asked herself.

  Her baffled expression wasn’t missed by Virgil. He gave her the piece of paper from behind his back. To her surprise, it was her first and only résumé.

  “Seriously, honey,” Virgil said. “I have a solution that may be mutually beneficial to us. Why don’t you work for me? Like you should have years ago.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest?”

  “I own the damn company. It seems I should be entitled to bend the rules. Here’s what I propose…you get paid a handsome salary while you gain experience. When you feel the time is right to move on, do so.”

  “That’s a generous offer, but I can’t work and live with you. Nothing would have changed.”

  “I’ve got that covered, too. I’ll provide the down payment for a place of your own. The job and down payment will be separate from the terms in our di…” Virgil paused. He looked at her with a more saddened expression. “Divorce,” Virgil continued.

  April took her turn at being a mute. Her head lowered, and she twisted two of her fingers in thought.

  “Virgil,” she spoke. “Understand that I don’t want your money. Our divorce papers need not reflect anything more than what you just stated. I’d argue that I’ve sponged off you for years. You provided me a life beyond my wildest dreams. Helping me get into a place I can call mine and the job is enough. I want to be my own woman as I started out trying to do years ago. Liberated, remember me saying that?” April asked, not requiring an answer. “I’ll change it to having my own independence.”

  “I understand a desire such as that can drive you on to greatness. Take your time, though; don’t decide this very moment. I just want to be fair.”

  “You’d be more than fair just by honoring what we’ve discussed. That’s all I need.”

  “Then it’s settled. Despite everything and what you may think of me, you know I’m a man of my word.”

  NINETEEN

  Things moved fast for April. In three days’ time, she started her lower-six-figure salary job. Two days later, she stood inside her sixth-floor condo within walking distance away from her job.

  April started her new life with no bills other than the mortgage, utilities and food expenses. She decided to take her time to decorate. She had no kitchen table to speak of, an air mattress to sleep on, and one pan to cook with. Virgil insisted on taking care of these minor necessities, but she decided to experience independence at its fullest.

  She walked to the living room window, glanced at the people walking the busy street below and then looked upward to praise the heavens. She saw in a short time the blue sky transform into a threatening gray one. April grabbed her purse, umbrella and headed toward the elevator. Moments later, she stepped into the revolving door of the condo lobby just as the skies let loose. The sound of thunder roared as lightning ripped across the sky. The storm seemed to drop buckets of rain along its rolling path. People ran for cover.
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  Ariel turned around just as the torrential rain fell and stepped back into the revolving door of her building. She pushed the bar to circle through, but it remained still. She looked left and saw someone familiar to her.

  “It’s you,” both April and Ariel spoke simultaneously.

  April let the door turn, her eyes never left Ariel. After a complete amusement park-ride-like circle, April and Ariel stood face to face, awed in silence. Both women touched each other’s face in a place familiar to them. One woman’s finger rubbed a face mole and the other stroked a scar above the eye.

  THE END

  Rique Johnson was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia to proud parents Herman and Dorothy Johnson. He finished high school and then joined the U.S. Army six months later because he believed the world had much more to offer than his not-so-fabulous surroundings. After a three-year stint as a soldier, he moved to the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area in 1981 and has made his home in Northern Virginia since 1992.

  Rique has always had a passion for the arts. From his desire to be an actor; demonstrated by his role in a homemade “Kung Fu” movie to him writing a monologue to be performed on the original Star Search. He trained as a commercial artist and became a proficient photographer in high school. He was a fashion/print model during the first half of the 1980s and has been featured in magazine and newspaper ads for the Hecht Company. He was a local favorite for the fashion designers in the D.C. metro area and has done runway modeling for the Congressional Black Caucus. He was Mr. October in the Black Men of Washington calendar in 1985.

  Yet, he has always penciled something. As far as he can remember, his passion for writing started well before his teenage years with love notes to girls that he liked. One of his earliest memories was a love letter he wrote to his fourth-grade teacher. Since that time, he has penciled many songs and various pieces of poetry. He writes things that he simply calls thoughts. Sometimes these thoughts expressed the particular mood he was in and other times they were derived from things that were happening in the world at the time.

  His imagination comes across in his novels as creative, bold and sometimes edgy. Rique is often called a storyteller. He writes so that readers can place themselves into the pages of the story and make the pages play like a movie in their own imaginations. He is a passionate writer who is unafraid to reveal the sensitivity of a male or himself, thus, evoking an emotional response from the readers.

  He lives in Springfield, Virginia.

  Rique Johnson is the author of the Detective Jason Jerrard novels, Love & Justice, Whispers from a Troubled Heart, and A Dangerous Return; and of a novel, Every Woman’s Man. His story “Life Happens” appears in Sistergirls.com, edited by Zane.

  You may visit the author at www.riquejohnson.com or email him at rique@riquejohnson.com.

  FOR THE GOOD TIMES

  SHAWAN LEWIS

  SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL

  SAPELO, GEORGIA, 1965

  In Sapelo, Georgia, we call the promise of a new day dayclean. When the clouds dissipate from a velvet sky, and the sun penetrates its rays through sand imprints of lovers from the thick of night. This is dayclean.

  Sapelo is beautiful to me. The freshness of a morning sky; the mystic Sea Islands bordering South Carolina, Georgia, and the northern part of Florida; tropical breezes over white sand beaches; and live oak trees with Spanish moss—all these things I admired about my paradise home.

  Sand dunes, scattered along the edges of saltwater, were the perfect refuge for romance. Naked bodies entangled in love, lust, or whatever felt good inbetween. My boyfriend Adam and I spent most of our free time melting together in the dunes. We met in his hometown of Washington, D.C., on the campus of Howard University. I was a third-year law student. He was in his last year of medical school, courtesy of the United States Army. A few months after we started dating, I took him to Sapelo. He immediately fell in love with the island. Carefree living. Dusty dirt roads without traffic lights, and the friendly nature of my people. Geechee folk, we were called. A name inherited from our African ancestors of Sierre Leone. The beach was our retreat. No worries about school, or the challenges we faced in the future. Offering our hearts to each other was all that mattered.

  I lived for lovemaking on the beach. I’d lost my virginity years before I’d met him, but every time I took his sweet temptation inside of me, it felt like the first time. His manhood was smooth mahogany and thick, well matched to his toned torso and muscular thighs. A scrumptious chocolate package that could make my melodic cries pitch past the stars. I loved the way he rocked his pelvis, pumping passion into my core. Each sweltering inch of his penis carved a kinetic notch of ecstasy against my throbbing walls. His girth, incomparable. The pleasure it gave me, insatiable. He savored the sensation of parting the warm layers of my flesh with his density, plunging deeper and deeper as crystal waves of the sea anchored us.

  Moans of excitement roared from our mouths as the tide kept pace with our climactic journey. We rode each other fiercely for what seemed like an eternity. Then slowly, our erotic calls to the heavens cascaded down. Lower and lower, until the moans turned into comforting whispers. When all the tension of what our bodies had conquered was released, the whispers transformed into soft sighs.

  Under the shelter of a magenta sky, we collapsed on the sand, spent from our exchange of surreal sex. “Jasmine, you know no man is an island,” Adam whispered in my ear.

  I smiled at him as my fingertips swept the curve of his muscular arm. “I believe I’ve heard those words somewhere before.”

  Adam gently took my hand in his, running my palm over the hair stubble that accentuated his jawbone. He closed his eyes for a moment, then focused on me. “Well, my father used to say that a man whose words are true, will win the hearts of many. But a man whose actions are true, will move mountains. The Army has afforded me the opportunity to see the world, and to pursue my dream of being a doctor. A poor, knucklehead boy from Anacostia, finding success. But Jasmine, achievements mean nothing without you. The solace of being in Sapelo…the peace you bring to my life. My place is with you. If you’ll be my wife, I’ll make sure you never regret it.”

  The bass of his voice, each word husky and strong, sent chills down my spine. Overwhelmed by his proposal, my body trembled as tears ran down my cheeks. Adam quickly moved closer, caressing me as I cried on his chest. My body language gave him the answer he wanted to hear, but I managed to collect myself, shouting to the world that I’d be his wife.

  LIVIN’ FOR YOU

  1966

  When Adam and I finished our studies, we returned to Sapelo to live. There were only two hundred residents on the island. There were no doctors or lawyers; we were the first. Sapelo, historically known for its rice and cotton crops, was a breeding ground for greedy developers. Land that was once harvested by the sweat of our slave ancestors’ backs was now looked upon as a gold mine. Investors saw opportunities for hotels, shopping plazas, and even tourist theme parks. Our community saw the need to construct a medical facility and a library, but we wanted no part of a development frenzy. We circulated petitions, and worked with the Sapelo Island Restoration Society to inform Georgia lawmakers about the threat to our land. Thankfully, the Sea Island Foundation, endowed by the Rayman family, heard our pleas and extended funding. The only major employer on the island was the tobacco company, owned by RJ Rayman.

  Support from the foundation was a blessing, but I knew in my heart we’d have to keep our guard up. Most people didn’t know Sapelo existed, much less populated by a black majority. During slavery, white folk took our dynasty in Africa away by force. Sapelo was the twinkle in their eyes now, and they flaunted the almighty dollar in our faces, which was just as brutal. Natives wanted to build what was needed, not what some rich mogul had in mind.

  ***

  Geechee culture in the Sea Islands originated during the slave trade in 1810. My people managed to outsmart the slave master, buy the land, and cultivate it. We grew our own vegetabl
es and herbs. Some of the natives were basket weavers, missionaries, net casters, storytellers, and tour guides. We entertained visitors long enough for them to get a taste of our culture, but not to stay. You wanted lodging, Hammock Lodge was it. If you wanted a fancy hotel, you were better off vacationing some place else, which suited us just fine. There were no hospitals, schools or big stores. Sapelo was reachable only by boat. Five communities encompassed the area: Belle Marsh, Raccoon Bluff, Lumber Landing, Hog Hammock, and Shell Hammock. Traveling beyond them meant you had to go to the Marsh Landing Dock, and take a state-owned ferry across Doboy Sound to the mainland, known as St. Simons Island.

  The people of Sapelo were family, and family took care of one another. I could’ve made more money practicing in a major city, but financial security wasn’t a priority. My husband and I strived harder than ever. Adam had successfully built a medical mission, run by him and the aunt that raised me, Frances. My law practice was growing. I had implemented two land trusts to protect parts of the island, and even defended the Rayman family in a liability case. Building practices in a big city would have been too stressful for us, and our marriage. Modest living kept us humble, and we loved it.

  YOU OUGHT TO BE WITH ME

  1967

  Life on Sapelo was good, but even isolation didn’t provide immunity from the troubles of the world. The country was at war—Vietnam. The phone call I used to will out of my dreams, rang loudly this morning, waking the both of us. Adam literally jumped out of bed. He answered after the first ring.

  “Hello. Yes, this is he. Yes, sir.”