Casting Down Imaginations

by LaShanda Michelle

  I kissed him back. And in that kiss I let go of all of my worries, all of my insecurities, and all of my religious rules and reasonings of why I couldn’t let this man love me the way he wanted to and the way I felt he needed to.

  “Whoa,” he cautioned, still kissing me. “We better stop.”

  “I don’t want to,” I managed to get out while his tongue was still in my mouth.

  “You sure?” he asked between kisses.

  I nodded, then closed my eyes.

  forty eight

  Anaya

  The lustful jeers and cheers of the audience I was entertaining faded away as soon as their sounds hit my ears. I was completely drunk. I usually made the most money on Saturday nights, and I was looking forward to emptying the pockets of the perverts who surrounded me. I just had to figure out a way to swing around the pole without falling down like the complete drunk that I was.

  I started to remove my top, but something suddenly wouldn’t let me. I was picking up a weird energy from somewhere, and it wasn’t from the alcohol coming out of my pores. I searched the room to find out where it was coming from, even though my vision was blurred from the shots that I’d taken earlier.

  I recognized a gentleman in the far back of the room. Not him exactly, because he was sitting down at a table, and he held his head down. I couldn’t see his face, but he had on a nice hat that matched his coat. It was a nice coat, too. It had to be serving him well with the night chills we were having.

  I just couldn’t understand why he wasn’t looking at me. Why wasn’t he enjoying the show? Surely I was his type. Cute, curvy. Didn’t he want to see everything I had? Wasn’t he at least curious to see why all of the other men and a few women in the club were cheering me on? Didn’t he know I was the best dancer in Prestige? What was wrong with him?

  I twirled around the stage, trying to get the crowd excited to get the attention of this one man. He didn’t budge. He kept his head down, as if he were embarrassed or ashamed. Maybe he was. Maybe he was married and felt guilty, like he would be cheating on his wife if he looked at me. Maybe that was his problem. But it still didn’t make any sense. He came this far. Why not peek?

  There was just something about that coat, though. I’d seen it somewhere before. Somewhere…

  I kept dancing and did a few tricks on the pole. Some came up to give me money. Others begged me to undress. I started to, but again something stopped me. It was the gentlemen in the back. The gentlemen in the back with the coat and the hat. His defiance was causing me to lose my buzz, and I didn’t like it.

  He turned his head suddenly and looked at me. I didn’t catch his whole face, but the dim lighting above his head let me see enough of his eyes to recognize him through my drunkenness.

  I was suddenly sober.

  I felt my eyes bulge as I realized who was in the room with me.

  I remembered where I’d seen that coat.

  …And that hat.

  I’d bought them both as a gift for someone that I loved very much.

  And I never wanted that person to know I was a stripper.

  Oh no!!!...

  I wanted to throw up and pass out at the same time.

  Deacon Patterson!!!!!!!!!

  forty nine

  Anaya

  With vomit in my mouth, I ran offstage behind the curtain. I tried to find a trashcan but was unsuccessful and unloaded in the middle of the hallway. Two girls were standing close by and scattered with disgust.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I head Jeff scream as he came my way. “Girl, you better get back on that stage!”

  “I can’t,” I tried to explain, but more vomit erupted out of me, barely missing his snake skin shoes as he walked up to me.

  “Ewh! Awh, hell nawh,” he griped. “You better not be pregnant.”

  Derrick came around the corner to my aide as Jeff continued his fit. He helped me walk to the dressing room where I sat at my vanity while he fetched me a cool bottle of water.

  While he was gone I realized that I was shaking. What was wrong with me? That could not have been Deacon Patterson out there. He would never be caught dead in a place like this. I was trippin’. I had to be. That was just some guy who happened to look like him and had a coat and hat that looked similar to Deacon’s. That’s all. I was just trippin’.

  Just trippin’…

  Derrick walked back in and gave me the water, along with a cool towel that he rested on my forehead.

  “You alright?”

  I nodded and took a drink of the bottle.

  “Alright. You got a client out there who says he wants to talk to you.”

  I froze. “Client?”

  He nodded.

  “Did he have on a coat?”

  He seemed puzzled that I asked, but nodded. “Yeah.”

  “And a hat?”

  He nodded again.

  I burst into tears. “That’s not a client. That’s my father!”

  His eyes grew wide, then panic struck his face. He looked about as scared as I was.

  “Oh… damn,” he empathized with me.

  I hopped up from my seat and began to pace the floor. Hot tears were streaming down my face. What was he doing here? But more importantly, how could I face him? What would I tell him?

  “What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?” I asked over and over again. I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. I never, ever wanted Deacon to know that I was a stripper. I had planned on waiting a few months to tell him the truth about school, and I then wanted to present him with a check for the tuition money that I wasted. I wanted to stick with the lie about working on campus part-time. He was never supposed to find out about this! Stripping and Prestige were secrets that I was supposed to take to the grave. I couldn’t believe everything was unraveling so fast before my eyes.

  “Relax, relax,” Derrick tried to soothe me. “Look, I’ll go talk to him.”

  “No, you can’t. I know Deacon. He isn’t going to talk to you. He’s only going to want to talk to me.”

  “The deacon? I thought you said that was your daddy out there.”

  “No, no,” I shook my head with impatience. “Look, I don’t have time to explain. Just go out there and try to get rid of him.”

  “I thought you said he wasn’t going to talk to me?”

  I collapsed into the chair. DAMMIT!!!

  “You gotta face him,” Derrick said softly.

  I rambled about a dozen curse words and pinched myself to see if I was having a nightmare.

  “If it makes you feel better, I’ll stand close by to make sure he doesn’t try to get physical with you.”

  I shook my head. There was no need for such precautionary measures. I knew that Deacon would never dream of hitting me. I just had to face him. There was no sense in running from it or trying to escape it. He’d already seen me. Against better judgment, I went to my locker and took a shot of vodka in an attempt to prepare myself for the drama that was about to unfold.

  “You alright?” Derrick asked me.

  I nodded, even though I really wasn’t, and took a long robe from

  my locker and tied it around myself tightly. I was now hot, but at least I was covered up.

  “I’m gonna go out with you.”

  “Go before me, and stand to the side, away from us. It’ll be better that way.”

  He agreed and went out of the room. With knees that were threatening to buckle, I slowly followed. Deacon was standing at the end of the hallway. Another security guard was standing there with him, but it was clear Deacon was not at all intimidated. I dragged my feet on the way, wishing that if I prayed long and hard enough for this to be a dream that it would turn into one. As soon as I got close to him, I started to cry all over again.

  “Deacon…” I managed to get out between sobs.

  I couldn’t look him in the eye. I held my head down the entire time, so ashamed that he saw me in this situation.

  “My daughter,” he whispered. There was so mu
ch pain there. I could hear his tears through his voice. He was disappointed, and betrayed also. I understood why. How could I let him down like this? He bent over backwards to give me a good life. I always had food, shelter, and clothing, something that I couldn’t say about the other girls that I worked with. And he made sure I knew the difference between right and wrong. And I did. He worked hard to send me off to college, and what did I do? I stole my tuition money to pay for an apartment and an abortion, then turned around and became a stripper. No man wanted his daughter to grow up to become who I was today, but here I was. A pitiful mess.

  “What’s going on, here?” he asked me.

  I just stood there, unable to speak, shaking and crying. He stared at me for a long time and didn’t say a word. His broken heart made it hard for him to speak.

  “I called the school,” he finally said between tears. “I wanted to come up and surprise you.”

  His words were coming out slow, but I heard every one of them.

  “I was so happy to see you a little while ago. I wanted to come spend some time with you. But I didn’t have your address anymore. So I called the school ‘cause I wanted to find you. When they told me that you never registered after the fall, I almost lost my mind. It felt so horrible to know that you would lie to me for so long about something that didn’t matter. If you didn’t want to go to school, all you had to do was tell me. I wouldn’t have made you go. Baby, I could have directed you into other things. I’m a father, and that’s what fathers do for their children. I would have helped you, Nya. I went down to the dealership and they did a search on your car, and that’s how I found out you were working here.”

  I still couldn’t look at him. All I could do was cry harder. I watched the tears drip from my nose and splash on the ground in front of me. I started counting them just so I wouldn’t fall out.

  “I just wanna know why, baby girl,” he said. “What is this? What are you doing here?”

  I couldn’t answer, but I knew he was waiting on me to. I shrugged, even though he probably couldn’t tell because I was shaking so fervently.

  He walked over to me and spoke truthfully. “I don’t know what’s going on with you,” he said. “But you know I’m worried. I don’t know what you’re running from. Maybe it’s me,” he said with such emotion that I almost fell to the ground. I hated that he felt that way. Nothing that I did was his fault. Didn’t he know that in my eyes he was the best man in the world and could do no wrong?

  “Maybe I tried too hard,” he continued. “Folks always told me not to be so protective of you. But I was only like that ‘cause I loved you, and I wanted to protect you. I didn’t wanna see nothing happen to you. You my only child, and you look so much like your mama. Every time I look at you, I think about her. Maybe that’s why I was just trying to keep you to myself. But I never meant to hurt you.”

  I collapsed onto him and buried my face in his chest. He wrapped his arm around me, giving me a partial hug. His tears poured onto my face. I freely let them fall.

  “Now I love you, baby, and I always will. You hear me? I always will. But I gotta tell you. I didn’t raise you to live like this. I don’t approve of this here. You too smart for this, baby. You got a good brain up there in that head of yours. Use it.” He squeezed me tight and kissed my forehead. “I love you, baby. And I always will. No matter what, I still love you. Nothing you can do will ever change the fact that you’re my child. And when you get tired of running, believe me when I tell you that you can always come home. You can always, always come home.”

  Deacon let go off me and walked away. He didn’t look at me. It was too painful. I watched him walk away, and as soon as he was out of sight I ran into the locker room, gathered my things, and cried all the way home.

  fifty

  Karen

  Terrance stared deeply into my eyes across the candlelit dinner we were enjoying and took my hand into his own. Everything about him was turning me on at this point, especially his touch. Since I’d allowed our relationship to freely take an intimate turn, things between the two of us had been great. We’d grown much closer, and for the first time since my dad’s gambling had been exposed, my future finally felt secure. I was unsure of my feelings about putting his needs above what I initially stood for, but he assured me that the fact that I hadn’t been with anyone else in all of that time only made him love me more. So I swept my guilt about the situation under the rug and focused on loving him in return.

  “I love you, Karen,” he told me.

  I smiled. “I love you, too,” I said, happy that the two of us were thinking about the exact same thing.

  “I got something I wanna talk to you about.”

  “What?”

  He took a deep breath, but didn’t answer. He was nervous.

  “What is it, baby?”

  He squeezed my hand tighter. “I been talking to my agent.”

  “Your agent?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t want to say anything to you at first, because I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “Worry? Why would I worry?” I asked, pretending to be dumb. The only reason he would be talking to his agent again would be if he was trying to get back into the NBA. And I knew he didn’t want that. At least that was what he told me before.

  “Well, you know… You’re living with me now, so this affects you, too.”

  “What is it, Terrance?”

  He took a moment to gather his composure, then stated, “I’m thinking about going back into the NBA,” with a big smile.

  I pretended to be surprised. “Really?”

  He grinned. “Yeah. What do you think?”

  What do I think? I think you told me you didn’t want any part of that life anymore. I think you said you wanted to settle down and get married and have a family and focus on getting your education and that all of the things that came along with being a basketball star just weren’t for you. I think you trippin’.

  “I think that’s great,” I lied. “If that’s what you really wanna do.”

  He looked relieved that I was willing to comply.

  “But where is all of this coming from? Why the change of heart?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just… Being back on a team, man. Playing the game. It’s my life, you know? It’s what I go to bed at night and dream about. It’s what I wake up thinking about… Besides you, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “And my agent called me. He told me there was a little buzz stirring about me making a comeback, and he wanted to know if it was true. I hadn’t ever really thought about it, although I did hear the rumors. But the way he was talking, he got me to thinking that maybe this really could be. He was pretty good to me before, so I just wanted to see what he was talking about.”

  “Well, what was he talking about?”

  “My old team wants me back,” he said with a smile.

  I was concerned. “I thought you said you didn’t want anything to do with them, because of what happened before?”

  “Well, I know I said that. But, if the price is right…”

  “So, wait a minute. This is about money? What about staying true to yourself?”

  “I hear what you saying, but none of that pays the bills, sweetie.”

  I didn’t like to hear him talk about money like this. My daddy taught me that money had its place, and that place was never to be before anything else. But maybe he was wrong. After all, this was the same man who was on the brink of losing his family trying to chase the mighty dollar bill.

  “You aren’t hurting for money, Terrance.”

  “Not yet. But with school, bills, taking care of you, my money’s—”

  “Whoa. Hold up. Taking care of me? I told you I would get a job.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. You know I wanna take care of you. I love taking care of you. You’re my baby. My number one. All I’m saying is that the money that I do have isn’t gonna last forever. And I been thinking about us and our future
and the children that we’ll have. And I wanna give you all the best.”

  I felt a little better, now that I heard his explanation. But I was still uneasy.

  “I understand what you’re saying,” I told him. “But you don’t have to put that much pressure on yourself. There are other things you can do. And what about your knee? Training for the NBA is gonna put a lot of strain on it, won’t it?”

  He took my hand and kissed it. “Let me worry about that, baby.”

  “Are you sure this is what you really want?”

  He nodded and kissed my hand again.

  I decided to let it go and relaxed. “Alright. If this is what you want. I will be supportive and let you do your thing.”

  He smiled bigger than I’d ever seen before.

  “What?” I asked. He suddenly had an energetic vibe and I wanted to know where it came from.

  He looked past me and motioned for someone to come over to us. Suddenly I heard a violin.

  I turned to see where the beautiful music was coming from. A violinist approached us playing beautifully. She smiled at me, then at Terrance, and stood beside us and continued to play.

  What is he doing?

  “I love you, Karen,” he said, and stood to his feet.

  What is he…?

  I gasped as he got down on one knee. My heart fluttered as I tried my best not to scream.

  He took my shaking hand into his and pulled a small velvet box out of his pocket. The tears began to flow.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  He smiled, and tears were in his eyes as well. “I love you,” he told me. “I love you so much more than words could ever say. Baby, you mean the world to me, and then more. I just don’t know what I would be with out you. You make me a better person. And you have caused me to dream again. You make me want to be the best man possible, and I love you so much for that, Karen. I know I don’ messed up in the past and done some things that I shouldn’t have done, but I know now that you are the only woman for me. I know that now. And I want to share the rest of my life with you. So, I’m asking you, baby, the love of my life… Will you marry me?”