Fool and Her Honey (9781622860791)

by Matthews, Kimberly T.

“Yes, because I need to know. I need to hear it out of your mouth.” Mentally, I crossed my fingers, hoping he’d say what I wanted to hear.

  “Well, you know,” he began with a shrug. “We’re real good friends.”

  My heart sank like a stone. One thing I’d learned for sure was if you didn’t know where your relationship stood, you knew exactly where it stood.

  I was silent as he drove me home, then helped me bring my luggage in the house. Then I kissed his cheek and said, “Thanks for a great trip.”

  “You’re welcome, baby.” He grinned like he was proud of himself for presumably making me really happy. “You deserved it.”

  Guess that was my booby prize.

  After we said our good-byes that day, I stopped calling him and taking his calls. It took about three days of ignoring his calls for him to show up at my house unannounced, asking me what the hell was going on.

  “Nothing. I’ve just been busy,” I answered. “I just don’t have time for my friends like I used to, I guess. I’ve had to refocus on other things.”

  “Candis, don’t ignore me like this. You know you and I make a good team.”

  Interpretation: He was getting his cake and ice cream and eating them too, then licking the bowl and going back for seconds and thirds, and he wasn’t ready to let it go. Really, who would turn down free cake and ice cream?

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve just been busy.”

  “I think you’re trying to run from me.”

  “Hmm,” I commented with a shrug.

  He stayed for another thirty minutes, trying to get me to embrace, kiss, and no doubt have sex with him, but I wouldn’t crack. I was done spinning my wheels in the mud of our “relationship.”

  “Well, call me when you get a chance, babe.” Russell pecked my cheek and headed toward the door. “I look forward to seeing you later.”

  I didn’t call him again until three months later, and only because I needed a physical tune-up. You know, a little maintenance work. It was a mistake, because all it did was reengage my emotions and get me hoping for a serious relationship all over again. When I realized all I was getting was more of the same, I weaned myself off of him for good. I was spent. I was done. I’d given him all I had, and I had to come to terms with the fact that he just didn’t want me. Then here it was, not even a good six months later, and his ass was getting married to Latrice Chambers? He better be glad that I’d given up keying cars and busting windows in my early twenties.

  Although I refused to speak to or see Russell following that trip to Jamaica, I did spend a fair amount of time scoping his Facebook profile, doing what was called Facebook drive-bys. I just couldn’t help myself initially. I’d mosey around to see what he was posting, if there were new photos, who was in them, who was liking and commenting on his stuff. There were a few females who’d posted on his wall, but nothing that looked interesting. Why I cared, I didn’t know. Well, yes, I did. It was because he still consumed a lot of space in my mind. I missed him. I missed the good times we’d shared, the laughter, the fun moments. I thought we made a great couple, but he constantly denied me the title of girlfriend. I wondered what would happen if I texted him. Would he answer me back? Or suppose I left a comment? I was feening for the man bad. Not because I wanted more of a dried-up relationship. I just missed him. After a few months of privately stalking him, I eventually stopped. He wasn’t a very public person, anyway, and hardly ever had anything new posted to his wall. But now, with this new marriage announcement, my curiosity was renewed.

  After looking through Dina and Bertrand’s engagement photos and chatting some more, Dina and Celeste decided to head home, and I was on my own for the rest of the evening. I was supposed to be online, completing some marketing tasks for my photo studio, but I kept getting distracted by people’s constant Facebook status updates. As I clicked around from one profile to the next, I found myself on Russell’s profile, just to be nosy. My heart dropped when I saw engagement pictures of him and his so-called fiancée wearing big smiles and sharing loving embraces, being the happy couple he and I were supposed to be. I felt my old disappointment slowly creeping up inside me, with anger closely following. He rejected me for that? For her? He deserved a good in-box cussin’ out.

  “Let me stop before I do something stupid,” I told myself, reshifting my interest to my news feed. There I saw an interesting post from one of my acquaintances.

  Question: Is love enough? Simple question, right? I wonder if most people believe that love conquers all, and that as long as two people love each other, they should be together, and no matter the problem, they can/should work it out simply because they love each other. So is love enough? What do you think?

  I wanted to post, “Hell to the no!” I thought about how much emotion I had wasted on Russell and how he hadn’t paid me a bit of attention—not real attention. And as much as I loved him, it was not enough to build a relationship, nor was it enough to make me want to stick around and hope that one day he’d develop deeper feelings for me. Just as I set my fingers on the keyboard to offer up my opinion, another person posted. His answer caught my attention and intrigued me.

  SeanMichael Monroe

  Yes. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not selfish or easily provoked, etc. I think love predicated on the premise of what true love is–not an emotion or gushy feelings–yes, it’s enough. Few people know how to love like that or have experienced that kind of love.

  Before I left my comment, I clicked on LIKE for SeanMichael’s comment, then clicked his name. His profile was public, so I perused his photos first, eyeing shots of a nicely tanned brother with a wide smile and bright eyes. His face reminded me of Brian McKnight. By the time I looked through all fifty-seven of his posted pictures, he’d left another comment on the thread.

  SeanMichael Monroe

  Love conquers all, but finding it can seem like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

  Candis I’m TheOne Turner

  Have you ever found gold, SeanMichael?

  SeanMichael Monroe

  Found it? I don’t think so. Not in a person. Given it? Plenty of times. It wasn’t reciprocated.

  Candis I’m TheOne Turner

  I know that feeling. It sucks. I still say no.

  SeanMichael Monroe

  I think if you say no, it only means you have yet to experience true love and have a warped perception of what love is.

  Other people started adding to the thread, making it more challenging for me to respond directly to SeanMichael’s comments, so I went back to his wall, clicked on MESSAGE, and in-boxed him.

  Hi SeanMichael,

  It was getting a little crowded on the wall, so I hope you don’t mind me shooting you an in-box message. I like your perception, and I think you’re right. Some people just don’t realize what love is, or what it means. I’d be interested in knowing what it means to you.

  Hello Ms. Candis,

  Like I said in my initial comment, based off of what is found in the Bible, love is a lot of things that we don’t even consider when we call ourselves being in love or looking for love. Love is patient; love is kind; love doesn’t envy or boast and isn’t prideful. Love does not dishonor people, and love is not selfish or easily angered. Love keeps no record of wrongs and does not enjoy evil. Love is happy about the truth; it protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres; and love never fails.

  I believe the way we generally measure love is through how we feel in our emotions. We look for butterflies, rainbows, and chocolate candy. We measure love by giddiness and mushiness, and it can’t be measured in those terms and be called love. Those are called feelings, and feelings change from day to day. Sometimes you feel like going to work, and sometimes you don’t, so you can’t just be guided by your feelings.

  I was impressed with SeanMichael’s response, and we carried on with our in-box messages for the rest of the evening. He shared with me how he’d been in love with a young lady who was very materialistic and measured love b
y what he could or could not give her. They’d had a baby together, but the mother was on drugs, unbeknownst to him, and it led to the baby’s early birth and unfortunate demise. In one of his messages to me he said, “See, that wasn’t love, because what she did was selfish. She didn’t consider my feelings or our baby’s health when she was out in the street, doing crack. Love is not selfish.” His insights got me to thinking about what I was looking for from Russell and whether I loved him. I felt like I did. I sure as hell was patient and kind.

  I also found out that SeanMichael was thirty-two, single, went to church every Sunday, worked for Exxon, and loved music. It was too bad he lived all the way on the other side of the United States of America. If he didn’t, I would have been trying to meet up with him. There were a lot of miles between Phoenix, Arizona, and Baltimore, Maryland. Oh well, online friendships were always good.

  The next day, when I logged into my Facebook account, there was a message from SeanMichael in my in-box.

  Good morning!

  I enjoyed our conversation last night. May your day be filled with true love.

  SeanMichael

  After that, SeanMichael and I communicated every day in some form or fashion. After a series of in-box messages, we exchanged phone numbers, and I became accustomed to hearing from him every morning, at the start of my day. I found his energy refreshing and loved that he was too far from me for our friendship to be anything other than platonic.

  Chapter 7

  Dina

  “I don’t know about Bertrand,” I’d said to Celeste and Candis during one of our lunch outings several months ago, when he’d first proposed.

  “Why? What’s wrong with him?” Candis had asked.

  “That’s the thing. Nothing is wrong with him. He’s, like, the perfect guy.” I shrugged.

  “So what’s your problem?” Candis stretched her eyes at me. “He’s not abusive, he’s not a womanizer, he works, and he’s straight.”

  “And he got money,” Celeste threw in.

  Even with all the great things Bertrand brought to the table, I just didn’t feel that thing a woman’s heart felt when she really loved someone. And I didn’t know why I didn’t feel it. On paper, he was everything I wanted in a man. And he wanted to marry me. How could I say no to a man who always treated me the way I wanted a man to treat me, who had his life together, and who was handsome to boot? I couldn’t think of a single reason on God’s green and blue earth why I should reject him. Except I didn’t love him, and I was mad at myself about that. I wanted to love him because he was so good to me. I’d tried to make myself love him, but I couldn’t just magically create what wasn’t there.

  He didn’t make my heart go pitter-patter or give me butterflies. Nonetheless, I was convinced that with some time, I would grow to really love him. Like people who were set up in arranged marriages had to do. Didn’t they eventually fall in love with each other? Maybe after a baby or something? I was certain that once we were married and he became the center of my day—the same spot I’d given to my dog of an ex-husband, Cameron—the butterflies and the pitter-patters would come.

  “I know all that, but . . . I don’t know. Maybe he is just too perfect.” It was the best thing I could come up with.

  “What the hell do you mean?” Celeste asked, wrinkling up her nose like the garbage truck had just emptied a load of foul rubbish in the room. “I’ve never heard of somebody not wanting to be with someone because he’s too perfect. That just sounds crazy.”

  “I can’t exactly put my finger on it,” I lied.

  “Well, I don’t know what you’re trippin’ about. Look at that great big Kobe Bryant–sized ring on your finger,” Candis added, grabbing my hand, glancing at the ring, then slinging my hand away just as quickly. “Girl, you would be a fool not to marry that man.”

  At that point, I decided to shut up about it. They were making me feel silly for not being more excited about marrying Bertrand, but the fact was, I just didn’t love him.

  So why did I accept his proposal in the first place? Well, I’d never admit this to Celeste or Candis, because it sounded so fickle and callous, but security was one of the main reasons. That and sex, which was consistently mind blowing. Yep. It was.

  Bertrand could put it down in the bedroom, but I was spiritually uncomfortable with having sex outside of marriage. Bertrand didn’t share my moral convictions, but every time we did it, which was a lot, I was scared that I was going to run into some impending doom as punishment for sleeping with a man who wasn’t my husband. And whispering a silent prayer of repentance after every session made me feel like I was taking God’s mercy, grace, and forgiveness for granted. It was hard trying to enjoy sex with your man when you thought Jesus might crack the sky at any moment and send you straight to hell.

  I felt like such a hypocrite on Sunday mornings, trying to raise my hands for worship, knowing that I’d just gotten out of Bertrand’s bed or he’d just gotten out of mine. The Bible said it was better to marry than to burn, so I decided to marry, because for as long as we’d been sexually involved, I just couldn’t see myself suddenly cutting that part of our relationship off. Bertrand wouldn’t get it; he would probably think I was giving the goodies to someone else if I stopped giving them to him, so I had to get married.

  I liked Bertrand alot. He was kind, warm, sensitive, and he treated me well. He had a good job working for the state of Arizona, in the zoning department, which he’d been in for ten years. He didn’t have a criminal record, and there were no baby mamas lurking in the wings, although he did have an ex-wife, but they had long ago gone their separate ways. Bertrand was honest, loved his parents, owned a home, wasn’t on drugs, and wasn’t gay, not that I knew about, anyway. And then add to that, he had money in the bank and was all into financial investments, portfolios, and planning for retirement. I, on the other hand, was trying to come up with a plan to keep my bills paid for another month. Business at the shop had been slow. People weren’t getting their hair done as often as they used to, which really rocked my budget and made my money super tight. I wasn’t looking for a financial savior, but I knew Bertrand could take care of me. For once in my life I wouldn’t have to live paycheck to paycheck.

  Bertrand and I lived separately, in our own homes. Shacking up definitely wasn’t my style, pending nuptials or not. I had my house; he had his. I had my bills; he had his. I had my money.... Well, actually, I had none, but he had his. I did, by the grace of God, manage to keep a roof over my head, but almost every bill I had was delinquent. My phone rang constantly, with people looking for me and wanting their money. When I compared my financial situation to Bertrand’s, along with taking into consideration the fact that he treated me so well and seemed to have his life together, I knew marrying him was a no-brainer. He was a good man and what woman doesn’t want that? I knew too many females who fell in love first and still weren’t in the best of relationships, so really... love wasn’t all that important. It could come later.

  Bertrand had no idea about me being so behind on my bills, because I had too much pride to tell him. I didn’t want him thinking I expected him to pay my bills, even though we were engaged. Sometimes he made me feel like he just wanted to be engaged and nothing more, because every time I’d proposed a wedding date, he’d come up with a reason why the date wouldn’t work. January was his birthday month, and he didn’t want to share it with a wedding anniversary. February, Valentine’s Day. March, his mom’s birthday. Before he could tell me he didn’t want our anniversary competing with April Fools’ Day, I cut him off.

  “Bertrand, there’s something going on every month of every year. That’s really not a reason not to set a date.” I was a tiny bit anxious to stop living a sinful lifestyle and stop struggling with bills. And I did feel something for Bertrand. I just wasn’t sure it was love, but in the words of Tina Turner, “What’s love got to do, got to do with it?”

  “Well, let me think about it,” he’d said. He always said that when he want
ed to avoid making a decision or giving an answer.

  It was such an awful feeling, trying to push someone into actually marrying me. I mean, he did propose, so did he want to marry me or not? Instead of letting myself get frustrated, I figured I’d let things fall into place at a natural and unforced pace. I just didn’t foresee it taking this long. I thought he would have married me (and financially rescued me) by now. Guess I had to wait it out.

  Other than that, Bertrand was a sweetheart. He spoiled me ridiculously; there was nothing that I wanted that he wouldn’t give me. The strange thing was, it seemed to apply only to material things, not financial things, and that made me confused. I liked blingy gifts as much as the next woman, but last month, when my cell phone got cut off for nonpayment, I would have rather he’d paid the bill for me than given me that sparkly Pandora-style charm bracelet. And groceries would have been nice over dinners out. Hell, I could cook. I didn’t complain about it, because I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but he had to know that I needed help with bills. He had to know that I was strapped for cash, since my phone was off. How else would I be, given that I had a dwindling clientele and had time to meet him for lunch almost every day? It just didn’t make sense to me when he didn’t offer to get my phone put back on. It was like he really didn’t want to help.

  Just last week he was at my house and overheard me on the phone with a bill collector. Granted he could hear only my half of the conversation, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on when I was saying stuff like, “I’m sorry. I just don’t have the money to make the payment right now. I’m not sure, but I will try to bring it current as soon as I can.” I hadn’t wanted to take the call in front of him, but then I thought it would be a good way for him to see indirectly that I was struggling financially, without having to actually tell him . . . or ask for money. I hung up the phone and let out a sigh.