by Tina Martin
“Goodnight, Sean.”
He pulled away and looked at me again.
“What? Why you looking at me like that?” I smiled when I asked him, but he stared back with a serious look, as if he was trying to seduce me.
“Like what?” he asked, then smiled.
“Nevermind.” I snapped out of the trance. “I’m going to bed.”
“Ah’ight. I’ll see you in the morning.”
SEAN HAD HIS family over for Sunday brunch on the deck. A calming breeze floated off of the lake. This was perhaps one of the nicest Milwaukee mornings I’ve experienced in a long time. The food was perfectly coordinated on the table. There were eggs, bacon, biscuits, grits, toast with strawberry jam, biscotti, club sandwiches, and fries. I was lying back in a folding lawn chair, enjoying myself while sipping on a cup of coffee. I was surprised Sean didn’t call a caterer. Instead, he cooked everything.
“You didn’t know my son was a cook, huh, Monica?” Sean’s mother, Victoria, asked as soon as she saw me bite into a biscuit.
“No, I didn’t. This is really good.”
“Thanks. I learned from the best,” Sean said, winking his eye at his mom.
“Thank you, baby,” Victoria replied, smiling.
After finishing our meals, Victoria and I sat in the family room, but I could hear Sean and his brothers talking loud in the kitchen.
“Since when did you start cooking again, man?” Derrick asked him.
“Since Ms. Monica showed up,” Warren teased.
I pretended to be interested in Victoria’s conversation, but really, I was listening to the brothers in the kitchen.
Sean responded, “She just opened my eyes, you know. That’s all. There’s something refreshing about her.”
“Oh really? So is that why you guys fight all of the time?” Warren asked. “Y’all might as well be married, for real.”
Sean must have avoided that statement since I didn’t hear him respond to it.
“Monica is kinda young, though. How old is she?” Warren inquired.
“She’s like twenty-four.”
“That’s young,” Warren said.
Derrick threw in his two cents. “Yeah, man. She’s still a baby.”
Still a baby? I don’t wear diapers, drool, or babble. What does he mean I’m still a baby?
“She seems to be well educated and mature, though,” Warren added. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”
“Yeah, she does, but I’m not trying to hook up with her. She’s my son’s babysitter. Besides, I’m too old for her.”
“Dude, thirty-two is not old. I’m not old. I don’t care what you say,” Derrick said.
“Okay, well, it’s not old, but it’s too old for a twenty-four year old.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Warren asserted. “You seem to be pretty fond of Little Miss Monica anyway. I don’t know why you frontin’.”
Sean laughed it off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”
“Whatever, man…I’ve seen the way you look at her.”
I was on the edge of my seat waiting to hear Sean respond, but he never did.
Chapter 12 - Getting To Know Him
After everyone left, Sean came walking in the family room, sweaty and out of breath like he just ran a marathon. He sat so close to me that his sweat rubbed off onto my arm. Normally, something like that would gross me out, but he looked so good in the cut-off shirt that exposed a bit of his chest and those muscles that I couldn’t get angry. Goodness gracious, he’s hot!
“I know you did that on purpose, Sean.” I wiped the sweat off of my arm and onto my pants, while flipping through the latest issue of Outdoor Photographer.
“So what’s up? Where’s Roman?”
“Your mom took him to see a movie. I forgot which one, but I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it when he gets home.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll be right back,” he said before running upstairs.
About ten minutes later, he came back wearing a gray tank and some black sweat pants and sat in the same spot. He smelled fresh like he’d just taken a shower. And if he did just take a shower, it had to have been the shortest shower in his thirty-two years of living. He sat so close to me that his right leg was touching my left leg.
“Can I ask you something, Monica?”
“Sure, what’s up?” I replied, while continuing to flip through the pages like Sean wasn’t even there. It’s not that I was trying to avoid him, but the magazine was full of tricks and techniques for taking nature shots. It reminded me of my father taking pictures of me near Lake Michigan.
I could feel Sean’s eyes beaming at me when he asked, “Where ya man at?”
I laughed out loud because I had never heard Sean talk like that before.
“What? Why you laughing?”
“You just took me back to the lingo I used to hear all the time while growing up in my neighborhood.”
“Okay, well, let me be more sophisticated.” Sean cleared his voice. “Monica, are you involved with anyone?” he said like the guy on those Bell South commercials.
Now I had to laugh because Sean was being silly. “No, I’m not.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
I knew I wasn’t going to get any reading done with this line of questioning, so I placed my magazine on the table.
“Yeah…once.”
“So where’s he at?”
“I don’t know. It was a long time ago…back in high school.”
“High school?”
“Yeah, high school.”
“That’s not love.”
“It was love.”
“Okay…what about something more recent?”
“Something more recent like what?” When I crossed my legs, Sean briefly studied my toes that were polished a frosted light pink color with a hint of lavender, which was perfect for the summer.
“When was your last date?”
“High school…haven’t you been listening to me?”
“Are you kidding me? You are kidding me, right?” he responded in disbelief.
“No. Why do you think I’m joking?”
“How could someone as beautiful as you not have a date since high school? Explain that to me.”
I smiled. Honestly, I was blown away by the compliment. I’d never had a man as fine as Sean refer to me as being beautiful.
“It was a personal choice.”
“Oh, so that cat in high school must have broken your heart or something, huh?”
“Something like that. I really don’t want to go into detail about it.”
“C’mon, Monica.”
I took a deep breath. “Well, he wasn’t in high school…he was in college. I was in my last year of high school and we dated for about a year.”
“So what happened? Why y’all break up?”
“Just life. Things happened and it wasn’t the right time.”
“So it wasn’t meant to be?” Sean probed.
“I thought it was. I loved him. I still love him. He was my everything.” Although tears welled up in my eyes as I reminisced on my short relationship with Cornelius, I managed to keep a little composure. “But anyway, that’s that.”
“And this is the same dude that gave you the ring that was on the necklace you gave Roman?” I was surprised Sean even remembered that.
“Yeah. He proposed to me, and I said no because I knew it wasn’t the right time. Still, there’s not a day that I don’t wake up wishing that I said yes.” A tear fell from my eye. I couldn’t help it. “Gosh, I’m sorry. I can’t believe I’m sitting here crying over this.”
Sean put his arm around me. “Don’t apologize for your feelings, sweetheart. You ah’ight?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” I wiped my eyes. “You must think I’m stupid, huh?”
“Nah…not at all. I’m just amazed that you still love this dude after all of these years.”
“Don’t act like you don’t still have love for some of your
ex-girlfriends.”
Sean laughed, probably because I pluralized the word girlfriend as if he’d had many of them.
“Actually, I’m still very much in love with one of my ex-girlfriends.”
“Seriously?” I was surprised to hear Sean say that. Men like him didn’t normally sweat women. Usually, it was the other way around.
“Yep. You look shocked.”
“I am. I didn’t think someone who had it together like you held on to past loves.”
“Why wouldn’t I? I have a heart.”
“That’s good to know,” I replied, smiling. “So I guess I’m not crazy after all for having these feelings.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Somehow, I thought I was crazy for still feeling the way I do about my ex. But you said you feel the same way about yours, too. So tell me this – why did your relationship end with Shanelle?”
“It wasn’t the right time,” Sean responded, then put his hand on my thigh. “I can’t believe you been single for that long, though. I know these guys out here have been at you.” He cleverly changed the subject back to me.
“Yeah, but…” Sean interrupted.
“So what are you waiting for?”
“Right now, I’m focused on me. You have to love yourself first, right?”
“Are you saying you don’t love yourself?” Sean flashed his perfect smile at me.
“Yeah, I love myself. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I have to do me right now. I have things I want to accomplish in life. I have goals.”
“And just what are your goals?”
I smiled, trying to conceal a blush. “First, I need to find a job.”
“You have a job.”
“Yeah, I know, but I want to pursue a career in photography.”
“Oh, okay. Now I know why I see you with those magazines.” Sean propped his feet up on the coffee table. “So getting back to the one relationship you claim you’ve only been in…”
I smiled due to the emphasis he placed on the word ‘one’. “So you don’t believe me?”
“Nah, I don’t believe you. You’re too pretty to be single.”
“Why do you keep saying that, Sean?”
“Because it’s true.”
“Gosh. I feel like you’re flirting with me.”
“I am.”
I was beside myself, smiling from ear-to-ear while Sean gave me compliment after compliment. “Okay, but you’re very attractive and you’re not seeing anyone…or let me put it this way, I haven’t seen you with anyone.”
“We’re not talking about me right now. We’re talking ‘bout you. So are you saving yourself or what?” Sean asked with a smile on his face.
“What if I was? What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” he smirked.
“Like I said, I’m not focusing on me right now. I have to get my own life together first before I can become a part of someone else’s. You feel me?”
“I feel you.” Sean took his feet off of the table and stretched his arms up in the air. “Well, I’m about to go lay down. You want to continue this conversation in my room?”
Talk about being put on the spot. I had the spotlight shining in my face, and Sean was looking at me like he wanted me to perform.
“Ahh…are you sure? I don’t want to be in your way. I know you need to unwind.”
Sean stood up, then reached for my hand. “Come on. We can unwind together.”
There was no way for me to get out of this one, so I accepted his invitation and we went walking upstairs to his room. While I made myself comfortable on his bed, he laid flat on his back right beside me with his head propped up on a pillow.
“So where were we?”
“We were talking about you, weren’t we?” I laughed. Sean didn’t want to talk about himself too much. He wanted to know a lot about me, though.
He smirked and then said, “We can talk about me if you want to.”
“Wow. I better ask all the questions I can before you change your mind.”
“Shoot.”
“Okay. Where are you from?”
“Why you ask?”
“Didn’t you just say we can talk about you?”
“Well, I thought you asked because of the way I look. That’s usually why people ask me that.”
“Well, it’s not every day you see a black man with green eyes.”
“You like that, don’t you?” he asked, laughing at my comment.
Ignoring his question, I said, “And I hear a little bit of an accent in your voice.”
“Okay, well, let’s see. I was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We moved to the states when I was twelve. We lived in Miami for about five years, and then we moved to Milwaukee.”
“So you’re Haitian?”
“Partially. My father was Haitian. Here’s a picture of us.” Sean handed me a small photo that he took off of his nightstand. His father was dark-skinned, just like my father. “Most Haitian people are of African descent. My mother is French. I got my green eyes from her.”
He may have gotten those green eyes from her, but those lips of his – he got those from his daddy. I loved the full, enticing lips of black men, and Sean had a set of lips that were begging for a kiss.
“Wow. That’s interesting. I don’t know anything about Haiti. I’m a teacher and I probably couldn’t even find Haiti on a map. That’s sad.”
“Nah…that’s cool. You know Wyclef Jean?”
“Yep.”
“He’s from Haiti.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. I’m a fan of his music. I listen to a lot of Haitian bands, too. In Haiti, the most popular style of music is a genre called compas. It’s very vibrant and reminiscent of jazz with some African drumming. I’ll let you listen to some of the music in my collection one day.” Sean sat up and looked at me. “I listen to hip hop and R&B, too. I can get down with Musiq, Donnell Jones, and Common. But I like compas artists, like T-Vice, Mizik Mizik, and Volume. You heard of any of them?”
“No, can’t say that I have.”
“Well, like I said, I’ll let you listen to some of my music.” Sean looked at me again. “Am I talking too much?”
“No. I’m just amazed. It’s always exciting to learn about other people’s cultures and heritages, especially since mine is so boring.”
“It’s not boring. You just haven’t dug deep enough. Honestly, I didn’t know the Haitian culture would still have a great influence on my life since I’ve become Americanized. But it does. When I was having my home decorated, I actually chose a designer who knew a lot about Haitian art and culture. All of the pictures on the wall are Haitian art. And being that my mother has French roots, she instilled some of her culture in us kids, as well. She made sure we enrolled in French classes in school, and in college, I took some French classes, too. I can speak the language somewhat, but I’m still not as fluent as I would like to be.”
“Say something in French.”
“You want me to say something in French right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay…” Sean thought about it for a second, then said, “Monica, est un beau nom pour une belle femme.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘Monica is a beautiful name for a beautiful woman.’”
“Aww…that’s sweet. Thank you. My goodness. You’re just full of surprises, huh?”
“I guess you can say that.”
“How was it growing up in Haiti?”
“It was tough. Living here gave my family more opportunities to thrive.”
When Sean yawned again, I used that as my excuse to get out of there. Besides, I was getting sleepy myself.
“Well, I’m going to let you get some sleep. This was nice, though. We’ll have to do it again.” I stood up, preparing to make my exit from his room.
“I’m sure we will.” Sean took me by the hand as if he didn’t want me to go. “Goodnight, Monica.”
>
“Goodnight, Sean.” His eyes beamed up to me and he didn’t let go of my hand. “Are you going to let me go?” I asked him.
“What if I answer no to that?” he said, but released me anyway. “Wait…before you go, come here for a minute.”
He looked as if he wanted to kiss me. I was really hoping he wasn’t about to try and put the moves on me, but when he licked his lips, I knew what he wanted. I leaned over towards him. He moved his mouth right beside my cheek, and his lips touched my face as he gave me the innocent goodnight peck.
“Goodnight,” he said again.
“Goodnight, Sean.”
After my conversation with Sean, I went to my room, took out the notebook that Keisha gave me, and just started writing:
Entry 1
I did good today. Cornelius didn’t cross my mind much; well, that is until Sean started asking me questions about him. Now, sitting here in bed, he is all I can think about. Maybe because I’d just been talking to Sean; hearing Sean’s voice made me think about him…maybe. I don’t know what it is. But I swear it feels like Cornelius’ lips are brushing up against the back of my neck. Sometimes, I even think I hear him faintly calling my name. I don’t know why I can’t stop thinking about him. I don’t even know why I’m writing this, but Keisha seems to think it’s a good idea. I hope so. I can’t live like this. I can’t go on with these deep feelings I have for Cornelius. I mean, how can I ever find love again if I’m living in the past, loving a man who has apparently disappeared off the face of the earth? I can’t do it.
- - -
Putting those words on paper actually felt therapeutic. It made me feel like I was doing something about my problem instead of just letting it consume me. I went to bed right after I finished writing. For the first time in a long time, I actually felt relaxed before going to sleep, only I didn’t know if it was a direct result of writing about Cornelius or thinking about my wonderful night with Sean.
Chapter 13 - The Family
Over the next couple of weeks, my relationship with Sean grew into a close friendship sort of unexpectedly. Before, I could never see myself being this close to him, but like Warren said, I wouldn’t like Sean unless I really got to know him. And, boy, did I get to know him. I had already met his mother and he just introduced me to his sister, Nikki. I noticed, too, that Sean began coming home from work earlier to spend time with Roman, or so he said, but I knew he was trying to get at me, too. And the amount of time we spent together didn’t go unnoticed. His family recognized our friendship. They were excited that Sean was happy again, and that’s one of the reasons why Victoria asked me out to lunch. Talk about butterflies. She wanted to take me to Culvers, but I wasn’t ready to leave just yet.
