by Tina Martin
“Sean, don’t worry about it. There’s no need to get upset. Just…” Beyond irritation, I threw my hands up in the air. “Just do whatever you want.”
I left the room and went to sit outside by the pool, with my feet dangling in the water. I knew Sean was going to follow me. I just couldn’t seem to shake him.
Minutes later, I saw him walking up to me. “Monica, I wasn’t trying to start an argument, okay? I was just joking with you. That being said, you make it seem like if we were acknowledging the contract and the marriage, then you’d be disgusted.”
“Why on earth would I be disgusted with a man like you, Sean? Are you kidding me? If anything, I will be hated by every woman walking the planet because they’d all wish they had you.”
Sean smiled. Then he slid off his shirt and got into the pool, dipping completely underneath the water. When he came up, he said, “However, I will say that Monica Annviere Beauvais doesn’t sound half bad.”
We both laughed. Then I started thinking about how Sean knew what my middle name was. I never told him that. And on those very rare occasions that I did have to tell someone my whole name, I always said Monica Ann Smith. Most people didn’t even know how to pronounce my middle name, but Sean said it perfectly…Ann-v-air. So, it peaked my curiosity to know how he knew that.
“Sean, how do you know my middle name?”
“You told me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe I saw it printed somewhere.”
Maybe he did see it printed somewhere, because I was sure I didn’t tell him.
“Why don’t you loosen up a little?” Sean said, as he pulled me in the water to join him.
The pool was five feet all the way around. When he tugged on my arm, I tried to resist but was no match for his strength. Then he grabbed me around the waist and pushed me slowly back into the wall of the pool. Splashing water tickled my ears and hit me from all angles as I inhaled the light chlorine smell fuming from the surface.
“I don’t think I’ve thanked you for all that you do for me and Roman.”
“Oh, I’m sure you have.”
“Okay, well, I’m saying it again, Monica.” Sean stared into my eyes almost seductively, realizing he was making me uneasy and using that to his advantage. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, really. I don’t even know why you’re thanking me. I mean, you are paying me. Actually, you’re overpaying me.” I smiled while Sean kept staring into my eyes like he didn’t hear a word I said.
“Let your hair down.”
“No. I don’t want chlorine in my hair.”
“You can always wash it out. Just let it down. I want to see it wet.”
“What? You have a weird fetish for wet hair?”
Sean took off my barrette and let my hair fall free. “Now come under with me.” He continued standing in front of me, holding my hands. “On three. One…two…three.”
I took a deep breath and went under with him. I’m glad I knew how to swim. Otherwise, I would’ve been in trouble. We swam to the opposite end of the pool. Sean came up before me, and when I finally broke through the surface of the water, he was standing there looking at me while I brushed excess water off of my face. All I could hear was the trickles of the moving water.
Then he said, “Wow.”
“What?” I squeezed water out of my hair.
“You’re just so beautiful.”
I didn’t say a word. I just smiled.
“I’m serious. You are amazing,” he assured me.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Well, I’m going to go and wash up….have to get this chlorine off of me since somebody wanted me to go under the water.” I got out of the pool, dripping water, thanks to yours truly.
“What do you want for dinner, Sean?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Beauvais,” Sean said wittingly.
“Don’t call me that.”
“I was joking, Monica. Calm down.”
“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, what do you want for dinner? I was thinking Chinese.”
“Sounds good to me. How about we add a movie and my room?”
“Why does it have to be your room? Why can’t we just have dinner in the dining room or in the kitchen, like normal people?”
“My room is more comfortable. Now go ahead and order the food, woman.”
“Is that a demand?”
“Yes, now go. I’m hungry.”
“Make me go.” Sean playfully splashed water out of the pool and I took off running. “Okay, I’m going, I’m going.”
I ordered the Chinese and then went to shower the smell of chlorine off my skin and hair. Sean went to pick up the food about thirty minutes later. Roman and I were sitting in Sean’s bedroom waiting for him to get home. It was a little after seven when he came in with the pepper steak and fried chicken with white rice and gravy.
After dinner, I ran some bath water for Roman, and after he finished putting on his pajamas, I tucked him in his bed. I went back to Sean’s room to watch the remainder of Bad Boys II, a movie I’d already seen a trillion times, and then I fell asleep. I wasn’t completely out when I’d first closed my eyes. I could feel Sean’s strong hands feeling my hair for a few minutes. It felt like he was massaging my scalp. He was really getting into it, too. That was going to make me go to sleep even faster.
Chapter 17 - Sharing Our Worlds
A few hours later, I opened my eyes to find Sean staring directly at me, as if he knew I was about to wake up.
“What did I do – pass out?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
“Something like that.”
“I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. What time is it?”
“It’s about midnight.”
“Why aren’t you sleep yet?”
“I’m not tired.”
“I am. I think I’m going to go and lay down. I didn’t mean to take over your bed, even though it’s about four times the size of mine.”
“A big man needs a lot of room.”
“Big? Your little skinny butt doesn’t need all that room.”
Sean grinned, then took a glass off of his nightstand. “You don’t have to go, you know. We could talk.”
“Talk? At midnight? About what?”
“Anything.” He turned up the glass to his mouth.
“What is that you’re drinking? Milk?”
“Nah, it’s a Haitian drink.”
“Oh. What’s in it?”
“Ah…creamed coconut, condensed milk, nutmeg, and Haitian rum. It’s called Kremas. You want to taste? It’s really good.” Sean handed me the glass. “Taste.”
I skeptically turned the glass up to my mouth to take a sip. It was surprisingly good. Not that I doubted Sean, but that was some good stuff. I took another sip.
“This is good. Mmm.”
“You can have it if you want.”
I kept the glass in my hand and took another swallow. “So what were we talking about again?”
“You were just about to tell me more about yourself.”
“What is it that you want to know?” I asked, almost wishing I didn’t ask such an open question.
“You said you were from Milwaukee, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Where is your family?”
I yawned. “Let’s see, my parents divorced right after I graduated from high school. My father lives on the Southside near the airport, and last I heard, my mom lives somewhere in Wauwatosa.”
“What you mean last you heard? You don’t talk to her anymore?”
“I knew I should’ve gone to my room. Why are you asking so many questions?”
“How else am I supposed to get to know you?”
I combed my hair with my fingers, trying to get all the strands in a ponytail, but then let it fall free again. I didn’t want to go into detail about my relationship with my parents. Now I found myself yet again explaining why I distanced myself from them.
“Well, the last time I had a conversation with my mom, I was nineteen.”
“Nineteen? Why is that?”
“It’s kind of personal, if you don’t mind. However, I will say that I remember the day I left. We were arguing and I remember screaming ‘I hate you’ at the top of my lungs, then I packed some clothes and left.”
“Hmmm. I wish you would tell me more. I mean, how can you not talk to your own mother?”
“Simple. We didn’t get along. I know you find that hard to understand since you get along with your mother so well, but me and my mom is a whole different story.”
“I’ll admit, my mom drives me a little crazy sometimes, too, but she’s still my mother. I would never completely stop talking to her.”
“Yeah, well, let me put it this way…my mom made me do something that I regret every day I wake up, and I’ve never forgiven her for it.”
“And what was that?”
“I’m not going into detail about it. I just wanted to let you know why my relationship with my mother is strained.”
I could tell by Sean’s facial expression that he wanted to know more, but I wasn’t willing to share. I didn’t want to talk about my past. Anytime I did, I would always cry. Always.
“And what about your father? Do you talk to him at all?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“Brothers and sisters?”
“No. I’m the only child. I had a younger sister. Her name was Mikayla. She died when I was around five or six years old.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It was a long time ago. I barely remember her.”
“So what is it about your parents that make you so…so distant from them?”
“All I will say is they were two people who pretended to love each other so that they appeared to be happy in public, but at home, it was complete chaos. I remember once, they argued over a field trip I was supposed to take when I was in the seventh grade. They fought a lot, too…and many nights, I would just cry myself to sleep listening to them go back and forth.”
“No offense, but your people sound a little crazy.”
“They drove me crazy!” I laughed. “I decided I wouldn’t get married a long time ago based on their screwed up life.”
“Yep, and now here we are…married and all.” Sean smiled.
“Whatever. We’re not married. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“I know. I was just messing with you. But wait a minute. What about the high school boyfriend? You wouldn’t have married him eventually? I thought you loved him.”
“I do love him, and yeah, I suppose I would have married him. That one time he proposed, I just wasn’t ready and he wasn’t ready either. I could tell. But I know he loved me.”
“Do you think he still loves you like you love him?”
“Probably not. I hurt him.”
“You cheated on dude?”
“Nooo, nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
He’s a pushy son-of-a-gun, isn’t he? Can I get a minute to breathe between questions?
“I don’t want to go into detail about that either. But, anyway, no one thinks that seriously in high school, and by you being a man and all, I know then you didn’t think about marriage.”
“Very funny,” Sean said.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”
“I know. I don’t think I started thinking about marriage until my mid twenties. It was like I had no stability, no home, no kids…and I really wanted kids.”
“And a fine woman, huh?”
“Well, yeah, of course. I wanted it all. And I had the perfect woman that would’ve made my life complete.”
“Apparently she wasn’t all that perfect if she didn’t know how to cook?”
“Huh?”
“Shanelle. She didn’t know how to cook…right?”
“Oh.” Sean smiled. “I wasn’t talking about Shanelle, though, but nah, she couldn’t cook. And speaking of Shanelle, I know she wasn’t right for me. I didn’t love her…never even made love to her.”
“What you mean you never made love to her? She was your wife.”
“I know that, but I didn’t love her.”
“So why would you marry someone you don’t love?”
“I’d rather not go into detail about that.” He got me back. Now he wanted to skip details because I did.
“Okay, so when did you realize you didn’t love her anymore?”
“That’s just the thing. I never loved her.”
“Okay, but a while ago, you told me that you were still in love with an ex. I thought you were talking about Shanelle.”
“Nah, I wasn’t talking about her. When I used to lie in bed beside her at night, I would be thinking about someone else. Like I said, I wanted the complete package, the nice home, the cars, and the fine woman with a banging body.”
“Wait…let me get this straight. You married Shanelle because she was fine? And let me guess, the woman you were really in love with wasn’t that attractive?”
“Nah, she was very attractive.”
“Could she cook?”
Sean laughed. He knew where I was going with the questions. “Yeah, she could cook.”
“So why didn’t you marry her instead of Shanelle?”
“You sure ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”
“Well, you were asking me a lot of questions. Now it’s your turn.”
“I didn’t marry the woman that I loved because I left her. Now you’re going to ask me why, right?”
“Nope. I’m not going to pry.”
Sean got up off of the bed and turned on his CD player. I’m glad he did. The conversation was becoming intense as we found out more about each other.
Sean turned to me and said, “Remember that compas style music I was telling you about?”
“Yeah. Is that it?”
“Yep.”
The music sounded very similar to salsa music to me. It was very relaxing. I could imagine myself lying on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean while listening to music like that.
“You like it?”
“Yeah, it’s nice. I can get down to this.”
He joined me on the bed again. Only this time, he sat beside me.
“I like you,” he said, while looking at me with a smile on his face.
“Now what are you talking about?”
“Your personality…I like it. Shanelle was always uptight and bossy. I still can’t believe she left me, though.”
“Why would you care? You didn’t love her anyway.”
“But I had this concept that she was supposed to be with me or something. I don’t know. It’s a man thing, I guess.”
“Did you have any clues that she was seeing someone else?”
“Of course, I did. She was staying out late and I found a few numbers in her coat pocket. I mean, she was fine. I know a lot of dudes were trying to get at her. I didn’t think she was really feeling them like that, though.”
“Why do I get the vibe that you love her?”
“I care for her. I don’t like the fact that she left me a single father.”
Sean seemed to be talking in circles. At one point, it seemed as if he had love for Shanelle, and then the next, he seemed like he could care less about her. I had to get it clear in my mind what he was really feeling.
“I’m not trying to defend Shanelle or anything, but you just said you didn’t love her. And you never made love to her. Why would she want to stay with you?”
“You got a point,” Sean said with a smirk on his face.
“Well, you’re doing okay without her anyway.”
“Yeah, thanks to you.” Sean hung his head. “Do you know what I miss the most?”
“What’s that?”
“I miss having someone in bed with me every night, a warm body.”
“So get married again?”
“I’m already married, remember….me and you.”
“Yeah, I know. I think I would get married again if I met the right woman.”
“And just who is the right woman?”
“Ah…hmm, the right woman for me would be someone who loves me, my son, and my family.”
“Okay, well that’s a given. I’m talking about features and qualities. The only reason I’m asking is because it seems like men, especially black men, have a very high standard for the woman they want as a potential girlfriend or wife. I mean, their standards are so high, it’s practically unreachable.”
“Well, my woman has to be attractive. She ain’t gotta be no Halle Berry, but I have to be attracted to her. I like a woman who’s sexy but not stuck up, confident but not overly independent, silly but intelligent enough to debate with me. Also, she has to be my partner, my sidekick, the woman who always got my back no matter what. I need someone whom I can trust to love me and be faithful, and in turn, I will give the same.”
“Wow. That’s a tall order.”
“It is a tall order, but it’s not unreachable. You’ve already filled most of it.”
I wasn’t expecting to hear that from him. In his mind, I’m his ideal woman. I didn’t know how to take it, so I laughed it off.
Then I asked casually, “What you mean?”
“What I mean is, most of the ideal qualities I want in a wife, I see them in you. You’re beautiful, intelligent, funny, and you love my son.”
What does he mean he’s found most of the qualities he wants in me? I’m not even everything I want to be yet. I haven’t accomplished all the things I want to. I want a career and a house of my own. I hadn’t even started living yet.
Keisha used to tell me that you don’t actually start living until you hit thirty. I don’t know how she would know that since we were pretty much the same age.
Anyway, getting back to Sean, I think he was just flirting with me when he made statements like that. But what if he wasn’t? What if he was really into me? Come to think about it, I haven’t seen Sean with a woman since I’ve been living here. There was no mention of a woman. I don’t think he was seeing anyone.
“Whatever, Sean.” I played it off as if he was joking. “Well, I can barely keep my eyes open so I’m going to bed.”
“You’re in bed.” Sean wanted me to stay the rest of the morning with him. I must have made some impression on him. It seems like he wanted to be with me all the time now.
