by Dana Canedy
I stayed at the Plain Dealer for eight years, until the mid 1990s, when I met some reporters and editors from the Times at a journalism convention and they invited me to New York for a round of interviews. The Times eventually made an offer, but three things weighed on my mind.
The first was that New York was expensive and loud and overwhelming. In Cleveland I had a fabulous apartment overlooking Lake Erie and a convertible sports car that helped me get dates. I had an active social life and, for the first time, a savings account.
Then there was the fact that the Times offer came with a huge caveat. It was an apprentice reporting position in which I would have three years to prove I was “Timesworthy” or be let go.
Finally, there was Greg, who wanted me to move to Boston, not to New York. I wanted to be with him, too, but I had fears of being stuck in Boston with no job and only a man’s money to rely on. I had a recurring nightmare in which my real life turned out to have been a dream and I woke up with no education and no job.
But what if I accepted the job at the Times, lost Greg, and failed the apprenticeship?
I was torn. So I consulted the only friend I trusted to advise me about the decision—Greg’s mother.
Geneva Moore was approaching seventy but still dyed her hair red and went dancing in black leather pants. She was a dame, and I adored her. We spent hours on the phone talking about her life as a young woman and my career. When I told her that I was close to taking a job at the Times and that the decision would likely lead to the end of my relationship with her son, I knew she would not hold back.
“The New York Times?” Geneva Moore said excitedly. “Dana, I love you and I love my son, but he could get hit by a bus. Honey, you better take that job.”
I accepted the position that week in the summer of 1996, along with the uncertainty that came with it.
There was an intoxicating energy to New York City, just as there was in the newsroom, and I adapted to it quickly. I made friends with some of the younger reporters, and we plotted our careers after hours at restaurants and bars near our Midtown office that served designer cocktails and tiny appetizers on giant plates.
Professionally, the risk paid off: just a year later, in the fall of 1997,1 was promoted out of the apprentice program.
Nowhere I was on a Friday morning, this tough career woman, putting on a gray skirt suit instead of the jeans and blazer I usually wore at the end of the week. I put a makeup kit and perfume in my briefcase. I slipped my feet into a pair of painful black pumps, deciding to suffer through the agony instead of wearing comfortable loafers. I had bought fresh flowers on the way home the day before and set them out in vases around my apartment. All for a man I was still not sure I wanted.
Late in the afternoon I was in the newsroom writing a story on deadline and had almost forgotten about his flight. Then Charles called. He had made it to my building and gotten the key I left with the doorman. I told him I would be a few hours.
“No problem. I brought my sketch pad,” he said.
By the time I had finished my piece and made it home on the subway, it was nearly eight. Charles was sitting in my living room, drawing. When he stood up, I felt the same flutter in my stomach I had when we first met. He was scrumptious.
He smiled shyly and we hugged. I lingered in his arms and looked into his face. We kissed lightly, a tentative peck that felt like a beginning. It was enough to make me forget about deadlines and traffic. I was home.
Shy is not a word that describes me, but I was oddly nervous. I had pretended to be the sort of woman who would casually invite a man to her home for a weekend, but I did not feel casual about things at all. Charles was there because I wanted him to be.
“Let me show you my city,” I said, trying to relax. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Charles chuckled and I met his gaze with a playful smile that seemed to put us both at ease. We took the subway to a romantic Italian restaurant, not overly fancy, where we sat by an open window.
I had learned more about Charles in the past month than I had about some men I had dated for the better part of a year, but it had been a phone relationship. Sitting face-to-face with an entire weekend stretched out before us was disconcerting. I was relieved when the waiter broke the silence by offering us bread and pouring oil into a dish.
“What’s that, butter?” Charles asked.
“No, olive oil,” I said. He seemed embarrassed.
Charles watched me dip a chunk of the warm crusty bread into the dish and take a bite. When he declined a slice, I was not sure whether the olive oil was too great a novelty for him or whether he was simply steering clear of carbohydrates. I ordered linguini with clam sauce—more carbs. Charles ordered a salad.
“Give us a minute,” I instructed the waiter.
“Charles, you can eat salad anywhere,” I said. “Why don’t you try the pasta?They make it from scratch here.” On the army base, I knew, he generally ate cafeteria food, and I suspected that if he had pasta at home, it was ravioli from a can. This was a chance to relax and be adventuresome, if only for a weekend. I wanted him to enjoy himself
“But I want a salad,” Charles insisted.
“Well at least have some grilled chicken on it or something.”
He shrugged his shoulders and agreed to add a skinless chicken breast. I didn’t know then how strictly he watched his diet; I saw it as a sign that he was rigid or afraid to try new things.
“So have you seen my parents lately?” I asked, wishing we could both loosen up. He said that he had, and we laughed about how shocked they would be to know that he was visiting me. We had decided not to tell our families about our courtship until we knew ourselves whether there was anything worth telling.
I wanted so badly for Charles to be comfortable that I reached across the table and rubbed his arm. “I really am glad you’re here,” I said softly. “We’re going to have a great time getting to know each other better.”
Charles leaned over the table and kissed me on the lips. I tasted a hint of Oregano, one of my favorite spices, and leaned in for more. Finally, we were relaxed enough to enjoy our first official date. The glow lasted until the check arrived.
I knew that I made more money than him and that he had a daughter to support. I suspected that he could not afford the hundred-dollar meal. So I told him that since he had just bought a round-trip ticket to New York, this was my treat. Still, he seemed uncomfortable when I discreetly slid the bill in my direction. He wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin and said nothing as I handed the waiter a credit card.
It occurred to me that perhaps he was the sort of man who still believed in the dating rituals of a bygone era. I was right. The entire weekend, Charles insisted on being on the curb side of the sidewalk to put distance between me and the traffic. It was a sweet, throwback gesture that in any other city I would have appreciated, but it drove me crazy as we tried to keep pace with the rushed pedestrians on New York’s one-way streets and congested avenues. He had to step in front of or behind me every few blocks to switch positions in order to come between me and the traffic.
“Charles, please stop that,” I said as patiently as I could when we approached yet another packed intersection. “I appreciate you looking out for me, but you can’t do that in New York. You’d have to switch sides practically every block.”
He smiled and shook his head in agreement but he never did stop dodging dogs and drivers and pedestrians to make that loving gesture. I eventually stopped fighting it, realizing how important it was to him and how blessed I was that a man cared enough about me to make it. The last time I ever walked with him, pushing a stroller on our way back from dinner at a Chinese restaurant, Charles gently tapped me on the hip every few blocks, a signal I knew well. I instinctively responded by stepping in front of him so he could switch positions: a dance born of his gentility that we had long ago perfected.
It took a while for me to learn to let Charles fuss over me, especially when we both knew I w
as capable of taking care of myself. In time I realized that accepting his overtures was not a threat to my independence but rather confirmation of how secure I was with it.
There was still a hint of daylight when we made our way out onto the street that evening, and I threw my hand up to hail a cab. As a taxi pulled over, Charles looked uncomfortable, and I realized that he had wanted to signal it himself. It was too late, so we slid into the backseat and I told the driver to take us to Times Square. I could not wait to show your father the sights—the gigantic neon billboards, the historic Broadway theaters, the New York Times building—but he seemed brooding and distracted. It probably didn’t help that, without thinking, I paid the fare. At least I thought to wait for Charles to help me out of the cab.
We strolled, holding hands as I pointed out various landmarks. I am not a petite woman, but my hand felt tiny in his. His grip was strong and I could feel the tightness of his muscles squeezing my fingers.
Living in New York requires a certain edge, which I acquired by osmosis. Guards are rarely let down, motives almost always questioned. I had grown accustomed to being vigilant to protect myself without depending on a man. Now here was this massive man making me feel as safe as I did on the front porch of my parents’ house in Kentucky.
Charles was polite enough as we walked, but by the end of the night he was very quiet. I hoped that in city-girl mode I did not seem too unlike the relaxed woman he had met in my parents’ living room. Perhaps he was simply as nervous as I was about what would come next.
I offered him a beer when we returned home and excused myself to take a shower. He still had more than half a bottle when I rejoined him in the living room wearing a T-shirt and a pair of baggy shorts. My reporter friend Rachel had given me advice on how to handle this potentially awkward part of the evening.
“Just don’t shave your legs. That way you won’t get into trouble.”
She was serious. I’m the girly-girl in my circle of friends and Rachel knew I would never sleep with a man, at least not the first time, without exfoliating, shaving, and moisturizing my skin.
I sat next to Charles on my black leather couch and tucked my legs under me to hide the stubble. He yawned a few times and took another few sips of beer. He probably would have sat there all night rather than suggest going to bed for fear that I would misinterpret his intentions.
I had had a long week and was tired, too. “If you don’t mind, I’m ready to turn in. You can either sleep on the couch or on one side of my bed/’ I finally said, impulsively putting aside the sleeping arrangements we had agreed upon. It sounded like something a teenager would propose, but I was not sure what else to say. I wanted him near me, but not too close.
I stood up and Charles followed me into my bedroom. He grabbed his toiletries out of his suitcase and went to the bathroom. I slid into bed and pulled the covers up to my neck. What had I been thinking, inviting him into my bed on what was, in essence, our first date?
Charles came back in the bedroom with a sheepish smile on his face and got into bed wearing a tank top and gym shorts. He looked out of place, this brawny soldier lying there in my wrought-iron canopy bed outfitted with pink sheets and draped with delicate lavender sheers. We met in the middle and he took me in his arms. When his lips met mine I remembered why he was there, even as I wondered how I could ever be with a man who only ate salad.
We kissed long and hard before I gently pushed him away.
“We should stop,” I said, breathing heavily.
He laid his head on my chest and then said he did not mean to get carried away. We slid to our respective sides of the bed, pretending to fall asleep. I remained awake for the longest time, and I suspected he did, too.
I awoke the next morning to a tapping sound on the floor and opened my eyes, squinting. I lifted my head. Charles was on the floor, doing push-ups on a set of metal handrails he had brought with him.
‘Tm sorry, I tried to be quiet,” he said.
‘Oh my God, who gets up this early on a Saturday?” I said, trying to sit up. “And who travels with portable gym equipment?”
“It’s not early,” he said laughing. “It’s almost nine o’clock.”
I grunted and slid back down in bed. Charles walked out of the room and returned a minute later with two glasses of orange juice. I was awake enough to notice that his neck and chest were glistening with perspiration.
“My God, you have an amazing body,” I said.
He smiled and leaned over to kiss me. “Thank you,” he said.
He told me he was going running. I rolled back over, told him where I had put my keys, and said I was going back to sleep. When I woke up more than an hour later, he had returned and was stretching vigorously on the floor beside me. No Martian could have looked more alien to me.
“Seriously, don’t you ever sleep in on weekends?”
“I get up at five during the week,” he said.
A military man, indeed.
Staying in bed until noon would have been rude, so I pulled myself together enough to play tour guide for a second day. Charles was struck by the usual touristy things—the way the height of the buildings obscured the sun for entire blocks, the smell of honey-roasted cashews sold hot from a street cart, the subway musician blowing a trumpet so sweetly in a humid underground tunnel. I tried to point out things the tourists did not always see. He blinked in disbelief when I showed him a grocery store that only sold low-fat and fat-free foods. He all but giggled when he bit into a pastry from a popular bakery in my neighborhood. I kissed powdered sugar off his lips.
“That tasted good,” he said. “I like the pastry, too.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and we kissed again as customers brushed past us with their coffee and muffins.
“What do you want to do next?” I asked him when we made our way back onto the street.
“Whatever you want,” he said. “I’m all yours.”
“Please,” I said. “I’m trying to be a good girl.”
He curled his lips into a mischievous smile.
“I know a lovely fountain, a wall of water cut right into the middle of a busy block. Want to see it?”
He nodded and took my hand.
“You know, I don’t think I can show you everything in one weekend,” I said, playfully glancing at him out of the corner of my eye.
In the months that followed, Charles visited two or three more times and gradually became a part of my life. Our feelings for each other went beyond friendship, and we had become more physical, but we still had not defined the relationship.
We shopped for clothes in New York to replace his oversize T-shirts and baggy jeans: pleated slacks and knit shirts, jeans that hugged him nicely, leather loafers and sandals to replace his sneakers. As long as he was out of uniform and away from the military base, it was almost possible for me to forget that he was a soldier.
I did not visit Fort Riley. It was not a place I was anxious to see, and my latest assignment left little time for leisure travel. If we remained in my world, he was simply Charles, the handsome man who had become my steady companion.
I took him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Broadway plays, and Central Park. We spread out on the city’s great lawn one weekend with a picnic basket and I teasingly said, after he had unpacked our food and books, that the spot he had chosen was all wrong. He wanted so badly to please me that he twice packed up our belongings and relocated until I was satisfied.
“You know,” he said, “you would be shocked to see me with my soldiers, and they would be shocked to see me with you.”
I did not think his men had ever seen him catering to the whims of a woman, but it would be years before I would know just how different Charles the military leader was from Charles the man I would come to adore.
By late fall I had introduced Charles to most of my friends. We hosted a small cocktail party on a Friday night when the chill in the air hinted at the changing season. Charles turned on some jazz and I humm
ed as I blanched carrots and sugar peas for crudites and asked him to put fruit and cheese on a platter.
“Dana, will you be my girlfriend?” he asked.
“Where did that come from?” I asked. I had not expected to have a “relationship” talk.
He looked wounded.
“Charles, you know I care about you,” I said. “Why do we have to define our relationship?”
He simply looked down and sliced more cheese.
I felt guilty and confused. So many women, especially black women, longed for the affections of an honorable man—a man so sweet that he was actually asking me to go steady!
I had to be honest with myself about why I was holding back. My ideal man, I thought, looked like Charles but wore a suit to work and carried the Wall Street Journal under his arm. He was as comfortable discussing the stock market on a golf course as he was trash-talking on a basketball court. We were just so different, Charles and me. We had started out at roughly the same place in life, his beginnings slightly more middle class than mine. But now I lived in a different world.
It was not that Charles could not adapt to my world; I liked introducing him to it, but there were tensions. One evening several weeks earlier, I had gone down to meet him in the lobby of the Times. I got off the elevator and looked around. Then I saw him lurking behind a giant bust of our former publisher, practically hiding—something not lost on the security guards, who were keeping close watch over him. Why was he not standing out in the open like everyone else? I tried to hurry us out the door, but Charles stopped me. He wanted to know why I had only invited him up to the newsroom once. I had truly never thought about it, since he usually came to my office at the end of the day to meet me for dinner or a show. I had given him a tour of the newsroom and introduced him to my favorite colleagues. Did he think I was ashamed of him? Perhaps that was why he was standing behind that bust.
