Cydney swallowed. “Has something happened?”
Villa’s pause told it all. “Mr. James has had an unfortunate—Mrs. James would like me to call it an accident, but I know Mr. James wouldn’t want me lying to you. It’s a very awkward situation. They were divorcing as you probably know.”
“Accident?” Cydney took a breath, sat down on the floor where she had stood. “Is he dead?”
“Hospitalized,” Villa told her. “He swallowed quite a few prescription pills.” Villa seemed to be gathering herself on the other line. “Quite a few.”
“Oh, my goodness, are you telling me that Stephon tried to kill himself?”
Villa lowered her voice. “I just thought you should know. I hope you’ll keep this quiet. Mrs. James has asked that no one contact her but go through me for the time being. She’s trying to get everything sorted out.”
“Is he going to make it?” Cydney asked, tears in her eyes now.
“I’m not sure,” Villa said, “but I’ll personally keep you posted. I—” she hesitated “—I know Mr. James thought very fondly of you. He was shockingly open to those of us he was close to about how he felt about you…”
“You make it sound like he doesn’t stand a chance,” Cydney said.
“I’ll keep you abreast,” Villa offered. “I’m sorry.”
Villa said her goodbyes and hung up. Cydney slumped against the wall, phone dangling in her hand. The obvious question hung above her head: Was this all her fault?
Desmond slipped into his office for a quick phone call. He dialed the numbers, which he’d memorized overnight, and sat humming to himself as the rings cycled. It picked up on the fourth ring.
“Hey, there,” Desmond said. “I’ve been thinking about you all day and had to call and check in on you. I had a wonderful time yesterday.”
“That’s good,” Cydney said.
Her demeanor was ice cold, to Desmond’s dismay.
“Am I catching you at a bad time?”
“No,” she lied.
“So what are you up to today?”
“Not much.”
“Up for some company?”
“Honestly,” Cydney said, “no.”
Desmond’s face fell. He shifted in his seat. “Oooo-kay.”
“Talk with you later?” Cydney asked, in a hurry to hang up.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Good.”
“Cydney, are you—” His query was halted by the sound of a click, then the dial tone.
She’d hung up.
Desmond stared at the phone for a moment. Eventually he placed it back in the cradle. He sat back in his chair, rocking even though it wasn’t a rocker, tapping his fingers together. Once again the gods of romance had thrown him a pitch he had no capability of hitting, one that appeared to come at him straight, but just as he tightened his grip on the bat and prepared to swing it looped beyond his reach.
A knock came to his office door.
“S’open,” he said.
Karen poked her head around the door but didn’t enter the room. “The performers are here, they’re just setting up.”
Desmond nodded. “Good.”
Karen hung around like a dust cloud. “Everything okay? You look down.”
“I get in these thinking moods from time to time,” Desmond said. “I’m fine.”
“Well, hurry on back out. I miss seeing you milling around talking to the people.”
Desmond got up, clasped his hands and flashed Karen a smile. “Coming right now, can’t have you missing me.”
Karen smiled in return and disappeared from the doorway. Desmond pushed his chair flush against the desk, gave the phone one last hard look and moved from the small office.
Slay drove his BMW up the main thoroughfare of Asbury Park, Kenya beside him, bobbing her head to his Nas CD, turned down quite a few notches below the level he usually played it at. She had her purse in her lap, her hands crossed on top of it, sitting how he imagined that bitch from the college that dissed him—Theresa/Pamela—would sit. It surprised him to see Kenya, so, so…womanly, sophisticated like.
“Had a good time?” he asked Kenya.
She smiled, kept bobbing. “The best.”
“What you thinking about now?”
“Thinking about the boys,” she said. “It’s good to get a break, good to spend some time with you, but I miss they bad asses.”
“You a good mother, Kenya, you know that?”
She looked at him, smiled. “I get plenty of help.”
Slay tried to smile. Couldn’t.
The light ahead turned a shade of orange, Slay could have punched the gas pedal and made it through but he braked to a stop. By the side of the road a couple of white guys, their hair spiked and colored, their dress a collage of army gear, clown suit and white-collar worker, held up large white placards with handwritten Magic Marker messages.
Asbury Park police are bullies who abuse their power
Criminals don’t wear black, they wear blue
Slay nodded to the sign, smirked. “Asbury Park cops are expensive, too. Costing me a grip to keep them at bay, let me handle mines without interruptions.”
Kenya stopped bopping to the music, turned to Slay. “You ever thought about doing something else?” she asked. “You smart, got all kinds of connections, all kinds of respect. My uncle says you got a good business mind, he could tell.”
Slay moved through the green light. “Nah, I like where I’m at with my life.”
“Do you?”
He looked at her, started to smile, but the look in her eyes made him hold the smile. “Everything ain’t perfect, but yeah, for the most part I like it.”
“I don’t wanna ever see you go back in, that’s all.”
“That makes two of us. I can’t. I won’t.”
Kenya pursed her lips, went back to bobbing her head to the music. She didn’t say anything for the balance of the five-minute ride and Slay didn’t either. He pulled up to the front of the apartment tower and put the transmission arm in park. He seemed nervous, as if he had something to say but didn’t have the words clear, as if he wanted to kiss her but was too bashful.
“Best time I think I ever had,” Kenya said. “I won’t be forgetting this for a long time.”
Slay smiled.
Kenya leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thanks again.” She turned and opened her door and was half out when Slay said, “I’ll be around to see you soon.” Kenya nodded without turning back, eased out of the car and shut the door carefully. She knew how Slay was about his car, the handle-with-care directive that guided anyone lucky enough to get a ride in his whip.
Slay watched her walk up the sidewalk toward the front lobby. She had a strong dignified strut just like his mother had at one time. Kenya looked like a woman from Social Services coming to check on one of the poor families inside, not at all like someone who actually lived here. In all his years of knowing Kenya, today, for the first time, Slay really looked at her. She was beautiful.
Kenya moved through the front door and turned back toward Slay. He was embarrassed that he was still sitting here watching her, until she raised her arm and waved. The embarrassment left him. He waved back, and then when she moved from the entrance, he pulled off from the curb. His stomach was doing funny shit, shit he couldn’t explain.
Cydney grabbed her bag of goodies from CVS. Then she commandeered the cordless phone and went into the bathroom. She sat the phone on the countertop and emptied the contents of the CVS bag into the sink. Slay would have blown a gasket if he’d picked this bag instead of the one holding her school supplies, she thought to herself. The candles, rose oil and bathwater colorant inside filled the curve of the porcelain basin. She’d purchased the items as a possible “love kit” for the future; she hadn’t expected at the time that the love expressed through the items would be love for self, a means of pampering and revitalizing her own worn body, mind and soul. She’d expected the items to be for her and Desmond.
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Cydney turned the spigot of the tub on, drew the water as hot as she could tolerate. She looked over the label for the bottle of rose oil. There wasn’t much to it, so she uncapped the bottle and poured a generous amount of the sweet-smelling therapy into the rising water. Next, she tore the plastic covering off her three small candles and tossed the garbage in her small wastebasket. She opened the medicine cabinet, pulled out her Bic SureStart and set flame to the candles. She placed one candle on the lip of the tub, one on the counter, and the other on the wooden toilet seat. She stepped back to admire her placement, and made a motion with her hands for the candles to be easy, don’t tumble over and ignite her bathroom in flames.
Cydney then picked up the bottle of bathwater colorant, looked over the label as she’d done with the rose oil. Doesn’t stain skin or tub surface, the label claimed. Cydney smirked and then poured a modest amount of the colorant into her peaceful stew.
She slid off her silk robe and hung it over the plastic door hook. She grabbed the phone off the counter and put it on the wooden magazine stand with wheels she kept in the bathroom, rolled the stand next to the tub. She stopped and took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment. She opened her eyes and stuck a foot in the water. It was hotter than most people could stand but perfect for her. She settled under the water, turned off the spigot and lay back in the tub.
Cydney sat forward, grabbed the phone, dialed the number she’d committed to memory just yesterday.
“Desmond Rucker,” a voice said into her ear.
“Desmond, hi, it’s Cydney.”
“Hey.” There was no warmth, no disdain, no excitement and no frustration in his voice. No emotion. Cydney didn’t quite know how to proceed.
“You still at the restaurant?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m in my office closing up shop for the day. I was just about to walk out the door. I had my cell ringer down low but I heard it anyway.”
“What you got planned for the rest of the evening?”
“Nothing much,” he said. “Probably head home and lick my wounds.” That was his manly way of broaching the subject of their earlier phone call.
“I’m sorry about before,” Cydney told him.
“Wasn’t anything,” he said, still being manly.
“I was a bit short with you. I didn’t mean to be.”
“Happens.”
“I was going through something at the time,” Cydney said. “You want to know about it?”
“If you want to tell me,” he replied. “If not, that’s cool.”
“Do you, yes or no?”
Desmond sighed. Cydney could hear the springs of a chair taking on added weight. “Tell me,” he said as he settled into his chair.
“Remember the guy I was with the first time I came to your restaurant?”
“Your boss, yes?”
“Boss now,” Cydney said, starting slowly. “But at one time we were more.”
“I figured as much.”
“Was a bad situation,” Cydney confided. “He’s married—unhappily—but married.”
“Really?” There was judgment in Desmond’s tone.
“His wife has a nasty addiction to painkiller medicine. Stephon had been talking about leaving her since I first met him.”
“We need more men like that,” Desmond said tersely.
“You’re perfect, I suppose?” Cydney said.
Desmond sighed. He thought about Nora, thought about Jacinta, the go-go dancer. “No, far from it. I’m being stupid, I guess. I know where this is headed.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“You’ve still got feelings for him. He’s probably left the wife now and wants to start over again with you. You’re conflicted, or, maybe not conflicted. Either way you slice it, I can tell I’m out in the cold.”
Cydney was surprised to hear Desmond sounding like a defeated, wounded boy. “Would that bother you, Desmond?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Just want to know,” Cydney said. She could hear those chair springs again, this time one after another, in a rhythmic drone. Desmond hadn’t answered her question. “You there?” she asked, to move him along.
“I’m here,” he said.
“Well, would it bother you to be left out in the cold?”
Desmond swallowed. “Yes…It would, very much so.”
Cydney smiled. Desmond didn’t know it but his admission was a major breakthrough in their early relationship. “I like you very much, Desmond,” she said. “I have high hopes for you, for us. I like to think of myself as wholly independent, the anti-needy modern woman, but I know I need you in my life. I hope my saying this doesn’t scare you off.”
“What about your boss?”
Cydney took in a deep breath, held it for an eternity before she released it. “Stephon swallowed a bunch of his wife’s pills. He tried to kill himself.”
“What!”
“His assistant phoned me just before you called earlier. I was pretty much in a fog when you called.”
“Damn! Are you all right?”
“Feeling a bit guilty,” Cydney said. “You’re right about one thing. He called me the other day telling me he’d filed for divorce and that he wanted to be with me. I told him I couldn’t. I told him I had my eyes on a certain gentleman restaurateur. He didn’t take it that well. He threatened not to run the piece on Cush.”
“Piece on Cush?”
“I do freelance writing work for Urban Styles magazine. Restaurant reviews, music reviews, that sort of thing. I came to Cush because we’re doing a feature on your restaurant. At least we were supposed to be. Stephon wasn’t too happy about what I wrote about your place. He said it was a love letter to you and not a restaurant review. That was the surprise I had for you.”
“You’re blowing me away, Cydney.”
“This is a lot to process, I know. Look, I need some time to myself today, but tomorrow I’m hoping you can get together with me after I get off my other job at Macy’s, so I can hold you and…” Her voice drifted away.
“And what?” Desmond asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, “continue to grow with you. Build a foundation. All this sound corny?”
“Not at all,” Desmond said. “What time do you get off?”
“Around ten, closing, I hope that isn’t too late for you. I know you’re a hardworking brother.”
“I’m going to be tight and sore after a long day,” Desmond told her. “Probably need a massage or something. You know how to give massages?”
“I’ve got magic fingers, baby.”
“Ooh, say that again,” Desmond implored her. “The baby part.”
“Baby, I’ve got magic fingers.”
Desmond could feel his manhood coming to life.
“So, tomorrow we’re on?” Cydney said.
“Yes, we are. You want me to come to the mall?”
“Yes, baby, and you can follow me home. I’ll make up for all this craziness, I promise.”
“Are you trying to seduce me, Cydney Williams?”
“How am I doing?”
Desmond touched that stiff part of himself. “I’d say you’re doing real well.”
Cydney laughed. Just a few hours ago she would have thought the possibility of her laughing didn’t exist. “I know it’s early in whatever this is we have, but I appreciate you so much already, Desmond.”
“Likewise,” Desmond said. His hand lingered down below.
Cydney clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Tomorrow then, okay?”
“I’m really sorry about your boss,” Desmond offered before ending the call.
“I know now that I can make it through this,” Cydney told him. She blew a kiss in the phone. “Good night.”
“Sweet dreams.”
Desmond had made a pact that he wouldn’t go to Hot Tails go-go again. He left Cush, an unquenched thirst aching in his groin, with the full intent of heading straight home. He turned o
n his radio, settling on the cool jazz and R&B ruminations of WBLS. He hummed along to the songs, hummed to keep his mind from wandering, hummed and kept his eyes on the road and out of the rearview mirror.
It didn’t work.
As he reached an intersection he looked over his shoulder and then turned his truck around, tires squealing, and headed back in the direction from whence he came.
He passed back by Cush, barreling his chest out with pride as he blurred by the awning and neon signage. He rode to the end of the stretch and made that turn that was becoming as second nature as breathing. He parked in his usual spot, directly across the street from the bar. Moving quickly, he was at the door before any second thoughts settled in.
He walked in the door, said, “Getting my first drink before I get a permanent seat,” to the bouncer. The bouncer nodded, seemingly pleased for the first time in Desmond’s memory.
Desmond walked over to the bar. The pretty bartender from his first visit, Wendy, was back manning the drinks. Her chest was noticeably larger, stretching the material of her T-shirt. She wore a black short-sleeve with Free Iverson etched across the front in white letters.
“Mr. Screwdriver,” she said as she came to Desmond.
“What is it with me, I’m that memorable?”
She smiled. “Yes, you are.”
“I missed you the other day.”
Wendy the bartender cupped her breasts. “Went for my master’s,” she said. “I’m looking to improve my job prospects in a down economy.”
“You’re going to start dancing?”
She hesitated. “Yup. Soon as I heal. The implants have to drop first.”
“Looking forward to that,” Desmond told her.
She let a smile slip from her lips. “Thanks.”
Desmond moved to the opening for the performers’ room. He just wanted to check and see by any chance if Jacinta was onstage. She wasn’t. He moved back by the bar, took his drink, paid the tender and sat on the stool.
God certainly was on his side because it wasn’t long before Jacinta walked in the front doorway, dressed in oversize sweat-pants and shirt, a large duffel bag draped over her shoulder. She jabbed at the bouncer when she walked in and he leaned over, pretending the punch had hurt his side. This was the first time Desmond saw the guy smile.
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