Heavenly Match

by Niobia Bryant

“I just can’t believe you, Deshawn,” Devon said for the tenth time in the minutes that had passed after his brother admitted that he came to New York just to seduce Anika.

  Deshawn tried to continue. “I never expected to feel this way for her. Anika’s—”

  “Gone,” Chloe stated, stepping into Deshawn’s bedroom with a note in her hand, her confusion obvious.

  “Gone where?” Deshawn asked.

  “The note says she had an early morning meeting come up at the last minute and that she’d call me at home tonight.”

  Deshawn strode across the room to the bathroom. He paused in his tracks at the filled tub and then the wet footsteps leading to her open bedroom door. Standing with his hands on his hips, Deshawn felt dread all in his bones. Reaching over, he dipped one hand into the scented water and found it still warm to his touch.

  He knew then that Anika had overheard his conversation with Devon. Why else would she leave like that, not saying a word to him after the night they shared? Slowly he stepped into her bedroom and took in the unmade bed, empty closet, and drawers.

  Loneliness like nothing else he ever knew consumed him as he sank to the bed.

  Chapter 9

  Reminisce

  Seven months later

  Perhaps it was because her birthday was in the fall, or just because of the beauty of the golden leaves floating softly from the limbs of trees, but autumn was Anika’s favorite season. The weather was always right: not too cold, not too hot. The foliage was like a pallet of warm, vibrant colors. This time of the year was the last chance for outdoor activities before the city was blanketed by the velvet white of winter again.

  Wrapping her arms around herself, Anika leaned against the window of her office. The construction to expand the facility was complete; The Haven now housed twelve additional temporary housing units. The Foundation purchased the recently abandoned warehouse next door and the renovations began. A new glass bridge connected the two buildings and the facade of the warehouse had been updated to give the buildings a more unified look and design.

  Finally there was additional space to offer help to women who were being abused more and more.

  “Ms. Foxx, Tara’s on line one,” Marisol said through the intercom.

  Moving from her spot by the window, Anika felt the first smile of the day cross her face. Tara’s life had flourished since she moved on from her abusive relationship with Mark . . . finally. He was free on bail, but Tara had garnered the strength to stay away from him. She avoided his advances and she changed her phone number, after telling him he had to get counseling for anger management before he could see their child. She hadn’t heard from him since.

  Now she was working full-time, going to Rutgers University at night, and raising her beautiful daughter alone. Anika was proud of her, and made sure to keep in contact with the young woman on a regular basis. She saw so much of herself in Tara.

  “Hey, girl,” she said into the phone. “How’s everything?

  “Just fine, Ms. Foxx,” Tara answered, tucking her bare feet beneath her on her new living room sofa.

  “And Kimani?”

  Tara looked with love to her daughter, who was quietly watching a cartoon on the television. “She’s fine. I really called to ask your advice on something.”

  “Okay, spill.”

  “I was thinking of majoring in psychology and doing a minor in women’s studies, and uh . . . I won­dered whatchu thought about it?” she asked, her voice hesitant.

  Anika’s face beamed. “That’s wonderful.”

  Tara’s eyes lit up. “Actually there’s more. I’m interested in being a counselor at The Haven after I graduate, you know. I received so much help there and I want to do the same for someone else like me.”

  “Tara, I am so proud of you, but that would mean getting your master’s degree,” Anika told her, placing the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she walked to the window.

  “I just wish I could go to school full-time. Raisin’ Kimani by myself means I have to work to pay the bills.”

  Anika nodded, an idea already forming in her mind. “Not if you had a full scholarship”

  Tara stood to walk over to where her child sat, taking a seat on the floor beside her. She pulled her daughter onto her lap; she just felt like having her child in her arms. “My adviser said my grades were good enough, especially being on the dean’s list this semester—”

  “The dean’s list! Well, excuse me, Miss I’m Handling College Like It’s Nothing,” Anika teased, interrupting her with happiness. “Congratulations, girl.”

  Tara smiled, her eyes slanting even farther. “Thanks. The thing is, my adviser said my chances of a full scholarship with a living stipend would be slim.”

  Anika’s eyes darted to her picture of Chloe and Devon. “I’ll tell you what. Let me make a few calls. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll try.”

  Tara squeezed her daughter to her chest, causing her to squeal with childish delight. “Could you, Ms. Foxx? That would be off the chain,” she told her, already knowing that with Ms. Foxx it was as good as a done deal.

  Anika smiled, her face beaming. “No promises,” she warned, halfheartedly. “Let me call you back, okay?”

  They ended their call and Anika immediately dialed Chloe’s number in Holtsville.

  “Hi there, Mama-to-be. What’s the good word?” Anika asked as soon as her sista-friend answered the phone.

  “Delivery. And soon I hope.” Chloe laughed, patting her rotund belly.

  Anika smiled, fingering the crystal paperweight on her desk. “Won’t be much longer.”

  “Yeah, but I’m already as big as a tractor.” Chloe pouted, leaning back against the kitchen counter.

  “I didn’t call to hear you whine about gaining a few pounds that you needed anyway. Girl, you remind me of Whitney and she never looked more beautiful than when she was pregnant,” Anika said, always having teased Chloe about her slender frame.

  “Hush, girl,” Chloe said, laughing. “So what’s up?”

  Anika quickly filled Chloe in on Tara’s collegiate plans and her financial difficulties. Although the deadline for the annual Adell Bolton Scholarship had passed, Anika hoped Chloe could pull some strings to get Tara’s application at least accepted for review by the selection committee at the foundation.

  “She’s got one better. I’ll sponsor her myself,” Chloe told her, turning to stir the pot of homemade Texas chili she was making.

  Anika’s mouth opened. “Are you sure?”

  “Anika!” Chloe exclaimed in disbelief, surprised that her friend didn’t know the depths of her generous nature.

  “Thank you, Chloe. I’ll be more than happy to give Tara the good news.”

  “Now, I need to ask you something,” Chloe told her, glad for the invention of a cordless phone as she bent to check on the garlic and cheese yeast rolls she was baking.

  “Spill.”

  Chloe rubbed the entire expanse of her belly as she stood. “I want you here when I have this baby. No, I need you here,” she said softly, her eyes looking off into the distance through the glass patio doors at the woods beyond their house.

  Anika closed her eyes with dread. No, Chloe, don’t ask me to come to Holtsville. Don’t you dare.

  Chloe clutched the phone tighter to her frame. “Anika?”

  “Chloe, I—”

  “Wait, hold on. Someone’s on the other line.”

  Chloe was her best friend but she couldn’t admit to her what a fool Deshawn had made out of her in New York all those months ago. Anika had never told Chloe about the night they shared. As far as Chloe knew, she and Deshawn enjoyed hanging out in New York together and just went their separate ways when the week was over. If only it had truly been that simple.

  Anika hated it, but memories of him flooded back to her: their first kiss, that night at Mahogany’s, their night of incredible passion, and finally the morning of truth and lies. She had been played for a chump.

 
“Okay, Anika, I’m back. So what’s the deal, you coming?” Chloe asked.

  It wasn’t easy to deny Chloe. It was a seemingly innocent request. Anika wanted nothing more than to be present when Chloe gave birth to her godchild, but how could she when she never wanted to lay eyes on Deshawn’s lying face again?

  But Chloe didn’t know that.

  She did know that something had happened between them, particularly since Deshawn asked her to call Anika and then give him the phone once she answered. Chloe was quite surprised when her best friend hung up on him as soon as she heard his voice. Chloe immediately questioned Deshawn, but he only answered with a cryptic “Hell if I know. Ask Anika and when you find out you tell me” while striding from the room.

  Well, she did ask Anika, who just blew it off with, “Girl, you know how aggravating Deshawn can be.”

  Anika just couldn’t tell Chloe that Deshawn and she had made love—no, had sex. Love had never been in the equation.

  To hell with Deshawn. I’m not going to let a man run me . . . again.

  Her friendship with Chloe was more important than that pimple on the face of her love life. “You’re due late next month, right?” she asked.

  Chloe smiled, not quite sure that Anika was going to come. “Yeah, girl. You know I thought you were about to say no, but I’m glad you didn’t. I don’t know if I can do this without you. ”

  “Don’t worry, you won’t have to. I’ll be there,” Anika promised.

  Anika allowed her mind to fill with thoughts of him. She turned on Mary’s live CD with her remote, recalling with a soft, sad smile the concert they had attended. She leaned back in her chair, reminiscing on the skills of his touch, his kisses, his strokes . . . his lying words.

  It was the most she had allowed herself to think of him in months. She had blocked him out, succeeding in shifting him to the status of being nothing but a footnote in her life. His calls finally ceased, the flower arrangements stopped arriving, the “I miss you” cards no longer awaited her in the mail when she arrived home from work. She loathed the day she gave in to his seduction. She hated herself for her own stupidity. She had hurt like hell because she wished it all had been a dream and not her own silly reality.

  Now she was going to Holtsville and would see him again. “With some new woman probably,” she mumbled, and then immediately hated that she cared.

  He had been her ebony knight in shining armor, or so she thought.

  Never before had Anika been one to believe in fairy tales.

  The phone rang with a shrill cry and Anika’s eye shifted to the instrument. Marisol was at lunch by now, so she answered it herself. “The Haven. Can I help you?”

  Silence.

  Anika’s face became confused. “Hello. Can I help you?” she repeated again.

  Just the hushed whoosh of someone breathing on the other end.

  It reminded Anika of the prank calls she used to receive up until about six months ago. “Who is this?” she asked, frustrated at the thought of those silly calls beginning again.

  Suddenly the line disconnected.

  ∞

  “What the hell are you doing on my damn phone?” Startled, he hung it up, turning his head to eye his landlady. How he hated her and this awful boardinghouse he was forced to stay in.

  “Answer me,” she demanded, her fat jowls quivering as spittle filled the corner of her scarlet-painted thin lips.

  Damn.

  He’d hoped the Munchkin, as he called his landlady, would be enjoying her usual afternoon nap, snoring like a grizzly bear in hibernation like she did every day.

  Forcing a smile, he stood from the recliner where he sat. “I was calling my—”

  Ms. Little strutted over to him, her angry eyes so squinted that they seemed shut totally. “I don’t give a damn if you’re calling the pope, you good-for-nothing’ bum. Stay off my phone!” Her words shrieked around him as she stood before him, her finger pointed at his chest.

  I should snap your neck, he thought with venom. Instead he held up the phone card he brought from the corner store. “I used this, Ms. Little.”

  “So! Stay off my phone means just that. Your first day back in six months and already you’re pissing me off. Your kind ain’t no good,” she spat, her false teeth yellow and caked in the corners from the corn bread she’d had for dinner a few days ago. “Where you been all that time anyway?”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from strangling her right there in the middle of her dusty living room. “Working out of town,” he lied with nonchalance.

  There was no need to let her know that a stupid joyride with his friend Mac had led to his arrest. The police pulled them over for speeding and upon searching the vehicle found a pound of marijuana under the passenger seat. Unable to afford bail, he sat in the county jail until the date of his trial. His public defender got him off on a technicality. After spending fifteen years of his life in prison, that six months had nearly pushed him over the brink.

  She scratched her armpit with vigor as she eyed him. “Well, you’re lucky that I still had a room available.”

  He hid the look of disgust he felt. “You’re right, Ms. Little,” he told her, brushing past her to climb the squeaky stairs to his small room.

  Six months of his time and his plans had been put on hold. Six more months he wasted of his life behind bars. Six more months that she ran that damn anti-man center. Six more months that Anika was able to live and breathe.

  He planned to put an end to it a.s.a.p. His thirst for revenge warranted nothing less.

  ∞

  Holtsville, South Carolina

  The Carolina fall sun beamed down on him, but it wasn’t scorching this time of the year. The rays felt more like warm kisses upon his skin as he hammered the shingles with precision and practiced ease. Deshawn was tireless in his craft; both Devon and he wanted the house completed before the first frost.

  The metal ladder leaning against the roof shook with its use. Deshawn looked over his square shoulder and soon his mirror image appeared. “Hey, bubba,” Deshawn greeted his twin.

  “Chloe just called me.”

  Deshawn instantly sat up straight, his obsidian eyes alert. “Everything okay with the baby?”

  “Yeah, she was just reminding me about the appointment with the doctor,” Devon assured him. “I’ll be back in two hours tops.”

  “No problem,” Deshawn said, already refocusing his attention on his task.

  The ladder rattled again as Devon descended.

  Deshawn couldn’t wait for the arrival of the baby, his first niece or nephew. He just wished they would have taken his advice and let the doctor tell them the sex of the baby. He wanted to know whether to buy cowboy boots or bows and barrettes. A motorized bike or a Barbie convertible?

  And the date was fast arriving. Chloe would be giving birth soon and Deshawn knew she was feeling sad because her mother, grandmother, and Nana Lil were all gone on. They could all look down from heaven upon her, but who would guide her through all the crucial moments a new mother had with her first child? Things only an experienced mother would know.

  Chloe was a trooper though and she would do just fine.

  Devon's really lucky, he thought.

  So were you, playa, but you blew it, crossed his mind next.

  Deshawn had guessed from the way Anika left that morning in New York, and the obvious anger she had for him, that she’d overheard a portion of his conversation with Devon. Of course, he couldn’t verify that, because she refused to talk to him. So he really didn’t know what was going on in her mind. Eventually, he gave up trying, partly out of frustration, but mostly out of guilt.

  He had gone to New York just to seduce her, but he discovered much more than the feeling of being victorious in his success of getting her into his bed. After his reprimands from Devon and then Anika fleeing, Deshawn felt the weight of his actions heavily on his shoulders. Guilt plagued him about his intentions.

  Yet another first
since Anika came into his life.

  Taking out his frustration on the nails he hammered, Deshawn continued his work tirelessly until the sun dipped and the Carolina sky darkened to a shade of deep lavender and blue. He didn’t know why but Anika filled his thoughts almost constantly today, more so than she had in a long time. Her smile. Her fruity apple scent. Her sex.

  Deshawn headed straight home, not even stopping by Charlie’s, their local hangout spot, for a beer. His body ached from physical exertion and he wanted to fill his tub with steaming hot water and soak.

  He stripped off his dusty clothes, rolling them and his boxers into a ball to shoot into the hamper with success. The steam from the water rose and swirled around him, fogging the mirror above the sink, as he leaned his head against the wall. The water felt good against his skin, loosening his muscles and relaxing his joints.

  He enjoyed the therapy of the steaming water until it began to feel cool against his skin. Anxious to catch a nap before he went to Chloe and Devon’s for dinner, he finished his bath, washing the grime of a day’s hard work from his body. He rushed through drying his skin and walked nude to his bedroom. With an appreciative moan he crawled into bed. It wasn’t long before his eyes became heavy with slumber.

  “Shawnie.”

  He opened his eyes at the sound of his name.

  “That’s right, Shawnie, it’s me.”

  Deshawn rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, using circular motions, before he opened, closed and opened them again. Focusing on the sight of Nana Lil standing at the foot of his bed, he was startled.

  There she stood. If he was to believe his eyes, then nothing about her had changed. Not the loving eyes, the indulgent smile, not even her French roll. Only the billowing white robe she wore on her slender frame was a variation from the norm.

  But then he didn’t believe his eyes.

  Deshawn wiped them again.

  “I’m still here,” she said in a singsong fashion.

  She seemed so real. Every bit as vibrant and alive as she used to be. He felt no fear, just intense grief and longing for her. Did he miss her so much that he actually thought he could see her?