When the Fairytale Ends

by Dwan Abrams

  “There was no rhyme or reason.” He sounded frustrated. “There were top performers and average performers. Some people had lots of seniority, and others didn’t. I guess I got the short end of the stick.”

  “What about Franklin? Did he get cut too?”

  “Puh-lease.” Greg rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Franklin is their gold mine. They’d have to be a fools to let him go. But me . . . I guess I was just mediocre.”

  “You were not mediocre,” she promised him, rubbing small circles in his back. “They just didn’t realize your full potential. But it’s okay, babe. If God closes one door, He’ll open another.” Shania continued to comfort him with her touch and her encouraging words.

  He knew that she meant well and wanted to help, but he wasn’t in the mood for any pep talks. Since Shania had never worked for anyone other than herself, he figured that she had no clue how he felt. She couldn’t possibly relate.

  He wanted to clear his mind, so he left Shania sitting on the couch while he went to change into his riding gear. While he was changing, his cell phone received a text message from Franklin. It read: Wanna go 4 a ride?

  The timing couldn’t have been any more perfect. Greg texted him back an affirmative, and told him to meet him at the stoplight by the park. He then told Shania that he’d be back and jumped on his bike to go meet Franklin. When they met, they exchanged no words, simply nodded at each other, and took off riding, with Franklin leading the way.

  As they drove in peaceful silence, Greg allowed himself to become at one with nature. He focused on the charcoal gray rock and cement and broken white lines that seemed to go on forever. He wondered where the road would lead him, if he just stayed the course.

  Biting his lower lip and swallowing the lump forming in his throat, he compared the road to life’s journey: mysterious, filled with unknowns, unpredictability, yet in a strange sort of way, exciting. Although he would’ve preferred to change his plight in life, he understood that if he stayed on track, he’d be okay; God was in charge, and He knew what lay ahead.

  After riding on the open road for thirty minutes, Franklin signaled that he needed to stop for gas, and Greg nodded because he needed to stop too. As they pumped the gas, pollen swirled in the air, tickling Greg’s eyes without relief. Franklin offered to pay for the gas, but Greg declined the offer. He capped off his tank and secured the cap before going inside the store and buying a soda. He paid for the soda; then he popped the top of the soda and tilted his head back to quench his thirst. While he drained the can, he glanced outside and saw a throwback car roll in front of the convenience store, and the car would’ve been in mint condition had it not been for the blubbery piece of rubber that represented the back passenger tire. Greg emptied the can, belched, and tossed the aluminum into the trash; then he stepped outside.

  By the time he made it outside, Franklin had gone over to the vintage car, probably more so to talk about the make and model rather than help with changing the tire. When the driver stepped out of the car, Greg’s jaw dropped, and so did Franklin’s. Even with her hair swept up into a bun, Greg immediately recognized her as the brown-eyed girl from church. Franklin had hearts in his eyes, and he might as well have had “in love” stamped across his forehead.

  “You, uh, need help changing your tire?” Franklin asked, making it very obvious that he was impressed by both the car and the woman who drove the car.

  “No,” she said in her soft voice. “I know how to change it.”

  “I’d hate to see you get your hands dirty. You’re too beautiful for that. Please, ma’am, I insist.”

  She smiled at Franklin with her lips and her eyes. “Well, since you insist,” she said and gave him a little bow as she stepped out the way.

  Franklin turned and looked at Greg, biting down on his index finger hard and saying with his eyes, “Greg, this chick right here is hot.” Greg smiled at his friend and went and sat on his bike while Franklin helped the young lady. He thought about offering to help but then decided not to because he didn’t want Franklin to think that he was game-blocking. What should’ve taken no more than ten, fifteen minutes at the most took a whole half hour, mainly because the two were chatting about the different makes, models, and years of vintage cars that they owned.

  Greg tried to wait patiently, but after a while, he gave Franklin a birdcall and motioned with his head that he was leaving. Franklin gave him two thumbs-up, a wink, and yelled that he’d catch him later.

  Sincerely wishing his friend the best of luck in his pursuit, Greg put his sunglasses and helmet back on and headed home. When he arrived, he sat in his driveway and counted the bricks on the house . . . anything to take his mind off of being unemployed. For as far back as he could remember, he’d always had a job. As a tween he had a paper route. Then he mowed lawns in the summer and shoveled driveways in the winter to earn extra cash. His parents used to praise him for being an “enterprising young man,” as they often called him.

  He let out a loud sigh as he prepared himself to go into the house. Knowing Shania like he did, he figured that she’d do whatever it took to cheer him up. Although he appreciated her care and concern, he wanted to work through this in his own time, in his own way. He didn’t want to be reminded of things he already knew. Nor did he want to be made to feel guilty for feeling the way he felt. He just wanted to be . . . left alone.

  Nine

  Shania didn’t know what to think when Greg came home and breezed past her without saying a word. She tried not to show it, but her feelings were hurt. She understood that Greg had a lot on his mind, and she wanted to be sensitive to his emotional needs, yet she could feel him shutting down. She hoped that he wasn’t slipping into depression. She wondered if she should try and talk to him. “No,” she said to herself. One thing she had learned from being in a relationship with Greg was that men tended to mull things over in their minds and tried to figure out solutions to their problems themselves, unlike women, who liked to talk about their problems.

  As difficult as it was for Shania not to be all up in Greg’s face, trying to get him to communicate with her, she sat alone at the dinner table and ate the bow tie pasta with shrimp and salad that she had prepared for two.

  When she finished eating, she put away the leftovers, poured herself half a glass of blackberry wine, and relaxed on the couch in the media room. She thought about what she could do to make Greg feel better. She tried hard to put herself in his shoes and imagined how she would feel if she had been let go from a company to which she had given years of faithful service. She determined that she would feel humiliated, confused, and, of course, sad.

  After she took a sip of wine, the sweet flavor lingered on her taste buds. Shania decided to call her first cousin and best friend, Rayna. She needed Rayna’s input on the situation at hand.

  Thankful that Rayna answered after the second ring, Shania skipped the small talk and went straight to the heart of the matter. She told her cousin all about Greg losing his job and how he seemed to be sulking. Then she asked for some advice on how to handle the situation.

  “Cuz, I’m sorry that Greg lost his job.” Rayna’s tone sounded sympathetic. “This doesn’t have to be a huge setback in your relationship. You know you and Greg have that whole fairy-tale-type relationship going on.” She chuckled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m just saying. You prayed about that brotha and waited until you got married before you gave him some. You did it right and waited for your prince,” she said and then paused. “Did you read Steve Harvey’s book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man?”

  “Yes, I did,” Shania admitted.

  “Then you should remember the part where he talks about men being simple. He said that men are driven by who they are, what they do, and how much they make.”

  Shania remembered reading that and wanted to laugh at her cousin for sounding like she had quoted Bible verses.

  “I mean, come on, think about it, Shania. Up until this po
int, Greg had fulfilled his destiny as a man. He had a steady job and made a good living. Then he went to work one day, and the whole bottom fell out.” A pregnant pause followed her words. “You shouldn’t be surprised by his reaction. As a man, he feels the need to provide for his family. And how’s he supposed to provide without a nine-to-five?”

  “Actually, it was an eight-to-five.”

  Rayna smacked her lips. “You know what I’m trying to say, Shania.”

  Shania nodded her head, and when she realized that her cousin couldn’t see her nodding through the phone, she added, “I get that, Rayna. I really do.” She took another sip from her wineglass and let the bittersweet flavor play on her tongue before swallowing. “I respect my husband. Although I want my man to work, I don’t want him to feel pressured to provide for me.”

  “This isn’t about you, cuz. You remember when you first met him? The thing that attracted you to him the most was the fact that he wasn’t impressed by your bank account. He wasn’t concerned about what all you had to offer him. He wanted to show you what he could bring to the table.”

  Again, Shania nodded. Her cousin was right.

  Rayna continued, “It would be different if Greg was some playboy looking for a woman to take care of him, but he’s not that guy. He’s decent all the way around. He’s not going to be happy living off your money.”

  Shania traced the rim of her glass with her finger. “He doesn’t have to live off me. He could help me run the business or start his own. It’s not like we don’t have the money for it.”

  Rayna chuckled. “I hear you. But is that what Greg wants?”

  Sighing into the receiver, Shania said, “I can’t really say. He’s never talked to me about wanting to start a business. As far as I know, he likes getting up and going out to work every day.”

  “Exactly.” Rayna sounded like she had just announced a victory. “Some people aren’t meant to be entrepreneurs. They like the security of getting a steady paycheck every couple of weeks.”

  “My company has a steady cash flow, and I earn regular paychecks too,” Shania defended.

  “You’re the exception, not the norm.”

  That was why Shania loved talking to her cousin. No matter what, Rayna always brought clarity to the situation. “So . . . should I help him find another job, or should I—”

  “You should,” Rayna said loudly, clearing her throat, “shut up, sit back, and let that man be a man. If he needs your help, he’ll ask for it.”

  “True.” Shania finished off her drink, rubbed her finger along her chin, then added, “Well, what if we took a vacation to get his mind off his problems?”

  “Shania! What happened to shutting up, sitting back, and waiting on him?”

  “What?” she exclaimed, smiling. “It was just an idea.”

  “Okay,” Rayna said, laughing. “That wouldn’t have been my first thought. However, that could actually work. Must be nice,” Rayna teased. Then Rayna questioned her about the wedding Saturday and asked her if she had everything ready.

  As Shania settled in front of the computer, she hurried her cousin off the phone so she could surf the Internet and scout out a few possible vacation locations. She spent an hour researching different islands and finally settled on Jamaica. She had never been and wanted to go. Excitement bubbled over inside her as she clicked on photo after photo of white sandy beaches and water so clear, she could see the tropical fish shimmying beneath the surface and starfish clinging to the ocean floor. Then she imagined herself splashing in that same water in an all-white two-piece, her skin bronzing beneath the glow of the sun. She calculated the package price for flight tickets, transportation, and a one-week hotel stay, and the calculation placed a smile on her face.

  No matter how tight Greg might try to be with money now that he’d lost his job, even he would have to agree that such an economical price for such a breathtaking getaway was unbeatable. She shot her travel agent an e-mail, asking her to see if she could find tickets to Jamaica at a cheaper price than what she’d already found. But she knew that before she could purchase tickets, she’d have to touch base with Greg. In his sour mood it would probably take a whole lot of persuasion to get his consent. What better time to start the persuasion than now?

  Shania went upstairs to her bedroom and noticed that Greg was already asleep. She tiptoed into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Careful not to blast the water, she took a shower, dried herself with a warm towel, and crawled into bed next to her husband. He turned over on his side and faced her. His eyes popped open, and she smiled at him.

  Touching the side of her face, Greg said, “I love you.”

  She leaned in and pecked him on the lips. “Want a massage?”

  He grinned as he lifted the covers. “Why are you naked?”

  She shrugged, then watched his eyes fall closed and listened to the low timbre of his moans. He let her love him in that special way that she only offered to him on occasion.

  “I love you, babe,” he breathed into her mouth, and she hungrily swallowed every word. She prayed that for this one moment in time, he would set aside all his worries and anxieties and give her all of him: heart, mind, body, and soul. And he did. They reached their peaks together and collapsed back against the bed, clinging to each other as though their bed was a storm-ravaged sea, and they were each other’s only anchor.

  Ten

  “Man, I’ma marry her.”

  Greg almost laughed into the phone. “Frank, you just met this girl like what, two days ago? How are you already talking about marriage?”

  “All I know is this, man . . . we click. We click on a whole ’nother level. Okay, so you already know she likes vintage cars, right? That car you saw her with at the gas station, that’s the only vintage car she owns. So you know I took her to my bat cave and showed her my collection. Man, G, this chick is the only female I’ve ever showed my collection to, and she was just as excited about it as me! Do you know how that feels?”

  “No, I don’t,” Greg replied truthfully, because though he could appreciate a nice-looking throwback, he didn’t have the passion for collecting cars like his dear friend. “It must feel pretty good.”

  “Greg, listen, man, that ain’t even it.”

  Greg lowered the job search screen on the computer so he could give his full attention to the conversation. “Tell me the rest, Frank.”

  “You really want the rest?”

  “I want the rest, Frank,” he assured him.

  “I mean, do you really want the rest?”

  Greg rolled his eyes and let out a sigh. Franklin wouldn’t be Franklin if he wasn’t over the top, theatrical. “Bro, if you don’t shut up and just say it.”

  “Man, she rides bikes too!”

  “Word?” Greg smiled. He always liked to see a woman on a bike. To him, it said something about her character, that she wasn’t afraid to step out and do something that was considered risqué or out of the box. “Did y’all go riding together yet?”

  “Did we?” Franklin laughed into the phone. “Dude, we went riding that same day that she got that flat. She met me at the park, and we rode all over Alpharetta. Rode our bikes until the sun came up. I’m dead serious.”

  This time, Greg chuckled and nodded his head. “Let me find out that my man done tripped and fallen into a puddle of love.”

  “I’m drowning in it, man,” Franklin admitted. “And I like how it feels. I’m gonna marry this girl. That’s my wife right there. Her name’s Kaiya.”

  “I know her name.”

  “Huh?” Franklin smacked his lips into the phone and Greg could imagine him rolling his eyes. “Please don’t tell me this is one of the chicks you used to bone before God delivered you.”

  Greg held his side and laughed. “No, Frank, I never ‘boned’ her.” He laughed again. “But look, you two are just getting to know each other, so I don’t want to ruin the surprise. Take her out to a nice restaurant and ask her about her past. You might be shocked
what you learn.”

  “Shocked like in a good way, or shocked in a bad way?”

  “Bye, Frank. You’re interrupting my job hunt.”

  “How’s that coming along for you?”

  “Slowly but surely.” He considered telling Franklin that he was thinking about starting his own company but decided to wait until he had made a more concrete decision.

  “A’ight, my man. I’ll holla at you later.”

  Still smiling, Greg ended the call and pushed the phone aside. No matter the trials and tribulations he was going through in life, he was happy for his friend. If anyone deserved a good woman who he could mesh with in life, Franklin was definitely deserving of one.

  Greg took in a deep breath, pulled up his job hunt screen, and flipped to a fresh sheet of paper on his notepad. He spent the rest of the morning online applying to jobs posted on popular job sites. He figured that if he treated his job search like a full-time job, he should be able to land a job in a reasonable amount of time. He then wondered what “reasonable” meant. One week? Two weeks? A month? Six months? What was reasonable?

  Feeling frustrated, he got on the phone and called friends, colleagues, and even former clients who he thought could help with his job search. He put out feelers first to see who was in a position to either hire him or refer him to someone who could. He wrote down names, telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses of every referral. By the time he finished making phone calls, his mind felt like it had been on a treadmill.

  He then looked down at his notepad and had a nagging feeling that he should seriously check into starting his own company. He wrote down: “Classic car restoration and accessories shop.” He searched online for a market research company, placed a phone call to them, and provided them with all the information they needed to begin doing a market analysis for him. They even scheduled a follow-up conference call. Then he called a guy at his church and asked for his help with writing a business plan and applying for a business loan. He knew the guy at church could do it for a reasonable cost. At least that way it would be done right.