Lessons From a Younger Lover

by Zuri Day

  52

  Gwen’s fatigue finally came down on her as she rolled her luggage into the bedroom. The blinking light on the answering machine told her she had messages, and reminded her she’d forgotten to turn on her cell phone while driving from LA. After taking a long, hot shower and fixing a cup of hot chocolate, Gwen sat on the bed and pushed Play.

  The first message was from Robert, obviously left before he’d called on her cell to wish her a good time in Jamaica and inform her that indeed a daughter, Lorraina, would be joining the Seattle Andrews clan. The next couple messages were from her mother, who’d obviously forgotten Gwen’s plans to leave town. It was a good thing, Gwen mused, that she’d phoned her every day from the island. Still, her mother was doing so much better. It was the only reason Gwen had felt free enough to take the vacation, that and the fact that Gerald and his family had spent Christmas with Lorraine. The third and fourth calls were hang-ups. The fifth message was from Miss Mary, asking her to phone when she got in so her neighbor would know she was back safely. The last message was from Ransom:

  “Butterfly…where are you? You’re supposed to be back by now. Call me as soon as you get this.”

  After placing quick calls to Miss Mary and her mother, letting them know she was back home safely, Gwen fluffed her pillows, hit Ransom’s speed dial number, leaned back and waited for him to answer. Having made her decision to change her life one way or the other made her feel more capable of talking to him, and of dealing with whatever had transpired between him and Brea over the holidays.

  “Hey, Ransom.”

  “Damn! I was getting ready to send my boys out on a search party.”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot to turn my cell phone on when we landed. How are you doing?”

  “Missing you,” Ransom said, in a voice that stroked her where she hadn’t been stroked in ten days.

  Gwen felt herself melting, and second-guessing her decision to leave both the town and this man behind. “I missed you too.”

  “Yeah, tell me anything. With those hot Jamaicans ‘down dere,’ I’m sure they kept you two beautiful ladies entertained.”

  Gwen laughed.

  “So I’m right.”

  “You’re half right.” Gwen shared the highlights of her vacation, including her snorkeling adventure, rum shot, and Chantay and Johnny’s affair.

  “Uh-huh,” Ransom said when she finished. “And just who was keeping you warm at night?”

  “The balmy weather,” Gwen quickly replied. “And when the air chilled, a blanket. I spent quite a bit of time by myself, but it was what I needed. Time to think, you know?”

  “About us?”

  “About everything.”

  “So…care to share these thoughts?”

  Gwen was quiet a moment. She actually wasn’t ready to share her plans with Ransom, or anyone else. They were too new, too sketchy. When she had all her ducks in a row, namely a new teaching assignment, then she felt it would be time to reveal all.

  “How was your holiday?” she asked, diverting Ransom’s question. “Did Isis like the gift I bought her?”

  “Almost more than the ones I got her, especially since it came from you.”

  “How was Phoenix?”

  “Hot. But Mama and Daddy spoiled Isis to death. In fact, she’s going to spend a month with them this summer. They couldn’t believe how big she’s grown, or how fast time flies.”

  There was a lull in the conversation as Gwen pondered how to ask what she really wanted to know, whether Brea had joined Ransom and Isis in Phoenix. As often happened, Ransom read her mind.

  “Isis enjoyed spending time with Brea and Pam, too. We left Phoenix Christmas afternoon, and I dropped Isis off at Pam’s so she could spend some time with that side of the family. In fact, that’s where she is now, in Los Angeles. I’m going to pick her up on New Year’s Day.”

  “Oh, so that means…”

  “It means I purposely kept New Year’s Eve open to bring in with my butterfly. I’m asking you to spend New Year’s Eve with me. And yes is the only answer allowed.”

  Gwen didn’t hesitate. There was no use trying to deny it. She’d missed her man. “I’d love to spend it with you, Ransom,” she breathed.

  “Good,” he said. “Now get a little rest while I drive over.”

  “Tonight? Right now?”

  “Yes, right now, woman. I haven’t seen you for almost two weeks. Do you think I’m going to wait until tomorrow? Now try and catch a catnap because you’re going to need it. I’ve got a special present for you that will probably fit perfectly inside the one that I know you have for me.”

  53

  The second semester at Sienna Elementary started out with a bang and a big announcement: Joanna Roxbury was pregnant. This news trumped everything else on folks’ minds: what people got for Christmas, holiday vacation stories, the one-hundred-year-old Methodist church destroyed by arson fire, and even the first snowfall Sienna had seen in fifty years.

  Gwen was as surprised by the bearer of this interesting news as she was by the news itself. Mrs. Summers, a rare visitor to Gwen’s classroom, came knocking before Gwen had the chance to take off her coat.

  Mrs. Summers looked around as if she were trading state secrets. Her blue eyes sparkled with suppressed glee. “You ask me, I think it’s Adam Johnson’s baby. Everybody knows they were sleeping together most of last semester. But his lips are as tight as a drum these days. I haven’t even seen him lick ’em!”

  Gwen laughed at this keen observation from the school’s administrative manager, even as she wondered if Ransom knew he might be an uncle in about nine months. “Are you sure?” Gwen asked her.

  “Heard it from the horse’s mouth just this morning. Joanna is telling everybody, as if she isn’t about to give birth to a bastard.”

  “Well, now, Mrs. Summers, every child is a blessing.”

  “Folks are supposed to be married before they bring young’uns into the world. Got all these colored kids on welfare now, no offense you understand, ’cause there’s more brown than black ones these days. But good Lord! My taxes are helping to feed a slew of children when I’ve never so much as felt a contraction!”

  Gwen tried to have compassion for Mrs. Summers, a childless senior citizen who’d never married. Still, it saddened her that there was still such prejudice and presumption in the world. Gwen knew for a fact that there were more white babies on welfare than black and brown ones put together. But that statistic seemed to get lost in arguments such as the one Mrs. Summers had so self-righteously delivered, which had caused her such discomfort that she’d left shortly thereafter.

  But not before revealing the real reason she’d stopped by Gwen’s classroom. “Now’s your chance,” she’d said, her blue eyes sparkling again.

  “My chance?” Gwen had repeated.

  “Yeah, to get ’em. Sic ’em! For the way they treated you.”

  “I’m not sure…” Gwen began incredulously.

  “Oh, pshaw,” Mrs. Summers said, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture and using a phrase that saluted her southern roots. “I may spend my days parked behind that desk but these peepers don’t miss much. Adam and Joanna have had it out for you since the beginning, especially Adam. Well, now he’d better mind his p’s and q’s. At the end of the day, this is still a small town. And he’s still a black man who’s impregnated a white woman. Yes, indeedy. He’d better mind his manners.”

  After stunning Gwen for a second time, Mrs. Summers had swished out of her classroom, as prim and proper as you please in a floral dress cinched at the waist and accented with white lace collar and cuffs. But Gwen had to recover from her shock quickly. A rambunctious class of mostly six-year-olds kept her mind occupied for the rest of the day, until the bell rang.

  Gwen was exhausted when she got home, and only a little disappointed at Ransom’s message: that he was going to stay on the job site in Vegas one more day. Ransom’s mother was staying at his house, watching Isis. She and Gwen had e

njoyed a cordial but brief conversation when Michelle Blake had picked Isis up after school. Even in that short time span, Gwen had seen where Ransom picked up his levelheadedness.

  After enjoying her daily conversation with Lorraine, Gwen walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, then decided to head out and get a burger for dinner. As tired as she was, she didn’t feel like cooking, and as unsettled as she was, she didn’t feel like being home alone. Her mind was filled with thoughts of Ransom. She remembered their New Year’s celebration and smiled. He really is romantic, she thought, as she went into her room to change from the skirt she wore to a pair of jeans. Her smile grew as she remembered how he’d hired a limo to whisk them away from Sienna to Palm Springs, where their love had officially begun. They’d stayed at the same historic inn, and spent most of the three days there in their suite, and in the bed. Ransom had gifted her with a beautiful pair of ruby earrings, her birthstone. But the gift she most treasured was the small red butterfly he’d had tattooed on his lower back, just above one of the most beautiful sets of buns she’d seen in her life. She’d gotten one as well, a small bag with gold coins spilling out tattooed on her ankle. “The priceless ‘ransom’ for love,” she’d explained to the tattoo artist, and to her man.

  Gwen reached for her purse and walked to the door. She was just locking up when her phone rang. She almost didn’t answer, but figuring it might be her mother, changed her mind and rushed inside.

  “Hello?”

  Silence.

  Great, I rushed back inside for some foolish kids playing around on the phone! “Hello?” She was about to hang up when she heard her name.

  “Gwen?”

  “Yes, this is Gwen,” she answered impatiently.

  “Hi, Gwen, sorry to bother you. This is Brea.”

  Brea James was the last person Gwen expected on her phone. What in the heck do you want? Only one way to find out. “Yes, Brea.”

  “It sounds like you’re in a hurry. Do you have a minute?”

  Gwen threw her purse on the couch and sat next to it. “Yes. What do you want?”

  Brea cleared her throat. “Well, I, uh, I felt we needed to talk. There are two people that we both love and since we’re all going to be in each other’s lives, I just wanted to start the year off getting along. I called to wish you a happy New Year.”

  Gwen was silent. What does she expect me to say? Thanks, and you too? Come by Friday and let’s all have pizza and watch a movie? I don’t think so…

  “I’m sorry for what went down the last time you saw me. I’m sure Ran told you what happened. He didn’t invite me over. I went there on my own, trying to get back with him. But I now know that is not going to happen. So I’ve moved on. I met someone over the holidays. He’s real cool, and I think it could get serious.”

  Brea sounded sincere. Gwen was leery but polite. “I hope it works out for you, Brea.”

  “Oh, and there’s one more thing. The therapist who’s been working with Isis has suggested the three of us spend more regular time together: her, me, and Ran. She said it’s important for a child to have happy memories of her parents together. Isis doesn’t have too many of those right now. So if it seems like Ran and I start hanging out more, or you see my car at his house or job or whatnot…know it’s about Isis, nothing more.”

  “Right, it’s about Isis.”

  “That’s right. My daughter is the most important thing in my life.”

  So important that you left her out of it for almost four years? “I’m glad you are back in Isis’s life. Every child needs a mother.”

  “Okay, Gwen, so we’re cool?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re asking, Brea.”

  “Ransom and I will be spending more time together…with Isis. I’m coming to you woman to woman so you know what’s up, and so you and I can be civil.”

  “I’ve never had a problem being civil with you, Brea. I just don’t have much conversation for an almost naked woman in the room of the man I’m dating.”

  “I apologized for that!” Brea was losing her calm facade.

  “And you’ve explained spending more time with Ransom. Is there anything else?”

  Yeah, bitch. Your days with Ransom are numbered. “No, that’s it, Gwen. You have a nice day.”

  Brea narrowed her eyes and sneered as she hung up the phone. “That cow really thinks I care about her ass. I’m just getting ready to move it out the way. Ha!”

  Gwen walked back to her bedroom. The conversation with Brea had taken her appetite. She changed again, into a comfortable pair of sweat pants and a tank top. On her way to the kitchen for a glass of water, she stopped in the dining room and turned on the computer. I refuse to let that girl get to me. Still, the call motivated Gwen to get the ball rolling on the plans she’d begun making in Jamaica. She was going to sit down, brush up her résumé, and then click over to Monster.com and the new job that would lead to a future outside this rinky-dink town.

  54

  Ransom scowled as he looked out the window. Brea had just pulled into the driveway, the thumping bass of a hip-hop beat almost shaking the sidewalk. But the music’s volume wasn’t what put the frown on his face. It was the man who occupied the passenger seat in Brea’s car who’d done it.

  Ransom opened the door before the bell rang. “Hey, Ran. Is Isis ready?” Brea asked breathlessly.

  Ransom stared past her to the car. “Who’s that?”

  Exactly the reaction I hoped for. I knew Ransom was still feelin’ me. That’s why Brea had worn her skin-tight Gucci pants with a stark white halter, and had bathed in Unforgivable. She knew the outfit showed Ransom everything her boy was hitting and he was missing. She wanted Ransom to rethink his options and his choices. “I told you about him,” she purred. “That’s Big Jake…plays for the Oakland Raiders.”

  “How long have you been seeing him?”

  “What’s with the twenty questions?” Brea asked with a smile. She looked beyond him into the house. “Where’s my daughter?”

  “She’s coming. Isis, your mom’s here!” Ransom called out, still staring at Brea. “How long have you been seeing this guy? How well do you know him?”

  “Well enough to trust him around Isis. He’s got a child himself, so he knows how to handle kids.”

  “Don’t leave her alone with him.”

  “What, Gwen can act like she’s Isis’s mama but I can’t leave her home alone with my man?”

  “Gwen was practically Isis’s mother before you decided to return to the scene,” Ransom shot back. “And she’s Isis’s teacher. Isis knows her and trusts her. So don’t try and compare the two.”

  The door to the passenger side opened. A dark-skinned, bulky brothah around six-foot-two and two-seventy-five got out of the car. “Everything all right, baby?”

  “Hey, Mommy!” Isis said, rounding the corner.

  “Hi, Isis,” Brea said. But her eyes weren’t on her daughter. They were on Ransom’s receding back as he walked over to where Jake was standing. “Come on baby, let’s go.”

  Ransom looked the massive stranger straight in the eye. “I just want to meet the man who’s going to be around my daughter. Ransom Blake,” he said, holding out his hand.

  Jake twirled a toothpick in his mouth while he sized up Ransom. “Yeah, that’s cool,” he finally said, taking Ransom’s hand in a brother-man handshake. “Jake Moore.”

  Ransom eyed Jake a little longer, and when he didn’t feel any vibes of caution in his spirit, determined it was all right to let his daughter go with them.

  “Be good, Princess,” he said to Isis, now buckled up and ready to go in the backseat.

  “Bye, Daddy.”

  Brea got in the driver’s seat, buckled up, and then shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked up at Ransom. She thought he looked like a warrior standing there—back straight, shoulders broad, straight black hair blowing gently in the breeze. Anything worth having was worth waiting for, is what Pam had told her. Brea had tried the bum-rush tactic with the red dress, and it clearly hadn’t worked. So now she was building the road back to Ransom brick by subtle brick. The little “going away party” she’d hatched for Gwen was simply insurance. Everything was coming together just as she’d planned.

  “See you Friday?”

  “What? Oh yeah, see you Friday.”

  “What are y’all meeting on Friday for?” Jake asked defensively, after the car had left Ransom’s driveway. He’d immediately been intimidated by Ransom but had made sure it didn’t show.

  “Because of the therapist,” Brea answered smoothly. “So Isis can have time with both of us together. Remember, baby, I told you. Kids want to see their parents happy, interacting together, right, Isis?”

  “Like when we went to Universal Studios?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Yes,” Isis said, nodding her head enthusiastically. “I like to see you and Daddy together like that.”

  Well, you just keep on liking it, Brea thought as she once again turned up the volume on the CD. Because it was only a matter of time before both the therapist and Isis got their wish: to see her and Ransom happy and interacting…especially in the bedroom.

  Ransom walked back into his house and called Gwen. He told her about meeting Jake and asked for her opinion on having strange men around his daughter.

  “You can never be too careful,” Gwen replied. “That said, if this man is going to be in Brea’s life…”

  Ransom snorted. “He’s in her life for the moment, but the moment is all Brea lives for. Who’s she going to be with next week? I don’t want a bunch of fools I don’t know around my child!”

  “Maybe you should have a talk with her.”

  “Oh believe me, that’s going to happen. As soon as she gets over here on Friday, we’re going to get a few things straight.”

  “She’s going over to your place on Friday?”

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