by Lynn, Davida
“So…” Aaron drew the vowel out to hint that we were stalling. I didn’t need the hint. I knew it from the moment he’d parked outside the hole-in-the-wall soul food joint, but for the sake of life, I decided to try and keep an open mind, anyway. Aaron wasn’t exactly giving me the impression that he wasn’t trying too hard.
Not that I didn’t love soul food. Detroit has some of the best hidden treasure restaurants in the country, but for a first date? He could have shown a little effort, at least. That was strike one.
I returned the conversational serve back to him. “So...”
Strike two had been him taking a call that lasted a good few minutes. If it had been his sick aunt or an important work call, I would have understood, but it wasn’t either of those things. It was a friend of his who needed help setting up Xbox Live for the first time. It was a good thing Aaron spent so much time on there; he was able to solve his friend’s problem in no time.
He nodded, realizing that he was losing me. Or maybe he realized he’d never had me and it was just now becoming obvious to him. “You know, they say not to ask what someone’s job is. They say you should ask what someone’s passion is. What’s your passion, Layne?”
It was cheesy, but I had to admit that I did like that sentiment. It was the first decent question he’d asked, and at least he’d made it a good one. “I like to help people.” Aaron nodded, but I caught him gazing around the small restaurant. I sighed to myself. Shatrice was going to hear about this. Another ace setup from my best friend. I decided that if Aaron was fine with hogging the conversation, I would follow suit. I could talk about my passions all night long.
“I get to help people, actually. I work at a soup kitchen. I get to cook, and I get to see people from all walks of life, and I get to see them starting fresh and picking their lives back up. We have a great community outreach and a ton of people that used to need our services come back to volunteer once they’re on their feet. It’s just a great thing to see.”
I realized that I wasn’t really talking to Aaron anymore, but I didn’t care. I loved my job, and I loved telling people about it. I was the one in the group who was always trying to get people to volunteer and learn how to cook. It helped the community and they learned something at the same time. It was a win-win in my book.
He looked at me, his head tilted to one side. “What kind of soups?”
I stared at him. Was he serious? “Huh?”
“What kind of soups do you make? At the kitchen?” It was his only moment of sincerity. I could see just how much effort he had put into it, and I just couldn’t help myself.
I laughed. I knew he wasn’t being intentionally funny, and maybe that made it even more so. I tell him all about my job, and the only thing his feeble mind can hang onto is the fact that I make soup. I wanted to cry, laugh, and yell all at the same time.
“I make lots of different kinds of soup, Aaron. I also make casseroles, breads, and other kinds of food.” I realized after the fact that my tone was like talking to a toddler. It was probably a bit harsh, but didn’t he deserve it?
“I get that. I get that.” He said it exactly like someone who didn’t get it, but I let it slide. We hadn’t even gotten our drinks yet and I really didn’t want things to get too awkward. The thought had crossed my mind to just abandon ship, but I really didn’t want him to think I was a bitch. Even if the boat was sinking fast, I’d do my best to bucket out a few gallons of water.
I decided to grin and bear it. At least he was asking questions. “What about you? What business is your father in?”
He smiled and I immediately regretted asking. “Flooring. Not residential, though. We do some of the larger companies in the area. I don’t actually do the work, if that’s what you think. I’m stuck behind a desk dealing with clients, workers, supply companies. It’s not the most important work in the world, but I get to work alongside my dad, and maybe in a few years when he retires the business will be mine.”
I didn’t know what to think of Aaron. His life seemed easy. He had been handed everything. He was set to inherit a job that did nothing to contribute to society and he was proud to sit behind a desk. It wasn’t that I hated him—I just hated that he seemed to enjoy his utterly vapid life. I didn’t know how he could possibly get any satisfaction from it.
I had carved out my place in the world. Working through school had allowed me to network with like-minded individuals. My co-workers were driven, determined people, and those were the kind of people that understood me. But Aaron? Aaron couldn’t understand my drive and motivation.
I put in my time every day and went home with more energy than when I’d started. Aaron looked like he went home every day and fired up the Xbox to distract himself from the thought of having to go back to work. I wasn’t looking for a workaday man-child gamer. I was looking for the other half of a power couple.
For five years, I’d dated my share of losers. College was filled with them, and I was glad to get my diploma and leave Georgia to come to Detroit, Michigan.
Maybe it had fallen from what was once a truly glorious city, but I still saw it as a fantastic place. I saw such potential. There were people using ingenuity and hard work to create great opportunities, and I wanted to be a part of that. I knew that sometimes all it took to start a blazing fire was a simple spark.
A spark that Aaron didn’t—and might never—have.
Strike three. You’re out.
I closed the door, astonished that Aaron had actually tried to kiss me. We’d eaten our dinner in silence, after which he’d tried to get back on my good side with a walk down Dequindre Cut. I had to admire his tenacity, but I had no plans to see him again. Ever.
I reached for my phone the second I had the chain lock over the door. Shaking my head, I pulled up my friend’s number. I didn’t know if I wanted to yell at her or laugh with her. Either way, the whole thing had been just too ridiculous to keep to myself.
When Shatrice picked up, I laid right into her. “Was that the best you could do?”
“No, that is not the best I can do, but maybe I don’t want to waste the best I’ve got on you, Miss Picky-Ass Layne Manchester.”
Someone else might have been offended, but I laughed and headed straight for the fridge where a bottle of white wine was chilled and waiting for me. If it had been some other man, we might have been splitting it and seeing where the night took us. Unfortunately for Aaron, I’d be drinking solo this time.
I wedged the phone between my ear and shoulder. “I am deeply and profoundly offended, Shatrice.”
“Mmhm. I just bet you are.” Her sarcasm was palpable, even through the phone.
My co-worker reveled in giving me shit about my love life, and sometimes I thought she set me up with guys for her own entertainment. “Darnell is runnin’ out of friends,” she told me. “You’d better believe that. What was wrong with this one, Miss Picky?”
What was wrong with this one? Where to start? I could have said all kinds of unpleasant things, but I didn’t want to run the risk of actually hurting my friend’s feelings. “We were just on two completely different wavelengths.”
“That is the whitest thing I’ve ever heard. ‘Two different wavelengths.’ Girl, you need to lower your expectations. Darnell and I’ve been together since high school. Let me give you a bit of advice.”
Let me give you a bit of advice was her way of saying, pull your head out of your ass. I couldn't wait.
“Men are work,” she continued. “You don’t get them brand new from the showroom floor, and you don’t get all the fancy accessories you want standard. You gotta mold them over time.”
“Trick them into being who you want?” I’d heard this all before from other girlfriends. I was too picky. I was looking for an ideal man that didn’t exist. The usual stuff. I might have sounded that way when I talked about a man, but really, I just wanted someone who worked toward a greater good. Someone who got satisfaction from that.
As I wrestled the cork f
rom the bottle, Shatrice laughed. “If you want to use the word ‘trick,’ you go right ahead. I prefer ‘psychological conditioning.’ If you don't believe me, just take a look at Darnell. When we met, he was a mess.”
“Then why’d you start dating him?”
“Because he had a Camaro.” I snickered as Shatrice went on. “And because he had potential. I knew there was a great man inside him. It just took some doing to get that great man out.”
I raised my eyebrows. She might have been on to something there. I laid the cork and corkscrew down and switched the phone to my other ear. “Advice heard.”
As usual, for Shatrice, that wasn’t enough. “Advice understood?” she asked.
“I think so.”
She laughed. “Good. We’ll discuss the tricking of men further at work tomorrow. You enjoy your wine and your white-girl shows.” She knew me so well.
“Goodnight, Shatrice.” I rolled my eyes and hung up.
Dropping down into the couch, I wondered about what she had said. I knew that no one was perfect, but damn, I was starting to get a real sexual frustration building up inside of me. The Disney princess fantasy wasn’t so ingrained in my head that I thought Prince Charming was really out there, but I also didn’t think my standards were too high.
I didn’t have a favorite hair color or eye color. A man’s physical appearance didn’t concern me nearly as much as his heart. I wanted a kind man, but not a pushover. A good man, but not a boring one. A giver, but not to a fault.
I sighed. Maybe I really was too picky.
My longest relationship had been with Sam in college. He wasn’t kind, good, or a giver. He was a bad boy, and I still regretted the nine months of reckless lust. He’d ridden a motorcycle and he fucked like a porn star, so it wasn't hard for me to look past his faults.
Maybe I was looking for the antithesis of Sam instead of what I thought would really be good for me. After he and I had a painful, fiery split, I’d dated Edward. Edward really was the opposite of Sam. He was quiet, introverted, and well-spoken.
We met in a philanthropy club, and after four months of long nights talking about traveling overseas to dig wells and examining what we felt were the true roots of poverty, he’d finally kissed me. Edward didn't set my heart on fire, not by a longshot, but he was reliable, safe, and I thought our common interests would mean that we’d grow into the power couple I’d always longed for.
Shatrice’s words reverberated in my head. Maybe with some gentle persuasion, I could have helped Edward to become what I really needed. Our minds were in sync, yet our bodies were anything but. I couldn't admit to him that things in the bedroom weren’t good for me. At the time, I’d told myself it was because he was too fragile to take it, but looking back, I was the one who couldn’t say it.
I cycled through my other scattered relationships and realized that Shatrice might have been right. With a bit of effort and vision for the future, I could have seen myself with any of them for the long haul, except for Sam.
And Edward in particular had seemed beyond smitten with me. I thought that perhaps I was being arrogant, but I couldn’t think of any relationship where my partners had really asked anything of me. I sipped at the chilly white wine and had a thought that made my heart stop for a second.
Had I ever been in a real relationship? An honest-to-God, give-and-take relationship?
I didn’t want to think about that now. I had moved to a brand new city and carved out a decent life for myself. I had survived the disaster of the S.S. Aaron and there would be other ships in the sea—just hopefully ones that didn’t pass in the night.
I flipped on Netflix to let Gilmore Girls play. Oh, Lorelai. I can sympathize.
Before the accident back in May, my senses would sharpen in the blink of an eye at the sound of our station’s tones ringing out. On the way to a call, I would do my best to hold off the adrenaline. We had an average of a five-minute response time and adrenaline did nothing good while you sat in a fire engine traveling to a call. It made you antsy en route and it clouded your mind once you got to the scene.
But now I’d begun to dread the tones. My fellow firefighters would call out encouragement and some of the younger guys would cheer. To them, they were a football team coming through the tunnel into the spotlight. It was their bowl game. To me, it was like reliving the memory of that terrible night right from the beginning.
I would let out a sigh of relief when we found out it was a false alarm or the fire turned out to be popcorn burnt in a microwave in an apartment building. When it was a real fire, I had to swallow my fears and do my job. I could do that, but it was getting harder to hide it from the brothers around me.
A few days after my first session with the shrink, we had a big call. It came out as a second alarm; we were called to assist a nearby station with a fire they were already battling. A fire had started in the basement of an apartment complex unit, and by the time the neighboring department got there, it had traveled up into the attic.
I was riding in the seat just behind the officer, facing back and watching the rain-soaked world disappearing into the distance. I heard the radio traffic, but my mind wasn’t with it.
“Looks like we’re fighting this one from the inside out.”
I turned from the window to my partner for the shift. Young and far too eager, Rico Baggio was a green as they come. He’d only been with the DFD for a little over a month, and it showed in just about everything he did. Rico thought of himself as Superman, which got probies killed more often than anything else. He spoke like he’d not only seen every episode of Rescue Me and Chicago Fire, but like he knew what the fuck he was doing. That was a serious problem. The kid could be good someday, but he had to learn his place.
I mumbled, mostly to myself, “Just stick with me. We’ll do what we’re told.”
Rico didn’t seem to hear, he was too caught up in himself, “The Dirty D: the only place where the water shoots out of the house instead of in.”
I rolled my eyes and turned back to the window. We had another two minutes and I was trying to keep myself calm.
The red lights were flashing from the trucks already on scene before we slowed to a stop. I could hear the clamor of the truck warning that someone wasn’t wearing their seatbelt. Looking to my right, I saw that Rico was already loaded up with his air pack and he had the door open.
I shook my head. He’d stand outside our truck for five minutes before being given an assignment, wasting energy and air from the bottle. You could talk until you were blue in the face, but the kid wouldn’t listen. I’d make sure the battalion chief knew about it so Rico could hear it from on high. Then it might sink in.
Pulling the handle below my seat, I released the SCBA bottle built into the backrest of the seat. Pushing the door open with my foot, I slung the air tank over one shoulder and stepped out of the truck.
When I shut the door, I saw the thick, black smoke was rising into the night sky. Every light seemed to be trained onto the apartment, making the whole thing look like a sinister hot air balloon. Hoses stretched in every direction toward the house. I could see the first department’s truckies had already set up ladders, but the fire was still growing.
It was a three-story apartment and it looked abandoned. It was May all over again. A woman was screaming in a nightgown, oblivious to the rain falling down around her. The battalion chief came up to my crew, his jacket already soaked through with rain.
“The place is supposed to be abandoned, but we’ve got multiple witnesses saying a family was squatting. Our guys have ladders set up for egress, but we need eyes inside on two and three.”
Clay, the shift commander, looked to me. “Grab the rook and get his gear dirty.” He watched me for a split second. I understood what he was doing. The slightest bit of hesitation on my part would have change his mind. I had to be dedicated one hundred percent.
