by Tiana Laveen
“I’d prefer you not to.” Emerald chuckled, causing her aunt to do the same.
“How long was you ’nd Andre married again?”
“For fourteen years. Why?”
“He was a nice man. It’s a shame that didn’t work out.”
“What would make you bring up my ex-husband right now? We were talking about my daughter being in the army and besides, he and I have been divorced for a very long time.”
“It slipped my mind until right now, but I asked about him because I saw a man at the grocery store yesterday afternoon who looked just like him. I know it wasn’t him ’cause Andre still live up there in Maxim, right?”
“Yeah, he’s still here.” At that moment, Emerald considered the fact that she hadn’t spoken to Andre in quite a while. “I don’t think he’ll ever leave. From what he told me, he loves it too much. I don’t plan on leaving any time soon, either.”
“I don’t care where you go or stay as long as you find you a man! You ain’t getting any younger! You’re going to end up an old maid with a bunch of cats ’nd shit.”
“Sugar, you act as if my life is incomplete or I’ve been complaining to you about not having a boyfriend. I’ve been married, had a baby who’s now grown. I’ve done all of that so the curiosity is long gone.” She winced as she stretched her sore feet. “I told you I’m fine if I meet someone, and fine if I don’t. Would I like to date more? Of course, but I get out and meet people. My life is fulfilling and full. I have friends that I talk to often and go out to lunch with and what not, you’ve heard mention Sandy and Rebecca plenty of times and of course I have my refurbishing business which keeps me busy, too. I meet a lot of neat people that way.”
“You one of them anti-socials they talk about on Dr. Phil. That ain’t healthy, Emerald.” Emerald rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“That’s not true. I just refuse to settle ever again is all.”
“You ain’t got time to be choosy. Your heyday has come ’nd gone.”
“Thank you, Father Time.” Emerald grimaced.
“The carpet is probably turnin’ gray. I wish you’d meet someone else, Emerald! Ain’t no sense in being alone at your age. Like I always tell you, you still got some good years left in you. You better hurry up before you get wide in the middle. I’d give you Kirby, but even I don’t want my own husband!”
“Sugar.” Emerald laughed, this time in earnest. “Look, seriously, don’t worry about me. I like my own company and since you brought up Andre, you’re right—he’s a nice guy, but staying together wouldn’t have been fair to either of us. I tried to hold on for Nikki’s sake. We both did, actually.”
“I still don’t understand how you got caught up like that… you said when y’all went and separated that you didn’t love him.”
“That’s not actually what I said, Sugar. What I had stated was that I loved him, he is the father of my daughter after all, but we were never really in love; at least, not in the way a husband and wife should be. He was hard working and even funny sometimes, too, but you know that special something that keeps people together? A drive to try until the wheels fall off because you’re helplessly devoted and crazy about one another?”
“Like you and that guy a couple of years ago… What was your ex-boyfriend’s name again?”
“Rick…yes, like that. Rick and I didn’t work out because, like I told you, he wanted different things out of life than me, but it’s true, we had the necessary umph. We had more than just a friendship and respect for one another.”
“That passion… that fire…”
“That’s right. I know what it feels like, how it’s supposed to be anyway, and Andre and I didn’t have it. I’m at peace with it and I believe he is, too.” She shrugged.
“He was easy on the eye too… reminded me a bit of Giancarlo Esposito. Andre remarried now, ain’t he?”
“Yes, and I met his wife. She seems really nice.” She reached towards the nightstand and plucked the wine glass to bring it carefully to her lips. “Soon after our divorce, Andre and I even went out to lunch a few times and were supportive of one another. He’d send me Christmas and birthday cards each year, and as a matter of fact, he still does.”
“That’s a strange arrangement, I’m surprised you two didn’t have any drama like most folks.”
“Why would we?” Emerald said. “We’re adults after all. We split amicably and he’s been a good father to Nikki. I never had to ask him for money to help take care of his child, and he makes sure, to this day, to keep in contact with her. The kids always suffer the most in the long run. Our issues, our inability to fully connect had nothing to do with our daughter, and our mission was to keep her safe and feeling secure, despite the deterioration and subsequent ending of our marriage.”
“What you are talkin’ about is you two had a lack of chemistry.”
“Right, that’s another term for it.”
“That’s what Oprah called it in her magazine. She got a lot of nerve givin’ folks marriage advice, you know that? Have you seen that diet commercial thang she got going on? Talking about she eat bread everyday and still losin’ weight. She forgot to mention she also got a two hundred dollar an hour personal trainer! If I had Oprah type money you best believe yo’ bottom dolluh I wouldn’t be wit’ Stedman. He look like a hound dog. That woman is his personal Go Fund Me.”
“Sugar, I can’t take you tonight and what do you know about Go Fund Me? You barely know how to use your email account.” Emerald cracked up, yet her eyes grew heavy with a rapidly growing desire to slumber.
“All I’m sayin is that you ain’t got to be a looker to get no man, or no handsome man to get no rich woman… so you ain’t got an excuse, Emerald.”
“Sugar, Oprah and Stedman might have chemistry. You may find him funny looking, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe their hearts are attracted to one another and see past any exterior flaws.”
“You sound like a damn fool. Stedman wouldn’t be wit’ that woman if she was Oprah that worked at Wal-Mart as a cashier; and if she didn’t think he wasn’t pretty from back in the day, he’d be sitting in somebody’s cubicle, cryin’ all the time like the hound dog that it is! May Elvis bless his little K-9 soul! Stedman ain’t cute, but she think he is ’cause he yellow like undercooked cornbread. If he looked like Forest Whitaker minus the talent and was a crackhead and felon, she wouldn’t give that slew eyed fool the time of day!”
“Sugar.” She swallowed a roll of chuckles, refusing to acknowledge the woman’s antics. “I have to get up early in the morning and need to sleep.”
“No you don’t, you just sick ’nd tired of talking to your Aunt Sugar!”
“Not true. If that were the case, I would’ve lied and said someone was at the door or calling. Oops! Did I give away my trade secrets on how to get rid of you?” she joked, causing the woman to laugh heartily on the other end.
“All right, you go ahead and get you some sleep. Call me tomorrow, ya hear?”
“Don’t I always? Good night, Sugar. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“How much?” Emerald’s lips curled in a grin.
“More than you’ll ever know, Emerald baby.”
Her heart swelled with pride…
CHAPTER SIX
Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
Maxim had a hip coffee house called ‘Cup of Dreams.’ The arched door was framed by a brick entryway, and inside, the place had shiny red and copper striped walls, a barrage of newspapers from around the world, and a wobbly desk in a far corner holding nothing but homemade pastries and assorted European mints for carry out. Sloan had found the little place while walking one night after parking his car across the street, hoping to familiarize himself with some of the local haunts.
Since coming upon it, he’d been hooked. About a ten minute drive away from his home, the place was surrounded by upscale boutiques and a building used solely for ballet dance classes and recitals. That night, he�
�d sat there for two hours, a white fedora atop his head, and enjoyed himself people watching. The hat had belonged to his father; he’d stumbled upon it while emptying one of the many boxes that had been packed and sat waiting for him to unload. Unload… Yeah, kinda of like what happened when he screamed inside of his damn head when more strange events had transpired at his house over the past few days.
He’d driven into New York City several days prior, taking care not to mention a word of what had been occurring in the house to Joel, Michelle, and definitely not to Mike or any of his other friends and colleagues. Besides, he had no way of knowing how to address the goings-on. Doors were closing and locking, windows opening and letting in bursts of frigid air, and the scent of strong cigars overpowered a room every now and again. Regardless of the entire house being seemingly alive, breathing and living after swallowing him whole, one portion of the premises remained the most daunting and spine tingling.
Most of the activity radiated from the office—the one he’d painstakingly finished cleaning. And that dreadful, dark window was now clear of grime, too. He was not the kind of man to scare easily; matter of fact, it took a hell of a lot to make his pulse race. He’d seen too much during his lifetime to react in a kneejerk fashion, and he’d prided himself on keeping his composure during unsettling events and upon receiving alarming news.
Deep inside, however, Sloan truly empathized with the pain of others, somehow being fine-tuned to suffering. He’d never been truly removed from it, despite the way he carried on in a nonchalant sort of way. He hadn’t arrived to this point by mere chance. His particular journey had created the creature he’d become. He’d succumbed to the macabre of life. Agony swarmed around him and had embedded itself upon his psyche. He surmised it had begun with some unsettling incidents from many years ago, not excluding the unsettling news of what had become of his mother. He accepted tragedies and unfairness to be as commonplace as the air one breathes.
He’d seen all sorts of things over his lifetime, such as a woman half flung out of her windshield after a fatal car accident—her dark brown eyes lifeless, her wavy, wild red hair all over the place like some discarded rag doll’s, and the way the blood trickled down her arms and soaked into her sheer pale blue dress… something he’d never forget. Shimmery pieces of glass coated her pale, flawless flesh like crumbled red diamonds. He’d been only sixteen when he’d seen the cruel catastrophe, while walking home from school after getting off the subway—his second time coming so close to the overwhelming face of death. Before that, his grandfather, whom he had a rather strange albeit memorable relationship with, had passed away when he was only fifteen.
Sloan wrapped both hands around his coffee cup, hating himself for thinking of such terrible things, but he felt compelled and safe to do so now that he wasn’t under his own roof. He’d been thinking about mortality quite a bit lately. Death had weaseled itself around his life in all sorts of despicable ways, strangling his innocence like a serpent coiled around warm, frantic prey. Some fatalities were literal, others were figurative—marking the end of things he’d believed would never have a conclusion. On a deep sigh, he recalled how Norman had smelled of Bengay and malodorous medicinal ointments during his last days battling pancreatic cancer and complications with diabetes.
His grandfather had always wanted to be called by his first name, even by his own children. Norman was a tough man, a WWII vet who didn’t bat an eye, even after his leg had to be amputated. Most likely that was how his own father had adopted the same attitude: big boys don’t cry. He came from a long line of tall, hard men who didn’t tell people they loved them, rarely initiated hugs, and if you caught them laughing you’d better write down the date and time of the strange occurrence for you may never witness it again.
Sloan checked himself out in the window of the eatery, and his reflection spoke to him. He took note of how much he looked like his father. He fit the bill physically, but in other aspects, it was another matter, seeing how he’d often be called silly by his father for his overactive imagination as a child, and his love affair with the whimsical and strange things life had to offer.
Sometimes he’d become upset, as many children do during their formative years spurred perhaps by a fight at school or hormones that were simply out of whack. If he broadcasted what was in his heart, became emotional in front of his father, he was quickly reprimanded, told not to be a ‘sissy’, as if his tears were in some way offensive. He understood quickly that crying was in fact a thing to be hidden when done, and done seldom. He learned early on to keep all the feelings locked inside, to push them down and swallow that shit, but he hated the bloated way it made him feel. So, in secret, he began to write about fantasy worlds filled with superheroes possessing incredible powers and hideous monsters that took over planets for the sheer hell of it. He relished in revealing stories of haves and have-nots, the mentally agile and the cerebrally challenged.
These people rescued the weak from their unfortunate circumstances, changed the lives of those who couldn’t help themselves. They didn’t cry; they wore bulletproof suits, drove fancy, tricked-out robotic cars, performed real-life magic, and spit on the graves of their oppressors. He made himself into one of them… at least in his mind. Humor draped across the passages, but also real hope, as well as an aspiration to be more.
Writing these ideas down and forming them into a story was his secret hobby for years on end until he got the grand idea that he could share it with the public after reading an article in a literary magazine written by his favorite author, Frank Herbert. In that exposé, he read a quote from the man that said, ‘Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.’ And that resonated with him…
The rest of the story was dispersed in his personal bestsellers history. Regret filled him when he reflected back on Joel and his last visit. It had been a disaster, just like the previous one. Something started to happen between them ever since he moved away, something he couldn’t understand or grasp, and at times thoughts of it kept him awake at night… but he wouldn’t dare admit such a thing. Sloan wrapped a napkin around his nose and gave a good, hard blow. Then, balling the thing up, he tossed it off to the side.
He chuckled to himself, his gaze fixed on that tissue on his table, all wadded up and pathetic as it was, thinking about how some people treat their fellow man just like that twisted up Kleenex. A waitress came by dressed in dark wash jeans ripped about the upper thigh and a bright red shirt that exposed a rather substantial serving of tits for the grateful, naked eye. Normally, he’d take a generous gaze, but right then he just wasn’t in the mood.
“Would you like anything else, sir? We’ve got some great cranberry walnut muffins today.”
“Uh, no.” He shook his head and smiled into her light brown eyes. “I’m fine.” He raised his cup in the air as if to prove his case, then delicately set it back down onto the saucer. She sauntered away, a bouncy, blond ponytail bopping about behind her.
“Shit,” he muttered as he pulled out his cell phone, realizing he’d forgotten yet something else on his ‘To-Do’ List. “Let me give Mike a call… was supposed to call him last night.” He dialed the number but it went to voicemail. “Yo’, Mike, it’s Sloan. Sorry, I fell asleep and then completely forgot but uh, I hope everything went well last night.” He ran his fingers along the edge of a French newspaper he’d grabbed before he’d taken his seat. “Give me a call when you get time… Well, I guess that’s it.” He glanced over his shoulder as if someone had called his name, then looked back down at the table. “Talk to ya soon.”
Ending the call, he relaxed into his seat, enjoying the peace and quiet as the day grew into her teen moments. The afternoon was his favorite part of the day now. He was alert, his writing flowed, he relished his daily walks, and he found the colorful leaves on the mature trees to be at the peak of perfection.
He flipped through the newspaper, chuckling to himself as he looked at the black and white photos,
skipping over the words due to not knowing a damn lick of French. He took notice of a photo of a Parisian café. In front of it stood a few round tables for two, one of which showcased a wine bottle on a white linen cloth. A smile broke across his face as he grabbed his phone again and made an overdue call.
“Hello?” He could hear the sound of light chatter in the background after someone picked up.
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat, feeling a tad silly. “Is this Emerald?”
“Yes, who is this?” The thud and clank of what sounded like a metal can of soda rolling out of a vending machine soon followed.
“Sloan…wine guy in aisle 15.” He chuckled as he ran his finger around the rim of his now empty coffee cup.
“Ohhhh, yes! I remember you.” He took pleasure in the jovial tone of her voice. “How are you doing today?”
“I’m good. Just out and about, getting some fresh air, and decided to get a cup of coffee. So, did I catch ya at a bad time?”
“I actually just walked out of the office for an early lunch break, so your timing is perfect.”
“Good, I like bein’ described as perfect, makes me feel like I did something right today.”
“I said your timing was perfect,” she corrected on a chortle.
“You couldn’t let me just have it, could you?”
She laughed all the harder. “You’re funny…”
“Yeah? Well, since we both like to laugh, you wanna go out with me tomorrow night to a comedy club or something? I thought about just taking you to dinner but hey…” He shrugged. “Maybe you’d like to do something else instead.”
“Do you know I haven’t been to a comedy club in probably over five years?”
“It’s time then, right?” He leaned forward in the seat, the smile still super-glued hard to his face.
“That sounds like fun, yeah, sure I’ll go. I’m glad you called.” Her voice sounded warm and, dare he say it, comforting. “I accidentally deleted your contact information and several others, actually. I still had your card though, just in case but this phone is new for me, only had it a few days and I’m still trying to figure out how to work it.”
