Under Covers

by Rhonda Bowen

  Naomi shrugged as she distractedly flipped through the pile. “What makes you think that?”

  “I don’t know,” Natasha said dryly. “Maybe your lack of manners.”

  Naomi’s head popped up guilty. “Sorry, Harold.”

  He chuckled. “No worries.” He stepped back into the elevator. “You might want to check the blue one at the back first though.”

  Naomi grinned and skipped to the back where sure enough there was a light blue envelope with her name handwritten on the front. She held the envelope to her nose briefly. When she caught the slight scent of sandalwood, her eyes drifted closed.

  “Wow,” Natasha folded her arms. “You’re a hot mess.”

  Naomi smiled. “Don’t question what you don’t understand, Tash.”

  She shoved the rest of the mail at Natasha then pushed through the nearest door into the copy room - or rather copy closet - since the space was barely large enough for the commercial photocopier and shelves of office supplies it held.

  “What I don’t understand is why Jordan can’t send mail to your house instead of to the office,” Natasha grabbed the door before it closed and squeezed inside the tiny room.

  “Please,” Naomi pursed her lips. “Sending mail to my apartment is like taking a walk through Brooklyn at night. You never know what might happen, but chances are it won’t be good. Since I moved to that place, all my mail’s been coming here. I’m pretty much here all the time anyway.”

  Natasha nodded. “Good point.”

  The door slid closed behind Natasha leaving the women with less than two feet of space between them.

  “Do you mind?” Naomi nodded towards the door.

  “Uh, you bet I do.” Natasha folded her arms and leaned against the door. “You didn’t make me watch for the mail man for half an hour for nothing. “

  Naomi pretended to pout. “This is private.”

  Natasha pursed her lips. “It wasn’t private two weeks ago when you begged me to read his first note because you were too scared to know what he said. Now when it starts getting juicy you want to cut a sister out? I don’t think so.”

  Naomi rolled her eyes. But she couldn’t deny Natasha’s claim. When the first note from Jordan had arrived a week after she sent him the journals, Naomi nearly had a breakdown in her office. She had seen his scrawly handwriting and caught a whiff of his usual scent on the envelope and immediately summoned Natasha. If her friend hadn’t opened the note and assured her it wouldn’t break her heart, it probably would still be sitting on her desk.

  That first note had only been two words, Thank you. She had taken that as a good sign and sent him the rest of the journals. His next note back had been a little longer and she couldn’t help but respond in kind. Pretty soon the letters flew back and forth between them, occasionally overlapping in the mail and going faster than probably the US Postal service could keep up with. Now, Naomi’s favorite part of the day was the arrival of the postman. She had not seen Jordan or exchanged a phone call, email or text message with him in close to two months, but it felt like he was with her every day. And she missed him now more than ever.

  “Okay fine, you can stay.” Naomi pulled herself up on the narrow worktable that was pushed up against the wall. “But you’re not reading this one.”

  Natasha snorted. “That’s what you think.”

  Naomi was too engrossed in the letter to respond.

  Dear Red,

  As I am writing this, your letters sit on my desk in a pile. Every now and then I take them out and read through them again. Then they are tucked away safely beside the journals that you have shared with me. Together they make up the missing pieces of the puzzle of you that I have longed to know. I feel like I have learned more about you in these past couple of weeks than I have in the four years we have been together. And instead of scaring me away, it makes me love you more. Makes me long to hold you. Makes me think about the feel of your soft skin. The smell of your hair first thing in the morning when it’s still wet. The delicious taste of your lips after you’ve been drinking that berry hibiscus thing from Starbucks that you love. And sometimes when I’m lying in bed at night and thinking about the fact that you should be beside me now as my wife and lover, I have a hard time falling asleep. Go take a moment to catch your breath as you think about that.

  Naomi closed her eyes and laid her head back against the wall. She willed the gallop of her heart to slow down to a normal pace. Jordan was killing her softly, and he wasn’t even in the room. Boy, did she miss him.

  You’re back with me? Good. Cause here’s where it gets serious. I’m glad that you can finally be open with me like this, but if there’s any possibility for us, we have to be able to be this honest with each other all the time. In person, face to face, every day, every moment. Can you do that, Red? Can we face the ugliness in our past and present head on together? Can we trust that God and the love we have for each other will keep us together? I’m willing. Are you?

  Still yours,

  Jordan

  Naomi closed her eyes and held the letter to her chest.

  “Was it that bad?” Natasha almost whispered.

  Naomi wiped at the tears that streamed down her face. She opened her eyes.

  “No,” she shook her head. “It was that good. Things might not be so hopeless after all.”

  Natasha smiled slowly before nodding. “Does this mean you guys are getting back together?”

  Naomi slid off the table and tucked the letter back into the envelope. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  She wouldn’t dare be so presumptuous in her hope. But at least there was hope. And it was brighter today than it had been for a long time.

  Before either of them could say another word, there were two knocks and then the door opened.

  “If you guys are done hanging out in the copy room, Naomi, your three-thirty is here,” David said with a smirk.

  Natasha set her hands on her hips, and almost poked Naomi in the stomach in the process. “Boy, I sign your paychecks. I will hang out in the copy room all dang day if I want.”

  His eyes widened as his mouth opened and closed. “I was just...I’m sorry...I...uh...”

  Naomi rolled her eyes and squeezed past Natasha. “Don’t mind her, David. Show my guest to my office. I’ll be right there.”

  “Ok.” He hurried off, his eyes glued to the floor.

  Naomi turned around and glared at Natasha who cackled behind her. “Behave.”

  “Hey, you gotta put a little fear into their behinds sometimes,” Natasha grinned as they headed back to their offices. “Keeps them off balance, and you in control.”

  If keeping someone off balance was the key to staying in control, then Jordan had all the power right then, because Naomi’s head still spun from his letter. She wanted time to read it again in private and think about it some more but by the time she got to her office, a plump stylishly dressed young woman sat in front of her desk waiting.

  “Hi, I’m Naomi Savoy,” she reached out her hand to the young woman. “Sorry for keeping you waiting.”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble at all,” the woman hopped to her feet and grasped Naomi’s hand. “I’m Teresa Jones. I’m so glad you could fit me in.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” Naomi said honestly as she directed Teresa over to a small sitting area near the corner of her office. “With all that the Thirty Under Thirty Committee has done to help me, I am always willing to help out other up and coming young entrepreneurs. Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?”

  “Water would be great, thanks,” Teresa took a seat in an armchair in front of a small table. Naomi grabbed two water bottles from the concealed mini-fridge near her desk and took a seat across from the young woman.

  “So you’ve been nominated for the Woman of Courage Award,” Naomi began after they had both taken a sip of their beverages. “Congratulations.”

  “Oh, thank you so much,” Teresa said enthusiastically. “When they called me and told me, I was s
o excited. You know, even if I don’t win, I am just so glad to be acknowledged and to get to work with people like you. When Mr. Lennox told me I would be mentored by the founder of Street Life Magazine, I couldn’t believe it.”

  Naomi blinked. “Jordan Lennox? He’s the one who directed you to me?”

  “Oh yes,” Teresa nodded. “When he heard my story he said he thought we would be a good match and that we could probably learn a lot from each other. Although to be honest, I don’t know what someone as accomplished as you could learn from me, though I know I will definitely learn a lot from you.”

  Naomi was glad the woman continued to talk. It gave her a chance to catch her breath at the mention of Jordan. She was still a little off kilter from earlier.

  “Well, if Mr. Lennox says that we can learn from each other, we likely will,” Naomi said with a smile. “I have found that he is not often wrong. So, tell me about your business.”

  If Naomi thought Teresa was chatty before, the woman became even more garrulous when the topic of her business came up.

  “My business is called Sincerely Yours,” Teresa said as her eyes brightened. “It’s a specialty gift service where you can order customized gift sets for any occasion.”

  According to Teresa, her business started three years earlier with her making gift baskets for friends and family members on request. When she did the wedding favors for a friend’s wedding, she began to get requests from other people to do gift baskets and party favors for various events. Pretty soon, she ran a full fledged business out of the basement of her home.

  “That’s amazing, Teresa,” Naomi said genuinely impressed. “So how have your sales been?”

  “Well at first, I didn’t check often to see how much I spent versus how much I charged for the baskets,” Teresa said. “When the orders began to increase, I started to get more serious about that and adjusted my prices. I still struggle with that.”

  “Well, we can definitely help you there,” Naomi said. “We can set up a pricing model that works for you, that you can apply across the board with all your products. We can also talk about how you can do some more marketing to increase your sales. That is if you can handle more clients.”

  “Oh yes, I would love that,” Teresa said. “I have someone I call in to help me when I have big event orders or during high demand seasons like Christmas and Mother’s Day.”

  Teresa looked thoughtful. “I would actually love to be able to have her work with me full time. She is such a faithful employee. But I worry that I will not always have enough business to sustain her employment.”

  Naomi nodded. “I definitely know what that’s like. Having employees, people who depend on you, adds a whole dimension to the business-owner model. I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights I used to have. I worried about whether or not business would keep up enough for me to sustain all my employees. But I think with a little work, you can have a booming business, Teresa. You might even need two employees!”

  Teresa smiled. “You know about a year into my business, things were doing really well. I got a lot of orders for special events. I even had my website up and took orders through there. I was ready to expand. But then I had a few...challenges...and I had to shut down for a while.”

  Naomi noticed the pained expression that briefly graced Teresa’s face when she mentioned having challenges.

  “But now, I have my website back online and at least I have a way for people to always contact me,” Teresa said. “God has been so good to me. He has blessed me so much to bring me to this point.”

  Naomi nodded. “Is your faith important to you?”

  “Oh yes,” Teresa said. “It is the center of my life. You know, life has been a challenge for me as a single mother. And even before that. If it wasn’t for God’s mercy... I don’t know how I would have made it.”

  Teresa’s voice trailed off as her eyes went moist. She dug into her purse for a tissue. Without thinking, Naomi reached over and grabbed the woman’s hand. With her other hand, she grabbed a box of tissues off the side table and offered them to her.

  “Thank you,” Teresa said when she managed to pull herself together. “I’m sorry I got so emotional. I am not usually like this. But talking about Sincerely Yours and about my faith has made me think about everything I have had to go through to get here.”

  “I know it must have been hard for you starting a business while taking care of your child on your own,” Naomi said gently. “I was single and had the support of my family and friends when I started Street Life Magazine and even then it was a struggle. There were days when I would just come home and cry because I didn’t think I would be able to make it. I can imagine this has been even more true for you.”

  “Oh, much more than you know,” Teresa said. “It wasn’t just the stress of taking care of my son and starting a business. There was so much more.”

  She looked at Naomi a long time before taking a deep breath. “Like I told you, I started my business three years ago. At the time, I was living with my son’s father. We were supposed to get married but it never happened. But at least I had someone who loved me. Or I thought he loved me. I convinced myself he did, which is why I forgave him after he hit me the first time.”

  Naomi sucked in a sharp breath.

  “He told me he was sorry,” Teresa stared at the wall behind Naomi’s head. “Told me it was a mistake. It would never happen again. But it did. Over and over. One time I tried to leave. But he found me at my mother’s house and convinced her that he loved me. She let him take me back to his home.”

  Tears pooled in the woman’s eyes, but never fell as she continued. “You know, once he hit me so hard that two of my teeth fell out. I have partial dentures now because of it. But I stayed because I thought, if I loved him more, if I was a better fiancée, he would be better. And sometimes it worked. But he never changed. And I never changed, until the day I ended up in the hospital with a broken arm. That’s when I had to stop my business because I couldn’t work with a broken arm and I was too ashamed to ask for help because then I would have had to explain what happened. There was some good from it though. While I was in the hospital, I found out I was pregnant. And that changed everything. It wasn’t about me anymore. It was about my baby, this life inside of me. And I knew I would never let him touch me again.”

  Teresa said that her fiancé was in jail now. But Naomi barely heard it. Something inside her had shut down. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. She was Teresa. It was as if this woman had told her life to her. She heard it and saw it out loud for the first time.

  “Oh Miss Savoy! I am so sorry,” Teresa reached across and grabbed Naomi’s hand. “I did not mean to make you cry. I am okay now. My son is okay now. It’s okay.”

  Naomi shook her head. No, it wasn’t okay. She didn’t know how long she sat there. Teresa offered to call someone for her but Naomi shook her head. She just needed a moment. She closed her eyes and counted backwards from ten and reminded herself that she was safe. Then she took a deep breath and opened her eyes. Teresa stared at her as if she had sprouted a second head. Naomi knew the woman must have been wondering what kind of psycho Jordan had sent her to.

  She sighed, released the breath she had taken. “I think I know why Mr. Lennox sent you to me.”

  Then she told Teresa her story, of her marriage to Garth, of what it had been like living with him. She didn’t tell her everything - there were still many things too painful to talk about. But she shared with that virtual stranger more than she had ever been able to talk about before. And when she was done, she was surprised to find herself not in pieces on the floor.

  “You don’t talk about this with anyone, do you?” Teresa asked knowingly.

  Naomi shook her head.

  “I can tell.” Teresa nodded. “Because you look down when you speak, like you are afraid, like the words will hurt you if you speak them out loud. But let me tell you, they only hurt you when you keep them inside. When you let them out, when you
tell people your story, then it loses its power over you.”

  Naomi looked up at Teresa as if she was crazy.

  The woman laughed. “I know. I was like you too. But I found, the more I shared my story, the less afraid I was to talk about it. The less painful it was. The less powerful it was. The stronger and freer I felt. “

  “I don’t know if I can,” Naomi shook her head. “You know, I have so many people in my life who love me: my mother, my brother, my best friend, a man who wanted to marry me. But it’s so hard to tell them this. To say the words...I am so...”

  “Afraid?” Teresa asked. “There is no fear in love, my friend. Perfect love casts out all fear.”

  That was what Ilana had told her. That’s what God had whispered to her. She still had to remind herself to believe it.

  “This thing, the abuse, it is like a secret,” Teresa’s eyes glowed with wisdom as she spoke. “The fewer people who know it, the more power it has. But once it is out there, once you tell it, it has no more power over you. No one can use it against you. It is like you release it, and all the pain that comes with it.”

  Naomi couldn’t help but smile as she watched the light radiate from Teresa’s face. It was a light of joy. Of peace. Real peace. The kind that came from God and the healing that He gave. Naomi wanted that. And it shocked her to know that God had been waiting to give that to her all along, if she would only claim it. Teresa had reminded her of that.

  “You know what, Teresa,” Naomi said. “You came here for me to mentor you, but I think you just mentored me in a way you could never understand.”

  Teresa grinned. “Guess Mr. Lennox was right after all.”

  Naomi sighed. “Like I said, he usually is.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “So you’re really going to this thing aren’t you?”

  Naomi looked back at Camille who was sprawled out on her bed with a bag of chips.

  “No smarty, I just sat down for two hours and let you straighten my hair for fun,” Naomi said dryly.

  “Alright, alright,” Camille popped a potato chip into her mouth. “You ain’t gotta get all crusty with me. I’m just saying, if you’re trying to get your man back, you could at least buy yourself a new dress. Something short, tight and low cut in the front and back.”