by Roy Glenn
“We had our moments.” Natasha paused, and for a second her facial expression changed. “Still do.”
“Professor and Doctor Edwards’s family, say it ain’t so?”
“We are far from the perfect family, trust me.”
“Come on, your mother is recognized as one of the country’s leading authorities on the Bible.”
“That’s true. The only person that I know who knows more about the Bible than my mother is my father.”
“I thought you said he taught history?”
“To him, the Bible is history.”
“Oh.”
“But like I said, we are far from perfect.”
“Right.”
Natasha paused, and the look on her face became reflective. I imagine that was the same look that I had on my face when I was deciding whether I would share my story with her.
“Would it surprise you to know that I’m the only one in my so-called perfect family that’s speaking to everyone?”
“You are?”
“Yup. Remember, text book middle child; that makes me the mediator and negotiator in the family.”
“I find that hard to believe, Natasha. Everything that you’ve told me about them screams close and happy family unit.”
“We were at one point,” Natasha said, and I could see the pained look on her face before she turned away.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to change that?”
Now it was Natasha who took a deep breath; then she turned and faced me, and I prepared to hear her sad story.
“My parents divorced my senior year in high school.”
“I see.”
“I guess you want to hear the story?”
“I told you mine.”
“My father had an affair.”
I wasn’t expecting that, so all I could say was, “Oh.”
“He went to a symposium, met a woman in the bar, and they slept together.”
“I guess your mother found out about it.”
“Yes,” Natasha said, and the blank expression on her face told me that it was difficult for her to recall the emotions that she must have felt in that moment.
“I know this must be hard for you. You can stop if this is too painful.”
“I’d be lying if I told you that it wasn’t. But for some reason, and please don’t ask me why, I want to tell you.”
After hearing Natasha say those words, I took a second to marvel at and draw strength from, the fact that she was in the same place that I was, because I wanted to tell her everything. It made me feel confident that she was into me like I was into her.
And this was a good thing, right?
“How’d she find out?”
“He told her about it.”
“What?” I said in disbelief, because I didn’t know of too many men that tell on themselves.
“Yeah. He felt so bad that the next morning, he left the symposium, came straight home, and told her everything.”
“I would imagine that she appreciated him being honest with her about it.”
“You would think, but it’s not what happened.” Natasha paused. “My mother lost her mind. I will never forget that day. She was screaming at him and crying about how much he hurt her. Telling him to get out and never come back. All he kept saying was ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you.’ The next morning she filed for divorce.”
“The next day?” I was shocked.
“She was in her lawyer’s office first thing Monday morning. After a while she calmed down and realized that she’d overreacted, but the damage was done.”
“How so?” I asked, thinking that you never know the type of burden other people are carrying around with them every day.
“The day my father got served the papers, he signed them, quit his job and—” Natasha looked away and shook her head as if she were trying to shake off the feelings that she felt in those difficult days. “Anyway, the whole thing tore our family apart. My sister Victoria was in college when my mother told her about it. She was devastated. We were all daddies’ girls, but she was first, she idolized my father. We all did. But she was so disappointed that she could not and has not, to this day, spoken to my father. Now, my sister Kathryn was daddy’s baby girl. The day my mother threw him out of the house, was the last day she spoke to her.”
“What happened to your father?”
Natasha looked at me. “He stayed drunk for a month. Then he got himself together and left the country. He moved to Nassau. Now he teaches the New Testament at a junior high school.”
“I’m sorry, Natasha. I can’t imagine what that must feel like.”
“I think that was what I said to you,” she reminded me.
Chapter Nine
Victor
The following morning I woke up after dreaming of Natasha and I walking along the edge of the beach. Even in my dreams, I can hear her melodic voice dancing in my ear. The color spectrum is dazzling, Victor, and pointing to the absolutely beautiful colors of the orange, brown and yellow sunset. She stopped walking to appreciate the view, and I stopped to appreciate Natasha. So I’m standing there, next to her, and all I wanna do is touch her. And I want to so badly that on the inside I’m shaking with anticipation. Then Natasha looked at me and smiled and I felt so content in that place.
Paul told me that she told Vanessa that she thinks I’m fine and I think she’s gorgeous. And if that was the case, I gotta ask; why are we dancing this dance? I know the answer was that she had a man, but it hasn’t stopped me from wishing that Natasha was mine. The way she looks at me when she says my name. And when Natasha smiles, I feel like we’ve been together for a long time. So even if she wasn’t mine I was enjoying every minute of being with her. We were having so much fun together and I was just happy with the part of her that I could have in my life.
After that, we walked and talked for a while, before heading back to my family, where we got into a game of spades. We dominated because, much to my surprise, Natasha is a highly skilled cheater at cards. That’s right we dominated because we knew exactly what cards the other one had. Once Natasha organized her cards, she’d hold her hand up and briefly spread her cards with the faces toward me and I’d do the same. I left there that night feeling closer to my friend Natasha and was anxiously awaiting and anticipating our next encounter.
But that day, I had other things to do. I sent Paul a text and let him know that I was going to stop by his house that afternoon. We needed to have this conversation face to face and definitely alone.
On the way there, I thought about my part in this. Not only did I introduce them, I practically handed her to him. It was during one of their quarterly breakups. But this time was different he said.
“This time, Vic, I’m through.”
“You say that every time. And once the two of you calm down and get back together, nobody sees or hears from either one of you for a month.”
“Yeah, but this time I’m for real. I’m done with Vanessa this time.”
“Right. Until the next time.”
“Whatever. So what you gonna get into tonight?”
“Nothing really, why you wanna hang out or something?”
“Yeah, why not. I might even meet somebody that’ll wanna get with me,” Paul said and struck a pose.
I shook my head. “If you’re serious about getting with somebody, I know somebody that is dying to get with you.”
“Who?”
“Bria.”
“Bria Abbott?”
“You know any others?”
“I damn sure wouldn’t mind getting with her fine ass.” Paul shook his head. I guess he was pondering the possibilities. “And you say she’s dying to get with me?”
“She is. I don’t know why but she is.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“’Cause you were with Vanessa.”
“Well we ain’t together any more. Hook me up, cuz,” Paul said.
So I called Bria, she came by and it was on from ther
e. Problem was a week later him and Vanessa kissed and made up, but by that time it was too late. Bria had Paul’s nose so wide open you could drive a truck through it.
When I got to Paul and Vanessa’s house, she opened the door and let me in. “Missed you yesterday,” I said and kissed her on the cheek.
“We were on our way out the door, when something came up,” Vanessa said.
“Really? What was that?”
“We decided that we’d rather do something that didn’t involve baking in the hot sun all day just to eat,” she said.
“She means we had sex. And we’d rather have sex than do most things,” Paul said when he came in the room.
“But, I heard you enjoyed yourself,” Vanessa said.
“What do you mean?”
“I heard you brought Natasha.”
“I did not bring Natasha. She met me there.” Just another version of we’re just friends. But Vanessa wasn’t buying it.
“Whatever. It’s the same thing and you know it. You invited her and she came there to be with you.”
Yeah, she did, I smiled inside. “Who told you?”
“Angie. She called me three times while she was at the park and again when she got home.”
“So I know she told you everything.”
“From the minute she spoke to Aunt Claire to Uncle Willie cooking a rib especially for her,” Vanessa shook her head. “And that lame excuse he offered up.”
“I ain’t say nothing to that girl. Y’all better stop telling that lie on me,” Paul said imitating Aunt Anita.
“Then y’all disappeared for hours,” Vanessa continued.
“And yes, everybody swore y’all were off somewhere doing it,” Paul said.
“And then the two of you had the audacity to go to Boston on and totally silence your aunt and uncle.”
Paul leaned close to me. “Mom called this morning and she was not happy,” he said and I wondered if they knew we were cheating.
“Guess she didn’t miss a thing.”
“You know Angie better than that,” Vanessa said as she started walking toward the kitchen. “Have some lunch with us, Victor?”
“What you fix?”
“I got the macaroni salad and fried fish that I made for yesterday and I’m gonna make a three bean salad now.”
“Sounds good,” I said and Vanessa went in the kitchen.
“And we got a big ass fruit salad we gotta get rid of,” Paul said.
“We need to go to the golf course,” I said the way they do at work when they want to have a private conversation that they don’t want anybody to hear.
Not understanding the reference, “What?” Paul asked.
I looked to make sure of where Vanessa was before I whispered, “We need to talk.”
“What about?” Paul asked loudly.
Once again I looked around for Vanessa. “About me seeing Bria at the cookout yesterday.”
“What you say?” Paul asked, suddenly discovering his quiet voice.
“I saw—” I started, but Paul quickly raised his hand to stop me before I said the name Bria again in his house and I understood why. Mentioning Bria’s name anywhere around Vanessa would not go well for Paul.
“While you make the salad, I’m gonna run to the store to get something to drink.”
“Pick up some hot sauce,” Vanessa yelled from the kitchen.
“Got it,” Paul said, grabbing me by the arm and practically dragged me out of the house. Once outside, I followed Paul as he walked quickly toward his car. He didn’t say a word until we were down the block from their house.
“You saw Bria at Amelia Island yesterday?” he finally asked.
“She was there and she was heading for the fam when I saw her.”
“Did anybody else see her?”
“I don’t know. I was with Natasha when I saw her.”
“Which explains why you didn’t hog tie her ass and send her home.” Paul shook his head. “This is not good.”
“No it’s not. How’d she know you was gonna be out there?”
“Huh?”
“Thought you said you hadn’t talked to her?”
“Okay, Vic, yeah, I talked to her a couple of times. But I haven’t seen her.”
I shook my head. “Yet. You haven’t seen her yet.”
“And I’m not trying to. Look, Bria called me and said she needed me to help her move some of her things out of storage and I told her that I couldn’t because of the cookout.”
“Okay, I get that, but why did you have to tell her that it was at Amelia Island?”
“I didn’t think she’d just show up there,” Paul said louder than he needed to, but I understood why. Bria was not to be played with.
“I don’t know why since she’s proved she has stalker tendencies.”
Paul head dropped a little and he looked dejected. “I know.”
“You need to stop this Paul. You need to stop calling her.”
“I’m not. She calls me.”
“Then stop answering the phone when she calls.”
“She’ll just keep calling until I answer. Sometimes it’s better to just pacify her than to make her mad.”
“Change your number, something.”
Paul laughed a little. “I tried that once already and you see she got the number. You know she owns them car lots; I think the woman in finance gave her the new number.
“You need to find some way to shut this down before it gets out of hand again.”
After that, Paul and I went back to his house and had lunch with Vanessa. While eating, Vanessa grilled me about my friendship with Natasha. Vanessa told me what a special woman Natasha was and that she could tell how much I really like her and I couldn’t disagree. Paul was a part of the conversation, but I could tell that he was mad about Bria. He was trying his best not to show it, but I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was sitting there quietly plotting what he was going to do next. I’d seen Paul look that way too many times growing up not to be worried about what he was going to do.
When I left their house, I was thinking about Natasha. I wanted to talk to her, but I never called her on Sunday’s and I didn’t expect to hear from her so I went home. It was about ten o’clock when my phone rang and to my surprise, it was Natasha.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” I said when I answered the phone.
“Hi, Victor,” she said, in a voice barely above a whisper.
“How are you tonight?”
“I’m fine. How are you?”
“Doing much better now than I was a minute ago.”
“I’m not going to keep you long. I just wanted to hear your voice and make sure that we were still on for Stormy Weather tomorrow night?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Good,” Natasha said and I could hear the smile in her voice. “I gotta go, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I understand. Good night, Natasha.”
“Good night,” she said and ended the call.
I woke up Monday morning and went to work floating on a cloud. That day I would allow nothing and nobody to disturb the groove I was in.
I had been working with our implementation partners to implement an Enterprise Resource Planning system for the company. It’s business management software that the bank used to collect, store, manage and interpret data from its many business activities. That afternoon it was time to make the presentation to Jack and select members of upper management.
“The Enterprise Resource Planning,” I began. “or ERP system provides an integrated view of core business processes, often in real-time, using common databases maintained by a database management system.”
“Can the system share data across the various departments that provide data?” Jack asked.
“The ERP can facilitate information flow between all of our business functions.”
“Does the system provide an integrated view of our core business processes in real-time?”
“Th
e system is integrated so it operates in or near real time without relying on periodic updates the ERP systems can track business resources and the status of business commitments,” I explained. When I was done with my presentation, the word was given to proceed with the implementation.
“Excellent work, Victor,” Jack said.
“Thank you,” I replied and at that point I was ready to leave for the day so I could get ready to meet Natasha at the theater to see Stormy Weather. As I usually did, I arrived early to meet Natasha. I never wanted to be late for our encounters, and besides, I was always so anxious to see her that I couldn’t sit still. When I rounded the corner, I was thrilled to see Natasha standing outside the theater. She smiled that smile I can’t seem to get enough of and began waving as soon as she saw me.
As I approached, my eyes devoured Natasha’s form. She was wearing a black and white two-tone suit. Since it was hot that night, the blazer was draped over her arm which allowed me to see the white silk camisole top. The sight of her naked shoulders only proved to make me want her more.
“Good evening, Victor.”
“I see somebody worked late again tonight.”
“Unfortunately. I thought I was going to be late.”
“But you made it and you look fantastic.”
“Thank you, Victor,” Natasha said and we got in line.
“I’ll let you in on a secret.”
“What’s that?”
“I hope you work late every time I see you.”
Natasha frowned and her beautiful face contorted. “Why?”
“Because you go to work looking amazing. I thought about quitting my job and going to work for The Reese Group just to see you every day.”
Natasha laughed. “There are easier ways to accomplish that.”
I looked at her for a second or two. “I’m gonna leave that one alone.” Because being able to see Natasha every day was the dream I dreamed of each day.
Once I took care of the tickets, Natasha and I went in the theater to see Stormy Weather, featuring the vocals of Lena Horne singing the title song and the dancing of Katherine Dunham. I think we both especially enjoyed Cab Calloway doing “Jumpin’ Jive,” and the amazing dance scene where the Nicholas Brothers come out of the audience. Of course, Fats Waller singing "Ain’t Misbehavin’,” was great too.
