Chapter Nine
Nine
Once on the sidewalk, I felt weighted down with doubt and was sorry that Geneva had even brought up the subject of Kendrick Greene.
In my musings, I almost collided with a couple pushing their newborn daughter in a blue and white old-fashioned baby carriage. I smiled at them and then down at the pink face of the sleeping baby and muttered, “How sweet.”
Walking toward my apartment building, I wondered if Kendrick and I would ever have children of our own.
It was times like this that I felt as if it would never happen.
Kendrick Greene was the vice president of Greene Real Estate Investments, one of the oldest black-owned international real estate investment companies in the United States.
His grandfather Collins Greene started the company back in 1925, when he purchased a row of brownstones in Harlem and used the rental income to buy beachfront property in his native Barbados.
By the time his son, Aldridge, Kendrick’s father, had graduated from Howard University and joined the family business, Collins had amassed more than two million dollars’ worth of real estate in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Newark, New Jersey.
He’d also purchased land in Antigua, St. Vincent, and Tobago.
Aldridge came in and more than tripled the land holdings in less than five years. He also added hotels to their growing portfolio, and now Kendrick was taking the business to a new level, buying property in war-torn countries that he knew would be revitalized within the next two decades.
Kendrick’s mother died from a severe asthma attack when he was just five years old, and the senior Greene never remarried, but he’d had his share of scandalous affairs with high-profile government officials as well as beautiful celebrities.
I understood the attraction; Aldridge was still a good-looking man, even now, when he was just a few years from his seventieth birthday.
Kendrick had inherited his father’s business savvy, as well as his good looks.
Standing six foot five, he was a mountain of a man, with sable-colored skin. His forty-two-year-old physique rivaled that of a man half his age. He kept his naturally wavy hair cropped close and sported an impeccably kept mustache and goatee.
He had the ultimate bedroom eyes, and I’d seen many a woman swoon beneath his gaze.
Shit, it still happened to me.
—
Our first meeting was one for the storybooks.
On a November afternoon two years earlier, it was raining cats, dogs, and everything else with a tail and four paws, and there I was trying unsuccessfully to catch a cab.
A sudden gust of wind ripped my umbrella from my hands and carried it off into the gray stormy day. My Bloomingdale’s bags were soaked and seemed to disintegrate right in my hands. The two new wool sweaters I had just purchased were ruined.
I felt defeated and started crying right there where I stood. A Mercedes sped by and splashed a blanket of dirty water on me, and then I got mad.
I dropped my sweaters to the ground and screamed obscenities at that car, and then I gave the driver the middle finger, with both hands.
The car stopped with a screech and began slowly backing up.
I just froze. I had forgotten what city I was living in.
I’d forgotten that I was a woman in that city.
I’d forgotten that most of the people around me would stand by and let this man in the green Mercedes beat me down while they went about their business.
Chivalry was dead, and now I was next.
The car stopped in front of me and the dark-tinted window came down. The man sitting behind the wheel was strikingly good-looking, and when he finally spoke his voice sounded like silk.
“So sorry, miss. Please forgive me. I didn’t realize that there was such a large puddle of water there until I got up on it, and then, well, then it was too late.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” I heard myself say stupidly.
“Can I give you a lift?” he asked, already out of his car and retrieving the two sweaters that sat soaked and filthy at my feet.
“Oh, I think these are ruined,” he said as he held the soggy material in his massive gloved hands. I just stared at him. My hair was hanging in my face and my mascara was making its way down my cheeks in long black lines. I looked a mess, but this man didn’t seem to notice.
“Please get in. You’re soaked,” he said, running over to the passenger side of the car and opening the door. “C’mon, please,” he said, and I almost melted right there, because now he was soaked through too and he looked like a little wet puppy dog. I’m a sucker for puppies.
So I started around the car while trying to block out my mother’s voice, reminding me not to accept rides from strangers.
I shut the voice out and climbed into the lush leather of the seat. He had a Luther Vandross CD playing, and all I could think was This man has got it going on .
I watched him run around the front of the car, sweaters in hand. He started to climb back into the car and then at the last minute turned and dumped them into a nearby garbage can.
“I’ll replace those,” he said as he pulled out into traffic.
For a long time we didn’t say anything. It was just Luther and the sound of the wipers against the windshield. I finally got up the nerve to break the silence.
“I’m sorry I cursed at you,” I said meekly.
“No, I’m sorry. I deserved that and more,” he said as he maneuvered his car through the yellow sea of taxis.
“My name is Kendrick Greene,” he said and extended his hand to me.
I placed my hand in his and felt the immediate warmth.
It seemed to fill my veins with fire, and suddenly it was too warm in the car.
“Nice to meet you,” I said in a small voice. “My name is Crystal Atkins.” I couldn’t even look at him; all of a sudden I became a shy little girl.
“Nice to meet you. So where is home, Crystal Atkins?” I wanted him to say my name again; it sounded so nice coming out of his mouth. His words were touched by an accent. I had to strain to hear it, but it was there.
“Oh, um, one-fifty Central Park West.”
“Good, I’m going that way too,” he said as he whipped the car through the Central Park thruway.
I was tongue-tied, so I just played with my fingers and tried to push my limp hair back into place without his noticing my effort to do so.
I snatched little glimpses of him, and every time I did my belly tightened and my knees knocked. This brother was having a serious effect on me.
We turned a corner and the traffic came almost to a stop. There were two police cars and four people standing in the middle of the street, screaming at each other. Apparently there had been a fender bender.
Kendrick laughed as we moved past them. It was a full laugh, but not brawny.
“What’s so funny?” I asked as I turned to see what he had found so humorous.
“Oh, I was just thinking how funny it is that you Americans have such wide roads here and so many car accidents, and we island people have small, narrow, winding roads and we have so few.”
“How do you know I’m American?” I asked.
“Well, are you?” he said with a cockiness that angered and excited me at the same time.
“Yes, yes I am…is that a problem?” The shy little girl in me suddenly disappeared and I had to quickly remind myself that I was not in the office and this was not a board meeting. I didn’t have to defend myself for being an African-American woman.
“Why would it be a problem for me? Is it a problem for you?” Kendrick turned his head to get a full view of me, and then he smiled and shook his head.
“No. So, where are you from?” I asked as I slowly climbed down off my high horse.
“Well, I was born in Barbados. That’s where my parents are from. But I was raised and schooled here. I spent all of my summers in Barbados, though.”
That explained the accent.
“So do you go to Barbados often?” I asked. I felt myself becoming more comfortable.
“As often as I can, which unfortunately is not often enough.”
He pulled the car to a stop in front of my building. The rain had started to let up. I didn’t want to leave and didn’t want the rain to stop; I just wanted to stay there in that Mercedes with that man.
“Well, thank you so much for the ride, and again, I’m really sorry about…well, you know,” I said and extended my hand. He took it and for the second time that day my veins filled with fire.
“Well, Ms.Crystal Atkins…is it Ms.or Mrs.?”
“Ms.,” I said, a little too quickly.
“Well, Ms.Atkins, it’s been a pleasure.”
He was waiting for me to leave, but I couldn’t move. I just sat there, staring stupidly at him, thinking about what I should say next.
“I would really like to repay you properly…I mean, um, lunch, perhaps…or maybe dinner?” I couldn’t believe I was saying it, but I was.
“Tonight?” he said. The word slid slowly from his mouth like warm honey.
“Tonight? Yes, tonight would be fine,” I said, already mentally flipping through my closet, looking for just the right dress.
“Eight?” he said.
“Ei-eight…yes,” I said.
“Okay. Well, I’ll see you then.”
I walked into my building in a daze. The doorman said hello twice but I didn’t hear him; I saw his lips moving but the sound of my heart beating inside my chest drowned out everything.
I entered my apartment and kicked off my shoes. With each step I discarded a piece of wet clothing until finally I was standing naked in front of my closet, grinning like an idiot and trying to figure out what I could wear that would dazzle Kendrick Green.
I called Pam, my hairdresser. “Girl, I got a hair emergency. If you come right now, I’ll pay you triple your usual.”
“I’ll be right there, Ms.Atkins.”
I knew that Pam would stop in the middle of a perm, dye, or cut job at her shop on 125th Street to come to my rescue. I had been a faithful client of hers for years and had referred at least a hundred people during that time.