Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
A day late and a dollar short
W hat Lennox needed to say, he preferred to not share over the phone. This sort of thing required looking a woman straight in the eye. Besides, he didn’t believe in coincidences. He’d run into Nadia for a reason. He was going to do this right the first time.
Running his thumb along his lower lip, he crossed his hands over the folded Greasy Spoon Soul food Bistro menu, the place where he’d invited Nadia to meet him for dinner. He hadn’t been here in a long while, but it was one of his favorite spots.
It seemed their easygoing chemistry the evening before was all but forgotten once he informed her that he didn’t want to chit-chat over the phone, or do the light and fluffy stuff. He’d made it clear that right then, he was contacting her about business. That’s when things went left field.
Nadia became rather serious, and started acting strangely, with an attitude, asking what this was all about. When that didn’t work, she began to shut down, refusing to allow him to pick her up and insisting she’d meet him at the restaurant instead. She’d hung up abruptly, leaving him a bit confused but not completely surprised. She’d always been one to need to control the trajectory of things, including something as simple as a conversation—and he knew why. He’d thought her curiosity must be too great to completely blow him off, but of course, there was a first for everything. Time was ticking.
He glanced at his watch as the minutes passed. The waitress refreshed his water and he drank it down fast, then checked the time again. Nadia was seventeen minutes late—not a huge deal, but annoying all the same. She never so much as sent a text to let him know she was on her way.
As soon as he began to toy with the idea of leaving, the front door opened, and in she walked, clad in a long, furry white vest, tight dark jeans, and her hair slicked back into a ponytail. She spoke briefly with the hostess at the counter, then both of them turned and Nadia pointed at him. Her black velvet boots clicked on the floor as she approached, firmly gripping her purse straps. With knitted brows and tight lips, she slipped into the booth across from him.
“Hi,” she stated dryly, barely making eye contact with him as she snatched the second menu off the table and began flipping through it. “Did you order?”
“Nope.” He leaned back in the booth seat and stared at her a good long while as she kept her eye on the menu. “I thought the history we had would prevent you from being like this with me , of all people. But I see we’re startin’ from scratch. ”
“Like a pie? Is this about me being late? Don’t be dramatic.” Her lazy gaze met his, and she offered a watered-down smile before setting her eyes upon the menu again.
“The late part isn’t what I’m referring to. You were a hard nut to crack when we first met, you know that? Wouldn’t talk. The madder you were, the more tightlipped you got.”
“Well, that was in the past,” she said dismissively, her jaw moving as if she were suppressing a yawn.
“You’re doing it again. Something has happened since the night I saw you at the club. Is it something I said on the phone when I called?” He knew damn well it was, but he wanted her to own it. “You won’t tell me what it is though, and I don’t like playing guessing games.”
“I’m not playing games, and the past has nothing to do with now .”
“Yes it does because time passes, but the nature of people stays the same. I deserve to be told what’s wrong without having to pull it out of you. This shit is weird.”
“Please.” She sucked her teeth. “That was ten years ago. I don’t know you like that, Lennox. We were much younger and—”
“I don’t care if it was ten seconds ago or ten thousand years ago. People don’t change. They can grow, but that’s a choice, and one that is seldom made. You know, this little defensive wall of yours I’ve seen a thousand times. You’ve got something on your mind. We can’t talk, Nadia, until you tell me what’s wrong.”
She rolled her eyes in response and gripped the menu tighter .
“I didn’t do shit to you,” he added.
“I didn’t say you did.” She sucked her teeth.
“Then why are you being rude?” He snatched the menu out of her grip and tossed it on the table. “You know what? The hell with this.” He grabbed his jacket to slide it back on. “I don’t need this shit, and I don’t—”
“Because I’m afraid you’re going to say something to make me feel bad!” She held the bridge of her nose between her fingers and shut her eyes. “You cut me off when we were talking, saying you needed to speak to me about business. I thought… I thought you were interested in getting reacquainted or maybe build our friendship back. But I was wrong. You made that clear.” Her hands trembled slightly, and her complexion deepened.
Damn. She’s scared.
“I think you’ve misunderstood, or maybe I didn’t explain it well. That’s not what’s going on, Nadia.” He tossed his jacket aside and settled back in his seat. Damn… I think she missed me as much as I missed her.
She didn’t speak for a long while, just sat there looking out of the window. The waitress came and took their orders. After the lady departed, Nadia finally locked eyes with him.
“I’m sorry, Lennox. I was just, uh, so surprised, and a little excited to see you last night. When you called this morning and said you needed to speak to me about something serious, I got… I got nervous. I wanted to talk to you about your life, you know? About how you’re doing and all the good things that have happened. When you said that to me, mentioned speakin’ about business, it kind of ru ined the mood, ya know? Made me feel like you were angry with me for somethin’ I may have said or done in the past. Or maybe something has happened, and you think I’m to blame. I don’t know… we haven’t spoken to one another in so long. You were one of the few men in my life who was true blue. When I left to go to school in Atlanta, you were so supportive. I never forgot that.”
He couldn’t help but stare at her. She was just so damn beautiful, and now so vulnerable, too.
“Nadia, you know what? You have a way of reading people. Sometimes you read too deeply.”
“Me?” She pointed at herself, sporting a sad smile. “I saw you the same way. Like you can see through me.”
“How are you feeling? Seeing me after all of this time?” He grabbed his water and took a sip.
“Honestly, I have mixed feelings. You know I don’t talk to people about how I feel… well, you don’t know that because it’s been a long time and things change… but,” she swallowed and looked down at her fingers, picking at the cuticles, “I was excited to see you last night. Then everything came rushing back and I wanted to forget I ran into you altogether.”
He ran his fingers down his closed menu. “I have no intention of saying something to purposefully make you feel bad, Nadia. I’m a straight shooter, but I’d never be cruel to you. Everything is going to be fine. Just relax.” He reached for her hand and ran his touch along it. She looked down at their fingers.
It looked like the entire world was bottled up inside of her. He’d popped the cork by his mere presence, and all the fizz burst loose.
“You’re a beautiful person, Nadia. Still today.”
“I hear that a lot.” She swallowed hard. Their food arrived, and the conversation became soft and less solemn.
“What I wanted to talk to you about is something I should’ve said before you left for Atlanta, but it wasn’t the right time. I didn’t want you to think that I—”
“I’m a stripper,” she said around a mouthful of collard greens, cutting him off. “I’m very good at what I do, too. My stage name is Velvet.”
“Velvet. Like velvet red cake.”
“That’s not why it’s my nickname, but I’ll keep the conversation light.” Her voice was distant, as if she were falling asleep mid-sentence. “So, what do you think of that?”
“Think of what?” He rolled his napkin back and forth.
“Of me being a stripper? People judge me, I’ve lost a lot of friends because of it, but I can’t afford to care.” She grabbed her glass of cola and gulped down some of it.
“You care or you wouldn’t have told me so fast– like you’re trying to get in front of anything I might hear about you.” Her wide-eyed faux virtuousness was merely a smoke screen.
“Maybe I did. I don’t know.” She shrugged.
“Are you good at it?” He questioned while inspecting his silverware.
“I can dance my ass off and make a gay man cum if I put my mind to it.” He smirked at that. “My preacher daddy of course hit the roof when he first found out about my activities.” She laughed mirthlessly. “That mothafucka wasn’t even in the picture, Lennox, for the majority of my life. He was in prison as you might recall for a year or two, too, but had the audacity to pass judgment on me.” Her long nails clicked against the table as she drummed them along the glossy white surface. “Came up there waving his Bible in my face, talking about I was going to hell. He should know since I’m certain his boarding pass has already been printed and his attendance confirmed. He’s dead now. I imagine he’s already settled in. Life is hard, then you die.” She shrugged. “My bills aren’t going to pay themselves. It is what it is.”
“What happened to your classes? You left to go to college, or were you doing both? Dancing and taking classes?”
“Initially I was doing both. I finished undergrad and started law school, but uh, some stuff… some stuff happened. Things got complicated,” she said in a tone that discouraged further inquiry. “So if there’s anything serious you want to discuss with me after that brief summary of what my life has been like since we last saw each other, just keep it in mind.”
“You come with a warning now?”
“I sure do.” She stabbed her sweet potatoes. “Most guys see strippers as whores, anyway.” She sighed. “I’m in the business of libidos. I peddle lust, as they say.”
“Lust, huh?”
“Yeah. It’s in the ten commandments. My daddy made sure I knew about it.”
“Adultery is actually one of the ten commandments. Lust is part of the seven deadly sins, which was originally eight.”
“I never took you for being religious.” She placed her fork gingerly down, and her hands tensed along the table.
“I wouldn’t say I’m super religious. I believe in God, I pray, and I have faith.”
“Tell me about these seven, well, eight deadly sins.”
“It came about because a monk named Evagrius Ponticus wrote what’s identified as the “eight evil thoughts.” They are, pride, lust, gluttony, greed, spiritual apathy, rage, vanity, and uh… sloth. Nowadays, we give ’em different names, and people mostly talk about the top seven. Leaving the spiritual apathy one behind.”
“You big brained?” She chuckled. “I like that. You were always smart. Not a show-off about it though. I always liked that about you. Smart people like being around other smart people. The confident ones, that is.”
“I agree with that wholeheartedly. You had a good head on your shoulders. Real good with numbers.”
“Yeah, I know how to make money, and make lots of it. It’s easy because men can’t control themselves.” She gave a fretful cough. “Everything centers around control and bustin’ a nut, for y’all. Y’all want a woman to be a prude and a prostitute, all at the same time. You want ’er to be traditional, but carry at least 50% of the load, all while birthin’ y’alls kids, cleaning the house, cooking and smiling in your face when you’re dead wrong, so that we don’t bruise y’all little fragile ass egos. Remember, all of that is going on while we’re raising those kids of y’alls that we popped out. Meanwhile, you bastards are outside laughing with Joel and Andy, getting white boy wasted on the golf course, or in some club making it rain.”
“That’s not true of all men. Many? Probably. But not all.”
“I don’t care about the ‘ Not all men ,’ excuse.” She rolled her eyes. “If the majority of women were brain-eating zombies, would you care about me telling you about the 2% one hundred miles away that won’t eat your brains? No you would not.”
“I’m in the not all categories, and I can only speak about myself. I don’t represent, look like, or act like, the zombies, so to speak, so what you call an excuse, I call logic. You want me to denounce or vouch for individuals that I don’t even know personally. Think of us as a monolithic group. I can’t do that. I’m me, and that’s all I can be.”
“Smart motherfucker sitting across from me, tossing my word salad.” They both burst out laughing. “As wonderful as you were, and maybe still are, Lennox, you’re still a man. Men have egos. Could you handle being friends with a stripper? I imagine you disapprove. Takin’ off my clothes and dancing real slow under dim lights would ruffle your feathers.”
Lennox leaned back in his seat and placed his arm along the back of the booth.
“Did I ever tell you that before my parents got married, my mother was an escort?”
Her chewing slowed and her eyes narrowed. “Hell no… I would have remembered that.”
He nodded, leaned forward, and picked with his macaroni and cheese. “According to the rumor mill, she was great at it, too. Made a lotta money. My mother had some challenges in life. She wasn’t perfect. None of us are, but she was a good person. A great person even, and even in death, she’s a great mother to me. One of my best friends. She stopped escorting, when she met my father.”
“I do remember you speakin’ about her a lot… in a good way. About how nice and loving she was.”
He nodded then scooped a spoonful of yams onto his spoon.
“I hope you’re not offended by this question, but was your father one of her tricks?”
“Nope. Met ’er at a grocery store. He said it was love at first sight. Said she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.” They were quiet for a bit as ‘Strawberry Fields,’ by the Beetles serenaded them. “Nadia, you mentioned that men have egos. You’re right. So do women, but having something doesn’t mean we have to let it rule and control us. Now that you’ve presented your warning label,” he chuckled as he popped the spoon inside his mouth and chewed the food. “You must know deep down what I might be getting ready to say, right? I mean, you immediately started tellin’ me all of your so-called flaws and defects. You understand what this is all about, don’t you?”
She slathered butter on her cornbread, avoiding his gaze. “I don’t want to guess wrong, so humor me.”
“This second time around, I don’t want to be just your friend, Nadia. I want to get to know you on a different level. A more intimate level. That’s what I meant by I wanted to speak to you about business.”
She finished buttering her cornbread, cool as a cucumber. No expression registered on her face.
“This isn’t what I expected.” Her voice shook, betraying she was more affected by his words than she made it seem. “ I had no idea you liked me like that. You’d be great at poker. This is… wow.”
He polished off his water then dabbed a napkin on his lips. “I had a bit of a crush on you back then, Nadia. It was more than a crush, actually. The only reason I didn’t say anything is because you were going through a lot, and then you were off to college. It would’ve been wrong for me to bring that up and possibly confuse you. When you love someone, even if it’s just as a friend, you want what’s best for them. You needed to leave Texas at the time and pursue your education. To better yourself. When I saw you last night, the first thing that crossed my mind was, ‘Holy shit. This is my second chance.’”
A soft gasp escaped her mouth. She stared at him. “I’m… surprised. Uh, I don’t even know what to say…” She placed her knife down and sat straighter. “You know what, Lennox? If you’re anything like how you were back in the day, and it sounds like you are, you’re amazing, but, I gotta be straight with you. I don’t have time for a relationship right now. I just had—”
“Like you, I’m not trying to hear any excuses. Also, it wasn’t a question or request. I’m not askin’.” He shook his head, then waved the waitress over, quickly letting her know that he was ready for the bill. “I’m tellin’ you that this is what I want. This is what we need. And this is what you’re going to get. ME. It’s time.” He stood and slipped his jacket on. “I may be a day late and a dollar short, but I caught the next train, and I paid off the invoice. With interest.”
A mixture of anger and astonishment now showed on her face .
“Sir, that’s not how relationships work. I think you need to—”
“I’ve got a lotta shit going on in my life right now, Nadia. Good and bad.” He zipped up. “I have faith though. I’m a praying man. Just like I told you. I asked God to show me a sign regarding somethin’ I’m dealing with. The next day, you were sitting at the bar drinking a glass of red wine. Hadn’t seen you in over ten years. God knew how I felt about you… that every now and again, I thought about you, and I ached. He sat your pretty ass right down in front of me. May as well put a bow on your head. That’s all the answer I needed.” The waitress came over, and he handed her his credit card. “I have to get going. I said what I needed to say. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
“You are unbelievable! You were always blunt, a little cocky at times, too, but this takes the cake!” The waitress handed him back his card, and he quickly signed the receipt. “Here I was, worried you didn’t want to be friends again, or that you planned to tell me off for some transgression, but come to find out, it was the exact opposite—and not in a good way.”
“Like I told you, you read too much into shit. Men are simple creatures.”
“And like I told you , I am not interested in no damn boyfriend right now. Hell, I don’t even know you the same way anymore! You could be some psychopath!” She laughed, but it was obvious she didn’t find this the least bit funny.
“I’ll see you in a couple of days,” he whispered, leaning close to her ear. “Fuck a friend. I got enough friends… you we re always supposed to be mine. I gave you time to get your shit together. Now, it’s game on. Oh, and one more thing. I was never auditioning to be your boyfriend. Not back then. Not now. My resume is better suited for the role of husband.” He kissed the top of her head.
And with that, he walked out.