She arrived right around six o’clock, after work, on Mike’s doorstep. Feeling perkier than usual, Stoney was excited to be able to hang out with Mike, and especially with Keithe. She’d called Vicky on her way over to Mike’s abode and asked her if she wanted to tag along, but her friend, always finding something else to do, declined.
“Girl, I don’t know why you don’t want to be in the midst of Mike. He really likes you, Vicky,” Stoney tried to persuade her dear friend.
“Chile, Mike ain’t stuttin me. I don’t know why you don’t get it.” She wanted so badly to give her opinion about why she and Mike would never be a couple, but thought it best to leave her beliefs to herself. Vicky thought there was something about Stoney being raised in the country that gave her the benefit of the doubt. Being raised in the city herself, Vicky knew how to watch her back as if her life depended upon it.
Hesitating, and not wanting to make her friend angry for no good reason, Stoney ceased the conversation. “Hmm. Oh well, I was just trying to help. Anyhoo. His best friend is down for a couple of days and we are all going to hang out and have dinner.” Stoney bit her lip, wanting to share her crush.
“His best friend? a man? ha.” Vicky shook her head while holding her phone between her shoulder and ear. “Humph. I guess.”
When Stoney pulled up to the house, she could hear in Vicky’s voice that she was holding back something. Not wanting to keep Mike and Keithe waiting, Stoney ended the conversation and hoped her friend would open up to her later on.
“About time,” Mike sassed when he opened the door after Stoney initially knocked. Already decked out in his white linen V-neck shirt and fitted jeans, Mike ushered Stoney inside. “Well, come on now. I’m hungry.” he flamboyantly let out a comical growl.
Waiting in the wings, decked out in a crisp sky blue button-down shirt with the cuffs turned up, was Keithe. Stoney was thinking how lucky she was to be in the same room with the handsome man.
“Hi, Keithe,” Stoney spoke, knowing that her grandmother would have belittled her manners if she hadn’t spoken as she entered someone else’s home.
“How’s it going, Stoney?” Keithe gave her a friendly hug and peck on her cheek. Backing away from the entrance, Keithe made room for Stoney in her arrival.
“What took you so long?” Mike dragged behind Stoney, relieving her of the bags she carried.
Balancing herself better, Stoney continued to walk farther into the house as Mike made his way down the open hall. “Thanks, Mike,” Stoney said. “That Dallas traffic, of course.” She tried to walk so that her heels announced her presence on the ceramic floor, just as Mike had taught her to do. “And you know I had to sit still in the car after I took my medication. Didn’t want to fall out on your lawn.” She gave a quick giggle and the batting of her eyes started.
“Are you okay?” Keithe stopped fidgeting with his watch, and questioned Stoney after hearing about her medication.
“Huh?” Stoney was confused. “Yeah. I’m great, why do you ask?” she hadn’t a clue that her routine could be labeled unique.
Scratching his temple and letting out a chuckle, Keithe wished he hadn’t asked the question after the look Stoney gave him. Wishing Mike had been in the foyer instead of down the hall setting Stoney’s things in one of his vacant bedrooms, Keithe went ahead and answered. “Well, you just said you had to take your medication, so I wondered if you were doing okay.”
“Oh.” Stoney waved off the concern. “I’m fine. Just my daily medication I have to take.” She headed to the living area, which housed the curio, the same one where she first received her glimpse of Keithe. “You know, for pains and whatnot. Don’t you take some sort of medication?”
“Um.” Keithe coughed, took the “I guess I told you” tone from Stoney, and swallowed his embarrassment. “Actually, yes. But besides my seizure medication, no,” Keithe gladly answered and silently thanked God for his mercies.
“Hmm.” Stoney decided not to respond, but just remembered what her Grandma Susie had told her one day when she tried to get away with not taking any medication.
“Girl, don’t be like them folk who try to pretend like ain’t nut’n wrong wit’em. Please believe me, here. Everybody got som’in wrong with them. That pain hit ’em hard enough, I bet they take something.”
Shaking her head, almost forgetting that Keithe stood close, Stoney let out a, “Right,” as if she were answering her grandmother.
“Huh?” Keithe said.
“Oh, huh? nothing. Nothing at all,” Stoney countered, and batted her eyes quickly, making room between the two of them.
“Okay.” he decided to leave it alone.
Standing off to the side and in her own little world, Stoney squinted and stared once again at the photo of Keithe and his wife. A closer look at the missus in the photo piqued Stoney’s interest, and her eyebrows touched in the middle. Just as her neck grew another inch, Mike peered out of the bedroom and waved Stoney down the hall.
“Snap, snap. Girl, come on now. I know y’all hear my stomach trying to attack y’all from down here.”
With laughter spilling out of his two best friends, Mike made his way down the hall to keep Keithe company as Stoney scurried to get dressed. In the process of switching positions with Mike, Stoney, as if a light bulb went off, glanced once more over her shoulder at the photo before she made her departure.
On the car ride into Addison, Stoney opted to sit in the backseat even though Keithe offered her the front seat several times. Sitting in the front or the back really didn’t make any difference to her. What was getting to her was the goody-two-shoes act Keithe had tried to portray back when they were at Brother Mike’s home. She silently hoped the night would get better. All looks and no brains made for a crush to be crushed.
“So how was work, stone Cold?” Mike asked.
“It was a fair day. Oh, up until that varmint of a doctor just had to walk me to my car, yet again.” She rolled her eyes and acted all giddy, like a child in a candy store, as she readied herself for another pill or two.
Sitting on the passenger’s side, Keithe maneuvered his back to the window so he could get a good look at Stoney when he spoke to her. “And what’s so wrong with that?” when Mike fixed the rearview mirror of his Lexus, all eyes were on Stoney.
“Uh. Okay,” she giggled. “Well, Mike knows, but, anyway. This particular doctor always has to make it a point to compliment me about this, compliment me about that. And then heaven forbid if he doesn’t get to walk me to my car in the evening.” She rolled her eyes into the back of her head. “You’d think I was Princess Tiana of new Orleans and someone was trying to capture me.”
“Well.” Keithe shrugged. “Maybe you are.” he shrugged again. “And someone just might.” he turned back and looked out the window at the scenery of Dallas.
When Mike jerked his chin to his chest in an instant, he took his eyes off of the road and glanced at Keithe with a scrunched forehead. When Keithe looked back and mouthed, “What?” Mike just flipped his lip and shook his head. Instead of questioning his friend about the coy moment, Mike just drove.
Blushing, and silently adding brownie points to those he’d lost, Stoney wished to stop there, but knew she needed to make her point to Keithe.
“Hmm. Well, I know better.” She was serious. “What does a doctor need to be all up in my face for? he probably thinks I’m some naive little girl and he would try to take advantage of me. I’m no one’s flunkie. Nor fool. I’m from the country, but I ain’t no duck.” her eyelashes patted the tops of her cheeks.
With that out-of-the-ballpark remark, Keithe had no choice but to turn back around and face Stoney, and Mike wasn’t far behind with the tilting of the rearview mirror. With all the undivided attention Keithe was offering Stoney, she didn’t know what to think about it.
What she did know was that if he didn’t start backing up out of her face, she’d have to place him on the pervert list as well. Old men are just dirty, she thought.
Searching deeper in her purse, Stoney rummaged until she found a small Ziploc bag full of medications. Without looking up, Stoney scooted, pushed, and pulled at stacked medicines until she came to the one she was looking for.
“For such a young lady, you sure take a lot of medications,” Keithe declared, and looked as if he wanted to take his words back. The way Stoney looked at him made him grab his neck as he turned to face forward. Keithe didn’t miss a beat in shutting the visor in front of him, warding off the look Stoney was giving him through the mirror.
When she felt her space was granted, Stoney popped her pills in her mouth and swallowed the cocktail, waterless. The bitterness settling on her tongue, Stoney’s eyes flapped like hummingbird wings, as if that would ease the taste. Hoping she didn’t have to keep her defenses up, Stoney sat back and rode the rest of the way in silence.
In the middle of their Indian cuisine, Stoney finally settled her nerves and was ready to present herself to Keithe. Braving the waters, Stoney thought there would be no time like the present to make known the flutter in her heart. Although he had gotten under her skin two times in less than two hours, worrying about her medications and not his own business, Stoney was willing to put it all aside so that she could let him in on what she’d realized: she liked Keithe.
But first she thought she’d find out more about his marriage and what it really was, or wasn’t. Breaking up a household is not going to be blood on my hands, she thought. “I know that’s right,” she answered herself. Not noticing the two men staring her way, Stoney was all smiles during the meal.
“So tell me more about Houston, Keithe. Sounds as exciting as Dallas is.” Stoney sat with her hands in her lap and shoulders hunched, almost touching her ears. “Dallas is the farthest I’ve ever gone. My mom moved me from here to Greenville when I was just a baby. It took a while, but I’m back to stay. Well, at least until I find my mother.”
Keithe took a sip of his raspberry lemonade and then dabbed the corners of his mouth with his cloth napkin. A Houstonian at heart, Keithe was more than happy to brag about his great city. “Well, you know, what can I say? I mean, Dallas is cool, but Houston is cold-blooded.” he smiled toward Mike, knowing his friend would counter that.
With a twist of his lips and eyes, Mike said, “Stoney, forgive him. He was born and raised there and will probably die there. You’re asking a man who lives for the humidity in Houston. You see he went bald, don’t you? You should have seen him trying to wear a curl back in the day. The curl juice used to be zapped up by the time he’d leave home for church in the morning. Looking like a microphone wrapped in the church’s choir robe.” Mike made himself laugh. With Stoney half laughing, half feeling sorry for Keithe, Mike kept his laugh going for a bit longer.
With Keithe still making piercing eyes at Mike, Stoney found the opportunity to bring up Keithe’s wife. “Well, how does your wife like it? Is she from there too?” hoping his facial expression would give away his true feelings, Stoney sat up straight in her seat.
“Michelle?” Mike asked, before Keithe had a chance to think about the question.
“Yes. Michelle.” Stoney furrowed her brow and silently thanked Mike for the confirmation of her competition’s name. “Your wife, Michelle,” Stoney said, redirecting the question to Keithe, smiling on the inside and the outside.
“Um.” Keithe scooted his chair closer in order to rest his elbows on the table. “No. Um, no, Michelle is actually from Dallas,” he finally answered. Seeing their waiter approach the table, Keithe leaned to his side, his hand in search of his wallet. With his mind made up, Keithe went to pull his credit card from its holding place.
“Don’t you even try it,” Mike yelled out.
“No, no. Mike, I got this, man. You are all ready allowing me to stay at your place. Let me do this, man.” Keithe patted his chest to reassure his friend. While handing his card over to the awaiting waiter, two pieces of paper fell from his wallet to the floor.
“So.” Stoney was ready to continue their conversation about Keithe’s wife. Seeing the pieces of paper fall close to her, Stoney bent over to retrieve them for her new friend. Once they were in her hand, she unconsciously turned them right side up, finding one to be a business card from the law firm he worked for. The other was a picture. “Oh.” The word slipped from Stoney’s lips as she stared deeply at the picture, losing her breath in the process.
With the twinge of familiarity back at Brother Mike’s home now up close and personal, Stoney was able to feed her sense from earlier. Now holding a photo of Michelle, Keithe’s wife, Stoney’s heart raced. Her eyes watered and flapped nonstop.
“Stoney. Hello. Stoney,” Mike called out to his protégé, on the verge of snapping his fingers.
When she finally came to, realizing that Mike had called out her name more than once, Stoney looked up, only to see the two men watching her.
“I…I’m sorry. Uh. Is this your…” Stoney couldn’t bring herself to ask it. Still holding the photo, Stoney felt her skin steam. Wanting to hold on to the photo a bit longer, at least until she got back to her car that was parked at Brother Mike’s place, Stoney had to fight to keep her breathing intact.
With his hand open, waiting to receive his wife’s photo, Keithe held a quizzical gaze toward Stoney. “Uh. Yes, that’s my wife. Michelle.” Keithe retrieved the photo, and almost smiled as he looked down at the smile his wife gave back.
“Excuse me.” Stoney shot tall from her seat. Walking as fast as she could, Stoney didn’t stop until she hid herself behind the restroom door. With her back hard to the door, Stoney was tempted to turn and retrace her steps. Wanting to let out all that had built up in her heart within the last few minutes, Stoney’s eyes filled with tears as she sank to the restroom floor.