My intention is to call Sarah back first, just to keep things in order, but Taylor beats me to the punch. She tells me about an event over at Central Park and asks me if I’d like to go. Sure, I tell her. At this point it’s time to see where we’re going with all of this anyway.
I meet her at the Central Park entrance at Columbus Circle, right beside a brilliant golden statue of a woman blowing a horn above a small team of galloping horses. Right through the entrance are trees, lush green grass, and sidewalks branching out into various directions. The temperature is perfect. Taylor couldn’t have picked a better day for going to the park. I just have no clue of where she’s taking me.
Skyscrapers frame the park, like the elaborate walls of a garden, and the laughter of children and adults mix with the sounds of the traffic moving around us. The smell of a hotdog cart a few feet away beckons me, and my stomach growls, but just as I start to move toward the cart, I remember that Taylor doesn’t eat meat—or cooked things for that matter.
I return my attention to her, trying my best to ignore the scent. Her curly Afro is almost glowing in the sunlight, and her skin looks as if she was fashioned from the same gold as the statue at the entrance. She’s wearing a yellow summer dress with red, orange, and brown flowers printed across it. There’s also a flower tucked neatly onto the side of her hair. She looks subtle, yet sexy, and I realize that I’m even more drawn to her beauty now than I was when we met the last time.
I reach in to hug her slight frame. “It’s good to see you again,” I offer, enjoying the snug feel of her body against mine.
“You, too. How have you been?”
“Well, I can’t complain. Just trying to put everything together now.”
She nods. “I bet you forgot my name until I called you.”
I laugh. “I couldn’t do that—even if I tried.”
“Why’s that?”
“You are responsible for the healthiest meal I’ve ever had in my life.”
She laughs in jest.
We walk into the park, and inline skaters and bicyclists move around us. Everyone seems to be enjoying this Saturday morning just as much as we are. But for a minute, I feel a twinge of guilt. While I typically take off two Saturdays a month at the store, I still feel uneasy about my argument with J. Maybe I should have gone in this morning as a good faith gesture to clear the air. But no. I am here with Taylor. I wonder for a moment if J is right about my absences hurting the business. He can’t be right. After all, my being on this date is keeping the name of our business in front of several hundred thousand people, free of charge.
“So where’re we headed?” I ask.
“To a picnic.”
“A picnic? I don’t see any food, unless it’s tucked in that small bag of yours,” I joke, pointing to the tiny hemp purse that hangs from her bare shoulder.
“No. My meditation group is having a picnic. I thought it would be fun for us to drop by.”
I don’t know why, but this puts me in a weird space. Not that I have anything against meditation—hell, I do it myself from time to time— but it just doesn’t feel like the best place for us to be having our date. It’s hard enough getting to know someone in an environment where the two of you are alone, but being in a group of people who may not necessarily connect with you is sometimes more trouble than it’s worth.
I chuckle uneasily. “Are they all raw vegans, too?”
She laughs. “No. They eat the whole spectrum, so I think you’ll be fine.”
“So they’ll be grilling barbecue over there?”
She shrugs, “Maybe.” Then offers, “Probably not.”
We continue walking for a quarter of a mile and finally come to a large spot of grass off to the side of the sidewalk.
“Taylor!” a thin redheaded woman calls out from a group of people seated on beach towels. “Over here!”
“Hey!” Taylor answers, taking me by the hand and walking me over to the group.
There are at least ten people of various ethnicities, all dressed casually for the temperature, all of them barefoot. Several weaved baskets sit on the towels and there are paper plates spread around with jars of colorful concoctions, breads, and even cookies on them. She takes me around introducing me to each person. The redheaded woman’s name is Phoeba, and she comes across as the leader of the group.
“Cool?” she asks, shaking my hand. “Quite a name you have there.”
I nod. “That’s what I hear.” I look down at the towels. “Nice spread. How long have you guys been out here?”
“Not more than an hour,” Phoeba says. She quickly turns to face Taylor. “So this is the guy you met through the magazine?”
Taylor nods, a smile stretched across her face.
“Not bad,” Phoeba says. “Not bad.”
The moment we sit down with the group, I realize that I will have trouble getting comfortable. Although I work out regularly, my flexibility is still not what it should be, so with no chairs, I find that I’m forced to sit legs-crossed like the others, who clearly have no problems perching themselves like that for extended periods of time. When I grimace trying to position myself, Taylor leans in and says, “You can just lie down on your side. I want you to be comfortable.”
So I do. And I’m the only one in the group who’s stretched out into the grass like a sick dog, while the others maintain a kind of relaxed and seated balance. I’m also the only one to have on shoes, since I’m leery about being barefoot outdoors—especially in New York City. Immediately, I remember the song from Sesame Street: “One of these things is not like the other....”
“Want some potato salad?” Taylor offers, as she reaches for a plate.
“Is it real potato salad or potato-less potato salad?” I ask, half-joking, half-serious.
“Real potato salad,” she responds, smiling.
“Sure.”
She spoons out some of it and hands it to me with a fork.
As I thank her, I see her look past me and rise to her feet. I angle my head and see a tall, athletic white guy with dusty blond hair. His skin has a hard tan, not one that appears to have been applied at a tanning salon. She immediately runs up to him. As he outstretches his arms and embraces her, they kiss quickly on the lips before she falls completely into his chest. While brief, the entire scene strikes me as far more than platonic. She grabs his hand, as she did mine earlier, and brings him over to me for an introduction.
“Cool? This is Norman. Norman, this is my new friend, Cool.”
He extends his hand to me, and I shake it with a firmness typically reserved for old factory guys who get a kick out of trying to roll your knuckles in their hands. He meets me back with a firm handshake, his lips curled into a casual, unflustered smile.
“Mate,” he says, nodding to me and releasing my hand.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” Taylor says, smiling at him as if his last name were Vanderbilt.
“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world!” he says, holding back his head and letting out a deep laugh.
Missed it for the world, I think. Really? As far as I can tell, this is just a casual gathering of people on a few feet of grass in an already busy park. Am I missing something here?
I look at Taylor, who leans her back into my chest playfully, still facing Norman. I place my hand on her hip and I feel her fingers brush over my hand. Norman smiles and begins to greet the other people who have risen from their towels. As he steps around us, I lean down and whisper in Taylor’s ear, “What was that about?”
“He’s just a friend,” she responds.
“Oh, okay,” I say.
As she turns around to rejoin the group, I take her hand again, pulling her gently toward me. “And what am I?” I ask.
She smiles at me. “Don’t be silly,” she says. “You’re my friend, too.”
Hours later, seated at a cafe on the Upper West Side, we sip tea and watch people walk by. I’m still bothered about earlier, although I can’t say specifically why. It’s not like we’re in a relationship. Still her kissing that guy unnerved me a bit. I try not to think about it too hard. After all, she’s had to sit by and read about me going on dates with two other women.
“You all right?” she asks. “Penny for you thoughts.”
I look up from my mug and offer a smile. “It’s a beautiful day. I’m glad you asked me to come down here.”
She nods. “I hope you didn’t mind that I shared you with my friends for a few hours.”
“Not at all.” I am not sure if this is a lie or not.
“So can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
She interlocks her fingers on the table. “I know this is only our second time going out, but I’m curious. How compatible do you think we are so far?”
I inhale deeply. “I think you’re very intelligent, very centered, very focused. You seem like a pretty wonderful woman.”
“Mmm,” she muses. “You’re not really answering my question.”
“There’s definitely potential,” I say.
“Fair enough,” she responds.
“So what do you like to do?” Up until that moment it never occurred to me to ask her this very basic question.
“I love yoga! I go at least four times a week, and I am trying to get certified to teach classes.”
“Really? I have absolutely no flexibility—as you already know,” I say, laughing.
She laughs along with me. “You just have to take it in small steps. I’m pretty flexible, but I am not on the level of some of these people who can bend themselves into the most extreme positions.”
“But don’t people do a lot of farting in yoga?”
She shakes her head, trying to suppress a smile. “No more than people would fart doing anything else.”
Hearing her say the word “fart” sounds cute coming from her mouth.
“So what is your day job now?” I ask.
“I work at an after school program for at-risk youth. It’s pretty cool. I love kids. I hope to have a team of them one day.”
“What’s a team?”
“At least five.”
“Whoa,” I say. “You serious?”
“No,” she responds, chuckling. “But you should have seen the look on your face. Priceless.”
She is so beautiful, and all I want to do is lean across the table and kiss her, but I can’t bring myself to follow through. Maybe it’s the thought of seeing her kiss that guy from earlier. Even though it wasn’t a French kiss, it still looked as if there had been some underlying familiarity in it.
“Taylor? Is that you?” I hear a male voice say from behind me.
“Lewis!” she screams, jumping to her feet. She runs over and wraps her arms around a tall, bearded white guy who, even in the day’s heat, gives off the rugged look of a lumberjack on vacation. He leans down and kisses her squarely on the lips in a manner too reminiscent of the kiss I saw from earlier. She brings him to our table and introduces us, and like deja vu, I am looking into the eyes of another man who has apparently had some kind of relationship with her in the past—one that apparently is open enough for her to not be afraid of kissing him around me. I stand and shake hands, put on my best face, and count the minutes until he continues walking down the street.
“I’m just curious,” I start, as Taylor and I return to our chairs. “These guys you keep running into, are they ex-boyfriends?”
“I don’t do ex-boyfriends.”
“What does that mean?”
She sighs. “You remember I told you that I don’t believe in titles?”
“So you run simultaneous relationships then?”
“No,” she says. I can see she is becoming bothered my implications. “They are all my friends.”
I nod. “Well, okay. Let me ask you this: have you ever been intimate with either one of them?”
She shakes her head, clearly annoyed. “Cool, I don’t really think that’s any of your business. I didn’t ask you if you were having any intimate relationships with anyone. I mean, for all I know you could have been getting it on with any of these other girls you’ve been going out with.”
I blush, but pray like hell it doesn’t show through my brown skin. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset,” she responds, “but I think you’re assuming a hell of a lot on a second date.”
For a moment we sit in silence, and I wonder if it’s worth trying to clean up this situation before taking my black ass back to Harlem.
“Can I ask a question?”
“It’s a free country,” she responds, her voice more curt than I would have expected.
“How often do you go out with black men?”
She smiles, her defenses cracking slightly. “You’re the first in a while.”
“So why me?”
“Why not you?”
I take her fingers and place a kiss gently atop her hand. She looks at me and smiles.
We continue to sit and talk as the sky darkens around us. When we finally rise to say goodbye, we both realize that we are saying goodbye for more than just the evening.