After three drinks Denise and I are no closer to a resolution, but we have managed to compare notes on every important R&B album of the 80s and 90s.
“NE Heartbreak was a great album, but Bobby Brown’s Don’t Be Cruel was a more important album for his career,” Denise says.
I laugh. “You’re basically comparing the production of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to the production of Teddy Riley. That’s like comparing apples and oranges.”
“Maybe. But Teddy owned that period in music. Keep in mind Keith Sweat’s first album had just dropped and Guy’s first album was on the way.”
I smile. Denise and I must have been born from the same pod. “Not to be too hyperbolic here, but New Jack Swing saved my life!”
“Yours?” she says, grabbing the last wing on the plate. “I can’t tell you how many times I played that New Jack Swing remix to that Jane Childs song!”
“I Don’t Wanna Fall in Love,” we both say at the same time and burst into laughter.
I look at the fact that our glasses are empty and the plate has only crumbs and bones from the fried wings.
“Want me to order us some more drinks—and wings?” I ask.
“You know what I really want?” she says.
“No,” I say chuckling. I can still feel the buzz of the alcohol flowing through my body.
“I really want some Hershey Kisses!” She giggles like a schoolgirl, and I can tell that we are both a little tipsy.
“Will a kiss from a chocolate brotha do?” I ask. I have no earthly idea what made me say that, but it feels as natural as anything else in my current state of relaxation.
“I don’t know,” she responds. “Let me see.” She leans forward and kisses me quickly on the lips before sitting back and saying, “Nah, I need a real Hershey’s Kiss.”
“Damn, it’s like that?” I laugh, still dazed that she kissed me. It all happened so quickly that my lips didn’t even register it. I’m guessing we will need to stop the alcohol for the evening. It would be too crazy if we did something even more reckless, something that we both might regret later.
“Your lips are nice, but they’re not chocolate.”
“So where can we pick up your candy?” I ask.
“At the Hershey Store in Times Square!”
I laugh. “We have to pass at least a hundred stores that sell Hershey’s Kisses before we even get to Times Square, though.”
Denise looks me dead in my eyes, as if she has the power to hypnotize me. She touches her fingers to the skin of my arm, just beneath my sleeve, and I am immediately disarmed. I look from her hand back to her eyes.
She leans toward me, and I prepare for her to kiss me again, hoping that I can savor this one even more than the first one, but she only says, in that sweet, sultry voice of hers, “I want my kisses from the Hershey Store in Times Square.”
I nod my head. I’m starting to get a craving for some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, anyway.
I pay the bill, and as soon as I stand up, my head begins to swirl a little. Denise stands up with no problems, her tolerance level clearly much higher than mine.
We walk outside and I stand away from her so that she can hail a cab. When one stops, I walk over and hop in alongside her. This is the way that brothas catch cabs when they are rolling with beautiful women, especially in “lighter” touristy areas at night. If you’re with a white person, that person has to hail the cab. If there’s no white person with you, you let the lightest skinned person hail the cab (a woman is preferable). And if you are traveling in a band of brown or dark brown, the only option you have in some areas is to let the beautiful brown sister you are with hail the cab. Some of these cab drivers in The City might be some racist, profiling jackasses, but they always stop for a beautiful woman, regardless of shade. That’s how we grab this cab coasting down through the Village.
I see the cabdriver sigh when he sees me get in, but he can kiss my ass with that nonsense. As soon as I close the door, Denise tells the cab driver to foot it to the Hershey Store in Times Square, and the car pulls off immediately.
“Damn, this guy is driving fast,” I whisper to Denise. “He must not want us to be in the backseat long enough for our asses to leave impressions in the vinyl.”
She winks at me and starts to push her ass harder into the seats. “Well my ass will be printed in this seat,” she responds, her voice a whisper.
“You are cool-ass people,” I say, smiling and pushing my ass deeper into the seat, too.
“You ain’t so bad yourself,” she says.
I see the cab driver glimpsing us in his rearview mirror. “Everything okay back there?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Everything is copacetic!”
Denise starts to laugh, and I begin to wonder if two people have ever been kicked out of a cab for grinding their asses into the backseat.
By the time we pull up to the Hershey Store, I know the cab driver is relieved to get rid of us. I pay him and we walk into the store.
Stuffed chocolate bars and large candy displays surround us, and I realize I could probably eat every single piece of candy in here. Denise heads right for her Kisses, and as she lifts a large bag from the shelf, I have a fleeting thought that we are no closer to figuring out this Soul Sista situation than when we started. I don’t care anymore though. I’m having fun for a change, and there will be plenty of time to worry later.
“You should come to our open mic poetry event this Friday,” I tell her.
“For real. I hope you don’t expect me to read anything,” she responds.
“You can read if the spirit hits you, but you should come just to enjoy yourself.”
She smiles. “So how much is the cover charge?”
“You’re my guest, so I got you covered,” I respond.
“Oh, Cool, you are so becoming my best friend right now,” she says. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“I’m gonna give you a kiss.”
“Ha ha,” I respond sarcastically, closing my eyes and holding out my hand to receive one of the pieces of candy she has just picked up.
Her lips press against mine softly and before I know it, I am kissing her back. After a moment she steps back slowly.
“What was that about?” I ask, realizing that she has kissed me twice in one night.
“I don’t know, right?” she says. “And to think I was really gonna put some candy in your hand up until the last second.”
“You don’t hear me complaining, do you?” I say, smiling.
She returns my smile. “We can’t do this.”
“Do what?” I ask.
“This—whatever you want to call it.”
“We’re just two friends hanging out,” I say.
“Well, we should probably keep it that way—for both of our sakes.”
I nod, trying to clear my head. “You’re still invited to the poetry open mic, though,” I say.
Denise smiles. “We’ll see,” she responds. “But right now I just want to enjoy this chocolate.” She waves the bag playfully in my face.
At this moment, I realize that we might actually be far worse off from when we started earlier in the evening. Not only have we failed to find a resolution to our problem, but according to the growing feeling in my gut, we might have actually created a whole new problem to worry about.