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“I can’t believe we did this,” JJ says into a phone he borrowed from another coworker. “I was trying to surprise you and you were trying to surprise me.”
I’m only mildly disappointed because I think it’s sweet he tried to surprise visit me. But I really wish we were together right now.
“Great minds think alike,” I say. “How’d you get there?”
“One of my coworkers is from Atlanta. He was coming to see his family, so he asked if I wanted to ride up. I was so excited to see the look on your face.”
That’s how I felt about five minutes ago. My Aunt Didi is driving me to her friend’s house so they can go clubbing for the night. If JJ was where I thought he would be, we’d be...we’d be...hmmm. What would be doing?
JJ crunches on something in my ear. “Sorry, for crunching. I’m starving. I think we’re about to go get something to eat. Can I call you back after?”
“Sure.”
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Aunt Didi’s friend is an older woman named Queenie. She’s somewhat eccentric. There are colorful bottles hanging from a tree in her front yard. They clink and clank together as the wind blows.
“Mmmm, I‘on know, Didi, maybe we shouldn’t go out tonight. Storms brewin’,” Queenie says.
Aunt Didi continues to powder her nose. “I ain’t drive down here to go to dinner and then be cooped up, watching re-runs on TV. C’mon Queenie, let’s go out.”
“Going out in a storm is bad luck.”
“I’m not superstitious,” Aunt Didi says. “It’ll be fine.”
The two women talk through the walls while I sit on the end of a high poster bed. It reminds me of the story The Princess and the Pea. There has to be at least four mattresses on top of a box spring.
“Clove, will you be okay here by yourself?” Aunt Didi asks while putting a hoop into her ear.
No. This place is scary. I don’t wanna stay here by myself. But I’m the one who asked her to bring me to Savannah last minute. If I hadn’t tried to surprise JJ, I wouldn’t be here alone.
“I’ll be fine. I’ll find a movie on TV or something.”
Satisfied with my answer, Aunt Didi smiles. The two women head out into the dark night. I lock all the locks on the door. Sticking to my plan of finding a movie, I go to Queenie’s pantry and find some popcorn.
I hear the faint sound of a cat meowing. Funny, I hadn’t heard a cat before.
Mew.
There it is again. I look for the cat, tiptoeing so I won’t scare it off.
Aunt Didi texts: Forgot to tell you. Queenie has 2 cats. Othello is black, Savannah orange. You can let them out of her room if you want. She says they’re friendly.
I see a black and white paw stick out from underneath the door and hear another meow. I open the door. “Well, hello there. You must be Othello. You’re probably lonely now that your owner’s gone. She’ll be back, don’t worry.”
Othello’s left paw is the only place there’s white. He rubs his body against my leg. A flash of lighting illuminates the room, causing the lights to flicker.
The clap of thunder that follows makes me and Othello jump. He flees for a spot under the sofa. Wish I could fit under there too. “It’s okay, Othello. Just a storm.”
Mew, he says from underneath the sofa.
To take my mind off of how haunted it feels, I return to the kitchen to pop some popcorn. While it pops, I light some candles just in case the lights go all the way off.
Another bolt of lightning and the lights flicker again. Othello meows. Poor thing is still under the sofa.
“I’m sure they’ll be back soon,” I say to Othello. “It’s pretty nasty outside. No one will want to stay out in that kind of weather.”
Othello meows as if he agrees with me. The popcorn finishes popping so I shake the bag upside down to get the butter evenly distributed. Othello has come out of his hiding place to sniff the air, his little pink nose slightly moving up and down. It makes me laugh. “You like popcorn, too?”
He follows me back into the living room and sits next to me on the plastic-covered sofa. His paw rests on my wrist as if he’s asking for some popcorn. Do cats eat popcorn? Only one way to find out. I lift a kernel to Othello. He sniffs and then smacks it out of my hand. We both watch it land on the other side of the sofa.
The rain has come, making sounds like someone is tap dancing on the roof. Next, there’s another flash of lightning and I know thunder is coming soon. “Brace yourself, Othello.”
The thunder rolls louder than the first two, shaking the house. I don’t feel so much like eating popcorn anymore.
Aunt Didi should’ve listened to Queenie. Maybe they’ll be turning around and coming back soon.
I send Aunt Didi a text and wait for her to reply.
The lights flicker off and don’t come back on. Thank God I lit candles. The only bad thing is that they cast ghostly shadows against the wall.
Othello is back under the sofa, but where is Savannah, the other cat?
My phone rings, but it’s not Aunt Didi; it’s the number JJ called me from earlier.
“JJ?” my voice quivers.
“Hey, you okay? I heard there’s a bad storm headed that way.”
I’m not okay. “The storm is already here, and my Aunt went out with her friend. I tried to contact her but she’s not responding. I’m here alone in this creepy house with two cats but I only know where one of them is and the lights went off. I lit candles but things seem unnatural with them flickering. OH MY GOD, THERE’S SOMETHING BREATHING ON MY NECK!”
I scream and drop the phone all at once. Backing myself into a corner of the room, I frantically look around. What the heck was that? My heart is thumping wildly inside of me.
“Clove! Clove, are you alright? What’s going on?” I hear JJ yelling from the ground. I’m not moving from this spot until I know what was breathing on me. With one hand against my chest, I pick up a pillar candle and hold it close. “I-is s-someone h-here?” I stammer. “Othello? Was that you breathing on me?”
I know it wasn’t him because I distinctly remember hearing him underneath the sofa. I begin murmuring a scripture from Second Timothy. God has not given us a spirit of fear but of love, power, and a sound mind. I think I may have skipped a few words or gotten them out of order, but the most important parts are there.
“Clove,” JJ calls. “Answer me. Are you alright? Can you hear me? Baby, say something.”
Baby? Did he just call me baby? I’ve never heard him say that word in my life unless he was referring to his baby sister or brother. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe I imagined the breath on my neck too. I need to calm down. Slowly, I bend to pick up my phone but another flash of lightning lights up the room, and I swear I see a figure with piercing green eyes standing behind the sofa.
I scream again. “Oh, God help me! Don’t eat me! I just came here to see my friend. Please don’t kill me!”
I’ve gone hysterical with good reason, but I can’t just stand here and not try to put up a fight. I hold out the candle. “I plead the blood of the lamb. Get back, you vicious dark evil! Go back from whence thou came...you...you...”
The lights come back on and I realize the figure I saw was a coat rack with an orange cat on top of it. Savannah.
Othello is nibbling on popcorn from the bowl I knocked over. It must have been Savannah that I felt breathing on me. That’s the only logical explanation.
I retrieve my phone from the ground. “I’m okay, just freaked out over a cat on a coat rack. I’m good.”
JJ busts out laughing. “Wow, Clove. You’re over there casting out cats and coat racks. That’s too funny.”
“Shut up. I was seriously scared. How dare you laugh at me.”
He laughs harder which makes me whine. “JJ! I really was scared. This house is creepsville. There’s an onion on a bookshelf with stick pins all in it and rabbits’ feet everywhere.”
JJ’s laughter subsides. “Whoa, she’s really trying to ward off bad spirits.”
Is that what all this eccentric stuff is for? “How do you know? You’ve heard of pins in onions for spirits?”
“Yup. My grandmother was superstitious. Remember Deacon Dan? One time she slammed the door in his face because it was Friday. She said you can’t look cross-eyed people in the eyes on Fridays. It’s bad luck.”
This time I’m the one bursting with laughter. I’ve never heard that superstition in my life. “Poor Deacon Dan. He was a nice man.”
JJ goes on to tell me other superstitions and I laugh even more. I’ve forgotten about the storm, the cat, and the coat rack. I had been worried about my Aunt, but she and Queenie have returned to find me on the floor laughing while Othello rests on my feet.
“You’re superstitious too, Clove,” JJ says.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. You still eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day, you dropped a compact mirror once and cried for thirty minutes because you thought you were doomed for bad luck and you sent me a chain letter back in the 8th grade.”
Those things can all be explained. “First of all, Gram always makes black-eyed peas for New Years and they’re delicious. Why wouldn’t I eat it? Second, I cried because it was my grandma’s compact, which she passed down to me. Third, I just thought the letter was funny.”
“Liar.”
Okay, he might be right about the chain letter thing. All three of my friends threw their chain letters in the trash and all of them caught the flu, but I was fine.
JJ yawns.
“Are you getting sleepy already?”
“No. Well, yeah a little bit but we can keep talking. I just don’t want to fall asleep with this guy’s phone.”
That’s understandable. “I don’t want to bore you to sleep. I can let you go.”
“No, don’t ever do that. I want to talk to you.”
Those words. He wants to talk to me and he doesn’t want me to let him go. I’m not exactly sure how he meant that, but it makes me feel good all over. Like he’s here with me, like we’re hugging or snuggling together. It leaves me speechless and I don’t know what else to say.
“Clove? Are you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here, I was just...um, did you call me baby earlier? When I’d dropped my phone and was screaming, I thought I heard you say ‘Baby, talk to me.’”
“Baby? No, I don’t think so. I didn’t know what was going on and you weren’t saying anything. I’m against pet names. I think they’re over the top. Baby, bae, boo, babe, sweetheart, using them is just something I don’t see myself doing.”
I guess he said something else then. Funny how a simple term of endearment can make your pulse race. Of course, my pulse was already racing when I thought I saw a monster, but somehow, I paused when I thought I heard him call me ‘baby.’
“Do you like pet names?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Haven’t really had anyone give me a pet name other than my parents. They call me Buttercup. And Gram will sometimes call me doll or doll face. Outside of you, Jessa and Xavier, everyone else called me ‘Pinky.’ Another good thing about moving to Las Vegas is that I’m hoping that name won’t follow me.”
JJ assures me it won’t. Pinky was the name people gave me because I’m a preacher’s kid. What started off as P.K. became slurred in the southern dialect and sounded more like “Pinky.” Unfortunately, around school, the name stuck.
“If you were in a serious relationship with someone, what affectionate name would you want them to call you?” JJ asks.
Good question. I don’t know because I haven’t really thought about it. “Define serious relationship. What do you mean by that?”
I know what defines a serious relationship for me, but I want to know what counts as a serious relationship for him.
“I guess like a courtship,” he says. “Exclusivity. A monogamous relationship where you’re solely seeing that one person and putting in time, work, and energy into making them feel special and loved.”
His definition sounds far better than mine. “Good definition. I think I would let my guy decide what name suits me. I wouldn’t even care if it was corny or sweet, just as long as it isn’t derogative or sexually charged.”
“Give me an example.”
He’s really making me think. I try to sort through names and I honestly don’t know. All you hear on movies and tv shows are baby or babe. While I’m still thinking, JJ says, “My dad calls my mom Bonbon, but only at home.”
A bonbon is most known as a chocolate-covered candy. Considering the fact that Mrs. Jourdan is black, and his dad is white, that name could be taken the wrong way. But I know Mr. Jourdan really loves his wife. They are a very loving and affectionate couple.
“That’s sweet,” I say. “I like it. My dad would call my mom Honey, but then again everyone called her Honey, so I don’t know if it was affectionate or not. I guess I’d want my boyfriend to call me what fits best. Maybe it’s my name or maybe it’s an inside joke we have or something relatable to how he feels about me. What about you? What pet name would you want? Oh wait, never mind, you said you’re not really into the pet name thing.”
“I’m not but if my girl has a name she just can’t stop saying or thinking and if it falls off her tongue naturally, then I wouldn’t be opposed to it.”
Like how I couldn’t stop calling him JJ as soon as we met. I remembered those letters better than I remembered his first and last name, so it stuck with me.
“Do you like that I call you JJ?”
“I don’t mind it.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He sighs. “Yes, C-love. I like it.”
But I don’t like C-love. It makes me sound gangster. “You know I hate it when you call me that name. It sounds like C-dawg.”
“Yet you have it as your email address name. To be honest, I didn’t like it when you called me JJ.”
“Really? Then what made you get over it?”
He’s silent for a few seconds. “I think it was the way you said it. It was so country with that southern drawl you have. It was like Jaay Jaaay, whatchu doin’? Or Jaay Jaaay, where you at? I got used to it and now I love—like it when you call me JJ.”
He tried to correct himself, but I heard it. He was about to say he loves it.
Love. Another word I cling to. I’m grinning so hard that my cheeks touch the screen.
“You love it,” I tease.
“That’s not what I said.”
“That’s what you were about to say.”
“No, it wasn’t. There are many things I like, few things I love.”
“Which list am I on?”
I switch the phone to my other hand because my palm is sweating in anticipation of what he might say. This is it. The moment he’ll tell me he loves me. I know he likes me or else we wouldn’t be friends and I know he loves me in the way we’re supposed to love others and treat others with kindness. But what I’m listening for is his voice to get low and tell me he’s in love with me. I want the kind of love that says he wants us to be more than friends.
“Clove,” JJ says. His voice is low and deep.
“Yes,” I answer softly. Almost too soft, but I don’t know how to be any louder because my heart is beating so fast.
“Clove, I—”
I don’t hear anything. “Yes, you what?”
Silence. I check my phone. The screen is black. I tap it. It remains black. Oh no, oh no! My phone died. Of all the rabbits’ feet and pinned onions in this house, how could I have been unlucky enough to lose battery life at this precise moment? You’ve got to be kidding me!
I look frantically all over for my phone charger. I toss clothes out of my overnight bag and turn my purse upside down so all of its contents fall out.
I move quickly to my Aunt Didi’s room and begin to knock but remember that she has an Android like JJ. It won’t work on my phone. I ask Queenie, but she has an Android too. Ughh! Does he love me or love me not? Forget superstition. Wisdom is key. Never leave home without a charger.
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