Celena Myers was crazy, period, sometimes. Like when she demanded to know every detail of Sharron’s personal life as though she were her mother reincarnated, and some. Who gave her that kind of power? Who ordained her? Better yet, how dare she have that much audacity? Handle your own business and get out of that of others!
“Look, Celena, I don’t have to tell you everything about everybody I know, or how long I’ve known them, or where I met them. I mean, if I do tell you that kind of stuff, then fine. But don’t make it out as some special privilege that I owe you, because I don’t” Sharron huffed. It was after midnight. “You damn sure don’t tell me everything that you do, nor do I ask you about it.”
“Look, I’m just trying to protect you, Sharron. I mean, you just go from lows to highs and back down to lows again. And that shit ain’t healthy.”
“Well, what do you know about being healthy with guys, Celena? I mean, really? When have you had a steady man in your life besides your father?!”
“I don’t want one!” Celena hollered back.
“Well, I do! So don’t get in my damn way!” Sharron snapped. She was so pissed that she slammed her bedroom door as Celena continued to run at the mouth.
“Now see, when you find yourself brokenhearted again, don’t come runnin’ back to me, because I won’t have no more advice for your ass!
“Didn’t even know the guy’s damn name,” she added.
“SO WHAT?!” Sharron yelled through her closed door.
That caused Celena to stop herself and laugh. They were acting as silly as two kitty cats wrestling over a big ball of yarn. They knew it, too. But Celena had started it, like she always did, with her extreme assertiveness. Sharron wasn’t some big, crybaby pushover. Sometimes she had to remind Celena of that, very decisively. However, her girl Celena was protecting a loved one. And after Sharron’s mother had died of cancer, with her father taking on a new woman, and her aunts and cousins bugging her to return home to Memphis, Celena had somehow, through her strong support, amassed more power over Sharron than what was presently needed.
Sharron thought about that herself, while sulking in her room. A room filled with large, stuffed animals, most won at Missouri’s Six Flags amusement park. Sharron had been fairly lucky at Six Flags. She only wished that luck could spill over to her relations with men.
I appreciate what you’ve done for me over the years, but I can take care of myself just as much as you can, she reasoned. She was gathering the right words to let Celena know that the protective shell she had developed for her over the years had to go.
Where would you be with your debt situation if it wasn’t for me making you take some of those addictions that you buy back to them damn stores where you got them from? You’re the one that needs help! she thought.
Then she smiled. “No, I can’t say that,” she told herself out loud. “That would be mean, and then we’d go back to arguing again.”
“Are you in there talking to yourself, again?!” Celena yelled, close by the door. “See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You goin’ crazy.”
“Aw, girl, don’t act like you don’t talk to yourself!”
“What’s the difference?!”
Celena smiled, “I make sense when I do it.”
Sharron had had enough. She jumped back up out of her bed and headed for the door. She swung it open like a madwoman and challenged, “You want some of me?! Is that it?! You want some of this?!” she asked with her hands up in a boxing stance.
Her girl laughed and backed away. Sharron brought the static right up to her face.
“Come on, then. Show me what you’re made of, St. Louis. You got all of the mouth. Let me see the action.”
“You better get up out of my face,” Celena warned jokingly.
“Or what? Hunh? What?”
Celena lost her cool and rushed at her. Sharron, filled with playful energy, immediately countered the move and grabbed her shorter friend in a headlock.
“Now what, St. Louis?”
“OOUUWW, GIRL! MY DAMN EARRING!” Celena yelled at the top of her lungs.
Sharron let her go only to find herself being grabbed in a headlock.
“Now what, Tennessee?! Hunh?! What’s up now?!” Celena asked, mocking her friend.
“You wanna play a game of horseshoes now? Hunh?” she continued.
Sharron just laughed, helplessly, until her girl let her go.
“Dummy,” Celena sneered.
Sharron gathered herself and said, “You can’t beat me, Celena. Remember, I let you go.”
“Whatever.”
“Because if we were in a real fight, I wouldn’t have cared about your damn earrings.”
“If we were in a real fight, you wouldn’t have grabbed me like that,” Celena argued.
“Celena, you cannot beat me. I’ve fought girls bigger than you way back in high school.”
“So. That was in Tennessee. I mean, what were y’all fightin’ over? Corn dogs?”
Sharron stopped herself and sighed. “Oh my God. You have to come to Memphis with me this summer, that’s all there is to it.”
“I guess I have to practice my horseshoe toss?” Celena joked, winding her arm back.
Sharron was impelled to challenge her again, but Celena, more poised than last time, sidestepped her with her hands held high in a boxing stance of her own.
“Come on wit’ it then,” she challenged.
Sharron held her hands even higher, and jabbed out her left arm with an open palm, connecting with her target, right smack across Celena’s small face.
“Shit!” She ducked the next one and slipped under a right-handed hook with an open-hand smack to the back of Sharron’s head. Both of them, not wanting to be hit up close, grabbed each other and began jockeying for openings to attack as if in a real fight.
“POW, POW, POW!” Celena gestured with a superior inside opening to the taller Sharron.
Sharron backed up and gestured with a right-handed fist that may have ended it all.
“BANG!”
Celena sucked her teeth as they disengaged. “Girl, I wouldn’t have let you hit me with that.”
“Whatever.”
“I would have tied your arms up and just beat your face in.”
“What, with them little hits? I would have knocked you out with my one punch.”
“I didn’t have to let you go to get that one punch, Sharron. I would have just dug my nails into your face while I had you.”
“You wouldn’t have gotten that close, I landed the first hit in case you forgot.”
“Because you’re taller than me.”
“That’s why you can’t beat me.”
“Sharron, I’ve fought plenty of tall girls before, and I whipped every one of their asses, including my sisters’. Just because you got the first hit, doesn’t mean that you’ll get the last.”
Sharron finally smiled it off. “You a tomboy anyway,” she said, jumping in for the last word.
“So what?”
By that time, it was close to one o’clock in the morning. They both had to be up early for work. Nevertheless, Sharron couldn’t get any sleep. She had a man on her mind. She was too pumped with energy to even close her eyes. So she sat up in the dark, under the covers, thinking every little thought that managed to pop into her head.
I wonder how crazy it would be if I called him up and told him to drive over here and give me some, she mused with a grin. Celena would really think I was crazy after that. But damn, I have all of this energy and I don’t know what to do with it now. I’m freakin’ restless!
She shifted her body from side to side under the covers, and had another outlandish thought. I wonder how crazy it would be if I like, showed up at his apartment or something in a taxi. I wonder if he would even be up. Or how about if he’s out somewhere sexin’another woman anyway? Since he likes sex so much. I wonder if he’s any good, howling at the moon. Because I had other guys who bragged on their Johnsons and couldn’t even get the job done.
Guys talk so much shit sometimes. Seriously! I wonder how I would be if I was a guy. Shit, Celena’s already a guy! I don’t even have to imagine how she would be. She would probably be the kind of guy to tell a woman to give her a piece, then turn around and not call her anymore. It’s not like she, or he, would be interested for the long run. She’s not interested in the long run as a woman now.
I wonder if Anthony is like that. I mean, he says that he wants that deep love stuff, but that could just be part of his game. Then again, at least he can explain himself Most guys can’t explain. A lot of them are too damn scared or immature to even try. And I’m talking about old guys, too. Age don’t mean a thing. So at least Anthony is courageous enough to speak his mind. I admire that in him. Because most guys are straight-out cowards. Don’t bullshit with me, tell me what the hell you want. And be man enough to accept whether I give it to you or not. But that’s their number one problem; they want to have their cake and eat it too. Always half-steppin’. I just want to see if he’s gonna half step with me, or if he’s gonna give me his full piece.
When Anthony called Sharron that first weekend, she planned on sticking it to him just like she had started off, in a zone and holding nothing back. She wanted to give him her full piece. That way they would have no excuses to claim later on.
“What do you like to do on a night like tonight?” he asked her from his front steps. He had another sandwich and drink in hand. Outside phone calls and snacks were Anthony’s ritual of winding down after an honest day’s work at Paul’s. It was Saturday night, just after eight o’clock, with the sun making its way west, as the mellow darkness settled in.
“What are you doing right now?” Sharron asked him back.
“I’m about to eat a turkey and cheese sandwich and chill on my front steps.”
“And then what?”
“The night is still young, and I don’t have to work tomor’. Who knows where the wind may take me?”
“Well, why don’t the wind bring you over here to pick me up?”
She was making it too easy for him. He wanted to push her away to create respectable distance between them.
Anthony chuckled. “Sounds like you bored. And you know what they say boredom does.”
However, Sharron was on a mission not to play hard to get but, rather, hard to forget.
“Do you want to pick me up, or do you have something else to do?” she asked, pressing him.
“Damn, don’t get spicy on me,” he complained, munching on his sandwich.
With that, Sharron figured to go a little softer on him and use what she knew about men. Their egos could always get the best of them.
“I don’t mean to sound demanding and all, I just want to see you. It’s not that I’m all that bored, because I could go out with anybody. I would just rather be with you.”
If he could see her smile, he would have realized how big of a trap she was setting for him. Nevertheless, Anthony was no pushover.
“What if I wasn’t able to see you tonight? Like, if I already had plans?” he asked.
“But you don’t. You already told me that.”
Damn! he thought. She’s ridin’ me. And I don’t like how this shit feels.
He was already being elusive, running away with his tail between his hind legs. Sharron was fully prepared to call him on it.
“Look, I’m just trying to give you a full piece of me. Now, you asked me if I wanted to make a trade, but now it seems like you don’t want to come up with your end of the deal,” she told him.
Shit! I told this girl too much! Now I gotta see her, he thought to himself. He couldn’t let her down that fast. They had just met and he was still curious about her. He just didn’t realize how curious she was about him.
“What time will you be ready?” he asked her. He felt like he was on a leash and being yanked in by his new owner. Players would much rather be in charge of the situation and have the woman on the leash. But Sharron had flipped the script on him, using his information against him. That’s why most men kept their fat mouths shut. Women had some expert memories of conversation. They could draw on just about anything. Right on down to how often a guy trimmed his mustache. That kind of recall was dangerous. Especially for men who showed no consistency in what they said versus what they actually did.
“I’m ready now,” Sharron answered. “How long will it take you to get to here?”
“University City? Ahh, give me about an hour. I gotta freshen up first.” They’d already had most of their small talk on where they lived, what they did, and so on, before they left the skating rink on Thursday night.
“Okay,” Sharron said. She agreed to his time, gave him her exact address and apartment number and directions. When she hung up, there was her girl Celena again, breathing down her neck.
“Sharron, you sound as desperate as a teenager in love. And you just met this guy,” she piped. “He could be a damned rapist or anything.”
Sharron smiled at that. “You don’t know how many times I thought the same thing about the guys you go out with,” she commented.
“Yeah, but I know the difference. You don’t. Because you usually don’t date guys like this.”
“Guys like what?” Sharron wanted to know.
“Well, don’t get me wrong here, but this guy Anthony seems a little faster than the usual guys that you date. That’s all I’m saying.”
Sharron smiled. “So what are you really saying, that I can’t handle myself with him? I was doing quite well Thursday night, before you stuck your nose in it.”
“Yeah, right. You didn’t even know his damn name.”
“Here we go with that again.”
“I’m just reminding you of that.”
“Oh, yeah, because I forgot the first eight times that you told me. You know, since I’m turning seventy next month, I don’t recall things as well as I used to,” Sharron joked.
Celena smirked at her. “You can get smart if you want to, but just be careful. That’s all I’m telling you, to be careful.”
“Okay, Grandma. Holding hands only, and no eye contact, because that can get you in deep trouble,” Sharron said.
They paused, taking a moment to stare at each other before rumbling in laughter.
“All right, girl. Do what you want. I just don’t want to be the one telling you ‘I told you so.’”
“Good. Then don’t.”
By the time Anthony made it over to pick Sharron up, Celena, not to be outdone, had set up a date of her own. Her man arrived at the same time as Anthony, driving a black Toyota Supra. They approached the stairway to their dates’ second-floor apartment simultaneously.
“What’s up, dawg?” Celena’s energetic date addressed Anthony. The light brown, tall, and slim young man was bubbling with enthusiasm. He spoke to Anthony out of pure friendliness. He was not the usual kind of hard-knocks man that Celena dated either. But he still had the ego intact. What would a man be without that?
Anthony nodded to him. “What’s up?”
“You here for Sharron?” Mr. Bubbly asked him, going on information from Celena.
“You here for Celena?” Anthony asked him back, assuming as much. Celena seemed like the big-mouth type anyway.
“Same answer,” Anthony told him.
Not to be rude, but Anthony didn’t feel up to chitchatting with the guy. He didn’t even want to be there. In fact, he stopped himself short on the first step.
“Do me a favor and tell Sharron I’m out here.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ant.”
“All right then, Ant. My name is Ronald.”
They shook hands and separated. Ronald continued up to the apartment door. Anthony returned to his car and turned on his CD player.
Sharron walked out a minute later, flowing down the steps with her small, brown leather pocketbook, wearing blue denim shorts, a red Cardinals T-shirt, and no socks with her brown sandals.
As soon as she slid inside his Chevy, Anthony smiled and said, “You gotta go change your outfit.” Outside of the sandals and pocketbook, he was wearing the exact same thing, a red Cardinals T-shirt and blue denim shorts.
Sharron looked him over and laughed. “Oh my God! This is embarrassing.”
“Who you tellin’?” he responded, still grinning at the coincidence. “Now go back in the house and change.”
“I’m only changing my shirt.”
He nodded. “Aw’ight. That’s a deal.”
Celena’s man was on his way back out as Sharron made her way in. You know how some women are; they’re never ready. And few men are patient enough to wait. So Ronald decided to sit and wait in his car and listen to music as well.
On the way to his sports car, he walked over to speak to Anthony through his open window.
“I like what you did with your ride, man,” he commented, looking over the ’79 Chevy’s chrome wheels, shiny paint job, and spotless interior.
“Thanks,” Anthony told him with a nod.
“This car has hydraulics?”
“Naw.”
Anthony was still moody and uncommunicative. He answered Ronald’s questions out of respect for Sharron. He didn’t want to give the wrong impression of himself. But he still wasn’t too happy about being there. It was Sharron’s idea, and he wanted to be the one calling the shots. Particularly when there was no sex involved.
“No hydraulics? What about the sound system. Is it booming?” Ronald asked him next.
Anthony said, “Everybody got a sound system, man. I don’t have none of that block-shaking shit, but it’s loud enough for me and my passengers to hear.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Ronald responded with a nod. “Sometimes them systems give you headaches anyway.”
When Sharron made it back out, wearing a plain white T-shirt, she noticed Ronald at Anthony’s open window. She smiled, thinking, I wonder how well he gets along with people, and climbed back in on the passenger side. Anthony had the car hot for her arrival.
“Aw’ight, man,” he told Ronald. He backed out of the parking spot and pulled off.
Celena walked out and locked the apartment door a second later, wearing a floral dress that showed off her toned arms, shoulders, and legs, and smelling of sweet perfume and hair oil.
“Damn you look good!” Ronald told her. “And smell good, too.”
“Thank you, thank you,” she said as he opened the car door for her. That was a courtesy Anthony hadn’t bothered to offer either time for Sharron.
“So what do you think about Sharron’s friend?” Celena asked curiously. She figured that Ronald had met him. And she was right. Ronald was friendly that way.
“Well, he wasn’t too talkative. But other than that, he seems all right to me,” he answered.
“Yeah, but you’re talkative,” she responded with a grin. “You talk enough for both of y’all. So take me to get some ice cream first. That way, I can listen to all of your chatter and just lick my ice-cream cone.”
Ronald looked at her and smiled. “So what am I supposed to lick?”
Celena looked at him with half a grin and half a frown as she nestled into the tightly modeled sports car. “You know what?” she began. “No, I’m not even gonna respond to that. Let’s just drive.”
Back in Anthony’s Chevy, Sharron was just buckling her seat belt; the cranberry interior was as soft as a pillow.
Man, this feels good! she thought to herself. And look at that wooden dashboard, and the cool steering wheel. He put more money into this car than I first thought.
Out of the blue, Anthony asked her, “Is that the kind of guy your girl talks to?”
Sharron smiled. “No, not really. She’s just bored tonight.”
I know the feelin’, Anthony thought with a grin. But he didn’t dare say it. He’d told Sharron enough about him already. He expected her to ask him for more, and he planned not to tell her much. Surprisingly, she didn’t seem pressed at the moment to ask him anything. She was just enjoying the ride. After a while, with no clear destination in mind, he got curious.
“So, where are you trying to go?” he asked her.
She thought about it and decided to be creative.
“I don’t know. What’s it like up on the moon?”
He looked over to see if she was serious. Once he noticed her staring up at the full moon, right smack in the middle of his windshield, he decided to play along with her lead.
“As a matter of fact, I was just up there last week. And we couldn’t go up there dressed like this. We would need snowsuits,” he joked.
She looked at him and smiled, deciding to keep it going. “What’s there to do up there, you know, besides looking around?”
He said, “Well, we could go moon skiing, or play basketball on twenty-foot hoops.”
“Could you dunk the ball up there?”
“Like Jordan.”
“Me too?”
“It depends on how strong your legs are.”
She looked at him and flirted. “My legs are very strong.”
He looked back and returned her flirt. “So is my lower back.” Then he grinned.
“What kind of workouts do you do?” she asked, grinning back.
“Mainly push-ups, lifts, and curls,” he answered.
How silly can we get? they both wondered. It felt good to unwind with silliness. Everyone has it. And it sure does break the ice.
“So where would you take me if I let you take me anywhere? And don’t lie neither,” Sharron challenged.
Here she goes with that shit again, Anthony thought.
“You ever read encyclopedias before?” he decided to ask her instead.
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
“I can tell. Because you wanna know every damn thing!”
“And you don’t?”
He thought about it. “Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. Because sometimes … you just don’t wanna know,” he told her. “That’s what gets women in so much trouble, wantin’ to know everything. So dead cats are laying up in the alleyways from here to California.
“And you know why?” he asked her.
“Why?”
“Because y’all only got nine lives, but y’all be asking twenty fatal questions. Then y’all find out answers that y’all can’t handle and start jumping out of twelve-story windows.”
She smiled, amused by his analogy, but not convinced of it.
“Not all of us.”
“Yeah, just most of you,” he said with a chuckle.
“Don’t think I forgot about my question, either,” she told him.
He shook his head and grinned. Then he came up with an idea. “Aw’ight then, I’ll tell you what. I’ve been wanting to do something for a while now, I just haven’t found anybody to do it with. So, since you have a million and one questions, you gon’ find out exactly what’s on my mind right now.” And he continued to grin, knowing that a woman’s natural curiosity would drive her insane with wonder. Then she would be pleasantly surprised. Or maybe not. Maybe she would think his idea was corny. Nevertheless, she was intriguing, playful, curious, and free enough to find out. Free, because she did not seem imprisoned by boredom and pressed about being entertained.
Some women needed entertainment constantly. And they were the worst women in the world to go out with. Especially on an unplanned date. Because they never knew how to enjoy the moment, transforming every decision or nondecision onto the man, whether he was up to it or not. Sometimes men were just not up for taking charge of every single situation. And God help the man who ends up with a woman who depends on his every move or thought for life. But this was Sharron Francis, a down-to-earth girl from Memphis, Tennessee, who knew how to live in empty space, filling it up with thoughts, ideas, and actions of her own.
So she responded, “Okay,” and waited to see what he had in store for her.
Anthony turned onto Lindbergh Boulevard and headed north toward the airport. Then he second-guessed his idea, thinking that Sharron had seen enough airplanes as it was. She worked at the airport. But he had already started on his mission, so he drove to the parking site where mainly white American couples watched airplanes take off and land.
“Now that I think about it, maybe this wasn’t a good idea for you. You work over there, right?” he said, referring to the St. Louis airport.
“So,” she told him. “You don’t.” She jumped out of the car before he did to enjoy the clear sight of the airplanes.
“Don’t you get tired of seeing these things though?” he asked.
“Not really. I’m never outside. Celena would get tired of seeing airplanes before I would.”
“Hmmph,” he grunted. “She’s the kind of woman who gets tired of everything.” And he would know. He knew all of the types. But that didn’t mean he could never fall for a woman. As long as he was willing to be loved and to love back, with courage and a woman that he could trust. But first he had to learn to trust himself.
Anthony thought about the idea of trust and love as they watched planes together in the cool night air, while leaning against his car. Then Sharron grabbed his hand.
“Does this make you feel uncomfortable?” she asked, expecting to let him go.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because a lot of guys don’t like holding hands.”
He smiled, knowing that the truth was simple.
“When were we ever into holding hands in the first place? I never did that shit. I didn’t even hold my mother’s hand. Then I had two older brothers, uncles and boy cousins. And none of us held hands.”
Sharron snapped her hand away from his, playfully.
“So, what are you saying, that holding hands is only for girls and mommy’s boys?”
“Basically, yeah,” he admitted with a laugh.
Then she slammed her backside into him and tossed his hands around her hips.
“And this makes you feel uncomfortable, too, right? Because it makes you want me.”
He broke out laughing and never answered her.
“So what’s a woman to do, you know, when she just wants closeness? Not penetration, but closeness?” she asked him seriously. “I mean, don’t you ever want to be just … close to a woman? To smell how clean she is, and to touch how smooth her skin feels, and to stroke her hair and stuff.”
He chuckled, thinking silly thoughts, and said, “What if she don’t smell too good?”
“First of all, you need to find one who does,” she answered. Then she stepped away and turned to face him. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
He broke out laughing, watching the horror on her face.
“Naw, you smell good. I’m just saying. Come back here,” he told her, reaching for her hand of all things.
“Why? You’re not a mommy’s boy, right?”
“You know I’m not. But I’m not a murderer either. I’m human. And I like closeness like you do,” he said, pulling her back to his cozy spot.
“I’m not even supposed to be leading you on like this. This is our first date,” she told him, holding her ground and moving away.
“So what?” he commented, teased by her.
“So … I don’t want to give you too much too early. I want to give you a piece at a time, like you told me.”
Aw, man, he pouted to himself. She could read the disappointment written all over his face as he let her hand fall away.
“See that? Now you know why we don’t tell y’all nothing,” he complained out loud.
She knew she had the upper hand on him then. He wanted her. But she wasn’t giving in to him until she was ready. The power of the booty. It was legendary.
“So, if I was willing to give you some tonight, would you take it?”
He smiled.
“Dumb question, right?” she asked him.
He took the Fifth and kept his mouth shut. Nevertheless, his grin told her everything. He was a M-A-N. He was made to penetrate.
Sharron shook her head and didn’t find the idea as humorous.
“That’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder why we even go through it all. And it doesn’t matter what woman it is. If she’s down with it, then you’re down.”
Anthony denied it. He had taste.
“Naw, it ain’t that simple,” he told her. “Not for me.”
“Well, it seems simple enough to me,” she responded.
“Then why do y’all do it then? Why do y’all keep chasing after guys?” he asked.
“Because it’s natural to want somebody,” she snapped. It was obvious. She moved closer to him and whispered, “You know how pussy feels, right? So why do you keep fuckin’?”
Anthony was so surprised that he nearly covered his ears with his hands. He didn’t expect for a woman like Sharron to use such words. It didn’t fit her personality. That made him even more curious about her.
“You didn’t expect for me to say that to you, right?”
He was still speechless, staring at her.
“Naw, you right. I didn’t,” he answered with a chuckle.
“I usually don’t. But I know girls that do.”
“Yeah, like your roommate.”
Sharron paused for a moment and thought about Celena, her rambunctious friend with the yuck mouth, who generally received twice as much respect from guys as she did, even though Celena slept around and treated them more like thrill rides than companions.
“Would you rather be with her than with me? Tell the truth,” Sharron asked Anthony. She had no clue that she would ask him that. The question simply slipped out of her mouth. She was in a zone. A love zone. And she didn’t even realize it.
But he did. Sharron was reaching Anthony, deep down inside, with her honesty.
“Does she ever keep any of her boyfriends long?” he asked of Celena.
Sharron shook her head and smiled. “You know, you’re very good at avoiding questions. And to think that I thought you might have been different.”
“I am different.”
“And so is everyone else.”
She stood there and leaned up against him on his car again.
He answered, “I would choose you. Because it would last longer.”
She thought on his answer for a second. It would last longer? What would last longer? The sex? The relationship? The love? The intrigue? Or all of the above?
“Everything would last longer,” he answered without her asking him.
She smiled and squeezed his arms tightly around her. Was this still a first date? It seemed like a hell of a lot more. To both of them! And Anthony was used to calling the shots. Maybe a little uncertainty was good for him. It sure had his full attention.
“Sometimes, I envy how close white couples are on their dates. It just seems like black love doesn’t get that close. Or at least not in public,” Sharron said out of the blue.
Anthony frowned and asked, “Where did you come from with that?”
“I mean, just look at them. Puppy love. At all ages.”
And it was true. They were surrounded by it. Old couples and young. Apple-pie Americans.
“That’s because they don’t have as much shit to worry about as we do. And they do more,” Anthony responded. “I was even unsure about bringing you out here. Not so much because you worked at the airport, but because you might have looked at me funny for doing it. My boy Tone would never bring a girl up here.”
“Nor would my roommate want to be here,” Sharron countered. “But that’s them, and this is us. That’s what stops couples from being themselves, judging what everybody else is doing.”
‘You’re doing that right now by talking about white couples,” he reminded her. “You don’t know how black people are in other countries. I hear that black guys in the Caribbean are supposed to be real affectionate.”
Sharron sucked her teeth and said, “They don’t seem affectionate to me. They seem just as rough as American men, and just as egotistical, if not more.”
“So, you’re saying that black men are not affectionate at all? Is that what you’re saying? Because I heard that white couples in Europe barely touch each other. What about them?”
Sharron shook her head and turned to face him.
“You know what, we’re both talking about a bunch of stereotypes. The bottom line is this: Are you, Anthony Poole, willing to be affectionate with me? That’s what I want to know.”
He pulled her gently into him and kissed her square on the lips before breaking away. A confident move.
She smiled, covering her lips, embarrassed and pleased by it at the same time.
“Does that answer your question?” he asked her.
“That wasn’t really affection though. That was more like … passion.”
He grinned. This girl is a trip, he thought to himself. But he was enjoying it. It was a new challenge for him, not being able to predict anything, while being forced to work a little harder. And as for Sharron, she knew that Anthony could take it. An intelligent edge in a woman was always attractive to a player. Intelligent women gave them a chance to test how strong their game was. Or how weak, so that they could return to the lab and work on it.
“What’s the difference?” he asked her.
“It’s simple, really. Affection is showing closeness, and expressing that you care in small ways, like holding hands, giving hugs, asking if everything is okay, and stuff like that. But passion is more assertive. Passion is like … taking over, and immersing yourself into the moment. Like, jumping into the bottom of the well. And there’s a big difference in the two.
“Because a lot of women end up in passionate, sexual relationships, when all they really want is affection,” she added. “And most guys would rather be passionate, because passion may lead straight to sex, where affection may not.”
Anthony chuckled at it. Sharron was telling the truth. Passion was for guys like him, who usually got the panties. Affection was for the softies. The mommy’s boys, walking around holding hands and forever being told, “No. Let’s wait.”
Fuck that waitin’ and debatin’ shit. I’ll take passion over affection any day! he told himself. Then he chuckled and blew his cool.
“See, that’s what I mean,” Sharron responded, reading his smile. “You know it’s true. And you know the difference,” she told him.
“Don’t you want to be passionate?” he asked. He couldn’t imagine her not wanting passion. She thought too much not to. Sharron thought too much to do without many feelings.
“Of course I want it. But I want it in a balance,” she answered. “A little bit of affection. A little bit of passion. And then both at the same time. But I would rather that a man be more passionate about loving me as a complete being than about just screwing me. You know what I mean?”
He nodded and understood her point. Men wanted to be loved for more than their wallets and the drama in their lives. Sometimes, they just wanted to chill, like they were doing. And before they knew it, it was close to one o’clock in the morning. They were one of the last couples standing.
“Damn! Where did all of the time go?” Anthony asked rhetorically.
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Sharron responded to him. “Off the clock. Because we have all night long to be with each other.”
“We do?”
“Well, not tonight. No,” she answered quickly, heading back to her side of the car.
Anthony ran around and beat her to it, opening the passenger-side door to help her in.
“Is this affection?” he asked her, cheesing all the way.
“No. Opening car doors is more like chivalry and respect.”
Anthony looked at her and was stunned.
“Damn! We got manners, respect, chivalry, affection, passion, and what else?”
Sharron added, “Commitment, loyalty, trust … And when I think of more, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
He laughed and said, “Yeah, I’m sure you will.”
When Sharron crept back into her room that night, it was well after two in the morning. Celena had been waiting up for her.
“So where did you go, and what did y’all do?” she appeared in the dark and asked.
“SHIT, GIRL! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
Sharron had undressed and was in bed already. A surprising voice in the dark is not exactly the best homecoming after a late-night date.
“I thought your behind was asleep,” Sharron snapped, composing herself.
“Yeah, you wanted me to be asleep. So what happened?” Celena asked again.
Sharron sighed. “Did I walk into your room and ask you what happened on your date?”
“Well, if you must know …”
“I don’t want to know,” Sharron snapped, cutting her off.
Celena went ahead and told her anyway. “Ronald kept dropping hints about what he had an urge for, so I tested him to see if he was serious. And he was. Very serious!” she revealed with a spreading gesture of her thighs.
Sharron shook her head. “Well, we had none of that going on on my date. We just had deep conversation and watched the airplanes goby.”
Celena frowned. “You watched the airplanes go by?”
“Yeah. We parked in a lot across from the airport where couples and families watch airplanes.”
“Was that your idea or his?”
“His.”
“It fig—What?” Celena stopped herself in midsentence and asked, “It was his idea, to go out and watch airplanes?”
Sharron laughed, tickled that Celena was unable to mark her new friend.
“We talked more than we watched planes. But it was peaceful. And different. Very different.”
Celena grunted, “Mmm-hmm. I think I better watch out for this guy. He might have some unusual scheme in mind for you. So Mr. Nameless is an airplane lover?”
“I don’t think he loves airplanes all that much, he just wants to do different things, and he was willing to share that with me.”
“Mmm-hmm. Because he wants you to share something with him later on,” Celena assumed. “Don’t get it confused, girl. He can take you to the airport if he wants to, but he’s still a damn player to me. I know it. I can feel the vibes on his ass.”
“Yeah, whatever. It sounds to me like you’re jealous. I think you’re just mad that he didn’t bump into you at the skating rink,” Sharron countered with a grin.
“Ha, ha,” Celena mocked, leaving the room.
Could she be jealous? Sharron thought to herself. Why? Because Anthony is more her type, and I have him? I better watch out for that, she told herself. Close girlfriends or not, Celena has to respect my space. And respect my men. But she’s right about one thing. He is a player. A player with a heart. I just wonder if I can really get to him, and make him fall in love with me somehow. Hmmmm.
And she fell asleep with a smile on her face.