by Tiana Laveen
“Nah, I went too far, huh? Got too much food? Well.” He shrugged, “At least you’ll have some to take home. Just wanted to make sure all bases were covered. Come on now. Sit down. I’ve asked you at least three times. Make yourself at home.” He motioned at the chair across from him.
The woman finally plopped her rear in the seat he’d pulled out for her over five minutes prior. She was wearing an oversized, low cut white shirt and a pair of dark green leggings, paired with green slides. Her hair was down today.
He surmised she had what his Black friends called a relaxer, for her dark tresses were bone straight and fell just below her shoulders. It looked shiny, thick and healthy and one side was pinned with a little diamond clip. Despite her nice attire, and her skin smelling like a dream come true, she looked confused and nervous. He wondered why. “Are you okay? Am I making you uncomfortable?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah. What is it?” She scooted out her seat a bit further from the table and readjusted herself, then crossed her hands, one over the other.
“Do you live by yourself?”
“I do, yeah. What about you?” He reached for the chicken and broccoli take-out container and spooned some onto his plate before passing it to her. She did the same using her chopsticks.
“I do, but right now, I don’t.” He helped himself to a heaping portion of white rice and gave her a quizzical look. She declined that as she placed a burgundy linen napkin across her lap. “See, my friend Melissa is stayin’ with me right now.”
“Ahhh,” he said. “I understand now.” He opened up the bag of crab rangoon and served himself a few, then handed it to her. He searched the table for the sweet red pepper dipping sauce, found it and poured some on his plate. She followed suit, arranging the food as if staging it for a culinary magazine shoot. Damn near perfect, and everything had its place.
“She was having a hard time after her divorce. Money stuff.” Jolted out of his thoughts, he nodded in understanding. “Her ex-husband was the main breadwinner. She brought in some money, but not enough to live on. Well, not with her standard of living. And then she got laid off. She was in sales so her income would go up and down. Now, she’s just trying to find a job so she doesn’t burn through her savings. I’m letting her stay with me until she does but it’s taking longer than I expected.”
“Sounds like a hard knock time. She have any kids to take care of, too?”
Jessica shook her head.
“No, it’s just her.”
“So, what about you?” He spooned some of the garlic noodles into a white ceramic bowl then slid the container her way.
“What about me, what?”
“Do you have an ex-husband, or current husband? Boyfriend? Children?”
She stared, hand over her chest as if insulted. They both burst out laughing.
“I beg your pardon!” she said. “I wouldn’t be over here if I did have a man, now would I? I don’t think any husband of mine would take too kindly to me going over to some other guy’s house alone, to eat and play Chess.” He tossed up his hands and shrugged. “And no, I don’t have any children.”
“Hey, you never know these days who has a fella in their life. Let me get you something to drink.” He popped a crab Rangoon in his mouth then got to his feet. “I’ve got tea, wine, water, beer, soda, you name it.”
“Water is just fine… Oh, and unsweetened tea, too, if you’ve got it.”
“I do, I do!” He rushed to the kitchen and returned with two chilled bottles of water, one jammed under his armpit to leave a hand free to carry a glass of lemon iced tea from a pitcher he’d made earlier that morning. “Here you go.” He placed her water and tea beside her, then returned to his seat and drank some of his water. They feasted on sesame chicken, sweet and sour chicken, pepper steak with gravy and peppers, spicy Szechuan string beans, and other assorted dishes. He had to admit, his dining room table looked like a damn buffet. He fought a smile, feeling pretty damn proud of himself. Everything looked and smelled so good.
“So, you know I’m a mail carrier. That’s obvious. I don’t have any side gigs right now though I sometimes do seasonal work for Amazon deliveries. What do you do?”
“Mechanical engineer for the automotive industry. Automotive engineer, to be exact.”
“Oh, nice! I imagine you had to go to something other than a trade school for that?”
“Yeah, at least if you want to get anywhere with it, make some real money.” She nodded, seeming genuinely interested. “I went to school for mechanical engineering… got a Master’s degree at the University of North Texas. Then I worked for Daimler Mercedes-Benz for about eight years, on their new car designs, car issues, recall fixes, stuff like that. I also helped with older model issues for dealers, that sort of thing. I figured I could make a better living on my own, so I did. I eventually set up my own company so businesses could hire guys like me for consultation, diagnosis, and troubleshooting, design issues.”
“Oh, so you’re like a contractor?”
“Exactly.” He ate a forkful of noodles, the delightful flavors mingling in his mouth. While drinking some more water, he tried to keep from glancing at her chest, but it proved damn near impossible.
It had been a battle for him since childhood. He’d gotten whooped with a Bible one time in church for ogling the Sunday school teacher, then saying something out of turn. Through and through, Kane was a breast man. If they appeared natural and large, all the better. Jessica’s definitely fit the bill.
Her low-cut shirt looked incredible against her rich skin tone. The Chess board pendant gleamed under the light.
“I imagine you work long days, huh?” she asked. He paused from twirling more noodles around his fork, trying to search his brain for the right words. He didn’t wish to delve into that arena of his life right then, although he’d figured it might come up. Truly, what did he expect? It was a natural question after all.
My reaction is what’s not natural.
“Well, see, I haven’t done it in a little while.” He kept his eyes fixed on a gigantic peace of steamed broccoli on his plate, garnished with a few red pepper flakes.
“Oh? Why not?”
“…Well, I had… I had a car accident a couple years ago. Kinda set me back a little.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah… some uh…” He shrugged. “It caused me some problems and I…” He stopped, trying to choose his words carefully. Even after all this time, this discussion never gets easier. Shit. “I needed to take a break from my work.” He shrugged, as if it were no big deal. “I moved here to kind of begin again actually. You know, fresh start type of thing.”
“I imagine sometimes that’s a good idea, and helpful. I figure being in a new environment is challenging, but can help you begin again, like you said.” She waved her chopsticks about as she spoke. “You know, I wish I could do that sometimes…”
“Do what?”
“Just pick up and go!” She grabbed a piece of lettuce for a wrap from the buffet before them and began to construct it. A dollop of this here, a bit of that there. “You know, have the courage to just branch out, move away. Well, let me take that back.” She held up one finger. “I do have the courage, I don’t have the time or patience to plan it all out and follow through. I like living just where I’m at. I’m comfortable. I love it here in Houston. I live in Greatwood, to be exact, not far from here at all. But how do I know I might not love it somewhere else, too, if I never go?”
“Quite true.” He dabbed at the side of his mouth with his napkin.
“Well, I’d like to do that, to try out exploring some place different. I’ve lived in the suburbs. There’s comfort in that, but there’s so much more out in this world. I can tell because I watch YouTube.”
They both had a good laugh at that.
“Why do you think you always stayed put?”
“I tell my friends all the time I’m a creature of habit. That’s
the truth, but it’s an excuse. I had a bunch of excuses actually as to why I didn’t go anywhere when I was younger. Let’s see,” She began to count off her fingers. “Someone always needed me, or I didn’t have the money or needed to pay off a debt… but I’ve always wanted to and the truth of the matter is that I’ve always been careful with money. I keep some good savings but then I see all of these postcards all the time from people travelling the globe, Kane. They send them to their loved ones. ‘Look Aunt Hellen, I’m in Alaska!’ Pictures of glaciers and things…” Her eyes appeared dreamy, as if she were floating away to somewhere nice and fanciful. “Images from China, London… even saw one from the Marshall Islands.”
“Have you ever been outta Texas at least?”
“Nah.” She shook her head. “I guess I’m not very cultured, huh?” She smiled, but that smile didn’t come across as authentic. She was sore about the whole issue. Probably felt like life was passing her by, and she was mad at herself for letting it slip away.
“Time is the only thing we can never get back. If we’ve got failing health, many times we can change our diet, exercise, be more positive and shit like that, and things will improve. We can lose money and make it back within the blink of an eye.” He snapped his fingers. “You can always find a way to make a few dollars.”
“True… But go on, get to it.” Her full lips curled. “Tell me the truth. I’m not cultured, am I? I’ve always considered myself open in that way, but now that I sit here and think about it, if I don’t actually go anywhere then that means I’m not.”
“Well, let me put it this way.” He shoved his plate aside and clasped his hands. “There are a lot of well-meaning folks all around us, ya know? A lot of hardworking Americans who never step foot out of their own state, and some not even out of their town. They may not realize it. A few might even brag about being stationary, like they’re a house, like that’s a good thing. But being that way, well, it does put you at a disadvantage. Doesn’t mean you’re slow or silly or dumb, nothing like that. It means you haven’t experienced the world and what it has to offer. You haven’t seen how other people live, so that means you have to promise yourself an adventure. It’s funny, until I started wandering about, I was the same way.”
He shrugged. “A kind of arrogance sometimes goes along with some people—including me at one time—when we don’t go anywhere. We start thinkin’ we’re better than other people ’cause they don’t look like us, talk like us, move like us, eat like us, pray like us. Well, that’s all we see. We forget there are other people in this world who are nothing like us, and that doesn’t make them wrong. It makes us different. You gotta take a vacation beyond these state lines.” His face heated as his sheer hypocrisy crept up his spine and turned him into a cowardly worm. “Start slow, then branch out.”
“I take it you’re a traveling man?” She took a sip of her tea, seeming to enjoy the taste.
“I used to be.” He ran his fingers along the edge of the table, thumped his foot to an imaginary beat, and ran away in his own head. They went quiet for a spell. Nothing could be heard except the muted noises from the outside—a car driving past, a child laughing here and there.
“What places have you traveled to?” She started working on her Wonton soup.
“England, Peru, Kenya, Brazil, Scotland, France, Ireland, Greece, and India, just to name a few.”
“A few?!” she said in amazement. “You’re the male version of ‘Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego!’” He chuckled at her words.
“I loved to travel. Did a lot of it during the college summers, too.”
“By yourself or with family? Friends?”
“All of the above. Like, I went to Ireland by myself. I had always wanted to go. I went to Kenya and India with my family for some church outreach programs.”
“Cool.”
“I went to England by myself, too, but visited Peru and Brazil with some friends of mine. We partied, had a good time. I was on the football team so a bunch of us would get together and do stuff like that during the breaks, when we weren’t practicing.”
“Sounds like you’ve had a very interesting life, Kane.” She toyed with her fortune cookie, crinkling the wrapper. “Makes me feel like I don’t do much at all but breathe.” She laughed once again, and this time, too, he had the sensation she didn’t mean that smiling face… that mask she was wearing. The expression looked real enough, but he wasn’t buying it. He also had worn masks, plenty of them, so he was familiar with the whole thing. The act was needed to survive an ugly truth, to keep oneself safe behind a shield, to not feel the icky, sticky shit that formed in the pit of one’s gut and grew whenever a new life blow came—one bigger, badder, and nastier than the last. What an awful, stinking thing that crept inside, shrinking the heart and the soul down until there was practically nothing left. Except the darkness.
“You breathe…” He drummed his fingers against the table and sucked his teeth as he looked off into the distance at nothing in particular. “That’s a big deal. Give yourself some credit. Clean, fresh air… moving about, going through your day. The sun hits your skin. You’re fed instant vitamin D. Breathing, working, laughing outside… there’s freedom there. You’re traveling, in your own way.” He abruptly stood and began to pick up the used linen and paper napkins and empty plastic bags the food had been delivered in. “Take your time finishing your food, Jess, and then we can play some Chess. No rush.”
He could feel her stare on him. He’d opened up… a little too much. She was just so damn easy to talk to. She was talkative, yet didn’t go too far. She toed the line. There was just something about her that made him feel safe.
He’d never expected to feel the comfort she provided, at least not so fast. In his mind, a nice lady had come to his door and he liked how she smelled. Her smile… her breasts… her voice. He liked how she spoke her mind, but was careful about her words. She was thoughtful and real. She was confident, yet humble. Her mere existence in his life seemed like a soft caress, yet direct at the same time. She acted friendly and seemed concerned about his wellbeing.
A simple, straightforward person, yet her eyes held a special sort of pain and so did her smile. Everyone on God’s green Earth had a secret or two, some bigger and more devastating than others. As he made his way into the kitchen, he passed the black and white masks on the wall to his right. The White one was stacked right above the black one. He slowed his gait and eyed them, and they appeared to eye him back. Jerking himself away from the sight, he continued on with his task. While in the kitchen cleaning up and tossing away the trash, he decided to put on some music. Monica’s, ‘Angel Of Mine’ poured out of the speakers as he washed a few dishes in the sink.
“Everything all right in there?” he hollered out, unable to resist smiling at the realization that he was finally having company after all of this time.
“Mmmm hmmm! Just finishing up! This is delicious! Where did this food come from, Kane?” He could tell her mouth was full. He smiled big, happy that she was enjoying herself.
“From Changs!”
“Oh! That place in the strip mall. The music sounds good, too! Nice stereo, speakers, whatever you have in here.”
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you! I appreciate this.” He nodded though he realized she couldn’t see him.
“I’ll be back in there in just a second. You want any wine? Beer?”
“I’m fine, honey. Got everything I need!”
When he was all finished, he reached for the towel to dry his hands and nearly jumped out of his skin. The woman had come in holding two armfuls of trash. “Where’s your trashcan, Kane?”
“I could’ve gotten that! Lady, what are you doing?”
“I’m tryna help!” she said with a crooked grin.
“Why’d you go and clean up the entire table, huh? You’re embarassin’ me. You’re my guest.” He quickly took the mess from her arms.
“I don’t believe in acting like a child. Thro
win’ stuff all over the place and leaving it for others to take care of. That’s not right. Guest or not, there’s good and bad manners. So,” she crossed her arms and drew closer to him as he placed the plastic bottles in the recycle bin, “what type of Chess board do you have?”
“I have quite a few boards actually. The one I retrieved tonight is made of stone resin. It’s copper and silver on a Spanish board. One of my favorites.”
“Oh, that sounds just beautiful!” Her eyes lit up and she clasped her hands together. “I have nothin’ but a couple cheap plastic ones. They look decent enough, but nothin’ like that!” He grabbed a bottle of wine and two glasses, just in case, and headed back into the dining room with her. Together, they finished removing the utensils and crumbs off the table, and then he cleaned the surface to the tune of SWV singing, ‘Right Here.’ As he polished the tabletop, he got a kick out of the sight of the woman dancing, swaying back and forth to the music as the Michael Jackson sample in the song’s chorus went on.
He froze for a few moments. Staring. She was a beautiful dark, gorgeous flower in full bloom.
And he was now officially smitten…
CHAPTER FIVE
CHECK MATE
“You like to dance, I see. You enjoy good music.”
“Yeah. I love it. Helps me blow off steam.” Jessica began to pop her fingers to the beat. This time, her smile looked genuine. Pretty. “You? Or is this all just for me?”
“I love it, and it’s for both of us. I used to DJ, spin records. Music is my second passion. I made beats and everything.”
“You used to make music and DJ?! Get outta town!” He grinned. “Are you for real?”
“Yup.” He stepped back from the table, satisfied with his work then held up a finger. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back. Going to get the board.”
He retrieved the polished board from the cabinet in the sitting area and brought it around to the dining room. He’d cleaned it a half dozen times that morning, becoming obsessed with it, wanting everything to be just perfect. He found Jessica with her hands in the air, snapping her fingers, rocking her lush hips seductively to the rhythm of ‘Love Is the Shhh’, by SFP.