by Donald Welch
She was proud of her two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath townhome. It represented all she had accomplished in her career, and while she was happy to be moving to the next stage of her life, she had a fleeting sense of losing a part of herself. But she was ready to move on. Alan was building them a home from the ground up in Lower Merion, an exclusive suburban area on Philly’s Main Line. She and Alan had discussed whether to keep the condo or rent it out, but in the end, they’d decided to sell it. She figured she would get two million dollars for the prime space. Real estate on the Square in Philadelphia was always high market.
Nicole thought about her mother’s reaction when she told her that Alan had asked her to marry him. Her mother had nearly fainted. “Thank you, Jesus,” she testified, “because girl, you had me wondering if I was going to live long enough to see my baby married and have some kids.”
“Mom, you’re only fifty-three years old,” Nicole laughed.
“It’s not like you’re eighty-one and in a wheelchair.”
Hell, Nicole thought, I didn’t plan on waiting till thirty-one to get married. It just sort of happened that way. She’d been close several times.
There was Jerry, a football coach, whom she’d met at one of Denise’s parties at her law firm. They had a lot in common, and she fell hard for his ass, too. But he was confused and insecure about everything. He was twenty-nine and divorced for the second time when they’d met. That should have been a warning sign right there. But when do women in love really pay attention to warning signs?
Everyone thought they were the perfect couple, but after spending more than two on-and-off years with him, she realized that Jerry, no matter how hard he tried, would never be able to love her fully. He might have been sweet—with a big heart and an even bigger tool—but he didn’t love himself.
And he didn’t have a clue about making love. Every woman wants to make love, and every woman wants to have great sex some time in her life, and Jerry couldn’t deliver either.
But the final straw was that he was a momma’s boy. His mother constantly meddled in his entire life, and that extended to Nicole. Any discussion of his mother’s interference was totally off-limits. Nicole spent his thirtieth birthday in Cancún with him and his mother—that’s right, his mother shared a connecting suite with them the entire time.
It was there that he’d asked Nicole to marry him. And she almost accepted, but the words that came out of her mouth were, “I can’t, because I’d be marrying you and your mother.” That was a long and quiet flight back, and Nicole always got the impression that Gladys was gloating in the seat behind her on the return flight. Jerry broke up with her right there after the plane landed in the Philadelphia airport, and they never spoke again.
Then there was Lamont Davidson, a six-foot-four-inch copper-toned, cocky dreamboat—who turned out to be a classic jerk! He stayed in front of the mirror more than most women. They met in a club.
Nicole’s first mistake was meeting a man on singles night in a club. A man in that environment was not there to meet a significant other or a potential wife. He was there because he’s single and wanted to remain that way. Duh! Nicole shook her head at the memory. When are we going to learn? she thought to herself.
Lamont was full of himself—selfish, self-absorbed. Everything was about him. Nicole dumped him after a package arrived at her condo addressed to her from some heffa named Latrice. Nicole opened it and found a pair of Lamont’s underpants—“draws,” as her nana would say. She didn’t even wait for an explanation; she recognized them instantly because she had purchased the boxers for him as a gift and had had them monogrammed with his initials, L.D. He enjoyed boasting that it stood for the length of his manhood. Nicole had soon discovered there was another reason for those initials: Limp Dick. He smoked a lot of weed. When she told Keisha about it, she claimed that “smoking those fuckin’ blunts is what got that dick in a coma state.”
When Nicole showed him the package from Latrice, he stared at the box and the name of the sender, picked up his draws, packed up his shit, and left.
After that experience, Nicole didn’t exactly swear off men, but she vowed to be more selective. If she met someone, fine; if not, that was fine, too. Then she met—well remet, actually—Dr. Alan Lovejoy three years ago at their tenth high school reunion.
COMING ALONE was a mistake, Nicole thought as she entered the main ballroom of the Bellevue Hotel on Broad Street for her ten-year high school reunion. I wish I had taken Keisha’s advice and ridden along with her, she said to herself. At least having someone familiar to walk in with would have made this easier. In spite of the fact that she looked great and had kept herself up during the last ten years, for some reason, Nicole felt sort of nervous.
Keisha, Freda, Mira, Renee, and Tisha had all graduated together in 1995. (Zenora was two years ahead of them, and Valerie was two years behind them, so they weren’t going to this reunion.) TLC’s “Creep” boomed from the overhead speakers, and already most of her former classmates were wearing it out on the dance floor. God, I used to love this song! TLC was my group. The girls and I loved these sistahs. The way they dressed, their songs, style—we tried to emulate them. Their biggest song, “No Scrubs,” was our anthem.
Nicole scanned the room and spotted Freda pressed up against her high school sweetheart, Ben, whom she’d heard was married and already had five kids. He and Freda had broken up after he told her that when they graduated he wanted to get married right away and start a family. That had done it, and Freda was out. She told him marriage had no place in her life for a long time because she had a singing career to get started.
It wasn’t such an easy breakup, because those two genuinely loved each other. Nicole remembered Freda crying for weeks afterwards, but she’d said there was no way she would give up or push back her career plans for anyone, even if it meant giving up the man she loved.
So she stepped. But to look at those two on the dance floor, anyone would have thought they were still lovers. Ben was grinding all over her and sweating like a slave. Where was that man’s wife? Even though she was apparently enjoying it, didn’t Freda know he was married? But hey, Freda was center stage, which meant she had the attention of most of the onlookers, just like she liked it.
Nicole locked eyes for a quick moment with Joan Wilson, her old high school nemesis, who still looked great. Her svelte figure and toned body almost made Nicole give herself another look. Joan and Nicole were the two most popular girls in high school, and they ran against each other for prom queen, head cheerleader, and class president. Nicole had won all three. They exchanged plastic smiles across the room.
Her rivalry with Joan was a piece of cake compared to the girls she’d had to deal with in middle school—the Brown Sugas.
THE BROWN SUGAS were a rough gang of girls who purposely harassed Nicole while passing her in the halls or by booing her at assemblies. They were far from being anything resembling brown sugar, and not one of them was a mental giant in academics or a star player on the school teams. Their thrills and bad reputation came from badgering anyone who wanted to achieve. Nicole happened to be one of their targets. They were as nasty to her as the brothas when they rolled their eyes and sniggered, “She thinks she’s cute ’cuz she’s light, bright, and almost white.”
Sometimes the chiding brought her to tears, but Nicole’s parents would say, “Oh, honey, they’re just jealous.”
“But why?” she’d ask.
“Well, because you are beautiful, baby,” her father proudly said.
It had all seemed quite dumb to Nicole because all she wanted to do was fit in and be liked. Now and then she heard news about their drama around drugs, jail, and dogs—the two-legged kind. Out of the entire gang, maybe only three actually graduated from high school. The best time of their lives was going to be high school, topped off with prom night. That was probably the only real positive event they would ever know. Everything after that was downhill for them.
The ones who’d dr
opped out would hang outside the school and linger around the gate. It was easy to read their sad eyes, which said they wanted to be back in school. Even though there were programs permitting them to reenter, it was too late if no one was there to give them the encouragement they needed to get back. One or two would come to the school yard with their babies as if that child was a badge of accomplishment—a trophy to prove they were women.
But like Nicole’s nana said, there was more to life than making a baby. Even a bedbug could make a baby; any female could do that. The real reward for a woman was family.
But anyone from the neighborhood could tell you that most of the Brown Sugas ended their teen years with either pregnancy, probation, or both.
It took Nicole a long time to understand where that sort of negativity came from in the black community.
Nicole learned that it wasn’t her light skin, keen features, or fashionable clothes that made them cruel. “No, none of that,” her grandmother said. “When you don’t like yourself, you can’t like anybody else.” That wise advice, helped steer Nicole away from negative people like the Brown Sugas.
NICOLE THEN made her way over to the bar and got a light tap on her shoulder. “Nicole ‘Pretty Ass’ Lawson.” She turned only to get a sloppy wet kiss right on her lips. Shocked and shaken, she recognized Bret Scott—or Bad Breath Bret, as he was called in high school. He had the worst breath of anybody she had ever met. Describing the smell was so difficult because Nicole had never smelled anything like that in her life. Keisha used to say it smelled like “cow shit and fried bacon.” Lord, that man has just kissed me in my mouth. Nicole immediately opened her clutch purse to look for a napkin to wipe her lips, or for a mint, gum, anything. She found Life Savers and offered one to Bret.
“Naw, girl, I’m good. Do I need one? Whatcha tryin’ to say? Ha, ha. So, Nicole, how you been?”
“I’m fine, Bret, and you?”
“How do I look, baby girl?” he said as he twirled around so that she could get a full view of his body.
He really doesn’t want me to answer that.
“You look good, Bret,” she lied. “Tell me, what are you doing with yourself?”
While he told her about his job as a ticket agent at Amtrak’s Thirtieth Street Station, Nicole’s eyes teared up from the stench coming out of his mouth, which hit her directly in the face.
“I’m in banking,” she said, hoping for a small respite.
He cackled, “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll come by one day and get me a loan sometime. Haaaa, haaa.”
Help! she thought. Just as she was about to pass out from Bret’s funk, Nicole spotted Mira walking in with her lover, Jeanette. Nicole admired Mira because she never hid her sexual preference from anyone, and that reunion night was no different. Mira and Jeanette were hand in hand. What might have seemed like a bold move for many was a natural one for Mira.
The DJ played “Who Can I Run To?” by Escape as Keisha arrived. Keisha walked over to join them and she said, “Damn, what’s that smell? Y’all smell that?”
“Smell what?” Jeanette asked.
“I don’t know—it smells like cow shit and beans,” Keisha said.
Nicole playfully slapped Keisha on the arm and reminded her that the smelly formula was cow shit and bacon, not beans. The women all laughed while Bad Breath Bret stood nearby with a confused look on his face.
“Oh, you’re right, cow shit and beans was his sister!” Keisha yelled through her laughter.
Garrett Thompson, one of the most likable people in school, walked in with Maxine Thompson, who hadn’t gone to their school, but Nicole recognized her from the old neighborhood. Keisha excused herself as he introduced Maxine as his wife and said they’d met at church a few years ago and that they’d been together ever since.
Maxine asked, “So, Nicole, are you married? Do you love the Lord?”
“No and yes,” Nicole replied.
Maxine turned from her and asked Mira the same questions. Mira said “Yes,” and then introduced Jeanette as her life partner. The look on Maxine’s face was one of pure horror. She then reached in her purse for a religious tract.
“God bless you,” she said, and then moved on.
Nicole, Mira, and Jeanette glanced at it in unison and then smiled at the topic: ARE YOU GOING TO HEAVEN?
“I guess she wanted to save our souls,” said Jeanette.
Keisha returned, and Nicole asked her what made her leave so abruptly.
“Isn’t that the cross-eyed girl you were talking about that went to elementary school with you when you lived in South Philly?”
Nicole nodded her head.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I didn’t want to see her. My great-aunt used to say never look a cross-eyed woman in the face—you’ll get bad luck. Another thing, never trust a bowlegged woman, ’cuz she’ll wrap dem legs around your man’s neck, and he’ll be gone. Maybe that’s how she got that man; I noticed she had a little bow in those legs of hers.”
“Those old folktales are so ridiculous and sick,” Nicole said, laughing despite herself.
“Well, they are warnings to live by,” Keisha said, walking away again.
“Oh, shit—that’s my jam. C’mon, baby,” Mira said, leading Jeanette to the dance floor as “This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan came on.
Standing alone, Nicole told herself, Quick, think fast, Nicole, because Bad Breath Bret was lurking and moving closer and closer.
Not recognizing the man facing the bar, Nicole grabbed his hand and pulled him to the dance floor. Anything to evade Bret, who looked perturbed that she didn’t wait for his invitation to dance. Nicole was too engrossed in getting away from Bret, so that she didn’t look at her partner, who spilled his drink all over himself when she yanked him away from the bar. She glanced up, but didn’t recognize him for a moment or two.
It was Alan Lovejoy. She remembered him with a Kid ’n Play haircut in high school. When they were in high school, the girls referred to him as the boy with the good hair, a term Nicole hated. What the hell was good hair, anyway? His body was buff beyond belief, not in a grotesque oversized wrestler-on-steroids way, but like a brotha who took pride in how he looked. And Alan Lovejoy looked good.
“Excuse me. Nicole Lawson?”
“Yes, I’m Nicky. I’m sorry for making you spill that drink. I was trying to get away from someone. Is there anything I can do to take care of that cleaning bill? I’m so sorry.” Nicole felt like she was babbling.
He moved the lapel of his jacket to show his name tag, which read, HELLO, MY NAME IS ALAN.
Nicole extended her hand to shake his, but Alan took her by surprise and gave her a big hug. It was sincere, warm, and gentle. She felt a great deal of strength in those arms.
“I think you were trying to escape Bret. Didn’t he used to be called Bad Breath Bret?”
And that was how they started their first conversation. Nicole found him so refreshing to talk with. Even though his background was in medicine and hers was investment banking, their conversation was easy and natural.
NICOLE CAME BACK to the present and put on Jill Scott’s latest CD. She checked her answering machine to discover a message from Valerie apologizing for being late and that she would be there soon. There was also a message from Alan telling her how much he loved her, and that he was jealous he couldn’t spend the night with his girl.
Thank goodness for Bad Breath Bret, Nicole thought. He may never realize that he was the one who’d brought her and Alan together.
Nicole used to think it was corny when a woman said, “He completes me,” or “He is my soul mate.”
But after meeting Alan, she got it. Alan was “the one.”
What attracted her to him the most was that he was so unpretentious about his career and his accomplishments. He told her he was following in the footsteps of his parents, who were doctors. His dad was retiring soon, and Alan would take over the practice in Springfield, a suburb of Philadelphia.
A few
years ago, his mother was diagnosed with kidney disease. Alan was a perfect match; therefore, without question or pause, he donated one of his own. Nicole’s mother always said, “Yes, you can tell what type of man he is by the way he treats his mother.” But Nicole’s friends worried that she would fall in the same trap of another “meddling mother” as she’d experienced with Jerry.
But Alan was his own man, and Dr. Lovejoy understood her place with him. Alan made sure that both Nicole and his mother felt like they were the two most important women in his life. Nicole knew that any woman who felt that a man was going to put his lover over his own mother was a damn fool and was just setting herself up for trouble. So when his mother brought over chicken soup when he was sick or looked for that weekly telephone call or visit, Nicole encouraged the attention. She found it sweet and realized that there should never be any competition between her and Dr. Lovejoy, just mature respect. She understood all of this because she could never put any man over her own father. Unlike some women, she could never yield to her husband turning into her father. Not her. She had a father and she had her man—and no one confused the two.
Nicole’s parents had been married thirty-six years, and she was sure they had their share of trials and tribulations. What relationship hadn’t? She always knew when her mother was peeved with her father for something he did or did not do. Whenever she saw her mother digging or planting in the backyard late at night, she knew Mom was angry about something. Nicole’s father would conveniently retire to the den with the TV blasting. Soon after, he’d fall asleep in his La-Z-Boy recliner. That was their way of giving each other space. But in all her thirty-one years, Nicole had never witnessed a cross word between them.
The next morning, after the disagreement, Nicole’s mother would go to the den, turn off the TV, and her father would wake up as cheerful as a red robin in spring.
“Barry, you musta been watching something awful good on TV last night for you not to come to bed.” Her mother would laugh out loud, and her father would reply, “Not really, apple pie. I was just flipping channels ’n’ got comfortable.”