Don't Ask My Neighbor

by Kristofer Clarke

  I spent Sunday morning, September 28, 2000, getting ready for my first visit to Just One God Church in Christ. I found myself following my nana’s advice, something I never thought I would do, since I never took that particular conversation with her serious.

  Nothing much had changed since my last visit to a house of worship, which I sadly admitted was a long while ago. I was still handed a program and directed to my seat by a curvy older lady completely dressed in white from head to toe—white gloves included. The pastor’s chair was still superior to those occupied by the reverends and ministers sharing the pulpit with him. The women who filled up the front row, first lady of the church included, still seemed as if they were in competition for the best Sunday dress. Actually, what they wore paled in comparison to what the regular ladies wore, those who were there to receive the good word and not compare price tags on their dresses or suits that failed to flatter any parts of them.

  While I enjoyed the prayers, a moving sermon by a visiting unknown who did everything to convince me I was living in sin, and hymnals led by a songstress with a pitch-perfect soprano voice, I considered my trip a “total waste of my damn time,” until I laid my eyes on her. Until then, none of the other women impressed me. There were two or three who required a second look, but only to confirm what I thought I saw during my first glance: cheap suits from the sales rack at a boutique on the corner of a neighborhood Main Street, and stocking that didn’t compliment shoes that didn’t match belts that held up skirts that were ill-fitted in the waist and everywhere in between. I hated that I was sitting in church judging these God-fearing women, but obviously, they had taken the biblical reference “render thy heart and not thy garment” way too literal.

  She looked one bible verse short of holy. She had a Saturday night strut in her Sunday morning stroll to the collection plate. I glanced at her behind, wondering if the way it sat up in her back foreshadowed some sexual arsenal that would please me immensely during our first, second, or third tryst. I watched every inch of her six-foot frame walk sharply toward me. My eyes were saturated with lust, and I silently asked God in advance for forgiveness for my thoughts. I knew nothing about this woman besides the fact that I already wanted her. And if I weren’t in church, right there, right then would have been a good time as any. But, how was I going to approach her?

  I pondered my pick-up line, hoping not to repeat the ones desperate women in my past used in their failed attempt to impress me. Praise the Lord, my Sister wouldn’t have worked. I didn’t want to look at her as my sister—not even in Christ—especially since, in my mind I’d already skipped the first date and was standing at the alter kissing this woman while looking into her eyes. I’ve seen your face around here before definitely wouldn’t have worked, either, since that would have been one lie told three times over to myself, to God, and to this woman. Regardless, whatever I decided would have to work. I was testing my grandmother’s theory, but I hadn’t exactly convinced myself that a visit to this church, or some other, was on my itinerary until I found myself in Just One God Church in Christ surrounded by sinners in disguise. My grandmother told my mother to walk in faith, now I hoped faith had walked this woman into my life. If not faith, I’ll settle for fate.

  Her wink caught me off guard, and I found myself smiling inside at the thought that this mold of a woman had noticed me—and molded she was. Her silver gray strapless taffeta beaded dress, if it were not for the jacket, would have been more appropriate for a cocktail party. Its mini length ended just above her knees, and the silver heels added a subtle sultriness to her walk. She was definitely looking her Sunday’s best, and when she turned into the pew and sat next to me, I inhaled, allowing my chest to rise, and then held my breath momentarily. Her Christian Dior perfume lingered at the tip of my nose. There’s nothing like a smell-good woman, especially when her scent said hello before she arrived and stayed behind long after her goodbyes, reminding you of everything about her. Her skin was a medium tan, and I prayed it felt as soft as it looked. Her dark brown eyes had a simple, passionate intensity I had never seen in any other woman. “This is not something I normally do,” she began in a low voice, flashing a flirtatious smile. “I’m Samantha Wells. If you don’t have plans after service, can we talk over coffee?”

  She reached across my knees for the bible sitting in the back of the pew. If my heart wasn’t already in rapid pulsation, it was now, and Lord only knew what else was beating in anticipation. The only thing standing between the palm of Samantha’s hand and my knees was a faint breeze generated from the ceiling fan above.

  “Just coffee?” I responded, my voice a spongy whisper.

  “Do you have something else in mind?”

  Her retort surprised me.

  “Coffee will be fine,” I said, and smiled.

  This was not church-girl behavior, but then again, she never professed to be one. She didn’t look as if she had taken a vow of chastity, and her directness proved that. I was certain there wasn’t a Wimple left on her dresser to complete a Habit that was left hanging in the back of a dark closet.

  Church service was nothing but a big blur. From the moment Samantha sat beside me, my mind went to forbidden places. She was still a stranger to me, but I was already having premature thoughts of her sharing my world, of me somehow finding myself inside her, making the kind of love to her that would leave her breathless and without words, even when all she wanted to tell me was “Damn, you’re good”. My thoughts bordered desperation, and I hoped it wasn’t written on my face; it definitely wouldn’t have made a good impression, if I hadn’t already impressed her.

  Before the choir sang their final selection, Samantha and I made our way down the long aisle, walking toward iconic red doors. The congregants looked at us as if I were walking through the valley of the shadow of death and the evil I should fear walked right beside me. She ignored their sneering looks and judgmental faces. It seemed their eyes held stories about Ms. Wells, but I was oblivious to their silent warnings.

  Samantha and I walked the two blocks from the church to a neighborhood coffee house. It’s Just Coffee was housed in a renovated three-story brick building on the corner of Washington Terrace and Ponder Square. It was rather upscale for a coffee shop, with granite countertops and tabletops, stainless steel barstools and chairs, and baristas and servers dressed in more than street clothes and a smock. After placing our orders, Samantha and I sat in a corner, hiding from the Sunday afternoon sun positioned high in the infinite Chinese-blue sky. We had beat the Sunday morning foot traffic that usually frequented this establishment immediately after the 8:00 a.m. service ended, if they weren’t rushing home to catch an early afternoon Redskins or Cowboys game. I sat looking comfortably handsome. My navy blue and red tie had a perfect knot. My grey herringbone striped suit jacket hung over the chair. I spoke as if I were choosing words carefully; words that kept Samantha’s attention and curiosity. I spoke, looking behind her eyes, almost daring her to question my honesty.

  “Tell me about you,” I commanded.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Whatever you can tell me before my coffee gets cold,” I responded with a smirk, looking at her with dancing eyes as I brought my cup of Irish Cream coffee to my mouth.

  Samantha had never been married, but was no stranger to heartbreak. She had taken herself off the market to avoid entering into another relationship only to treat her next man as if he were responsible for a hurt she still agonized over. She had been with men who treated her like a filler, and even when they thought they did their best to conceal it, it showed in almost everything they did. While she invested in loving them for as long as time would allow, they invested in loving her just until the one they lusted for came around; if they came around. Those men who prayed for a good woman used and discarded her when she was sent their way. Apparently, they couldn’t recognize when their prayers had been answered, since they were accustomed to women that treated them so badly they couldn’t identify the man
they had become. Samantha wasn’t certain if she was ready to love, but she was ready to try. She was a woman; better yet, she was a woman who knew what she wanted.

  “I’m a single, heterosexual woman who is more than capable of taking care of me, my man, when I find the right one, and my kids, when I have one,” she added with conviction.

  Samantha paused.

  “Or three.”

  She winked, bringing her cup of Macchiato to her firm, sexy lips. Even white teeth hid behind them. She licked her lips seductively as she slowly placed her mug back on the small table.

  “Good,” I agreed. “I would hope someone your age, and I am not quite sure what age that is, is at the point where she could afford to take care of herself and her family, should she have one.”

  “Well, what age would you give me?” Samantha asked.

  I hated the age-guessing game. It’s usually one played by men or women who were certain they were older than they looked. The others, those who didn’t get the good genes, usually avoided that game, all in an attempt to save themselves the momentary embarrassment should someone give them five or ten years more than their actual. Since I was already attracted to Samantha, and she did have a girlish look, I decided to appease her, giving her my best guess of twenty-five years.

  “That’s a pretty good guess.”

  “Am I right?” I asked, smiling, and then taking another sip from my cup.

  I appreciated Samantha’s companionship. The beauty she wore was nothing to be afraid of. I leaned in closer, and kept my attention in her direction.

  “That’s all you get. But, that was a pretty good guess.”

  “So you’re not going to tell me?” I asked almost in a plea.

  “How much does it matter if you’re right or wrong?” Samantha asked.

  She changed position in her chair, and crossed her right leg over her left. I stared down the length of her legs to the tip of her toes. She was blessed with imperfections.

  She looked at me as if I were planning on using her response to analyze her. So far, I had hung on to her every word. I was sitting across from her believing everything she sold me, and it wasn’t a hard sell.

  “Twenty-seven in a few months,” she added, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Really! And how do you plan on celebrating?”

  “I didn’t plan on celebrating at all. I’m not big on celebrating birthdays at all,” she responded with a slight pause, and gazed down at the intricate pattern in the tabletop. “But now that I’ve met you…”

  As she spoke, she looked up and smiled that enticing smile again.

  When our coffee cups were emptied, after our second order, plans had been made to celebrate her birthday over dinner at Le Pieux Poisson, and take a getaway to a lakeside cabin in the hills of North Carolina.

  When I woke that morning and decided to follow my grandmother’s unsolicited advice, I had no idea my decision to test this theory would position me in the presence of Samantha Wells. I felt an unbelievable chemistry sitting across from this woman. Nothing could go wrong, right? I met a woman who, at first glance, put God first. He was one man I didn’t mind competing with. How could loving her go wrong? I wasn’t prepared for the devil this woman eventually became. After all, according to my grandmother, didn’t God send Samantha my way? I wasn’t supposed to look back on September 26, 2004 and declare that the worst day of my life; I didn’t have to. Samantha Wells made sure that date would pale in comparison.

  Six

  _______

  Can I Stay With You

  Kennalyn

  I MADE DINNER LISTENING TO MY favorite Karyn White song “Can I Stay With You” from her 1994 “Make Him Do Right” album. So many good things happened during that year. That year I graduated valedictorian from Paul VI Catholic High School. That was also the year I celebrated my eighteenth birthday. I was grown; at least according to what I heard my friends’ mothers tell them. But according to my mother, I wasn’t grown until I was out of her house, paying my own bills, and putting food on my own table. Needless to say, that thought scared me.

  Unlike my other “grown-ass friends”—that’s what my mother called them—I wasn’t in any rush to become any man’s wife, or even anybody’s mother, and as far as I was concerned, there weren’t any men in my school. I was comfortable being daddy’s little girl, and had learned from the drama my high school friends went through with their older boyfriends, though older at that time meant dating boys that were in their junior or senior years. Those relationships usually turned sour as graduation neared, and often ended after their now college men set eyes on the first college coed they saw while unpacking their parents’ over-packed hatchbacks. As I saw it, those girls settled; something I wasn’t going to do. My desire to be grown came with my own self-imposed limits. I had accomplished one of those in-order-to-be-grown requirements. Being out of my parents’ house landed me on the campus of the University of Texas. Nineteen ninety-four was also the year I met him.

  He was Gage Delahunt, the man I gave my heart to. He was exactly six feet tall—not the height I envisioned my husband to be, but I wasn’t hung up on minor details. He always looked at you with his lips slightly apart. His eyebrows were neat and thick. At nineteen years old, he already had a full beard and mustache. His gray eyes were warm and very alluring. His hair stacked on his head and looked like it couldn’t be moved by a Texas tornado. I fell in love with his wide smile, and the way his shoulder hunched up and over when he laughed extremely hard. Did I mention he was white? Never in a million years—or in this case, eighteen—would I have thought the first man to catch my eye would be a hue other than one of the many shades of black, not that I’d thought to ever purposely control who I fell in love with. So far, Gage was turning out to be nothing like my father—at least in his appearance. He was an army brat from Killeen, Texas, living with his father in Fort Hood to keep out of trouble in Chicago. According to Gage, he never went looking for trouble; trouble just always had a way of finding him.

  Gage and I dated my four years at Texas; he was all the man I needed. I graduated a year after he did, carrying a gift from him that I couldn’t return. Six months after that, on December 12, 1998, Cody Ashton was born. Two and a half years after Cody, Alexis Blaire was born. She came on a stormy June day, after 6 hours of labor. Unlike the mistake that was Cody, Alexis was planned, not that I would ever let my first-born know he was a mistake. As far as I was concerned, this mistake was my favorite. I was on my way to a forever of happiness until Samantha Wells happened to my husband.

  I thought signing my name on my marriage certificate, next to Mr. Gage Delahunt’s, would be the last time I’d be signing my maiden name to anything. I thought I had abandoned Kennalyn Covell forever, but there I was, five days after giving Gage back his freedom and his last name, reclaiming what I had given away willingly. Marriage I had always planned for, but I never bargained for a divorce. I always wanted a husband. Most importantly, I wanted my husband to be just like my father, no more, no less. I wanted a man that made me feel the way my daddy made my mother feel. I wanted a man who didn’t love the one he was with only because he couldn’t be with the one he loved. I wanted Gage since the day I met him.

  After making dinner, I sat on the couch enjoying what was left of my evening. Although my day started at its usual 5:45 a.m., it wasn’t ending at 10 p.m. with a fast food meal substituting the home cooking I loved to feed my babies. I wasn’t running around being a superwoman. For the moment, I had hung up my soccer mom and hockey mom hats. Even my mommy hat was hung on a coat rack close by, that is until they would come running through the doors, and I wouldn’t have a break from them until it was time for bed, which included a bedtime story, kisses on Alexis’ cheek and Cody’s forehead, saying my usual “I love you”, and closing the door—not all the way—and then hoping Alexis actually sleeps through the night.

  In anticipation of their famished return from their activities, I began setting the dining room table, a b
eautiful handcrafted antique brown with white straight-back chairs. It was a family heirloom bequeathed to me from my great-grandmother. Alexis’ plate was set on the table in front of the chair next to mine. Cody would be eating in his usual position, at the head of the table, where his father used to sit. Gage hadn’t sat there in seven years. Cody had taken the conversation he’d had with his father literally.

  Gage had sat on the bed next to Cody with his right arm around him. I stood in the doorway with my arms folded across my chest, my head tilted back, trying to fight tears. I hadn’t prepared Cody for the conversation I told him to expect with his father. The man he once had face to face conversations with about basketball, or sat on the couch all day Sunday and Monday nights watching football was now visited every other weekend, or showed up at soccer games just in time to see Cody score a goal. I never thought I’d ever raise children as a single mother, but there my ex-husband was, carefully executing prepared goodbyes.

  “You’re the man of the house now,” Gage said.

  That was a hell of a responsibility to bestow upon your seven-year-old son. Gage wasn’t dying, and he wasn’t being sent to war. He was divorcing his family. That wasn’t an honorable deed in my book. Cody had done a great job with this lofty expectation. He honored his mother and his sister, which was more than I could say for that man he still called daddy.

  I stood in the kitchen, leaning over the counter, after pouring a glass of Merlot, nothing special, just something I kept in the fridge for quiet nights like this. For lack of a better word, I was enjoying the calm before the inevitable storm that was my two beauties returning home.

  When the doorbell rang, I walked to the door, finishing my glass of wine, placing the empty glass on the table that sat in the center of the foyer.