by Unknown
“Perfect! Then again, I could be a serial killer or something who just lied and said he wasn’t so you would go with him.”
“Don’t worry; I’m not packing pancakes in my purse,” I say with a wink.
“Good comeback,” he says with a grin as we walk toward the door.
Chapter Ten
“It’s beautiful out here tonight. You can see the stars,” Michael says as we step outside and begin making our way toward the diner.
“You can,” I say, looking up for a second. “I can’t believe how warm it still is this late in the evening.”
“You looked deep in thought a minute ago. Are you still wondering if I’m a serial killer?”
“Maybe.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Did you come to Marco’s for someone else tonight?”
I look over at him. “That’s a funny question to ask.”
“I only asked because I saw you when you walked in, and for a while there it looked as if your eyes were fixed on some fellow snuggled up to another woman.”
Girl, you’re busted.
“So, you were checking me out before you came over to say hello?”
“You say that like you’re surprised. I’m sure I’m not the only one who was. I was just probably the first one to act on it.”
“I doubt that.”
He grabs my hand. “I don’t. You’re beautiful.”
There’s a cat just ahead of us trying to cross the street, and I jump at the chance to use it to break up the heaviness of the moment. “I hope that poor thing doesn’t get hit,” I say as I slide my hand away.
“So, are you going to answer my question from earlier?” he asks.
“I heard him perform before and when he came down off the stage, I thought—”
“That you two had made a connection?”
“Yeah, something like that. Tonight proved that foolishness wrong, though.”
“Thankfully.”
I glance over at him, surprised by how direct his response was.
“What? I’m just honest.” He stops and takes my hand in his again. “Don’t pull away, okay?”
My heart thumps at the intimacy. “Okay,” I whisper as we begin walking again.
“The truth is, I almost didn’t come tonight, but my friend insisted that I get out more. He claims that all I do is work.”
The warmth of his hand begins to sink into my skin, and I feel myself relax. “Is he right?” I ask.
“He is, but I’m glad he made me go out tonight.”
“Why didn’t he come with you?”
“He was going to until his wife went into labor.”
“Good excuse.”
“I know, right? I told him the same thing.”
“What kind of work do you do?” I ask as the diner comes into view.
“I’m an attorney.” I feel a spark of nervousness shoot down my spine, but he gives my hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m kidding. I’m far from an attorney. I’m a real estate agent—nothing fancy.”
“Do you like doing that?” I ask, feeling my shoulders relax.
“It keeps me busy and pays the bills.”
“I can relate to that, except waitressing barely pays mine.”
“You ever thought about doing something else? Something you’re passionate about?”
“I’ve been giving that question a lot of thought lately,” I say.
“And what did you come up with?”
“It’s still a work in progress. What about you? I take it selling homes is not your passion.”
“True. It’s something I’m good at, but my real passion is photography. There’s something special about seeing the world through the lens of a camera.”
“Like what? What do you see?”
“I don’t know—different things. I see the world’s imperfections. I see its beauty, its innocence. Capturing those imperfections and that innocence over the years is what has helped me get through lonely nights.”
I give him the side-eye, not really believing those nights have all been so lonely.
“I swear. I haven’t dated anyone in years. Not seriously, at least.”
As we walk, I admire his broad shoulders, the way his jawline moves in a romantic harmony of ease and confidence when he talks, and his bald head. He’s slightly taller than I am—around six feet, I suppose. I glance down at his shoes. Hard bottom. Jack always said a real man wears hard-bottom shoes.
“I would love to see your photos sometime.”
“Really? You don’t have to say that.”
“I mean it.”
“Then I would love to show you some of my work one day. One day soon, I hope.”
“That would be nice,” I say. “Now, I’ve got a question to ask you.”
“Shoot.”
“How old are you?”
“Wow. I’m not quite sure where that came from, but I’m thirty. Do I look older or something?” he asks with a smirk.
“No. I was just curious.”
“Did you wish I was older? Because I can add a few years if you need me to.”
“No,” I say with a chuckle.
“Did you wish I was younger?”
“You’re funny.”
“I hope that’s a good thing,” he says, glancing across the street.
I follow his eyes. “You see something over there?”
“A bench. Look, I know I said I was hungry, but that seems like a pretty nice park over there and I feel like that bench is begging for us to join it. Do you mind if we take a detour?”
I glance around. “It’s getting late, and that park seems pretty vacant.”
He moves in front of me, and I feel like his eyes can see my heart pounding. “Please? We’re still out in public, just in case you’re still doubting my intentions,” he says with a playful laugh.
I grin back. “All right,” I say as he leads me across the street and toward a gently weathered bench.
“You look nervous.”
“I just haven’t done this before,” I say as I sit next to him on the bench with my hands folded in my lap, desperately trying to hide the trembling that’s quickly making its way up from my toes to the tips of my fingers.
“What, visit a park?”
I smile and give him a gentle punch on his shoulder.
He pretends like it hurt. “Man, I could get use to looking at that beautiful smile of yours.”
I look down at the ground. “You don’t know how beautiful you are, do you?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because every time I tell you the truth, you look down at the floor or the ground as if either of them is going to tell you something different.” He moves closer to me. “But the thing is, they see what I see—a beautiful woman that took me all night to walk over to and ask if I could buy her a drink.”
I hear Michael’s stomach growling, bringing some levity back into the moment as we both laugh. “Maybe we should go get you something to eat.”
He places his hands on his stomach. “That’s embarrassing, but I’ll be okay. This moment is more important to me than food. Tell me something about you. Are you a Georgia peach, as they say, or did you migrate here like most people do?”
I glance up at the sky, admiring the full moon. “I’m a Georgia peach. My mother and I lived in Marietta, but after she died when I was fourteen, I spent some time in Decatur. What about you? You don’t sound like you’re from here.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your mother. Did you stay with family after she died?”
“My mother was the only family that I had. I never knew my father. He died in a car accident the day I was born. I can’t even tell you what he looked like because my mother never kept a picture of h
im anywhere in our little two-bedroom apartment. I know because I checked.” I pause. “After she died, I lived on the street until I met this guy named Zee when I was eighteen. He was thirty-five.” I inhale and wait for him to jump up and make a mad dash back to his car.
“I understand now why you wanted to know how old I was. It all makes sense now. So, what happened to this thirty-five-year-old guy? You stated that you were single, so I take it he’s no longer in the picture.”
I exhale, relieved that Michael is still here. “Zee was killed.”
“I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Neither was I,” I say without looking over at him, afraid that if I did, I would see glimmers of fear upon his face in reaction to my revelation.
“You asked where I’m from. I was born in Chicago, but my mother moved my brother and me to Georgia when I was ten, after my father left us to play in some band. The day he walked out the door, he sat me down and told me that family life wasn’t for him and that he couldn’t put off his dreams any longer. I then had to translate that for my brother.”
“Wow.”
“That’s how I felt when those words dropped off his tongue so easily. It made me sick. My mother was strong. I never saw her shed a tear for him, but I’m sure when my brother and I weren’t around, she cried all the time. We weren’t poor, just broke. But like I said earlier, she was a waitress and worked herself to the bone to make sure we always had enough.” He leans back, and even in the moonlight, I can see the depth of the grief he’s trying to hide. “You know, when my brother died, I had just buried my mother a few months prior. I was just a twenty-one-year-old kid.”
I reach over and place my hand on top of his.
“The intense level of pain that I experienced during that time was something that I will never forget. After I got my real estate license, I threw myself into my work and traveled some when I could. I even tried to find him. My father, that is.”
“Did you?”
“I did. It wasn’t hard.”
“Was he still with a band?”
“That lousy joker had remarried, and his wife was pregnant with their third child.”
“Sounds like the both of us have had a rough life,” I say without removing my hand from his.
“Maybe that’s our connection,” he says as he raises my hand and places a kiss on it.
I feel my heart start thumping harder again.
“What do you mean?”
“Pain recognizes pain,” he says.
I stare at him, wondering whether I’d heard him right and unsure of how to navigate a moment like this.
“What, did I say something wrong?”
“No, it’s just that phrase. ‘Pain recognizes pain.’ It sounds like something I would say. It sounds like something I recently said.”
“Well then, we think a lot alike.” He gives my hand another gentle squeeze. “I haven’t talked to many people about my mother or my brother. My close friend, David, encouraged me to see a shrink.”
“Jack, my boss, tried to get me to do the same.”
He sits up a little straighter. “And how old is this boss?”
The nervousness on his face makes me chuckle. “Jack is sixty and has been happily married for over forty years. He’s more like a father to me than a boss.”
I see Michael relax. “Good to hear that. I already have enough competition for your heart.”
“There’s no competition.”
“Of course there is. I can tell I’m competing, I just don’t know who or what I’m competing against. But I promise you I’m ready to get in the fight. I think you’re worth it.”
I glance down at the ground again.
“Mýa,” he says, touching my cheek to get me to raise my eyes to him. “I meant what I said. I want to get to know you. Will you let me?”
“I’ll try.”
“That’s all a man can ask for.” His stomach begins to growl again, and I can’t help but laugh hysterically. “Now, this is really embarrassing.”
“Why don’t we just go over to the diner and get you something to eat?”
“I will if you promise me that you’ll go out with me tomorrow. We can go do something after you get off.”
“I’m off tomorrow. It’s my first Saturday off in two years.”
“Nice. So, while you’re sleeping in, I’ll be wrapping up a couple of closings, but I’d love to pick you up in the evening and take you skating.”
“Skating?”
“Don’t tell me that you’ve never been skating?”
“Okay, I won’t tell you that I’ve never been skating,” I say with a smile on my face.
He claps his hands together. “This is going to be fun. I can’t wait.”
“What, to see me fall?”
“Don’t worry; I’ll bring the Vaseline. That’s the perfect remedy for everything, especially falls. At least, my mother always thought so.”
I feel the trembling in my knees return. “My mother used to believe that same thing—that Vaseline was the cure for everything.”
The tips of his fingers are kind as he wipes away a few tears that fall down my face. “I’m glad to know that we both had the same crazy kind of mothers that loved us very much.”
Chapter Eleven
“You’re going out with a man tonight?” Jack had asked during our brief conversation earlier that next day, like he couldn’t believe the impossible was finally happening.
Truth be told, as Michael drives down West Ponce De Leon Avenue, I’m struggling to believe it myself.
Sitting in the passenger’s seat with the window down, my arm resting on the window ledge as I listen to Michael talk about his day and take in the smell of flowers blooming and freshly cut green grass, I find that my thoughts are all over the place. I can’t help but wonder if I’m feeling good because sitting here beside Michael is right, or if it just feels right because it’s the first time I’ve been out on a real date with someone Jack would call a man. A real man.
I can hear Jack now, telling me that Zee wasn’t a real man and that I should be enjoying this ride with one instead of analyzing my emotions. As Michael exits the expressway, I decide to heed Jack’s imaginary advice. I close my eyes and allow the rays of the sun to rejuvenate my thoughts by focusing on the present instead of the past.
“We’re almost there, just another five minutes or so,” Michael says as we stop for a red light. “This place may not look like much for the outside, but you’ll love it once we’re inside. I can’t believe you lived in Decatur and never ventured to this skating rink before. There ought to be a law against that.”
His enthusiasm is refreshing.
“Is that right? A law? So this place is that serious?” I ask with a hint of sarcasm.
“It’s practically historic, is all I’m saying. You’ll see.”
“Now I’m really looking forward to it. When I lived in Decatur, I never went anywhere. Unless you count the laundromat or the grocery store,” I say.
“That’s a shame. Decatur has a lot to offer. I don’t get over to this side of town as much as I would like. Midtown living keeps me in a nice little bubble. I mean, everything is right there, so I don’t have to go far.”
“It’s good that you have a car.”
“I see your point,” he says as we pull into a packed parking lot.
“It’s busy,” I say as we troll around for anything that resembles a parking spot.
“Back in the day, you’d have to park down the street and walk with your skates thrown over your shoulders. It’s good to see people still appreciate art.”
“Skating is art?” I ask as we finally find a spot not far from the actual building.
“Most definitely. Wait until you see what these ladies and gentlemen can do with a pair of skates. You’ll come away saying the sam
e. I promise,” he says as we sit in his black BMW, admiring the way the streetlights cast a glow on the place.
“It looks more like a movie theater than a skating rink,” I say.
“That’s because it used to be one. I think that’s why people love it. It has a much cooler vibe than other skating rinks.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that. How long has it been for you?” I ask.
He grins. “One thing I’ve noticed about you is that you have a way with questions. I think what you’re really asking me is how long has it been since I brought another woman here?”
I shrug my shoulders like I have no idea what he’s talking about as he steps out of the car and comes to open my door.
“I’ve never brought a woman here before. This place was strictly my brother’s and my spot. We used to take the bus to get here on Mondays because you could rent your skates for half off. My brother was deaf, but he could feel the music’s vibration in the floor. Watching him skate was amazing. You wouldn’t have known he was deaf,” he proudly says as I climb out of the passenger’s seat, feeling foolish for asking the question in the first place.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I asked that.”
“Sure you do. You want to be sure that I’m not playing games.” He stands in front of me, and I can feel the warmth of his presence on my skin. “I’m not. The moment I saw you yesterday, I knew what I wanted.”
I look into his eyes, and my knees begin to wobble again. “And what do you want?” I ask as he moves even closer to me.
He leans over and whispers in my ear, “I want you.”
I look down at the ground.
“There you go again.” He gives me a wink, grabs my hand, and then leads me to the back of his car. “I want to show you something before we go in,” he says, as he unlocks his trunk and pulls out a yellow envelope. “Here.”
“What’s inside?” I ask cautiously.
“Some of my work. My photography. You said that you wanted to see it last night, so I brought a few pictures for you to look at.”
I open the envelope and pull out a few photos. “These are breathtaking,” I say as I hold them carefully in my hands. “I love how you captured the light behind these children as they played with their pets at the park.”