Her Perfect Candidate

by Candace Shaw

  Just then Tiffani made another announcement that lunch was ready and for the children to walk over to the round tables where Tiffani, her mother and Jade had prepared lunch.

  “You know, Tiffani is so organized,” Megan said as she watched her friend tell the children where she wanted them to sit. Jade walked around in her high-heeled sandals pouring fruit punch, looking completely out of place and uncomfortable.

  “I hope she decides to go back to work now that KJ is going to kindergarten in the fall,” Sydney said. “She never wanted to place him in day care, but I know she’s running low on the insurance money now.”

  “Yes, I know. There are some openings at Mom’s school in the fall, and Dad wrote a recommendation letter for her, as well.”

  “That’s good to know. Then KJ could possibly just go to work with her and save on day care.”

  “Yep. Just like we did when were growing up.”

  Sydney laughed. “And we hated every minute of it. I’m going to help Jade. She looks so uncomfortable with the children.” Sydney said leaving Megan and Steven alone.

  Steven leaned against the table and folded his arms across his chest. “You know I went to school with my mother, as well. I enjoyed it. Bryce and Jacqueline not so much. They stayed in trouble.”

  “Ha. Sounds just like Syd and Braxton. We went to elementary school with my mother and middle school with my dad. He was the assistant principal at the time.”

  “Jeez. I guess you couldn’t wait until high school where you would be free from your parents,” Steven said.

  “No. My dad’s brother, Tiffani’s father, was the principal,” Megan answered, thinking back to the times when she and Syd were in high school.

  “I guess you and Syd had to be on your best behavior all the time,” Steven said.

  “Please! She stayed in trouble. My dad caught her smoking in the girl’s bathroom in eighth grade. He suspended his own child for three days. My mother was livid at him for a week!”

  “He suspended his own child? I don’t want to meet him! He sounds pretty tough,” Steven balked.

  “Yes and no. I’m a daddy’s girl whereas Syd is a mommy’s girl. She said Syd was probably forced to smoke the cigarette. But the truth is she was the one teaching the other girls. Mommy was mad for weeks,” Megan remembered. “Are you ready to go eat? Tiffani is serving hamburgers and chicken tenders for the children, but steaks and salmon for the adults. Syd grills the best salmon,” Megan boasted about her sister as she grabbed his hand and walked toward the food area set up for the adults. They ate their lunch at the adult-only table. KJ’s older cousins were put in charge of the children so the adults could take a break.

  After lunch, the children were entertained again with more balloon animals, face painting and swimming. Five of the boys were spending the night, but Tiffani’s father was in charge of that. Tiffani had worked hard all week to prepare for the party, and was going to relax for the rest of the evening. Megan and Steven said their goodbyes to everyone after they helped clean up.

  “So did you have a nice time?” Megan asked as they were leaving the party.

  “I did. Your friends are really nice,” Steven said, looking through her CD case.

  “You want the top down?” she asked.

  “Sure, why not,” Steven said, leaning back in his seat and dozing off as the sounds of Corrine Bailey Rae filled the car.

  Megan looked over at him as he slept. Even in his sleep he was handsome. She kept thinking about what Syd said. Megan thought they made a nice couple as well, but she knew it was all business. She wasn’t one of the fabulous glamour girls he was used to dating. Even though Chelsea had tried to give Megan a new image, she still felt like the same old down-to-earth Megan. She didn’t know how she would even fit into his world.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” Megan said softly to him as they pulled into her parking garage.

  Steven slowly opened his eyes and turned his head toward her. “Man, I was tired. I guess it has been a long week,” Steven said as he stretched his arms and yawned.

  “Yes, you were knocked out snoring over there,” she teased.

  “Snoring? I know I wasn’t snoring.”

  “No, I’m just teasing. Although you were sleeping quite soundly. Perhaps you should go home and get some rest tonight instead of working,” Megan suggested.

  “As good as that sounds, I have some work to catch up on. I really enjoyed the party though. It was a way to leave my reality at least for a little bit. Thank you for inviting me,” Steven said, getting out of the car.

  “You want to come up for some coffee? I just bought some Mexican organic coffee I’ve been wanting to try. It will wake you right up!” Megan asked, not believing that she just asked him to come in for coffee. Men usually thought that was actually an invitation for sex.

  “Yeah. That sounds great,” Steven said.

  When they were settled into the loft, Megan told Steven to make himself comfortable on the couch while she prepared the coffee.

  “Nice place. You have it decorated beautifully. It’s classy and elegant. Reminds me of you.”

  “Thank you. I like to come home to calm surroundings unlike all of the outrageous things my client’s request. I just like to have things around me that mean something to me such as my grandmother’s grandfather clock or my lamp I made out of sea shells I found on Pensacola Beach.” She sat the coffee in front of him on the table and returned to the kitchen.

  “It’s very eclectic.”

  “Do you need cream or milk? Megan asked, taking both out of the refrigerator.

  “Neither. I like my coffee black and just a little sugar. Anything else and the coffee loses its flavor,” Steven answered, blowing the hot coffee.

  “I see. Well, I like mine extra sweet with milk. I guess I will try your way eventually,” she considered as she poured the milk into her coffee.

  “This is delicious. I’m not really a coffee drinker. Only when I need a boost,” Steven said.

  “Well, I love coffee. I could drink it all day. Actually, sometimes I have, which explains why I’m up all night. Maybe I’m not a night person after all,” Megan pondered.

  “Yeah, maybe you just drink too much coffee,” he said laughing.

  “Well, it’s hard to give a good thing up,” she said.

  “I’m beginning to believe that. So maybe you should drink decaf,” Steven suggested.

  “I’m supposed to. After my surgery a few years ago, I tried giving up caffeine,” she said, sitting in the chair opposite him.

  “What kind of surgery?”

  “Nothing major. I had a benign lump in my breast. The surgeon suggested that I stop my caffeine intake. I did some research on it and a found some articles that agreed with his statement while other research stated it didn’t matter. However, at that time I trusted him so of course I stopped drinking coffee with caffeine. Plus, my cousin Bria, who is an allergist, suggested I cut down on my caffeine intake. Only recently did I start again,” Megan said as she glanced around the loft for a sign of Percy. She got up and looked under her bed. Sure enough Percy was laying down peeking out from under the dust ruffle.

  “Do you like cats?” she asked, carrying the cat into the living area.

  “I don’t like or dislike them. I prefer dogs though. You can’t play catch or go running with a cat, and they’re too self-absorbed,” he answered, rubbing the cat’s head. Percy jumped down from Megan’s hold and ran back into her room.

  “Well, at least he let you pet him,” Megan said, settling back in her chair.

  “What made you get a cat?”

  “It wasn’t intentional. I found him as a kitten in the dumpster behind my office a few years ago. Jade and I heard this crying meow, so we got him out. Luckily, he’d managed to climb onto a bag, but he was very weak. I
took him to a vet. Percy was dehydrated and very hungry, but he bounced back in a couple of weeks. I took him in only to find him a home, but grew attached, so I kept him. My ex was being a complete jerk around that time and Percy was a nice comfort.”

  “Megan, what happened between you and Alfonso, if you don’t mind me asking you?” Steven curiously began. “I can’t figure out why a man would let you go.”

  “Well, I don’t know exactly. It’s kind of hard to answer that question. I thought I was doing everything he wanted me to do. I was supportive and caring. His parents and friends loved me as well as my family and friends loved him except for my dad, that is,” Megan began.

  Steven walked over to the stainless steel coffeepot and helped himself to more coffee and then with a smirk on his face said, “Your dad isn’t going to like anyone you bring home no matter what he does or how nice he is to you. That’s how fathers are about their precious little girls, you know.”

  “You’re going to be up all night if you have a second cup of that coffee. I told you it’s very strong,” Megan said, shaking her head. Men never seemed to listen, she thought.

  “I’ll be up late working. Now, finish telling me about Mr., I mean excuse me, Dr. Alfonso,” Steven corrected sarcastically, settling on the floor beside the unlit fireplace and grabbing some oatmeal cookies Megan had placed on the coffee table.

  “Well, everything was fine until right before Christmas the year before last. We started spending less time together. We were always together. Even when he was busy with his work, he would try to make time for me. He is a very popular surgeon here in Atlanta with a lot of patients. A lot of women would refer their friends because they thought he was handsome. So he had plenty of female patients, but that never bothered me. Anyway, around Christmas time we scheduled a trip to go to the Bahamas for a week and to return on Christmas Eve so we could spend Christmas with our families. Well, he had an emergency surgery to perform right before we left, and I went alone. He flew down two days later to meet me there, with a tan by the way. Now, explain to me how he got a tan in Atlanta during the winter time? The man was always bundled up! He hates being cold. Well, two days before we were scheduled to leave, he got an emergency phone call and he flew back to the States to perform yet another emergency surgery. And being little naive me, I believed him. I mean things do come up with his patients all of the time. However, when Alfonso is on vacation Dr. Bobb always covers for him if necessary, and he covers for her,” Megan said and then paused.

  “So, when did you finally realize that he was probably in the Bahamas the whole time with another woman?”

  “Well, when I returned back to the States, of course he was the first person I called. My car was at the airport. I called him to see if I could come straight to his house, but he didn’t answer the phone. So I drove to his house anyway because, well, I did have a key. However, my key was to the front door only. When I pulled up, I remembered that Jade and I had his double doors changed out, and I didn’t have the new key. I rang the doorbell and called his phone again. I could hear the phone ringing from inside of the house, but still no answer. I left a note on his door and a voice mail that I was back from the Bahamas,” Megan said tired of going over this story again with someone. At least this time she wasn’t crying like the time she told Tiffani and Jade.

  “So what happened next?”

  “Well, the next day he came over about 8:00 in the morning with breakfast and a present. He said he had been out with Curtis who is his best friend and didn’t get my note until he returned home at 4:00 a.m. I later found out that Curtis and his family were in Denver, Colorado on a ski trip. He did see Curtis that night, but only to drive him to the airport.”

  “Interesting,” Steven said, stretching out on the floor.

  “Yes, very interesting considering whenever Al went out with his friends, he always called me no matter what time of night to come over or sometimes he just showed up at my door. Well, like I said, I was still being Ms. Naive, and I believed him except that his tan was much darker than it was when he left me in the Bahamas. But I didn’t question him. We exchanged gifts and had breakfast. I thought surely we were going to make love afterward considering one of the gifts I gave him was a purple sheer nightgown with matching lace panties. Usually, if I gave him a gift like lingerie that meant I was definitely in the mood, but he said let’s save it for later. That man had never turned down sex!”

  “Megan, I don’t know a man that would unless he was on his death bed and even then he would probably ask for a Lewinsky or something,” Steven said sarcastically.

  Megan laughed at Steven’s comment as she walked to the kitchen to pour the rest of the coffee into her mug and turned off the coffeemaker.

  “That coffee is going to keep you up all night, Miss Lady,” Steven said, teasing her.

  “Yes, I know, but that’s fine. I have a lot of work to do, as well. I have some drapes to make. But let me finish telling you about Dr. Alfonso. So anyway, a few days went by before I saw him again. We were having lunch at his house, mostly leftover Christmas dinner from my parents’ dinner party. I was opening the refrigerator to take out some juice when I noticed a brochure about a medical convention in Chicago on the refrigerator. I asked him about it and he casually said it was in a few months. So I said cool. Just let me know the details so I can rearrange my schedule. Whenever he attended a medical conference I always went. He never had to ask me, it was always understood that I would go because he wanted me to go with him. Well, at first he was silent and then he said that I didn’t have to go because it was in March and I was always busy in March with decorating homes for the spring. I still insisted, and he said don’t worry about it and quickly changed the subject. Then the doorbell rang.”

  “It was the girl he was seeing behind your back?” Steven asked, sitting all the way up.

  “No, it was Dr. Bobb and her husband. She said they were in the neighborhood and they wanted to drop off Alfonso’s gift. Well, he didn’t look happy to see them at all and tried to rush them out. I gave Dr. Bobb and her husband a hug and told them to come and sit down in the living room. Alfonso had gotten a call on his cell and went to another room to take it. I asked the Bobbs about their Christmas trip and she said they didn’t go anywhere for Christmas. But that they were going to Memphis for New Year’s Eve to visit her husband’s family and wanted to make sure that Alfonso could return the favor since she was on call for him while he was in the Bahamas. I decided not to mention that he flew to the Bahamas later because of an emergency surgery because obviously, by the way the pieces of the puzzle were fitting together, there wasn’t an emergency of any kind. So I simply said we had a lovely time. They left a few minutes later to finish delivering other Christmas gifts,” Megan said, taking a break from her long story.

  She was trying to shorten it, but she felt that certain details were important. But she remembered a man’s attention span wasn’t that long, especially when Steven said, “Okay, so when did you confront the pig?”

  “I’m getting to that. So later on that evening we were in his study. He was writing out some bills, and I was pretending to proofread a medical article he wrote. I decided to ask him about the medical convention again in Chicago. He said don’t worry about it and that he wasn’t sure if he was going to go or not anyway. I knew something wasn’t right. I stood up and decided it was time for me to leave. In doing so, I straightened up the pillows on his couch. And that is when I found my evidence.”

  “What? What did you find? An earring that wasn’t yours?” Steven questioned sitting up from his comfortable position by the fireplace.

  “No, worse. A pair of red panties that weren’t mine!”

  “Damn! You know that girl left them there on purpose for you to find. If it was earrings he could’ve lied and said they were his mother’s or something like that,” Steven said. “Not that I would know,” he added s
heepishly with shrug.

  “Ha. Yeah, right. Anyway, he was stunned to see them and claimed that they must be mine, but I wear a small and those panties looked a lot larger. Plus, I don’t own anything red and he knows that. Anyway, he decided to tell me the truth about him and his nurse, Shelia. I had a feeling it was her. She was always trying to be overly nice to me when I stopped by the office to visit him. After an hour of arguing, I walked out thus ending our four year relationship.”

  “So, he didn’t try to stop you or beg for your forgiveness?”

  “No. He was relieved. In fact, he wanted to end our relationship anyway to be with her, and they’re still together now. She lives in his home that Jade and I decorated for him before the breakup. But I’ve moved on. Alfonso leaving me just left the door open for the right man to come into my life,” Megan answered, taking their empty mugs back into the kitchen.

  “I’m so sorry to hear all of this. What a fool he is. You’re a very special lady, Megan. I’m sure the right man will come along if you just let him,” Steven responded, walking to the kitchen behind her.

  “Yes, I know,” Megan said, loading the dishwasher and trying to hide her face. She knew if he looked at her now, her facial expression would give away her true feelings for him. She was ready for him to leave so she could be alone with her thoughts.

  “Do you need some help? I did drink all of your coffee and eat all of your cookies. The least I can do is clean your kitchen,” Steven offered, taking one of the dish towels and wiping down the counter.

  “No, Steven. It’s getting late. I have bored you enough tonight.”

  “Are you kicking me out?”

  “Yes. If you’re going to be our next U.S. senator you need to go home and work on your campaign,” Megan said, not really wanting him to go. Although, she felt that they were getting too close again, which was something she didn’t want to do. Plus, when he mentioned eating all of her cookies, she had a different type of visual.