“I do feel sorry for him, but I can’t help thinking that what goes around comes around. So where are Zack and the girl, Bev?”
“I think they’re out on the patio. John asked everyone who wants to smoke to go out there. He’s afraid someone might burn a hole in our brand new furniture. Besides, that hussy is probably too ashamed to show her face inside, as well she should be.”
“Thanks.” Vivian concluded that the woman must smoke; Zack didn’t. All she could do was wait for them to come back in. She wasn’t about to go out there looking for him. She hadn’t seen or heard from Zack since he’d left her apartment over a week ago, and she was still smarting from the way he’d left the money for her. It seemed so cold and impersonal. She hadn’t done anything for him that warranted him giving her a hundred-and-fifty dollars. The money was still sitting in the envelope inside her armoire. If she’d known he would be at this party she would have brought it so she could return it to him.
She was asked to dance and promptly got caught up in the music. She’d forgotten how good it felt to dance. Next time she had the blues she would put on some music and dance up a storm in the privacy of her living room.
When the song ended she and her partner thanked each other, and, feeling a tap on her shoulder, turned and saw Zack. “Hi! Hey, are you following me?” The lightheartedness of her tone surprised her.
“I thought that was you. And I’m not following you, not that that’s a bad idea.” He looked around. “Are you with someone?”
“No, but I hear you are.” She regretted the words as soon as they were out. Zack blinked, and his eye color appeared to darken, like he’d been wounded. It was her own hurt feelings that had made her lash out. She was the one he should have asked to be his date, not some other woman. He was acting as if nothing had ever happened between them, as if they’d never shared any good times at her apartment over those five days…as if he’d never kissed her.
“I’m not staying. I just apologized to Gordon.”
“The way I heard the story it wasn’t really your fault.”
“No, it wasn’t. When I invited Sherry to this party she didn’t mention she was going to cancel the plans she’d already made. I felt bad for him, and I wanted to tell him I was sorry. Sherry was someone he obviously thought highly of.”
The sincerity in both his expression and his voice reminded her of that night in the ER when he was treating the little girl whose face had been cut. She’d learned from Beverly that Zack served as a Big Brother, another indication of his sensitivity. Still, his thoughtfulness stung her ego. He seemed to be so considerate of everyone else’s feelings but hers. Didn’t he consider her worthy of dating? Did he really believe she would bring him bad luck? What about the kisses they shared at her apartment? Surely he had derived as much pleasure from them as she had. But instead he left her home without even asking her for her phone number, leaving money in an envelope, like theirs was a business relationship, and of an unsavory nature at that. She wished she could just come out and ask him just how he regarded her.
She forced her curiosity about that aside in favor of being inquisitive about another issue. “How did he react?”
“He was a gentleman, and he appreciated my being a gentleman. I think it’s safe to say that Sherry no longer ranks as a possible date for either of us. But because he really cared about her, giving her up will be a lot harder for him than it will be for me.”
“Well, I’m sure you won’t have to make too much effort to find another date. There are plenty of possibilities right in this room.” She met his gaze squarely in a silent dare for him to get the point.
He stared at her wordlessly, his gaze locking with hers. He opened his mouth to say something, but in an instant what he had been about to express was lost.
“There you are. I thought you’d forgotten about me, Zack.”
Vivian watched as a woman slipped her arm through his. She was petite, her shapely figure shown to its fullest advantage in a clingy shell with matching cardigan, and short, tight skirt. It had to be the notorious Sherry. A closer look revealed this was the same woman who had intercepted Zack as they left the dance floor at the NBP Valentine’s dance, the one who’d been wearing that ridiculous dress with the zigzag hemline and one shoulder out. From the cozy way she was smiling at Zack, Vivian guessed he hadn’t yet told her she had lost her position on his personal hit parade.
“I think it’s time for us to be leaving,” Zack said without emotion.
Sherry gave Vivian one of those triumphant smiles that said keep away, he’s taken, and dragged Zack away. Vivian pretended not to see. If there was anything she disliked more than people who took two parking spaces to protect vehicles that were already covered with dents and scratches, it was a possessive female.
She almost laughed aloud when she saw Zack yank his hand away.
*****
Zack couldn’t get Sherry home to the Bronx quickly enough. He saw her to her apartment door, his tight-lipped demeanor leaving no doubts about his anger. Despite this, she had the gall to invite him in, her body pressed against his and arms around his neck extending an invitation she didn’t need to put into words. But he couldn’t stand conniving females. What would have been a pleasant evening was in ruins because of her dishonesty.
As he drove home to Harlem he thought of Vivian’s comment about possible dates amongst the females at the party. He knew the unspoken message—that the best possible choice was standing before him. He had been about to take her up on her challenge when Sherry appeared.
The truth was that he’d thought about her ever since he left her apartment last Friday. The time spent with her there had forced him to think deeply about his attitudes. He had never lacked for feminine attention, not even during his childhood. He definitely got noticed, if for all the wrong reasons. But those same girls who teased him about his unusual coloring in the schoolyard managed to fall into step beside him when classes let out. The behavior became more aggressive in higher education, and in nearly twenty years of dating he learned quite a bit about the female species, what so many of them wanted in a man. He was attentive, charming, witty, and truly cared about what was important in their lives, but few had made a real impact on him or stayed on his mind when an evening ended, which, more often than not, was the next morning.
There had only been two involvements that had become serious. One had fallen apart during medical school, the other during residency. Preparation for careers in medicine, as well as the early years of work, didn’t mix well with relationships. All the men he knew who had married while in med school were now divorced, and some were on the second, and hopefully last marital go-round.
Then there was the dollar-sign factor, as he had dubbed the reaction he sometimes got from women who learned about his initials—the MD, not the ZW—and immediately became caught up in the idea of what that would mean for them. If real life was a cartoon, these material mongers would blink, during which time their irises and pupils would be replaced by dollar signs that went ka-ching, ka-ching as they imagined the lives of luxury that awaited them if they could snare him. At first he’d found it amusing—he was an ER doctor, not a neurosurgeon—but as time went on he saw it for the insult it was and avoided any woman whose eyes gave that telltale look.
He had been a carefree bachelor for a good number of years now, but he was in no hurry to settle down and get married. He missed Austin, of course, since his move out West, but he’d known his friend had been searching for his Ms. Right for a long time. Unlike himself, Austin had always pretty much been a one-man woman, to the point of dating one woman exclusively for over a year, which had given her the mistaken impression that they were moving toward something more permanent. He could still hear Austin’s bewilderment before he’d broken it off with her. “I never told her I loved her,” he’d said. “How could she think we were serious?”
Zack had explained to him that simply not professing love wasn’t enough to prevent a woman from get
ting the wrong idea. As weeks turned into months of steady companionship, a woman was going to think they were headed for the altar, no matter how slow the journey. “That’s why I go out with so many different women. I’d rather humble myself by calling after two or three months and learning they’re seeing someone steadily than see them over two consecutive weekends and let them think they’ve hit pay dirt.” On those occasions when he’d been told that the object of his desire was now in an exclusive relationship with someone else, he felt no embarrassment; he just wished her sincere happiness and moved on to the next phone number. There were no bad feelings, and actually he was frequently a guest at the nuptials of former flames.
He had his routine down pat, but he didn’t quite know what to do with Vivian. She hadn’t seemed particularly impressed with either his looks or his medical degree when they first met, and he liked that. Of course, he told himself it probably had something to do with the unusual circumstances. He’d met women in all kinds of situations and conditions—one time a minor traffic accident had led to a memorable, but brief, fling—but never one who had come into the ER accompanying a date. Her thoughts that day appeared to have been with that dude she was with who’d ripped his hand open on a metal hook, Gary, if he remembered correctly. He still remembered the relief he felt when he learned they weren’t a couple but had just met, but when he couldn’t think of a way to approach her he forced himself to forget about her, telling himself he’d never see her again.
He had considered meeting up with her again on the NBP ski trip a marvelous stroke of good luck, but he had blown it by suggesting she was a jinx when the guy she was skiing with hurt his ankle. The closest he’d gotten to asking her out was at the Valentine’s dance. The only thing that stopped him was the attention she was getting from Bernard, but when he held her that night as they slow danced he experienced a unique blend of excitement and contentment that he had never had before. He experienced it again while spending those five days at her apartment. The time they spent together talking over dinner and as they competed at computer games ranked among his more special memories of recent months…and kissing her was even higher on the list.
He’d thought about taking her out for dinner that last night instead of cooking at home—there were plenty of casual-but-nice restaurants that wouldn’t object to the jeans that were the only form of trousers he had with him—but he was afraid of breaking the magic they had inside her apartment. He believed in the old proverb, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ and besides, he’d already made more mistakes than he should have with her, and he was determined not to make any more. He hadn’t even taken her home phone number. He did have her work number, and he’d use it…eventually. They’d both be busy with preparations for their respective safari vacations, just six weeks away, and after they returned it would be time to coordinate their travel arrangements for flying out to Colorado together. That was when he’d call her. He had big plans for that trip as far as Vivian was concerned. He planned to convince her he wanted her and to give him a chance to be the man in her life.
Sure, six weeks was a long time to wait to see Vivian again, but he didn’t want to risk antagonizing her again. This was long enough to let the bad feelings settle, making the situation ripe for him to sweep her off her feet.
And if he felt he absolutely, positively had to see her, he did know where she lived…
Chapter 15
Grazing in the Grass
Vivian was captivated by the family of elephants walking the plain just yards away from their vehicle, two small ones led by a huge one she assumed was their mother. She was awed by the size of the adult animal. Her ears alone were a good four feet wide. The guide was explaining that young elephants often stay with their mothers for as long as ten years. She’d never thought of animals as having families or staying together like humans, at least beyond infancy. She noted it was a single parent family. Had daddy elephant gone after a younger model? How would one elephant even know another elephant’s age?
The elephants plodded on, and it soon became apparent that the family was headed toward a nearby stream. The driver stopped to allow the safari participants to watch the family go into the water and dip their trunks to drink.
“Look, Viv. Giraffes!”
At the sound of Lauren’s voice she turned her attention to the windows on the right side of the minibus. Their party of eighteen plus guides rode in three vehicles, in which every passenger had a window seat. Two giraffes, their caramel-colored hides decorated by white mosaic designs, nearly blended into the bush. They were breathtakingly beautiful, managing to look almost graceful with their incredibly long necks.
She was five days into what was turning out to be the trip of her dreams, and this was the first day they were actually viewing game. It had taken the better part of twenty-four hours just to get to Nairobi—an overnight flight to London, followed by a connection to Kenya the following day. When their party arrived at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi that night they were brought to their resort hotel, where they spent a restful evening after the long trip, followed by a day of leisure and partaking in the activities their accommodations offered: Swimming, tennis, and squash. Vivian had allowed Lauren, a regular golfer, to get her on the course for nine holes. It had taken another day to reach the Samburu National Reserve, the site of their first tented camp, driving over abysmal roads. The distance the Americans in the group had traveled was staggering; they had gone nearly halfway around the world.
She and Lauren had opted to rough it on a tented safari rather than one where nights were spent at lodges. The sight of tents that had been erected by the safari staff, who had arrived well before the rest of the group to set up camp, came as somewhat of a shock to their systems after the luxury of the hotel that had hosted them their first two nights on the continent, but at least the tents were insect-proof, with comfortable cots; and a separate tent with a shower and toilet was just steps away.
And the food was incredible. Their dinner last night, served in a long three-sided tent, had rivaled what she’d had in fine restaurants stateside. The meat was tender, the vegetables crisp, and the potatoes had melted in her mouth. She could hardly believe it all had been prepared outdoors in the heart of the bush. “These people would probably be miserable if they had to work in the confines of a kitchen,” Lauren had whispered. The setting was as elegant as the food was delicious; tablecloths, china, candles on the table—Vivian suspected they were citronella, to deter insects—and the maitre d’ hovering nearby only added to the ambience.
They returned to the camp for a buffet-style lunch before taking another game drive in the afternoon. There were no real roads to speak of. They drove over the earth, and acceleration of the minibus made the dust fly. Each dual-occupancy tent had accompanying facilities, and everyone was anxious to clean up and perhaps rest a bit before dinner. They had been driving most of the day in search of big game, and no one really realized how tiring it was until it was over. Vivian also wanted to see the sunset, which had dazzled her the night before.
Freshly showered and changed, she stood staring at the rapidly darkening horizon, the sun a blazing orange ball so low she knew it would soon disappear completely, and the sky varying shades of purple. The silvery clouds were partially blocked by the tremendous lone flat-topped thorn tree in the foreground, its trunk gnarled and its wide branches proudly proclaiming it as master of all it surveyed. She snapped pictures, grateful that she could preserve the image of the awesome tableau.
“It’s got to be the most beautiful sight on earth,” Lauren said solemnly.
“This is wonderful, isn’t it?”
“It’s everything I dreamed it would be, and more. The guide was saying how lucky we were to have seen so many animals. The tour service couldn’t guarantee we’d see any, and we saw elephants, giraffes, a zebra, and a leopard. Or at least a leopard’s tail hanging from a tree.”
Vivian laughed. “And did you see how quick Ken and George
got out of the pop top when they saw that tail?”
“I would have gotten out of there, too. It looked like it was sleeping, but you never know when it might wake up and jump down on them. But it was kind of funny, the way the two of them were knocking each other over to get back inside.”
Vivian was delighted to see that there was another campfire set up after dinner. Last night all eighteen participants had sat in comfortable canvas director’s chairs arranged in a circle around the yellow-orange fire, sipping coffee and drinks and enjoying the warmth the crackling flames provided in addition to the jackets or sweaters they all wore to ward off the cool weather that came with sundown.
Tonight they again gathered around the fire, and she learned this was a safari tradition. Low square tables covered with dark green tablecloths held drink glasses, coffee cups, and ashtrays. Most of the group came from the US, Britain, and Germany. There were three married couples, a father and son, a grandmother and teenage granddaughter, and eight singles: Vivian, Lauren, and six men. The group’s ages ranged from fifteen to sixty-four. Vivian was the only brown face among them, but she wasn’t surprised. She knew many African-Americans went to the culture-rich countries of West Africa, and if she hadn’t always dreamed of going on safari she probably would have been one of them.
The following days were a happy mix of game-viewing days at two additional national parks and cool nights around a fire. Their last day in camp coincided with Vivian’s thirty-fifth birthday, and the vanilla-frosted birthday cake she was presented with that night after dinner came as a pleasant surprise. “How did you know it was my birthday?” she asked the white-clad chef after she blew out the seven candles.
“Miss Lauren told us.”
She smiled at her friend. “I should have known. But now I’m kind of glad she did.”
Six of their group had purchased the Kenya Coast Option, which consisted of three nights and two days in the beach town of Diani. Vivian marveled at the bright blue water of the Indian Ocean. At the edge of the beach, a concrete staircase led to the pool of their hotel. Large, square portions of the concrete had been dyed pastel colors, and the aqua water of the lagoon-shaped pool glistened in the ever-present sunlight, with shade available for those who preferred it, courtesy of a generous number of palm trees at the edge of the concrete.
Accidentally Yours Page 19