New Life New Me: Urban Romance

by Christine Mandeley

Cynthia decided to take the lesser of two evils. She decided to go with the boys. She saw the possibilities of spending the evening alone expecting someone to come to be more traumatic than to listen to the boys bragging about the sizes of their guns. Besides, even if the brother would show up at her door, she would not know what to do with herself or even with him. Going along with the boys would give her a glimpse of the mind of a man. It would help her not to make the same mistake that she seemed to be doing over and over again. Drinks and pool, it was.

  The sister seemed to be out of place with a pair of spectacles and her afro pulled back at the pub. None the less, she did not seem to be bothered by it very much. All she did was listen to the conversations going on and she enjoyed watching the boys fight over who was going to pay for her drinks. The issue that had started during the tea break at work came up. The whole bar seemed to light up as more people joined in. From local working ladies to aging sailors, everybody had something to say about the subject matter. So in the end everybody was talking and it became harder for her to ask questions or give answers to anything that was being said. She decided that she was going to move away from the pool tables and go to the quieter place at the bar. A Latino guy from her workplace noticed that she was sitting along and decided to join her. His name was Alejandro.

  Cynthia and Alejandro spent the evening talking and laughing. When he offered to get her a refill she objected. That was also the time when she finally decided to let it all hang out about the night before. The two of them sitting at the bar had a really deep conversation about the attraction of boys to girls. Alejandro was a good listener and he was very patient. She suddenly felt comfortable enough to open up to him and tell him what had happened the previous night at her place with a friend. She was comfortable enough to even relate to him what had happened in her last town and why she had moved. By the time she got to the part of herself drowning in a pool of tears in front of the television, it all seemed to be a joke as they both laughed about it out loud. Their laughter may have been the reason why other colleagues from work came to join them and the matter of the drunken evening was discussed at length. The guys were of the opinion that her man must love her the way she is, tears and all. They even said that he had the duty to check on her to see if she was alright and that if he did not do that, he was not worth it.

  After an evening well spent with colleagues, it was finally time for her to go home and face her demons. She quickly tidied up her place and had a long bath thereafter. She did not really expect anyone and even if she heard the doorbell, she was really in no mood for company. Luckily for her, she did not get any. So she was well rested and refreshed. It was time to go to bed and get ready for the next day ahead.

  After not hearing from her male companion for a few days, she was finally convinced that he did not care as the boys had told her. She thought that what had happened on the evening on which they spent together, he had made up his mind about her and he did not want to see her again. In all that time, his apartment was never lit and she thought that he could be out of town or maybe he worked in the night. And then one afternoon upon returning to work, she caught a glimpse of a figure having a shower opposite her window. It was James. The brother was naked to the skin! The foam from the shower gel made a lather that seemed to hug his well-toned body. Cynthia was shaking. She had managed to get herself composed for over two weeks. She had even started to forget about him until she saw him in all his naked glory.

  She shut her eyes tight and opened them again. He was still there. Now he was rinsing off. Cynthia tried to avoid looking and walking away but her feet seemed to be glued on the floor on which she stood. She watched in awe as the water splashed against the perfect body of what looked like a chocolate statue. He was now done and the water stopped running. He was literally smoking hot as he went to get the towel and he did not even bother to cover his bits. As he disappeared into his room, the image refused to disappear from Cynthia’s mind. She had now moved from thinking about her embarrassing moments with him to actually thinking of moments with him.

  The only sense of shame she felt at that moment was that she was feeling weak. Her aim was not to ever show him that she felt anything for him but that was proving to get harder and harder. She tried to strengthen herself by convincing herself that he did not come over to visit anymore and that was a sure sign that he was not at all interested in her. She further cemented her ideas by once again running the talk past the boys when she got to work. They were all in agreement about the whole thing. She had a renewed goal and a ballooned sense of self-esteem as the boys had advised her to be. She tried to occupy her time and her mind by watching more movies in the evenings that she found herself alone at home. She thought she was doing fine and had in fact passed the hurdle until the day she ran onto him at the coffee shop in the morning.

  She saw him first and started to stare. All she could think about was how great he looked under the suit that he was wearing. She did not even realise that everybody was noticing the stare and so did James. There were murmurs at the café but she did not notice. A few older ladies teased James about the lady that was so interested in him but he tried to downplay it. After an awkwardly long time staring at him, she finally realized that he had seen her and that and she was caught! She quickly made her way towards the door and outside of the café. James pursued her but her steps were quick. In a short space of time she was lost in the small crowd of pedestrians all waiting for the light to go green so that they would cross to the other side. Cynthia did not stop walking until she got to work.

  At her desk her mind wondered off to a fairy Loveland where she could eat all that she want out of the chocolate statue that was James. She tried to stop herself a few times and recall her wondering mind whenever it got lost. The day kept advancing and she was looking forward to going out with the boys more than ever before. To her greatest disappointment, none of them wanted to go out because the month end was a long way off. So she took the dreaded walk towards her home and she made it as slow as she possibly could. Just when she had convinced herself that it was late and she was safe from him, there was a knock on the door. She so wished that he could just leave but he did not.

  The visitor was relentless. He would not leave. He kept knocking at her door and told her that he would not leave. "I saw you walking up here Cynthia, open-up", he said. She slowly stood up from the sofa and went to attend to the door. When she finally opened the door, the brother did not wait to get invited but let himself in. There was a moment of silent before James started to talk. He wanted to find out why he was being avoided but Cynthia was quick to defend herself by saying that he was the one who had not come to see if she was ok after the last time that they had been together.

  Although James had come with the intention of finding out the truth about why he was snubbed and possibly make peace, Cynthia was not prepared to listen to reason. She was stuck on the analysis that the guys at her workplace had given her about the possible reasons why the guy in her life did not show up at her door for weeks.

  The scene at Cynthia’s kitchen resembled a battlefield. Both of them were screaming at each other at the top of their voices. Some words were said and many of them were not really meant. A small crowd of tenants was starting to gather just outside her door to see if they could help out in what they believed to be a case of domestic violence. There was even a suggestion that the police are called to defuse the situation inside. Tenants were banging on the door to Cynthia’s apartment but she did not answer she continued to exchange verbal assaults with James. In the end, the genitor was called and he used his key to open the door. James was dragged out of the building and concerned tenants offered to stay with Cynthia for a while but she refused. She went into her bedroom and cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter

  Five

  Waking in the morning Cynthia decided to take her laundry for cleaning. In that way she could keep herself from thinking about the embarrassing scene that was at her
doorstep the previous night. Passing the security desk in the foyer, she wished that she could turn into thin air and just slip by without being noticed. It was not going to happen. She had to face the same people who had seen her in the previous evening in full flight. Regardless, she still had to pass through and so she decided that wearing a huge straw hat that ran down her chin would be the perfect camouflage and that it would shelter her. The feeling had reminded her of the day that she learnt for the first time about her fiancé’s infidelity. She had felt so embarrassed and wished that she could have had a whole in which to sink. She wished that the earth would simply open up and swallow her whole. She was once again alone and depressed. Just when she thought that she was on the right track back into the land of the living, she was dealt a major blow. It seemed to her that love indeed did not love her. What were the chances that one woman would suffer the same fate in love whether she was in a city inland or the city with the perfect views of the beach side? Now what would her former friends say to this had they the chance to see what has become of her?

  While she sat and watched her laundry spinning inside the big washing machine a stream of tears came running down her cheeks. She was not crying about what had happened in her flat the previous night, no! She was not crying for James, no. She was not just crying for one boy. She was crying for all the boys that had let her down in her life. She was crying for the boy in fifth grade that refused to sit next to her because she was a girl, but when that pretty Miss Katy came along he dashed to sit next to her. She was crying for that boy in high school whom she so loved and tried to make him aware of it but the stupid thing decided to pin the letter that she had written to him on the school notice board. She was crying for that other boy at high school whom, after asking her on a date over lunch, decided to take her best friend to the date instead while she was made to remain behind and stay guard for their school bags. She cried also for the boy who had taken her to prom but spent the whole night dancing with someone else while she sat and watched from the side benches. She also cried for the boy at college whom she found in bed with her roommate. She had had so many reasons to cry in her life but she did not. In this one instance she did not have a reason to cry but she just did.

  Although she had managed to pull herself together after the night of wine and popcorn, she just did not have the will to do the same in this case. She was simply too weak to even say exactly why she even attacked James or cried when he tried to defend himself. She started folding her clothes to get ready to go. It took her ages to fold a single blouse because she was not even in it as she as doing it. Her mind had wondered off back to the days when a girl was determined to find a boy she could sit or play with after school. Cynthia was never ever chosen by anyone. The only time that she did find a partner to sit with after school was when her cousin had arranged it for her. It was a new boy in their street so he did not really know the other boys very well. As soon as he got acquainted with them and they started talking about her like she was a weirdo, he stopped coming over to her house, let alone spend some time with her.

  That experience maybe what had changed her attitude towards boys forever. In her experience, they only came to her when they had nowhere better to go to. As soon as they had found a replacement for her, she was sure to get kicked to the curb. No boy ever wanted to be with her for the long haul. Even that one who seems to be interested to go all the way like her ex fiancé, he would make the engagement drawn out so that he could wait to see if someone better would come along. As soon as that somebody was there, the boy would disappear. Boys were a source of short-lived entertainment and eternal pain and frustration. They made her feel special only if they wanted to get close to her friends. They used her like she was a bridge to connect to other girls. They made her feel worthless. But how did all that relate to James? There was no other girl he seemed to be interested in except for her. Maybe it was the genuine interest in her that made her to be even more suspicious of him. If he had shown some guy signs as she knows them, something like trying to get her in bed, she would not have been so confused about his intentions for her.

  Another reason for the mistrust must have come from the small guy club from work whom she had approached for some advice on the man department. Although her initial thought on them was that they too wanted to give James some competition and therefore any advice they would give her would be biased. It was the first fall out with the man that made her go to the very people whom she had first written off as a bad choice. Now she had another fall out with him and her first reaction was that Monday would come and things would be discussed in great detail with her new source of girl inspiration. She was further confused and she just kept crying. She did not even notice when there was a family who had come to do their laundry and were made somewhat uncomfortable by the sight of a lone woman sitting along and crying.

  “Are you ok dear”, a woman carrying a toddler called out to her.

  “I said are you ok Ma’am”, she called out again. It was only then that Cynthia realised that she had been the subject of many stares from the young family.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes I’m ok’. She said as she quickly folded the rest of the clothes into her bag.

  “I’m ok”, she assured them before quickly dashing for the door as if to avoid their further probing her about her state.

  Upon getting into her place and offloading her bag, she was sitting with a slice of toast and jelly in hand. Before long it was all finished and she needed another to go with the cup of tea that was in front of her. She got up and made two more slices. She gobbled through both bread and tea like a mafia man. She was obviously too distraught to even care that the diet which she had worked so hard to stick to was starting to get out the window. All she was doing was eating to fill up. Maybe she was too oblivious to the fact that whatever gap she felt like feeling was not just in her stomach. It could also be in her heart and James was just the person trying to fill it. For the first time since leaving her town, that old wound was open and it was time to get it all cleaned up. It was obviously affecting her and she wanted to know why it had all happened right under her nose and not once did she even suspect a thing. She had to find out also how so many people whom she knew and loved to well could all lie straight to her face. So she decided that she was going to make a few phone calls to former friends and give them the chance to relate their side of the story to her. In a fit of anger, she had left them all behind without giving them the chance to explain themselves. After all, if she was to manage to move on from it all, it would have to be after she had clearly understood why it happened in the first place.

  The weekend was over and she had to get up the next day early in the morning to get to work. She was too ashamed to tell the boys about what had happened to her at her place of residence. At tea break she pretended to be a busy body and did not join her friends at the truck park. Her boss noticed that she had not gone out for tea break with the boys as usual and that she seemed to be hitting the type writer with more vigour and strength than usual. So he did not call out to her to make him some coffee but instead he decided to make two cups himself. It was a little embarrassing to Cynthia to be the one being served with coffee by her boss. The cup was already on her desk and there was no point in refusing the offer as the big man had made himself comfortable sitting in the chair on the other side of Cynthia’s desk. He made small talk about the sound of the steam ships and the blowing wind before he got frank and asked her what was going on.

  “Are the boys bothering you my dear? Are you being harassed here?” he asked with much concern.

  “I would not want anything to happen and if something does I need to know so that I can deal with the culprit,” said Mr Baltimore.

  Cynthia shook her head while she held the steamy hot cup close to her mouth to have a sip.

  “No sir”, she replied. “I am perfectly at home here”, she added.

  Cynthia preferred working with boys to working with girls. All her life she wanted an
environment where she did not have to be measured against any other girl for the fear that she would lose every time. She also dreaded the gossip that usually came with a female only environment that was what got her to leave her previous town. Now she was at home with the boys here. Despite her attempts to convince her boss that she was OK, he simply did not buy it and stared straight into her eyes. She avoided eye contact and put her cup down to hand him some documents which she usually did at the end of the day. She was aware that by then, tea time was over and that she needed to get back to work. Mr Baltimore shook his head and said that they did not have to hurry to work,

  ‘In my experience, anyone who buries themselves in work or books has a pressing problem elsewhere. It is either a problem at home or a problem with money. Which one is yours?’ He asked.

  Cynthia finally gave in. She turned away from her computer and sat straight to face the man in front of her. She was not very interested in finishing the cup of coffee that was in front of her either. All she wanted to do was to get rid of the towering man in front of her and get on with her work. Since that did not seem as a possibility before the greying man got to the problem.

  “There is this guy where I live”, she started to talk.

  “Arg! I should have known. It is always a guy”, Mr Baltimore joked.

  “What is going on with him”, he asked.”

  “I don’t know”, she replied.

  That answer was the best answer she could give to Mr Baltimore or anyone else for that matter. She was really not sure what was going on between herself and James. There had been no talk of love whatsoever between them yet they had a chemistry so strong it could blow up a nuclear plant. He had never made or broken any promises to her but she was angry with him.

  He had tried to get close but he was pushed away by her. She had sought advice on the matter but all what that had done had made her feel even more entitled to spend some time with him. That had been the resulted in even more trouble.