by Xenia Ruiz
“You know how to cornrow?” I asked.
“You sound shocked,” she said, then added condescendingly, “I can also jump double-dutch and play tennis like the Williams sisters.”
I laughed. “You wish you could play like Venus and Serena.”
“I bet I can beat them in double-dutch.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, sipping from my glass. “Your sons look like good kids. Or adults, I should say.”
“I’ve been blessed. They’re good boys. Especially now that they’re out of my house.” She grinned.
“I don’t think Tony Junior likes me much, though.”
“It’s a front. He pretends to be tough,” she assured me. “They both worry about me; I worry about them.”
“They’re grown up. You shouldn’t have to worry about them too much.”
“There’s still a lot to worry about. Especially when they’re back in the city. Did you hear about the college student that was killed on Tuesday?”
“Yeah, I heard about that.” Two days before Thanksgiving, a college senior visiting his family in Chicago had been shot and killed while walking with friends in his old neighborhood. It was just one of the many shootings that had taken place that week, but because the young man had been a gifted student at an Ivy League school, the news media had capitalized on the story, overshadowing the other senseless murders that had occurred of ordinary young people. “That was sad.”
Eva physically shook and crossed her arms. “Sometimes I get sick thinking of all the things that can happen. I try not to dwell on it, but sometimes I just can’t help it.”
“They look like they can handle themselves.” I knew that “handling themselves” had very little to do with the randomness of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, but I was trying to get her mind off of them. I took her glass and mine and placed them on the end table.
She started to get up. “You want to try my arroz con dulce?”
“I sure do.” I pulled her down into my lap and embraced her, savoring her lips slowly and hungrily. “Tastes real good.”
She responded at first, smiling through the kiss, then stopped, pulling away to look at me with her cocked brow. The smile was gone. “Are you smoking again?”
I released her and stretched out my legs, irked that I hadn’t been successful in concealing my secret, irritated that she had interrupted the little pleasure she had allowed me so far. “Do I smell like I’ve been smoking?”
“Yeah, you do.”
“Then I guess I have.”
“Don’t you care about your health?”
“My health?” I asked incredulously. “Why are you bringing up my health? You’ve never even asked what kind of cancer I had.”
“I figured you would tell me if you wanted me to know. I thought it was something personal.”
I stared past her at the fireplace and noticed her wedding picture was gone. I debated whether I should tell her. With a finger, she turned my face toward her. “Tell me. I want to know.”
“Testicular,” I said simply, watching for her reaction. When she didn’t have one, I continued. “‘TC’ for short. The doctors wanted to do an orchiectomy, remove one of my … testicles, but I refused. I opted for radiation and chemotherapy. They said the risk of reoccurrence is higher without surgery, but I told them I would take that chance.” It was then I remembered that I was past due for my last follow-up.
As she listened, she took one of my hands between hers and caressed it, much the same way I had done at Buono Dio. However, the feeling was quite different when she was doing the caressing. I wondered if she was aware of how her touch made me feel, or if she was really that naive.
“I broke up with this woman before the cancer. We got back together afterward, but … it didn’t work out. Anyway, she started seeing someone else and one day I followed her, and saw her … with him … walking in the rain … holding hands …” I paused to see if she knew the song.
“Cold-busted,” she interjected and smiled empathetically.
I didn’t say any more, hoping she would let it go. I had confessed more than enough. For now.
“Aren’t you worried it’s going to come back? Especially if you smoke?”
“If you want me to leave, just say so,” I told her brusquely. “Don’t try to start a fight about my smoking so I’ll get upset and leave.”
“I’m not trying to start a fight.”
“Okay,” I said indifferently. “We’re supposed to be friends anyway, right? What are you doing kissing me if we’re just friends?” I tried to stand up but she didn’t move. “Excuse me.”
She stood and let me up. I started for the door, but she pulled me back by my coat and turned me around. “Okay, I admit it, I was trying to get your mind off of us, so we didn’t get caught up in the moment and end up frustrated. I know you don’t believe this, but this is hard for me, too. Maybe harder. You don’t think premarital sex is wrong so it’s easier for you. I know you think it’s harder for men to abstain, but it’s just as hard for women. At least for me.”
I scoffed, refusing to embrace her, though my arms yearned to hold her. Instead I held up my hands as in surrender. “What do you want me to say, Eva? I said I was going to try and I did. But it’s getting harder and harder. One day, I’m fine with it, and then, I’m not.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Just that. It’s getting real hard to be with you and … not go further.”
“I told you,” she said, pointing a critical finger at me. “I told you I was serious about my celibacy. You knew up front. It’s not like I changed on you.”
“Yeah, well …” I started weakly. “I’ve tried.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “So? You want to end it?”
The thought of losing her and her bluntness in suggesting it made me feel spiteful. “Is that what you want?” I asked resentfully.
“I don’t, but …”
“Or maybe you want to get married? Then we can have sex ‘the right way’”
“No! No, I don’t want to get married,” she said, becoming upset, her head snapping back slightly like she was about to get some west-side attitude. She rubbed her eyebrows with her thumb and forefinger.
“Let me guess, you have a headache,” I said with spite. “How convenient.”
She glared at me from under her hand. “No, I don’t have a headache. I’m trying to think.”
“What do you want, Eva? What’s it going to be, friendship or a relationship? Make up your mind.”
“I don’t know … what I want, but I definitely don’t want to get married.”
“So, you’re happy with things the way they are? Kissing and hugging like we’re in junior high,” I said sarcastically. “Teasing me?”
She flashed her eyes indignantly. “Teasing you? How am I teasing you?”
I shook my head and looked away. Now I had unintentionally done what she had harmlessly tried to do: start a fight to kill the mood. And the mood was definitely dying, if it wasn’t dead already.
“Do I dress provocatively? Do I make sexual comments? Throw myself at you?” she asked accusingly, challenging me.
“You know what you do.” Now that I had started, I couldn’t stop. I backed up toward the door, getting ready to leave before I said or did something I would regret.
“What? What do I do?”
“Play that innocent Virgin Mary role. Pretend like you don’t have any urges, but you know you want it just as much as I do. And why are you wearing that dress? You never wear dresses.” There was nothing spectacular about the dress; it had a handkerchief hemline, a V neckline, and the flared sleeves she seemed so fond of. I didn’t even know what kind of material it was, only that it danced when she moved. Fact was she was in it and it looked fabulous on her, and the painful truth remained that I wanted her and she was telling me I was never going to have her. And it was finally sinking in.
She blinked several times and I thought she was going to cry, but
I knew it wasn’t her style. When she spoke, her voice was icy and even. “You’re right. I have urges just like you. I’m not dead. What you call ‘innocence,’ I call ‘self-control.’ We’re not animals, Adam, ruled by our instincts. God gave us the power over our urges, to think before we act.”
She was right and I hated that she was right. She had been up front about her celibacy; she hadn’t sprung it on me at the last minute. I had walked in with my eyes and heart wide open. I hated that she had the upper hand, hated that she had more self-control than I did. I hated her tough spirit, and at the same time, I admired her ability to stick to her beliefs. At the moment, however, that admiration only made me more furious at her, and at myself.
“And as far as this dress is concerned,” she continued, her eyes blazing, “my sons bought it for my last birthday and they asked me to wear it. I’m sorry if it provoked you.”
When I continued to sulk, she took a couple of steps closer. “Don’t allow the enemy to spoil what we have,” she then said, her voice taking on a softer tone.
“What do we have, Eva? Huh? Break it down for me ’cause I’m confused here.”
“I thought we had something different, something beyond physical. Something I’ve never had with any man before. The way God intended.”
Lately, when she talked about God, or religion in general, it made me uneasy. She would say it was because I was being convicted, that her words were hitting their mark. Sometimes she looked at me like she could read my thoughts, like she knew what I was going to say before I did. And it made me nervous. It reminded me of when I was little and I did something wrong. One look from my mother and I was confessing and bringing her the belt before she even commanded me.
“We can talk to the pastor,” she suggested. “What do you think?”
I scoffed without restraint. “Why do we have to talk to a pastor about our personal feelings?”
“Because he can advise us. Because I don’t know what to do.”
“I do.” Unable to resist her any longer, I closed the short distance between us and pulled her to me. “Do you know how much I want … to be with you …” Momentarily, I released her as my hands faltered, debating which part of her to touch first.
“Adam, you have to help me be strong,” she implored.
“I can’t …” I told her truthfully.
Her hands slowly slipped from my waist. I took her face in my hands, and she closed her eyes, flinching, as if my touch stung. I kissed her eyes one at a time, the top lip, then the bottom, before seizing her whole mouth as our bodies came together from our chests all the way down to our feet. Slowly, we backed up until we reached the wall next to the front door; she was trapped and unable to move. Briefly, I pulled my face away and gazed at her anxious lips, slightly parted like a baby bird anticipating food from its mother’s beak. She wasn’t fighting me. God, when did I fall for her? I wondered, mystified. More bewildering, I didn’t know how to tell her without sounding and looking like I was whipped. The words “I love you” were on the tip of my lips but they seemed so banal, so played-out, even though I had used them with only one other woman in my entire life. I wanted to use different words, more reflective of all my feelings, but I just couldn’t think of any. My mind was a blank. A poet at a loss for words, I thought, how ironic.
“Eva …”
“What?” she whispered, her eyes still closed, her lips still waiting, trembling.
“I … I don’t want to break up. I care … I want to be with you …” I stopped, shutting my eyes tight in frustration, gritting my teeth trying to find the right words. “I care for you … like I’ve never cared for any other woman. Do you understand how I feel?”
She opened her eyes and tightened her arms around my back. “I care for you, too. So much.”
Then, before I knew it, something inside of me took over and I lost control. I let my hands wander recklessly where they wanted, and didn’t stop my body as it moved with a mind of its own. What a difference a dress made. It made me think of Tina Dinwoody, my first steady girlfriend. I was transported back to the hallway of her apartment building, one watchful eye on the door, fearing her father might yank it open any minute. Eva’s hands moved from my back to my chest, at first pushing me away, then grasping my tender pectorals insistently. I winced and groaned, but ignored the dull aching in my nipples, something I had been feeling lately. She wanted me as bad as I wanted her. It was only a matter of time. What was holding her back? I was two seconds from falling to my knees and begging, “Please!” when the doorbell rang.
She peeled her face away and then tried to squeeze out from under me, as I held her back.
“Adam, don’t.”
I pinned her back against the wall again, hoping whoever was at the door would go away. She pushed against my chest with a force that surprised me, and I almost cried out when her fingernails dug into my flesh.
“I’m serious, Adam. Stop it.”
Fuming, I released her and let her look through the peephole. She quickly turned around, her back against the door, her eyes wide with alarm.
“Who is it?” I asked, massaging my sore pecs.
She swallowed hard before answering breathlessly, “My pastor.”
CHAPTER 19
EVA
WHENEVER MY BOYS did something wrong, there was no hiding from me; it was all over their faces and in what they did not say. The look on Pastor Zeke’s face when Adam emerged from the bathroom, where he had escaped before I opened the door, made me feel like a little girl who had done wrong, guilt scrawled on my face with bright red crayon.
Although the pastor was five years my senior, he was wise beyond his years, my spiritual leader, my mentor. He had taken the place of a parent in my life, a role my father had long forsaken, and he had the ability to still make me feel ashamed. I knew my face was brown-red because my cheeks would not stop burning. If he hadn’t shown up when he did, I wasn’t sure what would have happened.
He looked from Adam to me with inquisitive eyebrows waiting for an explanation, until I finally met his eyes and tried to appear indifferent.
“Pastor Zeke, you remember Adam Black? He visited our church.” My voice was childlike, eager to please, overcompensating for my discomfort.
“When was that?” the pastor asked, standing to take Adam’s outstretched hand.
Adam cleared his throat and answered with uncertainty, “Last month?”
“Do you have a home church?”
“No, sir.”
“You should come back and join us more often.”
Adam nodded hesitantly, looking at me for intervention. “Sure.”
I stood up. “Pastor, let me get you some arroz con dulce.”
“You know that’s why I’m here,” he said, smiling from ear to ear. He turned to Adam. “This Sister makes the best rice pudding. Have you tasted it?”
The slightest smile crossed Adam’s lips, causing me to blush once again. “No. No, I haven’t. I was actually on my way—”
“Well, let’s have some then. We can visit for a while.”
I got up, ignoring Adam’s look of desperation, and went into the kitchen. As I pulled out three dessert plates from the refrigerator, I noticed my hands were shaking. Stop it, I reprimanded myself. He’s not my father; I’m not a child. I haven’t done anything wrong. Not really, I thought. I hurried back to the dining room, not wanting to leave Adam with the pastor too long.
“So, you don’t think attending church is important?” I overheard Pastor Zeke say as I returned with the pudding.
“No, what I’m saying is, I don’t think going to church is as important as the kind of person you really are, how you treat others—”
“Here we go,” I announced, a little too loudly.
“Alright,” the pastor said, anxiously taking his plate. He scooped up a forkful of pudding and ate voraciously. As a hypoglycemic, he could eat like a horse and not gain an ounce. Eating, however, did not interfere with his speaking. “You know
, Adam. We’re very fond of Sister Eva here. She’s a woman of virtue, and a woman of virtue is a very special woman. Proverbs thirty-one.”
“‘A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised,’” Adam recited, eating slowly. He glanced sideways accusingly at me, as if I had planned the pastor’s ill-timed visit.
While I was slightly impressed by his knowledge of the scripture, Pastor Zeke didn’t seem at all moved as he continued his lecture. “She’s also a child of God and that supersedes what she is to the outside world. One messes with that and you’re messing with God.”
“No one is messing with her,” Adam said, looking at the pastor evenly for the first time as he finished his plate. “No disrespect.”
“I wish you would stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here,” I scolded them nervously as I wrapped plastic wrap over a dish for the pastor’s wife.
Adam stood up, licking his spoon and handing me the empty plate. “You’re right, her rice pudding is good. I got to go. Good night.”
They shook hands and I walked Adam to the door. He tried to kiss me but I drew back, then regretted it when I saw his eyebrows crease.
“Thank your sister for me,” I said, letting him out and closing the door, but not before catching his cold look.
I was anxious to hear what Pastor Zeke thought about Adam, but I also feared he would question me about how far we had gone. I imagined I would be the subject of next Sunday’s sermon: “Eva: Virtuous or Immoral Woman? You Decide.”
The pastor stood up. “I best be on my way. I got two more stops.”
“Go ahead. Let me have it,” I finally said, handing him the dish for his wife.
“What? Oh, I think you know what I’m going to say, Sister. You are a saved woman; he’s not a saved man. You know you shouldn’t be seeing an ungodly man, especially alone. When you make a decision to be with an ungodly man, his ungodly spirit cleaves unto you. But I think you already know that. ‘Do not be yoked with unbelievers.’”