A Cold Piece of Work

by Curtis Bunn

  “I’m checking to see if these ladies are all right,” said Brad, Solomon’s fraternity brother and golf partner. “You like to snatch purses.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “You’re right,” Solomon said. “I did snatch your purse earlier.”

  Everyone burst into laughter again. And Michele instantly became more intrigued. And he’s funny, too, she thought to herself.

  Over the next thirty minutes or so, the seven of them ended up conversing about the CBC, the Redskins, Atlanta vs. D.C., the seemingly overabundance of black gay men and on and on.

  When Solomon noticed Michele moving to Jay-Z’s and Alicia Keys’ song “Empire State of Mind,” he sidled over to her. “How about we get a dance or two in?” he said into her ear. “I hate to let a good song go to waste.”

  “Same here,” she said. “I’d love to.”

  They chatted and smiled at each other while they danced. But even as he watched Michele, Solomon prospected the worse. There’s got to be something wrong with her, he actually thought on the dance floor. Why doesn’t she have a man? Probably crazy.

  Michele’s thoughts were different. Could I be so lucky to actually find a man who has something between his ears? Who knows how to act? Who is tall enough?

  “This turned out much different than I expected,” Michele said at her car; Solomon walked with her and Sonya at the end of the event. “I expected my feet to be hurting and to be ready to go home and to bed. But my feet feel fine and I’m wide awake.”

  Solomon laughed. “That’s funny because my feet hurt.”

  “I couldn’t see your shoes in there.” Sonya glanced down. “Nice. You know you can tell a lot about a man through his feet?”

  “His shoes or his feet?”

  “Both,” Sonya said.

  “I’m not even going to ask you to explain what it means,” Solomon said.

  “Oh, I’ll tell you,” Sonya said.

  “No, you won’t,” Michele interjected.

  Solomon grinned. “I’m sure I have an idea.”

  Sonya winked. “You have on a nice pair of shoes.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What size do you wear, Solomon?”

  “These are a 13—and they are a size small,” he said, and they laughed.

  “I heard that,” Michele said.

  “It was a pleasure; you ladies made my night,” Solomon said.

  Sonya extended her hand for him to shake.

  “We’ve had drinks together, talked about everything under the sun, including the value of a man’s shoe size… We’ve graduated beyond the hand-shaking stage,” Solomon said.

  Then he opened his arms and leaned in and hugged Sonya. “Goodnight,” she said.

  He turned to Michele. They hugged. With her in his arms, he said, “Thank you. Ah, and you smell good, even at the end of the night. I guess you aren’t wearing Avon.”

  They laughed.

  “Please call to let me know you all made it home,” he said.

  “The chivalry never ends, huh?” she asked.

  “Why would it?” Solomon answered. “Why should it?”

  That was their beginning. From there, they dated hard, but it was more than two months before they were intimate. He wanted her in bed long before then, but he was patient and unwilling to rush something with someone he felt so good about. After that first time, though, they were physically drawn to each other as if by magnets.

  “Seems like the more I have of you, the more I need to have you,” Michele said to him a month after they first slept together. “I realize that I used the word ‘need’ instead of ‘want.’ Being with you has become something I need to feel good physically and mentally. It’s become a part of my life.”

  All that, and it did not prevent Solomon from leaving her with any notion he had accepted a marketing director position with Coca-Cola at its headquarters in Atlanta. And that thought—eight years later—haunted him.

  “Damn,” he said as he lay in darkness on his bed. “Damn.”

  CHAPTER 4

  STORM AFTER THE CALM

  The serenity of a quiet morning brought no peace for Solomon. He woke up feeling cold on the outside and empty on the inside. So he lay there in bed, under the covers, unable to sleep, thinking, reminiscing. It was 5:24 a.m.

  Solomon was ambivalent about mornings as it was. “Is it more the end of a good night or the beginning of a not-so-good day?” he liked to ask.

  Uncomfortable physically and mentally, he still managed to come to a personal truth he never before pondered. It wasn’t as if seeing Michele aroused feelings in him that he did not know existed. Seeing her confirmed a connection he had with her, one that he actually…feared.

  He did not disappear on her because he believed she would disappoint him. He did so because he was afraid she could hurt him. And for Solomon, like most men, to feel vulnerable in a relationship with a woman was unbearable.

  It also was undeniable. They were together only six months, but it was 182 days of fun, enlightenment, adventure, calm and even growth. In that time Solomon found himself doing things he had no interest in doing—and enjoying them.

  Like cooking. Michele loved to eat and was stellar in the kitchen: “Ah, excuse me, but I prefer to be called chef,” she said to Solomon after the first meal she prepared for him.

  It was so delicious that Solomon accepted an invitation to cook the next meal with her, and ended up not only enjoying the process, but he eventually became an outstanding cook himself. “You don’t have to call me a chef,” he told Michele after he made stuffed trout, pesto risotto and sautéed peppers for her. “As long as you like it, you can call me Julia Child if you want.”

  He was enlightened and impressed that Michele had the courage to eschew a solid career as a lawyer to pursue a new business as a caterer. He, at first, thought it was a silly notion. Then he listened to her talk about the joy and reward she received in creating dishes in the kitchen and the satisfaction she gained from people enjoying her food.

  “I can actually hear the passion and commitment in your voice,” he said. “This is what makes you happy. There’s a lot to be said for pursuing your passion.”

  Michele also influenced Solomon to skydive—something he never even pondered. She tried it once with a lawyer friend who regularly “jumped,” and the thrill was addictive.

  “If you’re afraid,” she said to Solomon, “I understand.”

  She knew what buttons to push with him. “It’s not about being afraid,” he said. “I’m not afraid of anything. It’s just that I don’t see the point.”

  “I think you’re afraid,” she insisted. “It’s okay to be afraid; admit it. For me, I get a great thrill. It’s the most liberating thing you can do. But if you’re afraid…”

  “Set it up,” Solomon said, almost defiantly. “Let’s do it.”

  And so, they drove to Chantilly, Virginia that following weekend and “jumped.”

  On the small plane, as it headed to the height of the flight, Solomon looked over at Michele. She was calm, smiling. “You okay, Solomon? You’re going to love it. I promise.”

  “What if I don’t? What do I get?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  Solomon flashed a devilish smile.

  A few minutes later, they were at the drop zone. “I’ll go first!” she yelled. “Just do what you were taught to do! You’ll be fine!” Then she jumped out of the airplane—and that daring was a turn-on for Solomon.

  Fearless, he thought to himself. Fearless.

  He, meanwhile, was fearful. In a matter of seconds, all the predictable questions surfaced: What if he panicked and forgot to pull the rip chord? What if the rip chord didn’t come out? What if the parachute malfunctioned? How would it feel to crash to the earth?

  Then another thought hit him: Jump.

  And he pulled the goggles over his eyes, gave the jumper assistant the “thumbs-up” and they dropped through the hole in the plane.

  All th
e training he had kicked in. He could see Michele just beneath him, arms and legs extended. She looked to be flying. He did the same and, after the initial stone-cold fear wore off, he took in the majesty of the view, and a sense of calm and exhilaration collided to create a once-in-a-lifetime stream of emotions.

  The world was below him. Nothing mattered. He was at peace. Solomon waved to Michele and she waved back and, at thirteen thousand feet above the earth, he felt closer to her.

  When the time came, he released his rip chord, the parachute came out and he shot up in the air. The breath in his body came out for a moment. He was no longer flying; he was floating.

  Solomon was astonished at the feeling that came over him. He felt closer to God. He felt revived. Below him was a world that had no idea he was hovering above it. He felt free and more alive than ever.

  When they careened onto the earth and pulled off their parachutes, Solomon hurried over to Michele. He didn’t say a word. He ripped off his goggles and threw them to the ground. Then he embraced her and delivered the most passionate kiss he ever had shared. They fell onto the ground, and he continued to kiss her.

  “Wow,” Michele said, when their mouths finally parted. “We should jump every day, if that’s the reaction I’m going to get.”

  They were lying on their backs, panting, looking up at the sky. “Girl, that was…incredible. I mean, unbelievably incredible,” he said. “My heart is still racing. But not really from fear. From excitement. Amazing… Amazing.”

  Usually, Solomon Singletary took women to amazing emotional heights, to where they were undaunted by the prospects of a significant fall. They just went with his flow.

  Solomon realized through reminiscing that Michele Lynn Williams had taken him places he had not been before with a woman. And, he admitted, that he very much was afraid of falling from such a high place. Subconsciously, he knew there was something special about her. But his conscious mind also led him to think there was something scary about her, too.

  So, intuitively, he ran. “Coward,” he said as he rested on his back in bed. “Coward.”

  In his reality, his admission of fear was a monumental feat. A man’s instinct is to project fearlessness. To be honest with himself about himself… well, it was rare. He could jump out of a plane from fifteen thousand feet above the earth, but he could not share his true feelings with a woman he cared for. That realization sickened him—and inspired him, too.

  He sat up in bed and, in that moment, committed himself to making it up to Michele, making it up to himself. She was bitter and angry and wanted no part of him, but Solomon did not care. He had his way with women many times over, and it actually became less a thrill and more of a formality that no longer excited him.

  Now, he was excited and motivated to truly do right by Michele. At the same time, he needed to prove to himself that he was capable of being a good man to a good woman. In the process, he thought maybe he could actually repair an eight-year-old wound.

  Instead of the morning ending a good night, this new day offered something special for Solomon. Hope.

  Hope that he could find it in himself to endure the rejection he believed Michele was sure to offer. Hope that he could dissolve her bitterness and gain a modicum of respect from her. Hope that she would allow him to mentor her son, Gerald. And hope that she could, some day, open up to reconnecting with him.

  The other women in his life, while most were good women, did not hold him. They provided some level of satisfaction—in one area or another—but they were not magnetic enough to force him to focus solely on them.

  He never felt that with Michele. For the six months they were together, he did not see other women, which was a first. It wasn’t a conscious decision; he enjoyed her so much that he didn’t much feel the need for others. He never told her that. In fact, he told her the opposite, that he would see other women. “We’re just enjoying our time together,” Solomon said, when Michele asked the predictable woman question, “So, what are we doing?”

  “I’d like you to be less interested in who else I’m dating and more into us maximizing the time we spend together,” he said.

  Michele handled Solomon differently from other women. She refused to press him on the issue. She was not settling; her pride would not allow that. But she accepted his position for what it was and left herself open to dating other men if the opportunity arose.

  This position confused Solomon and actually turned his behavior. “You’re different,” he said a few weeks later. “Most women press you for what they want. You haven’t done that.”

  “Who said I wanted more than what you mentioned?” she replied. “Bottom line, as long as you treat me with respect, I’m okay with what we’re doing right now. That might not always be the case, but that’s how it is right now.”

  This hardly was the response he was used to receiving, and it threw him. It made him feel like he had to occupy her time to prevent someone else from doing so, which was exactly what women had attempted to do to him. Michele had effectively flipped the script on Solomon.

  So, almost every weekend, they were together, and many nights during the week, too. As close as he grew to her, she grew equally close to him. But she was not afraid of how she felt.

  “I love you,” she said to Solomon one evening after dinner about five months into their courtship. She did it then so he would know it was not some proclamation in the throes of making love. During intense sex, she might say anything, and Solomon knew it.

  Telling him as she stood in the kitchen washing dishes was hardly romantic. It was pure, genuine emotion, inspired only by her heart.

  Clearly, Solomon was uncomfortable with Michele’s expression. Their eyes locked for a few seconds before he looked away and finally said, “Really? Well, do you like me?”

  “That’s your response?” she said. She knew Solomon was crafty, that he was trying to avoid a direct response. “Okay, I’ll play along: Yes, I like you, Solomon. Now what?”

  “Well, I’m glad you do because that’s where it all begins and ends,” he said. “To me, you can’t get to loving someone until you really like them. And I like you, too, Michele, very much. I have very strong feelings for you, too. I just don’t throw around the ‘I love you’ thing recklessly. I—”

  “Wait. Are you saying I’m being reckless?” Michele jumped in. “I know you’re not telling me that when I have all these sharp objects at my fingertips.”

  “No, no, I’m not saying that at all,” he quickly interjected with a smile. “I’m talking about me. I try to be responsible about that; if you don’t mean it, it can be hurtful down the line. Liking you is more important than loving you; if we have a friendship and genuinely like each other, that’s going to be our foundation that holds everything together. People fall in and out of love all the time. If you really like someone, that doesn’t change—unless something really ugly happens.

  “But to what you said, I know it’s from the heart and real; that’s the person you are. So, thank you for feeling as you do about me.”

  Once again, it was Solomon’s wariness that prevented him from opening up to Michele. It wasn’t that he could not love her; it was that he did not want to love her. To love her was to be susceptible to being hurt by her. So, he believed that as much as she opened up his life and as close as he felt to her, actually loving her would only complicate matters. And it would make things even worse if he told her that he loved her. He believed she would view it as a weakness in him that she could manipulate.

  “Honey, that’s so not right,” his mother said when he shared his theory with her. “How many women have you introduced to me? Too many to count. Michele is the only woman who felt comfortable enough to be herself. I could see all the others trying to impress me to get me to say something good about them to you.

  “You know what Michele said to me the first day I met her? You were in the bathroom. She said, ‘Ms. Singletary, your son is a trip. I’m glad I got to meet you. I’m not sure you
’ll see me again.’

  “I asked her why, and she said, ‘He’s a perfect gentleman. But he’s spoiled. I know you spoiled him as an only child; that’s what mothers do. Other women have, too. He’s so macho that he thinks the world revolves around him and his decisions.’ I was like, ‘Oh, this is my kind of woman.’ She wasn’t trying to impress me. She was speaking her mind. That’s the kind of woman I’d like my son to have. Not someone who placates him. How do you throw that away?”

  The same day, Solomon drove to Sheridan Road in Northwest D.C. to see his father, whose advice was quite different.

  “Son, you have the right idea,” he said. “Always manage the relationship so that you’re in control. They start thinking you’re all head over heels and they’ll turn you upside down. Keep them working toward pleasing you. You show them that you’re all into them and they get comfortable. And then she becomes someone you don’t like.”

  Eight years later, Solomon realized neither his mother nor his father got it quite right. Ultimately, it was about him and how he related to Michele. And reviewing his behavior with women in general, and Michele in particular, gave him a picture of himself that was hardly flattering.

  It also gave him motivation to do something different.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE CHASE

  A man like Solomon got off as much on pursuing a woman as he did actually conquering her. The challenge was the thrill; making her expose herself and succumbing to his will. That was the turn-on.

  Never before did he have a more intimidating challenge than that of reattaching himself to Michele Lynn Williams’ heart. She was angry and bitter, and for good reason. But he was not scared.

  So, after all the pondering and reminiscing and admission of regret, Solomon pulled himself out of bed. He lacked patience and was intent on making inroads with Michele. So, he was ready for the chase.

  He knew where to find her; young Gerald talked often about his mom making him get up every Sunday for 10 a.m. service at Berean Christian Church, which was not far from Solomon’s house.