by Tina Martin
She nodded and folded her hands together under the table.
Carter looked at her, trying to read her, one of his specialties.
Stop staring, stop staring, Shayla thought. To prevent him from seeing the blood stain on her shirt, she placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her fist.
Carter pulled her arm down. “What’s that?” he asked, his eyes locked on her stained shirt.
“Nothing.”
“Well nothing looks like blood to me.”
“I had a small nose bleed. No big deal.”
“Why didn’t you come get me?”
“It was just a nose bleed…nothing major.”
“Anything’s major after you’re been in the hospital for—”
“Carter, I’m fine. See,” she said flashing a big phony smile.
Carter went silent long enough to recycle his frustration. He wondered how she could even form her mouth to a smile when he could see sadness beyond it. “When stuff like that happens, I want you to let me know. Don’t try to hide things from me, Shayla. What if you were choking?”
“I wasn’t choking.”
“I said, what if?” he said firmly.
“Aw’right…I get it,” Shayla conceded.
“Why was your nose bleeding anyway?”
“I don’t know?”
“Does this happen often?”
“No.”
“When was the last time?”
“Um…maybe a year ago.”
“Did you get it checked out then?”
“No. Like I said…it’s not a big—”
“I’m taking you to the doctor first thing in the morning.”
“Carter—”
“You can’t convince me otherwise, so don’t try.”
Gosh, Shayla thought. Had she ever dealt with a man like him? She knew the answer was no. Carter was no pushover. He was indomitable when it came to his decisions, courtesy of his profession. She couldn’t do nothing but respect it. She smiled, thinking about this now while her eyes fanned the restaurant, familiarizing herself with the place. Her eyes caught sight of the group of women, looking their way – at Carter.
“I see you got a fan club over there,” she told him. “But you must get this everywhere you go, huh.”
“Why you say that?”
Like you don’t know. Shayla smiled, not wanting to tell the man how attractive she found him to be. Besides, when a person looked that good, surely they were aware of it without having to be told.
“Here, try some of this,” Carter said, pushing the calamari closer to her and taking her attention away from the women across the restaurant. “It’s really good.”
Shayla turned up her nose. “No thanks.”
“Go ahead.” He pushed the dish closer. “Try some.”
“Nah…I don’t like that.”
“Have you ever tried it?” he asked, watching her squirm.
“No.”
“Then how can you say you don’t like something if you’ve never tried it?” Carter picked up a piece, dipped it and held it in front of her mouth. “Try it.”
“You are very persistent aren’t you?”
You don’t know the half. “Yes. Very.”
“Yeah, I know. You already strong-armed me into going to the doctor. Now you’re trying to force me to eat this squid.”
He grinned but it sounded more like a grunt. “Open up.”
Shayla leaned forward and grabbed the piece of calamari with her mouth, chewed a few cycles and said, “Hmm…it’s a little chewy, but it’s pretty good.”
“Told ya.”
The waiter showed up again to take their food orders. Carter ordered two dishes of spaghetti, told Shayla she would love that too. After the waiter left, he asked, “So what does it feel like to be in love?”
“Gosh. Are you trying to make me cry again?”
“No…no, baby. I’m curious, but if you can’t talk about it without getting emotional, then—”
“You really wanna know?” Shayla asked squinting.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath, determined not to start crying again. “It feels good.”
“That’s it?” Carter said laughing, dipping another piece of calamari. “A lot of things feel good. What I’m asking is, what makes falling in love so special for some people?”
“Okay…um…let me try to explain this. To me, love is the closest thing to perfection. That’s why falling in love is so special because in the beginning of mankind’s existence, we were intended to be perfect, but since we’re not perfect, love is all there is.”
“So are you saying that love can be perfect, meaning if I ever lose my mind and actually fall in love, I would have the perfect relationship? The perfect, ideal life?”
Shayla chuckled. “Well, you already have a perfect life. You don’t need anything else.”
Carter grinned. “Nah. Trust me…my life is nowhere near perfection.”
“I know…only kidding. But no, that’s not what I meant. What I mean is, love itself is perfect. An act of love is perfect. To tell someone you love them and sincerely mean it from your heart is perfect. To care about someone more than you care about yourself, that’s an act of love to me, a piece of perfection. The Bible says love never fails, so if something never fails, that means it’s perfect, right? Not to say a relationship can’t fail, but love can’t. Does that make sense?”
“That’s pretty deep,” he said staring at her. She had an intellectual side that he hadn’t seen until now. He liked that about her. “I never thought about it like that.”
Shayla took another piece of calamari. “It’s also a happy feeling. Love is.”
A defiant eyebrow raised, Carter said, “I hear a lot of men say it’s a scary feeling.”
“It can be.”
“How?”
“If you don’t trust your mate and you’re constantly worried about someone taking them away from you…that’s scary. To give your heart to someone is always scary because you never know what they’re going to do with it. I’m a perfect example of that.”
“But that’s the kind of life you want, right? To settle down, get married?”
“Yeah, that is what I wanted, but not so sure anymore. As a matter of fact, I’m not even thinking about men, dating or anything. If you haven’t noticed by now, I’ve been homeless for the past six months and trust me…there’s not a market of men out there clamoring to be with America’s next broke homeless woman.”
Carter smiled reluctantly. “Once you get back on your feet, are you telling me you never want to fall in love again?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I’m not thinking about it right now.”
“Why not?”
Shayla shrugged. “Just not.”
“I know why,” Carter said after taking a sip of soda. “Because Jacob was the one for you and you don’t know if there will ever be another one.”
“Maybe,” Shayla said softly, willing herself not to cry again.
“Well, I have to disagree with you on that Ms. Kline.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re so sweet, you won’t be single for long. Men love women like you.”
Shayla, turning red in the face, watched Carter smile. “Stop trying to be nice to me, Carter.”
“I’m not. I mean, I am,” he chuckled. “Real talk though, and I hope I’m not out of line by saying this, but Jacob really missed out.”
Shayla looked up at him and their eyes connected. She was sure this could be classified as a moment, a feeling when a man and woman gaze at each other and feel unspoken chemistry through visual contact alone.
Shayla quickly blinked away from him and gripped her glass of water. She took a few sips to help her regain her focus. It felt as if her brain had turned to mush the way his eyes locked on her.
“What’s wrong?” Carter asked.
“Nothing.” She took a sip of water.
“Nothing?” he repeat
ed, studying her. “I see you got a habit of throwing out the word nothing when I catch you in something.”
“And what exactly do you think you caught me in?”
“You tell me…gazing in my eyes like we ‘bout to say vows then looking away when I caught you.”
“Oh, whatever,” Shayla said giggling.
“So tell me.”
“Tell you what?” Shayla asked, trying to hold back laughter.
“Why you were staring into my eyes.”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know. Tell me.”
Boy was he persistent. “Um…I guess it’s kinda easy to get lost in them.” Shayla took a sip of water.
“You hittin’ on me, Shay?”
“No,” Shayla said with a smile wider than the Atlantic. “Its just that when I look at you, I see this well-established, accomplished man, but you also seem so…um…um…never mind.”
“Wait…you can’t toss something like that out there and leave it. Tell me.”
“Okay.” Shayla sucked in a breath. “Sometimes, and this is just my measly opinion, your confidence seems like a front. I think you hide a lot of who you are. You’re afraid to confide in anyone but yet, you have a longing for closeness that goes unfulfilled.”
“Wow.” Carter smiled uncomfortably, completely flabbergasted and impressed at the same time. He had a desire for closeness, the love of a family that went lacking for so many years, a pattern that continued into his adulthood and his treatment of women. After thinking this over for a few minutes, he told her, “That assessment might be partially correct.”
“Care to elaborate?”
The waiter walked up to their table with two plates of spaghetti, making sure they didn’t need anything else before he walked away.
“Well, ah…” Carter stammered, rotating his fork clockwise in the plate of spaghetti while looking up at Shayla. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you want to talk,” Shayla said with a fork in one hand and a knife in the other, slicing long spaghetti strands.
“Why are you slicing them, Shayla?” Carter said grinning. “You’re supposed to dip your fork, twist and roll…like this.”
Shayla watched him demonstrate his technique then hid a grin behind her right hand.
“See,” he said. “Dip. Twist. Roll.”
Laughing softly, Shayla said, “I’m not on fire, Carter. I just wanna eat.”
“No. That’s stop, drop and roll.” He looked over at her, watching her laugh. “Oh…you got jokes.”
“You’re the one trying to tell me how to eat my spaghetti.”
Carter went to his mouth with the fork full of spaghetti. His technique left a single strand of spaghetti hanging from between his lips. Shayla laughed while he slurped it.
“Hey, it almost worked,” Carter said smiling.
“I think I like my way better.” Shayla resumed slicing and eating. “So, you don’t want to talk about it?” she asked to see if Carter wanted to continue their discussion about his confidence level – his life.
“I mean, it’s nothing…just life,” he said vaguely. But as much as she confided in him, he owed the same to her. He looked at her for a moment then twirled more spaghetti on his fork. “Sometimes I feel like I’m alone. I’m like you…I don’t have family either. It’s just me and at times it’s hard, you know.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“I have time off for about every holiday at work, and I have no one to visit. So I take multiple vacations, usually alone, or if I’m dealing with a woman at the time, I’ll take her with me.”
“Oh, yeah…must be very painful to scoop up some hot broad and travel to just about anywhere you wanna go, huh?” Shayla said jokingly.
“You’re being funny, but deep down, it is painful. It’s empty…looks good to someone on the outside looking in, but I’m here to tell you it’s not real. Looking back at my life, I see how I’ve wasted most of it like that.”
“So even with all the money and everything, you still feel lonely?”
“Well, I don’t feel that way now. See, I met this woman who lives with me and she’s been keeping me company,” Carter said, then winked at her. “Now I don’t have time to sit around and think about my life…it’s all about how I can make hers better.” He watched Shayla turn red in the face. “That’s how I know we met for a purpose.”
“And what might that purpose be? For you to show me how to properly eat spaghetti, Chef Boyardee?”
“No,” Carter said smiling, watching her laugh equally as hard. “To fulfill our need for human closeness through meaningful relationships.”
“Sounds like something Dr. Phil would say.”
“I’m serious, Shayla. That’s how I feel about it. About us. I’ve never had a close relationship with anyone.”
“Not even with your Mother?”
Carter glanced at her and swallowed hard.
“I’m sorry,” Shayla said after she saw the sullen look on his face. “I don’t mean to pry.”
“Nah, it’s okay. My mom passed last year…from heart disease.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
Carter took a sip of soda. “We were close, I guess. She was…um…she was rigid. She was one of those no nonsense mothers…didn’t like things in disarray. She had very high expectations of me…kept me isolated from other family because they weren’t up to par with our lifestyle. Said she didn’t want them to taint me. I had to stay focused at all times.”
“What was her name?”
Why do you want to know her name, Carter thought but instead, he said, “Lenora. She had her faults, but I miss her. She has a sister that I’ve only met once when I was a teenager.”
“What’s her sister’s name?”
“Um…I’m drawing a blank. I do remember that she didn’t come to my Mother’s funeral. I gotta imagine that if she was there, she would’ve come up to me and said something.” Carter paused and said, “You know, maybe we shouldn’t be talking about death and funerals and stuff. I don’t want to upset you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. So tell me why she didn’t come to the funeral.”
Carter let out a long sigh. He’d never shared this with any other woman so why was he telling it to her? “My Mother didn’t feel like the rest of my family were on the same page as her…they weren’t successful enough…didn’t live her lavish lifestyle. So she kept me away from them and molded me to be just like her. I was her family, and as far as she was concerned, she didn’t need anyone else. Only me.”
“Was she always like that?”
“Pretty much.”
“Even when you were younger? On the beach, living one of your favorite moments?”
Carter looked at her, surprised she remembered what he told her about being on the beach with his mother – one of his favorite memories. “Nah, it wasn’t like that then. She changed when my father died. For as long as I can remember, things were rocky between them, but then he passed, left her a lot of money and she changed.”
“Changed how?”
“She, ah…she let the money go to her head. Money can change a person you know.”
“Did it change you?”
“Yeah, I’m not gon’ lie. There’s a certain power with knowing you can pretty much do whatever you want, live where you want, take trips abroad, blow five-thousand dollars just because…”
Shayla took another sip of water and concentrated more on eating and for the next five minutes or so, the two sat quietly, not saying a word to each other. Just eating. Carter broke the silence by asking, “You gonna have room for dessert?”
“I doubt it.”
“You sure? We could get it to go.”
“No thanks. If I have a taste for something sweet later, I’ll eat a Snickers bar.”
“Or you could kiss me on the cheek,” Carter said, watching her blush. How many times had he made her turn red in the face tonight? He lost coun
t. “I almost forgot...I bought you something today.” He dug his hands in the right pocket of his pants. “Give me your hand.”
Shayla looked skeptical, but reached out her right hand to him.
Carter dropped a silver necklace in it, with a diamond-studded, heart-shaped pendant.
Shayla’s mouth dropped open. “What’s this for?”
“Just a reminder that someone does care about you.”
A smile lit up her face like sunshine. “Thank you, Carter.”
“You’re welcome.”
The waiter came by with the check a few minutes later. Carter slipped him a credit card, then looked at Shayla. “So what are we gonna do with the rest of the evening?”
“Sleep. I’m exhausted.”
Carter palmed her thigh. “Alright. I had something else in mind,” he said, thinking that they could catch a movie. “But I suppose I need to let you rest.”
Chapter 14
At home now, Shayla laid on the couch in the den, watching TV while Carter disappeared upstairs in his bedroom. He checked his phone, saw two missed calls from Terrance and decided to quickly call him back.
“What’s up, Tee?”
“Where you been, dawg?” Terrance asked.
“Been busy dealing with work and such. What you been up to?”
“Nothing…trying to check out this spot tonight over there on Beatties Ford Road and wanted to see if you were down to ride. But if you got a honey over there, I guess I’ll have to chill by myself.”
“No one’s here. Well, actually, I do have someone living with me now.”
“What?”
“Not like that, Tee.” Carter rubbed his head. Terrance was his boy and all, but conversations with him were just plain tiresome. “You remember the woman I told you about a lil’ while ago? The one from the sidewalk?”
“Yo, don’t tell me you took a bum home to live with you, dawg,” Terrance said.
Something about hearing Terrance call Shayla a bum didn’t sit well with Carter. He felt the need to defend her, to demand others respect her as a woman and not as a person who fell upon some misfortune, to be looked down upon for eternity. “She’s not a bum, Tee. Her name is Shayla, and I offered her residence with me because she had no where else to go.”