Like Slow Sweet Molasses

by Like Slow Sweet Molasses

  She would endure. Her survival skills took precedence over social engagement protocol.

  Angela participated in the free-flowing banter of the group of professional women trekking through life, making up the guidelines as they went along. It was interesting how they bent the rules as dictated by their differing views on social issues concerning Blacks. What worked for one to master a situation wasn’t necessarily successful for another. Where they all appeared to come to the same bend in the road was about men. They couldn’t live with them. They couldn’t live without them.

  Sporadic bursts of laughter interspersed between bites altered the tone of the gathering. The women bonded because, at the moment, it was them against the world. That is, until the owner headed in their direction, meandering his way through the thrill-seekers now crushing the doors for access, his million dollar smile dazzling all within sight. Angela took note of the ladies around the table. Fangs protruded. Eyes glistened. The smell of a man was in the air heating their blood to the boiling point.

  “Ladies.” His smooth tone competed with the thumping bass. “Darrell Williams at your service. I hope everything meets with your approval.”

  They released a collective swooning sigh. Angela almost laughed aloud. She looked to Sheryl to act as spokesperson since this was her gala. The birthday girl leaned into her words dangling the bait, at which time Angela swallowed the lump in her throat because she now recognized the man before them. His smile, stamped with the preciseness of a chisel on his full lips, didn’t affect his shrewd eyes. They looked the same from Chance’s second story window the other day—cold, hard and calculating. Sheryl’s incessant chatter and girlish giggle touched off a fit of laughter of epidemic proportions from the women. It was clear he basked in their favor and was comfortable enough to snatch up a few peanuts, shaking them around like die before tossing them into his mouth.

  He circled the table acknowledging each female with an ingratiating smile accompanied by a very suggestive handshake. When it was her turn, Angela excused herself in the nick of time escaping the formal introductions as well as the risk of an allergic reaction. Or so she thought. His arm snaked out. His fingers coiled around her forearm burning her skin like lye.

  “You’re hurting me!” Angela struggled for her release. He held on tighter.

  “What’s your hurry, Angela?”

  He knew her name. She hadn’t given it. Neither had any of her companions.

  “You have exactly one second to remove your hand or…” She left the sentence unfinished.

  “No need to get riled, Ms. Munso.” His fingers stopped squeezing the life out of her arm.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I know more than your name, Angela. I’ve been to your home.”

  His eyebrows shifted downward, helping to make deciphering his look impossible. The giveaway to Angela that she tread on thin ice was the way his mouth morphed into a flesh-eating apparatus, teeth bared in a false smile that covered for the attack to come. “You’ve been in my home?”

  “That’s not what I said, Angela.”

  She twisted from his clutch instantly alert to a more pressing problem. “Stop playing with words. When were you at my home?”

  All activity at their table was at a standstill. No one wanted to miss any of the altercation playing out in real-time and clearer than HDTV. Sheryl, specifically, gaped.

  “Today.”

  He toyed with her and everyone knew it.

  “Could you be more specific? Today, when?”

  “Relax, Angela. I picked my nephew up after his piano lessons.”

  “So, you’re the uncle dispensing crapola for advice.” Her arm tingled, the redness exposing where each of his fingers bonded to her skin. “You’re doing the nephew who looks up to you a grave injustice. Let him be a child a while longer, Mr. Williams. There’ll be plenty of time to incite him to mediocrity.”

  “An unwarranted insult, Angela.” He said her name with loathing. “Look around you. Does it appear to you that I’d be involved with anything or anyone mediocre?”

  “I don’t know you, Mr. Williams. However, I do know people just…like…you.” Her time dwindled. “I’ll talk to Jamal’s mother about other arrangements to have her son picked up. Stay away from my home, Mr. Williams.” Angela quickly recovered two twenties from her purse to lay on the table, more than enough to cover her order with leftovers to apply on the remainder of the tab.

  She skirted Darrell Williams to speak privately to Sheryl. “My apologies for disrupting your party.”

  “You two know each other?” Suspicion tinged Sheryl’s voice.

  “I’ll explain later. Right now, I’ve got to be going. You be careful of this man, Sheryl.” Angela, again, was his captive. But not for long.

  “What up, D.?” A hauntingly low quality drummed in the voice. He detected Angela’s shocked, though, relieved look to afford Darrell the slack to save face and let her go.

  “Big Brock. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Darrell accepted the out presented with derision. “Can’t be business since you have no blue wave rolling in behind you. Got…to be…personal.”

  “I came to do my part in supporting our local economy.” Chance printed the awed faces at the table into his memory bank for future reference. His eyes met and held Sheryl’s whom he remembered offered assistance during his subbing stint for Angela’s class. People at the table stared like he was hell’s devil. He felt the part, too, when he spied Angela wrangling for her freedom moments ago.

  “Your money’s not good here, friend.” Chance’s one time friend bragged. “Whatever you’re having is on the house.” Insinuating boldly, he named a few drinks. “Mojito? Black Russian? Jamaican Rose? They’re free for the taking.”

  Chance recognized the challenge implicated in Darrell’s words, never having the opportunity to respond.

  “Lieutenant,” Angela interrupted, both perturbed and happy to see Chance. She figured Mrs. Thatcher called him even after she asked her not to. “Would you mind giving me a lift?”

  “I’ll take a rain check on that drink, D.” Chance captured Angela’s hand in his like it was nothing unusual, leading her in and out of the maze directly to his Cobra parked at the curb.

  “Hurry, Chance.” She was panic-stricken. He helped her in then popped over to the driver’s side.

  He sensed it. Something wasn’t right. “What is it?”

  “Turn on the light.” He did. She held out the badly bruised arm.

  “Fuck!” He exploded, forgetting his vow to clean up his vocabulary. His calloused hand gripped her arm mindful not to hold her too tightly as she groped for something in her purse. “Did he do that?”

  “I don’t believe it was intentional.” Angela withdrew an injector from her clutch. “The nearest emergency room, please.” She jabbed the spring-loaded needle into her thigh holding it there until all the solution drained. “I mean,” she proceeded in a conversational tone, “he did hold me against my will unknowingly infecting me with peanut residue from his hands.”

  The muscle car’s beefed-up motor roared to life, slingshotting them from the curb.

  “What were you doing at his place, anyway?” he grated.

  “I don’t owe you an explanation of where I go or don’t go,” she huffed. “Besides, I didn’t know it was his place.” His disapproval burned into her as he glared in her direction momentarily taking his eyes from the task at hand. “My co-worker invited me to her party, if it’s any of your business.”

  “He’s bad news, Angela. Warn your girlfriends.” Fluorescent lights zigzagged across the hood of the car. He tooled the familiar streets having to go out of his way to locate the closest hospital—another one of the catastrophic remnants of Hurricane Katrina.

  “The question is…what were you…doing there?” she cross-examined, each breath now a laborious act.

  “Don’t talk.” He worried about her condition. “I’ll answer any question you ask,only after you’ve rec
eived medical attention.”

  “So you’ll know—any number of reactions could occur as a result of my contamination.” She would have thought him fearful of nothing. His eyes told her she was mistaken. “Swelling is likely to impact my face and extremities. Minor inconveniences when the most severe trauma possible is…my death.”

  His foot hit the floorboard sending them hurtling forward faster than a bat out of hell. “Just shut up and concentrate on breathing.” Chance demanded her cooperation.

  She laughed, a lilting sound that wormed its way to an unsuspecting target—his heart.

  Chapter Eight

  Chance sat mesmerized by Angela’s beauty even though her facial features exhibited the swelling she warned him about. Her care in the emergency room, of which he convinced the staff to allow him to be present miraculously by flashing his badge and ordering the crisis team to treat her as an attack victim, relayed her imminent chances of demise. His education of the situation concerning her ailments lent to the compassionate side governing his subsequent actions. He ensured her comfort on the ride home not only with a seatbelt but by the constant massage of the hand he released to shift gears and for no other reason.

  The purpose of structure in her life was never more evident than after witnessing that episode. He heard of deaths occurring from nut allergies. But to see someone in the throes of such an ordeal was extremely humbling. Although he lived life on the edge, his profession taught him to take precautions to safeguard his existence. Chance wondered what Angela could do to protect herself against this unseen predator.

  “Genetics compliments of my biological father.” She’d watched him for quite a while very curious to know what thoughts ran through his mind. He tweaked her cheek, the act alluding to the track of his thoughts. “How long did it take?”

  Chance didn’t have to look at his watch since he’d monitored the passage of time beginning with the instant her body hit the stretcher. “You were under constant care for about four hours.”

  “To make sure no subsequent flare-ups.”

  “How many times has this happened?” He checked the emotion in his voice.

  She raised her seat back to the upright position. “Never. My diagnosis detailed ingestion. Skin contact has never been a concern of mine.” Angela’s tone turned morose. “Evidently, it’s not enough to watch what and where I eat. I guess I’ll have to live life in a bubble from now on.”

  He had no response and was glad when her residence came into view. “Think you left enough lights on?” Her home stood out like a lighthouse to a floundering ship in the night.

  As soon as they stopped in her drive, while she unbuckled without responding to his jesting, his cell rang. Angela’s departure from the car met with resistance in the form of his hand on hers. A look into his eyes compelled her to wait—even though her patience was very clearly tested.

  “Slow down, Aunt Belle.” Chance listened finding Angela’s eyes in the murky darkness of the vehicle. “It’s okay. That’s me in Angela’s driveway. I have her with me.” The blue light extinguished when he pressed the END button.

  Angela surmised the outcome. “She’s on her way?”

  “You know it,” he laughed. “Come on. I’ll walk you inside.”

  They took the steps one at a time, climbing at the pace her stamina dictated, her progress brought to a heart fluttering stop by the rose in the door. “Not again.”

  His green eyes squinted. Her heart palpitated.

  “Again?”

  “You’ve got to stop, Chance,” she accused.

  He was flabbergasted. “You think I placed the flower there?” Her look was his answer. “Why would I do that?”

  “My point, exactly.” Angela crushed the rose underfoot and moved to open the door just as Mrs. Thatcher scurried up the walk. “Thank you for your assistance. I’m fine, now.”

  Chance doubted that was true. Instead of causing a scene, he cut his aunt off at the pass.

  “You’re not going to let her go in there without checking inside, are you, Brock?” Mrs. Thatcher sidestepped her nephew to march up to the porch wavering considerably at Angela’s appearance. The tilt of her head reprimanded him for his inaction. She swiveled to frown at Angela while addressing him. “She didn’t tell you, did she?”

  Angela became accustomed to the way her neighbor asked a question and affirmed it at the same time.

  “Tell me what?” he questioned.

  “Someone sneaked in on her while she bathed earlier today.”

  His stare hit the bull’s eye. Angela blinked her misty eyes dismissing him, unlocked her door and would have shut it in their faces if not for his lightening-like speed. “You have a stalker.”

  “No,” she denied his pronouncement. Confused, “I don’t know. I thought it was you.”

  Angela led the way sitting on the sofa to catch her breath. Her fear transmitted throughout the living room bringing her visitors inside to surround and comfort her. Shame surfaced when she met his eyes. She was unable to identify the emotion she saw there. It was an uncommon event for her—to volunteer information about herself.

  “It started with the rose left in my viola case in my class—while locked behind closed doors. Then, the rose found in the door handle the same day—just like today. This is the third one.”

  “And the break-in?” Chance questioned while scanning as far as the eye could see.

  “I started to think I’d imagined it. Someone lurking in my bedroom. So, I called 911, anyway.”

  “Good girl,” he praised, unaware that a white man never referred to a Black woman as a girl.

  Angela let the slip pass. “The officer found forced entry in the kitchen.”

  Chance left the women to investigate that part of the house. Everything appeared in order with the exception of the straight back chair braced under the knob of the back door. “Were fingerprints taken?” he called out.

  “Not to my knowledge. He said there was no bodily injury though he did take a report.” Softly, to no one in particular, she amended, “I can’t believe this…my life, all of a sudden, is careening out of control.”

  Belle sat next to her giving her hand that grandmotherly pat. Angela managed a weak smile. Chance dropped to one knee before them.

  “In view of recent happenings, I have someone coming over right away to collect any trace evidence of the intrusion.” Her frown and pursed lips showed her distaste. He explained, “It’s necessary, Angela, in the event fate smiles on us and we get a nibble on an identity.”

  “I feel so…so—” The right word escaped her.

  “Violated?” he supplied.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Perplexed, she looked at him. “Why are you sorry?”

  Chance internalized the question, delivering an answer after much deliberation while remaining on bended knee. “I’m sorry you mistrust me because of what I am.”

  “A policeman?”

  “A white man,” he responded. “Otherwise, you would have point blank told me where to get off and I would’ve insisted to you, then, I wasn’t the guilty party.”

  “I didn’t think we had anything in common, Chance. Ignoring the flowers, simply put,” her hands lifted in supplication, “would make you go away.”

  “You really have an inflated impression of yourself, lady,” he lashed out. Three sets of eyes looked from one to the other.

  “I’m not proud of what I’ve become over the last few months.” She couldn’t believe they conducted this discussion in front of innocent Mrs. Thatcher, who hadn’t moved a muscle and watched in unadulterated interest. “I’m what I sometimes accuse others of being—a bigot.”

  “That’s not true,” he refuted her description of herself. “You’re coming to grips with what you feel was abandonment by your biological father—”

  “Chance, please,” she shushed him. Her head lowered in disgrace. A finger lifted her chin.

  “You’ve done nothing to cause you
r head to drop. It’s his loss not to know the wonderful person you are.”

  The knock at the door abbreviated her reply.

  “Come on in, Pops.” Chance let the newcomer in. Angela went ballistic.

  “Two-faced. That’s what you are. Talking out of both sides of your mouth.” She was trembling, now—fighting back sobs. “Show this man the respect he deserves.”

  Chance, knowing what she meant, had her entrenched in his arms in nothing flat, crooning into her ear, rocking her sweetly while she bawled into the front of his dress shirt. She satisfied his trepidation of holding her by circling his waist and holding on as she quieted.

  “Freddy Robinson, it’s been a long, long time.” Mrs. Thatcher greeted the bespectacled policeman whose full head of silver gray hair rivaled her own although he was years younger.

  “Belle, you’re looking fine and dandy,” he returned. Turning to the couple, he asked, “Angela?”

  Chance nodded over her head. “Angela, this is Pops. My foster-father.” Her face buried in his chest. Every breath she took quickened his heartbeat. “It’s okay.”

  “I hear you’re having a time of it lately, Angela. I’ll get what I need and get out of your way,” Pops said.

  Chance read the accusation in her eyes when she looked up at him, shaking his head “no”.

  “I’m not usually so sensitive, Mr. Robinson.” Now, she knew where Chance’s desire for wood splinters came from after seeing his foster-brother do likewise and his foster-father chomping one as he spoke to them.

  “No explanations needed, Angela. You’re in good hands. My son will take excellent care of you.” He hefted his oblong equipment case to commence his job.

  She heard the pride in his voice.

  “Pops, start in Angela’s bedroom upstairs. That way she can freshen up as soon as you’re finished in there.” Her body molded into his urging him to share a little of his strength. “I could use a cup of coffee. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not,” she told him.

  “You two stay put. I’ll make it.”

  His Aunt Belle rushed into the kitchen broadcasting her whereabouts with each slam of the cabinet doors. Chance disengaged himself grudgingly from Angela planting her on the couch as he went in search of his father.