by Braya Spice
“But the thing is, he never told me anything like that. He said he wanted the same shit I wanted.”
“Come on, girl, he full of shit. What song does he have on his ringtone?”
“Lovers and Friends.” I almost wished I had never told her. Now was the wrong time to tell me that I didn’t look at the signs that Lavante was only after my vajayjay. I had jumped headlong into this shit, had invested feelings, thinking what my wedding colors would be and what our kids would look like, and praying that if we had a son, he didn’t have a little we-we with a man that didn’t feel the same way. What the fuck was wrong with me? I guess I was just so lonely and hard up from being alone that I fell for his bull. A man who had been up my birth canal and had the audacity to give me a fake home number. Who the fuck does that? How juvenile.
Damn.
She offered me a smile. That didn’t do shit for my feelings. ’Cause this was my rude awakening that Lavante was not what he said he was. The only question was, what was I going to do about it?
“Now”—she opened up her menu—“let me see what I’m going to order.”
I reached for mine. It was underneath my margarita. I lifted the drink and tried to grab the menu, but because it was hanging halfway off of the table, it fell to the floor before I could grasp it.
I leaned over to pick it up. I lifted my head and body back up and gasped when my eyes came into contact with Lavante’s. And that wasn’t the most shocking or awkward part about it. It was the fact that he was hugged up with another chick. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and think she was maybe his kid, but he had no damn kids.
Seeing me startled him as well. So if we ever had to fucking go into retrospect, there was no way he could say that he didn’t see me.
And even though he did see me and he was inches away from me, he kept on pushing past me without a word.
I sat back, with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I wanted to cry. Nothing was more hurtful than what he did. Flaunting another woman in front of me, then pretending I didn’t exist. I blinked to stop the tears.
“What wrong, Mommy?”
Kendra looked up from her menu. Her eyes narrowed. “You okay, Allure?”
“Yeah.” I gave Sierra a fake smile.
I knew if I told Kendra that Lavante was here with another woman and had walked by, straight dissing me, she would get crazy and curse him out. I didn’t want that, so I kept it to myself.
Chapter 6
When the bastard kept on calling me, I kept on not answering, letting the calls go to my voice mail. I was hurt by what he did, and I also had my share of stress. My rent had been raised by sixty bucks. It wasn’t easy paying the rent that I paid now. With Section 8, I was paying six hundred. That was half of what I brought home every month. This shit didn’t please me too much. After picking up Sierra after work, I stopped by a gas station, my tank being damn near on empty. I had only five dollars to dump in. But I had had days like this, so if I could get through those, I sure as hell could get through this. I couldn’t stress over it, anyway. I had a thousand-word paper to do and an exam to study for. I wondered what Lavante was doing, but figured I needed to keep my mind on my more important priorities. But he continued to come to mind.
I grabbed the nozzle and lowered it into my tank. I noticed someone staring at me. He was standing by a rig and filling his tank as well. I turned away. A couple of seconds later, as my mind calculated my list of bills and my imminent lack of sufficient funds, I noticed that two feet stood in front of me.
He was my size, brown skinned, with a beard that surrounded his chin and cheeks. He had an earring in his right ear, reminding me of a black pirate.
“Your daughter isn’t too friendly to strangers, is she?”
“Huh?” I shook my head.
“I said—”
“I’m sorry. I heard you. I just have a lot of stuff on my mind right now.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” He looked at the gas meter and raised a brow at me. “Is that all you’re going to put in your tank?”
“Well, when it’s all you have ... Uh, what are you doing?”
He placed a credit card in the slot and stuck the gas nozzle back into my tank. “Helping a sister out.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
The barely half-filled tank was now completely filled.
I smiled and said, “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
I opened my car door and paused when he put his hand on my arm.
“Listen, can I talk to you for a few minutes?”
I looked around. “A couple minutes is okay,” I said hesitantly.
He used that as an invitation to sit next to me in my car. The first thing he did was turn around and speak to Sierra. “Hi.”
Sierra looked at him and then turned her head.
“Sierra!” I said. “That was very rude.”
She ignored me.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “You don’t want to be my friend?”
“No! I’m my daddy’s friend!”
I put my head down, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
His hand on mine silenced me. “No, don’t apologize.” He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I was stopping to fill up my rig truck over there. I own about seven of them.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I own my own business.”
“You do? That’s really good. What type?”
“I own seven big rigs and some property. Hey, what’s your name?”
“Allure.”
“I’m Derek.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Can I share something with you?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, I work quite a lot, and to be honest, I been hoping I could meet a nice young lady, and then I saw you. I’m a nice guy to know. I don’t mind if you have a child and all. I know some brothas trip on that. Not me. I’d like to call you sometime, if that’s cool.”
I was silent. I knew it was as good time as ever to tell him I really wasn’t trying to see anybody. My focus was on finishing up the semester at school and taking care of Sierra.
“I have a son myself and came close to having a wife. But it just didn’t happen that way. You ever been in a situation where you were with someone you thought you’d be with for the rest of your life and it changes just like that?” He snapped his fingers.
“Yeah. I thought her father was it for me. I guess I was wrong.”
He smiled. “I guess I thought everything would be perfect for me and my girl if I did everything for her. She didn’t have to work. I gave her everything she could possibly need. A huge house, money in the bank, a car. I even got her hair and nails done every damn week, bought her flowers, and still she was not happy.”
“It happens like that sometimes.” I thought about my breakup with Greg. “I guess no matter how much you want something to work, if it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be. No matter how much you force the relationship, it’s destined to fail.”
“You seem mature for someone so young.”
“I’m not that young. I’m almost twenty-three,” I fired back defensively.
“I’m thirty-one, and in my book twenty-three is still young.”
I stubbornly refused to agree.
It made him chuckle. “Can I see you again?”
“I don’t know about—”
“Just hear me out first. I know you don’t know me, and I could be anything from an ax murderer to a rapist, but if you give yourself the opportunity to get to know me, I guarantee you will learn to like, dare I presume, love me.” He searched my eyes for a response and continued, “I live alone. I own a four-bedroom, three-bath house with a swimming pool, Jacuzzi, the works. I’m a very hardworking man. I also own property, Allure. All I need in my life is a strong, hardworking woman by my side. You got any dreams, sweetheart? Anything you wanna accomplish?”
“I want to graduate from college, provide a g
ood home and family for my child. I want to be happy, be in love.”
“I promise I can help you get all that.”
“You have to excuse my skepticism. Men have promised me a lot, and they don’t really come through. And I don’t even know you to believe all the crap you talking about. Real talk.”
“True, and I could be bullshitting like them. But I’m a man, and you probably ain’t been with a real man yet. Any old kind of way you have a child and you can’t fill your tank up shows you ain’t fucked with a real man yet.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. But it was the truth. Greg wasn’t a real man. He still didn’t help me financially with Sierra. I was now on the fence about Lavante. He wasn’t keeping his word to me. And he had humiliated me at El Torito.
“Is it possible to get your number and call you sometime?” Derek asked.
I gave him my number and put his number in my cell phone, locking it in.
“Take care, young lady.” Derek hopped out of the car and walked back to his rig.
After I pulled out of the gas station I turned to Sierra. “You didn’t like the nice man, baby?”
More sharply than I had ever heard her, she snapped, “No!”
“Why not?”
“He not Daddy!”
“And no one will ever be ... except Daddy. But, Sierra, your daddy and I are no longer together. And one day I hope to find another man to love me and be with me. He will be in your life as well. It does not mean you have to stop loving your father. He will always be in your life. Understand?”
“’Kay, Mommy.”
I was about to head home when Sierra reminded me, “Mommy, you forgot to get my chips for the party tomorrow at La La’s.”
My daughter’s babysitter was named Yolanda. Sierra called her La La for short. She had been going to Yolanda’s since she was three weeks. I was grateful that Sierra was able to go to a babysitter who employed a teacher to teach all the kids there. Sierra had been doing schoolwork and bringing home homework ever since she had turned three. She was getting a head start. So I didn’t mind contributing, even if I didn’t have it.
I moaned. I had so much homework to do, and I could use that extra hour it was probably going to take me to go into the store, because I knew once I got there, I would end up buying all kinds of other crap that we needed. It always happened that way.
“All right, let’s go.”
I turned the radio to KJLH just in time to hear Eric Roberson and Lalah Hathaway’s “Dealing.” It took us about ten minutes to get to the store.
As soon as we got inside, I told Sierra, “Let’s get the chips and be out.”
I grabbed one of the carry carts and went down the chip aisle. Sierra had my other hand, and she was skipping. She was always so happy.
I chuckled.
She picked Doritos. I grabbed two big bags. One that was cheese and one that was ranch.
“Okay,” I said.
“Wait, Mommy. Remember you told me to remind you to get cereal?”
I rolled my eyes, and we went down the cereal aisle. That was where I saw Lavante.
When he looked my way, I pretended I didn’t see him. But it was too late. From the corner of my eye, I saw he was walking up to me and Sierra.
“Sierra, go pick the cereal you want.”
“Okay, Mommy.” She walked right past Lavante.
“Hey, baby. I been calling you, and you won’t return my calls.”
I tried to push past him, but he blocked me. I went around him.
“Allure.” He followed after me.
“What do you want, Lavante?”
“You.”
I spun around on his ass, crossed my arms underneath my chest, and gave him an evil look. “You didn’t seem too interested in me at the restaurant. In fact, you pretended you didn’t know me.”
“I guess I was still angry about the situation with my job.”
I wasn’t buying that. All I had done was bring him lunch. That was it. Then I bounced. Where was the wrong there? But I let him finish.
“I’m not used to anything like that. I’ve been a bachelor for a long time, Allure.”
“Is that why you gave me a fake home number?” I pointed out.
“It all ties into my lifestyle, baby. I don’t give any women my home number. It doesn’t mean I don’t care for you or that I’m trying to mislead or hurt you. It is just a rule that I had long before I even met you.”
He had my number, so I didn’t understand why he was uncomfortable with me having his.
“Long ago I dated a young woman, and she felt more for me than I felt for her. When I broke it off, she started calling me all hours of the night. She had her uncle threaten to shoot me and shit if I didn’t return her calls. So I learned never to give my number out again. It has nothing personal to do with you, baby. And like I said, it is not to hurt you. You are something special to me. But I need you to respect my bachelorhood.”
“So what exactly are you saying, and where exactly in your life as a bachelor does that leave me? ’Cause I thought we had something and this was going to be more than just sex.” I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Then Kendra’s words came back to me. I really wasn’t shit to him.
“We do, but maybe you’re confused on what it is. It’s not exclusive, Allure, and if I have come across like it is, I’m sorry.”
What he said hurt, but I bit on my lip so he didn’t see it tremble. “You never once said you wanted anything other than what I wanted, Lavante. Never once, so to tell me this now after everything, after sharing my body with you and investing feelings ... It’s not fair.” He had seriously misled me. Made it seem like he wanted to be my man, when he really didn’t want to. Whereas I wanted someone who wanted to be with me just as much as I wanted to be with him, in a committed relationship. Someone to stick around, want to be there, help me fix things around the house, go to the movies with, and eventually be in Sierra’s life. I didn’t think that was going to be difficult to find in Lavante, being that he was older and already established.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. Let me make it up to you by doing things differently.”
I pursed my lips. The harm had already been done, and it didn’t sound like he wanted to offer me any type of commitment. He seemed pretty adamant about his bachelorhood. Still, I asked, “How are you going to do that?”
“Let me take you out again. Spend some time with you, Allure.” He hugged me close.
I felt myself melting. During the time that I had ignored him, I had missed him. In the amount of time we had been seeing each other, I had developed feelings for him that wouldn’t go away, and when he was not around, I had a serious void that also wouldn’t go away and had me up at night. I needed a man in my life, bottom line. However I could get one. I knew I deserved more, but I didn’t want to take the risk of pushing Lavante away and being by myself again. I didn’t want to start seeing someone new. With what I had been through with Greg, and now with this new mess with Lavante, who knew what else I would be put through? There was a sea of vultures out there, which I wanted no parts of. Maybe I can get over what Lavante did and start over, I thought. But I didn’t want to start over.
That was when Sierra walked back up to us. She had four different boxes of cereal. “Mommy, I couldn’t decide.” One of them dropped out of her arms.
“Let me help you, sweetheart,” Lavante said gently.
She stared at him with mistrusting eyes, like she had done to the guy at the gas station. A cock blocker for real. “Thank you,” she whispered, her eyes still slits.
“No problem, pretty girl.”
“Mommy, can I look at the candy snacks?”
“Go ahead.”
She rolled her eyes at him and walked a few feet away from us.
“She acts just like you,” he joked.
“I don’t want to be hurt, Lavante, so if that’s what’s up your sleeve, then you need to step off.”
He kiss
ed me and chuckled afterward. “I’m not out to hurt you, Allure.”
I let him, like a dumb ass. I didn’t want to be a dumb ass, but being anything other than that wasn’t going to help my heart. Despite his lack of width, length, and girth, I liked Lavante. I had invested something in him that I was having a hard time getting over.
“I’ll call you later, and answer this time.” He walked away.
When Sierra and I were at the register, I asked her, “Sierra, did you like the man you just met? His name is Lavante.” I hadn’t planned on her meeting him. But it happened.
“No.”
“Why? Because he’s not Daddy?”
“No. Mommy, I just don’t like him.”
Was God trying to tell me something through my daughter? Maybe Lavante was just bad news all around and I should seriously be done with him, instead of giving him a second change.
Lavante stood me up again. We were supposed to have a dinner at my house, but it turned out that I enjoyed dinner with Sierra, and only Sierra.
Sierra and I enjoyed the gumbo, which I had packed with shrimp, chicken, and crab, and we both enjoyed pieces of cake and milk. Well, Sierra enjoyed hers. I ate mine out of misery and snuck another piece of cake before going to bed. Lavante didn’t even have the audacity to call me and cancel. That shit really hurt. I wondered where he was and who he was with. Was it the woman I saw him with at El Torito? Did he take her out and spend the evening with her? Probably, I thought. I wondered if he told her the same shit he told me. Did he game her, or was he being a real gentleman toward her? More questions continued to ring in my head before I fell asleep.
The next day, I took the pot of gumbo and prepared to toss it in the Dumpster, because looking at it reminded me of how I had been stood the fuck up.
When I opened my door, I saw Etta sitting on my porch, doing what else? Puffing on a cigarette. I wanted to snatch the shit out of her mouth. It was seven in the evening, and she had not finished delivering her mail.
“What’s up, Etta?” I asked, slipping past her.
“Girl, slaving for these white folks. Nothing new.”