by E. N. Joy
“No problem.”
“Well, thanks again.” Locksie hesitantly waved goodbye and turned to walk away. She didn’t know why, but she felt as though her business with this clerk named Naomi wasn’t finished. She couldn’t explain the connection she felt she had with Naomi after only spending forty-five minutes in a department store with her.
“By the way,” Naomi called out. “What church are you a member of?”
“Well, actually, I’m not a member. It’s my aunt’s church.”
“Oh, I see. Well, if you’re willing to visit any other churches, I’d love to invite you to mine one Sunday. Matter of fact, I wrote and produced a play and my church is putting it on next Sunday afternoon. Maybe you could visit my church for morning service, we could do lunch or something, and then we could go back and watch the play.”
“That sounds great. I would love to come see you act in it.”
“Oh, no, I’m not acting. God didn’t anoint me to do that; just to write and produce. We have to know the limits of our gifts, you know.”
“God has given my aunt the gift to dance.”
“Oh, she does praise dance, does she?”
“Yes. I had no idea she had it in her. She never once mentioned that she was interested in dancing.”
“Well, you know it’s not always about what we want to do or what we are interested in. When God gives us a gift, we better use it or He’ll take it back just as quickly as He gave it to us. Anyway . . .” The clerk took out a slip of paper and pen and began to write down her church information. She handed it to Locksie.
“Thank you.” Locksie stuck the piece of paper down in her purse and then paused for a minute. “Just one question. The same thing I wear to your church service I can wear to the play, right? Or do I have to go home and change? I mean, you know I’m new at this fellowship thing. I’d know what to wear to a Tyler Perry play in a minute, but a church play . . .”
Both women laughed.
“No need to change or anything. You’ll be fine.” The clerk paused and smiled before saying, “You know, God is so divine. I usually don’t work on Sundays because I’m in church. But the girl scheduled to work, her flight got canceled and she got stuck in New York. As a result, the airline is giving her a voucher for a free trip, and me . . . well, I got to meet a special woman of God. So you know what? I was supposed to be here today. You were supposed to be here at this very time.”
Locksie shook her head and smiled. “Yeah, you’re right.”
Just then a customer came up to the counter ready to check out. “See you next Sunday, Locksie.”
“Okay, Naomi,” Locksie said as she turned away, but then she stopped in her tracks. As far as she could remember, she hadn’t told Naomi her name. Locksie turned back around. A mischievous grin covered Naomi’s face as she winked at Locksie, then proceeded to wait on the customer.
Chapter 25
“So, is my leg going to be okay, doctor?” Peni cooed as her bubble-gum-colored nails molested the bandage that had been tightly wrapped around her knee.
“Well, uh, um, yes, Mrs. Uh . . .” the doctor stammered as he got sidetracked by yet another one of Peni’s flirtatious moves.
“Givens. Miss Givens,” Peni enunciated as she squirmed on the examination table, the tissue paper scrunching beneath her.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Miss Givens. Uh, yes, you are going to be just fine. Try to stay off of it as much as possible. Keep it elevated and keep it iced.”
“Stay off it for how long? It’s Friday night and my girls are expecting me to meet them out at our spot later on.” Peni used her best rehearsed whining tone, the one she always used on Elkan. The screech of it annoyed Elkan so much that he was always quick to give in to Peni’s requests. It annoyed him because it was that same pleading whine that had landed him on top of her doing things to her body that he had never even done to his wife’s.
“Well, if a night out with the girls includes any dancing, you might want to call them up and take a rain check. There’ll be no dancing on this knee.”
“Pooey,” Peni pouted. “Oh well, another Friday night alone.”
Just then the doctor’s pager went off. “Well, Miss, uh, Givens, I’ve got to go,” the doctor said after looking down at his pager. “The nurse will be back in with your discharge papers and your pain medication prescription. I’m going to suggest that you follow up with your family doctor in about a week or so. But if after a couple days the swelling doesn’t go down and you’re still experiencing pain, you should come back to the ER and let us check it out.”
“Will do, doctor. And thanks for everything.” Peni extended her hand to the doctor, taking his into hers and stroking the back of his hand with her thumb.
“Uh, well, uh, that’s my job.” The doctor turned to open the door and exit, but his palms were so sweaty that he couldn’t turn the knob. Embarrassed, he looked back over his shoulder at Peni, who was watching him fumble, wiped his hands down his coat and finally made his escape.
“Dang it,” Peni said under her breath. “I must have come on too hard and scared the little Doctor McDreamy off. He didn’t even ask me for my number or anything.” Peni made a mental note to tone down her advances next time so that she didn’t come across so dominant. Today’s men were often intimidated by a strong-willed woman who knew what she wanted. She’d have to play the coy little Paris Hilton role next time.
Peni waited a few minutes before the nurse finally returned. She went over the doctor’s instructions one more time with Peni, and explained the dosage of her prescription.
“All right, Miss Givens,” the nurse said, handing Peni a copy of her discharge papers. “That knee will be back to normal in no time.”
“Thank you,” Peni said as the nurse helped her off the table and into the waiting wheelchair.
“Oh, and your husband went to pull the car around for you, so he’s waiting out front,” the nurse said chart in hand.
Husband? Peni thought as a candy striper rolled her down the hall and out the hospital doors. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Peni thought as she saw Dawson waiting for her at the exit.
Once he saw her, he got out of the car and ran to her aid, opening the passenger door and helping her out of the wheelchair and into the car. Peni had been so caught up in trying to rope in a fella with a PhD, that she forgot all about her other prospect. A smile crept across her face as Dawson gently released her down into the seat.
“Is that comfortable?” he asked with such care and attentiveness in his voice. After all, he felt responsible for Peni’s trip to the emergency room.
After twenty minutes on the treadmill and thirty minutes of weight training, Dawson had Peni warm down with her usual lap around the track before a set of stretches. She had been doing so well that he pushed her for a second lap. It was during that second lap when Peni’s knee gave out on her and she went down.
Dawson immediately scooped up the tearful damsel in distress and rushed her to the emergency room. He apologized the entire way for pushing her to do that extra lap. His guilt had kept him waiting for her at the hospital and now making sure she got home.
“I’m fine,” Peni moaned in agony.
Dawson closed the door and then walked around the car and got into the driver’s seat. “Make sure you turn over all of your doctor’s bills to me,” Dawson said, pulling off.
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you, but you don’t have to do that. My insurance covers one hundred percent of ER visits, and I don’t have a deductible, so there’s no out of pocket expenses. But thank you anyway. You are such a dear.” Peni stroked the back of her hand up and down Dawson’s cheek.
“Are you sure? I just feel so bad. If I hadn’t pushed you to run that extra lap . . .”
“Dawson, honey, it’s not your fault. I probably just lost my bearing trying to put an extra little twitch in my hips because I knew you were watching.” Peni winked as Dawson looked over at her.
“Woman, you are t
oo much.”
“More than enough, maybe, but not too much.” Peni looked down at her watch. “Oh, no!”
“What is it? You in pain?”
“No. I’m late picking up my son from the sitter. I called my job when I knew I wouldn’t make it back from lunch, but I forgot to call the sitter. She’s probably worried sick. I knew I shouldn’t have used my lunch hour to work out.”
“You had no idea you were going to get injured. Look, just calm down and tell me what time you were supposed to pick your son up.”
“Over an hour ago,” Peni said. “At five-thirty.”
“Where does the sitter live? I’ll drive you straight there.”
Peni gave Dawson directions to her sitter’s house. Just as they pulled up, Hannah was coming down the walkway holding Little E’s hand. Peni opened the car door.
“I’m so sorry,” she called out to the sitter, who was still standing in the doorway. Peni slowly slung her leg out of the car so that they could see her injury. “As you can see, I got into an accident.”
“What happened? Are you okay?” the sitter inquired as she came out of the door and onto the porch.
“I’m fine. Just a sprained knee is all. I had to go to the ER. Sorry I forgot to call you.”
“It’s okay,” the sitter assured her. “I left several messages on your cell and when I didn’t hear back from you, I called his dad.” She pointed at Little E.
Peni always left her cell phone in her car whenever she went in the gym to work out. Since Dawson took her to the ER in his car, she didn’t have cell phone to hear it ringing when the sitter was calling.
“Your leg is broke, Mommy,” Little E said as he released Hannah’s hand and walked over to Peni.
“Oh, baby, Mommy is going to be fine.” She kissed him on the cheek.
“Since it’s his weekend with his father anyway, I can go ahead and take him,” Hannah chimed in as she walked over to the car and leaned down to speak with Peni.
“Could you? That would be great. I don’t think I’d be able to drive him over anyway, especially after I get my pain medicine in me.”
“I don’t mind at all,” Hannah replied. “Come on, EJ. Tell Mommy good-bye.”
Elkan Junior did what he was told then placed his hand back in Hannah’s, and they walked away.
“Handsome little guy you got there.” Dawson smiled as he watched them walk away.
“Yep. He takes after his father. You don’t have any, do you?”
“Huh? What?” Dawson said, turning his attention back to Peni.
“Kids? You don’t have any . . . but you want them.”
Dawson looked back to Little E. He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
Locksie and Dawson had never really talked about having kids before. In all actuality, Dawson could have easily given or taken kids in their relationship. After seeing Little E, though, he could picture playing catch with a little Dawson. But at the rate of his and Locksie’s sex life, he was having a hard time getting to first base, and everybody knows that it takes a home run to make a baby.
“I’m sure raising kids is hard work. You’re lucky to be able to have a sitter and a nanny.”
“Nanny? I wish. But don’t think I haven’t asked his father to include money for one in the child support.”
“So, who’s she? The white woman?” Dawson pointed to Hannah, who had just buckled Elkan Junior in and was getting into her car.
Peni burst out laughing. “Oh, her. She’s his dad’s wife. And trust me, she can be black when she wants to. You know the saying that there is two sides to every story?”
“Yeah.” Dawson nodded.
“Well, literally, there’s two sides to her.” Peni winced from a sudden sharp pain through her knee.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, but I think I’m going to need that pain medicine.”
“I’ll tell you what. Let me go ahead and take you home so that you can get comfortable. I’ll run out and get your prescription filled and have one of the guys at the gym help me bring your car back to you.”
“Dawson, I would really appreciate that.” Peni touched his face and smiled.
“It’s no problem, really,” Dawson replied, staring into Peni’s eyes.
Hannah, blowing her horn as a means to say good-bye to Peni, interrupted their moment. Peni turned to see the top of Little E’s head and his little hand waving goodbye as Hannah pulled off.
“Point me to your place,” Dawson said as he pulled off behind them.
Peni was more than happy to oblige. After all, if she could help it, she was going to get more than just a sprained knee out of her trip to the ER. She was going to get a man—Dawson, to be more specific. She knew that Dawson had this little girlfriend, but he rarely talked about her. But Peni had taken someone else’s man before, so she was convinced she could do it again.
Chapter 26
Hannah sat at the desk in her home office, reading the email on her screen for the hundredth time, debating whether to hit the send button. It was an email to Drake, asking him to meet with her to go over some graphic ideas for one of her clients; at least that’s what it appeared to be on the surface. But Hannah knew doggone well that she simply wanted to be in Drake’s presence to see if she could see what Reggie saw, confirming his attraction for her.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said to herself as she rested her elbows on her desk and planted her head in her hands. She had wanted to send the email an hour ago when she had first typed it, but something was telling her not to.
She got up and began pacing as she continued talking to herself. “It’s just a meeting—a business meeting. I mean, we’d have to meet again eventually. Better sooner than later. I mean, if we’re going to do business together, we have to communicate.” On that thought, Hannah plopped back down in her burgundy leather office chair and hit the send key before she could talk herself out of it again. “There. All done. It’s just business.”
Hannah’s ringing cell phone interrupted her thoughts. “This is Hannah,” she said into the phone.
“Hannah, hey,” Drake’s voice rang from the other end of the phone.
Wow, that was fast, Hannah thought. A smile crept over her face at the thought that Drake had just been sitting there waiting by the computer or the phone for her to contact him again. It boosted her ego to know that she could have that effect on a man.
“Drake, hi,” Hannah said into the phone. “I didn’t think I’d hear from you so soon.”
“Soon?” Drake was confused, considering it had been more than two weeks since they had last seen each other. He knew because he had been marking his calendar as to when to call her again. He didn’t want to contact her too soon and have her thinking that he wanted anything out of her other than a business relationship. Heck, deep down inside, he was still trying to convince himself of that.
“Well, yeah . . . so soon after the email.”
“I didn’t get any email. When did you send it?”
“Dang it,” Hannah lipped, removing the phone from her ear. She knew that had she waited just five more seconds, he would have contacted her first. She wished she had listened to that little voice in her head that told her not to send the email. Hannah placed the phone back to her ear. “Oh, I just sent it about five minutes ago.”
“Oh, yeah, well I’m sitting right here at my computer and—oh, wait a minute. It just popped up.” Hannah could hear Drake mumbling the email. “Oh, that sounds great. Sure, we can get together. Actually, I was just calling to ask you a couple of things, but if you need to meet, I can oblige.”
I didn’t say that I needed to meet. “Fine. When and where?”
“Is this afternoon too short notice? My week is crazy busy and I think today is the only time I’ll be able to fit you in so that I can give you the time that you need.”
Hannah wondered what it was with this “need” thing. Had she come across as needy to him? Maybe Elkan saw her as needy too. Maybe th
at’s why he cheated on her. Hannah’s mind started going all over the place until Drake brought it back to their conversation at hand.
“Hello, you there?”
“Oh, yeah, Elkan, this afternoon will work fine.” Before she realized what she had said, the words had already spilled from her lips. She had just been thinking about Elkan, so that’s the name that came out of her mouth.
“Elkan?” Drake was puzzled.
“Oh, sorry. That’s my husband.”
“I see.” Drake tried to hide the drop in his excitement at the mention of Hannah’s husband’s name. Once again, he wouldn’t want to give her the wrong impression. “Well, uh, I’ll see you this afternoon.” He ended the call.
Before Hannah could beat herself up anymore, her phone rang again. “This is Hannah.”
“And this is Reggie. How are you, apple juice?”
“Uggggghhhh,” Hannah screamed.
“I take that as a ‘not so good.’ Talk to me, Almond Joy.”
Hannah proceeded to tell Reggie about the email to Drake and their phone conversation.
“Sugar cane, if you’re already calling him by another man’s name, that’s not a good start for y’all’s relationship.” Reggie laughed.
“What relationship?” Hannah became very defensive. “This is just business. How many times do I have to say that?”
“However many times you need to say it to convince yourself. Calm down, cherry butter. I was just joking, but looks like I hit a nerve.”
“I’m sorry, Reggie.” Hannah exited her office and walked across the hall to her bedroom and flopped on the bed. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
“I must confess. It’s me that’s gotten into you. I planted a seed in your head and now the devil is watering it.”
“Huh?”
“Me putting the whole idea in your head about Drake being attracted you. I’m sorry, lollipop. I shouldn’t have been playing devil’s advocate. You and Elkan have the perfect marriage now. He adores the heck out of you. And why shouldn’t he? Sir Mix-a-Lot said it best. You got an L.A. Face with an Oakland booty.” They both laughed.