'Til It Happens to You

by Kristofer Clarke

  Dexter, too, was appropriately dressed for the fall weather. He wore black striped stretch wool pants, a marled half-zip gray mock-neck sweater, and an exposed white cotton crew. His tall physique made anything he wore look good, and he looked just as good covered up as he did with only his bare chest and underwear.

  Dexter stood in a wide stance with both his thumbs in either pocket of his pants. His copper-color complexion glistened even under the blanket of autumn. His deep-set toast-brown eyes exuded sex. His lips were full, the kind you held on to at the end of a long passionate kiss. His face was hairless, just shapely sideburns that extended down his face and ended in line with the tip of his earlobes. He was a white man with soul and a very sexy swagger. He smiled as I neared him.

  I figured Dexter had frequented this bistro on several occasions when the waiter welcomed him by name. He responded with that warm smile that melted hearts. We sat at a table for two, with Connecticut Ave and a handful of lunch-crowd pedestrians in plain sight through the many windows of LaTomate. The décor was simple elegance. Framed portraits, remnants of Italy, ornamented the eggshell-white walls. I could only imagine its ambiance at night. A few fall-loving patrons enjoyed asparagus, leek and potato puree, or the soup of the day on the patio. We perused our menus with unnecessary haste and selected our meals.

  It wasn’t easy sitting across from Dexter. I tried to avoid gazing into his eyes.

  “What?” he asked, smiling.

  “Nothing,” I responded. Looking away, I smiled and acknowledged the waiter who had returned with lunch and a bottle of Pinot Grigio. I welcomed his interruption.

  The ear-shaped pasta with diced mixed vegetables, chicken and pesto sauce made my mouth water in anticipation. I watched Dexter’s eyes widen. The scent of his linguine pasta with cockle clams in white wine, garlic and parsley sauce opened up his insatiable appetite for seafood.

  “You know I really had a great time in Chicago,” Dexter began.

  I had a great time in Chicago, too, but it didn’t mean I wanted to talk about it every time I saw him or spoke to him. But since he had opened the door, there was something specific I wanted to ask him about the trip.

  “Why wasn’t Giovanni with you in Chicago?” I asked, and I was staring at him again.

  “Because you were there?” he responded, jokingly. I didn’t think my question was a punch line.

  “Come on, Dexter. I mean, why was that invitation extended to me and not to Giovanni?”

  “Well, he had court that Friday, and that was his weekend with Paisley, his daughter.”

  “So I was your second choice?”

  “You didn’t let me finish.” He picked up his wine glass and took a quick sip. “Look at me,” he instructed. “You and me, we, were in Chicago because I wanted to be there with you. I asked not knowing what you would say and I was relieved when you said yes. I was aware of the sexual tension between us. I know you see how I look lasciviously at you at times, even when I’m not trying to.”

  “So the dinner, the wine afterwards, was part of your plan to get it done and over with?”

  “No,” he responded in a loud whisper. “It wasn’t part of any plan. If you’re not willing to admit it to me, Trevor, I will. I’m attracted to you. I have been since I ran into you at the Daily Grind. And for that long we’ve ignored it, trying to make a friendship work. But we can’t ignore the obvious.”

  I waited until he finished speaking before looking up and acknowledging his sincerity.

  “But there’s Jackson and Giovanni,” I said.

  “I know. That complicates everything, doesn’t it?” Dexter asked and turned his attention to finishing his lunch. I followed his lead until my cell phone vibrated. I wanted to ignore the vibration, thinking it might have been my stalker. I removed my cell phone and looked at the screen.

  I knew better than to answer when Caela’s picture and number appeared on the screen. I figured it was something important, but knowing her, this phone call had nosey written all over it and nothing to do with work.

  I was right.

  “You’re having lunch with him, aren’t you?” Caela asked when I answered.

  “Are you spying on me?” I asked, turning around as I surveyed my surroundings. I tried to whisper, but I was sure Dexter could hear me.

  “Answer the question, Trevor,” she urged, but I remained silent, and that was all Caela needed to confirm her assumption. “Trevor, that’s what got you in this mess in the first place. You said you were going to pull back from him. After what happened, that’s what you need to do. This is not pulling back.”

  “Caela, it’s only lunch. What harm could that do?”

  “In case you have forgotten, the harm has already been done.”

  I sat listening to Caela. When I thought she had said all she needed to, or all I needed to hear, I ended the conversation and continued to lunch with Dexter.

  “Someone doesn’t think this is a good idea.”

  I ignored his comment. After some thought, I brought up an unfinished conversation with him. As we discussed his family over dinner in Chicago, Dexter had been reluctant to talk about his father. He promised to tell me about that part of his life later. And it was later. Why was he so apprehensive?

  “So,” I began.

  “You’re going to ask me about him, aren’t you?” he presumed.

  “Who? Your father?”

  “Yes, Trevor. When I told you my father was dead, I wasn’t lying. I thought when he died we had settled all the hatred I carried for him, and the disappointment I saw in his eyes every time he looked at me. He was on his deathbed unable to respond, so I did most of the talking. Lying there with his eyes closed was the first time I wasn’t able to see in his eyes how much he despised what I was. But I used that moment as my opportunity to free my mind. I told him I purposely kept Patrick around to hurt him, even though I was being hurt just the same and worse. I told him about how I resented his existence after he walked out on my mother, Dane, and me, and blamed him for her suicide.”

  Dexter’s eyes glistened with tears. I sat and listened. It was as if he had waited forever to say this to someone, but why hadn’t he done so in Chicago?

  “I told him that I visited him every day because I wanted to watch him die,” Dexter continued, “just like Dane had to watch my mother die because she felt she couldn’t go on without him.”

  “But…” I finally interrupted.

  “We buried my father, Marvin, with a secret, one he forced my mother to keep. The same secret my mother was trying to tell me when I came home one day and he was gone, before she took her own life. But what did I do? I interrupted her.”

  “How did you find out about it?”

  “A weak letter of apology written in my stepmother’s handwriting, but it was definitely my father’s voice. Apparently he did regain some speech after his heart attack, but only long enough to dictate the letter to Eleanor. But according to her, he had been nonresponsive since his fall.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Look, Trevor. I can’t.”

  I sat back looking disappointed. He stopped so abruptly. I could see the hurt in his eyes. I wanted to tell him it would hurt less once it was out of his system, but I held my tongue and left him alone.

  We were ending lunch earlier than I had planned, an hour and a half from the time we sat down. After hugging Dexter goodbye, I was back in my car, heading down Connecticut Avenue to finish my afternoon at work.

  23

  What’s a Man to Do?

  Trevor…

  I was somewhat distracted after lunch, trying to digest some of what Dexter had told me. What was this secret that had been revealed to him? I needed to talk to someone, and the only person I could think to call was Caela. I was almost sure Denise was busy. I wasn’t as in-tuned with her schedule like I was when she was a stone’s throw and less than a quarter tank of gas away. I could have called Jackson, but with these thoughts going through my head, he was the last pe
rson I needed to talk to. I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on any conversation with him, and a slip of the tongue could turn both our worlds upside down.

  When Caela answered the phone, I could hear her fingers racing across the keyboard in a frenetic attempt to meet a self-imposed four o’clock deadline.

  “Wow, slow down, Annabelle,” I joked as the elevator doors closed. I stared at my reflection in the bronze-colored doors. A confused man stared back at me. When the doors opened, I entered the space occupied by the agency. I said a quick hello to Morgan, who was walking towards Wesley’s office for a scheduled meeting. They had been working closely on the Copeland project.

  “You have some explaining to do, Mister,” Caela said, joking, but I knew she was serious. “I told you before, stop acting like you’re grown.”

  “Meet me in my office,” I continued almost in a sergeant-like tone.

  She removed the wireless headset and placed it beside the telephone pad. Then she quickly saved the open file she had been working on.

  “What’s the rush? Is everything ok?” she asked in a quiet whisper. I did not respond. When I entered my office, Caela entered behind me.

  “Close the door behind you, please,” I ordered as I made my way to the miniature refrigerator and grabbed an ice-cold bottle of Deer Park.

  “You haven’t told him yet, have you?” Caela paused and waited for my answer. I wasn’t looking at her. I kept the top of the bottle between my lips so words couldn’t escape. “Trevor,” she called out.

  “No, Caela. No. I haven’t told him yet.” I walked over to my desk and sat in my chair, holding the bottled water in my hand.

  “What are you waiting for?” Caela was standing in front of me, her hands folded across her chest.

  “The right moment.” Who was I kidding? Is there ever a right moment to share this kind of information?

  “And you don’t think the right moment has come and gone, and come and gone, again?”

  “I get the point, Caela. You said you weren’t going to argue with me about my decision again.”

  “Yeah, and you said you were going to tell him a while ago. What’s stopping you?”

  “What’s stopping me? Every time my phone rings I think I had the right to do what I did. Every time I think about you calling me after seeing Jackson out with that guy, I convince myself I don’t need to tell him a damn thing. And then I think about him lying to my father and Natalie about working late…” I paused. “Do you need me to continue? It only happened twice.”

  “And twice was two times too many. Next you’re going to say it meant nothing, as if that is supposed to fix anything. Well, I could care less about it meaning nothing and more about how much it meant to you to have slept with him.” She was incensed. “And then you went and had lunch with him today, and it will happen again.” She pulled a chair from the conference table on the far side of the office, placed it in front of my desk and sat.

  “You don’t know that?”

  “Then let’s just call it my best guess.”

  “Whatever you say, Caela,” I said, dismissing her statement. I stood behind the desk. “Why do I tell you anything?”

  “Because you know I’m going to tell you the truth. And who else are you going to tell this mess?” She looked at her watch, crossed her legs, and then continued. “You still haven’t figured out if those phone calls have anything to do with Jackson.”

  “Can you think of anyone else? How do I know he isn’t out there doing his own thing? And now one of his flings has been interrupting my days and my nights with these brainless warnings.”

  “Trevor, you know as well as I do you can’t use what you don’t know to justify what you’ve done. You should have told him.”

  “Ok. Well, I didn’t. Do you know how it feels to have carried this around for this long?”

  “Carrying it around must not be feeling too bad, or else you wouldn’t still be keeping your little secret,” she said in a mumble.

  “Are you saying something you want me to hear?”

  “Look, I do know how it feels,” Caela confirmed, thinking about her own confessions.

  Caela was only supposed to have shared a cab ride with the tall, unsuspecting cocoa-brown skin man standing beside her. When she woke the next morning, she watched his naked muscle-filled masculinity as he stood in the bathroom relieving himself. She wanted to tell him again, she “doesn’t usually do this,” but she remembered her muted response during the night when he asked her, “What makes me so different?” She didn’t want that question to come slapping her in the face again. The cab ride, the passionate kisses, and his boxers, which she then wore as her own undergarment, weren’t all they shared.

  Kellen Jimenez-Nisby introduced himself to the world nine months later. He came not kicking and screaming, but quiet as a church-mouse. While Caela wished she had taken the time to learn more about Kellen’s father that unseasonably warm evening in January, she did learn his name before they made love.

  His name was Tavaris Nisby, a computer-engineering student at Rice University. He looked and loved much older than his twenty-one years suggested. Even though she was only three years his senior, she was more ready for motherhood than he was to be a father, and this kept her from even reaching out to him. Unfortunately that was the first and last night she’s seen or heard from him, and she only blamed herself that her son would never know his father.

  “Look, I don’t want to lose him,” I admitted. “Telling him now after all this time jeopardizes everything.”

  “And if you don’t tell him and he finds out, what do you think that’s going to do? I can only imagine how it must feel to pretend you and Dexter are only friends, when in fact you are his…”

  “Well, nothing in that is pretending,” I interrupted.

  “You know exactly what I mean, Trevor.” Caela stood up, walked around my desk, and stood in front of me. “Look, babes, I have some work I’m trying to finish within the next half-hour, but we’re not done here.”

  “I know we’re not. I will tell him. I just have to figure out how, and when.”

  “Ok. You keep telling yourself that. I love you,” Caela said, hugging me as tight as she could.

  I kept my hands by my side knowing hugging her back would only bring tears to my eyes. When she finally let go, she turned and walked towards the door, leaving me a complete mute.

  “Hey,” I called out as she reached for the door, pulling it towards her, “I love you, too.”

  Caela winked, smiled, and continued her exit.

  I was excited to have Caela Jimenez and my godson in my life again, the closest they have lived since moving back from Piedmont, Alabama, where she went to live with her parents to get help with Kellen. When she left, I had lost the sister I never had. I missed her closeness. Now I could kiss and tell Caela. If only Denise would move back, I would have both my girls around.

  24

  My Only Love Is You

  Jackson…

  I’m usually never reminded about the loneliness and difficulty of living far from home, far from family, until I’m back home. I felt this way when I left for school, too. I hated coming home on breaks ‘cause I would have to get over being homesick all over again. Late night conversations with Devaan as Saturday nights became Sunday mornings were some of the best heart to heart conversations I’ve ever had with her.

  “You know,” Devaan had said years ago. “It’s okay if you call him daddy.”

  She was referring to my mother’s husband, Brodrick DeLeon Kirkwood. Devaan was a young woman and had been daddy’s little girl for some time now, even though daddy wasn’t the man whose blood ran through her veins. She sat on the floor snacking on a bag of unshelled roasted peanuts, her late night snack of choice. I was lying on her bed, looking over her shoulder at the television. I was 15 years old, still holding on to hopes my own father was coming back into my life. He was the only man I was going to call daddy. For now, calling my mother’s husband M
r. Kirkwood was working well for the both of us.

  I was 8 years old when my father, Demetrius Marquis Bradley, left. At the time, even though I was angry with him—and I remained that way for a long time—I made excuses, justified his departure, and defended his name against slander. But I knew better, and over time he became as sorry as the excuses I made, a failure afraid to face responsibilities. The only thing my father left me with, besides a handful of memories and dying hope, was that black and white self-portrait. I think he just forgot to take it with him, but he had taken everything else. He never planned on coming back, and I eventually had to accept that.

  My mother woke early this Thanksgiving morning. Hearing her voice, I made my way downstairs and into the kitchen to keep her company. I loved having my mother to myself. Mr. Kirkwood was flying in later this afternoon from an assignment in Kansas, and was supposed to arrive in time for dinner. Devaan, who was never an early riser, was still asleep upstairs in her room down the hall from mine. Trevor was still asleep in the downstairs guestroom where he fell asleep last night while he, Devaan, and I watched Nights in Rodanthe late into the night, a romantic movie starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane.

  “Have tea with me,” I suggested. I walked into the kitchen and kissed my mother on her cheek.

  “Same place?” Mother asked with a broad smile stretched across her face.

  After the teakettle whistled, and our cups were filled, my mother and I sat on the back patio enjoying cups of honey lemon tea. This was one of my favorite times spent with her. It was a Thanksgiving morning ritual that never stopped even as I got older. This morning was no different.