Sweet St. Louis

  “So did you tell your friend yet?” she asked him, still smiling.

  “Did you tell Celena?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, well, you got me on that then. But I didn’t just come out and say it. It was like he already knew.”

  “She knows too. She just hasn’t said anything to me yet. But she will after I hang up.”

  He asked, “Have you ever thought about having your own apartment somewhere?”

  “Of course. But I had no reason to do it.”

  “What about for your private space?”

  “What, so we can take showers together, and then lay around the apartment butt naked all day?” she teased.

  He chuckled. “That’s my girl. Use that imagination.”

  That’s my girl? she thought to herself. Hmm!

  “What do you call me when you talk to your friend?”

  Anthony was full of giggles that night. That was a good sign, because coldness could have meant distance and resistance. Every woman in the world wanted nothing but closeness after the first time with her new man. Closeness after every time.

  “Believe it or not, I just started calling you ‘my girl,’” he answered her.

  “Oh, and you had to wait until you got some before you could do that, hunh?”

  “Yup,” he piped. “That’s the way it goes.”

  “So, when can I start calling you ‘my man’? And why can’t you call me your lady or something? Why do we always have to be ‘girls’?”

  Anthony thought about that and agreed to it. “Aw’ight, I see what you’re saying. Okay, my lady. Does that make you feel better?”

  “Yes, it does. Now what do you want me to call you?”

  He hesitated. “You can call me your man.”

  Sharron chuckled and shook her head against the phone. She could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable about it. I know how leery guys can get when talking about relationships.”

  He laughed it off. “We talk about relationships. We just don’t do it around y’all.”

  “I know,” Sharron countered with a grin. “Because all I ever hear are guys talking about sex, sports, and rap music, all day long. And, oh yeah, makin’ money.”

  “Well, that money gotta be made. So don’t act like it ain’t important. Because as long as we livin’ in America, it is”

  “As long as it’s not the most important thing,” Sharron stated.

  “What are the most important things to you?” he asked her.

  Good question.

  She said, “Hmm, let me think about that. Well, I have to be attracted to you number one.”

  “That’s more superficial than money. What if I was a beautiful guy inside with an ugly-ass face?” Anthony asked.

  “You’d be shit out of luck. And I’m just being honest.”

  “Damn. Is that what they teach y’all down in Tennessee? I thought you’d go for any man who was good to you.”

  “Not hardly. We all have our images of who we’d like to be with. I know you do. And I do too.”

  “What’s after the attraction part?” he asked her.

  “Respect. Because you can’t allow yourself to be with someone who doesn’t respect you.”

  “True, true, I can agree with that.

  “Then what, honesty and loyalty and all that?” Anthony asked as if he had heard it all before. He had. Most guys had heard it before when they were willing to listen.

  Sharron caught on to his sarcasm. “And what’s so wrong with those things, since you’re being so smart about it?” she asked.

  “Nothing. I mean, I guess they all apply.”

  “What’s important to you then, outside of good sex?” Sharron assumed that “good sex” would be high on any guy’s list. And it was. It just wasn’t as high as many women thought.

  “Ahh, I’d say that dedication was pretty high with me. Because I need a woman who can stick it out with me, no matter what. Like on that Tupac album you asked me about, Makaveli. He got this one song called ‘Just Like Daddy,’ where he says, ‘When I’m dirt broke and fucked up, you still love me!’”

  Sharron sucked her teeth and said, “Yeah, that’s typical of a guy. But y’all won’t do the same for us. If I wrote a song talkin’ about ‘When I’m fat as a cow and can’t see my feet, you’re still sweet,’ most guys wouldn’t want to hear that.”

  Anthony had to hold the phone away from his mouth he laughed so hard.

  “You trippin’,” he told her.

  “But that’s the truth though. Tell me it’s not.”

  “You will get fat like that when you’re pregnant.”

  “I’m talking about after the babies.”

  “Well, you gotta stay in shape. That ain’t my fault.”

  “And it ain’t our fault when guys lose their damn jobs. You gotta get back out there and get another one.”

  “I’m not ever gonna be without a job. I got too many skills for that,” Anthony countered. “As long as we all drive cars, I’m staying employed. Trust me! I’m just saying that it’s good to know that a woman has your back through whatever.”

  “But we always have. Guys just make it extremely hard for us to keep forgiving them.” Like your mother told me about your father, Sharron thought to herself.

  “So, you tellin’ me that you never cut a guy loose, and said, ‘Fuck ’im’?”

  Sharron thought of Sean Love and declined to comment.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Anthony said, confident in what he knew about women.

  “So, how many kids would you want?” she asked with a grin, deciding to change the subject.

  “Like twelve of ’em?” he answered for effect.

  “Twelve? Well, how many wives you plan on having? Because nobody’s thinking about having that many kids anymore. The baby boom era is long gone!”

  “Naw, I’d probably be cool with three or four.”

  Sharron nodded, wondering if she should tell him about her mother’s other children, who didn’t make it. Then she decided that she would.

  “I would have been the middle child of three myself,” she said.

  “So what happened? Don’t tell me you had brothers and sisters who died at birth or something.”

  “One did. A stillbirth. The other one died in the crib.”

  Anthony was silent. He felt for her.

  “Damn. It sounds like you had a rough life. How do you feel about all of that?”

  “I mean, what can I do about it? I’m still here, so I gotta keep living.”

  “Yeah, you do,” he told her. “Did your parents talk about it much?”

  “No. Not really. But we did talk about my mom’s cancer when she had it.”

  At that point, Anthony wanted to match her pain with something of his own to let her know that the world wasn’t all peaches and cream for him and his family.

  “When one of my older brothers went to jail a few years ago for car theft, my mom said, ‘I’ll see you when you get out.’ We all thought that she was joking, but she wasn’t. She didn’t talk to him or answer his letters until he came out. They haven’t really been close ever since. So I said to myself, ‘I ain’t never going to jail if my mom won’t even write or come to see me.’ But I think my pop had a lot to do with that, you know. My mom was just tired of extending herself. That’s why I talk about dedication like I do. I need a woman who got your back through anything. That shit is important to me. Because you only live once. And it’s a lonely-ass world out here.”

  What a happy day the morning brings to a woman who knows that her man is still with her. Sharron didn’t even have to avoid the drill sergeant routine with Celena. By the time she got off the phone with Anthony, her roommate had been unconscious and in la-la-land for three hours already.

  To top things off, Sharron received a surprise phone call from Anthony while she was at work that afternoon.

  “You want another ride h
ome tonight?” he asked her.

  She smiled. “Are you gonna be on time again?”

  “I’m always on time. You don’t know that by now? You can count on me,” he assured her.

  And she believed him, because he had been accountable. Or at least so far. A lot of men were accountable in the beginning.

  “Well, I get off at eight o’clock again. You can meet me at the pick-up entrance. But I might be a little late tonight, like eight-fifteen. Okay?”

  “As long as eight-fifteen doesn’t turn into eight-thirty.”

  “What if it does?” she asked, just out of curiosity.

  “You don’t want to know,” he warned her.

  “Okay, well, I’ll see you then.”

  As soon as Sharron hung up the phone, the young cashier Nadine was all up in her face.

  “You gettin’ a ride home tonight?” she asked, grinning.

  Sharron thought of telling her, “No! Mind your damn business and grow the hell up!” Instead, she said, “Yes,” and went back to her work.

  However, some people don’t know how to take hints. Nadine walked out from behind the cashier’s booth and right up into Sharron’s face for more girl talk.

  “Do you know what I found out about my man?” she asked.

  No I don’t and nor do I care, Sharron thought.

  Nadine proceeded to tell her anyway.

  “I found out that he has an ex-wife and three kids, and one of his kids is with some woman he was seeing in East St. Louis.”

  “Was seeing?” Sharron couldn’t help but ask.

  “He says he’s not seeing her anymore. But he does see his son. Do you think he’s lying? I think he’s lying,” Nadine said.

  “And you’re probably right,” Sharron told her, pointing back to the register where customers were gathering.

  “I’ll talk to you about this later.”

  No you won’t either, Sharron mused with a sigh. Nadine was really beginning to test her patience. Maybe I need to find something else to do when she finishes with these customers, because I am just about ready to tell her ass off in here!

  “Everything’s okay on this end?” Sharron’s boss asked, appearing from the busy airport crowd. Brenda, in her late forties, was a kind, brown woman with three daughters like Celena’s family.

  Everything but this ridiculous cashier of yours, Sharron thought. She’d been there when Brenda gave Nadine the job. A surrogate-mother thing could be a blessing, because Nadine definitely needed some guidance, just not at the expense of Sharron’s daily peace of mind.

  “Yeah, things are pretty much in order,” she answered. “I just have two more shelves to stock.”

  “Good. How is Nadine doing?” Brenda asked, taking a look at her new employee at the register doing her natural flirting thing.

  “She’s ah, taking care of business,” Sharron answered, biting her tongue.

  Brenda watched Nadine for a second from the distance and shook her head. “Boy, she has a way with men, doesn’t she? Smiling all the way.”

  She does a lot more than that, Sharron thought. “Yeah, she does get her kicks in here,” she responded.

  “Well, let me know if you need anything.” Just like that, Brenda vanished back into the traffic inside the airport terminal’s hallways.

  At quitting time at eight o’clock that evening, and after being dodged for the majority of the day, there was Nadine again, getting off work with Sharron.

  “So, I guess I get to see what your man looks like tonight,” she commented.

  Out of competitive instincts, Sharron took a peek at the younger woman’s fully rounded behind and was through with her.

  “Why are you so interested in my man?” she asked with plenty of attitude. Some people can get right under your skin and make you say and do things that you don’t want to.

  “I’m just being nosy. I didn’t mean anything by it,” Nadine answered, visibly shaken.

  Sharron shook her head, let out a sigh, and calmed herself down. “Okay, it’s just been a long day, and we both need some space right about now,” she said.

  “No problem,” Nadine responded with a hint of spice of her own.

  Nevertheless, the young woman still found a way of arriving at the pick-up entrance when Anthony pulled around in his ’79 Chevy.

  Sharron hopped into his car with a bone to pick.

  “That damn girl is getting on my fuckin’ last nerve!”

  Anthony took in her angry mood and smiled it off. “Who you talkin’ about?”

  “You know who I’m talking about. That damn girl waiting outside with the big, fat ass! And I know you looked at her, so don’t even try to deny it.”

  Anthony could only laugh. He did see that whopping behind on her. How could he not? The girl seemed to be displaying it for all lookers, knowing full well the power that it held over black men.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Anthony asked, still chuckling as he pulled off.

  Sharron ignored him. The pressure of female competition was astonishing.

  “I don’t know if this will make you feel any better, but big asses are only a sexual turn-on,” Anthony commented. “You already told me that you want to be more than that, right? Well, when girls have asses like hers, it makes it hard to concentrate on anything else. So they end up using more of their bodies and less of their minds. It’s the same thing with them six-foot-four, two-hundred-twenty-pound guys. They ain’t all that bright a lot of times,” he added with a smile.

  It made Sharron feel better immediately, and she agreed with his assessment.

  “I remember I went out with this guy when I first started working at the airport, and all he talked about was his chest size and biceps and how he liked to work out. I was thinking, ‘So what? I can see that you’re built already. God! Talk about something else.’”

  “You know what I noticed about you?” Anthony noted.

  “What?”

  “You seem to hold back a lot of stuff on your mind from other people, but then you say anything that you want to me. I noticed that shit.”

  Sharron broke out laughing. He was on point. She did say a lot more to him. She was in an Anthony Poole zone, and she had forced herself to be as up-front with him as she could.

  “That’s true,” she admitted.

  “Why is that? You started off that way with me ever since that night at the skating rink.”

  She thought about it. Then she told him, “You just caught me at a time when I was fed up with the games that guys play. So I said hell, since I know it’s all a game, then I might as well play it too.”

  “In other words, you really didn’t expect much out of me. You was just playing along.”

  “Well, not exactly. I mean, I did want to ask you what you meant in the car that day. You got me with that one.”

  Anthony smiled and said, “Yeah, and now you won’t let me forget.”

  “That’s one that I’ll probably tell our kids about,” Sharron added.

  WHAT?!…

  Anthony didn’t express it with words, but the shock was written all over his face. Then he just smiled, feeling a slight tingle in his pants.

  Sharron smiled it off herself. “I don’t even know why I said that,” she commented.

  Anthony nodded. “That’s just what I’m talking about,” he said. “Anything comes out of your mouth to me.”

  “Well, it’s your fault,” she said with a grin.

  “My fault? How is it my fault?”

  Because you got me open like that, she thought to herself as they drove down Lindbergh Boulevard and headed south from the airport exit.

  “So, where are we going?” she asked him. “Or are you just trying to get me home again?”

  “Naw. I’m thinking about ice cream,” he answered.

  She smiled and said, “Oh, so you’re gonna try and bribe me with an ice-cream cone first. Am I that cheap to you?”

  Anthony shook his head. “There you go again.”

  “W
ell, if it bothers you so much, then why do you put up with it?”

  Good question.

  Anthony thought about that. Long! I guess you got me open like that, he thought. But instead of telling her his real thoughts, he answered, “I don’t know.”

  Sharron smiled again, realizing the truth. He liked her. She was feeling more confident about Anthony by the second, like a cat carrying her kittens back to safety. He was almost hers.

  They stopped off on Page Boulevard, halfway to her apartment in University City, and had ice-cream cones, as giddy as two teenagers on prom night.

  “What do you want to do after this?” Anthony asked her. “You want to go to a show or something? I still haven’t seen that new Star Wars movie yet.”

  “I can’t go to a movie dressed like this,” she said, referring to her dull airport uniform.

  “What difference does it make? It’s dark in the theater anyway.”

  “Leave it to a guy to say something like that. You don’t know who I might see in there.”

  “What, it’s somebody there who’s more important than me?” he asked her. He was actually concerned about it. Was it jealousy, or was it just his male ego talking? Either way, Sharron was flattered and speechless.

  She sighed and said, “Let’s go see a show then.”

  They even held hands down the aisle, sharing Twizzlers and popcorn for the science fiction film from George Lucas. It took them back to the time when they were kids themselves, loving the dark ambiance and technical excitement of the theater and its monster sound systems. They even kissed, during and after the movie, an un playeristic thing for a guy to do. Other moviegoers may have gotten the impression that they were in love. Or close to it. Maybe they were. And by the time Sharron made it home that night, Celena was back in the mother zone, worried sick about her friend.

  “Where the hell have you been?! I’ve been calling all over the place for you. I even called the police and found out what I needed to do for a missing person report.”

  Sharron said, “I was hardly gone that long. I got off of work at eight o’clock.”

  “And it’s now close to one o’clock in the morning. Were you over at Mr. Noname’s house again?” Celena huffed.