Sweet St. Louis

  “Yeah! Fuck you too!” Celena spat, slamming the phone to the receiver.

  Sharron stared at her reckless roommate as she paced the living room, obviously still teed off.

  “What did he say?” Sharron asked. Celena was constantly having arguments with guys. In fact, she argued with anyone who didn’t see things exactly as she saw them.

  “He was talkin’ some nonsense about ‘spreading’ myself too thin with too many different guys.”

  Sharron thought about that and smiled. “Well, you do.”

  “And it’s my prerogative to do so,” Celena huffed.

  “So are you saying that no one can even say anything to you about it?”

  It was an honest question.

  “For what?”

  “Well, weren’t you seeing Darryl?”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “And he obviously has some concerns about all of the guys who you go out with.”

  “Well, if he can’t handle that, then he needs to step to the curb.”

  Sharron stared at her again. What else could she say?

  “Mmm,” she grunted. “Whatever happened to your faith?”

  “Faith?” Celena asked, stunned by even the use of the word. “Faith in what?”

  “Faith in being able to enjoy one person.”

  Celena sucked her teeth and sighed, not sure how she wanted to answer the question. “What happened to their faith in us? If Darryl really wants to be the one like that, then he would hang in there with me until I was ready for something real. But obviously he doesn’t have any patience for that.”

  “Patience?” Sharron repeated. She laughed at the idea. “Who are you to be bringing up patience? When have you had patience with anything?”

  Celena shook her head and started toward her room, worn out from the conversation already.

  “I have no time for this,” she commented, waving her right hand as she went.

  Sharron followed her into her room. “Maybe you need to stop running away from your fears and just face them,” she advised. “If you don’t trust guys enough to be with just one, then you have to at least admit that to yourself.”

  “Okay. I admit it. Are you satisfied now?” Celena shot back. She stretched out across her bed, mentally exhausted. “Now can you just leave me alone for a minute?”

  Sharron smiled and didn’t budge.

  “You don’t leave me alone when you have something to tell me about my life.”

  “Yeah, you just close your damn door on me,” Celena countered. “Maybe I need to get right up and do the same thing to you.”

  Sharron ignored it and looked around at how barren Celena’s room was compared to the fullness of her own. “How come your room looks so … deserted?” she asked, taking it all in as though she had never noticed it before. Maybe she hadn’t paid Celena’s room that much attention because Celena was forever invading her room for some reason.

  “That’s because I put stuff away instead of leaving everything out for showpieces, like you do. It looks like a damn safari in your room, with all them stuffed animals and carrying on,” she cracked.

  Sharron shook her head, grinning, while thinking of a crack of her own.

  “You don’t want any of these guys to know too much about you, hunh?” she assumed. “When we were in school at Missouri, I knew guys like that. My first love, in fact. And he left me to go back home to California with not even a phone call.”

  “So what are you trying to say?” Celena piped.

  “Well, when you run away from other people, you also run away from yourself, because you never face up to your situation. And those are your favorite words: ‘I don’t have time for that shit.’ Well, what do you have time for?”

  Bang! That’s what friends are for. Honesty. Celena was speechless. Sharron walked out of her room, leaving her good friend with that, and giving her time to think to herself.

  Once Sharron had left the room, Celena mumbled to herself defensively, “Mmm-hmm, now she got all that mouth just because she all into Mr. … Anthony now, hunh?” But after her short moment of denial, she realized her Memphis, Tennessee, roommate was actually right for a change. How many men had Celena left at the crossroads? She was afraid of taking a step further and being run over by a truckload of emotions that she was terrified of having to experience. So she would have fits, quit, turn back, and start all over with a new man, only to arrive at the exact same crossroad for a replay. Why? Because she hated the vulnerability of being a woman. Why did she have to be the one who ended up brokenhearted? Nevertheless, she was forced to suffer anyway. Like many men suffered, so full of themselves that they eventually became constipated, ending up tortured for life, by never allowing themselves to experience the greatest science of the world. Love.

  But do they really care about me, or just themselves? Celena questioned as she stared up at the ceiling. They only want me because I’m unavailable to them. And once they really know that they got me, it’s game over, and they’ll move on to their next challenge. Because that’s all I am to them. A damn challenge! I know what I’m talking about. And I’m not gon’ be some damn “yes” girl like my sisters are for some man. I don’t have time for … that.

  She stopped and chuckled to herself. That damn girl is right, ain’t she? she thought, referring to Sharron. But what are you supposed to do? And how do you know which one is real, and which one is just playin’ games. I mean, so many of us have made the wrong choice that I don’t want to be just another damn dummy.

  This shit is so fuckin’ confusing, man. I mean, why am I even thinking about this?! I know what I’m doing. Or at least I thought I did. But now Sharron got me all confused.

  “Dammit,” she huffed. She stood back up and headed for her roommate’s open door. Sharron smiled at her from her own bed when Celena walked in.

  “You think this shit is funny, don’t you?” her roommate asked.

  “It is,” Sharron admitted. “I knew you’d be in here sooner or later,” she added, with a new book in her hands.

  “What book is that?”

  “A Do Right Man, by Omar Tyree.”

  Celena smiled. “Does it tell you where to find one?”

  First Sharron laughed at the idea. Then she thought about how to describe it correctly.

  “Let’s just say that it’s good for us to know all of the things that guys go through, and all of the decisions they have to make in their lives, to understand them a little better. So next I’m buying Men Cry In the Dark, by Michael Baisden.”

  “Isn’t he the one who wrote Why Men Cheat? Never Satisfied, or something?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, you feel like going for a car ride, or would I be disturbing your reading time?” Celena asked, itching to unwind out in the wind somewhere. It was slightly after ten o’clock at night.

  Sharron closed her book and stood. “Let’s go.”

  As soon as they jumped into the old black Maxima and cruised up Olive Boulevard, Celena got to asking more about Sharron’s new man.

  “So what do you think about him? Really?”

  “What do I think about who?” Sharron quizzed.

  “Anthony.” Celena hadn’t asked much about him before. She only assumed things of him.

  “Oh.” Sharron thought about it and smiled that easy smile of hers, expressing herself without a word.

  “You think that much, hunh?” Celena asked, reading the immense joy in her friend’s face.

  “Have you ever felt that way? Where you don’t even have to talk about it? You can just smile and know?” Sharron asked back.

  Celena nodded. “Yeah, I’ve felt that way before. Everybody does. But it never lasts. That’s the problem with it. That’s the problem with all relationships. They don’t last anymore. Somebody needs to write a book about how to make it last.” Then she forced herself to say the word, “Forever.”

  That shocked Sharron. A lot!

  “You do have feelings then,” she commented.


  “Of course I do. I’m human ain’t I?” Celena piped. “What kind of statement is that? I’m not some kind of dating robot. I have feelings. I just don’t like to … put ’em out there like that.”

  Sharron nodded. She knew the feeling. Yeah, hold back so you don’t get burned.

  “But eventually … you have to,” she said. “There’s no other way around it. It’s like …” She thought of a new analogy, something that was fully relatable. “… admitting that your hair is nappy.”

  Celena looked at her and broke out laughing. “Are you trying to tell me something?” she asked, feeling the nape of her neck with her left hand.

  “I’m not saying that your hair is nappy right now; I’m just saying that when it is, you verbalize it, and then you go and do something about it. Right?”

  “Damn right, you right,” Celena agreed.

  “Well, relationships are the same way. Eventually, you have to verbalize what you feel, and then you have to do something about it.”

  Celena looked at her and frowned. “Now you know good and well that guys aren’t into that kind of stuff. They be steady talkin’ ’bout, ‘Baby, you know how I feel about you. You my Boo, ain’t you?’” she said, mocking a deep voice tone.

  Sharron laughed out loud. “But eventually, if they really care, they’re gonna have to say it, if just to admit it to themselves. That’s just how it goes,” she reiterated. “That’s why a lot of guys are afraid to say it. Because after they do, they know they have to do something about it. They have to prove it with their actions, loyalty, dedication, affection, and everything else. So they don’t say it because they don’t want to do all of the work. They’re lazy.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Celena agreed again. “But they surely don’t have a problem telling you when they want to fuck. They’re not lazy about that. Unless you want them to eat it. Then they get lazy again. ‘Aw, girl, I don’t feel like it right now.’”

  Sharron smiled and shook her head. She had a hell of a lot more tact than her roommate. But Celena was Celena.

  “Has Anthony told you anything?” she asked, getting back to her interrogation.

  “In ways he has. But he hasn’t verbalized it yet, no,” Sharron answered her. “I mean, we’ve only known each other for what, two months now?”

  “I can’t tell with the way you’ve been all up under him lately. I hardly get to see you anymore,” Celena responded, “I used to be the one on the go all the time and you were the one sitting home.”

  “You’ve been sitting at home lately?” Sharron asked her, doubting it.

  “No, I’m just sayin’—”

  “That’s what I thought,” she concluded, cutting Celena off.

  “Girl, I can’t stay home that long. I even read my books on the go. I can’t see how you do it. Or how you used to do it. Because you damn sure don’t do it no more, with Mr. Noname coming around.”

  “Celena, I told you about that,” Sharron warned her.

  “You know I know his name. I’m just teasing you. Anthony Poole. Okay? You satisfied now, Mrs. Sharron Francis Poole?”

  Sharron smiled, liking how that sounded. “That actually sounds good,” she admitted.

  Celena looked at her and cautioned, “Don’t get ahead of yourself with that. You’ll be setting yourself up again.”

  “You’re the one who brought it up,” Sharron reminded her.

  “So you’re saying that you haven’t even thought about that? Because I know you have, Sharron. I know how you think. You’re way old-fashioned.”

  “What’s so wrong with that? Old-fashioned people made it last. We need more old-fashioned people nowadays. But I never put Anthony’s name on the end of mine like you did.”

  “It doesn’t sound bad, though. Poole. It’s just kind of … plain. But not in an unattractive way,” Celena said, smoothing out her words to make sense.

  “I know what you mean. It just works well,” Sharron added.

  “Francis works well, too, because my name sounds like I’m selling hot dogs or something. Myers. That’s the one thing that I do envy about my sisters. They got to change our last name.”

  “You hate your name that much?” Sharron asked, laughing. “How would your father feel about that?”

  Celena said, “I still have it, don’t I? It’s not like I changed it on my own or anything. But that’s another thing I don’t like. Why do we have to change our names? My mother’s maiden name is Duval. Celena Duval. You hear how elegant that sounds? Like royalty or something.”

  “Aw, girl, go ’head with that.”

  “I’m serious, Sharron. That’s why I kept your Francis in the mix. Don’t go changing your name for no man. That ain’t even right.”

  “So what do you like about being a woman then?”

  She smiled. “Getting things my way, and getting my kitty cat purred just right.”

  Sharron couldn’t believe her ears. She smiled and shook her head again as they continued to ride aimlessly, with the windows down, heading north on Route 270.

  “You know, that sounds just like something a guy would say, having five women at a time and getting his dick sucked,” she commented.

  “So what?” Celena said. “What’s good for the gander is good—”

  “That right there is bullshit!” Sharron snapped, cutting her off with a raised palm. “That’s exactly why you’re so untrusting now. You don’t do what they do just because they do it. That’s like saying, ‘Since everybody else got a gun, let me go out and get one.’ And you only end up with more dead people.

  “That don’t make any sense at all,” she added, noticeably ticked off. “So instead of women trying to be more like men, we should be trying to make them more like us. Or if not, then maybe we really do hate ourselves.”

  With that, they fell silent for a couple of miles before Celena mumbled, “I like myself.” And they began to smile.

  Nevertheless, Celena could not help but notice how strong Sharron’s views and personality had become through her association with her new man. Sharron seemed so sure of herself. Confident. Poised. Men were supposed to drain the intelligence and confidence of a woman, not add to it. Or at least from Celena’s perception. Could she be wrong about it?

  As if it were a sign, the car began to act up with a slippage of the transmission, grinding noisy gears with no acceleration.

  GGRRRNNNNNN!

  “Here goes this damn car again,” Celena stated.

  Sharron smiled. “Ant could fix it.”

  Celena said, “Yeah, I forgot they called him that. A Mr. Fix It, hunh?”

  “That’s what he does, fixes cars. And there are plenty of them out here to fix, too.”

  “Tell me about it. I’m surprised this car hasn’t just broken down on us yet.”

  “It will if you don’t fix it soon.”

  “But I’m always fixing this damn thing. One hundred dollars here, two hundred dollars there. I’m tired of that shit.” Then she thought about Sharron and her mechanic boyfriend again. “I guess you won’t have that problem when you decide to get a car, with Mr. Fix It around.”

  Sharron just smiled at her. “Guys need fixin’ too, Celena,” she commented. “It’s a partnership. And if you have nothing to offer a guy except what’s between your legs, then you won’t even be with him long. Because eventually, he’ll get rid of you.”

  “So what do you offer Anthony then?” Celena asked curiously. It wasn’t as if Sharron had any money or anything. And she was hardly glamorous enough to be considered a challenge for most guys, especially for a player. What was so enticing about an ordinary sister from Memphis, Tennessee? What could she offer that no one else could?

  Sharron said, “I just make his life interesting, basically. Some couples match up well together, and others don’t. Some women like guys for who they are, and support what they do, and others don’t.

  “I mean, think about it, Celena. A man can have all of the money in the world, but if he doesn’t have
a woman to celebrate it with, a woman that he really likes and gets along with, then he might as well give it all away,” she added. “Because he’ll still feel empty inside. So, for whatever reason, I obviously have that connection with Anthony.”

  Celena was shocked! What kind of game was this Anthony guy using on Sharron to make her so knowledgeable about relationships? It was like an overnight flash-card session that she was absolutely killing!

  Celena said, “I never really thought of it like that. I mean, I thought of it, you know, guys gettin’ money to get women and all, but I never really understood it the way you just made it sound. You make it sound like a jigsaw puzzle or something. But see, some of these damn guys are so greedy that the more money they get, they start wanting twenty women.”

  Sharron said, “But you’re still focusing too much on the money aspect. The thing is: What do you add to his life? He can buy a woman anywhere,” she stated. “And as far as guys needing twenty women, you know what I figured out about that?”

  Celena was all ears. “What?”

  “If you need twenty women to make you happy, then you really have none. Because no man can really focus on that many women. I’m sorry. And if he thinks he can, he’s just fooling himself.”

  Celena didn’t want to hear anymore. No Memphis, Tennessee, girl was going to school her on what she knew about relationships no matter how close they were. No way! So she turned the radio on to drown out anymore talk. And it just wasn’t her night. Because as soon as she turned up the volume on her stereo, the celebrated love crooner Lauryn Hill was crying out her heart on a penetrating rhythm about how bad it hurts when you choose to love hard-rock men.

  Sharron smiled her face off for about the tenth time that night. “Where exactly are we driving to?” she finally asked of their destination. Celena had connected to Route 70 and was heading east toward downtown St. Louis.

  “I’m just driving in a big circle, girl. Heading the long way back home.” Meanwhile, she thought, Now I have to figure out what I got going for my own love life, because whatever Sharron is getting is obviously the bomb! For now, anyway. Because if I know anything about guys in the 1990s, it’s that they don’t have any stamina for long-lasting relationships. So I’ll just wait this thing with Sharron and this new guy out, and see how long it really lasts.