Sweet St. Louis

“Ha, ha, real funny,” she told him.

  They laughed at her as they entered Sharron’s room and shut the door, locking it behind them.

  “Nobody wants to see y’all ugly faces anyway!” Celena yelled through the door at them.

  Sharron smiled and attacked Anthony’s lips with hers, wrapping her arms around his head of low-cut smooth dark hair.

  “You forgive me?” she asked him.

  He slipped his hands inside her clothes and said, “Yeah, I’m gonna forgive you real good.”

  She let him push her over to the bed, where they fell on top of her stuffed animals.

  “Damn. It’s pretty crowded in here,” Anthony joked.

  Sharron reached out with her hands and knocked all of her stuffed animals from the bed.

  “Now it’s not,” she joked back to him.

  And they pleased each other desperately, and recklessly, completely naked, and with nothing left to save or hide, until it felt too good. Then they were far too gone to stop themselves. They both wanted to feel how good it could get, and how far they could go when they blasted off together. And when they exploded, they knew that something had gone wrong. The heat of their connecting brown bodies became overwhelming, as though they were both on fire, grabbing and squeezing each other for dear life! But OOOOOOHHH it felt so … SWEET!

  Sharron was afraid to even ask it. But she had to.

  “Did it come off?”

  Anthony was afraid to answer. But he had to.

  “I think it did.”

  And they did … nothing about it.

  Sharron sighed and said, “I can’t even run out to the bathroom because Celena’s still out there.”

  “So what?!” Anthony told her. “This is an emergency.”

  Sharron said nothing, and didn’t budge, afraid to disconnect from the mess they had made of each other. But she had to. He had to. Yet, neither one of them found the urgency.

  “What if I’m pregnant?” she looked up into his eyes and asked him.

  “Then I’ll be a daddy.”

  Silence again.

  Then Sharron had an impulsive reaction. “Get up!” she told him with a shove to his hips.

  “Ahh,” he complained squeamishly. She squirmed from beneath him and scrambled to her feet.

  Sharron dashed out the door and headed to the bathroom. Fortunately, Celena had gone to her room and didn’t see anything. She did, however, hear the slamming of doors and the running of shower water. In the bathtub, Sharron was trying her best to wash it all away, and as quickly as she could to stop herself from becoming a mother before her time, as if water was all that she needed.

  “Please don’t let this happen,” she mumbled to herself as she washed away. When she found the mess of their protection, she felt safer, hoping that it still had done its job.

  She sighed and said, “God, please let this work,” as if praising a wasted prophylactic. Then she wrapped it up in an excessive amount of toilet tissue to discard it in the trash.

  “Don’t you have any shame?” Celena asked, catching her roommate on the return trip to her room.

  Sharron made it back to her door wrapped in a towel. She just smiled at Celena and slipped into her room with Anthony, who had covered up her messy sheets and put his underwear back on.

  “Do those condoms have spermicide?” she asked him, searching for the package that it came in.

  “Yeah,” he answered glumly.

  She didn’t assess his mood, she was too busy searching for the condom package to make sure.

  “What, you don’t trust me with that either?” Anthony asked her while she confirmed it.

  “I’m not ready to be a mother,” she answered. “I’m planning to go back to school for nursing this year. I want to go back to school in September.”

  Anthony nodded. “That’s good. How long will it take you to finish?”

  “Two more years,” she answered. She expected him to react negatively about it. A lot of guys refused to honor a woman’s timetables. She had gone through it all before, just expressing her future plans with them.

  “It took me a year to get my mechanic certification,” Anthony told her. “And I already knew most of what they were teaching me.”

  “So my two years doesn’t bother you?”

  “Naw. As long as you’re happy with what you’re doing. I like my job, so why wouldn’t I want you to like yours?”

  “Some guys don’t like their women working as much as they do,” Sharron stated.

  He frowned and said, “My mother’s been working all her life. I’m used to a workin’ woman.”

  Sharron smiled and jumped back into her bed with him. She thought, I want him to meet my father. “Would you go back home to Memphis, Tennessee, with me?” she asked him excitedly.

  Anthony grimaced and said, “When?”

  “I don’t know. In two or three weeks, before the summer is out.”

  He thought about it. He had vacation time coming, if he wanted to use it. Usually he used a day here and a day there instead of a bunch of them together.

  He got curious and asked her, “For how long?”

  “Not long. Just for like, two or three days.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yeah.”

  He didn’t see any reason not to go. He said, “Aw’ight, just tell me when so I’ll know when to take off.”

  Just like that, he was willing to go. Sharron hadn’t been able to convince Celena to visit Memphis for years.

  “You think I would leave you if you got pregnant?” Anthony asked her.

  Sharron stopped and thought about it. “I didn’t say that.”

  “I mean, I’m just responding to how you acted.”

  “Well, I don’t want to be pregnant right now,” she responded.

  “Answer my question,” he pressed her.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  He said, “I thought about it before. And I wouldn’t leave you.”

  She sat up and asked, “You thought about gettin’ me pregnant?” She said it as if he had set off an alarm.

  “I mean, you were the one talkin’ about tellin’ our kids my lines and stuff. You started that,” he countered.

  “But I didn’t mean like, right now. I meant in the future, if we were still together.”

  Anthony nodded, understanding they would have to spend a lot more time together before he could predict anything.

  “I understand that,” he told her.

  Then it was her turn to ask a deep question.

  “Have you ever been tested for AIDS?” she asked him.

  He looked at her and said, “Damn! One rubber slips off on us and you start asking me if I have AIDS? What the hell is that?”

  “I didn’t ask you if you had AIDS, I just asked you if you’ve been tested for it.”

  He calmed himself down and said, “Naw. But I know I ain’t got it though. Have you been tested?”

  “Yeah, for my health insurance with this company through my job,” she answered.

  “Will you still have it if you stop working there?”

  “Yeah. Once you have it, you have it. You just continue to pay your monthly rate, and you can even add your family onto it. You don’t have health insurance at your job?”

  “I could of had it. They came around asking about it, but you know, I’m healthy.”

  Sharron shook her head and said, “That’s how a lot of people get stuck without it. They think they’re so healthy. Insurance means that you insure yourself for the future.”

  He nodded and said, “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe I’ll think about it.”

  “So you’re gonna go home with me?” she asked again, as if reminding him.

  He smiled and said, “Yeah. I’ve never been to Memphis before.”

  “Well, now you will,” she told him with a hug and a kiss. Then she added, “I think I need to get on the pill.”

  Sharron caught up with Celena that Sunday morning after Anth
ony had left, and dropped a bomb on her at the kitchen table.

  “Anthony’s protection came off in me last night. You think I’m pregnant?”

  Celena swallowed down her Honeycombs cereal. “Can’t you see that I’m eating? What the hell is on your mind?” Then she changed her tone and said, “I told you you needed your own protection. I told you that a long time ago. I wouldn’t leave everything up to them. So when was your last period?” she asked.

  “Last week.”

  Celena nodded. “That’s what I thought. So you have a long-ass time to wait then.”

  “Or I could just get one of those pregnancy tests. But I don’t think that I am, though,” Sharron said. She felt fairly confident that she was not.

  “You have to wait awhile for that pregnancy test thing to work anyway. I mean, this just happened last night, right? Is that why you ran into the bathroom like a damn fool?”

  Sharron smiled and nodded. “Yup.”

  Celena snapped her fingers. “I should have known that something was up. You ain’t that damn bold to be running around here butt naked. I don’t care how much in love you are. So what did he say about it?” she asked.

  “I asked him, ‘What if I’m pregnant?’ He just said, I’ll be a daddy then.’”

  “No he didn’t” Celena snapped.

  “Yes he did too.”

  “Was he serious?”

  “I guess so.”

  Celena frowned and said, “You guess so? Girl, you better know so.”

  “Well, anyway, I asked him if he would go home to Memphis with me in a couple of weeks, and he said that he would.”

  Celena didn’t like that idea so much. Anthony was invading too much of her turf. “I thought I was supposed to go with you,” she responded.

  Sharron sighed and said, “I knew you were gonna say that. I’ve been asking you for years to make that trip with me, and you always came up with excuses.”

  “But I was gonna go this time,” Celena said.

  “Yeah, sure you were.”

  Celena stopped eating her cereal altogether. “This might be it then. You gon’ introduce him to your father and everything.”

  “Yup. That’ll be the test. But Anthony isn’t a bad guy or anything, he just had a lot of women in his life.”

  “Hmmph,” Celena huffed. “And that’s not a bad thing?”

  “I mean, it’s not as bad as going to jail or being a drug dealer or a woman beater or anything. And a lot of guys do grow out of the dog stage you know. I’m sure our fathers had their dog days when they were young, too.”

  “Not my father,” Celena said. “He fell for my mom straight out of high school, went to college, and is still with her.”

  “Well, that’s a nice thing,” Sharron told her.

  “I told my dad he must have been the biggest square in the world,” Celena commented.

  “Mmm,” Sharron grunted, standing up from the kitchen table. “Anthony and I had an argument over guys being dogs last night, and he broke down and said, ‘Well, stop chasin’ them then! You knew what kind of guy I was when you met me!’” she said, imitating his intensity.

  Celena laughed at it. “So, y’all had an argument? That’s a first.”

  Sharron shook her head and smiled. “You just love yourself some drama, don’t you? And here you are calling your father a square because he fell in love and stayed dedicated to your mother.”

  “Different strokes for different folks,” Celena said.

  “Yeah, and it seems like a lot of our strokes are gettin’ us into trouble with the wrong men,” Sharron responded. She walked away and headed for the telephone.

  “If you feel that way, then turn Anthony loose and get back with your sweetheart, Sean Love.”

  Sharron looked back at her roommate and frowned. “Don’t even start it,” she said. Sharron had cut the strings from Sean for good, in a short and devastating phone call: “Look, Sean, I have somebody who is very dear to me right now, and I hope and pray that you find somebody soon too.”

  Celena grinned, remembering the phone call.

  “You think he’ll ever be friends with you again?” she asked her roommate.

  Sharron sighed, tired of even mentioning Sean. “Probably not. But that’s life. Things happen like that sometimes,” she answered.

  “And that married guy? I was glad to tell him the fuck off for you. He had nerve!” Celena huffed.

  Sharron banished both of those men from her mind and grabbed the phone into her room to call her father. Celena went right back to eating her bowl of Honeycombs cereal.

  “Hello, can I speak to a Mr. Robert Francis, please?” Sharron asked over the phone, teasing.

  “Hey, puddin’. How are you doing this Sunday?” he responded to her. “I was just thinking about you earlier this morning, and now you’re calling me.”

  “Pudding?” she questioned. “Dad, how come you call me something new every time I talk to you?”

  “Because you’re something new to me every time you call me,” he teased her right back.

  “Well, I’ll be coming home to visit soon, Daddy. In a couple of weeks,” she told him. “And I’m bringing someone with me.”

  “Celena?” he assumed. He had met Celena twice on trips he had made to St. Louis.

  Sharron said, “No. I’m bringing a young man with me. His name is Anthony Poole. And we’ll probably stay at a hotel to respect the house.”

  “Stay at a hotel? Why, that would be disrespecting the house. You don’t come back and stay at some hotel. You’ll be right back in your room here.”

  Her father had moved into a smaller house after her mom had died. Her mother’s family hadn’t liked the idea of him selling their hard-earned house. But he had too many painful memories there to stay. He didn’t need so much space to continue cleaning anyway.

  “Well, I just didn’t know how comfortable it would be for us to stay there, Dad. That’s all,” she explained.

  “Nonsense,” he told her. “Your boyfriend can sleep on the fold-out couch in the family room. He’ll be all right.”

  Sharron couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious. She laughed anyway.

  “So, what kind of young man is he?” he asked.

  “You’ll see,” she answered him. “He’s a mechanic.”

  “A mechanic? How old is he again?” Mr. Francis could only picture an old, oily man with missing front teeth and a fetish for young women.

  Sharron caught on to his stereotype and said, “He’s twenty-seven. All mechanics had to start off sometime, Dad. He’s not some old, trifling man.”

  “Oh, okay. Because I don’t want you bringing home anybody who’s as old as me. I’d have to pull out my rifle on him.”

  Sharron laughed and said, “Well, you can keep your rifle in the closet, because that is not the case.”

  “I can’t wait to meet him then,” he commented. “Is he good-lookin’?”

  “Dad?” Sharron snapped, embarrassed. “What does that matter?”

  “I gotta think about my grandchildren, don’t I?”

  He was jumping way too far with conclusions.

  “Grandchildren? Where’d you get that idea from?” Sharron asked. And maybe he was right if she was pregnant.

  “You told me his first and last name,” he commented. “That usually means something. And Sharron Francis Poole doesn’t sound that bad,” he added.

  She smiled and said, “That’s the same thing Celena did, adding his name on to mine. But what if I wasn’t planning on doing that when I got married. Would that bother you?” she asked him.

  “No,” he told her. “That’s the way it’s been in the past. But so many educated girls are keeping their names now, that I just assumed that you would. You are going back to school, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “I may just be a little old-fashioned then. And yeah, I am going back to school. Starting this fall.” She’d informed him of her plans in their last conversation.

  “Ain’t nothing
wrong with being old-fashioned,” he told her. “They make the best kind of women. Your mother was old-fashioned. And she believed in family first.”

  Sharron thought about her parents’ relationship and asked her father, “Was Mom the only woman you had in mind to marry?”

  “Actually, no. At the time, I was getting serious about your mother, I had two other women I was thinking about. And I went ahead and made the right decision to choose her. A good decision.”

  Sharron smiled, thinking of Anthony’s decision to choose her, and felt good inside.

  “So, men make hard decisions on which woman they want to be with?” she asked rhetorically. She already knew the answer to that; she just wanted to hear her father tell it.

  “Of course we do,” he answered. “What do you think, we just go out and keep the first woman who bats her eyes at us. That’s what’s wrong with a lot of these marriages now. You got young people today who don’t know the first thing about choosing a good mate. And that’s the most important choice that you’ll ever make in your life! Because you can change a job, or a car, or where you choose to live. But once you marry and start having children with a woman, even if you divorce her, that woman’s gonna be the mother of your children. Or at least of some of ‘em. And then you’ll have to tell your children for the rest of their lives, ‘Your mother’s crazy! I don’t know what I saw in her!’ Or vice versa if you choose the wrong man.”

  Sharron burst out laughing. Her father was a riot sometimes.

  “How is Lucille doing?” she asked about his friend.

  “She’s hanging on in there with me. I can be hard on her sometimes, you know, because she says I’m set in my ways. So I told her, I’m nearly sixty years old now. And if I wasn’t set in my ways by now, then I must haven’t learned how to live yet.’

  “Hell, she’s set in her ways, too. And she ain’t gettin’ no younger,” he commented. “She’s almost fifty herself.”

  Sharron grinned and shook her head. Men were men, no matter how old they were. And they were always complaining about their right to be themselves.

  “Well, I just wanted to let you know that I was coming. We didn’t want to just pop up on you,” Sharron said.

  “Bring him on down,” her father told her. “And if he ain’t right, I just want you to know, baby girl, I’ll be sending him back to St. Louis in a box.”