After The Dance (16 page)

As it was, we’d been waiting outside the park’s entrance a good fifteen minutes when me and Ben both started getting restless. I fished out my cell phone and suggested Carl use it to call homegirl and tell her she could catch up with us in Kiddyland because we were going to go ahead and take the child in. I thought he might balk at me trying to call the shots, but he seemed only too happy to comply. Of course, I’m sure the fact that the park was admitting folks free on this particular Sunday went a long way in keeping the brother’s mood on the upswing.

He also lucked up and ran into some old partner of his who just so happened to be managing one of the ticket booths. That’s how we got hooked up with a handful of free coupons for the kiddy rides, as well as a discounted handful for the other section of the park.

In a lot of ways I’m glad I stayed. It did give me an opportunity to see something just short of a miracle—this man and his son actually bonding. Carl was all into it, cheering Ben on when he braved a ride by himself, giving him a hand to hold and/or a shoulder to lean into when he got intimidated, coaching him on the kiddy games. He even managed to help the kid win a couple of stuffed animals. By the time Clarice and her girls and their umpteen kids finally showed up, the two had practically become bosom buddies.

Carl racked up a good number of points with his baby’s mama and her friends when he forked over the extra
Kiddyland tickets along with the shoes he’d purchased at the mall. But just like I knew he would, he scored double bonus points when he handed homegirl the outfit I’d bought for him. After oohing and ahhing, Clarice looked at me like she knew I must have had something to do with the matter. But she didn’t say anything and I didn’t either. I mean, hey, why not let the brother enjoy his moment?

I waited until Clarice and her cronies had wandered off before asking Carl why he hadn’t given them the other tickets, the ones designated for the adult and big kid section of the park.

He hunched his shoulders and said, “I don’t know. I figured you might want to ride something.”

I said, “Oh yeah? Like what?”

He said, “Well, ah, for one, they’ve got that train that circles around the grounds.”

I was like, “What, that tired putt-putt number all the old folks get on with their grandbabies? So what you trying to say, Carl? Is that about all the excitement you think a big girl like me can handle?”

A little good-natured teasing was all I was doing, but he didn’t take it that way. He said, “Look, woman, don’t start that stuff with me again. I was just throwing something out there. If you don’t want to ride the doggone train, fine, we won’t ride the doggone train.”

“Uh-uh,” I told him as he followed me over to one of my all-time fairground favorites. “If we’re going to ride something, the least we could do is ride something with a little get-up-and-go to it.”

But as soon as Carl caught sight of the roller coaster as it raced around the bend, he got all bug-eyed and started backing up. “You can’t be serious. Oh, hell no. I’m not getting on that.”

He got on it, all right. Three times, to be exact. Not in a row—that would have been too cruel, even for me. No, in between coaster rides we went for a wet slide down the
Log, did the haunted-house thing, chased each other on the bumper cars, and ended the evening with a slow spin on the Ferris wheel.

As much as I hate to admit it, girl, I actually had a lot of fun munching on candied apples and corn dogs, laughing at all the crazy expressions on Carl’s face and walking side by side with him as we strolled through the crowds trying to decide what to get into next. We were sitting at the top of the Ferris wheel when I realized that the last time I’d spent an entire afternoon at this amusement park, I’d been a pimply faced teenager on the verge of my first major heartbreak.

When I glanced over at Carl and smiled, he was like, “What?! What did I do?”

I informed him that my very first kiss had come at the top of a Ferris wheel at this exact same park some eighteen years ago.

“Yeah? Was it something sorta like this?” he said, prior to leaning over and planting a soft one on my lips.

I told him, “No, it was more like this,” before placing my mouth back against his and giving him a good solid twenty seconds’ worth of slow and steady tongue.

When I was through, the most the brother could do was make a quick adjustment to his crotch before looking back over at me, shaking his head, and saying, “Daammn …”

I witnessed yet another side of Faye that afternoon at the amusement park—her playful side. Even though the kiss she laid on me while we were dangling at the top of the Ferris wheel was unmistakably that of a well-seasoned woman, she’s still got quite a bit of little girl left in her. I
wish you could have seen her out there laughing hysterically after she’d managed to push and jam my bumper car all up in the corner or waving her arms all up in the air, as if she was seated front row center at some doggone Prince concert instead of just barely strapped into the rickety cart on that two hundred–year-old roller coaster she kept making me get on.

Ol’ girl played so hard she fell asleep on me during the drive back home. She looked so peaceful and content with her eyes closed and her head gently rocking from side to side that I didn’t even bother to wake her until after I’d parked the car and pulled the key from the ignition.

I reached over and with my thumb stroked the dimple in her cheek. When she opened her eyes and looked at me, I told her, “You were smiling in your sleep. Thinking about that kiss on the Ferris wheel again, huh?”

She batted her lashes at me, wet her lips, and said, “Hmmm … that and more.”

She’d turned away from me, grabbed hold of the car door’s latch, and was getting ready to bail when I said, “Hey!” I threw an arm across her lap and told her, “Hold up a second, why don’t you?”

She sighed and said, “Carl, as hot, tired, and funky as I am, I sincerely hope you’re not about to ask me back over to your place again. I told you—I’ve got to get up in the morning and drive to Water Valley. I promised my folks I’d be there for Memorial Day.”

“I know all of that” is what I told her. “I just wanted to talk for a minute.”

She squirmed for a second, then picked up the container of orange soda in the cup holder. After downing a couple of sips she sighed again, leaned back against the headrest, and said, “So what is it you want to talk about?”

“You and me and this whole weird ‘three times and you’re out’ scenario you’ve got us locked into.”

Her eyebrows jumped up on her forehead and she said,
“Look, Carl, I told you from the git how it was with me. So don’t go acting like—”

“I know,” I said, cutting her off. “I know what you said, Faye. And all I’m asking is that you give some thought to easing off these artificial constraints and cut us both some slack. I like spending time with you. I do. And I can’t help but wonder what might happen if you gave this thing between us a real chance at being something more than just friendship and occasional sex. I’m not asking you to make a decision now. All I want is for you to think about it.”

She’d been staring out the window the whole time I’d been talking. When I finally shut up is when she turned and looked at me for what seemed like an eternity before she said, “Okay.”

My heart flew up against my chest and I was like, “Okay? Okay, what?”

She said, “Okay … I’ll think about it.”

Yeah, I know what I said. “Three times and you’re out. That’s the policy. And there are no exceptions.” Well … under ordinary circumstances and with the average guy, there aren’t any exceptions.

I guess what makes this thing with Carl different is that he’s the first man to ever come forward and straight out ask me to think about bending the rules on his behalf. That fact, in and of itself, sets Carl apart from all the other knuckleheads I’ve invited to come over with their balls and play with me for a while. Outside of those who think they can trick a sister into serving up a little something extra, most brothers seem only too content to accept the rules as they are and don’t have any problems with vacating
the premises after the last pitch has been thrown. In all fairness, I couldn’t do anything but grant Carl an “I’ll think about it.” I mean, if I’m going to tell the truth, the brother has more than proved himself capable of showing me a good time—in bed and out. And he does make me laugh, even when he’s not trying. He’s not all that hard on the eyes. And rather than be out here fronting and carrying on, Carl’s been excruciatingly candid with me about both his adulterous past and the fact that it’s probably going to be a while before he’s not struggling financially to keep his head above water.

But as much as I’d like to buy into all the honesty and candor Carl’s been projecting, in the back of my head lurks the nagging suspicion that the brother can’t be for real. He’s got to be keeping something on the down low, you know?!

I was weighing all of those things and more when I finally stumbled in that Sunday evening. My weekend romp with Carl had taken a lot out of me both physically and emotionally. But any plans I might have had about taking a load off and temporarily clearing my mind were immediately snatched away and cast aside by Nora, who met me at the door, cracking her gum and popping her jaws.

“’Bout time your fast behind came up for some air,” she said. “In another hour, I was gonna call and ask if you wanted me to bring you a clean change of drawers.”

I cut my eyes at her and kept right on stepping, hoping she’d at least let me make it to my bedroom, where I could kick back and relax for a spell.

But she spun me around and was like, “Oh, no, girlfriend. I want all the dirty little details, right here and right now.”

Too pooped to protest, I fell into the closest chair, kicked off my shoes, and said, “Fine. Where do you want to start, Nora? The sex?”

She pushed an ottoman beneath my legs before having
a seat on it herself and saying, “Hey, that’s about as good a place as any in my book.”

I couldn’t help but smile when I got hit by the flashback of Carl working my body into a righteous frenzy with those durn strawberries. But rather than go ahead and give Nora the goods, I closed my eyes and told her, “It was … you know … all right.”

Nora cracked her gum and all but snarled before she said, “Honey, please. You and I both know it takes a whole lot more than some ‘all right’ to keep a sister’s ass voluntarily holed up with a Negro for damn near two days straight. I know you can come up with something better than that.”

So after I got through laughing at her crazy behind, I told her everything I just told you, plus a little bit extra. I mean, after all, Nora’s my girl and we go back like that. For the most part, she just nodded and smiled without much comment. It wasn’t until I told her about how Carl had asked me to consider shucking my standard modus operandi for a trial run at something more along the lines of a more traditional relationship that homegirl’s jaw nearly fell off its hinges and hit the floor.

“What?” I said.

“Look at you!” she said, screaming and jumping up at the same time. “You’re seriously thinking about this thing, aren’t you?”

“Why?” I said, suddenly feeling a case of cold feet coming on. “You don’t think I should? It is kind of soon—”

She said, “Girl, now you know I’ve been in Carl’s corner since day one. Besides, I always knew it was only a matter of time before you ran into the brother whose shit was so tight, you weren’t gonna be able to do anything but drop all that ‘three times and you’re out’ foolishness and deal with dude like a grown-ass woman deals with a grown-ass man. So heck, yeah, I think you ought to go on and give this boy the fair shake he’s asking you for. I was just
wondering what you planned on doing about that fool Scoobie is all.”

I was like, “Scoobie?! What’s his trifling behind got to do with anything?”

Nora snorted and said, “You might want to check your answering machine, but my guess is that he’s called here at least six or seven times in the last twenty-four hours. He’s even swung by here and tried to entice me into giving up the info on your whereabouts.”

She tried to fill me in on Scoobie’s visit, but by then I was so good and tired, I really didn’t feel like hearing it. Having indulged Carl to the extent that I had, I already had too much on my mind as it was. After a long soak in a tub of hot suds, I took my broke-down butt straight to bed and would have durn well stayed there until dawn, had it not been for Nora.

It must have been around 9:30 when girlfriend came a-knocking at my door with a loud, “Yo, Faye! Your boy is out here and he says he’s not leaving until he talks to you.”

Girl, you know I got up ready to spit fire, don’t you? I could appreciate the man digging my company and all, but this was getting downright ridiculous. I’d thrown on my robe and was still busy adjusting the sash when I stumbled into the living room and said, “Listen, Carl, I told you I needed some time …”

On looking up, I quickly realized there wasn’t any need for me to finish the statement. Instead I sighed and said, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Scoobie smiled and said, “Carl? Is that his name? I saw the two of you at the concert the other night. No wonder the chump was acting so strange that time in the parking lot. I suppose he’s the reason you skipped church on Sunday?”

You know that made me mad. I said, “Look, man, I don’t have time for this. What exactly is it that you want?”

“A chance to make things right between us, Faye. How many times do I have to say it already?”

“You can stop now, as far as I’m concerned, because in case you haven’t noticed, sweetheart, I’m really not trying to hear it.” With that, I twirled on my heels and headed back from whence I’d come. It was a move that earned me both a big grin and a quick thumbs-up from Nora, who’d been standing there the whole time with her head swinging from one side to the other, as if she were courtside somewhere, watching Venus and Serena battle it out, instead of me and the Scoob.

Of course, I don’t think either one of us was banking on dude up and following me. With Nora in hot pursuit, he came busting up in the room behind me and not only closed the door in homegirl’s face but had the nerve to lock it.