Choose Me (20 page)

I rubbed my neck. “Are you going to let me in or not?”

Finally, she unlocked the security door.

“Okay, but you’ll have to let him smell you,” she warned. “And don’t make any sudden moves.”

I followed her uneasily into the living room where she introduced me to King, like they were equals, like the dog was a person.
The killer-looking rottweiler tentatively approached me and sniffed me, including the bag I held in my hand. I knew dogs could
smell fear, so I pretended that I liked dogs and hoped the false feeling was conveyed. I attempted a half smile, but the canine
eyed me with evil, brown, human-like eyes like he knew I was up to no good.
Don’t even think about making a move on my master,
his eyes seemed to convey. I remembered someone telling me never to look a strange dog in the eyes, so I glanced at his forehead
briefly, then looked away. I wasn’t stupid. “Hey, boy Hey, King. You the man, you the man,” I said nervously.

Eva looked amused as she locked both doors behind me. There was no turning back. She walked through the living room, then
down a short hallway. “Come on, boy.”

“Are you talking to me or the dog?” I kidded.

“Whatever.”

“I brought you something,” I said, handing her the bag.

She held out her gloved hands helplessly. “What is it? Could you put it on the table?”

“It’s spearmint tea. And mint massage oil. My ma says they’re supposed to be good for migraines. She’s into homeopathic medicine.”
I set the bag down on the coffee table.

“Thanks. That was nice of you.” She disappeared through an open doorway in the short hall. “Help yourself to some juice or
iced tea. It’s in the fridge. I’ll be out in a little bit.”

I scanned the living room slowly, surveying the African and Native American masks and sculptures, reprints by African American
artists whose work I was familiar with—Romare Bearden and Annie Lee. The sofa and accessories were color-coordinated in various
shades of mocha, black, and cream including several kuba- and mud-cloth throw pillows. Either she had a severe case of Negrophilia
or she must have been Black in a former life. A built-in oak bookcase lined one wall and was filled to the rim with books.
When I looked closer, I noticed the books were alphabetized and categorized according to fiction and nonfiction. One shelf
held several Bibles: a King James version, NIV Women’s Devotional Bible, and a Spanish version,
La Santa Biblia.
If she was really celibate, I could see how she occupied her time.

Covering another wall were photos of her sons at various stages in their development, in chronological order from birth to
high school. On the last wall hung all their graduation portraits and diplomas, from kindergarten and eighth grade to high
school. They were good-looking kids with the golden skin and the curly-wavy hair attributed to Latin and biracial children.
There were also several graduation pictures of Eva beginning with her in the eighth grade and ending with graduate school.
Near the faux fireplace, a small five-by-seven silver frame caught my eye. It was a picture of Eva in a wedding dress, standing
with who I assumed was her ex-husband. She looked like a little girl in the photo, a little girl playing dress up, her hair
in ringlets and bangs. He was dark brown and looked very African, but I knew Latinos, like Black folks, were a mixed people.
I thought it very odd that a divorcée would display her wedding portrait.

Knickknacks and souvenirs from Puerto Rico adorned the walls in the adjoining dining room. Charcoal drawings of percussion-playing
natives and Spanish dancers dressed in white surrounded a square glass-block window An assortment of bamboo, miniature palm
trees, and fresh-cut flowers in various glass vases lined the floors, the oak table, and the window seats, giving the room
a tropical feel. The lone picture in this room, a black-and-white framed photo, revealed Eva in a boxing stance. This made
me smile as I remembered her saying she knew Tai Bo.

To get to the kitchen, I had to pass King, who was sprawled in front of the door Eva had entered. The dog looked like a Sphinx
guarding Egypt and was still sizing me up. Cautiously, I wandered into the small hallway, careful not to make any sudden moves.
The door was open and I saw it was the bathroom. Eva was bent over the sink washing her hair.

“Need any help?” I asked, leaning in the doorway where I could still keep an eye on King.

“No, thanks,” came her muffled reply.

She looked uncomfortable, bent over the low sink like she was, so I walked around her into the bathroom and took the chair
from the vanity table and placed it in front of the sink. “Here, sit down.”

She turned her head slightly, looking at me through half-closed eyes and underneath the lather in her hair. “What? What are
you doing?”

I rolled up a towel for her and put it under her neck for support. Then I directed her into the chair, with her back to the
sink, and guided her head backward, under the water faucet. She didn’t protest or question me further as I took over massaging
the shampoo into her hair with my fingertips, from the roots to the ends. With her eyes closed, she sighed with appreciation.

“Where did you learn to wash hair?”

“I used to work in my mother’s hair shop.”

“Really?” She said this like she didn’t believe me.

“Yup. From the time I was thirteen to about fifteen. I had to quit ’cause the women kept hitting on me.”

“Get out.”

“I’m serious. These women used to come on to me. Older women. ‘That sure feels goo-ood, baby.’” At my high-pitched, mimicking
Southern accent, a smile slowly appeared on Eva’s face, so I continued with the entertainment. “‘Mmm-mm-mm, I sure wish I
could take you home with me, sugar.’ Then one day, one of them grabbed my crotch as I was rinsing her hair.
That
was my last day.”

The laugh she had been trying to suppress erupted, her eyes still closed. “You know what they say. Washing someone else’s
hair can be sensual.” She pressed her lips together as if to keep any more words from escaping. I rinsed her hair, then began
another shampoo, listening as the next reggae track began to play.

“Who is this playing?”

“Danté. It’s a reggae band. You like reggae?”

“It’s got a good beat—you can dance to it,” I joked, paraphrasing the old
American Bandstand
line. “I just can’t understand what the he— heck they’re saying.”

“They’re singing about God. It’s Christian reggae.”

“Christian reggae, huh? I didn’t know there was such a thing.”

“Christian music comes in all genres. There’s Christian rock, Christian
salsa.
It’s not just gospel. You like gospel?”

“Why I got to like gospel? ’Cause I’m Black?” I joked.

“I like gospel and I’m not Black.”

“You
are
Black. The only thing that separates us is a language and a country. Latins are just as mixed as Blacks.”

“Ooh, you sound just like …”

“Who? Your ex-husband? Boyfriend?”

“No. Rashid. He says skin color and language and religion are all man-made things created to keep us from concentrating on
what’s really important—God.”

I mulled that over for a moment and conceded that there might be some element of truth to it. All the while she was talking,
her eyes were closed, her lips moving independently. I decided to test her, to see if there was any interest.

“How do you say eyes?” I asked her.

“What?”

“How do you say eyes, in Spanish?”

“Ojos.”

“Open your
ojos.
”

She blinked several times before squinting up at me. “My, what big nostrils you have,” she joked.

“My, what big
ojos
you have,” I said, playing right along. Then I said seriously, “Nice big
ojos.
” I had intentionally begun my wooing.

She closed her eyes again. “Not ‘o-hoes,’
ojos
,” she corrected my Pidgin Spanish.

“Ojos,”
I mimicked with an exaggerated breathy accent. She smirked but didn’t reply, so I changed the theme of our conversation.
“Can I ask why you have your wedding picture on display?”

“For the kids. I wanted them to know that there was a time I loved their father. That it wasn’t all bad.”

“Seems kind of strange. Your kids aren’t little anymore.”

“It’s just been up there so long, I’ve forgotten it’s there. It’s not like I stare at it. But I’ll put it away if it bothers
you.”

I started to protest but then I realized she was just pulling my leg when a smile spread across her face.

“You really box?”

“Yeah, but just for the exercise. Maya took that picture of me, the one in the dining room. I used it for an article I wrote
on Latin women in boxing.”

“I thought you wrote about education issues.”

“Mostly. But every once in a while I write about women’s topics, diversity, anything I feel strongly about.”

I washed her hair a couple more times before conditioning and rinsing it. Her hair was so soft and thick, it felt like velvet.
When I finished, I lifted the towel that hung around her neck and started to dry her hair, but she stood up abruptly, taking
over, standing so close to me that I had to take a step backward. She pushed the chair with her foot to make more room, pulling
a section of hair around to her nose to sniff it.

“I think it’s all out. Do you smell any perm?”

I bent down and took a whiff of her hair but all I could smell was the scent of the strawberries-and-cream leave-in conditioner.
It reminded me of the strawberry swirl cone I used to get when the ice cream truck came around on summer days.

“Does it?” I heard her ask from far away. “Smell?”

I hadn’t realized that she had lifted her head and was looking up at me. I sensed that her eyes were blinking a sort of Morse
code, signaling me to kiss her. But then maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see. Had it been so long that I couldn’t tell
when a woman was hitting on me?

I took a chance. Before I knew it, my hands were in her damp limp hair and I was kissing her forehead, her eyebrows, then
her pug nose. With her hands braced on the sink behind her, she tilted her face and closed her eyes. We both turned our heads
to each other’s left, our lips meeting simultaneously like we had been thinking the same thing at the same time. It dawned
on me then that I had never kissed a left-handed woman. With right-handed women, there had always been that initial head-butt
because I always tilted left while they usually tilted right.

I took her full bottom lip softly into my mouth. She in turn seized my top lip. I opened my eyes briefly and saw that her
eyes were closed. Holding her face in my hands, I tried to swathe the immensity of her lips in my mouth, turning my head from
side to side in an effort to taste every inch of them. I kept my tongue away, using only my lips, because I didn’t want to
take the chance that my breath was still sour from cigarette residue. It had been one week since my last smoke.

For one brief moment, I had forgotten we were in the bathroom, a place I didn’t associate with intimacy unless I was in the
shower with a woman. I waited for her to stop me, but she didn’t. If anything, she was kissing me harder than I was kissing
her, her hands still planted firmly on the sink. At one point, I looked into the mirror at myself and saw a man capable of
anything. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I was aware of the beast outside the bathroom sitting on his haunches, tongue
hanging out hungrily, blocking me like a jealous man. I closed my eyes, and tried to block
him
out, attempting to concentrate on Eva’s sensual lips. But the demon-eyed freak was throwing me off. I pulled away briefly
and saw that the top button of her blouse had come undone. She wasn’t very large, a C-cup, average, and her skin was flawless,
with the exception of a small, dark brown birthmark on the left side of her chest.

“Could you lock him up?”

“Why? Is he scaring you?” she asked.

“Actually, he is.”

She rolled her eyes and spoke sharply to the dog. “Get in the back.” The dog trotted off, his head bowed in submission.

We resumed kissing. This time, she removed her hands from the sink and I could feel them kneading my back and working their
way up to my hair until she held my locks and caressed them between her fingers. Then she started kissing me erratically,
one moment steady, the next, hesitant, momentarily pausing like she wasn’t sure she should go on, until I would take possession
of her lips again. One minute she was Dr. Jekyll, the next Ms. Hyde. Her hesitation began to unnerve me.
Was she really celibate?
She sure didn’t kiss like a celibate woman. Or maybe that’s what celibate people did—kiss.

I fought back the urge to lift her onto the sink because I didn’t think I would be able to stop myself if I got her in that
position.

Why was she letting me kiss her if she wasn’t going to go any further? Was she waiting to see how far I would go?
I wasn’t an unbridled teenager with unmanageable hormones, but as a man I could only control myself for so long. I began
feeling very uneasy and slightly teased.

Finally, I decided it was time to put an end to our session and I pulled away, sliding my hands down neutrally to her shoulders.
I cleared my throat.

“What?” she asked softly, innocently.
Was she kidding?

I scoffed, unable to resist showing my frustration, and out of habit I pushed my hair back with both hands, forgetting that
I had a tied bandana holding it back. She stepped up to me and slipped her hands around my waist. I backed up farther, banging
the door against the wall, putting my hands on her wrists as gently as possible and removing them from my waist. As we avoided
each other’s eyes, she leaned back on the sink and covered her mouth with one hand, pinching her lips. There was a look of
surprise on her face, as if she couldn’t believe what had just happened, as if something, someone else were responsible. As
I looked down, away from her face, I noticed that her birthmark was heart shaped, not the typical Valentine’s shape, but the
form of a miniature human heart. It almost looked like a tattoo. She noticed me staring at her opened shirt and quickly fastened
the button.