I Saw Your Profile

I SAW YOUR PROFILE

Rhonda Swan

10
^th
Anniversary Edition

Conscious Mind Press

Published by Conscious Mind
Press

Copyright © Rhonda Swan, 2004,
2014

All rights reserved

ISBN
978-0-9742645-6-1

Library of Congress Control
No. 2004093757

Printed in the United States
of America

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved
above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced
into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means
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For single women everywhere

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Fredrick Fletcher, my
friend and partner, for being the inspiration behind this 10
^th
anniversary edition of my first novel. And thanks to DeAndre Mingo
 
for his many hours of hard work
collaborating with Fred and me on the new cover design. I am very grateful to
the two of you for making this happen.
 

           
Rhonda Swan

Chapter One

 
Arianna
ambled into the funeral
home as though she had ten-pound weights tethered to her ankles. She’d promised
to stay away, but she couldn’t help herself.

 
As she headed down the long hall, a young
attendant handed her a program. She gave him a half-smile and thanked him,
wondering why he’d want to surround himself with death.

    
He asked for her
jacket. She declined. The chill of the crisp, October night air still ran
through her. Besides, she didn’t plan to stay long.

    
She glanced at the
program, a thin sheet of white paper with a black and white picture of the dead
man. She rolled her brown eyes, shaded under brows waxed to a perfect arch, at
the sight of him grinning from the cover.

    
She sighed as she
folded the program with her long, slender fingers, cutting his smile in half,
then in quarters, before stuffing it in her designer purse.

    
Her hands fumbled inside
the large shoulder bag as she searched for a compact to assess the damage
inflicted by the biting wind during the four-block walk from where she parked.

    
Her cinnamon skin was
flushed and her eyeliner slightly smeared. The tight curls in her cropped,
chili powder

red hair were still neatly
gelled in place. Her full lips still moist with the expensive gold gloss she
never left home without.
  

    
She licked the tip of
her index finger and wiped the black smudges from beneath her eyes. As she returned
the compact to her purse, a memorial book sitting on an oak table against the
hallway wall caught her attention. There were only twelve names scribbled in
the white book. All women. Linda. Cynthia. Nina. And nine others.

    
A gold pen sat in the
holder, but she did not pick it up. Arianna Singleton wasn’t going to be number
thirteen. There would be no record of her presence there.

 
  
She continued down the hall trying
to tune out the somber tones of the dirge being piped in through the speakers.
Once inside the small parlor, she stood in the back, hoping to go unnoticed.
That was difficult. There were few mourners.

    
There were six rows of
white metal folding chairs. Three women sat in each of the two middle rows.
Arianna figured the dead man slept with all six, in addition to her.

    
Three family members
stood at the toe of the casket awaiting condolences. In the middle was a stern
looking, dark-skinned woman Arianna assumed to be his mother. To her left was a
younger female she took to be his sister; to the woman’s right, a handsome
brown-skinned man she figured to be his brother.

    
It’s ridiculous the
way Catholics expect the family to stand through two or three hours of a wake
to shake hands with people.

    
Arianna, a lapsed
Baptist, had been to Catholic services when relatives of her white co-workers
died. This was her first experience with black Catholics. She knew there were
many in the West Indies. In fact, the guest of honor was from Barbados.

     
She surveyed the
room. No one was crying. Chauncey would hardly be missed.

     
When he was
alive, though, his many women gave him plenty of attention.

    
Arianna’s palms went
sweaty when she saw her former lover’s baldhead propped against the satin
pillow. She became acutely aware of the heavy air. Her heart thumped underneath
her black, silk blouse. Breath struggled to fill her lungs.

    
Her crimson wool pants
began to cling to her legs. She shook them to loosen the fabric.

    
Get it
together, girl. You’ve seen plenty of dead people.

    
She removed her red
leather jacket and took one of the chairs in the back row. She hoped her heart
would return to its normal rhythm. The secondhand on her Movado watch ticked
three hundred times as she sat staring at the head on the pillow.

The casket was a plain, dark
plastic. Cheap and fake like its occupant.

    
 
She squeezed her eyes shut. That devious
grin appeared in the darkness behind her lids. She jerked them back open and
gazed at the casket.

    
You ain’t got shit to
smile about now.

    
The casket stood out
in the sea of white that engulfed the room, from the eggshell Priscilla
curtains and valances that hung from the tall windows to the plush, cream
carpet.

    
The snow-white
fireplace against the wall in the back of the parlor was surrounded by pearl,
brocade wallpaper. A sparkling chandelier dangled from the opal ceiling.

    
Arianna tapped the air
with her red leather boot. When she was scared, nervous or bored, she shook. At
that moment, she was nervous.

    
The chair was
uncomfortable. She fidgeted from side to side as she tried to get the nerve to
get up.

    
His mother looked
amazingly stoic. If it had been her child, Arianna was sure she’d be passed out
on Valium.

    
Arianna felt sorry for
her. Losing a child, even one as bereft of morals as Chauncey, had to be the
hardest thing in the world to live through, she thought.

    
As she stared at the
casket, a lady slid in the seat next to her.
 

    
It was Nicole, the
woman who had almost become Chauncey’s widow. She was five feet, ten inches
tall and wore a size sixteen dress. Her shoulder length, chestnut colored
braids were pulled into a bun on top of her head, making her look even taller.

    
“You know you
shouldn’t be here,” Nicole whispered.

Arianna sighed. “I know. I’m so
nervous, but I needed to see him one last time.”

    
Nicole frowned. “The
day he died wasn’t good enough?”

    
“Everything happened
so fast. It was almost surreal.”

    
“So being here makes
it
for real
?”

    
“Yeah. He’s definitely
dead.”

 
   
Nicole rolled her eyes and
shook her head.

    
“Sometimes, I wonder
if there’s a heart beating under that fancy blouse, Arianna.”

    
“Why would you say
that?” Arianna asked with hurt in her voice.

     
“Forget it. It’s
a good thing I know you better than that. I think. Let’s just go pay our
respects.”

     
“Respect?”

     
“That
is
what people do at a wake. Some people actually come to
grieve
the
deceased.”

 
     
They walked to
the front of the parlor.

Arianna stared. “He’s so gray.”

Nicole nodded. “People lose
their color when there’s no blood flowing through their veins.”

“His blood ran cold when he was
alive.”

The nervousness Arianna felt a few moments earlier disappeared as she
stared at his prone, lifeless body. She bent over and whispered in the dead
man’s ear.
    
“There are no
computers in hell, asshole.”

    
She
raised her head and looked at Nicole. Tears were flowing from her slanted,
brown eyes down her golden cheeks. Nicole had loved him once. And even though
he betrayed her, she never wanted to see him dead.

    
For a moment, Arianna
felt guilty for her callousness. She took Nicole’s hand and held it between
hers.

    
Six months before,
Nicole was a stranger. In fact, as a public relations spokesperson for a
municipal agency in D.C., she was someone a reporter like Arianna would try to
avoid. Nicole was used to putting out fires and making bullshit smell like
roses. In other words, she was the dreaded flak, the person that kept reporters
from talking to the real people in charge.

    
Arianna wrote stories
on people like the ones Nicole worked for, exposing their dirt on the front
page of the Philadelphia Press Herald.

    
What they had in
common was Chauncey, and discovering that was how they met.

    
Arianna whispered.
“Are you okay, Nicole?”

    
“I’m fine.”

    
“You sure? You don't
have to pretend for my sake. It wouldn’t be natural not to feel something.”

    
“I know. But I don’t
know what I feel. Loss? Sorrow?
            
Vindication?
I just don’t know.”

    
“Let’s just get out of
here.”

    
 
“Aren’t we supposed to pray for him?”

 
    
“He’s dead,” said
Arianna, her voice laced with sarcasm.

     
“I know. But
don’t Catholics pray for their dead?”

    
“They would pray for
his soul to go to heaven, but the illusion in this bright ass room is the
closest he’s gonna get to the pearly gates. Let’s go.”

Nicole walked over to the mother
and Arianna followed.

Nicole grabbed her
hand. “Hello, Doris. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

    
“Thank you, Nicole.
I’m sorry we have to see each other again under these circumstances.”

    
She acknowledged
Chauncey’s siblings. “Alicia. Patrick. You have my sympathies, too. Is Junior
here? I never did get a chance to meet him.”

    
Alicia answered. “No,
his mother couldn’t afford to send him.”

   
Nicole and Arianna weren’t
surprised since they’d learned that Chauncey had been nothing more than a sperm
donor to the boy.

   
Nicole continued to speak to
the family as Arianna listened quietly, her head slightly bowed because she
didn’t want her eyes to meet theirs.

    
“I’m afraid we won’t
be able to make the funeral tomorrow, but I’ll be praying for you. Take care
and have a safe trip back home.”

    
The mother nodded as
her son and daughter smiled with gratitude.

    
By that time, the other
six women in the parlor had gathered in a group to talk. They stared as Arianna
and Nicole made their way between the rows of empty chairs and headed toward
the door. Arianna walked faster. The weights had fallen off.

    
At the bottom of the
stairs leading to the parking lot, they met Janelle, a plus size woman whose
straggly hair was in bad need of a perm, a hot comb, or braids. Arianna sucked
her teeth, thinking,
Why is it the hairdresser’s hair always looks like
shit?

    
Janelle approached
them. “Well, I see you two couldn’t stay away either. Anything going on in
there?”

    
Arianna put back on
her jacket. “It’s a wake, Janelle. What do you think is going on in there?”

    
Janelle frowned,
wrinkling her flawless walnut complexion, and folded her arms across her
forty-two double Ds. “I figured you two might go back on your word and go to
the funeral. I didn’t expect to see you at the wake.”

    
Nicole spoke up.
“Obviously, none of us could stay away. No sense making a big deal about it.”

    
“I’m not. I’m just
–“

    
Arianna interrupted.
“You’re just what? Look, Catholics don’t usually have open casket funerals and
I wanted to see the bastard. No, I needed to see him. To have some closure. To
put this mess behind me. Why are you here, Janelle?”

 
   
Janelle snapped. “I’m the
only one here who actually loved him. Why don’t you tell the truth, Arianna?
Admit that you killed him and you’re here to gloat.”

    
“We’re back to this
shit again? I told you that I didn’t kill him. Why don’t you just go in there
and cry over him like you usually do. Only this time, I won’t be there to wipe
your nose.”

    
Nicole wrapped her
arms around Janelle.

    
“Janelle, you’re hurt.
We all are. But, let’s not do this. Not here. Let’s go somewhere, maybe get
something to eat and talk about this rationally.”

    
Janelle pulled away
and put her hands on her wide hips.
         
“There’s
nothing rational about murder, Nicole.”