I'm Your Girl (29 page)

“Why?”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you about the new book.”

“But you’re not writing it.”

“It’s in my head, and you’re still in it.”

In his head or his book? I don’t say anything. I might confuse him.

“Anyway, Arthur and Diana…Her name is Diana. I hope you don’t mind.”

I smile, despite Jack’s drunk voice in my ear. “I don’t mind.”

“Well, Arthur and Diana will meet in the library where he’s researching his family tree, and she’s helping in the gynecology room.”

“The what?”

“You know what I mean. I overheard you at the library that day. That old man gave me the courage to talk to you.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. I was afraid to approach you.”

Alcohol—the greatest truth serum. “You were?”

“Uh-huh.”

Silence.

“Jack?”

“Hmm?”

I have to ask while he’s being so excessively honest. “Did you want to make love to me last night?”

“Yep.”

That was a quick answer. “Then what stopped you?”

“I told you why.”

“Tell me again.”

“Okay. I still feel married to Noël, and if I had made love to you, I would have felt guilty about it.”

I blink.

“Not guilty about making love to
you
—not at all. You’re beautiful. It’s just that I would have felt like I was cheating on Noël, you know?”

No, I don’t know. “Well, thanks for telling me that, Jack.”

“Sure thing.”

“Um, do you still want to see me?” I sound so desperate!

“I still want to see you.”

Whew. But I have to be sure. “To help you get over her?”

“Yep.”

My heart sinks. “That’s all?”

“No, I mean, I don’t know. We’re just starting out, you know? It’s like I’m riding a bike for the first time all over again. I want to go, my body wants to go, and your body seems to want to go.”

It does. It still does.

“But I can’t seem to make the pedals work, you know?”

“I think I understand, Jack.”

“So, we can take it slow, just like you said, right?”

Despite my better judgment, I say, “Sure. Sure, Jack. We’ll take it slow.”

W
ell, we should take down the tree. It’s time to put the tree at the curb for the wind to send the tinsel into our neighbor’s lawn.

You just hurt her, Jack
.

No, I didn’t. She’s a big girl.

She cares about you.

I know, I know.

Call her back and apologize.

I’d rather take down the tree. It has too many memories hanging on it.

You’ll save all the ornaments, won’t you?

What for? They’ll only open the wound again next December. And anyway, I thought you wanted us to have a new life.

Call Diane. Apologize. Have her help you with the tree.

But I’m drunk.

Then sober up! Stop drinking. Take a long walk. Take a shower. Drink some coffee.

Maybe I’ll just…sit here for a while….

When I wake up hours later with a Kris Kringle hangover, I check my messages. Diane has called several times, and Noël’s mother, Sandra, has called once. Why would she be calling me?

I dial Sandra’s number. “Hi, it’s Jack.”

“How are you, Jack?”

“Okay.”

“I’m calling about Noël’s and Stevie’s clothes. I’d like to take them to Goodwill.”

Sandra is still in mourning, too. “I already took them all to the Salvation Army.”

“Oh. That’s good. Uh, good, Jack. Do you still have all those photo albums?”

“Yes.”

“What about the pictures in the hallway?”

Where is this going? “Yes, they’re still up on the wall.”

“Well, if you decide to take them down, please keep me in mind.”

Why would I take them down? “I will.”

“Um, who was that woman you were with at church last night?”

This is
really
why she called. “She’s a friend who’s helping me write my next novel.”

“She’s, uh, just a friend?”

Though it’s none of her business, I say, “Yes, Mrs. Wilcox.”

“Well, uh, don’t you think you could have had a little more respect for Noël and Stevie than by showing up at the church like that, even with just a friend?”

Geez, my head is on fire and now this. “What is it you’re trying to say?”

“I mean, really, Jack, a black woman?”

Ah. Now I get it all. “Mrs. Wilcox, Diane—that’s the name of my good friend—Diane and I have just started dating.”

“You’re…dating?”

“Yes. And it is out of respect for Noël and Stevie that I go on living, as they would want me to.”

“But with a black woman? How do you think Noël would feel if—”

“Noël’s dead, Mrs. Wilcox, so I don’t think that matters much to her.”

I hear Mrs. Wilcox crying. “You’re ruining her memory, Jack!”

I close my eyes. “I could never do that, and I will never do that. I still love your daughter very much. I just need…to get on with my life without her.”

“And this…black woman is going to do that for you?”

“No. This
woman
is going to do this for me.”

Mrs. Wilcox hangs up.

Maybe I was too harsh.

You were.

But she focused only on Diane being black!

Jack, if you had dated another blond-haired, blue-eyed girl, Mrs. Wilcox would have had the same reaction.

I don’t know. She kept saying “black” as if it were a curse.

Mrs. Wilcox is still healing, too. You and Diane have to be a shock to her.

Yeah. Maybe I should have let Mrs. Wilcox take the clothes back.

No. It was your job, not hers. You could go visit their graves, though, you know, to make sure they’re being tended properly.

I’ll take them some flowers in the spring.

You could…take Mr. Bear to Stevie.

Not yet.

I throw some water on my face and try to brush the sour eggnog taste from my mouth. Then I call Diane to apologize, but she doesn’t answer the phone. I wait for the beep and leave a message: “Diane, I’m sorry about leaving you last night and I’m sorry for…for drinking myself to sleep today. Please call me back.”

I hang up, staring at the tree.

And then I get the ornament boxes from downstairs.

L
et’s take it slow, he says.

Let’s take it
silent
is more like it.

I called him
four
times, and he didn’t answer because he was stone drunk. When he wakes up, he calls me to apologize. I could have picked up, I could have talked to him, but I’m too angry. He could have
known
me—in the biblical sense—yet he would rather drink until he passes out. That’s hard for my self-esteem to take.

The phone rings for the third time. I check the Caller ID. Jack again. I don’t pick it up. After it stops ringing, I wait a minute until the “message waiting” light starts flashing. I dial for my messages and hear, “Diane, will you please come over to my house and help me take down my tree?”

“No,” I say aloud.

Though it’s more reasonable than the second message he left. He actually wanted to know if I would go out with him for ice cream! On New Year’s Day! What kind of a…

I like ice cream, mind you, but I’m still mad at him. It’s also far too cold, and I doubt that anything’s open. We’d probably end up at some convenience store and pay way too much for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

I like Ben & Jerry’s, but…

No. I am going to be strong, and he had better come stronger and with better messages if he expects me to speak to him again.

Hmm. I could call him back to tell him no. That would be the proper thing to do. Just, and politely now, tell him he’s crazy for asking any woman out for ice cream on New Year’s Day and for asking any woman to take his Christmas tree down.

Wait. Hold on, Diane. Jack is asking
you
to help him take his Christmas tree down. Who else has
ever
helped him do that? Noël. Okay, she’s not around anymore, you’re in his life, and if you want to
stay
in his life, you’re going to have to take her place…even for something as simple as this.

I dial Jack’s number, and it rings ten times before I hear, “Leave a message at the beep.”

I hang up.

Oh, now
he’s
screening his calls and waiting for
me
to leave a message. Well, I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. I’ve heard of people playing phone tag, but message tag? No. That’s not a game for me. I don’t play games.

Okay, I didn’t answer the phone when I could have, but…I’m allowed to be mad. I’m allowed to be hurt. I’m allowed to be stubborn. I am the wounded party. He is the one who has to grovel. He is the one who has to—

The doorbell rings.

I jump up and look through the drapes.

It’s Jack, and he’s holding a pint of ice cream.

Part of me says, “Girl, he’s only using the ice cream to lure you back to his house to work on that tree,” and the other part of me is saying, “He’s so sweet!” I look more closely at the ice cream. Häagen-Dazs. Chocolate. Oh my.

The doorbell rings again.

I tell the first part of me to shut up and open the door.

Jack holds out the pint of ice cream to me. “I’m sorry, Diane.”

I pull him inside, the ice cream still between us. “Did you already take down your tree?”

“No.”

I look at the ice cream. “Is this supposed to seduce me into coming back to help you?”

He laughs. “No.” He looks into my eyes that sexy way of his. “It’s only for seduction.”

My mouth is a tiny little
o.

“I hope you like chocolate. The vanilla looked a little old in that—”

I slam my body into the ice cream and into him and into the door until it finally shuts. He tries to move the ice cream from between us, but I keep that pint firmly between my titties. “I don’t have any bowls, Mr. Browning.”

“You don’t?”

I do, but…“No. How on earth are we going to eat this ice cream?”

He looks down at the ice cream. Or my titties, I don’t know! “It could get messy.”

“It could.”

He lets go of the pint and reaches around me, his hands sliding lower and lower until…Oh, yes, a man’s hands are handling my booty like a booty should be handled!

“It might…melt all over us,” he says as he cups my caboose and lifts me almost off the ground.

“It sounds…yummy,” I say.

And after that, we rip each other’s clothes off and have ourselves some “Exploratory Foreplay Sundaes,” and we don’t need whipped cream, wet walnuts, strawberries, pineapples, or even a cherry on top. I have a Jack Sundae, he has a Diane Sundae, and I have never tasted anything so good!

And right there on the floor of my kitchen! His hot tongue licking the ice-cold ice cream off my seriously hot body in every possible place on the cold linoleum floor is almost as good as me doing the same to him. When all the ice cream has melted, we do a little “mud wrestling” in my tiny little kitchen until I’m sitting in his lap with my legs locked around him, wanting all the while for Jack’s “banana” to complete my sundae. All I have to do is lower myself maybe an inch, and I will have a man inside me for the very first time.

“I need a bigger kitchen,” I pant as he licks on my neck. Why did I just say
that?

He kisses me and laughs. “It’s big enough.”

“I’m all sticky.” I look down at his…Johnson. “And so are you.”

There is a moment of silence as we look from his…stuff—I don’t want to use the D-word—back into each other’s eyes.

“Jack, I’m…I’m a virgin.”

“Whoa,” he says.

“Whoa as in stop, or whoa as in…whoa?”

He hugs me tightly, and my nipples are so hard I’m afraid I’ll cut him. “Whoa as in
both,
” he whispers.

“Yeah?”

He wipes a smudge of something from my cheek. “Diane?”

“Yes?”

“Diane, I need you, and I hope some small part of you needs me.”

I bite my lip. “A large part of me needs you.” Oh, God, what is this feeling? My whole body is warm, and my eyes are filling with tears—but I’m not crying. I’m looking, not staring, into a man’s eyes whose face…is covered with chocolate ice cream. Yet…could this be…“All of me needs you, Jack.”

“Good.” He kisses me on the nose. “Good, because I want this to last.”

I’m not sure what he means. “Want what to last?”

“Us.”

There’s that warm feeling again.

“We met, what, two weeks ago, and I’m just getting over my wife. I never thought I’d ever get over her but you…you came into my life.”

Oh, the tears.

“And I don’t want you to think that this is all I’m after, Diane, though I want it really, really badly.”

We both look down. Yep, he still wants it badly.

“I want something…permanent with you, something lasting…something forever.”

Cold feeling all the way to my toes. What’s this? Where’d that warm feeling go? “And you can say all this after only two weeks?”

“Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, I know, but…my son’s books, those overdue books, brought us together. It’s as if we’re…meant to be, you know.”

My eyes are drying up. This sounds so much like a crummy romance novel! “I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t know if I feel the same way, Jack.”

He looks away, but I turn his head back to me with a sticky hand.

“I mean, about this, yeah, we might be rushing this, though I’ve waited a long time for this.” I smile and look down. “This is as close as I’ve ever been, Jack, and all I have to do is move a few inches, but”—I search his eyes—“Do you really want me that way?”

“Yes.”

He wants me that way. No one has wanted me that way. The warm feeling creeps back through my body. Whoa. “Look at us. If you put our situation in a novel—”

“Reviewers would say it’s preposterous.”

Oh, he had to use Nisi’s words.

“So,” I say, “what do we do next?”

“You mean, after our shower?”

Oh, I’m a-tingling now. “Yeah, after our shower.”

“Well, we date.” He smiles. “We see each other, we go together, we talk, we go steady.”

I giggle. “We do all that?”

“I don’t know what people call it these days.”

I like the way his eyes dance when he’s babbling. “Go on. What else?”

“We go out to eat and go to the movies and go window shopping and attend concerts and go to shows and sit next to each other in church and…and you help me write a better book.”

“All of that?”

“Yes, Diane. We become a team.” He takes my hands in his. “I guess I’m saying that I want you to be my girlfriend, Diane. I know that sounds weird. I mean, I could call you my lady friend or woman friend or significant other—”

“Or main squeeze or old lady,” I interrupt.

He squeezes my hands. “Or I could just call you Diane.”

God, I’m blushing again, and he only said my name!

“And maybe in a few months, or years, who knows? Maybe we can take the next step.”

Oh, Lord! The next step! Why is this a better feeling than wanting sex? I’m beginning to feel…hope and joy…and maybe love. But will he want me that way if he finds out—

“Jack, I write reviews for books under the name of Nisi.”

He blinks but doesn’t stop smiling. “You…do?”

“Yes, and I read an advance review copy of
Wishful Thinking
, I didn’t like it at all, and I posted that horrible review.” He starts to speak, but I growl, “I’m not finished.”

He nods.

“But since I’ve been reading your second draft, I realize that
Wishful Thinking
wasn’t the book you wrote. What I’ve been reading today has been wonderful. It’s so romantic and loving.” I smile. “Kind of like this moment.”

I said “loving.” I didn’t say “love.”

“Look, Nisi,” Jack says, “your review helped me.”

“It was unfair and cruel.”

“No, it was honest. That’s why you need to help me edit this next book into something you like. I need your critical eye. I want the character to be you, and it can’t really be you without you…or something.”

I can’t believe he’s not mad. “Jack, I trashed your book without even reading all of it.”

He shrugs. “I had trouble reading it, too.”

“So, you’re not mad at me?”

“No.” He nuzzles my cheek with his nose. “Why would I be mad at someone with an honest heart and a critical eye?”

This man is too amazing for words! “What if…what if I don’t like some of what you’re writing…about me?”

“You’ll tell me, and I’ll make the changes. And in the next few months, I’m sure we’ll make changes to the changes.”

Changes to the changes. For some reason, I like the sound of that.

“Now, you need a shower,” he says.

“Just me?”

He smiles and looks at his arms and chest. “I kind of like this color on me. Maybe I’ll smear myself with ice cream for my professional photograph.”

I put my arms around his neck and pull his eyes to mine. “I’d rather you smeared
me
all over you.”

“I kind of already have,” he whispers.

“Good point,” I whisper.

“So, Diane, I want to be your boyfriend. Will you have me?”

“Yes.” Baggage and ghost wife and all.

I think I have myself a man.