Naughtier than Nice (14 page)

I moved within two weeks, changed homes, relocated to a larger, more modern home in View Park. It was a short sale due to divorce and pending bankruptcy. Tommie sold my old furniture online. I started over. The living room was decorated with family photos; the largest photo was of the McBroom daughters and our parents, that one over two decades old. The four-thousand-square-foot home had plantation shutters on all the windows, so no one could see inside. I had two dead bolts on all entry doors and burglar bars installed in the floors, the New York–style that lifted up and fit snug under the doorknob, making it impossible to kick a front door down. My alarm was set so all lights would flash and the house would scream loud enough to wake everything living and dead from my home to Denver, Colorado.

I could breathe again; I felt safe.

There was nothing there to remind me of Franklin.

*   *   *

Another week went by.

Another Sunday morning came and we continued training for the race.

By six fifteen, the parking lot on the Bank of America side of the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw mall was filled with cars. We were adults, but we were men and women, and more than a few relationships or affairs had taken place out here. People run together for hours, talk for hours, and become intimate in that way. Eventually many fall
into bed, despite wedding rings or other promises. A lot of good-looking men were there, but I had avoided that trap. Those men were typical men, flirting with the younger, flat-bellied sisters in colorful spandex and runner's ponytails. Most of the sisters wore
BLACK GIRLS RUN!
T-shirts. Tommie and Livvy moved from person to person, hugging and chatting, all smiles. I had ridden with Tommie, and I did the same, acted like there were no demons battling for first place inside my head. I pretended that two hundred calls hadn't come from Mrs. Crazy in the last twenty-four hours.

A handsome brother came over and stopped near me. He had on black running shorts and a yellow T with the timely phrase
I CAN'T BREATHE
in bloodred letters. I'd never seen him before.

We made eye contact.

He grinned at me like he knew me, waved, came in my direction.

That scared me.

He said, “Didn't you used to have dreadlocks?”

I adjusted the scarf over my head and nodded. “Yeah. I did.”

“Wow. This is a trip. It is you.”

“Well, I'm usually me. So yeah, from my perspective, it's me.”

“Nice to finally run into you again.”

“Sorry, but I think you have me confused with someone else.”

“Weren't you at the Peachtree Road Race in ATL the last Fourth of July?”

“Yeah, well, I went with most of the people out here today. We pretty much took over a Delta flight. Hold on. There were over fifty thousand people out in that wretched slave-heat and humidity. You actually noticed me down there?”

“You were with that sister over there. There were three of you, actually.”

“That tall sister is my youngest sister. The shorter sister near her is our middle sister.”

“I think all three of you were arguing.”

“That's how we communicate.”

“I'm Daniel Madison.”

I told him my full name, then asked, “How did you end up out here with us today?”

He had heard about our group and joined online. There were more than a few African American running groups in Los Angeles. He tried to chat, but I wasn't down with being über polite that early in the morning, and just as I was about to excuse myself from the lollygagging, Franklin called.

I answered as I walked away from the weekend warriors.

Franklin asked, “Who is that guy you're talking to? Is that the new boyfriend?”

I hung up and looked around. Then I saw his car. He was exiting the parking lot, headed out on Crenshaw, in the direction of I-10. He had been sitting there and waiting for me to show up.

He had wanted to get a glimpse of me.

He had wanted to get under my skin.

Daniel grinned at me. He was near Dr. Shelby, Dr. Debra, and a few others who'd run these hills with us this season. Daniel had a nice chest and arms, was toned, under six feet tall, and sounded like Harvard and all things successful. He looked like a brand-new heartbreak waiting to happen. It was still too soon. I was a woman with the needs of a woman, but I was still nursing an open wound. I moved my eyes away from him and jogged over to Tommie. She was on the phone being flirtatious.

I said, “Tell Blue I said good morning.”

“I'm not talking to Blue.”

“Who is that?”

“Do you mind?”

She walked away.

At six forty we headed out to Crenshaw Boulevard, prepared for the start of a twenty-mile run. We were going to run Inglewood 10, an all-hill route. That was the first ten miles. After that, the rest of the run would be flat. We'd get back here, and the people who
wanted to go on for the second half of the workout would keep moving from Crenshaw and King toward Rodeo Road, run the next five miles through Culver, then turn around and head back to the mall's parking lot. The last five miles was no joke. I used to always break down on that strip. I refused to be broken. Today would be like living in hell. But hell was nothing new to me. I'd been burned many times.

Daniel jogged from the back of the pack, caught up, walked next to me, and started another conversation.

He asked, “Mind if I run with you?”

“I don't need a babysitter.”

“I don't know the course.”

“I'm training with my sisters, not here to be hit on.”

Daniel walked near me to the starting point at the Macy's. I stopped with my sisters and our crowd. He kept going toward the faster runners. We stood there, getting our last-minute stretches in. I glanced to my right, looked in the parking lot at Macy's. Franklin's muscle car was there. I couldn't see him, but he was there. His energy contaminated my soul. He was watching, today the gentle stalker.

I jogged up to the front of the pack and told Daniel, “Hey, why don't you run with me today.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I'm sure.”

Tommie and Livvy took off with the rest of the group, at least fifty of us out there now. Daniel and I started and trailed them. We didn't talk much. Hard to chat and run ten miles of hills. The last ten miles were a bitch. As I ran with him, I saw Franklin six times, parked at different locations on the course.

I had a tendency to break away from the pack, and he'd hoped to catch me running by myself. For the next three and a half hours, I was with Daniel, ran with him from beginning to end.

When we were done with the grueling run, as some of us sat on
the asphalt parking lot while others sat in lawn chairs, we all sipped water and ate fruit. We cooled down and waited for the slower runners to make it back. Franklin was parked on the other side of Crenshaw Boulevard, in front of a strip of apartment buildings, his eyes on me. If he wanted to watch, let him watch. I cranked up the smile and gave Daniel as much attention as he could bear. I touched him a lot, laughed a lot, held his arm a lot, and when he sat on his lawn chair, I pulled mine up and took his feet in my lap, massaged them. Then he massaged mine. He rubbed my aching feet and woke up something I needed to stay asleep. Soon I heard Franklin's ride speeding away. He zoomed down Crenshaw, enraged.

I asked Daniel, “You have schoolboy crushes on many women?”

“Not in a long, long time.”

“When was the last?”

“Years ago I used to live out in the Inland Empire. Over a decade ago.”

“Just checking.”

He asked, “You ever had a crush on someone so strong you thought it would never end?”

“I did. Once upon a time I did. I fell in love with this guy and thought he was the one for me.”

“Was he a runner too?”

“Yeah, but he's not part of this group. I don't date people in my group, but a lot of the other women here probably will. Lot of intelligent, educated, pretty women out here. Welcome to the group.”

I broke away from Daniel then, rubbed my temples, went and mingled with the rest of the crew.

Twenty minutes later, as a few more from the group came in exhausted from the long run, a red muscle car pulled into the parking lot. It was a sweet number. A red-haired, well-tanned white woman got out. She smiled, waved, and called my sisters' names. Livvy and Tommie waved, then went to her. She wore runner's gear, skin salty from a workout. Tommie came back over to where I was.

I asked, “Who is she?”

“Rosemary Paige. She said she just did the Culver City stairs forty times.”

“Damn. Look at her legs and abs. Friend of yours?”

“She is looking for a house in this area. I had given her your business card a while back.”

“Introduce me. I have three nice properties ready to hit the market within the next two weeks.”

Right about then Livvy and the woman walked over, casually speaking to Daniel as they passed.

He looked back, checked out her ass, but didn't linger and become lewd.

Livvy said, “Frankie, this is Rosemary Paige from Pennsylvania by way of Texas.”

She nodded. “So you're the famous Frankie McBroom your sisters keep talking about.”

I said, “I hear you're looking for property in the area.”

“Let me text you my cell phone number, Frankie. What's your cell number?”

Without thinking about it, my mind on my money, I told her.

She said, “Tommie told me that you live in the old Ladera area.”

“Did. I moved closer to this side of town.”

“Baldwin Hills?”

“Other side of Stocker in View Park.”

“I would love to see your area too.”

“Houses in that area start at about three-quarters of a million, and on that level you'll need to get preapproved before we start looking at properties. That way you don't waste your time looking beyond your preapproved loan amount and I don't waste mine burning up my gas.”

After we exchanged information, Rosemary Paige put her phone away.

“I'll be in touch, Frankie McBroom.”

Ten seconds after that, she was in her car, taking to the boulevard. As soon as my potential client mixed with the big-city madness on the 'Shaw, my phone buzzed. I opened it. Attached was a video. We were in Africa. The video was from Franklin. We were making love. That confirmed he'd stolen the GoPro.

Teeth clenched tight, I refused to let him defeat me.

I frowned back toward Crenshaw; expected to see Franklin had resumed stalking me. He wasn't there, but I knew he wasn't far. Daniel was still checking me out. I went over to him.

I asked, “So, when are we going to go out on a coffee date and see what kind of vibe we have?”

“You're hot and cold, you know that?”

“I'm hot, that's why you can't keep your eyes off me. You're pretty hot yourself, Daniel. If you want to get cleaned up and get a twenty-minute chat with the girl you have a crush on, I might be game.”

“Twenty minutes?”

“As long as it takes to sip a cup of tea is all the time I need to see what you're about. No need to waste a half hour. One hot cup of tea is all it takes to see if you're real or a bullshitter like the rest.”

“You do keep it real.”

“My time is limited, and time is money. You want to play a game, flirt, flatter, work your way up to a horizontal workout, no clothes, no Nikes, only confidence and condoms required. I know the objective.”

“Damn. You are up front.”

“Too old for games, unless it's Scrabble or Jenga. So listen, I love a handsome, fit, professional man. It's great for my ego. You know what you want—at least you think you do. Let me break it down. I'm the new stimulant in your life. You're chasing what interests you. We've seen each other in our running gear, and this is sexy because we give off that energy, and not only that, but we've
seen each other a yard of spandex from being naked, and I can see what you're working with, more or less, and it hangs like it's more than less. You can ogle me and see what I'm working with, see my curves, see how I work hard to make this frame look better than a twenty-year-old track star's, see how my nipples stand, and might catch me with a bit of camel toe before things get adjusted, but that's how it is out here, and outside of a carnal fantasy, be sure you can handle this route. The marathon is much easier to handle than I am.”

“That sounded like flirting. I thought you said no flirting, Frankie McBroom.”

I maintained an irritated grin. “Did you really see me when I ran in ATL?”

“I really did.”

“And you've wanted to meet me since last July?”

“Yeah, I have. But I assumed you lived in ATL. Hope it doesn't sound crazy, but after ATL, you were on my mind for a very long time. That same weekend, I was at Taki Japanese Steakhouse and saw someone who looked like you and broke my neck to get to her, only to embarrass myself. Thought I saw you at Czar Ice Bar, at Gladys Knight's Chicken and Waffles, even thought I saw you walking down Peachtree. Looked for you all over ATL. Then I ran into you in LA. I ran into the woman who had caught my eye, captured me, and she had no idea. So finding you, running with you, this is a fantasy come true for me.”

“Wow. Not sure if I should be flattered or concerned.”

“I would say I'd hope you'd be flattered, but you said no flirting.”

“Good point. We really shouldn't be flirting. This has gone too far as it is.”

“Were we flirting? My bad. If I was flirting, I both digress and apologize.”

“Well, it was nice meeting you. Thanks for getting me through this grueling run.”

“So no coffee date at some place where we can sit down and not flirt again?”

“No coffee date. Blame it on the pain. That long speech about no games and yada yada yada—I get delirious and talk crazy after a long run. Let's pretend I never said any of that. I embarrassed myself.”