Vulnerable (12 page)

“What bothers you about D'Becca? And I mean besides the obvious. She was impressed with you.”

“That woman is really into you, Rawn. What is this? I mean taking her to the Alley! You've never taken a woman to the Alley to hear you play. Except Jas, and that's where you two met so that doesn't count.”

Rawn's shoulders slumped; he bowed his head.

“Okay, does Khalil know? About D'Becca, I mean?”

“We haven't talked. He's been working in London. Some deal he's making with a soccer player over there.”

“I can see Khalil. He loves to mix it up, so he puts it. I have to tell you, I am—I'm too through! You know, you could have prepared me.” Sicily replaced the bottle of wine. “I knew she looked familiar. I see her modeling lingerie in the truckload of catalogues I get in the mail. How old is she?”

Rawn did not like the tension that floated back and forth. Subdued, he blindly reached for a bottle. He really preferred that Sicily give it a rest already. He wished that she extended him the same courtesy he gave to her and not judge whom he chose to get involved with. Friendship did not necessarily work that way. It was the strangest thing to Rawn: Sicily did not want him; however, it became apparent that she preferred that other women not be with him either.

“You always attitudinize this issue. Why should you care whom I choose to be with?”

Sicily inspected the immediate area like someone ascertaining whether or not it was safe to steal something. No one was in earshot of them, but she lowered her voice nonetheless. “If you can't meet a black woman on Crescent Island, they are plentiful in Seattle. Fine women. Gorgeous women. Successful, together, brilliant, and alone women! I see—I meet women like this on a regular basis. Why choose a white woman? That's all I'm asking. And look, you
really had a strong attraction for the waitress at Café Neuf. I'm curious, did you ever so much as ask for her number? I mean, looks to me like you didn't waste time getting D'Becca into bed. How hard did you work this, Rawn?”

“I can't believe you're standing here suggesting that I consciously
chose
D'Becca over Imani… It's—you surprise me, Sicily.”

“You surprise me!” she snapped.

With a sigh, Rawn shook his head. He was more turned off by Sicily's inflated contempt than anything else.

“Answer this: are you going to stand here and look me in my face and tell me color never played any part in your being with D'Becca? Not even a tiny bit?”

Rawn rarely got rattled, but Sicily was doing a good job of making him feel uncomfortable. “I'm not sure; I can't say. But…”

“There are too many black men in this state hooked up with white women. And I don't get it! It's…I'll leave it there.”

“So you'll never bring this up again?”

“I can't promise, no. But…” She exhaled a deep breath. “Let's go. My stomach's growling.”

Sicily headed for the cashier, and the attitude she left hanging on the air was thick. With a near-empty wineglass in one hand and a bottle of Pinot Gris in another, Rawn was not prepared for Sicily responding so strongly toward his seeing D'Becca. Even while his relationship with D'Becca was not serious, it made him consider how others would feel—his parents, sister?

W
hen the early traces of September arrived, it assuaged the fervor between Rawn and D'Becca. What they shared in the late-summer days came to pass and they were two people indecisive about what should come next. While she was in and out of town, Rawn had a hectic two weeks with his new school schedule. Subtle ambiguities between him and D'Becca first came to light one Friday afternoon. Rawn had taken the ferry into Seattle to pick up a suit he had fitted at a clothing store on Sixth Avenue. He was walking back to the ferry terminal when he turned onto Second Avenue between the Seattle Art Museum and Benaroya Hall. He spotted D'Becca, who was scheduled to be out of town. Rawn called out to her. It started to drizzle. He took lengthy strides to catch up with her but was held up because of a small group of preschool children roped together, and led by a young woman with a shaved head and oversized hoops dangling from her ears. A messenger on a mountain bike whizzed by and distracted Rawn momentarily. He called out to D'Becca once more, but she vanished into the interior of a midnight-blue BMW. The silver raindrops slipped off the luxury automobile's severe polish. The windows were tinted so Rawn was unable to get a good look at the driver. He stepped up onto the sidewalk, opening his umbrella. Curiously, he watched the midnight-blue sedan merge into steady traffic.

For Rawn, what he and D'Becca were into was quite simple: two people taking care of each other's present needs and wants. There
was no commitment; they did not adapt to any standard relationship rules. They were consumed by passion and physical lust. The first month they were eager and fascinated with each other, which preserved their imaginary connection. Their time was spent eating G Street Wok and feeding each other with chopsticks in bed, or they had something delivered and ate by soft-lit lanterns on Rawn's patio. Those were the days when each and every night their bodies tangled into a knot and they had intoxicating sex. Old needs and wants were contented, yet a new set of wants and needs began to solicit attention.

When school resumed for Rawn, more and more their schedules and routines began to conflict; and D'Becca was in and out of town more frequently. Between his teaching at the Academy and her one-, two- and three-day trips out of town working, they shared time by candlelight, embracing, and talking
in
bed. Along the way the passion between them tempered and a mysterious emotional connection developed. But this was the natural maturity of two people spending a great deal of time in each other's company. Even while sex sustained their relationship, it was no longer the reason for their spending time together.

Rawn knew full well that his immediate interest in D'Becca was completely sexual—it was not about
feelings.
When he was with her, he sensed that she had a boundless desire for intimacy and used sex to attain that closeness with another human being. Rawn longed to experience an emotional and sexual connection with a woman—the two blending simultaneously. He cared deeply for his ex-fiancée, Janelle. Their lovemaking was all well and fine, but something—a detail he could never quite put his finger on—was sorely lacking in their relationship. In the long run he began to trust that his love for her—it was not strong enough. Whenever they made love, for Rawn it was as though he was making love to a dear
friend
.
Not a lover who was similarly his friend. When he had time to contemplate over his relationship with Janelle, he came to trust that they wandered off into a sexual relationship because they had common interests and enjoyed being in each other's presence. Yet in the end, they were better friends than they were lovers. With Janelle there was pleasure, but not that fire and desire, what Rick James and Teena Marie sang so soulfully about in their passionate duet.

D'Becca, on the other hand, had a dark, dark secretive place and Rawn became obsessed with her enigma. He kept trying to get closer, and closer. The idea that she might have wanted only sex from him and his sex alone rubbed him the wrong way, even if that was his own agenda. His ego, but more importantly his male pride, would not—could not—go there. It seemed the harder he pushed away the idea of her wanting him purely to satisfy her physical urges, the more the notion came at him—doggedly. At the time it was happening, he did not care enough to ask questions or get too caught up in the essence of who D'Becca really was. Much later, when Rawn had the time to analyze the numerous intimate moments spent with D'Becca, he would recollect nearly every single one of them with such amazing clarity.

When brilliant red and marigold leaves of a new autumn surfaced, a discernible nudge piqued Rawn's attention: D'Becca's often abrupt unavailability, the Beamer, and things that did not appear to add up. Still, Rawn was not altogether open to what was directly in front of him. Halloween or thereabouts—when the clocks were set back—was when particulars began to peeve him. Sometime later, he would recall it so lucidly because the elementary students were making costumes for trick-or-treat, and went all over the Academy decorating classrooms, the hallways, and the lunchroom in black and bright orange, with spider webs and ghosts and
goblins. It would be clear to him even more so because it was Sicily's favorite time of the year.

One late afternoon Rawn walked the longer route home from the Academy that led him down Lombard Avenue, the street D'Becca lived in. In subtle ways the neighborhood reminded him of the community he grew up in nearby Denver. The breathtaking trees with leaves of burnt umber, and pumpkins propped on porches and stairs at the entryways to swanky high-priced homes. Although he knew she was still in New York and would not be home for another three days, something drew him to D'Becca's street. When he came upon her teal-colored car parked along the vacant curb, it did not register immediately. Rawn had offered to take her to Sea-Tac, but she said she would drive herself and leave the car in the short-term parking lot. “If I don't have a hired car, I park at the airport,” D'Becca had explained. Instinctively, he walked up to her townhouse, and a pair of bright red galoshes was left on the ceramic slated porch. He reached for the buzzer on her intercom, but old-fashioned common sense made Rawn freeze. He did not know why, but his mind held him at bay. In what way would fate have been altered if he had chosen otherwise? He went back to the sidewalk and looked up at her townhouse. He stood there for a few minutes before he ultimately chose to leave.

While walking home, he decided not to rush to any conclusions as to why D'Becca was back from her trip but had not telephoned him. The very thought of her not calling him when she was back in town pushed him around, and the idea boxed with the dark side of his psyche. He loathed the thinking about it, the fact that it kept recurring in his mind, over and over. He was angry. Had she lied to him all along? Had she even been to New York? After all, Rawn had no hotel name; no way to contact her in New York. If he called her on her cellular—she could be in Timbuktu!

When he reached his apartment, he felt a strange sensation rip into his heart, dripping residuals of escalating doubt into his rapidly pulsing soul. First it was the discreet man in the Beamer. When Rawn inquired about it, D'Becca said so casually, so convincingly, “Oh, no. That wasn't me,” but deep in his core Rawn knew full well that it was her. Now this? Was he blinded by some illusion?

It was a strange night. Rawn drank a Corona, and before starting a second, fell asleep on the leather sofa. The following morning he had what he decided had to be a migraine and reached for ibuprofen in his medicine cabinet and chased four down his throat with a tall glass of orange juice. He called Khalil and left him a message on his home phone: “Call me, man.” Showered and dressed, he walked to the Academy. He took the long way; he was going to stop to speak with—no, confront—D'Becca. It was something he had to do. He
needed
to do it, he told himself. He was going to clear this thing—whatever this thing was—up!

D'Becca's Z3 was not parked in front of her townhouse, and when he went to her door and rang the bell, she did not answer. Calm came over him; a gentle sense of ease. Perhaps she let someone borrow her car and they took the liberty of keeping an eye on her place—watering plants, feeding fish, or whatever. While that was certainly plausible, Rawn had never met any of D'Becca's friends. Her closest friend lived in Deauville, and Troy, whom D'Becca spoke to every day, was in South Beach overseeing the opening of a gym. What would Rawn have said to D'Becca if she did answer her door? He had never been invited to her home, and as far as D'Becca was concerned, he had no clue where she lived. However, a few days after seeing her step into the Beamer in Seattle, Rawn wanted to make sure that D'Becca did not live with a man. One night, when she left his place, Rawn followed her home.

For the first time he recognized that he was too accessible to
this woman, but that did not work both ways. A sense of betrayal began to gnaw at him. Rawn was a man who could look in the mirror and say to the reflection,
I approve.
But of late he was second-guessing himself. He was not one to be ambivalent. When he reached the Academy, he stopped in his office before heading to his classroom, and he called Khalil and said with unconscious urgency, “If you're in L.A., call me, man.”

T
amara was unable to concentrate on the spreadsheet. She lost track of time a few hours ago. It was shortly after ten and she had not eaten since breakfast—a cup of black tea, and a smoothie made with fresh strawberries, organic bananas, soy milk, one egg yolk, and protein powder. Her intentions were not to skip lunch, especially since it was her biggest meal of the day. But two clients dropped in unexpectedly to be fitted, and because they were wives of men who had high-paying professions, Tamara could not find it in herself to turn either one of them away. They were shopaholics, and they filled their spare time almost entirely on superficiality. Before Tamara knew it, it was dinnertime; yet Tamara was too distracted and so she had no appetite. Emblematic of a small enterprise and self-run business, she wore several hats. Since time presented itself, she decided to go through invoices and approve them for her accountant.

Once she got started, she was on a roll. When she initialed the last invoice with a simple oversized T, Tamara did everything she could—checked her e-mail, updated her contacts, collected receipts for her quarterly taxes, started sketching a design, and opened junk mail—to avoid calling Henderson. She even found herself starting to look forward to seeing Pricilla, her college roommate who was quite the celebrated author since the publishing of her best-selling book a few years back. But of all the people! Tamara could barely tolerate Pricilla on her best day. Not sure how she pulled it off, but Pricilla managed to take advantage of the self-help
phenomenon and succeeded. While she could depend on Pricilla, Henderson was the one person she could talk to. When they hung up from their sometimes two-hour phone calls, she felt more like the self she trusted. He knew how to reach her in ways no one else could. She liked his mind. And she was not ashamed to admit it even to Henderson, the deceit that came with maintaining a relationship with him when Daphne demanded that he not, felt good. While they were no longer physical, Tamara still depended on him as a dear, dear friend.