What He's Been Missing (22 page)

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Authors: Grace Octavia

BOOK: What He's Been Missing
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“Well, both must be on the way. Because you have that glow, honey bunny. You look exactly how I did before I moved to the other side of the world to be with a man who'd never had macaroni and cheese.” Bisa pinched my knee. “So what's your boo's name?”
“Xavier.”
“Hum . . . sounds smart. Successful. Freaky.”
“Well, I wouldn't know all that yet,” I said. “He lives in Chicago.”
“That's right up the street. You better get on a plane. Bring that thang to him. Young girls like us don't have a lot of time to debate over such minor details as air mileage.”
“I know, but I'm trying to take it slower,” I said. “Don't want to crowd him. He's kind of one of those ‘reformed player' types.”
“Look, Ms. Rachel Winslow—never underestimate a man's potential to adapt. I never would've thought Ayat would really have married me—a Muslim man with a former adult actress? Crazy! But men know what they like. And when they find it, they pursue it,” Bisa said.
“I guess I'll have to wait on him to get on a plane to Atlanta, then!”
“I know that's right!” Bisa laughed and we slapped hands dramatically. “So, how'd you meet this man who has you glowing?”
“It's the funniest thing—but you have to promise not to laugh at me—”
“I'll probably laugh, but tell me anyway,” Bisa joked.
“We've known each other for years. Went to college together. I hadn't seen him since. But a few weeks ago, a friend of ours got married, and Xavier was there and I was there, and I went to see this roots woman—”
“A roots woman?” Bisa coiled up.
“Tante Heru. We were in New Orleans. It's a long story,” I explained struggling to sound nonchalant. “Anyway, I was feeling really down and I asked Tante Heru to send me the man of my dreams.” As I repeated the rest of the story about Tante Heru in the Quarter, it was like I was seeing it all again. I remembered parts I hadn't been able to recall. Being lifted from the floor of the bar. Hands all around me. Tante Heru chanting over my forehead. Her laugh. Her gray beard. Her promise about sunrise. Xavier at the door of my hotel room the next morning. “I asked her . . . I asked Tante Heru for—” I stopped. I was feeling dizzy. Like I was back in Tante Heru's shack. I could smell her all around the room.
“For what? What did you ask her for?” Bisa had big fish eyes.
“Lovvveee,” I said. “A man who loves music, a man who loves art. Who respects the spirit world and thinks with his heart.”
“Oh girl, I love that song! India.Arie! And that's my favorite part,” Bisa said and then she started singing, “A man who loves music, a man who loves art—”
And then I joined in, “Respects the spirit world and thinks with his heart.” It sounded like an incantation. The lights in the conference room began to flicker. I looked over at Bisa to be sure I wasn't still off in my thoughts and imagining what I was seeing.
The exposed insides of Bisa's mouth confirmed the paranormal potential of the event.
“It's nothing!” Bisa said.
“Yeah. Just a coincidence! These lights flicker in here all the time.” (Lie!)
“Really?”
“No . . . but let's pretend they do. I'm sure it's nothing. That's the thing about those crackpot roots women: they get you going and then you're convinced their little spells are working, but it's just your imagination. Right?”
“You seem pretty convinced about this guy,” Bisa said. “And he seems pretty convinced about you. Maybe it is working.”
“Maybe I just want it to work. And what's happened since is just my imagination.”
“Could be.”
“Well, there's one test. When I was leaving, Tante Heru said she'd grant me two more of loves wishes whenever I wanted them. The second wish is that I can wish that my true love be by my side whenever I want him.”
“Well, wish Xavier here! Wish him by your side.”
“But I don't even know if it's him—if Xavier is my true love,” I pointed out. “And I don't even know if it's working.” I laughed. “And I don't even know why we're talking about this!”
“The only way to know is to try. Put it to the test. Wish.”
“Wish what?”
“Whatever you want!” Bisa threw up her hands. “Whatever you want right now. Look, if this guy is your true love and you wish for your true love to appear, then he'll show up. Then you'll know.”
“That's ridiculous. You sound like you're in some teen movie.”
“We could stand to be teenagers again sometimes,” Bisa said. “And I think it's ridiculous not to make the wish.”
I exhaled and rolled my eyes. “Fine, Bisa. I'll do it! But only because it's you and you're one of my favorite clients!”
“
The
favorite!”
“
One
of the favorites.”
“Whatever!” Bisa took my hand and put it over her photo album like it was some sort of love Bible. She closed her eyes.
“What are you doing?” I laughed a little.
“Shhhh.” She gripped my hand tighter. “I am waiting for your wish.” She peeked out of one eye at me staring at her. “Close your eyes and wish.”
“Why?”
“Just do it!”
“OK!” I closed my eyes. “So what am I supposed to say?”
“How am I supposed to know? Just ask for your wish!”
“OK . . . well, I ask that the man of my dreams appears right now!” I opened my eyes but Bisa's were still closed. I waited a second, but she sat there. The lights started flickering again, but this time it wasn't coming from the ones overhead in the conference room. It seemed like it was something in the hallway. Maybe the fire lights. I turned and looked at the doorway, and there standing in the frame was Xavier. Red roses were at his chest.
I got up. Slid my hand from Bisa's and ran to him. I had to feel him to know he was really standing there before I could believe it and say it aloud.
“It's you!” I felt myself being held in his arms. The cool, wet touch of the flowers in his hands now on my back.
“Yeah, baby, it's me. Three weeks was too long. I couldn't stay away a minute longer.” He kissed me and I felt like I was up off the ground. “Had to see you.”
“No shit!” Bisa said. “No fucking shit!”
“What?” Xavier was laughing.
“Oh, I'm sorry, X.” I peeled only halfway from his hold to turn back into the room to face Bisa. “Let me introduce you to my client.”
She was standing up with the photo book in her arms, looking at Xavier like he was Moses walking on water.
“This is Bisa Ojaku—one of my favorite clients,” I said. “And Bisa, this is Xavier.” I patted Xavier on his chest and looked into his eyes. “My very good friend.”
Bisa shook Xavier's hand and grinned at me knowingly.
“I hope I didn't disturb anything,” Xavier said to me. “Krista wanted to come back here and get you, but I wanted to surprise you on my own.”
“I think you've succeeded,” Bisa joked.
“We're fine,” I said. “We were just looking over Bisa's wedding pictures.”
“Yes, and I was just leaving,” Bisa said excusing herself out the door.
After Bisa was gone, Xavier pulled me back into his arms.
“Now, I was hoping you were free for the rest of the day, Rach,” he said. “Was hoping to sweep you off your feet.”
“Sweep me off my feet?”
“If you'll let me.”
Xavier had his bags in the reception area with Krista. Under her watchful eye, we picked them up and walked out of the office and into a romance.
Twenty years from then, if things worked out between us, I kept thinking that I'd have to lie to our children and say that we left the office and went to a café to listen to some jazz or walk through a park where Xavier picked daisies for me.
Unfortunately, it went nothing like that.
When we went to my place to drop off Xavier's bags, I went to make dinner reservations and he decided to get in the shower to wash away the musk of his flight.
Somehow (and I mean for that to sound ridiculous), while passing each other in the hallway, I got a look at Xavier's arms. Wet. Big and brown. Made for holding things. His skin made me beg to touch it. I had to know what else he was hiding under my white towel.
Now, I'm not the kind of girl who sleeps around. I left that in my twenties with a bad case of gonorrhea I got from a guy I met at my church. But I hadn't had a gentleman caller in months—and not one before that drought looked quite as good as Xavier.
I guessed my interest was in my eyes, because in the middle of the hallway where I was passing while on my cell phone and he was heading to the living room to get his bag, he leaned up against the wall and grinned so I could see his white teeth.
“What?” he posed with his hand holding his towel in place at his hip rather indifferently.
“That's just a lot.” I looked at his chest. Two solid pectorals with licorice-colored nipples still wet from the shower led to a staircase of abs that led down to a solid V-shaped pelvis. “I guess you just like to be in the gym, like, all day.”
“Not really. I just try to stay healthy.”
“You look healthy.”
“You wanna touch?”
Sure we could've gone on with this exchange, but the wonderful thing about being in my thirties, I was learning, was that it was hard to keep me away from physical action with a man I really wanted. And I really wanted him.
I jumped on Xavier with everything I'd heard about his bedroom acrobatics in my ear. But this was no college boy anymore. He was a grown man. And he handled me that way. Handled me with my back against the wall in the hallway, and then in the bedroom, and then on the floor beside the bed after I tried to get away. I wasn't a smoker, but I would've liked a hit of something after that. I wasn't thinking about going to a café or walking through the park to pick daisies. Right then, I was cool with staying in my place forever.
We laid on the cold floor, naked and thirsty, for thirty minutes, linking fingers and laughing.
“You must think I'm a slut. A straight-up freak ho!” I said, trying to gauge his reaction to my action. He may have played the game, but I'd started it. And sometimes that perception dictated how a man treated a woman, moving forward.
“Nah. That just lets me know that you know what you want out of life.” Xavier reached up to the bed and pulled the covers down over us.
“Cool . . . wait a minute . . . isn't that André 3000?” I said, trying to remember where I'd heard that line. “That's from ‘Where are My Panties.' ”
“Damn! You got me!” Xavier laughed.
“Trying to run lines on me up in here,” I said, laughing with him.
“I'm sorry. I just figured Dre said it better than I ever could. I judge women based on how they chase their dreams, not how quickly they sleep with me. I didn't mean to offend you.”
“I'm more offended that you obviously didn't think I would know that song!”
“I didn't peg you for an OutKast fan,” Xavier said.
“Um . . . you're in Atlanta. . . . It's my hometown.”
“No, your hometown is out in the country. Ya'll probably listened to people yodeling. Probably didn't have radios.”
“OK . . . you got jokes. So, what, you're some kind of OutKast head or something?” I asked.
“I like them. My musical taste is very diverse, though.”
“Who's your favorite artist?” I asked.
“That's hard. I like so many.”
“Name one that might surprise me.”
“Meshell Ndegeocello,” he replied.
“No!” I sat up and looked at him. “She's one of my favorites. I love her work. She's totally my lesbian crush.”
“Lesbian?” Ian frowned comically. “You get down with that?”
“I don't like girls. I just really like her lyrics. She has this way of communicating her feelings. You know? I know all of her songs.”
“So you say . . .” Xavier said dubiously. “I guess I'll have to test that statement. See how real you are about your lesbian lover's music.”
“Go ahead. Try me.” I scrunched up my face to accept his challenge.
“Name this tune: ‘I'm sorry I left you no home, but your words they shattered my bones.”

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