The Nick Of Time. San Culberson
I put you in a cab.” She waited for me to explain.
“Well, I had to go back to get the heel from my sandal.” Doubt was all over her face.
“Why didn’t you have the cab wait for you?” She should have been a lawyer.
“I didn’t think of that.”
“Yeah, right. Well, I hope you used a condom, Fee.”
“Of course we did.”
“I’m not going to say anything about how dangerous it is to let a stranger into your home.” Let the judging commence. But I was not going to let her ruin my good spirits. I smiled at her and clasped my hands together as if I was about to pray.
“Please, Nicole, I’ve thought about all that. Can you just let me savor my good memory?” She made a “do what ever you want to do” sound with her mouth and went back to her pile of scratch-off tickets.
We worked together silently scratching the coating from the tickets. We put the winners in one pile and the losing tickets in another. When we finished, the winnings totaled $2,100—enough money to cover the cost of the party and buy that Fendi bag I had been debating over. I could feel Nicole getting more excited as the dollar amount grew.
“Girl, you lucked out.” She smiled at me.
“I told you last night was my lucky night.” I stood up and did a little “free money” dance. She laughed out loud then, and I knew she was ready to forgive me for being less than an angel.
“You are so crazy. Since you risked your life for a little piece, I hope the brother had the ‘mandatories.’” Her sly comment about the “mandatories” let me know that she was ready for details. After a series of unsatisfying sexual relationships in college, Nicole and I had each made list of the “mandatory” physical attributes a man had to have in order to be a good lover.
I said she was conservative and judgmental, I didn’t say she was a nun. And by the way, the series of unsatisfying sexual relationships I just referred to was no more than one or two…three max. It wasn’t as if we were skipping around campus screwing just anybody. Well, come to think of it, Nicole was, but I wasn’t. I looked down at her from where I was standing.
“First of all, the piece in question was everything but little, and the only other thing I’m going to say about it is that rough tongue has now been added to my ‘mandatory’ list. Nicole fell back in her chair laughing.
“You just now adding that to your list?” She sat back up in her chair and we high-fived each other. We cleaned up the small mess we made, and I offered her a drink. As we walked in the kitchen I asked about her day.
“Why aren’t you at work? You playing hooky, too?”
“I went in this morning, but I had to get out. Sometimes that place just drains me.” I could have kicked myself for asking. Nicole was the director of a drug rehab center, one of the only ones in the city that provided shelter for the children of the women seeking treatment.
Recently, whenever she talked about her work, she theorized that most of the women didn’t want to stop drinking or doing drugs, how they didn’t know how to care for their children properly, and that the mandatory parenting classes were a waste of time. That was discouraging talk coming from a person whose job was to believe in and help the women she had become so disdainful of.
I knew what the real problem was, and so did she. It wasn’t her job or the women. Nicole had been trying to get pregnant for close to two years, and seeing so many children in need of stable parents every day was a constant reminder of what was missing in her life. She sat at the small bistro table in the kitchen while I took lemonade from the refrigerator.
“You know the girl Renata I told you about a while back? Well, anyway, we just found out this morning that she’s pregnant. She hasn’t been clean eight weeks. I swear, instead of going to the fertility specialist, I need to be going to the crack house. Shit, I’d probably get pregnant with triplets.” I laughed at her comment and gave her the glass of lemonade.
“You need a break.”
“I need a baby.” She said the words with conviction. I took the glass right back and held her hands in mine.
“You’re going to get your baby, Nicole. The doctor said there’s nothing wrong with you and there’s nothing wrong with Anderson. I know it’s hard, but you just need to let go. How many times have you given me the same advice?” She half laughed half snorted and picked up her glass again.
“I know, but I would be the only damn black woman in the Carolinas with fertility issues.” We both laughed over drinks. “Well, at least I’m a respectable married woman and not a ‘ho.’” She looked at me pointedly and we both laughed again. Fortunately or unfortunately, I had never been a “ho” and we both knew it.
“One one-night stand does not a ho make.”
“You’re not planning on seeing him again?”
“No! I pretended I was asleep when he got up to leave. He left three numbers on a piece of paper on my nightstand. The girl still got it!”
“Well, if it was good for you, and he wants you to call him…why don’t you?”
“Because… I’m not trying to see him again. It was just a one-night thing to dust off the sexual cobwebs.” I sounded a little defensive even to my own ears, but I continued, “He could be Jack the Ripper’s play brother for all I know, and even if I was interested, he looked a little old to be cleaning tables at a club.”
Nicole gave me a disapproving look. “I think it’s a big mistake to judge a man by what type of work he does. I mean, in the long run, what does it matter what his job is? Just as long as he’s working.” I looked down at her and raised my eyebrow in disbelief.
“I guess it wouldn’t matter if you’re Mrs. Dr. Anderson Jordan.” Her expression went from disapproving to contrite in about two seconds.
“True, true.” She laughed and went to put her glass in the sink. “I stand corrected.”
But I wasn’t ready to let the conversation drop. “But in this situation, you’re right. I don’t care if the man is a CEO or GDO. Men are just too much work, and in the end, they just screw you over.”
“Hello!” Nicole waved her arms frantically in the air as if I couldn’t see her. “Happily married woman still in the room.”
“I know you’re happy, Nicole. I pray that you never have to go through what I went through, and that you and Anderson have eight babies and live together happily ever after. I’m just saying that I’m not interested in trying to make it down that road again. I’ve had enough. Just the thought of giving a man control over my emotions again…” I had to shake the image away; just thinking about it made me sick to my stomach.
“Have you ever heard the expression ‘a man’s place is in the bedroom and in line at the ATM’?” I asked her.
“No, I haven’t.” She laughed and shook her head from side to side.
“I know you haven’t, ’cause I just made it up. But you get what I’m saying. From now on, Nicole, any personal contact that I have with men will be strictly sexual…” I thought for a minute then added, “Maybe an occasional dinner or a movie thrown in for appearance’s sake, but that’s it.” She scrunched her face up doubtfully.
“Yeah, right. And how long do you think that will last?” I looked her straight in the eye with no hint of a smile.
“For the rest of my life.” I was very serious. We stayed in the kitchen talking a while longer, about her job—which in all actuality, she loved—about our families, and about all the other little things people who have known each other for most of their lives talk about.
As she was getting up to leave, she looked at me and asked, “What is a GDO?” I had to think for a minute before I remembered