Dorcas shakes her head. “No, I haven’t. I thought we could order some takeout, but what you’re cooking over there smells delicious. What is it?”
“It’s my creamy shrimp pasta. I perfected the recipe about three years ago,” I declare proudly.
“What’s in the sauce?”
“You want to know my secret recipe?”
Dorcas laughs. “You don’t have to worry about me stealing it. I’m afraid I’ve never tried to cook something so complex. I’m a steak-and-potatoes girl myself.”
“I guess I can tell you, then. I use fresh cream, shallots, garlic, Parmesan cheese, and a little white wine.”
“Wow! Where did you learn to cook like that?”
“Don’t sing my praises yet!” I lift a wooden spoon full of sauce to Dorcas’s lips. “Here, taste this, and then tell me what you think.”
Dorcas sips a small amount of the sauce and squeezes her eyes shut. “Mmm” is all that she can say.
“You like?”
“Oh, yes! It’s wonderful.”
I lead Dorcas over to the table. “Sit here and get ready to give your taste buds a treat.”
She takes a seat and grins up at me. I grin back and then head back to the kitchen to complete my masterpiece.
Breaking my concentration, Dorcas asks, “Are you always this prepared for company?”
“I eat like this every night.”
“Why?”
“You know, it’s funny that every woman I’ve ever entertained has thought it’s strange, the way I prepare for my meals, but you are the first one to ask why.”
“I just think when someone takes this much care to do something,” she explains, “then it must mean a lot to that person.”
“I don’t know why, really, or even how it started. It probably has something to do with my mother.”
“Your mother is a homemaker?” Dorcas asked.
“If you call instructing the staff being a homemaker, then yes.”
“Staff? I heard you say your family was wealthy. I didn’t know you meant
staff
wealthy.”
“I don’t talk about it much. It’s not my money, it’s my father’s,” I say as I place our plates on the table.
“But it will be yours one day.”
I tilt my head back and laugh. “My father is probably taking some youth serum so that he’ll live forever, to spite me.”
Dorcas tries to laugh at my joke, but she has just eaten a mouthful of pasta. She smiles with pleasure as she chews. “If you ever get married, your wife is going to be a butterball if you feed her like this,” she comments.
“I’ll make sure she’s on a fitness plan. You can eat whatever you want as long as you work it off.”
“Sometimes women need more than exercise. Especially after we hit twenty-five.”
“You’re fine, Dorcas. Here, have some garlic bread.”
She looks like she’s having second thoughts about taking the crusty, gooey bread. But after some cajoling on my part, she takes it and greedily chomps a huge bite. She leans back in the chair and sighs, her carb craving satisfied.
“Don’t get too comfortable. I’ve got to get to bed early tonight.”
“Why is that?”
“I’m traveling with Bishop, Oscar, and Emoni to Savannah tomorrow. Bishop wants me to report on the event.”
“I’m surprised Emoni is going. She usually doesn’t go to Bishop’s speaking engagements.”
I sense her irritation, but I choose to ignore it. “I’m thinking we’ll have a great time.”
“You’re probably right. I even think that once Emoni gets over her little crush on you, you’ll end up being great friends.”
Ouch. Can somebody spell h-a-t-e-r-a-t-i-o-n?
“Yeah, I could see us being friends. She’s cool.”
“You don’t sound too convinced about that.”
“Let’s say that I don’t have too much success with making friends out of former admirers.”
I guess Dorcas doesn’t know how to respond to this, because she stuffs a huge forkful of pasta in her mouth. I hate to admit it, but my track record in the friends-who-are-women category is pitifully weak. Probably has something to do with the fact that I’ve ended up sleeping with all of my
friends
. Maybe the new me will fare better.
“So, what really made you come up here tonight? Did you follow the aroma of my pasta sauce?” I ask.
Dorcas blushes and replies, “I don’t know. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Anything like what?”
“I guess … I’ve never made the first move.”
I can’t stop the smile from spreading across my face. “It’s obvious to me that you are inexperienced in first-move making.”
“What?”
“I actually thought that I made the first move when I rubbed your little feet. That was a much better first move than coming to my apartment unannounced and eating up my dinner.”
Dorcas laughs. “You’re right! I’m a first-move rookie.”
“It’s quite all right. I accept your feeble attempt at a first move, because it’s been a long time since a woman even tried. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Darrin
H
ave I mentioned that I’m not a morning person? I’m that guy who presses the Snooze button thirty times and wakes up late anyway, because my body won’t move until it’s good and ready. And please don’t think I’m rising before the sun. That is the purpose of the sunrise—to be the harbinger of the new day.
But here I am at the crack of dawn, sitting on my couch, fully dressed with notepad and briefcase ready to go. Incoherent as all get out, because why? It is the crack of cotton-picking dawn.
And where is the ever so punctual Oscar, who is already a half hour late? I’m getting ready to dial his cell phone when I hear a banging on my door that sounds like a bounty hunter looking for a felon on the run.
I open the door, ready to greet Oscar with a friendly hello, but he is already walking back down the hall to the elevator. And how did he get upstairs? I know I’m sleepy, but I didn’t hear the buzzer.
I grab my briefcase and lock my door before dashing down the hall to catch Oscar. “Good morning,” I say when I reach him.
“You should’ve been outside waiting.”
I crack my knuckles, trying to calm my nerves. “You didn’t say that before.”
“I guess everybody wasn’t born with common sense.”
I give up. I’m not going to get into an altercation with this dude, though it’s obvious that he’s trying me. Maybe he thinks I’m some pampered rich kid who can’t defend himself. Well, my father’s money paid for ten years of tae kwon do lessons.
We get off the elevator, and Oscar rushes to the door. Instead of holding it for me, he lets it slam in my face. If Dorcas weren’t standing next to Oscar’s car, grinning at me, I would’ve stole on the brotha.
“Good morning!” Dorcas sings. She shocks me by giving me a more than sisterly hug and a soft kiss on the cheek that stirs me on the inside. And I don’t mean in the spirit.
“Well, good morning to you. I’m glad to see that someone is in a good mood,” I say. I jerk my head in Oscar’s direction, and Dorcas nods knowingly. She hands me a greasy-looking brown paper bag.
“What’s this?” I ask, although I can smell the corned beef through the bag.
“I thought you all might get hungry on the road, so I bought some corned-beef sandwiches from the deli up the street. They are the best in town.”
“Now, I didn’t think I’d be able to find a good corned-beef sandwich in Atlanta.”
“Trust me! This will rival any of the ones you’ve had in Cleveland.”
Oscar seems irritated with our chatting, so since I have to be in the car with him for four hours, I’m going to make one more attempt at peace and try to bring him into the conversation. “What does a woman know about a sandwich, anyway? Right?”
Oscar grunts a reply and gets into the car. He motions for me to get in on the other side.
Dorcas says, “Enjoy the trip, Darrin. You can thank me properly for the sandwich when you get back.” She shocks me again by giving me another hug. She stands in my arms with her lips deliciously parted. I can’t help but kiss her inviting mouth, and I feel her go a little limp. Our tender moment is cut short by honking. Apparently, she’s shocked Oscar, too, because he looks as if he’s ready to go into convulsions. “Let’s go,” he barks.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm my rage. Finally, I release Dorcas from our embrace and grab the car handle. “We can finish this when I get back.”
Dorcas’s face lights up, which tells me she’s game. I get in the car and close the door. Anticipating the finishing with Dorcas has got me whistling to myself.
“Can you chill with that whistling? I’m trying to hear from the Lord.”
Okay, I can’t take it anymore. “Man, what is your thing with me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replies smugly.
“What is it? Did you try to get at Dorcas and she turned you down? I can’t believe you’d try to get with Emoni, but that could also be the case.” I watch his scowl deepen. I must’ve hit a nerve. “So it is Emoni? You’re in love with your pastor’s daughter? Wow. She probably doesn’t even think of you like that.”
Oscar’s hands clench the steering wheel until his knuckles are white, but still he remains silent. I continue, “Then a suave, handsome, and debonair brother like me comes along, and your little boo is about to lose her mind. Actually, now I understand why you don’t like me. It’s cool.”
Oscar swerves the car angrily and hisses, “You keep their names out of your mouth. I know that you’re up to no good, and when I can prove it, I’m going to send your suave, handsome, and debonair self running back up north where you belong.”
“Is that a threat, brotha? You are really killing me with all this Christian hospitality.”
Oscar glares at me but turns his attention back to the road. After a short drive, we pull into a development of moderate-sized homes with meticulously manicured lawns and at least two cars in every driveway. It’s a community of upwardly mobile African Americans who, through hard work and two or three incomes, have been able to purchase their own slice of the American-dream pie.
We stop at the Prentiss’s home, which is located on the corner of a cul-de-sac. Their lawn is as beautiful as the others. Oscar eases the car into the driveway, gets out, and slams the door without giving me any further instructions. I get out of the car, too, and stand next to the door, waiting to see what will happen next.
Emoni comes outside first, wearing a perfectly fitted tan two-piece suit. She’s styled her haircut differently. She looks too good to be going to church.
She sashays up to me and asks, “Aren’t you going to open my car door?”
“Of course. Are you sitting in the backseat?”
“If you are.”
I chuckle as I open the back door for Emoni. She slides into the car, keeping eye contact with me the entire time. Someone has obviously been schooling her, because she has stepped her game way up. I’m impressed, but I don’t know if I can deal with all this flirting without breaking somebody off.
Bishop Prentiss emerges from the garage with Oscar right on his heels. I open the front passenger door for Bishop as he gets close to the car. When Oscar sees Emoni sitting in the backseat, he opens his mouth, probably to object, but quickly closes it again.
Bishop gives me a hearty handshake. “How’s everything going?”
“Good, Bishop! I’m happy to be accompanying you today.”
Oscar interjects, “Bishop, are you sure you don’t want to sit in the backseat with Emoni so you can stretch your legs and relax?”
“The front is fine. Besides, I have some last-minute instructions for you.”
Oscar scowls at me and gets in the car. It takes every bit of my self-control to suppress my laughter. I also get in the car, and Oscar barely lets me get the door closed before he pulls off.
As we speed down the road, Emoni comments, “It smells like meat in here. What is that?”
Oscar replies, although Emoni was clearly directing the question to me. “Oh, that’s just the sandwiches that Sister Dorcas bought for Darrin to eat on the road.”
“Oh,” responds Emoni in a whisper.
I’m touched by Emoni’s disappointment, so I try to clean up Oscar’s comment. “Actually, Dorcas bought corned beef for everyone.”
“Well, wasn’t that thoughtful?” says Emoni with one of the fakest smiles I’ve ever seen.
“It sure was,” continues Oscar. “Emoni, did you know that they live in the same apartment building? What a coincidence, right?”
Score one for the haters, because there is no way for me to recover from that low blow.
“I didn’t know that,” states Emoni sadly.
Bishop interjects, “Give me a hunk of one of those sandwiches, because I’m famished.”
I pass the bag up to Bishop and slump back in my seat. I do not want to travel an uncomfortable four hours with a scowling girl sitting next to me. She’s looking out of the window, blowing little frost circles on the windows and scribbling them away.
For lack of a better idea, I pull out a piece of paper and a pen and draw a tic-tac-toe board. I make the first move—an X in the upper-left corner—and then tap Emoni’s shoulder. When she glares over in my direction, I hand her the folded-up game board. She asks quietly, “What is this?”
I hold one finger up to my lips to shush her and motion for her to open the paper, which she does. I don’t want Oscar to know about our game. A huge smile spreads across her face and she quickly marks her move on the tic-tac-toe board and passes it back. We keep passing the little paper until Emoni has won four times in a row.
In a last-ditch, desperate effort to win, I try to cheat by making two moves at once. Emoni’s mouth opens wide when she sees the obvious, and she bursts into laughter. I start laughing, too, the kind of laughter that makes my stomach muscles tighten and tears form in the corners of my eyes.
Oscar clears his throat. “You two are having way too much fun back there. Why don’t you all try to reflect on the move of God that we’re about to witness in Savannah?”
Emoni and I lock eyes, and we laugh even harder. Oscar looks at Bishop, possibly searching for an ally, but Bishop shrugs, smiles, and takes another huge bite of his corned-beef sandwich.
Emoni
I
am utterly confused. I want to say that I know for certain Darrin has been flirting with me all the way to Savannah. But what if I’m overreacting? What if he’s just being nice? It’s hard to tell with him lunching on sandwiches from that heifer Dorcas. Isn’t buying food for a man a girlfriend type of thing to do?