The One That Got Away (15 page)

S
erena had kept her condom discussion with Dawn confidential for two weeks and two days when Jade picked her up for an evening trip to the gym. They had each worked a long day, but had agreed that a good workout session would be a nice break in the middle of the week. Once Serena had picked the girls up from school, made a stop to grab some Chinese takeout, and zoomed home to get her clothes changed, she had taken a restful seat in her front room. As the sound of Dawn and Sydney's dinner conversation wafted in from the kitchen, she had looked out her bay window onto the street below until Jade pulled up in her newly purchased Nissan Maxima.

The first few minutes of their conversation, as had been the case for the past month, focused wholly on Tony. “You still haven't returned any of the brother's calls?” Jade had
tsk-tsk
written all over her tone. “You know I'm not a fan of what you two did, Serena, but the only way to get rid of the boy is to answer just one of his calls. Tell him there's no hope whatsoever, that you and Jamie are giving things a sincere go.”

Serena shook her head. “Spoken just like a woman who's never been in love, at least not with the right brother.”

“Ohh,” Jade replied, voice rising. “So because I've never gone
Boo-Boo the Fool over a brother, let him convince me to make an ass out of myself, I don't know what real love is?”

“I'm just saying you always manage to draw a bright line between your heart and your body,” Serena said, her eyes pleading for a cool head on Jade's part. “That's not easy for most of us women. A girl like me, I know what it is to face a man who knows how to
work
you, one who convinces you that what you thought was wrong is just about right.”

“So what's your point?”

“My point,” Serena replied, snapping her plaid hand towel as if backing Jade off, “is that I'm not even giving Tony the opportunity to talk me out of giving Jamie one more chance. A girl's got to respect her weaknesses.”

Her hands sliding over her steering wheel with a right turn, Jade harumphed. “Meanwhile, Tony keeps hanging around town, confident he'll eventually break you down. You're that afraid to talk to him, sounds like his hunch is right.”

Serena turned toward her friend, her left jaw quivering. “How about some free advice?”

Jade waved a hand. “I know, I know—”

“Just drive.”

Once they had turned onto the next block, Serena punctured the creeping silence before it overwhelmed them both. “So, speaking of your dating expertise, what's the latest with you and the wigger?”

“The wigger, huh?” Jade grumbled defiantly. “Not very mature language, my sister. If you're referring to your recycled boyfriend's partner in crime, whose name happens to be Trey, I can answer your question.”

“Well, then?”

“I'm trying to decide whether to go see him, girl,” Jade said in a confessional tone.

“I thought he booked you on a flight to Chicago for the end of the month?”

“He did,” Jade replied, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. “The question is whether I'll go. I mean, Serena, I've enjoyed his visits here and all—”

“Based on your stories, I'd say so,” Serena said, grinning. Jade had sheepishly admitted that one of her more enthusiastic nights with Trey earned complaints from her upstairs, downstairs, and next-door neighbors.

“I'm just not sure I'm up for visiting his world, though,” Jade continued. “I mean, just meeting all his kids would take up the entire weekend.”

“Now I told you up front you were wasting his time and yours if you can't deal with the fact he has kids.”

“It's not the kids,” said Jade. “It's the baby mamas.”

“Yeah, not to mention the sexual math tables you have to do, on him and the baby mamas.”

“Huh, you better know the one thing I've made sure of is to make that brother stay swathed in latex before we do
anything.
Speaking of which, girl, did you hear about Lacy Turner?”

Serena's eyebrows rose with concern. Lacy had been one of their study buddies at Northwestern, and a sorority sister as well. She and Jade had lost touch with Lacy around the time she married a doctor and moved out to Denver. When Jade dropped the news—HIV, apparently inflicted from Lacy's husband, who had admitted to covert drug use and was widely believed to have had a homosexual affair—Serena's stomach clenched.

As they continued toward the gym, the two friends mourned for Lacy's plight, recounted hopeful news about advances in fighting HIV, and even said a quick prayer for their old classmate. By the time they pulled into the health club's lot, though, Lacy had been replaced in Serena's thoughts by someone far more crucial to her: Dawn.

Reminded of her promise to keep Dawn's secret as well as the heavy stakes involved, Serena stirred in her seat as Jade opened her own door. A foot on the pavement, she peered at Serena with concern. “You okay? Let's go.”

“You go ahead,” Serena said, her voice sounding far away to her own ears. “I need to make a quick phone call about something. Be right in.”

“All right, cool.”

The slam of Jade's door ringing in her ears, Serena rehearsed her justification for Dawn.
I'm your mother, and I'm not doing anything to risk your winding up with HIV. And that's what I'd be doing if I didn't let your grandmother have a crack at talking sense into you.
With that, she pulled up her mother's number on her cell phone and punched
DIAL
.

T
ony was in the air when he got the news about Serena and Jamie. Shifting away from from Audrey, who sat next to him with an eager hand in his lap, he typed an angry response into his BlackBerry:

Trey, I thought Jamie was back in Italy.

Trey's reply hit the right apologetic tone:

Just heard about this, dude, let's not get too excited about it. Jade doesn't sound convinced it will work out. But then, she's kinda biased against Muslims anyway.

Chewing on his lower lip, Tony tossed the BlackBerry onto the meal tray to his left. Along with Audrey, Larry, and three other Rowan Academy employees, he was aboard a chartered plane. The team was returning from Washington, D.C., where they'd spent three days wining and dining the Congressional Black Caucus and members of the District's city council. With Tony's leadership, they'd made such impressive progress that Larry was confident they'd be breaking ground on a D.C. Rowan Academy within six months.

That was all well and good, but the news he'd just received was a big distraction. Worse yet, the unrest stirring within just reminded him that Zora had been right. During his last visit to Chicago, when he'd taken the twins over to meet her on Loyola's campus, his sister had resurrected the intervention she and Wayne had attempted during their visit to Rowan.

“I just think you need some type of help, Tony,” she'd said, “because I know if I hadn't gotten any after what we went through that night, I couldn't get through each day.”

He had argued with her plenty, insisted on his ability to weather the occasional fear of crowds and the infrequent nightmare without professional help.

“What about Millie, then?” Her formal use of their mother's first name still sounded funny to Tony; she'd started using it only after Tony shared the many ways in which Millie had ignored the few overtures he'd made to her when he was a young, dumb preteen. “I don't think you're in touch with your emotions toward her.”

“And no stranger can help me with that.”

His response had been aimed at shutting her down, but it only served to rev his sister's engines. “You're in denial about all this, Tony. Really, you need to . . .”

Tony's recall of their argument blurred as he shook his head at the buzzwords Zora had learned from her own therapy. Focusing on the present, he set his BlackBerry aside. Trey probably didn't have any more information about Serena anyway. Feeling his mood sour, he laid his head against his bulbous traveler's pillow. It took Larry's voice, a forceful barrage from over his shoulder, to wake him up.

“I almost forgot to tell you, Tony,” Larry said from the comfort of his roomy leather seat, where he sat flanked by Art and Tina, Rowan's parent and police liaisons. “I got that contact information for you, my friend who's with Children's Services? She can walk you through the entire foster parent application process.”

Tony turned around in his seat, nodding gratefully. “They don't say you're the man for nothing. I really appreciate it, Larry.” He still couldn't believe he'd embarked on this challenge, but
after his recent visit with the twins' ailing aunt Carrie, who'd be burdened with them the very minute Evelyn reported for her “unfortunate incarceration,” he knew someone had to step up. He'd already called the county office of Children's Services, and an information packet was on the way.

“She said you're right, by the way,” Larry continued. “Sounds like getting approved will be harder since you're new to the Cincy area. But she says as long as your background check's clean, you'll still get a fair shot. You will need to get a real address, though. Living at Extended Stay's not exactly a sign of long-term stability.”

Tony nodded and gave a dry chuckle. Just that quick, he had a reason to commit to some local real estate.

“Bottom line,” Larry said, “if the court is convinced the boys' only choices are being dumped into the foster system or being directly placed with a friend of the family, they'll look at you favorably.”

“All right,” Tony replied, raising a fist in satisfaction. “Sounds like I owe you, boss.”

“Huh, don't go there quite yet,” Larry replied, nodding toward Audrey. “You've seen what some of these foster parents go through to get approved, haven't you?”

Audrey's smile dimmed. “I've warned Tony about the pitfalls, how tough the process can be.” She'd delivered her cautionary but loving lecture over a romantic dinner a few days earlier; Tony was grateful she left that out.

“Not to freak you out,” Larry said, “but my girl at Children's Services says you should prepare to have your life turned inside out, upside down. Sounds like it's harder to be a foster parent than to just squeeze out a crumb-snatcher of your own.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tony replied. “This'll be as much fun as a colonoscopy, before it's all said and done.”

Once they had traded horror stories about the unfit parents overwhelming the system with neglected and abused children, the plane quieted down and Tony again shut his eyes, eager to forget the unsettling news about Serena and Jamie. His respite was brief; in seconds he felt the warm dance of fingers near his zipper.

“Need help staying awake?” Audrey, who had a thin blanket stretched over both their laps, let her fingers graze one sensitive spot after another. She looked over her shoulder, where Larry, Art, and Tina were engaged in their own conversation. With the two seats facing them vacant, Audrey's eyes flickered with joy at having Tony all to herself.

When her hands hit their mark, sending a heated rush through his groin, Tony felt his eyes pop open. “Whoa, whoa,” he whispered, a pleasured smile on his face even as he playfully scolded her. “Girl, if your students could see you now.”

Audrey cupped his chin, leaning in close. “Look, we have a lot in common, don't try to deny it. You got where you are by knowing what you want and going for it. I'm no different.” She pulled his chin closer, pecked a kiss onto his cheek. “I've been trying to send nonverbal signals forever. You gonna make me bore you with a speech before you make your move?”

“Audrey . . .” Tony chuckled to lighten the mood but turned away, staring out the window.
Well, self,
he reflected,
you got yourself between a rock and a hard dick right about now.
His much-neglected penis stirred into action by Audrey's onslaught, his slacks were tented for the whole world to see. One wrong shift and he'd soil his boxers with rapid-fire squeezes of DNA.

He wanted Audrey; there was no sidestepping the reality. This was different from those weeks in Ghana, when visions of Serena distracted him from Ama and the other women who'd propositioned him. His heart still burned with a longing for the one that got away, but at this point the celibacy routine had lost its appeal. In light of the phone calls she refused to return, the rumors of her sudden reunion with Jamie's trifling ass, and the loneliness of his daily routine, Tony was tired of sacrificing for this unrequited love. So why couldn't he make that final leap, the one necessary to meet Audrey on the other side?

“You have some other woman back in Chicago?” Audrey's voice was low and her hand was no longer in his lap, but she was still halfway into his seat. “I mean, as hard as you work you can't
have a woman here, or I'd hear about it. Cincy's only so big, unless you're dating a white girl.”

“It's not about me being with anyone, Audrey,” Tony admitted, crossing his legs with care. Relieved that little Tony didn't discharge an unplanned load, he folded his hands soberly. “I have no one, but that's how it should stay. Simply put, I've got issues.”

Audrey seemed to take his admission as a challenge. “And who doesn't? Have you heard a word I've said the past few weeks?” As their friendship had grown, especially during the three recent outings they'd enjoyed with Ben and Glenn over the Thanksgiving break, Audrey had talked much more frankly about her past than Tony had. Ambitious and unselfish, her professional wisdom hadn't carried over to her love life. To hear her tell it, she'd had only a handful of lovers, but each had been a typical scoundrel: unfaithful, abusive, underemployed, sometimes all three. For years she'd attempted to save an on-again, off-again relationship with her first boyfriend, a whorish, alcoholic banker who was clearly beneath her.

Tony scratched nervously at his right ear. “Audrey, nobody's perfect, but just trust me. If you're looking to break your losing streak with men, you might want to keep walking.”

Audrey grinned, turning away for a second. “I think you're still beating yourself up for old sins,” she replied. “I'm betting that the man I see now, Tony, has come a long way from the shallow little player you were back in the day.” She reached for his cheek, pinching at a dimple that popped up as he smiled against his will. “Let your new self come out to play.”

He looked at her with heavy eyes but didn't remove her hand from his cheek. “That man can't be trusted.”

“You won't know until you let him try out a real relationship,” Audrey said, stroking his cheek and returning to his chin again. “I'm not asking you to marry me. I just want to be friends, and if that leads to anything more, well, we play it by ear.” She pulled him close again and whispered into his ear. “I'm a big girl, Tony. You won't break me.”