A Cold Piece of Work (27 page)

“What's wrong with me?” she asked her cousin, Sonya, whom she called. She had to speak with someone. Sonya had returned from a trip and was in her car near Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, headed home.

“I don't know what's wrong but you'd better figure it out, girl,” Sonya said sharply. It was a different tone from what Michele was used to hearing from her.

“What's wrong with you?” Michele asked.

“Nothing,” Sonya explained. “Maybe I'm too close to you; I've seen what your life was like before Solomon. To me, Solomon has been great. He's been there for you and for Gerald. He's great with his son. He's a gentleman. I don't get him dating four women at once, but that's beside the point; sort of. The point is you're in love with him but too scared to see it through.”

“What? That's not true. Why would you say that? You act like him smacking a woman and beating Gerald is not a real concern.”

“They can be concerns, but enough for you to not be with him? Come on, cousin,” Sonya said. “Life is too short. And good men are too hard to find.”

“I can't be worried about finding a good man,” Michele shot back. “That's not how I'm living my life.”

“Yeah, I saw how you lived your life without a good man and it was a wreck. You married a nice guy you had no chemistry with, Michele. You dated other losers and finally stopped dating altogether. That was a great life, right?”

“How you—” Michele started. But Sonya cut in.

“No, I'm not finished. I also saw how you've been the last seven, eight months with Solomon. So don't tell me it's not a difference because it is. If you want someone to comfort you and make you feel like you're doing the right thing, then call someone else. I love you and I can't let you think that it's all right to try to control the father on how he disciplines his son. If he was hanging him by his fingernails or pulling his hair out, I could understand. But a whipping? Please. We basically grew up together. You got your butt whipped all the time, bad as you were. So how you gonna act like that's some act of the devil now?”

Michele was taken aback by her cousin's words. She didn't expect she would be so blunt, so hurtful.

“Well, I guess you told me, huh?” Michele said. “I'm sorry, but I look at those two things differently.”

“What two things?” Sonya asked.

“Smacking a woman and beating a child,” she answered. “That's too much violence.”

“You can't be serious,” Sonya said. “Girl, I should call your momma. What's wrong with you? You've got to get a grip. Listen, I would never condone a man smacking a woman. It's plain wrong. But he didn't have to tell you, Michele. So, the fact that he did admit to something he's embarrassed about should tell you something other than he's a potential abuser.

“He lost his temper and smacked her. It is a big deal, but, to me, it's a bigger deal that he trusted you enough to share that with you. You're focusing on the wrong thing, Michele. What about the fact that a man who has had all kinds of trouble trusting women trusted you enough to tell something so personal?

“And as for Gerald, here is a man stepping up to raise his son the old school way. Look at this new generation of kids and how out of control many of them are. Almost everything goes back to how you were raised. There are a lot of exceptions. Look at my brother. We were raised together, the same way, but he took a different path of drugs and crime. So, it happens.

“But you whip Gerald into shape now—no pun intended—and maybe he understands discipline and doing the right thing now so he doesn't go bad as he gets older.”

“You have all the answers, right?” Michele asked. “You've been on Solomon's side from the moment I met him. It's so transparent. Maybe you should be with him. Maybe that's what you really want.”

“You can kiss my ass, Michele,” Sonya said, and hung up.

She was angry that her cousin's mind was so messed up she would go there on her. Sonya also was concerned because Michele had always been levelheaded and rational.

But this was a different time. Michele was afraid of herself, and it manifested itself in sabotaging her relationship. At least that's what Solomon surmised.

“That's what women do,” Solomon said to one of his fraternity brothers, William, who lived in Detroit. Gerald was in Solomon's driveway playing basketball with some neighbors, giving Solomon a chance to reach out to some of his friends.

“I've seen it so many times when a woman can't believe or even think she deserves the happiness she has, so she consciously or otherwise gets in the way of it,” Solomon went on. “It's like ‘this is too good to be true so I'm gonna create some drama to test it.' So, in the end, they end up sabotaging their own good thing.”

“Yeah, I've experienced that, too,” William said. “What we've got to understand, as men, is that most women need drama in the relationship. They need it for the same reason you just said: They need to test it. Every few months or so my girl says, ‘Let's have a relationship check.' And I'm like, ‘Why?'

“Everything would be going great. No real arguments, no nothing. Everything's fine. Then the ‘relationship check' comes and we end up arguing. How stupid is that? Can we just live our lives without all the constant evaluations of everything we do or say—and even shit we
don't
do. It drives me crazy.”

“Right,” Solomon said. “It's that or I used to get all the time: ‘So, what are we doing? What do I call this? Are we in a relationship? Am I your woman or just somebody you see from time-to-time?' And I'm like, ‘Well, I'm not sure we have to put a label on it, do we? I mean, we've been getting to know each other and having a great time in the process. Labeling it isn't going to make it any better, is it?'

“What I really wanted to say was, ‘Listen, we've known each other for three months. Next week I might not even like your ass, so let's ride this out and see what happens. Relationship? Just be glad I'm making time to see you.' “

They shared a long laugh, which made Solomon realize he had not laughed in that way in a few days. And that told him things were not right in his life because he loved to laugh, even at himself.

“So what you gonna do about Michele?” William asked. “You obviously like her; I never heard you talk about a woman as much as you have about her. I know all about her putting off a career as a lawyer to start a catering business, her son, skydiving, everything. So you like her; a lot.

“You're my boy so I can say this to you: There have not been a lot of times you have really, really been excited about a woman. There have been chicks you've liked and chicks you've halfway liked. But I'm thinking she's a keeper because, unless you lied to me, you haven't been seeing anyone else.”

“No, I didn't lie about that. That's true,” Solomon said.

“That says more than a little bit right there, boy.”

“What does it say?” Solomon knew the answer, but he wanted to see if William knew it, too.

“It says you didn't want to mess it up with Michele,” he answered. “It says she's important to you. And here's the deep part: You gave out that signal before you learned you had a son with her.

“I ain't no psychic or psychologist, but I recognize when a man who keeps women at arm's length suddenly has one wrapped in his arms; that means a whole lot.”

All that feedback did nothing to influence Solomon or Michele to reverse their course. Rather, their stubbornness resulted in each of them experiencing loneliness and frustration and regret.

Solomon spent that first day with Gerald, which was great
because not only did they reinforce their bond, but it also kept his mind occupied. By the time they were done shopping, playing basketball in the driveway, eating dinner and playing a golf videogame, little Gerald was exhausted.

He fell asleep on his favorite movie,
Remember The Titans
. Solomon let him sleep on the couch; Gerald considered that somewhat of an adventure since his mom forbade him from doing so. He also let him have a Pepsi, which Michele did not allow, and a Whopper from Burger King. He was doing all that out of spite for Michele.

With Gerald asleep, Solomon had no other distractions and had to face the reality of his choice. Just as he was beginning to contemplate how to resolve the matter with Michele, he received a text message on his phone.

He hoped it was Michele. Instead, it was Cheryl, one of the women he had been seeing before Michele. Worse, Cheryl being Cheryl, it not only was a text, but a photo, too.

“You don't miss this?” was the text below a photo of her from the waist down in a G-string.

“Damn,” Solomon said, observing her shapely physique. He met Cheryl after a night of partying in Buckhead about eighteen months earlier. He and a friend, Paul, sought food at Waffle House on Piedmont around 3 a.m. to soak up some of the alcohol they consumed at Tongue & Groove.

Paul started talking to a woman, Millie, among a group of three at the table next to them. The discussion was playful and lively. Solomon and Cheryl just observed and laughed. When the ladies were leaving, Cheryl said to Millie, “You need to give him your number. I've never seen a man who has time enough for you. But he does.”

Millie said, “Well, you need to give your number to him,” pointing
to Solomon. Cheryl was more interested in getting her friend connected with Paul than she was in Solomon, but she gave up her phone number to get Millie to give up hers.

Solomon was insulted that Cheryl seemed unexcited about meeting him, which made him determined to turn around her feelings. So, he called her a few days later. They went out on several dates, and he could see how intrigued Cheryl grew. Still, he never made an attempt to so much as kiss her.

Finally, after about six weeks of dates that ended with him dropping her off, Cheryl had enough.

“Why won't you at least kiss me?” she asked.

“I didn't know you wanted me to,” he said. “I can recall when we met that night, you didn't even want to give me your number. Your friend basically had to bargain for you to give it to me. So, I didn't think you were interested.”

“What?” Cheryl said. “If I didn't want you to have my number, you wouldn't have gotten it. You've been thinking that all this time?”

Solomon did not answer her; not with words. He leaned over and kissed her deeply, and their adventurous sex life began. At the movies, in the parking lot, in the restaurant bathroom were just a few of the places Solomon and Cheryl expressed their sexual appetites.

So, he was hardly surprised to see a provocative photo from her.

He sent her a text message back that read:
“Nice body. Who is this?”

“Don't be funny,”
she wrote back.

“No doubt. And I do miss it and u. But...”
Solomon answered.

“But what?”

“But things have been different with me.”

“Wanna talk about it?”
she wrote.

Solomon made sure Gerald was nice and comfortable on the couch before he went upstairs and closed the door to his room. Then he called Cheryl.

“Wow, an actual phone call from Mr. Singletary. I can't believe it,” she said upon answering. “You've been a ghost.”

“I'm sorry, Cheryl. Nothing personal. Just a lot going on that I've had to deal with.”

“I figured as much, since you couldn't even make time for me.” She paused. “What's going on? A woman, right?”

“What else?”

“See, that's where you messed up,” she said. “I'm not here to cause you any drama. I'm like you; let's just keep it moving. I could've made you feel better when she was making you feel bad.”

That was Cheryl; always on the ready, never hung up about anything. Shortly after they met, Solomon told her he did not want a “relationship.” She responded: “Who said I did? Relationships mean drama to me, and I don't want any of it. So let's just enjoy each other when we can. Deal?”

That deal was too good to be true, but Cheryl never gave Solomon any grief, only pleasure. She was five-foot-seven with a lean, strong body. No breasts to speak of, but hips and ass that looked to be child-bearing. Her innocent, slightly freckled face belied her freaky nature.

“So what's the problem with the woman?” she inquired.

It was such a good question that Solomon did not know how to answer. Then it came to him.

“I love her. That's the problem.”

“Damn, that IS a problem,” Cheryl said. “You're not the ‘I love her' type. I know men. I've dealt with all kinds. You're the ‘I love her and leave her' type. That's you.

“For you to say that is a big thing, Solomon. You don't know
how to handle being in love, do you? It's not easy because human nature makes it that she will piss you off or disappoint you. Then what do you do?”

“Exactly,” he said. “My instincts are to just say ‘to hell with it.' But another part of me is against that. And I've never had two parts of me pulling against each other. It was always the whole me saying, ‘I'm gone.'”

“Why don't you let me come over and take your mind off all this?” Cheryl was not serious; it was a test to see if Solomon really was about Michele.

“You know there was a time when I would've been all over that offer,” Solomon said. “But, while I know physically that would make me feel great, inside it wouldn't be right. I'm pissed off at her right now, but I still can't go outside the relationship.”

“If I were an egomaniac, I would be hurt,” Cheryl said. “But I'm very confident in myself; and I'm proud of you. I wasn't serious about coming over there. I was seeing if you really, really were in love. Some men, whether in love or not, would still jump at the chance to get something extra.