DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN (8 page)

“I remember it well,” Val said with a
wary smile of his own.
 
“But then you met
Daniel and I met Reality.
 
Daniel told
you that you were staying right here with him.
 
Reality told me that there were just so many reporters who got to trot
the globe, and a black gay guy like me wasn’t going to be one of them.”
 

Nikki looked at her best friend.
 
He’d had his share of disappointments in this
life, and sometimes she was amazed at how good he weathered every storm.

 
“It’s the assignments they give me,” Val went
on.
 
“What does a brother like me look
like reporting on a coalminers strike?
 
What the hell I know about coalmining?
 
Yes, I’m from Indiana, and yes we border Kentucky, but I don’ know
nothing about no damn coalmining!” Nikki laughed.
 
Then Val added: “But a brother’s got to
work.”

“I hear that.”

“So I journey to the Kentucky’s of
this world and watch those straggly-haired men wipe the soot from their faces
and complain endlessly about how everybody wants to take their guns away from
them, and how they’re going to take their country back one buckshot at a time,
or whatever the hell they be saying.
 
And
I continue to report all of that.
 
While
you, on the other hand,” he added, as he looked at her with a concerned look on
his face, “continue to get thrown out of press conferences.”

The waiter arrived with Val’s scotch
and soda just as he said that.
 
He
accepted the drink, waited for the waiter to leave, and then looked, once
again, at Nikki.
 
Nikki was staring at
him.

“You know about that?” she asked him.

“No you didn’t ask me that.
 
This is my hometown too.
 
I still have friends in this town.
 
Besides, I saw the tape.”

Nikki continued to stare at him.
 
“But what did you think when you saw it?”

“You called him out.
 
There’s nothing else to think.
 
Mayor Bainbridge gave every one of those
contracts for his road improvement plan to his friends and relatives.
 
Every one of them.
 
And not one of them went to any minorities
when he knew they were supposed to set aside some of those contracts so all of
the different businesses can get a piece of the pie.
 
He can’t abuse tax dollars like that.
 
And you called him out on it.”

“I felt I had to.
 
He’s so corrupt it’s not even funny,
Val.
 
But nobody challenges him.
 
You used to work here.
 
You know where I’m coming from.”

“You’d better believe I know.”

“But he orders me to leave the press
conference because he claims I’m being disrespectful.
 
I’m asking the tough questions, which, by the
way, is what a journalist is supposed to do, but he calls that disrespect.
 
And he never answered my question.
 
He would never tell me what I was saying that
was so wrong.”

“Because you told the truth and he
knew it,” Val said firmly.
 
“His ass is
even worse than what you said, if you ask me.
 
And you were absolutely right to call him out on his bullshit.
 
But what about Daniel, Nikki?
 
That’s the thing.
 
He is going to have a fit when he finds out.
 
If he hasn’t found out already.”

“He’s still out of town and won’t be
back until later today, but I get your point.
 
He still could have heard about it.”

“He’s going to be furious with you,
girl.”

A troubled look appeared in Nikki’s
big, brown eyes.
 
“I know.”

“He’s going to blow a gasket when he
finds out that his precious little Nikki got herself in a shouting match with
the mayor.”

“It wasn’t a shouting match.”

“But that’s how the local press is
playing it up.
 
They’re calling it a
shouting match.”

“That’s ridiculous.
 
I asked him tough questions, that’s all I
did.
 
Anybody who watches that press
conference will see that I wasn’t even disrespectful like he claimed.”

“But you’re not dating
anybody
.
 
You’re dating the senior vice president of the largest company in this
state, Nikki.
 
And he’s a conservative
man too?
 
And an older man?
 
Child please.
 
He expects his little princess to comport herself in a way befitting his
rank and status. And I assure you, my dear, going toe to toe with Mayor
Bainbridge is not the kind of comportment he means.”

“Yeah, well,” Nikki said, that feeling
of regret coming over her in a wave of embarrassment, “it is what it is.
 
I wish I didn’t have to go there today, but I
had to do my job. Todd Bainbridge is ratchet, and somebody had to say
something.
 
So I said something.
 
And I’d say it again if I had to.”

Val smiled.
 
That was why she, above any friend he’d ever
had, was his best friend.
 
“Good for
you,” he said.
 
“Keep giving them hell,
Nikki.
 
But be prepared,” he added,
pointing his drink at her.
 
“You give
them hell, they’re going to give you hell right back.
 
Especially Daniel when he finds out.
 
But he’s not gonna just give you hell.
 
That man is gonna beat your ass.”

Nikki laughed.
 
“That is so not true!
 
He’ll understand.”
 
Then her smile weakened.
 
“Sort of.”

“Yeah, right.”

“He will!
 
It’ll be after he beats my ass, but he’ll
understand.”

Val laughed too.
 
“That’s why we love you, Nikki.
 
You always keep it real.”

The waiter returned to take their
lunch orders.
 
After Val settled on a
salad and Nikki on a burger, the waiter left.

Val looked at his friend.
 
“So how’s all of that going these days?”

Nikki didn’t immediately respond.
 
Then she exhaled.
 
“It’s going . . . okay.
 
I think we’re in a pretty good place right
now.”

“His friends still not feeling you?”

“And they never will,” Nikki
admitted.
 
“After being with him for four
years now, I’m resigned to that fact.
 
It’s like they figure a stately man like Daniel, a former criminal court
judge as they love to remind me, should have an equally stately female with an
equally august career.”

“In other words,” Val said, never one
to mix words, “they figure he should have him an old, rich, white woman.”

Nikki smiled, and then laughed.
 
“I don’t think it’s like that at all.”

“It’s exactly like that,” Val
corrected her.
 
“But even I can see the
way that man looks at you.
 
I don’t know
why they can’t see it.
 
He wants
you
, not some rich, old anything, and
they may as well accept that.
 
And if
they don’t accept it then fuck’em, shit.
 
They probably want that fine specimen of a macho man for themselves
anyway.”

They high-fived.
 
“That’s what I’m saying,” Nikki said.

When their gaiety died back down,
however, Val looked at her.
 
He worried
about Nikki.
 
She loved Daniel so much
that if it didn’t work out for her, he didn’t think she could survive it.
 
“So,” he said with an exhale in his
voice.
 
“Still no ring, hun?”

Nikki sipped from her glass of
Coke.
 
“No,” she admitted.
 
Then she frowned.
 
“But who says I want a ring?
 
I knew the deal going in.
 
Daniel made it crystal clear that there was
not going to be any marriage at the end of our rainbow.
 
No matter how much he cared about me, he
said, he wasn’t ever going to marry me or anybody else.
 
He made that clear from the outset.”

“Yeah, but the outset was four years
ago.
 
I guarantee you when that man made
all of those pronouncements he never dreamed he’d be with you for four long
years.
 
And he fell in love with you
too?
 
And I mean
for real
love?
 
Because I
think he loves you above anybody else on the face of this earth, Nikki.
 
I’m not a betting man, but I’d lay a bet on
that.
 
But why he won’t snatch you up and
make you completely his is a mystery to me.”

“I am completely his,” Nikki said in a
voice she knew sounded too defensive.
 
“He made that clear too.
 
We’re in
a committed relationship.”

“Yeah, but still.
 
Being girlfriend and being wife are two
different things.
 
Sorry girl, but it
is.
 
He should take you off the market,
that’s all I’m saying.”

“And I hear what you’re saying.
 
I wonder about it too, I’m not gonna
lie.
 
But I don’t know, Val.
 
I think he feels I’m not ready for marriage.”

“And why would he feel that way?
 
There’s an age gap, so what?
 
There always was an age gap.
 
There always will be an age gap.
 
I don’t know why that would disqualify you.”

“I don’t think it’s my age.
 
I think it’s me.
 
He feels I take too many risks, and jump on
too many crusades, and I just worry him too much, I think.
 
And. . .

“And what, girl?”

“And I’m always questioning him about
those females that love to hang around him.”

“Hell yeah you question him!” Val said
without hesitation.
 
“You’d better
question him.”

“But he doesn’t like it.
 
He thinks that means I’m still maturing, as
he puts it, and that I don’t trust him enough.”

“When it comes to sensual matters, I
wouldn’t trust him either.
 
He’s too good
looking. I’m sorry, but that man is too gorgeous.
 
And the way he used to put it on you too?”

“Put it on me?”
 
Nikki said with a laugh.
 
“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.
 
I used to live with your ass, don’t forget
that.
 
Whenever you went out on a date
with that man and he would bring you home, you could barely walk.
 
And your eyes would be all glassy, like that
man took you to outer space somewhere. ”

Nikki laughed again.
 

“He’s got honey in that equipment,”
Val continued saying.
 
“And when there’s
honey, the females are gonna swarm.
 
They
can smell it.
 
So I don’t care what he
doesn’t like.
 
You’d better keep
questioning him.”

Nikki smiled sadly.
 
“Maybe the only man for me is you.
 
Maybe in our old age we can move in together
and keep cats.”

“I have a better idea.
 
Maybe you can ease up on the crusades and
figure out a way to marry that rich, handsome Daniel Crane.
 
And maybe I can find the love of my life
too.
 
Now that’s what I want in my old
age.
 
I don’t want no damn cats!”

Nikki laughed just as her cell phone
began ringing.
 
“You’re a mess,” she said
to laughter from Val.
 
“Hello,” she said
into her phone.

“Is this Miss Graham?”

“Yes, it is.
 
May I ask who’s calling?”

“Hello, Miss Graham.
 
I’m Ida Lundford.
 
Mr. Poindexter’s secretary.”

Nikki’s heart dropped.
 
Herbert Poindexter, the publisher of the
Gazette, never requested to see a reporter unless that reporter had done
something grand, like win a Pulitzer.
 
Or
something horrific.

“Are you there, Miss Graham?”

“Yes, yes, I’m here.
 
I’m sorry.
 
When does Mr. Poindexter need to see me?”