Private Lessons (12 page)

T
revor had spent the past few days thinking about his life and the wrong turns that he'd taken. He'd made a lot of mistakes and hurt a lot of people along the way, mainly Naomi. It was true what she'd said about him not knowing anything about loving anyone other than himself.

He'd been so driven by his need to get to the top by any means necessary, it cost him his job and his reputation, at least among those who knew of the scandal.

He should have stayed up North when he left Morehouse, but something was pulling him back. It was the thought of Naomi and what they once had. He'd come back with the idealized notion that Naomi
would be so happy to see him that she'd take him back and they could pick up where they'd left off.

He knew he didn't have much of a chance at the dean spot. Besides, he didn't deserve it. It was just another one of his games.

Why couldn't he simply be honest with her, without dressing it up in glib chatter and arrogance?

He put on his starched white shirt and began buttoning it. The truth was, it was all a facade. A way of protecting himself. If he put enough barriers up in front of him, nothing could get through. It was what he had done all of his life.

He selected a tie from the rack and slid it around the firm collar. He stood in front of the mirror and adjusted the tie until it was perfect.

It had been a simple revelation that forced him to look at who he had become. When Naomi let him know that she knew what he'd done, yet she wasn't threatening or even thinking about using it against him—something he would have done—it made him stop.

Even after all the pain and humiliation that he put her through, she was unwilling to become as despicable as he was, to stoop to his level.

He stared at his reflection, barely recognizing the image of the man in front of him. He wanted the old Trevor Lloyd back, the one with integrity and humanity. He hoped it wasn't too late.

 

Professor Frank Lewis locked his office door and returned to his high-backed leather chair. The manila
folder was on his desk. It had been slipped under his door as per the arrangement. He turned the folder over and unfastened the metal clasp.

He pulled out several sheets of photocopied images along with even clearer photographed ones. It was obvious that some of these were taken with a cell phone. Those were the ones printed out on a copy machine. The others were from a high-speed camera.

But in both instances there was no doubt who one was looking at. Dr. Naomi Clarke and her secret lover, Brice Lawrence.

Frank chuckled as he looked at the images one after the other. They were damning. They were irrefutable. They were his ticket to the position of dean—a position that he deserved.

Naomi had been a thorn in his side for years. She gained tenure before him. She always landed the best schedule, her pick of classes. Her papers had been published in journals around the country and out of it. And he still struggled. It wasn't fair. He worked hard. He deserved to be recognized. And he would be.

These pictures would finally sink her. There was no way that the board would approve her for the position.

Frank chuckled and leaned back in his chair, spinning it around toward the window. Finally his day was coming. He tucked the photographs back in the envelope and stuck them in his briefcase. He
got up, turned off the lights and walked out, happier than he had been in a long while.

 

“We did it, man, we pulled it off,” Carl was saying, clapping Brice heartily on the back as they walked out of the Marriott Hotel restaurant.

“I know it's hard to believe. It's been a struggle. Almost ten years. But we're about to reap the rewards of our work.”

“Now that we have the financing in place, we need to secure the location and a board.”

“I know. I want to talk with you about that. I've been doing some research with all these classes that I've been taking and…”

 

Trevor was parked across the street from Naomi's house. He'd been sitting there for more than an hour, trying to get up the courage to cross the street and knock on her door. Every time the nerve welled up in him and he had his hand on the car door handle, something stopped him. Finally unable to stand his own cowardice, he got out and strode across the street before he changed his mind again.

He walked up the steps to the front door, took a deep breath and rang the bell.

He heard the bell echo inside the house. Moments later he heard footsteps and then Naomi's voice.

“Who is it?”

“It's Trevor. Please. I need to talk to you.”

“Go away, Trevor,” she shouted from the other side of the door. “I told you to leave me alone.”

“Naomi, please. Okay, look I won't come in. You come out. Sit with me here on the steps. What harm could that do? Just give me ten minutes. That's all I ask, and I swear I'll go away.”

Naomi peeked through the peephole. She pressed her fist to her mouth.

They would be outside. He wouldn't dare try to get cute in front of the neighbors.

She unlocked the door and opened it. “Talk,” she said, then sat down on the top step.

“Thank you,” he said, and sat down on the step below her.

Naomi folded her hands on top of her knees. “Well, I'm listening. You said ten minutes.”

He lowered his head for a minute, trying to pull the words together that he'd been running through his head for hours, days.

“When we were together, I was afraid all the time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just…listen,” he said, holding up his hand. “I was afraid that one day you would wake up and realize that I wasn't who I was pretending to be.”

“Really?” she said, the sarcasm dripping like sweat.

“I know I deserve that. But you have no idea what it's like being the other half of you.”

She blinked in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Naomi, you have two doctorates, a tenured seat at a major black university, you're published in journals around the world, a sought after lecturer, you speak, what? Three different languages?” He shook his head threw up his hands. “And beyond being brilliant, you're beautiful inside and out.” He lowered his head. “It was like, whenever I was with you, my own light would go out because yours was so bright.”

“So it's my fault that you lied, that you cheated on me, that you married someone else?” She jumped up. “Please tell me that's not why you came here,” she said, the fury burning her throat as she glared down at him.

“I came to tell you that everything that I did, the lies, the women, the marriage, even the scandal at Morehouse, was my own stupid way of empowering myself. It wasn't you, Nay.” He stood up. “I wanted to blame you. I did blame you, because that was easier than admitting the truth.

“I wish I could go back and fix everything. But I can't. I wish there was some way that you could find it in your heart to forgive me for what I did.” He breathed deeply. “In a perfect world, you'd take me back and we would find a way to make it work. But I know that's not going to happen. I do want you to be happy, Naomi, with whoever can bring that light to your eyes. I mean that.”

Naomi listened, surprised and deeply moved. This
may have been the first time in all the years that she'd known Trevor that he was completely honest with her, showed her a part of himself that he kept hidden behind all the suave and swagger.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said softly.

He nodded awkwardly. “I guess my ten minutes is up.” He took a step down. “And about the dean thing. I applied months ago, never thinking that I would be considered, but I knew that whatever happened, it would give me a chance to see you again.” He slid his hands into his pants pockets. “Well,” he said on a long breath. “I'm completely out of confessions for today.” He gave a lopsided smile.

“I'm sure everything will work out for you, Trevor. I do want that for you.”

“Thanks. And I plan to let them know I'm out of the running on Monday. So you get in there and kick Lewis's butt, you hear me?” he said, wagging a finger at her before he turned and walked toward his car.

“Trevor, wait.”

He stopped and turned. She ran toward him. She lifted up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said, looking him deep in the eyes. “I'm finally free inside.”

He looked at her with the realization of loss and sadness, but with gratitude. “We both are.”

 

Naomi went back inside and locked the door. Her world continued to spin at high speed. Had someone told her that Trevor would make that kind
of confession, she would have told them they were crazy.

It was really sad, she thought, as she picked up some magazines from the coffee table and put them back in the rack, that Trevor felt so insecure about himself all those years, and that he caused so much havoc as a result of it.

But she needed to hear him say it, say it with truth and from the bottom of his heart. There had been a part of her that had felt inadequate, less of a woman, incapable because of what he had done to her—and all her brilliance, her degrees and education hadn't made up for it.

She turned out the lights and went upstairs. In a good kind of odd way, she felt herself and her world changing. And in celebration of this newness she was going to watch a reality television show!

Just as she was settling down and trying to figure out why anyone would take all kinds of abuse from a cook, her phone rang.

She popped up in bed. “Brice! Hey.”

“Now that's the kind of greeting a man wants to hear from his woman. How are you?”

“I'm great, but missing you. I'm watching
Machete,
some kind of reality cooking show.”

Brice broke up laughing, imagining his brainy, sexy other half attempting to make sense of reality television.

“Don't try to figure it out, just enjoy it.”

She pointed the remote at the television and turned
it off. “Enough of that, what's going on? Where are you?” She folded her legs Indian style.

“About a half hour away from you. I managed to get on the late flight out on standby. Feel like some company?”

“Hmm, let me think about it. Yes! Of course. Did you eat?”

“Airplane food.”

“No problem. I'll fix something.”

“Humph, a woman who is fine, smart and can cook. Have mercy.”

Naomi giggled in delight. “Just you worry about getting
your
fine self here.”

“Before you know it. I have so much to tell you, baby. We need to celebrate.”

“I can't wait. Hurry. Slowly. You know what I mean.”

He chuckled. “Yes, I will quickly take my time. See you soon.”

“Woo-hooo!” Naomi hopped down off the bed and twirled around in a circle in her bedroom, then hurried downstairs to put together something to eat.

 

Frank Lewis hung up the phone. A broad smile of smug satisfaction hung along his thick lips. The board had agreed to convene a special meeting to review the charges that he'd leveled against Naomi. It was simply a matter of time now, Frank realized. She would be out and he would be in. The way it was
supposed to be. Finally, he could knock her off of her pedestal of superiority.

“Come on and eat, Frank,” his sister, Martha, called out from the kitchen.

Frank pushed up from the overstuffed club chair in the den and went to the kitchen where his sister, brother in-law, Harvey, and his niece, Pamela, were already seated.

W
hen Brice arrived on Naomi's doorstep he couldn't wait to see her smiling face and hold her in his arms again. He felt as if he'd been gone a month instead of a day.

The minute she opened the door he knew something was wrong, even as she tried to force a smile and hold on to him as if she was afraid he would blow away. It wasn't an embrace of need, it was one of desperation.

He held her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “What is it?”

She swallowed over the dry tightness in her throat. “Come inside.”

 

“They didn't tell you what it was about?” Brice asked as they faced each other across the table.

“Only that there had been allegations made against me, and apparently there were photographs.”

“What?” he asked, alarmed in a whole new way. “Photographs?”

“That's what the chairman said. And they feel that it's serious enough to warrant a meeting with them, first thing Monday morning.”

Brice's knight in shining armor gene kicked in and he immediately wanted to find some way to save her, to vanquish the villains that were trying to hurt her, then sweep her away to safety and happily ever after. But he didn't know where to begin. He didn't have enough information. But then he posed the question that was burning in the back of his head.

“I need you to really think, Nay.”

She blinked rapidly and nodded.

“Is there anything, anything at all that you think could have been photographed and misconstrued in some way?”

She frowned, trying to think of what it could be. “I don't have a clue. I really don't.” She shook her head in confusion. “I live such an ordinary, dull life of an academic. I go to work, I teach my classes and I come home.” She looked at him and sighed. “I just don't know what it could be.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “There's nothing we can do about anything now. So let's try to let it
go, enjoy each other's company and the rest of the weekend. We'll deal with Monday when Monday gets here.” He got up, bent down and kissed her forehead. “Come on, I could use a hot shower and some sexy company.” He took her hand and gently pulled her to her feet.

She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her head to his chest. “I'm so glad you're home.”

“So am I.” He held her tight. “That's what I want to talk to you about.”

She looked up at him and saw the mixture of sincerity and playfulness in his eyes. “Let's discuss it in a hot sudsy tub.”

 

“I didn't want to lay it all out before we talked with the investors, but they have agreed to finance the opening of a charter school, based on the mission and criteria that Carl and I have devised.”

“What! Oh, my goodness.” She splashed water out of the tub scrambling to get to him. She squeezed his cheeks between her palms and kissed him sloppily on the lips. “That is so exciting. It's what you wanted. I'm so happy for you. Tell me everything. What's next?”

He grinned like a kid. “Well, we need to get a board of directors in place, start looking at teachers and location.”

The light dimmed just a little in her eyes. This was the hard part, she knew, the part that she'd dreaded but knew was coming. She drew in a breath and put
cheer in her voice. “Absolutely. How long do you think it will all take?”

“Months for each step. If we work it right and the stars align in our favor, maybe, just maybe we can open our doors in a year and a half. Maybe a year.”

She nodded. “The main thing is that one big hurdle has been surmounted. The rest will be like rolling downhill.”

“We want to make sure we do everything right, from start to finish. Actually,” he said as he ran the loofah sponge gently across the crests of her breasts that bobbed above the water, “Carl is staying in a hotel in downtown Atlanta. He'll be here for the weekend before heading back to New York. I really want him to meet you.”

“Of course. I'd love to. How about tomorrow? We can do brunch in the backyard. Or maybe you two manly men will want to barbecue.” She grinned.

“See, now that's why I love you, you always know what to say.”

“Is Carl single by any chance?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Hmm, maybe I'll invite Alexis, she's been dying to meet you.”

“Do I hear a little matchmaker in your voice?”

“I'm happy,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him. “And I want everyone to be happy.” She reached down into the water through the bubbles and wrapped her
hand around her prize. “Especially you,” she said in a throat whisper, as she began to stroke him to heaven.

 

“What do you know about this guy?” Alexis whispered, while she and Naomi prepared the grilled chicken salad.

“One thing, he's fine. He's smart. He's Brice's best friend and I think he likes you. The rest you are going to have to find out for yourself.”

Alexis put her hand on her well-endowed hip and looked askance at Naomi. “Somewhere, at some point when I wasn't looking, our roles got reversed,” she said, bobbing her finger back and forth between them.

“What do you mean?” She added the diced cucumbers to the bowl.

“Once upon a time I was the one trying to find Mr. Right for you.”

Naomi turned and smiled at her friend, then looked out the window at the men at the grill. “I guess I'm finally growing up and finding my way and myself.” She inhaled deeply and turned back to Alexis. “I owe a lot of that to you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. If you hadn't insisted that I go on the trip I would have never met Brice. I would still be living my same uneventful life, until you'd take me kicking and screaming to some club where I'd feel like a fish out of water.” She paused. “It's not that way with
Brice. It…everything just feels right, he makes me feel right and good about myself, and it has nothing to do with how smart I am or what my connections can do for him. To Brice, it's all about me and my happiness.”

Alexis looked at her friend in awed amazement. Right before her eyes, Naomi had grown up and struck out on her own. Bloomed like a plant that was finally given some sun. And Brice was definitely her sun. “So you think I might have a chance with Carl?”

“Is this
the
Alexis Montgomery talking? The man-eater asking
moi
what she should do?”

“Yes.” She tugged on her bottom lip with her teeth. “I…want to get it right this time,” she confessed.

“How about starting with just being your fabulous, funny, witty, genuine self?”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It is. Once you pull back on the veils, being yourself is the easy part. Come on, I smell steak and I'm starved.”

 

“Seems like Carl and your friend Alexis really hit it off,” Brice was saying, as he smoothed Naomi's damp hair away from her face.

“I think she likes him.”

“If it's any consolation, he likes her, too. He told me as much when I walked with him to his car. He wants to see her again.”

“Really?”

“You sound doubtful.”

“No…it's just that I'm wondering how all of that is going to work, with him in New York and Alexis here in Atlanta. Same problem we'll have,” she said with an edge to her tone.

He pulled her close. “Why don't we not worry about that and let things work themselves out? It may not be as difficult as it seems.”

“But—”

He cut her off. “Let me worry about it,” he soothed. “I promise you, it will be fine.”

She sighed deeply and relaxed against the comfort of his embrace. She'd let it go for now, but she knew at some point they were going to have to deal with the harsh reality of what would soon be a very long-distance relationship.