Waiting to Exhale (51 page)

"I think I do," I said, and locked hands with him.

We started walking down the strip, passing couples who were also holding hands. I finally felt like I could identify. Charles must've sensed what I was thinking, because he gave my hand a squeeze. It felt good. I squeezed his back.

When we got to the hotel where the party was, we walked into a room full of hundreds of white folks. You could count the number of black people in here. We found a table, but before we sat down, Charles asked if I wanted to dance. I said yes. So we danced. He danced like a man who was sure of himself. He watched me. I watched him. He smiled at me. I smiled at him. I don't know how many songs we danced to, but when we finally went back to our table, somebody had taken it. We didn't care.

"I like you," he said.

"What?"

"I said I like you. I like who you are. I like what you're about. I like how you think. I like what you do. I like what you talk about. And I love the way you move. I really enjoyed this afternoon."

"Well, you're a breath of fresh air too," I said.

"So does this mean we can talk some more?"

"I'm all ears" I said, and gave him a mocking look.

"Would you dance with me one more time?" He pretended like he was pleading.

"Just one more, and that's it," I said.

"But you know what? I'm starving. Aren't you?"

"You didn't hear my stomach growling out there?"

"Nope. I wasn't close enough to you. You think you could hold out a few more minutes? They have to play some kind of ballad after an hour of nonstop rock and roll. I can't stand it. I want to see how you feel."

"You don't have to wait for a slow record to see what I feel like."

His eyebrows went up. "I don't?"

"Nope."

"Let me be cool," Charles said. "I'd love to put my arms around you right now and smother you with kisses. But. If nothing else, I like to think of myself as a gentleman. I'll just have to let my curiosity drive me crazy over dinner. Shall we?" he said, and held out his arm.

I slid my arm through his, and off we went.

"You're not hearing me, Savannah. If you think all I want to do is sleep with you, then you've got it all wrong."

"Oh. So you don't want to sleep with me. Is that it?"

He reached into his pocket, took out a quarter, dropped it into the slot, and pulled the lever. We waited. He got one cherry. Two quarters dropped out. "Now, that's luck," he said, and handed the quarters to me. "Of course I want to sleep with you. I'd be lying if I said I didn't. I'd be worried if I didn't. You're holding the winning quarters. You tell me when."

"Follow me," I said, and led him toward the elevator. An old couple got on at the same time. As soon as the doors closed, Charles eased me back into a corner and looked down at me. "I'm glad I met you today," he said, and kissed me on the lips. I almost slid to the floor. "So very glad," he said. When the doors popped open, the old couple tried to pretend they hadn't seen what we were doing. As we got out, they yelled after us, "Enjoy your honeymoon!"

I apologized for my room before I opened the door. As soon as I got inside, I started picking up all the clothes. Charles was a gentleman. He didn't try to "get to it." He sat on the couch, pulled out a little red book from the inside of his suit jacket, flipped to a page he had folded back, and watched me put everything away.

"When was the last time you sang to yourself?"

"What?"

"When was the last time you sang to yourself?"

"I don't know. Is that the book you wanted me to see?"

"Yeah. I'll leave it with you. It's pretty interesting. It makes me think about things I never would've dreamed of."

"What's it called?"

"Ask Yourself" he said. "If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?"

I was folding a bathing suit, and stopped. "There's a whole lot of things I'd like to change."

"I only want one."

"Well, one of my biggest hopes is that people in general, but all colors specifically, treat each other with kindness and respect. But. I wish I had the power to wipe out poverty, and especially drugs."

He nodded. "If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?"

"I don't know."

"What are you striving for most in life: security, love, power, excitement, or money?"

"All five," I said. "But I have to say love, which I hope would make me feel more secure and powerful and excited than I do already. I'd also like to think I wouldn't be poor."

"If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one ability or quality, what would it be?"

"Willpower. Enough to quit smoking."

"I didn't know you smoked."

"I do, believe me."

"What was your most enjoyable dream?"

"I'm not telling."

"Your worst nightmare?"

"That I killed somebody. Except I woke up scared that I'd done it for real, so I made myself go back to sleep so I could redream the whole thing, and I changed it.

"Would you be willing to have horrible nightmares every night for a year if you would be rewarded with extraordinary wealth?"

"No."

"If you could use a voodoo doll to hurt anyone you chose, would you?"

"No."

"Are there people you envy enough to want to trade lives with them?"

"No."

"It's a hot summer afternoon, you're walking through a parking lot at a large shopping center. You see a dog suffering badly from the heat inside a locked car. What would you do?"

"Break the window and let him out."

"What do you look for in a man?" he said.

"Is that question in there?"

"No," he said, and closed the book.

I paused for a minute. "Respect, honesty, sincerity, a sense of humor, a sense of self, sensuality, intelligence, energy, and . . . I'll stop there."

"Do you believe in God?"

"Of course I believe in God."

"Do you believe in love at first sight?"

"I'm not sure what you mean by 'first sight.' "

"Don't worry about it," he said. "One last question."

"What's that?"

"What would constitute a perfect evening for you?"

"This," I said.

Finally, the man got up, walked over to the bed, where I was now sitting, and kissed me. I'd never had this kind of foreplay before, but I liked it. I liked it a lot.

"You've got the sweetest lips," he said.

"Well, you're such a good kisser," I sighed.

He started kissing my fingertips. One at a time. The next thing I knew, he ran his hands over my dress, down my legs, and started sucking my toes. I was glad I wasn't wearing panty hose, glad I took a shower before I left, and even gladder that I'd put Shower to Shower in my shoes.

I was floating. But I wanted to make him feel as good as he was making me feel. I reached out for him, but Charles pressed my hand down on the bed. "Don't move," he said. So I let him go right on about his business. Somehow he lifted my dress over my head in one smooth motion. By the time he finished kissing my belly, I felt liquid. I thought I'd dissolved. This had to be heaven. Charles made the mistake of kissing my breasts in slow motion for so long that I couldn't control myself. I screamed out his name in somebody else's voice. "Why'd you have to do this to me?" I said.

"Do what?" he said, and kissed me on my lips. "Do what?" he said again.

But I couldn't answer.

I rolled over and unbuttoned his shirt, and then his trousers. I kissed him on the chest. I wanted to do everything to him. But I couldn't. Not yet. So I stroked him. Moistened the inside of his thighs with my tongue, kissed his knees, slid my body over his, and kissed him up and down his spine. "Savannah," he said. "Come here."

Charles squeezed me tight, and then let me go. He squeezed me again, and let me go. Then he clung to me like I'd vanish. By the time I felt him ease inside of me, I felt like screaming again. So I did. He danced. I followed. I danced. He followed. Until we couldn't dance anymore.

M
y
goodness," I finally said.

"My goodness is right," he said, and wrapped his arms around me so tight, I felt like I was underneath an electric blanket. I wanted to go back to heaven. Just one more time. But I didn't want to be greedy. "I wish I could keep you," he said, and stroked my hair.

"Maybe you can," I said, and closed my eyes.

The next morning we took a long, hot shower together. Charles ordered croissants and cappuccinos and billed it to his room. I hadn't smoked a cigarette since yesterday, and didn't want one now. We didn't go to the conference. We went sightseeing instead, ate lunch, then dinner, and while we lay by the pool, I asked him some of those questions from that book. I appreciated his answers. We spent that night in his room, and the next two in mine. On the last night, we admitted that this was ridiculous. We couldn't stand the thought of separating, but we didn't have much choice.

"How soon can you come to San Francisco?" he asked.

"As soon as I find out if I get the job," I said. "Will you come to visit me in Phoenix?"

"Any way I can," he said. "As soon as I can."

I called Bernadine, Gloria, and Robin as soon as I got in the front door. Told them the whole story. Blow by blow. Robin tried to act like she was excited for me, but they were putting her daddy in a nursing home the next day, so she wasn't in the best of spirits. Bernadine was another story. She was in her own new world. James was still here. She said she was in seventh heaven. And Gloria, of all people, had the nerve to say that her neighbor that lived across the street was getting friendlier by the day. She said he was fixing everything around her house that was broken. I wanted to say, I hope he started with you, but of course I didn't.

I couldn't wait to get home from work, but decided to stick t
o m
y routine and went to the gym. When Paula Abdul came on over the sound system, I sang right along with her.

I got home after eight. To my surprise, I didn't have any messages. I was hoping he'd call soon. I messed around the apartment until well after eleven. The phone didn't ring once. He's probably busy, I thought, and went on to sleep.

The next day came and went, and I still hadn't heard from him. I was going crazy and decided to go ahead and call him at work. I wanted to know if something weird was going on. I got his voice machine, so I left a message. "Hello, Charles," I said in my office tone. "This is Savannah. I hope everything is going okay. Call me when you get a chance. Here's my number, in case you lost it."

By the end of the week I was a nut case. Bernadine said something probably happened. Gloria said that I should stop worrying, that based on everything I told her, Charles sounded legitimate. Robin told me to call him again. I didn't want to come across as desperate, overanxious, or paranoid, but I also wanted to know what was going on. I mean, you don't spend a hundred and twenty hours with somebody, breathe them in and out, talk about everything under the sun, and then poof, don't call. I sat by that phone for over an hour, trying to decide whether to call or not. I didn't want to make a fool of myself, but I kept remembering everything we'd done together, everything he'd said to me. I played the videotape over and over again in my head. Hadn't he gotten the Bible out of the drawer next to the bed and read his favorite passages to me? The ones he said mirrored his philosophy about life? Hadn't he looked in his closet one morning to figure out what to wear and couldn't think straight, so he asked me to decide for him? Hadn't he actually jumped up in the air and kicked his heels together to show me how good I was making him feel? Hadn't he told me that he just found out last year that his daddy was a heroin addict, that his sister was dying of AIDS, and hadn't he asked me to promise not to act like I knew it when I met them? Hadn't he sung to me on three different occasions, even though he couldn't sing?

I didn't call. I waited. Another week went by. Still not a word. My period was due in four days. I thought I was dying. For real. I sat on the floor in my bedroom with my back against the wall. For three solid hours, I literally could not move. I just sat there staring at the lamp plug sticking out of the socket on the other side of the room. I had no appetite and couldn't sleep. Didn't have enough energy to go to the gym. I went to work like a zombie, came straight home, fed my cat, and sat in front of the TV until it was time to go to sleep. I'm sitting there right now.

I know I'm not going to hear from him. And I hate the thought that I made a fool of myself. That I spilled my guts. Made my most intimate feelings known. How could somebody who acted so sincere be so insincere? How could he play with my feelings like this? I would never do this kind of shit to anybody. Never.

I turned the television off, turned the CD on, and fell across the bed. Tracy Chapman was singing one of my favorite songs, "This Time."

I let Tracy sing. She was giving me strength. I pulled the spread up to my shoulders and looked at the ceiling. I wondered what Charles was doing. Probably lying in bed with his woman, fucking her brains out, and not the least bit concerned about what he's done to me. How bad I might be feeling. Even if he is concerned, / can't feel it. It doesn't change the fact that he has caused me pain. That he's made my heart feel as if it's been crushed. I don't care if it was barely a week. What gave him the right to do this to me? Doesn't he know this shit is wrong? Doesn't he know he'll pay for this one day? Doesn't he believe what he reads in the Bible?