Cheaters (59 page)

I maintain a steady pace and ask, “This hooking up, is this for her, or for you?”

“For me. Because I’m in fucking purgatory.”

“Where do you think I am? I’m standing next to you.”

“Feels like I’m dancing naked on the sun.”

“That sounds painful.”

“Wanna see my blisters?” She clears her throat, spits. “It’s important for her because she needs to get comfortable with my needs, and wants, with my love for you, to be secure. And it’s for you.”

“How in the hell is this hooking up for me?”

“Because I see how much it hurts you. You’re an open book.”

“Don’t go cliché on me.”

She goes on. “Be honest. Would you be this…well, for lack of a better word, understanding if I were—”

“I’m not understanding; I don’t understand this whole lesbian shit.”

“I’m not a lesbian,” she says with force. Then she backs off. “Sweetie, I’m not a lesbian.”

I tell her, “Look, I’m being patient. Waiting for you to get through this…this…this phase.”

“Okay, patient. Would you be acting like a stunt double for Job if I were having a relationship, okay, even living with another man?”

“Hell, no. I’d break his neck. Go Left Eye and burn down the house. Not in that order.”

She says, “Going Left Eye. Now that turns me on. That evil side you try to hide.”

“Try me.”

“I’m serious. I want you two to meet. We have to. I want both of your spirits to be at ease. I want my spirit at ease. I want all of us to be able to have conversations, run races together. That way I don’t have to be stressed and trying to figure out who I’m going to be with. It’s a lose-lose for me, and I’m trying to make it a win-win for us all.”

“So she’s scared of me.”

“You don’t see her as a threat, not the way she sees you as a threat.”

“Nothing that menstruates is a threat to me. Ain’t
scared
of nothing that bleeds.”

“Okay, Mister Macho.”

Nicole has immeasurable passion when she talks about her soft-legged lover. I wonder if, when she’s talking to her friend about me, she speaks with the same heated tongue, one that drips adjectives made of sweet mangos, verbs made of ripe kiwis, says my name as if it were a fresh strawberry.

I say, “So this is for me, you, and her.”

“At this stage in my life, I do know what I want. And I’m going after it. I’m being honest with myself and I have the courage to follow it.”

“How long did you practice that
Fantasy Island
–sounding speech?”

She extends both her middle fingers my way.

I ask, “You want it to be like that?”

“Ideally, yeah. If I could wake up every day knowing I was going to share my life with two people I adore, do that without any stress, yeah, my world would be perfect.”

I say, “World ain’t perfect.”

“Our world can be perfect enough for us. We can create new boundaries, new love.”

We.
I notice she uses the word
we
a lot. The ultimate team player. A company woman.

“Dunno, Nicole. Dunno. Me, you, and your friend. That puts a chill in the pit of my stomach.”

“That chill is your sense of adventure tapping you on your shoulder.”

“You’re quoting me.”

“The unknown is always an added attraction.”

“I told you that, too.”

“Yes, you did. Got me to drop my drawers when that honey-rich baritone voice of yours whispered those words in my ear. Had me doing all kinds of shit for your ass. In and out of bed. Helped you out when your money was low, was your shoulder when your daddy gave you grief. I gave all of me to you. Your turn to give a little. Live up to your own standards.”

Our pace gets closer to eight-minute miles. She’s a great runner. Five inches shorter than I am, and a minute faster on a hilly mile. Arms low, nice smooth kick. I’m a slow starter and I use her to motivate my stride.

We keep heading toward a rolling hill that reaches up to the sky.

“Where you taking me?”

“C’mon.”

Eighteen minutes later, we reach Highland, which is almost at the top of the hill, then head toward the row of mansions leading to Piedmont High School. She’s sweating, face glowing with pain, back of her oversize sweatshirt damp, but not too damp because her T-shirt steals most of the moisture.

No nice way to put it: right now I’m hurting like hell and making fuck faces.

She slows a bit, says, “Think…about moving…up this way. Get some…investment property.”

I wipe my face with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. “Sell crazy…somewhere else. A blacksmith in one village…becomes a blacksmith’s apprentice in another.”

“Smart ass…what does that…mean?”

“What kind of fool do I look like? Can’t be your number two. Not going out like that.”

“Dammit.” Her breathing evens out. “There you go again. It’s about love, not competition.”

“Everything in this world is about competition.”

“Not if we let it be about love,” she says with enough force to show her inner struggle and frustration. Then she softens her attitude. “Not if we let it be about love.”

In a tone that doesn’t hide my jealousy and frustration, I ask, “Hypothetically, if I moved here, where the hell would you stay? Who gets you at sundown? Do I have to flip a coin every night, pull straws, what? Or do we go to court and get an order so I can get you every other weekend and every other holiday?”

She’s offended. I want to offend her.

She takes off running, speeds up when I get too close, challenging me like I challenge her. We both move like we want to make up for lost time. But lost time is never recovered.

Nicole is in full stride by the time we come up on 6th,

her tailwind stirring all the debris on the uneven, oil-stained boulevard, her bracelets jingling as she pumps her slim arms and races for the Tube.

Can’t let her win. Ego chases ego.

She makes it out of the 980 overpass a good five seconds before me, flies across the entrance to the Tube, crosses 7th before traffic can take off. I break out of the darkness underneath the block-wide overpass and approach that good old Tube.

Death is waiting for me.

The light is green, the illuminated white man is on, those three sweet
coo-coos
telling me I have the right-of-way. With me coming out of darkness from behind a huge column that supports the 980, and everybody and their momma rushing to get on the Alameda on-ramp before they lose the light, that is a deadly moment in the making. I’m sweating, legs aching, but feeling invincible, trying to catch the Roadrunner, in a zone. When I sprint off the curb, traffic doesn’t give a fuck about me.

I’m facing a fast-moving death disguised as one of those ugly-ass PT Cruisers, that atrocious car that is built like a hearse for a midget.

The driver of the uglymobile is on the phone. Zooming right at me. I can’t move. Can’t break left because it looks like that bastard wants to do the same. Can’t break right because that would throw me in front of the traffic that is zipping up Broadway.

The sparkling grill on that Chrysler widens; death is smiling. The engine rumbles out a soft chuckle.

The driver drops his cell phone, cringes, makes a wide-eyed, oh-shit face as he cuts left, his tires screeching a bit, then his side-view mirror slaps my arm so hard I think I’m shot.

Brotherman sends back his curses and speeds on, his radio blaring “Shake Ya’ Azz, Watchya Self.”

Nicole is still running, has no idea that I just cheated death.

I come alive, race through the other cars before they mow me down.

Nicole zips by the row of sushi joints and a plant store offering Psychic Reality, her heels smacking her ass with every stride. I don’t give up. I lengthen my stride, arms

pumping, knees high like Olympic great John Carlos. I dig as deep as I can. She’s doing the same.

She never looks back.

Fifteen seconds later, which is a runner’s lifetime, I catch up and stop next to her, my chest heaving, muscles burning, sweat coming from every pore, my face cringing with pain stacked on top of pain. There is a glimmer in her eyes, the shine she gets whenever she wins. She’s pimp-strutting like she just left Maurice Green and Michael Johnson in the dust and won a gold medal.

I check my watch. We’ve covered ten miles in an hour and twenty. Not bad, considering we lost a good five to ten minutes talking. She spits like a pro athlete, wipes her mouth on the sleeve of her damp sweatshirt, and then walks in circles.

I take deep breaths, in through my nose, out my mouth, and tell her, “You run like a cheetah.”

Her shoulders are tense, face cringes, fights to control her breathing. “You call me a cheater? It’s not cheating. If both of you know, it’s not cheating. I have never lied to you. Never lied to her.”

There is a pause. “I said
cheetah.
C-h-e-e-t-a-h. Not
cheater.
”

“Oh.”

“At least I know where your mind is.”

A flash of embarrassment skates across her face.

I ask, “Are you comfortable?”

She gets animated, talks with her hands, like a teacher before a class breaking down a problem to its simplest terms. “A lot of women are attracted to women, but are scared to admit it.”

I pause and we stare. “I meant, are you okay? I thought you were limping.”

Her mouth becomes a huge letter O.

I say, “Let’s try this again. How do you feel?”

“Like screaming.”

“Because of me?”

“Because of my cellulite?”

I laugh. That’s just like her, to jump to the trivial concerns stirring inside her head. “What cellulite?”

She groans. “Years of running and I still have big legs.”

Her legs aren’t big. And she hardly has enough ass to

mention. There is no cellulite, not enough to worry about. She magnifies the flaws that Superman’s telescopic vision can’t see.

I remind her that she’s the most beautiful woman in the world, that the anorexic airbrushed images on the covers of
Cosmo
and
Body and Soul
can’t touch her.

She smiles. “Another reason I’m hooked on you.”

“Let’s go in before we get sick.”

“Wait. Air feels good.” She blows; her breath comes out like steam. She’s hyped. “Miss being with you all the time. Move up here. It’ll be so cool if you moved up here. Wanna take you to this salsa club in Emeryville. On the Black Panther Legacy Tour.”

“Slow your stroll.” I spit; wipe my mouth, too. “You’re trying to wear me out.”

Nicole scrubs her face with a corner of her sweatshirt. “Maybe I can kick in on the down payment if that’ll help convince you.”

“You’re talking about a grip. Maybe thirty thousand.”

“If all goes well, my sloptions are going to break through the roof in the next year or two.”

Sloptions
is San Francisco-Silicon Valley slang for stock options. Her soon-to-be-large techno Internet company offered her a chance to leave her old life and her program management position at Boeing in Anaheim to come here and be a contract renewal specialist.

I ask, “What you looking at, moneywise?”

“At least a million. I wanna be a bailer like you.”

“Nobody balling but you. Sounds like you got all the cheddar.”

“With the cost of living and property, that’s chump change up here. Hate thinking what the capital-gains taxes are gonna be, but either way it’ll be a nice piece of change.”

“Need any help before then, let me know.”

“I’m cool. Thanks for offering. That’s sweet of you.”

I’d give her my all, but she relies on me for nothing but love.

A beautiful sister walks by. Both of us stare at her, then at each other.

Nicole puts her arms around my shoulders, kisses the side of my face, tastes my drying sweat before she tongues

me with a true passion, each kiss asking me to accept her as she is, pimples on her butt, dry scalp, PMS, soft-legged lover and all.

She says, “Okay, now I’m getting cold.”

As we stroll, she does a couple of gymnastic walkovers, first forward, then backward, then laughs, puts her face to mine and sucks my lips again. Even her moist skin is as sweet as a mango. With people rushing by, we close our eyes and kiss. Her bracelets sing and jangle as she hugs me. I pretend we’re still engaged and that sound is the sound of wedding bells.