Man Enough For Me (34 page)

She pouted and folded her arms stubbornly.

“Okay, Jules,” Germaine said casually, reclining and resting his right ankle over his left knee. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. But I should tell you, the hard way will either involve me calling your mother, or you finding yourself in your tub fully clothed. The choice is yours.”

Not liking either option, Jules reluctantly pulled herself from the couch and tried to ignore the smug look on Germaine’s face as she shuffled her way to the bathroom.

Half an hour later she emerged from her bedroom fully dressed in sweatpants and an oversized hoodie. Her wet hair was pulled back in a bun, and she had to admit that she felt much better than she had an hour ago.

As the hot water had beat down on her in the shower, she’d had time to think about how much of a waste the past three days had been. No amount of wallowing and hiding from the world was going to bring Easy back. Furthermore, even though Easy had written the book on brooding, he wouldn’t have wanted to see her acting like this.

She found Germaine in the kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, preparing eggs, toast, and hot chocolate. When he saw Jules, he smiled in satisfaction.

“Much better.”

She scowled and sat down at the dining table as he placed a plate and mug in front of her. It wasn’t until the smell of the cheese and mushroom omelette wafted into Jules’s nostrils that she realized how hungry she really was.

Grudgingly she dug into her food, as Germaine sipped on a mug of hot chocolate and watched her in amusement.

“Why do you have keys to my apartment?” Jules asked when she was finished eating and was watching him curiously.

“Because it was the only way I could lock up after I dropped you off on Thursday,” Germaine said.

Jules said nothing, but kept staring at him, her eyes narrowed. What was he trying to pull?

“Jules, I’m not trying to trick you,” he said sincerely, his expression turning serious. “I know what you’re going through. I’m just here to help.”

“Who said I needed help?”

Instead of answering, Germaine stood up, took her plate and mug, and headed toward the kitchen.

“We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

Even this close to winter, Lake Ontario still managed to be spectacular. As she watched the afternoon sun glinting off the smooth surface, Jules couldn’t think of anywhere more beautiful. She didn’t know what had made Germaine think to bring her to this area of the waterfront, located a couple miles east of the city, but she was glad he had. Jules felt there was nowhere else she should have been.

As she sank down onto the ground, she felt the dull ache in her heart begin to subside slightly.

“You know, the summer I turned seven, my dad taught me how to swim at this very spot,” Germaine said from a few feet over.

Jules said, wrinkling her nose, “That’s disgusting.”

Some areas of Lake Ontario were known to be pretty questionable during the summer. In fact, people were often urged to stay out of the water until public health issued an advisory saying it was safe for swimming.

As far as Jules was concerned, the mere fact that they had to issue an advisory at all was enough to keep her out of the water for good.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Germaine said, laughing. “It was one of the best times I had with my dad before he died.”

Jules sighed heavily.

“How do you do that? How can you think of him gone and
sound … happy?” she asked in frustration. “Every time I think about the fact that I’ll never see Easy again …”

Her voice wavered, as the tears that had been falling all weekend threatened to make an encore appearance.

“It takes time, Jules,” Germaine said softly. “It wasn’t always like that. I was mad for a long time after my dad died. I thought it wasn’t fair, and I was mad at God for taking him.”

Jules bit her lip and rocked back and forth. She knew a bit about that. In fact if she was honest, she knew she had barely said a prayer since the day she got the call saying that Easy had died. She felt betrayed, like God had broken a promise to her.

“But after a while I learned to accept it,” Germaine continued. “That didn’t mean I stopped missing him. I just learned how to get past it.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Jules said, sniffling. “Losing Easy feels like losing a part of myself. I feel like something in me is missing.”

Germaine reached for Jules’s hand, and squeezed it gently. “I know.”

He continued to hold her hand tightly as the tiny sobs shook Jules’s body. It felt like she would never stop crying.

How could Easy be gone? Just as soon as He’d started to make things right in his life, his life was over. What was the point of that? And how could God take one of her closest friends away from her without even giving her the chance to say good-bye?

“It’s not the end, Jules,” Germaine said. “You know that you’ll be with Easy again one day. When he turned his life over to God, he made sure of that.”

Jules nodded.

“He’s just gone for a while. Not forever.”

She knew Germaine was right. And just as always he knew just what to say to make her see things the way she ought to.

I’m sorry, Lord. I still don’t understand, but help me to accept this as part of Your master plan for all our lives. Even though he’s gone, thank you for putting Easy in my life.

Jules closed her eyes and breathed in the cool lake air as it
blew gently across her face. It felt refreshing to her lungs, and it was just what she needed to remind her that no matter how hopeless things seemed, God was still in control.

She glanced over at Germaine, who was sitting, relaxed, with his arms resting on his knees, as if this was the most natural place for him to be. He was staring idly out to sea as if he had all the time in the world. But Jules knew that he was just waiting for her, and that he would have sat there as long as she needed him to. Because that’s the kind of person he was—that’s the kind of friend he was.

Too bad she wanted more than just friendship from him.

She turned her eyes back to the lake, silently chiding herself for thinking about her feelings for Germaine when she should have been mourning Easy. But she couldn’t help it. What she wanted more than anything was to curl up in Germaine’s arms and forget the world for a while—just until the pain went away.

But even though it hurt that she couldn’t do that, she was more than grateful for his being there.

“I feel like I’m always thanking you for something,” Jules said after a moment.

Germaine smiled without turning around, and Jules could see the dimple in his left cheek.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Jules said, suddenly feeling restless.

“Do what?”

“Be here. Take care of me, like I’m a child. I can take care of myself.”

“I know,” Germaine said.

“So why are you doing it?”

“Because I want to.”

“Why?” Jules asked, her heart beating a little bit faster. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help but hope.

“Because that’s what friends do,” Germaine said, turning to look at her for the first time.

“Right,” Jules said, barely hiding her disappointment. “That’s what friends do.”

Jules bit her bottom lip in frustration. Yes, she had agreed to this friendship thing, but she wasn’t sure she could go through with it. It had been long enough, but her feelings for Germaine hadn’t gone away. Didn’t that mean something? And how was it even possible that she could feel so much for him, and he not feel anything for her?

God, why are you doing this to me?

It had been a long day. In fact it had been a long couple of weeks. And since Jules didn’t see how things could possibly get any worse, she thought she might as well go for it. She might as well tell him how she felt. At the very least she would know once and for all that it was totally and completely over, and there was no hope for them. Life was too short to spend it on what-ifs.

“Jules?”

“Huh?” Jules mumbled in surprise, as Germaine’s voice cut into her mental ramble.

“Is something wrong?”

Jules looked at him in surprise, afraid that he was reading her mind again.

“No … I mean, yes … there is something.”

Jules’s voice caught in her throat as she watched him watch her.

“Well?” he prodded gently. “What is it?”

She knew she had to tell him how she felt.

“I … think I’m gonna quit my job.”

Where did that come from?

She had been thinking about it for a while. In fact, she had been talking to God about it for a long while. She had been praying about it, and struggling with the feeling that it was what God wanted her to do. But thus far she hadn’t even mentioned this consideration to anyone. She could already hear everyone’s reaction.

From Maxine it would be something like: “Jules, you done lost your mind? Why would you give up that good money?”

Tanya would try to be supportive, but even she would look at
Jules skeptically. And Jules didn’t even want to think of what her mother would say.

Although Jules had talked to Momma Jackson about how much she needed to respect Jules’s decisions, Momma J was still having a bit of a problem with the concept. It wasn’t that she wasn’t trying. It was just that it was hard to change a twenty-six-year-old habit. So Jules knew this idea would definitely start Momma Jackson’s speech about how women had to be wise, and that she couldn’t be quitting her job to follow a pipe dream when she had bills to pay.

But at that moment, when Jules heard the words out loud for the first time, she suddenly knew that was exactly what God wanted her to do.

She looked across at Germaine, who was silent. His was the only reaction she hadn’t been able to anticipate.

He had gone back to staring out at the water, and his brow was furrowed in concentration as if he was thinking hard about what Jules had said.

“What are you planning to do?” he asked thoughtfully.

Jules took a deep breath.

“I want to become a full-time independent publicist.”

Germaine nodded, as if that was the answer he had expected. “Go on.”

Jules explained how she intended to work exclusively with gospel artists to develop their public image through media exposure, event development, and community involvement.

Since her first conversation with Sharifa, she had done extensive research. She knew all the figures—how much it would cost to start a business like this, what the failure rate was, how she would need to bill her clients—every single detail had been considered.

Then she had put her plan on paper, compiled a list of potential clients who she would initially approach—mostly Triad’s—and subsequently developed an initial pitch. And just in case ‘Dre didn’t buy into her idea, she had made a secondary list of artists and agencies outside of Triad that she could approach.
There was still a big risk involved, but she could see how it could work. And even if things fell apart along the way, she had already decided it was what she needed to do.

“So you’re just doing artists,” Germaine said.

“Yeah, that was the plan,” Jules said. The tone of Germaine’s voice told her that he had something else in mind.

“Well, what about small agencies or outside events?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what if you get offers from other organizations to coordinate events for them?”

“Every offer would be evaluated on an individual basis to determine its viability. If I took on a project I would have to make sure that doing so would be beneficial to me and to the company that was proposing it.”

Jules felt confident about her plan. She also couldn’t help but notice that it felt good to think about something other than Easy’s death.

“Would you contract other staff?”

“If it became necessary, yes. It wouldn’t be a regular feature, however, and I would have a predetermined list of other professionals I would be willing to work with.”

“What about your start-up capital?”

“I’ll get a small business loan. I’ve already identified a couple of institutions that I can approach who have reasonable rates.”

“And your collateral for a loan?”

“I’ve got it covered.”

Germaine looked over at Jules curiously, one eyebrow raised.

“I’ve got it covered,” Jules repeated confidently.

She knew what he was thinking, but there were a lot of things about Jules that Germaine didn’t know. Like the small rental property Jules’s father had bought in her name when she was fourteen and had given to her officially three years ago. It was her backup plan that no one, not even her mother and brother, knew about.

“Okay,” he said with a small smile, turning back to the water.

He continued shooting questions at Jules. Many she had already
considered, having spoken to Sharifa. But there were some that even Sharifa hadn’t prepared her for.

“Well, what do you think?” Jules asked, fifteen minutes later when the questions finally stopped coming.

“I just have one more question,” Germaine said.

Jules groaned and let her head fall back in a show of exhaustion, even though she was grateful that Germaine was making her think about her proposal so thoroughly.

“Why do you want to do this?”

That was the one question that Jules was completely prepared for.

“Because it’s what God wants me to do,” Jules said. “I can feel it in my bones. No decision that I have ever made in my life has felt as right as this one. I feel like my life has finally come into focus and that I am fulfilling the purpose He has for me.

“I read somewhere that, if you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, but you hurt the whole world, including the generations to come. It’s like spiting God, who created you with this gift, this way to move the world closer to Him.

“I don’t want that to be me. I know that this is what I was meant to do. So I have to do it.”

Jules breathed out another deep breath. “Is that good enough for you?” she asked defiantly with a smirk.