The Next Best Thing (7 page)

I turned around to face Colin, and he took the liberty of kissing me full on the lips.

“You taste good,” he said, sucking on my bottom lip. “Now I want to taste something else.”

Straightforward and to the point. I liked that.

“Don't go anywhere,” I said, playfully pushing him away. “I'll be right back.”

I went to the bathroom and took a quick shower using J'adore Bath & Shower Gel, then followed up with the lotion and a few spritzs of perfume. I rearranged my hair into a sexy coif, and I was ready for primetime.

Back out in the living room, Colin was checking out my Henry Dixon watercolor,
Vintage Grand Canyon Railroad.
That piece is the focal point of the room and I have had many a guest stand for hours, studying the intricate design.

Colin's back was turned to me, and he was so captivated by the painting that he didn't even notice that I had tiptoed up behind him and could see that he was digging all up in his nose. I mean, his finger was knuckle-deep. After a whole lotta digging, Colin finally retrieved a huge, slimy booger. He looked at it, rolled it around on his fingertips, and flicked the thing on my hardwood floor.

I gasped, and threw up a little in my mouth.

Ugh! What the hell?

Weird little kids pick their noses, not grown-ass men!

It was like letting all the air out of a balloon. The moment passed and I was back to my senses. I no longer needed, or wanted, to be touched by Colin. The trick at that juncture was how to graciously get his ass out of my condo without him putting his filthy hands on me.

I tapped Colin on the shoulder and backed far away from him before he had the chance to touch me.

“There you are,” he said, wiping booger remnants on his pants. “It's about time.”

“Sorry, but there's been a change of plans, boo,” I said. “My period just started.”

“That's alright,” he said, reaching out to embrace me. “Nothing wrong with a little cherry sauce every now and then.”

Okay, double-ugh!

Colin came towards me, and I avoided his touch at all costs. I was ducking and dodging, bobbing and weaving like I was in the ring with Holyfield.

“Colin, you really need to go,” I said, leading him into the kitchen where I dumped his serving platters and chafing dishes right into his arms.

“Man,” he said, totally bummed out. “I didn't expect the night to end like this.”

“Neither did I,” I said, opening the door for him and shooing him out like an annoying fly.

Meanwhile, Colin was trying to set up a second rendezvous where he could hopefully close the deal at that point.

“Do you think we can get together some other time?” he asked with so much hope that I almost felt sorry for him.

“I'll call you,” I said, waving good-bye. “You be safe now, you hear?” I quickly closed the door in his face and breathed a sigh of relief.

And to think of all the food I have eaten that he's prepared. Yuck!

Colin may be good at what he does, but I definitely have to find a new go-to caterer, ASAP.

 

Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.

—Sarah Ban Breathnach

SATURDAY

I stopped by Costco early this morning to stock up on Red Bull and energy bars. As I was leaving, I ran into Tammy Hopkins, someone I had to put up with during my years at Jack & Jill, which is a social club for young adults.

Tammy and I lost contact years ago, so I wasn't able to send her an invitation to the “wedding,” but evidently she had heard through the grapevine about what had taken place.

“Tori, it's so good to see you out and about,” she said in that annoying, condescending way of hers. “If what happened to you had happened to me, it would be years before I'd show my face in public again.”

Bitch. As if anybody asked you.

If Tammy weren't eight months pregnant, I would have dotted her eye for her real good. Mainly because I never could stand her ass. She was a snarky bitch then, and she clearly hasn't changed one bit.

“Jason is just the best husband in the world, and I know for a fact that he would never cheat, or humiliate me like that,” Tammy said, all self-righteous and sanctimonious.

I had heard through the same grapevine that Tammy was married to a white man, so I said sweetly, “No, Jason would never cheat on you, Tammy. White men would just as soon kill you as divorce you. I don't know…if I had my choice, I'd rather be cheated on than smothered in my sleep, then dumped in the Missouri River!”

While Tammy was looking like she was choking on a chicken bone, I continued pushing my shopping cart in the direction of my truck. You know? Don't start none, won't be none.

But in all seriousness, it could just be the loneliness talking, but I miss Roland. I wish he would just call me, because there is a serious talk that we need to have in order to bring some type of closure to this whole situation.

Then again, maybe it is a good thing that there's been no communication between us, because the way I feel right now, if Roland answered all my questions in the right way, I just might take him back. Even after all that has happened.

And by the way, what does it say about me that I would even entertain the thought of taking him back after everything he put me through and all that he's cost me?

If that's wrong or stupid, then I'm sorry. I just cannot turn my emotions on and off like a faucet, and pretend I don't love Roland anymore, because I do. I never stopped.

I don't even know why I bother going all out for Father's Day. Daddy hasn't appreciated anything I've bought him since 1998, when I bought him a set of perfectly weighted, titanium golf clubs that set me back a couple of grand.

This year was no exception.

My father turned his nose up at three silk ties from Hermes, luxury box tickets to the Royals and Yankees series, and a fifth of expensive Scotch.

“You coulda kept this mess and just wrote me a check for ten thousand dollars,” he barked at me.

Here we go again.

Ten thousand dollars is the amount of money that my father reluctantly gave me towards the wedding. It is a tiny fraction of the money I'm out of, but I can see where he's coming from; ten thousand dollars is a small fortune for a General Motors assembly-line worker.

“Daddy, do you recall saying: ‘I know it's not much, baby girl, but this money is my weddin' gift to you.'?” I asked.

“I sure did,” said Daddy. “But, no wedding, no gift. Everybody else got their little toasters and blenders back. Why should I be any different?”

I reached in my Michael Kors bag, grabbed my checkbook, and wrote my father a check for eleven thousand dollars.

“With interest,” I said, handing Daddy the check. “Are you happy now?”

“Just as long as it doesn't bounce,” he said, holding the check up to the light.

Daddy can be so ornery sometimes; he gets on my last nerve.

In addition to the Father's Day gifts I had given him, we were at Benton's having a one-hundred-dollar-per-person jazz brunch that I also paid for. It obviously wasn't much to Daddy, but it was more than his son bothered to do for him.

When I asked Junior to come along and pitch in today, he did what he always does, which is to pull the broke card. Not really all that surprising, since jobs are easier for my brother to get, than to keep.

It has been two years now, since NBA draft day came and went without Junior's name being announced. Since then, he has been drifting through life like he's waiting on some special announcement giving explicit instructions on what he should do with his life.

Unfortunately, my brother's chronic brokeness causes me, as the oldest child and only daughter, to have to pick up all the slack when it comes to doing things for our parents. Birthdays, anniversaries, errands, favors—everything falls on me. I don't mind, really, but the slap in the face is that my parents rarely seem to appreciate my efforts.

For instance, we were on the twenty-third floor of the Westin Crown Center Hotel, surrounded by over-the-top elegance, our own personal wait staff, and all the gourmet food you could eat, but my father still managed to find something to complain about. First of all, the restaurant was too bourgeois for Daddy's taste. He was not appreciative of the fact that there were servers standing over his shoulder, watching him eat, and anticipating his every need. As soon as any of us took a sip of raspberry iced tea, our glasses were promptly refilled back to the brim—something he loudly complained was pretentious and unnecessary.

And he hated the food. Being from the South, Daddy's taste buds are only accustomed to fried foods, collard greens, and pork fat. Oh, and barbeque. Daddy has never met a piece of smoked meat that he didn't like.

Mama, on the other hand, has a taste for the finer things in life, so she was enjoying every minute of it. Hell, caviar, lobster tails, and mimosas are the least of what the reigning vice-president of the local Ladies League deserves.

“So daughter,” Mama said, daintily cutting a piece of beef Wellington, “are you seeing anybody right now?”

My so-called date with Sean was a joke, and Colin wasn't worth mentioning, so I said, “This soon after what I've been through?”

“Baby girl,” Daddy said, “you've got to dust yourself off and get back out there. Haven't I always told you that one monkey ain't never stopped no show?”

“And I know that's right!” Mama said. “Now baby, what you need is a good man like Ethel Johnson's son, Lamar.”

“Mama, please…” I sighed, looking out the window and suddenly becoming very interested in the goings-on over at the Liberty Memorial.

Ever since I turned eighteen, my mother has been trying to marry me off to one of the sons of the women in her social club. Which one doesn't seem to matter to her, just as long as his parents are Masons.

That's what happens in these clubs. There is a lot of intermingling of the families going on, with the parents of single daughters trying to marry them off to their friends' single sons.

Regrettably, I have learned the hard way that there is always something drastically wrong with any guy my mother tries to set me up with—usually a socially inept geek who still lives in his parents' basement.

Norman Harper was the son of Mama's bridge partner, Ida Mae.

I was lonely and in between boyfriends at the time, so in a moment of weakness, I agreed to go out with Norman.

When we met at Houston's Restaurant, I was impressed with how impeccably well-dressed Norman was. Then I found out he was a mortician down at Thatcher's Funeral Home, and that one of his corpses probably had more personality than he did. He was thirty-one, but looked fifty. His skin had this gray, waxy look to it, which made me wonder if he was doing a little something extra with the embalming fluid.

No. Norman was definitely not normal. In fact, I'm convinced that he was one chromosome away from being retarded, because he acted like he was on a thirty-second delay, or something. Seriously, I would ask him a question and it would take him around thirty seconds to formulate an answer; and even then, it wasn't always a coherent one.

After dinner, Norman and I went to listen to some live jazz. The music was good, but the company was unbelievably boring. So much so, that I fell asleep on his tired ass.

At the end of the night I told Norman I would talk to him soon, which loosely translated into
Have a nice life!

I have heard it said that looking for love is the best way
not
to find it, which stands to reason since not one setup has ever worked out for me. I know, because I did a careful analysis of my dating history last night, and concluded that every meaningful relationship in my past came about serendipitously. It was not a fix-up, a blind date, the Internet, a nightclub, or a dating service. It was always a chance encounter that occurred during the course of taking care of my usual, everyday business: scouting venue locations, getting my morning caramel macchiato at Starbucks, or while standing in line at the bank or the grocery store.

In light of this concrete evidence, I'm going to send out an e-mail to Yvette, Cookie, Nadia, Mama, and about a hundred other people who all have someone that they're just dying for me to meet.