said a mouthful in there.” A deep, mellow voice spoke above my head, articulating each syllable.
At the sound of his voice, I sat upright, took one look at Adrian and began estimating the distance I’d have to walk home. Not too far probably, but considering my speed was about .5 miles per hour, it could get ugly.
He came close enough for me to smell him, but walked past me and took a seat in the next pew while I digested the fact that he’d heard my little tirade.
“The music started up when I was just outside the door. I saw some weird-looking guys when I was parking. Do you all have a football team?”
That cracked me up. I slung an arm over my eyes. “We do now.”
“Well, anyway, I was headed back to the car when I heard you in there. Good stuff.”
I peeked at him, with that big, crooked grin. My toes curled in my moccasins.
He leaned over and pinched one of my toes, my pinky. “Nice shoes. The real thing?”
I nodded. “Always.”
He pulled his hand up onto the back of the pew. “You’re the genuine article. I’ll give you that.”
No, you gave her that.
Where did that come from? Was I losing my mind? Probably. If not, I would soon if he kept staring at me like that. By the time I remembered I could look away, that this wasn’t one of the stare-down competitions from our playground days, I could almost hear the bionic music in my head.
He nodded. “Definitely a Six-Million-Dollar moment.”
My eyes fluttered shut, my brain flashed to us running down the avenue making our bionic noises, our way to break the mood after a long day at school. Later, it became the cover for tense moments, as well. Me falling down the stairs in the civic center with my name on my back or Adrian blowing up the chemistry lab were never, as our teachers termed them, “painful experiences” or “embarrassing times.” Just Six-Million-Dollar moments. Like now.
God, are you trying to kill me?
The tears ran sideways down my face. Into my ears. My hair. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. Resistance was futile.
He leaned over that pew somehow because I could see the blur of him above me, but he didn’t leave his row. For that I was thankful.
“Just cut it out, okay? Please. Go home,” I said.
His fingers, long and slender, and always smelling like something good, touched the corner of my good eye. He didn’t try to wipe the tear away. He just touched it. His touch felt like a poker searing through my brain. Jasmine, my favorite scent, escaped his fingertips to torture me further.
“I am so proud of you, Dane. I’m sorry I didn’t say that this morning. It’s true though. When I heard you in there tonight, I couldn’t help but think that. How proud I am of you.” He traced the path of my tears to the top of my ear and then leaned back on his knees, safely restricted to his pew.
I lifted my head, more to let the tears drain out of my ears than to face him, but there he was. “I wish you hadn’t come in on that. It’s just—”
“I think you explained it very well.” He stacked his fists on the edge of the pew and rested his chin on top. “I get it. Trust me.”
Trust him? Hadn’t I tried that program before? “I guess I’ll have to. Trust that you understand, that is. It’s been so long that my mind plays tricks. We’re grown up now. Changed. I don’t know you anymore, not the man you are.”
That should get rid of him.
Adrian sighed. He pulled off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose.
Uh-oh.
“Don’t try that with me, okay? I’m not your Dad or Jordan. Or even Dahlia. I know I messed up. I should have called. I should have tried harder to connect with you, even when you wouldn’t respond. Still, it wouldn’t have been any easier than this.”
I stiffened at the mention of my brother and sister and at his quick deflection of the isolation tactics that worked so well with others. I sat up slowly, estimating the miles back to my apartment again. Couldn’t be more than six, maybe seven…
“She told me that she called you. Sandy, I mean.”
That struck me like a punch. Had she told him what she’d said, too? Had he come here for that? For me to “take care of him?” I hoped not. I could barely take care of myself. “She did call. I had hoped we’d talk again.” I paused to mop my eyes. “Tell me what happened with her exactly? I never could get the story straight from Rochelle. She said lupus, but I told her people don’t die from that.”
“Sandy did.” He stared off in front of us, to the cross suspended overhead. “Some women do. Black women mostly. They don’t always know why.” He whispered the last of it, as though he’d told me a secret, the way I’m sure I sounded when I talked about Mama’s stroke or other senseless things. My mother’s death had shattered me, and though God had healed so much of the hurt, made a mosaic out of my broken pieces, the jagged edges poked me still. Of course they cut Adrian, too, losing as he had: his father, his mother, his wife…
“You can stop rubbing your head,” I said as he started on his temples again. “The trouble won’t go back into your brain, no matter how big your mind is.”
He glanced up at me, then nodded with a chuckle. “I suppose it never did much good. Not then or now.” He reached for my hand. “Or maybe it does. Sometimes you think something’s a habit, but later you realize it was more.”
“Or less.” I pulled away, taking a second to focus on the cross myself. One day back and we were doing it already. Playing games.
“Right. Well, I’m going to get out of here. Need a ride?”
I considered it, but no Bible passages came to mind regarding rational interactions with sweet-smelling widowers. “I’ll pass,” I said, nodding toward the downstairs door. “They have to come up sometime. Thanks for asking though.”
Adrian shook his head. Laughter creaked through his lips. “You sound sincerely afraid of me.”
I didn’t crack a smile. “I am.”
“I’ll take two vanilla lotions, a shower tower of soap…lavender, a fruit cocktail mask and—”
I stared up at Renee, my assistant and default member of the Sassy Sistahood. Times like this I regretted indulging her request to join the loop. Too much information for coworkers. Well, then there was Tracey, who I’d worked with and lived with, but that didn’t count.
It was too Monday for this, especially after the weekend I’d had. Sure I was flattered that Renee wanted to order everything on my little product menu, but how many times had I told her to keep that stuff out of the office?
My desktop rebooted. “Renee, you’ll have to e-mail your order to me or leave it on my answering machine at home.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I’m on company time now.”
Raking a long purple nail across her chin, Renee nodded. “Naomi is gone. I made sure of that before I came over. Don’t worry. I got your back.”
Had my back? This wasn’t sixth grade. I turned back to my computer. “I appreciate that, Renee, but it’s not just about Naomi. It’s me, too. I don’t want any confusion. While I’m here, my mind is on S&S products, not mine.”
In theory, anyway. I could harness my transactions, but truth be told, my mind did wander back to my dining room and all my new supplies every half hour or so. At least.
Renee pursed her blue-black lips and ran a hand through her brunette hair, laced with skunk stripes of blond. “Oh. Trying to be Miss Clean, are we? Well, I won’t bother to close all those files you leave open every night with all your notes and recipes