He calls again. I send it to voicemail and then text:
I told you I couldn’t talk.
Okay, then. We’ll talk later. What time do you getoff work?
I roll my eyes and turn my phone face down. Some things andpeoplenever change, no matter how much youwantthem to. And Brix, the honors Howard graduate hasn’t changed one bit.
But I have.
I refuse to have my time wasted by a man who wanted me so desperately, but didn’t know how to keep me. That’s so different from how we started.
Looking at us, you wouldn’t be able to tell this, but Brix is ten years older than I am. Perhaps that was my first mistake – marrying an older man and thinking I was getting a protector with life experience. Mom warned me that men like him – men with money, status and ambition – were set in their ways and not easilybendable. But silly me was thinking that a man would bend, even break, for his woman if he genuinely loved her.
Brix didn’t bend when I left. Didn’t break, either. Like always, he had his job to keep him company while I had nothing but this gray, half-walled cubicle.
We initially met at Derita’s – one of those fancy downtown, fine dining restaurants that requires a reservation and costs a day’s wages to get a half-fulfilling meal. At the time, Brix was with a group of his colleagues. I was dining alone. It was something I did often as a single woman to break away from the stereotype that a woman couldn’t have a solo dinner without feeling a certain type of way. Without feeling embarrassed and unwanted. I could’ve gone with a friend, but it wasmytime. Alone time. Time I’d come to value and enjoy over the past few months.
While I was eating the best flavored shrimp I’d ever had in my life, I glanced up and happened to catch this handsome man all up in my mouth, his eyes piercing my tonsils like he was enjoying my meal as much as I was. The way our eyes met told me there would be something between us, whether I liked it or not.
Uninterested, I looked away and didn’t glance in his direction again, but I still noticed him noticing me. I could feel his eyes scorching my face, almost making me look over at him again, but I stayed strong. I nearly rolled my eyes because men were vultures when it came to attractive women, seeking their attention even if they didn’t want to give it. I’ve had to fan a few of them away from me recently, and here goes another one, eyeing me up.
Out of my peripheral vision, I saw him when he got up.
“Ugh…here we go,” I said quietly. Or perhaps he was going someplace else. “Please don’t come over here. Please don’t come over here,” I started to chant. I wasn’t in the mood for company. Sometimes a woman just wanted to be left alone. That concept was foreign to men.
“Good evening,” he said before he took the liberty of pulling out and sitting in the chair across from me.
“Good evening,” I replied, “But I didn’t invite you to my table.”
“I’m aware. No one was sitting here, so–”
“So, you assumed my husband wasn’t coming?”
“Husband?” he asked, glancing at my left hand. “I don’t see a ring on that pretty hand of yours. You have a boyfriend at best, and I doubt that, too, because ain’t no man in his right mind going to let a woman as pretty as you eat alone.”
“Then he must not be in his right mind.”
“Must not be, but I doubt that he even exists.”
I pause, bite back a smile because he’s got a lil’ rizz, but still–I didn’t request his company.
I ask, “What can I do for you,stranger?”
“I just wanted to come over and speak.”
“Let me guess–because I looklonely. You feel sorry for me because I’m dining alone?”
“Absolutely not. I wanted to tell you that you’re stunning in that dress.”
“Thank you.”
“And, if you ever get tired of that man you’re with and hiswrongmind, maybe next time we can have dinner together so me sitting here won’t feel so awkward.”
I glanced over at who I assume are his colleagues and said, “It appears you have enough people to eat with.”
He turned around, looked at his crew and said, “Oh, I see them all the time. They’re colleagues of mine. I’m Dr. Brixton LaSalle, by the way. I would shake your hand, but you’re eating.”
“I wouldn’t shake your hand if I wasn’t eating. It’s a germ thing. I’m sure you understand that, being a doctor and all.”
