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Gladys
Eventually, but not nearly soon enough for me, I arrived in Fontainebleau’s lobby area. Unlike the tense drive over, I felt free like a runaway slave – no more master. I was stress free, work free, husband free, child free. Just simply free to be me. Even the fresh air that filled my lungs seemed to move in and out more freely.
“Ah, I really needed this getaway,” I said to no one in particular. Internally, I encouraged myself not to feel guilty about the stolen free ‘me time.’ “It’s not like you do things for yourself all of the time, Gladys.”
After about thirty minutes of waiting in the long line in the reception area, I was all checked into my hotel room and heading to my suite to get changed. I tipped the bellhop who so graciously brought my belongings up to my room and provided me with some great site seeing locations. I then began unpacking my bags, placing each outfit on a hanger and my underclothes inside of the dressers. My plan was to get down to the bar area to see if I’d run into any of my old classmates before the ball tomorrow night.
Unfortunately, when I moved to Valley, Alabama I’d lost contact with just about everyone from college, and I was anxious to see my old friends. I quickly showered using my favorite White Diamonds body wash. After I dried off, I applied a generous amount of the matching lotion to my skin. I chose a form-fitting black shirt and black tights with an oversized black belt. My stiletto heels added a nice touch to my outfit, and when I released my shoulder length blond-streaked hair from the bow I was wearing it hung beautifully in an array of fluffy curls around my neck. With pure confidence, I sashayed downstairs to the bar and grille looking and feeling like a million bucks.
That feeling was short lived when a famili
ar face caught my eye.
“Say it ain’t so,” I said aloud, knowing that the person I spotted could not be the real man in the flesh. As soon as I stepped into the bar, the first person I saw sitting at a corner table was Maverick Douglas. When I was a student at Albany State in Georgia, I was madly in love with Maverick.
Maverick was the kind of man every coed dreamt of finding while away at college. He was gorgeous – very easy on the eyes. His smile would melt an ice sculpture. If he gazed at you, you could feel him disseminating your soul as each second on the clock ticked by. I thanked God for every moment that I was able to spend with him, memorizing the smooth terrain of his body and staring into those amazing eyes. I remembered his coarse goatee, and how it would tickle my stomach as he kissed my belly button just before we made love. His chestnut brown skin that covered his tall and slender frame would simply meld into my flesh whenever we became one.
But our relationship was far more than the romance. His intelligence was just as intriguing. Never before had I been able to feel so free to be myself and truly let go with another person of the opposite sex before. He erased all of my shyness, and in his arms there was a comfort and security that could not be matched anywhere else. I rested in him. Does that make sense? I just rested in him. We talked for hours in the quad, underneath the shade of the trees, about current events and our studies. We discussed our families, our opinions about major political issues, anything and everything.
I knew that Maverick loved me. More than that, he respected me on all levels. No one else before him had ever shown me that type of pure unadulterated love before, except my family, of course. That’s just it. He had always felt like family to me. It’s hard to explain, but it’s easy to recognize when you feel it. Maverick felt like home.
I just knew that once we each got our degrees, we would get married and do the happily ever after thing – buy the perfect home, get the perfect dog, and have a house full of children. That was the game plan, until I began to feel as though he was slowly losing interest in me.
I was devastated. I was so jealous of his time. I felt so good being around him that I wanted that feeling all the time. To my dismay, he would spend weeks at a time holed up in his room studying his engineering materials, and every time I called or came by it seemed like he didn’t have any time for me. Our once inseparable relationship was reduced to only moments in passing, and I really started to feel like we were taking on the role of two classmates instead of the lovers that were meant to be.
Soon, my envious and fiery Spanish roots began to rear their ugly head. I was so sure that he had a girl on the side to fill the void in time that he had usually spent with me that I started to get jealous of this imaginary woman. I even pictured what she looked like, how she probably walked, how she laughed at his jokes, and stroked his hair. I tortured myself with these thoughts, convincing myself that he was up to something sneaky behind my back.
He tried to convince me that it was just his schedule that had him busy with studying, work, and classes, but my jealousy eventually led to me breaking off the relationship. I didn’t want to hear his lies, or unbelievable truth. I remember vividly the evening that I called him with the news that would help to shape my future. It was just before summer break when I made the phone call I would live to regret for so many years afterward.
***
“Hey, Honey Love,” he answered on the third ring.
“Hi, Maverick. I’m glad you decided to answer.” I am stern and get straight to the point. “It’s obvious that you don’t have any time for me lately, so instead of either of us being strung along any longer than necessary, I think it’s best that we just split up now and save either of us any hard feelings.” I speak a mile a minute, trying to get my thoughts out before I lose the nerve to say what I feel. I’m young and impulsive, and I am very impatient.
“Wait a minute, Gladys. I’ve been tied down studying for finals, but…”
I can’t stand to listen to a lie, so I stop him before he gets started telling one. “No. Don’t say anything. I’m doing what’s in our best interest, Maverick, so let’s cut our losses early. This way you are free to do your thing, and I’m free to do mine.”
“Honey Love?” Honey Love is a nickname he gave to me when we first started dating. Hearing the two words at this stage in our relationship is irritating. I am not trying to be lovey-dovey, so he can stop with the pet names. Undoubtedly, he is attempting to convince me to rethink the breakup.
“Listen, I’m woman enough to tell you how I feel, and the only reason I called was to tell you how I feel about us being together. Take care of yourself, Maverick.” I hang up the phone and cry like a baby. What is it inside of young women that seems to crave drama and a constant rollercoaster ride of emotions? If I knew, I would be a rich woman.
That summer, I go home to my parents and do not hear from Maverick the entire summer. I don’t make it easy for us to connect, either, being that I change my cell phone number. Also, I throw my friends off by telling them I am going to stay with my aunt in New York for the summer. When the fall session begins, I find out that Maverick has not reenrolled at Albany. I get word through his brother that he has been accepted to an Upward Bound engineering graduate program at another school. Just like that, he vanishes from my life without a trace. I eventually meet James at a fraternity party in my senior year. We hit it off well, and it isn’t long before we are at the altar.
***
Looking in Maverick’s direction at the bar, my internal voice whispered calm words to my spirit willing me to maintain my composure. I wanted to go to him and ask him a million questions to catch up with what has been going on in his life. I wondered if he had ever married. Did he have a little Maverick Jr. running around back home – or maybe two or three? Did he ever become an engineer (I had no doubt that he had), and where did he live now? As much as I wanted to find out all of these things about him, I wanted to keep my own details on the low. What did I have to say about my own life that could be shared with a man like Maverick Douglas?
I also wanted to offer him a million apologies for ending things the way that I did. I’d been young and muy estupido. I hadn’t thought out the consequences of my actions. Had I reacted prematurely when I had broke things off with him so abruptly those many years ago? Deep down, I think I had always thought that we’d see each other again, and maybe once he’d seen how rough it was being without me, he’d come running back, better than ever! I was so self-centered. I was wrong. But more than anything, I just wanted to be close to him, like I’d dreamed of being so many nights since we had permanently parted ways.
Now that the opportunity to touch him in the flesh was right in my face, I stood there frozen in time. I felt myself beginning to hyperventilate, and I quickly flagged the bartender down for a drink.
“Yes ma’am, what would you like?”
“Extra strong cotton candy martini, please.”
I needed a few martinis in me post haste, so that I could keep my composure in what seemed like an inevitable meeting with my past.
