30 Love, page 8
“Involved? You’re engaged. That’s a big difference.”
“Either way, I’m not available.”
I must admit that her use of such light language to describe us, especially while we’re out and about doing a wedding registry, is a bit off-putting, but I try to keep my growing irritation in check. “So is that all, or is there more?”
She pauses for a moment, unsure of how to take my reaction.
“Remember that I am your best friend in this world, so you can tell me the truth,” I say.
She pretends to fiddle with the registry scanner, before finally looking up. “I am marrying you. You are the one I want to spend my life with. I know this.”
“But?”
“But nothing.”
“You want to meet him for dinner? That’s it, isn’t it?”
“I haven’t seen him in a while. That’s all. Everything ended kind of awkwardly, and I was thinking that it might be a good idea to bring some closure to the situation, since I have moved on.”
I shake my head, unable to no longer hide my frustration. “If you have moved on, you wouldn’t need a resolution.”
If we were not best friends, I would have unloaded on her in a variety of ways, but I realize that this is exactly what she feared, should we ever get together romantically, that I would not be there for her to confide in on a personal level. I wrestle with it in my gut to react as her fiancé, but I know she expects me to be able to manage the two roles that I play in her life.
“We could all get together for dinner. That way you two could meet each other.”
“Why would I need to meet a guy who broke your heart?” I ask, but what I am really thinking is that it would be very uncomfortable sitting at a dinner table with a guy who had had sex with the woman I was going to marry. Even in a hypothetical situation, it sounds absurd. It’s almost like taking a poll at the table by asking the question “what do these two guys have in common?” and sitting back waiting for the inevitable answer that they had both been inside of the sole woman at the table.
“I was just letting you know. That’s all,” she responds.
I can tell I’m losing her right now—not as my wife-to-be, but as my best friend. I am making her feel as though she will have to hide things from me from here going forward, simply because I’m too sensitive to the realities of her life. We’re not even married, but I’m starting to show traces of jealousy, which surprises even me. I push to cover it up quickly. “It’s just dinner,” I finally say. “If you think it will bring closure to the situation, then do it. I trust that you would never do anything to hurt me and that you would respect the proper boundaries.”
I can’t even believe the shit that’s coming out of my mouth, but I feel as though I have no choice.
“I don’t know,” she responds. “I don’t want to disrespect what you and I have with each other.”
“I wouldn’t take it as disrespect. In fact, I don’t even need to be there. Go have your dinner,” I say, before adding, “and then come home to me.”
She smiles. “Well, if I decide to do it, I will let you know. He is supposed to be coming through next weekend.”
I relax my brow and offer simply, “Whatever you decide, I’m cool.”
We continue with the registry, and it takes everything that I have inside of me to not dwell on what decision she will ultimately make. I’m no fool. I realize that I might not have been her first choice for a husband, but I know I can’t walk around feeling like a number two choice or else our relationship will always suffer for it.
“I love you,” she says, as we get into my Jeep.
I look at her smile, broad and glowing beneath the light of the lamps in the parking lot. Something inside of me tells me that I can trust this woman with my life, that she is and has always been my ride-or-die chick. She would never hurt me. Of that I am convinced, so it’s not difficult for me to respond to her immediately. “I love you, too.”
11
My cousin J doesn’t say much to assuage my concerns about Lailah’s upcoming dinner with her ex-boyfriend. Not long after we got home, she told me that if I was still cool with the idea, she would meet with him for dinner and that she would make good on hooking me up later. I still don’t know how she would be able to make it up to me on a favor so big, but J seems to have some ideas.
“So let me get this right. You gave your fiancée permission to go out with a dude she used to fuck? Okay. I get the fact that you guys have been platonic friends since forever and all, but dude, you must be the craziest Negro in all of creation, trumping the likes of even O.J.! I mean, seriously, however you choose to come out of this will definitely define what kind of man you are.”
Now I feel like shit. “What do you mean?” I ask needlessly.
“You said that she would make it up to you, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So what did you have in mind?”
“Nothing really,” I admit.
I can hear the wheels in J’s head turning.
“What about Jasmine?”
“What about her?”
“If Lailah can go out with her ex-boyfriend, then you should be allowed to go out with your ex-girlfriend. That’s only fair, when you think about it.”
Sadly, up until now, the idea hadn’t even crossed my mind, but now I’m having flashbacks to the picture Jasmine texted me several days ago. I imagine her standing in my bedroom, naked, her body so much like a superhero’s that I used to call her Storm. And oh could she make it rain!
I tell J about the picture and what the experience of running into her recently was like.
“Sounds like she wants a chance to say goodbye to you, too.”
“I think she just wants to prove to me that she still has power over me, regardless of who I’m with.”
“And how is it a bad thing to have her believe that? If anything, it just means that you’re still on her mind. Trust me. That’s a problem that you would want to have.”
I shake my head, not sure if I should even be listening to J at this point.
“I don’t think going out with Jasmine would be a good idea. She’s likely to try to fuck me and blow my mind so that I will have fucked up everything with Lailah.”
“You don’t trust yourself?” J asks. “You are honestly telling me that you don’t trust the love that you have for the woman you have been pining over since you were born? That some sexy woman can control the purest and truest love that you have ever known? Dude, I think you’re seriously underestimating yourself.”
I see what he’s trying to do. “I trust myself.”
“Well, you don’t sound like it. Get your balls about yourself, dude, because from where I stand it seems like you trust her with her ex-boyfriend more than you trust yourself with yours.”
All I can hear is him saying that I trust her more than I trust myself, and that comment makes me feel like I need to prove such an assumption wrong.
“Now if Jasmine really does have you pussy whipped, I would leave the situation alone, but it’s like John Witherspoon said in Boomerang, ‘Don’t be pussy whipped! Whip that pussy! Bang! Bang! Bang!’”
I double over laughing. When I can finally speak, I add, “There’s only one pussy I plan on whipping!”
“So it shouldn’t be an issue with Jasmine then.”
“We’ll see.”
Long after I get off the phone with my cousin, I’m still pondering his advice. He just has all of these theories about relationships that usually hold a lot of water when tested. I remember when he told me about his B-Sides and Remixes theory, the theory that most people don’t reveal their true selves until after the third month of a relationship. I thought he was just saying some shit, but I realize that he was right when he said that the first three months are actually Side A, while everything afterwards is Side B, the part that the public doesn’t see and the radio doesn’t play, yet it’s the side that we live with when we decide to get into committed relationships. Although Lailah and I haven’t been engaged for three months yet, I figure that this particular theory doesn’t apply, especially since I have known Lailah my entire life.
But would I have guessed that she’d ask me if she could go out with an ex-boyfriend while we were walking around doing our wedding registry? I mean, who does that? On some level such a thing just seems disrespectful. My initial guess is that Lailah clearly doesn’t view it the same way, because if she did, then she wouldn’t have put me in such an awkward situation at such a bad time. I think she might have been completely oblivious to all of these things.
Is this a glimpse of her B-Side? Maybe. Maybe not.
Either way it goes, I’ve decided that if she can go out with her ex just to make sure that there is closure to their defunct relationship, she shouldn’t be the only one.
Although it seems like a questionable move, I text Jasmine the following day. I send her a very simple message that I know will pull out a definite response.
Sorry about the other day. A lot is going on.
It takes less than three minutes before I receive a response.
Np. ;)
The emoticon makes me pause. Why is she winking at me? I can’t lie. The wink is like a tickle to my navel.
I have already decided that I will not press the issue too far, but I do want to soften any antagonism that might still exist from the last time that I saw her.
So when is the wedding?, she texts.
I wonder just how much I need to be saying. The way that many guys get undone is by confiding too much of their business to women who are not their girlfriends. I have heard of the side woman knowing so much about the main woman that she would forever have the guy (and his woman) over a proverbial barrel for as long as she was around, like a hanging blade swinging precariously over his head, able to drop and cut right through him at any moment.
I decide to deflect the question.
Didn’t know u cared :)
A few seconds later she responds, whatever man.
Then I text, So are u off the market yet?
I feel my stomach starting to tense. What exactly am I doing? I feel as though I am walking into a vault with the door locking shut behind me. This might have been cool if all of this happened before I proposed to Lailah, but now the situation is downright spooking me out. I can feel that I am on the verge of playing with fire, and frankly, at this point in my life, I don’t know how well I can juggle that.
When I feel my phone vibrate, I see her response: Nothing serious.
At this point I have reached the farthest distance that I care to go with this right now. I know that we have an open connection, but just how open is what weighs on the back of my mind. I am almost afraid of what it would be like to be alone with her at this point. I keep seeing her, naked and dancing, when I close my eyes. I see her rotating her hips, one leg elevated on the edge of my bed, while my face rests beneath her vulva. I can still taste her, as I stroke my hand up and down her lifted calf.
I shake my head and immediately force a memory of Lailah to the front of my mind. I think about how long it took me to get to this point with her. Every kiss, every caress, every embrace. I waited a long time for those things. And now that I have hit the jackpot, I am looking back at a scratch card from the neighborhood corner store. What the hell is wrong with me? I can’t possibly be this weak. I refuse to believe that.
I put my phone down. I am done with texting today. I found out as much as I care to find out, so I’m tabling everything for now. I am now beginning to question whether I can go through with this. But then I remember that Lailah has no problem going out to dinner with a guy she used to fuck, a guy that, in theory, might still hold some sway over her. After all, that is the point of doing something to bring closure. It is a subtle admission that there is something about that person that still has a hook in you after all of this time, and by meeting up one last time, you are hoping that you can unhook yourself from that individual (with his or her help) permanently. I can’t help but wonder why a person would get engaged if he or she still had hooks in them. But then I am a prime example of someone who is still pining over his past.
Maybe I need to meet up with Jasmine more than Lailah needs to meet up with her ex-boyfriend. I can’t help but think that if she thinks meeting up with him will help our relationship to survive the long haul, then I need to find a way to permanently put Jasmine in my rearview mirror.
That doesn’t make the nervousness subside though. In fact, the only thing I can do now is tell myself to man up, to grow a pair. If I am doing this for the right reasons, then there is nothing wrong with seeing Jasmine again. Plus, I would hate to be out and about somewhere with Lailah and feel as though Jasmine still holds some kind of sway over me. That would be a horrible look for Lailah and me, and her knowing that there was a woman out there who could derail our marriage whenever she saw fit would stress the hell out of our relationship. Lailah doesn’t deserve that, and I would never wish her that kind of pain or frustration.
I just hope that Lailah feels the same as I do.
12
At the beginning of our junior year of high school, I knew what I had to do. After a torturing summer of seeing Lailah become sexier and sexier, I was more convinced than ever that I needed to play my hand. I had been holding my cards to my chest for years, even back before she had breasts. Now she was the full package. There was no one at Daily High who could touch her with a ten-foot pole. She had it going on with her naturally curly hair pulled back into a bun. Junior year would be the year that I would make my move, but I found that I would clam up every time I was around her. So not only was I not advancing my agenda, but I was also making our existing friendship incredibly awkward.
Then I got the idea to write her a letter where I told her how I really felt about her and what I felt that we could have together, if we gave love a chance. I composed at least ten different versions of the letter, laboring over every word, before deciding to throw them all away and try something different.
After the failed attempt at the letter, I thought I might be able to compose a song on the piano for her, Brian McKnight style, and do my best to sing my feelings to her. Every day while my parents were at work, I would practice the song aloud, sometimes recording myself so that I could hear how I sounded. (I can carry a tune, but that’s about it.) I could never get the song to sound the way I wanted it to sound, and I either went too strong with the lyrics or too soft with them. Either way, I wanted Lailah to take my feelings seriously and not get wrapped up in the non-singing version of my love song to her.
Interestingly, the idea for the song led to the classic cliché of all time, which I am not ashamed to admit that I indulged: putting together a mixtape of songs about budding relationships. I had everything on the CD I made for her, from Mint Condition to Brian McKnight. The CD had oldies and stuff that was out and hot at the time. I had even arranged the songs so that they progressively told the story of our time as friends and where I hoped that we would go as boyfriend and girlfriend. The first song, I thought, said it all: “I Remember You” by Brian McKnight. I figured that if she heard that one first, she would know where I was coming from and hopefully follow me the rest of the way through the CD.
When I gave her the CD, she listened to it, and said that it was cool. And that was it. Nothing more. It took me a week before I realized that she just didn’t know what I was hoping to accomplish with the mixtape. She apparently had thought that I was just giving her a tape of songs that I thought she would like. That left me little choice but to just break down and tell her what was on my mind.
By this time, it was November and the air outside was crisp and cool, the leaves already having fallen from the trees. We were standing out in the parking lot of the school, cloaked in bubble down goose feathered jackets and toboggans, and I can distinctly remember how beautiful her face glowed as she looked up at me. I struggled with my words for a minute, but she was patient with me, something that I had always appreciated about her friendship.
When I finally formed the words with my lips, I said, “There is something that’s been on my mind for a while, and I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out the best way to say it.”
“Oh, Dizzy,” she said, her voice turning downward, as she began to shake her head. “Don’t do it.”
“Do what?”
“Don’t say it.”
“How do you know what I’m going to say?”
“Because I know you.”
For a moment I didn’t know what to do. I had been rehearsing what I would say to her for so long that I didn’t know how to put the breaks on my feelings.
“I just have to tell you something.”
“Dizzy, you’re not listening to me. You do not have to say anything.”
Somehow I had convinced myself that she couldn’t read my mind, that she had just missed the point when it came to the mixtape, that it was my responsibility to step up and be bold and tell her exactly how I felt, so I did.
As I stood there telling her how I felt that we would be good together and how much I cared about her, I don’t know what I thought she would say in response, but in my dreams I had hoped that she would fall into my embrace and hold me with the tenderness that I so desperately craved.
“Dizzy, you’re my best friend. Best friend,” she emphasized. “If we start dating and it doesn’t work out, then where will that leave us? I want to always have you in my life, and the only way to guarantee that is not to complicate things.”
I was so shocked and hurt at the same time that my mouth stopped working for a second. When I finally got it to work, I said, “We are just taking our friendship to a new level. That’s all. We won’t stop being friends just because we open this new door and walk through it.”
She shook her head slowly, as if I wasn’t getting the bigger picture. “I love you, and I want to always have you in my life. I value you more than having you as just my boyfriend.”
