Please please please, p.1
Please Please Please, page 1
It was exactly 12:06 a.m. I know because I’d glanced at the clock and realized I had to go to work the next day and would certainly have a hangover. We were in the kitchen making coffee. We hadn’t done anything except to kiss for a while on his couch, hold hands and talk, kiss some more. I was asking him where he kept his cups when I heard him come up behind me, his boots making a lovely sound against the kitchen floor.
He pressed his stomach into my back. “Don’t move, okay? Just don’t move.”
I must have about died. He kissed the back of my neck and I let my head fall to the side. He kissed my cheek, smelled my hair. He lifted my blouse and I felt the cold tile from the counter against my belly. The cabinet above the counter was open, and before I closed my eyes, I noticed that I was staring directly into a bag of unbleached flour. I stood on my tiptoes because I wanted him to be able to hold on to my waist, my breasts, my ass. I held my breath as he tipped me over, raised a bare foot onto a boot one at a time then lifted my heels that much further. I didn’t ever want to come down.
————
“It’s very rare we cheer for those who admittedly do wrong. But Babysister’s dazzling insight gives us a peek at how a man’s words, actions and deeds are taken to heart, and shows how easy it really is to throw everything by the wayside—including friendship—when blinded by love.”
—Franklin White, author of Fed Up with the Fanny
For my mother, Lucille Swindle, for
good friendship and advice
My father, James Swindle, for accepting me as I am
And my husband, Dennis Guikema, for constant
love and support
One
DON’T LET ANYONE tell you any different, sometimes love isn’t about nothing but a crooked tooth, the curl of an eyebrow, the hairs on a wrist, a gold chain, or one small mole. For me, it’s boots. Have you ever seen a black man in boots? Well, there you go. So when Darren sort of leaned into me and said my name, and I turned around to see his six-foot-three-inch body pressed firmly into two perfectly polished black boots, I’m sorry, but I was gone. Later. Goodbye. Adiós.
It wasn’t like I’d never been with a man who wore boots before. But the thing with most of them was, once they took off their boots, they became that much shorter, that much fatter. At least that’s the way it went with Greg and John and Roger too. No boots, no magic. Just like that, and they were reduced to this person walking around looking entirely lost. I tried. Believe me, I tried: Listen, baby, why don’t you put your boots on. You look so fine in your boots. But sooner or later we had to go to bed, and poof, the magic was gone.
But not with Darren. Boots or no boots, he couldn’t get on my nerves if he tried. Darren was it. The first time the combination was right: fine and intelligent. I’ve been out with fine men before but usually after two weeks it’s like, Oh, you don’t have a brain. Now why didn’t I notice that before? Or the guy will be intelligent but get him in bed and he only knows one position: You on the bottom, him on top. A drop of sweat dripping in your ear every ten seconds. And don’t even get me started on the pseudointelligent pro-black types. “My sister, my sister. Mother Africa, I see you have bought into the white man’s lie. You must understand that it would be a mistake for me to go down on you. I refuse to partake in the white man’s nasty habits. I can’t believe that you would disrespect your man by asking him to do something like that.”
Men are a mess. A complete mess. There’s a communication problem going on that they don’t want to discuss. So while he’s going at it, you’re left thinking, Hello??!! It sure would be nice if you kissed me on the lips now and then. Or, Hello??!! There is a thinking, feeling human being underneath you.
See, you touch a man anywhere and you’ve got a direct line to his dick. With a woman, a kiss on the ear might send a charge to her breast, kiss her breast and she feels something in her heart, suck her nipple and a dampness swells between her legs.
Let me put it this way: Have you ever seen a piano getting tuned? I was in the high school auditorium once and there was a man there tuning the piano. He’d barely tap a note, then he’d listen. Tap a note. Listen. Tap a note. Carefully. Gently. You could hear that piano loosen up just as nice. And that’s the way it was with Darren.
He’d lick my earlobe. “Do you like that?”
Mmmm-hmm.
He’d hold the back of my neck in his hand and barely touch my breast. “Do you like that?” Oh yes.
He wouldn’t touch any harder until he felt my hip rise or until I pulled his head closer. “Do you like that?”
I’d moan and scream and sigh and after two, sometimes three orgasms I would just stare at the man in some kind of soap opera awe. “I’ve been reading the Tao of Love and Sex,” he’d say. And I’d say, “I have no idea what that is, but you just keep on reading it.”
Prince Charming, Superman, Superfly, all in one. I’m a believer because I have been there. Darren would reach down with his finger and move my panties aside, and I would be wet every time. Every time.
So what if the first time we met I was working at the bank, and when he said my name he was only asking me if I could make sure my best friend got the flowers he was leaving for her.
“Babysister? You’re Babysister, right?” He had on boots, jeans, and a soft white shirt that I would have loved to unbutton. He had thick black hair cut short and neat, deep brown eyes, and a warm generous smile that made you feel that you were the only woman on the entire planet.
“Yeah.”
“Well listen, would you do me a big favor and make sure Deborah gets these flowers? I sort of want them to be the first thing she sees when she gets here.”
You are the finest, most drop-dead-gorgeous motherfucker I have seen in a long, very long time, and would you please prop me up on this counter, brush the pens aside, and do whatever it is you want to do?
But “Uh-huh” was all I said. “No problem.”
Then he said, “Deborah said you were nice.”
And I watched him jerk his keys, put on his sunglasses, push open the door with one elegant hand, and walk out. When all that was left of him was the faint smell of Afro
Sheen, I took a peek at the card.
Deborah—
Thank you for a marvelous dinner.
—Darren
I thought again about how he said my name. Baby-sister, he said, and just like that, my name sounded as familiar as two dimes hitting the floor. Ting. Ting.
Two
I ALWAYS GET what I want. My father spoiled me as a child because I lost my mother. She died when I was four. We had just been to the store and she was carrying a large bag of groceries. We were headed to our car, which was parked across the street in front of a Baskin-Robbins. My mother took my hand before she stepped off the curb. I remember she cried out “Oh” just as an orange car pushed into her side and made her body fold like the flap on an envelope. “Oh” was all she said. I remember the hood of the car was shaped like the mouth of a shark, a large silver tooth near each front tire. I remember she said at the stoplight, “Maybe we should treat ourselves to a couple of ice-cream cones.”
I hit the ground too, but as soon as I started to stand up, some woman screamed, “Somebody take the baby! Take the baby! She shouldn’t ought to see this!” A man picked me up and took me to the corner. “Are you all right?” He squeezed my arms to make sure my bones were straight.
You’d think it would be a complete tragedy to see your mother die, but sometimes it doesn’t seem like I was there at all. The accident happened so long ago it’s become more like a dream. I consider myself lucky that I was so young when it happened. I mean, even though my mother pushed me out of the crosswalk and died under a car, all I have left from the accident really is a dark-brown scar on my right knee shaped like a bow on a gift.
I am my father’s baby girl. I have an older brother named Malcolm, but I’ll be honest with you, he doesn’t get nearly as much attention as I do. I get so much attention not only because Malcolm gets on everyone’s nerves, but because I was there when my mother died. It seems to me like the day after the funeral I started getting whatever I wanted. I mean, I had so much shit. My yellow skateboard with red wheels, my Flip Wilson doll with Flip Wilson on one side and Geraldine on the other—pull the string and he’d say, The devil made me do it! My Betty Crocker You-Can-Bake! Oven that made chocolate cake—only with the help of Mom, but who cared because it tasted nasty anyway; my pink bicycle, my red wagon, my skates that looked like tennis shoes with wheels. Later I had Barbie dolls. Barbie dolls everywhere. Barbie town house, Barbie mobile home, Barbie Corvette, swimming pool, beauty salon, and horse. Black Barbies, white Barbies. I got a VW Bug for my sixteenth birthday and after I wrecked it, a used Toyota. After the Toyota broke down I got a Honda Civic. I went with the finest man in high school to the senior prom and was named homecoming queen. Remember tag and having to decide who was it? Stuff like one potato, two potato, and Johnny ate a booger and it tasted like sugar, you’re it? Well, this might sound a bit strange, but I never had to be it. I made sure that I wouldn’t have to be it even if it meant holding my breath until I might pass out.
All I’m trying to say is this: I don’t remember a time when I didn’t get what I wanted. And I wanted Darren like nobody’s business.
I waited until Deborah finished with a customer before going over to her desk. She had recently been promoted to loan officer, so unlike the rest of us lowly tellers who had to stand behind the bulletproof protection glass speak
I knocked twice on Deborah’s desk. She had turned her coffee mug into a small vase and was busy gazing at her new bouquet, which leaned heavily to the right and forced her to lean her head as well. I caught myself tilting my head a bit too, but straightened up when I asked her why she hadn’t told me about Darren. Not a word.
Still gazing at her flowers, she hid her smile behind two small fists. “I don’t know. I’ve been meaning to.”
“Well, how long have you been seeing him?”
“It’s been about two months now.”
“Two months! I’m surprised you haven’t said anything.”
“Well …”
I picked up a freesia and took a whiff. “So how did you meet?”
“A blind date,” she giggled. “Can you believe it?” Blind date my ass, I thought. For one thing you don’t meet men like Darren on blind dates. And for another, I knew everyone Deborah knew and couldn’t imagine any one of our friends wanting to share him, whether she was single or not.
“Who set this blind date up? And why didn’t they tell me about him first?” I said as if I were joking around.
“Because my mother set it up. See, Darren’s the son of a woman my mom met at our church’s anniversary a few months back. Darren’s mother sang in the visiting choir. It was one of the best anniversaries we’ve had in a long old time. I told you to come. Sister Wilma tore up ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord.’ You should have seen all the people walking up to the altar. Last year our own choir sang. It was okay, but this time felt like a real celebration. Darren’s mother is an alto by the way, just like my mother. And did I tell you about the dinner the scholarship committee put together?”
I tried my best to pay attention as she jumped from one subject to another. That was the thing about Deborah, a simple noun or name could send her off on some totally different story. She’d hear the magic word, and somewhere, way back somewhere in her head, something clicked or gonged or beeped and off she went on an entirely new subject. You had to let her return to the point at hand on her own, otherwise it was a lot of “Hold on, hold on. I’m getting to that.” She had been like this since we were girls.
“… So anyway, when my mother mentioned her friend’s son, I honestly didn’t know if I should go or not! I’d never been on a blind date before. Never!” She let her head fall into her hands. The part in her hair was perfectly straight. A frail line of skin surrounded by thick black hair. “Should I go? Should I not go?” She ran her fingers straight through the top and the part disappeared.
There was a time when I would have done anything to have hair like Deborah’s. When we were girls, she would come out of the bathtub and sit on the floor between her mother’s legs. Wisps of wet hair would stick to her face and her mother would simply glide the comb straight down her back. One continuous slow pull and then another. After a few minutes Deborah’s hair was braided into two long, shiny plaits with one perfectly straight part. I, on the other hand, had to get my hair pressed every other week. After Momma died, our neighbor Mrs. Davis started fixing it. She’d come by every other Friday to wash and press it. My hair was so nappy, it had to be handled in sections. Mrs. Davis’s thick fingers pushed at my temples, moving my head down and to the side, cocked and turned just so to the left. Hold your head still, girl! and then the sizzle of the comb touching the grease and the smell of burnt hair.
“… and so we finally hooked up.” Deborah’s face brightened, satisfied with the ending of her story. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I don’t want to jinx it is all. I want to move real slow with this one.”
I wanted to wrap my hands around her bony neck. I put the freesia back and pulled out a chrysanthemum. Interesting that he thought to buy something besides roses. I decided I liked this bouquet better. It showed originality.
“With all this slow movement there must be something wrong with the man. Don’t tell me he doesn’t have a job.”
“Oh, he has a job all right.”
I watched her eyebrows rise, her eyes widen, and her burgundy-painted lips shape each word. She looked around the bank as though we were discussing a robbery.
“Girl, he’s an architect. An architect, Babysister.”
“Get outta here. How old is he?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Married?”
“No.”
“Kids?”
“No.”
“Gay?” I whispered. “No.” She whispered.
“Single?”
“Single.”
I looked around for our boss, Ms. Hodges. When I didn’t see her, I plopped half of my ass on Deborah’s desk, bumping against the picture she had of the two of us in a brass frame. We wore identical peach-colored dresses in the photo, our arms wrapped around each other’s waists. The picture was about three years old. A friend from high school was getting married and we were bridesmaids. We hated the dresses because they made us look twice our size. I had said something about the bride wanting everyone to look as fat as she is, and Deborah’s mother took the picture right as we started laughing, right as our mouths fell open and our bodies leaned toward each other. The photo was taken at a time when we were truly the best of friends, before Deborah found religion and could still laugh at a good joke. And while I knew she still believed us to be as close, lately I had begun to wonder if there was much more to our friendship than the fact that we had known each other for so long and hung out with the same group of people.
I watched her pick up a pencil, put it down, pick it up again. “He sounds too good,” I said.
“I know. That’s why I want to take it slow. If I play it right, who knows?”
“Well, be careful. You might’ve gone and got yourself hooked up with a player.”
“I don’t think so, Babysister. He’s real nice. That’s why I had him over for dinner. Twice.”
“Girl, you need to quit. I thought you said you wanted to take it slow.”
I lifted the chrysanthemum I was holding as if to say, may I please have it? She smiled and nodded yes.
“So what do you think?” she asked.
“About what?”
“About me and Darren.”
I give it two more weeks. Tops.
“You’re a lucky woman,” I said, giving my flower a twirl. “It sounds too good to be true.”
He grew up in none other than Baldwin Hills. Graduated from UCLA. You hear me? UUUU … SEEE … LLLL … AAEEE. He owned a condo and drove a BMW. Wanted kids, marriage. Listened only to jazz and sometimes even classical. And get this, according to Deborah, he had no hang-ups whatsoever about spending money on a woman, had already bought her a small hand-carved jewelry box he found in an African gift shop.
It was time to throw a dinner party.
Nine days after Darren had walked into the bank, I found myself making dinner for six in his honor—not that anyone would know this but me. I set the party for Saturday evening. I decided to invite Byron from work who, like Deborah, was also a loan officer. He had been feeling depressed since his wife left him for a garbage collector who wrote poetry. I have to admit that it didn’t hurt that Byron knew a lot about jazz music. I hadn’t talked to Cynthia Woods since she’d quit the bank eight months earlier after marrying a rich man who owned ten video stores, but I thought she and her husband would make perfect guests because while her new husband hadn’t gone to UCLA he had attended USC and I figured what’s the difference; not to mention, Cynthia played piano and knew about classical music. It would be perfect. I’d find out from Deborah what kind of food Darren liked and serve his favorite dish with a gracious smile; I’d light candles and place them in the center of the table next to a bouquet of flowers, I’d play classical music and jazz and nod my head as he talked with Cynthia and Byron about his favorite musicians.
