Friends and Lovers (46 page)

It was the first Friday of December, and a bone-chillin’ twenty-four degrees. This was the warmest it’d been all week.

Finally, a yellow taxi swerved and stopped a few feet from me. I didn’t miss a beat. I maneuvered through the sidewalk traffic, broke into a numb-toed jog. A heavyset sista leaned forward to pay the driver and wiggled out into the breeze. The wind tossed her Mary J. Blige-looking
blonde weave, blew her ankle-length wool overcoat open, whipped her orange dress and let me catch a view of her dark nylons and thunder-thighs. She fought to adjust her clothes and I struggled to catch the door before it shut me out. The door bent my fingers; I dropped my packages, grunted to keep from howling with the pain. Felt like three fingers cracked down to the bone. I smiled at the sista. She didn’t smile. Bitch must be from New York.

She’d left somebody inside the taxi. A white woman. I sighed. Damn. When my head shot inside the cab, her ear muffs leaped off her neck and she shrieked, cringed, and dropped her magazine. Her wavy red hair slipped free, dropped around her shoulders and covered most of her round face. Then she sucked in her pouty lips and trembled back into the corner.

She frowned and snapped, “The air is cold. Get in.”

“What?”

“Get your stuff off the ground and get in. Get in or close the damn door.”

She adjusted her green coat and scooted over closer to her door. Inside reeked with the fragrance of Passion. J’nette used to wear the same brand, so I knew it very well. J’nette was the sista I’d been dating for the last few months, but our relationship wasn’t exactly on the rise. Sugar had changed to shit. Anyway, the softness of the redhead’s perfume stood out from the cab’s rank—a wet-sock and athletic-foot stench. And I felt something else I’d kill for. Warmth.

“Already got a fare!” That was the driver. I didn’t know what nationality he was, but the I.D. over his visor was thirty letters long and needed Vanna White to sell him a few vowels.

She leaned toward me and said, “For the last time, where?”

I started to say I was going to the black boroughs, either Jamaica Queens or Strivers’ Row in Harlem, maybe say I was looking for Sugar Hill, but it wasn’t the right kinda weather for games.

“Jackson Heights.” My teeth clattered with my moan
as I grabbed my bags. A teaspoon of moisture ran from my nose down my face. But I was too cold to be embarrassed. “75th Street and 23rd Avenue.”

She rattled off, “Near La Guardia.”

I nodded, sniffled, said, “Near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.”

She made an impatient motion, snapped a little, quivered with the cold, told me to hurry up and close the door. “That’s a couple of miles from where I’m headed. We can split the fare.”

On the other side of the clear bulletproof barrier, the driver gripped the wheel and growled. His scarred, bearded face tensed up while he shook his head and yacked in his own language. My wool scarf loosened around my neck when I relaxed into the backseat. My bags fell at my feet. The driver let out a few American curses, which was just a typical East Coast hello.

“What was that?” she said, then jerked her hand up to her ear like she was trying to improve her hearing. That made me nervous. The driver didn’t say another word. She sat back on the cracked seat, re-opened her magazine and said a sharp, “And
don’t
take any so-called short cuts. I’m watching you and I know the way.”

The driver glared into his rearview mirror. Snow crunched under the tires as he pulled away from the curb. I moaned. She cut her eyes at my suffering, then went back to trying to find her place in her magazine. It was a
New Yorker.
I rubbed my hands together, but it felt like I was massaging a block of ice with a block of ice.

She peeped at me, sighed, reached into her purse, grabbed a pink tissue, handed it to me. “I feel the cold coming off you.”

“Thanks.” I wiped my nose. “I’ve been out there begging cabs to stop for at least thirty minutes.”

“Why?”

“Because.” I glanced at the driver. “Because.”

She nodded. “For all they know, I could be a serial killer.”

“Are you?”

She gave me a stone-faced, “What do you think?”

“I’ll take my chances.” I bent my fingers. “Hurts.”

“Where’re your gloves?”

“Lost ‘em.”

She shook her head. “New York. Winter. Naked fingers. Not a sane combination. You might be the serial killer.”

“If I’m not wearing gloves, then I’m trying to kill
myself.
“

With full lips and a round face, she reminded me of that actress Kim Basinger, but her voice was perky and quick, like the actress Geena Davis’s. She sported rainbow-hued mittens that let her fingers wiggle around in harmony and share the same space. I was a glove man. A segregated compartment for each finger. That was how my momma raised her three boys up. Wearing either black or brown gloves.

She said, “Let me help.”

Before I could figure out what she meant, she pulled off her mitts, reached over, and took my right hand. At the moment of first contact, I wanted to snatch it away, but her hands were warm. Damn warm. Inside a cab that was weaving through traffic, nobody could see her touching me, so I tried to make myself relax. For now.

I chilled and let her become my furnace. Her hands were soft. Thick fingers, short nails, manicured, clear polish. Her ankles were thick too.

When the warmth she was giving up faded, she rubbed her hands some more, made them super-duper warm again. She was running her mouth, but the throbbing inside my body had made me deaf.

I said, “What?”

“I said”—she grinned—“my name is Kimberly Chavers.”

I looked at her hazel eyes and repeated. “Kim?”

“No.” She held one finger up to correct me.

“Kimberly.”

I didn’t smile. I was still checking out her eyes. Hazel. From a certain angle, they looked silvery, from another emerald.

I blinked away my amazement and said, “Jordan Greene.”

“Nice to meet you, Jordan.”

“Likewise.”

My forehead was dank. The sweat came from the pain of my fingers aching, coming back to life. Fingertips stung like they were being jabbed with hot needles. It had been so long since I’d been this cold, not since me and Solomon went skiing in Vale, so I’d forgotten that the torture increased with the thawing. It would get worse before it got better. I bent my fingers, tried to get some circulation going, set free a few orgasmic-sounding “oooohs” and “ahhs.” She smirked, picked up her magazine, flipped through the pages.

I leaned away from her. “Thanks.”

She nodded and said a definite, “You’re not East Coast.”

“Accent?”

“A little. Mannerisms. You’re too nice to the cabbie.”

“I was cold as hell.”

“Don’t matter. Keep that ‘tude with them or they’ll walk over you. Where are you from?”

“Brownsville.”

“Is that in Texas?”

“Small town right outside of Memphis.”

“Tennessee, huh? Ever see Elvis?”

“Yeah. Want to see the pink Cadillac he bought me?”

We shared paper-thin laughs. I could feel my toes again.

I said, “You’re pretty nice yourself. Where you from?”

“Seattle. Oakland. San Antonio. Few other places.”

“Military brat?”

“Yep.” She smiled. “What brought you up to New York?”

“Came up to work for CompSci Enterprises. Software.”

“Sounds exciting. I need to get my own computer to do some graphics. I’ve had classes in Quark Express.”

I nodded. I smelled some kind of incense or potpourri
in the cab. It was here and there, but wasn’t strong enough to cancel out the funk from the leftover Marlboro stink. I didn’t have to lean forward to see the driver’s overflowing ashtray to know he was a chain smoker, just like my older brother Darrell. I tried smoking back in high school, but asthma put an end to that idiocy. Anyway, the cancer smell was bad, but not strong enough to dilute Kimberly’s sweet aroma.

She continued chattering. “I want to learn some other computer software, and to get on-line, maybe eventually do my own WEB page and get my work out there, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” She went back to reading. “It sounds so exciting. Being on the ‘Leading edge of technology.’”

“Leading edge of technology?”

She held up her magazine. It was open to a full-page CompSci advertisement.

She raised a brow. “Don’t you know your own motto?”

“Well,” I said and shrugged, “I didn’t make it up.”

“I hope not.” She laughed, folded the magazine and stuck it in her coat pocket. “It’s so damn corny.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m an artist. Visual.”

“No shit?”

“Yep, shit. I paint.”

“What style?”

“Stuff like Norman Rockwell.”

All I knew about art was Ernie Barnes, Varnette Honeywood and a few others on the black side. And Salvador Dali. I owned two Barnes prints. Both were in my dining area. I had the one with the young girls playing ring-around-the-rosie and the party scene that was used as a cover on one of Marvin Gaye’s albums.

She raised a brow, “You’ve heard of Norman Rockwell?”

“Name’s familiar. Is he from New York?”

“Actually, he’s dead.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t be. Anyway, I do what you call real-life stuff,”
she said matter of factly, then touched a reddish freckle on her right cheek. “Depends on my mood. I haven’t done anything lately. Artist’s block. My mind’s cluttered and it’s hard for me to get a good groove going.”

I had wanted to draw comic books when I was a kid. I had a T-square and a drafting board set-up next to about a thousand comics. Hadn’t thought about that in years. After I went off on a mental tangent, I was brought back to the present and the cold reality of the East Coast by her giggles.

I flexed my fingers and said, “Whu’sup?”

“Your eyes lit up.”

For a minute or two, while we headed down three lanes of madness crowding Park Avenue, then on East 57th Street toward the Queensboro Bridge, I yacked, told her that when I was a kid I wanted to draw comics, make up a million black superheroes, and work for either D.C. or Marvel. While we laughed those subtle, polite, distant laughs, the driver gazed at us through the rearview mirror, shook his head like we were crazy.

I said, “It would be nice to see some of your work.”

“Hold on for a sec.” She reached inside her purse, pulled out a bulky leather wallet, handed it to me. “Here.”

When she stuck her wallet in my face, I thought she was setting me up for the downfall. “What’s up with this?”

“I keep snapshots of my work with me.”

They looked like real people. The colors, the details. A lady in a swing nursing her baby. A woman crying as her lover walked away, suitcases in both hands. The sun rising as a couple sat on a hill. Silhouette of two lovers in a shower, getting it on at the break of dawn. There were about twenty 35mm pictures. None of them had any real facial features. I guess that was to make her work more salable. Their skin tones were varied. No doubt another business move.

I mumbled, “Wow. You did these?”

“Typical male response.” She smiled, then rattled off a very feministic, “Don’t think women can do much,
huh? If I was, what do you call those things, a
man
, you would have—”

I raised a hand. “I didn’t mean it like—”

She laughed. “I was joking.”

“Good.”

“And yes.” She smirked and replied, “I did them by myself.”

“These are SmooVe.”

“Smooth?”

“No, not smooth.
SmooVe.
With a capital V.”

“SmooVe?” she mimicked me. “Well, thanks. SmooVe. I’ll have to use that. SmooVe with a capital V.”

When she said she was going to use
my
expression, that made me wish I didn’t say SmooVe. I glanced forward, glared at the two lanes of traffic trudging over the Queensboro Bridge, put my eyes on the East River for a moment, toward Silvercup Studios, then back toward the IDCNY building so I wouldn’t have to make eye contact with her.
SmooVe. I’ll have to use that.
My momma used to say white people would steal everything down to your last breath.

A moment later, I kept my attitude from showing by placing a log on the conversation’s fire. I cleared my throat, flexed my fingers, and asked, “Is your work out on exhibit?”

“Not yet. I’ve been lucky and sold quite a few lately on consignment through a few places in the Village.” “So you do this full-time?”

“I’ve had a few part-time jobs off and on, but I’m freelancing for magazines and corporate layouts. Individuals aren’t buying art because of the economy, but businesses are always in the market; it’s in their budget. They overpay and write it off. Have to pay the rent until I get that career-making
Life
cover.”

“I wish I could see these. I just might buy one, if I can afford it. What medium do you work in?”

She sounded distracted when she muttered, “Oil and canvas.”

“Nice,” I said. Her hazel eyes lit up. When she grinned, I asked, “Alright, whu’sup?”

“Wanna see the rest?”

I nodded. “Let me know when they go on display.”

“I can do one better. I was just thinking, we don’t live far from each other. You could stop by my place for a couple of minutes, then catch another cab the rest of the way.”

Underneath my smile, I felt a chill of discomfort. I tried to think of a lie, come up with a quick line and fake that I had something to do, but the lie wouldn’t come. Especially since we were eye to eye, no room for an alibi.

She continued, “I don’t know if you have any plans, or a date, or have to get home to your wife or something.”

I thought about how J’nette hadn’t returned any of my calls, remembered the nothing I had to do from sunset to sunrise on a Friday night, then I laughed, low and easy.

She tilted her head, “What?”

“No, I’m not in a hurry to get home. No, I don’t have any plans.” I held up my empty ring finger. “No, I’m not married.”

Her eyes widened; her hand went up over her face. “I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. I didn’t know where you were going. Not that it matters. Business is business, right?”