Just Can't Get Enough (17 page)

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Authors: Cheris Hodges

BOOK: Just Can't Get Enough
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Miss Rudy leaned in and kissed Celina on the cheek. “You're a good daughter,” she said. “Not too many children come back here. Velma was in here talking about you the other day. She said that you're a painter or something like that and you live all the way in New York City. I don't know who she was talking about more, you or Thomas.”
“Oh really,” Celina said as she and Miss Rudy exchanged a knowing glance.
“Well, your father will be well taken care of now,” she said as she rubbed her hands together. “What can I get for you? Ribs and chicken, with a side of my potato salad and some slaw?”
“Well,” Celina said, choosing her words carefully so as not to offend Miss Rudy. Turning down food in Elmore was equivalent to slapping the cook in the face. “I'm a vegetarian, so I would love the slaw and potato salad.”
“I have something special for you, then,” she said, not showing offense, to Celina's relief.
“Darius, chicken and ribs?”
He nodded and winked at her. “You know what I like.”
Miss Rudy waddled down the hall to the kitchen. “It's like I never left here,” Celina said. “Everybody remembers me. It's really comfortable here.”
“It can be like that every day,” Darius said. “Just think, once we get the gallery off the ground, you'll be able to see so many other people. They'll be so proud of your work and what you've accomplished.”
“I know,” she said, forcing herself to smile.
Darius grabbed her hand and kissed it gently. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“Yes, Darius. This is what I want to do. Haven't you noticed that I don't do anything that I don't want to do?”
Darius kissed her hand again. “I know that you're terrible at hiding things, too. If you don't want to leave New York, you don't have to,” he said.
Celina released a sigh of relief and squeezed Darius's hand. “I don't really know what I want right now. Part of me wants to stay here and get this gallery built and running, but I have so many other things that I want to do in New York. I want to go back to Paris and I want you to be a part of my life. It sounds like I want you to just put everything on hold for me while I chase my dreams and asking you to do that wouldn't be fair. Please tell me you understand.”
Darius nodded, but his eyes showed his confusion.
“I just need some time to go back to the city to get some things together. Then I'll come back and we can look into starting the gallery. I did have a life there and I can't just leave it without making sure I'm making the right decision,” she said.
“Are you talking about
us
or
your
life in New York?”
Both
, she thought, but didn't say anything. Luckily, Miss Rudy returned to the table with a platter of roasted carrots, peppers, broccoli, and zucchini. She set the platter in front of Celina. A waiter followed her with grilled ribs, chicken, and potato salad.
“I'm sorry, we ran out of slaw. Celina, what do you think of the veggies?” Miss Rudy said.
“They look great,” she said with a bright smile on her face. She was glad for the distraction. Darius forced a smile when he looked at Miss Rudy. Once she left the table, he turned to Celina.
“So, when are you leaving?” he asked struggling to keep his voice even.
“In a few days,” she said quietly as she cut into a slice of zucchini.
Darius rubbed his chin and looked at her. “Were you going to tell me or was I just going to see you drive down the road while you waved good-bye?”
“Don't be like that. I just made this decision, but I was going to tell you before I left.”
He nodded, then cut into a chicken breast. “I hope you find whatever it is that you're looking for,” he said before taking the chicken into his mouth.
“Darius, I'm not looking for anything,” she said. “I just need to . . .”
He put his hand up to silence her. “Celina, do what you have to do, all right? I'll be right here when you come back.”
Her heart swelled when he said he would wait for her. Celina didn't feel as cynical about love anymore.
CHAPTER 17
Three days later, Celina was on a plane heading back to New York and, for the first time in a long time, she didn't feel as if she was going home. This trip felt like a formality because Elmore and Darius's arms felt like home now. She was finally beginning to fully open her heart to him, although she was still afraid.
“Excuse me,” a woman, dressed in a floppy hat and sunglasses, said as she passed Celina's seat. “Is this 4-A?”
Celina looked up at the woman. She looked familiar, but Celina couldn't place her. “Yes, it is,” she said as she stood up to let the woman pass.
“Thank you. I haven't been on a plane since September 11th, so I'm a little nervous,” she said as she strapped into her seat.
Celina smiled politely, but silently prayed that the woman wasn't a Chatty Cathy. It wasn't as if she was a fan of flying herself, but once she got on the plane she was on it. There was nothing she could do to make the time go faster and conversations with strangers weren't something she liked to do. Her seatmate, however, seemed determined to talk to her.
“Haven't we met before?” the woman asked.
“Not that I'm aware of,” Celina said as she reached into her backpack and pulled out her sketch pad.
“You're Celina Hart, aren't you? The artist.”
“Guilty.”
“Wow,” she said. “You look a lot different up close. I've seen you around town.”
Celina raised her eyebrow. “Around New York?”
The woman shook her head. “Elmore. I'm Tiffany Martin.”
“What are you doing here?” Celina asked.
Tiffany smiled, removed her hat and glasses, and crossed her legs. “I'm here to warn you about that man who claims to love you. Darius McRae is a user and you're just his latest victim.”
“I don't have to listen to this,” Celina said as she reached up to press the stewardess button. Tiffany grabbed her hand and the strength of her grip surprised Celina. “Let go of me,” Celina ordered.
“We're about to be thirty-thousand feet in the air, and you have nowhere to go, so just listen to what I have to say.”
“Let go of my hand,” Celina said again. This time, Tiffany let her go. “What do you have to say?”
“Celina, I'm not the bad person that Darius has made me out to be. He thinks I'm stalking him and that I've done some bad things at his store. I'm not that kind of person.”
“Yeah, okay. What do you want? Because right now, you sound like a bitter, scorned woman who just wants to get in my head. Darius doesn't want you and you should just let it go.”
“You don't know Darius and I'm just trying to warn you. He's going to throw you away like trash, just like he did me. He says all the right things, but he doesn't mean them. To him, women are interchangeable like socks and boxers.”
“Why in the world would I listen to anything you have to say? If Darius is so horrible, why are you working overtime to get him back in your life?”
Shaking her head, Tiffany denied wanting Darius. “You think that you're special and he loves you more than anything. He said the same thing to me. You'll be crying over him before too long. Then you will understand. Darius is a user. Why didn't he come to New York with you? He has to make time for his other women since you've been taking up a lot of his time. I bet when you told him that you were coming to New York he didn't even put up a fight.”
“You don't know what you're talking about and I tell you what, you'd better stay away from me and Darius when I return to Elmore,” Celina said, struggling to keep her voice even.
Tiffany smiled devilishly. “You'd be better off if you stayed in New York. I'm trying to save you from a broken heart.”
Celina shook her head. “What did you expect to accomplish here? Did you think I was just going to believe what you had to say and tell Darius it was over so that you could have a clear shot at him? News flash, Tiffany. Darius doesn't want you. He's with me.”
Tiffany turned her head away from Celina and looked out the window of the plane. “We'll see for how long,” she snapped.
Celina pressed the button for the stewardess. The woman walked over to the seat.
“Yes ma'am?” she asked.
“I need a new seat, because I'm not sitting next to this woman,” Celina said as she stood up and grabbed her backpack. The stewardess led her to a seat across the aisle from Tiffany. Luckily, Celina got a window seat and she didn't have to look at Tiffany anymore.
When the plane touched down at LaGuardia Airport, Celina didn't move from her seat until she saw Tiffany exit the plane. It was obvious that the woman was a stalker and the last thing she wanted was for her to know where she lived.
That woman is crazy,
Celina thought as she stood at the boarding gate, watching Tiffany disappear in the crowd.
 
 
Darius sat in the office at the hardware store trying to stop thinking about Celina. What if she didn't come back from New York? Rising to his feet, he walked over to the window looking out over the town.
Why would she want to live in a town like this after all these years? I can't expect her to just drop everything she's worked for to be with me.
He wished desperately that she would. The silence in the shop was deafening; it seemed as if everything was on hold now that Celina was gone.
“Darius, got a second?” Richard said as he popped his head in the office.
Darius waved for the man to come inside. “What's going on?”
“That's what I came to ask you. How did things turn out with Celina?”
Darius turned away from the window and looked at Richard. “Well, she's in New York right now, so how do you think things went? I don't know if she's coming back or if she wants to come back.”
Richard nodded. “I'm sure she's going to come back. She cares for you so much, Darius.”
Then why did she leave?
he thought as he looked at Richard, trying to absorb what the man was saying. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Why didn't you go to New York with her?” Richard asked.
“She didn't ask me to accompany her.”
Richard rolled his eyes. “You know the problem with you young guys, no imagination. You should've hopped on the next plane and followed her. Women like stuff like that. It would prove to her that you are the man that's right for her. Ever heard that old Quincy Jones song, ‘One Hundred Ways'? Take a hint from it, man.”
“What if she has someone else in New York and she's going to end or reconcile things with him?” Darius said, voicing the fear that had been inside him since Celina said she was returning to New York. “How will I look just showing up?”
“He's a sorry man if she does have one in New York. He let her deal with her father's sickness all alone. Besides, if you don't show up, imagine how that will look. Go to her.”
“Maybe her father has her address in New York. I could drive to Columbia and take the next flight to New York,” Darius said, knowing that Celina didn't have someone else in the city. What was it about that place that made her want to go back to New York so badly?
“That sounds more like it. I'll hold the fort down here,” Richard said as Darius picked up the phone to call Thomas Hart.
About an hour later, Darius was heading to Columbia with Celina's address and telephone number tucked in his pocket. He called the airline and booked a flight to New York. The last-minute flight was going to cost him over one thousand dollars, but the price didn't matter to him. He had to see Celina and make sure that she was going to return to him.
As Darius waited in line to board his flight, he wondered what he would find out about Celina once he got to New York. He'd been to the Big Apple several times but his visits never had as much meaning as this trip.
He moved through the security checkpoints without a lot of fanfare because, in his haste to leave, he hadn't packed a bag. One of the first things he would have to do when the plane touched down was to head to Macy's or Bloomingdale's to get some clothes.
Finally, he made it onto the plane. Darius buckled his seat belt and waited for the plane to take off. It seemed to take forever and he wished the plane would move at warp speed like in the Star Trek movies. Darius leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. After what seemed like five hours, he heard the announcement telling the passengers that the plane would be landing at LaGuardia in five minutes. Sitting up, Darius couldn't hold back the smile spreading across his lips because it wouldn't be long before he held Celina in his arms and felt her lips against his. What if she had come back to New York to tie up loose ends with a man? Jealousy began to make his hair stand on end. Maybe her reservations about moving back to Elmore had something to do with her relationship with this New York man.
“Stop being paranoid,” Darius told himself as he stood up to walk off the plane. Soon, he was enveloped in the sea of passengers who were exiting the plane. His thoughts turned from Celina to protecting his wallet from a thieving passenger. After all, he was in New York. Darius dashed through the airport and headed to the curb to hail a cab.
“Where you headed, guy?” the Iranian driver asked as Darius climbed into the backseat.
“118th Street,” Darius said as he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Celina's number. Before he hit send, he asked the driver how long it would be before they reached their destination. Darius eased back in the seat and exhaled an exasperated breath. He didn't want to call Celina until he was outside of her apartment. Placing his phone on the seat beside him he stared out the window at the congestion ahead of them. Darius had forgotten the last time he'd been stuck in a traffic jam. In Elmore, everything was less than five minutes from everything.
Though he didn't want to, if Celina wanted to stay in New York, then we would move here to be with her.
“Hey,” the cabbie said, “it might be a little more than twenty minutes. Hope you're not trying to make a reservation some where.”
Darius shook his head. “I'll be fine. If you could let me know when we get close to my stop, I'd appreciate it.”
The driver grunted and traffic began to move at a snail's pace. Darius felt like a child waiting for Christmas day as they crawled along in the near gridlocked traffic.
“How much farther?” Darius asked.
“We haven't even moved a mile,” the cabbie said, his voice displaying his annoyance.
Darius leaned forward and handed the man a twenty dollar bill. “If you can find a way around all of this traffic and get me where I need to be, I'll make it worth your while.”
The man took the money and smiled. “I know a great short cut. But you need to hold on to your seat.” He took a sharp turn down a side street and pressed hard on the gas. Darius bounced around the back seat before wising up and putting his seat belt on. The scenery whizzed by so quickly, Darius had no idea where he was. After what seemed like the longest taxi ride in history, the driver told Darius that they were near their destination.
He retrieved his phone, which was now underneath the seat, and dialed Celina's number.
“Hello,” Celina said. Her voice was like a sweet jazz song.
“It's me,” he said. “I was thinking about you.”
“Really?” Celina said. “Just what were you thinking?”
“How much I miss you, hearing your voice, touching your bushy hair.”
“Darius, I've only been gone a few hours. Not even a full day.”
“That's a few hours too long,” Darius replied. He could feel Celina's smile through the phone.
“How are you going to make it these next three days? If a few hours are this taxing on you, you're not going to make it.”
“I'll make it,” he said. “Or you could cut your trip short.”
“Hey, guy, here's ya stop,” the cabbie said.
“Who was that?” Celina asked.
Darius ignored her question as he pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed the driver three twenty dollar bills for the ride.
“You know what I've always wondered,” he said as he closed the door to the cab. “Does your apartment face the street?”
Celina sounded confused as she told him her place faced 118th Street. “Why does that matter?” she asked.
“Look out the window,” he said.
“What?” Celina said. “You're not making any sense right now.”
“Just humor me,” he said as he looked up at the brownstone, shielding his eyes from the sun. He saw a lace curtain move on the third floor.
“Darius, is that you down there?” she asked excitedly.

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