One Safe Place (35 page)

“With your help, I think I can meet my Mama Dearest, and be ready for any hurt that might come of it. I'm sorry if I hurt you by not listening to you about something so crucial, but I have a lifetime of hurt.

“We hide our souls from the world because it will chew on us like a dog chews on a bone. Knowing this, sometimes we chew on that same bone, but we must evolve.

“We must keep decisions from being personal when it comes to others close to us. We must keep outside influences such as your drinking from having any part of the decisions we make. So, yes, Gabrielle, have a counselor from the Betty Ford Clinic come here today. If it's the right place for you, your sister and I will be there for you. Be humbled by God's light shining on you, not man's dim view. Don't worry about what the world will say. You don't answer to the world.”

• • •

Psalms had Gabrielle go out onto the deck to get some fresh air. He had her lie on a lounge chair with blankets. Outdoor deck
heaters warmed the area. He went in and changed her sheets, cleaned up his bathroom, and got dressed. When he went back on the deck, he saw she was asleep. Psalms admired her sleeping beauty. The sun kissed her while playing hide-and-seek through fast-moving clouds. He had Faelynn go out to the deck to check on Gabrielle as he left.

• • •

EL'vis was across the street on the beach working out as Psalms often did. When Psalms walked into the office, Velvet's son was doing schoolwork in the quiet room. Velvet was standing at the window watching EL'vis.

“Don't,” Psalms said.

“Don't?” Velvet's voice gave her away; she knew what Psalms meant. Psalms didn't say anything else, he simply stared at her. He didn't look at her like he was mad or ordering her.

“PB, I'm not getting any younger. I want a man in my bed that can still bring some joy and some funk to my hot ass. Seeing it in front of my face is something hard to pass up. Don't worry, I haven't touched the goods yet, or told him. But, I will if given a chance.”

“Yet given the chance you will drop your bloomers in a heartbeat, right? Just let him be. He's seen it all, and heard it all. What he has, his worldwide intellect and charm, he uses all of that to do his work. It's not him I'm trying to protect.”

“Oh, so you're saying you're trying to protect me? Well, I'm grown, thank you. Or…maybe you're trying to tell me I'm not his type and he's just polite because what…he doesn't want to hurt my feelings? I'm not his type because I'm a single mother?”

Psalms gave her a blank stare response.

“Is it because I'm not cute enough for a fine-ass man who looks
like him? What is it? Is my butt too big? Why can't you see him with me? What…am I not sexy enough for him? He only wants a woman on his level of hotness? What…I'm not hot? What? What… you don't think I can swing from a roof, or the back of a boat? Is the thought of me loving him a joke? What, what, what? I can't hump him in the cold dark water at midnight? What is it?”

Enraged red eyes and red cheeks fired across the room at Psalms. Velvet snapped the pencil in her hand. She grabbed her expensive coffee; the top popped off, and some spilled on the floor. She threw the whole cup in the recycling bin instead of the garbage. She turned away from Psalms, and looked at EL'vis across the street, kicking high in the air and spinning quickly in some form of capoeira.

Psalms said calmly, “EL'vis is gay.”

A long moment of silence etched on the walls as Velvet slowly sat in her chair.

“He fooled the FBI lie detector test too; don't feel bad.”

“PB, I, I—”

“Don't,” he said. “Don't apologize.” He walked over to her and forced her to turn her chair his direction. He squatted down, and kissed her forehead. He pulled a chair up next to her. “Velvet, all you said speaks to the fact that you're harboring negative thoughts about yourself. Thinking that nobody else is having a first or second thought when it comes to you.

“If ever someone had undesirable thoughts of you, why would you want them anyway? Why want someone who doesn't want you? I know you know better than this. You can't treat life like a Facebook status. You can't post some positivity you don't practice in real life. You're displacing some inner hurts and negative thoughts about yourself. How quickly were you ready to demonize me, or
anyone, because of your own disheartening thoughts about yourself?

“Velvet, you are a superstar to me. I see you, and I'm amazed at all that you can do. Yes, you're not the size your friend Darcelle is, but your ass is round and moves as if you can give it and take it. I'm sure that's not your problem. But mentally you seem to be beating yourself up, so maybe a little activity is in order. Not because you need to lose weight, but to feel better about yourself. You dress classy and sexy. You do turn heads. You don't overcompensate with the fake gaudy nails and makeup, and your voice is sweeter than that coffee you just threw in the recycling bin.

“You raise your child with manners, and he is well-behaved. A man is not going to run from that—maybe the other way around if he's bad. No worthy man is going to run away from you because you are a single mother.”

Psalms and Velvet sat in silence. His mind was trying to wrap his head around what was going on in hers. It was unbelievable that such a pretty woman seemed to have no self-confidence. He thought about the many times he had heard Velvet put herself down, and he felt bad he had never stepped in and pointed out her beauty.

“Velvet, please tell me about your life. Please tell me all that I don't know. Not that I can fix anything or have the magic to make it all better. I want to know your story. Like, why do some of your friends call you Skillet, and why you could own your own company, but you work for me. You had money before working for me. You told me your son's father hit the Lotto, but I'm confused about you.

“I had choices of great people to hire, but you were that superstar that said loyalty first. I had chosen to not delve deep into your past, because from the day we met, I knew I could trust you, and I've been right. My company is better because of you, but now
today, after hearing you go off, and about what set you off…Please tell me about Skillet, the woman that so few know.”

“I'll need coffee first, and I'm sorry for going off, but get me a coffee, and I'll tell ya what I can tell ya about little ol' me with the big butt, and big mouth.”

Psalms leaned in and kissed her forehead, and left to go get Velvet an expensive coffee. When he came back, her hair was back to perfect as well as her makeup. Her son was out with EL'vis. He came in and got some car keys, and went out touring the city with her son as his tour guide.

Velvet told Psalms her story. Lois Mae tagged her with the nickname, Skillet. She'd had an affair with Lois Mae's husband at that time. She knew he was married, but he'd brought the sex better than any man she'd known. Velvet's mind did the classic trick when she was seeing a married man. He'd leave her for me, she'd thought, but of course that didn't happen. Velvet had run in to Lois Mae in public and greeted her with a fake, “Hey, let's get together some time. I'd like to get to know you.” Lois Mae had thought it odd, but she was an outgoing person, and she'd agreed. All the while Velvet said nothing like “I'm sleeping with your husband.” They had gotten together, and while Lois Mae was cooking, Velvet had spilled the beans thinking she was helping the both of them. She had told Lois Mae she had been sleeping with her husband. Lois Mae almost had hit Velvet upside the head with a skillet. The name Skillet stuck after that.

Velvet told Psalms she'd grown up with men always all over her for her looks and tight round ass back in her youth, and she'd acted out of control at times. She'd taken advantage of how she'd caught men with her looks. At some point, she'd realized she was used for her allure. Men had fawned over her exceptional looks, but she'd selected unprincipled men due to her drinking.

“I drank like I was filling bottles of wine from a faucet. That's why I can tell your girl Gabrielle has a problem.”

Psalms had never seen Velvet drink and it had never crossed his mind. Now he realized he knew two women with high IQs that could both run the world, and drink it under the table.

Velvet finished her story about meeting Lois Mae. Both women realized they were victims made to behave like enemy combatants. They understood how the same man regulated them and made them helpless.

They became friends although their lifestyles were different. Lois Mae remarried, to a good man named Sterlin.

In the last few years, Velvet mixed and matched with younger men. She thought it made her feel young and desirable. Then after childbirth, the last of her self-esteem was cut off like an umbilical cord.

“Velvet, it's easy for anyone to find reasons to quit trying for love or at least trying for a decent relationship. You picked a reason that many people fall in to: it must be my looks. People assume they don't have someone because of their looks. Yet, you know how many perfect, pretty people don't have anyone, either? Just as money can't buy you happiness, neither can someone else's idea of perfect beauty bring you love. Good looks can bring you dick, but not necessarily love.

“It's still up to you if you want love, but dear, you're only hurting yourself with these young boys. You're raising a son, and you could have a son who could be thirty or so.

“That's not to say one can't have someone younger, but if that is your driving force up front, thinking ‘Let me find a younger man to feel desirable'—that's foolish.”

“Older men do it,” said Velvet. “They go find some young thing.”

“Yeah, we see that, but chasing young girls and having one you
want to be with are two, for real, different things. The older men who get a young woman pay for it with pain-in-the-ass misery. A pretty showpiece on the arm is not the same kind of pretty behind closed doors.

“If I was to get with a young chick, and I was going to keep her happy, I would have to do things I thought I was done doing. Young girls think they have the power of pussy to play games. They want to hang with other young people, and they might want you there—or not. Either way, it's a pain in the ass to be somewhere you indubitably don't want to be. There is a lot to think about when you step out of your age range when it comes to day-in and day-out living.

“Those older men have to deal with are they paying for it with their wallets. Yeah sure, there is the rare couple in love for better or worse and he's sixty and she's twenty-five, but that shit ain't real to most of us.”

“Yeah, I guess you are right on that account. I was a pain for older men's asses when I was young. Hell, I wouldn't want to live with myself back then.” Velvet chuckled.

“Velvet, you are not too old, but you have old hurts. Finding the person with a hurt you can deal with is trying times. You are a powerful woman because you have a higher IQ than most men, and you are a woman with a woman's emotions as I heard earlier.”

“Yes, I am woman…hear me roar.”

“My grandfather often told me you will never, ever make a woman entirely happy because she keeps moving the line in the sand. She can't help it because her rational, psychological, conceptual, and often her spiritual levels are always evolving and progressing to a new attitude, and changing viewpoints on uncountable subjects.

“As men, we change slower. That don't mean better, but it's just slower. You know, men are mocked, and rightfully so, when they
act as if all they want is sex and food, but sadly it shows very little depth of a man who has stooped so low in life to not seek a more complete being. Sad commentary.

“But, like I said, you are a powerful woman, and you need to act upon it by being where other powerful men are. Men will come at you hard for a touch of your power. Some men will come to get some of your power, and some for bragging rights, and some to get over on you. Some men show their asses because they want others to see who they can get, and some men don't give a damn.

“At the end of the day, they will all be the same—the good, the bad, and the ugly. You set the standard for how they go about caring for you in the long or short run.”

Velvet smiled and then let out a loud laugh. “Okay, but a woman needs a little bit every now and then, no matter what the end game is. I don't want to have to train a man on how I want to be treated.”

“I hear ya, yet I know you've met men who are slobs in suits, and some men who are so anal that you'll never be good enough for them. Some men will want to change you, and some won't stand up to you when they should.”

“I do need a man with some balls because I will run over him if he won't stand up and be a man, and tell me sometimes to sit down and chill . . .just as long as he's nice about it, and then let me—”

“Velvet.”

“Okay, I am actually listening to you, I needed to hear this. I come into this office with my son and act as if I'm okay, but I'm not. Losing my head earlier has shown me that, and I think PB—well, I know—I give you a hard time. I hate to say it, but it's true, that many days you are my one safe place where I can just be me, and not have to worry about you walking out on me, and not coming back like most men have done in my life.”

“I'm here, and I'm not going nowhere. As the song says, ‘You
belong to me, you're my family.' You know I don't have much family, so we're stuck with each other.

“No matter how young or old, whether at church or a business social, some men will have whores waiting for them on the other side of the country. Some men can't escape mama drama. Some will bore you, and some men will excite you for a while. Now, how do you find the diamond over in that sand across the street?

“Stop harboring negative thoughts about yourself. Don't displace inner hurts, and place them on other things, and other people. That drains you and keeps you from seeing who might want you. You always have to be ready for that chance. I think that was your line, right?”