Riding the Corporate Ladder (Indigo) (25 page)

Uncle Pete laughed. “Boy, I been fishing these parts since you was in diapers. You can’t tell me nothing I don’t already know.”

Deena thought her date would fold under such pressure, but Ron laughed, too.

“Maybe not, sir. But there is a small lake near Weatherford that’s always pretty desolate.”

“I hope you ain’t talking about Lake Weatherford.”

Ron shook his head. “No, sir. This one’s right off of Bankhead. You have to walk through an overgrown field to get to it, and the water is surrounded by trees and bushes. You’ll get all scratched up on your way back there, but it’s worth it. There are catfish so big you can stick your whole fist in their mouths. It’s a great place, my daddy’s little secret.”

“You…you said it’s off Bankhead?” Uncle Pete asked with keen interest.

“I can give you directions,” Ron offered.

“Make sure you do. Dee, don’t let this boy leave without giving me them directions.”

Deena laughed. “Okay. I won’t.”

Uncle Pete gave Ron a hardy slap on the shoulder and nodded his approval before stepping away.

Deena saw Aunt Cheryl dragging her mom through the crowd, and she took a deep breath for this, their most important evaluation. When she got closer, Mama Bernice stared into Deena’s eyes and then Ron’s, and she didn’t look at all pleased with the new visitor. She gave her daughter a guarded hug.

“Hey, baby.”

“Hi, Mama.”

She backed away and held Deena at arm’s length. “You look prettier and prettier every time I see you.”

“Thanks, Mama.”

“Who’s this gentleman you brought with you?”

Ron stood straight and tall and looked a little nervous for the first time.

“This is Ronald,” Deena said. “He works with computers.”

Ron reached for her hand delicately. “How are you doing, Miss Bernice. It’s a real pleasure to meet you.”

She nodded.

“I can’t wait to taste your cooking,” he said. “I hear you make the best sweet potato pie in Texas.”

Mama Bernice couldn’t help but smile at that.

“I’ve got a big appetite,” Ron went on. “I haven’t had a good home-style meal since my parents died in ’94.”

“Oh, baby, that’s sad,” the old woman said.

“It’s all right,” Ron assured her. “They got to see me graduate high school, and they were very proud of me. I know they’re looking down on me now, and they’re still proud. I’ve done everything they always wanted me to.”

With that quick speech, Ron confirmed two things Miss Bernice looked for in any man who courted her daughter: he was a hearty eater, and he honored his mother and father.

“He seems like a good boy,” she said to Deena. She didn’t pull her daughter aside for the endorsement, and Ronald was pleased to get her approval.

“Thank you, ma’am. It’s really nice of you to say so.”

Miss Bernice nodded and sighed pleasantly. “Let me get in here and check on my cornbread,” she said.

“Don’t work too hard,” Ron advised. “I could help you if you want. My mom showed me my way around a kitchen.”

Mama Bernice giggled. “No thanks, baby. But thanks for the offer. Not too many men out there want to help an old lady cook…”

When she was out of sight, Deena grabbed Ron’s hand and pulled him down so she could whisper in his ear. “I can’t believe it. You had them eating out of your hands.”

“I’m a lovable guy,” he whispered back. “You’re the only one who doesn’t know that.”

“I’m learning,” Deena said, and it was the truth.

* * *

For dinner that afternoon, Mama Bernice prepared a beautiful pot roast with carrots, mashed potatoes, and green peas on the side. They had cornbread, sweet tea, and six different pies. True to his word, Ronald finished his whole plate and then some. He told the family about his illustrious career at Wescoff Services and had better stories than that dusty old car salesman Sheila brought with her last week.

On top of that, Ronald had an enormous amount of jokes in his memory bank, and there’s nothing the Newman family enjoyed more than eating and laughing. Deena sat back in her seat with the biggest grin on her face as he talked. She stared at her sister Sheila most of the time, but Sheila tried her best to avoid eye contact. She looked really lonely on the other side of the table with all of those hungry kids and no man to keep her warm at night.

The only thing that would have pleased Deena more was if Sheila broke down in tears in the middle of the meal, and from the looks of it, she might have been on the verge of doing just that.

“Tell another one,” Uncle Pete said after a spirited bout of laughter.

“Yeah, tell us another one,” one of the smaller cousins pleaded.

“Well, I don’t know,” Ron said. “I don’t have too many that are okay for the kids.”

Deena poked him with her elbow. “Go on, Ron. Tell them another one.”

The room grew quiet and forty eager eyeballs settled on Ron. The computer nerd did not disappoint.

“Okay,” Ron said. “I got one more. It’s a quick one…”

Everyone smiled as if that was the punch line.

“Okay,” he started. “A lady gets on the bus one day with her little baby bundled in her arms. She digs in her purse for her fare, and the bus driver jumps back in shock. He says, ‘Lady, that’s the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen!’ ”

“Oh dear,” Miss Bernice said, but everyone else laughed.

“So the lady goes all the way to the back of the bus,” Ron went on, “ ’cause she wants to get as far away from that driver as she can. She sits next to a guy who’s already back there, and she’s fuming. The guy looks over at her and asks, ‘Are you okay?’ And the lady says, ‘No, I am not. That driver just insulted me!’ And the guy says, ‘Hey, that’s not right. You go right up there and tell him off—go ahead. I’ll hold your monkey for you.’ ”

The room burst into laughter again, and Deena never felt so good. She caught her sister’s eyes for a second and mouthed the words Where’s your boyfriend? Sheila turned away angrily, and the look on her face was worth more than gold. More than diamonds even.

* * *

They left Mama Bernice’s as full as ticks and in good spirits. When they got back to Deena’s house, she wanted to show her appreciation in the best way she knew how. And that’s when her time with Ron began to take a bad turn. They sat on the couch very close to each other but had still not reached the level of closeness Deena desired.

“Your uncle is something else,” Ronald said. He sat with both hands in his lap.

Deena was next to him, and she thought she left herself open for an arm over the shoulder or at least a hand on her knee, but Ron wasn’t taking the initiative. She scooted a little closer, hoping to make her intentions more clear. She thought he jumped a little when their hips touched, but that might have been her imagination.

“Pete is a trip,” she agreed. “He’s always been my favorite uncle.” She reached into his lap so she could hold his hand. His palm was unmistakably moist. “Are you nervous?”

Ronald blinked quickly. “I, uh.” He cleared his throat. “I, uh, I think I am, a little. Yeah. I think so.”

Deena smiled and rested her head on his shoulder. “What are you afraid of?”

“I, um, I don’t want to disappoint.”

“Why would you disappoint?” Deena asked, but she already knew: Ronald didn’t have the best luck with women. His sexual experience was leagues below hers, and he was probably a premature ejaculator. But that wasn’t the end of the world. Deena could work with a two-minute man as long as he could get hard again within a few minutes. If not, then they would have a serious problem indeed.

“I don’t know,” Ron said. “I just…I haven’t…”

“It’s okay.” Deena reached to touch his cheek. She turned his face towards her and kissed him deeply. It was a warm and wet kiss. She didn’t think he would reciprocate, but Ron puckered his lips and smooched her back. He kissed her again, and a third time, and his breaths became quickened. Deena slipped him a little tongue, and he sucked it pleasantly. Ron wasn’t the best kisser in the world, but he was eager to learn, and that was just as good.

Deena liked to be the more experienced partner anyway. She found joy in molding young, fertile minds and bodies. Anything she told him to do, he would try. And Ron was such a perfectionist, he wouldn’t be satisfied until he learned how to lick her to a climax within minutes. Deena squirmed a little as she considered the possibilities.

She put her hand in his lap, and the smile fell from her face.

Oh, no, he didn’t.

But she forced herself not to make rash judgments. What she thought she felt may not be what was actually there. Sometimes things got shifted around; tucked in or tucked under. Surely this wasn’t the cause of Ron’s hesitance, but there was only one way to know for sure.

She dug around until she found his cold belt buckle. He immediately reached to stop her, but Deena pushed his hand away and shoved her tongue down his throat to give him something else to worry about. She undid the belt expertly and popped the button on his Dockers. The zipper got snagged halfway down, and Ron didn’t make any moves to help her. Undaunted, Deena reached into his lap with both hands and worked the snag out herself.

When she finally got her hand in his drawers, Deena’s first reaction was disbelief. That emotion was followed by anger and then frustration and then humor. She broke away from their kiss so she could look down and see if she was feeling right—and she definitely was: Ron was fully erect, but his penis was no more than four inches long, maybe four and a half. It wasn’t fat, either. Deena hadn’t seen anything so small since middle school. She let go of him and tucked it neatly back into his underwear.

Ron’s face turned beet red. He reached to redo his zipper and belt, and Deena had no problems with that. “I’m, I’m sorry,” he said.

Deena didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t have anything good to say, so she didn’t say anything at all. Her look, however, spoke volumes. She shook her head slowly with pity, shame, and disgust in her eyes. How could he waste her time like this? Why in the world did he think she would be satisfied with his shortcomings? Did she look like the kind of woman who would settle for just any old dick?

Ron stood to fasten his belt. His hands and fingers were jittery. He was pale now, with a hint of green, Deena thought.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” he said again. “Sometimes it’s a problem, sometimes it’s not; it just depends on what you’ve had…”

He couldn’t meet her eyes, but his comment made Deena more upset than she already was. What the hell did he mean, it just depends on what you’ve had? The only girl he could please with that little thing was a twelve-year-old virgin. No full grown woman would be satisfied with four inches—no matter what they were used to.

Ronald fastened his belt and stood uneasily in the center of the living room. “Do yo want me to leave?” he asked.

Deena nodded.

Ron’s eyes watered but did not spill. He headed for the door, and Deena got up to see him out.

“We…we can still have a good time together,” he said.

Deena opened the door as if she didn’t hear him. Bright sunlight coated the room, but it wasn’t enough to warm the frigid atmosphere.

Ron stepped out onto the porch and turned to face her. His cheeks were wet with tears now. Deena felt bad about what was happening but was powerless to stop it. What was she supposed to do, pretend he was packing?

“Deena, we can still have a good time together,” he said again. “I could still please you. I could…”

He trailed off because the door closed on him. Deena fastened the deadbolt and stood frustrated in the living room with a sour expression on her face. This was a prime example of what she told Yesenia the other day. Finding a man who could satisfy both her mind and her body was like digging in your backyard for buried treasure; even before you got started, you knew you weren’t going to find shit.

Rather than go back to the couch, Deena headed for the bedroom, unbuttoning her blouse along the way. She was already aroused, and there was no need to let that go to waste. She had a good friend in her dresser drawer who could please her when all of the real men out there let her down. As a matter of fact, her six-inch vibrator was bigger than Ron—and that was sad.

Actually, it was a goddamned shame.

Deena lounged on her couch later that evening with Boogie curled in her lap. She stroked his curly hair complacently as she watched an old sitcom on the TV Land network. It was a Good Times episode. Janet Jackson’s character, Penny, was about to be burned with an iron for disrespecting her mother. Deena cried when she first saw the show as a child, and it still gave her chills some twenty-five years later.

The phone rang, and she jumped as if poked with a cattle prod. She checked the number on the caller ID and almost didn’t answer it. Yesenia was her best friend, but she was also a big cause of stress as of late. Deena and her homegirl never saw eye to eye on everything, but they used to get along a lot better.

Deena wondered if it was her own lifestyle that was becoming increasingly unbridled or if it was Yesenia who decided to step up her humanitarian efforts. Either way, Deena was not in the mood for another lecture.