The Awesome Girl's Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men (20 page)

Angry, thick silence. Then Mike didn’t say anything else until we got to the pier a few minutes later. He got my bag out of the golf cart’s trunk and set it down in front of me.

“There’s the office to buy ferry tickets,” he said, pointing out a small gray metal building to the right of us. “You can get your own ass home.”

And then he was jumping back in his red coupe cart and driving away. I felt outraged, indignant, and righteous at the same time. But as his cart disappeared over the hill, depression set in again. And I started to feel stupid. Yes, maybe Mike Barker was another black man trying to tear the black woman down. But he was rich and driving back to his amazing house in his custom golf cart, both of which he owned. While I was left standing there alone on the dock, about to use the last fifty dollars in my bank account to buy a ticket back to the city, having burned the one and only professional bridge I had managed to make after struggling in Los Angeles for over five years.

Maybe … 
I thought.
Maybe Mike Barker was right about me.

No, you don’t have to change yourself to find an extraordinary man, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive to be the best version of yourself possible and sometimes that means being open to hearing what people are telling you about yourself. I, myself, am a big believer in not caring what anyone else thinks. But if somebody tells me something about myself that makes me so mad I wanna spit, then maybe I think about what they said a little harder, because they just might be telling me something I need to know.

—The Awesome Girl’s Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men
by Davie Farrell

SHARITA

I
was sitting at home, reading my Bible, when Risa called, basically using every cuss word the book advised against while some really loud, sad, and angry song screamed along in the background. From what I could put together, the record company not only wanted to use the bitter love song some producer named David Gall had written as the first single off her album, but they also didn’t want to release her record until next February.

“They’re all, like, ‘It’s Black History Month! More buzz!’ because black people don’t have a reputation for being homophobic or anything, and they’re really going to want to buy an album from an electronic rock ‘project’ fronted by a black lesbian out of solidarity. It’s the only way to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, right? And why can’t they just let me sing dirty, electronic rock and roll anyway? Why does every woman singer have to agree to portray herself as some kind of victim of love if she wants a recording contract? It’s so fucking unfair.”

“Risa, I can barely hear you,” I yelled into the phone.

“You’re right,” she yelled back. “I should come over. That way we can come up with a game plan that doesn’t involve me shooting up the offices of Gravestone Records.”

I looked at the clock. “You can come over, but you can only stay for about an hour. I’ve got my women’s Bible-study group at seven-thirty.”

“Wait,” she said. “Didn’t you go to church on Sunday?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“And didn’t you go to that church book club on Tuesday?”

“Risa, if you’re trying to tease me about going to church on a Friday night, then I don’t want to hear it. I’m still getting over Marcus, and I need my Savior right now, okay?”

“Okay,” she answered, but her voice sounded neutral, almost too neutral. “I’m going to be there in about thirty minutes, alright?”

“Okay,” I said, feeling suspicious. Risa usually didn’t back down this easily. “See you then.”

About forty minutes after I got off the phone with Risa, the doorbell rang and I found her standing on the porch of my little two-bedroom Craftsman … with Tammy and Tammy’s brother, James Farrell, behind her. I looked down at what I was wearing. I had just changed out of my suit into a pair of sweatpants and my USC Leventhal School of Accounting hoodie. Not exactly what I wanted to be wearing with a fine man showing up on my porch.

But then this mild regret triggered my next question: “What are you all doing here?”

“Sharita, can we come in?” Risa asked, her face grim in the waning evening light.

“Um, sure,” I said, stepping back so that they could all come in.

Thank God I was tidy by nature—unlike Risa, whose apartment always looked like it had been hit by a tornado of clutter. I led my unexpected guests into the living room.

“I’m not sure why you’re all here. But can I get you something? I’ve got water, orange juice, diet soda, um, what else?”

Before I could list any more beverage choices, Risa placed two hands on my shoulders and said, “Sharita, this is an intervention.”

“What?” I said.

Tammy gasped, her shock both innocent and hurt. “That’s why you said that James and I had to meet you at Sharita’s house right away? I thought this was an emergency or something.”

“It is an emergency,” Risa said, not taking her eyes off me.

“Exactly what are we intervening in?” James asked, wrinkling his handsome forehead.

But I already knew the answer to that question. “Wow, Risa. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to spend as much time with you lately because I’m trying to get my soul right in church, but this is really extreme. I can’t believe you tricked Tammy and her brother into coming here.”

Risa said, “Sit down, Sharita.”

“No, I’m not going to let you lecture me about loving God.”

“This will only take five minutes,” she promised. “Sit down.”

I ran a small cost-benefit analysis through my head. If I didn’t sit down, then I would have to continue to stand here arguing with Risa in front of the finest, richest black man I knew. If I sat down, though, it would only be five minutes worth of embarrassment. The latter got Risa out of my house sooner. So I sat down on my couch and folded my arms across my chest.

Taking on the demeanor of a trial lawyer—if trial lawyers wore white leather leggings and motorcycle jackets—Risa came to stand in front of me. “I am not here to harangue you about going to church. Indeed, there is nothing wrong with staying in touch with your spirituality.”

I unfolded my arms, feeling a little less defensive.

“The reason I came here today, the reason we all came here—”

“James and I didn’t exactly come here for this,” Tammy inserted with an apologetic look. “She tricked us, too.”

Risa kept going as if Tammy hadn’t said anything. “The reason we all came here is not to prevent you from being a good Christian, but from being a lonely one. For Sharita, the cultural landscape has changed, and there is something that you might not know.”

Risa held up a finger and paused for maximum effect before declaring in a tone that would have made a born-again Southern fire-and-brimstone preacher call her overly dramatic, “Sister Sharita, I must inform thee that church is the new cat.”

“The new what?” Tammy asked.

“The new cat,” Risa repeated, grave as St. Peter.

“Church is the new cat?” I repeated. “What does that even mean?”

“I’m glad you asked, Sharita.” Risa folded her hands together in front of her chest. “You know how guys don’t mind if a woman has one cat? And maybe if she has two, he’ll still go out with her? But if she has three cats, then he figures she’s a crazy cat lady and doesn’t ask her out again? Well, church is the new cat. You can go once a week, no problem. Twice a week, a
guy might think you’re a little zealous, but will still date you because you’re cute and you’ve got a banging rack. But three times a week, and that pretty much guarantees the only loving you’re going to be getting in your life is from Jesus. By the way, the same rule applies to Facebook statuses, so you might want to keep the ‘I love me some Jesus’ updates to, like, once or twice a week as opposed to the daily thing you’re doing now.”

“Wait, let me get this straight,” I said. “You all came over here because you honestly believe I won’t be able to get a date because of my commitment to God?”

Tammy looked shocked to find her genteel Southern self in this awkward urban situation. “Oh no, Sharita. James and I would never try to make you feel bad about going to church.”

“She is correct,” Risa said. “I didn’t bring Tammy here to take part in this intervention, but to stand forth as state’s evidence.”

I stared at her. “Do you even know what ‘state’s evidence’ means?”

“No,” answered Risa. “But I like the sound of it, and I offer you one Tammy Farrell.”

She turned to Tammy. “Tammy, you could get any boy you want, right?”

“Risa …”

“You took an oath, you’ve got to answer the question,” Risa said.

“Um, I don’t remember taking any oath—”

“Okay, then, just answer the question so that we can get out of here.”

Tammy wrung her hands together, her long eyelashes fluttering with pretty awkwardness. “I couldn’t get any boy …” she said.

“Your humility is admirable, but boys do like you, and if we asked a single guy to take you out, he’d probably say yes. And this is because you don’t go to church three times a week.”

I had been trying to stay quiet, but I had to point out here, “Tammy’s a former
model
. And she’s sweet and she’s funny. Who wouldn’t want to go out with her?”

Tammy blushed. “Aw, thanks, Sharita. That’s so kind of you to say.”

“I had a feeling you would present that argument, which is why I invited your crush, James Farrell, along to my intervention.”

My face went red-hot with embarrassment. As soon as James Farrell was out of sight, I was going to kill Risa. Literally kill her.

“James,” Risa said, turning to him. “Does your wife attend church?”

James looked embarrassed for both himself and me. “Occasionally,” he answered. “We’re more Christmas and Easter kinds of people.”

“I see,” said Risa, nodding like Matlock before the kill. “And before getting married, did you ever date a woman that went to church more than two times a week?”

James actually thought about it before saying, “No, I guess I didn’t.”

“And if any of your prospective dates had informed you that they attended church three times a week, would you have asked them out?”

James grimaced, but admitted, “Maybe not. Three times a week is a lot.”

“
Three times a week is a lot
,” Risa repeated, pointing at me. “I rest my case.”

“Okay, get out of my house,” I said.

Risa came out of her lawyer persona with a hurt frown. “Wait, I didn’t convince you?”

“By comparing me to a model and making James Farrell admit that he would never have dated me, even if he was single? No, you didn’t convince me. Now get out.”

I put my hand on Risa’s back and started pushing her toward the door.

Tammy followed us, saying, “I’m really sorry about this. If I had known, I would have tried to talk her out of it. But she might have a point about the church thing. Right, James?”

Another handsome grimace from James. “Yeah, I have to admit, she kind of does.”

They were ganging up on me now? “No, really, all of you need to get out.”

Risa shook her head. “See, I knew I needed a regular-woman example. This would’ve gone differently if Thursday hadn’t refused to come.”

I paused in my effort to push Risa out the door. “You told her it was an emergency, and she still refused to come?”

“Well, unlike Tammy, she guessed that it wasn’t really an emergency. And then when I told her what it was really about, she agreed with me but said you would be too thick-headed to take the intervention, so I had to make do with Tammy and James.”

I held up a hand. “She said WHAT?”

THURSDAY

E
ver since having my “better Thursday” project go so freaking off the rails with Mike Barker in Catalina, I had decided to double down on gratitude. For example, instead of missing Sharita, I decided to be grateful that I no longer had to deal with someone I couldn’t count on.

Also, sometimes things got a little boring with Caleb. Though we said we were in love with each other and spent most of our non-working hours together, at times it felt like we were somehow shadow-puppeting love, that we were the love equivalent of a cardboard cutout. But after the Mike Barker incident, I’d push those thoughts away and decide just to be grateful I was in my first long-term relationship. We had lots of interests in common, liked the same music, talked easily about our future together, which, in our shared vision, included two kids and a three-bedroom house.
I am grateful for Caleb
, I’d chant to myself when the boredom nudged at me. And I’d thank the Universe over and over again until the boredom went away.