The Makeover (11 page)

“Besides that,
you don’t even know me.  Why would you even care?”

“You’re
right.  I don’t know you and maybe I shouldn’t care.  But I do care
to get to know you, if you will allow me to.”

It was
Phoenix’s turn to stare again but her stomach hurt as she did.  It was
hard being so close to so much raw beauty knowing she was the polar opposite of
beautiful.  She pulled her eyes away to stare at the trees across the
park, wondering if he could see into her pores, if the sun was causing her skin
to shine with its usual unhealthy shade of ashy.  She wondered if he could
smell her sourness as her mother had done.  “I doubt you’ll be
interested,” she said to the trees.

“The way I see
it, you are here on this bench, with puffy eyes that scream defeat. 
You’ve been through the worst of the worst and have nowhere else to go, or else
why would you be sitting here alone on this bench?  Clearly you have
nothing to lose.”

You’re right
about that. 
Phoenix sighed.  “But why would you care to listen
to me? You don’t even know me, Dude.”

Paulo chuckled
again.  “Perhaps I know more about you than you could ever imagine. 
Besides, are you saying we should only be concerned for one another as human
beings when we know someone directly?  I know you are a young woman who is
hurting.  I know Father God created you just like He created me, so
technically we are brother and sister.  We’re family!  You never know
someone like the way you know your own family.”

A smile began
to play at Phoenix’s lips.  “
Tell
me about it.  Sometimes what
we learn about our family can destroy us.”

“Or motivate
us.”

Silence.

“Phoenix?”

“What’s your
name, again?  Paulo?  Okay, listen, I appreciate your offer, but why
don’t we just stop doing this, okay?  Besides, I am not in the habit of
having people listen to my problems.  I am the one who studied almost
eleven years to learn how to listen.  Being a psychologist, I am the one
they now pay to listen to other people’s problems.”

“Even great
listeners and great psychologists need to get a word in too.  If you’re
holding in all the stuff they pay you to listen to, and holding in all your own
stuff, and not letting any of it out of your system, you know what will
happen?”

“What?” Phoenix
asked the trees.

“You will
explode.  And the explosion doesn’t happen like a
kaboom
explosion all the time, either.  It can happen on the inside, where all
the things that used to work well together just come apart.  And when
that
happens, we do all kinds of things to keep it all together that never work.”

“Like what?”
she asked, leaning close.  For the first time in several minutes, Phoenix
forgot the problems with her face and focused on the problems in her
heart.  She let her eyes meet his briefly before looking down at her
knees.

“With all your
training, you already know this.  We can become overwhelmed and depressed
and stop eating or in some cases start overeating.  We can stop taking
care of our responsibilities or our bodies.  We end up using different
habits to bring us comfort.  We end up in relationships we shouldn’t have
gotten into or overspend on things we don’t need.  We humans keep coming
up with new ways to explode.”

A strained
“yeah” was all Phoenix could manage.   
It took me eleven years of
psychology education to learn what he just summed up in ten seconds. 

Silence.

“Phoenix,”
Paulo’s rough, grainy, but melodious voice caused Phoenix to jump.  “Let’s
walk.”

With that, he
grabbed her hand, stood, and pulled her until she was on her feet.  Unable
to bear the tingle in her palm, Phoenix pulled her hand away and shoved it into
her pocket.  Paulo grinned as his own hand tingled.  And together
they began to walk the park in silence.  The air was thick, hot, and
moist, making the New York August air taste like soup, while sounds of whizzing
cars, booming radios, playing children, and wailing sirens seasoned it.

Phoenix walked
next to the stranger whose shoulder remained close to her head.
 Wow,
he is tall.  Cedric was tall too. 
Phoenix bit her lip to stay
its weighty tremble. 

“What are you
thinking about?”  Paulo touched her arm again.

“Why you’re
being so nice to me.  I mean, who does that anywhere in New York City
these days?  I’ve seen men walk by old women who have fallen and broken a
hip in the middle of oncoming traffic.  You see me crying on the bench
like a crazy woman and you stop and take a walk with me?  Just wondering
why, is all.” 
And this is the second time you’ve been so nice.

Paulo
laughed.  “Yes, when you say it like that, it seems…strange.” 
Phoenix saw the quick rise and fall of his shoulders.  The carefree shrug
made her relax a little more.  “Who knows?  Maybe I am just the
answer to your prayers.”

Phoenix stopped
moving.  “What?  Why do you say that?” she asked, the suspicion
causing an unnatural rise and fall to the cadence of her words. 
Did he
hear me pray as he was jogging past?

“I don’t
know.  You asked why I came over to see about you and I was just saying
maybe there is a reason, that’s all.”  Paulo stopped to look down on
her.  “Maybe I owe you for not helping you with your fifty bags that night
we first bumped into each other a couple of weeks back.  Remember?”

“Oh, that was
you?”
He does remember
, Phoenix thought, as her stomach flooded with
delight.

Paulo chuckled
as he resumed his carefree stride.  “Oh?  You didn’t recognize me,
huh?  Well, it was me.  But listen, I cannot speak for everyone in
New York, or even everyone in Washington Heights.  I can only speak for
myself.  What kind of man would
I
be if I’d
just kept
running when I pass a nice, young woman sitting on a park bench, crying her
eyes out?”

Phoenix’s heart
began a jagged rhythm.  “Nice young woman?  How do you know I am a
nice young woman?

Paulo stopped
again and turned to Phoenix with a smile that dimmed the light of the blazing
sun above them.  “Because you don’t cry like that unless your heart is
filled with love and kindness.  You have to be able to love or care about
others before you can be hurt and disappointed by them.  It’s when you
don’t cry about heart break that you become careless and cruel…bitter.

Phoenix’s mind
wandered to both Cedric and her mother.  They had both allowed their eyes
to shine with tears that they had refused to let fall.   “Bitter,
huh?”

“Or cruel and
careless.”

“He was.”

Paulo turned to
face the gravel stretching out before them.  Somehow he knew, instinctively,
that if he continued to watch Phoenix, she would again become self-conscious
about sharing the story she was determined to keep bottled up inside.

“Who was?”
Paulo asked quietly, not wanting to interrupt the flow of information.

“Cedric, my ex-
fiance
.  We were supposed to be getting married
exactly one month and two weeks from today.  He was my everything and I
mean that literally because for him, I did everything, dealt with everything,
gave him everything, and expected everything.  He was a
hottie
, that dude, beautiful copper-colored skin, muscles
covered by tattoos, almost as tall as you.  He had been out of work but he
had a college degree.  He was funny and sexy.  He adored his son and
said he adored me too.”

“Sounds like a
winner.”

Phoenix snorted
then wished immediately that she could rewind three seconds.  “Um, he
was.  He won me over.  He won use of my apartment, my car, and my
funds.  He won my trust, and my love.  He won a potential second mom
for his small son, and a won a fool for a woman.  He admitted to me that
he was using me—after I caught him cheating in our home.  He said that he
had wanted to fall in love with me but couldn’t because of the way….I am.”

“You mean he
admitted he couldn’t fall in love with you
after
asking you to marry him?

“Right…”
Phoenix trailed off.  She didn’t want to mention that her ex-man found her
ugly.  She was afraid that if she brought it up, Paulo would be forced to
focus on it to. 

Silence was held
between them for a few more minutes.  Without looking at her, Paulo
continued.  “You know I have to ask, don’t you, Phoenix?” his voice was as
soothing as freshly laundered sheets during a scorching summer night.

“Ask what?”
Phoenix’s stomach seized. 
Please don’t make me admit that my fiancé
told me I am ugly.

“If I don’t
ask, you won’t let it out of your system.  I know it hurts, but…”

“What? 
What?”  Phoenix stopped walking and crossed her arms.  “What? You
want me to say what he thought I was?  You want me to say out loud that
the man I loved didn’t… couldn’t love me because I am…because he found me…”

Fresh tears
spilled down her cheeks.  She dug around her bag for a tissue to wipe her
cheeks and nose.

“Here use
this,” Paulo said in a voice only two steps up from a whisper.  He handed
her the tee shirt he had worn around his shoulders.

“Thanks.”
Phoenix snatched the shirt and wiped her face.  She was about to hand it
to him.  “Um, I don’t think you want this back.”

“Uh, no, keep
it.  I have another one in my car nearby.  You never know when you
have to lend it to a girl to wipe snot off her face.”

Phoenix laughed
through the tears and it felt good, caused the pounding in her forehead to
lessen degree by degree.  “Funny.”

Paulo
chuckled.  “Let’s walk.”

They continued
to walk the perimeter of the park.  The soothing sounds of the birds
chirping and the silence between them soothed Phoenix’s pain.

“He said I was
ugly.  That I was fat,” she blurted out.  “He said he tried to love
me because I was a good woman, on the
inside,
but that he couldn’t get
past my looks.”

Paulo huffed
and stopped.  “Oh, Phoenix.  That’s despicable.  I am sorry.”

Phoenix was
already shaking her head.  “Nope.  Stop it.  No pity, alright,
Paulo?  I brought it on myself.  I mean how could I have thought a
man that looked like him would want someone like me, unless he
needed
something? 
He surely didn’t want me, but he did need me and I—”

“Don’t say that
about yourself, Phoenix!  You’re—”

 Phoenix
put her hands on her hips.  “You
gonna
let me
finish the story you begged to hear, or what? I’m embarrassed enough as it is.”

Ruefully, Paulo
nodded.  “Go ahead.”

“I met him just
after he finished getting an associate’s degree in bookkeeping from
Touro
College.  He had a job at Old Navy on One
Twenty-Fifth Street but was trying to break into his career.  He
approached me one day and I was so flattered that he wanted to give me the time
of day; I didn’t even notice that he refused to speak to me in front of his
friends.  I guess he didn’t want them to ridicule him for approaching me
as ugly as I am…”

“Phoenix—”
Paulo’s eyes were wide.  “I can’t believe you would say that about
yourself.”

“Just
tellin
’ it like it is, Paulo.  For some reason, I
suddenly feel okay saying all this out loud, so let me finish, alright?”

Paulo nodded as
the Lord spoke in his heart. 
Be slow to speak, eager to listen…
 

“So for the
first six months, we would hang out at my place.  We really didn’t go
anywhere together.  He would come over and I would help him with his resume
and help him send it out, make a hot meal for him.  Heck, I would even get
him clothes to attend interviews with employment agencies and prospective
employers.  Sometimes I would lend him a few dollars.  He always
seemed to admire me for having finished college, for being in graduate school
to earn my doctorate in psychology—which I am still working on.  I even
helped him by paying for an attorney to resolve issues with his child’s
mother.  She was vindictive and wouldn’t let Cedric see CJ unless he gave
her money or did something she wanted him to do.  If he was unable, she
would keep Cedric from his son for weeks to punish him—”

“I don’t
understand women these days.  Didn’t that woman know she was only
punishing her own son more with her games?”

Phoenix
shrugged.  “My thoughts exactly.  So when he would come over and
vent, I would try to comfort him.  One day, three months into our seeing
each other, I gave him one thousand dollars and told him I made an appointment
with an attorney.”

“Wow. 
That was kind of you, Phoenix, so soon into your relationship.”

“Yeah.  I
guess I always have the desire to solve people’s problems.  I hate to see
people suffering and unable to get out of a situation.  Guess that’s why
I’ve always wanted to become a psychologist.  And I’m good at it, unless
of course, I try to help myself.  But with Cedric, as usual, I stepped in
and helped.  And Cedric was so grateful.  He asked me then to be his
girlfriend.  I remember thinking.  ‘Yes, being there for him must
have made him want me.’   It didn’t.  It made him
need
me.” 
Phoenix spotted a bench and walked over to it to sit, already exhausted from
the walk and the talk.

Paulo sat next
to her.  “So?”

“So he was awarded
visitation and they figured out the child support.  He had asked for joint
custody and the judge told him they would revisit the issue in a year’s
time.  The judge said it was possible if he maintained his child support
and kept a steady home, ‘cause up until then, he had always been moving
around.”

“Well that’s
good at least.  He had to appreciate how you helped him.”

“Oh he
did.  He did.  So when we won that battle, he officially asked me to
be his girl.  I was thrilled!  Guess I thought my hard work had paid
off.  Only then, I didn’t realize I was
working
to make this man
want me.  But he asked, and we made a commitment, but three months later,
he got fired from his job.  He came in late for the fifth time in a month
after going to an interview. ”