~ Seven ~
“I don’t want to go.”
“Me neither, but you don’t think we should?”
Colt shook his head. “No. I mean, why should we? It’s not like either of us even really hang out with any of them anymore.”
“That’s my point,” Sam said. “How many people are there that you’re still in touch with that you can say you’ve known for more than half your life?”
“Some of ‘em act weird around me now,” Colt said. “And Leatrice’s husband talks to me like he’s a fucking fan. I hate that shit.”
“He is a fan, Colt. He hasn’t known you since you were a kid like Leatrice and the rest of them have.” Sam sighed. “Okay. I lied, okay? I actually … I want to go,” she said.
At that, Colt looked up at her. She was standing in her kitchen, arms folded, looking down at him where he was sprawled out on her sofa, watching television.
They had stayed in the night before, ordering in and watching some B-movie on Netflix. Colt hadn’t felt even the slightest inclination lately to do what he used to do on Fridays—hit up some club, stay out late and drive home with his ears still ringing from the loud music and din of too many voices. With Sam he had settled into a lazy contentment though they still weren’t doing the deed just yet; but it turned out dancing on the razor’s edge of the possibility of sex was almost as good as going all the way. Colt looked back up at her, his eyes drifting between her and the television. Yet another B-movie was playing.
“It’s the weekend, the weather’s amazing, and I want to see our friends.”
Colt sighed.
Leatrice had been one of Sam’s closest girlfriends and part of their little crew in high school. She was having steaks on the grill and mixed drinks at her backyard bar for what was her annual, unofficial Garrison High Spring Fling. It was a mini-reunion of all their senior-year friends that Colt rarely bothered to go to. Sam made it to these gatherings a little more often than he did, including the one at the end of summer, and another around Thanksgiving. Leatrice loved parties.
As one or another of them got engaged, married, and started having babies, though, the mood of the events changed. There were more strange faces, people Colt didn’t know well, and who sometimes couldn’t separate him from the guy they saw on a basketball court on television.
“You really want to go?” he asked.
Sam nodded. “I want us both to go.”
Colt sighed again. “What’re we goin’ as?”
Sam squinted. “What d’you …”
“As a couple, or …”
“You know we can’t do that before we talk to our families. It would take a total of five seconds for it to get back to your mother, or my mother.”
“So what?” he asked, impatiently.
But he didn’t really mean that. He and Sam were both too close to their families. That wasn’t how they did things. Introducing the idea of the new Them to their families was probably going to be the relationship equivalent of a coming out ball.
Sam said nothing, waiting through his exasperation until finally he shook his head and stood.
“Okay, let’s go.” The last thing he wanted to do was spend his entire day watching her wander around the house pouting.
“Yay!” Sam literally clapped. “I’m going to shower and change. You want to go home and get ready and then meet me there?”
“What’s wrong with what I’ve got on?” Colt looked down at himself, and when he looked up, Sam was giving him a skeptical once-over.
“Okay, fine. I’ll meet you over there. What time?”
“It starts at four.”
“So I guess I better leave now to get home, and …?” He let the question trail off into silence, maybe hoping that Sam would tell him there was no rush, and that they could get there late. But no such luck.
Sam nodded. “Yeah, you’d better.”
Exhaling, Colt shoved himself up off the sofa and grabbed his key from the kitchen counter. Just as he brushed by Sam, she caught his shirttail and pulled him down to quickly kiss his jaw.
“Thank you,” she said. “I owe you one.”
“No,” Colt said. “You don’t owe me anything. I should probably go anyway.”
“Yes, you should,” Sam said. She skirted by him and up the stairs to the upper level, obviously excited to be going to the party. “Remember to lock the door!”
“You made it!”
As soon as she opened the door, Leatrice pulled him into a tight, plush hug. Since high school, she had filled out from thick into a little on the bigger side. But she was still very pretty, and still liked vibrant colors that accentuated her smooth, glowing, reddish-brown complexion. That much was clear from the orange capris and yellow blouse she was rocking. Of all his female friends in high school, she was the most outgoing, the most adventurous—the one who was always planning events and get-togethers and day-trips.
Seeing her now, Colt could admit that there was part of him that did miss her, and all their friends, and those less complicated days.
“Come in. Sam’s here already. She told me you were coming, and I told her I didn’t think Money Man Green would have time for the likes of us.”
“We ain’t gon’ do that, are we?” Colt said. “All that Mr. NBA nonsense.”
“Dang. Don’t be mad you rich and famous.” Leatrice smacked him on the shoulder. “C’mon out back.”
She led him through her living room and out onto her back deck where about ten or so people were already milling around near the bar or looking over into the backyard with a drink in hand.
“Look who’s here, everybody!” Leatrice announced.
All heads turned their way, and Colt was surrounded by the three dudes who used to be part of his extended squad—Carlos ‘Carlito’ Suarez, Rick Coleman, and Kenyon King—giving him dap, clapping him on the shoulder and pulling him into man-hugs. All three used to play on the Garrison High basketball team with him, and even while looking into their new, adult faces—and noticing slightly softer bodies, foreheads creased where they hadn’t been, and hair growing on faces that were once stubbornly smooth—Colt felt the pull, and the power of their shared history.
Once all the greetings were exchanged, someone shoved a beer into his hand, and Rick playfully punched him in the arm. Rick, who was only slightly shorter than Colt, had been the starting power forward on their team. Once almost spindly in appearance, he had thickened only slightly, and only around the middle. He and Colt used to compete with bench presses. Colt almost never won.
“Day-um! Man, you swole!”
Colt laughed. “Nah, not hardly.”
“All we need to fill out the team is Drew,” Rick said. “When he comin’ home?”
“Soon, I think,” someone said.
But Colt was barely listening. He scanned the deck and finally spotted Sam, standing with two other women. Wearing white shorts and a light-blue blouse in an airy fabric, she had let her hair go wild. The way the sun hit it, Colt saw where it was auburn in places. Sometimes, when she had too much sun, little freckles appeared on her nose, a slightly darker shade of cinnamon than her base complexion.
“You see that?” Carlito said in his ear, noticing the direction he was looking. “The gods are still Mercy-ful.”
At that, Colt’s eyes drifted to the women Sam was talking to. One of them was Mercy Edwards. She was still luscious, and full-bodied in all the right places, still dressed in a way that betrayed her awareness of her charms. It used to be she had dark hair that she’d straightened, and that hung to shoulder-length, but now she was a honey-blonde with a cute short boy-cut.
“And check it,” Kenyon contributed. “She done married an assistant pastor over there at Holy Redeemer. You b’lieve that shit? Mercy. Married to a man-of-the-cloth.”
“Technically, he ain’t really …”
“Shut up, man,” Kenyon said to Carlito. “You know what I mean.”
“Hey. You used to tap that, right?” Carlito asked looking at Colt.
“Ancient history,” he said.
“You might could crack open that history book though,” Rick chimed in. “I hear she stay fuckin’ around. Just last week …”
Colt tuned them out, thinking how similar they all sounded, to the way they had been when they were kids. How the concerns, and the characters were almost the same.
“… Samantha?”
Colt looked up only because one of them had uttered Sam’s name.
“What?”
“What you know about Sam?” Carlito asked. “Last time I saw her was when I ran into her downtown, all dressed-up in a power-suit, and …” He gave a low whistle. “… baby-girl done growed up!”
This was why not telling people about him and Sam was a bad idea the longer it went on. Because now he would have to stand here and listen to stuff like this and say nothing. At least, he would say nothing just so long as the comments remained PG-13.
“Tried to crack on her. Do the ol’ high school buddy-buddy thing. Asked her to have a drink with me …” Carlito continued.
“Did she?” Colt asked, glancing over at Sam again.
“Yeah. We had dinner, even. But, it was just one of those things where you know … I just couldn’t complete the transition,” Carlito took a slug of his beer. “From old friend to new …”
“Lemme go holla at Leatrice’s corny-ass husband for a minute,” Colt said, cutting Carlito off before things went too far. “Before he come over here and ask me to sign a jersey or some shit.”
Colt went to find Leatrice’s husband who was manning the grills, tending to some good-looking rib-eyes, that made Colt’s stomach start to rumble. He moved on, spoke to a few other folks—some old faces, some new—carefully skirting around Sam, unsure that he would be able to treat her casually enough to not arouse suspicion, especially that of nosy Leatrice, who missed nothing.
Finally having touched base with just about everyone, he grabbed an IPA out of the fridge, and went to stand and look out over Leatrice’s backyard below. It was a well-maintained property, several notches above the home Leatrice lived in when she was a teenager. She had been a little more streetwise than the rest of them when they were growing up, and her family a more recent arrival to the middle-class.
Colt remembered her mother being nervous and unsure of herself at neighborhood gatherings, and her father being the one with rougher hands and a rougher manner than the other fathers. He had been crushed on by most of Leatrice’s friends because he was younger than the other fathers as well, and had a handsome thuggishness that made women and girls alike blush. He had spoiled Leatrice and her younger brother rotten, in a way Colt figured now was his way of compensating for things that maybe he never had as a kid but wanted his children to have.
“So, you don’t plan to come say ‘hello’ I guess.”
Colt turned and smiled at Mercy. “Of course I planned to come say ‘hello’. But y’all over there in a hen session or something …”
“It’s done,” Mercy said. “So let’s you and me catch up.”
Up close now, Colt saw the signs of hard-partying. A few lines around the eyes that seemed premature for someone who hadn’t yet hit thirty, and a little bloat in the face, maybe from alcohol. She reminded him of the women he met at clubs during the season, the ones who in dimmer light looked almost perfect. But in the harsh light of the morning-after, looked a little frayed, a little worn around the edges.
Mercy might have made the right decision marrying the deacon or whatever he was. Someone who would hopefully help her slow her roll.
“What you want to catch up with?” Colt asked her.
“Life in general. How’s work?”
Colt laughed. “Not bad. Would’ve liked to make it further in the playoffs, maybe even to the Finals, but …” He shrugged.
“I called you a couple times when you were at Georgetown,” Mercy said. “Remember? Before you hit the big-time.”
He did. One of those times he’d returned her call and quickly realized she was trying to rekindle something that was dead and ashes. The second time, he’d simply ignored the call.
“I bet you thought that was weird, me reaching out. Or desperate,” Mercy said.
“I didn’t think it was weird. And I didn’t think it was desperate.” Colt shook his head.
“So what did you think?”
Over Mercy’s shoulder, Colt saw that the women had indeed broken up their little group, and now Sam was talking to Carlito. Carlito who was a solid, somewhat good-looking Latino, always pulled a lot of girls when they were in school. He had a way of looking at them that got most chicks caught up before they realized he was all sweet little lies. When he was done with a chick, he was done. But somehow, he still kept getting more.
His posture with Sam right now took Colt back to the days of school dances and girls fighting over Carlito while he grinned on the sidelines and enjoyed the show.
“I thought you were trying to reconnect with an old friend,” Colt told Mercy.
She looked amused. “Yeah. Exactly. Like now.”
Colt looked at her. Her eyes were alight with lascivious intention.
“C’mon get this food, everybody! The steaks have rested, and it’s time to eat.”
“How ‘bout we go get some of that?” Colt suggested, inclining his head in the direction of the grill.
Mercy was with Colt—together at one of the pub tables, eating their steak and salad, engrossed in conversation—and Sam was stuck with Carlito. She had always liked him, but he could never just be ... normal. And the lines he would toss out were so corny and obvious, it almost made her want to laugh, except that she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. There was a sad earnestness behind his lame attempts to get her to sleep with him. A girl could almost consider doing it just to make him feel like he’d had a win.
That probably accounted for fifty-percent the girls who were rumored to have slept with Carlito in high school. It was good to see him though, just like it was good to see them all. Everyone had done well for themselves, every single one. Carlito, despite his tomfoolery, was a successful civil engineer, Leatrice was almost done with school to become a cosmetic dentist, Rick was a lawyer, and Kenyon a high school math teacher.
Lisa was a CPA, and Mercy, apparently was a homemaker. While they were all standing around catching up, she said she was trying to get pregnant because it was what her husband wanted. She had actually spoken that part aloud: ‘Because that’s what my husband wants.”
Her husband wasn’t with her though, and Sam suspected that was by design. Maybe she had told him that it was a no-spouses-allowed kind of reunion, because it certainly seemed like Mercy was on a mission.
“I’ma take you dancing.”
“What?” Sam smiled and returned her attention to Carlito.
“Dancing,” he repeated. “You seem like you might need to loosen up a little.”
“Carlito …”
“Just Carlos now,” he said. “Carlito is basically ‘Little Carl’ and I ain’t hardly little.”
Sam laughed. “I guess I’m just going to have to take your word for that.”
“Or not.” He shrugged, and then grinned at her, punctuating it with a wink.
“Carlito …”
“Carlos,” he chided.
“Carlos,” she repeated. “Just … no.”
“No what?” He laughed, though it was obvious he knew exactly what she meant. “A’ight. So you tellin’ me you’re with somebody?”
Sam pursed her lips and nodded. “Very much so.”
Carlito shrugged. “That’s fucked up.”
Sam laughed. “Actually, I kind of like it.”
“I bet he’s a buster. Weak.”
“No,” he’s not,” Sam said, shaking her head.
“I bet I know who it is.”
Sam’s face fell. “Who?”
Carlito laughed. “C’mon,” he said.
Sam said nothing. In situations like this, it was best to neither confirm nor deny.
“I was married, did you know that?”
“No.” Sam shook her head.
“My wife … my ex-wife? Nice Dominican girl. She was friendly, sweet with everybody, always laughing and hugging people and touching them …”
Sam listened.
“One time we went to this party. Much bigger party than this one. And she was doin’ her thing, talking to folks, making her way round the room. And this one dude? Nah. Nothing. She avoided him, wouldn’t even look at him. And that’s how I knew.”
“Knew what?” Sam asked.
“That they were fuckin’. Never even saw dude before in my life. But call it a man’s intuition.”
“What did you do?”
“Confronted her.” Carlito shrugged. “Acted like someone told me something.”
“And what did she do?” Sam was unable to resist asking the question.
“She confessed. Started crying, the whole nine. She was fuckin’ this dude, and even more than that, she was in love with him.”
“Carlito …”
“Nah, it’s a’ight. But I say all this to say, that I know who you’re with.”
Again, Sam exercised her right to remain silent.
“But here’s the thing. When my wife told me she was in love with dude, I think I was already halfway out of love with her. And her telling me that was the last little push. It was dead. But you want to know the messed-up part?”
Sam laughed nervously. “I’m not sure.”
Carlito leaned in. “The messed-up part was that I felt sympathy for her. Sympathy.”
“Why?”
“To be in love with someone and not be able to show it? That must be some excruciating shit. So … if I’m right? You need to rectify your situation. Quick. Otherwise it could get painful. Not to mention, as long as I known y’all? You let it all hang out. All that love … just in everybody’s face. Like all the damn time. That shit was annoying.”
At that, Sam couldn’t help but smile.
“Anyway, all I’m saying is, if y’all undergoing some kind of relationship … makeover, or something? Just make sure you don’t make over, you know, the good parts.”
Sam stole a glance in Colt’s direction. He was still at the table, eating and talking to Mercy. He took a bite of his steak. He chewed and nodded at something Mercy said, and then, seeming to feel her stare, looked over at Sam. Their eyes locked for a few moments and then he smiled at her.
“That’s good advice, Carlito,” she said airily.
“Carlos.”