~ Thirteen ~
Looking down at his phone, Colt checked the time. He was on time, but she was late.
Her being late annoyed him, because he had no interest in this meeting in the first place and was only here so that the incessant calls and text messages would stop.
Scrolling through his other messages, he noted one from Sam, asking whether he would mind bringing over some “supplies” later. She had taken a day off work because she had a migraine. Migraines always preceded her periods, and sometimes lasted throughout.
Some were no worse than bad headaches, others were debilitating, and had her confined to bed for days. Today, Colt worried, was more like the latter. Reason enough for him to not be here, waiting at a juice bar, to have a conversation that didn’t need to be had.
The tinkle of the bells above the door alerted him when Janelle came walking in. She had a yoga mat over her shoulder and was wearing grey tights, as snug as a second skin, with a loose tank, and sports bra underneath. Her auburn hair was pulled up and wrapped in a bun at the crown of her head.
She was exactly the kind of woman who always caught his eye in a crowded room of pretty and beautiful women—she was limber, athletic and had a slight air of bitchiness about her. Difficult women. That was his bad habit. And Janelle was proving to be very difficult.
“Hi,” she said, plopping down at his table. “Sorry to be late.”
She didn’t sound sorry at all.
“No problem,” he said. Then he shrugged. “So, what’s up?”
“You know what’s up,” Janelle said. Then she glanced toward the menu. “I might as well get a workout recovery smoothie while I’m here,” she said, getting up again.
Colt shrugged again, letting her know she should go ahead and do that, if that’s what she wanted. But inside, he was fighting against his growing impatience.
While Janelle placed her order, he returned the text from Sam, telling her that he would be there within an hour and a half, asking whether she needed anything else, and what kind of ‘supplies’ she needed.
Sam got her period for the first time when she was fourteen. It was weird that he even remembered that.
Colt had been playing ball at the park; the one that was closer to her house than to his, and that had a much better court. And as was his habit, he stopped by on his way home, because Ma Maxine always fed him. She would make him a plate of whatever they’d had for dinner the night before; and though he would never tell his mother that, Ma Maxine was a far superior cook. Her leftovers were so good, Colt couldn’t imagine that the food had tasted any better when it came fresh off the fire the night before.
The day he learned about Sam getting her period, he’d stopped in and as usual, Ma Maxine made him a plate. But, unlike other days, Sam didn’t make an appearance as he was eating, so he thought at first she was out somewhere.
‘No, she’s upstairs,’ Ma Maxine told him. ‘Just a little achy and under the weather today.’
Colt thought that meant Sam had the flu or something. So, he ate first, because he wasn’t sure when he went up to her room whether there’d be vomiting or something that would mess up his appetite.
When he went up to see her, she was in bed, sitting atop the sheets and reading a book. She was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, sweatpants and socks, and looked perfectly healthy. But there was a hot water bottle resting on her abdomen; one of those thick, red rubber kinds, with the white stopper.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
Sam looked up, her expression almost sheepish. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Fine.’
But she didn’t seem fine. She seemed squirrelly and evasive. She wouldn’t look him in the eye.
Colt collapsed next to her on the bed and told her that Ma Maxine said she was ‘achy’.
‘What’s that mean?’ he asked, teasing her. ‘You got the runs?’
‘No,’ Sam said. Then she burst into tears, and the words came rushing out like a confession. ‘I got my period.’
Since then, Colt could always tell when she had it. She became weepy, emotional and sometimes even borderline irrational; her feelings were easily hurt, and she sometimes said things meant to deliberately hurt his. And she got migraines.
In college, whenever she got her period, the timing always seemed to come as a surprise to her. And if her roommate or a friend couldn’t help, she often had to call him up and beg him to go out and get her some ‘supplies’. That was their little euphemism for tampons and maxi-pads, lest someone else should overhear and he get embarrassed.
But Colt was never embarrassed. He had been on that journey with Sam since day one, so by the time he was eighteen, he had been on a couple of runs already to get Sam her supplies, easily brushing off his friends’ ridicule, and chiding them for being “immature as fuck” if they ever had anything to say.
Colt jumped now, when his phone rang. Sam had called him, rather than texted back. Glancing in Janelle’s direction, and assuring himself that she would be occupied for at least another couple minutes, he picked up.
“Hey,” he said. “You okay? What’s up?”
“I’m okay, I guess,” Sam said. Her voice was weak, and quiet, the way it was when she was fighting off a headache and cramps. “But I just wanted to tell you what to get. It’s too much to text.”
“Okay, which kind?”
“There’s a pack of tampons that come with different sizes: light, medium and super, or something like that …”
She was speaking slowly, and Janelle was almost done with her order. Colt pursed his lips to prevent himself from hurrying Sam along.
“Don’t get that pack. Get the one that has only super plus.”
“Cool. Got it.”
“Super plus, Colton. Not just super, okay?”
“Yeah. I hear you. I’ll get the su …”
“Don’t get confused and get the box that has different sizes. And don’t get anything that’s scented. Those are disgusting. Just super plus, unscented.”
“A’ight I should be there in …”
“Why are you rushing me? I’m not done.”
Colt sighed silently. Janelle was paying for her smoothie.
“And also, maxis. Also unscented. Not the overnight kind, but ultra-thin, super.”
“Got it.”
“And ice cream. Maybe the …”
“Sam. I got you. Okay?”
“Fine. Good.”
“A’ight, I have to go.”
“Colt?”
“What?”
“Thank you,” she said. “Love you.”
Colt felt himself begin to smile. She said it differently these days. Or at least he thought she said it differently. He hoped it was different.
“Me too,” he said.
Sam hung up just as Janelle took her seat again.
When she took the first sip of her smoothie, Colt noticed for the first time that she was wearing lipstick. He wondered whether she wore lipstick while she did yoga, or whether she had stopped in at the ladies’ room before meeting him, to put lipstick on. Neither option made him feel any better about her.
“So,” he said. “What you want to talk about?”
“What I want to talk about,” Janelle said swallowing, “is why you came over and fucked me the day after our so-called date at Bar One and have been avoiding me ever since.”
Colt shook his head. “Let’s not rewrite history. That wasn’t a date.”
“It could have been. But you brought along your so-called homegirl. And then ditched me in the tapas place with a bunch of strangers so you could take her home.”
“Look, Janelle …”
“Are you fucking her, too? Your so-called homegirl?”
If she said ‘so-called’ one more time …
“Not sure that’s any of your business,” Colt said evenly. “And this was ages ago, so I don’t get why …”
“Is she even your homegirl? Or was that just some couples’ bullshit that you dragged me into the middle of.”
“You don’t have to be in the middle of anything, Janelle. You can choose to step out of it.”
She folded her arms and leaned back. “Why didn’t you call me back?”
“I called you the day after …”
“And not since. You think because you made one obligatory phone call after you spent the night at my house that you discharged your responsibilities as a man?”
Colt leaned in. “What responsibilities? We had sex. We both had a good time, and now …” He shrugged. “We’ve moved on.”
“Well, I’m here to tell you that it didn’t make me feel good, Colton. It made me feel used. It made me feel taken advantage of. I’ve called you several times since, and you’ve ignored me. I think you even changed your workout schedule to avoid me, didn’t you?”
She placed a strange emphasis on the words ‘taken advantage of’ that gave Colt a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. He’d never been here before, but some of his boys had. The stories were the kinds that men talked about over a few rounds of hard liquor—about women who, after they gave themselves to you, maybe a little too soon, and a little too easily, later decided that they hadn’t really given themselves to you. They had been ‘taken advantage of.’
Those three words were vague enough to later be recanted, but ominous enough that if not recanted, could call to mind a much more serious transgression. The one that rhymed with ‘ape.’
“I’m sorry you don’t feel good about it, Janelle, but to say you were taken …”
“I didn’t say I was. I said that’s how it made me feel.”
What the fuck? Was she playing with him?
Janelle took a long sip of her smoothie. Her eyes never left his.
“If you answered when I called, if you responded to my text messages, I don’t think I would’ve felt this way,” she added.
Colt remained very still. He watched her. He tried to figure out whether there were signs he’d missed. Signs of batshit-crazy.
“What do you want?” he asked her. “What can I do to make you ‘feel’ better?”
“Don’t be sarcastic,” Janelle said, unsmiling.
“Not at all,” he lied. “I just wouldn’t want you to come away from that whole experience feeling like I used you. Because nothing could be further from the truth.”
Because he hadn’t used her; they had used each other. And she knew it as well as he did.
Janelle shrugged. “What I want is, I don’t know, for you to be more … responsive. I really think there’s no reason you and I shouldn’t at least be friends.”
Friends?
Colt tried not to smirk. The hell with ‘signs’. This chick was definitely batshit-crazy.
“Sure, Janelle,” he said easily. “I’m sure there’s no reason we can’t be friends.”
“Good.” Janelle took a deep pull on her straw and then spoke again. “Just … answer my calls. Let’s maybe start there?”
Sam was in bed when Colt got to her place. She was on her side, hugging her pillow to her middle, eyes shut, her bedroom blinds drawn so that the room was almost completely dark. When he sat on the edge of her bed, Sam’s eyes fluttered open and she gave him a wan smile.
Kicking off his shoes, he crawled in behind her, curved his body to outline hers and slid his hands lower, so they covered her abdomen.
Sam put both her hands over his, and a strange tingle ran through Colt’s entire body. It felt like one of those Big Moments. Like the moment she’d straddled and kissed him, all those weeks back, and he’d known almost immediately that after that nothing could ever be the same.
This felt the same way, but different. Sam’s kiss meant that their friendship, just as a friendship, was no more, and they had crossed over into to something bigger. He wasn’t sure what this Big Moment meant. But he knew it was big.
He had almost messed the first Moment up. If he had sex with Sam that night when she’d kissed him, he would have for sure messed it up. Because he hadn’t had time to think it through, and to make peace with the decision that making love to Sam would represent. And even though he’d called her the following week and told her they should ‘do things right’, that decision hadn’t come without some missteps.
Fucking Janelle, for one thing—that was a definite misstep.
After the night at Bar One and what followed back at Sam’s house; and after the moment they had in the parking lot at Lowe’s, Colt couldn’t lie to himself. He was done for. Unless he walked away from Sam right then, tried to fall back in the ‘best friend zone’, his single days were over with. For good.
There was no ‘casually dating’ Sam. There would be no ‘seeing how it works out’ or ‘giving it a shot’; never mind what he told her at that Chinese restaurant. If he was going in, he was going all in. And he would not, could not entertain the idea of them crapping out. Because Colt had broken up with women more times than he could count, and each time, no matter what they said about remaining friends, they were just that—broken. The idea of him and Sam, broken … he couldn’t let that happen.
He had called Janelle almost before he was off Sam’s block that Saturday. He’d fixed the toilet, and was driving away from her place, feeling like a man running away from something that would inevitably catch up to him. So, he called Janelle, and asked her if she wanted to get together for a drink. He apologized for his abrupt departure the evening before, knowing that even though she had to make a show of not even considering it, Janelle was going to forgive him.
‘I’m not coming out for a drink with you, Colton,’ she said. ‘Are you crazy? After the way you ditched me?’
‘Lemme come where you’re at, then,’ he told her.
And after a long pause, she agreed, and said she would text him her address.
When he got to Janelle’s place, a small apartment in a rowhouse on Rhode Island Avenue, there were shopping bags on the floor of her living room, and the scent of Chinese food. She was dressed like she had just been out, probably shopping, if all the bags were any indication.
‘What’s that?’ Colt had teased her. ‘Stinking up the joint.’
‘Chinese,’ Janelle said, looking embarrassed. ‘It’s my weakness. Cheapo, junk, Chinese food.’
‘Mine too,’ Colt lied. ‘Lemme have some.’
Janelle smiled at him, pulled him down to her with a hand behind his neck. From the moment she touched him and he touched her, he knew she was his last hurrah. His own little private bachelor party.
‘Yeah,’ she said, lips against his jaw. ‘You can have some.’
He regretted it the moment they were done. They made it upstairs to her bedroom, where they had tumbled around for the forty minutes or so. Afterward, Janelle’s hair, damp, clung to his shoulder as they perspired, breathless, next to each other, and her almost-too-sweet perfume filled his head. When Colt made as though to sit up, she clamped a hand on his chest.
‘No, not yet,’ she said. ‘Let’s … one more time.’
She sucked him to get him hard again, reached for another condom when he was, and climbed astride him to wildly, noisily bounce out a second orgasm. The rest of the afternoon and the evening went with a mix of greasy takeout food, acrobatic sex, and very little in the way of conversation.
By the time he left in the morning, he still didn’t know her last name.
That day, Sunday, Colt didn’t call Sam. He stayed home, feeling like he’d cheated on her, and not sure he could handle hearing her voice. Later, he went over to his parents’ house for dinner where his father’s boisterous chatter drowned out the guilty and self-critical voices in his head.
Since he drank a few too many beers that day, watching NCAA games, he spent the night in his childhood bedroom. But Sam was there too. Just as he was falling asleep, looking at the posters on his wall, of the 1999 New York Knicks roster, and the one of his favorite player, Latrell Sprewell, Sam came to him in his mind, hazy as a ghost.
She was ten—they were ten—and she was sitting on his bedroom floor playing Super Mario Brothers on his Nintendo. He’d let her play even though what he wanted was to play something else, something like Doom II.
Her hair was in a single braid that fell to her shoulder blades and she was wearing denim shorts and a t-shirt with a picture of the girl group TLC on the front. Left Eye was her favorite, because Sam said she liked that she was “tough.” And Sam wasn’t tough. She was kind of nerdy, really sweet and very girly, but always wanted to be tougher than she was.
Colt had been lying there on his bed, flipping through comic books a little, and waiting for Sam to fail the level she was playing, so he could tell her it was his turn. But then she’d turned and looked at him.
‘Colton?’ she said. She smiled, her eyes soft.
When she looked at him like that, it made his stomach feel funny, in a way that his ten-year-old brain did not understand.
‘What?’ he asked. His voice sounded surly, and impatient.
She turned her focus back to the game.
‘You’re my favorite person in the whole world.’
Now, in Sam’s dark bedroom, lying with his body molded to hers, Colt pulled her closer. He slid his hands beneath the waistband of her sweats, so they rested directly against her stomach, and hopefully exactly atop the area where it hurt the most. Her skin was smooth and warm.
“Sam?” he said.
“Hmm?” Her voice was sluggish, and sleepy. She shoved her butt back against him, so they were snuggling tighter.
“You’re my favorite person,” he said against the back of her neck, “in the whole world.”