PATRICIA
I sat with my iPad on my lap, one finger hovering over the button that—once pressed—would open me up to a new world of possibility. One that, while necessary, I wasn’t fully committed to actually following through with. The fact of the matter was that I needed to get laid. My regular maintenance man had resigned his post and The Yum Center—yes, I named my vagina—was definitely feeling the ramifications of this. Tim and I had the perfect situation. We were both not looking to get into anything serious, yet looking to have mutual physical urges sated. Everything was fine until it wasn’t. Missed connections turned into long stretches with lack of communication before he finally confessed that our time had to come to an end because he had met someone. And I wished I could begrudge him for finding true love, but in all honesty, I was happy for him. He was a good man—from a solid, God fearing family and he deserved someone who could love more than his dick. But what a dick it was, I thought as I shuddered at a memory of one of our last times together.
Those times were long gone and now here I was, on the verge of joining a fuck friend site. Oh, the people who created it tried dressing it up a bit—referring to the joining of their members as experiences, trysts, or encounters, but we all knew what it was. Everyone who signed up for JustOneNight.com came in the door knowing what the end goal was—straight fucking, word to Tyrese. My best friend Raquel had mentioned the site to me after me complaining, yet again, about missing that slightly leftward curve of Tim’s that always hit the right spot. Quel claimed to have heard about the site from a friend…then a radio spot, so I knew she was lying. In fact, I bet she had declined my Face Time invite during that conversation so I couldn’t see her left eye grow slightly tighter than the right—her tell for when she was lying.
After hemming and hawing about it, I decided to go ahead and submit my information for approval to join the site. If nothing else came out of the experience, there would definitely be fodder for story time with Quel and baby sis. I scrolled back, briefly reassessing the profile information before throwing caution to the wind and hitting submit. There was still a vetting process that had to happen before I would gain full access to the site, so there was a chance that this was all in vain. I also hoped that since they had their vetting process in place to weed out the pervs and weirdos that the caliber of men housed behind the pay wall would be better than the ones I’ve watched the girls swipe left and/or right on through the free dating apps. JON.com was sort of my last resort because I’d be goddamned if I considered any of this other mess that was out there. I mean honestly, what happened to the good old days when you could just go out for a night on the town, meet a guy, decide if you were gonna fuck and let that be that?
Jeez, I sounded like an old lady. Truth was…I’m old and tired and really just want a man who is super into minimal contact, on my terms. I’ve been through my fair share of men who thought I was looking for a dad for my son—I was not—or a husband to make me whole. Patrick and I were not wanting for anything physically, mentally, fiscally or spiritually, but I was for damn sure lacking sexually since Tim had left me for the love of his life. I sighed, then pressed the submit button. What the hell…nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
Just as I’d sat my tablet to the side and grabbed the remote to catch up on my DVRed shows, Patrick slinked into the room. My baby boy was all long and gangly now, no longer my little chub faced cuddle bug, so I found it strange that he immediately sat down and burrowed into my side wrapping his arms around me. I relished it for a quick second because who knew how long this show of affection would last. After a few minutes, I pulled back and stared at him skeptically.
“Hi, mommy.”
Oh boy…he’s pulling the ‘mommy’ card, so he either did something terrible or wants something expensive, I thought.
I kept eyeing him, but saying nothing.
“What…why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.
“What’s up, kiddo? I know you’re trying to butter me up, so just let it out.”
“So, you know how I really, really, really wanna see LeBron play in real life?”
“Mmmhmmm.”
“Well…Danny’s dad has extra tickets to the game on Saturday and he invited me to go, but we gotta pay for my ticket.”
“We gotta pay, huh? You got a job I don’t know about?”
“Maaaaaaa,” PJ whined, “You know what I mean.”
We sat for a few minutes at an impasse. I could tell he was fighting valiantly not to beg and it was taking everything in me not to burst out laughing. The truth was, I’d been looking into getting him tickets to this game as a reward for making the A honor roll for the eighth semester in a row. I was so distracted with work drama, however, that I had forgotten to follow up with Cel to see if she would be interested in taking him. I had zero interest in spending a Saturday afternoon watching men chase a ball up and down a court and figured that since she had created this basketball-loving monster, the least she could do was attend the games with him as well. It was bad enough having to sit through these games with hordes of uncoordinated pre-teens as a Team Mom. While the eye candy would be a perk for sitting through the professionals, if I could avoid the smells of a sweaty gym I was happy.
“How much are the tickets, son?” I asked.
“I…don’t know? Danny said his dad would give us a reasonable deal though!”
“Oh yeah, so you and Danny have this all worked out, hunh?”
Patrick nodded, “Yep, see I knew you wouldn’t want to go and Auntie Cel is prolly busy with JP, so we figured I could just spend the night over Danny’s Friday night and then ride with him and Mr. P over to the arena on Saturday. That way you wouldn’t have to worry about getting up early to drop me off over there or having to come to the game yourself.”
He sat back, with a hopeful gleam in his eyes looking pretty impressed with himself. Not gonna lie, I was slightly impressed, too. My baby was growing up. He and his lil homie had schemed their way into a pretty succinct plan, barring the fact that they made a lot of assumptions regarding how their parents would just fall in line with the plans that they’d made with no regard to anything we may have had in the mix already.
“Let me make a call to Miss Leila and make sure she’s okay with this plan, see how much the ticket costs, and then we’ll see?”
“Are you gonna call her right now? I mean…time is kinda of the essence, ma.”
I laughed, shooing him away as I rolled my eyes, “I will talk to her sometime between tonight and tomorrow, son. You already know it’s pretty much a done deal, so gone somewhere.”
“Thank you, mama,” PJ said, smothering me with hugs and kisses.
I soaked it up knowing that my time before he became a too cool teen boy would come too quickly and I should relish the affection while he gave it freely. PJ ran off, to call Danny and confirm that their plan had worked, no doubt and I grabbed my tablet to make a Face Time call. As I waited for it to connect, I examined my face in the screen—taking note of the formerly fine lines around my eyes that seemed to have deepened overnight. Thirty-fine was quickly giving way to the rapidly approaching forty and I was feeling…a bit put out by it all. Not that I minded aging because I’m definitely like a fine wine, but as the years progressed, I found myself deeply reevaluating some of my life’s choices and wondering if I made the right ones. Before I could get too far down the rabbit hole of those thoughts, the Face Time call connected.
“So did you join?”
“Hey Quel. How are you?”
“Yeah yeah hoe, pleasantries and all that. Did. You. Join?”
I nodded once and Raquel squealed in delight.
“I didn’t think you had it in you! My girl,” she said, jigging a little in her seat.
“You didn’t think I had what in me? Did you forget Tim?”
“Oh girl please, Tim was happenstance. Before him, your girl had cobwebs on her. You didn’t even bring my godson into the world via the old fashioned way and the last time you steadily talked about getting dicked down LBJ was in office, so…”
I tried, but failed to hold back a shriek of laughter at her ridiculousness. Raquel and I went back like four flats on a Cadillac. She had been my very best friend since we met in Kindergarten in Mrs. Papadopoulos’ class. She had a Care Bears backpack and Rainbow Brite lunchbox; I had a Rainbow Brite backpack and a Care Bears lunchbox so in a stroke of brilliance she convinced me to exchange lunchboxes so that we wouldn’t be mismatched. My mama tanned my hide when I got home, but it was worth it. Quel and I had been thick as thieves ever since. She knew almost all of my secrets and where most of the bodies were hidden. Outside of my sister, she was the one constant in my life that I could always count on.
“You know I can’t stand your ass, right?”
“But you love me,” she replied without missing a beat.
That was for sure. She was on a short list of few for whom I’d take a bullet.
“So you ever gonna tell me how you really found out about JON.com or are we making up a new lie on today?”
Raquel laughed and quickly averted her eyes asking, “Where’s my godson?”
Patrick happened to be walking into the kitchen when she inquired so he yelled out, “Hey Auntie Rocky” as he made his way, undoubtedly, to eat up all the snacks. I swear it felt like I was going grocery shopping every three days messing around with his hungry behind.
“Hey, my love. Come over here so I can see how much you’ve grown since I saw you last.”
“You ain’t slick,” I said lowly, “And you haven’t sidestepped my questions so as soon as you’re done with your fake fawning…”
“Sweet Sister Patty Cake, why don’t you know how to let things go?”
“Raquel Rachelle, why do you keep trying to hold onto secrets from me? You know it’ll all come out eventually.”
“Exactly, so exercise some patience, my good sis. You’ll find out sooner or later.”
I rolled my eyes and kept the conversation moving in another direction. She was being purposefully cagey, which let me know that when the bomb was eventually dropped it’d likely be extinction level event. That was just Quel’s way. She loved to keep things bottled, then over process, and finally talk things through with me way after the fact. She always needed that space to work things out and I normally granted it, but with this site, I knew whatever it was had to be juicy. Our conversation quickly came to a close, with Quel making me promise to hit her up the minute my profile was approved so we could go through my matches together.
***
Having a Saturday to myself was a rare event. I usually spent them shuttling my son to this or that event, game, or birthday party. We were on a brief hiatus from sports, however, and Patrick had been gone since last night since the Pattersons graciously allowed him to spend the night with their family. I slept in a bit, got a quick workout in, and now…at 10am I was completely and utterly bored. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I missed the boy’s presence or felt lost without him here. Quite the opposite in fact, but I’d caught up on all my DVRed shows, the house was relatively clean, and I had so few local friends that there was no one I could call up for an impromptu brunch situation.
I grabbed the remote, ready to lose myself in a Law & Order SVU marathon when suddenly I got a craving for something sweet. A quick perusal of my kitchen left my craving unsatisfied, so I decided to make a quick run to the grocery store. En route to the store, my plans were modified as I drove past Sweet Thang Patisserie. Recalling those desserts I’d sampled the night I mistakenly crashed the private opening, I knew that my craving would be satisfied. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to see that fine ass proprietor again—Devin or Darren…whatever his name was. I couldn’t remember the last time a man had set me off from a simple handshake, but that one there? Whew. I drove around the block, pulling back in front of the bakery as a car exited from a parking space right in front.
The inside of Sweet Thang was quaint and stylistically simple. The space wasn’t especially large, but the way in which the display cases were positioned made it appear larger than it actually was. I’d barely crossed the threshold when the smell of something delightful tickled my nose. A very perky voice chirped a greeting.
“Hi! And welcome to Sweet Thang, how may I assist you?”
I looked over to my right to see a young girl who appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties, standing near the cash wrap.
“What am I smelling right now and how do I get it in my face hole immediately?”
The young girl looked taken aback as the rumble of masculine laughter greeted my ears. I turned to the sound and an equally young looking—but very handsome—man answered my inquiry, “That would be our chocolate hazelnut beignets. The boss man’s pastry of the day.”
“I’ll take six!”
The young man laughed again and began boxing up my order. I was tempted to ask where “the boss man” was, but I refrained. Sure, a part of me had stopped in here specifically hoping to catch a glimpse of him again, but I wasn’t that thirsty. Besides, it’d look odd as hell for me to be summoning a stranger to say hello. I quickly paid for the beignets, thanking the kids behind the counter and made my way back home to settle in with the elite squad known as the special victims unit.