Groove Page 6

  “Why are you getting out here?” Geneva asked.

  “Oh, I just need to walk some.”

  Geneva gave my hand one good squeeze before taking the money and letting go. “Call me later?”

  “I will,” I said as I climbed out of the cab and pushed the door closed behind me.

  Nine

  Once on the sidewalk, I felt weighted down with doubt and was sorry that Geneva had even brought up the subject of Kendrick Greene.

  In my musings, I almost collided with a couple pushing their newborn daughter in a blue and white old-fashioned baby carriage. I smiled at them and then down at the pink face of the sleeping baby and muttered, “How sweet.”

  Walking toward my apartment building, I wondered if Kendrick and I would ever have children of our own.

  It was times like this that I felt as if it would never happen.

  Kendrick Greene was the vice president of Greene Real Estate Investments, one of the oldest black-owned international real estate investment companies in the United States. His grandfather Collins Greene started the company back in 1925, when he purchased a row of brownstones in Harlem and used the rental income to buy beach-front property in his native Barbados. By the time his son, Aldridge, Kendrick’s father, had graduated from Howard University and joined the family business, Collins had amassed more than two million dollars’ worth of real estate in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Newark, New Jersey. He’d also purchased land in Antigua, St. Vincent, and Tobago.

  Aldridge came in and more than tripled the land holdings in less than five years. He also added hotels to their growing portfolio, and now Kendrick was taking the business to a new level, buying property in wartorn countries that he knew would be revitalized within the next two decades.

  Kendrick’s mother died from a severe asthma attack when he was just five years old, and the senior Greene never remarried, but he’d had his share of scandalous affairs with high-profile government officials as well as beautiful celebrities.

  I understood the attraction; Aldridge was still a good-looking man, even now, when he was just a few years from his seventieth birthday.

  Kendrick had inherited his father’s business savvy, as well as his good looks.

  Standing six foot five, he was a mountain of a man, with sable-colored skin. His forty-two-year-old physique rivaled that of a man half his age. He kept his naturally wavy hair cropped close and sported an impeccably kept mustache and goatee.

  He had the ultimate bedroom eyes, and I’d seen many a woman swoon beneath his gaze.

  Shit, it still happened to me.

  Our first meeting was one for the storybooks.

  On a November afternoon two years earlier, it was raining cats, dogs, and everything else with a tail and four paws, and there I was trying unsuccessfully to catch a cab.

  A sudden gust of wind ripped my umbrella from my hands and carried it off into the gray stormy day. My Bloomingdales bags were soaked and seemed to disintegrate right in my hands. The two new wool sweaters I had just purchased were ruined.

  I felt defeated and started crying right there where I stood. A Mercedes sped by and splashed a blanket of dirty water on me, and then I got mad.

  I dropped my sweaters to the ground and screamed obscenities at that car, and then I gave the driver the middle finger, with both hands.

  The car stopped with a screech and began slowly backing up. I just froze. I had forgotten what city I was living in. I’d forgotten that I was a woman in that city. I’d forgotten that most of the people around me would stand by and let this man in the green Mercedes beat me down while they went about their business.

  Chivalry was dead, and now I was next.

  The car stopped in front of me and the dark-tinted window came down. The man sitting behind the wheel was strikingly good-looking, and when he finally spoke his voice sounded like silk.

  “So sorry, miss. Please forgive me. I didn’t realize that there was such a large puddle of water there until I got up on it, and then, well, then it was too late.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” I heard myself say stupidly.

  “Can I give you a lift?” he asked, already out of his car and retrieving the two sweaters that sat soaked and filthy at my feet.

  “Oh, I think these are ruined,” he said as he held the soggy material in his massive gloved hands. I just stared at him. My hair was hanging in my face and my mascara was making its way down my cheeks in long black lines. I looked a mess, but this man didn’t seem to notice.

  “Please get in. You’re soaked,” he said, running over to the passenger side of the car and opening the door. “C’mon, please,” he said, and I almost melted right there, because now he was soaked through too and he looked like a little wet puppy dog. I’m a sucker for puppies.

  So I started around the car while trying to block out my mother’s voice, reminding me not to accept rides from strangers.

  I shut the voice out and climbed into the lush leather of the seat. He had a Luther Vandross CD playing, and all I could think was This man has got it going on.

  I watched him run around the front of the car, sweaters in hand. He started to climb back into the car and then at the last minute turned and dumped them into a nearby garbage can.

  “I’ll replace those,” he said as he pulled out into traffic.

  For a long time we didn’t say anything. It was just Luther and the sound of the wipers against the windshield. I finally got up the nerve to break the silence.

  “I’m sorry I cursed at you,” I said meekly.

  “No, I’m sorry. I deserved that and more,” he said as he maneuvered his car through the yellow sea of taxis. “My name is Kendrick Greene,” he said and extended his hand to me. I placed my hand in his and felt the immediate warmth. It seemed to fill my veins with fire, and suddenly it was too warm in the car.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said in a small voice. “My name is Crystal Atkins.” I couldn’t even look at him; all of a sudden I became a shy little girl.

  “Nice to meet you. So where is home, Crystal Atkins?” I wanted him to say my name again; it sounded so nice coming out of his mouth. His words were touched by an accent. I had to strain to hear it, but it was there.

  “Oh, um, One-fifty Central Park West.”

  “Good, I’m going that way too,” he said as he whipped the car through the Central Park thruway.

  I was tongue-tied, so I just played with my fingers and tried to push my limp hair back into place without his noticing my effort to do so.

  I snatched little glimpses of him, and every time I did my belly tightened and my knees knocked. This brother was having a serious effect on me.

  We turned a corner and the traffic came almost to a stop. There were two police cars and four people standing in the middle of the street, screaming at each other. Apparently there had been a fender bender.

  Kendrick laughed as we moved pass them. It was a full laugh, but not brawny.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked as I turned to see what he had found so humorous.

  “Oh, I was just thinking how funny it is that you Americans have such wide roads here and so many car accidents, and we island people have small, narrow, winding roads and we have so few.”

  “How do you know I’m American?” I asked.

  “Well, are you?” he said with a cockiness that angered and excited me at the same time.

  “Yes, yes I am . . . is that a problem?” The shy little girl in me suddenly disappeared and I had to quickly remind myself that I was not in the office and this was not a board meeting. I didn’t have to defend myself for being an African-American female.

  “Why would it be a problem for me? Is it a problem for you?” Kendrick turned his head to get a full view of me, and then he smiled and shook his head.

  “No. So, where are you from?” I asked as I slowly climbed down off my high horse.

  “Well, I was born in Barbados. That’s where my parents are from. But I was raised and schooled here. I spent all of
my summers in Barbados, though.”

  That explained the accent.

  “So do you go to Barbados often?” I asked. I felt myself becoming more comfortable.

  “As often as I can, which unfortunately is not often enough.”

  He pulled the car to a stop in front of my building. The rain had started to let up. I didn’t want to leave and didn’t want the rain to stop; I just wanted to stay there in that Mercedes with that man.

  “Well, thank you so much for the ride, and again, I’m really sorry about . . . well, you know,” I said and extended my hand. He took it and for the second time that day my veins filled with fire.

  “Well, Ms. Crystal Atkins . . . is it Ms. or Mrs.?”

  “Ms.,” I said, a little too quickly.

  “Well, Ms. Atkins, it’s been a pleasure.”

  He was waiting for me to leave, but I couldn’t move. I just sat there, staring stupidly at him, thinking about what I should say next.

  “I would really like to repay you properly . . . I mean, um, lunch, perhaps . . . or maybe dinner?” I couldn’t believe I was saying it, but I was.

  “Tonight?” he said. The word slid slowly from his mouth like warm honey.

  “Tonight? Yes, tonight would be fine,” I said, already mentally flipping through my closet, looking for just the right dress.

  “Eight?” he said.

  “Ei-eight . . . yes,” I said.

  “Okay. Well, I’ll see you then.”

  I walked into my building in a daze. The doorman said hello twice but I didn’t hear him; I saw his lips moving but the sound of my heart beating inside my chest drowned out everything.

  I entered my apartment and kicked off my shoes. With each step I discarded a piece of wet clothing until finally I was standing naked in front of my closet, grinning like an idiot and trying to figure out what I could wear that would dazzle Kendrick Green.

  I called Pam, my hairdresser. “Girl, I got a hair emergency. If you come right now, I’ll pay you triple your usual.”

  “I’ll be right there, Ms. Atkins.”

  I knew that Pam would stop in the middle of a perm, dye, or cut job at her shop on 125th Street to come to my rescue. I had been a faithful client of hers for years and had referred at least a hundred people during that time.

  Pam Pam’s Doo Shoppe was the hottest black-owned beauty parlor in the city. It wasn’t flashy with lots of mirrors or smart decor. But if you wanted your hair fried and dyed correctly, Pam Pam’s was the place to go.

  I decided on a red suede dress that hugged my hips and dipped low in the back.

  Since I had offered to take him to dinner, I figured I would take him to Jezebels or maybe Bamboo, my favorite restaurants.

  Pam blew my shoulder-length hair bone straight and arranged it around my face so that it had a slightly wild, unkempt sexy look about it. I sprayed Passion in all the right places and applied just enough makeup. I was ready at seven-forty-five.

  I had just enough time to decide which coat I was going to wear when the phone rang. It was the doorman. “Ms. Atkins, Mr. Reme is here to see you. Shall I send him up?”

  I froze. I had totally forgotten about Steven.

  Steven was the man I had been seeing off and on for nearly a year. At first he seemed like he could be the one. He was okay-looking, intelligent, and funny, and he held down a job as a high-powered attorney. But after six months I realized that his hair was receding and his stomach was growing. He began to look like my Uncle Herbert. Not that I’m shallow—I would have been able to overlook the physical if he wasn’t so clingy and whiny and if he didn’t worship me more than I deserved.

  I was still seeing him because I hadn’t been able to summon the courage to break up with him, and, besides, I hadn’t really had any other suitors.

  But Kendrick Greene was in my life now!

  “Yes, please send him up.”

  Steven was short and light-skinned—the complete opposite of what I usually went for in a man. When he came to the door he was dressed in a gray jogging suit that did nothing for him.

  “You look fabulous. All of this for me?” he said as he stepped through the door, and the smell of sweat almost knocked me over. He looked at me, his tongue dangling from his mouth like a thirsty dog’s.

  “I thought we were staying in tonight. Maybe watch a movie, order some pizza, and then, well, you know . . .” he trailed off and reached for me. Oh yeah: he was always, always in the mood.

  “Actually, Steven, I forgot we had plans,” I said. Well, it wasn’t a lie. He reached for me again; I could see his penis growing inside his sweatpants. I was disgusted.

  His face changed a bit. “What the hell is wrong with you?” He had good instincts.

  “I’m going out.”

  “Where? With whom?”

  “A friend, and I’m leaving right now.” I clicked the lights off and gently pushed him back into the hall.

  “But we have plans,” he whined.

  “Yes . . . yes, we did, and I’m sorry. I completely forgot, and this thing came up—”

  “Oh, really.” Steven watched me carefully. “This thing—it got a name?” he asked.

  “Steven, I really don’t have time to play this game with you right now—”

  “Game?” he cut me off in midsentence. He was beginning to get upset. I heard myself speaking to him in the same manner I spoke to young children—a tone he thoroughly enjoyed in the bedroom but found frustrating now.

  “What game am I playing? I think you’re the one playing a game.”

  “Whatever” was all I could think to say. I turned my back to him and slipped the key into the lock. I could hear the ringing on the other side of the door, and I realized that I didn’t have my coat. I knew it was the doorman calling to let me know that Kendrick was downstairs.

  “Damn, I forgot my coat,” I said and pushed the door back open. I ran into my bedroom and settled on a long black Andrew Marc leather coat I’d bought myself for Christmas the year before.

  When I got back out to the hallway, Steven was still standing there, sulking. He was done with asking me where, why, and what for the moment, but he would badger me for the next thirty days.

  We stepped into the elevator together and rode in silence down to the lobby. Kendrick was standing in front of the building, his back to us.

  My feet wouldn’t move pass the lobby desk. “Well c’mon,” Steven said and gently took my elbow. Kendrick turned around at the same moment. I could see him smiling through the thick glass doors, and then his smiled vanished.

  I looked over at Steven, and he looked as if someone had just driven a stake through his heart.

  I can’t remember walking across the lobby floor and out the doors, but there we were, the three of us, standing in a cluster in the cold November night.

  “Crystal?” Steven said, shooting me a disapproving look.

  “Oh, Kendrick Greene, Steven Reme,” I said. The two men shook hands. I could tell that Steven was holding his stomach in and poking his chest out.

  “Sir. It’s a pleasure,” Kendrick said in his silky voice. Steven mumbled what I assumed was a greeting.

  “Well, Steven, goodbye,” I said and gave him the “please go away” look. Kendrick nodded goodbye and we both started toward the car.

  The last thing I saw as we pulled away from the curb was Steven standing in front of my building, giving me the finger.

  The night went well. We had drinks at Bamboo and dinner at Jezebels. He told me about his real estate business, making sure to throw in that he’d never been married, although he did have a fifteen-year-old son who was living in San Francisco with his Asian mother.

  “It was just one of those things,” he said with a boyish grin when I made a face at the fact that the woman was something other than black.

  He worked hard but he played just as hard. Racquetball, tennis, basketball. He loved to fish and owned a small yacht at the family residence in Florida.

  “Enough about me.
Tell me about you,” he said and flashed that million-dollar smile. I grinned like a twelve-year-old finally being noticed by the school hunk.

  I told him a little bit about my job and he seemed to find it very interesting.

  “It must be depressing dealing with so many people and their addictions on a daily basis,” he said as he picked over his salmon. His face was solemn, and I felt my heart skip a beat. He was sensitive too!

  I had to explain to him that I no longer worked one-on-one with the addicts. I was an administrator and in charge of all the counselors nationwide. I studied other treatment programs and altered them to fit the Ain’t I A Woman system. I told him that I also put together grant proposals and wooed the Fortune 500 companies for donations.

  “I kind of miss being a counselor,” I said. “At the end of the day I really felt like I had accomplished something.”

  “Yes, that sounds like very fulfilling work. And now is it still fulfilling?” he asked, arching his dark bushy eyebrows.

  “Well, now I beg, shuffle numbers, attend parties, and beg some more. No, I guess it’s not as fulfilling.” It was the first time I’d openly admitted that to anyone.

  Kendrick gave me a soft look and then reached over and patted my hand. “Excuse me for a minute, will you?” he said and stood up and did a little bow. “I need to go to the men’s room.”

  I watched him walk away. I wanted to look away—check out the dessert menu or maybe get the waiter’s attention for another glass of wine—but my eyes wouldn’t let go of Kendrick Greene until he disappeared into the bathroom.

  His stride exhuded confidence, and I wasn’t the only person to notice: quite a few women shot approving glances his way as he swaggered past them.

  That just made me want him all the more.

  When he returned, his eyes seemed a bit glazed. He must have noticed that I noticed. “I know, I have a sinus problem and I popped a pill. It makes me look like I smoked a spliff,” he said with a laugh. I laughed too and resisted the urge to ask him why he couldn’t take the pill right there at the table.

  “So listen, pretty lady, can I interest you in shaking your groove thang?” he said in a playful voice.