Nice. Keeping My Thumbs Bended.

Chapter Two

"See you on the other side." I waved to Paul and Priscilla as they disappeared down the ramp. Over her shoulder, Priscilla blew me a kiss, then wrapped her arm around Paul. Hip-to-hip, they took their place among the other Gold Pass first-class customers. They took their seats. My first-class seat.

Why was I complaining? Let Priscilla have it. It was going to take more than money to bring some class to that woman. I loved Paul like a brother. He was my teammate, my drinking buddy, my confidant. There wasn't anything I wouldn't do for him...except tell him the truth about his lady.

Correction. His wife. Priscilla was his wife now. He wouldn't believe me if I told him anyway. Or maybe he would believe me and wind up hating me for forcing him to see the truth. If I were in Paul's shoes, I don't know if I could choose between my woman and my best friend.

So I was going to do what all best friends do when they know their best friend has gotten involved with a skank. I was going to keep my mouth shut and run interference the only way I knew how.

I was the best man at the wedding. Standing there, dressed to kill in my tux, I hadn't felt like the best. I'd felt like a fraud. What else could I feel when I was burning with the secret that just the night before, the love of Paul's life had tried to hit on me? It was more than a hit. The woman had thrown herself at me like an all-out body block.

We'd all been drinking. Maybe a little too much. But Priscilla wasn't that drunk. I'd seen her put away more than that and still be able to walk a straight line. Hell, the fact that she could drink like a fish was one of the qualities that had attracted Paul to her.

I wonder how cute that upturned nose and upturned glass are going to be three months from now when Priscilla gets tired of playing the happy homemaker. She was only interested in Paul's ball-playing ability long enough to get him to the altar. After the ring was on his finger - more like through his nose - she made it clear that she wasn't going to follow the Steeldogs from country to country to support her man.

What kind of a woman who knows nothing about football and cares even less winds up marrying a football player? It was Paul's entire life. He ate, breathed, slept, and spat football. I don't know how he's going to take it when the glow of Priscilla's beauty wears off and he realizes that they have nothing in common.

"Quite a handful," I remarked as they were leaving - that's what Priscilla was going to be.

My statement drew the attention of Goldilocks and the two bears standing ahead of me in line. Well, not really golden. Her microbraids were actually a shade between honey and caramel.

"He needs his behind tanned," she snapped. Then, a funny look crossed her face. Not funny ha-ha. There was nothing amusing about her face. It was rather compelling. The kind of face that made you want to study it, to indulge in all of its nuances - from the rough heart shape to the high cheekbones and the high-arched eyebrows. Full lips painted a shade too dark with a hint of gloss. Other than that, no other makeup than I could tell. Even this early, the weather was too hot for all of that foundation, mascara, eye shadow, and whatever else women were using these days to give that "unmade-up" look.

The look that crossed her face was one of disbelief. She hadn't meant to say what she'd said out loud. The way she bit her lip afterward made me think that she'd recall the words if she could. Her jaw snapped shut. I could almost hear her teeth click together, the muscles in her cheeks working in tiny spasms. She glared at the squalling kid behind us.

Now that she drew attention to him, he was loud. I guess I'm lucky. After playing in a few stadiums where the acoustics could be deafening, I've trained myself to tune out just about anything. With seconds to go, a game-breaking catch on the line, I couldn't afford to be distracted by every peep and squeak from the crowd.

When the time has ticked down to the last second and you've got the game-winning ball in your hands as you're dancing the victory dance in the end zone, that's the time to let the crowd noise wash over you. Nothing like ten thousand individuals screaming your name in frenzied adulation to get your attention.

Or the soft voice of a single, pretty woman. A pretty woman gets my attention every time-whether she is screaming my name or not.

"That, too. But I was referring to...to the teddy bears."
I ad-libed. I'd started to say that I was referring to my friends who'd just boarded the plane. But they were no longer my point of focus.

The cafe au lait beauty with the chocolate-drop eyes had my full attention. I wondered about her situation. Where was she going? Who were those bears for? Her kids?

"Oh, I knew that," she said, lifting her chain. Several stray braids fell from their clip and landed across her cheek and eyes. She blew them back, ineffectively, and tried to reach up with her shoulder to brush her hair aside. Her hands were full.

"Need some help with those?" I offered. My hand twitched, as if fighting the urge to reach around the girl in the faded college sweats and brush at Goldilock's cheek.

"No. I think I've got it. Thanks."

She turned her back to me, maybe too abruptly, and sucker punched the college student with the bear's foot. The student clutched her stomach and groaned.

Laughter bubbled inside me, causing my lips to twitch and my eyes to tear. I hadn't seen this good a performance since my junior high school, most losing season, basketball days.

To set a pick or try to draw an international foul, we'd had to put on some wonderful performances. If an offensive player came within inches of touching us, we'd had tacit permission from the coach to fall to the gym floor and writhe around as if we'd been hit by a freight train.

I'd taken a fall so many times that my junior high school photo had beside it Jack "The Splat" Deneen. Being big and clumsy on the basketball court wasn't an asset. It hadn't taken me long to switch teams as soon as the season changed. I'd tried out for junior varsity football and found my calling intentionally knocking the other kids flat.

Now I was a big-time star wide receiver for the Ghanaian Steeldogs. No longer Jack the Splat. I'm known around Africa and beyond as J.D. "Flash" Deneen. And all the girls who wouldn't look my way in high school are tracking me down, giving me offers that would make Hugh Hefner blush. I can't seem to beat them off with a stick. Not even the married ones. Which is why I was in this mess in the first place.

I couldn't keep ducking Paul and Priscilla. How many times could I use car trouble as an excuse for running late? Trying to avoid Priscilla had almost made me miss my flight today. She was tenacious, insistent. She won't be satisfied until she gets into my pants. Not this time. She'll just have to settle for getting into my airplane seat.

Maybe I should thank Priscilla. If it hadn't been for her, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet Goldielocks. She played it coy. Pretending that she didn't notice me noticing her. That's fine. I'll play that game for now, we may be working from different rule books, but the game's all the same. Both of us looking to make the big score.

The gate agent moved the cords, and I inched a little closer. That is, I could have gotten closer if the college student hadn't suddenly let several of her friends cut in line. They came from out of nowhere, slinging backpacks and sporting equipment. Suddenly, I was ten people deep and I saw my chance to strike up another conversation with Goldilocks slipping away.

Goldilocks moved slowly, carefully down the ramp. Those bears must have gotten too heavy to carry. She was holding them high enough off the ground to keep the big bear feet from dragging. Her back was straight; her shoulders were slightly raised when she planted her hands on her hips. There was a slight sway to her full hips and I wondered if it was natural or whether the enticing sway was a show for my benefit.

Slinging the strap of my carry-on over my shoulder, I started down the ramp with the rest of the passengers. I didn't get very far. There was a bottleneck just before the entrance to the plane. This always happens when passengers have trouble getting settled in their seats.

I was almost willing to put money on who was holding up the line. Yep. There she was, standing with her back against the wall. The bears were sitting on either side of her like bodyguards protecting royalty. Her head was tilted back, exposing a neck adorned with a slender beaded chocker made of irregularly shaped natural pearls.

As I moved closer, I saw what had made her stop. She lifted a small, white vial to the corner of her eyes and allowed a few clear drops to splash against them. A few drops missed and rolled down her cheeks. She fanned her face with her hand and used the back of her wrist to dab at her eyes and cheeks.

I must be one of the few men under thirty who never leaves the house without a handkerchief. I have my grandfather to thank for that. Nobleton Deneen was a gentleman's gentleman. Born on a sugercane plant in Puerto Rico, he'd immigrated to America in the late thirties. Even when all of America was coming down around his ears in a rain of rubble and shrapnel, he'd maintained his dignity. According to one of his wartime stories, his hanky did everything from staunch the flow of blood from a gut wound to strain the impurities from the last potable water left in the city. God's honest truth, he insisted.

If I could use my hanky to attract the attention of a pretty girl, that was good enough for me. Whatever airline fates there were gave me another chance to meet up with her again, and I wasn't going to let the opportunity pass me by a second time.

"Here you go."

I placed one hand on her shoulder and with the other dried her face with a handkerchief.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

She jerked away from me. Her dark eyes flashed, warning me that perhaps I'd stepped over an invisible, but mutually understood line. I could see her position. She was a woman traveling alone. I was a strange man who'd stepped too close for comfort. I could be anyone.

Strangers flirting in line is one thing. Deliberately, openly touching without permission said something else altogether. It made her throw up her defenses.

"Oh, it's you." Relief flooded her face.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I just got a little something in my eye."

"Here. Take this."

"A handkerchief?" She sounded surprised.

"Its clean," I assured her, and gave my most disarming smile.

"And pressed." She wiped away the contact lens solution, examined the handkerchief, then offered it back to me.

"No, that's all right. You can keep it."

"I suppose it's not so clean now."

"That's not how I meant it."

"Thank you." Her voice was honey sweet, with a hint of a slow, Ghanaian drawl. I could bet my life she isn't ghanaian. I found that some ghanaian women may talk slow, but don't let that fool you. Their minds are lightning quick. I believe they speak slowly, softly, to gather their thoughts. And while they're gathering themselves, they're reeling you in.

My mother is a very soft-spoken woman from Ghana. Yet, just try to beat her at a game. She would supply the answer while we were still trying to figure out the question.

"My pleasure," I continued, gesturing toward her bears. "Are you sure I can't help you with those?"

"Maybe I could use a hand. They're heavier than I thought they would be."

"Birthday present for some lucky kids?" I asked, blatantly fishing.

She smiled. I noticed that she tactfully avoided answering my question. She was going to make me work for every scrap of information.

As she indicated one of the bears to pick up, I did some junior sleuthing and checked out her hands.

One gold ring with an ankh symbol was on the index finger on her right. On her left hand was a bracelet matching her choker. Nothing on the ring finger of her left hand. Perfect manicure, not too long.

All the signs of being well taken care of, but nothing to tell me if anyone, other than herself, was doing the caring. If there was a man in her life, he hadn't put a ring on her yet.

"At least we don't have to walk far. I'm in row nine," she said, squeezing through the narrow entrance.

On my left, I heard pilot activity in the cockpit. On my right was the cabin entrance through first class. Paul and Priscilla were sitting in their seats a few rows back. They must have convinced one of the passengers to switch after all. Paul saw me first.

"Priscilla! Quick! Give me the camera," he said, jostling Priscilla's arm. "You wait until I tell the rest of the team about this one. They'll never believe me. I've got to have a picture of this."

He held up the small, silver-toned digital camera to his eye. The light flashed, making small dots dance before my eyes.

"I'll take my blackmail money in small bills." Paul grinned at me and slapped me on the back as I passed by.

"Sweet J.D. Always the gentleman." Priscilla added. She touched the ultrasleek, sophisticated chignon coiled at the base of her slender neck. For a minute, my mind did a fast backtrack, remembering how she'd pulled the pins from her hair and tossed the peroxide platinum curls over her shoulder. The locks had tumbled down her shoulders, almost to her waist, barely covering the surgically augmented breasts she'd bared for me.

I hadn't felt very much like a gentleman, then. I'm only human. When a beautiful woman touches me with intent to arouse, I'm not going to disappoint her. But Paul had been my best friebd since I moved permanently to Ghana, since I joined the team. I wasn't going to let my best friend and teammate down. When Priscilla threw herself at me, that was one pass I had to fumble.

"That's me, a gentleman." I replied.

I felt Priscilla's eyes boring into my back. Two cold, blue pinpoints of light zeroed in on my spine and pushed me past the first-class passengers.

The line stopped moving as the passengers ahead of us stuffed their carry-on bags into overhead bins. Babies cried, cell phones rang with last-minute calls, and the warm staleness of air yet to be circulated worked its way into my head. I could feel the beginnings of a headache throbbing at my temples.

The man ahead of us tried to jam an overstuffed carrier on wheels into the overhead compartment. Goldilocks turned her head to avoid being elbowed. He continued to grunt and strain, despite the flight attendant's gentle reminder over the intercom.

"Passengers, if you have found your seat assignments, please clear the aisle so that others can pass. If you need any assistance, press the call button located in the panel above your seats. Thank you for your cooperation."

The struggling passenger jostled Goldilocks, pushing backward into me. The bear stopped our bodies from making contact. She turned her head to look back at me, her expression a delicate mixture of irritation and apology. Still, he kept cramming, ignorant that he'd nearly given her a goose egg in the middle of her forehead.

I'd had enough. I shifted the bear to my right arm, reaching above both their heads, and slammed the compartment shut. The resulting sound echoed through the cabin. For a moment, it seemed as though a hush fell over the passengers. Heads turned to stare at us.

The passenger glanced up at me. Dark, red-rimmed eyes sized me up and considered whether it would be worth it to say something about me taking matters into my own hands. I lifted my chin and narrowed my eyes, in effect issuing my own challenge. "Whassup, man?"

"Thanks." He muttered, then scooted out of the aisle. His head barely touched the button panel as he moved toward the window seat. He didn't say another word, didn't even make eye contact with me again as I continued down the aisle.

The rest of the passengers let out a collective sigh as the conversational buzz picked up again.

"Here we are," Goldilocks said. "Seats A, B, and C."

"You've taken all three?"

"Does it make sense for me, after all I've been through to stuff those bears up there?" She lifted a finely arched eyebrow at me.

"No, I guess not." I remarked, plopping Papa Bear in a seat. She slid him over, saying. "Grandpa always gets the window seat." She placed the mama bear in the middle and took the aisle seat herself.

"Thanks for the help, mister."

"Anytime." I paused, thinking maybe I should say more. At least tell her my name. Find out hers. Find out where she's going, and how I can get there too. I wasn't ready to leave her just yet.

The lady behind me rushed my schedule. She cleared her throat loudly and said, "Some people would like to get to their seats before the plane takes off."

"See you on the other side," I said to Goldilocks before moving on. Hopefully, my smile and the memory of my kindness would be enough to hold her attention, her interest in me until we landed. I wanted her thinking about me the entire trip. I wanted her thinking just as hard as I knew I was going to be thinking about her. And I didn't even know her name.

Two hours to Lagos and I was going to be fixated on a nameless woman - the woman with two tall bears and the honeyed smile.

Five rows back and one row over I found my seat. It was on the aisle. Usually, I prefer the window. I like to stare into the clouds and go over plays in my head. I couldn't be picky this time. The young man sitting in my window seat had already settled in. He leaned his head agains a scrunched-up jacket and snored softly, a faint whistling through his nose and throat that was just enough noise to add to the pounding gaining strength at my temples.

I reached up and placed my own bag in an overhead compartment. As I prepared to close it, I felt several pairs of eyes staring at me, waiting to see if I would have another slamming fit.

Part of me wanted to give them the show that they wanted. After all, I was a performer. I get off on being a crowd pleaser. The other half didn't want to give them the satisfaction of thinking they were in the presence of an angry man.

The overhead compartment closed with a barely audible click and I took my seat. As keyed-up as I was, it would take some time to relax, so I crossed my arms. It was warm on this plane. I looked over one shoulder, then over the other at the guy snoring soundly beside me.

Assuming that curiousity about me had faded, and no one was watching, I raised both arms high over my head as if to stretch, then took a quick whiff. Just checking. I couldn't get close to the lady if the smell was going to drive her back. So far, so good, it was just dampness, no odor. I didn't know how much longer it would hold out, so at the first available opportunity, I meant to slip into the lavatory and see about freshening.

The flight attendants in navy blue uniforms and sensible heels sashayed past, counting heads and checking overhead bins. Sleeping Boy next to me had the right idea. My eyelids felt slightly grainy as I allowed them to close.

Chapter 2 on my blog: http://lolatellsatale..co.uk/2013/06/chapter-two.html?m=1

Chapter 3


"See you on the other side," he said, then touched my shoulder in passing. My heart skipped up into my throat, beating so loudly that I didn't trust myself to speak. So I just nodded, and made myself extremely occupied with adjusting the seat-belt buckles on my bears.

Did he notice how he affected me? Could he tell how my fingers shook? They didn't feel like my own hands.

. . .Come on, Priye. Get a grip on yourself, girl. He wasn't all that. He probably didn't even mean to touch your shoulder. It was an accident, an incidental touching as he grabbed the back of the seat. . .

Hoping that I wasn't being too obvious, I waited until there was a small break in the flow of traffic up and down the aisle, then plucked a glossy airport merchandise magazine from the seat pocket in front of me. A single flick of the wrist and oops! How clumsy I was. I reached down to retrieve it. And if I happened to catch a glimpse of those gorgeous sculped buns as he walked way, then so much the better.

My head leaned over the armrest, turning a fraction to the left to see if I could locate where he was sitting.

"Here yoi go, ma'am."

Before I could get a good look, a flight attendant dropped down with his saccharine, practiced smile and blocked my view. He passed the magazine back to me.

"Thanks." My expression was as bland as my tone. I may have missed the booty shot, but my maneuver wasn't a total loss. I knew where he was sitting. Just a few rows back on the opposite side. Another quick glance back. I didn't want him to know that I knew where he was. I didn't want him to know that I was interested enough to pull a cheap stunt like butt-watching.

His long arms were folded behind his head. His eyes were closed. Could he be asleep already?

Well, there went that foolish female fantasy that I had. The one centered around desire that he couldn't take his eyes off me. All women have had them. The magic moment when the man of your dreams, your true love, your soul mate, catches your eye from across the room. Suddenly, the rest of the room looses focus, like someone has smeared petroleum jelly all over the camera lens. Violins start to play, and you start toward each other in super-slow motion. The next thing you know, you're running hand in hand on a lush tropical island, splashing through crystal clear waters making waves against sand so sparkling, it could be made of crushed diamonds.

Like in a Destiny Child's video, the wind machine blows your hair back in the perfect direction. You've got the perfect perm. Not even the waters of the Carribean can kink it up. Your bathing suit is the perfect color, a perfect fit. As you run along the water's edge, the strategically placed thong stays in place, no matter how hard you jiggle. No stretch marks. No love handles. No cellulite. You don't even need a cover-up.

Ahhh...my perfect fantasy was blown to bits by one simple fact. The black American wasn't interested in me. He was just being polite - or, at the most, flirtateous.

I blew out a disappointed breath and tried to stare out the window to lift my spirits, so to speak. It wasn't easy being on the aisle seat. I had to crane my neck to see around the bears. I'm the opposite of most white-knuckle fliers. Most folks who are afraid of flying don't want to be reminded that they're on an airplane. They'll drink themselves into a stupor, listen to statickly headphones, or endure crappy movies to avoid feeling like they're thousands and thousands and thousands of miles above the ground.

I don't like to fly, either. To be more accurate, flying doesn't bother me nearly as much as the alternative - which is plummeting to the ground in a fiery ball. It's the fear of crashing that gets me all worked up when I get onto an airplane. I like the window seats. As long as I can see blue skies, fluffy white clouds, I'm okay. I tell myself that God's up here in Heaven. Any place He chooses to hang out is okeydokey, fine with me.

As the plane taxied to the runway, the flight attendants went through the emergency procedures in what looked like a cross between directing traffic and a contest.

As if I were preparing for a test, I listened to every word, repeating them softly to myself. I wondered what the airline's policy was on women, children, and teddy bears going first if something did happen on the plane. I snickered as I imagined the faces of the emergency medical response team standing ready at the bottom of the escape chute as the bears came sliding toward them.

My grin quickly faded as the captain came over the intercom and gave us the flight expectations - travel time, arrival time, and weather conditions of the destination city. The flight was delayed, the destination time was going to be delayed, and worse than that...sounded like there would be rough weather ahead. A few thunder boomers, the captain told us. He had every confidence that we should be able to get through the storm by climbing over it.

Bad idea, I thought. To do that, we would have to go closer to the storm. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the more prudent course of action to try to get away from the danger?

Thirty minutes into the flight, we hit it. The first wave of storm clouds. My fingers clasped the arm rest. I gritted my teeth so tightly that my jaws ached.

The engines whined as the plane banked to the right anf my cup of mostly watered-down ginger ale slid to the carpeted floor. It rolled out of sight. I think I heard a plastic crush as though it met an untimely demise beneath the heel of someone's shoe.

"Please, God."

I prayed not because I thought I was going to die. The way my stomach was heaving, I almost thought I'd prefer to die. I prayed not to be ill and embarrass myself in front of everyone. The sound of someone else on the flight retching started a chain reaction of my own gastric juices, making me clamp my hand over my mouth.

"Please, sir. You'll have to return to your seat."

Someone tried to make it to the bathroom?

"For your own safety, please remain seated until the captain turns off the seat-belt required signs."

"Please, miss. My...uh...my wife is up there, and she's deathly afraid of flying. I have to go to her."

That sounded like. . .it was! I looked over my shoulder to see J.D skirting around the attendant. He was heading my way.

The plane took another unexpected dip, causing him to pause and hold on to the seats, one on either side of him, as he made his way toward me.

"Don't tell me that a big strong fellow like you is afraid of flying." I tried to sound flip and saucy. But I was the one who was afraid. Scared spitless. I'm sure he saw that in the creases between my brows and the hole I'd almost chewed into my bottom lip.

"Nope. Just need someone to hold the bag while I puke my guts out. I thought since I carried your bears, you'd be willing to return the favor."

I'm sure in the history of pickup lines, his would never make the books. But who could be picky at a time like that?

"Are you all right?" He asked, scooting past me. I unbuckled Grandma Bear's seat belt and shoved her over to make room for him.

"Just peachy," I said breathlessly.

"You're a terrible liar, Peaches," J.D retorted. He clasped his hand in mine and gallantly pretended not to notice it was ice cold.

"Jack Deneen." He introduced himself, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. "My friends call me J.D."

"Priye. Priye Cole."

"Pleasure to meet you, Priye," he said, pronouncing my name in a funny way and somehow made me believe that he'd be pleased to be sitting next to me even if the plane was going down in flames. A direct look. An open, honest, appraising look that swept over me from my tinted roots to my crossed legs.

"That's a very beautiful name." He tilted his head toward the bears. "Then again, I'm sure it fits the subject."

The plane jolted, sending Granda Bear bonking softly down on J.D.'s head. I tried not to giggle. This wasn't funny. We could all die. The plane could crash. If the man was going to die, let him die with some dignity.

"Not that I'm complaining, J.D., but before you buckle your seat belt, do you think you could turn granny bear around?"

"Excuse me?"

"Reposition her." I continued. It's bad enough that they have to share a seat, but the way he'd placed Grandma Bear on top of Grandpa's, well. . .it looked. . .it looked. . .it looked obscene. Like the bears were trying for a membership in the mile-high club. Dressed as the bears were, looking so much like my grandparents, it hurt my brain to think that they would still be interested in sex.

"Do you want me to turn her around?" J.D suggested reaching for the buckle.

"No!" Grandma sitting on Grandpa's lap? The plane thumping up and down like a pogo stick. No, that would be even worse. "Never mind. Just leave her where she is."

"Are you sure you're all right?" Even his frown of confusion at my obvious, nutcase ranting onlu ehanced his handsome face.

"Not really. I'll feel a lot better when we fly out of this storm."

"Talk to me, Priye. Maybe that'll take your mind off of this storm."

"I really don't feel like talkinh." I insisted. I'd rather listen to him talk. The sound of his voice was deep and rumbling, not unlike the thunder I imagined shook the clouds. I liked the way my name looked on his lips - a soft pucker, a prelude to a kiss. I wouldn't think about the flight at all if he would just keep talking to me.

The plane banked to the left. I could hear the change in the engines as we gradually made our descent.



***************************************



Too soon. The flight was over much too soon and I still didn't know any more about her than I did before. I have her name. But not much more than that. She was afraid of flying. Who wouldn't be after a bumpy, gut-wretching flight like that?

She wore vanilla musk and minimal makeup. But there's so much more I wanted to know. If I didn't do something fast, she was going to walk off this plane and away from me forever.

A few more minutes. I just needed a few more minutes with her. My mind raced as the plane left the runway for the loading ramp. If I couldn't get much out of her in two hours of the flight, how was I going to get anything of substance from her in five minutes?

"I'm going to hang out here for a while, so if you want to go back to your seat. . ." Priye left the sentence unfinished, but her meaning was clear. She was dismissing me.

"Do you need any help getting your bears off the plane?" I wanted to see who was there waiting for her. A passel of kids? An anxious husband? A representative from the overstuffed toy convention?

"You don't have to do that. My relatives are waiting for me." She held out her hand. "It's been a pleasure, Jack Deneen."

Her tone was polite and dismissive at the same time. What else could I do but take what crumb she offered and move on? Chalk this up to just another chance meeting - two people who briefly touch each other's lives then move on, never to meet again.

We stood there. All around us, people prepared to leave. I heard sounds of relief that this unpleasant flight was over. But I wasn't ready to let go. Call it instinct. Call it ego. If I didn't push the bounds of the socially acceptable conversations, this woman would walk away from me.

I used the proximity of the overhead bins to lower my face toward her. Brash. Bold. I was going to kiss her goodbye. I rationalized that the illusion of the near-death experience entitled me to a kiss. A small one. A peck on the cheek.

Her dark eyes widened. Was she surprised? Maybe. Willing? I hoped so. I leaned even closer, confident that by now she knew what I wanted, what I intended to do.

But she performed an emotional reversal on me and withdrew her hand. She stepped backward across the aisle, murmuring something about not blocking the way for other passengers.

I hoped that she didn't see the disappointment in my face. No, I take it back. I hoped she did see. I wanted her to know how she affected me. I wished I knew why she affected me. Why was I so fixated on this woman?

I had thousands of screaming female fans. Any one of them would give close to anything for this opportunity. Egostical? Perhaps. Truthful? Definitely. I'm a wanted man. But not, apparently, by Priye Cole.

To avoid more awkward moments for us both, I returned to my seat and retrieved my overnight bag. I toyed with the idea of waiting for her, of not leaving the plane until she did. It could have the opposite effect. It could tick her off, make her call security to detain me if she thought that I was harrassing her.

Strengthening my resolve not to appear desperate and pathetic, I slung the bag's strap over my shoulder and stepped back into the aisle. The plane noise had hushed. The voices of the flight crew drifted back.

A few more steps and I would be even with Priye's seat. A few more, just a few more. Almost there. Keep it cool.
. . .Its obvious that she's not interested, let it go. . .

"Can I have your phone number? Call you while you're in town?"

I paused and looked around me, as if wondering if a ventriloquist had thrown his voice to come out of my mouth. I had no intention of asking her for her phone number - the last act of a desperate man, sounding this close to begging.

She looked at me and offered the kind of smile that someone gives when she's trying hard not to smile. "I don't think so," she said, shaking her head. But she chewed her bottom lip. A sure sign of indecision. Could she be considering it?

"Excuse me. I've got five minutes to catch my next flight."

Priye turned her head at the sound of the heckler, so I moved out of the aisle to let the last of the stragglers pass. In that moment, a decision had been made. She wasn't going to give me the digits.

Knowing that she'd made up her mind, I did what any black man, mindful of his pride and ego, would do.

"Then I'll give you mine. You call me." I insisted as I unzipped my overnight bag. I found a tablet, promotional material with the team's logo on it, and a pen.

Because the cap had been left off, I made a mental note to have Sandra, my housekeeper, buy some extra stain pretreater the next time she did laundry. That should take care of the stray pen marks left on my clothes.

I scribbled small circles in the top corner of the pad and shook the pen back and forth a couple of times until the ink ran freely. Using the back of the seat to support me, I wrote down my cell phone number and my pager number.

"Here." Holding the paper between crossed fingers of my index and middle finger, I passed the slip across to her. "Here you go."

She barely glanced at it, then tucked it away into the deep recesses of her purse.

"Don't lose that now," I said, half in jest. If she was anything like my sister, once items were stuffed into the bottomless pit of a purse, nothing short of an experienced excavation team could dig them out again.

"I won't," she promised. "It's right here." Then she patted the side of her purse. I couldn't help but notice that she patted the wrong compartment. Had she done that on purpose, to mess with my head?

"You're not going to call me, are you?"

"You never know," she said, in that maddeningly non-committal voice.

"Yeah, sure."

I stepped back into the aisle, heading for the exit. Glancing over my shoulder, I placed my hand to the side of my jaw, mimicking a telephone.

. . .Call me. . .
I mouthed to her.

http://lolatellsatale..co.uk/2013/06/hearts-of-steel-chapter-three_28.html?m=1

owww, thats what you call chemistry i could almost picture them in my room ,thumbs up lola,

You Nearly Blew Me Off With Descriptions. And, The Position Of Those Bears On Each Other Cracked Me Up. The Switches Between Narrations Are Damn Creative. You're Just Too Good. However, I Couldn't Help But Notice That You Write In The American English. 'Odor', 'Cellphone', et al.

Larry-Sun:
You Nearly Blew Me Off With Descriptions. And, The Position Of Those Bears On Each Other Cracked Me Up. The Switches Between Narrations Are Damn Creative. You're Just Too Good. However, I Couldn't Help But Notice That You Write In The American English. 'Odor', 'Cellphone', et al.

Thanks LarrySun. Lol @ the bears. The spelling "odour" was changed by my system.

Dear friends,

I have decided to only update the episodes on my blog. However, I'd be posting the links to each chapter here.
Are you guys okay with this?

Nice story Omolola . I have a suggestion. Your story is captivating and if you re writing from the character's different point of view, I suggest you indicate so we can really enjoy your story. Thank you

trixandra: Nice story Omolola . I have a suggestion. Your story is captivating and if you re writing from the character's different point of view, I suggest you indicate so we can really enjoy your story. Thank you

How else do I indicate?

I feel you should be able to differentiate the characters just by reading thru their lines.
Thanks for the suggestion. Its bn noted

Omolola1: Dear friends,

I have decided to only update the episodes on my blog. However, I'd be posting the links to each chapter here.
Are you guys okay with this?

May I Ask The Reason Behind This Sudden Decision?

Larry-Sun:
May I Ask The Reason Behind This Sudden Decision?

To draw traffic to d site

Omolola1:

To draw traffic to d site

It Still Doesn't Stop You From Updating Here Too. However, You May Do The Updates Here After Finishing The Story On The Blog. So As To Have A Larger Coast, Actually.

How come I just stumbled on dis story 2dy, wen iv been wondering wen u ll start a new series. I must b a learner. All seats taken? No wahala, I go stand. Amazing choice of words, u r 2 gd gal. Very well written.

Good work I must say. Keep it up,but give us update here after u did in ur blog

Chapter Four

When I stepped off the plane, I thought about all of those comedy movies and cartoons where the frightened passenger throws himself on the ground and kisses it - promising never to fly again. It didn't seem so funny to me then, or farfetched. If it weren't for having to lug these bears all the way down to the passenger pickup area, I would have been down on my knees, thanking the Maker for allowing me to come through in one piece.

I suppose, in a small way, I should thank Him for Jack Deneen, too. If it weren't for Jack talking to me, calming me down, and even on occasion making me laugh, I would have been a nervous wreck. Or worse, carried off the plane heavily sedated like that crazy guy from that Twilight Zone  episode who saw a gremlin, bent on mass destruction, harassing him on the wing of the plane.

I edged my way past the milling crowd. The family hugs of greeting seemed more emotional, more heartfelt. Kisses between loved ones seemed more passionate. Embraces of friends were less restrained. It was as if getting off that plane made us all realize just how close we'd come to never getting off another plane again. Humbling thought. A near-death experience can certainly put things in perspective.

"Over here, honey!"

"Aunt Rosa! What are you doing here?" I was surprised to see my aunt Rosa in the airport. She was actually my grandaunt, my grandma's older sister; but she never liked the sound of the word grandaunt. Said it made her sound unappealing. Seeing her here now was a pleasant surprise. She almost never flew. Her motto - if God had intended her to fly, she would have been born with wings.

"I thought Uncle Edward was going to pick me up."

"He is. I just came along for the ride. Actually. . ." She looked at me and winked. "Take a look at this." She reached into her purse, pulled out a wallet, and handed me a card.

"What's this?"

"What's it look like?" she said smugly.

"It's a driver's license. Aunt Rosa! You finally learned how to drive? Oh, my God. I don't believe it."

"Your uncle Efosan is still driving that old '75 Peugeout."

"You mean the big yellow one with the gray primer on one door and mismatched blue door on the other?"

"And the bobbing-head dog on the dash. Yes, that's the one. It's big enough and built like a tank. When he told me that he was coming to pick you up from the airport, I talked him into letting me drive. I figured out that was the best way to break in my new license without breaking my neck."

She grasped my shoulders and squeezed with warm hands.

"Let me take a look at you. Honey, what are they feeding you down in Ghana? When did you grow hips?"

"I didn't grow them," I corrected. "I think it was a drive-by 'hipping.' One night, I went to bed as a size-seven. The next thing I know, I'm squeezing myself into size twelves. I try to exercise, but I spend a lot of long hours on the job, eating fast food at my desk."

"Hmmmmph." Aunt Rosa then pressed her lips together and folded her arms. For a moment, she looked so much like my grandma that I started to hand over the bears to her.

"Don't you worry about it, honey. It looks good on you. I told your mother that you were too skinny anyway. 'Doris,' I said to her, 'that child isn't going to get enough to eat out there, all by herself. Once she is out there on her own, she'll forget everything we taught her about nutrition.'"

"I didn't forget," I quipped. "I just didn't apply what I'd learned. You'd think that after sitting all those days in the kitchen, listening to you and Grandma and Mother swap cooking stories, that I'd know enough to be a master chef by now. Besides, I'm not alone. I know you're just a couple of hours' drive away. Aunt Rosa, if ever I need you."

"Turn around. Let me get a good look at you."

I spun around slowly, taking the bears with me.

"You didn't call to say that you were bringing friends with you, so I can only guess that those are for Adesuwa and George."

"Uh-huh. What do you think of them? You think Grandma will like them?"

"That papa bear is a little on the thin side, don't you think?"

"Aunt Rosa!" I started to laugh.

"Come on. Let me take one of those off your hands. However did you manage on the plane with this 'burden', Priye?"

As I touched my hand to my hair, patting it gently, I said, "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers."

Aunt Rosa took Grandpa bear from me. As she turned away, heading for the parking garage, my eye caught a spot of color on her right shoulder.

"Aunt Rosa, I think you've got a smudge of something on your back." I dug inside my purse for the handkerchief that Jack had given me with the intention of wiping away the smudge.

Aunt Rosa looked over her shoulder and said, way too casually for me. "Oh. . .that. That won't rub off , honey. That's permanent."

"Permanent?" Funny. I'd never noticed before that Aunt Rosa had a birthmark on her shoulder. I peered closer, then gasped when I realized that the only thing permanent about Aunt Rosa's smudge was the ink.

"Close your mouth, honey, before you swallow a fly." She placed her index finger under my chain and lifted so vigorously my teeth clicked.

"Aunt Rosa!"

"What?" She said, sounding so innocent. But her dark brown eyes snapped and sparkled - like they always did when she was holding back a laugh at your expense.

"Don't 'what' me missy," I said, sounding older than she ever could. "What is that on your back?"

"It's an Egyptian cross."

"I know what a cross is," I said, wagging my hand at her. She'd given me a silver ring with an emblem of an Egyptian cross as a graduation present. "What's it doing back there?"

"Healing quite nicely. Don't you think?" She paused in midstride to examine the exquisite work. I had to admit that it was lovely. The symbol was edged in black.

"Does Grandma know anything about this?"

"Not yet."

"When did you...how did you...why in the world...have you lost your mind?" I could only think to ask in exasperation. "Why would you put yourself at risk like that?"

"What risk?"

"You know tattoos don't just wash off. You could have gotten hepatitis, or cancer, or anything."

"You sound just like your mother. That Doris worries about every little thing."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to side with Mother on this one, Aunt Rosa."

"I'm not some starry-eyed sixteen-year old, Priye. I'm eighty years old. I knew what I was getting into. I did my homework and checked it out completely before I went. Body Expression"s has a very good reputation - as far as tattoo parlors go."

"Body Expression? You got a tattoo from there?"
This was getting better by the minute. I'm sure my tone and my scrunched up expression conveyed my disapproval. But then I had to check myself. Aunt Rosa was a grown woman. A lot "growner" than I was - and had been that way for awhile. After all, who was the one carrying on, slaving over a couple of teddy bears? I was ready to punch a kid's lights out because I thought he was thinking too hard about those bears. How adult was that?

Who was I to judge her if she wanted a tattoo? The more I looked at it, the more it grew on me. It was a work of art. An expression of Aunt Rosa's boundless free spirit - a testimony for all to see of her passion for her life.

"So did it hurt when you had it done?" I asked, curiously getting the better of my prudish nature.

"It hurt more than a splinter and less than childbirth." Aunt Rosa tilted her head and regarded me with an imprish grin. "You know, he had this cute butterfly design that would look really sweet right about there."

She jabbed at a spot on the side of my right thigh.

"No. Never. Not me," I quickly denied. "With the way I'm spreading, that cute little butterfly will look like a pterodactyl mauling my leg in six months' time."

"Priye, you're not that big." Aunt Rosa insisted. "Don't get caught up in all of that superskinny, supermodel crap. You look good. If you're not eating right and not exercising, well...that I'm concerned about. With a little behavior modification, we can fix that, even if it takes me flying down to Ghana every week to check on you."

"You don't have to do that, Aunt Rosa."

"I love you like you were one of my own, Priye. I want you to take care of yourself."

"I will, Aunt Rosa," I said, making a mental promise to try to do better. I'd been in such a hurry to graduate and get out on my own, I'd forgotten how much strength I got from family and their support. They were always going to love me, whether I made it to the top rung of the corporate ladder or not.

We linked arms and passed through the doors leading to the parking garage.




**********************************************


I extended my arm, aiming the garage door remote in the direction of the control box inside. The batteries were going. It took a few seconds before the infrared beam activated the door. The door finally lifted, slowly, looking oddly like the huge maw of some prehistoric beast about to swallow me whole as I eased the nose of the Lincoln Navigator into the left parking spot of the two-car garage.

A quick flick of my wrist shut off the ignition. As much as I was glad to be in my Lagos home again, I just sat there, listening to the "un-noise" of interior of my SUV. The low whir of the radiator fan, still running to cool the engime after the drive from the airport, the subtle tick-tick-tick of the car keys swinging, clicking against the steering column. I could even hear the soft creak of leather under me as my weight settled into the seat. I pressed my fists to my eyes, saying a small prayer of thanks for the safe arrival from my trip.

I'd only been away for a few months, but it sure felt good to be in my Lagos home again. After a moment of silent reflection, centering myself, I gathered my traveling bag and my thoughts and headed inside.

Once inside, I sniffed. I could tell that Sandra had been doing a little extra cleaning. Automatically, my hand reached for the security control pad on the wall to enter my code and disarm the system. I threw open a couple of windows and turned on every ceiling fan in the house. The cross breeze felt good.

Sandra meant well, but to her, clean wasn't clean until your eyes burned from an infusion of cleaning chemicals. One of these days, she was going to blow my house sky-high with all of her creative mixing.

She'd conveniently sorted my mail into bills, junk mail, and letters from friends - which, I noticed, seemed to be getting fewer and fewer. Nobody took the time to write letters anymore. All of my friends were "webbing" it, e-mailing me jokes, scams, and scares as fast as any Web server could handle them. I tossed the stack back onto the table, resolved to go through it all, even the junk mail, after I'd settled in.

I headed for the refrigerator. Now that the contents of my stomach weren't churning around like smoothies in a waring blender, I was ready to break the fast. Sandra had been busy in there, too.

Though I'd given her a few months off while I was away, she'd prepared a few meals for me. She'd made the kinds of meals that always tasted better the second day as leftovers. Rice and chicken, spaghetti, salad.

"Thank you, Sandra. You're a true godsend." Literally, I think when God made the earth, he took whatever forces of nature were left over from the making and formed Sandra. She must be nearly sixty years old, having been with my family for almost fifty of those years. She was a little hard of hearing, especially when you asked her to do something that she didn't want to do or didn't think it wise to have done. You didn't give Sandra orders; you made suggestions, recommendations. Remember that, and she would take care of you with as much fierce loyalty as she had toward her own. She'd watched over my sister and me since we were old enough to pronounce her name. And when I had moved to Ghana, she relocated with me. And when I got a house in Lagos, Nigeria, she insisted on taking care of it for me.

Priye Cole, it was driving me crazy to know that I couldn't stop wondering why she wasn't interested in me. I've had women walk away from the before. Not many, but enough. I couldn't shake the feeling that this time, I'd lost someone different. Someone special$

I've got to get her out of my head before tomorrow's practice. I can't have my head stuck up in the clouds when my feet have to pound ground.

The next step was my home gym. Sandra calls the room the chamber of horrors. Every device in the room looks like the instrument of choice in a Salem witch-trial torture chamber, with its assortmment of carefully selected pulleys and weights, benches and racks. The left rear leads to the pool and hot tub. To my right, a small area lined with shelves holds clean towels, my workout clothes, and an assortment of natural liniment and rubs for when I overdo it. Not if, when. I always do. To my left, the entire wall is mirrored to help me monitor and correct my form. Am I vain? I don't think so. Just a consummate perfectionist.

I stripped out of my clothes, down to my underwear. That's when I caught my reflection in the mirror. I take pride in myself, in my appearance, and my abilities. As I stood there, nearly nude, I wondered what Priye would say if she saw me now. Would she roll her eyes in feminine disgust? Would she give me that noncommittal half smile? The smile that promised nothing, revealed nothing.

I flexed my arms and ran my palms along the bulge of my biceps. I did a half turn, watching how the muted light threw shadows across the planes and valleys of my abdomen. I thought about how small, soft fingers would feel around me, caressing my shoulders, down my back. My back arched as I imagined her perfectly manicured nails clutching me, raking across my skin as only a woman in the throes of passion would.

"Damn it, J.D. Cut it out!" I chastised myself, snatching my hands away before I could measure how aroused the very thought of her made me. This was ridiculous. Why was I driving myself nuts? For as much as I was able to discover about her, I might as well be dreaming about a fantasy woman.

I threw myself into my workout, determined to exercise my demons way. I reached for a jump rope to pump up the old cardiovascular system. The wooden handles had worn smooth through consistent use. The nylon cord was a blur as I made it hot pepper - a jump rope game my sister and her friends used to play. Sometimes I'd join in. Though admittedly at first to annoy her. Looking back on it, I suppose I have her to thank for my speed and sureness of foot. After a couple of times of having that rope, moving at lightning speed, slam against my ankles, I learned how to pick up my feet.

My feet skipped and shifted to the rhythm of a beat only they understood. My hands were held at my sides. My wrists flipped up and down to keep the momentum going. I spun the rope until every breath burned through my nostrils, until the rubber worn from the bottom of my athletic shoes threatened to make me slip.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! The nylon cord hit the hardwood floor until I thought I saw sparks fly.

Finally, pushed beyond an unspoken limit, I collapsed onto the floor, sucking wind and laughing aloud at my silliness. What was I doing? Getting all worked up over a woman - a woman I barely know. I hadn't been this sprung since my sophomore year in high school when I'd had a crush on a senior.

Languidly, I pulled myself to my feet, stripped out of my workout gear, and grabbed a towel. It was the hot tub for me now. The feel of the hardwood under my bare feet was replaced by the inlaid stone floor that formed a two-foot splash guard around the perimeter of the hot tub.

Good old Sandra. I could tell by the lingering scent of chlorine that she'd had the pool and hot tub serviced while I was away. I sat on the edge and adjusted the force and direction of the jet sprays churning just beneath the surface. As I treated my legs to a water massage, I stared into the boiling water and thought how adequately the water reflected how I felt.

My calm surface suddenly, explosively, was broken by inner churning. All for the want of a woman. Not just any woman. One woman. Priye Cole.

I slid off the edge of the hot tub and carefully eased in. The jet spray and heat soothed my aching muscles. Yet my mind stayed in turmoil. There was nothing that I could do about it but accept the feelings for what they were. . .whatever they were.


http://lolatellsatale..co.uk/2013/06/hearts-of-steel-chapter-4.html?m=1

Wonderful update sugar!!.....waiting for anoda lovely update

Omolola darlin, thanks 4 a super superb update. I just love love it and i love love you too

Damex333: Omolola darlin, thanks 4 a super superb update. I just love love it and i love love you too

I love u too

Emerald dan: Wonderful update sugar!!.....waiting for anoda lovely update

Thanks teabag!

Ahn ahn dat's not funny o *lolz*

Brilliant Use Of Metaphors. Vivid Descriptions. Lola Is Once Again Setting In Motion A Compelling Combination Of Character And Circumstance, Spiced, Of Course, With A Special Brand Of Humour. She Keeps The Readers Eagerly Anticipating Every Word. Bless You, Lola.

Larry-Sun:
Brilliant Use Of Metaphors. Vivid Descriptions. Lola Is Once Again Setting In Motion A Compelling Combination Of Character And Circumstance, Spiced, Of Course, With A Special Brand Of Humour. She Keeps The Readers Eagerly Anticipating Every Word. Bless You, Lola.

Awww Larry! Bless you too. . .
Mwaaaaaaaaaah

Emerald dan: Ahn ahn dat's not funny o *lolz*

Leave me joor....just come n update u hear *displaying my mirror practiced sweet grin*....just for u dearie

Wonderful story. I like the characters . Even grand aunty, that woman is something else.

Chapter 5

It took a few minutes to figure out where I was. When I opened my eyes, I was a little disoriented. My room didn't feel like my own. It was. It was just my room of several months ago.

Without moving my head, I let my eyes scan the contents. I had to squint, because sometime during the morning, someone had drawn back the curtains and opened the miniblinds. Probably my mother. She was a firm believer in the power of fresh air to cure all ills. She'd also opened the window a crack so that a steady, whistling breeze cut through the room.

She'd been doing that since I was in secondary school, when my body had started to go through the change - during what my older brothers affectionately called 'The Musty Years.' Between the ages of eleven and fourteen, I went through a lot of Secret and Love's Baby Soft. We should have bought stock in those companies.



The morning breeze rattled the glossy paper of my posters. These posters covered almost every inch of wall space. My Secondary School Certificate, with the cracked picture frame from when I'd thrown my size-six shoe at my brother for sneaking into my room, made a soft thump-thump-thump against the wall. How old was I then? Fifteen? Sixteen?

Above my head were strung several decorative fishnets that held all of my stuffed animals and baby dolls. There were so many, it was a minor miracle that they hadn't come crashing down to crush the life from me. Teddy bears won at trade fairs, hearts given on Valentine's day and enough Barbie dolls to stage own beauty plastic pageant. They all swung precariously overhead, obviously staring at the microcosmic world of a young girl's room through button eyes. Even the ones with the eyes that my brother Dozie had picked out with a screwdriver seemed to be doing their best of keeping their toy vigil over me while I slept.

God, it was good to be home.

In my apartment in Accra, I hadn't had the time, money, or inclination to decorate, to give my new place a sense of home. I had one lonely ivy plant, badly in need of water, that was sitting (wilting, actually) in the terra-cotta planter that my Uncle Edward had given me as a going-away present. That was one of the few items in my bedroom in Accra that gave me any indication of where I'd come from.

One of these days, I thought as I stretched languidly, I was going to repot the thing and give it a new lease of life. Or - I yawned and rolled over, pulling the covers over my head - I could wait for the last of the yellow leaves to drop off and save me trouble.

It's not that I didn't care about the gift my uncle had given me. I did. I took very good care of the terra-cotta planter. I dusted it once a month, whether it needed it or not. Sometimes, I think I could hear the voice. "You know, a little water won't break the thing."

I tried to go back to sleep, but my cousin Brenda, who'd spent the night with us, was singing in the shower softly to herself.

Okay, not so softly and definitely not in key. I didn't mind listening to her caterwaul. I was surprised and pleased that shek'd agreed to sleep over.

No mystery when I found out why. Her own home was full, with overflow relatives who'd come in at the last minute to attend my grandparents' anniversary party. Some folks from my grandpa George's side of the family had decided at the last minute to show. One of them, Brenda said, was a chain smoker. Another was rumored to have an overactive bladder. No, she'd said as diplomatically as she could to her parents, it was best if she found another place to crash for the weekend.

Listening to her now, I was reminded of the time we'd put on a talent show when everyone had come over to celebrate my mum's birthday. No, I take that back. We weren't really celebrating her birthday. Because if you ask my mum every year on the day rumoured to be her birthday, she'll give her age as twenty-five. She's been giving that same answer for about twenty years now. Can't call it a birthday party if the responsible party won't admit to getting older.

So, on the day rumoured to be her birthday, we'd eaten cake and ice cream, danced to old records, and played dominoes until the wee hours or the neighbours called the police on us. It's not clear in my memory which event came first.

Brenda, Joy, and I had done our version of Tina Turner's theme song to the movie 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.' It was a routine that brought the house doen.

The refrain still echoed in my head. Maybe with adequate psychotherapy I'll be able to get that song out.

We'd gelled and teased our hair so that Tina would have been jealous of our dos and sneaked fishnet stockings from my brother Mike's room. Skirts pinned tight and enough lipstick to compensate for our preteen pouts, we'd sung and strutted our stuff.

Come to think of it, I don't think either of us sang very well then, either. It was the effort that we'd put into it that made my mum, Aunt Ebere, and Aunt Pamela clap so vigorously and hug us so tightly that we thought our ribs would crack.

I was still grinning at the memory when Brenda stepped out of the bathroom with a huge towel wrapped around her torso and another on her head. She'd slept in the daybed beneath the huge window in my room, having made enough room for herself by pushing more of my stuffed animals onto the floor.

"You're awake now, Sleeping Beauty?" She greeted me.

"Did you save me any hot water?"

"I think I left you a couple of drops," she teased, wrinkling up that cute freckled nose of hers. She sat on the edge of the bed, pressing her thick, black hair between the towel to dry it. For a moment, I experienced a moment of jealousy. You could stick a bird's nest in Brenda's hair and she would still look good - naturally.

I, On the other hand, have to work at it. Not just work. Getting my hair so that I'm happy with it is a major undertaking. It takes hours of planning, preparation, and implementation.

I have what I affectionately call "in-between hair." Not good, not bad. Not long, not short. If I'd entered my head of hair in a beauty pageant, I would probably walk away with the Miss Congeniality award. It tries so hard to be good. But every now and then, Lord help me, every now and then, it does what it wants to do no matter how I cajole and threaten to shave my head bald.

Since I'm so much on the go, I don't have time to fool with it. I pay others a tidy sum to do it. Yvonne over in Accra does wonders with a human hair weave. She doesn't own a shop. She's just a lady who does hair.

I was lucky to find her. A friend of the lady who works in the mailroom in my building told me about the man who now sometimes does my nails about Yvonne.

She and her teenaged daughters, Jessica, Martha, and Erica, see me religiously, every eight weeks for no less than ten hours to wash, condition, tint, and braid. I go in as much for the gossip as I do for the gorgeous hair that results from the ordeal.

"Gee, thanks. You are so kind."

"Don't mention it." Brenda then reached into my nightstand drawer for the metal nail file I've always kept there. If I went to her room, I'd find one almost exactly like it by her bed. When we were kids, we'd bought matching nail files so that we could pry open each other's diaries and read them. That was, we rationalized, the best way to tell each other secrets without openly confessing. If either of us ever got caught doing something wrong, we could honestly say to our parents, "She never told me that!"

Brenda curled one long leg under her, and bent the other knee so that she could rest her finger on it while she filed. Her voice was slightly broken by the vigorous filing action.

"So, are you going shopping with your parents today?"

"Do I have a choice?" I asked, pulling a long face.

She wasn't fooled. As much as I complain about my parents - and what recently left-the-nest child doesn't? - I loved being around them.

"Of course you always could stay here," Brenda suggested. "But you know how good Aunt Doris is at finding sales. She knows how to sniff out a good bargain. If you're not there when she finds one, you're going to be kicking yourself."

"I know. I'm still kicking myself for the last time we went shopping."

I yawned and stretched again, thinking I'd sneak in a few extra winks before Mother came up to roust us out of bed.

"Come on, Priye. Get up," Brenda said. "I'm ready to play."

"I'll be up in a minute."

"No, you get up now!" She said, in a voice so much like my mother's, I almost shot straight up out of bed. For a minute, I was back in secondary school, jumping to the drill sergeant-like command of her voice.

"I know you don't want me to come up there," she went on to threaten. Brenda could almost imitate my mum as well as I could - she'd spent the night over at my house or me at hers so many times. We were so inseparable, we were almost mistaken for sisters. Me, Brenda, and my cousin, Joy.

I sat up, stuffed a pillow under my nightgown, and then plumped it under my backside. Standing up in the bed, I put my hands on my hips and strutted up and down, exaggerating my walk by sticking my butt out even further. My feet sank ankle-deep into the mattress as I paraded up and down the bed.

I crooked my finger and shook it menacingly at Brenda. "If you girls don't get out of bed, I am not driving you to school. You can walk to school for all I care. I don't know what you think this is. If you think that I was put on this earth to drive your behinds around all day, you've got another thing coming. This isn't a taxi service, you know. Burn up my fuel for nothing. Hmmmmph."

Brenda burst out laughing, trying to frown at the same time. "Oh, girl, you know your mother's backside is not that big."

"I know. I was doing your mum."

"I've got your mum for you!" Brenda leaped up and grabbed another pillow. She dove toward me, trying to swat me with it. She swung so hard, I barely got out of the way in time.

Oooomph! She caught me on the side of my head, and down I went, arms flailing to keep me from tumbling off the side of the bed.

Chapter 5 contd. . .

"You've been practicing," I gasped, rubbing the side of my head.

"Nuh-uh. I haven't had a good pillow fight in years. You're just getting old and tired. You're just slow."

"Who's getting old?" I said huffily. "I'm not old. And if you weren't so 'flicted yourself, you could have knocked me into next week instead of missing me by a mile. Old? I've got your old for you."

"Girl, you know I'm just playing," she mollified. She paused and grinned at me. "You look good for your age."

I was only a few months older than Brenda, and she wasn't going to let me forget it.

"Seriously, Priye. You must be beating all of those business execs off with a stick."

"Yeah, with all the work I have to do, I don't have time to be thinking about men."

Brenda leaped forward and clamped her hand over my mouth.

"Shhh!" She said frantically.

"What?" I asked, my words muffled by the palm of her hand.

"Do you want someone to hear that?"

"Oh, no," I groaned, realization suddenly hitting me harder than Brenda ever could in a pillow fight.

"That's right." Brenda nodded. We looked at each other and said solemnly in unison. "The target."

I slid off the bed and tiptoed to my bedroom door. As I pulled it open just a crack, I winced at the creaking sound of hinges.

"Is anybody out there?" Brenda whispered.

I shook my head and blew out a breath with all the relief of a teenager sneaking past sleeping sentry parents after breaking a curfew.

"That was too close, P." She collapsed on my bed.

"This close to the family reunion planning meeting and you want to blab that you're not dating? That's like waving a red flag in front of a charging bull."

"Or a piece of cake in front of Uncle Edward." I giggled.

"You know how our family like to single somebody out every year to get hooked up at the reunion. Last year it was our cousin, Daniel. The poor man didn't stand a chance. One minute, he was winning the prize for coming the farthest to attend the reunion; the next thing you know, Grandma is throwing that registered nurse at him."

"Grandma swears to this day that the woman tripped." I repeated what I'd been told.

"And you believe her?" Brenda said incredulously.

"It was kinda suspicious. Unless the woman tripped over air. I don't remember anything that would make her fall on Daniel like that."

"Fall on him. Fall for him. However it happened, it was all carefully orchestrated. Our folks are the masters at it by now. Every other year, before, during, or after the reunion, you can count on a wedding."

"Or an engagement announcement," I said glumly.

"They switch off. Last reunion it was a male cousin. It's going to be a single girl this year. Boy, girl, boy, girl. That's how it goes."

"And I had to shout out that I'm not seeing anybody." I slapped my forehead. I'd even mentioned it to Aunt Rosa. It was like painting a giant bull's-eye on my forehead.

Brenda patted my shoulder as if in sympathy. "Girl, if you haven't got a man by the time you check into the hotel at the next reunion, you'd better grab one of those drivers. Pay him a couple of extra bucks to represent until the heat is off you."

"What about you, Bren? How's your love life?"

Though we'd been as close as sisters when we were growing up, we'd sadly grown out of touch. If it weren't for the special occasions like my grandparents' anniversary, a family reunion, or a wedding, I don't think we'd make the time to have these heart-to-heart sessions like we used to do. It made me sad to think that the girl who I'd shared everything with was now a woman who I knew so little about.

Brenda lowered her eyes and blushed. When she did so, it made the freckles across her nose stand out more.

"Not really," she said, toying with the edges of my dust ruffle.

"Not really?" I repeated, mocking her. "What does that really mean?"

She shrugged. "It means I'm seeing someone but not really seeing him."

"What does that mean? Is he poking you in the eyes every time you come near or what?"

"No!" Brenda laughed. It was an infectious laugh. No one who hears it can ever resist smiling a little in sympathetic humour. She could always make me laugh - even when the occasion didn't call for laughter. Like the time we both got caught trying to sneak out of school, sitting in the principal's office, trying to explain to parents who were beyond furious. . .closer to nuclear meltdown. Things probably would have gone better for us if Brenda hadn't made me laugh at the wrong moment.

Three weeks' grounding is a long time when you're seventeen. I still owe Brenda for that one.

"It's a little too soon to tell right now. I don't want to jinx it," she replied quietly.

I leaned close and pried open her right eye.

"What are you doing?"

"Do you remember how mother always said that she could look in our eyes and tell if we were sick or just faking to get out of going to school?"

"Yes, I remember. She was always especially suspicious on days she knew that we had exams. We had to be bleeding from the eyeballs before they let us stay at home."

"You got to stay home with bleeding eyeballs?" I exclaimed. "My mum dropped eye drop in my eyes and told me to get on to school."

"At least you didn't have to go to school with chicken pox. I told my mum that it wasn't an acne flare-up."

"She should have known better. You never had acne a day in your life," I grumbled. "Witch."

"It was my last day of SS3. Mother didn't want me to miss it. Most students give away momentos and sign yearbooks on the last day of school. I wound up giving the entire SS3 class chicken-pox. I'm sure they loved me for that. But that doesn't explain why you're prying my eyes open."

"I'm just checking to see if you look sufficiently lovesick to keep Grandma and the rest of the matchmaking militia from making you the target."

"But what about you? If they zero in on you, I'm sorry, P, I can't help you. Normally, I'd have your back. You know that. But not this time. This time, I can't stop them from hooking you up with. . .with. . ." Her voice trailed off. And suddenly, I knew that she knew something. Years may have passed since we'd last spoken to each other. But I knew that look. That look that said she'd let something slip without meaning to. All we Johnson women had that look.

I think Jack Deneen had seen that look on my face in the airport when I'd said out loud how that little Kwame should get his behind spanked for behaving like such a brat.

Brenda was trying to cover up that look now. I wasn't buying it.

"With who?" I demanded.

She shrugged and shook her head.

"With who? You know something, don't you, Bren?"

"Nooo," she quickly denied.

"Yes, you do! You traitor! You're in on it. They got to you, didn't they? How'd they do it, Bren? What did they promise you? That you'd be safe from their plotting for at least two years?"

"I don't know anything. You're talking crazy. You'd think I'd give you up?"

"To save your unmarried hide? You'd better believe it."

"Priye, I am so hurt," Brenda said, pressing her hand against her heart as if wounded.

"You don't know what hurt is," I contradicted. I was going to make Brenda tell me what she knew the only way I knew how. I grabbed her foot, upended it, then started to tickle her in the spot that I knew would send her into hysterical spasms of laughter.

"Cut it out, Priye!" Brenda flipped over onto her stomach - squealing, gasping, crying, and threatening all at once.

"You'd better tell me!" I shouted as I plopped down and straddled her thighs to keep her immobile. It was like trying to hold down a bucking steer.

"I'm going to tell Aunt Doris!" She warned.

"That's not all you'd better tell, Brenda Obazee."

"I told you. I don't . . .don't . . .don't know anything. Priye, cut that out before you make me wet the bed!" Brenda shouted conveniently, as Mother had just poked her head into the room. She had the pressed-thin lip look that she always got when she tried hard not to laugh.

"If you do, you'll be stuck here doing laundry while we're all out shopping. Priye, get off of her before you cut off her circulation or something."

"Yeah, and we have to amputate my legs," Brenda said, playing the sympathy card. "She's gotten heavy, Aunt Doris."

"Think about it this way. If we have to amputate, you could get the child's plate at the lunch today and save yourself some money." I said with exaggerated brightness.

Brenda launched another pillow at me. I ducked and pulled on the corner of her towel. I guess I thought of it as a symbolic exposing of her meanness.

"Priye!"

"Oh please. Like we haven't seen those before."

"Will you two stop kidding around? That was your grandma on the phone. She'll swing by at ten o' clock to pick us up, and she expects us to be ready."

"Shop till you drop. Ching-ching!" I initiated the sound of a toy cash register.

"For a man for Priye," Brenda muttered under breath. I narrowed my eyes and wiggled my index finger at her. I still had some tickle power left, my warning told her.

"Get dressed and come down to the kitchen. I'm afraid all I've got is coffee. We'll stop and have a big lunch later. I think your grandmother has a special place in mind that she wants to try."

Brenda and I exchanged concerned, knowing glances. Grandma never did anything without a plan. If we weren't careful, we'd be fending off proposals from bus drivers.

"What was that for?" Mother asked, her lips pressed so tightly in the no-laughing line that they practically disappeared.

"What was that for?" I asked.

"That look."

"What look?"

"You know what look. That look that passed between you two."

"What look? Did you see a look, Bren?" I asked, turning to face her.

"I don't know. I wasn't looking." Brenda backed me up. Good old Brenda. I could always count on her, even after all of this time.

"Yeah, right. You two would back each other up if one of you said that the moon was made of cheese."

"That's Swiss, Aunt Doris," Brenda corrected, and planted a kiss on Mother's cheek.

"Oh, go on!" This time, mother did laugh, and gave Brenda a crushing hug. "It's so nice to have you here, Brenda. You should visit more often."

"Maaaaaaah-aaaaaahm! That's not fair," I said in my whiniest voice. "You didn't tell me to visit often." I pouted.

"That's because I like her better than I like you." Mother then patted my cheek affectionately before heading out.

"So, you're finally admitting it. I always knew."

"You two go on and get dressed. You've got about fifteen minutes before they honk for us."

http://lolatellsatale..co.uk/2013/07/hearts-of-steel-chapter-5.html?m=1

Just stumbled on ds now n was like "isn't ds d author of divided emotions?"
Anoda wonderful writer s back,welkme

Candis009: Just stumbled on ds now n was like "isn't ds d author of divided emotions?"
Anoda wonderful writer s back,welkme

Awww! I dey smile with all of my 32 out
Thanks sweetie, u'd sure enjoy this one, even better!

Wow, i love the connection between brenda and priye, their extended family is just so awesome 2 beheld.

Chapter Six

Fifteen yards out, I planted my foot and pivoted a hard ninety degrees to make a lateral cut toward the goalpost. As I looked over my shoulder to check my progress, I sensed the ball before I heard it whistling through the air, I could feel it before I saw it hurdling toward me – a dark speck against a cloudless cerulean sky.

Sometimes, in practice, it paid to count on more than just your physical senses to make a play. My junior high school coach imparted that bit of wisdom to me once after I’d dropped my third pass in a crucial game.

Old Coach Reeves. I wonder what ever happened to him.

“Son,” Coach would say to me, patting me on my shoulder in restrained macho sympathy. He called everyone son. And he patted everyone on the shoulder. Sometimes, I think it was because it was easier than remembering our names. The way we were switching positions, it didn’t do to call us by our jersey numbers. Those were just going to change again when the coaches made player and position adjustments as they did after every loss.

Sometimes, I can still hear the rattling of phlegm in Coach Reeves’ throat – the sound that he made to announce that he was about to make a speech. Actually, it was the sound he made before he spat out a loogie and began making his speech.

“Son, my great granny, Lord rest her soul, could have caught that ball in her false teeth. This ain’t rocket science. It don’t make no sense for someone with as much love as you’ve got for the game to be so lousy at it. If you want to make it past a third-string junior varsity, you’d better start using that head up there for something more than bouncing that ball off of it. It’s either that, or go over and talk to Coach Thorpe about getting a spot in his soccer team”

Old Coach Reeves. I wonder what ever happened to him.

For all of the warm fuzzies he gave us during those early, insecure years, maybe he was hit by a bus. His brand of encouragement didn’t make sense at the time. I’m not sure that it makes all that much sense to me now.

But I do know this. Any player who was ever worth anything, who was ever remembered for anything, had something more on the ball than being able to use his eyes, ears, and hands to handle one.

They all had that unexplainable something. A sixth sense that helped them zig when others would have zagged, leap when others would have ducked. Whatever it was they had, it made the difference between a championship year and a see-you-next-year. I’d like to think that I have that extra something.

The sting of the leather pierced through my practice gloves, causing the centers of my palms to tingle, almost itch. I clenched my hands ever so tightly, a gentle reassurance that I’d done my job. Another pivot to turn upfield again. Simple, rote. As predictable as clockwork.

Another fifteen yards up, I stopped and threw the ball to one of the trainers before jogging back to my position at the end of the drill line. It was only nine o’clock, but the day was already starting to warm. The sun made my sunglasses hot to the touch, caused beads of perspiration to collect under my bandana The blue and white cloth darkened to a solid blue of wetness. I didn’t mind too much.

If I concentrated really hard, I could pretend that the sound of trainer’s whistles were the sounds of tropical birds, stirring the humid air with their song back on my grandfather’s sugarcane farm in Puerto Rico.

I don’t know why I’m so nostalgic about the place. I didn’t spend much time there. I’d only visited a handful of times. My grandfather had made his home on the outskirts of America and didn’t return often to the soil of his birth. Nothing nostalgic about sweating for hours in the sun, chopping cane for the enrichment of someone else.

My own father didn’t even think of having ties to the island. Not that island, anyway.

I was born on American soil - literally. My mother went into labour near the tail end of the transatlantic flight. Born in America herself, with Ghanaian heritage, she didn’t want her children growing up among foreigners.

“Move up.”

Someone behind prodded me, reminding me of where I was, and what I was supposed to be doing. The drill line moved swiftly, methodically, and it was my turn again.

“I’m surprised to see you here, Flash,” another team member from the drill line opposite me called out. Everybody called him the Deacon, for his fanatical drop-to-the-knee-in-prayer pose after every score – even if it was the other team’s.

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you were going on the honeymoon with Paul.”

I could have taken that comment to be a crack about my friendship with Paul. We hung out together so much, we were often ridiculed. In fact, sometimes we acted like an old married couple – completing each other’s sentences, squabbling over things that didn’t matter, or letting things that should have torn us apart slide without so much as a blink.

Too many times to count, we’d sometimes show up to practice wearing almost the same outfit. To cover, we confounded the other teammates, especially the rookies, with “Didn’t you get the memo? How come you aren’t properly dressed out?”

Any other time, I would have dismissed the ragging as business-as-usual jokes. But not this time, I couldn’t quite shrug it off. A few snickers from other team members, sly and lascivious, made me uneasy. Judging from the harsh hazing that followed, I could tell that they hadn’t all been as drunk as they’d seemed to be the night before Paul and Priscilla’s wedding. Someone had seen what had gone wrong between Priscilla and me. Gossip could run through a team like this one quicker than athlete’s foot fungus.

As I came up again in line, my turn to run the sprint pattern, I wondered if there were more than two witnesses to Priscilla’s proposition. It was possible. There was so much confusion the night before the wedding. We’d rented out almost an entire hotel floor. Most of us needing privacy had returned to our rooms. . .or to somebody else’s. The chorus of “Get out!” or “Shut the door” had rung out more often than the chorus of “Get me to the church on time.”

I’d slipped away to down a couple of aspirins. The music and the mood had worn me down quicker than I’d like to admit.

Makes me melancholy to think that I can’t handle the high life like I used to. Maybe that’s why I didn’t resist right away when Priscilla found her way into my room. I’d let myself buy her flimsy excuse of needing a quiet, private place to fix her makeup. What could be more appropriate than her own suite? I’d asked her point-blank.

“Have you been to my suite lately?” She’d laughed and jerked her thumb in a direction down the hall. “Your coach should have as much enthusiasm and attendance at practice as I’ve got going on in that room.”

“Paul’s just letting off steam. A last go-round before he has to settle down and become Mr. Responsible.”

“Exactly. That’s why Paul practically worships you, J.D. You understand him. I love him, but he’s not exactly Who Wants to Be a Millionaire material, is he now? If you understand him, then you know exactly what I’m feeling. You know why it’s important for me to be here.”

Her voice had been too low, too deliberately pitched for that to be a simple agreement with my sentiment.

When alarm bells started going off in my head, I’d dismissed them as just the beginnings of the headache. That sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach had been just a physical reaction to the aspirin. It couldn’t have had anything to do with the fact that I had a sneaking suspicion that my best friend’s woman was about to come on to me.

It couldn’t have been that. I simply refused to accept that it was true, and that I’d then stood by and said nothing when the time in the ceremony came for me to object to the wedding.

I suppose if I wanted to take the moral high road, if the incident ever came to the full light of day, I could say with a clear conscience that nothing really happened. Nothing had. Not really. Something had pulled me back – whether it was the fear of discovery or my sense of propriety that was stronger, it didn’t matter. The end result was that disaster had been averted.

Priscilla was with Paul now and I wasn’t. I was here. I couldn’t help but feel that even with my perception of Priscilla’s faults, she was with Paul. He had someone. Someone who he cared for deeply. And what did I have? Who did I have? No one.


********************************


“You’ve got my back if they team up on me, don’t you ladies?”

My cousin Joy put her hand in front of her mouth, pretending to daintily dab at her lips with her napkin, as she passed along a request for solidarity to Brenda and me.

I was in midsip of my water and had to swallow quickly to keep from choking through my laughter.

“Don’t trust Brenda to hang with us, Joy,” I whispered back. “I think she’s already been subverted.”

Joy looked at Brenda, who’d raised both of her hands in protest of her innocence.

“What does she know?” Joy demanded. “Who are they going after this time? Which one of us is the target?”

“She won’t tell,” I said in disgust.

“Not even after you tickled her?” Joy asked.

“How did you know I tickled her?” I sounded surprised.

“Oh, please. That’s how you always got anything out of us, Priye. When we were kids, all you had to do was waggle your finger at us and we spilled our guts.”

“Not this time,” Brenda said. “We’re not kids anymore.”

“And we’re no spring chickens, either. That’s why we’re having this discussion,” Joy reminded us.

“Shh! Here they come.” I motioned for silence before our aunts and Grandma returned from the ladies’ room. We cousins weren’t fooled. They couldn’t all have to go at the same time. They were plotting something. I knew it.

When I’d tried to follow them into the ladies’ room, to scope out their plot, they’d clammed up so quick and stared at me as oddly as if I’d walked into the wrong bathroom. I’d almost had to back up and take a second look. Yeah. I was in the ladies’ room. I was in the right place.

Aunt Ebere had gotten a funny look on her face. Not funny ha-ha. Funny like “I’m busted” kind of funny. She’d then turned, actually done an about-face, and said, “So, Doris, do you think that the weather should be clear on the Anniversary night?”

“Oh. . .oh yes,” Mother had stammered, like she couldn’t get her lips to change directions fast enough. “Clear and warm. Perfect for the family reunion.”

What was she? An almanac? Why in the world was she trying to predict the weather almost a year away from the event? They had changed the subject. It had been obvious on their collective guilty faces.

“What are you doing in here, Priye?” Grandma had asked bluntly.

“It’s a bathroom.” I’d stated the obvious. “I thought I’d take care of a little personal business before we started shopping.”

“There are no more shops,” she’d then retorted and stepped into the last one. “Go on outside and wait until one is freed up.”

I couldn’t believe it! She’d ordered me out of the bathroom! And after all I’d gone through to bring her those bears. Of course she didn’t know about them yet. The celebration dinner wasn’t until tonight – which was one of the reasons we were all out shopping. It was a chance for us to spend some time together, as well as spend a little money.

“We’ll be out in a minute, honey.” Aunt Rosa had patted me affectionately. At the same time, she’d steered me toward the door.

By the time I’d made it back to my seat, I’d been wearing an expression of mild irritation. They couldn’t treat me like that! I was grown. I held down a job. I paid rent. But I’d just been told when to go to the bathroom like a three-year-old. What was wrong with that picture?

As soon as I’d resumed my seat, Brenda and Joy had pounced on me, pumping me for information.

“Well? What did they say?”
“Who’s it going to be?”

“When are they going to spring a man on us?”

I’d shrugged. “You got me.”

I didn’t know any more than when I’d first followed them inside. All I had were my suspicions – and a suspect, long range weather forecast.

The rest of the luncheon went relatively smoothly, with talk centered mostly on our respective jobs and the various cities to which we’d all moved. We talked about who would likely be on which reunion committee, how exciting the reunion trip should be, and how many we expected to attend.

Even though our table waiter was cute and attentive – and who wouldn’t be with a table filled with attractive women – no one seemed to be trying to foist us off on him. Maybe my trip to the rest room had put a scare into the matchmaking militia, making them to regroup, rethink their strategy.

Maybe not.

It happened so fast, my head reeled from the shock. One moment I was reaching for a credit card, offering to pick up the tab for lunch; the next, I was instantly transformed into the “target.”

It all happened in the blink of an eye. Or rather, in the fluttering of a paper. I’d almost forgotten that I had it. Jack Deneen’s telephone number. But as I pulled my wallet from my purse, the paper drifted to the floor and made all the impact of an atomic bomb.