A. James: Hot date?
The chat messenger showed he was typing, then paused. I looked out my door and saw Porter, scratching his head. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Porter responded.
P. Harrison: I’ll TTYL. Get home safe.
A. James: Sure. Thx. See you tomorrow.
Crap.
I stared at the screen, my eyes avoiding the hallway as I heard his office door close. Did I say something wrong? Was I getting too personal? His personal life was absolutely none of my business. I had slipped into my old habits of getting too comfortable, too familiar.
One thing was for certain, I damn sure didn’t have a date.
The train ride home didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would, considering that MARTA never runs on time after rush hour. I had to call the mechanic as soon as possible to get my car fixed.
I walked the two blocks from the station to my little 1940s West End bungalow. Walking in heels from the station was for the birds. As soon as I got inside, I kicked off my heels, threw my portfolio down near the coatrack, tossed my keys in a bowl on the buffet next to the door. I took a moment to just take in my house and all the work I’d been putting into it for the past few months. It was all coming together.
This house had been my childhood home and my mother’s childhood home. After my father died, my mom decided it was too hard to stay in the house. “Too many memories,” she declared. She bought a condo in Vinings, close to active seniors, our church, and some of her friends to start a new life. So, when I moved back home to Atlanta, I knew I’d want to move into the family home and remodel it. I had made sketches of what I wanted to do. Over the past months, I was making strides in making the home more modern. To make it my own. I was finally settling down somewhere for a while. It was the least I could do with money that felt dirty.
I was most proud of the kitchen. It was sleek and modern, with cool, contemporary stainless-steel appliances and a massive island for entertaining that also housed a wine cooler. My mother had laughed and said, “A fridge just for wine? That is some bourgeois Black people’s shit.” Yet, she had been the first person to bring over a nice bottle of champagne to “test it out.” The kitchen was a far cry from the outdated flowered wallpaper that had turned yellow from smoke, grease, and years of cooking. I smiled, thinking about how my father almost burned the house down trying to fry chicken. It had been painful for me to tear down that wall that had the last traces of my father. Once completed, Mama smiled and said I had brought new life to the place. But I couldn’t cook in it yet. Not before she burned sage and removed the “negative energy of Uncle Cecil’s wife’s potato salad” which was the last thing we ate in the old kitchen at Daddy’s repast. It had craisins in it. It was a family scandal.
In the living room, I had re-tiled the fireplace myself, in cool blue, gray, and green tile. Blue was my dad’s favorite color. I knew it would be the perfect color scheme for the fireplace, and Mama agreed.
Despite the extensive renovations, plastic still lined the walls in the master bath. I had an ongoing dispute with George Flores, my lovely contractor, about what to do in the master bathroom. He said it would be more elegant with a detached claw-foot tub and a smaller walk-in shower. I told him I didn’t want a tub at all, desiring a twelve-foot-long glass encased shower with imported tile and two waterfall showerheads instead. Mr. George, as he preferred to be called, was a lovely man and one of the best contractors in the city and knew his stuff. He thought that my idea was a waste of space and would bring the value of the house down. I didn’t want a damn tub. I wanted the shower of my dreams because, to be frank, I wanted to have sex in a shower that would accommodate me and my eventual partner. Of course, that was none of Mr. George’s business. I just let him think it was purely for “design aesthetics.” I was an architect, after all. So, we were at an impasse.
From the color of the exterior painted brick to the renovated back deck, the months I’d spent working on the house were an ongoing labor of love. It felt like the famed Winchester Mansion, with my never-ending expansions and plans. I figured this would keep me busy on my days off. It’s not like I was dating anyone I could meet for happy hour. Was Porter meeting someone for happy hour? Did he even do happy hour? Fuck. I had no business thinking about stuff like that.
Too lazy to walk back to my bedroom, I stripped off my skirt and shirt at the front door. One of the amazing benefits of being single and childless was being able to walk around half-naked. I went to the kitchen, feeling the coolness from the hardwood floors on my feet, and opened the wine cooler. After picking a nice bottle of pinot grigio, I grabbed a glass and settled in for the night on my couch. I placed an order for Greek food through a food courier app. This was going to be the perfect meal to destress after my first day at work.
As soon as I began flipping through the TV channels, I got a text message. I knew it wasn’t my mom because she was on a bus heading to the casino in Tunica with her girlfriend, Carol. Besides, she hated texting. She was far too long-winded. Part of me hoped it was Bella, my best friend, inquiring about my day. We hadn’t spoken all day and needed to debrief. Disappointingly, it wasn’t Bella. Perhaps it was someone with potential to help me destress after work.
Korny: Hey stranger. I’m back in town.
I was wrong.
I cocked my head to the side, looking at the message as if it was hieroglyphics. Korey aka “Korny” in my contact list, was a guy that had been nothing more than one of many friends-with-benefits I’d accumulated since moving back to Atlanta. After Maurice, whose sex was so good that it clouded my judgement, I was over dating and sex that made me think I was in love. All of Maurice’s lies about loving me and wanting to be in a relationship were his way to derail and eventually torpedo my professional life to elevate his own. For that reason, I had sworn me off relationships, especially those that distracted me from my job. Sex I could do. As cold as it sounded, men were just here to service me when I wanted sex that scratched that need-an-orgasm-filled itch.
Korey wanted to be the one to scratch that itch tonight, despite not hearing from him in forever. I preferred to be the one making the sex appointments. Korey was an absolute bore. He talked endlessly about his job as an associate professor of sociology at Emory. And as much as I loved sociological issues, I didn’t want to talk about them on a date as the precursor to foreplay. I texted him back.
Hey. Kind of busy right now. Can we chat later?