by Susan Caldwell

MIDNIGHT. Curtis takes one last swig of his Red Stripe and places the empty bottle on the edge of the table, and slides it away from the edge. He’d like to have another, but, he has his gut to consider, and the extra effort he’d be pained with to hold it in wouldn’t be worth it. So he stands there, hooks his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans, and once again looks out across the crowded living room at the entrance, restless and waiting.

He’s wearing a fitted Syracuse baseball cap snug over his fresh smooth haircut, the brim decidedly bent and pointing forward, frat-boy style, and white sneakers—no one else here is wearing white sneakers. Everyone else is all color, flair, attitude, the girls on that shabby-chic look, the guys in smedium t-shirts or threadbare cotton button-downs and slouchy, form-fitting jeans. They prop their cigarettes and red plastic cups and bottles of beer against their nonchalant poses, laughing and talking that exquisite artsy hipster talk that makes Curtis’s left ear tug itself.

“Hey, what’s up, my man? Havin’ a good time?” Brent appears at the table—really an Ikea office desk pushed up against the wall to serve as a makeshift bar, clutching a plastic container filled with more vodka-soaked watermelon to replenish the near-empty large glass bowl in its center.

“Yeah…pretty decent party,” Curtis replies. Any other Saturday night he’d be upstairs in a wifebeater and boxers, magnetized to his black leather couch, nursing a bottle of Grey Goose and flipping the remote between Saturday Night Live and porn or engrossing himself in a game of Madden.

“Man. This watermelon is gonna have everybody smashed by the end of the night,” Brent says as he uses a plastic black spatula to guide the watermelon chunks into the bowl. Indeed the watermelon looks mystic, extra-potent, its red a bold and resplendent red like rubies.

“Yeah, I’m stayin’ away from that.”

“You and me both,” Brent says with a brief smile as he passes Curtis on his way back to the kitchen.

Earlier this week, Brent came up and knocked on Curtis’s door and told him about this housewarming party. “Nothing loud and crazy,” he said, his head leaning coolly to the side, “Just some of our friends and we’re inviting everyone in the house…so…you’re more than welcome to come.” Curtis might have had a few reservations about his tenants throwing a party, especially on the parlor floor of the brownstone, where it could easily spill out onto the stoop and bother their neighbors, but his mind got caught on that “everyone in the house”, because it meant Karynn, who moved in on the second floor right after Brent and Samantha, might be coming. For the past three months, he’s been nurturing the most consuming, impractical, impossible crush on her. He doesn’t even know whether or not she’ll actually be here tonight, but it was enough for him to know that she was invited, enough for him to have gone out and bought some new clothes and some brand new sneakers, for him to have gone to the barbershop for a haircut, as opposed to cutting it himself, for him to have spent an entire two hours in the men's cosmetics section at Bloomingdale's trying to find the perfect cologne; he eventually decided on Sean John’s Unforgivable, convinced by the ad display featuring Puffy sitting on the edge of a bed in a robe with two beautiful women in the background.

Tonight, after months and months of going back and forth, mustering up and tearing down his nerve, tonight he’s going to start a real conversation with Karynn, about things other than repairs or the rent or the weather or random incidents that happened down the street. He’ll be so charming, his game so tight; surely, she’ll be distant and shy at first, but she’ll gradually warm up the more he makes her smile and laugh. He’ll sneak in some slick talk about the guy he sometimes sees her with, who in fact, lives across the street from them, some such nonsense as, “Why your man let you walk around solo like this?”—not those exact words, but something similarly smooth, flattering, somewhat playful. She’ll know what he’s really asking, and she’ll tell him she’s totally single, they’re just friends, cousins, anything, whatever.

In every other area of his life, Curtis is a very smart and disciplined man; clear-headed and practical, but with a magical edge in his thinking that makes him a highly regarded and well-paid actuary. But when it comes to women, he is gameless, that same fat little thirteen year-old nerd he was in ‘91. Now, just as then, when he’d had the audacity to slip a Coolwater cologne-scented love letter inside the locker of the smartest and prettiest girl at Woodborough Academy, the force of his desire overwhelms his logic, that magical edge in his thinking spills too far over. His intelligence has been reduced to a little shaving of information drifting like a feather in the back of his mind: the cruel and true fact that nothing will ever happen between himself and Karynn; she thinks nothing of him except the fact that he’s her landlord, and besides that, she’s in love with someone else.

---- ---- ----

The minutes pass into each other too slowly. Curtis stands in his one spot, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, beating his fists softly against the wall behind him with nervous energy. The crowd dwindles and swells, and then dwindles again with the most bewildering succession of songs heaving and droning as undercurrent. Barbara Streisand, Digable Planets, Mos Def, Maxwell, Niel Diamond, Jay-Z, Lena Horne—all from Brooklyn, Curtis notes, marveling at Brent and Samantha's artfulness. Samantha, ever the gracious hostess, darts from one cluster of guests to the next, barefoot and wearing a little light bluish-gray dress with a slight wrinkle effect, which hugs all the right places (even through there ain’t much to hug). People come back and forth to the bar, their many faces and bodies and levels of intoxication like a slow whirlwind before him. Every once in a while someone speaks to him, casual pleasantries and bullshit talk. A young, gay Brazilian guy approaches him talking business, pulling out his Blackberry, and while Curtis is reciting his broker’s name and number, he spots Karynn coming in, her arm hooked inside the arm of another girl, who is tall and pretty to her cute and petite.

It is Karynn’s friend, Jamilla that notices Curtis standing there, staring at Karynn as they hustle through the crowd in his direction. As they approach the makeshift bar, Karynn pulls out a bottle of Yellowtail Pinot Noir from a black plastic bag and places it on the table among the other assorted bottles. “I'm finna hit this,” she says, her eyes scanning the table for something to drink out of. Her earrings, large, iridescent white discs, dance against her dark neck like a full moon against the night. She’s wearing no make-up, no blue eyeshadow shaded over her low, sultry eyelids, none of the ultra-shiny gloss that makes her lips look as if they’re covered with smooth wet glass. Her short, mildly textured hair is without its usual sheen, and she’s not wearing her sexy-nerd glasses. In a black camisole and jean shorts and a pair of worn-out flip-flops, she looks as if she was loafing around in her apartment upstairs, and just decided on a whim to come down to the party.

“No, they didn’t!” Jamilla exclaims.

“What?”

“How they gon’ have watermelon here yo?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Jamilla smacks her teeth. “What, cause they moved to Bed-Stuy, they gotta have watermelon at they housewarming party? Fuck outta here,” she says, her voice forceful and crisp. “White people, man. They never cease to amaze me.”

“Anyway, the girl is Asian.”

“Asian, white, same difference. They both got the same sensibilities.”

Karynn glares at her friend and twists her lips into an impish grin. She proceeds to make a show out of slowly scooping the watermelon into a cup: with her silver-ringed pinkie finger poised in the air with mock etiquette, her thumb and index finger dig inside the cup to retrieve a glistening chunk of watermelon, which she quickly plucks into her mouth.

“Be careful with that,” Curtis says.

“Oh my goodness!” Karynn’s hand comes to her mouth, a blur of mahogany skin, the silver of rings and burgundy fingertips. “Why did I not see you standing over there?”

“How could you not? He’s like the only brotha in the room,” Jamilla quips.

“I know, I’m buggin’! This watermelon is like—it’s got like, mad liquor in it. Shit got me gone already. Have you tried some?” she asks Curtis.

“Nah, I’m good. I’m stayin’ away from that.”

“It’s good, though. Jamilla, you should try some.”

“I’ll have some later. I prob’ly need to eat first.” She looks over at Curtis, flashes him a pretty, polite smile.

Nice. Big, beautiful almond-shaped eyes and skin a rushing honey-brown. Thick naked pink lips, with the hint of a dimple in her right cheek. Her hair is pulled away from her face into a small, wavy afro-puff, showing off her long, creamy neck. Curtis’s eyes delight in the line of her neck curving into her shoulderblade into her bare shoulders, and her breasts, rather large for her petite frame, so inviting in her white tank top. She holds out her hand to Curtis. “Hi, I’m Jamilla.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! Jamilla, this is Curtis, my landlord. Curtis, this is Jamilla.”

“Nice to meet you, Jamilla.”

She smiles again faintly, and nods. “How long you been here?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.

“Eh, maybe about twenty minutes or so.”

“Having fun?”

Curtis opens his mouth to respond, but he is distracted by the appearance of a tall, lanky black man sauntering into the room in his peripheral vision. “Yeah, it’s a pretty decent party,” he says, after hesitating for a split second.

The man stops in the middle of the room and says a few last words on his cell phone, and with the smoothest movements and the most natural assuredness, he flips his phone closed by pressing its top half against his thigh and dropping it inside one of the pockets of his baggy khakis. A chorus of eyes falls on him, cautious and curious on his dark, dark skin and lips just as dark, the black stocking cap protruding with the burden of his long, thick, ruthless dreads, his bright gold t-shirt with a stylized drawing of the Conquering Lion of Judah.

Curtis used to see Reuben on the corner of Nostrand and Montgomery sometimes, before the police presence became what it is now. He remembers once, he passed him coming down the stairs of the stoop on a weekday evening. He was carrying his daughter, who was sleeping and in her school uniform, a plaid jumpsuit and maroon stockings. He cocked his head in greeting and Curtis did the same, and as they passed, he glanced at the girl’s sleeping face, which was shielded by a curtain of short cornrowed braids threading tiny, white, heart-shaped beads.

Reuben approaches Karynn and smiles down at her adoringly; Karynn smiles back and asks him what’d he’d like to drink, and at that, the two of them enclose themselves with their affections, and leave Curtis and Jamilla to their own devices. Curtis reaches down inside the cooler of beer on the floor, and grabs himself another Red Stripe. He covers his fingers with the bottom of his front shirt tail and twists the top off, to relish the sight of the cold air whispering from its spout. Barry Manilow’s Copacabana fades out and Biggie’s Unbelievable fades in.

“That was an interesting transition,” he offers after a swig.

“I know, right.”

“You know they’re only playing music by artists from Brooklyn, right?”

She rolls her eyes again, amused and skeptical. “Yeah, I noticed that…but I can’t be mad though, I love this song.”

“Yeah, me too. It’s a classic.”

A long pause and then Jamilla asks, “They got food here?”

He says nothing but cocks his head in the direction of the doorway and peels himself from the wall for the first time that night. She follows him across the living room into the dark vestibule, where they move past a group of a few drunk, partied-out guests loitering by the front door waiting for their car service. They duck inside the kitchen, where bright track lighting shines down on the remnants of the once-glorious bounty lain out on the countertops: hors d’ouevres on beds of fresh cranberries garnished by a single wilting fuchsia lily; red and white tortilla chips and Terra Cotta chips in thick wooden bowls, along with mango salsa and guacamole. On the stove, in a rather unceremonious disposable aluminum roasting pan: paella, only about two servings left, one black mussel among the bright yellow rice. Curtis wastes no time finding a paper plate.

Once their plates are loaded, they go back into the living room and pick at their food for a few minutes. They both feel pressured to talk to each other, but neither has any clue of what to say. The party is simmering down, the dozen or so guests dizzily riding their highs or coming down from them. The scent of marijuana is in the air, and Curtis looks around and sees Samantha and Brent sitting on the couch, Brent's hand disappearing and moving up under Samantha's dress as she straddles his lap. She seems to look right at Curtis as she squints her eyes and takes a pull from the joint, its tip furiously glowing in the dimness of the room.

“I’d rather not eat standing up,” Curtis says. “You mind going outside and sitting on the stoop?”

“It’s your world,” Jamilla says.

---- ---- ----

Outside, the night air is silky and delicious against their skin. They sit on the second step from the top, at opposite ends, their drinks placed precariously by their feet. Curtis holds his plate close to his chin, shoveling his paella into his mouth; Jamilla balances hers on her thighs, barely eating. Before them, and to their left and to their right, an array of stately brownstones unfolds into infinity: a series of neat lines, the windows of lighted rooms dotting into narrow yellow slits in the distance, the jagged silhouette of roofs upon the starless and dull black sheet of sky. A few houses down, some people have just finished barbequing, and the smell of water-dashed coals blankets the air. Summer anthem blasts from a black Benz jeep creeping towards the stop sign at Nostrand Avenue. The block is alive with that summer Saturday night in Brooklyn buzz.

He asks her how she and Karynn know each other, and she tells him they met while being involved in the Black Student’s Association at Columbia while Jamilla was at Teacher’s College. They play that familiar, “Maybe-you-know-someone-I-know-game”, and it turns out she knows his friend Ramesh’s younger sister, who had graduated from Teacher’s College a year before she did. She lives in Harlem, but was born and raised in Atlanta. She and her ex used to live together, she goes on to say, in a nice apartment right on 117^th and Lenox, but she kicked him out and now doesn’t know how she’s going to make the rent on her own. And she hates living by herself, which is why she has spent the last two whole weekends at Karynn’s.

After some silence, Curtis ventures, “Why'd you and your ex break up, if you don’t mind me asking? Pardon me if I’m being too invasive.”

“No, you're not being too invasive,” she says. “He was fuckin’ some other bitch on the side, some bitch he met from off the internet, can you believe it?” Laughter and mocking disbelief in her voice, as if she’s gossiping to a friend about something that happened to someone else. She’s thought about killing herself, she confesses, or killing her ex, or maybe the other broad if she could find her, just passing thoughts, nothing she’d actually ever do. She chews slowly, absentmindedly, brief pauses in between long ramblings. “I mean, it sounds crazy but, when shit like that happens to you, it’s like you can’t even differentiate between…right and wrong no more. Like…what’s real and what’s fake.”

He looks over at her, feeling her misery mingle with his loneliness. “You too pretty to be stressing over some man,” he says.

“Pretty ain’t got nothin’ to do with nothin’. Look at Halle Berry.”

“True.”

An odd, cold silence washes quickly over Curtis, and he looks over at her to see if she’s crying. But she’s just sitting there, staring ahead, stoic. “I kinda wanna know if she’s prettier than me or not,” she says.

“The way I see it, she did you a huge favor.”

“…I know. Everybody say that. But…I just feel so…like, what am I supposed to do? Just sit back and let shit happen to me? Not know nothing, not do nothing? I’m not a passive person at all. I feel like I gotta do something.”

“You did something. You kicked ‘em out. A lot of women in your position probably would’ve looked the other way.”

They hear the front door open behind them, and then an eruption of voices and footsteps. They both turn around to see a cluster of guests at the threshold saying their jovial parting words to Samantha and Brent. “Excuse us,” says a pale, pudgy girl with lightbulb-bright blonde hair in a red sundress and cowboy boots, leading the pack between Curtis and Jamilla and down the stairs. With the paleness of their skin, the contrasts of colors of their hair, and the audaciousness of their clothing, they look like some sort of experimental, three-dimensional moving collage, superimposed against the darkness of Boyd Street.

“I guess they ain’t scared of us no more,” Jamilla says.

“There’re cops all over the place.”

“Of course.”

The door swings open loudly behind them again, Karynn rushing over the threshold. “Yooooo!!!” she exclaims, “I had to pinch myself, I thought I was in Fort Greene for a minute, I was like how that happen?”

“I know right?” Jamilla laughs. “But that’s how it is with them. They just decide they wanna live somewhere and boom, they go live there. South Africa, Harlem, Brooklyn, it’s all theirs.”

“Yup…but you can’t blame ‘em, though,” Karynn says.

“Nah, can’t blame ‘em,” Reuben chimes in. “Can’t blame ‘em at all. I was just tellin’ her, it’s a good t’ing, make the neighborhood more diverse, clean up the streets and alladat.”

“I guess,” Jamilla says, not sounding convinced.

The conversation lulls until Karynn says, “Well I was gon’ hang out at Reuben’s house. You cool?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jamilla answers.

Karynn looks quickly at Curtis, then back at Karynn. “You got the keys, right? Call me if ya need me, OK?”

“OK.”

“A’ight then, see you tomorrow.”

“A’ight, then. Bye, Reuben.”

Reuben nods his head at Jamilla and says to Curtis, “Peace, bredren”, seeming to barely part his lips.

“Later.”

Curtis feels a slight twinge of envy, watching Karynn and Reuben cross Boyd Street, Reuben with his arm around Karynn’s neck and her arm around his waist. He can only acknowledge that for all their differences, for all the ways which Curtis feels that she can do much better—for all the ways she could do much better with him, there is something real and ordained about the two of them together.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Jamilla says.

“What am I thinking?” Curtis watches Karynn and Reuben disappear inside the alcove under the stoop that makes the entranceway to the basement apartment.

“You’re thinking, ‘Why do good girls like bad boys?’”

“Not exactly.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be tellin’ you this, but, wanna know somethin’?”

“Yes, tell me somethin’.”

“You know Karynn’s boyfriend Reuben has a daughter, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, she’s not his real daughter. I mean, she is; he’s the only father she’s ever known, but her real father got locked up before she was born, and then her mother went and linked up with Reuben, you know, and they was all living together in that house—that’s Reuben’s aunt’s house. Couple years later, her mother died of leukemia.”

“Wow.”

“I know. But you know what? When the aunt dies, Reuben’s daughter gets the house? Ain’t that some shit?”

“How old’s the aunt?”

“Old enough to have a will, I guess. Can you imagine? That little girl is set for life.”

Curtis takes the last sip of his beer, his eyes still focused on the house across the street, admiring the black wrought iron burglar bars on the first-floor windows that gently curve down and out like a woman’s pregnant belly, enclosing flower window boxes of hot pink and white primroses. He wants to know why Reuben doesn’t get the house, but he doesn’t bother asking. Instead, they start talking about Bed-Stuy in ten, fifteen years, how much the brownstone would be worth then. How Reuben’s daughter could at the very least finance an expensive private college education with the sale of the house, and a master’s and a doctorate’s degree, or she could buy a business or two, or open up her own, or she could be “niggerish” and blow it all on clothes and cars and other luxurious whims, hopefully not. In a few years, Jamilla says, Reuben and Karynn would be having some kids of their own, “one big happy family.”

After a pause, Curtis asks, “So this thing between the two of them must be serious.”

“She claims he’s her soulmate.”

“Wow. If only it could be that easy for the rest of us.”

“I know, right? I mean, right across the street.” She sighs, and rubs her thighs and knees forlornly. “It’s so hard to be goin’ through a break up when your best friend is in love.” Then, her voice turning hard and throaty, “I honestly don’t know how I’m going to survive this.”

“You’ll survive,” Curtis says, not knowing what else to say. Suddenly, he’s aware that he’s eaten all his food and his beer is finished, and he has no legitimate reason to occupy his hands. “Just gotta lean on your friends a little bit—”

Jamilla laughs, low and quick. “Yeah. Right. You see where Karynn’s at now, don’t you? But I ain’t mad at her though; I’d prob’ly be doin’ the same thing if I was her. I mean, she’s happy right now, I don’t wanna…you know, intrude on her happiness.” She gets up goes down the steps to dump her empty plate and cup into the big black plastic bag tied to the wrought iron fence of the adjacent courtyard. She stands there for a while, her arms hugging her chest, looking towards Nostrand Avenue. She takes a deep breath and asks Curtis, “Can I stay with you tonight?”

“Of course you can.”

She walks back up the steps towards him and he holds his empty plate and beer bottle out to her; she takes them from them and dumps them into the trash bag as well. Then she follows him back into the house and up the stairs.

“Gotta warn you, though. It’s kinda messy,” he says gruffly, hoping Jamilla doesn’t notice how slightly winded he is from climbing the four flights. He pulls out his keys and unlocks the door.

Actually, it’s messier than he remembers, he laments when they step inside. Random pairs of shoes and piles of clothes and other miscellaneous objects are scattered on the shining birch floor and on the black leather couch. Paper, mail, books, dirty dishes and opened boxes and bags of packaged snacks litter the surface of the coffee table, end table and kitchen bar counter. Otherwise, he hopes she notices, it still is a respectable apartment, newly renovated to the tune of double digit thousands, the furniture all new and modern, ordered online in one fell swoop from Pottery Barn. His most prized possession, the 32” plasma TV mounted on a swing arm facing the kitchen, welcomes them with a scene from Training Day.

“This looks like a nice l’il project,” Jamilla says, looking around as she hugs herself from the blast of air-conditioning.

“You’re hired.”

“Whatever.” She walks over to the window near the far corner of the room. She undoes the latch on the white prairie shutters and looks out. “It’s nice to face the street,” she says.

“Yeah.” He goes into the kitchen, gets the scotch from on top of the refrigerator and goes over to the bar overlooking the living room. “You want something to drink?” he asks her, pouring himself one dry.

“I don’t really drink like that.”

“You wanna listen to some music? Or…I don’t know. Wait a sec, I’ll get you the remote…Or…”

“I’m good, I’m good,” she says. She walks back over to the black leather couch and sits on the edge, her hands clasped primly on her lap.

“…OK. Just make yourself at home.”

“You got any condoms?” she asks abruptly.

“Condoms?” His hand is frozen around the base of the glass of scotch; he can’t bring himself to move a muscle. Hot wires shoot through his body, the liquor in his bloodstream moving like mad villains on a mission. He opens his mouth, but has no words.

“Just come on,” Jamilla urges, like a persistent child. She stands up, defiantly, and pulls her tank top over her head, unveiling a deliciously creamy flat stomach and a burgundy cotton bra, nothing fancy.

Curtis can’t believe his eyes. She unzips her jeans, her eyes fixed on a certain pile of clothes on the floor, a quiet determination marked on her face. She steps out of her jeans, her bare knees and thighs beckoning. Then her matching cotton thongs. She reaches behind her back and unhooks her bra, slips it off; it drips from her fingertips onto the black leather couch. When she stands still and naked in the middle of his messy living room with her arms by her side and the blue light of the TV bathing her creamy caramel skin, and her massive teardrops of breasts, the extravagant pinch of her high waist, the patch of dark hair between her legs—all in full grandeur, far better than anything, anything he could have possibly imagined tonight, she looks at him squarely and asks him if he likes what he sees.

“I do,” he says, thinking Wow.

“How bad do you want me?” she whispers, so low he can’t hear exactly hear her, but no matter, because he dares himself to come close to her and there he is, kissing her, fast, his breath hot and loud through his nose. His protruding stomach against her flat one, a hand squeezing her butt cheek and the other gripping her waist. When he gets ahead of himself and starts to attack her neck, that long, graceful stalk of neck, she steps back a bit. He comes after her, wrapping his arms around her confidently, possessively, attaching her body to his as he walks backwards into the bedroom in a haze of disbelief. While she lays herself down on her back in the middle of the bed, like a gift, propping herself up on her elbows and not saying anything, he rummages through the top drawer of his dresser, wading through unmatched pairs of socks, boxer shirts and undershirts to find an old box of Durex condoms, which he hadn’t pulled from in nearly five months.

What can he say? He gives her the best twenty minutes or so he has to give. Really, there is only so much he can do, because of course, it has been five entire months and his stroke is off, and he’s a portly fellow, can’t even walk up the stoop and the three flights of stairs to his apartment without huffing and puffing a bit. And Jamilla is this beautiful, young thing, spry and extremely generous in her lovemaking. Underneath him she winds her hips tirelessly and moans from the back of her throat, her fingernails digging into the dirt, sweat, skin and flesh of his back.

“Le’me get on top,” she whispers.

Curtis is happy to oblige. Five or six minutes of that and he makes the mistake of sliding his middle and index fingers between her nipple, and before he can stop himself, it’s over.

That dimple again, but this time pressed so deeply inside her cheek that, with her eyes downcast and her brow furrowed, in the darkness, the shadows of her face look menacing. With a simple, feline grace, she places her hand on his chest, right underneath his still rapidly beating heart, to support herself as she disengages herself from him, using the fingers of her other hand to secure the condom onto Curtis’s limpness. “Can I use your bathroom?” she asks. The smell in the room turns darker and more pungent.

“Yeah, it’s right to the right of the kitchen.” He swallows, noticing a different taste in his mouth. His head feels heavy. He squeezes his eyes closed for a moment, then opens them back up wide, to the sight of Jamilla walking away from him, the darkness of the room smoothing and blurring the contours of her body until it engulfs her. Damn! Curtis keeps thinking, Damn! Shit! He wonders desperately what she’s thinking. Maybe tomorrow they could go to the Pink Teacup for brunch. Tuesday, maybe Wednesday, he’ll send her flowers—he’d have to find out where she teaches, he decides, before he falls quickly into a deep, but delicate sleep with a satisfied smile on his face.