We ate without saying much. She was shifty. Bouncing her leg. Tapping her fingers.
She asked, “When can I see you again?”
That surprised me. “You want to see me again?”
“That’s what I just asked.”
“Maybe tonight, if that’s cool. You working tonight?”
“Not sure.” She shrugged. “Depends.”
“I got some things to take care of.”
“Call me. Even if you can’t come through, ring my phone and let me know you’re okay. We don’t have to do anything. Just want to make sure you’re okay, Driver.”
I asked, “Why?”
Worry showed in her full lips and the corner of her brown eyes. I reached across the table and held her hand. I felt more than lust, much more than that, but not enough at the same time. Fear was an inhibitor. Love handicapped a man the same way it handicapped a woman.
She shook her head, sighed at me, then took a bite of her cut-up grilled chicken.
My head was in a dark, bad place right now. Plus I’d never been good with women, not when I had to read between the lines, that place called Venus where most of their emotions lived.
She said, “I just left the shooting range. Everything works.”
“What I owe you?”
“This meal is enough.”
“C‘mon now. How much this set you back? I want to kick you back your cash.”
“Maybe you could take me to dinner and we could call it square.”
We finished our ten-dollar meal and she came over to my side of the table, checked my head wound. I touched her lips and she trembled. She recovered, looked nervous, then she leaned over and kissed my lips, got up from the table and left without saying good-bye.
My lips had never touched hers before. It was nice and warm, made me want more.
I watched her cornbread and buttermilk sashay, watched her shoulders soften, watched her get in her red sports car. She turned on her headlights. First her reverse lights came on, then changed back to her parked lights. She sat there for a few minutes, idling and thinking. Her reverse lights came back on. She backed out and zipped into the madness on Century Boulevard.
My cellular rang less than a minute after she had vanished. I answered.
Panther’s voice was both urgent and unsteady. “Can’t you just leave town?”
“I’m not running from no motherfucker.”
“Because you have a gun.”
“If for no other reason.”
“Driver, you ever shot anybody?”
“Why you ask?”
“Ain’t as easy as it seems. Maybe you should consider your options.”
“I’m not running.”
“I didn’t say run. Why can’t you leave for a while? I have people in Alpharetta.”
“Shit. I heard you talking to your momma this morning. I know they can’t get that confederate flag issue resolved, sounds like they’re still lynching niggas down that way too.”
“Stay inside the perimeter and keep away from the white girls in Rome, Georgia, and you’ll be cool.”
“Panther. Look. Can’t. Look ... I ... I have a brother. Need to stay here.”
She said, “Take him if you have to.”
“He’s ... my brother is ... he’s sick.”
She waited a moment. “What kind of sick?”
I almost told her that Rufus’s immune system had been compromised. That he was cash-strapped and the meds to keep him in a healthy state cost a grip. That his being a kept man gave me angst, but it cost a lot to keep him well, money I didn’t have, at this rate never would have.
I said, “Look, he’s cash poor and I have crumbs lining my pockets so I can’t afford to take him and I can’t disappear on him. Gotta stay nearby. We’re the end of the family tree.”
I licked my lips. Tapped my fingers on the table and swallowed my discomfort.
She said, “Didn’t know you had siblings. Or cared about ... about family.”
We held the phone, traffic sounds coming through on her end.
Panther said, “I have a sister and a brother. I’m the oldest.”
“I’m the oldest too.”
“I guess we’re setting good examples, huh?”
We actually laughed.
She said, “My baby sister just turned twenty and she has two children by two men who would be more than happy to set fire to the ground she walks on.”
“Kinda like Rita Hayworth.”
“Yeah, I think that’s why that documentary made me so sad. My baby brother is with the 10th Mountain Division. Army. In Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
I held the phone, but my eyes went to the newspaper she had left behind. She’d been reading about all the young men getting killed over the country’s Bush-shit.