SLOW BURN - Chapter 2, Serafina Danielle Jordan by Ebony Farashuu

Serafina Danielle Jordan

He once slid between my sheets smelling like cigarette smoke, vodka, and the wrong perfume. It wasn’t enough that he’d missed dinner with my family again. He’d taken it five steps further by giving my time to another woman and then stumbling into my bed at an insane hour with her kisses still on his breath.
It changed me. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it. It wasn’t even the second or third time, and only God knew how many times he’d have done it again had that particular moment not changed me. Some view it as a positive change because he’s no longer in my life, and although I never want to be the weak woman I was when I was with him…I sometimes dislike the resentful, distrustful woman I’ve become without him. I used to be such a sweet person. So sweet, that when I fell asleep after a long day, honey oozed from my mouth and covered my pillow instead of the pungent slobber that stained the sheets of ordinary women.
Ordinary. It’s something I never wanted to be but somehow, with Jeremy, I was just another woman letting myself be played by a man who’d never even said ‘I love you’. I was ordinary. I was naïve. I was ignorant. I was silly. I was, for lack of a better word, stupid. It’s funny, cuz growing up, ‘stupid’, was a cuss word in our house. If I ever ran into the house screaming that someone had said the ‘s’ word…my parents would have to figure out if the offender had said ‘stupid’ or ‘shit’.
I almost chuckled at the memory. On at least three separate occasions, I’d been forced to pick out my own switch for calling my big brother, Maximus, the dreaded ‘s’ word.
“I don’t have any stupid kids,” my mother would say sternly.
I wonder if she’d still believe that if she knew the insane amount of bull I’d put up with before finally deciding to leave Jeremy alone. I closed my eyes momentarily, thankful for the most recent red light and leaned back in my seat as I waited for it to change. I wasn’t worried about not being able to see it. I was pretty sure the people behind me would honk if I didn’t move fast enough when it went back to green.
“Why aren’t you smiling?”
I slowly opened my eyes and as I turned my head to the left I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a strange woman standing next to my driver’s side window. Her sudden appearance startled me and I sat upright in my seat. She made a sudden move, as if she wanted to caress my face and I hurriedly raised the window before her grimy hands could touch me.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have any money,” I apologized as the window went up, shutting her out of my personal space.
She didn’t leave, simply leaned her nasty self against my car and put her face so close to my window that I could see her breath gathering on the glass. I stared at her. I mean really stared at her trying to figure out why she was still standing there.
“Why aren’t you smiling?” She asked again.
Why wasn’t I smiling? Why wasn’t I reveling in the dignity I’d stolen back from Jeremy when he wasn’t looking? I wasn’t lonely. I’d already gotten over the hurt and wasn’t sad. I was just a little bitter and my bitterness wouldn’t allow me to smile, especially not at the request of this tacky stranger. Just looking at her made my stomach hurt.
Her lips were huge and painted fire engine red, lined with a deep black pencil. Her face, caked with make-up, would put Bozo to shame. Her stained red dress was a little too snug for her overly voluptuous figure. She’d probably been beautiful once, but her age and questionable lifestyle had obviously helped speed up the hands of time. She leaned in even closer to my window and I cringed as she began drumming her raggedy red nails on the glass.
“Smile,” she mouthed, drawing an invisible smile in the air with her pointer fingers. “I have something that you need.”
“Please go away!” I mouthed back, slowly, so that she could grasp what I was saying.
I pointed to the other side of the street, but she just smiled at me with the most perfectly beautiful teeth I’d ever seen. I was stunned and momentarily speechless, as I marveled at the sight of such beauty amongst the rest of her grime. I almost smiled back, but because smiles often invited unwanted conversation, I chose to focus my attention on the stoplights.
She tapped softly. I turned up the volume on my stereo. She tapped louder. My speakers vibrated as I turned the stereo up another notch. She knocked. I sang along with James Blunt. As the words to “You’re Beautiful” surrounded me, I desperately tried to cover my visitor’s voice with my own.
“You’re beautiful,” I sang
“Why aren’t you smiling?”
“You’re beautiful,” I sang louder.
“Why aren’t you smiling?”
“You’re beautiful. It’s true.” My hands gripped the steering wheel so intensely that I began to tremble. My voice faltered, “I saw your face in a crowded place and I don’t know--”
“Why aren’t you smiling?”
“GO AWAY!” I screamed. I let go of the wheel and angrily slammed both palms against the window.
She was gone.
I stared at my hands, not used to the violence her presence had instigated. It scared me because for a split second, I’d wished the window were open so that I could ram my fist down her throat and shred her vocal cords with my fingernails.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” I mumbled, nervously looking around for a glimpse of the strange woman. It was as if she’d evaporated. I almost questioned whether she’d actually been there, but the handprint on my window proved that she had.
The car behind me honked and I placed my hands back on the wheel, but couldn’t take my foot off of the brake. Multiple horns sounded behind me as the light went from green to yellow then back to red. The car behind me swung out and passed me, running the red light.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I heard the driver yell as he passed me.
“I’m the only one allowed to ask myself that question,” I almost yelled back.
My cell phone rang, and in my haste to answer it, I accidentally dropped it between the passenger seat and middle console.
“Damn.”
I reached over to dig it out and bumped my head on the gearshift.
“Shit!”
I rose up quickly, rubbing my forehead and making a mental note to add another dollar to my cuss jar. I cussed too damn much… another bad habit I’d picked up after my breakup with Jeremy.
“Make that two dollars,” I mumbled.
The sound of multiple car horns suddenly filled the air…again. I was about to put my car into drive when I heard a small knock on my window. After my encounter with the strange woman, I was almost afraid to turn around, but when my peripheral vision focused, I couldn’t keep myself from licking my lips to give them a little shine.
“Are you okay?”
He wore a black bandanna over his hair and the striking contrast against his deep caramel coated skin was hotter than the sunlight burning me through my windshield. He stared as if he expected some sort of response, but I couldn’t seem to find my voice. He motioned for me to roll down my window, and like a good little girl, I nodded and did as told. I leaned back as this sexy piece of man reached into my car and turned on my hazard lights. He smelled like fresh sweat and jojoba oil. He withdrew his arm, and I wanted to grab it and pull him into my lap. He had dreadlocks and the moment I caught a glimpse one of those sandy locks snaking over his shoulder I had a sudden urge to go prostrate and praise his very existence.
“You’re hurt.” He reached out to touch me, and I winced slightly as his fingertips made contact with the small lump that had begun to form on my forehead.
“Oh…that. It’s nothing,” I said, finally able to speak. “I hit my head on the gearshift.”
He gave me a puzzled look.
“There was this woman and she disappeared and then my cell phone rang and I was trying to answer it and--” I stopped myself before I ended up sounding crazy or stupid, “I’m ok.” I managed what I hoped was a convincing smile.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” I waved him away with an absent flick of the hand. “I’m cool.”
“Maybe you should pull into that parking lot.” He jerked his head towards the Super Wal-Mart and as he did so, his beautiful locks bounced against his back. My eyes drank in the sight of him. He was tall and his muscular shoulders had no business being covered by the short sleeves of his black t-shirt.
“Uh-uh.” I shook my head slowly, trying to release myself from the trance I’d fallen into the moment we’d made eye contact.
“Uh-uh?”
“I don’t know you.” Common sense gradually began to dismantle the damage caused by my carnal senses.
“I don’t know you either, but I stopped to check on you.”
“So?”
“So…I could have gotten run over but my concern for your well being pushed all thoughts for my own safety to the back of my mind. I risked my life for you. The least you could do is pull over into that crowded parking lot and talk to me.” His logic was insane but he smiled as he spoke and ten thousand rainbows began with my eyes and ended on his lips.
“Okay,” I heard myself say.
I watched this man walk back to his vintage black mustang, and point towards the parking lot as if I’d somehow forget where it was. I led the way, while my pot of gold followed close behind.
“This is crazy,” I thought as I watched him park and get out of his car. “He’s fine but he could be crazy. He could be a rapist or something. What if he has rope, duct tape, and knives in his trunk and he’s just waiting for the opportunity to run into a woman stupid enough to let those hazel eyes overwhelm her?” As I had this little chat with myself, I tried to sneak a peek at myself in the mirror without looking too obvious. That lump on my forehead was starting to make me feel like The Elephant Man’s love child.
I watched my rescuer walk toward me, and appreciated the way those black nylon shorts clung to his muscular thighs. There was no use trying not to imagine what kind of equipment he was packing between those muscles because my mind and eyes had already been there at least twice.
“He could be cray-zeeee.” I sang softly to myself.
I left my motor running just in case I needed to run him over.
“Are you going to get out?” He asked me. I shook my head no. “Are you at least going to turn the motor off?”
“That’s a negative.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“How could I possibly know that?”
“Because I left all of my weapons in my car.”
He squatted down beside my door until we were eye level. I stared and he laughed a deep throaty laugh that left me fighting the urge to laugh too. I could hear in the near distance somebody’s child getting a good old-fashioned butt whooping. The sounds of footsteps and baskets seemed to pause as everyone tried to figure out where the racket was coming from.
“She’s probably spanking that poor child for what he just did, what he did yesterday and what he’ll probably do tomorrow,” he chuckled as if remembering a similar beating he’d gotten in the past.
I laughed despite myself, “Don’t ask for nothin’, don’t touch nothin’, you ain’t gettin’ nothin’!”
“Oh, you know the black mama golden rules?”
“Oh, I am a product of the black mama golden rules! I’m a grown woman and sometimes, when I see that cheese in the can…I have flashbacks.” I shivered mockingly.
“My mama refused to buy that for me too,” he smiled.
“Did you buy some when you grew up?”
“It’s disgusting,” we agreed in unison.
We both cracked up, but my laughter stopped when he reached out to touch my forehead again. My body froze, as his fingers pushed my hair out of my face.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I told you, I’m fine.” I shrugged self-consciously. “I look a mess.”
“I don’t know,” he chuckled. “I think it’s kinda sexy. It gives you that ‘I’m cute but I ain’t scared to fight a man’ kind of look.”
I laughed again.
“You have a nice laugh.” He finger combed my bangs down over the knot and smiled again.
I felt a small sense of loss when he stopped touching me and I placed my fingers where his had been.
“So, why are we here?” My voice softened. The hostility I wanted to hustle up just couldn’t seem to get with the program.
“I don’t know if I should tell you. You might think I’m crazy.”
“Try me.”
“Turn off your car.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
He stood up and backed away from my car door. I gave him a skeptical look but turned off the ignition, then stepped out of the car. I leaned against my door and stared at him. He kept his distance, and for that I was thankful.
“Okay, hero, tell me.”
He took a deep breath, looked me square in the eyes and said, “God, told me I’d meet the love of my life today.”
“And that concerns me because?”
“Because the moment I touched that knot on your forehead I knew you were the one.”
Without a word, I got back into the car and started the ignition. I knew this fool was crazy.
“I’m not kidding,” he yelled over the roar of my engine as I started to back out.
“You’re crazy,” I yelled back.
“Why did you pull over?”
I stopped, halfway in and out of my parking space. “I don’t know,” I said more to myself than to him. I put the car into park. “I don’t know.”
“Is this something that you would normally do?”
“No.”
“Me neither.” He told me.
I believed him. It was odd. I believed him and I barely knew him. I believed a stranger when I wouldn’t normally believe anything that came out of a man’s mouth. Maybe I was the crazy one. I didn’t believe Jeremy when he told me he was sorry, but was actually listening to a strange man who’d just told me that God had told him to pull me over.
“When I saw you I knew that you were the one I’ve been waiting for.” He cautiously approached the car. “You believe me. I can see it in your eyes. You don’t want to but you do.”
“Dude, you just told me that God spoke to you.”
“You believe me.”
“Yes, but I still think you’re cray-zeeee,” I sang.
“I’m crazy about this knotty headed woman I’ve just met.”
“Okay, now you’re gon’ stop ragging on my forehead.” I laughed.
His smile was so damn sexy, so calming, I could feel all of the frustration leaving my body. My phone rang again, and I ignored it.
“You’re not married.” It was a statement, rather than a question. Still, I shook my head. “Boyfriend?” I shook my head again. “Girlfriend?” He raised an eyebrow. I smiled and shook my head vigorously. “Crazy father with a shotgun?” He had me laughing again. “Will you take my number?” Before I could answer he’d already whipped a pen out of his pocket and scribbled his number on a scrap of paper. He then reached into the car, grabbed my hand, placed the paper in my palm and closed my fingers around it.
“You’d better not follow me home,” I warned.
“I’m a good guy. Give me a chance.” He said earnestly.
“Yeah, ok.” I said, still unnerved at the effect this stranger had on me.
My hands shook, as he leaned into my window and placed a gentle kiss on my forehead. Then, without another word, he pulled away and walked back to his car. He waved as he drove away but the shock of his lips on my skin prevented me from waving back. I pulled out of the parking lot and got back onto the highway. I was halfway home when it dawned on me that I didn’t even know the man’s name. I looked down at the number I’d been clutching. Who was I supposed to ask for? God’s homeboy?
I threw the number out of the window and stared straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel angrily. Tears of frustration stung my eyes as the shame and embarrassment over my own naiveté taunted me.
“Stupid,” I sighed softly. “You almost fell for it.”
I was alone in my car, not expecting anyone to answer…but in the back of my mind I thought I heard a small voice ask, “Why aren’t you smiling?”