The Other Woman by Eric Jerome Dickey

Author:Eric Jerome Dickey [Dickey, Eric Jerome]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Married women, African American television producers and directors, Adultery, Los Angeles (Calif.), African Americans, Contemporary, Fiction, Literary, African American women, Marriage, African American, General, Domestic Fiction
ISBN: 9780525947240
Google: SIRaAAAAMAAJ
Amazon: 0451211936
Publisher: Dutton
Published: 2003-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

12

Something nudges my memory. Makes me remember how we started.

A little more than five years ago I met Charles on a crowded bus heading to Mammoth. We were on a KJLH and Four Seasons West ski trip. Saw my future husband when I was struggling to toss my luggage under the bus at six in the morning. I wasn’t interested in him at that moment. He came over and helped me, took charge the moment I met him. I liked that about a man. I wasn’t in the talking mood, but when I saw him up close, I did my best to sip my coffee and perk up, tried to be grateful for his help.

He asked, “You skiing blacks?”

“What’s that?”

“Advanced.”

“Oh, no. First time. Taking lessons.”

“Me too. I’ll have at least one person to run into a tree with.”

We ended up sitting across from each other, but I tucked a pillow under my head and went to sleep as soon as I got on the bus. After being up until two in the morning, not even a quadruple cappuccino could wake me up. But my people were yakking and getting their party on by sunrise, had the music bumping like it was New Year’s Eve, so I had to wake up, and Charles and I ended up talking off and on. We ended up in the same ski school, with all that bulky equipment weighing us down, learning how to turn and wedge, and falling off the ski lift, then tumbling down the bunny slopes together.

We were a disaster.

After we’d had enough embarrassment for one day, we turned in our rented gear and warmed up our frozen toes in the crowded lodge, sipping wine and beer, raising our voices so we could hear each other over the hip-hop remixes that were rocking the building, laughing about how we looked on the hill, then talking about our jobs, dancing a bit, eating greasy entrees.

He asked, “What made you get into news?”

“My probation officer.”

He laughed at my joke.

I said, “Back then I wanted to help control some of the images about our people. Show that we’re not all drug dealers or rappers. Thought I’d get in and change the system.”

“Yeah. Feel you on that. I wanted to change things too.”

He was looking good in his colorful gear, reds and blues and blacks. And I was without makeup, my perm needed to be curled and was jacked to the max, and that schoolteacher still kept his eyes and smile on me.

I asked, “When’s your birthday?”

“October 2.”

Libra. Balanced. Highly emotional. High sex drive.

He asked, “When’s yours?”

“February 24.”

“Almost a month away.”

“Twenty-two days.”

Hazel eyes. Soft black curly hair. The kind of man you look at and start thinking about pretty babies. Because, who wants ugly babies? Not even ugly people want ugly babies.

He said, “You said you came up here by yourself?”

“Yeah. Traveling a capella.”

“Most women won’t go to a movie alone, let alone on vacation. ”

“Well, was supposed to come up with this guy I’d been seeing—”

“Uh-huh.

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