When summer came, I took my old job back with Dr. Rice and stayed in town with Uncle Root. We took our trips to Atlanta to shop and see a movie, and one afternoon, when we returned, Abdul’s voice was on the answering machine. He mumbled through his message, explaining, he’d found Uncle Root’s number in the Gamma fraternity directory. And he was in Atlanta for the summer again. He had an internship.
“That young man sounds a bit forlorn,” Uncle Root said. “Are you going to put him out of his misery?”
I walked to the answering machine and deleted the message, but the next day, there were two messages from Abdul, and even more messages the day after. One day in mid-June, I answered the phone and there was his voice. He sounded sad and disheveled. I pictured him on the other end, hair in need of a trim. A scraggly beard. Eyes red and bloodshot.
After a few minutes of his stumbling conversation, I told him I needed to go.
“Wait a minute, Ailey! Why you rushing me off the phone?”
“I know how much you need to save money. This is long-distance.”
“But what if I said you were worth it?”
The next week, I received two insured packages, one with a depressed-looking pink teddy bear displaying a red heart, and another with gold earrings inside a velvet jewelry box. I held the earrings up to the light and located the 14k stamp. There was a card inside with a message about sincerity in the midst of sorrow: he’d bought me a card you give to someone who’d had a death in the family.
*
Abdul had been arrested once, back in high school. It was him and a bunch of dudes, coming out of a party. Teenagers, fifteen and sixteen years old. The cops had just grabbed them and started cuffing everybody. They wouldn’t even say what the charge was. They’d denied Abdul a phone call, too, and for twelve hours, he’d done everything in that cell not to fall asleep. He’d stood, back against the wall, going over his homework in his head. Surrounded by all those hard legs, guys who looked tough enough to kill. Smelling them and trying to conceal his fear. That night, he hadn’t known if he would make it back to his mother.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“I just . . . I wanted to talk to you, Ailey. Explain myself.”
He’d asked me to meet him at the waffle place on the highway. It would be his treat, he’d promised, and I’d ordered more than my share. Steak, eggs, hash browns, toast, and unlimited coffee refills.
“But you’re not explaining.” I waited until the waitress poured my coffee. When she left, I leaned over my plate, lowering my voice. “Why’d you cheat on me?”
He turned his head to the plate glass window. There wasn’t much of a view: the parking lot, and beyond that, the narrow highway.
I called his name softly. I told him to look at me.
“Don’t try this, Abdul. You expect me to feel sorry for you?”
“You don’t get it. You try working like a Hebrew slave with two part-time jobs for your pledge fees. Giving them Gammas money for their car payments or their rib plates or whatever shit they want, but it don’t matter because they’re still going to beat your ass. And now I’m supposed to belong, but I’m still not good enough. I just slipped up, Ailey. I just got stressed. I didn’t grow up like you. I don’t have a family to take care of me in case something goes wrong. It’s hard out here for a young Black man.”
“And so you’re saying that’s why you cheated on me?”
“I told you, Ailey. It wasn’t cheating. I’m not going to argue about that.”
“Okay, fine. But why did you hit me?”
“I just lost my temper, Ailey. I’m so sorry, but I was hurting, too. How you’d made me feel ashamed, not wanting me to meet your family. Letting me know I wasn’t good enough.”
“That’s not true, Abdul!” I leaned over my plate, whispering. “I’d never in a million years say something like that. You were the one who told me I wasn’t your girlfriend.”
“But that was because you were ashamed of me. It really, really hurt me, Ailey.”
Playing with the rest of my hungry man’s feast, I told him I forgave him for hitting me, but I couldn’t be his woman anymore. He said he understood, but that he hoped we could keep talking, because he needed someone to listen. He really needed a friend, and maybe we could talk some more, back at his apartment? I told him, no. I couldn’t go back there. That was my final word, but he kept calling, and sent more presents. I began to meet him back at the waffle house, until one day, when he asked if he could kiss me, I told him, all right. Okay.