The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [45]
Teddy looked at the man, then at me. I shook my head. Teddy didn't move, but his eyes swung back to the man, who nodded, accepting my refusal.
Accepting the first drink from a strange man is very much like a nice girl having sex on a first date. I sat waiting for the second offer.
“My name is Tom, Maya, why won't you have a drink with me?”
I hadn't seen him move and suddenly he was close enough for me to feel his body heat. He spoke just above a whisper.
“I didn't know you, I didn't know your name. A lady can't drink with a nameless man.” I smiled, pressing my cheek muscle down to show the hint of a dimple.
He was a reddish-tan color which Southern blacks called mariney His face was freckled and his smile a blur of white.
“Well, I'm Thomas Allen. I live on Clark off Eastern Parkway. I'm forty-three and unmarried. I work in Queens and I work hard and I make pretty good money. Now you know me.” He raised his voice, “Bar, give us another one like that other one,” then dropped his voice. “Tell me, why are you all alone? Have the men gone blind?”
Although I knew it was an expected move in the courting game, flirting made me uncomfortable. Each coy remark made me feel like a liar. I wiggled on the stool and giggled and said, “Oh, stop.”
Thomas was smooth. He led, I followed; at the proper time he withdrew and I pulled forward; by the end of our introductory ceremony, I had given him my address and accepted an invitation to dinner.
We had two dinner dates, where I learned that he was a bail bondsman and divorced. I went to his house and received lavish satisfaction. After a few nights of pleasure I took him home to meet my son.
He was Tom to his friends, but to establish myself as a type different from the people he knew, I called him Thomas. He was kind to me, always speaking gently, and generous to Guy. We were a handsome trio at the movies, at the zoo, and at Coney Island. His family treated me with courtesy but the looks they traded with each other spoke of deep questions and distrust. What did I want with their brother? A grown woman, who had been in show business and the Good Lord knew what else. Her teenage son, whose sentences were threaded with big words, who talked radical politics and went on protest marches. What was Tommy going to do with them? And for goodness' sake, she wasn't even pretty, so what did he see in her?
If they had asked me, instead of each other, I could have informed them with two words: sex and food.
At first, my eagerness in the bedroom shocked him, but when he realized that I wasn't a freak, just a healthy woman with a healthy appetite, he was proud to please me. And I introduced him to Mexican and French menus, spreading glories of food on my dining-room table. We enjoyed each other's gifts and felt easy together. I had only one regret. We didn't talk. He never introduced a subject into our evenings and answered with monosyllables to any questions asked.
After the most commonplace greetings, our conversations were mostly limited to my shouting in his bedroom and his grunts at my dining-room table. He treated my work at the SCLC as just another job.
A large donation or a successful money drive would send me away from the office sparkling. Thomas would accept the news with a solemn nod, then thump the newspaper, so that I would know he was really busy reading. His replies to questions about the quality of his workday were generally given in a monotone.
“It was O.K.”
Were any interesting people arrested?
“No. Just the same old whores and pimps and murderers.”
Aren't some of those criminals dangerous?
“Walking down the street is dangerous.”
Wasn't he ever afraid of gun-toting criminals?
“I've got a gun too, and a license to carry it.”
But for my arrogance, our relationship would never have progressed beyond the reach of our carnal appetites.
The Writers Guild had met at Rosa's apartment and people were arranging rides to a late-night party in Harlem. I declined, saying Thomas was coming to take me home.
Someone suggested I bring him to the party, but