Something She Can Feel

“It went.” I shrugged my shoulders. There was nothing to tell him that wouldn’t complicate the situation.

“She hates that you’re here. She hates me. She wants you to come home.”

“That about sums it up,” I said, laughing with Dame. “I don’t know. I just wish she could understand.”

/> “Understand what?”

“What I feel.” I looked at him “When I’m with you. When we’re together.”

“And what’s that?”

“Like I’m free and this is all I need. Just you ... and my freedom.”

“You need more than that,” he said. “You need something for yourself.”

I looked down and then back out at the street. A mother was crossing with a baby tied to her back.

“I don’t know what that is yet,” I said, watching the baby sleep peacefully.

“You’ve got to find out. Everybody has to have their thing.”

Chapter Twenty-six

The streets of the Gold Coast weren’t paved with gold. Just lots of golden earth, for as long as the eye could see. If I squinted, just when the sun hit it as I rode along during the highest part of the afternoon, the earth looked like gold and sometimes glints of what could actually be small pieces of gold, so tiny the eye could only see them from far away, sparkled like stars.

Dame and I rode along one of these golden roads in a car he’d gotten from Brother Kofi. After days of visiting him in the studio and running out of things to do with myself and ways to impress the crowd of ladies waiting to catch Dame’s eye, I insisted we take a break from everything and go on a vacation from his working vacation. I wanted Dame and Ghana to myself. To get farther away from the world.

“Kumasi isn’t too far,” Dame said when we set out. “Just make sure you don’t have to go to the bathroom. There won’t be one for miles.”

I watched golden roads and sparkles the entire way to Kumasi, wondering what was ahead for Dame and me there and happy that we’d finally be alone. No driver. No Benji. No Emily with her BlackBerry. Just us.

“Now, this is a beach,” I said when we’d unpacked our things and slipped out of the front door of our hotel room. The water was so blue it mixed in with the sky, and the sand, as white as flour, was without a footprint or reminder of the world beyond our eyes.

“It’s just for us,” Dame said.

“A private beach?” I asked.

“You wanted privacy,” he came up behind me in the doorway. “You got privacy. You wanted me to yourself... . You’ve got me to yourself.” He kissed me softly on the neck and shockwaves went quivering through me, but I still felt I had to resist.

“Yes,” I said, stepping forward and away from him.

“How long are you going to play this game?” he asked.

“Game?” I turned to him.

“What are you trying to avoid?”

“I ...”

“I can wait,” he said. “But I’m a grown man. And you’re definitely a grown woman.” He looked at my hips, which were poking through the flat shape of the African sundress I was wearing.

Dame stepped closer again and started kissing my neck. I could feel his body grow and harden. He pulled me into the room and we slid behind the door as he continued to caress me.

“Housekeeping,” a small, soft voice called from the other side of the door. Dame and I jumped as if it was old Roscoe opening the door to the janitor’s closet at the school. “Anyone here?” She knocked.

“Yes, we’re here,” Dame said, smiling at me and walking out from behind the door. I eased out slowly, too.

“Oh,” the woman said, putting her hand over her eyes when she saw Dame and me. “The door was open, so I thought I’d—”