What He's Been Missing

But then . . .

“Come inside, Rach!” Krista’s voice cut in all away. So quickly, we turned from whatever was happening to her standing halfway out the doors we’d exited. “They’re about to cut the cake.”

Xavier grabbed my hand proudly under Krista’s stare and we walked inside without saying a word to her.

8

Aliens in ATL

#Shesaidhe’dcomeinthemorning. But I wasn’t ready for what he had in store.

I thought I’d crumble watching Ian cut his wedding cake and feed the moist white insides to the woman he wouldn’t leave for me. After everything that had happened, after everything that I did and he’d said to me, it didn’t make any sense that I’d still be standing, another smiling and hopeful face in pictures from the wedding reception right there behind Scarlet and her girls. But I was. Still, a close look at those pictures would show that I

was too busy looking across the room at Xavier behind Ian and his boys to think of losing my footing and crumbling over Ian. Xavier’s coming so close to kissing me was like handing a baby a new toy. From across the room I saw him in a new way. And damn, he looked good.

He had my attention. I was thinking of him incessantly after the wedding. And while my mind told me that I was probably just masking the pain of the disaster with Ian at the pier with the promise of Xavier’s kiss, the pounding in my heart was much louder. Being a hopeless romantic, my heart was filled with an acute case of the “what if’s.” What if I’d stumbled upon my “and I wasn’t even looking for him” fairy-tale man? What if he could be mine? What if he was what I’d been missing?

“Dammmnnnn,” Journey said, looking at me on the computer. She and I had matching wineglasses and our favorite bottle of pink Moscato. “I’m just saying, I expected fireworks in New Orleans, but dammmmnnnnn, you traded in your best friend for his best friend?”

“Xavier is not Ian’s best friend. Well, he was his best friend in undergrad, but they don’t really get with each other like that anymore. You know, life.”

“Does Ian know about this budding love affair?” Journey asked.

“No,” I said. “We haven’t really spoken since I saw him walking out of the reception with Scarlet in New Orleans. The office sent them flowers when they got back from the honeymoon and I know Scarlet was e-mailing Krista about some loose ends. But Ian hasn’t called me . . . so. I guess he wants it this way. It’s been almost a month now.”

“And you don’t think Xavier has said anything to Ian?” She sipped her wine.

Journey and I shared a toast at the start of the conversation. She was in Dublin. Dame had taken the kids on a walk. They’d be there for a few months as Dame taped his scenes for a movie he was starring in with Colin Farrell. She’d been traveling and constantly on the go for the last few weeks, so I had to get her caught up on everything that had happened in New Orleans. About the pier. Oh my God. Tante Heru. She laughed about that and said she was sending the “Holy Ghost Drop Squad” from her father’s church in Alabama to pick me up for talking to a roots woman. I told her about the romantic scene outside the reception with Xavier.

Xavier and I had been regular phone buddies since we left New Orleans. In fact, he’d called me every night. Sometimes twice in one night. Sometimes three times in a day. He wanted to know what I was eating. Maybe have me text him pictures of me brushing my teeth in the morning, my office, the red truck parked in Bird’s garage. We’d talk for hours. Like boyfriend and girlfriend in a long-distance relationship. He made me laugh like we were still in college. He was so funny and so smart, I was almost embarrassed that I didn’t know these things about him. Xavier could tell a joke one minute and make me cry the next. He’d finished the Ironman Triathlon twice in Hawaii. Had traveled to every continent. Taught himself Mandarin. He donated half of his salary each year to scholarships for first-generation college students enrolled in the business school at FAMU. He was the first man I’d met in a long time who made me feel like I needed to do better. Hearing all these new things in late-night chats over the phone, I guessed that previously my young mind had just been happy believing what every other girl had to say about Xavier. But then he’d openly admitted that those girls weren’t making it all up. It had taken him a lot of time and a lot of heartbreak to get to where he was right then. One night while we were Skyping at 3:00 AM, he yawned after reading Rumi’s “The Springtime of Lovers Has Come” and said, so eloquently, “Sometimes a man’s got to get to his future to know how important it is.”

“You know I have to tell you that this is probably nothing, right?” Journey looked nervous, playing with the stem of her glass. “But, you know, you’re probably kind of—”

“I know,” I interrupted her. “I’m substituting my feelings for Ian with this thing with Xavier, so I don’t have to think about what happened with Ian.”

“Good shit, Rach. What do you need me for?” Journey said and I laughed. “You’ve got it all figured out.”

“You’d think I would, after all this drama, but I don’t know, Journey. There’s something about him. Xavier. A clean slate. I mean, we have a past, but where we are right now is so new. Just cute.” I laughed. Looked down at the wine in my glass. It was so sweet. That’s why I like cheap wine. Cheap and sweet. “I hope I’m not just spinning my wheels with him.”

“What is he saying? Like what kind of stuff is he saying to you?”

“Girl, what isn’t he saying?” I grinned. “It’s like he knows me. Like he knows just what I want. Just what to say at any moment.”

“And you think it’s the roots woman.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, I know you.”

“OK. But what about me says I’d believe anything some bearded roots woman in the French Quarter would promise for fifty dollars?”

“You want love,” Journey said. “You believe in love. I never told you this before, but you were the first person I thought really believed in me and Dame—in our love. You were so ready to accept it. I never felt like you were working with us just because it was your job. You stand for what you do. For love. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted for you. For you to find it. And I know you desperately want the same. That’s reason enough to believe the bearded roots woman.”

“He is some kind of miracle, though,” I said. “Guess I’ll just have to wait and see where it goes—if it goes anywhere. Who knows: this could all amount to a series of phone conversations that lead nowhere.” I tried to play it down a little. “X seems to have slowed down with the ladies, but I’m sure he’s still out there playing.”

“Don’t let him decide if it’s going to be all about you. You hold the power,” Journey instructed. “You decide if you want to be down with him. I’m just requesting one thing.”

“What?”