What He's Been Missing

After hanging out with Xavier for two whole months, him out of my sight only four times when he went home to Chicago to meet with his restaurant managers, I was thinking I should probably add “having a man” to that list of gifts I shouldn’t have. We showed out all over Atlanta through the heat of the summer. Every Saturday, we packed a real picnic basket along with a plaid blanket and sat in the park, where we sipped wine from real glasses and Xavier fed me cucumber sandwiches. We’d take pictures, smiling and poking out our tongues to catch the perfect French kiss on camera. We’d lean into each other over flowers at sidewalk tables in front of Buckhead cafes. Xavier would hold my hand on top of the table and kiss it while looking into my eyes. It was wonderful for us, wrapped up in our own world where perfect romance was acceptable and I knew he wouldn’t let go of my hand if I reached for his. But everyone else around us looked nauseated by the total and careless exploitation of intimacy. Single women looked at us as though they would put arsenic in our glasses if we looked away. Single men looked at us like Xavier must be whipped or I must have the best vagina in the world. (I agreed on both points.) The only people who seemed excited to see us coming, walking beneath my parasol at the shops in midtown or hugging up on line at the amusement park, were old couples. They’d smile and ask how long we’d been dating. Xavier would proudly announce that we’d been “courting” for two months. I was loving that about him—how he seemed so unafraid of being with me. So damn sure. I was used to men playing all kinds of silly games, but he came right in with his his heart open.

This allowed me to open myself to him. I didn’t even realize that I’d been closed, but after years of dealing

with those other kinds of men, I had invisible barriers up that I was beginning to realize may have kept me from finding out what I’d been missing. I’d learned not to say how I felt about someone. Not to ask for what I wanted. Not to hold hands in the park. How to accept a man letting go of my hand, by pretending it was ok, that I didn’t need it. But Xavier gave me what I needed and I gave him what he needed.

What was interesting about having him in my space, so close and for so long, basically playing house, was learning about Xavier. His needs. Like how he hated cheap toothpaste. When we went grocery shopping he’d go to the natural foods aisle and get this organic blueberry toothpaste that tasted like softened chalk . . . with blueberries. He hated the sun in his eyes in the morning when he was half asleep. Claimed it messed up his “circadian rhythm.” (I had to look that up.) He started turning the blinds up to the ceiling, so when we woke up, the small glints of light would shine on the ceiling and not in our eyes.

Xavier liked going to happy hour and trying new restaurants. And after being in Atlanta only a few weeks, he knew a whole lot of insiders, many of them our former FAMU classmates who’d made it big time in the city, and had a list of investors and artists who wanted to help him with his gallery. He decided that he wanted the mission behind the gallery to focus on the early twenties set. Project X would expose abstract works created by minority artists to their peers. He was so excited about it. One day, he picked me up at the office and took me to a 3,000-square-foot, raw loft space in an artist community right near the Atlanta University Center that housed Spelman, Morehouse, and Clark, and told me he’d purchased it outright for Project X. “I’m not the kind of man who drags his feet when he sees something he wants,” he said, holding me in his arms in the middle of the loft.

“Guess you’ll be here for a while,” I said.

While Xavier kept encouraging me to reach out to Ian, I didn’t speak to Ian for the first few weeks while Xavier was there. I just didn’t know what to say, and I wasn’t sure how I’d feel. But when a reminder for his approaching birthday popped up on my phone in August, I sent him a birthday card. I didn’t write anything personal on it. I just signed my name and put it in the mail.

Two days later, I got a text from him:

FROM: IAN DUPREE

TIME: 10:23am

It’s Wednesday. I want to see you.

Meet me at Fado for lunch.

At noon, I found Ian sitting in our back booth across the table from Shane.

“There she is!” Shane said, getting up and clearly unaware of the predicament between Ian and me. Or was there a predicament? Maybe there was nothing. Maybe we were both just busy. I mean, when I got his text, I was at the office and I called Xavier to tell him I was meeting Ian for lunch. Xavier was cool. He told me to say hello and invite him and Scarlet over for dinner.

“Hey . . .” Ian said, looking at me like I was partially a stranger and partially a family member. He got up and hugged me like there was an invisible person between us.

After asking me where I’d been through the summer, Shane hustled to the bar to get the pitcher of beer Ian had ordered.

“You look good,” Ian offered.

“Thank you. You, too.” There was really no reason for this exchange. We both looked exactly the same. It was just something pleasant to say.

“Thank you.”

“So—” we started at the same time after an awkward pause.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You go first.”

“How’s business? I was reading in the newspaper that you’re planning Alarm Clock’s wedding?” he asked. A gossip reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had gotten ahold of my client list for the next two years and wrote a story about local celebrities getting married.

“Yeah. It was supposed to be last week, but his manager booked a bunch of shows this month, so we moved it to the spring—if we can make it to the spring. I get paid either way, so I’m not tripping.”

“Yeah. I read that. It also said something about A. J. Holmes from CNN?”

“Yep. He’s jumping the broom next week. The great thing about moving Alarm Clock’s wedding was that I got to make A. J. and Dawn my summer couple. They’re so cute.”

Shane poured two beers from the pitcher and took our orders.

“Sounds like you’re having a lot of fun,” Ian said to me after Shane was gone again, with a tone that could be taken many ways.

“Yeah, I am.” My answer sounded like it was meant to be taken many ways, as well—I hadn’t intended that. “What about you?”

“I’m good. Scarlet is finally getting back to normal. For a while there, she was going a little ‘black Martha Stewart’ on me.”

“Well, it takes awhile to decompress after a wedding.”