Should Have Known Better

“I’m from Atlanta,” I said.

“And I’m from Augusta,” Reginald said. “My father, Reginald Johnson Senior, bought three trucks from you. Everyone called him Reggie.”

“Oh, man,” Landon said and suddenly his eyes met with Reginald’s. Some of the nervousness I’d sensed in him earlier seemed to dissipate. “Reggie . . . Reggie Johnson. I know who you’re talking about. He bought his first two pickups from my daddy when he still ran the place. Last one from me. He worked in construction. Right?”

“Yeah, that’s my dad. Worked with his hands. Could make anything.”

“Ain’t this something. Why didn’t you go into construction with him?”

“I went to college . . . and that didn’t work out. Wasn’t for me, so I got a job in Atlanta. That’s where I met my wife here. Came home and started my business,” Reginald said. “When I got in, I started small. Kept it that way. I make enough to support my family.”

“Got kids?” Landon asked.

“Two.”

“A son?”

“Yeah,” Reginald said.

“How old?”

“Ten.”

“Got a good arm on him yet? You know Georgia’s gonna need a little help when Richt goes out!”

“If Richt goes!” Reginald said.

The two men laughed heartily.

“I hear ya, Captain. He got them to the grave. Go Dawgs!” Landon slapped the desk and got up to high-five Reginald.

Sasha seemed annoyed by their quick friendship.

“Look now, I think you’re good people. Good country people,” Landon said and I was so sure Reginald had reached his breaking point. While any other person who hadn’t been raised in the South would’ve seen Landon’s words as a straight compliment, calling another person “good country people” had become a way for white people in the rural South to passively identify other Christian or allegedly truthful white people and Christian and completely submissive black people. Reginald hated the saying and I knew he was about to find some way to spar with Landon.

“Why, thank you,” Reginald said and I looked in his direction to see if he was actually his father’s ghost: his drawl had suddenly become that thick.

“Now, I’ll tell you what. I got two dealerships sitting far west on 20—like thirty minutes out of Atlanta. Got a contractor on them now, but his contract is up at the end of the summer. You take on those dealerships, show me what you can do, and well—we’ll see about that fella’s other contracts when they come up.”

“You serious?” Reginald asked.

“Serious as them Dawgs beating on Tech last fall!”

“Now, I have good references,” Reginald said, flustered. He snatched a folder I’d been holding on my lap and held it out to Landon over the desk.

Landon held his hand up to stop him.

“I’ll take Ms. Bellamy’s word,” he said.

“Oh, you can always trust my word. If I say it, I mean it.” Sasha crossed her legs again and kicked her shiny shoe up higher.

“Well, you’ve made that very clear,” Landon said and once again I felt I was eavesdropping halfway through a conversation. Landon was working hard not to look at Sasha’s leg.

“I guess this meeting is adjourned,” Sasha said, getting up and grabbing me by the arm. “Until next time.”

I felt so many things walking out of that office. I didn’t understand any of Landon’s action

s or reactions. There was this coded exchange going on between him and Sasha, who I wasn’t sure even needed to be in the meeting. Call me crazy, but all she did was flirt and show off her shoes. Really, she could’ve set Reginald up with Landon from Atlanta. And that got me to thinking about Sasha and the little game she played to get Reginald to go to the basketball game and then somehow finagle a way back to Augusta. The city was beautiful, but not that beautiful to return. The back and forth was outrageous. It was obvious that something was wrong. Walking beside her, I remembered all of the times she mentioned that she’d been on a two-week break. Maybe she didn’t want to be alone. Maybe, unlike what Reginald had assumed, she didn’t have any plans to go to Paris. She clearly didn’t have a man. She probably didn’t want to sit in her big old house alone all of those days. That made me feel really bad about snapping at her earlier. Maybe Reginald was right. Maybe I did feel like she was stealing my thunder and I was being sensitive about it.