Holiday Kisses

“Big cities can really stress you out. Wrap yourself tightly in that contentment until I see you.”

“Craig, you’re like a whirlwind.”

“Really? You don’t know how wrong you are. I’m sorry I won’t be seeing you tonight. Promise me you’ll go with me to that restaurant on the banks of the Patapsco. I know you’ll love it, and I’d enjoy showing it to you. We have to do it soon, though, because it’s getting to be cool for eating outdoors. Will you go with me?”

“That should be a lot of fun. Ask me again. Okay?”

“With great pleasure. You mind if I call you?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Then, I will. Bye for now.”

Craig hung up, and a feeling of pride washed over her. She could have canceled her date with Noreen, but she hadn’t, and something told her that it was good for him to hear the word, no. He’d brushed her off once, and although she wouldn’t give anyone the chance to do it a second time, her refusal to go out with him that evening was not payback. That would have been childish. But refusing to be convenient for a man reputed to be aloof wouldn’t hurt her relationship with him. And a relationship with him was high on her agenda. Something about the man moved her.

She didn’t know what to make of his unceremonious goodbye. She dialed Noreen’s phone number. “Hi. Do you have any coffee over there?”

“Just put on a fresh pot. Come over. I made some buttermilk biscuits, and they’re great with jam and margarine. I don’t use butter. It clogs up my arteries.”

“Be over in five minutes.” She washed her hands, put on a pair of loafers, put the figs she bought the day before in a bag and went to Noreen’s house, where she found the door unlocked. She liked that house. Although the design duplicated her own town house, Noreen had used pastel paint and large colorful paintings on two of the living room walls and one dining room wall, making the house uniquely hers. Kisha strolled through the hallway to the kitchen.

“We can have it on the deck,” Noreen said. “I had dreams of sitting out there in my negligee on Sunday mornings eating fancy breakfasts of imported cheeses, champagne and such with my darling husband. But what he wanted on Sunday mornings didn’t have a thing to do with food. Same old routine week in and week out, day in and day out, in bed and out of it. Looking back, I wonder why the hell I didn’t get bored with him.

“I was relieved when he finally didn’t want to take me to bed the minute he got in the house, but that was because I didn’t know he’d just gotten out of bed with some chick and didn’t have any energy left. I’m prepared to talk about something else. Thinking of him depresses me.”

“You said you’re over him. What I can’t understand is how two people can think they want to sleep in the same bed, eat at the same table, share children, money, bills, vacation, television, radio and everything else for as long as they live, and then something happens and they get over it. Or nothing happens and one of them falls for somebody else. Thinking about it just reinforces my intention to avoid involvements.”

Noreen poured the coffee into mugs, put the mugs along with the figs, biscuits, jam and margarine on a tray and went out on the deck. Kisha followed her with plates, spoons and knives.

“It’s not as simple as you put it, Kisha. If you care enough for a man to marry him and take those vows, and he cares the same for you, it should work. I say should, but here’s the caveat. Both of you have to be fully, I mean totally committed to your spouse and to the marriage. The hot stuff doesn’t last, but love should deepen. If you can’t be friends with a man, don’t marry him. A lot of women and men follow where that itch leads them, but a smart person will realize that an itch is just an itch and feels the same no matter who scratches it.

“Good sex is essential, but alone, it’s not a good basis for marriage. Some men and some women are ready to cut and run at the first sign of a problem. They’re not committed to the marriage. When bills make you choose between paying the mortgage and having the drainage system overhauled, or when one of you wants to save for a down payment on a house and the other wants a European vacation or a mink coat, that’s when the rubber hits the road. One of you is going to decide to be sensible and see the light or both of you are going to be miserable. Then, when you look at each other, you don’t see a lover but an adversary.”

Kisha sipped her coffee. She wouldn’t have guessed that Noreen King had such depth. “Would you marry again?”

“I’d be more careful, and my feelings about what I want and need in a man have changed, but yes. Given the right conditions, I would. Were you talking with a prospect a few minutes ago?”

“I don’t know. I met him recently, and I don’t know anything about him except where he works and what he’s told me.”

“What’s his name?” Kisha told her. “Sounds famil…Not that handsome stud who serves up the news at five o’clock on Channel 6.”

Kisha cleared her throat, half-afraid of Noreen’s reaction to her answer. “I don’t know whether he’s a stud, but he was the five o’clock anchor for Channel 6. Now, he’s on at six o’clock.”

“Then that’s him. Honey, I’d run from a man who looks like that brother. How could he be single, or if he is still single, is he straight?”

She had wondered the same, but she didn’t articulate it then. “I went to dinner with him, and he was the epitome of a gentleman.”

“Yeah? Cool as he is, I’m not sure his being a perfect gentleman would’ve cut any ice with me. That guy’s a honey. I hear tell he sponsors a program that gives kids free guitar and piano lessons, and he helped build a playground in South Baltimore right where a hideous trash and garbage dump used to be. He does his civic duty, but…he sure lays it out there on his newscast. Girl, he’s big-time.”

“Where did you see him? In person, I mean.”

“He’s been the emcee at a bunch of galas, fund-raisers, awards ceremonies and heaven knows what else. That guy’s a big name around here. You say Craig Jackson, and even the kids know who you’re talking about. You new in town, but you’ll learn.”

“Interesting. We’ll see.” She went home later with plenty to think about. She hadn’t learned anything uncomplimentary about Craig, but she wasn’t sure that she could keep up with a man who had such a public life. On the other hand, she had decided that she wanted him, and that was that. He’d said she was reckless. Maybe, but in his case, she didn’t think she was taking too big a chance. She knew a man when she saw one, and Craig Jackson defined the gender.

That evening, as she sat with Noreen at a table in Red Maple enjoying the floor show, memories of Craig flashed through her mind while she looked at couples dancing and playing the age-old male-female games.

“Would you like to dance?”

She looked up at the neatly dressed man, extended her hand to him and stood. “You looked about as lonely as I feel,” he said. “Otherwise I would never have gotten the nerve to ask you to dance. My name is Josh.”

“Mine’s Kisha. How are you, Josh?”

“Pretty good. I just moved here from Lake Charles, New York, and somebody told me that nice folks come to the Red Maple. Meeting people in this place is easy, but getting to know them is practically impossible. I won’t ask if you have a guy, because that would be silly. Where is he tonight?”

“I’m helping my neighbor celebrate her new job after a year out of work,” she said, hoping to steer the conversation away from personal issues.

“I’m glad for her. That’s why I’m in Baltimore. My company moved down here, and I had a choice of moving or looking for another job.”

The music ended, and he walked with her to her table. “Thanks, Kisha, for a real nice dance.”

“Thank you, Josh. I hope you find your niche here.”

“I told you you’d get a guy,” Noreen said. “The place is full of men.”

“Yeah, and one of them finally asked me to dance,” Kisha said drily. “How’s it going with the guy you’ve been dancing with?”

“He’s pleasant, but the poor guy’s looking for a fast one, and that is not my style. Ready to go when you are.”

“That was fun, Noreen,” Kisha said when they got home. “Good night.”

“And thank you for being my friend, Kisha. That’s the first time I’ve been out in a year. It was wonderful. Good night.”

Kisha went inside and plodded up the stairs to her bedroom. Being alone was getting to her, but until she met Craig Jackson, she had enjoyed it. She should either go after what she wanted or forget about him and get on with her life. But how did one go after the hottest, most eligible man in town?

When Craig woke the next morning, he was not having misgivings about Kisha, his problem was himself. He had asked her to dinner on an impulse. But he suspected that he’d wanted subconsciously to do that from the day she mended his tooth.

He went to the bathroom, splashed some cold water on his face, donned a robe and headed downstairs for a cup of coffee. “I shouldn’t make phone calls before noon,” he said to himself with a derisive jab at his own ego. After pouring a little milk into the coffee, he took a few swallows and dumped the remainder into the sink. Leaning against the kitchen table, he happened to look at his hands, turned them over and examined his palms. He’d once played the violin, carved beautiful images and been fairly good at sketching. What had he done with his artistic talents? He’d let all of them fall by the way while he raced to be the next Walter Cronkite.

He’d gotten so used to ignoring his feelings and needs that he failed to appreciate the attractiveness of a woman who had precisely the traits he admired in the opposite sex. And he gave his subconscious a flogging when it led him to do what was reasonable and perhaps in his interest. Instead of being annoyed at himself for having invited Kisha to the River Restaurant, he decided to look forward to it and see if he enjoyed her company as much as he had during their evening at Roy’s. It was time to lead a fuller life, but that didn’t mean he’d put anything ahead of his goal to have a network-level job within a year. For him, change would not be a simple matter, and he knew it.

Women of all ages had pursued him ever since his voice changed when he was thirteen years old. Fortunately for him, his father had pounded it into his head that what came easily went just as fast. “Easy come, Craig, easy go,” he’d said. He couldn’t count the times his father had lectured to him about the travails of a man who, having spent his life trading on a face that was his only virtue, reached the age of wrinkles, thinning hair and sagging jowls and discovered that he had nothing. He had never wished he wasn’t handsome, because his face opened doors for him. But he’d worked hard to justify his good fortune, to accomplish something meaningful that would enable him to help others. From childhood, he had wanted to earn respect by stature and deed, and not by the length of his eyelashes, or by the achievements of his father.

Nothing pleased him more than the fact that Kisha seemed to like him for himself. She’d soon learn more about him, and she might not like what she learned, but he’d take that chance. They needed to talk. She agreed to go out with him for the second time, but neither had asked the other that most important question. She hadn’t asked him if he was married. And she had the trappings of a single woman, but he also had to be sure.

He rushed to answer the house phone when it rang. “Hi, Mom. How are you, and how’s Dad?” He always asked that question.

“We’re fine. We’re having a rather heated argument about the Dred Scott Decision. He says Roger Taney was chief justice when he wrote the majority opinion that blacks, whether slave or free, were not and never could be citizens of the United States, and that an angry Lincoln retaliated with the Emancipation Proclamation. Is he right? I thought John Marshall was chief justice at the time, but that Taney wrote the majority opinion.”