Crossroads Page 2

  Denise wanly glanced at Mariah, her eyes red, tear ducts full. She couldn’t speak. She slowly nodded her head. Denise stood up and walked out of the office, passing by all the offices she had planned on seeing over and over. She glanced at the receptionist, who was too engrossed in a phone call about a pair of shoes to see her walking out of the office. The elevator doors closed, Denise watched the numbers going down, her happy and anxious feelings replaced with feelings of disparity, agony, and confusion. She was lost.

  3

  The Charlotte airport was massive. Unlike the Atlanta airport, and its train that speeds you to your next terminal, the Charlotte airport was made for walking. Lena looked down at her next gate, GATE D. She looked up at her current gate, GATE A. Just her luck. Lena started on her cross-airport trek, watching handicapped and overweight people enjoying the handicap carts that would take them swiftly to their next locations. Lena thought about playing the pregnancy card, but changed her mind; she could use the walk.

  After an hour, a large slice of cheese pizza and two bottled waters, Lena’s last plane began to board. She felt someone looking at her. Out of her peripheral she noticed a familiar face. She turned around to see a woman from her last flight.

  Lena immediately realized what feeling she got from the woman. She had to be gay. The short red-bone’s style reminded her of the first time she met Cooley. The woman’s baggy jeans, oversized Nike shirt and blue and white Jordan’s were the first giveaway. Lena studied her masculine walk. She had a blue and white fitted cap pulled down with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Lena’s mind was so fixated on Denise that she didn’t pay attention to the woman on the first flight.

  The stud smiled at Lena. Lena returned a smile.

  “Now boarding our First Class, A Plus and Business Class passengers,” the male gate agent said over the microphone.

  Lena headed to the door, and the stud followed, ending up right behind her. Lena could feel the stud’s eyes on her, and made sure not to turn around.

  Lena sat down on the second row and let the window shade up. She smiled. In a few hours she would be in Denise’s arms.

  The attractive stud walked on the plane, and Lena’s eyes met hers. The stud looked at her ticket then glanced at Lena.

  “You were on my last flight, right?” The stud flashed a smile.

  Lena noticed her white teeth. “Yeah, I think so.” Lena felt herself getting nervous. Did the stud think that she was interested because of their small exchange at the gate? Lena turned her head toward the window as the stud put her book bag in the overhead compartment and sat down and buckled her seat belt. Lena closed her eyes, hoping the stud would think she was ’sleep.

  “My name is Terrin.” The stud reached her hand out.

  Lena looked at Terrin; she noticed her almond-shaped eyes, hazel with a hint of emerald, slightly slanted on the edges, and very alluring.

  “I’m Lena.” Lena shook Terrin’s hand, very soft but strong, just like Denise’s hands.

  “So is New York your final destination, Ms. Lena?”

  “Yes, actually, it is.” Lena smiled.

  “Business or pleasure?”

  “Pleasure, definitely pleasure.”

  “Ahh, must be nice. Business for me; however, I have a feeling this flight might be a bit pleasurable.”

  Terrin and Lena looked at each other at the same time, their eyes connected.

  The flight attendant stood at their seats with a big smile on her face.

  “Can I get the two of you anything to drink?” The flight attendant smiled, while the passengers in coach struggled to get past her and to their seats. Lena had never sat in coach before, and she never planned to.

  “Bottled water please,” Lena said.

  Terrin asked for a Coke. She quickly focused her attention back on Lena.

  “Pleasure, huh, let me guess, you are going to meet your woman?”

  The corners of Lena’s mouth quirked upward. “What makes you think it’s a woman?”

  The flight attendant handed them their drinks.

  Terrin took a sip of her Coke. She smiled. “Are you saying it’s not?” Terrin smirked.

  “I’m not saying it is or isn’t. I just wondered why you would assume it was a woman.”

  Terrin sat up in her seat and leaned in toward Lena. “Let’s just say it’s my lesbian intuition.”

  “Are you saying I look gay or something? Did your ‘gay-dar’ go off on me?” Lena motioned her fingers like quotation marks. She heard her bestfriends, Carmen and Misha talk about their gay-dar in numerous conversations.

  “My gay-dar.” Terrin laughed. “If that’s what you want to call it. Or if could have been the fact that no straight woman would have been looking at me the way you were. Also, no straight woman would have smiled back when I winked at you. And ... no woman who isn’t gay moans a woman’s name in her sleep.”

  Lena’s jaw dropped. Her cheeks flushed red from embarrassment. “How did—”

  Terrin gave a sly grin. “I was sitting in front of you. Don’t worry, Lena. Your secret is safe with me.” Terrin finished her small cup of Coke.

  The flight attendants manned their posts as the plane began to coast. They began to go over all the safety rules and regulations. Lena pretended to listen while Terrin opened a copy of Sports Illustrated.

  As soon as the flight attendants finished, Lena turned back to Terrin.

  “So, let’s say you didn’t hear me. Would you have guessed I was gay off your other comments?”

  “Not really. But I can’t lie. I was surely hoping you were, when I changed my seat number to sit by you.” Terrin looked ahead with a grin on her face. Lena blushed.

  “Look at you, little sneaky. What were you expecting, to put me into the mile-high club?”

  Terrin laughed. “No, I was just hoping to have a great conversation while on the flight. Then when we landed, I was going to ask for your number so I could take you out in New York.”

  “Oh, so you had it all figured out.”

  “I had the long trek from our last terminal to come up with it.”

  Lena blushed; Terrin was definitely charming. “Well, great conversation we can have. The rest, I’m not too sure about.”

  “Well”—Terrin looked down at her watch—“I have two hours to change your mind about that, just like I changed my seat.”

  Their eyes locked on each other again. Lena’s face felt warm. She twisted a few strands of her hair around her finger. She was openly flirting with a woman and it wasn’t Denise.

  “So why are you going to New York?” Lena asked.

  Terrin frowned. “Conference. Very boring stuff, a bunch of nerds sitting around talking. Nothing like you going to meet your little love. So is it gonna be all romantic and cliché? Her holding a sign with your name on it, you run into her arms at the gate?”

  Lena laughed; the Cancer in her loved the hopeless romantic aspect of Terrin’s words. “No, she actually doesn’t know I’m coming. It’s complicated,” Lena said, thinking about the messy situation she created for herself.

  They paused their conversation as the flight attendants performed their duties of alerting passengers of the various procedures and exit doors while the plane coasted to the runway. The plane finally took off. Lena watched as the lines on the runway passed by. The take-off was her favorite part of flying. She watched as the houses and land below began to look like hundreds of little boxes.

  Terrin leaned closer to Lena. “Oh, you just gon’ pop up on the chick. That’s brave. What makes it complicated?”

  “Trust me, you would need more than two hours.”

  “OK. OK. Well, give me the Reader’s Digest version,” Terrin said, looking at Lena.

  Lena couldn’t resist.

  “Well, long story short, she was my college roommate that I cheated on my boyfriend/new husband with, but that doesn’t really matter because he’s cheated on me a million times. But I realized that I can’t live without her, so I had to do wh
at I had to do. You know what I’m saying?”

  Terrin’s eyes tightened, and her bottom lip fell slightly open. “Wow, I smell a Lifetime movie of the week. Guess he can’t be too happy right now.”

  Lena’s mind drifted to Brandon. She knew he was probably furious. He might even be on another plane coming to kill her and Denise. “I don’t know what he’s thinking. I care, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. I ... I love her.

  Terrin gazed into Lena’s brown eyes. “Do you think she feels the same way?”

  “She does. Well, she did. I hope she still does.” Lena looked out the window. The thought never occurred to her that Denise might not feel the same way about her anymore. She had hurt Denise so much, she could only hope it wasn’t too late.

  “In that case I wish you nothing but good luck. I hope she takes you in her arms and gives you the best kiss you ever had.”

  “Is that what you would do if you were in her shoes?” Lena gazed into Terrin’s eyes.

  “If it was me, I would forgive probably anything coming from a woman as beautiful as you.”

  Lena and Terrin exchanged smiles. Lena looked back out the window. Terrin was attractive, and witty, but she couldn’t hold a candle to the love of her life. Denise was it, and she knew it. She was on her way to meet her destiny.

  4

  Cooley shifted her position in the uncomfortable airport chair. She noticed a white couple sleeping, their legs hanging off the ends of the row of three connected chairs, their duffle bags worn and dirty. Cooley figured they must travel a lot. She couldn’t imagine falling asleep in an airport. She wouldn’t be able to protect her bags if she was ’sleep, and the idea of someone stealing even the smallest of her belongings would get her a one-way ticket with airport security.

  Cooley looked down at her watch. Two hours to spare and she had nothing to do. The airport was virtually shut down; she should have been in Atlanta by the time her flight was going to board. All because she forgot to print her boarding pass. Cooley made a mental note to never do that again.

  She arrived an hour early, only to find all the kiosk stations at the AirTran station broken and only one ticketing agent, who seemed to be moving at a pace equivalent to a snail. The three people in front of her were becoming restless. The couple next in line walked up to the ticket counter. Cooley wanted to laugh. There in front of her stood a real-life Norbit and Rasputia.

  The large woman was loud, making sure everyone knew how tired she was of waiting. She constantly shifted her weight from one overrun flip-flop to the other. Cooley felt sorry for the frail, little man with her. He looked so unhappy. Cooley wanted to tell the woman to shut the fuck up, and tell the man to run as fast as he could.

  As soon as the man made a quiet gesture for the woman to calm down, she went off.

  “Don’t tell me to calm down. Hell, we gon’ miss our plane, dealing with this bullshit. But I’d bet you would like that, wouldn’t you?” She hissed at her husband.

  All he could do was turn his head and sigh. Cooley knew that it couldn’t be her. She would have to pull a “Chris Brown” on a woman like that ... and she didn’t believe in hitting women.

  The couple’s turn came. The agent’s face dropped, knowing he had a headache headed his way. The agent typed their information in, printed their tickets and proceeded to check their five bags.

  “OK, that will be one hundred and ninety dollars,” the tall male agent stated.

  “What! Why?” the Rasputia look-alike snapped.

  The man in front of Cooley looked down at this watch and huffed. He shifted his weight from his right leg to his left. Cooley knew exactly how he felt.

  “Ma’am, airline policy states that your first checked bag is fifteen dollars, a second one is twenty-five, and each additional bag is fifty dollars.”

  The woman rolled her eyes. Cooley wanted to scream but remained calm. She still had thirty minutes to get to her gate. She could make it. The reaction on the man’s face in front stated that he didn’t even have that long to make it to his destination.

  “I didn’t know anything about that. It didn’t say that when I booked the damn flights. I don’t think I should have to pay that much to check my bags. Hell, I bought the plane tickets. Y’all always trying to get over on us. That’s why your companies are going under.” She rolled her neck while her hand flew around.

  “Ma’am, the policy has been in effect for a very long time. It is included in the information you are supposed to read before you accept your ticket, and”—the man handed her the reservation page she brought with her—“right here, right on the bottom of your page, it even says it.” The agent didn’t budge as the gayness in his voice responded in a nasty/nice tone. That only irritated her more.

  “See, this man about to ...” she whispered under her voice, but loud enough for everyone to hear. “Well, I need to talk to a supervisor because that is ridiculous. That’s more than I paid for the ticket. And I don’t like your bad-ass attitude”

  “I told you not to pack all those damn bags to begin with,” the woman’s frustrated husband chimed in.

  Cooley smirked; he had a little backbone after all.

  Rasputia shot him a glare that would scare children.

  The agent rolled his eyes. “One moment please,” the agent said, walking over to another booth to call for a supervisor.

  “What the fuck!” The man in front of Cooley finally snapped. “I’m missing my flight over this bullshit!”

  Cooley couldn’t help but smirk; she felt the exact same way.

  The woman looked back at the man. She felt no remorse for causing a line of people to miss their flights over her mistake.

  The husky man in front of her had on a leisure suit, but his stance showed that he didn’t have any quarrels about going at it with her, if need be.

  The woman’s husband just shook his head. He hoped the man laid a good smack down on his wife.

  The gate agent signaled for the woman to come over. He handed her the phone and walked back over to his line of angry travelers.

  Cooley looked down at her watch. If she could get her ticket, get through security, and run to her gate in ten minutes, she could still make her flight. Cooley pulled her blue fitted cap off and wiped her forehead.

  She glanced over at the woman, who was arguing with someone on the phone. Her livid face let Cooley know she was losing. Cooley smiled. She hoped they made her pay the full amount. Cooley glanced at her husband. His face was borderline angry and irritated, not by the airport, but by his nagging wife.

  The agent was overworked and stressed. The man in front of Cooley was going off about having to take another flight. Cooley had to give it to the agent. He was keeping his cool under a lot of pressure. Cooley’s boiling point was reaching its peak. Now she was down to six minutes.

  “I know you are dealing with a lot, but can I make my flight?” Cooley’s turn finally approached. She handed the agent her ID and confirmation number. The agent sighed. “I’m sorry, but that flight is already boarding, but I can get you on another flight. I do apologize.” The man seemed to relax a little at seeing someone who was obviously “family” like him.

  Cooley cringed. “How late will it be?”

  The agent began to type rapidly. “Well, your final destination is Atlanta. We can get you on a flight at 10:03 A.M.”

  Cooley sighed. She knew she wasn’t in a major rush to get to Atlanta, she was just ready to bid farewell to Memphis. “Whatever.” Cooley looked down at the agent’s ID tag. “Morris, I see you are dealing with a lot. It’s cool.” Cooley flashed Morris a smirk, her deep right dimple setting in.

  The gate agent smiled; His eyes went from stressed to relief. Cooley knew it was amazing what a smile could do. A nice smile and deep dimples could melt the heart of almost anyone.

  The agent printed Cooley’s ticket and handed it to her. “I’ve also upgraded you to first-class for your troubles,” Morris said as Cooley handed her large suitcase to him.

>   Cooley pulled her credit card.

  Morris shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Cooley smiled, showing her deep dimples. “Thank you, man. Hope your day goes better.” Cooley winked as she headed toward security.

  Now she was dreading that three hour wait. Cooley’s eyes began to shut. She shook her head. Cooley picked up her Gucci book bag and put it on her back. She walked through the bare halls of the Memphis International Airport. The brown walls were unappealing. Something about the AirTran side made that whole side just look cheap.

  Cooley made her way to the sad excuse for a food court. Everything was closed, but Backyard Burger was in the process of opening. It was eight in the morning, but the idea of a good Backyard burger didn’t sound bad. Something to eat could help her mood.

  Cooley walked over to the bookstore across from the food court. She glanced at the table of bestsellers. She picked up a copy of Eclipse from the Twilight series. Denise and Carmen were hooked on the series. Cooley thought the movies were all right, but she couldn’t bear to be spotted reading a book made popular by teenage girls. Cooley spotted the small section of African American novels. She scanned through the various titles, most dealing with some type of hustler, pimp, or stripper. Cooley didn’t know what was with the sudden increase in hood-related books. She picked up Sleeping with Strangers by Eric Jerome Dickey and read the inside of the book.

  “That’s a good book,” a soft voice said.

  Cooley turned around to see a cute and petite brown-skinned girl standing behind her. Her green shirt let her know that she was an employee. She looked young, but she had to be at least eighteen, since she was working and not in school. Cooley liked her short haircut. She usually liked girls with long hair, but since Rihanna started rocking hers short Cooley started feeling short, rocker looks on sexy black women.