Peeking
through the blinds of her corner office window, Inaya watched a white jeep with
tinted windows pull up outside and park. That
has to be him, she surmised, noting the various WBUZ bumper stickers on the
back of the vehicle. She held her breath as excitement leaped through her veins
like a gazelle.
What?
No! Inaya thought
when the driver’s door opened and a tall white man exited the jeep. The ball of
anticipation in her belly dropped to the floor from the weight of her disappointment
and cracked like two dozen Grade A eggs.
Chandler Edenfield was extremely tall
and athletically built with thick jet-black hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a
sporty diamond earring in his left ear that made him look oh so debonair. Although
he looked absolutely perfect, he had one major flaw in Inaya’s eyes.
That flaw: He was white! A very
attractive white man, but nevertheless a white man.
But how could this be? His caricature
had led her to believe that he was a light-skinned black man with colored
contacts and a process in his hair. Now she realized the artist had simply
captured his tan and that his silky hair texture came out of his scalp, not
from a box.
Maybe
I just saw what I wanted to see,
Inaya thought. But his voice though. How could I have been wrong about that?
Chandler’s voice and urban mannerisms
on air had led her to believe that he was a Nubian prince. In person he looked more
like a blue-eyed Channing Tatum, yet taller. Much taller.
Even though Inaya definitely liked
what she saw, she could not fully appreciate Chandler’s outstanding outer
package. The mental stronghold that she had about interracial relationships prevented
her from doing so. Not surprisingly, the seeds of that stronghold were planted
by her mother. Most negative things in her life were and yet Inaya still loved
her.
Uzuri was what people called Afrocentric.
She loved black history, black culture, and especially black men. She drilled
that love for all things black into Inaya and Kali’s heads since they were
little girls. She wanted them to have an acute sense of their self-worth and
historical importance to the world. No one could fault her for that.
As Inaya and Kali got older, Uzuri started
to preach relentlessly against interracial dating. With hysterical tears, she cited
many examples of failed relationships as proof, including a disastrous one that
she had with a white man in her younger years. Their mother’s horror stories left
a lasting impact upon them.
Yet Inaya still hadn’t been totally
convinced that interracial dating was wrong. She thought love was supposed to
be colorblind. Plus she didn’t want anyone telling her who she could or could
not love. Thus she secretly dated a white guy during her senior year in high
school. His name was Joe Powell. His father owned the bakery where she worked.
Joe was easy to talk to, made her
laugh, and shared her love for baking. They were going to announce their love
publicly after becoming intimate. Yet as soon as adversity came their way, he
abandoned her, despite the fact that she’d given him the greatest gift a woman
could give any man – her virginity.
That experience broke Inaya’s heart
and she never quite recovered from it or from the family drama that followed.
She also never had sex again. Sex changed the dynamics of relationships.
Sometimes it destroyed them. Thus she avoided it at all costs.
Inaya sometimes wish she’d made a
different romantic choice like her sister had. Maybe then she would have a
different perspective about sex. Maybe then she would have escaped all those
I-told-you-so’s from their mother when Joe went off to college and never looked
back.
Kali married Neil Graham, the blackest
man she could find. Fortunately, her sister also loved that deep
mahogany-skinned man very much and probably would have married him anyway. Neil’s
complexion was definitely a plus when it came to keeping their mother’s mouth
closed about Kali’s choice of men.
Unfortunately, Uzuri’s mouth never
stayed closed for long when it came to Inaya and her love life. She scolded her
about remaining celibate for the last ten years and advised her to find a man
to take some of the edge off. A black
man. Actually, she advised her to let several black men take the edge off in
order to make up for lost time. That was just one of many points of contention
within their mother/daughter relationship.
When Chandler suddenly appeared at her
open office door, Inaya shoved her thoughts aside and returned her focus to him.
Her eyes traveled up, up, and still deliciously upwards until she encountered
his face. As he ducked his head slightly to keep from bumping it against the
top of the nearly seven-foot tall door, she was instantly reminded of the bountiful
oak trees that Montrose was known for. He was just that tall.
Chandler was strikingly handsome, too.
From his shiny black loafers to his stylish black business suit, he was a
mountain of potent masculinity.
Handsome, sexy, and fine. Maybe
I need to rethink this whole interracial dating thing, Inaya thought,
moving away from the window with fresh desire coursing through her veins. She’d
never been so delectably affected by a man in her life and she hated that she
liked it.
© 2014 by Suprina Frazier
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