Books > A Do Right Man > Excerpts

Chapter Three: A Broken Heart

I tried my hardest to keep Faye from finding out about Pearl, but realistically, it was only a matter of time. I continued to go jogging with Faye on those few Saturday mornings when I was not held hostage by Pearl the Friday before, but it was getting harder and harder to keep coming up with creative excuses. Faye then suggested that we jog on Sundays instead. Since we both had late classes to begin the week, I convinced her that we should run on Monday mornings. That idea worked until Pearl began to plan my entire weekends with her. That's when Faye got suspicious. I hadn't been able to spend time with her on the weekends for months. And once we had gotten past the fall semester and were nearing spring break, Faye had had enough of my elusiveness.

"What is going on with you?" she asked me. She knew that I would be graduating soon. We were standing in the hallway on the second floor of the C.B. Powell communications building. We were about to head to our media relations class that I had somehow put off taking until my final semester.

"What are you talking about?" I responded to her. I was stalling. I knew exactly what Faye was asking me.

She stared at me for a moment. "Are you trying to avoid me for some reason?"

"Avoid you? I see you nearly every day," I said to her. The C.B. Powell building wasn't but so big, and Faye and I had several meeting places where we were sure to see each other.

"I'm talking about on the weekends."

I frowned and said, "What, just because I don't go jogging all the time?"

She returned my frown. "No, it's not just that. I mean, we used to go to see movies and do a lot of different things on the weekends. Now all I'm getting is your answering machine."

I looked away from her. I was never good at lying face-to-face, especially to someone I cared about. Some guys are able to do it every day. "Well, you know, it's been hectic with so many events and things going on that I have to cover for the radio station," I told her.

Faye gave me an evil stare that I didn't know she had in her. "You used to ask me to go with you," she snapped.

"Yeah, and most of the time you turned me down."

She stormed off for class without me. I followed her into the classroom and took a seat. Faye chose to sit on the other side of the room. I felt guilty as hell, but I figured it would have been worse for me to tell her that Pearl was my girlfriend and that I had been spending my weekends with her. Even the sight of Pearl in the hallways sent Faye into a rage. I never asked her why she felt so strongly about her. Faye acted as if they had some kind of personal beef.

After class, Faye pulled me aside and apologized. "I know I probably seem childish to you."

"No, not at all," I said, cutting her off. She was telling the truth, though. She was acting a bit childish.

"Well, it's just that...remember that talk we had before about sex?"

I damn near swallowed my tongue, and my heart rate increased. "Ah, yeah, I remember." Why is she asking me this, and in the middle of the hallway of all places? I was thinking to myself.

"Well, I know that we're just friends and all, but when some guys find out that I'm not into having sex and everything, they just get turned off and start making up excuses about being with me."

I shook my head. It was a coincidence that Pearl and I had started seeing each other right after Faye confided her virginity to me during a long, late-night phone conversation.

"That has nothing to do with anything," I told her.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I know we're just friends. I wouldn't do that to you. I'm not a sex fiend like that anyway."

Faye tossed her hand on my arm and smiled. "That's good to know."

My stomach cramped up. It felt as if I was about to throw up my lunch. I wasn't a sex fiend before I started seeing Pearl. But Pearl was. That made me guilty by association. She wasn't having sex four and five days out of a week by herself. Pearl was into repetitions and going the distance, and I wasn't exactly turning her down.

"So you don't need sex either?" Faye asked me.

I took a deep breath before I answered her. "I wouldn't exactly say that."

"Are you seeing somebody?"

Oh my God! I thought. "Not right now," I lied, briefly looking away again. She knows I'm lying, I told myself. Then again, I was so unassuming back then that maybe she couldn't tell. I mean, it wasn't as if I was the kind of guy that girls suspected of having a reputation. I was more of a bashful loner. I probably could have gotten away with telling Faye I was a virgin myself.

I had my opportunity to come clean with Faye and I blew it. The next thing I knew, she was squeezing my hand and leaning to whisper to me, "Sometimes I think about us. Do you?"

No, no, no! What do I say now? Faye was moving in for the kill and she didn't even realize it. "Everybody thinks about it," I said. It was a good answer.

Faye let go of my hand. "Well, hopefully, if you're not too busy, we can go to the movies or something this weekend."

"Yeah, we'll see." I was praying that I didn't sound too committed to the idea. We parted company with Faye smiling at me. As soon as she disappeared into the stairway, Pearl popped out from down the hall with a girlfriend. She was distressed.

"I don't believe this shit. My mom had a damn accident this morning," she told me.

"Down here?" I asked her. I had barely caught my breath from the conversation with Faye.

Pearl looked at me as if I was an idiot. "No, not down here, in New York. In Manhattan. I'm about to go buy a train ticket now. I'll see you when I get back."

Just like that, Pearl was out of sight and on her way to New York. I didn't even get a chance to ask how long she would be staying. I knew that she would at least spend the night. I got to my dorm room and called Faye immediately.

"You want to go out tonight?" she asked me. She was surprised by my urgency.

"Well, the thing is, I can't make any promises about this weekend, but I do know that I'm not too busy tonight, so why not?"

"Well...okay," she agreed. Knowing Faye, she probably had a million things to do. I figured if we went out that Wednesday while Pearl was in New York, instead of on the weekend, I could grab a bird and dodge a bullet at the same time. I realized that Faye and I would not have time to cover any bases on a weeknight. It was perfect. I could take her out and successfully maintain our platonic friendship.

I forget what movie we went to see, but it was at Tenley Circle on Wisconsin Avenue. I remember a bunch of black teenagers from D.C. acting rowdy in the lines. Wisconsin Avenue was in the white section of the city, almost in Maryland, but that never stopped the inner-city blacks from taking over the theater. The movie was one of those midweek releases, so the line was packed.

"Wow!" Faye said to me. "This must be the night!"

"Yeah," I mumbled to her. I was looking around to make sure none of Pearl's friends were there. They were always where the action was.

"Are you looking for someone?" Faye asked me.

I was startled. "Naw, I'm just seeing who's out here."

"Oh." She looked suspicious, but I paid it no mind because I didn't see anyone I knew who knew Pearl.

I purchased our tickets and headed for the refreshment line. Faye said she was going to the rest room. When she walked back out, some big, husky guy tried to pick her up. He was dark and intimidating. I know I sound like a petrified white boy, but that's what I remember; he was big and black and built like a football player.

"Can I watch the movie with you?"

"I'm with a friend," Faye told him.

He looked around and quickly spotted me. He was as tall as I was and forty pounds heavier. I was sure glad that Faye wasn't my woman. I might have been compelled to act heroic in some way. To say the least, the situation was embarrassing.

Faye walked over and joined me in the refreshment line. The big black guy followed her.

"Y'all don't go together, right?" he asked Faye. "We could go out another time then."

I couldn't believe how forward he was. He cared less about me being with her.

Faye said, "I don't think so," and turned her back to him.

He looked at me and frowned before walking off.

"I hate guys like that," Faye told me. "That was very disrespectful."

"What if I was your brother?" I asked her with a smile. I was attempting to take things lightly.

"It still would have been disrespectful. There are certain ways that you approach people, and that's not the way."

I thought about what would be the best way to break the news to Faye that I had a girlfriend. There is no best way, I told myself. Any and every method would hurt her, especially since it was Pearl. I spent the whole time in the movie contemplating my predicament. That's probably why I don't remember it.

On the bus ride back to campus, Faye fell asleep against my shoulder. It wasn't that late. It was only after nine, and I kept wanting to wake her up because I was beginning to think some rather sexual thoughts, and people were looking at us. But I was afraid to touch her.

Miraculously, Faye woke up a block or two away from our stop on Georgia Avenue. I was really nervous then. One of Pearl's girlfriends could have been anywhere. I had a strong fear of what would happen if Pearl suspected me of cheating on her. I wasn't looking forward to that type of drama in my life. At the time, I was still very much an amiable North Carolina boy.

"Why are we in such a hurry?" Faye asked me, noticing the pep in my step.

"This is a weekday," I reminded her.

She smiled. "I thought you said you didn't have much to do tonight."

I was puzzled. She was right. I did tell her that. "Yeah, I don't, but I bet you do."

"Mmm-hmm," she grumbled, "blame it on me."

We got to the all-girls' Bethune dormitory. I was tempted to say "'Bye," and keep on walking down Fourth Street toward Stowe, but Faye made me walk her to the door.

Shit! I remember thinking. This is all I need.

Faye looked into my eyes as if she was expecting a kiss. "Well, I guess this is good night," she said.

I stood there as stiff as an Egyptian mummy. Then I shoved my hands inside my pockets. I didn't know what else to do with them. "Yeah, I guess so," I responded.

"Well, okay," she said, with one hand extending to the door.

I nodded, ready to head on my way. "All right then. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bobby?" Faye said. "You're not gonna give me a hug, Mr. Handsome?"

I was apprehensive about it. It doesn't take much to get aroused when you're already thinking things. "Since when did I become Mr. Handsome?" I asked her, stalling again. Faye had never called me that before.

She stepped out of the doorway to let people by. "Bobby, I always thought that you were handsome," she told me. "You have one of those perfect faces. Everything is in the right place. And you have the perfect brown complexion, like a new penny, right before it starts to turn old. I only get that pretty color in July and August. You got it all year-round."

I burst out laughing. She put a lot of thought into that. "Well, ah, you look nice, too," I said, still chuckling. Plain guys like me didn't get told that they were handsome much. Faye had caught me off guard with it.

"So, can I have a hug or not?" she pressed me.

I was still hesitant about the hugging thing. "Are you sure you want me to?"

"Why not? We are friends, right?"

"Yeah, but if you were a guy I wouldn't hug you," I joked with her.

"But I'm not a guy," Faye argued. She was getting impatient with me.

I still didn't like the idea. What if it felt too good for us to break away? I quickly walked over and hugged her up and off of her feet to get it over with.

"Oh, such strong arms you have," she told me.

I put her back down and laughed it off. I was too afraid to comment on it. I didn't want to start another discussion with her. Who knows where that could have led. I didn't want to find out.

"I'll see you around," I said to her, walking away. I had to get myself out of there in a hurry.

As soon as I got back inside of my room, the phone rang.

"Where were you?" Pearl ranted.

"I went to the movies," I told her.

"With who?"

"Me, myself, and I." It was much easier to lie over the phone. I don't know if Pearl believed me or not.

She grunted and said, "Anyway, I won't be back until Sunday night. I decided to stay in New York with my mom for a few days."

"All right," I told her.

"And Bobby?"

"What?"

"Behave yourself. You hear me?"

"Yeah." I hung up the phone with Pearl and was terrified. I doubted I could make it through that weekend without at least thinking about sleeping with Faye. Things were getting hot and heavy between us. Fortunately, Faye called and told me that she would be working on some big assignment she had to finish up before spring break. She still wanted to go jogging that Monday morning, though.

Pearl got back from New York that Sunday night and was in heat. After I signed her into the dorm and led her to my room, she dropped her things and went straight for my private parts.

"Mommy's back home and she missed you, Daddy."

She backed me right up into the bed while tugging at my clothes. I admit, I missed her too. I had gotten used to having sex with Pearl. All of the carnal thoughts that had been running through my mind concerning Faye made me more aroused that night than usual. I went at Pearl as if I was plugged up into a socket in a wall. And she liked it, a lot!

Pearl looked at me and said, "Damn, maybe I need to go on more vacations! That shit was good, baby! What did you have to eat today? Give me some of that shit!"

If she only knew, I was thinking. I looked at my clock and it was close to midnight. I was wondering if Pearl was going back to her off-campus apartment or staying the night with me.

"You need me to help you with your things tonight?" I hinted.

She took a deep breath and said, "Yeah. I wish I didn't have to leave, but I got shit to take care of I'm tired as hell." She rubbed my chest and smiled. "Thanks to you," she told me.

I felt good about that. For a regular guy I was sure getting a lot of ego massaging. I smiled and said, "Hey Pearl, do you, ah, think I'm kind of handsome?"

Pearl looked at me with a sideways frown. "What kind of question is that? You look good, Bobby, you just don't know it." She laughed at me and said, "You gotta come out of that shell of yours, man. Stop acting like a damn Cinderella. I wouldn't be with you if you didn't have potential, Bobby."

I thought about the three years when she had ignored me, but I decided not to say anything about it. Why ruin a beautiful future with reference to an ugly past? I reasoned.

We got dressed and walked over to her apartment. As soon as we arrived, I put her things down and headed for the door. "I'll call you tomorrow," I said.

"Where are you going?" Pearl asked me. She looked shocked.

"I gotta get up early tomorrow."

"I'll just turn my alarm clock on for five-thirty then."

"Now you know we don't get much sleep when we're in bed together," I told her. I really wasn't planning on staying.

Pearl walked over to me and pinched my right cheek with a smile. "Cute. But I really am tired. There won't be any more of that tonight."

It was pretty obvious that she wouldn't allow me to leave. We had been away from each other for four days, and I didn't have a good enough excuse.

I stripped down to my boxers and T-shirt and crashed on Pearl's queen-sized bed. Pearl was busy unpacking. Then she made a few phone calls to find out what she had missed in class. I don't remember when I fell asleep, but when I woke up, it was after seven.

"SHIT! I forgot to put my alarm clock on!" Pearl was screaming.

I jumped right out of bed and started to get dressed.

"I'm sorry, Bobby. That was my fault," Pearl was saying as I dashed for the door. I nearly ran her roommate off the stairs.

"Damn, aren't we in a hurry!" she huffed.

By the time I got back to my dorm to check my messages, I was drenched with sweat and it was almost eight. There were no messages on my machine. I called Faye and got no answer. I didn't hear from her until she called me later that day.

"You know, I ended up spending the night over at my girlfriend's apartment last night," she told me. "I'm sorry. I didn't plan to be over there that late, but we were both working on assignments, and then we got to talking about guys and stuff, and it got later and later until I just fell asleep. You're not mad at me, are you?"

"Naw," I told her. I was relieved if anything. I felt for sure that she would have had a hundred questions for why I had missed out on our early morning run again.

"Well, I got good news for you. I'm going to Virginia Beach for spring break after all. Ain't that good news?" she asked me.

Dammit! I was thinking. It wasn't good news for me. I was supposed to go to Virginia Beach with Pearl and her friends. There was no way I could keep our relationship from Faye at the beach. Pearl would be all over me. It was easier to do at school. Faye wasn't into going to parties and she did most of her schoolwork inside the library. Pearl and her friends were never to be found in the library and they were seldom up early on the weekends, so I filled in the times and places between their opposing schedules. Outside of the communications building, I was pretty safe. Pearl and Faye were both too busy to hang out and gossip inside of the hallways. Or maybe I had just been plain lucky. There were a lot of close calls, but the biggest thing going for me was that Pearl wouldn't consider Faye in her league. And I was sure that Faye didn't consider me to be Pearl's type of guy. I couldn't believe I was seeing Pearl myself.

"You know what, I don't know if I'm still going," I told Faye. "I haven't seen my parents since Christmas."

"So, most of us haven't. Spring break is supposed to be our vacation time. That's what made me change my plans. There's nothing at home for me. I'll see my parents in May." Faye had a good point.

"Yeah, well, I still haven't made up my mind yet," I told her.

"I was looking forward to being with you, though."

I was speechless. Just one more month until graduation, I thought. This is getting too close for comfort.

"You know you're graduating soon. This might be the last time we get to be with each other," Faye added. She was reading my mind.

"Naw, I'll come see you after graduation," I assured her.

"What are you doing after graduation? Do you have a job lined up yet?"

Good question, I was thinking. "That's one of the reasons why I want to go home. I want to discuss things with my parents."

"Oh," Faye mumbled. She sounded disappointed. I couldn't blame her. I was really being a coward.

"I promise, we'll be together before it's over. Mark my words," I told her.

Faye sighed. I don't think she believed me. "Okay," she let out.

We just lingered on the phone after that.

"Well, I have some work to do," she told me. I knew that she just wanted to get off the line.

"I'm sorry," I whimpered.

"Yeah, yeah."

As soon as the phone clicked, I felt miserable. Faye was such a beautiful person, inside and out. I felt like ending my relationship with Pearl and being with my true friend. I had never been a friend of Pearl's.

When I talked to Pearl that week about Virginia Beach, I broke the news to her plain and simple. "I'm going home."

"What? Stop trippin', Bobby, we planned this."

"I got some things I wanna straighten out with my parents. I didn't bother you about going home to be with your mother."

"That's because she was in an accident. I wouldn't have gone home if it wasn't for that."

"Even still, like I said, I'm going home to see my folks."

It was the first time I stood up to her. Pearl responded by slamming the phone in my ear. I went home to Greensboro, North Carolina, for spring break and had a good sit-down with my folks.

We were inside the kitchen, sitting at the small pinewood table -- me, my mother, and my dad. My younger brother, Brad, ironically, had gone to Virginia Beach.

"You know, your brother is going on to grad school at Chapel Hill," my mother informed me. "I think that's a good idea. What do you think about it?"

Brad, a year younger than I, was finishing school at North Carolina A&T, my parents' alma mater, a year early. He had gone to school straight through summer, so we were both set to graduate from college that same year.

"I'm happy for him," I told my mother. Brad had his way of living and I had mine.

My father chuckled and sipped his coffee. He realized I was avoiding my mother's question. My mother, an alert, disciplinarian schoolteacher, was not to be fooled.

"I'm glad that you're happy for your brother, Bobby, but what do you feel about graduate school?" My mom was a tall and straightforward woman who carried herself with importance. She thought the world of higher education, but all of her academic enthusiasm was a definite turn-off for me.

I got up to get myself a refill of lemonade from the refrigerator. "To tell you the truth, I haven't thought about it."

"Well, why not? What's so terrible about it?"

"There's nothing terrible about it, I just haven't given it any thought."

"Well, what are you planning on doing? You're not coming back here," she snapped at me. "It's time you grow up and do something with your life."

It was the same speech my mother had given me before I enrolled at Howard.

"Roberta, I keep tellin' you, Brad and Bobby are two different boys. Bobby'll be all right. He's just like me, a slow, fine wine," my father said in my defense. He was a big man with massive limbs, but he was pretty lighthearted too. I never saw him use his size to get his point across, yet I realized that he could have if he had wanted to.

Mom grunted and marched off to the bathroom.

Dad looked at me and laughed. "The world ain't gonna end tomorrow. You got time. Sometimes, when you move too fast, you fly right past a good opportunity," he said.

I smiled. My father had a good saying for everything. He was a well-known roofer in our community. His business didn't take off, though, until he was thirty-eight. He told me of several of his young friends who had moved too fast and had run out of steam. "As long as you're breathing good air, eating healthy food, and not hanging out with the wrong kind of people, you always have time to do something with your life," he told me.

My dream was to make forty or fifty thousand dollars a year at a radio station. I had always loved hearing those smooth, brother voices over the radio waves. I had never bothered to be a DJ, though. I liked the talk shows instead. However, after doing several internships around D.C., it seemed that only the big-name people were making any real money. Donnie Simpson at WKYS was one of them. In fact, most of the radio personalities making good money had been around for a while. The younger personalities were mostly rambunctious DJs. You had to be talented, hip, and aggressive. Nevertheless, the word around town was that they still didn't make much money. Radio was a profession you simply had to love in order to last.

I didn't know how talented, hip, or aggressive I could be. As far as being rambunctious and loud, I was more of a mellow kind of guy. I had my own ideas about what would be hip for radio, I just needed an opportunity to show my stuff. One thing was for sure, after driving around North Carolina that week in my father's Buick, I wasn't planning on going back home after graduation. Going to school in Washington, D.C., had spoiled me for the big-city life. My hometown had become too damned small and quiet for me.

I wasn't sure if Pearl and I still had a relationship when I got back to school, but she squashed those doubts immediately. Pearl couldn't wait to see me, just to tell me off.

"Well, I hope you had a good time, because I sure didn't."

"What happened?" I was just walking into the lobby area to sign her in after receiving a page from the front desk.

"First of all, my girlfriend's car broke down on the way there. Then we had to fight with this hotel manager about our room. My other girlfriend lost a hundred and fifty dollars. And after all of that, it kept fucking raining on us."

I felt like laughing but I held it in. Pearl reached out and squeezed my ass on the way up the stairs and asked me if I had missed her.

"Did you miss me?" I asked her back.

"I asked you first."

"Well, I thought you were still mad at me."

"I was. But after all that shit happened in Virginia, I figured that you had gotten a better deal. I feel like I wasted my damn money."

Pearl stepped into my room and gave me a brown bag out of her rather large pocketbook.

"What is this?" I asked her.

"Look the hell inside and see."

I looked inside and pulled out an eight-by-ten wooden frame. Inside was a photo of Pearl wearing a bright and colorful bikini at Virginia Beach. It reminded me of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Pearl was very much into taking pictures. She had her own portfolio. Sometimes she even talked about modeling professionally.

"Surprise, surprise," she said to me, planting a sloppy kiss on my lips. "I look good, don't I?"

I smiled and said, "Hell yeah! Definitely!" It was the kind of picture that would make any man proud.

"That's what you missed," she teased.

"Can you put it back on for me?" I asked her.

She laughed good and hard at me. "Hell no!" she responded. "That's what you get for not going down there with me. Everybody had a man but me."

As soon as she said that, I began thinking of Faye. I wondered if Faye had found someone at Virginia Beach to spend some quality time with. I was feeling guilty again.

"Did you behave yourself?" I figured I'd ask.

"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. You wanna find out if I'm still snug?"

I couldn't believe that she said that. I had a hard-on quicker than you could strike a match. I forgot all about my guilt for Faye. Pearl and I jumped right back into doing the nasty.

That next day, I got a knock on my door and I answered it without looking through the peephole. To my surprise, Faye walked right into my room.

"How did you get over here?" I asked her.

"I have other friends in Slowe." She stood right next to Pearl's picture on my dresser and hadn't noticed it. I was about to have a heart attack!

"Let's go to the library. I was just about to head over there," I lied. I made a move toward her. Faye quickly eluded me and took a seat on my bed.

"I don't want to go to the library. I came here to have a face-to-face talk with you."

"About what?"

"About what we mean to each other," she answered.

"We know what we mean to each other," I responded. "Come on, let's discuss this in the library, I got stuff to do."

I could feel sweat dripping inside of my armpits. I was tempted to move over to my dresser and stand in front of Pearl's picture, but I was afraid that it might bring attention to it. Maybe I would get lucky and Faye wouldn't notice it.

"Why? What's wrong with discussing it in your room? Are you expecting somebody?" she huffed at me. "Or is it that you don't want me in here?"

I was about to explode! I had become too pushy with her, making her more suspicious. And when Faye stood up from my bed and looked toward my dresser, I felt like barging out of the door and making a break for the exit stairway.

Oh, what do we have here?" she asked me, holding up Pearl's framed picture.

I was ready to duck, thinking that she might throw it at me. What the hell could I say? I just looked at her to watch for her reaction.

Faye gently set the picture back down and headed toward the door. She was crushed.

"I didn't know how to tell you," I said to her as I stepped aside.

"I'm sure you didn't," she said in a cracked voice.

I attempted to reason with her. "I mean, but we're just friends, right?"

"Friends don't lie to each other like this."

I would have felt better about it if Faye had gotten mad and slammed the door or hit me or something, but she didn't do any of that. She just walked out, obviously heartbroken.

I felt like running down the hall after her, but what would I have said once I reached her?

"It's just a picture, Faye," I mumbled to myself. "It doesn't mean anything."

It's funny how you come up with responses after the fact. It wouldn't have worked had I used it. Even if it was just a picture, with it being a picture of Pearl, Faye's nemesis, I might as well have been taking candy from the devil.

When I think back to how I treated Faye, I realize that guys make the same mistake a lot of women do; we always go for those people who are more likely to hurt us than to love us. I knew I had some bad karma to deal with after I had broken Faye's heart, but I still had to live my life. All I could do was expect for it to come back around to me in the future.

Copyright © 1997 by Omar Tyree