better he was too lazy to go to the gym anymore.”
“Is he a bad man like Loverboy?”
“No. He okay.”
“Your salads,” Albert said.
He put two plates before us. They were green salads made up of frisee lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cut green beans, and a strong garlic vinaigrette.
Juanda loved it. And I loved her loving it.
“You know how I can get in touch with Piedmont?” I asked as she was eating her third slice of French bread.
“Why?”
“Because I think he might help me find a man I’m looking for.”
“Can I at least finish my salad before you start askin’ me all kinds’a questions?” she asked playfully.
“Sure,” I said.
I watched her concentrate on the lettuce and bread. She ate all of the greens, except for the beans, and then used her bread to mop up the dressing.
Albert must have been watching because as soon as she was through he brought the entree. It was chicken breasts stuffed with ham and white cheese, accompanied by mashed potatoes under a Cognac sauce.
“Is this to your liking, miss?” he asked Juanda.
“It’s great,” she said.
This elicited a big smile from the round Persian. His hairline was receding and his eyes were cunning but Albert was a man I knew that I could trust.
When he left, Juanda said, “I don’t know if I should tell you about Piedmont.”
“Why not?”
“Because then you might not call me no more.”
She gazed into my eyes and I froze, realizing that what she said was true.
“I live with a woman,” I said.
“Will you kiss me one time?”
“I have two kids,” I continued, “three if you count one that left with her mother eleven years ago.”
“Just one kiss and you have to promise that you will call me one more time at least.”
I wasn’t thinking about Nola or Geneva or Bonnie right then. I leaned over to give Juanda a chaste kiss on the lips but when her fingers caressed my neck I lingered and even drifted to plant a gentle peck on her throat.
When I leaned back Juanda was smiling.
“He live on Croesus only a couple’a blocks from the corner where you met me,” she said. “I don’t know the number but it’s this big ugly red house that got a bright orange door.”
Albert brought creme brulee for dessert and Juanda was in heaven.
WHEN WE GOT to the car I unlocked her door and opened it.
“You see?” she said. “You’d open the door for me even after we’ve had a dozen kids.”
ON THE RIDE back to her home Juanda talked about her experience in high school. She had gone to Jordan High and got good grades until halfway through the eleventh grade.
“. . . then I messed up,” she said.
“What happened?”
“I met this boy. His name was Dean and he was fiiiiine. Uh. He’d already dropped out but he’d sneak into the schoolyard and stand outside my homeroom door waitin’ for the passin’ period. I’d tell him that I had to go to class but he put his hand on my waist and I couldn’t say no. They finally expelled me.”
“Expelled you? Why?”
“’Cause I wouldn’t listen,” she said. “’Cause I thought I was a woman and they couldn’t treat me like a child no more.”
The riots and Nola Payne’s death and Juanda’s heaving chest were pumping in my veins. I was happy when we got to her block.
I pulled to the curb. She turned to me and touched my forearm.
“You gonna call me again, right?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“No more than two days.”
“You still got my number?”
I recited it from memory. That made Juanda grin. She jumped out and I sped off. In the rearview mirror I could see her waving.
