6
Ozzie
The minute Ginger walks out of the shop with my mom, I fight the urge to join them. I know I’m going to be the main topic of conversation. I should be freaked out, but I’m not. I’m actually all right with it. Maybe Mom will give her an insight into our lives. Mom will try to sugarcoat it and make it seem like I’m a decent man, but no doubt Ginger is smarter than that. I’m a felon that went to prison on a drug charge. My brother is a drug addict that is in prison for armed robbery. Definitely knowing the truth, she’ll walk away, and I won’t have this temptation to deal with because the more I see her, the more I want to give up on all my thoughts of staying away from her.
My cell phone rings, and I look at the caller ID. It’s already three in the afternoon, and no doubt my mom is calling me about her lunch with Ginger. “Hey, Mom.”
“You busy?” she asks.
“No, just finished up an appointment and my next one isn’t for another half hour.”
She almost interrupts me. She’s chomping at the bit to get her two cents in. “She’s the one, Ozzie. I’m telling you, she’s the one.”
I walk up the back stairs to my apartment. “Who?” I ask, playing dumb.
“Ozzie Cunningham, I’m not in the mood for this. You have that poor girl thinking you don’t like her when it’s obvious you do. Now you need to get it together.”
“Ma, I’m not ready to start dating. We’ve been over this.”
She huffs loudly in the phone. “Are you really that dense? She’s the ONE, Ozzie. I couldn’t have picked out a better woman for you if I tried. Now you need to quit acting like you’re not worthy or whatever you got going on over there or you’re going to fuck this up.”
Yeah, my mom is cussing me. She was raised hard, and she’s always been one to say it like it is. But the love she has behind the words doesn’t even let me question her. However, I do know I better not try to throw an “f” word back at her. I tense up just thinking about it. No doubt the woman would try to bend me over her knee for it.
“Ma, I’m not trying to mess it up. And she seems nice, but you have to let me live my life,” I tell her point blank.
She sighs loudly in the phone. “I just want you happy. You deserve this, Oz. You more than anyone else I know deserves to have love.”
“I know, Mom. I just need to work through a few things, that’s all.”
She’s quiet for the longest time. “Okay, I’ll stay out of it.”
She says the words, but I know it’s far from the truth. There’s no way she’s going to let something she feels so strongly about go. But I don’t want to argue with her about it. Not anymore. “Thanks, Ma.”
“Well, I’m still going to have lunch with her sometime next week. I mean, just because you don’t have any sense doesn’t mean I can’t be friends with her.”
I sit down on the couch and lean back, resting my head on the cushion. “That’s good, Ma. I’m glad you have a new friend.”
She snorts. “You act like I’m some middle schooler or something, but whatever.”
I know I shouldn’t ask. I should change the subject, but I have to know. “So, uh, what did you and Ginger talk about?”
“We talked about everything. She’s so beautiful, and I’m not talking just on the outside, she is on the inside too. We talked about her family and the store. We talked about you...”
She trails off, and I know the only way I’m going to get the answer is to ask. “What about me?”
She coughs into the phone. “Well, I told her everything. I told her the truth. I knew you wouldn’t, and I thought she had a right to know.”
She clams up after that, and I wait for her to go on. Every thought is going through my head. I’ll never see her again. She’s definitely not going to come see me again. I realize now that I had some hope that maybe she could see past it, but hell, if I can’t, it wouldn’t be right to ask her to.
“Good,” I finally say, breaking the silence.
“All right, I have to get back to work, but I need to say one more thing. Wait, two more.”
I roll my eyes. “What is it, Ma?”
“Number one, don’t let this chance pass you by. I don’t want you to lose her, and I don’t think you do either. Number two, I love you, son.”
I tell her I love her too and hang up the phone. It’s only then that I let her words sink in. Am I going to be okay just letting Ginger go and not knowing if we actually could have something good together? Yeah, I want her, there’s no doubt about it, but she’s not the type of girl that I can just fuck to get her out of my head. I do know that much. But I don’t know if I have anything else to offer.
I sit here, thinking about it all when my phone dings that it’s time for my next appointment. I do my best to put Ginger out of my head and go back downstairs. My plan is to get lost in my work and not think about anything else. I have three more appointments, and one of them will take me around two hours to complete. Now all I have to do is ignore all the thoughts of Ginger’s big dark eyes, her curvy body, and her laugh that makes
