Mrs. Jeffries & the Silent Knight by Emily Brightwell (black female authors .TXT) 📕

When Dalton and I first got together, one of my friends from college was working as a dancer at the club in Atlanta where he was a bouncer. She wasn’t a stripper. It was a club that played techno-dance music, and it had a catwalk high above the dance floor. Dancers - both male and female - were hired to dance there on the weekends. She told me that Dalton hit on her and that she turned him down because she knew we were together. I never confronted him about it because I was so in love with him at the time and was terrified of losing him.

A few years ago, Dalton was on a six-month assignment in Phoenix. I was at his apartment and needed to look something up on the internet. When I sat down at his computer, I noticed a pop-up advertisement for a dating site that said, “Still looking for women in Phoenix?” That time, I did confront him. I almost broke up with him over it. But he managed to convince me that the pop-up only happened because he had booked a hotel in Phoenix and that the dating site used an ad-software that targeted anybody making reservations in the area. He swore to me he hadn’t actively been looking for a hookup. And I was stupid enough to believe him.

Of course, The Waiter was no Dalton. Lucy was right about that. But I knew there might come a time that he would be tempted. And I might be tempted, too. I had just moved to New York and had gone from one serious relationship right into another. And even though I loved The Waiter with all my heart, I didn’t want to put my life on hold. The only other alternative would be for us to just break up and go our separate ways. The more I thought about it on the cab ride home from dinner, the more I convinced myself that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy might be our only chance at making it work.

The next morning at the office, I had some very exciting news to share with George.

“So,” I said to him as we were getting off the elevator. “Are you still looking for an apartment in Manhattan?”

“God, yes! Did you find one in your building? Please tell me you found one in your building.”

“Well, not in my building. In the Ansonia. Broadway and 74th.”

“The building your man used to live in?”

“The apartment my man used to live in.”

“Are you serious? When? How?”

“Nick is moving out to California in a couple of weeks, so the apartment is available for sublease.“

“I’ll take it. I don’t even have to see it first. Tell him I’ll take it. Did your man happen to leave any of his stuff there? Like any clothes? Clothes that still smell like him?”

“Um, no George. Those clothes are now at my apartment, but I could ask Nick to leave something behind.”

“Yeah, Nick’s hot. That would work. Damn, I bet that place has sexy karma.”

“You’ll love it. The apartment is small, but the view is amazing.”

“Well, it can’t be as good as the view you wake up next to every morning.”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna have that view much longer.”

“Oh my god? Did you guys break up?”

“No, we’re not breaking up. But he is moving to California for a while.”

“What? For how long?”

“I’m not sure. As long as it takes to get their business off the ground.”

“Oh, Ginger Spice,” he said, hugging me. “This news makes me so sad. Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not. But I will be. I’m just gonna have to get used to the long-distance relationship thing.”

“So you’ll be bi-coastal. And maybe he could just be  ‘bi.’”

“In your dreams, George.”

“Yes, he is. Quite often.”

I laughed and walked over to my desk. I sat down and opened my planner.

11 Days.

I’d started a daily countdown on my calendar. In eleven days, The Waiter would be back in New York for two weeks. And then he would be gone for months. Possibly even years. I had no idea how I was going to be able to handle this. Or how I was going to break the news that I wasn’t going to California with him. But I had eleven days to figure it out.

CHAPTER 36

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The Waiter’s flight was scheduled to land at four. I took the M60 bus to La Guardia to meet him. I enjoyed riding the bus. It gave me a chance to see different parts of the city and watch my fellow New Yorkers going about their daily business. The city was like a pulsating heart and the people were its blood supply, flowing back and forth, keeping it alive.

By the time I got to the airport, I was starving. I’d only had coffee for breakfast and had spent my entire morning and most of the afternoon writing a roundup of fashion week that would be published on Monday. I left my home office desk littered with notes, lookbooks, an entire weeks’ worth of Women’s Wear Daily, and a Sony Mavica camera packed with digital images of models, designers, accessories, and even a few of Lucy and me in the tents at Bryant Park. Of course, Lucy and Vogue had much better seats at all of the shows than I did, but she used her clout to get me bumped up to the second row for Michael Kors, where I coveted every single piece that appeared on the runway (sans the fur.) I also got to see Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristen Davis in person. I still could not believe this was my life. That I was actually getting paid to write about fashion and more specifically, New York Fashion Week.

Even though the previous week had exposed me to super-tall models and super-skinny starlets, making me feel a little bit short