Between Lovers by Eric Jerome Dickey Read Free Book Online

if she’s leaving dick to chase clit.
    The photos I took from my messenger bag, I stare at them as I stand on the balcony in my jeans and USC sweatshirt, the cold ocean air massaging my face. Nicole is gone, but she’s still here. Her earthy fragrances and green tea body wash linger.
    I gaze five floors down and wonder if I jump, if that mythical place called heaven would accept me as I am. There have been days when I didn’t want to wake up. I used to think that meant I was crazy, but I’m no different from the rest of the world. Only sane people feel this way. Crazy people are the ones who think they are always sane.
    Nicole leaves the hotel and checks her watch as she races up the wheelchair ramp, then balances her load as she jogs the stairs leading to the Starbucks. That coffee-house is connected to the Barnes and Noble. Nicole never looks up. She knows where my room is. I always stay in the same room. She knows I’m watching, because she knows me, and she never looks up.
    In the chilling breeze, the sun in my eyes, I wait, photos in hand, lips tight, lines blooming in my forehead, the same think lines my old man gets when he’s in his philosophical mode. I’m worried about Nicole, about her tears, her anger, her pain, wondering what I can do to make a corner of it go away.
    Then, with reluctance, I dial a number in Tennessee. Nicole’s mother. Our southern-fried diva is happy to hear my voice, at least she tells me she is happy.
    I say, “It’s been a while.”
    â€œMonths. Thank you for sending me your new book.”
    She congratulates me on my last book, which, like the others I have written, she will collect but never read because of the earthy language and the frank content. It’s too real for her world.
    She asks, “Are you on tour?”
    I tell her that I’m always on tour, always eating hotel food, hanging out at convention centers at somebody’s expo, always keeping my mind occupied.
    â€œI’m in Oakland. Doing a few book signings.”
    There is a pause.
    I continue, “And I’m visiting Nicole.”
    The faux happiness between us vanishes like darkness devoured by light.
    In a callous manner that rings of intolerance, she replies, “My daughter is dead.”
    â€œNicole is alive.”
    â€œChile, listen. The Nicole I gave birth to is as dead as my husband. As dead as her daddy has been for the last six years. Her eight brothers and three sisters are alive, one is in rehab, but he’s stood before the church and confessed and asked for forgiveness and is coming back to the Lord, so each is doing well in their own way. My child, the one that is dead in spirit, her soul rests in an unmarked grave.”
    â€œHow can you say that?”
    She remains firm. “Her body is still among the living, but her soul is dead.”
    â€œI know it’s hard, but it’s hard on her too. Can you talk to her, maybe try to understand—”
    â€œNot acceptable. Degenerative behavior is not acceptable. People can’t just do what they want to in this world.” She says things that speak of infinite disappointment, of community-wide embarrassment at the wedding, the almost wedding, an event that cost thirty thousand dollars, a wasted thirty thousand dollars, and in the end she tells me, “You know, in Pakistan, men bum their women when disgraced.”
    â€œWe’re not in Pakistan.”
    â€œBut we have matches. We have gasoline and matches.”
    She hangs up.
    My eyes are still on Starbucks. Nicole rushes out with a tall cup of the legal liquid drug in one hand. A second tall cup of the caffeinated upper is in her other hand. I know she always orders a tall cup, she always orders Kenyan with a shot of vanilla, either that or hazelnut, but never drinks half.
    Coffee. Laptop.
    She’s a divided soul, trying to please two people at the same time.
    She slows on the stairs, adjusts the laptop strap, the