#samplesunday: talk to God
I was drawn out of my musings by the sound of my phone going off with a video call, so I reached over to where it was charging at my bedside to see who it was. I should have known it could only be one person considering that she was the only one who ever called me this soon after the sun had made its ascent into the sky. With a grin settled onto my face just from seeing her picture on my phone, I swiped eagerly, greeting her with an enthusiastic, “Hey, Lovey!”
“Good morning, my sweets,” my grandmother trilled. “Ok, spill it! How was everything? I want all the dirty details.”
My grandmother Lovey was everything to me. My biggest champion, my greatest comforter. She’d had to step into the role of rearing me right after she’d lost her only child and she had done so seamlessly. I had been a mess then, a fresh eleven years old and unable to conceive a world wherein the person who had been the center of mine previously no longer being with us. Since we’d lived clear across the country, my relationship with Lovey before my mom’s death had been decent enough, but we’d definitely grown way closer the older I got. She was the first person I called whenever I got news—good, bad, or indifferent.
A scheduling conflict had precluded her from being able to make the party last night, so I knew she’d be on my line bright and early this morning asking me about it. Lovey was in her seventies but was still as mobile and agile physically and mentally as she’d been decades earlier. She couldn’t make the festivities last night because she was the keynote speaker at a professional conference for writers. In addition to being my loving and caring grandmother, she was also a well-respected author of ten novels as well as a professor of English language and literature at a prestigious HBCU.
“It was amazing, Lovey. I wish you could have been there because your girl Kysre was in the building.”
“From Pretty Baked?” Lovey squealed. “Oh I just love that show! You didn’t say that there were going to be people from Sizzle Network there, too!”
“You knew there would be the possibility though since they’re sister networks with CanDo. I told her how you were a massive fan and she insisted that we keep in touch because she’s a major fan of your work and would love for you to come on an episode of the show in the future.”
“Ciji, I know you are lying to me!”
“Swear it, Lovey! Girl, don’t act like your name doesn’t ring bells in these streets still.”
“I suppose,” she answered with a smug little grin on her face. “All right we can circle back to all of this because you know what I am really calling for. How was it? Finally meeting your little boyfriend in the flesh. Give me all the dirty details.”
I grimaced, thinking about how that meeting was the exact opposite of what Lovey had been hoping for me.
“Oooh, what’s that face, sweets?” she said with a concerned frown.
“Forget anything I ever said about William Preston before because he is now at the top of my hit list!”
Lovey gasped. “No way!”
I shook my head vehemently. “Yes, way,” I replied before launching into the whole story about how he’d behaved toward me all evening when I’d done nothing to him.
When I finished, Lovey had a funny look on her face.
“Uh oh. What’s that look about?”
“You said he had been looking at you from across the room all night?” Lovey asked.
I nodded.
“And he didn’t have a word to say when you were finally within striking distance?”
“Yeah.”
“And he hustled his narrow behind away the moment it became apparent that he could no longer avoid having an interaction with you?”
“Sure. I am not quite sure what this line of questioning is supposed to help me conclude beyond doubling down on him being a rude, and potentially jealous, butthead.”
“Or, a man enamored with a woman and taken aback by how strongly he’s attracted, so he was trying to appear aloof and play it cool.”
“Oh please, Lovey! Weren’t you the one who adamantly lectured me on not giving into the ‘if he messes with you that means he likes you’ train of thought when it came to boys in my youth?” I screeched incredulously.
“I did. And I stand on that one hundred percent, but… I don’t know, sweets. That’s not the read I’m getting here based on what you’ve said to me.”
“Well it’s the read I got being in the midst of it all, so… trust me on this one. That man is not checking for me like that.”
“Famous last words, my sweets,” Lovey replied with a chuckle.
“Yeah yeah,” I grumbled as we chatted a bit further and then rang off the call altogether.
Despite me putting my grandmother off, I was secretly amused and somewhat thrilled at the prospect she’d offered me. Had I just been reading his energy wrong the entire time? Were those looks of disdain just artfully concealed desire? Had I misread the snort of derision I’d heard when Wayland had called me a sibling of theirs? I shook my head to snap myself out of it. Even if what Lovey was thinking had some merit, I really wasn’t in the business of entertaining men who weren’t mature enough to just express their feelings directly instead of doing all of the subliminal shit.
Thankfully, the odds of me sharing space with him again any time soon would be slim to none, so I just needed to not even give any of these thoughts the space to roam around my brain. As far as I was concerned, whatever problem William Preston had with me was something he needed to work out between himself and God.