No No No, by Ghostface Killah
Valeria made breakfast the next day because she was up before either me or my Uncle Thomas. The smells of the pancakes and bacon and eggs woke me up, and when I went down, Uncle Thomas was already at the table while Valeria served him. “I hope you like it. It’s nothing compared to the stuff you’ve been making for dinner, but I hope you enjoy.”
“I didn’t know you cooked,” I said, joining my uncle at the table.
“She can leap tall buildings in a single bound, too,” Uncle Thomas joked.
“Everyone can cook breakfast,” Valeria said, “it’s the first lesson in the American handbook; how to scramble eggs and make pancakes.”
Uncle Thomas laughed and said, “I thought it was how to use a salt shaker.”
“That’s in the prologue.” Valeria set a plate in front of me and I ate it thinking about the night before, and all of the nights we’d spent together. She was everything that I needed to get over Loren, my first wife, and the time I’d spent with Valeria was enough to make me forget the disappointment of that marriage falling apart. But what if it wasn’t that serious for her? What if she was only using me for my tall, black body that reminded her of all the posters on her wall?
It was a conversation that would have to wait until after Valeria was done with work for the day. Uncle Thomas insisted that she leave the dishes and eat with us before she spent the morning reviewing interstellar data at work. She ate quickly to be there in time, and while Uncle Thomas washed the dishes, I sat in the backyard looking at the scenic mountain view, agonizing over the very real conversation that Valeria and I would have to have. I realized then how much I wanted it to work with her. I wanted it to be more than sex.
“So you gonna propose today or wait until the end of the month?” Uncle Thomas said when he joined me outside.
“You don’t think I should move here?”
“It’s not the move that worries me,” he explained. “It’s not really true, you know? The best way to get over someone is not to get under someone else. You know why? Because the new person doesn’t make you forget the pain from the last one. The best way to get over someone is to figure out why it didn’t work, that way you don’t make the same mistake twice.”
“So I’m making the same mistake?”
“Don’t ask me. Nobody knows the answer to that question better than you. Why do you think your first marriage didn’t work?”
“Because we were always just best friends. We weren’t compatible enough to keep growing together. I guess we moved too fast in the beginning, maybe we were too young to be married.”
Uncle Thomas asked, “could you be doing that now?”
I thought about it. “I could be, but it feels right. After all that I’ve been through, this feels like the best decision I’ve made in a long time. It’s easy with Valeria.”
“It’s easy now,” Uncle Thomas said. “But when it gets hard, will it last? She’s a good girl, Wes, and you guys are good together. If you really appreciate what you have, don’t put unnecessary pressures on it.”
We went into downtown Asheville for lunch and afterwards, we wandered the stores. At a used bookstore, I told him that my only real fear about my relationship with Valeria was that I was more invested than she was.
“It could just be about the sex for her.” I said.
Uncle Thomas laughed, “you’re right, it could be, but she’s pretty enough to get a real basketball player if she wanted one. You think you’re the only black guy to ever talk to her?”
We met Valeria at a bakery once she was done with work. Uncle Thomas went back to Valeria’s to start dinner and I took Valeria to see a movie. Afterwards, we drove to a scenic spot to watch the sunset.
We stood next to the car and I swallowed my nerves. “Its not just the sex right? It’s not just ‘cause in dim light you can imagine that I’m Ghostface, or whoever else you fantasize about?”
Valeria laughed. “No Wesley. It’s not just the sex.” She hugged me but before I could kiss her, she started to walk away from me. I turned to see her approaching the ditch at the edge of the road where we stood. “You hear that?” There was a faint wheezing sound and strained screams that didn’t sound human. I followed her and in the ditch was a small deer that had been injured. Valeria knelt at its side and when she looked back at me, I could see her tears.
“It was hit by a car or something.” She said and before I was at her side, she broke its neck. “I don’t see how someone could just leave an animal to suffer like this.” She stood and slung the small carcass over her shoulder.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. “At least let me carry it.”
I followed her to the car where she secured it to the roof with ropes she had in the trunk. “Maybe Uncle Thomas can do something with the meat.”
“I don’t know if he can butcher a deer, Valeria. Shouldn’t we call animal control?”
“I can butcher a deer. My father showed me how to butcher a cow when we were still in Colombia, this is a small deer, it’s nothing. And it was healthy, no disease. We can give its death meaning.”
On the ride home, I said to Valeria, “you’re full of surprises you know that? You’re like Superman. Is there anything you can’t do?”
“I’m sure there are some things,” she laughed. When we were back at the house, I untied the deer from the roof. Valeria kissed me when I put it on the ground.
“I love you Wesley. I love you more than my fantasies. You are real, and you are kind.”
Uncle Thomas came outside and was surprised to see Valeria next to the porch dismembering the deer carcass. We stood there watching her, and then as she took it to the back and strung it up to bleed it dry.
“She’s Superman,” I said to my uncle. “She gonna butcher it so you can make us dinner.” I told him, “I’m gonna marry that woman someday.”
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