“I will soon,” I mutter.
Elle hums, “Mmmhmmm.” Then she presses play on the remote and a familiar piano sequence begins. My mouth drops, but not as fast as my heart when Shirley sings, “It’s morning, and we slept the night away…”
Elle smiles, mood’s changed that quickly by nostalgia. “You getting Margherita pizza?”
My stomach is flipping again and I’m back in that emotional zone. I’m no longer a child, but a thirty-one year old polished woman. These lyrics can be expressed without Shirley’s emotions: I have my own vivid, passionate experiences. Conveying them can be as natural to me as an out-boxer maneuver in the ring. Some things look shiny and glistening on the outside, but inside is just as hollow as the knob in my hand.
“We’re not girlfriends, Elle.” My eyes bouncing around the floor as I swallow hard. “I’ll call you later.”
I leave, feeling like shit. I’ve disappointed the most influential woman in my life, and I’ll be sharing the same air as Ashton Spencer again soon.
My body trembles all the way out to the elevator. Thankfully, Candice is nowhere in sight, and I can try and focus my thoughts on my favorite pizza.
2
-Now-
A hum of contentment leaves my nostrils as I chew the first bite.
“Is that where Maury gets her love of Margherita pizza from?”
I chuckle with a hot mouthful. “You would, too, if you had some with me,” I manage to garble, then hand over the partially-eaten slice.
Lori, the nanny, bites her lips together and shakes her head. “I don’t know. I can’t get with any pizza without shredded mozzarella.”
I toss my brows. “I can guarantee you’d develop a particular longing for it if you had your first slice with me, too.”
My wink spreads her cheeks, and Lori’s head ducks as my mother strolls into the kitchen just as the tea kettle sounds.
“Young man, you better be careful with them eyes and words,” my mother warns. “You know these young women have this Me Too thing going on, and when they come for you, it’s ovaaaaa!” She moves about the kitchen, pulling out a teacup and grabbing tea bags.
“There’s no sexual harassment going on here,” I reply.
“If this young lady feels she gotta have pizza with you to keep her job, there is!”
I shake my head and garble, “Don’t think that’s exactly how it works, Ma.”
“Don’t ask me.” My mother traverses the room for the stove. “Ask your millionaire/celebrity friends, who have to move around their board of directors on the org chart like they’re pieces on a board game, all to make it seem as though they’re no longer the head of the company because these women ain’t taking their foolishness no more!”
Lori’s panicked eyes are on me biting into my pizza again, but she’s trying to mask it with a smile. She’s a beautiful woman, but a young woman. Lori’s features are unique yet beautiful, thanks to her Black father and Saudi Arabian mother. Her lovely skin is as dark as licorice, and hair just as rich in hue, but a silky long mane reaching down to her little ass. And that was the problem. Lori was a twenty-four year old graduate student at NYU. At thirty-four years old, I no longer fuck women under twenty-five. I may do light-weight flirting, but that’s it.
As my mother pours the water from the kettle into the teacup, Lori turns her head to peer over her shoulder to my mother. “I don’t think Mr. Spencer has to worry about that, Ms. Lee.”
“Oh, you don’t?” my mother challenges with her back to us.
“No.” Lori giggles, clearly now uncomfortable, though she knows our chemistry. “Only because I’ve been working for him for over three years now. So either he’s a patient man or sucky in the harassment department.” I chuckle as Lori turns completely to my mother. “Are they asleep?”
“Out like a light as soon as their heads hit the pillows.” My mother confirms.
“Good.” Lori turns to me. “If that’ll be all, I need to meet up with my study group tonight.”
“Oh.” I grab my plate and wine glass to head for the table. “What’re you meeting about?”
“Something we’re all clueless about.”
“Try me.” I wink, biting into my slice again.
“How mythology plays into medicine. We’re all over the place with possible topics to take on. No one has anything good.” She snorts. “I hate this class already.”
I think for a minute. “Achilles.”
Her brows meet as she drums the countertop with her fingertips. “I don’t follow.”
“He was a noted Greek warrior in the Trojan War. Classical mythology has it that when he was a baby, his mother gave him a bath in a river that was supposedly magical. She was trying to make him immortal, or some shit. She dipped him in, upside down, by his heel. All was immersed but that heel she held. When he fought the Trojan War, Achilles murdered the Trojan hero, but was hit in the heel by an arrow, and that killed him.” I shrug. “That small portion of his body is what was not submerged in the river, and it cost him his life. It was weak. Anatomically, the Achilles tendon runs from the calf, down to the heel.”
“And that term is used in medicine!” Lori gasps, wide eyes and pearly whites exposed.
“Not the official term, but yes.” I take another bite.
“Thank you, Mr. Spencer!” She jumps on her toes and turns to leave the kitchen. “You have no idea what a relief this is! Goodnight, Ms. Lee.”
My mother grunts, “Night, young lady.” She plops down in the seat across from me with her evening tea. After rolling her eyes at my ego being stroked by a twenty-four year old, she notes, “That lil’ girl wouldn’t know the first thing to do to keep a man like you.”
“Damn sure wouldn’t, but she’d keep me happy.” I stick my tongue out and shimmy in my chair.
She shakes her head, glaring at me in judgment. “Ain’t too many tricks she can do in the bedroom on you when you stay globe-trotting.”
“That,” I pointed into the air. “is what keeps me.” I bite into my pizza again.
“So, what’s next, young mister?”
I take a minute to chew and swallow what’s in my mouth. “Boxing.”
“Boxing?”
I nod, wiping my mouth.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been handed a feature for Sports Illustrated by the great Tyler Thomas.” The sarcasm in my words can’t be mistaken.
“Ahhh…” She’s digesting the information while picking up her teacup. “You’re covering sports now?”
“I guess this one time, I am.”
“Who?” Her upper torso jumps as she demands. “Must be somebody good to have you writing about sports.” An inspirational puff leaps from her mouth. “Don’t tell me! It’s about that knot-head boy, Mayweather.”
I scoff silently, bringing the pizza close to my face for another bite. “Tori McNabb.” This bite is tasteless after that name leaves my mouth.
“Who? That girl that’s all over the place, fighting?”