Chestnut Brown And Cinnamon Happiness Read online

  “The other day my boss called and said that I will be over there for four months at the most.”

  “Because you are friends with my son call every once in a while or write to him. So he won’t feel lonely.”

  “I promise.”

  “Go head and go to sleep I know you are tried.”

  Loren didn’t argue about going back to her room because she was very tried. She hadn’t really a lot of sleep for the last couple of days. So she went to sleep in the clothes that she had on. She thought she was really bless that the room that she had had a bathroom in it. She must have been a lot more tired than she realized because she took a six hour nap. She knew that Mr. Martin was right.

  Robert left while Loren went into one of the guess room. He knew that his father had talk to her about them. He knew that what ever it was that he would see that his father would be right. Loren’s smooth skin always made him hungry like wanting some caramel or a good desert. He found his father in the den watching TV.

  “What did you talk to her about?” He said it in a light tone.

  “Well, how did you sleep? Do you want a soda or something?” He said trying to avoid the question.

  “I slept fine. I will take some tea. What did you say to her? Were you malicious to her?”

  “When have I ever been mean to anyone that you brought home? All I told her is that I like her, but I don’t like the timing. I know you son. You are already falling in love with her. And I can’t really blame you. She is lover than a summer breeze.”

  “What do you mean by timing?”

  “You have been separated from Maria for a month. Do Maria know that you all are friends?”

  “Yes, then she is Maria and mine friend. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “It has everything to do with everything son.” Mrs. Marta Martin enters the room. “If she is still friends with Maria than you are causing her some pain emotionally. Do you like her for real or is it because Maria hurt you? Don’t drag her down into a low place because you are there.” She said and as his father leaves the room.

  “Mom, I do like her. Mom, I feel so many things I didn’t before like freedom. You don’t understand mom what it feels like. I really like her.”

  “Robert, I am sure you do like her. From what your father tells me she is very beautiful. I don’t think you should see her romantically until six months to year after your divorce. Then see what your feeling for her really is.” Marta Martin said.

  “What difference would it makes if I wait? And plus she doesn’t see me like that. She only sees me as a friend.”

  “Son, it makes a big difference. You gave up everything for Maria. You found someone who is letting you be yourself again. Also son no woman in her right mind would come down here to meet your parents if she wasn’t thinking in the pit of stomach that she would be in your life somehow.”

  “Mom, I care for her. I dream about her. The kind of life I could always see. Seriously.”

  “Then son, seriously wait. I am about to start dinner go and wake our guess up. I need to talk to our guess.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Loren rushes to the guess room and goes into the bed. She came there for water, but she ended up listening to what Mrs. Martin had to say. Right when she was in her bed for about two minutes Robert knocks on the door. Then he opens the door. She pretended like she was sleep. He sits at the side of the bed and light tap her on the shoulders to wake her up.

  “Wake up, Loren. It’s time to wake up.

  “I’m up. Giving me some time to get up. I need a bath.” Loren said now realizing this was a really bad decision. She didn’t know how his mother would treat her.

  Robert didn’t wait before she pushes him out of the room to leave. He knew that she knew that his mother’s opinion out ranks his father’s. Loren looks a little shaken up. He knew that the day was going to be interesting. He had feeling it wasn’t going to go his way.

  Loren was surprise how nice his mother was. She could tell that his mother had a lot class and that she wasn’t going to say anything in front of the men at the table. She also knew that tomorrow will be a girls’ day and she was sure that she wanted to be that. Since she was at his parent’s house Robert and her couldn’t have any a lone time to talk or anything like that. She thought about Mrs. Martin said to Robert. His mother was concern that his emotionally state would bring her down. Since everybody is telling they are wrong at this time for each other she will listen. When they go back to the house she is going to talk to him about when she comes back Robert finding another place on his own.

  Chapter Seven

  Loren woke up to the smell of coffee in her nose. She put on some respectable clothes and headed towards the kitchen. Robert’s mother was in the kitchen just taking out the biscuits. The smell of the kitchen made Loren forget everything that she was doing and how she was losing her mind coming to Robert’s parents’ house. What was she thinking? It was like the smell in the kitchen slowly have her wanting some breakfast. The smell of bacon and knowing that Robert’s mother made her favorite breakfast food when she was little, grits.

  “Good morning Mrs. Martin. The smell of the kitchen takes me back to when my grandma was alive. This is how her kitchen smelled. May I sit down? Is breakfast ready ma ‘am?”

  “Of course you can sit down. I’m not going to make you stand up all day. Your grandmother must have been from the south. My husband’s parents were from the North and they ate food like oatmeal. There is nothing like some sweet buttery grits. Oh yes. Let me fits you some food.”

  Her husband filled her in about Loren’s roots. So Mrs. Martin thought she fix her an old fashion southern breakfast. Her husband and some of her friend told her that if she could make anyone tell the truth just by eating her food. She needed to know what is really the deal with Loren? She fixes her plate with three pieces of bacon, scrabble eggs, a bowl of grits, and biscuits and gravy. She also made her cup of coffee.

  “I hope I didn’t make the coffee too strong for you. I just love a strong cup of coffee just like I like my man. Strong.” Mrs. Martin said after she saw Loren drinking her cup of coffee.

  “No, ma‘am it isn’t too strong. I like my coffee that way. This food tastes just like my grandmother. If I didn’t know better I would think you were related. How did you meet your husband? If you don’t mind me asking?” She said letting the food and the cup of coffee sooth her throat with the tasteful dream.

  “Make sure you get my husband side of the story too.” She said with a small light laugh. “I am very surprise my son didn’t tell you or my husband yesterday. The year was 1974 and I was dating this beautiful light skin man name D.C. He was just beautiful. A year later it was our one year anniversary and I never told my parents about D.C. because they were ok with black people getting their rights just not for me to date one. So D.C.’s best friend picked me up so we could celebrate. My father answered the door and let him come in. He called me downstairs and told me to wait while he talked to him. My father like him right away I could tell.” She said.

  “Was it love at first sight?” Loren said more interested when she asked the question.

  “No, it was love at first conversation. My best friend was also black we met in college and she was dating my husband at the time. Oh, she was a lovely beautiful dark woman. Well, the same thing with my parent was like her parents. They didn’t care if me and her were friends as long as she didn’t date any body that was white. Well, I am so glad for change. We were supposed to met at café and we were all going to go to the movies. I think God has a sense of humor because as soon as we went into to the café it started to rain something awful. Even if we wanted to leave the café we couldn’t. So for a hour we didn’t talk to each other. My boyfriend and his girlfriend never made it to café. After a hour because we were stuck I made conversation with him. An
d I looked at him for the first time. He was lovely. His voice sooth my fear and he won my heart all in one night. And when I was completely in love him the rain stopped. As God himself was saying see this is your husband.”

  “What ever happen to D.C. and your best friend?” Loren asked more curious than ever.

  “You wouldn’t believe that they fell in love too. In fact we all made peace with it and got married a week apart from each other and we are still friends today.”

  “What a story?”

  “And every bit is the truth,”

  “My grandmother had a saying that if you want someone to tell you the truth all you do is fixed them comfort food. And since you remind me of grandmother what do you want to ask me.” Loren said lightly.

  “I can tell already that I like you from the question that question alone. Why are really here?”

  “Because your husband caught me off guard and asked me to come down here. At the time I was a little emotionally because your son came back to his childhood home after I gave him a kiss.” Loren said with her head low, but still looking at Mrs. Martin.

  “You gave him a kiss. Why did you give him kiss?” Mrs. Marta Martin wanted to know.

  Loren told him about the cooking class and how he ended up spending a night at her apartment. She told how Robert ended up meeting her father. She told Mrs. Martin how he ended up moving in with together. She told her how she helped Robert sell his house. And lastly she told her what Robert did for her in her new house and how she didn’t notice him doing because of her job.

  “That’s why kiss him. I really didn’t mean to. I just was going to give him a hug. Now I am going to London to move in with Maria for four months. Your husband is right the timing is off. I hope you don’t think less of me.” Loren said almost sad.

  “No, I don’t. I want to tell you something before we leave to go have our girls’ day. Maria wrote me every week letting me know everything that was happening in their relationship. I knew about you four years ago and Maria was right you are beautiful. And you could take Robert away from her, but don’t. From woman to woman let her have her husband in her last days. Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “Well, then call me Marta. Here is a list of we doing to day.”

  “This is a lot of things. It will be my treat. That is the least I could do for you letting me stay at your house and eat up all your food.” Loren replied with her mood started to lighten.

  Mr. Martin looked at girls’ Day as a day for the men also. He hadn’t been fishing with his son in six years and it mostly because of Maria. Robert knew that is what he needed. Loren talking to his mother made him nervous. More than nervous. He knew that his parents like her enough to take pictures of her the day before. He was glad he invited his friend Charles and Mike. They were going to have a good fashion guys’ day. Mike lived in the same area that Loren and Robert did. Mike was visiting his parents for their anniversary. They stayed on the lake eating Mrs. Martin’s biscuits and gravy. And they also drank her strong coffee. After six hours they stopped fishing and went to the local bar slash restaurant and went to get some food.

  The guys were happy that no women was there so they could eat manly food like hot wings, cheese fries, and onion rings with beer. Chris and Mike got beers while Robert and Mr. Martin got Ginger Ale.

  “Guys, my son brought home such a looker. Here is her picture.” Mr. Martin shows the picture to Chris and Mike.

  “Loren’s here. Mr. Martin I know her. She watches sports with the guys except the first game of the season.” Mike said surprised that Robert didn’t say anything.

  “That’s because she always watching the game with her father. He is really nice too.” Robert said to Mike.

  “She is beautifully hot and sexy. You guys are friends with her. She looks like a model.” Chris said lusting over the picture.

  “You know why because my son got his old man’s taste.” Mr. Martin said.

  “Come Mike let’s play some pool.” Robert said not liking how Chris was looking at the picture of Loren.

  “Hey, is she is single.” Chris yell at them as they were leaving.

  Robert was trying not to think of Loren being with another man that would be too much for him right at this moment in his life. When he looked at Loren he saw his future. He kept telling his self that it is all because of Maria. He wanted to yell and scream at her for wasting ten years of his life. Most people have something to show when they get a divorce and he had nothing. He knew the truth about Maria and him getting married that he never told anyone, but Mike.

  “Are you mad at Maria?” Mike said after going to the pool table and having some distance between them and Mr. Martin and Chris.

  “Hell, yah I am angry. Ten years I been married to Maria and I am left with nothing. I don’t have any children and I sold the house. Ten years Mike. Ten years of dealing with doing things her way. Did you know that she wanted to everything even pay the bills? She picked out our houses. She moved us and forces me to a cooking class and even a dance class. Do you want to know I made it through starting that six year of marriage? It was Loren. I picture sometimes what her skin felt like. What her mouth taste like? She was my fantasy.”

  “I know Loren and she is a sweet girl. She wasn’t just yours. She was all the guys’ fantasy.”

  “Do you want to know the truth? After three years of marriage I found it hard to get up for her anymore sometimes. But sometimes became all the time. The more she controlled things the more I stopped finding her attractive. She was emasculating. I used to get all the latest nudity magazines. And trust me I was started to get addicted. Did you know that she only wanted to have sex on Monday?” Robert said letting some things go.

  “Why Monday?” Mike said curiously.

  “Well, at one point she wanted always have sex on Sunday, but it’s never good to lie on a Sunday. So I told her to pick another day because I couldn’t look at those on Sabbath. And what is worst that I had to start looking at porn before she got home on Monday. I just prayed that she wouldn’t have a Monday off. She thought it was her that made the sex better, but it was other women that I saw.”

  “Wow. Do you still have a problem with porn? If not, what made you stopped?” Mike said not believing his ears.

  “Seeing Loren for the first time I quit. The first day I was in the class I wanted to make love to Maria. I would imagine her smile while we were making love and I stayed hard sometimes even after she was done two to three times. And trust me that never happens to any body I knew or really even to me. At the end of the night I would have to finish myself off.”

  “You two were in two classes together how did you control yourself from getting erection while you two cooked together?”

  “Well, the first class I didn’t get one until the end of class and for the first time in a long time Maria and I had sex on Friday. The next week I thought about her and her smile and I would come early and you know. I would jerk the meat good, so it wouldn’t come up until I got home. Afterwards I would wash my hands really good so she couldn’t tell. She probably thought for about a year and half that I was always tried before the cooking class. The dance class I just wouldn’t dance with her until I got my little problem was solved.”

  “But, you, Maria and Loren started to be friends. How did you finally stop having an erection? Did Maria know?” Mike said now starting to laugh a little.

  “I stopped getting an erection when she started to date Thomas. The sex didn’t stop on Friday by then my penis just was excepting to have sex.”

  “Was that the hardest part for you and Loren relationship as friends her dating?”

  “No, the night that Maria told me she didn’t love me it hurt. I think I was really hurt by it because I buried myself in a box and only became what she wanted me to. Lucky for me it was Friday Loren’s and mi
ne cooking class and she listened to me. I try staying at my friends houses, but I found out that they are all on business trips including you. Even though I had keys to their houses and apartments and they would let me stay I didn’t want to be a lone. So before Jason left he suggested me staying with Loren, and when she answered the door with nothing, but a t-shirt with no bra and nothing but, panties on I started to pray. If she wasn’t so tried she probably could see my erection. Or maybe not I had on a coat. I wanted her so bad I was in pain and couldn’t move. I almost came on myself. And she left to go to sleep it came down, but came right up again after she put the covers on me and kiss my forehead. I never wished so much that my head was my mouth.”

  “What were thinking when she came to the door wearing a t-shirt and panties?” Mike starting really laugh at his friend’s truthfulness.

  “All I wanted to do was rip off her panties and let my tongue do the talking, but I had remembered that she was a friend. Do want know something funny?”

  “What?” Mike said now seeing Robert his friend again.

  “What Maria did to me in ten years by controlling and emasculating me was undone in a weekend, a week, and a month of staying with Loren. I feel like a man around her and I haven’t felt like that in long time.”

  “Answer me this one thing. Are you feeling way towards Loren because she is really what you want? Or is she what you want because she is different from Maria?”

  Before Robert could answered his father and Chris came to the pool table after playing a game of darts. Robert never answered Mike’s question. They got pair up in teams and played some pool. An hour late the game was coming on. They watch that before going home. Before Mike left Robert and his father he whispered something in Robert’s ear.

  “Is she really what you want? Or is what you want because she is different from Maria?” Mike said as he left.

  Mrs. Martin and Loren was getting in the house when Robert went into his room. Loren already likes Marta as if she was a friend. She never met anyone like her before. She had a southern quality mix in with a exquisite personality. Mr. Martin was finishing the finishing touches to his meal. Mrs. Martin excused herself so she could tell her son what she really thought of Loren. Loren goes in the kitchen to see if Mr. Martin needed any help in the kitchen.