There was much business to do; things to sign and discuss. Right in the middle of all the paper shuffling and task assigning, I noticed that Mr. Wilkes had a stammer. Very slight; just enough to make him vulnerable. Here was this handsome, smart man and he had a stutter. That foggy feeling I had the first day abruptly returned. I tried to dodge it but it was too late. I looked down at Joe’s hands so as not to look at his mouth. His manicured fingers guided his pen as he made meticulous notes. The pen was made of a deep blue metal, the color of a night sky.
And there was no wedding ring. The only jewelry was a thin gold bracelet on his left wrist. The gold shone bright against his dark skin. So many married men didn’t wear wedding rings. My husband never wore one. He said it interfered with his tennis game. What was I doing even wondering about wedding rings?
During a conversation on the merits of crab cakes versus pork rolls, I smelled Joe’s cologne. Then I actually felt it -- like fingers -- reach out and brush against my face. To distract myself, I counted all the chairs on top of the tables in the dining area. There were forty-four. Music, as always, played in the background.
You can’t hurry love, no you just gotta wait. Love don’t come easy, it’s a game of give and take… Scattered verses from the various songs swam in my head.
…I felt he took my letters and read each one aloud… Killing me softly with his song… Corny as it sounds, suddenly it seemed as if every song was being played just for me.
Joe asked if I was alright. He offered me something to drink.
I was feeling a little light headed. Sparkling water, I managed to say. Lots of ice, please. I just felt hot. It’s hot in here, isn't it? I asked. My sweater had come off a long time before.
The room feels comfortable to me, Joe said. Then he went to check the air conditioning. I watched him walk away. The chocolate brown of his arms stood out against his bright yellow shirt. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.
He was a determined man -- I saw it in his walk. It was a word that kept coming to mind when I thought of him. It was not a word I recalled applying to other men in my life. Joe never seemed preoccupied or the least bit inattentive. Even the topic of coffee cups got his full attention. He took such care with things.
When he returned with my water, I asked him if his wife had gotten him the beautiful blue pen he was using.
He smiled; the corners of his eyes slightly wrinkling. I returned the smile. I believe it was a saxophone that played softly from the sound system. My question was met without an answer. So I asked a different one. Who’s that playing?
Oh, that’s Stanley Turrentine. One of the greatest saxophone players ever, he said.
I’d never heard music like that before. The melody felt so deep, as if it weighed something. I could feel the music. I told Joe that.
Joe nodded, and smiled again.
Enticing smells, the beginnings of that night’s menu, wafted in from the kitchen. I forced myself to stop studying Joe’s eye lashes.
Then I said I only asked about his wife because it seemed he’d been well influenced by a woman. The decorating, the food... It all seemed to have that woman’s touch.
Thank you, he said. I certainly have been around some artistic women, he said. His mother was an artist, a sculptor.
I suddenly saw him differently.
Yes. My mother actually helped me with this club a lot, from menus to curtains. She had a lot of opinions, he said. And then Joe smiled the most kindly, wistful, pleasing smile I have ever seen cross the face of a man. She passed last year, he said.
Oh, I’m so sorry Joe, I said. I thought about taking one of his smooth, brown hands in mine. Instead, I said I certainly wished my mother had some of that artistic stuff in her. She was more the call-someone-in-to-do-it type of person.
Joe said that women like my mother kept his mother in business. She had made most of her money as an interior decorator.
I kind of laughed. I mean I couldn’t imagine my mother calling a black woman in from Detroit to decorate her house. I asked Joe if his mother specialized in a certain style.
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