I arrived in Atlanta, wired my sister money at Western Union, and made it back to my place to answer another seventeen messages on my office phone. One of the messages was from Nicole from Baltimore. I hadn’t heard a peep from her since our crazy night in Atlanta two weeks ago, and I was glad I hadn’t heard from her. She called and gave me a lecture about respecting a black woman. I had to reflect back to what we had gotten into such a fight about.

I remembered I didn’t want to invite her over to my house because of Danni. Could I respect Danni and not respect Nicole? Or could I also be disrespecting Danni by having Nicole give me a blow job? It was all confusing to think about the rules and regulations of relationships. Who made up those rules anyway?

While I continued to relax at home, I got a call from Kim. She was thanking me for my participation in the cancer event.

“Hey, it’s best to get paid for an event that actually means something,” I told her.

“And I want to apologize again for our little incident,” she said.

I knew that was coming. I was only waiting for her to say it. She was bringing up the artificial insemination again.

“Adopting keeps things simple,” I suggested. “All you have to do is show the child plenty of love and loyalty.”

Kim took a breath. “I’m still thinking about it all.”

“Yeah, you do that,” I told her.

“Well, you should have a more open mind about the possibilities in life, Terrance. It isn’t all as cut and dry as we’d like to think.”

I said, “I understand that.”

“Do you, really? Anyway, enough about that, we’ll just have to agree to disagree for the most part,” she concluded. “And oh yeah, I did remember to get something else for you that you had asked me about.”

“What’s that?”

“I got Andrea’s number last night,” she told me. “Or do you have it already? I saw you talking to her.”

I said, “Oh, thanks. Nah, I didn’t get it. I was too busy running my mouth last night.”

“You still want it?”

“Yeah. I didn’t get a chance to talk to her like I needed to.”

Kim paused. “Is it something pressing?”

“Nah, it’s just closure. We stopped dealing with each other on a social level years ago.”

She didn’t need to know more than that.

“Okay, well, I have her home number and her cell phone number, but don’t say you got it from me. I’m just doing this as a favor to a friend.”

“Oh, yeah, I understand. I wouldn’t do that anyway. So is she getting back into the modeling game now?”

“I’m not sure, but who knows. She may call us about work, she may not.”

I got Andrea’s numbers from Kim and smiled from ear to ear, with a touch of nervousness. I would call her and get down to the bottom of things.