I asked Geneva, “So, is that what you do, you stay at home and let nobody in your door?”

“Now cut it out, Terrance!” my mother shouted across the table at me.

“Mom, she’s a grown woman. I know she’s your friend’s daughter and everything, but you invited her over here by herself this time because she’s grown.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean you have to sit in here and ask her these filthy questions. That’s just plain disrespectful. And right over the dinner table.”

Geneva didn’t say a word. When dinner was over, I got a chance to talk to her alone outside, on the porch.

She smiled at me and shook her head again. “You’re bad. You’re just so bad.”

“And you’re good. You’re just so good,” I told her.

She looked at me and said, “How do you know?”

I stopped and thought about it. I really didn’t know. Geneva could have been a down low freak, too. I didn’t put it past any woman.

I asked her, “Are you any good?”

She broke out laughing. My question had a double meaning to it.

She answered, “I’m not gonna say, but I know what you are. I can see that right now. You’re bad.”

“And that’s good, right? A good girl and a good guy don’t match. You need a little edge in your life.”

“I don’t think so,” she told me. “We don’t have anywhere to go but one place. And fortunately, I don’t make my decisions like that anymore.”

“But you used to, huh?” I asked her.

She smiled and shook her head again. “I’m not gonna go there.”

My mother walked out of the house and asked me, “Are you still bothering her?” She was getting right in the way. I wanted to break Geneva down and uncover the freak in her, but my mother wouldn’t let me.

“I’m not bothering her, she likes me,” I told my mother. “You can’t tell when a woman likes a man. It’s not when they have great conversations at a dinner table, it’s when they have great conversations away from the dinner table.”

I was just making up some bullshit to humor myself.

Geneva took it seriously though. She said, “I disagree. I think a good couple can have great conversations anywhere.”

“I’m sure a good couple can,” I told her. “I like to talk anywhere myself.”

I gave Geneva a look and was still going at it with her.

She grinned and said, “I’m sure you do like to talk. You showed me that tonight.”

“Nah, I didn’t show you anything yet,” I told her.

“You didn’t show her what?” my mother asked me

She was way out in left field with no glove to catch the ball with. “Nothing, Mom, nothing at all.”

I really wanted her to leave so I could continue flirting with Geneva, but it wasn’t gonna happen.

“Well, let me get ready to get on out of here,” Geneva began to tell us. She looked at my mother and held her hands. “Thanks for the great dinner, Ms. Mitchell.”