She chuckled at it. “I would think that you would be. I still see some of your ads here and there when I’m flipping through the magazines or whatever.”

“Are you looking for me?” I asked her.

She chuckled again. “Well, I guess you can’t help it. Once you see people you know in magazine ads, you get used to seeing them there, and I guess you start to expect it.”

I nodded, but I was quickly running out of patience. I wanted to get to the beef.

I said, “So, what’s been going on with you?”

I really wanted to ask her what she wanted from me and cut to the chase. But I told myself to chill and let it happen naturally. She would get to it.

“Well, I’ve been pretty much taking care of myself. I have a new job with a bigger bank…”

I cut her off and asked, “Does that mean bigger money?”

“Yes, a little bit.”

It all started to come back to me. Michelle was always the understated, practical woman, and I had felt overanxious with her. Things with her just seemed a little too…unrealistic, I guess the word would be. I mean, Michelle was fine; smooth reddish-brown skin, tall and curvy, brown curly hair, long legs, dark insatiable eyes. All of that, but her personality was as dry as a bag of airplane peanuts. She gave me the urge to want to shake her and say, “Wake up and come to life, woman!”

I remember when I first hooked up with her. The other guys at the party were amazed. “She actually likes you,” they told me. But after I had been around her for awhile, I didn’t see anything special about her. I would have given her back in a heartbeat. Walking around with her was like being with a ghost, an unseen spirit or something. Her emotions were that reserved.

Anyway, I got back to the present with her.

“What else is going on?” I asked. Little by little, she would tell me what she wanted. That was just her way.

“I’ve been, ah, staying busy. I have a new home. I have a daughter now. We work out at the gym together.”

I stopped her and asked, “You have a daughter now? When did that happen? You got married recently?”

“No, no marriage, just my daughter and me. In fact, I haven’t been with a man in years.”

“What about the father?”

I was just having a basic conversation with her, you know. I understood her pace, and I was wide awake, so I began to relax with it. She would tell me what she needed to when she was ready.

“He’s the last man I had sex with,” she told me.

I said, “Oh yeah? So what happened with him?”

I just expected women to move on with their lives after me. I didn’t own any of them, and I didn’t want to. So I had no jealousies about it. Andrea’s moving on was the only one that bothered me.