“Like I said before, I wish I did,” he told me. “She hasn’t been around anywhere lately. But hey, man, I can show you some other spots where we can hook up with some girls. That’s not a problem.”

I could see that I wouldn’t get anything concrete from Corey. He could probably talk all night about his infatuation with Andrea and hooking up with fine women, but I didn’t really care about that. So if I was going to find out what the hell was going on with her, it looked like I would have to do it on my own once I got to Chicago.

I hung up the phone with Corey and called the Chicago modeling agency to get more information about the upcoming shoot.

“Hey, Terrance, thanks for getting back to me so soon. Now this shoot, like I said in my message, is for an ad for lung cancer awareness. Since you have such a great healthy body, representing the African-American male, we figured it would be a perfect match to get you involved.”

I had known Kim O’Bannon for years, but she had only gotten involved in the modeling agency game over the last eight. It was really taking off for her, too. Kim just knew how to pitch. She made the deals happen.

“So when is the shoot?” I asked her.

“In two weeks.”

Perfect, I told myself. I wanted to have enough time to develop some strong leads, and track Andrea down before I even got off the plane in Chicago. The pieces were falling right where I needed them to.

As soon as I hung up the phone with Kim, Judi called me from Miami.

“Hey, Tee. I just wanted to thank you for what you did. I really enjoyed myself with you the last couple of days. I mean, we had some confusion about everything at first, but then you mellowed out and accepted things. And I really appreciate that.”

“Okay. It’s all good,” I told her.

It was no big deal to me. I wasn’t even thinking about it anymore.

Judi went on. “You have no idea how peaceful it feels to be with an attractive man on your own terms, you know.”

“On your own terms? What do you mean by that?” I asked her.

“I mean, without all the added pressure of expectations.”

Here we go. I guess she was already trying to place me among the many dickless men in the world who women felt unthreatened by.

To tell the truth, I didn’t even feel like having that conversation with Judi. I had my mind locked on other things.

I said, “Okay. Thanks. I’m glad you feel that way.”

I was ready to move on to the next phone call. I had at least five other calls to return.

Judi detected the blandness in my tone.

“That doesn’t sound sincere to me.”

“It doesn’t sound sincere? How do you want me to say it?”

“Say it like you mean it.”