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“Is there something in your life that gives you that same feeling? I mean, something you’re passionate about?” she asked.
Dru didn’t answer right away. He was uncertain how much of himself he was ready to reveal to her so soon. Yet, somehow he knew that he had no reason to fear exposing himself to her. Instinctively, he trusted her.
“The other morning…when you came into the studio before rehearsals and started to dance—”
“Yeah, what about it?” she asked quizzically.
“Well, I was sitting there, just thinking. All my life, I’ve watched my father in this business and, like I said, I was raised on the entertainment industry. While other kids were out practicing their Michael Jordan dunks or skateboarding, I was watching tapes of musical theater productions and studying contracts. I never had to answer the question of what I would like to be when I grew up…it was always a given.”
Dru looked away from Raven, his eyes staring off into the distance for a minute. When he returned his gaze, there was a deeper fire evident in his look.
“Watching you dance, so beautiful and so graceful…the way your body moved across the stage so effortlessly. I felt your radiance all the way back where I was sitting. If I could feel so much peace just from watching you, I can only imagine what you felt doing it.”
“It feels like I’m flying sometimes,” Raven said.
“See, that’s just what I’m talking about. I can’t imagine what that’s like. That ability you have to create beauty through your motions is a gift, you know,” he said.
“Yes, I know it is. I worked hard to get to the level I’m at right now, but I think that even if I never land another dancing job, I truly do feel blessed to just be able to dance.”
Dru leaned back in his chair suddenly overcome by the heaviness of their conversation.
“Creative people don’t always know how special they are. Sometimes they take their creativity for granted, you know. They don’t realize that there are so many people in the world who wish they could do what they do.”
“Are you one of those people?” Raven asked.
Their hands had remained connected the entire time they talked, Dru’s fingers laying lightly on top of hers. Now, Raven turned her hand over and closed her digits around Dru’s. He smiled slightly.
“Real talk?” he asked.
“Real talk,” she answered.
“Every time I read a story or a script for a stage play, I have these visions. I actually see the story laid out with characters, sets and everything.”
“So you’d like to what, write…direct for stage?”
“Maybe. Maybe even do both. And movies, too. I have all of these ideas for stories floating around in my brain. I can’t read a book without visualizing it on the big screen.”
“So why don’t you do it?”
“Nah, that’s not part of the plan. I’ve got an MBA and I develop and balance budgets. Period. Recently, my dad’s been giving me more and more responsibilities at Davis Theater Initiatives and my plate is pretty full. He expects me to take over where he leaves off one day.”
“But are you fulfilled?” Raven wanted to know.
“It’s an amazing job. What we do is handle the money for Broadway productions. My dad has always believed that playwrights and artists are a dime a dozen. They come and go, but the producers are what make it all possible. Besides, I enjoy producing. Don’t get me wrong, I do love being the glue that pulls a production all together. It’s rewarding work.”
“But it doesn’t speak to your creative side at all,” Raven pushed.
“No, but it’s enough,” Dru said in a tone that sounded as if he were trying to convince himself and her at the same time.
Raven considered Dru’s statement skeptically. She opened her mouth to say something else, but realized that it was not her place to second-guess him. By the time their meals arrived, the conversation had taken a much lighter tone. They laughed and joked about everything from music to fashion to nicknames.
“Pooh? You actually went into high school with people still calling you Pooh? Oh, my God. How’d you get any girls to take you seriously?” Raven laughed.
“Oh, you’ve got jokes. I’ll have you know, I did pretty well in the dating department. Never had any trouble at all.”
“Yeah, okay. Tell me anything.” Raven smirked.
“All right, well, what about you? What was your teenage love life like?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Were your Friday and Saturday nights booked or were you one of those girls who sat home popping popcorn and watching the late, late movie? Rollers in your hair and pimple cream all over your face?”
It was Dru’s turn to tease. Raven rolled her eyes.
“Uh-oh, looks like I hit a sore spot.”
“No, not even,” she insisted. “Look, in high school I was too busy to even think about boys. I took my studies seriously. And dance has always been a full-time commitment. You know how you guys are…selfish, demanding. Not able to understand why your girl would prefer studying or working on her pirouettes instead of going with you to the big game on Friday night. I just didn’t have the energy to deal with all that.”
Dru considered Raven’s admission for a moment, realizing that she was right to a large extent. Except for one thing.
“If I had met a girl like you in high school, one who was so talented and driven, I would have carried your ballet shoes to class, served as your dance bar and held your textbooks open while you read.”
A smile spread quickly across Raven’s face and she was about to hit Dru with a smart-aleck response. However, her tongue stalled as she looked into his eyes and realized that he was not trying to be funny. The sincerity of his words was unmistakable as she gazed at his bright eyes and unsmiling face.
“I wish I’d met a boy like you in high school,” she said at last.
Dru squeezed her hand warmly.
“Well, you’ve met me now…well, except that I’m a grown man.”
“And I’m a grown woman,” Raven countered.
At the door to the Harlem brownstone where Raven lived with her parents, Dru found it difficult to say good-night.
“So, when can we do this again?” he asked, taking Raven’s hands in his.
“Why?”
“Why? What kind of question is that? Because I had a good time. Didn’t you?” Dru’s eyes were wrought with confusion.
Raven snickered.
“What? What’s wrong? Is it my breath?” Dru asked, cupping his hand in front of his face and blowing hard. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he commanded.
“Relax,” Raven said, trying to gain control over herself and stop laughing. “Dang, you’re sensitive.”
“Oh, so you’ve got jokes. All right, I see what I’m dealing with here. Come here,” he said, pulling her closer to him.
“I enjoyed spending time with you tonight,” he said, this time he stared deeply into Raven’s eyes. “Did you enjoy me as well?”
“Yes. Everything was perfect,” Raven answered softly.
“May I kiss you?” Dru asked.
“Yes.”
With his eyes open, Dru moved slowly, dipping his head toward Raven’s. When his lips met hers, he closed his eyes, succumbing to the colorful sensation of their first kiss. The flutter of a million butterflies rattled his rib cage as he drank her in. Their lips locked and tongues danced for endless minutes as they explored one another like harbingers discovering new territory.
When they parted, Raven kept her eyes closed for a moment, until the woozy feelings that threatened to overcome her subsided. When she opened them, her gaze met his, and she was lost in a smoldering heat that made the balmy summer evening pale in comparison.
“I’ll call you,” Dru said.
Raven nodded her head, words having momentarily escaped her. She watched Dru walk down the steps and to his black Infiniti sedan. From the curb, he turned and gave her that dazzling smile she’d already begun to cherish.
Chapter 6
Opening Night
Raven lit the lemongrass-scented aromatherapy candles one at a time until flames flickered from all five. Seated on the soft carpet of her bedroom floor, she relaxed her arms, laid the backs of her hands on the floor beside her with her palms facing upward. Her long, shapely legs were crossed beneath her. She stared at the candles, fixating her eyes on the light of the flames. She took a deep cleansing breath, allowing the air to move into her lungs, filling them to capacity before she released it. Repeating the motions over and over again, Raven felt the tension easing from her pores and every orifice, seeping from her taut body.
Raven’s mother, Lorraine, had introduced her to meditation when Raven was a freshman in high school. At first, Raven had only participated halfheartedly, humoring what she believed to be another of the momentary fads that Lorraine tried out every so often. However, long after her mother had moved on to praying Pilates classes, Raven began to appreciate the moments of reflection and calm that meditation provided. Now, it was an almost daily ritual that she looked forward to. Whenever she found herself off-centered or stressed out, she returned to the serenity that could be found in her bedroom, with the lights off and candles lit. Meditation allowed her to tap into the inner strength of her soul. Tonight, she needed to draw on everything she had within and then some.
Opening night of The Salon had come faster than Raven had anticipated. Two months of daily rehearsals, script changes and group theater exercises had passed by in a blur of excited activity. For Raven, the past two months had been nonstop thrills, and like a seven-year-old on her first trip to Disney World, she was filled with wide-eyed wonder. While the opportunity to be a part of a major Broadway musical and learn from professionals like Marvin Barkley and her cast members was a once in a lifetime experience, Raven acknowledged that Dru also had a lot to do with the fantasy she was living.
Dru had become an unexpected addition to her daily routine. On the days that his work prevented him from being at the theater watching rehearsals or meeting with Barkley, he would call her in the morning when he knew that she would be up, either stretching or drinking fruit-and-wheat-bran smoothies. In the evenings, he would pick her up for dinner or coffee, or sometimes he would stop by with a pint of ice cream and a new release from Blockbuster or Netflix tucked beneath his arm.
There were, of course, the sideways glances and the passing comments from her colleagues at The Salon that she’d feared. However, she quickly realized that like Carley had predicted, those things were trivial in the wake of her growing affection for Dru. One day, shortly before a dress rehearsal, a few of the female cast members were in the dressing room putting the finishing touches to their makeup and costumes and gossiping as usual.
“You know, Raven, I hear Dru’s got a bit of a reputation among the ladies,” a tall blonde named Jenna said.
Raven looked up from the tape she’d been applying to the three bruised toes on her left foot.
“You don’t say?” she answered impassively.
“Yeah, I mean, he has dated some of the hottest women around,” Jenna’s sidekick, Stacy, added.
“And, while I don’t know personally how true it is, I heard that he’s really got it going on, if you know what I mean. Keeps the ladies coming back for more.” Jenna smirked, giving high fives to the women nearest her.
“Ladies, have you ever heard the expression that a little tact goes a long way?” Yasmine asked, rolling her eyes at Jenna.
“That’s okay, Yasmine. I’m sure Dru would be happy to know that some of the cast of the show he’s keeping funded think so highly of him. I’ll be sure to tell him,” Raven said.
She adjusted the red sequined cap on top of her head, rose and strode out of the room. She gave Yasmine a quick smile, recognizing that at least she had one ally, and headed backstage. She wasn’t about to give those women the satisfaction of thinking they’d gotten to her and she certainly wasn’t about to let them distract her from lighting up the stage. As time wore on, they all seemed to find more interesting people to talk about. Raven was careful not to flaunt her relationship around the theater, but she also did not go out of her way to hide it. Her parents had always told her that it didn’t really matter what you did or didn’t do because people will always find a reason to talk about you anyway. The situation gave her an opportunity to weed out the individuals amongst the cast from whom she needed to keep her distance and discover healthy relationships with genuine friends.
The day she’d introduced Dru to her parents had been unplanned and interesting to say the least. They’d been dating for about five weeks and her mother had already begun commenting that Raven possessed a certain glow that she doubted was coming from the vegetables and fruit shakes she’d been consuming. That evening, Raven had told her parents that she was going out for the evening and had gone down to the front steps of the brownstone to meet him. When he pulled up and parked the car, he’d gotten out, pressed the button on his remote to lock the car and approached the steps.
“What’s up?” she’d asked.
He’d leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
“Are your parents at home?” he’d asked.
“Uh…yeah.” She’d hesitated. “Why?”
“I’d like to meet them,” he said as he began walking up the stairs.
“Whoa…hold up a minute. Where’d this come from?” Raven asked, stepping up two stairs to face him.
“Well, I was thinking on the way over here that we’ve been seeing each other for a while now and—”
“Four weeks,” she interrupted him.
“Six.”
“Five.”
“Okay, whatever. Point is, your parents will be moving soon—”
“Next month. And?”
“And, I don’t want them heading out of town having the wrong impression of me. I wouldn’t want them thinking that I’m just some guy trying to seduce their daughter or something.”
“Oh, really, is that what you were thinking?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. So, I figured, why not meet them tonight?”
Dru looked so satisfied with himself that Raven could not resist having a little bit of fun.
“That’s all fine and good, Mr. Davis, but what makes you think that my parents even know you exist?” she asked.
Dru looked at her, took a step back from her, raising an eyebrow ever so slightly. He glanced away from Raven and then immediately returned his gaze to her face. He moved in close to her again, closer than he had been before until his face was inches away from hers. He didn’t say a word, just held her gaze, his eyes burning into hers with an intensity that caused her breath to get caught in her throat. She lost all composure, brushed her lips back and forth across his. He didn’t budge. It was she who made the first move, seduced by his concentrated passion. She slid her tongue into his mouth, tickled his tongue, licked his teeth and sucked his juices.
“Can I meet your parents now?” he asked breathlessly.
He’d called her bluff, which wasn’t difficult to do. Dru knew how much Raven had come to mean to him in the short time he’d known her, and his ego would not allow him to believe for one second that he didn’t mean the same thing to her. He’d told his mother about her, his father and a few close friends. They’d all told him to slow down, assuring him that it was too soon for him to be all sprung over some chick. His boys were insistent that there was no way for him to tell how much he dug her until he’d gotten into her pants. However, he knew that Raven was not just some chick to be seduced. He’d never felt an ounce of what he was feeling for another woman, and he was smart enough to know that her greatest treasures could not be found between her legs.
“Mom, Dad, I’d like you to meet Dru Davis. Dru, these are my parents, Lorraine and Allen Walker.”
“How do you do, sir?” Dru said, shaking her father’s hand. “Mrs. Walker,” he said, turning to her mother.
They ended up not going out that night. Instead, they sat in the living room eating the tossed salad and leftover baked chicken Lorraine had whipped up. They polished it off with some rum cake and herbal tea. Dru and Allen talked incessantly about basketball, football and any other sport that had the word ball attached to it. Dru reached over every so often, in between heated discourse about Kobe Bryant’s jumper and LeBron James’s hops to touch Raven’s hand or knee, or to nudge her gently with his elbow or smile at her. Two hours went by before Lorraine began to yawn and drag her husband to his feet.
“We’re going to bed now. We’re not as young as you two, and we’ve got a lot to do tomorrow. Dru, it was very nice to meet you at last. Raven’s told us so much about you, but it was nice to get to know you for ourselves,” Lorraine said as she kissed Dru on the cheek.
“Mrs. Walker, I really enjoyed tonight and that cake was amazing.” Dru smiled, the corners of his mouth turned up as far as they could go in that sexy way of his.
“Make sure Raven slices you a few pieces to take with you when you leave. Come on, honey,” she said.
