Page 18 of Yellow
CHAPTER 4
Resentment
Adam
I suppressed a sigh of irritation and tried to find a way to be comfortable on the small couch. Which proved impossible!
Rationally, I knew it wasn’t her fault. Cleo was a weak woman who had been mistreated by her jerk of a boyfriend.
Rubbing my forehead in the dark, I stared up into the ceiling.Does she know we met before?
Living a life with everyone pulling at her, it was unlikely that she remembered a two-minute encounter at a bar in January.
I hadn’t liked her then and I didn’t like her now.
Cleo represented everything I resented.
Ironically enough, I used to have a childhood crush on a woman looking much like her. Sandra, or at least that’s what the caption below the picture said her name was. She was a model with long angel-blonde hair, pretty blue eyes,, and female curves that made my young body tingle. I found her picture in one of my mom’s magazines and placed Sandra’s picture above my bed, admiring her every day – until the day I tore down her picture and burned it in the back yard.
To be exact, I was twelve when I realized that women like Sandra are poison to men like me. They make us chase impossible dreams that kill us in the end.
My father chased that dream.
A life with me and my mother wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more and left my mom while she was still pregnant with me to go to college on the East Coast on a scholarship.
I have very few memories of my father, except from pictures and stories about his glory as a fine orthopedist in New Jersey. I used to dream that he would one day come and take me away from the crowded trailer I grew up in with my mother, her parents, and their other four children. With eight people living there, I never knew the luxury of having my own bed. But in my dreams my dad would bring me with him to his fine house where I would have my own bed and a chest full of toys.
And then, one day when I was ten, he actuallydidcall to say he was coming to see me.
My grandmother washed me by the kitchen sink and dressed me in my finest clothing, telling me how lucky I was to have such a successful father. I sat on the small steps in front of the trailer for hours until his rental car finally rolled up.
My dad stayed for less than two hours. He showed me pictures of his new family with his beautiful blond wife and my two young sisters. I smiled when he spoke about bringing me out East to visit them one day, and how he wanted me to study hard and become successful like him.
I promised him I would.
Two years later, I was still waiting for that invite. I hadn’t left the trailer park and my life was still shit, with my mom drinking, crying, and screaming profanities at me every day.
Not knowing any different, I accepted that life was hard for all of us kids, but at least I had “the dream” to hold onto. By example, my father had shown me there was a way out. I was determined to grow up and be successful like him.
And then I received the letter.
Twelve years old, I read my father’s last words to me. A long letter of regrets. He apologized for leaving me, and for marrying a woman who didn’t want me in their lives. He warned me not to follow the white man’s dream, and it made sense.
After all, my father had achieved everything I thought would make a man happy. He had a prestigious job, a big house, a beautiful wife, and a nice car.
Yet he was miserable enough to kill himself.
After reading that letter, I ran inside and tore down Sandra’s picture from the wall. Never would I be seduced or fooled like my father had been.
That night in January when I first saw Cleo, she reminded me of Sandra. With her pretty blue eyes, her long golden hair, and that erotically shaped body that made men behave like idiots, she was a modern version of Marilyn Monroe, and I was sure as hell not happy when my aunt asked me to babysit her for a few days.
But what choice did I have? Cleo was donating a fortune to a good cause and my Ona had called it a personal favor to her. I couldn’t deny Ona anything. She was my mentor and rock.
I curled up in a fetal position to fit on the couch, like an adult trying to squeeze into a child’s bed.
Maybe I should just go and sleep next to Cleo on the bed?
No!The image of Cleo holding that ridiculous candlestick while wearing nothing but a purple T-shirt would be forever imprinted in my brain. Her naked feet and legs, combined with her bed-hair and that vulnerable expression on her pretty face, had made her a thousand times sexier than the night I first saw her.
