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.