A Natural Woman Read online

  At least he had yet to come at her with the line of inquiry Black men of all educational and socioeconomic backgrounds in the midsize Southern city she’d called home for the past couple of years appeared to enjoy assailing her with: Why on earth would a nice-looking girl with such a decent head of hair choose to wear it . . . like this?

  Dante didn’t seem to care one way or the other. After picking out her ’fro in silence, he handed back her comb and busied himself with the assortment of clippers, scissors, and hairstyling instruments on the counter behind his workstation.

  “Do you have any other female customers?” Aliesha asked, attempting to make polite conversation.

  “Nope. Not here,” Dante said. “But I had several when I lived out in Cali.”

  His accent was unmistakably that of a Southerner, but Aliesha asked anyway. “Is that where you’re from?”

  “Nope, I was born and raised in Roads Cross; it’s a little dusty town, not more than an hour and a half drive away from here. I moved out to Cali on account of a cousin whose got her own shop out there. All Styles is the name of it. They do both men and women’s hair.”

  Her interest piqued, Aliesha said, “So how is it you ended up in Riverton?”

  “Told you. I’m a Southern boy. That West Coast lifestyle just ain’t for me. I like a slower pace and being around folks who are a little less fake and self-absorbed. Besides that, I missed hanging out with my Big Mama and ’nem.”

  Aliesha smiled. “I used to spend summers down here with my Big Mama when I was a little girl.”

  “Yeah?” Dante said. “For me, it doesn’t really feel like summer unless I’ve spent a hot day or two sitting out on the front porch with my Big Mama, sweating, fanning, and shooing flies.” Before he switched on the clippers, he pinched his thumb and index finger together and asked, “Is about this much good?”

  Without giving it much thought, Aliesha reached out and gently guided his fingers closer together. “Right about there is fine,” she said.

  Their eyes met, and in that brief instance, Aliesha felt something unspoken transpire between them.

  She settled against the barber’s chair and spent a few minutes thinking about his hands. They were nice . . . large and midnight black without a trace of ash between the knuckles . . . and with skin that was smooth and pleasantly warm to the touch. His nails were clean, looked healthy, and bore tips that were short and well rounded.

  Even though Dante had repositioned her with her back to the mirror and she couldn’t see what he was doing to her head, Aliesha harbored none of the doubts and fears that usually accompanied her climb into a new barber or beautician’s chair. She closed her eyes and gave herself permission to drift into that realm of semiconsciousness that exists somewhere between sleep and deep meditation.

  After about thirty minutes, she heard him say, “All right, Miz Professor. What you think?”

  On reaching for the long-handled mirror he offered, she swiveled from side to side, checking out her hair from every conceivable angle. The mirror attached to the wall behind her allowed for a nice view of both the back of her head and her neckline.

  “Perfect,” she said.

  “I could wash it for you if you like,” Dante said, while brushing hair clippings from the cape covering her shoulders. “I’ve got a nice-smelling shampoo with a built-in conditioner.”

  She glanced at her watch, then asked, “How much extra is it going to cost me?” Inwardly she cringed, realizing she’d failed to ask how much he’d charged in the first place and hoping he wouldn’t attempt to gouge her.

  “The total for everything?” he asked, as if reading her mind. “Cut, shampoo, and style? Oh, I’m thinking no more than twenty.”

  Aliesha nodded her okay and followed Dante to a dark room off the rear hallway. Even though he paused at the door and flipped a switch alongside the wall, it took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dramatic change in light. On focusing, she realized he’d led her into a utility room, one that housed not only a shampoo bowl but a washer, a dryer, and a couple of deep, wide sinks. She slowed her pace as they walked toward the shampoo bowl positioned in the dimly lit back corner of the windowless room.

  When she finally eased onto the reclining chair in front of the bowl, Dante helped her properly position herself against the tub’s curved neck rest.

  “You comfortable?” he asked.

  “Oh, sure, this is fine,” she said.

  Dante picked up the sprayer and turned on the water. “Let me know if it’s too hot,” he said.

  The warm jet streams against her head soothed her in much the same way a full body massage might. She smiled and an involuntary “Umm” slipped past her lips.

  Dante smiled down at her. “Feels good, huh?”

  Aliesha stared into the face hovering above her own. Ordinarily, she might have felt a twinge of embarrassment. However, in this instance, her smile only grew broader. She openly appraised his good looks, the large liquid brown eyes, the full lips, the dark and neatly groomed hairs nestled beneath the wide nostrils and shadowing the well-defined cheekbones, chin, and jawline.

  I’ll be damned if this ain’t one hell of a pretty Black man, is what she caught herself thinking.

  “If you enjoyed that, wait till I hit you with some of this,” Dante said on removing the top from a bottle and squeezing a blob of the contents into his hand. He worked the shampoo into her hair. When his fingers commenced their repetitive rub against Aliesha’s scalp, she found herself closing her eyes and biting her lip to keep the moan she felt stirring way down deep in her gut from bursting forth.

  On composing herself, she braved a peek at him and said, “I don’t know if it’s the technique you’re using, the shampoo, or a combination of the two, but just so you know, that feels absolutely wonderful.”

  Dante nodded. “I figured you’d like it.” He squirted a bit more of the liquid mixture into his palm. “Just so you know—this isn’t something you can just buy at any ole store. No, ma’am, this comes from my Big Mama’s own private stash.”

  Aliesha’s eyes widened. “Oh yeah?” she said. The upturned corners of her lips fell into a straight line and all her earlier confidence began to dissipate.

  “Yeah,” Dante said. “She makes and bottles it out on her little piece of land.”

  “So, what’s in it?” Aliesha asked, trying to keep her mind from conjuring an all-too-vivid image of her hair as a clownish shade of orange and falling out in big clumps.

  “Besides water from the creek and a healthy dose of lavender? Hell if I know,” Dante said. “But don’t worry,” he added, as if sensing she were about to raise her fully lathered head off the bowl and make a fast break for the door. “I promise you, this is the milk and honey of shampoos. It’s gonna have your ’do looking tighter than it’s ever looked. And if it doesn’t, come back and I’ll give you double, naw, I’ll give you triple what you paid me for it.”

  Aliesha didn’t say anything, but the thought uppermost on her mind was, Uh-huh, and if all my hair falls out, I’ll be coming back up here with a summons and looking to sue you and your Big Mama’s ass.

  After the wash and rinse, Dante toweled as much water as he could from her hair, prior to going over it with the forced heat of a handheld dryer. He used little more than her pick and his hands when it came time to style her.

  She held her breath when he finally passed her the mirror again.

  “Well?” he said.

  She blinked at the stunningly regal image that greeted her. On exhaling, she looked up at him. “You were right. It’s beautiful.”

  “Uh-huh, me and Big Mama had you worried there for a moment though, didn’t we?” He handed her a card with the Wally’s Cool Cuts address and phone number printed on it. “If you need me to hook you up again, give me a call. My hours are on the back.”

  “Thanks,” Aliesha said. She paid Dante what she owed him, plus a generous tip. On rising from the chair, she noticed the paperback jutting from atop one
of the wide, front waistline pockets of his work smock. She wondered if it was the same book she’d seen resting on his chest earlier.

  “What are you reading?” she asked.

  He pulled the book from his smock and passed it to her.

  “Kafka’s Metamorphosis?” she said.

  “Not exactly what you were expecting, huh?” Rather than give her an opportunity to respond, he added, “Give me a second and I’ll walk you out.”

  After reinserting the earbuds connected to his iPod, Dante invited her to walk in front of him. He escorted her past the new group of customers who’d come in since her arrival, among them Sam Junior and his hollering-ass twin boys, as well as a small but rowdy group of young men who looked to be in their late teens or early twenties. He led her by Gerald, Wally, and the wailing boom box that had at some point wrapped up its Johnnie Taylor set and moved on to the likes of Bobby “Blue” Bland.

  On stepping outside, Aliesha watched Dante bob his head to the music coming from his iPod. She motioned for him to remove the earpieces and on his compliance she said, “I thought you were a good ole Southern boy. What? You don’t like J.T. and Bobby B.?”

  Dante shook his head. “That’s old man music. It’s all right every now and then.”

  Aliesha reached for one of the iPod’s earbuds and raised it to the side of her head. What she heard, Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready,” shocked her. The song had been one of her father’s favorites. She grinned and said, “If what they’re listening to is old man music, what do you call this?”

  “Who? Curtis Mayfield? Naw, see, Brother Mayfield is what you call retro. That’s right, retro, progressive, and timeless. What? You didn’t know? Come on now, Miz Professor. You’d better ask somebody.”

  He laughed with her, then said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to need that back.” He pointed at the book still in her hand. “I’m not exactly finished with it yet.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. After returning his book, she looked into his eyes and said, “Thanks . . . you know . . . for being such a gentleman.”

  He held her gaze and in a voice that was soft and serious said, “That’s how my Big Mama raised me. I don’t know any other way to be.”

  She walked to her car. The thought of him eyeballing her from behind sent a rush of warmth to her cheeks and gave rise to a hint of a smile on her lips. But when she reached her car and turned around, she found the sidewalk in front of the barbershop vacant. It almost felt as if Dante had never been there.

  She slipped inside of the car and stuck her key in the ignition. The start of the engine coincided with the ringing of her cell phone. She fished the phone from her purse and glanced at the flashing number before flipping up the receiver.

  “Hey, sweetie,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “You tell me,” Javiel said. “I thought you were gonna call and let me know what time to stop by. Are we still on for tonight or what?”

  CHAPTER 3

  Had the music pulsating against his eardrums not obscured the soft tinkle of the bell above the shop’s door or if the sleep tugging at his twitching eyelids hadn’t already sealed them shut, Dante might have witnessed Aliesha’s bold entry into the Black male dominated world known as Wally’s Cool Cuts. He might have very well missed Aliesha altogether had it not been for her voice. Something in, about, or having to do with the sound of Aliesha’s voice had circumvented the hypnotic hold of Ndegeocello’s “The Chosen,” the song he’d been listening to on repeat, and roused him to a more heightened state of awareness. Even though he’d initially resisted the urge to rise up and peer in the woman’s direction, he had lowered the volume of the music to increase his chances of being able to take in her every word.

  Aliesha Eaton. A professor at Wells. Originally from Chicago. In need, so she said, of a haircut. Dante noted all the pertinent details before he sat up and forced open his eyes. What he’d seen had surprised him—a tall, slender, dark-skinned woman with a regal bearing and a glorious crown of hair; a woman whose beauty had become more apparent the longer he’d gazed upon her; a woman whose little Black girl innocence had quietly beckoned the soft, hidden parts of the shy, little Black boy buried deep within him.

  The guise she’d donned in the face of brother Ray’s malicious and unwarranted attack—that of a sharp-tongued Pippi Longstocking capable of serving up an old-fashioned beat-down to any knucklehead who’d dare make the mistake of trying to run her out of the tree house—was one Dante had seen through in a glance. Here was an ebony-colored princess who, though well aware of her lineage, had yet to fully realize or appreciate her place in her Father’s kingdom.

  Before she could make the mistake of slipping completely off her throne in order to tussle and grovel about with one of the shop’s most notorious, trash-talking jesters, Dante had called out to her. When she’d turned and their dark eyes had finally connected, he’d experienced a sharp piercing in his side. The pain had quickly migrated to his chest where it had synchronized its repetitive throb with the one-two beat of his heart.

  Undaunted by the odd sensation, he’d invited her to a seat in his chair. Neither the untamed state of her hair nor the anger burning bright in her eyes had fooled or frightened him. The thought that he might not possess what it took to woo and soothe her never occurred to him.

  He’d long been told he had a way with women. The smile. The good looks. The muscular physique. The impeccable old-school manners and the soft-pedaled charm. He knew how to use them all to his full advantage, and he harbored little shame about having done so with a number of attractive and willing women.

  However, with Aliesha, Dante hadn’t the slightest conscious clue that she was who or what he wanted until his fingers found their way into her hair. Certainly, he’d been instantly enthralled by the soft, thick, wiry strands. But he’d been struck even more by the intensity of her response to his touch. Beneath her obvious pleasure, he’d immediately detected a void—a void that he suspected he could more than fill if the right opportunity to do so ever presented itself.

  Had he fancied himself some kind of line-spitting, woman-manipulating player, he just might have openly shared with her the most pervasive thought on his mind as he’d gently tended to her wild flock of curls: More than any haircut, Ms. Professor, what you really want and need in you life right about now is an escape from the shackles and restraints that have your life on lockdown, someplace where you can feel safe and appreciated enough to not only let your hair down but let it go altogether. And by the same token, I’m thinking I just may know the perfect spot for you. . . . But the question remains, is this feeling something either of us really ought to pursue? And if so, to what extent and for how long?

  But since he lacked the sheer amount of vanity, arrogance, and verbosity necessary to play such a wild pimp card, he’d elected instead to heed the other voice in his head, the one that sounded an awful lot like his Big Mama: How many times must I tell you, boy? Not every impulse or feeling need be acted on right away. If it’s meant to be, granting it a little time and space ain’t gonna make it go nowhere.

  So rather than step to Aliesha and risk fumbling all of his cards, he’d proceeded with caution and played to his strengths—pouring on all the laid-back, ain’t trying to sweat it, Southern bad-boy savoir faire he could muster. And in no time at all, he’d had her alone in the utility room, smiling up at him from the shampoo bowl and openly searching his eyes for a glimpse into his soul.

  He’d channeled all of his energy into extending his new customer the full royal treatment she deserved and coaxing her hair into looking its natural best. When he’d finished and passed her the mirror, she’d appeared genuinely pleased and impressed with his efforts. He knew, too, by the less formal and borderline flirtatious manner in which she’d engaged him afterward that she would have likely responded in a positive fashion had he shared his interest in getting to know her better. But on the advice of the disapproving voice in his head, he’d opted othe
rwise. Even when he’d walked her outside where the throbbing broke loose from his chest and descended into his belly, he’d managed to keep his more carnal desires in check.

  While taking in the cars whizzing by on the busy thoroughfare just beyond Wally’s Cool Cuts’ parking lot, Dante had slipped back into his childhood for a moment. As kids, he and his cousin Reuben had been fond of a game that had no rules, except for the one which stipulated that when a player spotted a vehicle that really suited his fancy, one that really grabbed him by the balls and tugged, he was to stop whatever else he’d been doing in order to shout as loud as he could, “That’s mine, man! That’s my ride! See that bad, fire engine red Porsche over there? Yeah, buddy, that there is gonna be mine one day.”

  Dante had been seized by a similar thought at the end of his conversation with Aliesha, when she’d turned and headed toward her car. “Yo, Reuben!” he’d whispered. “You see that long-legged, fierce-haired, chocolate lovely who just walked away from here? That’s mine, man. All mine.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The old, round-faced clock hanging above the closed door of Aliesha’s office read 1:22. Each passing second came and went with a resounding click. But Aliesha neither saw nor heard. Momentarily ignoring both the time and the piles of paper cluttering her desktop, she sat with her chair and face turned toward the soft, natural light peeking in through her office windows.

  Unlike some of her more decor-obsessed colleagues, Aliesha’s office contained few personal touches. No pictures. No plants. No knickknacks. No memorabilia or souvenirs from places she’d visited or lived. The only distinguishing feature of the fifteen-by-fifteen-foot area where Aliesha spent a sizeable portion of her waking hours were her bookshelves. Every inch of free wall space in her office supported an overstuffed bookcase of one kind or another, all handcrafted and all she’d happily purchased with a significant amount of her own money.

  The unadorned tops of three sets of bookcases stopped just below the office’s single row of three rectangular-shaped windows. But the fact that the Anthropology Department resided in Sojourner Hall’s basement meant the views, Professor Eaton’s included, were anything but impressive. Not that it mattered much as Aliesha sat with her gaze fixed against the center window’s recessed pane.