Pivot

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

“You don’t know how happy I am to see you here, Mark.”

I looked at my friend and realtor Christopher Riordan and smiled. Every year, Chris and his partner Patrick hosted a Christmas party at their Lincoln Park home and, usually, every year I attended. But, after I was robbed while walking home from their shindig two years earlier, I chose to skip the festivities for a while before Chris and Patrick managed to coax me back.

“I’m glad to be here,” I told him. And I was glad. I’d always enjoyed their Christmas parties and I didn’t blame them at all for what happened to me two years before. Still, I stayed away because their lovely home and wonderful Christmas party just brought back painful memories of being robbed and pistol-whipped. I’d grown up in Chicago’s northern suburbs and lived in the city for nearly twenty years and I’d never been the victim of a crime…until that night. But I didn’t let the robbery and assault run me back to the suburbs. I stayed in the city, albeit with a more cautious eye. I no longer walked the streets alone after dark, especially if I’d been drinking. I called a cab instead or had someone drive me home.

The police never caught the man who mugged me and I was virtually useless in giving them any kind of helpful description of the assailant. He was black, dark skinned, dark eyed, maybe in his late twenties, of average height, and he wore black clothing. That was all I could tell them. My wallet was found in a trash can a few blocks from where I’d been robbed. My cash and credit cards were gone, but my license was still intact. I canceled the cards before anyone could use them, got new ones issued, and tried to put the terrible incident behind me.

Chris was talking with me about a Streeterville condo he was having a “hell of a time” trying to sell when I noticed a man walk into the house. He was tall and muscular with very closely cropped hair that made him look almost bald. He had an oval shaped head, a soul patch beneath his bottom lip, straight white teeth—always a good sign—and smooth skin the color of caramel. Noticing my interest, Chris waved him over and introduced us. The man’s name was Darren Nichols and my first impression was that he was handsome, but that he wasn’t my type. I was forty and I assumed he was about ten years younger than I was. I later discovered he wasn’t—he was actually thirty-five. In addition to my concern about our age difference, I was uneasy about getting involved with someone of another race. I’d never been with a black man before. I certainly found black men attractive—and I found Darren very attractive—but dealing with racial issues on top of everything else in a relationship just scared me away from any kind of interracial coupling. The pistol-whipping episode hadn’t helped either

“How do you know him?” I asked Chris after Darren excused himself to get a drink.

“He’s a friend of Patrick’s,” Chris said as we went out onto the heated patio so he could smoke a cigarette. “They’ve known each other for a couple of years. They both served on some volunteer committee to help improve childhood literacy in the city.”

Patrick had some kind of high-power public relations position with the city and was involved with a lot of community outreach programs.

“How come I’ve never seen him at one of your parties?”

“Uh, because you haven’t been to one of our parties in two years. Anyway, Darren’s very sweet. He’s a high school teacher in the city and he coaches the girls’ basketball team.”

“Hmm,” was all I said before Chris pounced.

“You want a taste of that, don’t you?” he asked. “Don’t deny it, Mark. I can see it in your eyes. I believe Darren’s single. He was seeing a Puerto Rican guy, but they broke up and I don’t think he’s with anyone now. You two should totally get together. You’d make a really cute couple.”

I laughed. “Have you picked out a china pattern for us yet?”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“If you’re interested in Darren, you should let him know.”

“The question isn’t whether I’m interested in Darren, but whether Darren’s interested in me.”

At that moment, I heard a voice behind me respond, “Oh, he could be.”

I nearly dropped my drink as I turned to see Darren, who’d been standing quietly behind me and Chris, listening to us.

“You’re blushing,” Darren told me.

“I’m embarrassed,” I admitted. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough to think that maybe we should talk.”

“And, on that note, I’ll leave you two alone,” Chris said, putting out his cigarette.

I shot him a pleading look not to go that was ignored as he slipped away into the crowd of party guests. While I would have preferred that he stay and serve as a crutch for me to use with Darren, I was also intrigued at the prospect of speaking with Darren alone.

“So, Mark,” Darren said, “let’s talk.”

We talked and talked and talked. I gave Darren the abbreviated version of my life: born and raised in Chicago’s northern suburbs, college at Northwestern, dental school at the University of Illinois, the middle child sandwiched between two sisters, a dental practice partnership downtown. But I was more interested in his story. He told me he was born in Chicago, but grew up in Evanston where his parents moved when he was a child. He had an older sister named Deena, a widow whose husband was killed during a tour of duty in Afghanistan, and an eleven-year-old niece named Ashley. He played basketball in high school and got a scholarship to play at Michigan State. But he wasn’t good enough to go pro and he knew it, so after college—that included a semester abroad in Panama—he became a Spanish teacher-s***h-girls’ basketball coach at a high school on Chicago’s west side. Darren was polite, funny, and charming. I totally let my guard down with him and, after a few drinks, I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the night with him. But when I asked him to come home with me, he refused. I was surprised and a little hurt that he turned me down. We’d been getting along so well and we clearly liked each other, so I couldn’t understand why we weren’t on the same page. I asked him what the problem was.

“There is no problem,” he said. “I just want to get to know you a little better.”

“You can get to know me a lot better if you come home with me.”

He smiled. “How about I take a rain check?”

We exchanged cell numbers and he suggested we have breakfast together in the morning. We agreed to meet at a restaurant in the Andersonville section of the city at nine.

“You’re not going to stand me up tomorrow, are you?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“You’d better not.”

He took my warning with a smile and assured me he’d see me for breakfast.