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| Nduku and her roommate Maureen |
Three days had passed since I first met this stunning girl at the movies. Instantly she caught my attention, yet for whatever reason, she said nothing to me — so I said nothing to her.
But my curiosity was too intense for me to just let it be. The only issue was that I had no idea, whatsoever, of how I was going to get in touch with her again.
Other than simply asking her roommate about, well, her roommate, I was at a lost. Since we said virutally nothing at all to each other at the movies, I couldn’t even remember her name. She said it so fast, with her proper English/African accent, and her name isn’t common [not in this hemisphere anyway].
Seriously, I wasn’t even sure if she said her name at all!
But I got an idea: Flipping through her roommate’s Facebook photos, I came across one with that girl from the movies in it. “Absolutely beautiful smile!” was the first thing that went through my blown mind. How could I have said not a word to her at the movies? Look at that smile! Those eyes! That dimple!
So I left a comment on the photo, hoped she’d see it and waited. And waited. And waited. And — she Facebook friend requested me! I promise my fingers were tripping over themselves to see which one gets to click on the confirm button! And then my eyes poured all over her Facebook profile. Every picture was viewed, every word read, every note [there was only one but a beautifully written one called "Tomorrow is not promised"] and then I saw exactly what I was hoping to find: an email address.
Now I wasn’t just going to send an email like, “Hey, remember me?” What if she was dating some 43-year-old man!? Or maybe she thought I was trying to get with her roommate and didn’t want any drama!? Or maybe she wouldn’t even remember me at all!?
Instead, I invited her to Yahoo! Chat and crossed every finger and every toe waiting for her to accept.
While staring at my computer screen, red-eyed and dozing off after a marathon staring contest with it, I got a message that she accepted my Yahoo! Chat invite.
It was like taking three No Doz with four cups of coffee, two Red Bulls laced with uppers, a shot of espresso while getting smacked! My energy level shot through the roof!
But where was she? Yahoo! Chat said she was offline though she had to have just clicked on “accept.” So, just chancing it, I sent an instant message at that very moment, such a small window of time…
Hey? I couldn’t think of anything else to start out with! Part of me was expecting her to reply, “…and who is this?”
A-ha! She’s online and, and, and — and now what am I supposed to type? My mind was racing faster than Usain Bolt, so fast that I misread her simple reply of “hello,” thinking she was asking how I was…
| My Love |
My mind was pushing warp speed! The thoughts [and a couple of emotions] were getting in my mind’s way of telling my fingers what to type, so I forgot to add the word out in my next question…
Notice how I said “hang out with you more” as if Maureen and Chad weren’t even there?
Ok [stammer]. Now [stammer]. See [stammer].
I had no idea how to interpret that response. Was she saying since I hang out with her kid sis that she’d be happy to chaperone us again? Or any friend of hers… was explaining why she was even chatting with me, as in, just being nice? Or did yes, we should really mean yes, we should?
Ummm [stammer]. Wow [stammer]. Family [stammer]?
And when she said “we can all hang out…” it sounded like she wasn’t trying to hang out with just me. Maybe I was just being paranoid? Too analytical? Maybe it’s a cultural misinterpretation?
Let’s just say I was stumped, panicked a little and was trying to find a way to determine if she said one big family in a sense of we are all one big family, you know, I can be like her big brother or — well, let’s just say I opted to change the subject.
And then when she said she was just kidding, I wasn’t sure if she meant she was kidding about being one big family or if she was kidding about [GULP!] hanging out at all!
Whew! Change of subject! My palms were getting sweaty from the anxiety of rejection, and I didn’t want to short out my laptop’s keyboard from the dripping sweat!
Did I really think she was 24? More like barely 24!
Now, I may be stereotyping Africans, but after watching George Bush dodge two shoes thrown at him and hearing a million times how the throwing of the shoe was a sign of utter disrespect, I was wondering if I offended her! Uh-oh! Maybe she’s really only 22 years old!
Silence sometimes can be more lethal than getting yelled out!
Exhale! Ok, she wasn’t upset at me, but now she’s lying to me! These daggone children!
I think in that one moment…
Wait…
I knew in that single moment that I wasn’t just flirting anymore. She’s in her 30s!? Again I’m stereotyping [this time people in their 30s] but once you cross over 30, you begin to enter into a new stage in life. A stage in which you sort of kind of start to figure out what it is that you want in life. I wasn’t chatting with a chickenhead, not that I thought she was. I was chatting with someone who I wanted to see if she had the potential to be, well, I’ll just say family.
Cute. I still think she cheated. But I was still floored from learning she wasn’t an early-20s baby chatting with a stranger just to get her head swoll. This is a grown woman.
I think I got her roommate’s age wrong, too.
I will when I meet them.
I will when I meet them in the far future!
Really, I was curious to get her opinions of living in this area considering I have zero plans of ever leaving. I have wanderlust and plan on traveling the world, but my roots are starting to spread and if DC isn’t for her, well, this may be all for naught.
I’m not exactly sure what was running through my mind at this time, but I do know I was becoming quite fascinated with this Kenyan girl. Being a decisive person, it didn’t take me long to decide that I was going to really get to know her and see what comes out of it. I’ve always been a hopeless romantic and have been fighting for years to get over it, confessing that there’s no such thing as fairy tale romances or love at first sight anymore but if this little chat could somehow evolve into something serious, I just might become a believer again. Just a few more questions…
She’s on to me!
I let the cat out the bag.
If I could only see her face to get a read on her reaction. If she could only see my face and know my reaction!
I guess this was my way of saying I wanted to learn more about her. Hang out and ask just another hundred or so questions.
And maybe this was her way of saying she did, too!
Since tomorrow is not promised, no sense in wasting time!
Whoa! My face just fell on the floor and shattered into xxx xxx xxxx number of pieces!
Got to stay cool, calm and collected…
See, this sounds like I was trying to be more cool than calm and collected, but I really was tied up for the next couple of weeks. I had a trip to Arizona to visit my dad coming up and a ton of errands to run. Not only did I have to go to Raleigh and renew my ID card to get on the plane, I had to get some stuff for the trip, tie up some loose ends at work, complete several secret shopping assignments I do on the side — and I had some serious drama at the pad I wanted to eliminate before anything else happened.
I just cut my to do list in half.
Not only did she make my day better, my gut feeling was my entire life was about to get elevated to another level!
This was one of those moments when chatting can completely distort the meaning of the words. What I was implying was she didn’t have to toot her own horn as in her horn is tooting without her assistance. When I read what I typed, it sounded like I was putting her down for putting herself up on a pedestal when I was making a comment to let her know she didn’t have to say she was grown n sexxy because my eyes already informed me of that! Maybe she understood; maybe she didn’t. Just in case…
And I have been tooting it ever since.
Double negatives are a peeve of mine, but when it’s followed with we can catch up by a stunningly beautiful grown and sexxy woman, it’s all good!
I couldn’t tell if she wanted to keep chatting, if I was getting too optmistic, if there was anything else that should’ve been said, but I did know that I wanted to continue this conversation face-to-face. So many more questions flooded my mind:
• Was I reading into stuff that wasn’t there?
• Is she just as flirty as me and just playing around with me?
• Is that her real hair?
• Do Kenyans really come so light-skinned?
• Is she single?
We chatted once again the next night before I couldn’t restrain my eagerness anymore. I wanted her to see the look on my face while indulging in her story.
She shared with me where she worked, and since it was relatively close to my job, I called that Friday to see if she wanted to meet up for some drinks. She sounded pretty surprised, and I was only hoping it was laced with anticipation and not anxiety. We got together October 16, 2009, after work at Indulj on U Street, had a few drinks, enjoyed each other’s conversation before calling it the night.
When I walked her to her car, that hopeless romantic desire for a love story twisted the arms of fate and refused to let her car start. I literally gave her a hug and headed out of the parking garage, when something told me to hang around a moment. Since I never saw her leave the parking garage, I went back to her car and there she was, sitting at the wheel, a bit embarrased.
The engine just refused to let the night end right there. We ended up on the Metro together, ironically saying not another word to each other. Instead, she put her arm around my arm, and we rode in silence. Sort of. My heart was throbbing in my ears, and my mind was screaming sounds of exhilaration.
When we first met, we said nothing. Eventually, we “chatted” but still said nothing verbally. And then when we ended our first “date,” again, we said nothing.
And just like that, Nduku Malombe is all that I ever want to talk about…
