Sometimes God smiles. The clouds of fate part, and for a moment, sunshine pours through, sweet and warm and golden.
He was at the door. Charlie. And she hadn't ordered anything. And he wasn't in his milkman's uniform. Just jeans and a polo shirt. And he was smiling. And, unbelievable luck, she had jut finished doing her makeup and hair. No kimono, and no decolletage, but her new-bra breasts stood up as straight as she did.
He looked her in the eyes and waited. She looked down and watched him scrunch up the toes of his right foot. He was wearing Tevas. She stood and waited for him to say something. The traffic noise from the freeway seemed strangely loud.
Then music suddenly started from the stereo. Ferguson, bare-chested and wearing only his underpants, pushed his mother out of the way, and grabbed Charlie's hand. The 3-year-old led Charlie into the living room and started gyrating on the floor mined with Lego blocks. Charlie joined in, winking at Amy as he picked up his CD cover.
"I was wondering where I left this," he shouted at her.
She felt something fall several stories down an empty elevator shaft in her heart. Charlie had come back for his CD. That explained it. Simple, really. And devastating. She went to the kitchen.
A few minutes later, the music changed to HOT SALSA HITS #4. Charlie came into the kitchen and found her spreading Nutella on Wheat Thins. It was her favorite stress food. He grabbed one and ate it. She looked at him as if he had broken a holy fast. The salsa CD was in his hand.
He frowned. "I gotta do something, but I don't know how," he said. "What's your excuse?"
He took another Wheat Thin as soon as she had spread it. She smiled compassionately.
"I was stupid enough to think you came to see me," she said. "Now I see you just wanted your CD back."
"Wrong." He stuffed the choco-cracker in his mouth and slowly opened the CD case. He took the CD out, held it in both his hands for a moment, and then snapped it in half.
Then he walked out of her house without so much as leaving a phone number.
Amy followed him. Outside on the sidewalk, with her makeup done just right and her boobs perky as the morning sunshine, she waved to him in the rear-view mirror of the pizza delivery car he drove.
It advertized "Mikes' Mega Pizzas - When Your Appetite's Bigger than Africa." The telephone number to order was 246-8888.
M
It was a form of delaying the inevitable - which, she realized, was the story of life. However.
Besides, she was mothering at the moment. Building towers of plastic cups so Bartlette could destroy them; being an appreciative art critic for Carmen's Q-tip water-color people-scapes (where the people dwarfed their environment); and applauding the winners of Ferguson's Hot Wheels car races.
And she was enjoying every minute of it. Procrastinating, that is. Oh, playing with the kids was all right. But the procrastination was downright luscious.
You see, until she confirmed otherwise, Charlie, Mr. Tan-Supple-Sensitive-Good-with-Kids-Exotic-Dancer-Choreographer, actually may have come to her house just to see her -- because she had something to give beside mother's milk and a mother's love. It made her eyes misty just to think that she might be seen as attractive or valued or (complete fantasy) liked for herself.
Her mother would have told her she was being pathetic over a man - over her fantasy of a man. Just knowing her mom would disapprove was all the encouragement she needed to procrastinate a little longer.
Amy knew she could ring the pizza place any time to track Charlie down - even to draw him back by ordering a pizza. But she didn't.
Instead, Amy rang U and explained that a 10-out-of-10 spunk had destroyed something he cared about just to make a point to her. U thought Charlie might just have been tired of the CD or maybe Ferguson had scratched it. But Amy laughed it off. U's conjecture was even less informed than her own.
The truth was, U didn't know. Only Charlie knew. And he wasn't telling yet. And so, in the land of I-don't-know, Amy pleasured herself with possibilities and the utterly ridiculous, though not yet discounted, idea that Charlie liked her.
Ah, that was one for the Dalai Lama. In the story of life, happiness was achievable, but only while you delayed the inescapably unhappy ending.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Actually, a number of knocks. Like this: KNOCK-knock-knock, KNOCK-knock-knock.
It was a visitor with a samba beat.
Carmen ran and opened the door. She was immediate awe-struck by the sight of two of Mike's Mega Pizzas - one Hawaiian and one Bavarian (it had crust like a giant soft pretzel and was topped with sliced weiss wurst and sauerkraut). Carrying the pizzas, stood a man wearing a black mask around his eyes and a black skin-tight body suit. The only thing he appeared to have on underneath was a g-string, which the tightness of the material betrayed in relief.
Amy imagined the g-string to be black satin, but immediate verification was impossible.
(more to come)
For those who are new here, A is for Amy & Adonis is a comic story of romantic redemption. The aim is to provide a fun and fast read with characters you can connect to emotionally.
There are 26 short chapters. But it's easy to catch up. The chapters just take a few minutes to read. And here they are:
READ FIRST NINE POSTS (just click on the one you want)--
Nota Bene -- All the chapters will be archived on Huffpost so people will be able to catch up with the story no matter how late they come to the novella.
I have decided to post two chapters a week. So, if you like what you read here, stay tuned with Huffpost email alerts or follow me on Twitter. --Steven