The movement of pedestrians, whizzing and weaving along the busy sidewalk, did not faze Starr as she walked in a daze down Chestnut Street, with no particular destination in mind. The warm spring afternoon, which was her favorite time of the year, no longer held her interest. She kept replaying in her head the conversation she had just had with Dr. Neil. “Starr, your ultrasound results revealed you have a mild case of endometriosis.” He told her the news nonchalantly as if he said, “The sky is blue.”
Babies…I won’t be able to have any, Starr sadly mused as she mentally kicked herself for not settling down and having children. That was easier said than done. It wasn’t like any of the men she’d dealt with were remotely husband, let alone father, material.
There was Marcus, the two-timing snake it had taken her five years to break away from. Whoever said you’d always love your first love should be shot dead, brought back to life, and shot again. There was absolutely nothing Starr loved about that idiot. The demon-possessed man had almost single-handedly ruined her life.
Between the lying, cheating, and running up every charge card she had to the limit, destroying her credit and self-esteem, Starr had almost lost her mind. By the time she was twenty-three years old, she was up to her neck drowning in debt and self-doubt.
Then there was Stephen the miser. Starr had gone from one extreme to another. No longer was she with a man who carelessly spent money. Her money. Now she had hooked up with one so stingy, if he could, he’d squeeze change from a penny.
Initially, his cheap ways hadn’t mattered. It hadn’t bothered her he hardly took her out. And when he did take her out, somehow, she’d end up paying for a portion of the date. Nor had it annoyed her when Stephen insisted on celebrating Kwanza instead of Christmas, so they could make gifts instead of buying them.
However, everything changed when he had the gall to ask her to split the cost of a box of condoms. “What? You’re joking, right?” she asked him incredulously, not believing he could fix his mouth to say such a thing. For crying out loud, the man was employed as a software designer for a major technology company, making some serious cash…Okay. This was insane. Cheap bastard.
Shaking his head, not realizing how ridiculous he was being, he dug his heels in. “I think it’s only right you help out with the cost of birth control,” Stephen mumbled as he lifted his fork to his mouth taking a healthy bite of macaroni and cheese.
Starr stared at him as if she had lost her mind. This fool must think I’m crazy. I’m about to show him just how crazy I am. Storming over to her front door, she flung it open, yelling at the top of her lungs like a lunatic. “Get your stingy, greedy, black behind out of my house!”
Suddenly, Stephen realized he made the terrible mistake of asking her for money as he sat at her table eating the scrumptious dinner she’d prepared. Since dating Starr, he hadn’t had to buy groceries as often. At least three times a week he ended up on her sofa watching cable and eating dinner. He tried to back peddle with, “Umm…it’s okay…you don’t have to give me any money this time.”
What? This time! Oh this fool is trippin’! Starr reached for the baseball bat she kept near the front door for protection. “I said get your stingy, greedy, black behind out of my house!”
Raising the baseball bat like she was about to knock him into left field, Stephen jumped up from the table, stammering as he hurried to the front door. “Look, I…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you mad. I’ll call you tomorrow. Okay?”
“Don’t bother!” Slamming the door, she yelled to no one in particular, “Another two years of my life wasted!”
After a few months of being alone, Starr jumped back into the dating scene when she met Leon at a coffee house on Second and South Streets. He was the prettiest man she had ever seen in all her twenty-seven years. Six feet tall, bronze skin, jet-black wavy hair and eyelashes so long any woman would be jealous. She, along with the other women in the coffee house, was literally drooling when he came swaggering through the door. Starr was all too giddy when he strolled over to her table pulling out a chair, smiling at her. “Do you mind if I sit here, pretty lady?”
Starr swooned in her chair from the deep, husky baritone words floating from his thick, kissable lips. “Not at all,” she told him, grinning from ear to ear looking like a simpleton.
The relationship with Leon, if you could call it that, was the shortest of them all. Three weeks to be exact. It all came to a screeching halt on their third date. Walking side by side, the couple was engrossed in conversation when the cutest brotha yelled out the window of a sparkling white Acura. “Hey baby, let me holla at you.”
Flattered, feeling extremely sexy, Starr swung her head around in the direction of the white Acura. Her jaw length bob covering one eye, giving her that ‘come hither look,’ she nearly hit the concrete face first. Fine brotha man was not trying to holla at her! This became clearly evident as Leon’s rough boy swagger became a switch, as he sashayed his feminine self over to the vehicle. Starr could not believe her eyes as she witnessed Leon lean into the driver’s side window and began stroking the side of dude’s face like they were lovers.
Dumbfounded, her eyes became round as saucers as Leon had the nerve to sashay back over to her. Her jaw dropped to the ground when he picked back up his rough boy baritone. “I need to make this run with my man. I’ll see you later.”
Hunching her shoulders, feeling like she was in the twilight zone, she said, “Okay.” What more could she say? Leon was on the down low…Waaaay down low
Now, she understood why he ended both of their previous dates with a chase kiss on the cheek. Silly her, she thought he was just being a gentleman. Needless to say, she never heard from Leon. Good riddance.
A wave of sadness shook Starr’s very being. Here she was, thirty-two years old, with no man. No babies. No life.
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