It's been a while since I've posted a story, but then a hip replacement tends to slow one down for a few weeks. This is a story about two people of different ethnicities falling in love. Hopefully the powers that be will leave it in the romance category.
Mister Right
Unlike so many in this day and age I was raised going to church, it's what we did as a family. We were called holy rollers, Bible thumpers and a plethora of other derogatory names but the truth was, we were just like everyone else who made mistakes and encountered heartache along the way. What we weren't was religious with sets of unattainable rules and religious dogma dominating our lives. The way my dad explained it was this, if the teachings and examples of the Bible can't be applied in our everyday lives, then it's no more than a bunch of words on a page. His favorite mantra was from the story of the rich young ruler asking what must be done to see the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus' answer was simple when paraphrased into today's vernacular. Love God, love people.
Our homelife wasn't ultra-strict where kids couldn't grow up with the same normal curiosities all the non-church kids experienced. Following dad's view we learned we didn't necessarily have to believe as others believed or behave as they behaved to accept them. They were kids just like we were kids. Another of dad's teachings was, 'we live by our words, not the words of others'. He would often say, 'who cares what other people say, keep yourself right and ignore them.' Oh yes. I knew what it meant to be a good girl, to keep my legs together and not give the milk away if they weren't interested in buying the cow. (Yeah, we were farm kids 'pullin tits and doing chores daily.)
My brothers knew it was their responsibility to not be led around by the head of their dick. Dad didn't say it in those words, but they knew what he meant. We grew up with sports and dating and extracurricular activities like all the rest. All us kids knew what was meant when our parents said, 'behave yourself' before we left on a date. It was on my 17
th
birthday that I had my first date, a farm boy down the road a mile. He wasn't black like me but that didn't matter much, we'd all been together since kindergarten. That first date ended with a kiss on the front porch at eleven sharp, just before dad opened the door and told Randall, "goodnight." He never asked me out again. Hmm, wonder why?
There were around a dozen of us black kids in high school, the community was growing and there were several black families in town, but most were younger. Though some of the black kids said they felt odd in an almost all white school it never seemed to bother me. I had never been treated with disdain, we went to a church that was probably 50/50 black and white, everyone got along, I wasn't sure why they felt that way. Later in life I determined most of that came from home, those thoughts and sentiments were never a topic in our home, therefore they weren't a part of our everyday thinking process.
I was the last of five kids, three older brothers, an older sister and me, the baby. A title I never outgrew. The two oldest went into the military shortly after 911, one losing his life in Afghanistan, the other a career soldier. The youngest brother became a dentist with a practice in Omaha. My older sister is what I call a career student. She's been in college since Moses floated down the river, or at least it seems that way. Just when you think she's going to graduate she starts another degree of some sort.
Then there's me. I acquired my RN and went on to become a surgical scrub nurse. It was another four years of training after working as an RN for two years but well worth it. Here I am today, 29, working with an orthopedic team that gets along great. In my eyes I had the world by the tail. Almost. What I don't have is someone who loves me unconditionally and wants to be my forever partner. It isn't as though I hadn't thought it might happen a time or two, but neither materialized beyond the initial excitement along with eventually knocking boots for a while. It was mostly my fault, I was in love with the idea of being in love, the others were looking for steady nooky.
People might say, 'oh, she's a church girl, how could she do such a thing?' It's simple, I'm human with human needs, desires and temptations. In the looks department I've never considered myself extraordinary. I'm only five foot seven, I don't work out but have been able to maintain a slender body by watching what I eat, long hours in surgery and riding my trusty three-wheel Schwinn with a big basket on the back for groceries, etc. If where I wanted to go was within a mile or two, I would jump on Sandy the Schwinn and away we go. Yes, I named my bike, I also named my car Fifi the Fiat, get over it.
At one hundred and thirty-seven pounds I'm not what one would consider as more than average. I have soft attractive facial features, I can rock a pair of tights or yoga pants with my slightly curvy hips and sturdy legs. My bust is more like 'meh' at only 34B, yet it fits the rest of my body quite well. If I have one feature in my favor it's that my hair is naturally curly instead of having a tight afro look. My sister is the exact opposite, she can rock an afro like nobody else's business. There are times my hair wants to friz and be unmanageable, but then that happens to most women in high humidity situations regardless of race.
By the time I get home at night I want nothing more than a meal and sleep. I'm not a clubber or drinker, oh sure, a beer or cocktail, but that's pretty much my limit. I learned several unsavory lessons in my early nursing years and never forgot them. Sadly I wasn't as quick on the uptake with romance as I was with the bar scene.
The first mister right was when I was twenty-two. He was a nurse just as I was, three years older and full of charm. We were of the same ethnicity, he ticked all the boxes and we seemed to hit it off right away. He was the typical cute guy with a shaved head and gym rat body. He was kind, gentle, sweet beyond believability and exuded romance. Flowers, cards, unplanned dinners at swanky places, always a smile for me. It only took him a few months before I was in his bed two or three times a week, he was as good in bed as he was charming. I'd only had sex a few times previously so what he did basically enthralled me, he wasn't huge as they say, but he was certainly able to make my liver quiver. I had myself convinced a proposal and ring were in the very near future when I found out he was putting the moves on another nurse. When I confronted him he nonchalantly told me.
"Hey, we had fun didn't we? You had to know we weren't going to be a steady thing. It's time to move on Daisy. Don't worry, there are lots of guys looking for girls like you."
With that he walked away and never looked back. I found myself wondering what the term 'girls like me' was supposed to mean. I chose to do the same thing he did, I moved on. Not with another guy, with another job over three hundred miles away. It was also when I entered scrub nurse training. It was near the end of my second year of training that I was swept off my feet by a new doctor in town so to speak. I would learn later that he was anything but new except to unsuspecting girls like me. His Eastern European looks, mannerisms and accent had me in a tailspin.
I wasn't in bed with him right away, after the disaster of my first experience it took him months of hinting at matrimony until I lowered my defense as well as my panties. At about the nine-month mark of our relationship fate bit me in the butt a second time. He was moving back to Belgrade where his wife and family were. If there's such a thing as a kick in the balls for a girl, that was it. I was literally devastated, how could I have been so blind? The answer for me was to pour myself into the last half of the scrub nurse program. For the remainder of the program my life was school along with a shift here and there when possible, rest, study, repeat.
Upon passing my exam as a scrub nurse I lucked out and found work where I had been on a rotation basis for different surgeons. Some were great to work with, others weren't, they tended to wear their supposed superior intelligence on their sleeve making the work environment toxic. I was sitting in the cafeteria after a long day in surgery picking through a salad that looked as though it was fresh yesterday when a figure shadowed the table. I recognized him as Doctor Tanaka, an orthopedic surgeon I had worked with a time or two.
"May I sit with you Miss Clifton?" I nodded and extended my hand in a welcoming gesture.
He continued, "Was it a rough day? You look like you're worn out."
