"Hello, Wendy, how are you doing?" Samuel asked as he looked at the tall, slender, blonde-haired, forty-something friendly woman whose deceptively frail demeanor hid more strength than most people realized. Clad in her blue work shirt and dark pants, Wendy stood at a corner near the Walmart entrance, casually smoking a cigarette in the dark.
"Hey, Samuel, I'm fine, and you?" Wendy paused to say, smiling that beatific smile of hers, though her lovely face looked tired. The two friends stood there, casually chatting. A middle-aged white dude walking into the store saw the two of them, frowned and shook his head. Wendy didn't appear to notice, but Samuel quietly bristled.
For Samuel knew what the middle-aged dude was thinking. As a big and tall young Black man of Haitian descent living in the Canadian Capital, he was used to people staring at him in a hostile manner. White guys in particular glared at him with nothing but hatred in their eyes, especially when they saw him in the company of a white female. Another one of them with one of our women, that's what the guy must have been thinking when he saw Wendy and Samuel together.
"I'm alright, I guess, going through the breakup blues," Samuel said, and Wendy looked at him curiously. Samuel sighed, then gave her the run-down. For the past year and a half, he'd been seeing this young Indian woman named Aneeja, whom he met at Carleton University, and they had their ups and downs. Things came to a half a week ago when Aneeja sat Samuel down, and told him she wanted to break up...
"Sorry about that, Sammy, a lot of these young girls don't know a good man when they see one," Wendy said, and she gently laid her hand on Samuel's shoulder, and her eyes met his. Samuel sighed and nodded, and Wendy nodded and smiled, but did not budge, nor did she move her hand from his shoulder. For some reason, Wendy drew closer still, and Samuel's heart skipped a beat. What was she doing?
"Sammy, if there's anything I can do to help you in this difficult time, don't hesitate to ask," Wendy said with that mysterious smile of hers, and Samuel nodded sagely, and watched her extinguish her cigarette before she waved at him and walked back into the store. Not for the first time, Samuel found himself noticing that Wendy had a nice ass on her...
"Thank you kindly," Samuel said, mostly to himself, as he went back to work. As security guard for the entire store, he had the unpleasant duty of asking people for receipts when they exited the premises, and many of the customers, especially old white folks, didn't take kindly to that. Sometimes Samuel wondered if they disliked him because he was doing his job, or due to the fact that he was a young Black man. Damn the old buzzards, Samuel thought.
