Free Vulnerable by Bonita Thompson

Métro, but I spent just as much time referring to my French dictionary. It’s how I began to understand French. Anyway, I read some of the great poets, like Rumi and Gibran. I read Gandhi books and I must have read and studied every speech I could get my hands on by the Kennedy brothers and King. I learned Spanish completely on my own, and I can speak it pretty well. I was a glutton for all kinds of knowledge, and with only a GED.”
    â€œDid you eventually learn French when you worked in Paris?”
    â€œI never really learned the language. I can have short conversations in French, and there are words I can say with a really sexy accent,” she joked. “But I hung around mostly American and British models. Other models I often worked with…their first language was Dutch or French or German, and they wanted to improve their English…I picked up the language here and there. I actually speak fran-glais. Can you speak French?”
    â€œMy family’s Haitian. They speak French and Creole.”
    â€œBut not fran-glais?” she teased.
    â€œNot fran-glais.”
    She looked over at him. Through her travels and throughout her life after leaving North Dakota, D’Becca had befriended black men. She never saw a black man in the way she saw Rawn.
    â€œYou have discipline, that’s good,” Rawn said. It brought D’Becca out of her wandering thoughts. “Have you thought about going back to school?”
    â€œI was all about becoming somebody . I wanted to be relevant, and I also needed to survive. Besides, I eventually managed a really great life back then. When you’re in the middle of loving your life, you don’t think about the future that much. And, besides, I was into a lot. Drugs—mostly E, but it was like the thing everyone did so…And I slept around. But I’m not particularly proud of that part of my story. I see it so clearly now, and that makes life so fascinating.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œHow we learn in hindsight instead of learning in the process.” Her mind wandered. “I grew up too fast. But because I did self-educate myself—that’s the part of my story I’m most proud of.”
    â€œStory? That’s interesting.”
    â€œWhat about you? What part of your story would you frame?”
    Rawn was attracted to the fact that D’Becca was so quick-witted. She was clever.
    Before he could respond, and out of the blue, a hard rain descended from the mysteriously dark sky, mixed with mothball-size frozen raindrops. Instinctively, Rawn reached for D’Becca’s hand and said, “Come on, let’s go to my place. I’m a block away.”
    Hand-in-hand, they jogged through the hail and rain—the overlapping cherry blossoms, which speckled some of the streets in the neighborhood, offered them a degree of shelter.
    The apartment was dark when Rawn unlocked the door and they went inside, catching their breath. In quick strides he walked across the room to illuminate the space. D’Becca stood by the opened door, the clearly audible sound of heavy rain striking against the asphalt. She wanted—needed—to leave. She did not trust herself to stay, even for a little while. Her afternoon with Rawn was intrinsically pleasurable. It should end now while she felt strong enough, and the nascent of their connection was casual; there was very little depth. Her eyes lingered on the shiny black piano taking up a corner, and the books that were arranged all over the room.
    â€œI like your place. How many books do you think you have?”
    â€œHalf of them are back-home. But here, probably one-hundred.”
    â€œThere must be another room where you store them.”
    â€œThe kitchen, my bedroom.” Rawn shrugged.
    D’Becca could not shake it: Rawn touched her intensely, and it was a new feeling; deeper than anything else she could recall being struck by before.