Wanted: Single Black Female, 20–30. No, scratch that. SBF, 25–35. Better. Nonsmoker, nondrinker, tall, and athletic. Honesty and intelligence are preferred, but if you can fake both of those convincingly, you're in there. Oh yes, must have a love of the arts, especially drama. Cultured. Worldly. Renaissance. MUST LOVE SPORTS. Oh, hell yeah. Must be able to appreci- ate quality cable programming such as ESPN's SportsCenter. Must have a sense of humor. If you cannot comprehend the humor in a show like South Park or in movies like Happy Gilmore or White Men Can't Jump then THIS AD IS NOT FOR YOU. Must be sexually adventurous. Can I write that? Hmm . . . Okay. Must be sexually liberated. Shoot, might as well be straight up about it—must be a freak. No, I can't write that. Well, I just did. Damn. Forget those whole few sentences. Umm . . . a romantic. YES. Should be creatively romantic as well as receptive to romantic creativity. Was that just redundant? Values intimacy. AFFECTIONATE. Most definitely. Cannot have any hang-ups about Public Displays of Affection. PDA, in my book, includes hand holding, light kissing, and making goo-goo eyes at each other so sweetly until your teeth rot. Independent. Assertive. Confident. A woman who knows what she wants out of life and goes after it. No wallflowers, no shy girls. A twenty-first-century woman. A woman of the new millennium. Ambitious. Career oriented. Future housewives, golddiggers, and professional pretty girls need not apply. A woman into commitment. Players and playettes—see ya! Wouldn't want to be ya. No children, please. I know I'm asking a lot at this point, finding a thirty-year-old woman who has never been married and has no kids, but that's what I want. I can just see Khalilah right now spinning her huge eyes in that little head of hers telling me I'm being too picky. She can kiss off—let her make her own ad. Should like to travel, be a decent cook . . . Wait a minute. This is a little more than twenty-four words, isn't it?

With that thought, Nick stopped typing. He assessed his mock ad, generated on his brand-new laptop computer, a gift to himself for having successfully moved to San Diego. There was no way Nick would ever send in the ad to the Union-Tribune, even in a more edited, concise form. But it was fun to dream, wasn't it?

Casually clicking to save his document, Nick peered out at the world through amber-colored, reflective sunglasses. He could not have crafted a better-looking day than this. Resting in his lawn chair on the beach, Nick's toes tickled the grainy warmth of the sand below. The clean, sea-blown air made his skin tingle. Seagulls lazily traced swooping arcs and parabolas of flight against a blue, cloud-smeared, Impressionist sky. The sun shone brilliantly yet with only the moderate warmth San Diego was so famous for. Perfect weather, perfect atmosphere, perfect day. Nick knew that this was going to be a memorable birthday.

Twenty-nine years old today, July 24. The last memorable birthday he could remember was . . . Jasmine . . . his twenty-second, when he had bought his first Toyota 4Runner. Jasmine . . .

Okay, that was the last time he was going to think about that name. This was his birthday. Dwelling on ex-almost-fiancées was not the order for today, his special day.

Which was why he was at the beach. Laid out in his lawn chair on the sand, in only a pair of soccer shorts, Nick's athletically toned, walnut-brown body was on full display. After years of working out, Nick was now a specimen. His abs were veritable cobblestones of muscle, his chest was so cut it was almost square, and his arms had more hills than San Francisco. At a solid six feet, 210 pounds, Nick was a very attractive man.

Or at least that's what women told him on occasion. Nick was no fool. He knew they were checking out his body and not his broad-lipped, wide-nosed, average-looking face. His hair was cut simply in a plain, even-Steven, low-but-not-bald style that he trimmed and lined himself with clippers. His face was not a detriment in the least, but Nick had never pulled women back in high school the way he did now. It had to be the body, he convinced himself. In an ironic way, Nick was comforted by the fact that women were every bit as shallow as men. They were just a helluva lot more sly about it.

Including her. Underneath a wide straw hat and a pair of loopy-looking sunglasses, she watched him. Stole furtive glances, was more like it. Her sunglasses were of a greenish-blue hue and fully penetrable. The steely wall of his reflective lenses hid his own admiring eyes. Since she was giving him "eye candy"—Mal's phrase, not his—Nick responded obviously by shifting his head in her direction. If she couldn't tell he had been checking her out, she could now.

So now it was on. Quickly, Nick surveyed her person for any sign of a natural deterrent. Hmm . . . any stretch marks? Cardinal Rule to Dating No. 7: Never date a woman with a kid. Ready-made families were not the move for the young, single, and black. Nick wanted a family of his own someday. He wasn't ready to start playing Daddy to some kid he didn't even know. In many respects, he was still a kid himself. When Nick met a woman with a child, no matter how fine she was, he ran like she had the plague.

The next check was for the wedding band on the left-hand ring finger. None.

Next came the debate. To speak or not to speak. That was the dilemma. The woman was certainly attractive. She was a short, compact, thick-looking, darkskin sista. Her modest one-piece failed to disguise her black, womanly curves. Nick pegged her age at about thirty. If he pulled her number, Nick figured she would be a great birthday present to himself. But if he didn't . . .

Too much thinking. That was a sign right away that he wasn't interested enough. When Nick wanted something, or someone, for that matter, he went after it. If he thought about it too long, he would basically think himself out of his motivation. Still, that didn't stop him from flirting with the woman visually before leaving. As he gathered his things, Nick thought with a smirk, We'll be seeing each other again. 
A San Diego resident for all of two weeks, Nick was still overwhelmed with a sense of adventure. Although his previous home, Chicago, was definitely larger in scope and people, Nick's four and a half years there had left little to be discovered. It was the same when he was in Atlanta: By the time he was a graduating senior at Morehouse College, Nick felt as though he had conquered that city. It was time to move on.

With the windows down and the moonroof open on his brand-spanking-new Limited Edition Toyota 4Runner, Nick reveled in the moderate San Diego summer. About this time in Chicago, he would be sweating a hole through his shirt.

His birthday, a Thursday, marked the second-to-last weekday Nick would have to roam free. On Monday, he started a temp assignment at Bank of America. His MBA had garnered him the temporary position, which was to last several weeks. The pay was okay, considering he was going back to an hourly wage for the first time since college, but it was a far cry from the $70,000-plus salary he'd been making at Harris Bank back in Chicago. Nick had come out to California because of his second master's degree, an MFA in acting. He was going to be an actor.

So, for now, until Nick saved up enough money to get his feet under him a bit, he would deign to work hourly for this temp agency. But as soon as he could, he would break away from the agency and try acting full-time. As it was, he planned on going up to LA on weekends and evenings to see what auditions he could get in his spare time. Khalilah, an old friend from his hometown of Seattle, worked for some kind of international business firm in Los Angeles. As infuriatingly platonic as their friendship was, Nick at least had a place to rest his head in the entertainment hub of the universe, less than two hours away.

Reveling in his last few days as a free man, Nick drove the truck along Interstate 5 toward Fashion Valley, San Diego's trendiest outdoor mall. Ever since Nick had arrived in San Diego, he had been on a bit of a shopping spree. He was not rich and actually owed the federal government about ten thousand dollars in student loans, which he had deferred. Nick had been continually rewarding himself after frugally saving from his job at Harris Bank, and after having come in under his moving budget.

Less than ten minutes removed from his car, Nick already toted two bagfuls of stuff he didn't need. Hiding behind his metallic shades, he generously surveyed some of San Diego's finest. There were a lot of white women in San Diego, a switch from the predominantly black cities of Chicago, New York, and Atlanta, locales that had been his homes throughout the past decade. But the Latinas helped make up for a lack of sistas.

Fashion Valley, replete with earth- and magenta-toned Southwestern colors and architecture, reminded him of Atlanta's truly upscale Phipps Plaza mall. In more than half the stores, Nick could not afford the air to breathe, much less their clothes. The shoppers around him were largely jobless rich kids out from school and the independently wealthy who had nothing better to do than to shop. As he strolled into J. Crew, Nick reflected that from the beach to the mall to the weather, he had enjoyed a wonderfully relaxing twenty-ninth birthday so far.

"Omigod! Is that you, monsieur?"

That could only be one person. Arms extended, Nick hugged his old high school friend. "Ro-bair!" Nick gushed in a faux French accent.

"Neeco-lah!" Robert responded, with an even more dreadful Gallic accent. By the time senior year had rolled around in high school, Robert had been Nick's only steady white friend. At a school overwhelmingly minority anyway, just blocks away from Nick's house, cool white kids had been hard to find. Robert was a tall, slim, pale transplant from Michigan's Upper Peninsula (replete with Canadianesque accent and all), new to Franklin High School when they had both been juniors. They had bonded over long, philosophical talks, discussions on current events, and a mutual love for Seinfeld. Some of their best conversations had been about that TV show's overlying theme—nothing. You know you have a cool friend when you can sit for hours and talk about nothing.

"Man, what's been up with you!" An octave higher and Nick's voice would have been a squeal. He had not seen the man in eleven years.

"Oh, it's been quite a long and strange ride, Nicolas," said Robert, still teasing Nick with the French accent. "Come. I was just about to go on my lunch break. We can go over to the food court and talk."

"Cool."

As Robert got himself together to leave, Nick looked around curiously. A men's clothing store. Yeah, that seemed like Robert. Due to his moderate finances, the man hadn't been a walking fashion statement but he'd always had an eye for clothes and ensembles.

Robert led the way to the food court. He bought a Caesar salad from some typically Californian vegetarian place while Nick indulged in a healthy hamburger from Blueberry Hill.

Eleven years! Seated and eating away, both men grinned at each other. With the exception of the slight maturation of his face, Rob- ert looked exactly the same. His once curly, crazy dark mane was now cut stylishly conservative, with only the wavy top hinting at his hair's natural curliness. But Nick was a whole different person alto- gether. Upon graduating high school, Nick had been an inch shorter than Robert's six-one and had weighed only 170 pounds. Now, Nick was two inches shorter than Robert's six-two but a cock-diesel 210 pounds.

They spent the next fifteen minutes catching up. Robert indulged in gossip about old classmates and the like. That was one of Robert's most amusing qualities: The man could be so catty. Naturally, Nick glossed over the whole Jasmine affair, omitting the fact that he had once proposed to his former girlfriend over four years ago, only for her to say no. Once they got caught up on the past, Nick inquired about Robert's present.

"Well, enough about other people. What's been up with you? How long have you been in San Diego?"

"I've lived down here for a couple of years," Robert answered. "I really like it. The weather is so nice and temperate. It's really good for my skin."

"So you're working here full-time?" Hardly the glamour job, if you asked Nick. "I thought you were an artist."

"I still am. I got a master's in drawing from the Philadelphia Art Institute. I've sold some drawings and occasionally I draw commercial sketches for ad agencies. But the whole field can be so hit-and-miss. I still do a lot of drawings at night. But during the day, bills have to be paid."

"I hear that," acknowledged Nick, shuddering at the thought of working an eight-to-five on Monday.

"A lot has changed with me, Nick," Robert said with an impish smile, finishing up the last of his salad.

Polishing off the remainder of his fries, Nick said, "Well, of course. I mean, it's been eleven years, right?"

"Well . . . I've changed more than you know," Robert teased, restraining the urge to laugh. He was clearly enjoying his moment in the sun.

Stuffing his face with fries, Nick mumbled, "Surprise me."

"I'm gay."

Midfry, Nick looked at him. His eyebrows scrunched. The fry just dangled there from his mouth, as if he were the Marlboro Man. "I said 'surprise me,' not 'choke me'! For real?"

Beaming from ear to ear, Robert said, "Yep."

Nick consumed the fry and shrugged it off. "Uh, what does one say to this? Congratulations? Happy Coming Out? When did you realize this?"

"Oh, I knew back in high school, but I fought it. I was still closeted. Remember when Allie Praeger threw herself at me and ended up asking me to go to the prom with her?"

"Yeah, I remember that. How did it feel to have my leftovers?" Nick grinned with male-conquesting bravado.

"I wouldn't know. That whole time I had to fight her off," Robert confessed. "And during prom night . . . she was like a dog in heat."

Finishing up his meal, Nick looked incredulously at his new—and first—gay friend. "You tellin' me that on prom night, she was down and you didn't get any?"

Robert started making fake sign-language signals while enunciating slowly, "Read . . . my . . . lips. I . . . am . . . gay."

Nick chuckled, tossing a fry in his direction. "As the breeze?"

Robert lobbed his plastic knife at him. In a low tone, he retorted, before laughing, "As a blade!"

This was turning out to be a great birthday. After Nick's impromptu lunch with Robert, he cruised around San Diego some more. He drove over the high, picturesque Coronado Bay Bridge to the upscale town of Coronado. Glittering waves of the Pacific winked at him as he drove by a stretch of beach called the Silver Strand. Nick could not get over how palm trees were everywhere. A guy could get used to this kind of living.

By the time he got home from exploring parts of the South Bay, the sun had just set. Pink, gold, and silvery blues and whites receded gently toward the horizon. Nick didn't have much of a direct view of the sunset from where his house sat, but fortunately, he lived only a few blocks from the beach. After several snowy winters and balmy, humid, oppressive summers in Chicago, the mild, humidity-free temperatures of San Diego seemed heaven-sent. This truly had to be paradise found.

Once comfortably arranged on the couch, TV channel on his favorite show in the world, ESPN's SportsCenter, Nick heard the phone ring. He figured it was Mom, calling to offer her birthday wishes, as Grandma had done on his answering machine. Instead of Mom, it was someone infinitely more outrageous.

"Whassup, mark! Happy birthday to yo' punk ass!" Malloy!

"Thanks a lot, trick," Nick shot back evenly. "Whassup?"

"Loungin', god. I wanna know what the birthday boy's been up to! I swear, you lucky I'm not over there to give you your birthday beatdown!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whateva," Nick dismissed him casually. The last birthday he had spent around Nick, Mal had administered the annual nonsensical, perpetually male tradition of punching out the number of years of the birthday boy into the birthday boy. Bearing down on thirty, Nick was not sure if he could have survived this year's beatdown. "I've been coolin' out, doc. Gettin' used to this place. You should come out here sometime, hoss. It's pretty tight."

"Yeah, I bet. I bet them bodies are pretty tight." Mal had heard about how everyone was gorgeous and in shape out in California. All part of the plasticity of its glamour.

"Look at you. Supposed to be all married and stuff now and you still talkin' shit like a player," Nick accused playfully.

"Hey, you can take the player out the game, but you can't take the game out the player," Mal ghetto-philosophized. "I bet you twenty bones that if we went to a club together, I'd come out with more numbers than you."

"Get the hell outta here!" Nick chortled. "With your old married ass? I'll take you up on that one. I bet you wouldn't even know how to holla to these single ladies. Especially after being whipped for . . . How long's it been? Two years?"

"Two years, eleven months, and nine days," Malloy recited smartly. "Sir."

"Ha-ha, look at you," Nick gloated. "That's just the time you've been married. You been whipped a long time before that!"

"Don't be a hater just 'cause you ain't experienced the joys of marriage, kid. Don't hate because you haven't found the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with," Malloy taunted.

"Hate?" repeated Nick incredulously. "Shiiiiiit, I am cool on marriage, dawg. I ain't in no kind of rush to get married. If you've been paying attention the past year or so, Captain Commitment is dead. Gone. And even before then, he hasn't been in full effect. If it happens, it happens. If it don't, it don't. Especially after Jasmine . . . shoot . . . I neva hafta get married. I'm cool on all that."

"Maybe," Malloy granted, "but you sure was a Captain back in the day. 'I wanna be sa-ved!' "

"I'm not savin' any more hos," Nick declared. "So you can check that shit at the door. If a good woman crawls outta the woodwork, we'll see what happens. But my days of being Mr. Relationship, Mr. Commitment—"

"Captain—" Mal adjusted.

"Boy, if you don't shut up . . ." Nick warned. "But my days of going out for a relationship are over. Like marriage—if it happens, it happens. Right now, I'm single and loving it. I'm young, black, single, educated, and living in one of the finest cities in America. I'mma be alright."

"Make sure you holla at some of them Mexican honeys south of the border for me. Hook up with a Latina or two," Mal counseled.

"Don't you worry about me, dawg. Just keep laying pipe to your wife and don't worry about The Kid," Nick returned.

"You going to that wedding next weekend?"

"Wedding?"

"C'mon, son, I know you didn't forget?" Mal's native New York accent oozed all over that "son."

"Loq! That's right! I almost forgot. Hell yeah, I'm going. A wedding back in the ATL? I'm definitely 'bout it." Going back to Atlanta, the black mecca of the United States where he had spent four glorious years in undergrad, was always a positive, culturally grounding experience.

"You got your ticket, cuz?"

"Yeah, I got it. It's somewhere in here among all my files. You bringin Mia?"

"Naw," Mal said, somewhat evasively. "She doesn't really know the bride nor Loq too well."

"True," Nick supposed. "Anybody else gonna be there?"

"All the crew," Mal crowed. "The rest of them are gonna be in the ceremony. We'll be the only ones of the crew not in it."

"That's fine with me. My head's still spinnin' from the move."

"I feel you, dude. I feel you," he agreed. "Well, I'mma bounce, playboy. Just checkin' in on you. Seein' how you feelin' after the big move."

"I appreciate it, partna. Glad you could take time outta your busy married schedule. Say, when am I gonna be a godfather?" Nick was taking shots now.

"Forget you, fool!" came Mal's immediate response. "Don't rush us. You can't put no timetable on that."

"Aw'ight, brotha. I'll see you next weekend in the ATL . . ."

". . . where the playas dwell," finished Mal. "Holla."

"Holla." Nick hung up. Almost immediately, the phone rang again. Flush with good spirits, he picked up. This had to be Mom. "Hello?"

"Hi, Nick." He heard the deep, masculine voice of Mom's husband, Harrison. As far as stepdads went, Harrison was cool. He and Mom had dated for well over a dozen years before they had married more than a year ago. Nick's natural father had never really been around for him, and he preferred not to talk about him. Usually, Harrison's voice was the kind that would shake a room with its mirth, its love for life. He was the kind of guy who instantly transformed himself into the life of the party. His voice was devoid of all of that today. "Happy birthday."

"Thanks . . ." Nick trailed off cautiously. Something was wrong. "Is Mom there?"

"Nick," Harrison began, in the type of tone which always precedes bad news, "your mom's in the hospital."

Instantly, Nick's soul hit the carpet. He could not remember the last time his mother had seen a hospital. She was not the most physically fit person in the world, but Mom was a trooper. Hospitalization could only mean something serious. "Why? What's wrong with her?" he inquired with a suddenly dry mouth.

Harrison took a breath. Shit. This was the kid's birthday, and he had some god-awful news to tell him. Within the silence between Harrison's pause and when he actually began to speak, time elongated itself, long enough for Nick to fear the worst. When it came to women in his life, Mom was it. She was the only one. Harrison could sense the kid's anxiety, but went ahead and said it anyway. "Nick . . . your mom's being treated for breast cancer."

Nick's eyes began to water but he stopped them cold. "Where is she?"

"Harborview Medical Center. They're taking great care of her."

The hell they were. "I'm coming up there."

"Alright, but I'm—"

"No 'buts' about it, Harrison," Nick snapped with amazing finality. "I'm on the first flight out tomorrow. I'll call you when I know the details."

"Alright," his stepdad said solemnly. "Take care."

"Uh-huh." Nick hung up the phone. His mind raced too quickly to indulge in tears. His next call was to arrange a flight. The call after that was to Harrison. Nick would be at Sea-Tac airport in Seattle tomorrow on the first thing smoking from San Diego. Next, he quickly packed a gym bag and tossed it onto the futon couch. Then he walked down to the beach a few blocks away, sat out on the edge of Ocean Beach Pier, absolutely alone, and watched the waves bob and crash in the darkness of night.

Excerpted from Neva Hafta © Copyright 2003 by Edwardo Jackson. Reprinted with permission by Villard, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.