Choose Me

by Xenia Ruiz

Genres: Religious & Inspirational

Synopsis

Told in alternating voices, the debut novel Choose Me is the tumultuous story of a Latina woman and an African American man whose search for true romance takes a detour through the perfect love of God. Eva has no desire for romance. She's a self-reliant, celibate Christian who, despite a truly bad marriage, has successfully raised two college-aged sons. Adam wouldn't mind being in love, but women seem to be too much trouble-they just have too many expectations. As a recent cancer survivor, he just wants time to heal, write his books and poetry, and work on his spirituality. But when Eva and Adam unexpectedly meet, their attraction to each other is immediate and undeniable. Struggling with their doubts and seemingly insurmountable pain, they will start to let down their guard-and share a love that only God would understand.

Release date: August 1, 2009

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

IN THE BEGINNING, you think you know what love is.

With the help of the Creator, you are conceived out of love between a man and a woman, your mother and father, who planned
you—in some instances—and if not, you’d like to think so. You are born of your mother, who carries you for nine months, protects you in her womb,
and then gives birth to you in pain, a pain that dissipates as soon as she sees you are intact, with ten fingers, ten toes.
Love is a blessing.

As you grow, you slowly learn what love is because you are helpless and your parents are there to provide for your every need.
They love you, no matter what you do, even when you don’t deserve it. Love is unconditional.

Later, you think you really know what love is because even though your parents don’t understand you, there’s someone who does.
You hear and see love mentioned over and over in songs, books, and films. You use gifts, flowers, and cards to express love.
Love is commercialism and materialism.

As you get older, and presumably wiser, love becomes a deeper emotion that you express with feelings, words, your hands, your
lips, your body, your heart, and your soul over and over and over again. Love is desire, passion, and sex.

As the years go by, your definition of love narrows. You start to notice you are running out of time and you must find your
true love. Or you start to believe that the one you are with is your soul mate and even if you do not love him—or her—it no longer matters anymore because love is about needing and wanting. Love is about not being alone.

And then one day, you realize that the things that mattered before—the physical, the material, and the sexual—no longer apply and what really matters is that you have someone to talk to, someone to listen to you, someone who gives you
peace. Love is companionship, friendship, trust, and commitment.

Finally, in the end, you know that the true meaning of love is the biggest example of selfless love, the greatest love of
all. You know that love, real love, is about sacrifice.

In the end, as in the beginning, love is a blessing.

LEAD US NOT into temptation …

Most days I truly believe that prayer is a very powerful thing. I am a staunch believer that prayer has the ability to heal
wounds, grant blessings, and rescue a person from the deepest, darkest troubles in a way that defies earthly logic.


… but deliver us from evil …


The line from the Lord’s Prayer was running through my mind because at the moment, I could not take my eyes off an almost
perfect image of one of God’s finer creations standing a few feet away from me in the Native American book section. I was
farther down the aisle, in the Latin American section where Border’s Bookstore had decided it belonged, along with the various
“others”—African American, Asian American, and Women’s Studies.


Just then, the man looked up and I looked away to where a couple was busy groping each other as if they were in the corner
of some dark club instead of a bright bookstore chain that sold a variety of books, coffee, and biscotti. Lately it seemed
couples such as these were taunting me wherever I went.


Please Lord, lead ME not into temptation … I prayed. A big part of me deeply believed in the power of these words. I believed that if I kept repeating them over and
over, I could cast away the temptation, will this man away from me. But another part of me wanted him to stay right where
he was. I wanted him to try to give me his best line so I could shoot him down, to prove once again how powerful was my endurance.
But what I really wanted was to have an intelligent conversation with a man, something I hadn’t had in a while.


That other part of me, the carnal side, the part that wasn’t dead, couldn’t help but steal looks at him, taking inventory—one
peek at a time. He was about five-nine, not very tall, with a pleasant chiseled face, like it had been sculpted by a surgeon’s
knife, and probably was. I’ve heard of people who have their cheek fat sucked out, or their back molars removed so they can
obtain such statuesque definition. His curly, close-cropped hair glistened in the sun that blazed through the plate-glass
windows. Even though he was dressed in blue sweatpants and a fitted T-shirt—his biceps, forearms, and back fighting for space—he
looked debonair. Bam-Bam, my sister, Maya, would coin him, referring to a man’s muscled physique bursting at the seams.


I have always been attracted to Black men. Perhaps because to me they resemble the café con leche to coffee-colored cousins and uncles in my Afro-Latin family. Or maybe because they were the first ones to notice me when
the Latin boys in high school had passed me by. And it wasn’t that I had a preference for Black men as some men and women
had accused. Back when I was in the world and it came to men, I didn’t discriminate as far as their ethnicity. But I felt
a special connection when it came to Black men that went beyond the physical—something along the lines of kinship, something
I didn’t feel instantaneously with Latinos or men of other nationalities.


This man, although not exactly cover-model fine, had an attractive quality about him. Or maybe I was getting so desperate
that any man would do it for me. After all, it had been five years since I had been with a man.


I wondered why he was in the Native American section, then I realized my hidden prejudices that came from living in America
all my life were showing their true colors. Maybe he found out he had a Native American grandparent. Or perhaps he was one
of those people obsessed with Native Americans, as if they were some kind of extinct species. As I wrestled with my carnal
nature, I knew I should take my behind straight to the Spirituality-Religion section and nourish my soul. But my feet were
not listening to reason and I could not move.


The next time I glanced up, he was looking right at me and I knew my cover was blown. Having gone directly from work to my
boxing class, I was still clad in my Lycra capris and tank shirt with my warm-up jacket tied around my waist. My hair was
pulled back and up into the usual hasty ponytail I used when exercising or when I was in between touch-ups. I felt exposed.
Losing my courage, I started to slowly inch farther away, scanning the shelves like I was searching for a specific book. When
I looked up again, he was walking away and I thought that I had never seen a back as beautiful as his. The shoulders were
slightly hunched, the blades poking out, enticing me. I wondered why God had made men’s bodies so appealing, but yet expected
women to practice restraint. I had hoped for some supernatural courage to overtake me that would allow me to engage the man
in conversation over a book, or on the topic of God, or perhaps invite him for a cup of coffee, but it was too late. He was
about to turn the corner, headed toward the exit. I felt disappointment, but at the same time, relief.


“Excuse me, sir? Can I ask you a question?”

I whipped around to find my best, and soon-to-be-dead, friend, Simone, going after Bam-Bam like she had no shame. I grabbed
her T-shirt, which was tied in a knot at the back of her waist, and tried to usher her in the opposite direction. But she
resisted and, having several inches of height and toned muscle on me, I lost the tug-of-war.


“I’m going to hurt you,” I whispered viciously, knowing eyes were upon us from all directions.

“Shut up, here he comes.”

When I turned around, Bam-Bam was sauntering toward us, so I pulled out the nearest book, The Latina’s Bible.

“My friend and I are collecting data for our class on human sexuality,” Simone lied matter-of-factly, clutching her legal
pad and pen. “We were wondering if you could answer a few questions.” I couldn’t believe her. We were getting too old for
this stuff.


The man looked curiously at us—first at Simone, who at just under six feet with heels stood several inches taller than he,
then down at me, trying to hide my humiliated face in the thick paperback book.


“What are you, grad students?” he finally asked.

“Undergrad.”

“You don’t look like undergrads.”

“We go to night school, okay?” Simone retorted. The one thing Simone disliked was when people assumed she was older than she
was. With her svelte figure and chin-length hair in a curly natural, she looked at least fifteen years younger. No one could
wear an Afro like Simone. She was the kind of woman who could make a potato sack look good, the kind of girl others had hated
because boys were drawn to her; the kind of woman other women envied but for all the wrong, petty reasons, because she stole
the spotlight the minute she entered a room.


“Now, do you want to participate or not?” she chided him in that teasing, reprimanding way she used on men when flirting.

“Sure, why not?”

“Shall we?” She pointed toward an unoccupied table with four chairs. They sat down, but I remained standing.

“Eva, come on, this is your project, too,” Simone insisted so innocently I almost believed her myself. I debated whether to
ignore her and just walk out, pretend I didn’t know her, leave her hanging. But knowing Simone, she could always embarrass
me worse than I ever could her and she wouldn’t even care about the unwanted attention. There was no shame in her game.


“Okay, um … What’s your name?” she started.

“Don. Hey, you’re not going to use my name?”

“No, we’re using numbers. But you don’t want me to call you by a number, do you?” Simone looked up at me. “Eva. Are you going
to sit down or what?” she said in her most impatient tone, the one she would use on her child—if she had one.


“Yeah, come on, Eva,” Don said, smiling, taking me in from head to toe in one sweep. My attraction to him was slowly fading.

I smiled feebly and sat in the chair nearest to me, but at the other end of the table, browsing through my book like I was
seriously interested. I realized that The Latina’s Bible was not a bible at all but a resource book of love, spirituality, and family.


“I’m Simone,” she introduced herself, pronouncing her name “See-mo-NAY,” the stage name she had created for her new modeling/acting
career. I rolled my eyes and held back from saying, Your name is “She-MOAN” from the northwest side of Chicago. Ever since she had turned forty a couple of months ago, she had undergone a midlife crisis of sorts, getting a leopard tattoo
on the small of her back and a navel ring, in addition to legally changing the spelling of her name to “S’Monée,” including
puncutation marks. I told her I didn’t care if she had court papers, she would always be “Simone” to me.


“This is Eva,” she added.

“So I heard.”

I glanced up from my book and saw him leering at her chest, recently purchased with her last few modeling jobs.

“Okay, Don, pay attention, sweetie. I’m up here. Question number one … What do you think of celibacy?” Simone asked, reading
from a fictitious list of questions.


“I … I don’t know.”

“Do you think it’s natural, normal?”

“For some people, I guess it’s natural, like priests, or nuns.”

“But what about normal, everyday people? Like, say, a woman who hasn’t had sex in five years.”

I knew that if I made any movement, any facial expression, any noise, he would know she was talking about me. Giving her dirty
looks was almost routine for me so it was hard to keep a straight face, but I kept my cool and kept my head down as I slowly
turned the pages.


“I guess if she’s happy not having sex, well, I say go for it. But I mean, I can’t see how, for five years … unless she was
like, unattractive, you know, or really fat.”


I could keep quiet no longer. “That’s a really nasty thing to say,” I said, looking straight into his mocha-colored eyes for
the first time.


During my teenage years, I had fought anorexia when I wasn’t even overweight, before it had become a popular women’s problem,
before I knew it was a disease with a scientific name. Then years later, when I did gain weight, I went on yo-yo diets, losing
and gaining the same thirty pounds over and over. The only good thing that came out of my last relationship with a man was
that he helped me lose the weight that had been dogging me, and I had succeeded in keeping it off after the breakup. Still,
I carried a sore spot for overweight people and took it personally if I saw or heard anyone criticizing them. Inside, I was
still like them.


“I mean … I just don’t think it’s normal for an attractive, healthy woman to deny her sexuality,” he continued, not really
apologizing at all. “Unless she has some leftover issues from her childhood.”


Jerk! I wanted to yell. I got up, ready to go, and then I heard Simone go too far. “Well, Eva’s celibate.”


I shook my head in disbelief even though she had done this to me many times before, when we partied long ago before I got
saved, but back then we were usually drinking and I was able to laugh it off. I dropped the book on the table and spun around
and walked away. She called me but this time, I didn’t look back.


Being celibate has its advantages. First of all, I had cleansed my body of what I considered to be unclean, germ-carrying
men—the men I had slept with in my past without using latex protection, men who had been with countless other anonymous women.
Even before the AIDS hysteria, before I found a reliable birth control method that gave me a false sense of protection—from
pregnancy but not from STDs—I thought celibacy made sense. Second, celibacy gave me control over my body, which in turn, gave
me power over my emotions and my life. I was free from the drama that came with sex. I didn’t miss the games, waiting for
calls that never came, and the taking for granted that happened once a woman gave herself to a man. But most important of
all, being celibate had spiritual advantages. The knowledge that being intimate with a man outside of marriage was wrong went
back to my religious upbringing and was reinforced by my mother’s warnings. To know that I was pure once again in God’s eyes
was the biggest reward of all.


So I was proud to be celibate and even wore the T-shirt—“Celebrate Celibacy!”—which Simone had specially made for me on my
first anniversary. As one of the leaders of my church’s youth ministry, I counseled preteens and teenagers to lead lives of
abstinence. I felt blessed when Maya would tell me of her never-ending drama with Alex, her husband, or when I saw how depressed
Simone became after men dropped her once they realized they were being used. So why was I so angry with her?


“You were the one who said you wanted to have stimulating conversations with educated men, with similar tastes. Were we not
in a bookstore? Is that not where educated men go? I was just trying to help a sister out. I love you, you know I love you,
but I hate to see you denying yourself what is fundamentally a human right. A basic human right that should be covered in
the Constitution. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and getting your groove on. I mean, why does it have to mean anything? Why can’t you just have sex and stop attaching so much
baggage to it?”


I had forgotten Simone was in the car. When she followed me out of the bookstore, I refused to talk to her, and realizing
she had crossed the line this time, she sat in the backseat instead of next to me in the front. She knew my anger was the
one thing over which I hadn’t gained control. Because of my unpredictable temper and because Simone and Maya thought I hated
men, they called me “Evileen.” Most of the time, it didn’t bother me because I knew I didn’t hate men, I just didn’t have
much patience for the majority of them. However, the nickname still stung when I wasn’t in the mood.


“Are you going to stay mad at me all day?” she asked when I didn’t comment on her tirade.

We didn’t speak for the next couple of miles, ignoring each other: me driving in contemplation, her thumbing through her latest
movie script. She was currently starring in an independent film about a woman who couldn’t decide between the two men in her
life, a role that was written for her by one of her two lovers, an amateur screenwriter-producer-director eight years her
junior. The other man, an older man, was the owner of the salon where she worked, her day job.


At the next light, I braked extra hard, jerking her forward.

“That was totally unnecessary. And childish,” she said.

“Put your stupid seat belt on,” I told her.

A car pulled up next to us at the light and I looked over casually at a late-model Mercedes, then at the brother with a bald
head, wearing a business suit and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to a Ramsey Lewis tune on his radio.


“Unfortunately, Don was involved with someone,” Simone continued.

The brother bopped his head over in our direction and nodded in acknowledgment. Still upset, I ignored him.

“Hello,” I heard Simone call from the backseat.

“Hello,” he answered, smiling over his shoulder at Simone. “Why are you in the backseat?”


“My friend likes to pretend she’s my chauffeur.”

The light changed and I hit the accelerator, jerking her back.

“Do you have to speak to every man you come in contact with?” I said, disgusted.

“Why does it bother you so much?”

“It doesn’t bother me. I just don’t understand why you have to flirt with every man who speaks or smiles at you.”

“It’s basic human nature. I am woman, I like men; ergo, I flirt.” She explained this with her expressive, salon-manicured
hands and her slow, clipped English. “I can’t help it if you don’t like men. Miss Evileen.”


I decided to let that one go. “Just because I don’t screw men as often as I go to the bathroom doesn’t mean I don’t like men,”
I told her, hoping my words would hit their mark and shut her up. “Just because sex is basic human nature doesn’t mean you
have to act upon every desire. You’re not an animal.”


“For your information, I don’t screw men as often as I go to the bathroom—which is a tasteless analogy, by the way. You need
to stop being so self-righteous just because you have a low sex drive. I can’t help it if I’m high-natured.” Through the rearview
mirror, I could see her glaring at me, furiously snapping the pages of her script.


“How many men have you been with?” I asked her.


No response except the flipping of pages.

“Are you ashamed? I mean, if you’re so high-natured, and it’s such a basic human need, why can’t you tell me?” I pressed.

“Because it’s too personal. And no, I’m not ashamed.”

“You know my sexual history. I have nothing to hide.”

“I don’t either, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to confess the intimate details of my life to you.”

“Is it that you don’t know or you can’t remember?”

Her eyes narrowed like a snake’s and when she spoke, her voice was not her own. “My sexual life is between me, my men, and
the Creator, and no one else.”


“I only asked to prove a point. Women want to be equal to men when it comes to sex, but the truth is, we can’t brag about
our conquests like they can, because we are the spoils, we are the ones who get soiled. And it’s not just because of societal
stigmas. It’s because of the way we’re made biologically. It’s the way of the world.”


“I’m not ashamed,” she repeated. “I just don’t think it’s any of your business.”

I shook my head, exasperated. We had had the same argument many times and it always ended the same. She accused me of being
a man-hater; I accused her of being a man-teaser. Back in high school, Simone wasn’t very popular because many of the other
Black girls didn’t like that she spoke so-called proper English and had long hair. Back then, she wasn’t tuned in to her Afrocentric
side and wore her hair relaxed. The same Black girls didn’t like me because even though I looked Black, I spoke with an accent.
The Hispanic girls stayed away from me because even though I was Hispanic, my skin was too dark, my hair too curly, bordering
on kinky. Unlike the other girls, Simone never questioned why I read Essence or books by Black authors, nor did she ask me to teach her Spanish curse words. The teasing and our exclusion from the popular
cliques made us best friends. One would think she would remember those earlier days, before she pulled a stunt like the one
in the bookstore.


I approached Simone’s apartment building and braked, switching into park abruptly and bringing the car to a jolting stop.
Still looking at me in the rearview mirror, Simone gathered her bags from her earlier shopping spree, her fashion magazines,
and her script.


“So are you coming to the screening party this weekend or what?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t know. I’ll let you know.”

“Maya’s coming.” She leaned on the passenger headrest, suddenly trying to make up. “I need you guys there. You know I love
you, right, chica?”


“I told you, Puerto Ricans don’t say chica, they say mija.”


“Well, I like chica. Mija sounds like ‘hee-haw.’”


Simone, who had been my girl for over twenty years, was finally learning Spanish, but like everything that took time and patience,
she wasn’t trying too hard and wanted to write her own rules.


“You forgive me?”

“Yeah, yeah, get out.”

She blew me a kiss and exited. “BYOB!” she yelled as I drove away. The second “B” referred to not only “beverage,” but to
“boy”—the latter of which I didn’t indulge.


Home at last, I kicked off my shoes and absentmindedly browsed through the mail on the sofa, petting King, my sons’ rottweiler,
as he snuggled his head on my lap. When they were little, I promised my boys, Tony and Eli, that they could have the dog of
their choice once we got a house. When they asked for a rottweiler, however, I hesitated, given the bad reputation the breed
had in the media and the public’s mind. They tried to convince me that we needed a big dog to protect us since we didn’t have
a man in the house. After talking to a dog breeder who insisted that it was the owners who made the dog, I caved in. The boys
took the last part of their grandfather’s name, my father, Joaquin, and named the dog King. As everyone predicted, I ended
up taking care of King after they left for college. At first, I threatened to give the dog away, but eventually I fell in
love with the vicious-looking, yet noble, animal whose bark and appearance were worse than his bite.


I reached over to the phone table and checked the voice mail. I had six calls: Maya called twice and my aunt, Titi, called
the other four times, from Puerto Rico. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, not even my sister, who was closer to me than
anyone else would ever be. I felt the beginning of a headache, which could mean one of three things: my monthly cycle, a barometric
pressure drop, or stress. Since it wasn’t that time of the month, and Simone’s childish prank, while not stressful, had thrown
my good mood out of whack, I attributed it to a storm front that the weatherman had been threatening for days. Sometimes I
thought it was denying my “basic human right” that made me so moody. But other times, I knew it wasn’t just that; I had been
moody since I was a kid.


I fed King and let him out into the backyard. After changing out of my workout clothes and into a top and sarong, I reclined
on the sofa, pressing the remote connected to the stereo and TV. On the stereo, I had Yolanda Adams and Táta Vega’s CDs from
the day before. On the TV, I pressed the mute and closed-captioning buttons because I preferred to read the news rather than
listen to the broadcaster’s scripted commentary.


The best part about my being single was the peace and solace. There were people who always needed to be with someone—like
Simone—and then, there were people like me who longed for oneness. I had never been alone, going from my father’s house, to
my aunt’s house, then straight into an early marriage and premature motherhood. After my divorce, I raised Tony and Eli, who
were, at last, both away at college. The things I enjoyed doing in my spare time—reading, listening to music, and writing
essays and articles—were all things that didn’t require another person. I was only just beginning to enjoy being alone.


I glanced periodically at the TV screen with a combination of disbelief and dismay. The images of the latest murders, political
corruption, and terrorism had become all too familiar so that the reporters’ straight-faced presence seemed trivial. By the
time the newscast closed with the feel-good story about a toddler calling 9-1-1 and saving her mother’s life, it was too little,
too late.


The phone rang, but I didn’t move to answer it right away. After spending the majority of my day on the phone at work, it
was the last thing I wanted to do at home. I debated whether to let the voice mail pick up, but I knew if it was my sister
or aunt, they would think something was wrong. Ever since my children left home, they constantly checked up on me, worried
that I was at the mercy of the psychos who roamed the streets of Chicago. I reached over to the phone table, just out of reach,
and ended up on the floor with a thud.


“What?!” I answered, irritated.

“What’s wrong with you?” Maya asked.

“Nothing. I fell reaching for the phone,” I said, getting up.

“Dummy. Listen, you’re still going to Simone’s party, right?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. She made me mad today.”

“What did she do now?”

“It’s not even worth talking about.”

Simone had been my best friend first before I introduced her to Maya, who was a year younger than us. Over the years, they
became closer because they always had the topic of men in common. Maya had Alex and Simone was never without male companionship.
Things changed when Maya started cheating on Alex—although Maya didn’t consider it cheating because she had not slept with
her “friend”—yet. Simone thought what Maya was doing was her God-given right since Alex had cheated first. I told Maya she
should divorce Alex if she didn’t want to be married anymore. After all, she had religious grounds and just as she had done
when she first got saved, I quoted the scripture she cited to me after my own ex-husband cheated: Matthew 19:9, which justified
divorce on the grounds of adultery. Although it refers to a husband divorcing his wife, it applies to husbands also, she had
insisted. She and Simone thought I was crazy to suggest that Maya divorce. Who is going to pay the mortgage and car notes? Simone asked. Who is going to raise our two sons, Marcos and Lucas? Maya demanded. Maya thought divorce was the easy way out for husbands; Simone believed staying married while doing your own
thing was the best revenge. What Maya objected to was Simone’s insinuations that her relationships with her two lovers were
similar to Maya’s relationship with the two men in her life.


“L’s coming,” Maya whispered. Maya referred to Luciano, her friend, as “L” or in feminine pronouns just in case Alex was within
listening range.


“Do you really think that’s smart?”

“She said she’s tired of meeting in dark places.”


“Whatever.” I was temporarily distracted by Yolanda Adams singing “The Battle Is The Lord’s” juxtaposed by the TV clips of
the latest suicide bombing in the Middle East.


“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. I have a headache.” I began to sort my bills in one pile, junk mail in another, and the latest issues of