Cooper Von is a quiet and simple man, internally shy but could turn on his personality if needed. He’s a graduate student majoring in something quite nerdy, Biotechnology, with few friends, just enough to count on both hands. He’s the type that would prefer sitting home alone watching a movie or just listening to his radio. He isn’t flashy with his style of dress. Plain and simple but just enough swag to make a woman notice him. He’s tall, 6’0, which makes him interesting, because he takes his height after his mom’s side. He speaks proper English, considering he grew up in a house with parents that spoke a lot of slang and not always proper. If you close your eyes and have a conversation with him, you will never guess he’s Black.
He walks through his day, staring at the faces looking through him. He yearns for them to see him, speak to him, know him, love him, and befriend him. He fears dying alone, and imagines sitting in the church pew watching his funeral with empty rows, hoping for someone to fill them. He sighs at the Heavens above for making him an introvert, filled with fear to speak and learn another soul the way he’s learned himself. Being lonely is the mirror image of death to him. No one sees him, no one speaks to him, no one is there to comfort him, daily moments without conversation.
He rents a room in a boarding house from Ms. Lena, a nice old lady that reminds him of his mother. His room is simple and plain, like him. He sleeps on a twin air mattress; he has a desk lamp he uses for light. The walls are bare and there isn’t a TV in his room. He feels TV keeps you closed in away from living and experiencing life. He enjoys being outside riding his bike, hiking through nature, and exploring his neighborhood. If only people got him the way the birds and the trees get him.
Ms. Lena is always asking him when he is getting married. Does he want a family? His favorite of all her questions is, “I haven’t seen you with a woman; are you sure you like women?” He laughs in his mind because he knows she means well. She worries about him because he’s the closest thing she has to a son. Her son, Harper died when he was 12 years old from pneumonia, and her daughter, Harley is distant from her.
Cooper can tell Ms. Lena's heart is broken into a thousand pieces. She mourns quietly to herself on her son’s birthday and the Anniversary of his death. Her ritual of mourning Harper is to awaken at sunrise and quietly cry in her room. She drinks her coffee along with eating Harper’s favorite breakfast, scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast with grape jelly. She then gets dressed and walks two blocks over to visit Father John at the Cathedral of Our Lady to have a confession about not being able to save him. Cooper doesn’t call it a confession; he thinks of it more as therapy for her.
Ms. Lena blames herself for Harper’s death. She questions why she allowed him to go outside and play in the snow. “Why didn’t I call him in sooner?” “Why didn’t I check to make sure he still had his coat on?” “Why didn’t I take him to the doctor sooner?” “Why didn’t I listen to my husband when he said not to let them go outside and play?” So many ‘why’ questions that Cooper can never seem to answer for her. He just shrugs his shoulders to say “I don’t know.” He wishes he could give her answers that would heal her, but he knows a sadness such as the death of a child is one a mother will never escape.
Ms. Lena’s daughter, Harley, lives 20 minutes from her, but their relationship is strained. Harley feels her mom mourned Harper so much that she neglected her throughout the years. Harley was only 10 years old when her brother died. Ms. Lena had a nervous breakdown and withdrew herself from everyone and everything. Her marriage failed right along with her relationship with Harley. Harley is a smart pretty girl who is a classical violinist; she teaches 8th grade and gives private music lessons to make ends meet.
Ms. Lena boasts about her all the time but fails to give praise to Harley the way she praises her to Cooper and the other house members. Harley comes by to check on her mother from time to time. Cooper has met Harley many times, during her visits to see Ms. Lena. Harley loves her mother very much but Ms. Lena is so sad she can’t see how her mourning of Harper rocks Harley to her core. She doesn’t like the idea of her mother renting out rooms to strangers, especially to strange unknown men. So, Harley had security cameras installed outside of the house, inside of Ms. Lena’s room, the living room, the kitchen, the basement, well you might as well say the entire house, except the bathrooms and the tenant’s rooms because Ms. Lena says it’s invading their privacy. He found her ‘Room for Rent’ on the board at school. He now realizes Ms. Lena is lonely and just wanted some companionship.
Cooper knows Ms. Lena comes into his room when he’s not there, going through his things; he can tell by the way she replaces his papers. He always leaves one slightly lower than the others, but she always places them back neatly together. He doesn’t mind because she’s elderly and it reminds him of living at home with his mom, who always went through his things while he wasn’t home. Besides he has nothing of importance for her to find. He loves the fact she cooks dinner and leaves him a plate in the microwave every day.
Ms. Lena takes great care of Cooper. She thinks if her Harper was still alive, he’d be well-mannered, kind, and generous like Cooper. He knows so much about Ms. Lena because she always talks about her children and tells him, “You remind me of my Harper so much.” He wishes he could take her pain away and bring her happiness. Sometimes he brings her flowers and gives her cards on Mother’s Day and her birthday. He even stops by the local thrift store and picks up a few knickknacks he knows she would like. Besides, he enjoys the motherly attention she gives him. His mother is happy that he has someone looking after him since she lives so far away in Washington, D.C. and he’s in Los Angeles.
There are times he thinks about Ms. Lena’s questions, especially the one about finding a young suitable woman. He’s been so overly involved in his studies that he doesn’t accept invitations to go out with his friends. He’s incredibly shy when it comes to meeting women, especially the ones he has an interest in. There is one young lady that rides the train with him every day that he admires from afar. He looks at her and when she notices he’s looking, he quickly turns away. Sometimes, he catches her staring at him and when she realizes he’s staring back too, she quickly turns away. He finds her intriguing but he’s afraid she’ll reject him, so he just admires her from afar.
Even though Luca, the young lady that rents Ms. Lena’s other room, is always flirting with him, he still believes he’s not very attractive, and that a young lady wouldn’t find him interesting enough to spend time with him. Luca comes on a bit too strong for him. She parades around in her towel when she thinks Ms. Lena isn’t watching. She stands very close in his personal space even though he’s asked her several times not to. Luca loves to flirt with Cooper. She believes the only way she’ll get a man is by making herself accessible physically, not realizing she has much more to offer than her body. She’s a grad student, studying social work and she works for the Department of Social Services. Cooper admires all the wonderful qualities she has, but her sexual rants turn him off.
Luca is smart and loving; she gives all that she has to help the young girls she works with that come through the system due to being neglected, and abused mentally, and sexually. She once was that girl she so desperately tries to help. Her mother would sell her to many boyfriends until she finally had the courage to tell a teacher. She was taken from her mom and placed in the court system as a committed teen, meaning the court system became her legal guardian until she aged out when she turned 18. It was this wonderful social worker named Ms. Rowan that treated her with kindness and respect. Ms. Rowan encouraged Luca to defeat her troubles. She always reminded Luca that she could make it out of the system and succeed despite her circumstances. She is the reason Luca became a social worker. Despite being a beautiful soul, Luca’s past of sexual abuse somehow finds ways to haunt her in her present day.
Ms. Lena says she’s hotter than a book of matches. “That girl, you stay away from her,” she says. Luca’s invites come and go. He did make the terrible judgment call of going out with her and her friends one evening, which led to him allowing his alcohol to bring about unintentional acts that would never have happened if he was sober.
He remembers having his arms wrapped around Luca as she helped him stumble into the house, swaying back and forth. Luca wasn’t much help because she was drunk, too. She took Cooper to her room. She was very cunning, pretending to be in a drunken state. She’s a social drinker, and her body is used to the many drinks she’d consumed. She pushed him down onto her bed, as she quickly lay on top of him. Her soft lips touched his, and he kissed her back with no hesitation. He could feel her hands touching and feeling him, or were those his hands touching and feeling her? He was loving all the attention she was giving him. Cooper hadn’t been with a woman in months and he couldn’t help but want the much-needed relief. Clothes began to come off and he woke up the next morning in a bed that was not his.
He regrets this moment because he now allows himself to be a sort of maintenance man for her needs, well, his needs too. He tells himself, since I’ve already participated in the act, I’ll let her fill that space until I no longer need her services. He also thinks, does that make him a bad man? What does Mrs. Lena think of this?
While riding the train, Cooper sees the young lady he admires from afar. He thinks one day he’ll build up the nerve to speak to his train companion. But until then he’ll just continue to stare at her with hopeful thoughts of getting to know her. One day, a simple forgetful act on her part answers his prayers. She leaves her camera on the train and he retrieves it from the seat. What he finds in it puts a smile on his face. He goes through her pictures and finds several pictures of him. With his discovery, he realizes she likes him too.
For the next several days he hopes to see her on the train, but she’s never there. He decides to go back through her camera in hopes he finds something that will lead him to her. There he finds a simple building he recognizes from his many bike rides through the neighborhood. He looks at the picture to see if he recognizes anything else in the picture and there is an apartment building with cars sitting in front of it that he recognizes, two blocks over from his home. He thinks to himself how he has never managed to see her outside of the train ride; he’s always been so good at paying attention to detail.
He finds her apartment only to learn she’s moved. He sighs heavily, thinking that he’s let her slip away. But a neighbor comes out of his apartment and asks Cooper if he’s looking for Riley, the young lady that used to live in apartment B2. Riley, Cooper thinks, I finally know her name.
He responds, to the gentleman, “Yes, I’m looking for Riley. Do you have any idea where she’s gone? I have her camera and I wanted to return it to her,” Cooper says.
The neighbor is an elderly gentleman that stares with intensity, trying to figure out how Cooper ended up with Riley’s camera because she is never without it.
“Son, what is your name?” he asks.
“Oh, I’m sorry, sir. My name is Cooper and I live two blocks over on Jefferson Street; Riley left her camera on the train the other day as she exited the station. I know how much her camera means to her. I just want to return it to her. Do you know how to reach her?”
“How you doing, son, my name is Mr. Peterson. I can take your number down and give Riley girl a ring to let her know you have her camera. I’m not in the habit of giving out people’s phone numbers to strangers. You know with all these young girls going missing. Have you seen that movie called ‘Taken’? I watched it with Riley
girl and I told her things like that happen in real life.”
Cooper responds by saying, “No, sir. I’m not a television and movie person. I like to read a good book every now and then. I’ll write my number down so you can give it to Riley.” Cooper gives Mr. Peterson his number and he anxiously waits for Riley to call him. On his way, home he replays how the phone call will go over and over in his mind.
Over the next few days, Cooper waits for Riley to call him. He constantly checks his phone looking for missed calls or text messages. He checks his voicemail what seems like a thousand times, hoping he missed something. But, there are no missed voicemails, phone calls, or text messages. He grows wary that she may not call him. He notices he’s acting like a schoolboy waiting to hear from his high school crush.
Then one evening, his phone rang and the voice on the other side was music to his ears. “Hi, may I speak with Cooper,” says the angelic voice.
“Hello, this is he,” says Cooper.
She says, “My name is Riley, and my neighbor, Mr. Peterson gave me your number. He informed me that you have my camera. I was so happy when he told me my camera had been found. I am lifeless without it.”
Cooper smiles, thinking he is her knight.
“Yes, I truly understand. I saw that you left it on the seat on the train last week. I’m sorry I went through your pictures. I thought there would be something that would lead me to find you. I noticed a building that was two blocks over from where I live and I thought that was your house,” states Cooper.
Riley starts to laugh. “I see you are quite the detective. I am happy an honest person found my camera and sought me out to return it. Although, I don’t think I would’ve gone to great lengths to return it if I’ve found it,” says Riley.
“So, when can I see you again, I mean when can we meet so I can return your camera to you?” asked Cooper.
He’s surprised at how forward he is with Riley. He’s normally shy when it comes to a woman he likes, but her voice has put him at ease. He feels like he can be safe with her.
“I’m free tomorrow, around 5 pm. We can meet at the Red Spot over on Delaney Street,” says Riley.
The Red Spot is a little bar where you can eat, drink and sing karaoke. She’s surprised at herself too; she quickly adds, “I mean we don’t have to meet at the Red Spot. It was just a suggestion.”
Cooper smiles from the inside out. He quickly says, “Yes, that’s fine, I can be around 5:15 pm if that isn’t a problem.”
“Oh, no that’s fine. It’s a date, I mean it’s a meeting to hand over my camera,” says Riley.