When Love Gets Corny

"Tamara, are you sure you're up to this? This is a major project and well, it's only been two months since..."

"Joe, I'm not the first woman to ever get left standing at the altar. I admit I had a rough first month, but I'm okay now. Really."

"Okay. I'll trust your judgment. It's never failed you before."

"Um, yeah. With one major exception."

Tamara Jones was a state's attorney who lived in Des Moines, Iowa. Having moved there from Chicago three years ago after graduating from law school, she felt like she'd moved back to the stone age. Des Moines had very few of the things a really big city like Chicago offered her and that included black men. Tamara didn't consider herself a racist by any means, but she was a proud, black woman and she could never understand how any black person could even date, let alone marry outside their race. It just made things so much easier and she wanted her future children raised in a home with two loving, committed, black parents.

That's why what happened to her three months ago hurt so badly. She'd had a very hard time meeting well-educated black men in Des Moines, Iowa, but she considered this job to a stepping stone to a position with the US attorney's office in Washington DC, the place she most wanted to work and live. So putting in her time in a small, mostly white city, was a sacrifice she was willing to make. It was a means to an end.

Tamara had no shortage of interested men. She was a very attractive woman who was often compared to someone on Fox News, of all places. That woman's name was Harris Faulkner, and once Tamara found out to whom she was being compared by so many white men (and women), she stopped taking offense and considered it a compliment. It didn't make her any less unwilling to date the guys making the comparison, but she had to admit they had a point. The resemblance was uncanny and Ms. Faulkner was a beautiful black woman. Even so, she often had to force herself to bite her tongue being regularly compared to the same black woman so often. She let it slide because she knew most Iowans, even in a city the size of Des Moines, hadn't met many black people if they'd ever met a single one. Most of them watched Fox, so it made sense. Even so...

She had dated a handful of black men since arriving there, but her job kept her so busy she let herself take comfort in telling herself she didn't really have time for a social life, let alone a serious, committed relationship. Then just over a year ago, she finally met someone she really liked. He was not only black but very well-educated, with a doctorate in education, and he shared virtually all of her views on family, children, culture, politics, and even religion. He was the principal of a local high school and she'd met him at a community event one Saturday. His name was Terrence Kelly, and his warm smile and deep concern for the poor had won her over from the start.

The one and only thing that troubled her was something she learned well after she'd fallen hard for him. He'd been engaged to someone else. That wasn't the problem, per se. It was that he'd been engaged to a white woman and Tamara just couldn't understand how he could have gone out with her in the first place let alone let things get so serious.

"We don't choose whom we love, Tamara," he told her. "Love often has a way of choosing us."

Raised in a nominally Baptist home, Tamara Jones rarely used profanity, even though she rarely attended church. She was a very elegant, well-spoken woman, and she viewed profanity in a very negative way. Tamara found his comment so ludicrous that she was so taken aback by it. She snapped, "That is just pure, unadulterated bullshit, Terrence! Things don't 'just happen.' King David got himself in trouble when his eyes saw the beautiful Bathsheba. He looked, then he lusted, and only then did he act. She didn't cast some spell on him and neither did this white girl. So shame on you for you making it sound like you were a helpless victim of her charms."

Terrence assured her it was over, but her feminine intuition kept sending her signals that caused her genuine concern. Although she tried to get passed it, it bothered Tamara to the point she brought it up almost every time they had any kind of disagreement. The day of her wedding, she'd lost it with him over that very thing.

Against her wishes, he came to see her before the wedding and said, "Oh, my. You look like an angel from heaven above!" Tamara smiled, thanked him, then shooed him off. But before he left he said, "I can't believe I almost married someone else when the most beautiful girl on earth is right here."

Tamara stopped smiling and all those same feelings welled up inside her again. That he would ever reference HER on their wedding day was too much. She laid into him again about the whole thing to include his lust for white women and his betrayal to their race. By the time she finished, she was trembling with rage as her fiancee turned and walked away. She learned later he just kept on walking out of the church and right out to his car where he got in and drove away.

As badly as that hurt her, she was beside herself when she found out he'd driven straight to her house. Two months later, he married her, and Tamara still bristled every time she thought of it. And yet lately, she sometimes found herself unable to sustain the hate. Hate. She hated people who hate and yet what was she doing every time she ranted about white people and betraying her race? Talk about irony. Talk about carrying around a heavy burden.

She put that out of her mind—again—as she assured her boss, the state's attorney, Joe Raymond, she could handle the job. She was being sent north to Mason City where the state was planning on exercising its right of eminent domain to build a new branch off of State Road 65 to the Interstate.

Tamara's job was to meet with the mayor and each of the property owners who would be affected by the decision as she did a preliminary assessment of property values and the impact to each individual. Her assessment would be evaluated by the state planning commission to arrive at a cost-benefit decision. Most of this was pro forma as Tamara knew they state would get what it wanted regardless of what she wrote in her report. The new road would go in.

She wasn't thrilled about living in Des Moines in the first place, and these road trips to places her mother referred to as "Booger Hollow" were mini-forays into hell on earth for her. There was nothing to see but endless corn fields for miles in all directions interrupted by a two-lane road and the occasional one-horse town. Or more aptly, one-dairy-cow towns since dairy farming ranked closely behind corn as the most important industry in the state.

There was also nothing do. There were no jazz bands, no blues bars, no restaurant that served the food she liked, and unless drinking beer and shooting pool with rednecks appealed to you, there was no nightlife at all. The local people were friendly enough, but the staring never stopped as Tamara was invariably either the only black woman in these virtually all-white towns or one of a very few. But a job was a job and this job was a means to an end, so it was off to Booger Hollow to meet the Wizard, the wonderful wizard of...what was the name of this podunk town again?

Tamara drove one of the department's vehicles and she was thankful it had a CD player in it. Without it, once she got out of Des Moines, there'd be nothing to listen to but hillbilly music or possibly an oldies station. She listened to Holliday and Hathaway on the drive and almost forgot who and where she was for a few minutes.

She began reflecting back on her engagement, the wedding-day debacle, and her insistence on a black-only dating policy. On one level, Tamara was indeed a beautiful black woman with a proud heritage, and that meant a lot to her. But lately, and she had to admit it could be the result of living around nearly all white people all of the time, she was just so tired of having to bear this racial cross. But on another, it was the defining aspect of her life. Every time she saw her reflection she was reminded of it. Most of the time it filled her with pride. But occasionally, and more often the last year in Iowa, she found herself carrying around a weight she began thinking might be unnecessary. Even worse, it might be wrong. Even though she almost never went to church, she considered herself a charitable person, and hadn't Christ taught that all people are the same? So why did she keep this division on the front burner of her life? Perhaps worst of all, and certainly most disturbing she'd recently found herself almost attracted to two different white men, one a doctor and the other a fellow lawyer. For the last two or three weeks, she'd felt like she was at war with herself.

That issue would have to wait for resolution because she just passed a very large "Welcome to Mason City, Population 28,559" sign on the outskirts of town. Outskirts. That made her laugh. The city itself was smaller than nearly any suburb of Chicago and there were only a handful of buildings two or more stories high. Like most of these small towns in the Midwest, she had to admit it was remarkably clean, something she couldn't say about most of her beloved Windy City. But it was still Booger Hollow no matter how clean it might be.

As she looked for City Hall, she was also aware that there might well have never been a murder or a bank robbery in Mason City—ever. As much as big-city life appealed to her, people who lived in these rural backwaters had no real fear of violent crime. Stealing chewing gum from a grocery store was probably what kept the police busy here although meth was everywhere now so maybe this wasn't a Midwest version of Mayberry, RFD, after all. It was always dangerous judging a book by its cover. "Just like you do all white people," a voice from some distant place said to her.

She saw the building she was looking for and found a parking spot and pulled in. She picked up her leather portfolio and got out of the car. She'd no sooner turned around than some middle-aged white man tipped his ball cap and said, "Mornin' ma'am."

Tamara curtly replied, "Good morning," and headed inside.

She went to the reception area where a middle-aged white woman saw her and said, "Well good morning there! You must be from the state attorney's office. We've been expecting you. I'm Betty, by the way."

"Tamara Jones. Pleasure to meet you," she said in a very business-like tone.

"Mayor Freeman is expecting you. If you'll have a seat right over there, I'll let him know you're here," Betty said with a pleasant smile.

There was a small waiting area and there was only person sitting there. Tamara sat down and noticed the man was staring at her. Gee, what a surprise.

"Sir? Have you never seen a black woman before?" she said trying not to be too confrontational.

He smiled at her and said, "I have," he said very nicely. "But what I don't see too often is a truly beautiful woman."

That took Tamara by surprise, but she wasn't conceding the battle that easily. "Do you expect most black women to look a certain way?"

He continued smiling as he said, "No, ma'am. I can't say that I do. In fact, I don't expect any woman to look a particular way. All of the variety makes each one unique and beautiful in her own way. You just happen to be a particularly attractive woman and I was paying you a compliment."

The man never stopped smiling and in spite of the way he was dressed, Tamara couldn't help but notice he was a relatively nice-looking man. Well, as far as white men went. "Then thank you for the compliment, but women are much more than their looks."

"I couldn't agree more. We really never should judge a book by its cover," he said sincerely. His use of that phrase stunned her. "To me, there's nothing more appealing that an intelligent woman." He paused but never stopped smiling before he added, "But it doesn't hurt if she just happens to be blessed with a beautiful cover, too."

She didn't respond but rather opened her portfolio and removed a thick binder. She started flipping through the pages when the man said, "I'm sorry. I meant to introduce myself." He stood up and walked in front of her and told her, "I'm Noah Edwards."

Tamara closed her document and said tersely, "Tamara Jones," then re-opened it and went back to looking at some chart or graph.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Jones," he said and went back to his seat.

A moment later, a middle-aged balding man came out and said, "Ms. Jones? I'm Gaylord Freeman, the mayor of this metropolis. Welcome to Mason City!"

She smiled, stood, and offered her hand. "Nice to meet you, mayor."

"Oh, heavens! Call me Gaylord. We're very informal around here. Isn't that right, Noah?" he said over his shoulder.

Noah stood up and said, "Yes we are...Mr. Mayor," he said winking at Tamara. Tamara managed not to laugh, but she couldn't help but smile.

"So have you two met?" the mayor asked him.

"We have," Noah replied. "You'll find Ms. Jones is not only a beautiful woman, but very intelligent and...based on the study she was flipping through...very well informed."

Tamara was a bit puzzled by Noah's comment. The mayor saw the way she raised her eyebrows and said, "Noah owns the largest corn farm in the county and your proposed road cuts right through the middle of his property."

"My intent was to meet with you privately, Mr. May...Gaylord, and then meet with each property owner affected by our proposal one-on-one."

"As I said, we're very informal around here so I invited Noah to attend our meeting. Unless that's a serious problem for you, we can go down to my office and get started. And it'll save you some time. I don't suppose Mason City is exactly your cup of tea."

"You mean because I'm black?" she said matter of factly.

The mayor looked at Noah then back at Tamara. "No, not at all. I meant that you look like a very intelligent, very sophisticated woman who more than likely prefers a city with a little bit more going on. That's all."

Once they were seated in the mayor's office, Tamara handed each of them a copy of the proposal she'd been looking at. "This is awfully thick," Noah told her when she handed him the 200+ page binder.

"Some things are...complicated, Mr. Edwards."

His response was firm but very polite. "First of all, I'd prefer Noah, and second, it really isn't complicated at all, Ms. Jones. You want to cut my farm in half to build a road. There's nothing complex about that, at all."

"Mr. Jones...Noah...this is a legal matter. I'm an attorney. This is what's required to legally execute this demand. There's a lot more to it than just 'building a road.'"

"You're right. There is a lot more to it—bureaucratically anyway. But in real terms, this really is very simple. This road is going to put me out of business and that means the families who depend on me and who work for me will be out of a job. It means we'll lose tens of thousands of bushels of corn each year, and a lot of beautiful farm land will be lost to some strip of asphalt. So no, it really isn't just a road, is it, Ms Jones?"

Tamara softened her approach and said, "Noah, I'm truly sorry about any economic impact, but I can assure you you will be fairly compensated for your loss. We don't just take land without just compensation."

Noah wanted to roll his eyes but that wasn't his style. He only told her, "The state pays pennies on the dollar, Ms. Jones, and again, it isn't just me who'll be affected." He took a deep breath then said, "Okay, perhaps we should hear your proposal."

They spent the next hour going over the details before Tamara asked if either of them had any questions. "I have one," Noah said. "Do you have time to come to my farm? I'd like you to put faces to the impersonal words in this study. I'd like you to see the impact this proposal is having on real people."

"I'm not required to do that," she told him. "My job is to explain the facts and take your concerns back to the state's attorney."

His smile never dimmed as he said to her, "Then perhaps you'll humor me. It'll only take an hour or two and I'll feel better knowing you at least saw the land this proposal is going to destroy."

"I don't know, Noah. I'm really not much of a farm person so..."

"Is it fair to assume you've never even been on a farm?" he asked politely still smiling.

"I don't see where that's any of your business but I am a city girl—Chicago specifically—and I don't have a single friend I grew up with who has been on a farm. So while that may seem unheard of to you, my experience has been quite different from yours." She wanted to add something about her experience as a black woman, but for some reason she let it go.

"That's why I'd like you to come visit. I want you to see how much a farm is like a city."

Tamara tried not to snort, but it just happened. "I'm sorry, but you can't be serious. How hard can be it be to put corn seeds in the ground and water them?"

The mayor provided some insight. "Ms. Jones? Noah may not be an attorney...or even from Chicago...but I an assure you farming at this scale is as much science as it is art. Noah has a bachelor's of science degree in agricultural engineering and he uses every bit of that knowledge to maximize his crop while keeping all of the moving parts of the farm in motion. When he tells you a farm of that size is like a little city, he's right. Noah is the mayor and each of the people who work for plays a critically important role in keeping everything running smoothly. Farming is an incredibly complicated enterprise and is far more than 'dropping corn seeds into the ground.' So please, take the time and visit his farm."

"Okay, you win. I'll be happy to meet you there after lunch. Speaking of which, is there any place you can recommend, Gaylord?"

"My place," Noah said answering for him. "By the time we drive out there, lunch will be on the table."

"I'm sorry, but I don't think so, Noah. I'm a city girl, remember?"

"So you don't like cornbread, ham, and collard greens?" he asked.

"You eat greens? she asked with genuine surprise.

"I didn't growing up, but one of the folks who works for me loves greens and he helped us develop a taste for them. So yeah, we eat them at least once or twice a week now."

"Well, okay then. I'm probably not going to do any better here in town, so your place it is."

They said goodbye to the mayor and Noah walked her outside. She said, "Shall I follow you?"

"I was hoping you'd ride with me so we can talk. Don't worry, I'm not going to kidnap you or anything. I'll bring you back here as soon as you've had a look around." She had a look that told him she wasn't so comfortable with the idea.

She saw a wedding ring on his hand so she felt a little less concerned and said, "Okay. But straight back here, right?"

"Scouts honor," he said smiling.

He led her toward his vehicle and Tamara said, "Oh...my...goodness. This is your...car?"

It was a huge Dodge Ram 3550 truck and Tamara just shook her head. "How am I even supposed to get in this thing?" she asked as she looked up at it.

"Like this," Noah said. He opened the door, then held out his hand. She looked at him with a 'you've gotta be kidding' kind of look then took his hand and went to step up. Her dress was so tight fitting she couldn't raise her knee high enough to get in.

"This isn't going to w..." she began saying as he reached around behind her, put his hand under her arm while continuing to hold her hand and gently lifted into the seat.

She glowered at him as he shut the door and walked around to his side. "Don't forget your seatbelt, ma'am," he said as he climbed in. He had a smile of smug satisfaction that didn't sit well with Tamara. She reached around and jerked on her seat belt which wouldn't move.