A few steps past her, Morocco turned around and yelled, “Paula?”

Jarrett, who had just moved back home from Harlem and living with her parents, turned around.

They had not seen each other in 26 years, having lost contact after they both graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta in 1964.

“How did you know it was me?” Paula asked.

Her long black hair and thick glasses were replaced with contacts and a close cut.

“You have always been in here,” Morocco told her, touching his heart.

Morocco swears he has been in love with Paula since 1948, when the two were toddlers at the Spelman College Nursery School.

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Paula didn’t say anything. She just stared at the 6-foot 3-inch, former college track star and Vietnam veteran, who had a reputation — whether warranted or not — with the ladies.

Two years later, Paula Jarrett and Morocco Coleman were married in a ceremony 43 years in the making.

Memories of a lifetime

The basement of the Colemans’ Southwest Atlanta home is like a museum, dedicated to their lives and to Paula’s parents who helped integrate the Peyton Forest neighborhood, in 1964, just a year after former Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen placed barricades — dubbed Atlanta’s Berlin Wall — across the road between Black and white neighborhoods.

Morocco walks over to a framed series of Paula when she was about 4 years old.

Credit: Courtesy Morocco and Paula Coleman

Credit: Courtesy Morocco and Paula Coleman

“I have been in love with her all my life,” Morocco said.

Paula rolls her eyes and blushes.

Comfortable as an old shoe

The first time Morocco Coleman saw Paula Jarrett was in 1948.

They were both about 18 months old and enrolled in the Spelman College Nursery School, where well-heeled Black Atlantans sent their toddlers. Morocco’s mother was a teacher; his father, Theodore Coleman worked in a railroad dining car; and his grandfather, Will Coleman, was a chauffeur and inspiration for Morgan Freeman’s character Hoke in “Driving Miss Daisy.”

Paula’s mother, Annabelle Jarrett, was a librarian at Atlanta University and her father, Thomas D. Jarrett, would go on to become president of Atlanta University.

Morocco and Paula’s parents would recall stories of how close the two were as toddlers. How Morocco would con his way into the Jarretts’ car to get next to Paula, or how he would always try to sit by her in school.

“I don’t remember any of that,” Paula said.

In high school, they knew each other but operated in different worlds. Paula was trying to be the class valedictorian and had her eyes on going to a top college.

Morocco was the school jock, setting track records, getting in fights and fending off girls who were flooding the local radio station with song dedications to him.

Credit: Courtesy Morocco and Paula Coleman

Credit: Courtesy Morocco and Paula Coleman

“She was running around with a pencil behind her hair and an armload of books. Plus, she was talking to a guy that I respected,” Morocco said. “I couldn’t get to her. She was out of my league. Too smart and pretty.”

Paula shakes her head at his missed opportunity.

“You never invited me to any of your games,” she told him.

After graduating from high school, they went their separate ways.

Paula to Fisk University, where she pledged a sorority and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

Morocco to North Carolina College, where he ran track for legendary Olympic coach LeRoy Walker.

Paula eventually moved to New York City and worked as a hospital administrator at Harlem Hospital.

Credit: Courtesy Morocco and Paula Coleman

Credit: Courtesy Morocco and Paula Coleman

Morocco, on track to graduate in 1968, was drafted and sent to the jungles of Vietnam in 1967. He settled back in Atlanta after the war, got married, had a daughter, got divorced and worked for two decades for the Department of Labor in Veterans Affairs.

They exchanged numbers the night they bumped into each other, but Morocco had no intention of calling her.

“I knew as beautiful and fine as she was, that she had some guy who is in love with her,” Morocco said. “I didn’t want to get hurt.”

But Paula was very single and spent most of her time with her parents or at work. She was gone so long, that it was difficult to connect with old friends. So bumping into Morocco was “God’s timing.”

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Since he didn’t call, she called and left a message with his mother.

Morocco’s mother begged her son to call her back. She would ask him every day if he called her.

“Call that girl right now,” Leila Coleman ordered.

He called and asked her to go dancing at the old Coach & Six restaurant.

They danced all night.

“I am gonna tell you something and I don’t mean this to be negative,” Paula told Morocco when they finally got off the dance floor. “Being with you is like an old shoe. It is just so comfortable being with you.”

After the dance, they went to breakfast. Morocco brought her home at 2 a.m. and they went down into the basement and sat on the same sofa that is still there. Paula showed him the photos on the wall and brought out a picture of the two of them together at the Spelman nursery.

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Credit: Miguel Martinez

She was looking at the camera. He was looking at her.

He left at 6:30 a.m. before her parents got up for church. But he called her that afternoon and invited her to the movies. They have been together ever since.

Morocco and Paula got married on May 30, 1992.

Credit: Courtesy Morocco and Paula Coleman

Credit: Courtesy Morocco and Paula Coleman

‘Do you know how much I love you?’

“I call him my brother-husband,” explains Paula.

Morocco has been one of the lasting constants in Paula’s life. The one person she can talk to about old Atlanta. The one person she can talk to about her parents because they watched him grow up too.

They met at 18 months. Now they are both 76.

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Credit: Miguel Martinez

At least once a week, at the most random of moments, Morocco will ask Paula, “Do you really, really know how much I love you?”

“And it is so refreshing to hear that,” Paula said. “There is never a dull moment with him and if he believes in something, he is all in, including this marriage.”