Almost Crimson (20 page)

THIRTY-THREE

NUGGETS

 

 

CECE SLIPPED HER KEY INTO the lock. She turned her wrist and the tumblers fell away. She pushed open the door and the morning sun poured over her shoulder and onto the hardwood floor. She thought of how the light had dappled through the trees the afternoon of Doris' party. CeCe was encouraged to see the sun continuing to pour its affection on her new house.

Her heels clapped against the flooring, trailing loud, slow steps through the living room and dining room and down the hallway. She bounced with a clacking cadence into every room. Returning to the living room, she jumped to see Rocky standing in the front hall.

“Shit!” CeCe blurted, slamming one hand against the wall and the other to clutch her chest. “You scared me.”

“It's a gift,” Rocky said coolly, his eyes settling on her. After an empty moment, where CeCe had no clever retort, Rocky pointed questioningly to the open door.

“Yes, please,” CeCe said, shaking from her trance. Rocky closed the front door and stepped into the heart of her new home.

“This is your place?” he asked, sweeping the naked space with his eyes. He wore a cardigan vest over a loose dress shirt and caramel leather shoes. His hands rested inside his blue jean pockets, with his thumbs relaxed on the outside. Still with those hands in his pockets, CeCe thought.

When they confirmed this meeting, CeCe hadn't offered any specifics about the house address and Rocky hadn't asked. He toured the house now, room by room, until he leaned on the windowsill framing her tree. His gaze fell from the curve of her domed ceilings down to her eyes. CeCe's heartbeat pulsed in her ears.

Rocky shook his head and smiled at her, his full mouth still framed by a goatee of russet hair. She'd never met a redheaded Black person before Rocky, and had only seen a handful since. She'd marveled in high school over the anomaly of his paprika-colored waves, sienna skin, and splattering of freckles. How he made it all seem so normal, irrelevant. So much about Rocky had seized her attention then. She'd spent most of their years since high school trying to unlove him.

“This is a dope spot,” he said, his baritone filling the empty room. “Congratulations.”

CeCe couldn't help but beam. “Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for coming.”

“No problem,” Rocky said, pulling his hands from his pockets. “Can a brotha get his hug now?”

CeCe stepped into Rocky's outstretched arms, ignoring the glimpse of gold on his left hand. Their embrace was careful but strong; they had so many fragile and unspoken words suspended between them. Since moving back from Nashville, where he'd gone to graduate school and started his teaching career, they'd caught up with one another in sparse patches of phone calls and over rushed cups of coffee. Rocky never asked CeCe about missing his wedding and CeCe never asked Rocky about missing their friendship.

His return to Prescott was triggered by his mother's failing health. After years of gracefully managing a late-life onset of multiple sclerosis, her condition began to plummet and his father had become overwhelmed. Rocky came home to help them both. He said he'd also grown weary of blithe boarding school students and the insufferable pretensions of his faculty peers. In his first four months of being home, Rocky had negotiated a new dean of students position at their old high school.

Since he initiated their contact once he got settled, CeCe felt hopeful about their “new normal.” She had been a swirl of emotions in anticipation of that first lunch. As the weeks unfolded to months and, now, into two years, her giddiness soured to embarrassment and bitterness as Rocky routinely rushed her from the phone or dodged another invitation for tea.

Once, CeCe had opened the door of her apartment quadruplex to find Rocky standing there with two large cups, coffee for him and tea for her. She'd been decorating the apartment for the holidays and Rocky had made a detour to her place during his route of errands. He hadn't stayed long, but managed to prickle her ire.

“So, have her come with us, then,” she had said, flinging her hands into the air and spinning to face him. Rocky flinched as CeCe whipped the Scotch tape roll at him. She hadn't felt comfortable hanging Christmas decorations when Terri shared the apartment. Her roommate had always welcomed CeCe to put up her tree and wreaths, but CeCe felt it disrespectful somehow to Terri's altar, shells, and pantheon of ancestor guardians. With her mother moved in to Terri's old room, CeCe had been looking forward to draping the entire apartment with holiday cheer for the first time. Rocky was ruining her afternoon.

“We can go see another movie,” Rocky had said, still shielding himself.

“I don't want to see another movie,” CeCe said, turning back to her garland. “I want to see
Good Will Hunting
. I'll go by myself. That won't be anything new.”

“Hold up,” Rocky said. “I'm trying to make it work.”

CeCe let the sparkly rope float down to the floor and lodged her hand into hip. “What's to make work, Rocky?” she said. “Your wife has decided not to like me and is doing a good job of convincing you to do the same.”

CeCe knew this last part was merely dramatic flair, but felt justified in her oncoming tantrum. She'd waited eight years to have Rocky back in Prescott, stretching herself beyond dignity to revive, and even redefine, their friendship. She'd volunteered to help sit with his ailing mother, but was told that wasn't “necessary.” She offered to share his wife's photography portfolio with the event managers at her office but was told events weren't his wife's “genre.” CeCe stopped trying. She tried to stop caring, too, but couldn't deny her wounded feelings.

Rocky pursed his lips and gave CeCe a familiar “C'mon, now” face. He crossed the living room, breaking off a strip of Scotch tape and handing it to her. CeCe glared at Rocky's outstretched index finger and then at Rocky. She took the tape with an exasperated breath and returned to her measured and meticulous swags.

“Ronni doesn't like the idea of you,” Rocky said, standing a distance from her as if she might swing. “She's never said anything negative about you as a person.”

“The
idea
of me?” CeCe said, shaking her head as if she could shake off his words.

Rocky handed her another strip of tape. “She comes from a completely different world,” he said. “If you could meet the women in her family, you'd understand. She's the only one not interested in ‘regulating' her man.”

There was a foreign earnestness in his voice, but the empathy was for his wife, not for CeCe.

“It was different when you were an abstraction, miles away. It's harder than she thought, now that she's here. You're really here,” Rocky said. He followed her small steps, as she traveled the wall with her garland. “I promise she's tried, Crimson, but my relationship with you goes against everything she was raised to accept.”

An abstraction
, she thought.

CeCe was silent as she retraced her steps to affix modest red bows in the pattern of garland arcs.

“I know this is wack, but I need to you to help me on this,” Rocky said, handing her more strips of tape as they circled the room again. “I know it's a lot. And I shouldn't ask, but I'm asking. Begging, really, Crimson. Like I said, I'm trying to work it out. I just don't know how yet.”

CeCe fastened the last ribbon in place, looking around to inspect the room. There would still be a tree, holiday cards, angels in the doorways, and poinsettia plants on the tables.

Without turning away from her work, she asked, “How many times did you rehearse that little speech on the drive over here?”

“Got it down in three,” Rocky said.

CeCe shook her head again.

“Fine,” CeCe said, layering her irritation for effect. “I'll go see the movie with my new best friend.”

CeCe hadn't turned around. She could hear Rocky let out his slow breath, and shaking his head.

Rocky shook his head again now, standing in front of the window that looked out on her new back yard. The stubs of dreadlocks Rocky had sported two Christmases ago were now brushing his collar in thick, brandy-colored cords. He reached up to tie two locks into a convenient hair band while CeCe told him about Doris, the house, and her mother.

“It's not like it used to be,” CeCe said, facing the window, “where she wouldn't eat or bathe or talk or get out of the bed if I wasn't around. It feels wrong, though. Like I'm turning my back on her. I know I'm not, but I can't shake it.”

CeCe's cell phone chimed. She crossed the empty room and picked it up from the floor, next to her purse and keys.

Rocky watched her examine the phone and asked, “Is that Mother?”

CeCe looked up, with a sideways smile. She hadn't heard it in forever. Coretta and her family called her mother by name, and Pam had always asked about Ms. Carla. Rocky, the one who absorbed the volume of her ranting and angst back then, always referred to her as “Mother.”

“No, it's an email alert,” CeCe said, sliding a finger over her phone screen. “I'm giving the online version of my
Sports Illustrated
subscription a try.”

Rocky's eyebrows shot up. “
Sports Illustrated
? What in the hell? I didn't think there would ever be any hope for you and sports.”

“Don't plan a parade,” CeCe said, smiling back. “I flip through for sporty nuggets. They come in handy with clients sometimes.”

“Sporty nuggets?”

CeCe nodded, retracing the wood floor to lean against the window again. “Once,” she said, “I was at a reception and worked in something about Chad Dawson being one of the most underrated fighters in the game. I only remembered the name because I thought ‘Chad Dawson' sounded more like a pop star. Anyway, the guy wasn't a client yet and he agreed with me. He went on and on about how boxing has changed, the last fight he'd bet on and how we should all travel to Vegas for the next main event match. All I was thinking was, ‘Sign the contract.'”

“Did he?” Rocky asked.

CeCe turned to him and said, “You gonna get tired of questioning my fabulousness.”

CeCe laughed. Rocky did not.

“I've never questioned that,” he said, his topaz eyes fixed on her, serious. CeCe felt weak.

“I'm proud of you, Crimson,” Rocky continued softly. “Not surprised, in the least, but still really proud to be standing here with you.”

CeCe felt a familiar stretching inside her chest. She folded her arms across herself, trying to prevent the blush and fat tears from escaping her chest.

“Thanks, Rocky,” she said. She couldn't risk any more language than this. Rocky returned a small knowing grin and turned them both around to gaze at her tree.

THIRTY-FOUR

DENIM

 

 

CECE COMPLETED HER HIP POCKET training and started at Morgan's Crossing, the smaller of Prescott's two malls. She'd been placed there with the only other black female in their management program, Terelle. CeCe didn't know how to take Terelle at first, with the lace camisoles beneath her suit jackets, buckled knee boots and long, fire-red nails. She was sharp-edged with a sharper tongue, causing the trainers, their peers, and CeCe to regularly wince throughout the five-week program.

They hadn't become a cozy cohort, like CeCe had expected. The fourteen of them were friendly and cohesive during the long days, but scattered like pollen seeds as soon as they were released from the conference room. CeCe had been pleasantly surprised when Terelle invited her out for a drink on their last day. They talked openly and traded easy laughs. CeCe admitted she looked forward to starting the job, officially being a grown-up. Terelle shared her goal of owning a Cookie Factory or Auntie Anne's franchise someday.

“Don't let the hoochie gear fool you,” Terelle had said, stirring her drink with gleaming pink talons. “I got plans.”

After more than a hundred happy hours together, Terelle and CeCe had been promoted to store managers and progressed to being good friends.

“You should come to this party with me tomorrow,” Terelle said, her nails clipped short and the waves of shiny hair weave gone.

CeCe hadn't been to a party in more than a year, again at Terelle's invitation. CeCe counted their happy hour rituals as her social life because Terelle's antics tended to draw interesting strangers. Young professional women with their chignons and tongues loosened from vodka. Silver-haired men clenching their virility and bottles of beer. Waitresses and bartenders pounding tequila shots through their final hours on the clock.

And men.

Terelle attracted every stripe, like clumsy moths. CeCe could claim better looks than Terelle. Softer features. Better bones. Smoother skin. But Terelle's personality filled a crowded room when CeCe offered only complicit quiet and nervous eyes from behind her tumbler of sweet booze. They sought her out sometimes and she could squeeze conversation from her mouth if they were patient. Most often, though, anyone lingering at CeCe's seat simply wanted a turn for Terelle's attention.

“Should I bring anything?” CeCe asked, taking down the party address.

“Yeah, bring the hype version of you,” Terelle said, dropping single bills on the bar top and standing to leave. “And wear something to show off all that booty. Always some fine ass men at Terri's parties.”

CeCe feigned a knowing chuckle, and her chest tightened behind the button-down blouse. She hadn't thought about her clothes. At twenty-three, CeCe would've been self-conscious enough trying to outfit herself for a party filled with people their age, but Terelle's friend, Terri, was getting her doctorate in art therapy. CeCe had always been comfortable with seasoned grown-ups, like Doris, Mrs. Anderson, and Mrs. Castellanos. Nothing in-between. Regret began its slow coil around CeCe's nerve.

She arrived to the party at 8 p.m. sharp. She wore green denim pants with a matching denim shirt, a black belt with a dazzling buckle, black boots, and big, sparkly earrings. Pam had approved the outfit in another long-distance consultation call after directing CeCe to find something sexy, but not too sexy. Comfortable, but not too casual. Flattering but not too fitted. Stylish but not trying to be too trendy. CeCe blushed a little when Terri opened the door and right away said, “Ooh, I like your outfit!”

Terri was tall and lean and moved like a dancer. She had a fair complexion and a tangle of brown spiral curls. She wore a long skirt with patchwork denim, corduroy, and kente fabrics. Her long-sleeved top was dark brown, comfortably fitted, and slung low from one shoulder. She was small breasted and CeCe could tell she wasn't wearing a bra.

Two other people were helping, lighting candles, unloading bags of ice, planting serving spoons in pans of food. CeCe insisted on helping, too, taking off her jacket to help Terri move a loveseat into the spare bedroom.

“This would be your room, if I pass inspection,” Terri said, once they lowered the couch in the empty room.

CeCe looked up at Terri and shook her head. “I thought I was the one under inspection,” CeCe said. “Besides, Terelle told me not to say anything.”

“I've known Terelle since she was in the second grade,” Terri said, nudging the sofa against the wall with her thigh. “I love her like my own sister. But I'll be the first to tell you, that girl can't hold water.”

They heard the door open and the rumble of a man's voice. CeCe and the other three women had finished shuffling the furniture, and were laying out floor pillows and bowls of snacks.

“Woman, I told you I would help move the furniture.” CeCe looked up to see a handsome man standing at the end of the hallway. His skin was so richly dark that it gleamed. He wore crisp black jeans, a Wu Tang Clan concert tee, and a fitted green camouflage jacket. Both his style and his movements suggested a deliberate ease but, to CeCe, his presence instantly overwhelmed the room.

Terri replied, “Then you should have come
before
8 o'clock.”

“Why, so I could stand around waiting to move furniture
after
8 o'clock anyway?”

“Boy, hush,” Terri said.

CeCe and the other women followed suit when Terri lowered herself to a floor pillow. The man walked to the sofa instead and pulled it away from the wall.

“Dub!”

“Terri, don't get brand new. You know I ain't sittin' on the floor.”

The women groaned and shook their heads. Dub batted back their teasing comments as he pulled the couch closer to the circle. They all laughed, including CeCe.

Dub froze on the edge of the couch and glared at her. “Where'd you come from?”

CeCe's laughter was replaced with a stunned and gawking silence. She intended to introduce herself, but no sound came out as her mouth clammed open and closed.

Dub leveled her with a satisfied smile and said, “I don't speak guppy, sweetheart.”

“Don't start,” Terri said, shooting him the side eye. She pulled a stick of incense from the plastic champagne flute next to the stereo and lit it. “Dub, this is CeCe. Be nice. We want her to stick around for a while. CeCe, this is Dub. We all made a pact to love him in spite of himself.”

CeCe looked timidly at Dub. Dub scaled her with his sultry eyes and smiled.

“Party before the party,” Terri said, shifting the mood and attention to the Aretha Franklin discography set she'd slid from CD rack behind her. She slipped her fingers into what turned out to be an empty box and pulled out a sack of weed and rolling papers. CeCe looked to the women and smiled.

“Can I move in tonight?” she asked.