Baby Brother's Blues (13 page)

21

B
aby Brother was kicking himself. He should have gone to that meeting with Zora. She had said he was welcome, but at the time, he thought he had some other shit working, so he didn’t make it. But his boys had let him down.
Again!
Now here he was, back out on the street. He had spent the rest of the money the guy with the BMW had given him on a pair of jeans and some cheap sneakers, but there wasn’t enough left over for a real coat. The cheap windbreaker he’d be able to afford wasn’t much better than nothing. He never thought he’d miss the heat of the Iraqi desert, but he hated this cold almost as bad. If this was global warming, he didn’t like it one bit.

The guards at Union Station had been tailing him suspiciously after two nights there, so he couldn’t go back for a third time. He should have kept that damn uniform. Nobody would kick a soldier out of the train station in the nation’s capital. Not when there was a war going on. But in his civvies, he just looked like another young black man who wanted something for nothing. Realizing with a tsunami of self-pity that he had absolutely no prospects, Baby Brother did what he’d been doing since he was fourteen. He used two of his last few dollars to catch the metro out to his sister’s house. Just because she had married somebody who didn’t like him didn’t mean they weren’t still
blood.
With his mother gone, she was his closest living relative. Maybe his only one. That had to count for something! She couldn’t let him freeze to death just because they’d had their differences in the past. He was still her baby brother, and to his way of thinking, she still owed him.

He stared out the subway window and tried to make himself believe it, but he couldn’t quite get the judge’s angry face and words out of his mind. What if he walked up on the porch and his brother-in-law came outside and kicked his ass all up and down the street? Maybe it would be better, he thought, to wait until he could see Cassie alone. He’d wait until the judge went to work and then talk to his sister. The only problem was,
What was he supposed to do tonight?

He stepped off the train at the stop for his sister’s house and looked around. The cold wind went through his jacket like he wasn’t even wearing one. Baby Brother shivered and realized he couldn’t wait. If he was going to sleep indoors tonight, he was going to have to ask Cassie for a few bucks to tide him over until he could figure out a way to get to Atlanta. He hadn’t realized that was what he was going to do until the thought popped into his mind fully formed.
Atlanta!
Of course that’s what he should do.

Zora liked him. He could tell that at the train station. Plus, she knew somebody he could talk to about the army, too. He didn’t know what he was going to do about deserting his outfit; all he knew was that he wasn’t going back. She had given him some guy’s number to call and he fumbled through his pockets, hoping he hadn’t left the paper in his uniform.
There it was!
Written in her own neat hand:
Samson Epps, 404-344-8642. Ask for Zora.
That’s what he intended to do, all right. But first he had to get his
broke ass
down there.

Lost in his new plan, he was almost in front of Cassie’s place before he saw the front door opening. He ducked into the shadows of the big maple tree beside the house next door and watched his sister and her husband come outside, laughing and talking easily together. Even from where he was standing, he could see how happy his sister was and he felt a sudden, uncharacteristic pang of regret for the pain he’d caused her. He shook it off. This was no time to start feeling sentimental. Baby Brother watched them go down the walk, hand in hand, and get into a dark gray Lexus parked at the curb. That must be the judge’s car, he thought. Cassie’s Pontiac was parked in the driveway. They pulled away without ever seeing him.

It seemed to Baby Brother that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t catch a break. He stood there in the dark, feeling sorry for himself, then he remembered something. He had hot-wired that Pontiac a thousand times as a kid. He even knew a way to jimmy the lock on the passenger side so he could get in without tripping the alarm. He wondered if Cassie had ever fixed it.

Glancing around and seeing no one, he slipped out of the shadows, hurried over to the car, and tried the door using his old trick.
It worked!
He slid into the front seat and quickly closed the door behind him. All he had to do now was cross a couple of wires and hope he hadn’t lost his touch. The engine cranked on his first try and he almost shouted for joy. He clambered over into the driver’s seat, checked to make sure she had gas, and put the car in reverse without a shred of guilt for stealing his sister’s car
one more time.

Let that nigga she married buy her another one,
Baby Brother thought as he pulled off in the Pontiac.
This motherfucker is headed to Atlanta!

22

P
recious had almost finished her second glass of iced tea and was about to tell her server to go on and bring her Cobb salad when she saw Kwame pull up outside Murphy’s, a popular lunch spot in the bustling in-town neighborhood of Virginia Highlands. Her tall, handsome son was dressed in a dark suit and tie, looking very professional indeed, she thought. She picked up the faint smell of his aftershave as he leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.

“I’m so sorry, Mom,” he said. “I was at the planning-committee meeting down at city hall and I ran into Bob Watson.”

“Bob Watson?” Precious forgot her pleasure in seeing her son and wrinkled her nose disapprovingly. “I can’t stand him!”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Kwame said, scanning the menu quickly.

His voice had an edge that surprised her. Their server glided up to take Kwame’s order then refresh their water glasses.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Sensitive,” she said, teasing him gently. “What was old Bob talking about anyway?”

“Preservation,” Kwame said, mollified by her apology. He and Aretha had started the day arguing. He didn’t have the energy for any more contentious exchanges with the women in his life. “He’s interested in the West End Victorians.”

West End boasted an impressive number of beautifully appointed, immaculately maintained Victorian homes, complete with wraparound porches and gingerbread latticework.

Precious smiled. “Your report is going to get a lot of people interested in those houses.”

“You think?” Kwame had recently completed his exhaustive annotated inventory of West End’s housing stock. It had taken him the better part of two years.

“Absolutely.” Her son had done a good job and she was proud of him. “I read the whole thing last night, cover to cover, including the historical footnotes. That report is going to change the way West End is developed for the next thirty years, not to mention kicking up the price of those Victorians! Blue will love it.”

“I hope so,” Kwame said. “I want to end our association on good terms.”

“End your association?” Precious said as their server arrived with her Cobb salad and his smoked turkey sandwich. “What are you talking about? You know Blue has work for you for as long as you want it.”

“I know that,” Kwame said quickly. “And this contract was fine, but I don’t necessarily want to be on Blue Hamilton’s payroll for the rest of my life.”

Precious looked at him. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” Kwame said, taking a bite out of his sandwich. “It’s just that I’m feeling a little claustrophobic. My world has pretty much narrowed down to this one little neighborhood. I
live
in West End. I
work
in West End. My wife’s
studio
is in West End. My daughter goes to
school
in West End.”

He was getting more and more agitated, his voice rising just enough to draw a glance from the table closest to them. Kwame took a deep breath and gathered himself. His mother had been a public person since he was seven years old. He knew the drill. Personal business had to be kept just that:
personal.

“What’s wrong, son?” Precious said gently. “Are things going any better between you and Aretha?”

“Things are shitty between me and Aretha, as I’m sure she’s told you, but that’s not the problem.” He sighed deeply. “The problem is, I am almost thirty years old and I am still living on the same block where I grew up. I’m four blocks from my mother. I’m spitting distance from every West Ender who remembers me when I was five or six or twelve or about to graduate from high school.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Precious was confused.

Kwame sighed again. “I have to make some major changes in my life, Mom, and I have to do it
now.
”

“What kinds of changes?” Precious said, feeling a knot of confusion and worry in the pit of her stomach.

“All kinds! Everything! To start off, I want to rent our house to some bright young faculty member from the AU Center and move my family to midtown or Virginia Highlands. I want to get a real job in a real firm where I can be an architect again, not just a glorified surveyor.”

Precious knew her son so well she sometimes felt like she could read his mind. This was one of those times. “Are you going to work for Bob Watson?”

Kwame’s eyes flashed. “He hasn’t asked me, but Teddy mentioned that he was interested in me. So?”

Teddy Rogers and Bob Watson, Precious thought. Two of a kind,
both weasels.
“Did you ever ask yourself why he’s interested?”

“Because I’m a talented young architect with a bright future who would be a great asset to any firm, even if his mother wasn’t going to be the next mayor of Atlanta.”

Looking at her son’s angry face, she wished she could take back the question. What were they arguing about anyway? Whether or not he had to live and die in the neighborhood she had chosen for him as a child? Whether or not he should wash the dishes or expect his wife to handle it? It was dawning on Precious that she had crossed the line between being a loving, truthful mother and being a meddler who expected her son to agree with her plan for his life, his work, his family. She sat back in her chair and looked at Kwame, trying to collect her thoughts. Another apology was clearly in order.

“You’re right,” she said slowly. “You’re absolutely right and I apologize.”

“Apologize for what?” Kwame said warily.

Precious leaned across the table and took her son’s hand. “For not trusting you to handle your business, personal and professional; for ruining our lunch; and for being the kind of mother I always swore I’d never be. Forgive me?”

Kwame relaxed then, raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it. “Of course I do. It’s my fault, too. Things have been so crazy at home lately, I probably wouldn’t have been the easiest person to talk to either.”

“Crazy how?” Precious said, watching her son’s face for clues.

He shrugged. “She’s mad at me half the time. The other half, she acts like I’m not even there.”

Precious took a deep breath. “It’s none of my business, but…”

He gave her a very small smile.
“But?”

“There’s no other woman involved, is there?”

The irony of his mother’s question, equal parts hope and dread, was not lost on Kwame. “No, Mom. There’s no other woman. Whatever is going on between me and Aretha is something we’re going to have to fix between ourselves. Okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Good.”

“Now will you promise me one thing?”

“Do I have any choice?”

“If you go to work for Bob Watson, don’t tell him I said I didn’t like him. It costs a lot to run an effective campaign for mayor, and this conversation aside, I’ll be expecting a significant contribution from your new boss.”

Kwame grinned at her. “He’s not my boss yet.”

“He will be. And it’s okay. You’ve made your point, sweetie. Take the job! Move to midtown! Live your life!”

“Will you come visit us?”

“Try and keep me away,” she said, grinning at her baby who had become a full-grown man without asking her permission. “I like midtown. I just wouldn’t want to live there.”

23

I
t was almost time for dinner and Peachy was cooking something special. Regina, already in the grip of the first trimester’s overwhelming need for naps, was asleep upstairs. That gave Blue and Abbie a chance to walk down to the water’s edge together. This was a shared pleasure. Whenever Blue had been away from Tybee, he always had to wet his feet in the ocean as soon as he returned. Abbie was the same way. They both thought it had something to do with the fact that in one of the past lives they had shared, they made their home by the sea. Sticking their feet in the same ocean they had known so long ago was a way of acknowledging, honoring, remembering.

Blue and Abbie talked about past lives the way most people talk about high school. It was disconcerting to people who didn’t know them well, and truth be told, it sometimes startled people who knew them very well. Out of consideration, they refrained from such references as much as possible, but around each other, there was no such prohibition. They spoke freely, effortlessly moving back and forth between the centuries.

Blue had always accepted his past lives. Abbie had come to her understanding of this phenomenon later in life after she started having visions. Initially, she’d been a little nervous about this new gift, but when one of her visions predicted Blue’s entrance into Regina’s life so perfectly that even her sometimes skeptical niece could not deny it, she stopped being nervous and embraced her second sight with curiosity and enthusiasm. She printed up cards identifying herself as a “visionary adviser” and never looked back.

At this moment, Abbie was enjoying the quiet of Blue’s company, the gentle pull of the water around her ankles as the tide receded, the perfect blue of the cloudless sky just before sunset splashed on the colors of day’s end. She was delighted at the baby news, but there was a question she wanted to ask. Blue had been in other worlds, other places. He had been a full-grown man many times before he met Regina and Abbie had to know.

“Blue?”

Turning to her, he took off his sunglasses and she smiled. Something about those eyes made her feel happy. In beach light, they were somehow less startling. Reflecting sky and sea and sand, they seemed just one more natural wonder.

“Yes, Miss Abbie?”

Blue had affectionately adopted the Southern custom of adding
Miss
to her first name to show both love and respect.

“Is this baby your first one?”

“Yes.”

She wasn’t sure she’d been clear. “I don’t mean just this time around. I mean
ever.
”

He smiled. “I know what you mean.”

Abbie smiled back. “Good. I’m glad for Regina.”

“Would it matter?”

“No,” Abbie said thoughtfully. “I don’t guess it would. It’s just that you’ve already had so many lives, so many experiences. It’s nice for her to be the first at something.”

“Just like you were.”

A trio of low-flying pelicans were scanning the waves for dinner possibilities and the shrimp boats were coming in with their usual escort of hungry gulls.

“Just like I was what?”

“The first at something.” He hadn’t replaced his glasses, but he was gazing out at the horizon again.

“Stop being so mysterious.” Abbie dug her toes into the warm sand. “What are you talking about?”

“You were my first wife,” he said, without turning in her direction.

Abbie felt herself blush.
His wife?
Even as a practicing visionary adviser, she had a hard time getting her mind around such an idea. She suddenly felt intensely disloyal to her niece.

“Where was Gina?”

“She was my adviser, my confidante, my conscience, my muse, although she’d probably deny that one.”

“Go on,” Abbie said.

“By the time she came to the palace, I already had three wives. It would have been greedy and scandalous to take another one just because I could.”

“
Three
wives? I thought you said…”

“You were the first,” he said. “Not the only.”

“Typical king behavior.” She laughed. “So what was my relationship to Gina? Did I know her?”

“She made you very nervous.”

“Why?”

“Because she was a rebel. You were a wife.”

“Couldn’t I be both?”

“Not in those days.”

Blue turned suddenly and looked over his shoulder as if someone had called his name. Abbie followed his gaze and saw Regina standing on the back deck waving a long blue scarf to get their attention. They waved back, and as she beckoned for them to come inside for dinner, the scarf she was holding blew out of her hand and fluttered out of reach. Carried by the wind, it undulated like a gossamer ribbon with a life of its own. Blue took two steps forward, and as the scarf fluttered just over his head, he reached up and plucked it out of the air like picking an apple off a tree. From the balcony, Regina applauded with delight like a child at the circus.

Abbie laughed and shook her head. “You two Negroes make such pretty pictures, you ought to be in the movies.”

Blue grinned at her. “I thought this was a movie.”

She linked her arm through his and they started back up to the house, knowing Peachy didn’t like folks to be late for dinner. “Was I a good wife?”

“You were a wonderful wife.”

“Then why did you take two more?”

He patted her hand where it rested on his arm, lightly, like the touch of a butterfly’s wing. “I was trying to produce an heir.”

She stopped in her tracks and looked up at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“The king was required to produce an heir.” His voice was apologetic, as though he might still be held responsible for a two-hundred-year-old heartache. “We had been together five years and had no children. I had to take another wife. Then in five years, one more.”

“And none of us produced an heir?”

“Or I didn’t.” He smiled and looped the blue silk scarf that still carried his wife’s scent around Abbie’s shoulders.

She started walking again, but she was clearly deep in thought. When they reached the back steps, they could smell the spicy seafood that Peachy had prepared and see Regina through the window, setting a bowl of flowers in the middle of the table. She was smiling. These days, Abbie thought, Regina was always smiling.

“Do you think this is the one?” she said, stopping again halfway up the stairs. “Is this your heir?”

Blue leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’m not the king anymore. This time, I get to just be Daddy.”

They both knew Blue was never just one thing. Abbie smiled, but she had one more question before they went inside.

“Have you ever told Peachy about me being a past-life wife?”

He laughed. “It never came up.”

“Well, don’t. I don’t think he’s ready for that particular piece of our personal history.”

“No problem,” Blue said, reaching for the sliding-glass door and winking at Abbie. “This time around, it’ll be our secret.”