Between Lovers (29 page)

I nod. He does the same.

He says, “I wasn't born an old man. Wasn't born in wisdom. I haven't lived without trials and tribulations. Your mother and me have had our own tests over time.”

I know what he's talking about. He's a man of power, a tall, decent-looking man, and in some ways he's a spiritual celebrity. Like with every other leader, my father has had his weaknesses, his moments, and there has been talk of other women over the years. Just whispers, no shouts, no scandals.

In that reflective voice, he tells me, “Every man has years where he is a lost sheep.”

“Women too.”

“But the thing about most lost sheep is that as long as they are with other lost sheep, they don't know they're lost. A fool amongst fools is a happy camper.”

“You're preaching.”

“And you'd better be listening.”

I'm nodding, not knowing how to stop rubbing my thumbs together before they burst into flames.

He grunts. “I flipped through a couple of your books.”

“It's fiction.”

He says, “You say you're not in denial, not suffering.”

“I'm not. It's fiction.”

“Well, some of that fiction makes your mother cry. The parts that make everyone laugh, makes her cry. People, who are in our church, people who were there, they all know, son. And Nikki's mother, people tell her what you have written, tell her that it's Nikki. That hurts her, son.”

“If I am writing the truth, then it's part of my experience, and that's my right.”

“And you have to be sensitive to others.”

“Writing is about being bold and honest.”

“Without empathy, writing is nothing.”

My head moves in a motion just like his, nodding over and over while I keep rubbing my thumbs. At some point I sigh, focus on my breathing, on my life force.

I say, “It's my therapy. It's been rough on me.”

“I know, son. I know.”

“And it's all I have. All I can do right now.”

Her reaches over, lays hands on my left hand. My father. My healer.

I struggle to take control. I calm down, rest my chin in the web of my right hand.

He goes on, “The main reason I'm doing this is for you, son. Not for Nikki. Not for her mother. Not for her family. I knew what you were asking me to do.”

I nod.

He says, “You're the flesh of my flesh. Blood of my blood. You're my son.”

We finish our chocolates and leave. Father and son. Saint and sinner.

Compared to LAX, Oakland has a small, easy-in, easy-out airport.

Her expensive L‘eau D'issey scent gets off the plane three minutes before I see her, pulling her small designer luggage-on-wheels through the gate. She's been wearing the same brand of perfume since I've known her. Consistency is one of her well-known qualities.

My nose twitches.

My father says, “A southern storm has arrived.”

From a distance, she looks like an older version of Nicole.

She's a short, breasty woman, wears an ankle-length, brushed-gold rabbit coat over her red pantsuit, a pantsuit that looks like a fiery sunset on the coastline of Mexico's Ixtapa, a cream-colored silk blouse and colorful scarf, and carries a King James Version of the Bible in her right hand. Walks as if she's Lena Home en route to an exorcism.

Her red shoes match the candy-apple shade of her purse to the T. If she were in L.A., with all that red, people would think that she was queen of the gang bangin' Bloods, but here people think that she must own this city. The one thing missing is the red carpet. Her outfit upstages the world. The same golden skin as Nicole, flesh that reminds me of the beauty of Cancun, only with a few itty-bitty moles that come with age sprinkled over her cheeks, like the fine jet-black sands on a beautiful beach. It doesn't show as much in Nicole, not with the influence of her father's genes, but her mother's features do have some Spanish architecture: it shows in her thin lips and narrow nose. She wears her salt and pepper hair hot-combed and parted down the center. And when she opens her mouth to speak to me, I see the gold trim on her front, right tooth. A queen of the old South.

We meet and greet without hugs or handshakes. I smile. She eyes me up and down, unforgiving. It's been a while since I've seen her, a very long while.

My father asks, “How was the flight?”

“I had a middle seat between two fat people who snored like hogs calling hogs.”

“Sorry to hear” is my father's response.

She lets it be known that she's surprised to see my father, and doesn't waste time telling him that he is not needed, tells him to go ahead and go back to L.A., and when all is done, she will call him. My father is reluctant, asks me to let him have a few words with the Queen, and I step to the side. Move near the windows and watch the red, white, and blue planes descend from gray skies.

When my father calls my name, before I make it back to them, I can tell that whatever she said has convinced him that trying to reason with her is useless. In a voice heavy with concern, he asks me if I can handle it. With a smile and a pat on his back I say yes, even though I'm anxious, palms are getting damper by the second, and I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to handle. The Diva of the South dismisses him. We hug, do our good old secret fraternity handshake, kiss cheeks, say kind words, and he heads toward Southwest Airlines.

With sadness, I watch my father leave, watch him have a rough moment with that leg of his, then he gets the pain out, and walks like a champ. I don't like seeing my daddy getting old. Not at all.

Then I'm alone with Nicole's mother. The first thing she tells me is, “Have me back in four hours.”

I say, “Four hours?”

“Not a minute later. That's one hour before my flight back to Memphis leaves.”

“After that long flight, you're not spending the night?”

She wrinkles her nose. “In San Francisco?”

“Oakland.”

“Same difference. Have me back in four hours.”

I nod. She heads through the crowd before I do, but she stops and waits because she has no idea which way to go. She doesn't rush, frowns at people who scurry by. She moves with grace, like she is being escorted into the Cotton Club, glances at the people, evaluating, dissecting.

Locks, twists, braids, short Afros, long wavy Afros, baldheads, we pass by them all. A beautiful woman, who looks like Rah Digga with a reddish Afro, smiles at me, her eyes telling me she loves my hair, gives a flirty grin that speaks of power, positivity, and solidarity. We pass each other.

She says, “Women out here don't comb their hair.”

“It's the style.”

“Used to be a time when you couldn't get a job with all these nappy African styles.”

“Used to be a time when we couldn't get a job, period.”

“When I was in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, we always made sure we looked presentable. No matter how hot, how cold, how dusty, we were always presentable. That was back when we had pride, back when I met my first husband.”

“Uh huh.”

“Now black people go to work looking any kind of way. Black women don't wear makeup. Earrings all over their bodies. Stomachs all out. Rears all out. Tattoos everywhere. Walk around looking like pirates and acting like men. On television, proud to be having babies and not be married.”

She goes on and on. I stay out of her rambles and wonder if this meeting is a good idea.

While we do a slow stroll, she quits chastising and stares at things and people as if she's from Tasmania, a place isolated from the rest of the world.

She says, “Did your father explain to you my terms?”

“Yes. One hour. You'll be in the room with her for one hour.”

“Follow my terms to the letter.”

“No doubt.”

“What?”

“I will. That means I will.”

“Did you explain them to ...” Her words trail off and she makes a flimsy hand motion.

“I did. She said that she was familiar with your ritual. That you used to do the same thing when you were at odds with her daddy. Or the time her brother went out with a white girl.”

“And?”

“Nicole says she knows the routine.”

“Her spirit is gone. My daughter is dead. I have no daughter here.”

“Then why did you come?”

She shifts.

Again I ask, “Why did you decide to come all of a sudden?”

“Why?” Her voice almost strains, as if I hit a spot by asking that question, a spot that was her kryptonite, and she sounds so very human, so very hurt, and so very afraid. With each breath her words change from being compassionate to being stiff and defensive as she says, “You kept calling, throwing this in my face. Your father calls and runs my blood pressure to the sky. I'm here and you're asking why? I was happy at home watching
Family Feud
and
America's Most Wanted.
I spent over a thousand dollars to come here. Is that so important? Is that your business? The point is I'm here. This goes against the grain of what I believe in. But I'm here.”

I clear my throat. “Your suitcase feels loaded.”

“I brought what I need. I have my own food. My own water. Other things.”

“Thought I smelled chicken. You could've ordered room service.”

“I hear they put something in the food out here. That's why all the people act funny.”

“I never heard that.”

“That's because it's a secret. You know how they do it?”

“No ma‘am. How?”

“The chicken. They put it in the fried chicken because they know all black people eat fried chicken. That's why the Colonel won't tell anybody his secret recipe. That's how we get diabetes, sickle cell, and all those other ailments that plague black people and kill us off. That's how they make us confused. They put it in the chicken.”

A moment passes. I say, “Coke has a secret recipe too.”

She huffs at my misplaced humor.

Inside the car I attempt small talk, ask her how she likes being the principal at Carver High, ask her if she misses being in the classroom. The conversation goes nowhere.

I turn the radio on. Listen to the traffic report. Westbound 80 to MacArthur maze traffic slow. The 101 past the 380 is looking smooth. East 80 at San Pablo, an accident. Richmond, Walnut Creek, Oakland, they give the weather for those areas. All between forty-eight and fifty-four degrees, all looking at the possibility of showers between tonight and early morning.

Then there is talk about the number of people who have flooded the Alameda County Recorder's office down on 11th Street and Madison for a Valentine's Day marriage-fest in previous years, and they anticipate the same rush of last-minute “I do‘s” this year.

She asks, “Are they talking about men and women getting married?”

“I think so. Yes, ma‘am.”

“The front of the
USA Today
showed two women getting married in Vermont.”

I say nothing. Pretend I'm too busy driving to carry on a conversation.

“Another woman cain't do nothing for me but bake me a cake,” she says. “And I don't eat other folks' cooking.”

I wish my father were still here. He's much better at this. Much better at dealing with her.

The news people ramble on about Oakland teachers being underpaid, then about quite a number of senior citizens being evicted by the Oakland Housing Authority because their grandchildren were caught selling rock cocaine. She tisks, shakes her head, and asks me to turn the radio off.

I do.

She sits there, her expensive perfume filling my lungs like smoke, rocking and humming “What a friend we have in Jesus; all our sins and griefs to bear.” Her humming is worse than Nicole's singing.

She says, “You went and changed your hair.”

“A while ago. Decided to try something different. You like it?”

“No.”

“Didn't think so.”

“Reminds me of those Rastafarians. Did you change religions?”

I say, “No, ma‘am.”

“Drugs?”

“No, ma‘am.”

“Muslim?”

“No, ma‘am.”

She pulls her lips in, rocks a bit. She asks, “Is she still funny?”

I have to pause and think about what she means by funny, have to go through my mental Rolodex and flip through the juba-to-jive section, before I answer, “She's ... nothing has changed.”

“You funny?”

“No, ma‘am.”

She relaxes some, not much.

She continues her questioning. “When was the last time you attended church?”

I try to remember the last time I've set foot in a gospel café and dined on spiritual soul food. That good old place that's filled with sinners. What some people call a hospital for the spiritually sick.

I answer, “Been a while.”

“What's a while?”

“Couple of months. I've been on the road.”

“They have churches on the road. I hear that churches are in almost every city.”

She starts back humming.

I say, “I pray every day.”

“Three times a day?”

“No, ma‘am.”

She shifts, starts back humming.

The Amtrak train is blowing its warning into the darkness of an overcast sky. A sky filled with clouds and promising a winter rain. That means snow in Tahoe, Mammoth, and Mountain High.

We're back in my room at the Waterfront Plaza. I'm sitting on a footstool at the foot of the bed. Dr. Laura is on the television in the living room/dining area of my suite. Nicole's mother sits on the sofa, looks at her watch a few times before she goes to the window and stares out at Jack London Square, then her head moves and she gazes at the Bay waters behind Scott's Seafood, cranes her head and glances toward a ferry that is heading out toward San Francisco.