Crescent City Connection (19 page)

“What happened was I got pregnant and we ran away. I had no more idea what a baby was or how to be a mama than I knew how to fly. I wanted to see the world, and I saw Dothan, Alabama.

“I wasn’t a good mama. I was a lousy mama. I had zero patience with my child, and I yelled at him and swatted him sometimes, when he got to be three or four. But I knew one thing—I knew you weren’t supposed to suck a baby’s penis.”

“I … what?”
Did I hear her right?

“I guess I caught you off guard there. Well, Earl got pushier and pushier and more and more abusive, bashing me around, telling me what to do, treating me like a slave, to tell you the truth. And he wanted me to do weird sexual things—I’m not going to go into that right now. But you asked me why I left him. I left him because, when Daniel was a baby he’d cry and keep us up at night, and Earl wanted me to suck his penis to keep him quiet. I told you you didn’t want to know. You just don’t know what life with that man was like.

“I found myself an older man who was sweet and gentle and didn’t mind supporting my kid. But then I screwed up—I found myself a much younger man, and the older one threw me out. I had no skills and no place to go—that’s when I took Daniel back to Savannah and dropped him off. I became a flight attendant, and the rest is history.”

“You met somebody else?”

“Oh, many. Many, many somebody elses. But the hell of it was, I finally fell in love, and look what happened to me.”

Skip was thinking that the younger woman who’d taken her husband was probably a clone of the younger Rosemarie when the other woman said, “What goes around comes around. I don’t blame her. I swear I don’t—she saw a chance and she grabbed it. I blame him—I thought the old goat loved me.”

“Did you ever hear from him again?”

“Who? My husband?”

“Errol Jacomine.”

“I never did and I never will.”

“Just in case—it’s very important that you contact me if you do.”

“You have my word. I’ll call you the instant I hear from him, or hell freezes over. Whichever comes first.”

Another road leading nowhere
, Skip thought. Still, it answers the question “What kind of woman would marry Errol Jacomine?”

She could see why Aunt Alice had said this woman was the love of young Earl’s life—she had a hard edge to her; might even be as ruthless as he was. And he hadn’t yet subdued her.

He wouldn’t like that,
Skip thought.
It would prey on him.

AFTER DELAVON DIED, Dorise had gone back to church, and she had found comfort there. In fact, she didn’t understand why she’d ever stopped going. When she had a problem, she could put it in the hands of Jesus. But there was another side to it—oh, yes, there was another side. You had to keep up your end—you couldn’t let Jesus down because that was letting yourself down.

When Troy brought her Meredith Clemenceau’s earrings, she had screamed as if someone died. Shavonne came tearing from the back of the house, where she was watching television, crying, “Mama! Mama, you all right?” and the poor little thing’s white shorts were wet, with a trickle of urine still running down her leg.

“Oh, my Lord, what have I done!” she hollered. “I’ve scared my child so bad she’s gone and pissed herself. Troy Chauvin, you get on out of here. You get on out of here and don’t you never come back. And don’t you worry none about your sorry ass—I ain’ gon’ tell nobody what you done ’cept the Lord Jesus Christ and he already know. That’s who you gon’ have to answer to. That poor little dog. That poor, poor little dog. For shame, Troy Chauvin!” She pressed the earrings back into his hand and slammed the door.

Shavonne stood there with her mouth open so wide a bat could have flown in.

Dorise dropped to her knees and hugged her as tight as she knew how. “It’s okay, baby. Everything okay now.” Shavonne burst into violent sobbing, and Dorise realized that was what she’d said before—that time when it wasn’t okay and would never be for Shavonne, ever again.

“Baby, I jus’ had a fight with Troy—it ain’ nothin’ more than that, I promise you, baby. You all right. Ya mama’s all right. Okay, baby? Look at me now?”

Shavonne obeyed for about a split second before she ran, and the terror on her face was enough to make Dorise howl again, as she had when she saw the earrings. This time, she held her tongue, though, and fought the impulse to chase her daughter. Shavonne needed a minute alone, she thought, to change her pants and get her bearings.

Dorise sat on the couch and thought about the little white dog, unable to believe the man who had made love to her so sweetly could do a thing like that. She wondered if he took drugs, or if he’d been drunk, or if he was just plain mean and she’d never noticed. The thing was so incomprehensible, her own part in it so overwhelming, she couldn’t even cry.

“Forgive me, Jesus,” she said to the air. “Forgive me, Lord. I never meant to hurt nobody, even that hateful Meredith and her husband—I sure didn’t mean to hurt no poor little animal.”

If Troy could do that to an animal, what could he do to a person?
she thought. Suppose she’d become involved with him and he’d hurt Shavonne? She went in to comfort her child.

Shavonne was lying on her back in bed, crying. “Mama, I peed myself.”

“Honey, you were scared to death. Mama’s so sorry to scare you like that.”

“Mama, what Troy do make you scream like that?”

“He just surprise me, honey. He say something let me know he got a mean streak, and I felt so disappointed I scream out.”

A mean streak like your daddy had
, she thought.
But even Delavon wouldn’t hurt no animals or children. I mus’ be getting . Jesus, don’ let me get no worse! Please help me find a good man sometime.

She had got Shavonne into bed and told her a bedtime story and was just beginning to feel peaceful again when the phone rang. It was her boss asking her to come to the office the next morning.

Jesus, don’t let the po-lice be there
, she prayed.

She prayed all night long she’d be able to handle it all right. When she arrived, she saw that everyone was there who’d worked at Meredith’s that day, and they were called in individually. That meant she was probably okay.

When it was her turn, she acted as if she couldn’t have been more surprised and said “darlin’” and “honey” a lot and she could tell she was the last person anybody in the company would suspect.

She worked hard at her popularity and it was paying off.
Now I just gotta pray nobody else gets blamed for what I done
, she thought to herself, but she didn’t think anyone would. If fingerprints were found, they’d lead to Troy and that trail would lead straight to her. What she had to do was keep him out of her life.

Well, no problem,
she thought.
He the last man I want to see.

Shavonne stayed at a friend’s house that night, and Dorise called her sister. She was so lonely and—when you got down to it—so depressed she had to talk to someone. Her sister said, “Girl, you sound awful. What’s wrong wit’ you?”

“I’m not seeing Troy no more. He didn’t turn out the way I hoped.”

“You picky, girl, you know that? You just too picky.”

Dorise wasn’t about to tell her the truth. When she didn’t say anything, her sister said, “How’s my little sugar-pie?”

“Shavonne sleepin’ over at a friend’s house.”

“She is? Well, let’s go, girl. Le’s go out.”

“I don’t think so. I think I’ll just sit home and watch the tube.”

But her sister came to pick her up in half an hour, dressed for meeting men. “Come on, girl. Put on somethin’ show off your nice behind. We gon’ go listen to some music.”

Feeling more or less like she was in a trance, having very little mind of her own, Dorise followed orders.

Her sister took her to a place outside the neighborhood, a place with a whole new crowd. Dorise had a few drinks and felt better.

A fine-looking man talked to her, too, a man who worked for a painting contractor, but she couldn’t get interested to save her life.

She was afraid of him. She was afraid of any man right now.

But it was so hard being alone, trying to raise a child alone. And then there was the specter of sex. She’d forgotten all about that little thing until Troy reminded her so vividly.

It sure was like cigarettes and drugs—once you had some you wanted more and more and more.

She craved male attention and she was nice by nature, so she just didn’t have it in her to shine the fine-looking man, and in no time at all he seemed to have gotten it into his head that she was just dying to leave with him.

“Can’t do that,” she said. “It’s a school night.”

“You go to school?”

“My little girl does.”

“You got a little girl? I love kids—always wanted to have some myself.”

“Listen, I gotta go.”

“At least give me your phone number.”

“Maybe I better get yours, darlin’. I don’t want to take no chances you won’t call.”

She tore it up as soon as she and her sister were in the car.

“What you do that for?”

“I just don’t know what to believe and what not to believe these days. I been wrong my only two tries, and I just can’t afford to do it again.”

“You gon’ be a nun or what?”

“I’m gon’ pray about it. See what I can figure out.”

She entered her empty house feeling more depressed than ever.

* * *

The Monk was in the gallery courtyard painting an angel when he realized he was humming to himself. He had had an uncontrollable urge to abandon his pregnant painting for a while and paint more angels that looked like Lovelace.

And why not? He had to pay for it by dusting every piece of African art in the gallery—because that was the deal he’d made with himself—but painting the angel made him so happy, that was nothing.

She makes me happy
, he thought.
It’s her—having her around.

“Hey, Monk,” said Revelas, “I ain’ never heard you hum before. ’Zat break your vow or not?”

The Monk smiled and shrugged his shoulders. In his opinion, it didn’t, but he thought the idea was kind of funny. He felt lightheaded, even a little giddy, as if he were in Paris or something. He felt like humming and he didn’t care who heard him.

Revelas came over to look at the painting. “Hey, man. Tha’s real nice. These angels different, ain’t they? Happier. They got roses in they cheeks.”

They really were Lovelace, in a way that the other ones hadn’t been. The old ones. Those weren’t even meant to look like her— he hadn’t known what she’d look like grown-up. He was as surprised when he saw her as she was when she saw the angels.

Now that she was here, he was painting her, and it was only natural the angels were happier. He was happier.

On the way home, he thought of what he’d like to cook for her that evening—a vegetarian lasagna he knew how to do. He stopped and got the ingredients.

When he arrived, he smelled something good. She’d made it for him—the very same recipe, which she’d found in his files.

In a way he was disappointed that he couldn’t cook for her, but the coincidence of this utterly delighted him. If he’d needed proof they were kindred souls, this was it.

“Hi, Uncle Isaac.”

He smiled at her, unloading the bag he’d brought. She got itright away. “You were going to make this? Cool. You can tell me if I did it right.”

He wrote, “Maybe I could just write it.”

She laughed. It had been a long time since he’d made anyone laugh.

He went into the bathroom to wash his hands the twenty times it would take to be able to eat and then he caught the doorknob carefully with toilet paper, thinking that this was something he hadn’t had to worry about when he was alone.

Still, she was worth it. He thought:
It’s truly a joy to have her. What is a person without family?

She was tossing a salad when he joined her. She said, “What were you doing in there?”

He felt a hot flush begin at his scalp and travel toward his toes. He frowned to tell her she’d crossed a forbidden boundary, but she was intent on the salad and missed it completely.

Too bad, because it was one of his most eloquent stares. Since his vow of silence, he’d learned to show disapproval in a thousand silent ways, but he was most proud of his stare, though Revelas laughed at it. “Hey, man, you look like a lizard,” he said when The Monk turned it on him. But other people got it loud and clear, and even Revelas had taken to saying, “Watch out—he got the lizard look again.”

Having taken his best shot and gotten nowhere, he simply walked into the living room, sat on his mat and folded himself into the lotus position. He couldn’t begin to focus, the way his mind seethed with outrage, but that wouldn’t show.

As it happened, whether it showed or not was irrelevant. Lovelace apparently had not noticed he’d left the room. In a bit, she came and brought him his version of a cocktail—orange juice on the rocks. She simply held out the glass, expecting him to abandon his mudra and take it.

He did.

She sat in the white-painted rocking chair and moved her arm in a semicircle, taking in the room, taking in his whole universe.

“All this … white. The hand-washing, the sweeping, all that— it’s got to be wearing. I mean, there’s got to be—you know—fear behind all that. Surely it can’t be easy.”

Fear? He hadn’t thought of it that way. He was just doing what he had to do. Actually, he lived in a very safe universe, a lot safer than most people’s.

He got up and found his writing pad. “Okay,” he wrote. “Paint it any color you like.”

“Oh, Isaac, come on. They’ve probably got books about this—they can do something about it.”

Once again he wrote. “Hey, I see angels, I don’t talk.”
I have no woman
, he thought.

She laughed. “Oh, let’s eat.”

The lasagna was so perfect he didn’t bother to write, just pointed to it and patted his heart, a man in love.

“You like it? You know what I’d like to do? You know what I’d really like? I want to cook.”

Not getting it, he stared at her.

“I mean, instead of shuffle papers.”