His First Wife (21 page)

“Y
ou need to have an appointment for that. Take a number and have a seat.”

Those were the two sentences the woman sitting at the front desk at the Department of Social Services seemed to say to everyone who approached. She never changed her indifferent tone, no matter what they said, and always responded with one of those two rehearsed lines I'd imagined she'd been saying for years. When it was my turn, I was determined to break the pattern, but also afraid to appear uncooperative. She wasn't exactly a peaceful-looking woman.

After Aunt Luchie and I spoke about my father, I told her about the effect seeing McKenzie had on me and how I'd thought about opening a facility to help women like her. She thought it was a fantastic idea and immediately went through her mental Rolodex of all of the people who could help me get it started. I took her suggestions but I kept imagining McKenzie in my mind, standing there with those shopping carts, and something in me said I needed to do this on my own. No connections, no tea and crumpets, making this another rich-people-doing-something-for-poor-people thing. I wanted to do more. To really get involved. I was pumped up and ready to act. Together, we decided that it might be a good idea for me to go over to Social Services to see if there was even a need for the outreach program I was talking about. Aunt Luchie volunteered to watch Tyrian and I set out to find answers.

Standing in line, listening to the lack of commitment the front desk woman was exuding, I was sure it wouldn't be that easy.

“I'm here to get information about the—” I started, but she cut me off. I just knew she was about to tell me to make an appointment or take a piece of paper and sit my behind down for five hours.

“Internship?” she said, looking me up and down as if I wasn't even supposed to be there.

“Internship?” I asked.

“Here's the application,” she handed me an old clipboard with a piece of paper on it. “Fill it out and bring it back. Mr. Duncan, the director, will call you in to meet with him.”

Afraid to say another word, I took the clipboard and went to find a seat in the packed waiting area.

I sat down and looked over the application. Trying to concentrate above the growing pitch of screaming children seemingly running only around my seat, I learned that the department was looking for interns to volunteer to assist them during the new year. The internship was for students and professionals interested in a career in social services. It wouldn't pay, but it would give participants the opportunity to see what social services was all about and actually assist in certain cases. It was a part-time commitment that would last five months. It seemed like the perfect opportunity had fallen and was sitting right in my lap on top of a clipboard that someone had apparently chewed on. It was just what I was looking for—well, not exactly, but it seemed like a great first step to get where I needed to be. It would be a good thing to actually have some experience in the field before I put any money behind my project. In the meantime, I could see what other special services were offered and decide how mine would be different. I was so excited, I wanted to jump up and hug one of the screaming children passing by. It was the very first time in a long time that I felt like I had the potential to be a part of something that was of my own making. I filled out the application and anxiously handed it back to the woman. Even she looked more friendly with my new attitude.

“Have a seat,” she said. “Mr. Duncan is seeing someone right now. So, he'll probably call you in a minute.”

The minute turned to forty, and like most of the other women in the waiting area, I was sitting there looking weary and worn out. The noise was too loud, the air was too stifling, and the seat was so hard I thought it was becoming a part of my own behind. In a minute I would have to create a social service project to get myself out of this seat. I was trying my best to keep my mind on my goal and not lose my excitement, but I was sinking fast. I was about to break my diet and get a bag of potato chips out of the snack machine when someone called my name.

Mr. Duncan was an old, bald Irish man whose years tackling issues facing the poor seemed to leave him a bit battered but wiser for his journey. Instead of asking me a bunch of questions about my intentions for working in social services (which was a good thing, because I hadn't intended on anything before I'd gotten the application an hour ago), he told me what I might face being employed there and informed me that this was no job for someone simply interested in pushing papers and even wishing to save the world. “It's hard work,” he said. “And you have to know when to pull back or it'll go home with you. Many of us do take it home, thinking we can save everyone, but then we only lose ourselves and burn out. We have good people here, but we all have to learn where to draw the line.” He then looked over my application, saying he'd had many Spelman graduates come through the office and knew I'd be a quality intern because of this. “Now you're a bit older than the other applicants. Any reason why you've decided to come here right now? I see your last position was in administration,” he said eyeing me.

“Well,” I started, “I just had a baby and . . .” I was nervous and had to stop to catch my breath. All I could hear in my head was Jamison asking why I hadn't gone back to med school, visualize in my mind the stack of envelopes, the rejections, the look of disappointment on my mother's face. I was frozen. I couldn't fail again. I couldn't lose another thing I cared about.

“Take your time,” I heard Mr. Duncan say and I knew I must've looked like I was about to cry but I couldn't. I took a deep breath and imagined in my mind Tyrian's face. The little smile he'd recently learned to flash whenever I kissed his nose or whenever Jamison walked into the room. I looked back at Mr. Duncan and tried to start again. “He's almost two months now and I can't lie, I've had a very easy time with him. I haven't had to worry about anything. He's taken care of and all of his needs are met—just like that.” I snapped my finger. “Now he's beautiful and deserves everything the world has to offer, but the more I look at him, I realize that other children deserve the same. Other families deserve to know where their next meal is coming from. Mothers need to know how they can provide it. And if I could just be a part of that, it would be great.”

Mr. Duncan looked like he was about to cry too. He sat back in his seat and held up my application.

“I guess this is one we'll have to keep,” he said, smiling. “So, we'll have a way to call you to let you know when your first day is.”

“I got it?” I asked.

“You got it,” he said, putting the sheet down on his desk. “We'll see you in the new year.”

 

 

It was December and freezing outside, but I was floating on air. The screaming children turned to singing angels as I headed out of the office. I felt like a new woman. A woman of purpose. Not Kerry Jackson, the black Barbie doll, but Kerry Jackson who was about to do some hard work and make some hard changes in the world. It sounded crazy, but in that moment, with each step I took, I felt like the old me was dying. And I didn't know what it was that I was stepping away from or why I needed to go. But there was a spring in my step that I felt from the inside. Walking down the street with other women who were working hard and facing probably the same things I was facing, I felt a rush of life I had never felt. I knew it was a little premature, but I was a person on a mission.

I smiled at every face I passed, wondering who they were and where they were going. What they did. How they added to the world. I wanted to run home and kiss Tyrian's nose, to hold him and tell him what his mother was about to do. I wanted to tell the world. I wanted to tell . . . Jamison. This need flashed into my mind in the worst way. I'd never had or achieved anything in my adult life without sharing it with that man. He was a part of who I was. I wondered if this was the feeling Jamison had when he started Rake It Up. Like he was about to build something and the possibilities were limitless. How could I have missed that for so long? What had I been doing? Suddenly, the idea of working through this without him, without a listening ear at bedtime, scared me to death. He was my husband. A sinking feeling fell over me and then I really wanted to go home. My step became less peppy, my smile was fading. My opportunity seemed like less of an opportunity without my partner by my side. I had missed Jamison. Each day without him was unbearable. He came by most afternoons to see the baby and bring us things, but in my anger I was keeping my distance. I still had nothing to say to him. But deep in my heart I was unsure of how much longer I could go on. But still, I had to stand my ground. He'd hurt me, and while I wanted so badly for that to just go away, it couldn't.

“Barbie Doll?” I heard someone call from behind me. I was sure they weren't talking to me. I hadn't had anyone call me that since college. “I know that chocolate syrup skin anywhere. Is that you?”

I turned to see a familiar face looking at me. Only it seemed older and much more mature than it had been the last time I'd seen it, so I couldn't quite place it.

“Kerry, you're going to act like you don't know me?” he said.

“I'm sorry,” I said, trying to place him. It was someone I'd dated.... Gone out with.

“Preston, Preston Allcott,” he said, opening his arms to hug me.

It was
the
Preston Allcott that grabbed my crotch during our date in undergrad. I hadn't seen him in over ten years. He was local, of course, had gone to the Morehouse School of Medicine just like the other men in his family, but he'd fallen off the radar a long time ago. He pretty much looked the same, only he was more handsome. His olive skin had darkened a bit and now the sun, even in the cold December breeze, seemed to catch each curve on his face.

“Wow,” I said, hugging him.

“Don't act like you don't know me,” he said, laughing.

“I just haven't seen you in so long,” I said, wanting to say that I knew him
too
well after he'd grabbed my crotch.

“Well, I kind of left the whole scene after graduation. I needed to get myself together. Get away from all of that stuff. You know?”

I nodded my head, but I wasn't sure exactly what he was talking about. Preston was a true blue Atlantan man of society. His family pretty much made the scene from its beginning, and from what I recall of slick Preston in college, he'd embraced it.

“You look amazing,” he added. “Like the wife I should've had.”

“Stop it,” I said.

“No, really, I was too much of a jerk to recognize it back then, too caught up in a bunch of bullshit, but now I see that I missed out.”

“Thank you,” I said. “So, what are you doing downtown?”

“I own a health clinic down here,” he said, poking out his chest. “We service people with HIV/AIDS who have trouble getting good healthcare and insurance.”

“Really?” I asked. It didn't sound like the Preston I'd known. I was sure he was a surgeon or something. His father was a cardiothoracic surgeon. A free clinic? Working with the poor? That wasn't the Allcott way.

“Yeah, it's real,” he said. “Before I went to med school, my father insisted that I go to Europe to vacation for a month, but when I got there, a guy I met invited me to travel with him to Kenya. He was a doctor and said I could assist him and learn some things about ground work before I went to school. I'd never even thought about it, but I went—without my father's blessings—and seeing the HIV/ AIDS epidemic there, my life was forever changed. I just wanted to come here and work to make sure the disease didn't continue to ravage our people.”

“That's amazing,” I said. I hadn't at all expected any of this to come from Preston. Not the crotch grabber! He seemed so changed. So much more mature.

“So, what about you?” he asked. “Career? Married? Children?”

“Oh,” I struggled. “I just had a baby and . . . I'm—”

“Married,” he grabbed my left hand. “Oh, yes, you married um . . . Jamison. Right?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to hide my uncertainty.

“And you just had a baby?” He stepped back and looked at me. “You do mean a year ago or something, because you don't look a pound over a size two.”

“Stop it,” I said.

“So, what about your career? How is that? Where are you practicing?”

“Practicing?”

“Yeah, you're a doctor, right? You were going to med school.”

“Oh, no,” I said. Now I'd have to explain that to another person. “I just decided—”