Just Wanna Testify (27 page)

“As your leader, it will be my responsibility to represent the group.”

Scylla’s voice was as hard as her eyes. “I don’t think you’re up to it.”

Serena leaned forward so quickly that no one but the other vamps could actually swear she had moved at all, but she got close enough to Scylla’s face to kiss her. Her voice was a low sustained hiss. “I am still in command of this mission and the decision is mine, not yours.”

Scylla didn’t back up an inch. “I’m not leaving here empty-handed,” she hissed back. “If your plan doesn’t work, I’ve got the girls ready to move at my command.”

“You have no command.”

“I’ve been rationing their tomato juice for the last couple of days,” Scylla said. “They would welcome an opportunity to eliminate a few innocent bystanders in the traditional way and then grab the guys before heads stop rolling and make a run for the helicopter. I’m trained to fly it, so the pilot can also be eliminated.”

Serena remembered when Scylla got her pilot’s license, after photos appeared in
Vogue
of Angelina Jolie in a beautiful cream-colored suit flying her own two-seater.

“Well, it’s always good to have an alternative plan, but we won’t need it,” Serena said, knowing a leader with a strong lieutenant can never stray into arguing as if they are equals.

“You think you’re strong enough to resist the legendary vocal charms of Mr. Hamilton, for whom you have already demonstrated an unseemly fondness?”

Serena didn’t blink. “Even if what you think is true, both of our interests are served by my strength in the face of this last-ditch effort, brought to us, I remind you, by his wife, a woman who believes he is as irresistible to everyone as he is to her.”

“Go on.”

“If I remain unmoved by this song,” Serena said, “
and I will
, we get six new breeders to take back to First Blood Mother, and I get a chance to encounter Blue Hamilton on my own terms, on my own island. If that’s not what the mortals call a win-win situation, I don’t know what is.”

Scylla’s face reflected a slowly dawning realization that Serena was absolutely right.

Serena tilted her head back and gazed through her lashes at Scylla. “I think instead of threatening me, you would be trying to help me focus my energies on resisting all attempts to break my resolve, so we can get the hell out of here by midnight.
Your
deadline.”

“You’re right,” Scylla said, ducking her head in a subtle show of deference and respect. “I apologize.”

“You had a moment of doubt,” Serena said briskly, waving a graceful hand at the waiter hovering nearby. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“More champagne?” said the waiter immediately at Serena’s shoulder.

“We’ll have a round of Bloody Marys,” she said briskly. “Bring them before the program begins, will you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Scylla looked at Serena as the waiter hurried away. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”

“There isn’t any time to waste,” she said, wanting one of those Bloody Marys not just to calm down the others, but to calm her own
nerves as she saw the smiling club owner moving toward the stage, his famous dreadlocks hanging almost to his knees, ready to get things started. She hoped the waiter would hurry. She had of course convinced Scylla that she was up to the task ahead of her. Now all she had to do was convince herself.

Zeke and Peachy took the stage to a jazzy fanfare that was more Otis Redding than Duke Ellington, as people headed back to their tables for the evening’s program.

Regina stole a look at the vamps and met Serena’s eyes. They both nodded slightly like boxers waiting for the opening bell.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Zeke said, as the band stopped playing and everybody found a seat. “Friends and neighbors, welcome to our annual Club Zebra Community Benefit and Cabaret.”

The crowd applauded enthusiastically and Zeke let them.

“Most of you know we’re not big on speeches at Club Zebra,” he said, when folks had quieted down, “but since this Negro is the reason we started doing a benefit in the first place, I guess I have to bend the house rules just a little and let him have his say. Brother Peachy Nolan!”

Peachy, who had been standing behind Zeke, stepped forward
and bowed slightly to acknowledge the warm welcome. With his white hair against his smooth brown skin and his trademark white dinner jacket, Peachy looked handsome and dignified with a touch of the hipster visible in his patent leather two-tone shoes. It fell to Peachy to place the gathering in perspective every year, and for a moment, the memory of his sister brought a sadness to his face as he looked around at his friends and neighbors and, as always, was flooded with gratitude for their love and support.

“Nineteen years ago, this benefit was started to honor the memory of my baby sister, Miss Janet Cassandra Nolan, by raising money for worthwhile things that people were doing in the neighborhood. One year, we bought instruments for the band over at the high school. Last year, we paid all the expenses for that great big garden they got over there now, thanks to the West End Growers Association and their interim director, our own Miss Zora Evans.”

The mention of the Growers got a round of applause. The gardens were an important part of life in West End, and their recent change in leadership when Flora Lumumba moved to D.C. had served to reenergize their membership in a show of support for Zora, who had agreed to take it on for a year until a permanent replacement could be found.

“Stand up, Zora!”

Zora waved and blew Peachy a kiss. “Don’t do that!” he said, feigning disapproval. “My girlfriend is sitting right down front and she don’t play that.”

Abbie just smiled and blew Peachy a kiss of her own.

“Y’all better quit that,” Zeke said, laughing, “or I’ll never get this Negro off the stage.”

The crowd laughed. Zeke and Peachy always teased their way through the first part of the program and then turned things over to Blue.

“Okay, okay,” Peachy said. “All I’m trying to say is we try to do our part, am I right, Senator Hargrove?”

“You’re right, Brother Nolan,” Precious Hargrove called from the
table right behind Abbie and Regina. She never missed the benefit, and three years ago the funds they raised had gone to support her reelection to the state senate.

“And tonight is no exception,” Peachy said. “In fact, tonight is an example of what can happen when you try to do right, because tonight we will be presenting our biggest award ever to an organization that is on the front lines of struggle to make things more peaceful for everybody by teaching men how to check themselves. Tonight, our award goes to Men Stopping Violence.”

The crowd responded with enthusiastic applause. Regina wondered if they had ever considered that as a slogan:
MSV—Teaching Men How to Check Themselves!
The organization’s work was well known throughout West End and even though the neighborhood itself had reported no cases of domestic violence since Blue took charge, everybody knew there was a lot more work to be done.

“So while I get Brother Sulliman and Sister Shelly up here to accept this check, I want to let y’all know that the reason this award is so large this year is for two reasons.” He held up a long finger. “One, me and Zeke finally got y’all trained after all this time, and two, because of the lovely ladies sitting right down front. Put the light on them, Brother Dixon!”

The spotlight operator swept the crowd and settled on the vamps’ table. Their faces remained uniformly impassive as they stood up en masse and waved at someone or something only they could see. The crowd went wild. Regina was watching Peachy’s face, and behind his pleasant smile she could see a wariness and a readiness for whatever might be coming down later.

“These ladies were in town working and when they heard about what we were up to, they decided to be part of it by doubling what we had already raised and bringing our grand total to
one hundred thousand dollars
.”

This brought the crowd to its feet. The band played a lively fanfare as the vamps rippled their long arms in fluttering waves that managed to be both languid and imperial.

“Let’s hear it for the Too Fine Five!” Peachy said. “It’s an honor to have you ladies in the house.”

Watching from her seat, Regina applauded, too, and offered Scylla a smile when she caught her eye, without expecting one in return. Peachy then presented the check to a representative of Men Stopping Violence, who said the gift would allow them to initiate new programs for young men aimed at changing generations of bad behavior. The crowd applauded again as he tucked the check in his pocket and went back to his table in a daze of gratitude and excitement.

“And now,” Peachy said after everyone had quieted down, “I want to bring somebody up here who truly needs no introduction.”

From where he was standing in the shadows at the edge of the stage, Blue looked at Regina and bowed slightly. She smiled at him in the darkness and blew him a kiss.
Go ahead, baby
, she thought.
Show ’em what we got!

“You got that right, Peachy,” a woman called out. “So go on and bring the man out.”

“That’s exactly what I’m gonna do if you give me a minute,” Peachy said over the laughter of his neighbors. “Ladies and gentleman, the rest of y’all, too, put your hands together and give a real Club Zebra welcome to our friend, our brother, West End’s undisputed
HNIC
, Mr. Blue Hamilton!”

It was the moment they had been waiting for and everybody stood up again and applauded and stomped and whistled and generally made their love and appreciation felt in great waves rolling toward Blue from all over the room, including the table where Regina and Abbie and Aretha sat, clapping and cheering just like everybody else.

“Sing to me, baby,” Regina whispered as if he could hear her. “Tell me everything.” As Blue waved at the crowd and waited for their silence, Peachy sat down near the bandstand and picked up his guitar. The sophisticated young women who were the Club Zebra House Band morphed back into college girls, sharing the ripple of excitement that ran through the crowd like an electric shock.
Blue’s going to sing!

“Good evening,” he said, his voice already causing visible pre-swooning behavior in several women.

So far, so good
, Regina thought.

“I want to thank everybody for coming out tonight and I know what Zeke said about no speeches, but I got something on my mind and on my heart that I want to share with you tonight before I dedicate a song to my wife, Regina.”

“Take your time, Blue!” a woman over Regina’s shoulder called. “It’s your world!”

They laughed at that and Blue smiled, but he didn’t deny it.

“I want to introduce you to five young men tonight who you’re going to be seeing a lot of around West End over the next year or so.”

As he spoke, the boys mounted the stage with their fresh haircuts and rented tuxedos. Peachy looked at them with a critical eye, but found no flaw. The audience applauded the picture.

“These young men came to me recently with a problem. They were about to graduate from college, but it turns out there were certain gaps in their education when it came to the question of what it means to be a full-grown man.”

“Teach, Blue! Teach!”

“Because it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a man to raise a man-child, and it takes a good man to raise others like him, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

Regina’s eyes were locked on Blue. She was hardly breathing.

“Starting right now.”

When he said that, the boys turned on a dime and reconfigured themselves behind Blue in the classic doo-wop lineup—right shoulder to the camera, right arm outstretched with open palm.

“Because part of what these youngbloods need to learn is how to listen.”

“You got that right!”

“So I’m going to give them a chance to stand close enough so they won’t miss anything.”

Realizing Blue was about to sing gave the crowd the opening they
were looking for, and their applause crashed at Blue’s feet like a wave of love and anticipation. Excited patrons screamed and shushed one another in equal measure.

“Sing, Blue!”

“Hush, girl! You see that’s what the man is getting ready to do soon as you stop hollering!”

Blue smiled and held up his hand for quiet. “But these guys can’t just stand around back there, so I’m going to let them hum a little backup for me.”

Laughter and applause.

“And if you see any of them trying to open their mouths and sing, you let me know because this isn’t a song for beginners to try their luck.”

With that, Peachy played a chord on the guitar and the five boys hummed the note and lowered their arms in perfect sync. Several women actually squealed.

“What you gonna sing, Blue?”

“This is a song that people love all over the world,” Blue said, and his voice was as low and intimate as if he were talking to every woman in the room one-on-one. “It comes back every couple of years with somebody else singing lead, and people listen to it like they are hearing it for the first time.”