Love in a Carry-On Bag (23 page)

P
ART 3

We’re living in an age where people need to talk.They don’t communicate.

Queen Latifah

Chapter Forty-Three

The Legacy

Most of the women in
Erica’s family had mastered the government’s welfare system by the age of sixteen and were generally grandmothers before thirty-six. During tax season, these women wouldn’t hesitate to let someone else claim their children, as long as the payoff was profitable. If they worked, it was at jobs that didn’t require much education: managing fast food, filing charts in the doctor’s office, and ringing up items at retail stores.

They only knew single-parent homes, and that’s what they offered their offspring. Men came into their lives, but never stayed. Along the way, some of Erica’s aunts and cousins fell victim to the streets, developing drug habits, an unhealthy taste for alcohol, and an affinity for prescription drugs. As the years passed, their overweight bodies wore down from disease: hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, anxiety, and always depression.

This was the legacy of poverty that was predetermined for Erica before she was born, bequeathed like a family’s coveted christening dress, passed from one daughter to the next. But at an early age, Erica decided that she didn’t want to be the next woman in line and turned her back against the looming family baton. These thoughts wandered through her mind as she walked to the diner two blocks from her job. Her mother had called that morning and asked if they could meet. They hadn’t seen or talked to each other in two weeks, since the Bonnie incident. Erica knew her mother had waited until it seemed that all had been forgotten. Such was her way.

The lunch crowd was heavy, and the waitresses slung heaping plates and icy drinks through the thick aroma of cheeseburgers and gravy. Erica glanced at the specials written on the glass board behind the counter while working her way to the table where her mother sat. Gweny was using the window as a mirror to apply a coat of worn-down burgundy lipstick.

“You got some on your teeth,” Erica offered, removing her sunglasses.

Her mother swished her tongue around, and then opened her lips wide to confirm that the spot was gone. Erica nodded yes.

“How you been, Slim?”

Erica could tell that she had put effort into her appearance. The lipstick suited her, as did the navy wool sweater. Soft rolled curls hung damply against her forehead. It was a glimpse of the mommy she had loved without inhibition, and the thought burned her throat.

“I haven’t had a drink in three days,” her mother said, trying to catch her daughter’s eye, but Erica kept her gaze on the checkerboard table and waited for their Pepsis. She was tired of throwing her pom poms in the air. They were mired in disappointment.

“What you thinking?” her mother asked after a long bout of silence, but Erica didn’t speak.

Twirling her napkin between her shaking fingertips, her mother spoke in a voice much deeper than her own. “It’s time I told you something,” she said, “Should have a long time ago.”

Erica knew her mother,
Gweny, had a troubled past, but didn’t know the weight of the story until that afternoon at the diner. Gweny had been raised in a sanctified home, and her mother was more interested in praising the Lord than raising her only child. The slightest mishap—spilling milk, using too much syrup on her pancakes, answering the telephone before the mandatory four rings—could land Gweny a merciless whooping. Gweny had been a beautiful child, with corn-silk braids that reached the small of her back. All the kids in the neighborhood thought she had Indian in her family. When she wasn’t getting the devil beaten out of her, she was paraded around the church like a porcelain doll. She was never hit where the marks could be visible.

Her mother was the choir director, and often had rehearsals at their tiny Irvington, New Jersey home. The men always came early and gathered in the basement until the women arrived. Gweny’s mother would send her down with refreshments, telling her to keep them entertained while she finished dressing. Louis, the tenor, was usually the first one there. He was in his late twenties, a skinny man with bloodshot eyes, a pug nose, and lips as big as bubbles. He always had a fifth of brown liquor tucked in the inside pocket of his tweed sports jacket. The alcohol seeped through his pores and made him smell. His advances started with a hug when Gweny was nine. That lent itself to searching hands, which graduated to pulling Gweny on his lap with his sweaty fingers in her flowered panties. Eventually he took what wasn’t his, and Gweny remembered asking herself, where is my mother, from against the cold basement wall.

“Had anything like that ever happened to you?” she asked.

“Uncle Bobby paid me a dollar once for a kiss on the lips, but that was it.” Uncle Bobby was Gweny’s sister’s on-again off-again boyfriend.

Her mother sucked her teeth. “How old were you?”

“Like twelve.”

“I knew something was up with that man,” her mother shook her head in disgust. “How come you never told me?”

“It wasn’t a big deal, and it only happened once.”

Erica could see the thoughts speeding through her mother’s head while she waited for her to continue. “Your father was the first man I trusted after that because he didn’t believe in church,” Gweny fumbled a cigarette between her knotty fingers, but remembering that she couldn’t smoke, placed it on the table. “So I went straight from my mother’s house of sin, to my husband’s house. No healing in between. I wanted a family desperately to soothe my pain, but I wasn’t whole. You were born and then Jazmine. I wanted y’all. But I couldn’t cope with the demands. No one taught me how to mother, so I pretended. When the game got to be too much I checked out. I’m pitiful, and I don’t blame you for how you feel ’bout me.” Her sad eyes welled. “Lord knows I can hardly stand to look at myself in the mirror.”

“But you didn’t even try. You just gave up, long before Daddy left. Do you know what that felt like for me to have to just figure it all out? It was horrible. I’d never do that to my children.” Erica nibbled the end of a French fry but couldn’t taste it.

“That’s because you are a much better person than me,” her mother searched her face. “All I can do is ask for your forgiveness, Slim, and hope that we can move on.”

Erica had read somewhere that forgiveness wasn’t for the offender, it was for the offended, and refusing to forgive was like refusing to breathe to prove a point. On the one hand she wanted to get past the hurt that she lugged around like a hump on her back. It had become a part of her bone structure, but whenever she tried to get over it, her mother would do something to mess it all up and the cycle of regret and bitterness would start all over again. Erica needed help, perhaps therapy, and her mother must have wanted to stop the pendulum of their relationship too, because before Erica had a chance to reject her, her mother was on her side of the table, smashing her head into her boulder-sized bosom. She smelled like talcum powder, and Erica could feel the heavy baton pressed between them threatening to cut through her wind pipe
.

“I’m so sorry that I hurt you and will do everything in my power to make sure it won’t happen again.”

A stubborn tear appeared in the corner of Erica’s eye as she muttered. “It’s cool.” They squeezed a second more before Erica pulled away. She rolled her shoulders back and looked her mother dead in her eyes. “With that said, I can’t keep taking on your problems. I’m done being responsible for you.”

Her mother leaned back against the booth. “I’ma stop callin’ on you. I know I’m too much. Just be patient with me,” she said, and then kissed Erica’s forehead like she did when they were simply mother and child.

Erica couldn’t stop walking
after she left her mother. New York City was inviting in that way. The distance between the streets was short, and before she knew it she smelled hot dogs drifting from Gray’s Papaya, on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 8th Street. After crossing Broadway, and then Lafayette, she strolled down St. Mark’s Place. At the corner of Second Avenue, she passed Dallas BBQ’s, where as a budgeting college student she drank Texas-sized beers, and ordered oversized rotisserie chicken platters that she would stretch for three meals.

As a girl, when she sat between her mother’s legs getting her hair combed, Gweny would wave the brush in the air declaring, “You don’t know how good you got it.”

Erica’s mantra had been, “Don’t end up like Mommy.” She had worked hard to defy the cycle that fought to enclose her, thinking that graduating college and climbing the corporate ladder would make her better. But now, thinking back to her mother at the diner, she realized that they were the same. They had both gone through life motherless. They attempted to re-parent themselves, failed, and wallowed in the sacrificial pain. Erica was who she was because she stood on her mother’s shoulders and glimpsed a better view. And it was time for her to stop condemning and start accepting her mother for who she was. In that moment Erica realized that she was the one who needed to change.

When she got back
to the office, Prudence assured her that Claire and Athan had been in meetings and no one had noticed that she was gone. Since being passed over for the promotion, Erica hadn’t been behaving like her powerhouse self, and needed something to reignite her.

There was a message slip on her desk saying that LaVal had called. She picked up her phone and dialed him back.

“It’s Erica Shaw.”

“Just the woman I needed to speak with. I have a lecture in D.C. the Friday after next and I’d love for you to come see me in action.”

She thought about Warren. The last time they had walked U Street when he talked about losing his mother, his hand wrapped in hers.

“I’ll see,” she replied.

“It’ll give you a better idea of what I do, especially if you decide to represent me.”

Erica paused. “I’ll have to see if B&B will cover the expenses.”

“No need. The trip is paid for. All you have to do is show up.”

LaVal was so aggressive that he made it hard for Erica to think logically, so she told him to give her a day or so to get back to him. D.C. represented Warren, and when she got home she couldn’t stop thinking about how he had barged into her apartment thinking that he could make love to her and all would be solved. Most nights Erica couldn’t stop picturing that she had.

Her apartment was beyond trifling, and if Grandma Queeny were alive, she would give Erica a good tongue-lashing. The rooms had degenerated so far that the clutter was suffocating. Erica hadn’t intended to clean, but once she turned her radio to the Quiet Storm and unconsciously placed clothes in their designated drawers it just began to happen. The sour bed sheets were replaced with fresh linen, and once that was taken care of the rest of the room was a breeze. Laundry was separated, and she arranged her heels on the tiered shoe rack that Warren had made for her. It was one of his many attempts to organize her, but hadn’t worked. When she pushed the shoes toward the back of her closet, she spotted the balled up sheet with all of Warren’s things in the corner. Without thinking she brought them to her face. Warren’s scent was strong, and she put her head on the pile and hugged them to her chest.

Vesta Williams came over
the radio singing her hit song “Congratulations.”

Erica thought about her encounter with Blanche as she removed the dirty dishes and food containers from the kitchen sink. The song kept playing and Erica could picture Vesta in the video standing outside the church as her man married another woman. Was that to be her fate? Alone, congratulating another woman for marrying the man that she had loved with fever?

’Cause as long I can breathe

You’ll always be the one for me…

She had felt that Warren was her destiny. As a young child, she had always believed in the great tales of true love, and it was hard to accept that her one chance had passed. He was the perfect yin to her yang.

Warren had done things for her that no other man had done before. Last year, she was so drunk on her birthday that when they got back to his place she forgot she was on her period and passed out. Before putting her to bed, Warren changed her sanitary napkin, and the next morning when he told her what he had done, she was mortified.

“I’m so embarrassed,” she remembered burying her head in his pillow, but he soothed her embarrassment with tenderness.

“Girl, I love all of you. Nothing’s off limits.”

A month after they had met, he drove to Atlantic City to get her mother out of the loony bin without hesitation. He missed his gig with Bobby Watson to bail her mother out of jail. He encouraged her career and listened to all her crap. So why weren’t they together?

Erica ran the dishwater so hot it was scalding.

Chapter Forty-Four

Father, What’s Real?

T
here was something about
being turned down by a woman that could make a man wilt like a thirsty rosebush. Since Erica had thrown Warren from her apartment he felt like a drying grape, shriveled up and small. He had no appetite, didn’t want to get dressed, play his horn or leave his home. But it was Friday night, his least favorite day of the week, and he had to go to his father’s house. His dad and Shar were hosting a fund-raiser that evening for the D.C. public schools. So Warren had no choice but to shuffle down the hall, turn on the showerhead and slather his body with soap. Once wrapped in a plushy towel, he used his hand to wipe away the cloudiness from the bathroom mirror and studied himself. His facial hair had grown coarse and wild. Warren knew that it was in his best interest to shave before the event, but he just didn’t have it in him. The overgrown beard gave him a sense of freedom and he wasn’t willing to let it go, not even for his dad.

Blanche called an hour before saying that she had a ticket for tonight’s fund-raiser but needed a ride. Warren had been short with her at the office, and had even worked from another cubicle so as not to have to deal with her. Tonight was the first time she had phoned since showing up at his place. He hadn’t even gotten around to asking her about running into Erica, and at this point it didn’t matter. He agreed to give her a ride, but for him it was with the intention of clearing the air and setting the record straight. Blanche was a resourceful girl, and he was sure that she would understand that he was in love with another woman.

The gold cuff links with his initials carved through in script slipped into the cuff of his buttercream shirt. The last thing Warren was in the mood for was a party crowded with phony people and corny small talk, but his dad would be disappointed if he didn’t show. It was his and Shar’s first party as a married couple and everyone who was anyone would be there, throwing money at the cause.

When Warren pulled up to Blanche’s townhouse, she was standing in the doorway dressed in a flamenco-style dress with her hair pulled to the side. Warren got out of the car and opened the passenger door for her as she hurried down her walkway.

“Hi,” she kissed his cheek.

The truck needed to be washed, Warren thought, observing the layer of dust sitting on top of its red paint. Warren had always been meticulous about his ride, and he couldn’t believe he had let his car get this bad. Tomorrow he’d take it to his man in Southeast and have it detailed, the rims and all. If he got there by nine, he’d be out and at the gym by ten.

“Ha-llo,” Blanche interrupted his thoughts. “How do I look?”

“Oh, nice.” Warren steadied her elbow while she stepped up into the SUV. When he slid into the driver’s seat, Blanche rested her hand on his thigh.

“Thanks for the ride,” she squeezed.

Warren’s stomach tightened and he moved his leg with a jerk, causing her hand to slip away. It was obvious what Blanche wanted, but he decided to save the “chat” for the ride back. They drove the next few blocks with a Wynton Marsalis cut covering the silence.

Warren’s family’s house was a four-bedroom Georgian that sat in the middle of the block. When he turned the corner he could see that there wouldn’t be parking close to the house, so he parked at the neck of the street.

“Nice neighborhood.” Blanche pulled her wrap tighter around her arms as they walked. “Is this where you grew up?”

“For the most part,” he gave the short answer.

“Must have been nice coming up with D.C.’s finest.”

“I don’t know about that,” Warren commented as they turned up the cobblestone pathway.

“Wow, look at this house. I’d give my left arm to live here.” She was looking through the picture glass window.

The curtains on the house were thrust open, and partygoers in fancy evening attire could be seen from the street. The door was ajar and Warren removed Blanche’s wrap and handed it to the butler who waited in the foyer.

“Thank you,” said Blanche, looking around the room; her eyes shining with amazement. Warren could see why; the house was very impressive, boasting high cathedral ceilings and hardwood floors that gleamed like polished glass. There were two large buffet tables to the left and the staff busied around holding trays of hors d’oeuvres.

Warren’s eyes naturally fell on his mother’s grand piano. It was the only personal item of hers still in the room and he saw Shar’s boys leaning against it. A flame flickered inside of him. How dare they? That was his mother’s piano and he didn’t want them touching it.

“Blanche, can I get you a drink?” His eyes stayed on the boys.

“Yes, please. Merlot,” she said as she removed a buffalo Wellington from the waiter’s tray. “This looks delicious.”

Warren made his way through the crowd towards the piano but was slowed down by greeting a few familiar guests. His dad and Shar were at the opposite end of the room laughing with a local congressman and his wife, so Warren decided to save his hello for later. One thing he had learned at an early age was not to interrupt his father when he was engaged in business discussions.

By the time he reached the boys, they had moved to the rosewood bench that had replaced his mother’s stool. Warren relaxed.

“Hey guys. You boys home from school?”

“We just got here today,” replied Jared.

“Mom made us keep these dumb uniforms on,” Bernard imitated his mother, “because she thinks we look so handsome in them.”

With a pang in his ribs, Warren told the boys that his mother used to do the same thing. “Is Mr. Brown still the gym teacher?”

“Yeah, he coaches my basketball team,” answered Bernard. “I’m the jump shot king.” He raised his hands in a swish motion, and Warren glimpsed his father’s smile in the young boy’s eyes.

“There you are,” Blanche reached for Warren’s arm. “Who are these handsome creatures?”

The boys introduced themselves as Warren flagged down the nearest gloved waiter. “Sorry about that. I almost forgot your drink.” He handed a glass of red wine to Blanche, and took a white for himself.

The room had swelled with D.C. politicians, dignitaries, CEOs, and renowned local artists. The fund-raiser would be good for the public schools, and Warren was glad to see so many people turn out.

His father waved to him, and Warren excused himself from Blanche and headed over to say hello.

“Sir.”

“Son,” his father embraced him. “What’s going on with the beard? Didn’t you have time to shave?”

“Just something new I’m trying.”

“Well I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that I don’t like it.” He narrowed his eyes.

Blanche swept over and grabbed his father’s hand. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Prince,” she said, reminding him that they had met at the Man of Honor dinner.

“Thanks for supporting such a worthy cause.”

“Well, the children are our future,” she said brightly.

The music began, and Shar waved his father over from across the room. Warren watched as the tension from his father’s body lightened when he reached for her. They kissed with passion, and then he pulled Shar close to his heart as they led the party’s first dance. The newlyweds were dressed in black—Shar in a sequined cocktail dress and his father in a traditional three-piece suit. Even when other couples joined them, Warren couldn’t help notice how their bodies swayed into each other as naturally as if they had been dancing for years. What was it about this woman that had turned his father into twinkle toes?

Already Warren found his father more gentle and affectionate with Shar, and wondered if it was because of their history together or lack thereof. With his mother, his father had often been agitated and restless, barking orders and criticizing her, which only made his mother work harder at pleasing him.

In the beginning of his Army career, money was tight because Maynard wouldn’t allow them to live on base. Warren’s mother did her best to create a loving home. She clipped coupons and could stretch a roasted chicken to chicken noodle soup to chicken-salad sandwiches. She mended socks and underwear so that they’d last a little longer, and didn’t complain when told to pack up the family with only a moment’s notice because of military orders.
It was her prodding that secured his father the coveted position of chief of staff, and now that he was a groomed man, Shar sat reaping the benefits.

“I’m telling Dad,” Jared stood crying. Bernard quickly hushed his younger brother by offering his wristwatch.

Dad? The couple hadn’t been married a few weeks, and “Dad” was already slipping from the young boy’s tongue? The anxiety that had been building since Warren overheard the gossip at the church crashed through him like a wave hitting a breaking point.

From across the room Warren watched his father whisper something to Shar and then walk towards the back of the house. Warren knew he was heading to his study to steal a smoke. Bravery surged through him. It was such a ballsy feeling that he knew he had to strike before he lost his nerve. After giving his father a head start, Warren followed down the center hall adorned with original paintings by artists such as Leroy Campbell and Georgia O’Keeffe. The family portrait of Warren, his father, mother and sister was gone.

Turning the sharp corner that led to his father’s private study, Warren pushed the heavy oak door open without knocking.

“Son, when did you start barging in?” his father demanded, startled.

“Were you ever planning to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“That Shar’s sons are yours?” The words shot from Warren’s mouth.

His father looked down at his pipe and took his time to pinch in a chunk of tobacco before bringing it to his lips. After the smoke cleared, he replied. “I had planned to tell you about the adoption as soon as it went through.”

“I’m not talking about an adoption,” Warren clenched his teeth. “It’s all over the church. Apparently everyone knows but me.”

“Watch it, son,” his father set his pipe down and glared, fixing Warren with the same look he would use to intimidate him as a boy. “Have you lost your cotton-pickin’ mind?” His father’s polished speech dropped Southern. Clearly, he was upset.

“You owe me an explanation,” Warren took a few steps forward, refusing to back down.

“How dare you come in here with this nonsense. In the middle of a party? I have guests roaming my house. You’ve got some nerve,” he pointed his pipe.

“Just tell me the truth and I’ll go.”

“Boy, you better watch your tone, before something happens that we both regret,” his father stared him down.

“Then you’re a coward,” Warren spat, unable to believe his own nerve. “After all of your rules about what a man is? Now you can’t even look me in the eye and tell the truth?” He turned on his heels and left the door wide open. Another no-no.

Blanche was holding court
with the wife of a senator when Warren stormed through the party.

“I’m leaving,” his face was misty with sweat.

Blanche excused herself, and hurriedly followed him across the living area to the front door. Outside she had to trot down the street to keep up with him. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Why are you here?” Warren looked at her. The street was empty in both directions, but music could be heard coming from the house.

“I wanted to support a worthy cause.”

“No. Why are you really here?” He ran his teeth over his bottom lip.

Blanche fidgeted with her clutch.

“What happened with you and Erica?”

She stared at him.

“What did you tell her that day I left you at my apartment?” Warren demanded.

“Nothing . . .that it was over between you. Isn’t that right?”

Warren could hear the desperation in Blanche’s voice and he didn’t want to hurt her, but he had to come clean. “That night I was really drunk, Blanche.”

She moved closer and reached for his cheek. “That wouldn’t stop us now.”

Warren swatted her hand. “We work together, Blanche. And I’m not over Erica. I’m sorry,” he offered.

“You’re sorry,” she mustered, spit flying. “Fuckin’ asshole. You want to have your cake and eat it too. First you wanted me, now it’s Erica. What a jerk,” she said flatly.

Just then two women stepped outside of his father’s home for a smoke.

“Blanche, calm down.”

“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down. What about how I feel?” she retorted. “Ever consider that? Or is your world so small you can only think of yourself?”

Warren grabbed hold of her arm to try to control the scene but she pulled away.

“Don’t touch me,” she said, pointing her finger in his face. “What a wishy-washy pig.” She moved away from him, back up the cobblestone path and into the house.

Warren started to follow, but he knew it would do more harm than good on all accounts.

Sitting behind the wheel
of his Yukon Danali, Warren could only think of one thing. Erica. He removed his cell phone from his hip and called her. After four rings the machine picked up.

“Hey it’s me. Warren. We need to talk, please call me back.”

When he got home
he tore out of his suit, paced his living room floor and tried her again. No answer, another message.

“I really need to talk to you. Call me when you get this.”

An hour later, his heart felt as if he had been running a twenty-one-mile marathon with no water and Erica held the icy cup. He needed her. Damn it, he couldn’t take any more. He tried her again.

“Leave a message.” Beep.

This time, when she didn’t answer, he started singing. It was the wimpiest thing he ever did, but he was beyond caring. Erica needed to know how he felt.

He sang the first three verses of “Wild as the Wind.” It was the song that they listened to over and over again in the car on the way to the Pocono Mountains, and Warren wanted her to remember when things were good. Although he sounded nothing like Nina Simone, he had perfect pitch and could carry a tune.
With your kiss my life begins…

Warren put the phone to his heart, hoping that she could hear the pattern of his thump, bringing it back to his ear. “I can’t go on like this, baby. I’m like a leaf clinging to a tree. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I’m drying up without you. You’ve got me begging…”