Naughty or Nice (25 page)

I stood there, fidgeting, wiping my eyes, crying, breathing heavily until they were done.

“Whoo hoooo!” Their spirited breaths fogged the air. “Happy holidays.”

I nodded. “Merry . . . I mean . . . Happy holidays.”

They staggered away singing a cheerful and off-key “Jingle Bells.”

Then I closed the door, got ready to face my lover's wife again.

She was behind me, right up on me, her red-rimmed eyes, her scorned glare cutting deep into me. While I was being serenaded with a yuletide melody, Carpe's wife had been staring at the clothes, touching the bed, taking in all the things her money had bought, with each thick breath inhaling the scent of immoral lovers, struggling with herself, her anger rising, cresting.

And now she was about to snap.

She grabbed my throat, started choking me before I could . . . my nails dug into her hands . . . she kept . . . banging my head into the door . . . I was choking . . . her eyes wide . . . nails deep in my neck . . . her lips moving . . . words I couldn't make out . . . cursing me . . . then I was falling back into the wall . . . hitting her face . . . kicking her . . . trying to pull her hair . . . stumbling over the bed . . . my head being pushed into the wall . . . each step, each stumble she followed me . . . never letting go . . . choking me . . . light-headed . . . couldn't fight her anymore . . . numbness covered me . . . then . . . then she let me go.

I collapsed to the floor, wheezing, struggling to breathe, like a drowning woman finally given a teaspoon of air, legs moving like a runner trying to get away.

I tried to scamper away. Wiped the sweat from my eyes. My vision came back.

She stared down at me, hair loose and disarrayed, sweat all over her face, her chest rising and falling faster than mine, a new fear in her eyes, as if she were afraid because of what she'd almost done. She picked up her purse, her coat, stepped over me, her heels click clacking at a fast pace as she walked out the door, left the cold air blowing across my body, the sound of carolers singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” coming in on the ocean's frigid breath.

 

I made it to my SUV. Sat in my truck for a long while, thinking, trembling back to life one heavy breath at a time, wiping my sweat away on my clothes, on napkins, anything I could find. Drove away from my nest. The present I brought for Carpe rested in my lap. My phone vibrated, danced, lit up. A text message. Carpe was looking for Bird.

I typed him a message back.
My name is Olivia.
Bird didn't exist anymore.

Then I broke the phone in half. I let my window down and let the pieces fall into speeding traffic, let his words scatter at sixty miles an hour.

Flashing red lights and a siren wailed behind me. I changed lanes. The police car did the same. I cursed and pulled over in a well-lit area. Didn't move. Had a brief thought about a young girl in Riverside who was gunned down in a parking lot and kept my hands on the wheel.

Brighter lights came on. Blinded me. A female officer came to my window. Asian. Round face. Dimples. Hair in a bun. She motioned and I let my window all the way down.

She said, “Do you know how fast you were going?”

I shook my head. “Wasn't paying attention.”

Her flashlight lit up my face. “Your blouse is ripped.”

“I know.”

“Neck is scratched up. You're bleeding.”

Again, there were tears. “I know.”

“Were you in an altercation?”

I wiped my hair away from my face and my fingers throbbed. Three nails were broken. Some blood was caked under the others. I put my hands in my lap, shook my head.

Our eyes met. There were certain things a woman knew. Whether she had on high heels or a badge and a bulletproof vest, there were things a woman knew.

She took my license. My registration. Speeding. Doing over sixty in a residential area. Littering. She asked me to get out of my SUV. The officer had me stand to the side, in the cold, on the damp grass, away from the flow of traffic, while she went back to the police car.

His last message was in my head. He wanted to eat my pussy.

His wife's angst, her tears, all of that damage was in my eyes.

This changed the perception of who I was, made me the perpetrator, not the victim. I didn't like being the victim, but I was less comfortable being the perpetrator.

She came back to me, handed me my paperwork.

She said, “I can write you up, but I'm leaning toward giving you a warning.”

“I'll take a warning. I just . . . I . . . Am I free to go home now?”

“But I'm not going to let you drive, not in your condition.”

I nodded. “Can I just sit in my truck, please?”

“Anyone you can call?”

“Yeah. My husband. No. My sisters.”

“Ma'am?”

“One of my sisters. I can call . . . wait . . . shit . . . I don't have a phone.”

“Pay phone is over in the mini-mall. Sit here a few minutes. Get yourself together.”

“Okay.”

“Then I'll follow you.”

“Okay.”

 

Frankie and Tommie showed up twenty minutes later. Both worried. I wanted to ride with Tommie, but Frankie made me get into her car. Tommie drove my SUV.

Frankie asked, “Do we need to go East Side and kick somebody's ass?”

Right or wrong, I was her sister. She was my protector.

I shook my head.

Maybe one day I'd tell her and Tommie all of what I had done.

Maybe they already knew enough.

S
unrise. Christmas morning.

Frankie is the most outspoken of us all. That's why she and Momma always went at it like two hardheaded, headstrong women. Livvy told me that it had been that way from the moment Frankie was born. When Momma was first diagnosed, Frankie was the one who held us all together. When Momma died, Frankie cried the hardest because she was the last one to cry. We'd been crying all along, but Frankie had refused to break down. She came unraveled when the dirt hit Momma's coffin. Frankie needed us to be her bookends, and we held her up.

“Tommie, where are your presents?”

I say, “Right here, Frankie.”

“Livvy, get to moving.”

Livvy snaps, “Out my face, Frankie.”

That's the way we start our Christmas morning, packing up gifts and going to see Momma and Daddy. We always take them their presents first, always honor them the way children should honor their parents, the way we should honor our ancestors.

But we're still sisters. The morning always starts out with us fighting each other, somebody mad because somebody did this, somebody didn't do that.

“Tommie . . . dammit . . . get in the damn car or I will leave you.”

“Whatever, Frankie. I'll drive my-damn-self.”

“You know what,” Livvy explodes. “And I'm talking to both of you, I don't need no drama.”

In stereo Frankie and I shout, “Shut up, Livvy.”

All of our madness is love and nervous energy. It's like that because we were going to see our folks. Something about going to see Momma and Daddy always makes us revert back to being their children;. gives us the right to throw adulthood and its problems to the wind, to become four, ten, and fourteen again.

And like every year, Frankie is the first one to go off on somebody, then the first one to cry. Her tears fall while we're driving up Prairie toward Inglewood Cemetery.

I blow my nose, wipe my eyes, and look around at the city. Christmas morning is just like any other morning in the desert, the only difference being less traffic and more tolerance for the next twenty-four hours. No one rushing to work. No one brushing their teeth while they sit in traffic. No one whipping from lane to lane, reading the morning paper, or shaving, or yelling at their kids, or doing their hair and makeup while they cut you off. Even the smog is gentle. It's a different world this morning. An abandoned town with no real trees. Most of the people who are out are sleep-deprived parents who forgot to buy batteries for the toys. People are polite, respecting signal lights and doing the speed limit. It's a safe day, maybe the only day that everyone pretends they respect each other. It's like a twenty-four-hour virus because tomorrow morning, L.A. will go back to being L.A.: smog, relentless traffic, and the middle-finger being an extension of inner feelings.

By the time we park, Frankie has a big box of tissue in her lap, half of the tissues used and on the floor.

I ask, “You okay?”

Frankie nods. Her sunglasses can't hide the redness in her eyes.

Livvy wipes her eyes with the back of her hands. Frankie hands her a few tissues. Then she hands me a few. We have an eye-drying, nose-blowing moment.

I sniffle. “McBrooms?”

They both nod and speak in chorus, “We're ready.”

We walk shoulder-to-shoulder, smile-to-smile to where our parents are laid to rest.

Frankie says, “Somebody's been here.”

Flowers are already at the base of our parents' tombstone. Fresh cut roses.

We're all surprised.

Frankie picks them up, reads the card. “They're from Tony.”

Livvy takes the card from her. Then I take the card from her. Tony has sent our parents his eternal love and his apologies.

Livvy frowns, shakes her head, looks around, but doesn't see him.

I wipe my eyes and tell her. “He came out yesterday.”

She snatches a tissue. “So, you've been in contact with him.”

I nod. “He called me.”

“Uh huh. Where was I?”

“Nobody ever knows where you are, Livvy.”

“And you didn't tell me?”

“Olivia, guess what?” I snap back at her. “Antonio called me. Happy? Geesh.”

We stand in front of the headstone, wiping our eyes, presents and flowers in our hands.

BERNARD LEE McBROOM BETTY JEAN McBROOM

Frankie whispers, “Livvy, you been getting your breasts checked?”

“I go back in January. Tommie?”

“I'm self-checking all the time. Frankie?”

“I have an appointment.”

I put the green blanket down. We always come comfortable, most of the time in jeans and sweats and sweaters and jackets, sometimes gloves. A couple of times we came and stood underneath an umbrella while heaven cried soft tears. This year heaven smiles. The clouds are gray. A marine layer covers us. But we live in nothing but sunshine.

I ask, “Okay, who's going first this year?”

Frankie's gift for Momma is a bottle of Red, the perfume she used to wear all the time. Frankie used to steal Momma's perfume when she was in high school, and they fought over it all the time. Frankie bought Daddy another silk tie and a bottle of Riesling.

As a symbol of gratitude for bringing her into the world and keeping all of us out of harm's way, Livvy bought those love-birds a basket of their favorite fruits.

My present is a beautiful Unity cup and candles, giving them the spirit of Kwanzaa. I have so much love for Daddy and the only mother I ever remembered.

I blow my nose. “Bet they're in heaven looking down on us right now.”

Frankie shakes her head. “Nobody's in heaven until Judgment Day.”

“You're wrong, Frankie.”

She tisks. “I am not wrong, Tommie.”

“Then why does the preacher say people are gone to heaven to meet God and Jesus?”

“Don't make me slap you with a Bible.”

“Heathen. You do and I'll throw holy water on you and watch you burn.”

Livvy snaps, “Can we, for once, not argue or have that conversation?”

I look around; see other families at several gravesites, honoring their loved ones. Sort of feel an emptiness for the resting souls no one comes to visit anymore. The people who have ceased to exist in the minds and hearts of others. Then I notice a few more tombstones around ours, the final dates on those markers anywhere between last Christmas and only a few days ago.

Livvy massages her hand. She has three broken nails. And she's wearing a scarf around her neck, hiding her scars. We know all of her injuries have something to do with her indiscretion. We don't question her. She'll tell us when she's ready.

We sit down awhile and talk to our people, make it similar to the Day of the Dead celebration in Latin America. Our party isn't out of place, because all around us are people having conversations with their loved ones, some alone and talking out loud, some in groups, some a capella and standing in silence, but the expressions on their silent faces let me know that they're transmitting and receiving memories and affections. We live in a city where patriotism lasts about as long as the X cap and baggy M.C. Hammer pants, but love is eternal.

Frankie pulls her Polaroid camera out of her bag and gives it to me because my arms are the longest. We huddle up close to each other, cheek to cheek, all smiles, and I take our photo.

“My eyes were closed, Tommie.”

“Then open them, Livvy.”

We take a few more pictures, wait for them to develop.

Nothing is promised.

Livvy asks, “Tommie, Frankie . . . What did Momma mean when she said that marriage was about the end?”

“She meant eternity.” I said that, my voice so tender. To me it's so simple to understand, so straightforward. “Marriage should be about who you're gonna spend eternity with. It's about who will be by your side until Judgment Day. I guess, if you look at these people out here buried alone and . . . dunno . . . it's kinda sad to not have anybody to be buried next to. I think it's because . . . a man buried next to his wife, or a tombstone with a woman waiting for her husband to finish his journey so he can come and be by her side, or vice versa . . . that makes me . . . I dunno . . . when I see that I guess that makes me smile or something.”

I show them the Polaroid. It's perfect. We all sign our names on the back of that indelible image of this moment. Then, like we do every year, we leave the picture and presents with our parents, their gifts resting in the middle of their headstone.

Frankie rolls up our blanket. By then, Livvy is standing in front of the headstone, her expression telling us that so many thoughts and decisions are going on in her mind.

I stand next to Livvy, put my arm around her. She sniffles. “Daddy was nineteen years older than Momma.”

“Yep. Seems like we were all together yesterday.”

She nods, whispers. “It's about who you wanted to be with at the end, when it's all said and done, all about who you want to be buried next to.”

We stand there for a moment.

Frankie blows her nose again. “Okay, who is leading the prayer?”

I tell her, “Anybody but you.”

I give the prayer this time, keep it short and sweet.

Like children who believed in Santa, we believe that when we leave, Momma and Daddy will sneak out and get their seasonal blessings, the same way we imagine they did on their birthdays, open them, stand side by side, hand in hand, and blow us kisses of protection. They will be loving each other until Judgment Day. Looking out for us until the end.

Livvy's tears came on strong. “I love both of you. Love both of you so much.”

We become her bookends. I tell Livvy and Frankie the same thing, that I love them unconditionally and eternally. Frankie hugs us tight and gives us the same love.