Naughty or Nice (7 page)

That last part, celibate cat in heat, not sure if that's the right image I'm going—

“Tommie, you're over here.” I jump and close my notebook when I hear Monica's voice.

She runs a sleepy run, almost falls, comes to me and grabs my legs, catches me off guard. She's small for her size, but strong. She is barefoot, in too-big white pajamas with yellow ducks.

I push my notebook aside and pick her up. “Hey, Boobie.”

Her hair is long and thick; skin a bronzy yellow, eyes the hue of a new penny.

I say, “The ponytails are holding up.”

She says, “I want my hair braided, not in ponytails. I want six braids.”

“If your daddy says it's cool, I'll hook you up tomorrow if we have time, okay?”

“Okay.”

Blue asks, “Why are you out of bed, Mo?”

“I heard Scooby-Doo.” She wears a sad look on her face. “Is it morning time yet?”

“Come here.”

She goes to him. He hugs her. Sad look gone. An actress in training. A daddy's girl. With Monica, Blue changes. His voice is filled with love, but it's the firm love of a parent.

“Sun is still sleeping.” He kisses her forehead. “Still nighttime.”

“Mommy coming to get me?”

Then there is silence. A moment of sadness.

He sighs. “Mommy . . . she . . . something came up.”

“She said she was coming to get me for lunchtime. Lunchtime and dinnertime are over.”

“I know.”

Monica is anxious. Blue hugs her, tries to take her disappointment away.

“Daddy, can I tell Tommie I'm learning
allllll
about Kwanzaa on the computer?” She rubs her eyes, yawns, struggles with the word, “Ooooo-moe-jah and—”

“Tomorrow, Monica. Time to go night-night.”

“May I have some water, Daddy?”

“You had water before you went to bed.”

“I want water out of my green cup.”

Blue puts her in my lap and gets her green cup. “Water, then back to bed, understand?”

“Tommie, are you going to braid my hair like 'Licia Keys?”

“Alicia Keys it is.”

“I'm I'm I'm doing a spoken word project at school.”

“Really?”

“When I grow up I'm going to be a poem writer just like you, and you can help me!”

She drinks the water, then asks if she can do this, can she do that, tries her best to keep talking, but Blue makes her give me a good-night hug, then takes her to the bathroom and lets her use it before taking her back to the bedroom. I hear them talking. So much love is in this space.

I sit at the table for a while, waiting and thinking, feeling like I should go.

I met Blue because of Monica. I used to see him going out in the morning, struggling to get her in the car seat so he could get her to the sitter and get to work on time. Monica's hair would be jacked up, halfway plaited, halfway Afro. Crooked parts. No
oil or moisturizer. Even when Monica's mother had her and dropped her off, her hair was jacked up. Actually, she did a worse job than Blue. Blue and I were on the way out at the same time one morning and we both waved. He was in his driveway and I was backing out so I could get to 'Bucks and write a bit before I went to open at Pier 1. I drove down the street, then turned back around, pulled up in front of his place, introduced myself as a neighbor, told him that I wasn't trying to get in his business, then asked if he needed me to do her hair. He offered to pay me. I told him it was pro bono. He told me that his baby momma wasn't good at styling hair, either that or wasn't patient enough to try and learn how to plait and braid hair as gifted as Monica's, so he did his best. Had the poor child looking like Buckwheat in the electric chair. I have to give him credit for trying to hold his own. That was how we met. That was how we became friends. Through Monica.

Twenty minutes goes by before he comes back, that parental irritation all over his face.

I ask, “She sleep?”

“Yeah. Had to make sure no monsters were under her bed.”

“She makes a sucker out of you.”

“I know. That damn
Monsters Inc.
movie . . .”

We laugh and yawn.

I ask, “What are you gonna do about work tomorrow?”

He makes another cup of tea, sits down again. “I'll have to call in.”

“You can't keep doing that.”

“No choice.”

“You could lose your job.”

“Old Navy ain't all that. It's only seasonal part-time work so I can get that discount. Need to buy Mo a few things and save a few dollars for when I'm off track at Unified. When her mom jacks me over on a Friday night at the last minute, I don't really have a backup plan.”

“Yes you do.”

“It's not your problem, Tommie.”

“Bring Monica over.”

“Don't you have to work?”

“Don't have to be at Pier 1 until three.”

“I don't get off until five.”

“Maybe I can change my hours.”

“That's not being responsible.” He tugs at his hair. “You can't do that.”

“Blue, it takes a village. Understand that.”

Blue has cable and I don't. So a couple of times a week I come over to braid or plait his daughter's hair. Our little ritual. I do her hair. I eat with them. He bathes her while I wash his dishes. I play with her and read to her so he can get a break. Blue puts her in the bed by nine. Then he makes us ginger-peppermint tea and we watch cable for an hour or so.

Tonight we just talk.

He opens up the futon in the living room and I rest next to him, not touching but wanting to. The words stop and the yawns come on strong.

He asks, “Running in the morning?”

“If Frankie calls. Don't have to.”

Being on a futon, anything that resembles a bed with a man is a huge step for me. It means I trust him. My sex and guilt issues don't exist with Blue.

My eyelids get as heavy as Blue's breathing.

I pull the covers up to my neck. Blue moves his heat closer to me, almost spooning.

Sleep finds me.

Then I hear feet; feel a tiny body crawl up on the futon, climbing over us like we're a mountain. Monica gets under the covers, snuggles her cool body between me and her daddy's warmth. She looks at her daddy, sees he's sleeping, then moves over and looks in my face.

She whispers, “Tommie?”

“Yeah, Monica?”

“When is morning time?”

“Not too long. Close your eyes and it'll be here before you know it.”

“I forgot to tell you I love you.”

“Love you too.”

She says, “G'night.”

“G'night.”

I massage her back; calm her the way my momma used to do me. Her breathing becomes heavy and smooth. I get up in the darkness, put my shoes on, pick up my purse, grab my keys.

I'm at the door, turning the lock when Blue's voice follows me. “Leaving?”

“Thanks for the tea.”

He never says, but I can tell that he's not comfortable when Monica comes in and sleeps between us, if only for a moment. I understand the message he doesn't want to give his child. And she's at that age where she tells everything. And her momma gives Blue enough drama.

We pause. Darkness hides the truth as unspoken words fill the air.

He says, “Tommie . . .”

Something is on his mind. The way he said my name gives me awkward energy.

I ask, “Whassup?”

It takes him a moment. “I'm really sorry I didn't make it to 'Bucks.”

“No big deal.”

“Yes, it is. You do so much for Mo and I couldn't make it around the corner to support you. After I realized her momma wasn't coming . . . could've brought Monica with me, she would've loved to see you—”

“No, it's cool. I understand. If you need me in the morning, holla.”

“We can work it out over here.”

That pronoun builds a wall between us, reminds me that I'm not part of their
weekness
.

I say, “Blue, you do things for me all the time. You change the oil in my Jeep, you flush out the radiator.”

He doesn't respond to my sprawling words, just gets up and comes to the door. He hugs me with both arms, holds onto me. I hug him tight, hold onto him.

He knows.

And I know he knows.

He tells me, “You're a beautiful young woman, Tommie.”

“I'm a grown woman, Blue.”

“I know you are.”

This is our pink elephant.

I don't know if the elephant looms and breathes because of my therapy, my two years of abstinence, or my abuse and trust issues that he knows a little about, or our age difference.

Or if it's because we're friends, and there are lines friends don't cross.

My palms become rivers while my throat turns into a desert. People think that therapy makes it easier to put things on the table, to say what you mean and mean what you say, but it only teaches you how to hide your own problems while you become better at fixing other people.

It's hard to put my arms around him because at the end of the hug is another good-bye. I know I'll have to let go. I know I'll have to move on. That we'll have to go through this again and again. The only thing waiting for me across the street is thoughts of him and Monica.

Again we're face-to-face, and I wonder if he's going to kiss me. I want him to. I don't want him to. He lets me go and the room turns cold. I turn the door handle. But I don't leave.

I say his name. Emotions ride out of my body on my voice.

I whisper, “Can I ask you a question?”

He shifts. “Sure.”

“What are we doing?”

He struggles with my question. “What do you mean?”

“Blue, don't . . . you know what I mean.”

“We're friends.”

“I know.”

“Tommie, you're twenty-three. I'm thirty-eight. Renting a duplex. A single parent. A struggling screenwriter. A school-teacher at L.A. Unified, where sometimes I get my check on time, and sometimes I don't. I work at Old Navy on the weekends to make ends meet.”

I let him go until he's done. All the things he tells me are the reasons I admire him.

I say, “My daddy was a janitor, a plumber, did whatever he had to do.”

“I'm not your daddy, Tommie.”

“And I don't expect you to be. I'm just asking . . . Whassup?”

“My life is complicated, Tommie.”

We're standing there looking at each other, the pink elephant moving back and forth, then sitting in a corner, giving us enough room to do this circle dance.

“Life is complicated for everybody, Blue.”

“And I'm damaged goods.”

“We're all damaged, Blue.”

Lights are coming down Fairfax, somebody driving too fast for this residential area. The car slows down and whips into Blue's driveway. It's a dirty, white Pontiac Grand Am.

Erotic feelings dwindle as tension rises.

I say, “She's here.”

Blue curses her. “Not even a phone call to say she's going to be fourteen hours late.”

“Don't get upset.”

“She's damn near forty and as irresponsible as a fucking—”

I shush him and motion at his sleeping child. “Lower your voice.”

His voice becomes a harsh whisper, “She gets me every time.”

“Don't give her that power. And Monica doesn't need to see that either.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Shhh. And don't say anything negative about her in front of Monica.”

The car parks and she gets out. We step out the door. She sees us up top and stops.

Blue says, “Funny how you can have a child with someone and have zero connection. I look at her, feel nothing, other than that's my child's mother. Don't even know her.”

“How did you . . . I mean . . . you and her . . .”

“How did we have a baby?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit happens.” That's his answer to the unanswerable.

I say, “I'm out, Blue. Holla if you need me.”

I head down the stairs, smell her perfume before I get to her. She waits at the bottom.

She has on hip hugger jeans, Birkenstocks, a Dave Matthews Band sweatshirt. I doubt if she is five feet tall. Her blue eyes cut me up and down, and she flips her blond hair away and gives me an expression that makes me think that Sister Moon is tugging at her ovarian walls.