Searching for Tina Turner (20 page)

At the end of the ninth, and final, session and with the help of their lawyers, they reached final agreement. Randall insisted—if
Lena wanted Camille and Kendrick to stay with her—that she had to keep the house.

“Or else what?”

Elizabeth warned that Randall would more than likely use the house as a bargaining tool. Lena stopped his momentum with a
deliberate bathroom break and collected herself in the cold lavatory. She stood in one of the three stalls and blew her nose,
wiped her tears on the coarse toilet paper, then returned to the conference room twenty minutes later as if nothing more than
her biological urge had been taken care of. Randall picked up the conversation as if she never left the room.

“I’ve worked hard for what I have,” he said.

“So now it’s all yours, huh?” Lena leaned against her leather-backed chair, looked straight into Randall’s tight, brown eyes,
and reminded him: “I worked hard, too. For
us
. You. Keep. The house.” She gathered her papers and stuffed them into her portfolio. Her hands trembled. The papers shook,
and she didn’t hide them. She slipped her purse onto her shoulder, left it to the lawyers to balance the house’s appreciation
with Randall’s retirement fund, bonuses, the TIDA stock options, and walked out of the office, into the elevator, and held
her tears until she got to her car.

f   f   f

Her tears flow freely now and wash away all emotion, so that by the time she faces Randall later this morning to sign their
finalized agreement, she will not cry at all. His face has been so stern, the crease in his forehead so deep through each
of the mediation sessions and the nasty correspondence in between. She cannot help but question his motives when his behavior
is so aloof. Which compartment has she been relegated to? Where did he put that man who could never remember the punch line
to a joke but made up his own, who held her when John Henry died and worried about how Lulu would get along, who cradled each
of their children on the day of their birth and marveled at the miracle of their perfect fingers and toes, who rode with her
in that fancy new car as excited as she was?

Back in her apartment, Lena steps into the living room and beams. It has taken three months to make this apartment feel like
home. Furniture and flowers, walls covered with her photographs—rusty wrought iron fences entwined with weeds, aged doors
from the decaying West Oakland train station, junkyard capitals atop Corinthian columns, abandoned cars, and a homeless man
preaching to a garbage can. She cannot deny that the absence of playful shouting, the smell of food in the oven, hugs, and
no one to say good morning or good night makes her feel sad.

The phone rings as Lena strips off her sweaty clothes.

“That Randall. I’m so disappointed.” Through the phone Lulu’s noisy slurping reassures Lena that the world is normal.

Lena snickers. If only Lulu knew. If only Lena had a dollar for each time Randall has scratched a red marker across Mr. Meyers’s
drafts or told Lena she couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t do one thing or another with
his
money,
his
kids,
his
house,
his
season tickets,
his
schedule,
his
job,
his
friends,
his
life.

“Want me to come with you?”

The thought of Lulu at her side—outfitted in fuchsia or sunflower yellow, complete with coordinating fingernails and toenails—
in the mediator’s office with Randall and their very proper lawyers is enough to make her chuckle.

“I love you, Lulu.” Outside the window and fourteen floors below, a single rowboat, its crewmembers tiny dots, skids across
the lake’s glassy surface. Sections of the path she walked this morning, will walk again for many days to come, are easy to
see. “After all these weeks, I believe I can handle it on my own.”

“I love you, Lena. You get your strength from my side of the family, you know.” From the shallow sound of her sips, Lena can
tell that Lulu’s coffee cup is almost empty. “Dress sexy, and do whatever it takes to soften him up.”

“Sexy,” Lena says, “won’t do me any good anymore with
this
man. I’m invisible to him; a parasitic harpy he believes wants to bleed him dry.” She settles on the bed and laughs until
more tears come into her eyes. Flick.

“That’s my baby girl!” Lulu laughs, too. “Always the drama queen.”

In the shower, the hard, hot water blends with the last of Lena’s tears, sprays over her cheeks, back, and thighs. If, all
those years ago, Randall could go back to his first ex, the gold digger, could he come back to her, and would she want him
if he did? Could the lilt of her laugh make Randall regret this decision, make him change his mind? Months of sitting across
from him at the mediator’s table have changed hers. He no longer looks familiar. Lena is amazed at how callous Randall has
been. Is he surprised by how tough and prepared she has been?

Lena takes her time to dress in a conservative, body-hugging, taupe pantsuit (that’s just a bit sexy) and admires herself
in the mirror above the sink. The whites of her light brown eyes are clear, the stress acne is gone, the hair is growing back
in the tiny worry-patch above her right temple.

The glass top of the small bottle of jasmine essence on the bathroom counter is shaped like a flower. Randall never told her
how much it cost, preferring to keep her supplied himself, but the cut crystal bottle and the gold filigree hint at its price.
This bottle is nearly full of the delicate perfume. She rubs jasmine on her neck and wrists and behind her knees, then turns
the bottle upside down and lets the rest run into the sink and down the drain. In this new place there is no room for old
memories.

She stuffs
I, Tina
into her purse like she has before every other session. Out the door, down the elevator, and into the car. Ready. Set. Go.

f   f   f

Mr. Meyers pats the papers stacked before him and explains that both parties will sign this master document, copies to be
distributed once it is filed with the court and finalized at the beginning of next year. The document is a half inch thick.
For all the time, arguments, and concessions, the fluorescent light makes the black marks on the crisp white paper appear
insignificant.

Across the table, Randall’s broad face avoids hers. He is Kendrick Randall Spencer now. Businessman. Formal and distant. Some
other woman will soon be the beneficiary of his attention. The grin she loved, loves, hides behind his tight lips, nevermore
to expose itself to her. Randall’s smile has been removed from community property, not included in the division of their assets.

“And so it is done,” Lena says, her tone so formal it surprises her, and she glances around as if someone else speaks with
her singsong voice. She wants to tell a joke, maybe a parable like Lulu would if she were here: A man and woman find each
other again after many years apart, many loves in between. They get married and live in a lovely house with a picket fence
and tulips that bloom in the spring. Their son is handsome, their daughter beautiful; both kids are smart. They are blessed.
One day, they lose themselves in the fantasy of it all and let it go without really understanding why, without taking the
time to make it work when the going got rough.

Punch line: life is too short. Ha. Ha.

“Page two sign and initial here.” Mr. Meyers is gruff with them today, tired, Lena supposes, of their bickering. “This paragraph
outlines the purpose of the agreement and commences the specifics of the division of property.”

L. Harrison Spencer

K. Randall Spencer

“What God has joined together, let no man tear asunder,” the diminutive, white minister said on their wedding day in that
beautiful cathedral where candles twinkled and the scent of so many lilies made Lena sneeze just as she said, “I do.”

Page 15
covers spousal support and stipulates the amount Randall will pay to Lena until her death, remarriage, or legal domestic
partnership. Today, the thought of another man in her life makes Lena laugh out loud. None of these things matters as her
Mont Blanc pen holds steadfast to its path across the papers. Randall slides each page to her side of the table after he signs
them.

L. Harrison Spencer

K. Randall Spencer

Funny, Lena thinks, what she will remember about this moment. The thin red stripes on Randall’s black suit and matching tiny
dots on his tie, how it skews ever so slightly to the right, the absence of his wedding ring. The feel of him pulsing inside
her, her body close to his, the smell of their mingled sweat. Her pressing urge—psychological, not physical—to pee. The mediator’s
rubber-tipped finger flipping through fifty-two pages. Fifty-two sets of initials. Six signatures. Rows of legal code shelved
around the room: dull brown books, gold horizontal stripes—California Family Law, Division of Property. Stipulation, petitioner,
and irreconcilable differences. Dissolution of God’s law. The piles. The piles. The piles.

Ain’t nothing guaranteed but death, John Henry used to say. Divorce is a death. She wants a funeral, a farewell to what was.
Where is the champagne to toast this freedom?

“By placing your final signatures here, you both agree to the terms and conditions of this Marital Support Agreement. This
is a legally binding document and any diversion from it, without the written consent of both parties, is considered breach.”
Mr. Meyers glances from Lena to Randall to Lena, then passes the last page to both of them.

Lena looks across the table to Randall’s smile-less face and considers extending her hand to touch him one last time. Their
eyes lock in one swift, never-to-be-forgotten millisecond, and Lena will never know if it was reality or imagination that
his hand almost extends, too. That love is flat. Gone like a helium balloon slipped from a child’s hand floating up to the
atmosphere, to heaven, to God.
Pop.

Before they married, Lena practiced signing versions of her new name, like most brides-to-be: Lena Harrison Spencer. Lena
Spencer. L. H. Spencer. She decided on L. Harrison Spencer. Now, she uses that signature for the last time.

L. Harrison Spencer

K. Randall Spencer

“And so it is done,” she says, knowing full well she is speaking.

f   f   f

“I know you’re in bed,” Bobbie says when Lena answers the phone. “You okay?”

“No.” Lena yawns into the phone. Outside, the afternoon sun beams through the window and creates a crisp parallelogram of
light on the rug. “It’s been three days—I’ve broken the blue-funk rule, and I don’t care.”

The sisters created the blue-funk rule for themselves years ago to handle heartbreak or disappointment: one, and one day only,
to cry, hibernate, stuff themselves with their favorite food—chocolate ice cream with nuts. An empty cardboard pint once full
of chocolate ice cream with nuts and chunks of white and dark chocolate sits beside Tina’s autobiography on the long table
doubling as a nightstand.

“I have good days and bad ones, Bobbie. This is a bad day. A very bad day. The worst.” Time to get back to the rule, and her
time is overextended. “But, it’s my last one. I start work at the Oakland Museum in two weeks, and I signed up for another
photography class in the winter quarter.”

“The hardest part is over. I’m glad you’re moving on. Compared to some people, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

More than once during the mediation process Lena has thought about other divorced women less fortunate than her with children
to feed, no money, and a real fear of what comes next. She makes a double sign of the cross over her heart, thanks God for
her blessings, and promises to donate a little extra to a shelter.

“Leave me alone.”

“You don’t need to be alone. You need to get your ass out of the bed. Look at it this way. At least when the final divorce
papers are filed you won’t have to see him.”

Bobbie talks tough. Lena is unsure if Bobbie could take her own medicine if the tables were turned, having kept most details
of her love life confidential throughout the years. They were not born into a family prone to share their business with outsiders.
Who, she wonders, not for the first time, does her sister talk to when her emotional life gets jumbled and messy? This will
be the way she pays Bobbie back: she will pick up the little hints Bobbie infrequently drops and be a better listener.

“I’m hanging up.”

“Time to get back to you. What about Tina Turner? Have you finalized your plans? Have you
made
plans?” Bobbie’s pen or fingernail taps against the phone, and Lena wonders when a little sister stops feeling like a little
sister and begins to feel simply like a sister. She straightens, taps her fingernail against the phone, and tells her sister
that she’ll get around to finalizing the arrangements when she gets around to finalizing the arrangements. There is still
time to buy a ticket.

“Get up right now.”

Lena picks up the empty ice cream carton and licks the sides for what is left of the melted treat. “Let me have this last
moment to sulk, please.”

“Just do it. For me.”

“That’s what Randall used to say.”

f   f   f

On the stereo Tina croons music meant for scrunching and slow dancing, for making love. A new loneliness tugs at Lena’s insides
in a way that makes her draw her body into a fetal pose atop her bed.

Two weeks ago a forwarded invitation showed up in the mailbox alongside invitations to open new credit card accounts. It was
the first time she’d been out after sitting in the new apartment for six weeks. Two weeks ago, the effort to pull herself
together had been great, but she did, and she looked good in a sleeveless blue dress she hadn’t been able to wear in over
a year. Lena left that party within twenty minutes of her arrival after a gentle-eyed, very short man caught her off guard
with his oddball question: what kind of fool was the man who could leave someone as good-looking as you?