Searching for Tina Turner (25 page)

“I’m going to be who I am. I thought you understood.” Lena adjusts the top of her one-piece bright orange and turquoise floral
swimsuit—a maillot, the saleslady called it.

“This is all I’m going to say, and then can we
please
move on?” Cheryl picks up a hotel magazine for tourists and flips through it. “I know the concept of dating all over again
is going to be hard for you, Lena, and I’m sorry. But in my mind it simply means you need to loosen up. Randall’s ghost isn’t
lurking in the shadows; you’re not obligated to him anymore.”

Lena pushes her sunglasses back onto her face and lets Cheryl’s words soak in. “If I’ve learned anything over the last few
months…” Lena pauses until Cheryl lowers the magazine in front of her face. “If I’ve learned anything from Tina Turner, it’s
that I’m the boss of me. But, I’m sorry, too.” She relaxes into her chair and into the thought that somewhere, under this
Mediterranean sun, Tina is basking as well: two black women from Oakland, Tina, and all the white people in the south of France.

f   f   f

“I’ll be damned. Looks like we got a party going on.” Splashing and flat slaps of stomach against the water rouse Cheryl from
her hour-long nap. She nudges Lena’s leg: black people alert.

From beyond and to the far side of the pool voices drift in their direction. A man stands at pool’s edge. He is long and tall
and a shade darker than desert sand. He extends his arms and arcs his back like he knows what he is doing, then dives and
swims toward his buddy, in the only square corner of the pool.

Cheryl sits up straight in her chair, strains her neck and stares. His chest heaves after his short swim. “You won’t believe
who that man looks like.” She pushes at Lena again. “That’s Harmon Francis!”

The two men, arms stretched over the edge of the pool, chat as much with their hands as their voices. The swimmer appears
taller than the average Frenchman, giving Lena another reason, beside his skin color, to be able to see him. Harmon Francis.
Definitely. He crossed her mind when she watched the last of a man’s familiar walk turning a corner in Vence. Now, the van
outside the Matisse museum makes more sense. And here he is again. Harmon Francis. She hasn’t seen him in almost twenty-six
years, not since the day he’d told her he wanted to get married.

f   f   f

He was the same but different from Randall: street smart. Lena didn’t watch Randall’s love of designer suits and fancy accessories
evolve while he lived on the East Coast, but she enjoyed their benefits when they dated the second time around. Harmon was
already grounded in his expensive habits when they met. Unlike Randall, he loved hats—baseball cap, porkpie, beret—and hated
jewelry except for the gold watch still hanging from his wrist. Back then he had his hair cut at a salon instead of a barbershop.
He collected first editions and world maps; had a great sense of humor, a keen eye for good deals, and a key to an exclusive
social club. Within a month of their first date, Lena was in love with Harmon. In the fifth month of their eight-month relationship
Harmon told Lena he was tired of being single.

They sat together on the cushy sofa of the restricted club surrounded by football players and real estate tycoons. Under low
lights, they sipped Dom Perignon from hundred-dollar champagne flutes and watched the parade of bachelors and flirtatious
women on the dance floor. “I’m the kind of man who does better with a woman by his side,” he said. Lena figured he was looking
for a mother for his two boys. “I’ve been honest about dating other women.” His voice was confident, picking up tempo as he
went along; the faster he spoke the faster Lena’s heart pumped in anticipation. “I’ve narrowed my marriage prospects down
to two—you and someone else.”

Armed with the insight that he was about to pop the question, over the months that followed Lena did what she thought she
was supposed to: never let him see her without makeup, introduced him to her parents, had sex with him every day of every
other week—her share of him—wowed him with her budding domestic skills. She met his seven-year-old twins. Harmon told her
about their difficult mother, revealed his personal finances, took her on a business trip to Las Vegas, introduced her to
his law partners.

Harmon was handsome, upwardly mobile, and available. She loved him but never understood that sharing her love with him was
her choice, not just his. He broke her heart when he decided to marry her competition, Natalie. It broke her heart even more
when she went to his best friend and sobbed on his shoulder, asked why not me, and his best friend said because Harmon thought
Natalie was better in bed.

f   f   f

Harmon Francis. Of all the people to run into.

“Let’s go over there,” Cheryl pulls a makeup bag from her plastic tote and freshens her lipstick. “I can’t wait to see the
look on his face when he sees you.”

“Nope! Stay here. Maybe I did learn a thing or two from you last night.” Lena drops her wide-brimmed sun hat onto her chair.
Her swimsuit’s colors set off her even brown skin, the suit cuts across the tops of her breasts, like a strapless prom dress,
and accentuates the dark mole centered above her cleavage, her favorite. At fifteen, Lena counted the moles on her body, afraid
they would multiply into the hundreds like those that dotted her Auntie Inez’s face and hands. “But, I’m doing this my way.”

f   f   f

In the short distance from deck chair to pool, Lena relaxes her hips in a rhythmic sway that is slow and easy. Rolling. From
behind her, a long, low whistle signifies someone’s appreciation. She lowers herself on one long leg and dips the other into
the warmish water. Eyes focused on the deep blue as if hypnotized by its rippling motion, she pulls her leg out slowly, then
squats, dips her cupped left hand into the water, and drips a bit onto her right arm.

As she descends into the shallow end of the pool, pausing after each step, the tiny waves climb her calves, her thighs, her
waist. She gazes straight ahead, letting the water envelop her body, then arcs her arms into an inverted V and slips under
the surface. Her gentle breaststroke guides her across the pool until she is close to the two men. In one smooth motion, Lena
rolls over on to her back, stretches her arms out, and floats like a suspended cross.

The men’s voices are clear, their words jumbled. She knows black folks attract black folks, especially when there are only
a few around, especially when there are men and women. She figures they’re deciding who will approach her first. Or perhaps,
in all the time she took to get to their end of the pool, Harmon has recognized her.

“Always said you had the best legs in the world.” Her body bobbles with the tiny swell Harmon’s approach creates. He dog-paddles
closer. “And here you are in the heart of the French Riviera proving it.”

Harmon looks as good as he did in 1978. Full face and body, crinkled forehead, shaved head. When he grins his chipped front
tooth peeks between his parted lips.

Still sexy.

“Don’t talk to me.” Even strokes send her spinning away.

“Stop moving.” His gaze travels the length of her body, lingers on her breasts, her thighs, her bright red toenails.

“We’re in the middle of the pool; floating is my only choice.”

“You know what I mean.”

Lena drifts toward Harmon, refuses eye contact. Once upon a time she thought she would scratch his eyes out if she ever saw
him again. Time and a good marriage, or what used to be a good marriage, mellowed her anger.

“I guess I should be grateful; I wouldn’t have met my husband if it hadn’t been for you.” People around them laugh at Harmon’s
raucous response. Lena grins, lets him think that her great life is payback.

“Everything’s turned out good for you?”

“Yes.” Success is the best revenge. That was what Elizabeth said at their final meeting. Lena never thought it would apply
to such an accidental reunion. She spins a half-truth and tells him about her life the way it was when her marriage was good,
when she was truly Mrs. K. Randall Spencer and Camille and Kendrick’s mother in more than name only.

“Married, children, community work, nice house, fancy car, adoring husband.” She pieces together happiness from memories because
she wants Harmon to be jealous. “Someone who loved me for who I was…”

“I should have married
you
.”

Any smart-mouthed comment Lena could make about his decision is unimportant, doesn’t matter anymore; but she finds it comforting
to realize that the past can become so insignificant and can hardly wait until that happens with Randall. “That’s a stupid
thing to say to somebody who couldn’t care less. What are you doing in this part of the world anyway?” She splashes the water
between them, spins and swirls so that the rolling circles eventually smack against him.

“Don’t be so mean.” He puckers his lips in an unconvincing pout. “Up until this morning I was traveling with a biking group
across the south of France. Bruce and I broke off from them. Too much hassle.” He pauses, the lines in his forehead crinkle
tighter. Lena remembers that face: it is serious, pondering. “I used to ask Jessie about you from time to time. I talked to
my buddy about everything. You remember him, don’t you?” She acknowledges the man who told her what Harmon would not and lets
the sweeping motion of her hands move her around him.

“I talked to Jessie about Natalie, too,” Harmon says. “How great she was in bed, how she drove me crazy.” Now Lena recalls
her biggest disappointment in Harmon: he couldn’t keep his business to himself.

“So I heard.” Lena slaps the water hard with the palm of her hand so that it splashes onto Harmon’s face. “Well, Harmon, it’s
been good to see you.” She starts to swim away. He grabs her leg so that Lena is forced to fold herself into an uncomfortable
treading position.

“Don’t go.” His front tooth shows again.

f   f   f

Harmon announced his marriage plans to Lena the night they took his boys to the circus. The high-energy twins fidgeted all
night long while the elephants dumped in front of their prime-dollar seats, while a tiger jumped through a fiery hoop, while
the horses pranced with twirling acrobats atop them.

The night was one of those when the Oakland skyline was as clear and twinkling as San Francisco’s. He told her his decision
while they were on the freeway, headed back to his place—he was going to marry Natalie. After all, she had a son as well.

The car swerved into the next lane when Lena’s hands flew to her face. Harmon grabbed the steering wheel until Lena recovered
seconds later. She had volunteered to drive because Harmon had had a long day. Why the hell hadn’t he told her before she
went to the circus? Before she wiped cotton candy from the boys’ sticky fingers, let them share her soda, all the time hoping
that Harmon would appreciate her maternal instincts. When they arrived at his house, the kids jumped out of the car. Harmon
tried to apologize; she put the car in park and kicked at him until he jumped onto the cement to get away from her spiked
heels, then sped off, car door swinging as she drove down the street, leaving him and his whining boys in the middle of his
driveway.

f   f   f

“Where are you going with this? It’s been—what?—twenty-six, twenty-seven years?” She snaps, aware that there is too much anger
in her voice; water under the bridge. At the time his rejection hit below the belt, in more than one way.

“You always did say I talked too much. To make a long story short, I guess I bragged a little too much. Jessie and Natalie
had an affair.” He shrugs. “Like a soap opera, I caught the two of them in my bed, screwing their brains out… she left me
for him.”

“There’s something so ironic here. If I hadn’t been here, how would you have gotten all of this off your chest? Why do you
think I’d care now anyway?” Her questions tumble lightly like drizzle in May. She truly doesn’t care, but truly she is curious.
“Are you dying or something?”

“Must be karma,” he chuckles. “I’d like to meet your husband. It may sound corny, but he’s a very lucky man.”

“Randall? Randall’s not here.” He will never be here with her ever in life, she thinks. “I’m here with a friend. You remember
Cheryl?”

“Who could forget Cheryl Jamison?” Harmon motions to his friend, a big man, too, different from Harmon. Flabby yet solid,
Harmon’s friend, from what Lena judges, appears to be the kind of man who would look skeletal weighing less than 225 pounds.
He is well over that weight. He bobbles toward them, lists from side to side like an untethered buoy, unsure in the water.
“Bruce Patterson meet an old friend, Lena—the one I let get away. Tell Lena she has to have dinner with us tonight.”

“Lena has to have dinner with us tonight.” Bruce delivers this line stoically—Lena assumes he is either very witty or lacks
imagination—just as Cheryl swims up. When she bobs out of the water like a fish on a hook, Lena sees that Cheryl is right:
she does look good in her bikini, regardless of her age.

“
She
has to have dinner with us tonight.” Bruce beams at Cheryl.

“I say yes to whatever he wants.” Cheryl beams back.

“Sure,” Lena chortles, liking the idea of another chance to gloat, to let Harmon see what he missed, even if that life is
no longer real. “We’ll join you.”

“Your husband won’t mind?” Harmon asks.

Cheryl cuts a quick look at Lena.

“No, he won’t mind. He won’t mind at all.”

W
hy did you let Harmon think you’re still married? He could be your get-over-Randall screw.”

“Don’t say it. Don’t think it. Not interested.” Lena lifts her arms away from her body so that nervous perspiration will not
create a salty half moon in the armpit of her dark linen dress. Clothes are strewn on the floor, the bed, the chairs, the
small table that passes for a desk as if she and Cheryl have hundreds of clothing choices instead of the few they’ve brought
with them. Or the few Lena brought.

“What’re you waiting for? You can be guaranteed Randall’s not.” Cheryl pulls underwear from the elastic pouches around the
side of one of her two oversized suitcases.