Searching for Tina Turner (5 page)

“Teamwork is what got us here and what will keep us here,” became their motto, their mantra. Randall practiced his speeches;
Lena corrected, edited, offered feedback that he made his own. She hobnobbed with executives’ wives—picked their brains for
insight into what their husbands thought of Randall and encouraged them to share TIDA pillow-talk gossip. She was Randall’s
behind-the-scenes ears, and her public relations skills sold Randall to them, so that they would do the same to their husbands.

But that was Randall, she thinks now, tucking the stationery and business plan back inside the drawer and locking it. When
he committed, he went all the way. Home. Family. Work. If he had thoughts about giving up, he never told Lena, and, at the
time, she felt blessed knowing his loyalty extended past TIDA to her and their family.

Once the computer awakens, ten hasty keystrokes yield 11,200 hits and 952,000 Tina Turner mentions: flawless skin and charismatic
smiles, albums, song lyrics, an international fan club, the location of Tina’s star on St. Louis’s walk of fame. The official
fan club site is filled with one-line blurbs of adoration and appreciation.

So much information, so much tiny print. Each mouse click directs her to different links and websites, each portal leads to
more information: a home in Zurich, another in the south of France. Lena scribbles the album titles on a monogrammed tablet,
crosses off duplicates. Scroll. Flip. Click. Buy, buy, buy: thirty-eight albums with and without Ike, five DVDs. At another
site the lyrics to Tina’s songs are available for free.

PRINT PRINT PRINT. Pages spew from the printer with repeated taps on the button in an erratic rhythm of whoosh and whine,
then flutter across the floor. Lena stoops to pick up a page and sinks back into the chair, overwhelmed by the wisdom and
specificity of her random selection: the song, “I Don’t Wanna Fight”; the line,
“This is time for letting go.
”

T
he phone rings for the first time all day. Either Kendrick or Camille will answer it. Lena is unsure until she hears Camille’s
voice. Kendrick never liked talking on the phone, and now, more than ever, he avoids it.

“Hey, Dad.” Camille paces the hallway and responds to what Lena assumes is her father’s litany of questions. Her voice is
conspiratorial. “School’s okay… my senior project… any day now. Get ready. It’s either Columbia or NYU… in the bed… in his
room. Yes, Dad, I’m taking care of Kimchee. I miss you, too.” Camille pounds on Kendrick’s door—the pesky little sister she
pretends to be. “It’s Dad.”

Kendrick’s deep pitch is barely distinguishable from Randall’s. Like Camille, he paces the hallway, too, allowing Lena to
overhear fragments of his conversation: Dr. Miller, car, the fellas. He walks into the master bedroom, hands the phone to
his mother as if she cannot use the one beside her bed, and pauses long enough to take a pair of sunglasses from the top of
Randall’s dresser.

Lena greets Randall in what she hopes is a version of Camille and Kendrick’s light, happy tone.

“Today’s been a fiasco.” Randall yawns. “Thompson fucked up the terms for a critical section of the contract. He forgot federally
regulated language that could have blown this whole deal wide open.”

The negotiation for TIDA’s acquisition of another high-tech communications company has taken most of the past eleven months.
So long that Lena wonders how his veteran assistant could have made such a grave error.

“He’s on his way home.” The irritation in Randall’s voice is unmistakable, although Lena can’t decide if it’s because of the
error or his fatigue. “I had to postpone my return. So, I’ll be home Tuesday night instead of Sunday. The limo service will
pick me up.”

Lena winces. The next photography class is Tuesday night. “Other than that, what’s it like over there?” Her intention is not
to trivialize his return.
What’s it like over there
? Stupid. Maybe the connection will soften her words, soften him.

“Hong Kong is just another big city with signs I can’t read. I can’t wait to meet up with Charles. I hear Bali is beautiful.”
When Randall found out Charles would be in Bali at the same time he was in Hong Kong, he took his best friend up on his suggestion
to tag on a short vacation at the end of his trip. Randall snickers and yawns again. “You’d love it—except, of course, for
the spiders.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny.” Through the window, thin fog curls like smoke in the cone of light under the street lamp. The wind carries
the sound of a train whistle, and Lena is astonished at how the warbled echo travels from the station five miles below and
beyond their house. “There was a big black spider on your pillow the other day.” She flinches with the recollection and glances
around the room.

The silence between them is so loud that Lena taps the handset to see if they are still connected.

“I’m ten thousand miles away, Lena, with more on my mind to worry about than a little spider.”

“I’m sorry… I know you’re busy.”

“Call the exterminator. Have him spray outside the house, the windows, and the attic. That should take care of it.”

“Do you think it was some kind of omen?” Some kind of omen that means the opposite of wealth and good luck, she wonders.

“It was a spider, Lena. I’m my own omen—
I
make the shit happen.” Randall laughs. Not the hearty laugh that brushed her cheek those Sunday mornings they used to sleep
in, nestled eye to eye, full of gossip and plans for what they will do—play poker, visit Tahiti, romp in the sand in the south
of France—when Randall retires. His laugh is cool and distant; the one reserved for clients, the one that makes him appear
noncommittal, more than competent. Controlled. “Have you made any decisions?”

“Decisions?”

“You heard me. I won’t put my life on hold until you figure out how good you’ve got it.”

Months after his promotion, in a trendy San Francisco restaurant, Randall spoke to Lena of how being the only black man in
the inner circle, where no one made less than a seven-figure salary, made him watch his every step. The double stress plagued
black men, he told her, especially where the fraternity of black power brokers was limited and fragile.

“Success is a game—aka the black man’s burden—act white, fight white to get to the top. Then fight, any way you can, to prove
that you deserve to be there.”

Lena watched Randall, with barely a blink or a breath, while he described, not for the first time, the need to fight stereotypes
that could turn a black man into something less than whole and accusations that lacked substance: forgetting where one came
from and selling out; smart but not smart enough, the expectation of failure. The pressure he felt from all sides was palpable,
but he remained determined to do whatever it took to be successful.

At the next table, a man held a match to his cigar and puffed madly until the chubby stick of tobacco caught the flame. Lena
inhaled the strong, bitter scent that reminded her of Saturday night chats with John Henry when she was a teen, reminded her
of the puffs he let her take when Lulu wasn’t watching.

“I won’t be around as much as I’d like. I know how much you do. And I appreciate it.” Randall took a slender, black box from
his jacket, slid it across the table, and opened it. Couples to the left and right stared when Lena gasped at the large, radiant
yellow diamond attached to a delicate, narrow platinum chain. The stone glistened in the candlelight in that way that only
a clear diamond can. Randall stepped behind Lena and fastened the necklace around her neck while the same couples applauded
and asked if it was their anniversary or her birthday.

She turned and pressed her lips to his, the promise in her eyes of more than that to come. “Thank you, sweetie. I love you,
and I’m behind you one hundred percent.”

Randall raised his glass in a toast. He waited until she finished her wine and poured a little more into their glasses and
reminded her that none of the other executives’ wives worked. “I know you’re ready to launch your business. Put your plans
on hold. For a while. Forever if you want. At least until I’m established, more trusted at TIDA.”

His scattered and disjointed phrases were so unlike him that Lena wondered if he was nervous. She watched his face, the clear
skin, the absence of wrinkles that made so many people mistake him for much younger than his then fifty-three years. His eyes
focused on the stone on her chest. His expression affirmed his satisfaction in the incline of his head, the angle of his neatly
clipped mustache, and she wondered what other sacrifices she would make for the sake of his career.

The diamond pulsed with the rapid beat of Lena’s heart. Randall’s lips moved but she could not hear what he said. She fingered
the yellow stone and smiled. “Is this a bribe or a thank-you?”

“Both.” Randall grinned. “You’ll have more time. You can come with me on my trips. We’ll see the world on TIDA’s dime. When
the time is right, I’ll help you start again. I promise.”

The cigar smoke wafted closer to their table. Her second, deep breath brought back John Henry and the white smoke that had
streamed from her father’s lips between sips from his Saturday night glass of Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. He had doled out
advice on life while she tried to figure out racism or Catholicism or problems as simple as boys and dating; and later, how
hard she had to fight for the life she wanted. “What the hell did you expect, Lena Inez?” John Henry fussed one night. “You
want the life, you got to pay the price.”

f   f   f

“Maybe
we
could get away when you come home.”

“I’m not going anywhere any time soon. Unless I have to.” If punctuation marks could be heard, Lena thinks, exclamation points
would have banged like a firecracker at the end of Randall’s sentence. Fatigue and irritation slip from his voice. “As a matter
of fact, right now, I’m sick of hotels, of people who don’t look or sound like me. I’m sick of the stares. I need a dose of
black people. I want a party when I get home. Ten, maybe twelve people, that standing rib roast you make.” At their last party
months ago, their guests refused to leave until well after three in the morning. Reluctant to let go of the good feeling,
Randall opened another bottle of wine. Lena retrieved the remains of dessert, and they stayed up until the rising sun tinted
the sky pinkish yellow.

“I’d really like to wait until the situation is… smoother between us?” Or, she thinks, until her funk moves on.

“Make sure you invite Candace. I get a kick out of her theatrics.”

“I saw her the other day. She had some sad news.”

“Don’t tell me: she needs more jewelry.”

Lena cannot read the signs of his strong voice. There is no strain, although she can’t deny its edginess. “It’s not always
about what you can buy, Randall. Dana and Carl are getting divorced.”

“Well, scratch them off the list. It’ll be good to see our friends.”

“Please, Randall, can we decide about the party when you come home?” Three. Lena counts on her fingers, three more days.

“Nothing to decide. Just handle it.”

f   f   f

Almost as soon as Lena presses the seventh digit of the number written on the bottom of the enrollment slip, a man answers
the phone. The instructor’s voice is twangy and aged when he answers with his full name instead of hello. She offers an explanation
for missing the first class with a very adult excuse: “For personal reasons.”

“Are you a serious photographer?”

The instructor listens without comment while Lena takes five minutes to summarize why she wants to hone her rusty skills.

“There are Saturday labs. You can develop your film at home. I’m not interested in people who need to fill their empty schedules.”

If she thought he would care, Lena would tell the cranky instructor that she has plenty to fill her schedule; it’s the hole
in her spirit she needs to fill. “I’m serious. I’ll do whatever I have to, but I won’t be able to make the second class either.
Can you give me your notes and the assignment so that I can keep up?”

“My policy’s simple: skip one class, you’re okay. Skip class twice, you gotta problem.” He presses on with more terse words
about dedication and continuity that Lena tunes out. “It’s up to you, but the more you miss, the more behind you get.”

The phone clicks off before she can tell him anything more. Sinking back into the bed, Lena lets sleep take over. Snakes and
water. A man’s hand beckons her into a gently breaking black surf, and she slips below. Her fishlike mouth opens to swallow
people-plankton drifting by: Randall entwined in a headless woman’s arms, a baby Kendrick morphing into a man, Camille crowned
with stars, Candace’s hand covered with pinky rings. Lena twirls, the reverse of falling into the sucking liquid, yet able
to watch herself, hair swirling in slow motion, shrunk to its beloved nap. Diamond earrings glimmer in shrinking lobes, vibrant
red fingernails. Wedding bands float past like dazzling schools of fish.

Beside an open coffin Tina Turner wears a zoot suit. Lena belches bubbles full of a merry Randall, Kendrick, and Camille.
Each bubble rises past schools of silver fish, past coral and seaweed and thrusts her up, up, up. Lena rises to the surface,
naked before God’s bluest sky and Tina Turner’s outstretched arms.

The sheets are soaked when Lena awakens. The room is neither hot nor cold, yet she shivers as if it is the middle of winter
and tries to understand her dream. Listen to Tina. Be the good girl—a girl at fifty-four. Follow the rules. Consider the blessings.
Randall wants a party. He’s tired. What’s a little attitude in exchange for the life he has given her? And she has more than
enough: this house, clothes, no worries, and diamonds on her fingers, neck, and ears.

The pictures, the memories spill from the planner when Lena picks it up. How innocent Kendrick looked in his Halloween costume,
his first one. He was a puppy. When Lena explained that animals didn’t make good costumes, he looked at her with a serious
face and insisted. Camille liked ballet, liked dressing up and being the center of attention. She posed for hours in the mirror
practicing pirouettes and pliés.