Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do (14 page)

22

B
ETH WAS CALLING FROM AUGUSTA
. She had just registered six hundred voters and been waited upon by two black county commissioners and a committee of party regulars who were prepared to abandon their previous commitments and throw in with Beth as soon as she said the word. The fact that it was one o'clock in the morning seemed to make no difference to her at all.

My first impulse was to tell her to call me in the morning, but if I wanted to know what she was really doing, this would be the time she'd be most likely to slip and tell me. She was still high on the energy of all those women in the audience sending her their collective wave of love. This was that euphoric after-the-show moment when the ego, which cares nothing for pretense, is still in control.

“So what did you tell them?”

“I told them if they were really serious, they should send a delegation to Atlanta to see me where we could speak in a more relaxed atmosphere.”

That meant she intended to invite them to her house so that she could be positioned under her portrait like a queen receiving her subjects.

“I'm sure they'll make a persuasive presentation,” I said, determined to stay out of it. Beth had never paid the kind of dues Precious was paying at that growers meeting. People came to see Beth for inspiration. They came to see Precious for solutions to real-life problems.

“You should be at that meeting, don't you think?”

The idea could not have been further from my mind or of less interest. “It hadn't occurred to me.”

There was a pause, and then Beth's voice reproached me. “We talked about this, Gina. Unless you've reconsidered our agreement and you'd rather not do the speechwriting segment at all.”

Suddenly I understood why Beth had wanted to break the project up into three discrete chunks. She knew exactly how much I needed to pay off the weasel, and she had offered it to me, to the penny, in three payments. If I abdicated on one-third of the work, she had a right to abdicate on one-third of the money, and if she did, how was I going to replace ten thousand dollars?

Beth had me between a rock and a hard place, and she knew it. The thing was, I couldn't even get mad. This was part of what I earned with my own bad behavior. This was just another way for the universe to reinforce all those rehab lessons about what it means to be a grownup. Being indignant was beside the point.

“Of course not,” I said calmly. “But these kinds of early sessions are rarely any help to a speechwriter. You haven't even made your final decision yet, have you?”

There was just enough air before she responded to let me know that the question was moot. She actually was going to throw her hat in the ring for governor. It was clearly a bad idea whose time had come.

“You'll be among the first to know,” she said.

I had to smile. That was so like Beth. Not the first to know. But
among
the first.

“So how is everything coming along there?” she asked.

“Fine, except they've asked Precious Hargrove to be on the dedication committee, and she accepted.”

Beth groaned. “How could you let that happen?”

“They didn't consult me. I don't think they were aware of a possible conflict of interest.”

“This could be very awkward,” Beth said, sounding annoyed.

“Very,” I said.

“Have they printed up programs or invitations or anything yet?”

“No,” I said. “Nothing's going to the printer until next week.”

“Are you proofing everything first?”

“Of course.”

“Good. That buys us some time.”

“Some time for what?”

“To figure out how to get her off the list.”

“She's one of the cochairs, Beth.”

“Let me worry about that,” she said quickly, moving on. “What about the papers? Are you making good progress there?”

“It's going very well,” I said. “I've got about half the stuff pulled that I'll need for the video, so there won't be any problem there.”

“You haven't come across any of the kind of material we discussed, have you?”

I hesitated, then lied, even though lying is another one of the things I'm working on. “No.”

Of course, Beth heard the hesitation. “Are you sure?”

“I'm sure.”

She let it slide, but I knew she didn't believe me. Too bad. I wasn't ready to surrender Son's private life to Beth's disapproving stare just yet.

“Good enough,” Beth said, yawning loudly. “What time is it? Good lord, Gina! Why didn't you tell me? Did I wake you?”

“No problem,” I said. “When will you be back here?”

“Tuesday. I'll call you when I get in. And Gina?”

“Yes?”

“It's good to have you back on the team.”

23

I
HAVE A LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP
with malls, but I needed a dress for the party tonight, and Lenox Square offers a dizzying array of stores to choose from. Of course, many of the stores are aimed at the market segment that can still expose their midriffs without causing passersby to avert their eyes, but there are still lots of choices for people like me who aren't twenty-five anymore, but who aren't fifty yet either. That's one of the things I like.

The other thing I love about Lenox in a completely perverse way is the totally unapologetic excess. It's full of beautiful, totally unnecessary
stuff
. Even the food tends toward Starbucks coffee confections and the decadence of gold-boxed Godiva chocolates. The mall environment is meant to do one thing and one thing only:
make you spend your money.

Everything here is in service of the shopping. The restaurants are either fast-food places where you can wolf down your lunch and get back to the business at hand or more leisurely establishments facing the mall where you can see people ducking into shops and emerging with bags. Faced with such temptation, you rush through the meal in order to be sure to catch the sale on more stuff you don't need.

Most of the time, I feel too guilty to enjoy the mall. My mother ruined it for me. She never went to the malls voluntarily and when I dragged her—only until I was old enough to drive myself!—she would ruin the whole trip by muttering continuously about the evils of American capitalism. When she went with me to buy a prom dress, she lectured me the whole time about consumer culture and how many poor people could use the money I was prepared to spend on whatever pastel creation I had set my heart on for prom night.

After I learned to drive, I'd go by myself, but my mother's voice stayed in my head, so I never could really relax the way guilt-free shoppers can. The personal being political takes a lot of the fun out of stuff if you're not careful. That's why Flora could spend only two hours in search of an outfit for the party. After that, she'd start feeling guilty and the fun was over.

But today, I was on a mission. I'd given myself until noon to find a dress that makes me feel the way I looked in my imagining of the party. When Aretha said the party attire was “after five,” I knew I'd have to buy something.

I can't even remember the last time I got dressed up to go out. “After five” seemed like a dress code from my parents' generation, but maybe that's why it appealed to me. “After five” had a sophisticated sound like “supper club” or “cocktails.”

The dress I had in mind would match that nod to another generation's undeniable cool. It would have to have class and sass and be sexy enough to let my landlord know I was open to a friendship as long as it didn't include a celibacy requirement. I knew this was going to be a special night, and I needed a special dress. I also needed to wash my hair, get a manicure and a pedicure, and find shoes I could dance in, but one thing at a time. Once I had found the dress, everything else would fall into place.

But it was already eleven-fifteen. I'd been here since ten and
nothing
. I'd tried on a couple of things, but everything looked too young or too old or too fast or too slow or just not
special
. I took a break for a cup of overpriced coffee and watched people coming down the escalator, bags of perfect purchases slung over their arms, chatting and comparing notes. They had all found what they wanted and here I sat, sipping and sulking, when I remembered there was another option.

Aretha had guaranteed Flora that the dress of her dreams could be found in Little Five Points, a funky intown neighborhood bravely resisting gentrification, and she was as good as her word. Flora's dress was a oneshouldered tangerine sheath that made her look amazing, and she had found it, tried it on, and paid for it all within forty-five minutes. Maybe my dress shared my mother's low opinion of the malls and wouldn't be caught dead in a store where Ashanti and J-Lo play on the in-store music system.

I left the mall, found a cab, and fifteen minutes later got out in front of Stefan's, a vintage clothing store whose window was already displaying my dress, an ice-blue satin number that hit midcalf and boasted a cinched waist and lightly padded shoulders. I loved it, and more important, I could see myself
working it
. I went inside, tried it on—it fit!—and told the smiling salesman to wrap it up. I headed out the door in less than halfan hour.

I even had enough money left in my budget for an evening jacket. Of course, that was an extravagance, but it completed the outfit perfectly, and I figured if Blue Hamilton was going to send a limo for me, the least I could do is dress the part.

24

T
HE LIMO ARRIVED AT EIGHT
on the nose, and Flora and I strolled out like we were used to traveling this way. Aretha wasn't coming over until later, so she stood in the blue doorway with Lu and ShaRonda, waving and issuing last-minute instructions on fashion and comportment.

“Don't forget to check your seams every once in a while.” That from Aretha, who had talked me into a pair of stockings with seams to set off my forties-style dress.

“I won't.”

“Don't forget to talk about something besides collard greens and compost.”

That from Lu, who was concerned about her mother's ability to make appropriate chitchat without her dad's guidance.

“I won't.”

ShaRonda, giggling and waving in jeans and an oversize T-shirt, looked eleven years old again. She didn't seem to have any advice, contenting herself with offering makeup suggestions that could all be summed up in one word:
more
. By the time we settled into the back of the black stretch that Blue had sent to fetch us, we had enough advice to last us.

Flora looked over at me as we pulled away from the curb, and we both burst out laughing. “You'd think we'd never gone to a party in our lives.”

“Well, it's been a while for me,” I said, “but I think it's like riding a bike.”

“Or sex!” she whispered, although this car was so big, the driver's seat looked about a block away behind a glass partition.

Flora leaned forward and opened the small refrigerator where a bottle of that French champagne with the flowers on it was already chilling. “I knew Blue wouldn't forget about us,” she said, draping a white linen napkin over the cork and twisting it out easily as I took two glasses from the tiny rack beside the fridge.

“Remember when we had to pretend we couldn't open champagne bottles without assistance?”

“When was that?”

“Before the women's movement.” She laughed and poured us each a glass of the bubbling, golden liquid. “In the bad old days.”

That made me smile. My mother was forever reminding me of the changes feminism had made in every corner of American women's lives. Whenever she would read one of those articles where some young, highly successful women say they're not feminists, it would make her crazy: “Who do they think made it possible for them to be sitting there behind that big desk, in that big job, acting like they got there by being smarter than every other woman in the world? They ought to read their history and bring their mamas breakfast in bed for a week just to say thank you!”

We raised our glasses.

“What shall we toast?” I said.

“Us,” she said grinning. “Let's toast us in our brandnew dresses!”

We clinked our glasses and sipped our champagne as the limo glided through the dark streets bearing us toward the party. Club Zebra was located on the site of a legendary Afro-Atlanta institution, the Lincoln Country Club. In its pre-integration heyday, it boasted several hundred dues-paying members, a nine-hole golf course, and a clubhouse where they hosted parties that were always the hottest ticket in town.

When integration came, the membership dwindled, and by the time the former members realized how much they missed it, it was closed. It stayed closed for about thirty years, and then ten years ago, some new people bought the land, redeveloped it, resodded the golf course, and opened a nightclub. Aretha had told me the history of the place and compared it to Harlem's famed Cotton Club, and Flora agreed.

“Here we are!” she said excitedly as the limo turned up a winding driveway with small lights leading the way.

The narrow road wound its way through a dense stand of Georgia's famous pine trees and opened out onto a scene right out of
The Great Gatsby
. Beautifully dressed women and tuxedo-clad men were alighting from cars polished high for the occasion. Even the old cars, of which there were many,
gleamed
. The pine trees ended at a rolling lawn and beyond the main building, ablaze with lights, you could see the dim contours of the golf course.

Valet parkers, young black men in blue uniforms, were busily keeping the traffic moving. Our driver pulled around the arriving crowd and eased in near a side entrance. As soon as we pulled up, the door opened and Blue stepped out wearing a beautiful tux and a smile of welcome. Immediately behind him were two other guys, also in tuxedos. One I recognized as the big man who led me to Blue's office the first day I went to the West End News. The other one, whom I didn't recognize, was wearing two-tone shoes and dreadlocks that hung below his waist.

The big man stepped up to open the door, and Blue leaned down to offer a hand.

“Ladies …”

“That would be us,” said Flora, easing out daintily, kissing his cheek, and turning to embrace the guy in the two-tones. “Zeke! How much hair are you going to grow?”

Zeke laughed and embraced her as Blue extended his hand again to me. I took it and stepped out with the confidence you feel only when you look like yourself,
but better
. The dress hugged me in all the right places, but it suggested more than it gave away. I wondered briefly if my seams were straight, but it didn't matter. He wasn't looking at my stockings. He was looking at
me
.

“I'm glad you came,” he said, taking in my outfit in one appreciative glance. “You look beautiful.”

“So do you,” I said.

He laughed, but beautiful was the word. He was beautiful like a piece of artwork or a reflection in a mountain lake. That kind of beauty isn't gender specific. It just
is.

“This place is amazing,” I said. “Is it real?”

“Meet the owner. You can ask him.”

He put his arm around my waist lightly, and we stepped inside and into a small private sitting room that seemed a world away from the people gathering upstairs. The big guy whisked our coats away to some unseen closet, and the four of us stood there grinning at one another.

“Regina Burns, Zeke Burnett,” Blue said. “The lady wants to know if your place is real.”

Zeke shook my hand and smiled. “I'll take that as a compliment.”

“Don't tell him how wonderful it is,” Flora groaned. “Next thing you know, he'll move it all to Buckhead.”

The city's thriving nightclub district was located north of downtown in an all-white neighborhood of milliondollar homes and pricey condos. The people there were still adjusting to the impact of the multiracial clubgoers who invade their neighborhood every weekend.

“Buckhead? Not a chance,” Zeke said, shaking his dreadlocked head.

“And why is that?” Flora teased. “Because you
love
black folks too much?”

“Loving black folks ain't in it,” he said. “They got too much crime out there!”

We all laughed, and I wondered what the chamber of commerce would think about a black businessman in all-black southwest Atlanta being nervous about crime in an all-white neighborhood that used to boast about its safe streets. I had that feeling again that I had fallen through the rabbit hole and come out in a world where everything was reversed. In this world, we stood in the safe oasis and clucked over the presence of crime somewhere
out there
.

“Welcome to Club Zebra,” Zeke said. “I'm going to see if I can find a glass of champagne for my favorite gardener here.” Flora slipped her arm through his. “May I leave you in the care of this Negro?”

I looked at Blue. “Can you vouch for him?”

“With my life,” said Zeke.

“Mine, too,” Flora added her two cents, still grinning.

“You can't ask for better references than that,” I said. “I think I'll be fine.”

Flora and Zeke exchanged a look like old friends who've been
signifyin' in sync
for years and closed the door behind them.

The silence in the small room was so sudden and complete that I heard music from upstairs for the first time. I recognized an old song whose tune was familiar but whose words I didn't know. Blue was watching me like whatever I did or said next would determine his next move. The fact that he was hosting a party upstairs seemed the furthest thing from his mind. I liked that.

These days, we have to compete with so much to get even a second of a man's undivided attention. From video games, to the NBA finals, to his work, to his boys, black men stay so busy you can't hardly get a bead on what they're feeling because they won't slow down long enough to show you. It was a real pleasure not to feel like half of Blue's mind was occupied elsewhere.

“I love this song,” I said.

“Would you like to dance?”

“Here?”

He smiled slowly. “Don't worry. I know the owner.”

I bought these shoes for dancing, so what was I waiting for? I moved into his arms and felt the closeness of our bodies like an electrical charge between us. He held me lightly, and we fell easily into a slow dance that felt like we'd danced it a thousand times before. I closed my eyes. We moved around the room a little, swaying together, but not too close. He seemed to share my belief that anticipation is still one of the most powerful
no-side-effect
aphrodisiacs around.

People underestimate the necessity for courtship rituals. I know we're both grown and there are no quivering virgins and fumbling first-timers in this room. But the things that moved us then, move us now. Maybe more, because now we understand that nothing is guaranteed. Maybe more, because by now we've all kissed somebody good-bye and not realized it was the last time until they were gone and it was too late to say all the stuff you didn't say. By now we know that everybody doesn't get to fall in love and live happily ever after.

It makes us skittish, knowing all this stuff and recognizing the transitory nature of things, which is why a soothing slow dance with the promise of more to come based on mutual comfort and consent is the perfect way to begin. He held me a little tighter, and I realized we were actually dancing cheek to cheek. It felt wonderful, like a movie scene, and my dress was perfect.

The song ended, and we stepped apart slowly. I felt like if we didn't go join the party before another song started, we never would. I guess Blue felt it, too, because he smiled and took my hand.

“Would you like to come upstairs and meet some of my friends?”

“I would love to.” I slipped my arm through his. “What was the name of that song we were dancing to?”

“‘The Very Thought of You,’” he said. “It's one of my favorites.”

“Mine, too.”

“Maybe I'll sing it for you sometime.”

“How about tonight?” I asked, feeling bold.

“All right,” he smiled. “You got it.”