Somebody's Someone (24 page)

Glenn and his family lived on a street called Downer, in the town of Richmond, California. Most of the houses on the street seemed real close to one another, and the road appeared narrow; it was only wide ’nough to let one car pass at a time. Glenn and Nadine’s house was the smallest on the block. It had two rooms for sleeping, a kitchen, a bathroom, and what they called a family room. There was barely any furniture. The best thing you saw when you came into the family room, which was the first room of the house, was a piano. And on top of that was a big ole picture frame of Glenn and Nadine. They was all dressed up in they wedding clothes and feeding each other from the same piece a cake. And next to them was smaller pictures of they li’l white girls. Although Nadine looked all nice and stuff in her white gown, I thought my own mama would’ve looked prettier, and I wanted to know why Glenn picked Nadine over Ruby.

Next to the piano was a small couch that had worn-out arms covered by li’l sleeves. Next to that was a organ, and next to that a phonograph, with records underneath it. I figured that was Glenn’s music-writing stuff. I wanted to know who learned him to play the piano and if he’d passed it on to me since he was s’posed to be my daddy. Maybe I could play too, but I just didn’t know it.

The rest of the house wasn’t much to speak of. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t believe that this man my mama thought was a li’l bit famous would live in such a place. B’fore I left Jacksonville, Ruby made me believe Glenn lived in a big ole house with people carrying trays round to serve me. I had already pictured what my bedroom was gonna look like, with its canopy bed, just like Ruby had bought me, only difference being I would have all the other furniture to match. And it would have been delivered already painted, without the “dog-gnawed-off” pole. And I thought I was gonna have folks driving me round and pointing things out to me, showing me how lucky I was to be Glenn’s li’l girl. Now, I was thinkin’ maybe Ruby’d tricked me again.

It would be two days later that I finally met up with Glenn. I didn’t actually see him at first, but I did meet his voice. I was sleepin’ on the couch in the living room where Nadine had put me, since the house only had two bedrooms and they was occupied by her and Glenn in one and they two girls in the other. I heard a car pull up in front of the house and park. Then the key was turning in the lock all quiet-like—seemed like Glenn didn’t wanna disturb us. I listened to the sounds of Nadine getting outta her bed all hurried up. She shuffled her feet ’cross the wood floor that kept the hallway from the living room, and then when she crept onto the carpet the wood creaked underneath. Since the room we was all in was mostly dark, I didn’t trouble myself with trying to see what was goin’ on. I just laid there and played possum.

“Hi, baby,” she whispered to him, not leaving a whole lot of time for him to say much back.

“I missed you.” I could hear Glenn and Nadine’s mouths touch, and her sayin’ something like “uhmm” then pulling away, as they leave li’l sucking noises in the air. Then they moved closer to where I am.

“There she is! She’s every bit of you, and I assume, a small piece of Ruby.”

I could hear ’em tryin’ to whisper over my back while I kept playin’ like I was ’sleep. Glenn and Nadine was standing over me, looking at me from over my head like one might stare at a sleepin’ baby in a crib, not wantin’ to wake her up ’cause of the racket she might cause. Nadine went on to say to Glenn how here was no denying that I was his, on account of how much I looked like him. I could feel his hot body and breath move next to me, to maybe get a up-close look. I kept holdin’ my own breath. Finally, after what seemed like forever and a day, he moved away and I took new air in. I smelled cigarette smoke and thanked God that he hadn’t touched me or woke me up. I cain’t rightly say why, but I just knowed I wasn’t gonna like him too much.

I saw Glenn the next day. Not in the way where you all sit down to a table and introduce yourselves so that everybody knows who you is, like at a new school. Nor did I see him like the kids on TV when they run up to a long-lost relative and show ’em just how happy they is to see ’em. No, I seen Glenn as he was leaving for the airport! It was clear to me that the man had only come home just to see my back when I was sleepin’, ’cause Lord knows he was ’bout to miss my face, again.

There they was, him and Nadine standin’ there by the door staring at each other like they didn’t have no sense. She looked like she was holdin’ on longer and harder than he was. His head was down, and she kept lifting it up with her hands, begging him to just stay a li’l while longer. “Come on, she’s only been here a few days, and you haven’t even heard her speak. Can’t you just wait till she wakes up? And what about the girls? They’ll die if they knew you were here and didn’t see them. What’s goin’ on, Glenn?”

From where I was layin’ I could hear and see the whole commotion. At first I wanted to listen, so I didn’t let ’em know that I was awake.

“I really need to get back to L.A., sweetheart. We’re getting ready to launch this new project, and Barry is really antsy. He really had a hard time with me leaving in the first place. Look, I’ll call all the girls as soon as I land, but I really do have to leave, sweetheart.”

Through the slits in my eyes, which was narrower than a blade of grass, I looked him over good. There was that wide forehead that you couldn’t miss if you tried. And his nose seemed wide enough that he could put his whole fist in it if he had to dig for a booger that didn’t wanna go nowhere. And he sure did have a head full of hair. His hair was narrow at the sides and got round on top, in the shape of a new kind of Afro. He didn’t look too different from the picture Miss Odetta had on her bed. And what laid on his head was also layin’ ’cross his face, from one ear to the next. It looked something like wall-towall carpet, thick with no spotty parts.

I was ’bout to turn away but I didn’t. Now that Nadine had moved her body out the front of his I caught sight of somethin’ that looked swelled up in the front of his pants right where you cross your legs. It was nasty. I couldn’t believe that he could act like that. Lord have mercy, he should be ’shamed of himself for wantin’ to let that happen. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was the way it was when he went out with Ruby. I could see the two of ’em as if they was right before my very eyes. On one of my snooping fits while I was living with Ruby, I’d found some of Mr. Benny’s dirty magazines and read a couple of them so-called love stories in the back of it, so by now, I was able to figure out just how grown folks treated one another.

I’d wrote one of them love stories for Ruby and Glenn in my mind. I ’magined that Ruby and Glenn had just finished “doing it” with each other and Glenn had rolled over and let his mind wander off to faraway places. And there was Ruby, wanting to know if his mind was on her and how they was gonna be together for a long time to come. I see him wanting to leave— wanting to go and make his songs with the famous Barry White in Los Angeles so that he could get real rich and go back to Texas one day and buy his mama a big ole house. I also saw Ruby wanting more for him than she could ever need for herself and not caring to stop him from having his way. Then Glenn leaves both Austin and Ruby behind. But he don’t know that she got me from them being with each other, and she thinks having me is the same as having him. But one day she saw it ain’t the same, and having me ain’t so special to her anymore. I reckoned that stupid ole snow white Nadine must’ve come along while Glenn was getting famous. And I saw how she must’ve got in the way of him wanting to go back to Ruby and buying his mama that house and learning ’bout me.

I ’magined that Nadine wanted Glenn all for herself and them li’l Vienna-sausage–colored babies they had. And ’cause of Nadine wanting Glenn so bad I could understand that he didn’t know that my mama had to be with big black vampires and mangy dogs who played like they was men, but wasn’t. He didn’t know that Ruby had to work two jobs and clean white folks’ shit off ’em just to try and have some spare change to buy frozen pizzas while Nadine got called sweetheart and treated to a nice house that wasn’t haunted by men’s wanting to touch her girls in places that’d be hard to talk ’bout.

My mind broke off from the story—it couldn’t work as no love story no more, ’cause what ’bout Ruby? Didn’t she need somebody to take up for her, to show her that she was special and that she didn’t have to give all of her prettiness away? She needed to know that no matter what, there was always gonna be somebody in the world who was making sure that she got her share. Maybe I had to be that somebody. I told myself to give Ruby another chance.

I looked back up at that white woman who was still standing staring into Glenn’s eyes. Finally, Glenn let go of Nadine’s hand and opened the door. As he was just ’bout ready to turn the knob to go, I drew up from that couch and started talking to him.

“Hey, where you going?” I could feel my heart beatin’ like somebody was skippin’ stones ’cross it.

“Oh, hello there. Good morning.” Glenn moved closer to me and put his hands on his hips. It seemed like he was scared to touch me. But that was okay with me, ’cause I was scared to touch a real daddy too.

“I’m on my way to the airport, Regina. I’m sorry I won’t be able to be with you until I get back from Los Angeles. I just wanted to come and make sure you arrived okay, but I don’t have time to stay. My album is due out in a couple of weeks, and I have to go and move things along.”

When his words reached me, I could have sworn that Dick Clark had gave up on being at the beach and was standing right in front of me—and gettin’ ready to leave. Lord knows I ain’t never been that close to a black body that sounded like that.

“When you comin’ on back?” I didn’t know what else to say.

“In no time at all. And when I return, we’ll spend some time together. But for now I want you to listen to Nadine and help her where it’s needed. Will you do that for me?” Glenn had moved away from where I was and had the door closing behind him.

“Bye.” I waved to him.

I didn’t even know him, so wantin’ to do something for him was hard for me to just say yes to. But then I thought ’bout how Big Mama helped folks out all the time and how Ruby was a nurse and helped other people, and I thought, yeah, I might be able to do that for him. Even if it mean I gotta help Nadine out too. Before he left, Glenn had come back in from the car and handed me a package. He told me not to open it till he was gone, sayin’ it was a record him and Barry White had been working on, but the difference was, it was Glenn singing on it—his very own record. He said that if everything went well while he was gone, then in no time, I would be hearing his songs on the radio. I played like I was smiling and watched my so-called daddy leave.

I don’t know why, but as he left out the door, I wanted to cry. I told myself that it didn’t matter and to let him go on his way. There was no need to be cryin’ over somebody I didn’t even know. Seemed like I had spent most of my life doing just that. If I wasn’t cryin’ for folks who was leavin’ me, I was cryin’ for folks who didn’t want me round and made me leave.

Maybe it was ’cause I was so much older than them or simply ’cause I didn’t care to be round kids too much anymore, but I never did take a liking for Glenn and Nadine’s kids. Right from the start, it seemed them girls really didn’t have a mind to see that I was half they sister. I think they was scared to be round me. When I told Nadine what I was thinkin’—that mouth of mine just couldn’t stop itself—she said it was ’cause the girls didn’t know me too well and for me to give ’em time. I didn’t know nothing ’bout no time. I just wanted to be nice to ’em like I was with Ella, and I wanted them to like me the way she did. But them girls, they didn’t wanna be bothered. They’d rather be with Nadine than touch a stranger who had no reason to be in they house. There was many days that I’d watch them run past me, like they was spooked, into they mama’s arms. I ain’t never seen firsthand until then that a mama’s arms is where you go when you scared, and that she is meant to hold you. That’s what Nadine did for her girls.

Every now and again, I let myself ’magine that Nadine could be my mama. That she could do the things for me that she seemed to love doing for her own girls. But whenever I thought our chance had come, something or somebody came right down the middle of it. If it wasn’t her whiny girls wanting her all to themselves, it was that Glenn had lied to her again and pissed her off to where she shut herself off from me, like maybe she couldn’t stand the thought of me being round her. I cain’t recall a time when Nadine touched my face soft, like she did with her own, or dried one of my tears after I fell and hurt myself. I knowed she could never sit me down b’tween her thighs and comb my hair till I fell off to sleep—I knowed that ’cause of how her own girls’ hair looked like thick nappy ropes matted right to they heads. I ’magined that them days was gone for me—getting my hair combed didn’t matter no more. Anyway, I figured that if God wanted me to have Nadine as my mama then he would make a way for us to be.

I made myself believe that Nadine’s girls and maybe even Nadine herself was scared of me ’cause I was a different color than all of them. After all, I felt the same way ’bout Big Lawrence and Mr. Benny. They scared me partly ’cause they was so dark and partly ’cause they was plain ugly. And from where I stood it was clear that I didn’t look like I was kin to anybody in that house—if color had anything to do with it. My so-called daddy was real light-skinned, like the color of the government-issued applesauce that came in them metal cans and that Big Mama used to make applesauce cake. Not to mention that from the way things looked, Glenn was trying to pass for not being black. Specially by the way he talked and all. Then there was his wife—she was white like the powdered-sugar icing that Big Mama used to make to spread on the applesauce cake after she’d baked it. And they kids was as white as the flour I’d use to dust the pan so the cake wouldn’t stick. That left me. And if you put me up next to anybody in that house, I was the only one that didn’t fit into the cake. I was as black as tar, just like Mr. Benny and Big Lawrence. I was starting to hate black.