Through the Fire (5 page)

F
or a full seven days Rae hoped that Quinn would call. Every evening when she came in from rehearsal she’d rush to her answering machine and check for his message. There were none. Each morning she’d rise and know that today was the day, and each night she’d turn out the lights—disappointed.

She hadn’t meant to fall in love with him, but she had. There was no denying it. And the wider the chasm grew between them, the
deeper she sunk back into that place she had never wanted to revisit. She’d made several attempts to call him, but backed out, sure that she’d be devastated if he didn’t say the things she needed to hear—
Rae, I need you in my life, I want to live again.

So she buried herself in her music, working grueling hours and driving everyone mad with her demands for perfection, for change, for more. Nothing seemed to work for her.

“What is wrong with you, Rae?” her friend and music partner Gail asked as she sat opposite her at Rae’s kitchen table, watching her open and close the fridge, wipe down clean counters, and rewash dishes. “You’re acting like someone on the edge, snapping at everyone, working everybody to death. And look at you, you’re a mess.”

It was Gail who insisted that they cut the rehearsal session short, overriding Rae’s insistence that they stay and get it right, not caring how long it took. It was Gail who drove Rae home, determined to get to the bottom of what was going on with her friend.

“Nothing,” Rae mumbled, keeping her back
to Gail as she wiped down the stovetop for the third time. “Want something to eat or drink?”

“No. What I want is for you to talk to me. I haven’t seen you like this since…Sterling and Akia.”

Rae’s back stiffened.

“You did the same thing then, went into a work frenzy until everyone was leery of even being in the same room with you. All you wanted to talk about was work, music, the next project, as if that would somehow make everything go away.”

“Well, it did.”

“Did it? Really? I don’t think so and neither do you. If you’re honest.”

Those were some of the most difficult days of her life, Rae thought. At the time she was certain she wouldn’t survive. “An accident,” the police said. You don’t lose your family, your life by accident. A simple trip to the local bodega for some sandwiches and sodas had turned into a shootout that left the assailant and her husband and daughter dead.

Sterling Lindsay had been her first love. They’d known each other since high school.
She could still remember the first time he kissed her at the senior prom and she knew then and there that he was the man she would marry. He was handsome, kind, generous, and a tender lover.

But she had to admit, they had their problems during their eight years of marriage. Sterling was from the old school that believed it was the man who was the head of the household, the breadwinner, the provider, the decision maker. Her role was simple: be happy, take care of hearth and home. Though he tolerated her musical career, he didn’t really support it. They’d had more blowups than she cared to remember regarding her steady upward climb in the entertainment field.

“Why can’t you be as proud of me as I am of you, Sterling?”
she’d ranted as she tried to get ready for the American Music Awards ceremony. The car was due to pick them up any minute.

Sterling sat on the edge of the bed still in his work clothes, making no attempt to put on the tux she’d laid out for him. He lit a cigarette.
“Of course I’m proud of you,”
he said with a total lack of conviction.

“Then why do we always have to go through this? You make me feel as if I’m doing something so horribly wrong. I love what I do. You know that.”

“And what about Akia and me?”
he tossed back.
“What do you think happens to us when you spend hours at the studio, come home bone tired, and fall into bed, when you travel all over the place behind these so-called artists? You take care of everyone else, Rae. What about us?”

“I love you and Akia,”
she said, feeling totally helpless.
“What can I do differently? How can I make things better?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes. Tell me.”

“Remember why you married me,”
he said simply, then got up from the bed and walked out of the room.

She was torn. Torn between her love for her family and her love for her work. She didn’t want to give up either. Maybe Sterling was right, she thought, stepping into her gown. Maybe she did put too much effort into her work and not enough into her family. Was she depriving Akia of a real mother, and Sterling a
real wife? But she couldn’t think about that now. Tonight was too important. They’d work all this out later.

She heard the doorbell and the low voice of her husband when it was answered. She went to the top of the stairs.

“Your car is here,”
Sterling said and walked away.

She came down to find him in the living room with Akia, seated comfortably in front of the television. Akia looked beautiful in the party dress Rae had picked out especially for the occasion.

“So you’re not coming?”

Sterling looked up at her dispassionately.
“No.”

Rae tugged in a breath.
“Come on, sweetie, it’s time to go,”
she said to her daughter.

“She’s not going either.”

Rae opened her mouth to protest, but knew it would be pointless, and she didn’t want to argue in front of Akia. He was just doing this to punish her, to make her feel guilty. He never could understand how important her career was to her, how hard she worked to achieve her goals. He would love it if she just stayed home
and made babies and had a hot meal on the table every night. But she had a future, and she wouldn’t let his jealousy stop her.

She walked over to where Akia was huddled on the love seat.
“Listen, sweetie,”
she began, adjusting her daughter’s thick pigtails behind her shoulders.
“Mommy has to go, but I know Daddy has some real treats for you, and you’re going to have a great time.”

“Why can’t I go?”
Akia whined, her eyes filling with tears.
“You promised.”

“I know, baby.”
She glanced up at Sterling, who stared back at her, daring her to choose.
“I’m sorry. But there will be other special nights. Just me and you, okay?”

Akia nodded numbly and curled up tighter in the chair. Rae hugged her daughter close, raining kisses on her cheeks until Akia finally giggled in delight. She gave one last look at Sterling and walked out. It was the last time she saw either of them.

Rae breathed in deeply, trying to push the memories away. Slowly, she turned around to face Gail.

“I think I’m in love with him, Gail, and I don’t think he can love me back.”

“How do you know he can’t, or that he doesn’t?”

Rae laughed halfheartedly and slowly unfolded the events of the past two months—Quinn’s physical presence but emotional distance.

“It’s me and Sterling all over again,” Rae said. “And what makes it so sad is that for the first time since…I began to take a chance on feeling again. I get excited about each day, hearing his voice, watching his face when I tell him about some new music I’m working on. He understands how important it is to me, and at the same time he’s turned off by it. And I can’t give it up. My music is all I have. It’s what keeps me going, breathing almost.”

“I hear a but in there somewhere.”

“But I still want him, all of him. Not just what’s left. And I know there is so much more that he’s unwilling to share.”

“Maybe unable, Rae. If I remember correctly the news articles said he lost his wife a few years ago, didn’t he?”

“Yes, the same time as me. Ironic, huh?”

“Maybe, and maybe it’s why you two stumbled across each other. The thing is, you both have found your own way to deal with your losses. You have to admit, Rae, you’re single-minded, always have been and became more so when you lost Sterling and Akia. You turned to the one thing that had always been a constant in your life—your work. Perhaps he can’t. Perhaps he associates it with the pain in his life and can’t or won’t deal with it. Men for all their outward machismo hurt a helluva lot more on the inside than we do, and it takes them longer to heal.”

Rae was quiet for a moment, thinking back to all the times she would go on and on about what she was doing, how great things were going, and he would simply listen, maybe smile. Every now and then he would ask her to play something, but he’d never come near the piano, as if afraid of getting burned. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d asked him to come to the studio or have drinks with her and the band after a session. He’d come twice, and he’d been aloof, almost sullen.
Maybe Gail was right. But she believed it was even more than that. What that something was she had no idea.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Gail probed, seeing the faraway look in Rae’s eyes.

“Just trying to put the pieces together. Funny, it was so easy for him to let me go when I told him I couldn’t deal with what was going on with us. I told him he needed to make a choice. He chose to let me go.”

Gail let the words hang in the air, until Rae heard them herself.
I told him he had to make a choice.
Realization slowly passed across her face and settled. She shut her eyes in acceptance. An image of that last night with Sterling and Akia flashed through her head like a bolt of lightning.
Sterling had forced me to choose.

“Oh, God,” she whispered weakly.

“You have a chance to do things differently this time, Rae, if you really want to. Quinn needs to know how you feel. You need to be honest about that, not just to him but to yourself. Have you slept with him?” she asked cautiously.

“No.”

“That’s not a bad thing. Cuts down on the complications. Gives you the opportunity to think with your heart and not your body.”

Rae smiled warmly. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to, believe me. The man turns me on in my sleep.”

“So then why haven’t you two…”

“It’s almost like we’ve been dancing around each other. Being overly polite, while staying on simmer. It’s as if we both understand that if we make love it’s not about one night. Not for us. And it’s scary as all hell.”

Mrs. Finch had watched him over the past week sink back to that place where no one could reach him. She’d heard him walk the floors at night, had seen the hollowness return to his eyes, the look he had when they met, the look he had when he lost his wife. And no amount of running to the supermarket was going to take it away.

“Seems like something heavy on your mind, son,” Mrs. Finch said, finding Quinn sitting on the stoop staring at nothing. She began to sweep.

“Naw. Not really,” he said absently.

“Hmmm. It’s a sin to lie to an old woman,” she warned.

Quinn couldn’t help but chuckle. She knew him too well. “So you’re callin’ me a sinner now,” he teased.

She flashed him an accusatory look. “If the shoe fits.” She swept a perfectly clean spot and scanned the quiet tree-lined block. “Funny about life, huh? On the outside things seem so plain. But that ain’t never the case. Life is complicated, full of twists and turns, surprises…people.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” he mumbled, wondering where this conversation was heading.

“Take you, for example.”

Uh-oh, here it comes.
He glanced at her. “What about me?”

“Look how you came into my life. Wasn’t under the best of circumstances—after losing your sister and all. But it was right here that your life took a turn. Mine, too. At the time, who knew how things was gonna work out? But they did. Always do if you give them a chance and some time. Let folks in.”

She moved toward the gate. “For every loss something comes along to take its place. It’s
just the way the world works. But you have to be ready. Or you lose that chance.”

“Sometimes you get tired of losing, Mrs. Finch. Get tired of starting over, picking up the pieces. Ya know?”

“I know, son.” She turned toward him. “That’s why the Lord sees fit to put folks in our way to help us.” She smiled. “If ya let ’em. Life is real hard when you live it alone, Quinten.”

She moved slowly toward him, patted his thigh. “You’ll work it out. Whatever it is.”

He watched her enter the house and wondered if she was as right as she always had been.

“Got some errands for you to run,” she called out from the doorway, figuring
why not?
“Seeing as that you apparently ain’t got nothing to do.”

Quinn chuckled and slowly shook his head. “Be there in a minute, Mrs. Finch.”

After cleaning up Mrs. Finch’s basement and going to the fish market, the vegetable stand, and the cleaners, Quinn was determined to get out of the house before she found something else for him to do.

He took a long leisurely shower, decided on his black dress pants and matching shirt, and
picked up his cream-colored leather jacket as an afterthought on his way out. Although the early days of fall were still relatively warm, the evenings had grown chilly.

He decided to visit his old haunts up in Harlem, check out Shugs Fish Fry, and maybe pay a surprise visit to his old mentor and surrogate father Remy. As usual, the streets of Harlem were jumping on Saturday night. Cars were double-and triple-parked in front of the clubs and knots of people stood outside the Lenox Lounge, where portions of the movie
Shaft
had been filmed.

He drove on and pulled up in front of Shugs. The line ran from the front door to the corner. Quinn laughed. Some things never change. He rolled down his windows, and kept driving, letting the night breeze and the sounds of life and laughter join him for the ride. This had all been a part of who he was—still was, somewhere.

Music from boom boxes blared from corners. Transactions exchanged hands from behind tinted car windows and down long, dim alleyways. Tight-knit groups of young wannabes
draped themselves over cars and around one another.