Waiting to Exhale (11 page)

She started with the phone calls. She didn't wait for them to call or ask her out a second or third time; she solicited them. Volunteered her services: cooked them meals and would freeze them if they weren't around to eat them; she would rearrange their furniture, clean their apartments, take their clothes to the cleaners and pick them up, and sometimes she even footed the bill for weekend getaways that she had suggested. She thought they would appreciate all these gestures, but the gestures scared most of them away. And by the time Tarik was nine, he was getting all his uncles mixed up.

It took years for Gloria to realize that she was going about this all wrong. Robin, who Gloria knew wasn't the wisest person to take advice from, made a valid point: "You can't buy a man's love." But Gloria wanted to know what being in love felt like; she'd read about it in magazines, seen it on TV, heard Robin rant and rave about how good some man had made her feel and how Russell had made her toes curl. For a long time, Gloria waited for her toes to curl. But they-never did. It finally got to the point where she got tired of waiting for love and divided all of her attention among God, hair, and her son.

She also got fat. Food became her salvation, her elixir, her husband, and the orgasms she'd never had. She forgot all about men, forgot that she was still an attractive woman, and became a supermom. It was Gloria who took half the neighborhood boys to Little League and soccer practice, flag football, Boy Scout meetings, karate class, puppet shows, and Saturday afternoon movies. And when Tarik had sleepovers, she cooked. She always served his friends homemade waffles and blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and hot lunches: grilled cheese sandwiches and hamburgers and thick soup; and for any occasion she could think of, she baked pies and cakes and cookies. For years, Gloria's house was full of children.

But God and hair and kids turned out not to be enough. And Tarik grew up. And Gloria got fatter. Now it was clear that her reign as mother was almost over, because her "baby" would be out of high school next year and then he'd probably go away to college, not anybody's navy. What was she going to do with herself then? How was she going to survive? And just how do you go about making a life for yourself when you've been socially crippled and emotionally bankrupt for years?

As Gloria got out of the shower, she was thinking about what Tarik had said this morning: that David really wanted to see her. But Gloria knew that wasn't true. When he was here last time, he had done her a favor by spending the night, because she had damn near begged him. He had done it out of pity, but she didn't care. Though it was obvious that he hadn't enjoyed it, Gloria was grateful that he had been kind enough to touch her. Grateful that after four years, somebody had finally touched her. As she dried herself off, she said a silent prayer that in spite of her weight, maybe he'd have some more mercy for her tonight.

Gloria was coloring Sister Monroe's hair Flame Red.

"Could you leave it in a few minutes extra?" she asked. "The missionaries are going to Las Vegas next week, and I want to look extra good."

"Yes, ma'am," Gloria said, and looked over at Phillip, who was cracking up. Sister Monroe, who was in her late fifties, was a true size twenty-two and wore three-and-a-half-inch heels at least six out of seven days. Her shoe size was six and a half, and she looked like Little Lotta, but you couldn't tell her she wasn't fine, that she didn't look thirty years old and a size fourteen. If so much as a strand of gray hair popped up through that whorish red Gloria'd been putting on her hair for the last four years, she'd run in for a touch-up. "Get this mess off my head," she'd say, and wait hours if she didn't have an appointment.

Gloria's rubber gloves were too tight, so she smeared the thick dye onto Sister Monroe's roots as fast as she could, then asked her to sit at an empty dryer, so she could at least start pressing and curling little LaTisha, who'd already been waiting close to an hour. There were at least eight other women and men waiting; a few of them were asleep, the others were reading Jet, Ebony, Essence magazine, or an old National Enquirer that somebody had left. The reason people didn't mind waiting was that Oasis Hair was one of the few black shops in Phoenix that had a consistent reputation for keeping up with all the latest hairstyles and techniques.

Desiree, who did nothing but weaves, was her own best form of advertising. Somebody had made the mistake of telling her years before that she could be a model, and she'd never forgotten it. Even though she was clearly in her late late thirties, she wore miniskirts when her thighs should've told her it was too late, leggings and crop tops, with a thick belt of fat in between that apparently everybody could see except her. There was no such thing as too much makeup to Desiree, and no one knew how she did those weaves, considering how long her acrylics were. Cindy was much pleasanter to work with. At twenty-four, she was already divorced and taking care of three kids. She dressed as if she was going to a nine-to-five, which had always been her dream, and although she specialized in individual braids and cornrowing, her own hair was cut short. And no one seemed to care (considering how everybody was so paranoid about catching AIDS) that Gloria's two best stylists-Phillip, whose hair was plati- nuro, and Joseph, who wore black every single day of the year-were gay. Now she had two full-time manicurists, since it seemed like everybody and their mother couldn't live without acrylics or silk wraps.

Gloria loved the atmosphere of her shop. The place was sort of funky chic-everything was silver, black, purple, and white-and full of hanging plants, all of which were fake. There were huge, colorful posters of black models, male and female, wearing the latest hairstyles. She sold custom-made costume jewelry, T-shirts she made in a class she'd taken, and Brown Sugar panty hose that nobody ever bought.

Most of the people who came to her shop either knew each other or knew of each other, and Phillip and Joseph knew all the gossip- a
. K. A
. dirt-about all of them and usually kept everybody in stitches in the absence of that person on that day. Gloria also had a little TV in the back room, and when it was slow during the week, particularly on Wednesday, which was Senior Citizen Day, they dragged it out front so folks could watch the soaps and game shows. On weekends the shop felt more like a nightclub, because Phillip-who was in charge of entertainment-played nothing but music videos on BET, and Gloria served wine, which she was beginning to think was not such a good idea, because some of her customers were drunk by the time they got in the chair.

"So did you hear about Bernadine?" Phillip now asked Gloria. He was combing Lustrasilk through Sandra's hair. Sandra, who was LaTisha's mama, looked in the mirror to watch Gloria's face.

"No, what? Sit up straight, baby," Gloria said to a sinking LaTisha.

"John left her, honey. Get ready for this: for a white girl!"

"No, he didn't
!

"If you don't want your neck burned, you better stop being so nosy and be still," he said to Sandra, then turned to Gloria. "Would I lie about something like this? Tell her, Joseph."

Joseph, who was working at the station next to Cindy, was putting a male customer's hair on rods for a Jheri-Kurl. "I saw her coming out of a Circle K in Scottsdale last Sunday, and the chile had on her bathrobe and was all messed up. I couldn't believe it was Bernie- I mean, she was so out of it. Anyway, I asked her what was going on. I don't know if you know it but she takes those pills sometimes for her nerves but anyway her speech was slurred and I was scared to death so I told her to drive slowly and I followed her home. She was smoking those disgusting cigarettes again, and she was doing so good, chile. Anyway, she told me that John left her for some white wench named Kathleen. His bookkeeper. And guess what? When we got to her house, the kids were watching cartoons, girl, and had been in the house all by themselves. Can you believe it? Does that tell you what shape our girlfriend was in? Anyway, I hung around there most of the day, fed those kids, made her sleep off them pills, and then called a cab when she woke up and acted like her head was back on straight. So," he said, after a long sigh, "you just never know."

Gloria was shocked. So that's probably why she canceled Onika's appointment this morning. Bernadine was not only one of her best clients but one of her closest friends. They had met six years before, in church. Gloria was sitting next to her and couldn't help but notice how dry and brittle Bernadine's hair was. After the service, she asked Bernadine who did her hair, and Bernadine said she did it herself, so Gloria gave her her card and recommended that Bernadine let her give her a good conditioning. And when women sat in her chair, they usually told Gloria all their business. Bernadine was no exception. She had told Gloria how bored she was with her life, and especially with John, but all Gloria could think of was suggesting that she join Black Women on the Move, since Bernadine never mentioned anything about getting a divorce.

"Do you think she's okay?" Gloria asked.

"Well," Joseph said, "I haven't talked to her since then, but hell, how would you feel if your husband just came home and told you he was leaving after a million years of marriage-for a white girl?"

"I couldn't imagine," Gloria said. She put the last curl in La- Tisha's hair and picked up the phone. Sister Monroe cleared her throat about ten times. "I ain't got all day, Gloria, and Lord knows I been patient. Now please get this stuff out of my hair before it goes up in flames for real."

"Just wait a minute," Gloria said, and dialed Bernadine's number. Phillip and Joseph put their heads down to hide their laughter. Desiree, who thought she was Miss Sophisticated, ignored all the conversations that went on, because she was "above" petty gossip. Cindy was listening too, but she never had any comments to make, one way or the other. It was no secret that Phillip and Joseph couldn't stand Sister Monroe, because they thought she was a hypocrite. She was the only Pentecostal they knew whose missionary work always seemed to take her to Las Vegas.

Bernadine's answering machine came on. "Hey, girl, this is Gloria. What's wrong with Onika? You know what that child's hair looks like if she misses an appointment. Call me." She didn't want to make mention over the phone that she knew anything. After she hung up, she wanted to call Robin, but when she looked over at Sister Monroe, who was now fuming, she decided to wait.

Tarik wasn't home when she got there. It was almost seven. Before she put her purse down, she called Bernadine and got her machine again. "Look, Bemie. I hope you're all right. Joseph told me what happened, so call me. I'm worried as hell about you, and I won't be able to rest until I know you're okay. So call me. I don't care how late it is." She called Robin next but got her machine too, so she asked if she'd talked to Bernadine and, regardless, to call her as soon as possible. It was urgent.

David was supposed to be here around eight. She thought about dinner and realized it would be tacky not to have anything prepared if it turned out he was hungry. And there was Tarik to think about. But she didn't feel like chopping, slicing, or dicing anything. Before Gloria heard about this business with Bernadine, she'd been praying all day that David would spend the night. But right now she didn't care one way or the other. She just hoped nothing terrible had happened to her friend.

She got up and went out to the freezer in the garage and pulled out some spaghetti sauce she'd made. She put it in the microwave to defrost, then went into her bedroom to make sure she looked okay. There were tiny hairs on her blouse, so she dusted them off. Her hair, which was dyed jet black and blunt cut, hung below her jawbone. If her face weren't so fat, she'd cut it all off. Phillip always teased her. "So what if you're a little on the heavy side, sweetheart. You're still pretty. I'd kill for those cheekbones. So flaunt everything you've got." Gloria looked at the picture of her and Tarik hanging on the wall. She had to have been a size twelve in that picture, and now she was an eighteen, although twenties felt better. She'd tried every diet on the face of the earth, but starving herself to death off and on for the last two years made her too miserable. It wasn't worth the aggravation, so she stopped trying and accepted the fact that she was fat and was probably always going to be fat.

Gloria was snacking on some cheese and crackers and washing it down with a sixteen-ounce tumbler of diet Pepsi when the phone rang. It was Robin. "What's so urgent?" she asked.

"Have you talked to Bemie?" Gloria said, and took a sip of her Pepsi.

"Not since last week. Why?"

"You don't have any messages from her at all?"

"No. Gloria, stop beating around the bush. What's going on?"

"John left her."

"Say that again."

"John left her."

"I told you he was an asshole, didn't I?"

"For a white woman."

"I know you're lying, Gloria."

"I'm dead serious. And Joseph said he saw her last Sunday at a Circle K and she was so out of it that he had to drive her home, but nobody seems to have talked to her since. I wish I knew her mama's last name; she lives out there in Sun City. Anyway, I've left two messages on her machine, but I haven't heard from her yet."

"Well, I'll keep trying her. I'll call you as soon as I find out what's going on. Wait a minute. Isn't Tarik's daddy coming tonight?"

"He should be here soon, but where that son of mine is, Lord only knows."

"Look, call me after he leaves."

"I was hoping he doesn't."