What He's Been Missing (10 page)

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Authors: Grace Octavia

BOOK: What He's Been Missing
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“Maybe not. Maybe.” Journey pulled the empty bottle from Apache's mouth and put her over her shoulder for a burp. “Have you ever thought about how committed Ian is to nothing happening between you two?”
“He's marrying someone else. Obviously, he's committed to nothing happening between us.”
“Maybe he's just too afraid to admit it. Maybe he's thinking there's no way you two could ever get together, so he's going with the next best thing.”
“Settling?”
“I wouldn't say that he's settling. Think about it: if he marries Scarlet, he can still have you in his life. While she's out in Ghana or wherever the hell she's going, and modeling and saving the world, he'll still be home with you. Lunch. Stopping by the office. Using his key to get into your place. Foot massages. He'll have two wives—one he's sure he can have and another he's sure he wants. You said it yourself a while ago—whenever he wants to talk politics, and culture, art and music, his heart and soul, he comes to his equal. When he wants to have someone on his arm, someone to sweat him and beg him to stick around, he goes to his girl.”
“Well, I didn't exactly put it like that, but that's some deep old shit, J!”
“Girl, please. Don't go listening to me. I'm just trying to figure this here thing out. Who knows what's going on in his mind. You're just going to have to wait and listen. Watch for the signs. If he comes to you, let him. If not, remain committed to not being in love with him.”
“I'll take the latter for five thousand, Journey Trebek!” I said. “I don't love no damn Ian Dupree. That's my boy! OK? You got that?
Capisce
? Can you hear me now?” I got in close on the camera so she could see the silly expression on my face.
“I hear you. I'm just wondering if you hear yourself.”
Journey rocked Apache back to sleep on her shoulder. The baby's tiny body went limp and every limb looked so heavy I wondered how Journey held her up.
 
Grammy Annie-Lou had been leaving messages on my voice mail for days. But between getting the front staging of Ian and Scarlet's wedding in New Orleans together (reservations in, Web site up, and invitations out) and Alarm Clock and Donnica to actually set a date (Alarm Clock had been growing cold on the idea of losing his bachelorhood to the nail technician he'd been ready to kill over in my office), I hadn't had time to call her back. Grammy Annie-Lou liked talking on the phone for hours—and all about nothing. And I knew that if I called her back, I'd end up on the phone listening to intel about some woman at the church who was making moves on the pastor or her recent doctor's appointment. I figured I could bypass all that by waiting until she was a little more specific in her voice-mail message. She was old and didn't really understand the concept of the voice-mail system, so when she actually left a message, it was short and direct: “It's your grandmother—Annie-Lou. Call me. Hear?” She'd pause and then I'd hear every noise in the background before she figured out how to hang up the phone. In contrast, when it was important, she'd push herself and actually let me in on the purpose of her call and leave explicit direction. Such purpose and direction came on the morning of the day most single women dread more than Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and their birthday combined....
On February fourteen, I woke up ready to do what any other reasonable single sister did to ensure the day would be a forgettable success: take the back streets to the office to avoid seeing anything red, mylar, or flowery; go into my office and shut the door; refuse all calls, e-mails, and texts from anyone who might acknowledge what day it was; take the back streets back home from the office; call the pizza man and order a light-cheese flatbread pizza; take two doses of NyQuil, and pass out on the couch while watching reruns of
Law and Order: SVU
—all to pretend it wasn't Valentine's Day.
Because I'd been blasting Nina Simone's
Little Girl Blue
while I was in the shower that morning, I didn't hear the phone ringing, but when I got out and checked the voice mail, it was Grammy Annie-Lou with purpose and direction: “Hey, baby. I done called you so many times. Guess you too busy in that city to call me. Well, I was calling about King. Think he need to be put down. He old. Been acting funny the last few days. Won't eat. Last night he done climbed under the porch and won't come out. I left some turkey necks on the stoop after dinner last night and come out here this morning. They is still here. I was going to take him out in the yard later to give him rest. But he your dog. I'll wait for you to come see about him. Hear? It's your grandmother—Annie-Lou. Call me.”
I called her right back. By “give him rest,” she meant that she was going to shoot him with a shotgun. King was old as hell, but he probably just had worms, an easy fifteen-dollar shot at the vet would cure that. Grammy Annie-Lou was from a different time. She didn't believe in walking dogs on a leash, keeping them in the house, or feeding them anything but scraps from the table—which was probably how King had gotten sick (that and he was the oldest dog in Georgia). I told her that I'd be there in an hour and then called Krista to tell her that I wouldn't be in.
In the car on the way to Social Circle, I forgot that it was Valentine's Day. Red and mylar balloons and flowery bouquets were set up in storefronts and riding in the backseats and butts of delivery trucks, but I noticed none of it. I kept thinking of King sleeping under the back of that old red Ford. He seemed to love and appreciate the truck more than anyone else. At night in the summer, when it was cool outside and what seemed like millions of stars in the sky were shining bright over Grammy Annie-Lou's old farmhouse, King would climb up on the hood of the truck and howl at the moon. Sitting on the front stoop beside me, my daddy would always say, “Even the laziest country dog in the world can't ignore the beauty of the moon.” He'd put his arm around me and we'd listen to King's song.
“Morning, beautiful,” Ian said after I picked up the phone. “Happy Monday.”
“Very funny,” I replied. He knew I didn't want to hear anyone say the words “Valentine's” and “Day” together on February fourteen.
“I figured I'd give you a call before you went into the office. How are you? You're already out of the house? Sounds like you're in your car.”
“Yeah. On my way to Social Circle.”
“Oh. You're going to see my boo Annie-Lou? You think she'll make me one of her boysenberry pies?” Ian said. “Let me call my grandma on the other line.” (He was seriously about to click over. Grammy Annie-Lou seldom sent me back to Atlanta without a pie for Ian.)
“I doubt it,” I said.
“What? No pie? Damn!” Ian laughed but stopped quickly when he noticed my silence. “Everything OK?”
“She thinks something's wrong with King. Wants to put him down.”
“Well, he is five hundred years old,” Ian pointed out.
“That doesn't mean he has to die,” I protested.
“Rach, are you crying?”
“No.” (Lie.)
“You need me to meet you there?”
“No.” I wiped my tears. “It's probably nothing. I'll just take him to the vet and get him a shot. Probably worms. You know how that old woman just feeds him anything! I put five hundred dollars worth of organic dog food in the shed and she feeds him turkey necks from her greens. King is fine. Just need to get him to the vet.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” I said. “Anyway, I know you have a bunch of stuff to do. Scarlet probably has you putting in some work.”
“Nah. We're just having dinner at this vegan spot in the West End. She wanted to use the day to support a black-owned business.”
“Figures.”
“What?” Ian was laughing again.
“Just classic Scarlet,” I said. “She'll get over all that once she's out in the real world and gets a real job. You can only be militant for so long. Once you have bills to pay, you realize that the revolution isn't cheap.”
“Sure the hell ain't,” Ian agreed. “Speaking of the revolution, let me get off the phone, so I can finish grading these papers in time for my class. These kids will organize a
coup d'etat
if I don't give these papers back today.”
“Cool.”
“And Rachel—”
“What?”
“Happy Monday again.”
 
Grammy Annie-Lou had three wigs: her church wig, her doctor's-office wig, and the wig she put on when she had company. I knew something was wrong when I got to the end of the winding dirt path that led visitors from the road to her house and she was sitting on the porch in her rocking chair with her thin, gray plats exposed. It was cold outside, so she had on a coat, but at the bottom I saw a housedress hanging out over the old winter boots she always wore around the yard.
When I was small, Grammy Annie-Lou seemed larger than life. She was a tall woman with wide hips and hands bigger than my father's. I'd once seen her mount a horse with no help from a man or step. She seemed to just fly up in the air and land on his back. Dug her heels into his sides and they took off down the road like the men did in all those Westerns. Mr. Durbin, a white man who always stopped by the house when I was a little girl, was beside me in front of the house. I wouldn't have believed what I was seeing if he hadn't been right there to confirm it. He spat some red tobacco onto the dirt and said in a way that I probably shouldn't have heard, “You have to respect a woman like that.” When Mr. Durbin died, Grammy Annie-Lou didn't go to the funeral, but he left her everything he had. My father said they were lovers. She never once admitted it.
Over the years, Grammy Annie-Lou's stature, her ability to climb a horse and take off down the dirt road had declined. She seemed so much smaller and slower. Like what she was, the woman who had to be respected, was fading away with time. I didn't know if it was because I was getting taller or she was getting smaller. I imagined that one day she'd be so small I'd be able pick her up in my arms and carry her to her bed. I'd do that willingly.
“Hey, Pop out,” she said, her arms shaking a little with age and extended to me as she came down the steps to greet me. The house behind her looked like something from an old Civil War movie. It was big and yellow. Had ten windows in the front and a white porch that wrapped all the way around it. It was in the middle of five acres of land my great-great grandfather purchased outright with money he'd saved before the Civil War. Grammy Annie-Lou would tell anyone who'd listen that her grandfather said, “Not one of my seeds gon' be planted in soil that won't let it pop out and see all the world.” She always said I was the “pop out.”
“Hey, Grammy.” I kissed her on the cheek and inhaled every scent she could offer in a hug. “Where's your hair? And why don't you have anything on your legs? It's cold out here.” I had on a coat and a hat, but I was still cold.
“You mind your eyes, Miss Ann!” she said, laughing. “We got business out here. I been waiting for you.” She pointed to the cold plate of neck bones. “See? See? King ain't ate a thing.”
“He's probably sick.” I walked to the porch and got down on my knees to see him. All I could make out was shadows and some old stacks of bricks. I got up and walked around to the other side of the steps to see if I could spy him out over there. “You sure he's still under here?”
“I'm old, but not dumb, Pop out.”
I looked up at her and rolled my eyes. “I didn't say you were dumb.” I squinted a little at something round in the back corner. “You got a flashlight?”
“Yes,” she said. “But you don't need it. Go on and call him.”
I looked back at the roundness in the corner. “King,” I called, but it sounded more like I was just saying the word than calling him to come to me. “King!” I looked up at Grammy Annie-Lou.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“King!” I waited a second. “King!”
The roundness moved just a little.
I got up again to go around to the back of the porch, so I could get closer to him, maybe coax him out with my voice.
“I'll go on and get the shotgun in case he come out,” Grammy Annie-Lou announced, going in the other direction and up the steps into the house.
“You ain't gonna need it,” I said. “He's sick. I'm just gonna take him to the doctor.”
“He sick 'cause he old. Time to put him down. That's the best thing to do.”
Grammy Annie-Lou went into the house to get her shotgun that she kept underneath her bed.
“King!” I called as I walked around the porch. “King! King!” As I shouted, I thought of how odd it sounded to hear my voice so loud. In the city, I hardly called anything out so firmly, so directly. Maybe I'd yell at someone cutting me off in traffic, but that was quick and out of anger. Here, in Social Circle, I could scream out loud and no one would care, because no one would hear. Not for a long way. “King! King!”

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