Something She Can Feel

by Grace Octavia

  “You’re not happy.”

  “What?”

  “I can see how you look at him. You want more and he can’t give it to you.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said, looking away from him.

  “Did you tell him where you were going tonight?”

  “I don’t need to answer that.”

  “Exactly.”

  A nondescript white man dressed haphazardly with two cameras hanging in different directions from his neck came and stood in front of us.

  “Let me get a shot,” he said, pulling a third camera from behind. Dame moved closer toward me and smiled and, quickly, the camera flashed and the man disappeared into the crowd.

  “So what are we going to do?” Dame asked.

  “About what?” I asked with my eyes still blinking from the flash.

  “About our feelings. About us.”

  “I just told you ...”

  “You told me what you have to say. You told me what you think you should say. I want to know what you feel.” Dame paused and smiled for a few other people waiting to take his picture. “Look, I’m not trying to ruin your marriage or change your life. I understand that’s who you are and that’s fine. I just want to know if maybe”—he looked into my eyes and it was like everyone in the room just disappeared or stopped talking; there was only us—“maybe I could have some time ... just breathe the same air as you and talk to you, so I can be reminded in the middle of all of this crazy shit in my life what beautiful really looks like?” His voice was as genuine and true as someone saying a prayer. As cocky and cool as he seemed to everyone else there, he was naked and open to me. And while this might have seemed like a good thing, in a way, it made me feel like I’d led Dame on in some way by coming to see him. Looking at him and knowing what it was like to be with him, I wanted to believe that what he was asking for could be—that we could just talk, just have our little conversations about nothing and everything and be happy. But right then, listening to his request, I knew it couldn’t work. Even in the room that had gone still, sitting there surrounded by drooling women and bottles of champagne and sweet burning cigarettes, grown men in basketball jerseys and Dame with no shirt and tattoos all over his body, it was clear that we were a world apart. Billie was right. I had mine and he had his. There was nowhere we could go.

  “I can’t do that,” I said. “It’s just not the right time. We live different lives.”

  “That’s still more of what you think you have to say.”

  “Well, what about you? How could you be so sure about everything?” I asked, trying to shift the focus from me. “This isn’t some romance novel where you can fall head over heels without having any reservations.”

  “I’m not the type of man that works with reservations,” he said. “I know what I want and I chase it. This feeling has been with me for too long to play games.”

  “Dame,” one of his assistants barked, nearly skidding into the couch with her BlackBerry in her hand, “I need you for some interviews and Naima wants to know when you’re ready.”

  “Thanks, Emily.”

  She pressed the phone back to her ear and rushed over to Benji.

  “I guess you didn’t count on leaving with me,” I said snidely. I knew Naima had a reason for looking at me sideways earlier.

  “Naima?” Dame said. “No, she arranges my exit. That’s it.”

  “I bet,” I said.

  “I don’t want to go, but I have to do these interviews or they’ll just start making stuff up,” Dame said. “Can I call you?”

  “Dame, I just told you, I can’t,” I said, watching Benji and the girl walk back over to us.

  “I’m gonna call,” Dame said.

  “Don’t.”

  “You ready, man?” Benji asked.

  “He’s ready,” I answered.

  When I went back into the front, the place was just as packed with sweaty men and scantily clad women as it had been when Dame was on stage. A DJ had replaced the band and it seemed no one wanted to go home. I did, though. My toes were starting to burn and even though I didn’t have to drive back to Alabama, thinking of the trip made me wonder if I’d be able to open my eyes and get to work when the sun came up.

  Once again, hoping luck would find me and my toes, I headed back toward the bar where Billie promised she’d wait at the beginning of the night, but I still didn’t see her there. So I started toward the door, praying she’d gone to the car, but then I noticed a small crowd gathered at the far end of the bar. Even in the darkness, I noticed the tall silhouette of a dark man standing in the middle of the group and as I got nearer, I saw that it was Mustafa and heard angry voices rising a bit above the music.

  Many of the people, holding drinks and dance partners in their hands, stopped moving to the beat and just turned and looked toward the center of the crowd that seemed to grow more agitated with each step I took.

  “You got some nerve,” I heard Billie protest even though I couldn’t see her. Instead, all I could see was her hand pointed accusingly at someone standing in front of Mustafa, who I couldn’t see either, but I certainly knew who it was. I quickened my steps then, weaving around the clumps of people that separated me from Billie’s voice.

  “Nerve? I can go wherever I want,” Clyde said to Billie when I finally pushed my way past a tight circle of onlookers. He was standing beside Ms. Lindsey.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, coming between Clyde and Billie, but no one answered.

  “This isn’t about you being here; it’s about you having that two-bit skank, slut, bitch next to you,” Billie blustered, looking at Ms. Lindsey so harshly that I was sure she was about to spit. The circle, of course, highlighted this moment with a refrain of support.

  “Slut?” Ms. Lindsey charged, trying to get to Billie. “Who you calling a slut?”

  “Calm down, baby,” Clyde said, holding Ms. Lindsey back from Billie, but from looking at his loose hold, it was evident that wasn’t a hard task because Ms. Lindsey in no way intended to ever really reach Billie.

  “Y’all stop it!” I snatched Billie’s arm. “Hold her,” I said to Mustafa, who was standing there, looking as if he was waiting in a crowd of strangers. And while he was, for the most part, I at least expected him to try to protect and control Billie.

  “That’s right,” Clyde said venomously, “Tell him to handle her crazy ass.”

  “Crazy?” Billie repeated and I turned from Clyde to her in what seemed liked slow motion at the time. I’d been involved in many Clyde and Billie fights in my life and what I’d learned, and Clyde knew, was that the best way to fully upset Billie was to call her “crazy.” More specifically, if it was anyone else, she might have laughed, but from Clyde, it was a fighting word—and with Ms. Lindsey standing there.... I’d never experienced it, but I knew it would be bad. Horrible. At that moment, she may as well have been Zenobia in the hallway and Clyde and Ms. Lindsey were Michael and Patrice.

  “You’re going to call me crazy after all these fucking years?” Billie said, her face contorting into an evil war mask. “I got your crazy!” She raised her arm as if she was about to swing a punch at Clyde.

  “No,” I hollered, going for her, but it was too late, her purse was already up in the air and by the time I got a hold of her arms, that book bag–sized, leather heavy hitter had bopped both Clyde and Ms. Lindsey. And even after I had the best hold I could get and Mustafa had lifted Billie up and was pulling her toward the exit, she was still swinging and hitting Clyde and Ms. Lindsey and anyone else who happened to get caught. Along the way, security caught us and one big, bald man with hands the size of car tires pulled me off Billie and in what felt like a snap of his wrist, threw me out of the club and onto the sidewalk.

  My face inches from the dirty pavement, my hands splayed out in front of me to break my fall, I first looked down at my body to make sure I hadn’t been hurt and then over to see that both Billie and Mustafa were on the ground next to me.

  “What the
hell?” I screamed, and a boy who was standing nearby and looking on with a bunch of other people waiting outside came and helped me up.

  “You okay, ma’am?” he asked, and I just looked at him. I was too angry to answer. “I was just trying to help.” He held up his hands defensively and backed away. By then, Billie and Mustafa were up, too, and arguing again.

  “I didn’t sign up for this,” Mustafa said, only his African accent was gone now and he sounded more like the guys standing around us.

  “Don’t be a damn punk. Nothing happened to you,” Billie said dismissively.

  “Nothing? That nigga was about to swing on me if you didn’t come between us,” he said. “Look, just give me my money for tonight, so I can go home.”

  “Money?” I said, looking at Billie. “What is he talking about?”

  “Don’t be a bitch, Jerome,” Billie said, holding out her hand for me to be quiet. “I told you he was gonna be here. All you were supposed to do was to be cute and shut your damn mouth. No one told you to kiss me.”

  “You said to act! I’m an actor, and I felt like that was what my character was supposed to do at the moment !”

  “Act? What the hell?” I tried again.

  “Oh, please, negro. You ain’t been in a damn thing, past your best friend’s wedding video, and you managed to mess that up, too,” Billie said. “You know what?” She reached into her purse and pulled out a thick envelope. “As a matter of fact, you can take your damn money. And go somewhere and take some acting classes or something.” She threw the envelope at him and he caught it just before it hit the ground in front of him.

  “What’s that?” I asked and Billie grabbed my arm.

  “Let’s go,” she said, pulling me.

  As we searched for the car and Mr. Green, Billie explained the intricate and ridiculous plot she’d organized to somehow make the exchange between her and Mustafa possible, who she’d confirmed was actually Jerome Jenkins from Jasper, Georgia. Apparently, Billie had grown so desperate to get back at Clyde for dating Ms. Lindsey that she’d hired some help. In an attempt to get over Clyde, she did try Internet dating for a while, but that didn’t work and somehow she stumbled onto a male escort Web site. Jerome was listed as an escort for hire, who happened to have acting experience. His “ad,” Billie said, which featured shots of him in a tuxedo and in a thong, actually said he was the perfect, discreet accompaniment for high-class, high-powered single ladies not wishing to attend another business function, family dinner, or class reunion alone. He could play a long-lost love or boyfriend and leave a lasting impression on every person he encountered. His talents included international accents, dancing, and massage. Assuring me that she didn’t sleep with him, Billie said after looking at Jerome’s ad a few dozen nights in a row, it came to her that she could use his services to make her own lasting impression on Clyde. In all the years that they’d been breaking up and making up, never once had Clyde been forced to suffer seeing Billie in the arms of another man. And she thought Jerome/Mustafa would be the reality check he’d need. Handsome, smart, and international, he was sure to make Clyde rethink his decision and, she’d hoped, come crawling back to Billie’s door. She just needed to make sure Clyde saw the two of them together. She paid Jerome to stay in Tuscaloosa for a few days and after that he just drove back and forth from Atlanta. But there was no success. Not until another teacher told her Clyde and Ms. Lindsey were going to the very same show in Atlanta she’d agreed to attend with me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I pleaded when we were in the car and already headed home.

  “There’s no way I could’ve told you,” she said. “You had to go along with everything for it to be real. You would’ve stopped me.”

  “Exactly. And I would’ve stopped you because none of this makes any sense,” I said, searching for sanity in my friend’s eyes. “I love you to death and I’ve been through a lot with you, but this is just ... it’s past crazy. It’s the type of stuff people do in movies. It’s not real. It’s not ... it’s not what people do in real life.” I was ranting, but this, even for Billie with her ways and love for Clyde, was beyond being a bit too much.

  “I know it doesn’t make any sense,” Billie said. “But I was tired.”

  “Tired of what? Clyde? I’m your best friend. You could’ve come to me.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Understand what?” I asked.

  “I’m thirty-three and single in a town where everyone expects you to get married right out of college,” she said. “Late is thirty. Thirty-three ... I may as well be a senior citizen.”

  “I got married at thirty-two!”

  “Everyone knew you were going to marry Evan. And he’s been begging you to get married since high school. I don’t have anyone but Clyde. You don’t know what that’s like.”

  “So the answer to that is hiring some actor to come to town to pretend he was your boyfriend?” I asked and I didn’t mean for it to sound that simple, but it just was. “Don’t you think that’s a stretch? Pretty soon, you were going to run out of money ... or someone would find out. And why get everyone else involved?”

  “When it all came out that Clyde was with Karen it was just like everyone was laughing at me... . Like I was a fool. Everybody knows how long I’ve been with Clyde and everything we’ve been through ... all the crap I’ve put up with. Everyone knows,” she said, and I could do nothing but nod along in agreement. “And when everything came out—that he was really dating some little girl that’s more than ten years younger than me—I know everyone was laughing.”

  “No, they’re not,” I said.

  “Yes they are. And you know why? Because he’s probably going to marry her,” she said so sadly that I began to cry at the thought. Not because I wanted Clyde and Billie to be together, but really because I knew if that happened, Billie simply wouldn’t survive it. “Men never marry the women they go through all the crap me and Clyde went through. They just look for the next one in line. And here she is.” Billie began to sob on my shoulder, and I looked out the window of the car at the empty highway. “I just wanted him to feel as hurt as I do. Even if it’s a lie.”

  “You don’t know that he’s going to marry her,” I tried. And there was nothing left to say. It would have been easy to tell her to just get over it. But she had to get past it first. We just sat there for a while crying.

  “What happened with Dame?” Billie asked weakly, still resting her head on my shoulder. “Did you talk to him?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Are you over him now? Did it work?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I think it did.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The impulse for forcing myself out of bed and getting into my car to get to school only hours after I returned home was “damage control.” I suffered through all of Evan’s questions about the night over breakfast, making up careful yet interesting lies that I was sure I’d be able to recall should he bring them up again, thinking in the back of my mind that I had to get to school to somehow intercept Ms. Lindsey before she intrigued the school with her story about Billie and seeing me at the club. I knew I didn’t have to worry about Clyde or Billie telling anyone, but Ms. Lindsey probably went straight to the school from the club to share the news. I had no idea how I’d stop her, but I had to try. If Evan found out about Dame and the club and me being on stage, he’d never understand why I went. And even with the situation with my father and the money still keeping me at odds with Evan, I didn’t want him to lose trust in me. While I could honestly look back at the events at the club and admit that my attendance was completely suspect and had more to do with me wanting to see him than needing to get over him, it was my hope to work through both of these complicated desires alone and without damaging my marriage or Evan.

  While Ms. Lindsey and I hadn’t spoken much since she joined the staff at the beginning of the school year, and even less after she was caught in the janitor’s closet with my best friend�
��s boyfriend, I ran into her twice each day. Along with most of the other teachers at school, her first stop in the morning was in the teachers’ lounge where there was always hot coffee and mailers for special announcements. There, I’d usually see her looking over her lesson plan or chatting over coffee with some of the other rookie teachers. And the second time we normally found each other was at the copy machine after lunch. Along with a group of five or so teachers, Ms. Lindsey and I discovered that the copy machine in the main office was usually free right after lunch. To avoid the long lines and fights over paper and toner replacement that occurred in the morning, it was best to hold any copies to this hour in the day when most teachers were still out trying to forget the morning’s drama and prepare for what was ahead.

  While Evan’s inquisition about the “play” and my still-numb feet led to me being late to work and missing Ms. Lindsey’s morning coffee, I ended up finding her standing alone in an unusually empty and quiet main office. When I walked in, two of Angie Martin’s ghouls were walking out with stacks of paper in their arms. They were whispering and looking over their shoulders at Ms. Lindsey. In fact, when they saw me, they were so busy cackling that neither made enough time to roll their eyes and say something nasty.

  Although Ms. Lindsey’s back was to me as she leaned over the copier, I knew it was her, and to my surprise, she’d actually taken time to go home to change clothes before she came to work to ruin my life. Then I thought maybe she’d already started to spread the word about the club and wondered if that was why the ghouls had been whispering.

  “Karen,” I called softly, unsure of what I’d say when she turned around. “Excuse me?”

  Without answering, Ms. Lindsey turned slowly, and when my eyes met her face, I found a deep purple shiner over her left eye.

  “Ewww,” I said, bracing myself at the sight.

  “I know—it’s awful,” she said. “Clyde put ice on it, but that only made it worse.”