But it seemed to Felice, that women without men in their lives, had to often take on the duties that a man would usually have, were he present, able, and willing. Felice recalled a conversation she had with Adrienne about Laura and how tough she was.
Laura, after having caught one of her perspective suitors about to rape her daughter, had subsequently refused to date at all until her daughter left home. (Felice had privately wondered where Laura had buried the body.) But since Adrienne had grown tall and strong enough to take care of most attackers, her mother would occasionally go out to dinner with a guy. Laura had never brought any of them home, however.
“Mom says that none of them had yet earned the honor of crossing her threshold. She means that in a variety of ways, knowing her,” Adrienne had explained.
“Adrienne, are you gay?”
The question had just popped out of her mouth, unpremeditated. Now, as she remembered the conversation in relationship to her present train of thought, she knew why.
Adrienne had looked at her best friend with years of pain on her face. “No, I’m not, and thanks for asking.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything...”
“Felice, I’ve had many people think this about me. What six-foot, basketball-playing woman wouldn’t have that thought about her? Heck, a good portion of my teammates are.”
Felice had raised her hand in protest. “I don’t want to know who.”
“Nor, would I tell you. Whether they want their preferences known or not is their business, not mine. Felice, before you beat yourself up too much about this, I’m glad to know that you would still hang out with me, while suspecting that I might be a lesbian. That say’s a lot about you.”
Felice had looked at her. “The stereotype strikes again.”
“Yes, it does.” Adrienne had sighed. “Back when I started playing ball, my mother told me that this would be so. Her ability to tell the future is so annoying ....” Felice laughed.
“But that didn’t make it hurt any less when the subject first started coming up. After I had been playing ball a while though, I saw why it was a stereotype. Stereotypes become stereotypes because they are, mostly, based in fact. A big, tough woman, who plays sports, often wants to sleep with other women.”
“But not in your case.”
“No, I’m an exception to that rule; not that it gets me any dates. But, girl, I’ll be straight with you. (Hey, that’s a joke.) Several of my teammates are quite envious of my relationship with you.”
The look of disgust on Felice’s face was strong.
Adrienne laughed. “Don’t worry. I am here to assure you that I like my humans on three legs.” Both women broke up with laughter.
“That boyfriend of my mother’s wasn’t the only one to try something with me. When I started playing ball, my mother told me to tell her when the first coach hit on me. It didn’t take long. I was ten and five-seven. As it happens, that
coach was a woman. I told my mom right away, told her what the woman’s name was and guess what Laura did? She found out where the woman lived, went to her house, and threatened to cut every appendage of hers off and stuff ‘em down her throat if she so much as looked at me cross-eyed.”
“As different-thinking as you mother is, I would have thought that she wouldn’t have problems with lesbians, or specifically, with you being one.”
“Actually, she said that she wouldn’t have a problem with it, if it were my choice. She just didn’t want me to be coerced into it as a child.
“Mom actually has quite a few homosexual friends. Heck, she’s an artist living in Santa Fe; she couldn’t avoid that. She says she even considered becoming a lesbian when I was small. I recall seeing a few rather mannish looking women over the house when I was a kid, but none of them have been over in years.”
“She considered becoming one? I’m not an expert but I don’t think it works that way. Did you ask her why she wanted to do that? Be a lesbian I mean.”
“Didn’t have to. You met my mom. She’ll tell you the truth in a split second. She said that nearly all of them had been molested by either men or women when they were kids. She thought that it was their psychological reaction to child-abuse.
“She stopped having them over to the house, because she found that she didn’t want to ‘become’ a lesbian, and she also discovered that being around them wasn’t good for her. She said that they were some of the most self-absorbed people that she’d ever been around, either because they hated themselves for what they did, or because all they cared about was the next time they were going to get laid.”
“Sound like your mom ought to be teaching a psych course at NMU or somewhere.”
“Are you nuts? She’d be booted out in the first semester, if not before. And not just for telling truths that nobody wants to hear. Mom’s not exactly a team-player.”
“Guess that’s why she’s an artist.”
“Exactly. There was another reason, the main reason, that Mom stopped the funny girls from coming over to the house. She would watch how they would look at me. She said they would have a predator’s gleam in their eyes. She then knew it was time to make some changes.”
“Wow! Laura is pretty radical.”
“Yep. And she’s a mother hen to the max. It gets on my nerves a lot of times, but I know it’s because she loves me.”
“You’re all she has.”
Adrienne stopped and looked at Felice. Then she sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“You know what my mom told me about having children? She said that the choice of having a child is a debt that you owe the child, and that when you have a baby, you’re responsible for everything that person becomes; not just for eighteen years but for the rest of the person’s life. Maybe that’s why Laura is so protective of you. She knows what her job is.”
“Whew, it’s getting too deep around here! Hey, girl, you and me are teenagers. Aren’t we supposed to be talking about boys or make-up or clothes or some other stupid shit like that?”
“Only, if we were the boring airheads that we both dog out all the time.”
“Guess that’s why neither of us can get a real date. Oops, I forgot about you and Kevin.”
“Do you ever hear from your father?”
The smile dropped from Adrienne’s face and she pressed her lips together tightly, thinning them to near invisibility. “Nope and don’t want to. He’s had almost twenty years to at least attempt to be a real father. His time has run out.”
The feminist were wrong, Felice decided. Roles weren’t interchangeable. People made adjustments and adaptations to the life that circumstances hand them, but gender roles weren’t interchangeable. Women, and sometimes men (like Kevin’s father), had to deal with losses and abandonment, and dealt with them well, but there would still be consequences, good or bad.
Felice stopped in mid-thought. She wondered whether Laura Anderson and Herbert Hart would like each other.
The party was a success. With the serendipity of March first being the birthday of both Herbert Hart and Joseph LeCroix, both of their children were able to maneuver the two into a party at the LeCroix household. Herbert had met Felice before and was enchanted with her—or so it seemed to Kevin. Since father and son had spent so many years living in a totally masculine environment, it was difficult for Kevin to be sure.
When Felice and Kevin hatched the birthday party plan, she had made sure to invite the Andersons. It was a first time meeting for all of the adults and Herbert Hart and Laura Anderson did indeed like each other. The two spent
two hours on the LeCroix patio laughing at each other’s jokes.
All clean up was done by Felice, Kevin, Joey, and Adrienne and, afterward, the older offspring went to take in a movie while Joey went down the street to the home of one of his little league teammates. With all company having departed and no work to be done, Joseph and Vetra had taken the place of Herbert and Laura on the patio.
“Not too bad, eh? This birthd
ay, I mean,” said Vetra.
“Yes, my love, this was one of my better birthdays,” he pecked her on the cheek. “Especially so, considering I didn’t have to cook and the food was not Creole.”
“But the cake was baked by one,” said Vetra. “That was Richard’s birthday present—that, and holding down the fort at the Experience.”
“That’s my brother. He’s always been a better baker than me.” The two sat silently for a bit.
“I love you, Joe.”
“I love you too, Mrs. LeCroix—especially for not saying some form of ‘I told you so.’”
“About what?” she asked.
“About giving that kid—Kevin--a chance. He and his father are good people.”
“There was no reason for me to say ‘I told you so’ about that. You should be saying that to me. You’re a lot less stubborn than I had thought you were all these years.” Joseph gave his wife a look.
“I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment or not.”
“It’s a slam against me for not seeing it.”
Joseph shook his head laughing. “Excellent recovery. But, I was wrong about them—wrong to see them as part of a group rather than as individuals.”
“Well, honey, I won’t say ‘I told you so.’ I’ll say that you are the good man that I married, and you’re just demonstrating it right now.”
“So, what’s my reward?”
She grinned. “You’ll see this Friday.”
“What about The Prince of Tides?”
“Already seen it.”
“Fried Green Tomatoes?”
“What? Do you have some perverse love of chick-flicks?
“Not in the least. But I thought you might, being a chick and all.”
Mandy grinned at Malik—or, rather, she grinned at the receiver as she sat on her bed talking to him on the telephone.
“Aren’t you the one who dislikes stereotypes?”
“Yes, but in the case of women, all of them are true.”
“Well, Mr. Double-Standard, it just so happens that you’re wrong this time. I will sometimes check out the occasional chick-flick—if it has good reviews—but I like fun movies better. Action, blood, and guts, sci-fi…“
“You like sci-fi?” Malik was excited. “Have you seen Star Trek VI yet? Please tell me you haven’t.”
“I haven’t. I don’t know of anyone who is enough of a dork to go with me.”
“Well you do now, Chica! I’ve been meaning to see it since it came out in December, but I had the same problem...nobody to go with.”
“I heard that it’s a Cold War allegory,” said Mandy.
“How so?”
“It’s a rapprochement between the Klingons and the Federation is all I know. It explains how Worf got on the
Enterprise D in Next Generation. I even know that the guy who plays Worf is in the movie.”
“So,” Malik began playfully. “How many conventions have you been to?”
“I’m not answering.”
“Who did you go as? Yeoman Rand? A green belly dancer?”
“An Andorian.”
Malik burst out laughing. “Now that’s a picture I’d pay money to own.”
“I was allergic to the blue make-up so I didn’t show my face for a week afterward.”
“Mandy, I have to say that I’m impressed by this side of you.”
“What, I’m not as boring as you thought I was?”
“To be honest, that’s it exactly.”
“Well, hon, you are as arrogant as I thought you were but I like it.”
“Damn, you sure know how to sweet-talk a brotha! So, what about the late afternoon showing on Friday and then maybe we can get something to eat afterward?”
“That sounds great.” Quickly, she said to herself in a split second, before he asks. “Let’s meet at the theater.”
“Okay. I’ll look at the paper, figure out what time and tell you tomorrow at lunch.”
“Okay, bud.” She didn’t want to hang up but she had some studying to accomplish. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”
“Good night, Amanda.”
She hung up and sat there for a few seconds as Malik’s last word echoed in her mind. There was something about the way Malik had said her name. Not ‘Mandy,’ but Amanda.
Whatever that something was, hours later, it caused her to fall asleep easily, while, for the first time in months, giving no thought whatsoever to Kevin Hart.
Tale of the Tigers
Chapter Nine
“Are you going to the AASU dinner next Saturday?” asked Adrienne. She and Felice were sitting in an almost empty Quad. Being mid-afternoon, most students were studying, working.
“No!”
“And, why not?” Adrienne asked knowingly.
“Hello? You know why not. My reputation, of course.”
“Yeah, right. You know it’s not because of that. It’s because of Kevin.”
Felice sighed. “Well, that’s the main reason. I wouldn’t go there without Kevin and I know they would probably give him Hell.
“Kevin’s a big boy. You ought to let him decide if he wants to catch a little Hell or not.”
Adrienne paused for a beat, and then continued. “Stop being so fearful and live your life for yourself and to hell with everybody else. Remember what Laura said? Fear is the opposite of love.”
“You and Laura have been watching too many Kung Fu reruns,” Felice snorted.
“Are you ashamed of Kevin?”
“Are you kidding? Of course not. I am just not sure if I’m up for the challenge of what we’ll have to deal with if we go to that dinner. Sure, we get looks on campus and around town. Heck, if you remember, on our first date, some stupid white people tried to loud-talk us.”
“But you’re just not sure if you want to walk in the lion’s den on purpose.”
“That’s it exactly. You know how we are, Adrienne. Oh, sure an occasional white person, like that couple might be brave enough to say something, but usually, they’ll keep their mouths shut.”
“That’s not what my mother says she went through.”
“But it’s not 1965 or even 1975 anymore. The tables have turned.”
“True. I remember, when I was a little kid, we got more negative comments from black people than whites. Actually, most white people would tell my mother what a beautiful child I was.” Adrienne tossed her head in mock vanity.
“And you were all too ready to agree,” Felice grinned.
“But you know and I know that some of the people there--black people--won’t be so hesitant to say what’s on what passes for their minds.”
“Right. So, you’ll let them keep you from going.”
Felice said nothing.
“You let them say stuff behind your back like, ‘guess that hoochie Felice was too chicken to bring that white boy in here.’”
“Adrienne...”
“‘Guess she knew how far to go than to bring that peckerwood around here. I wish she woulda brought that fool up in here. I’da showed her how white boys and race-traitors are supposed to be treated.’”
Felice looked at her with some exasperation. “Boy, you’ve sure changed your tune about Kevin. Seems to me that you were nearly singing the race-traitor song not too long ago, when I was thinking of going out with him.”
“Yeah, well I was wrong.”
“Oh my God! Call the newspapers!” Felice said, enjoying the moment.
Adrienne sucked her teeth. “You’d better call ‘em, ‘cause it doesn’t happen too much.
“I was wrong about Kevin and white guys in general. My mom does give good advice, but occasionally, she let’s her own problems with people cloud her thinking. Not usually, but when she does, it’s usually pretty bad.”
“It seems like the fruit doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”
“Okay! Stop rubbing it in my face. Anyway, just like it’s wrong for other people to judge a black person by the actions of another black pers
on, it’s wrong for black people
to do the same to somebody else. That includes white men.”
“What changed your mind?”
“You and Kevin, to be honest. He’s a good guy.”
Felice smiled. “Yes.”
“And one other person—Kevin’s dad.”
“His dad? What does Mr. Hart have to do with this?”
“Let’s just say that Laura has been cutting more than one white guy a break.”
“Really?” Felice was happy. “That must have got started at my house. That’s so cool. Your mom and Kevin’s dad are both the best.”
“Yep, two guys in one family treating women with respect and love.
“And on the opposite side, there are the Taus, our ‘brothers,’ treating us--both you and I--like the slaves our ancestors were. Yep, the tables have turned for sure.”
“So true.”
“So, back to the subject: what are you going to do about the dinner?”
“You know I don’t want to go”
“Neither do I.” said Felice.
“Yes, you do.”
Felice looked at Kevin then sighed. “Yes, I do, because…”
“Because you aren’t going to let anyone keep you out of any place that you have a right to be; because you don’t believe in fear.”
“Yes, I do,” she grinned.
“Well, okay,” Kevin grinned back, “but my dad says this about fear: ‘feel it, but do what needs to be done anyway. Don’t let fear rule you.’ And besides,” he began with a slanted grin. “You want to get revenge on the Taus. I do too. Not because of anything they’ve done to me, obviously, but because of you.”
“I don’t deserve any revenge. I just want to be happy and I’m happy with you.” Kevin put his arm around her and put his cheek against her forehead.
“That’s the exact revenge I had in mind, darlin’. They tried to hurt you and you didn’t stay hurt...too bad and so sad for them.”
“So, what about you, big guy? You afraid to go in there?” It was Kevin’s turn to give Felice a straight glance.
Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game Page 13
