Never Say Never

by Victoria Christopher Murray

  “You okay, Miriam?” Charlie asked as he peered at me through the rearview mirror.

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to settle down. “I’m good.”

  His eyes held mine. “So, I was thinking we’d go out to brunch.”

  “Sounds good.” I was so surprised that my voice was steady while my heart was trying to break out of my chest. “Uh . . . I wanna go home and change first, though. Get out of this dress.”

  Charlie shrugged. “Okay.” Then, he glanced at his mother in the front passenger seat. “You okay with that?”

  “Yeah.” Mama Cee nodded. “I’ll change, too.”

  “Yay,” the boys cheered, always excited about going out.

  I had never been so happy that my home was close to the church. I needed to get someplace where I could be alone, quick. When Charlie pulled the van into the driveway, I jumped out before he’d even shifted into park. And I was at the front door and in the house before anyone else was out of the van.

  Behind the closed door of my bedroom, I finally exhaled.

  I slumped onto my bed, wondering why I was such a mess. Of course I was going to see Emily in church. I was going to see her all the time. Everywhere. And that meant I would come face-to-face with Jamal, too.

  Jamal!

  Now that I’d seen Emily, I could admit that I had really wanted to see Jamal. That had been my hope as I dressed this morning, as I got the boys ready, as we drove to church. I had wanted to see Jamal. Period!

  But he hadn’t shown up; was that because of me? Was his plan to stay away from church forever? Was his plan to stay away from me?

  That couldn’t happen. I needed Jamal to know that he didn’t need to change his life, his routine, or his schedule, just to avoid me. He needed to understand that I understood. What happened with us was nothing more than one moment in time.

  I needed to talk to him, to tell him, to let him know that it was all right—that I was all right. But when could I talk to him? And how? It wasn’t like I could go over to Emily and Jamal’s condo and talk to him with Emily standing right there. I could call him, but would he answer?

  The knock on my bedroom door interrupted my questions.

  Mama Cee called out, “Baby, you ready?”

  I jumped up from the bed and dashed into my closet. “Almost,” I said. “Give me ten more minutes.”

  “Okay. We’re all waiting.”

  I stripped from my dress, then slipped into a long jean skirt and a T-shirt. In the ten minutes that I’d promised, we were back in the van. Just about thirty minutes after that, we were seated at one of the large circular booths at the Grand Lux in Beverly Hills.

  I was in the middle, with my sons on one side and Mama Cee and Charlie on the other.

  The waiter, whom I’d watched running around and serving several tables, still greeted us with a smile. “Can I take your drink orders?”

  It was a déjà-vu moment that made me freeze. I’d been here before. Not at the Grand Lux, but I’d been in this moment. Me, the boys, and Chauncey. Doing what we often did after church, sitting in a restaurant and enjoying our Sunday afternoon.

  Just two weeks ago.

  I glanced at my sons, ready to address their distress. But they wore only smiles as they chatted with their uncle. There were no signs of any kind of flashback.

  Resilient. That’s what they were. I wasn’t naive enough to believe that they were not affected. I knew my sons were still hurting. It was just that they’d found a way to live through it, live in spite of it. They were good examples for me.

  After my sons all shouted that they wanted orange juice, Mama Cee, Charlie, and I gave the waiter our requests for coffee.

  As soon as the waiter stepped away, the boys were back to their chatter.

  “Uncle Charlie, can you come with me to my first Boy Scout meeting?” Mikey asked.

  Even though Charlie glanced at me, he asked Mikey, “When is it?”

  “Next Saturday. Right, Mom?”

  I nodded while Charlie shook his head.

  He said, “I wish I could, Mikey.” Then after a deep breath, he added, “Boys, your grandmother and I have to go home.”

  “You’re leaving?” Stevie asked.

  “You won’t be able to go with me?” Mikey moaned.

  “When are you going back home?” Junior piped in.

  Charlie held up his hands, trying to stop the questions, but my sons continued. Together, they said, “I don’t want you to go.”

  It was another one of those break-your-heart moments.

  So I jumped in. “Boys, I have something to tell you.” Their eyes left their uncle and the three turned to me. “What would you say . . . what would you think about seeing your uncle and grandmother every day?”

  Mikey and Stevie tilted their heads and frowned.

  Junior turned to his uncle. “You guys are moving here?”

  If it wasn’t for my mother-in-law’s health, that would’ve been a brilliant idea. Because the truth was, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to move. But I said, “No, not them moving here. What do you think about maybe us moving there?”

  My words seemed to shock my sons for a couple of seconds.

  Then Mikey said, “You mean, like living there with Grammama Cee and Uncle Charlie? All the time?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, what would you think?”

  After a moment, Mikey said, “That would be so cool.”

  “Yeah, cool,” Stevie mimicked his brother.

  Now Mama Cee, Charlie, and I turned our attention to Junior. He was the hard sale. All of my sons had lived their whole lives in Los Angeles and had grown up in that one house. Obviously, at ten, Junior’s friendships were more solid than his brothers’.

  “So what do you think, honey?” I asked him.

  Junior looked down for a moment, then shrugged. “I love hanging out with Uncle Charlie, but what about my friends?”

  “We wouldn’t be moving right now. And we’d have a few more talks about it, so that we can figure this whole thing out.”

  Charlie piped in, “I know you have lots of friends here, so we’ll make sure you come back and see them.” Then he added, “And you’ve already made some friends in Arizona. Every time you guys come to visit, you make new friends, right?”

  “Yeah!” Mikey and Stevie said, and Junior nodded.

  To reassure Junior, I repeated, “But it’s not completely decided. I’m only going to do this if you want to do it, okay?”

  He nodded.

  “We’re going to make this decision together as a family.”

  “Just like Dad used to say, right?” Mikey said.

  I nodded, and it must’ve been the tears that came straight to my eyes that made Charlie jump in.

  He said, “And I’m not leaving until Tuesday, so we have two more days of fun!” My younger boys cheered, and even Junior smiled.

  My brother-in-law added, “I’m gonna take you to school in the morning.”

  “Who, us?” Stevie said. “ ’Cause Junior goes to a different school.”

  “I know,” Charlie said. “So, I was thinking about taking you boys to school”—he paused—“and then heading over to your school, Junior. Aren’t you trying out for the basketball team tomorrow?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his eyes wide. “How did you know?”

  Charlie shrugged. “I’ve got uncle superpowers. I know everything!”

  I was the only one at the table who didn’t laugh. That’s because Charlie had given me an idea.

  It took a couple of waiters to bring all of our food, and our table filled with waffles and chicken and eggs and grits. Charlie blessed the food, then the forks hit the plates.

  The air filled with my sons’ chatter and Mama Cee and Charlie listened as if the children were giving sermons. But my mind had left the table; my thoughts were on a plan that was beginning to take shape.

  Now I knew what to do.

  It was a bit deceitful, but it would serve my purpose.

  I just had
to figure out what I would say when I called Emily.

  22

  Emily

  My eyes popped open, and now I knew exactly what I was going to do to save my husband.

  I looked over at Jamal, still sleeping, which is what he’d done all day yesterday after I’d come home from church. That was when I knew I had to do something major. Something that would shake Jamal up and get him to remember the man he was just weeks ago, before Chauncey’s passing.

  Last night, when I’d laid my head down, I had no idea what I was going to do. But then I dreamed of a special time and a wonderful place . . .

  May 15, 2001

  Jamal and I fell into quite a routine. With only eight weeks to plan the destination anniversary celebration for Miriam and Chauncey, Jamal decided that we should meet twice a week, every Wednesday evening and Saturday morning.

  And with every meeting, I discovered that I really liked Jamal. I mean, I really liked him. Not only physically—I liked him to his core.

  Every time we met, we discovered something else we had in common. Like how we cheered for the same teams: basketball—the Lakers; football—the Cowboys; baseball—the Yankees. Our favorite TV channels—CNN and ESPN. Our favorite food—Thai. Even down to the pieces of chicken—both of us would only eat dark meat.

  The only thing—we were at different ends of the spectrum politically. After the Clinton fiasco had blown over, Jamal had reverted back to his Democratic ways. But even with that, we had great discussions. We debated last year’s presidential outcome. I felt the Supreme Court had made the right decision; he believed that George W. Bush had stolen the election.

  Jamal was wrong, but at least we could discuss it. With him, there wasn’t a subject off limits.

  Our sessions became the highlight of my week, and I knew he was beginning to be into me, too. I could tell that he was beginning to like me by the way he touched my hand when we were talking, or the way he wiped crumbs from my mouth with the tip of his finger after we ate, or the way he brushed my hair from my eyes when my curls fell onto my face. Then there were times when I looked up and caught him staring at me.

  I knew Jamal would be calling me for a reason beyond these meetings soon.

  Then I began to wonder, what was I waiting for? I was a woman of the new millennium. Why should I sit and wait?

  So, four weeks after we’d started meeting, I decided to do it. On the Friday night before I was going to make my move, I called Michellelee, who was still at work at the KCAL TV studios, where she’d snagged her first job in television.

  “Girl, you’re still feeling that guy?” she asked.

  “Well, we’ve been spending a lot of time together, you know, planning for Miriam and Chauncey.”

  “You don’t have to explain it to me. Go for it,” she told me. “If you’re still liking Jamal after all this time, there must be something to it.”

  By the time I sat at Starbucks waiting for Jamal the next morning, I was ready.

  When he walked in, hugged me, and then slid into the chair across from me, he asked, “What’s got you all happy?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re grinning like you just won the lottery. Oh wait, you’re rich. That wouldn’t matter to you.” He laughed.

  “First of all, I’m not rich. My parents are, and they’ve always made it clear to me that they were rich and I wasn’t. And trust me, money always matters to rich people.”

  “I hear that. So, what’s up? Did you ace an exam or something?”

  My plan had been to wait until we finished our business, but since he was giving me the opening . . . “Well, I wanted to talk to you—”

  Then his cell phone rang.

  He held up one finger, stopping me, before he answered. He must’ve recognized the voice right away, because now he was the one with a huge smile. The kind of grin that spread his lips so wide his cheeks had to hurt.

  “Hey, you!” he said.

  Hey, you? Then he stood up from the table without saying anything to me, and stepped outside like he didn’t want me anywhere near his conversation.

  For a moment, all I could do was stare at the door that he’d just walked through. But after that, I thanked God that call had come in. Jamal was seeing someone and I didn’t even know it. If I’d told him that I was into him, he would’ve hurt my feelings . . . again.

  Well actually, my feelings were already hurt, but this time, he didn’t know it. When he slipped back into his seat, my smile was long gone.

  “So,” he said as if we hadn’t missed a beat, “you wanted to talk to me?”

  “Uh . . . yeah . . . I was going to tell you . . . something . . . we can do . . . why don’t we have Miriam and Chauncey . . . maybe renew their vows?”

  He nodded slowly. “That’s a great idea. You’re brilliant.”

  He was right about that. I was brilliant, since I’d just come up with that idea. But when it came to Jamal, I was a fool! I was pining after a man who was just not into me. Maybe I was too tall, too skinny, though I had a feeling I was just too white. Whatever it was, there would never again be a time when I looked at Jamal as any more than a friend.

  For hours after I left Jamal, I still felt bad. There were other guys who were interested in me, but no one had touched me the way Jamal had, and I knew that on some level he liked me a lot. So could something as shallow as race be what was stopping him?

  I was deep into my self-analysis when my cell phone rang. If I wasn’t so sure that it was my mom or dad calling, I wouldn’t have answered. But knowing that it was them, because they called every Saturday night, made me reach for the phone. I needed a little “in all ways and for always” love right about now.

  “Emily?” the man said after I’d picked up and said hello. “This is Clarkson,” he said with a tinge of “Surprise!” in his voice.

  “Hey,” I said, groaning inside. “How are you?”

  “I’m good. I’m in LA and would love to see you.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was meet up with Waldorf Astoria. Not only because I didn’t have the time, but I didn’t feel like being bored out of my gourd as he went on and on about the daily nothings of his life as an executive in some pharmaceutical company.

  But then I had a thought. “How long are you here?”

  “A week. Until next Saturday.”

  “What about meeting on Wednesday, in the evening. Say about nine?”

  Clarkson agreed and I gave him the directions that would bring him from the Beverly Hills Hotel over to the Starbucks in Ladera. When I said good-bye, I settled back on my bed.

  This was childish on so many levels. First, I was using Clarkson, and second, Jamal didn’t even care. But since he already had a woman, I wanted to make sure Jamal knew I had a man.

  Then on Tuesday, the night before I was to do the grand reveal of my “boyfriend,” Jamal called.

  “Hey, just wanted to make sure we were still on for tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” I said, wondering why he was really calling. He’d never done a confirmation call before.

  “Okay, ’cause there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “About the trip?”

  “Actually, it’s personal. I want to get your thoughts on something.”

  “Well, I’ll be there.” I almost added, “I can’t wait.”

  The next evening, Jamal and I arrived at Starbucks at the same time, and I was a little surprised when he got straight to business. Not that I cared. My thoughts were more on Clarkson than on anything personal Jamal wanted to share. About an hour later, Clarkson walked in, a bit early, but for me, he was right on time.

  “Oh, excuse me,” I said to Jamal, stopping him in the middle of a sentence. I jumped up and waved wildly. Clarkson saw me and I grinned as he took long strides toward me. “Hi!” I said when he finally stood in front of me. I wrapped my arms around his neck. “You look good,” I said. “Really good.”

  On cue, Jamal cleared his throat. “Oh.” I
pretended that I’d forgotten about him. “Clarkson, this is Jamal. And, Jamal, this is my dear, dear, dearest friend in the world.” Then I winked, as if I was kidding about the word “friend.”

  Jamal stood and as he shook Clarkson’s hand, I grabbed my purse.

  “So, are we finished here?” I asked Jamal, though my arm was already hooked through Clarkson’s as we walked away.

  I sauntered out of Starbucks satisfied, but sad. It was officially over with Jamal before it had even begun.

  At our Saturday meeting, we were back to business, both of us a bit aloof at first. But the next week we were back to our jovial selves, and gone was the sexual tension that I’d always felt between us. We were more like brother and sister now.

  So, we worked and worked and the countdown began. A week, then a day, and finally, we were heading to Maui . . .

  Next to me, Jamal stirred, interrupting my memories. He rolled to his side, but his eyes were still closed. Scooting down onto the bed, I lay on my side and shifted until my eyes were in line with his closed ones.

  I whispered, “We’re going on a trip.”

  My words made Jamal stir a little bit more, then his eyes fluttered open.

  I repeated, “We’re going on a trip.”

  He frowned, looking as if he wasn’t sure if he was awake. After a while, he asked, “Where are we going?”

  I let a couple of beats go by. “Maui.”

  It took a moment, but then his eyes brightened and his lips spread into a slow smile. Leaning over, I kissed him and took him with me on my journey down memory lane . . .

  June 2001

  I couldn’t stop laughing at Miriam and Chauncey as they settled into their first-class seats across the aisle from us.

  “I can’t believe this!” Miriam said, rocking back and forth.

  “Hold on, baby!” Chauncey said. He took a magazine from the seat pocket and fanned his wife. “Don’t faint,” he kidded her. Then he stopped. “Wait, maybe you should. Go ahead, faint, and I’ll give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”