by Deidre Berry
Vance and I came across a main drag that consisted of a roadside diner, a seedy motel, a two-pump gas station, and an establishment with a flashing red sign that read JAKE’S COUNTRY & WESTERN BAR & GRILL.
Vance pulled into the bar’s unpaved parking lot, which was overflowing with pickup trucks and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
Yee-ha!
It was clearly a redneck kind of place, but instead of running inside to get directions and continuing on our merry way, Vance found a place to park and said, “Come on, let’s go grab a bite to eat.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“We need someone to tell us how to get back to civilization,” Vance said, “and besides, I’m sure you probably have to use the restroom, so we might as well kill three birds with one stone.”
Vance got out of the car and ran around to open my door for me. I didn’t budge. He was right. I did have to pee, and was starving like Marvin, but I didn’t like the looks of the place. I listened closely and could have sworn I heard the banjo music from Deliverance playing somewhere in the background.
“It’s generally not a good idea to stop at hillbilly bars out in the middle of Klan country.”
City slicker that he was, Vance was fearless and undeterred. “Come on, let your hair down,” he said as he pulled me out of the car. “How bad could it be?”
Walking inside Jake’s Country & Western Bar & Grill was like entering another world, one where only cowboys and cowgirls exist. Folks were throwing darts, shooting pool, and riding mechanical bulls, and everyone in there was dressed from head to toe in Western attire, sending out the message that it was not a game, in case you thought otherwise.
“This looks like a happening place!” Vance said, and I was surprised that he was not being facetious. While his eyes took in the dozens of couples out on the vast dance floor, country line dancing in unison to Toby Keith, my eyes were glued to the huge confederate flag hanging behind the bar.
“Let’s be in and out of here with a quickness!” I said out of the corner of my mouth like a ventriloquist.
A waitress came over dressed like Annie Oakley, and I was dead. “Y’all need a table?” she asked, chomping a wad of gum a mile a minute.
“Yes—” said Vance, but I interrupted him in a thick Southern accent.
“That’d sure be mighty fine, ma’am!”
A good percentage of the bar patrons openly stared as the waitress led Vance and me to a table for two. I guessed correctly that two black people this far back in their neck of the woods was an uncommon sight.
“Welcome to Jake’s,” the waitress said, whipping out a notepad and pulling a pencil from behind her ear. “What can I get y’all?”
Vance and I decided to share a pitcher of Michelob and a platter of Buffalo wings and French fries. I went to the little girls’ room after we placed our order, and when I came out, I saw that several good ol’ boys were heading straight for our table. These were big, tough, mean-looking guys, but Vance was no slouch himself. He stood up as they reached the table, ready for anything.
“Can I help you gentlemen with something?” Vance asked, with a mean mug on his face as well.
The spokesman for the group stepped forward, with hard eyes, and a build like a WWF wrestler. There was a long pause as he sized Vance up, and then zoned in on me. “Yeah, you can help me all right.... We were just wanting to know if we could trouble Ms. Houston for her autograph.”
“WHO?” Vance and I asked at the same time.
“You’re Whitney Houston, right?” asked another guy. “The Bodyguard soundtrack is one of my all-time favorites!”
While we were both beautiful, the only thing Whitney Houston and I had in common is that we were both black.
“Oh, my God, you guys, I can’t believe you recognized me!” I said in a whispery voice.
It was for safety’s sake that I indulged them. I smiled for pictures and signed “auto-graphs,” keeping in mind that no one knew where Vance and I were, and if we came up missing, no one would ever think to search for us in Butt-Fuck, Illinois, population 544.
After all the commotion died down, Vance and I dug into our dinner, which was greasy, but good. It was also, at the waitress’s insistence, “on the house.”
“You know, you really ought to be ashamed of yourself.” Vance laughed, shaking his head at me. “Whitney Houston?”
“They said it, not me,” I said, keeping my voice down so no one could overhear, “but look, I did everybody in here a favor. I saved our lives, plus gave the locals Diva, and put some sunshine into their otherwise dreary little country lives. I don’t know about you, but I call that spreading the love.”
“So since you’re Whitney, what does that make me, Bobby Brown?”
“Hey!” I laughed. “Just don’t get none on ya, all right?”
After we ate, Vance the party boy wasn’t quite ready to leave his newfound friends, so we stayed a couple hours more, drank more beer, and rode the mechanical bull.
Kenny Chesney’s hit “When the Sun Goes Down” came on, and Vance asked me to dance.
“Come on, cowboy! Let’s see what’cha got!” I said, as we hit the dance floor and joined in on a line dance, which I was surprised to see that Vance did very well.
Jake’s Country & Western Bar & Grill? We shut it down. It was after one in the morning when Vance and I left the bar, and even though we had been given directions on how to get back to Chicago, both of us had been drinking, so it would have been foolish to even try to make it back at that late hour.
Our options for lodging for the night were to either sleep in the car or rough it at the seedy motel up the street.
John, the group representative who had so menacingly approached our table earlier in the evening, turned out to be a big ol’ teddy bear, who was as sweet as cotton candy. He saw our dilemma and graciously offered to escort me and Vance to his family’s bed-and-breakfast a few miles up the road.
“Thank you, John, how sweet!” I said, sorry that I had completely misjudged him. He was, however, operating under the assumption that I was Whitney Houston, so I’ll never know if he would have extended the offer if he had viewed me as just a regular black chick.
Whatever the case, Vance and I had a place to lay our heads for the night, and when we pulled up to the B&B, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a large two-story, eighteenth-century, plantation-style mansion that looked like something straight out of Gone With the Wind. It was stark white with black shutters, and two humongous columns framed the front porch that was about half a block long.
It felt as if we had stepped back in time, and I half expected to see Mammy come running out of the house, shouting that she needed help birthing a baby.
“Welcome, welcome, what a wonderful couple!” said John’s mother, a sweet little old woman whose hair was as white as snow.
She introduced herself as Edna and showed us to our room, which was spacious enough to have its own bathroom, a fireplace, and one king-sized bed.
“Maybe we should have fessed up and told Edna that we’re not a couple,” Vance said in regards to there being only one bed.
“Sucks for you,” I said jokingly, “but I have heard that sleeping on the floor is very beneficial for the back.”
“Oh, well, cool! Then you shouldn’t have any problem making yourself comfortable.”
Vance and I gave each other the side eye, and then raced to the bed. He was clearly going to beat me, so I jumped on his back, which sent us both tumbling to the floor. I reached over and tagged the bed, claiming it for the night. I lay on the floor laughing, giddy from lack of sleep and too much of the suds. Vance cried foul. “You are such a cheater!” he said. “And you made me bang my knee up pretty bad.”
“Let me see,” I said, scooting over to him. When I got closer, he took my face in his hands and kissed me on the mouth. With tongue. I kept my eyes open the whole time, shocked that he was being so bold, and that the kiss was so damn good. It was elect
rifying.
With nothing in my head except the passion of the moment, Vance and I continued to kiss as we undressed each other. Once we were both completely naked, Vance slipped on a magnum-sized condom, and then he laid me back on the bed where he entered me with both tenderness and concentrated passion.
Our bodies moved together in a slow rhythmic grind, and fit together perfectly, as if we had been made just for each other.
We made fast, passionate love, then showered together, and lay in each other’s arms, talking until the sun came up.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Vance asked, lightly caressing my back with his fingertips.
“No, what?”
“You have to come back to New York. I need you, and I want you in my life.”
I sighed. “Vance, don’t do this to me.” I had already made up my mind to move back to Chicago for the good of my family, and while I liked him a lot, one session of amazing sex was not enough to sway me. At least it shouldn’t have been.
“I know you think you don’t have much to come back to, but how about this: Since Sonya is about to go out for a couple of months on maternity leave, you can take her place at my law firm, and when she comes back, I’ll make you my personal assistant,” Vance said.
“And where would I live?”
“As far as living arrangements, you can either live with me or I’ll set you up in an apartment, it’s your choice.”
“Whoa, slow down, kemosabe! I mean, shouldn’t we ease into this?”
“It’s not as if we haven’t already been living together. The only thing that will be different is that we’ll be romantically involved. I mean, that is what you want, isn’t it?”
I looked up at Vance, touched by how much he seemed to care for me. Not only was he handsome and sexy, he was also refreshingly sweet, an excellent father, and a good person all around.
“Of course I want to be with you,” I said, ignoring the twinge of guilt I felt for leaving one man, no matter what the circumstances, and moving on to his lawyer.
Technically, me becoming Vance’s woman was not a moral or ethnical issue, but it was a move that I had never made before, and it would take some getting used to. Vance and Donovan may not have been the best of friends, but they did have an attorney/client business relationship, and if I didn’t already have enough to overcome socially, a romantic relationship with my ex-man’s lawyer would really send those wagging tongues into overdrive.
But I have never cared one iota about what anyone thought about me, or my personal business, and I wasn’t about to start now.
Awakenings
“I tell ya, it does my heart good, to see young people in love!” Edna beamed, as she served Vance and me a breakfast of strong, freshly brewed coffee, corned beef hash, and biscuits and white gravy.
I wouldn’t say that I was in love at that moment, but during the time I had lived with Vance I had come to care for both him and his daughter very deeply, and I could certainly see where our relationship had the potential to blossom into a great love affair.
Why is it that the trip back is always much shorter than the trip you took to get there? Vance and I left the bed-and-breakfast, and the small town Ms. Edna said was named Clarksville, early that morning. It took us less than an hour to get back to Chicago.
Vance pulled up in front of Mama Nita’s house and wanted to come in and meet my family.
“Some other time,” I smiled, thinking it was best not to scare the man off so soon.
We shared a long kiss good-bye before I got out of the car. His flight to California was later that afternoon, and after taking care of business in California, he planned to head straight to Washington, DC, for the inauguration.
“So, how soon will I see you back in New York?” Vance asked.
“Give me a couple of weeks, all right?”
“Okay, I’m going to hold you to that,” Vance said, “and if you’re not back by then, I am going to personally come back and get you myself—caveman style!”
He was so sweet; I wished I could eat him with a spoon. “Okay,” I said, “but just don’t club me over the head, and we’re cool!”
I used my old key to let myself in the house, and froze in my tracks when I heard exuberant singing coming from the kitchen. “Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want . . . Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want . . . Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want . . . Call him up, and tell him what you want!”
It was Mama Nita.
I ran into the kitchen and found my grandmother at the stove cooking, while Rosalyn, her new nurse, stood by.
“Cast all of your worries and care on Him, because he cares for you!” Mama Nita preached to Rosalyn.
“Amen, Ms. Cantrell,” said Rosalyn, “Amen!”
“Grandma?” I said cautiously, unable to believe my eyes, or my ears. Mama Nita turned around, and her eyes lit up when she saw me.
“Eva! Gwen told me you were in town. Girl, you better get over here and give me some sugar!” It was a miracle. I rushed over and hugged her tight, tears gushed from my eyes.
Mama Nita stepped back to get a good look at me. “I swear, you always were a dramatic little thing,” she said, wiping my tears. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m just happy, that’s all,” I said, to which Rosalyn nodded and gave me a wink. “So what are you up to in here?”
“Me and my friend Rosalyn here are just making a little brunch. You still like smoked ham and waffles, don’t you?”
She remembered!
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, reaching to break off a tiny piece of ham, only to have Mama Nita playfully smack my hand away. “Not until we say grace. You know better than that,” she said. “By the way, you’re glowing. Did you have a big night last night?”
I cringed, totally unwilling to talk to my grandmother about the fact that I had just gotten my boots knocked. “A wise woman used to always tell me never to kiss and tell,” l said.
“Glad to see that you were paying attention,” Mama Nita said. “Was it that Jayson Cooper?”
My mouth hit the floor. Not only was she lucid, but she remembered minute details like Jayson Cooper, my first love.
“Why won’t anybody let me live him down?” I asked, incredulous.
“Because you loved that little slew-footed boy to death! All you would talk about was ‘Jayson’ this and ‘Jayson’ that.”
“Grandma, it’s been over five years since I’ve even laid eyes on Jayson. I think it’s safe to say that we can all let that go now.”
“Here are the eggs, Mom,” Gwen said as she walked in the kitchen with a bag of groceries.
“What did you have to do, go lay them yourself?” Mama Nita asked.
“I wasn’t gone that long,” Gwen said.
“Now, you know that’s a bold-faced lie. You were gone for almost an hour!” Mama Nita said, then grabbed the carton of eggs and got busy scrambling them.
Gwen and I looked at each other and smiled. Mama Nita, our rock, was back to her old self. Praise God!
Doctor Butler credited the new “cocktail” of medications that he had prescribed for Mama Nita’s awakening, although he warned that it would not last. “Once her brain becomes accustomed to the new medicine, the Alzheimer’s will continue to progress, but hopefully not as rapidly as before.”
With what felt like a time bomb ticking in the background, we all literally fought to spend one-on-one time with Mama Nita.
I washed and conditioned her hair, greased her scalp, then braided her hair in plaits.
On the days that it was warm enough, we took walks around the neighborhood, and the neighbors marveled that Mama Nita seemed to be doing okay. I slept in her bed with her every night, and told her all about Donovan and the Ponzi scheme and everything that had happened to me as a result.
“I’m gonna tell you like I told your mama when she came home pregnant with Pam at sixteen: It’s not what happens to you in life, so much as how you react to
what happens to you. Like those announcers used to say on TV, ‘This is a test. This is only a test.’ Excuse the expression, but shit happens! It’s not the end of the world, though. The key is to pick yourself back up, get your independence, and stay that way. No matter how much a man has, at the end of the day it is his. Get yours, and if he is not supportive of that, then honey, he ain’t the one!”
On January 20th, we made a huge pot of Mama Nita’s infamous seafood gumbo and, as a family, watched as Barack H. Obama was sworn in as our nation’s forty-fourth president. The mood in the house was celebratory, and the day was very emotional for all of us, as we stayed glued to the television from early that morning until early the next morning.
Visitors came and went exchanging hugs and stories of just how far black people had come.
My grandmother was sixty-seven years old, so of course a black president held a special significance for her. She was born and raised in rural Louisiana at a time when racism was not only blatant, it was a way of life.
There were so many limitations on what black people could have, and do, and be that most working-class black families, and especially those in the South, didn’t see the value of keeping their kids in school when they were old enough to get out and work to help support the family.
Mama Nita was forced to drop out of school in the eighth grade, but she was still smart enough to know that education would be the saving grace of her descendants. She took me to get my first library card, and explained to me that everything I ever wanted to know was right within those walls.
It wasn’t from lack of trying, but ultimately I was the first college graduate in the family, and I can still see her face on graduation day as she stood in the bleachers dancing a jig and openly praising God.
Mama Nita had been active in politics before her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and had even campaigned for Obama when he ran for a seat in the Senate.
The inauguration was a full-circle moment, and watching my grandmother be able to fully bear witness to the occasion was a gift that I will treasure for the rest of my life.
