Can't Get Enough of Your Love

by J. J. Murray

  “Pshaw, girl, you smell like all outdoors,” Mama says as I hug her in front of her car. “You could use a bath.”

  “I’ve been fishing.”

  She coughs. “And you smell like a fish, girl. Damn.”

  Mama cussed! I leave for a little while, and Mama lets her hair down. I step away from her. “What brought you all the way out here?”

  “I was in the neighborhood.” She opens the back door of her car, grabs a casserole dish, turns, and hands it to me. “I’ve been cooking you a nice Sunday dinner.”

  Sweet potatoes! Yummy! “It’s Sunday?” Where has the time gone?

  “Yes, it’s Sunday.” She shakes her head. “It looks as if I got here in the nick of time, too. Just take that inside and get in the tub.”

  I sniff myself and don’t smell anything vile. “Do I smell that bad?”

  “Girl, even the flies are scared to buzz around you. Now go on and take a bath.”

  I kiss her cheek. “Okay.”

  Damn. I’m acting as if I’m ten years old or something. I have to get a hold of myself.

  But when I walk into the kitchen, I immediately feel shitty. I have let this place go completely to hell. I haven’t done dishes since … I can’t remember. Plates, dirty clothes, mildewed towels, unopened mail, an overflowing garbage can …

  Where the hell have I been?

  Mama bursts through the door behind me with a Crock-Pot and a hanging plant. I know what she’s thinking, and I brace for it, but she acts as if she can’t see the dishes, the dirty laundry, or the mess, putting the hanging plant on top of the icebox, clearing off a space on the counter, and plugging in the Crock-Pot.

  “Go on, now. You’re stinking up the kitchen.”

  “What’s the plant for, Mama?”

  She sighs. “To give this room more oxygen. Now go on.”

  I smile. “Is that my housewarming gift?”

  She nods. “Yes, Erlana. Now go on. You stay any longer in this kitchen, the plant will die.”

  “Is that, um, the plant?” Mama has been growing this one hanging plant since the day I was born, somehow keeping it alive.

  “Yes, and unless you want to kill a twenty-five-year-old plant, you’ll get out of this kitchen.”

  “Okay, okay,” I say, and I limp up the stairs.

  I don’t even know if I have any clean clothes, not even one clean footie sock. I’m afraid to look in the closet, since I have yet to clean those sheets, and the only drawers I have are—

  Roger’s boxers.

  I had rescued them from the barn and cleaned the smoky smell out of them with dish soap.

  I put them on. Better than nothing. They hang on me some. Damn, where did my hips go? Shit! Have I lost that much of my booty? I have to get that booty back.

  I collect a pair of shorts and a T-shirt that smell less funky than the rest and hit the shower.

  Without first turning on Sheila and letting her warm up for thirty minutes.

  I now know what shock treatment must feel like. Even my teeth get goose bumps, but I scrub, scrub, scrub away about a week’s worth of filth, and when I’m done, my ankles look almost the same color again.

  I need to take more showers.

  The water, though, doesn’t go down the drain. Shit. And it kind of looks like the pond, with tiny waves lapping at the sides of the tub. I’ll deal with that later.

  In front of the bathroom mirror, though, I feel so hideous. My hair is a rat’s nest even a rat would avoid. I check the bathroom closet for some Optimum Care shampoo and find an empty bottle. Why’d I put an empty bottle back? Oh sure, I have plenty of conditioner. Can you put conditioner on dirty hair? At least it would smell better.

  “You need your hair done,” Mama says behind me, and I can’t help but jump a little.

  “Yeah.” I turn and see her holding a nearly full garbage bag, green rubber gloves on her hands. “What are you doing?”

  “Cleaning up.”

  I feel so low. “Thank you” is all I can manage to say.

  Instead of making me feel worse, she smiles. “I don’t mind. It brings back some good memories.” She looks past me to the tub. “You got a slow drain?”

  “I nod.”

  “You have a plunger?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll get you one.”

  I nod. “Thanks.”

  “Dinner should be ready in about twenty minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  After she leaves, I realize that she hasn’t been judgmental or critical even once. She had every right to be, yet she chose to be nice.

  Wait.

  My mama, the woman who fussed me up and down and sideways for the last twenty-five years is suddenly … nice? How is this possible? Maybe my being away from her has made her nice!

  No. Maybe my being away from her is allowing her to be nice. That’s probably it. I brought out the worst in her from the day I was born. I turned her mean.

  Two carefully tied do-rags later, I’m down the stairs and in … a clean kitchen that doesn’t smell like mold or sour milk. Even the floor is shiny. I must have been in the shower a long time!

  “Mama, you didn’t have to—”

  “I know.” She brings over a glass of iced tea and hands it to me. “I like this place,” she says. “It has character.” She sits at the table, which is also shiny. “When you first told me about it, I didn’t believe it. You have yourself a real home here.”

  I sit opposite her and take a sip. It’s sweet. Damn. She even brought her own sweetened tea for me to drink, and now I’m crying in it.

  “Too sweet?” she asks, which is what she always used to ask, and now she’s here asking it again and I’m crying and I can’t explain why, and suddenly I’m standing and she’s holding me and I’m saying, “I’m sorry, Mama, I’m so sorry,” and she’s just humming something beautiful the whole time in my ear.

  She gently pushes me away. “Are you going to tell me about it now?”

  And then I tell it all, talking about Karl, my African god, gone away; about Juan Carlos, my romantic stallion, gone away; about Roger, my earth brother, gone away—and she doesn’t interrupt me even once.

  “That’s … that’s about it, Mama.”

  She gets us some more iced tea. “I just knew something was wrong, and now I know what.” She sits and takes a sip. “Too sweet.”

  “Just right,” I say.

  She takes another sip. “Do you miss them?”

  I nod.

  “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you can’t have them all, Erlana,” Mama says.

  “But I did. I did have them all.”

  She stares me down. “After all you just told me, you have to know that you can’t have them all.” She looks side to side, raising and lowering her chin. Then she looks under the table. “Because they ain’t here no mo’.”

  And now she’s talking all country? Cussing and country. This place seems to get to everyone.

  “I know, I know,” I say. “I used to have them. I have to keep telling myself that.”

  She sighs. “Oh, you never know. You might still have them, and they’re just being stubborn.”

  “It’s been almost two months, Mama. They’re not coming back.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm. And you thought this little foursome would last, too.” She smiles. “I wouldn’t put too much stock in any thoughts you have, Erlana.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “You’re welcome.” She stares into my eyes. “Which one of them still makes your heart hurt?”

  A question out of left field. “They all do.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. One of them makes your heart hurt the most. Who is it, Erlana?”

  All of them make my heart hurt, but if I’m truly honest about it … “Roger.”

  “Because he proposed to you?”

  “No. Because we used to talk, real
ly talk.”

  Mama nods. “And which one excited you the most?”

  That’s easy. “Karl.”

  “He’s good?”

  “What do you know about ‘good,’ Mama?”

  She opens her eyes wide. “Your daddy was good.”

  I giggle. “Karl was good, then.”

  She nods. “Just one more question. Which one romanced you the most?”

  “Juan Carlos.”

  “Hmm,” she says, a twinkle in her eye. “I’m beginning to understand it all now. Are you?”

  Understand what? “No.”

  “Put them all together, Erlana, and you’ll have your daddy.”

  Gross!

  I mean, what?

  I’ve been dating my daddy?

  “Your daddy was all of that.”

  I see Roger, Karl, and Juan Carlos in my head.

  Jeans. Boots. Long-sleeved shirts for the most part. Working men. Damn, she’s kind of right, but …

  “Mama, I’m not trying to date my daddy.”

  “It seems that way to me.”

  “I’m not, Mama. I don’t look for my daddy in every man I meet. I mean, for the most part, I met all three of them by coincidence.” Romance has lots of coincidences, if you really think it through. “I met Karl at the park while I was on a jog, I met Juan Carlos when my car broke down, and Roger came to my front door. I didn’t go looking for any of them. They came to me.”

  “It makes me envy you,” Mama says with a sigh. “I was never that lucky. I had to do all the work.” She sighs again. “And I let your daddy get away from me.”

  “I’ve never asked, but Mama, why? Why did you really leave Norfolk?”

  “All of what your daddy was and probably still is was too much for one man to have and one woman to handle. He was charming, handsome, strong, intelligent, and passionate.” Her eyes look far away from this table. “I never married him because I knew I would live in fear of some other, prettier woman taking him away from me. I mean, I’m … plain, you know?”

  “You’re not plain, Mama. I am.”

  “No, I’m pretty plain, and you … you’re something else. I never thought I was beautiful enough for him. Oh, I loved him, don’t you ever doubt that, but I had to let him go.” Her eyes return to me. “Now, which one of these men did you truly love?”

  “I think I loved them all.”

  “I guess it’s possible, but there you go thinking again.” She leans closer. “Who do you dream about?”

  “Roger.” I don’t mention the milk chocolate baby. Mama seems okay with the idea of Roger so far, and I don’t want to ruin it.

  “Who do you talk to when no one’s around?”

  I catch my breath. Besides Jenny? Hmm. “Roger.” Again.

  “And who do you talk to in your head just before you fall asleep?”

  It’s true.

  I loved Roger the most.

  “Roger.”

  She leans back. “I still talk to your daddy, you know. We have conversations all the time in my mind. I still miss him.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  She shakes her head. “Your daddy is in the wind or on the sea, where he belongs, where he can be a man. He tried to make a man out of you, right?”

  I look at my hands, hands roughened by football, fishing, and chopping wood. “He, um, he sort of did.” I sigh. “What am I going to do, Mama?”

  “Well, I have a suggestion, and it’s only a suggestion, now. I don’t want you to think I’m giving you advice, now that you’re on your own and don’t need me anymore.”

  Ouch. “I’ll always need you, Mama.”

  “I knew that the second you told me not to call.”

  Ouch again. “I’ll take any advice I can get.”

  She scrunches up her lips, then relaxes them, the sure sign she has made a decision. “I think you should go talk to each of them.”

  “What?”

  “Try to explain to them what you just explained to me.”

  No way! “I can’t do that.”

  “Child, look what you’ve already done! If you can date three men at the same time without them catching on for, what, two months, you can do anything.”

  There’s too much doubt in my mind for that. “They won’t want to see me.”

  “Maybe. For now. You might want to wait a bit. I’m sure they miss you.”

  “I doubt it.” About all they probably miss is my booty.

  “Who do you miss the most?”

  That is a loaded question. “Well, when I’m … horny”—and I can’t believe I’m saying this to my mama!—”I miss Karl. When I’m feeling unappreciated, I miss Juan Carlos. He tries to take care of my every need. And when I’m …” I stop.

  “When you’re what?”

  Why am I just now realizing this? “What I was going to say is that … all the other times, I miss Roger. What does that mean, Mama?”

  “It means … what it means, though it might mean …” She stops.

  “What?”

  “It might mean that your love is deeper for Roger than for the others. It might also mean that you love the others for what they can do for you, and that you love Roger for what he can do with you.”

  Damn, my mama is wise! “I never looked at it that way before.”

  “This Roger sounds like the real deal.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t have to live with him, right?”

  “Right.” But then I pout. “But he was all set to marry me, and then I really fucked things up.”

  I expect her to scold me for cussing, but she doesn’t. “I suppose I could buy a plot at Fairview Cemetery.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I have sort of met him. He was in my kitchen once, remember? And he wasn’t that unhandsome.” Her face clouds over. “But, child, that hair. He could be Lucille Ball’s son!”

  A laugh escapes from my mouth so loudly that Mama’s hair moves. “You’d really do that? You’d call him about a plot?”

  “He’s a smart man. He’ll see right through that. It was just an idea.” She touches the back of my hand. “But for your own sake, I think you should speak to all three of them.”

  I don’t know if I can do that. But they went away hating me, and I can’t have that. Not after all that good loving.

  She stands. “You hungry?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re looking pretty skinny, girl. They may not recognize you. Let’s eat, and you better have you some seconds.”

  And as I eat, I think to myself: She’s right. They won’t recognize me when they see me again, because for the first time in their lives—and mine, too—I’m going to be myself.

  Chapter 25

  But first I have to get my hair done.

  Damaged. My hair is damaged.

  But when I walk into Mama’s kitchen later that night, I know she’ll take care of me. I have memories of her warming up irons on the stove, just sitting on a kitchen chair working on her own hair with an oven mitt, those irons, and a little jar of gel, and she never used a mirror. I have to have a mirror and an arsenal of curling irons.

  And it still doesn’t come out right.

  She hands me a towel and points to the sink.

  “I can wash my own hair, Mama.”

  “I know you can. Just let me do it, for old time’s sake.”

  “Okay.” I stand in front of the sink, dipping my head under the faucet.

  “You had better let the water warm up first, Erlana.”

  I twist the cold knob. “I need to wake my head up first.”

  Cold water on a warm head … Mama’s strong fingers massaging in the shampoo … water warming up… rinsing … soap in my ears … repeating two more times … “Surprised there aren’t any birds up in this nest” … ten years old again with shorter hair … Mama humming something slow, sad, and beautiful …

  “What are you going to do about those ashy knees?”


  “Mama, I—”

  “I tell you time and time again to use more lotion. And are you getting behind your ears good?”

  “I try, Mama, but—”

  “Try harder, Erlana, and quit trimming those nails so close. You aren’t chewing on them again, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Uh-huh. And wear your good shoes and that skirt all day tomorrow. I know you put some sweatpants and some sneakers in your book bag. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  “But Mama, those shoes hurt my feet.”

  “They make you look like a lady.”

  “And that skirt makes my legs cold. And I can’t have nails and play ball, too….”

  “Relax,” Mama says.

  I try, but I have too many memories of my head in a kitchen sink. I have stronger neck muscles than most women because I was always trying to get my head up out of that sink. Why couldn’t I wear a baseball cap like the boys? It would have been so much easier for Mama. Why did I have to wear skirts and dresses? Most days I was the only girl in my class dressed that way. Why couldn’t I just have a ponytail? Why did I have all that pink gooey stuff put in my hair every single day? The smell followed me around all day.

  She dries my hair with a towel, then plasters my head with conditioner, setting an egg timer for five minutes. “You sign a lease on that place?”

  I sit at the table, drying my face, trying to forget my childhood. “No.”

  “So it’s an open-ended arrangement, then?”

  “I guess.” I don’t ask why she’s so interested because I know why. She wants to know how soon I can be home if I wanted to move back.

  “Well, I want you to know you can come back anytime.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’m going to try to stick it out.”

  She turns from the sink. “I knew you’d say that. But if it gets too cold out there, you just come on home, okay? Snow in the country is heavier and deeper than snow in the city because you know they don’t plow all those country roads, and that little house probably doesn’t have much insulation.”

  I could argue with her, but it’s probably true. Everything seems bigger in the country, and even the smallest breezes flow through that cottage.

  “And you can always come home if there’s something you want to watch on TV.”

  I blink. Damn. Football season is coming, and I can barely get any reception! Pre-season NFL and college football start in August, so I am going to need a satellite dish or an antenna quick!