I could have lied and saved myself a whole lot of grief, but being that we were still in the church house, I went ahead and confirmed the fact that Carl and I were just friends.
He said, “So, ah, if I give you my number there’s a pretty good chance you just might call?”
For the sake of preserving the peace and in the hopes of getting rid of him, I told him I might, even though I knew I wouldn’t. The good Lord will just have to forgive me on that one because as cute and broad-shouldered as the brother was, he had a right crazy look in his eyes. The last thing I wanted to do was to get the fool riled up enough to start tripping.
His next thing was, “So, ah, how’s about a dance?”
I told him basically the same thing I’d told Carl. “Sure, check back with me later.”
Of course, Lenny insisted on knowing how much later. “Not that I wouldn’t love to spend the rest of my afternoon getting to know you better,” he said. “But I’m due to split this joint sometime in the next ten minutes. You know how it is. I’m a busy man with lots of places to go and peeps to see. A brother handling his business is what it’s all about—you know what I’m saying?”
I started to ask him the nature of his “business” but decided I didn’t really need to know. Instead, I told him I wasn’t really much of an electric slider—which is true, I’m not.
He said, “Well, what about the next dance, which by the sounds of things is coming up shortly? Unless you’d rather wait until Carl comes back to the table so we could ask his permission.”
Yeah, brother was trying to crack wise. But right about then is when I had a brilliant and an all too in living color flashback of Carl choking the stew out of Scoobie in front of the condo that night. The last thing I wanted was Carl coming back to the table, nutting out, and catching a public butt wiping on account of something that wasn’t even happening between me and this goon.
“Let’s go,” I said, practically dragging big man to the dance floor.
Another up-tempo number is what I was counting on. Something quick and dirty so me and this boy could get out there, hit it, quit, and be done with it. But no, girl! The DJ, in his infinite wisdom, decided to switch back over to some Luther. Yeah, as soon as I heard that slow thumping bass and the first few taps of the drumbeat I knew I was in for a world of trouble. “Anyone Who Had a Heart” is a song you can’t do anything but slow-dance to.
But before I could breathe a word about the ground rules, this boy snatched me against him and started in with the hands all up and down my behind. And I was like, “Hold up, Tarzan, this ain’t Jane you dealing with here, okay? You’d best back up before you get beat down.”
For real, girl. And he was like, “My bad, my bad. You just felt so good, baby, I couldn’t help myself.”
Once I had brother Len in proper check, I started searching the room for Carl ’cause getting bum-rushed from behind was not how I intended to go out. Knowing the brother like I do, I figured he’d be somewhere pacing and working himself into a slow and steady burn. Instead, I found him standing off to the side with his hands jabbed down in his pockets, staring at me like I’d just wrenched his heart out of his chest, slammed it to the floor, and stomped on it.
It never fails. No matter what I do I always end up stabbing Carl in the back. Had I been a better woman, I might have just told Lenny, “Look, I’m sorry, I think Carl wants to cut in here,” and then waved him on over so he could get it all out of his system. But being the low-down skank he thinks I am anyway, I didn’t do anything other than look away.
At the song’s end, I thanked Lenny for the dance, took the phone number he insisted on giving me, then trekked back to the table to wait for Carl. Quite naturally, he pulled a disappearing act on me and after about fifteen minutes of sitting there twiddling my thumbs I said, “Psst, later for this.”
My first thought was to head for home, but something made me decide to wait it out a while longer. After a quick trip to the ladies’ room, I stepped outside for some air, where, once again, I came face-to-face with Sister Betty.
She turned on the glamour-girl smile when she saw me and said, “I was hoping to catch you alone. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you, if you have a moment.”
You know me—I’m thinking the worst—either it’s some garbage about Carl she’s getting ready to dump on me or else it’s some bone she wants to pick about something I said or did to her daughters. Nonetheless, I agreed to take a walk with her across the church grounds, banking on her being too much of a lady to start some mess that might ultimately lead to the ruin of her sister’s wedding.
She started off with, “I don’t know if you know this, but Carl’s got a birthday coming up, near the end of next month. And the girls, well, they’ve been sort of hounding me about throwing him this big birthday bash. A surprise party sort of thing. So I thought, you know, maybe you’d like to be in on the planning of it.”
After I got over being stunned, the response that stuttered out of my mouth went something like, “Well, the thing is, Carl and I aren’t really together—if you know what I mean. We’re just friends. And to be perfectly frank, after today, I’m not so sure we’ll even be that.”
She looked confused but said, “Oh, I see. Tell you what, then, why don’t we just exchange telephone information. That way, if you happen to have a change of mind—or heart, as the case may be—you can just give me a call. And if not, well, just look for me to call and invite you as a friend to both Carl and the girls.”
I wasn’t so sure about all that, but I pulled out one of my business cards and jotted down my home phone number for her on the back, which is a whole lot more than I did for Lenny.
Before leaving me to myself she said, “The girls really do speak highly of you, as does Carl. Hopefully, the two of you will be able to work things out.”
I’m saying, girl, she said that mess like she actually might have meant it. I was so shocked, I broke down and pulled out a smoke in order to clear my head. I’d found a nice, clean concrete bench under a shade tree and was sitting there with my lips folded around a cigarette when Carl’s pouting butt wandered up.
In a loud voice and obvious reference to the unlit end of my cigarette, he said, “What’s wrong? You forget to bring a light? Maybe you oughta go back in and ask that thug I saw you all hugged up with out on the dance floor.”
I told him, “Don’t even start with me. He asked me to dance, I danced with him and that’s all there is to it. And as far as this is concerned,” I said, waving the cigarette at him before shoving it back into its pack, “I’m trying to quit. Okay?”
Carl straddled the bench opposite the one I was seated on, and wearing his best pissed-off expression, he took off on a verbal mission to set me straight. “He’s got a record, you know. Bad checks, burglary, dope-slanging, gang-banging, you name it, he’s done it. Fifty to one the police are probably looking for him now. You happen to notice anything bulging around his ankle? Or were you too busy concentrating on that bulge between his—”
That’s when I jumped in and said, “Carl, I’m warning you. Don’t go there with me.”
He said, “And what if I do? I don’t get you, Faye. Why is it you’ve got time and a half to waste on roughnecks like Lenny and that fake-ass Chef Boyardee character but none to spare for an honest, hardworking brother like myself?”
Girl, even mad as he was, I couldn’t keep myself from laughing. I said, “Chef Boyardee? How many times do I have to tell you his name is Scoobie?”
HIM
Yeah, seeing her out on the dance floor with Lenny got me hot, man. And I’da probably said something to her that I would have later regretted had the twins not come running from out of nowhere, armed with a couple of disposable cameras and insisting that we pose for them.
Proceeding with extreme caution, I got up and went over to where Faye was seated. After positioning my legs on either side of her bench, I sat down and took the liberty of snuggling up behind ol’ girl. Bein
g that she seemed fairly okay with that, I went ahead and slid my arms around her.
To my surprise, she didn’t seem to mind playing along. Not only did she mug and grin through several clicks of the camera, but at my suggestion she even turned her head so the kids could get a shot of me kissing her on the jaw.
And what with the warmth, the closeness, and her scent circling all underneath my nose, you know I was digging it, so much so I didn’t make any effort to move once the girls had exited the scene. Nor, to my surprise, did Faye ask me to. Without so much as a grumbled word of protest she sat there and let me massage her shoulder, caress her arm, and run my hands over her hips and down the length of her thighs.
Yeah, man, what you talking ’bout? Working my mack for all it was worth, I pressed my chest into her back, rubbed my chin across the top of her shoulder, moved my mouth to her ear, and whispered, “It’s not too late to change your mind, Faye. I’ll take you back—right here and right now, no hard feelings, no questions asked—you know I will.”
She grabbed hold of my hands and squeezed them, I think to keep them still as much as to calm herself before she whispered back at me, “I know that, Carl. And if by some chance it turns out that this thing between me and Scoobie isn’t going to work, and assuming that it’s not too late for you and I to pick up where we left off, I’ll give you a call.”
Before I could ask her to promise me as much, ol’ girl wiggled loose from my grasp and stood up, and I knew without her having to utter another word that it was all over with and our day together was done.
I walked her back to her car, but before we could complete our final farewell, Faye informed me that she had a couple of items she wanted me to pass along to the kids. She went into her trunk and pulled out this nice-sized gift bag, which she promptly shoved into my arms.
“What’s this?” I asked, even though I already had a pretty good idea.
“Just a couple of going-away presents. Something for the girls and a little something for your son” is what she told me. It wasn’t until later that I found out that in addition to purchasing some fancy nail-care kit for my daughters, Faye had gone back and gotten those boots for my son—you know, the same expensive pair I told you we’d both admired that day at the mall but that I’d ultimately vetoed due to a lack of funds.
After peeking into the bag, I just kinda smiled before asking her, “So … what’d you get for me?”
Instead of grinning back, the expression on her face fell completely somber as she looked at me and said, “I already gave you everything I had to give. Maybe one day you’ll come to understand and accept that.”
Then she turned and left me standing there without bothering to extend me so much as a kiss, a hug, a handshake, or even a proper goodbye. But before she could duck behind the tinted window of her open car door, I called her. “Faye,” I said. And when she looked toward me, I told her, “Thanks … you know, for everything.”
She smiled and said, “You’re welcome.”
I guess it goes without saying that it wasn’t exactly one of my better days. If sitting up at my former sister-in-law’s wedding, slinging snot every which-a-way wasn’t bad enough, I don’t know what was worse, having to stand by while ol’ girl slow-danced with dude or watching her drive out of my life. On top of all that, my doggone glasses, which I’d last seen at me and Faye’s table, turned up missing, though, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they’d somehow ended up in Lenny’s thieving, ashy, butt-groping hands.
But anyway, man, that was that. Or so it seems. A part of me is still not totally convinced it’s really time to turn loose. Maybe Nora was right. Maybe what I need to do is sit down and come up with some kind of plan, because on the real, man, I’m not ready to just walk away and start over with somebody new. I can’t close the door on my feelings that easily. And in spite of what she says, I don’t think Faye can either.
PART THREE
HER
Aside from Scoobie’s silly and woefully misguided attempt to jump bad by picking a fight with Carl, he has yet to do anything major that would justify me giving him the boot. No, in most respects, he’s been the dream man I always thought I wanted. In much the manner of the well-bred, adequately home-trained Black Southern gent (that I know him durn well not to be), he opens doors, pulls out chairs, arrives on time for dates, calls when he says he will, and even attends church with me on a regular basis. Financially speaking, he’s been generous to a fault—buying me gifts, treating me to expensive outings, and when he found out I was sending one of my nieces money for books and tuition every semester, he even went so far as to offer to help me out with those costs. I’m saying, being with Scoobie definitely has its perks—moonlit jazz excursions on the river, dancing under the stars on the rooftop of the Peabody Hotel, bumping elbows with a slew of Memphis-connected celebs at a variety of red-carpet events.
On the surface, it seems all good, but when you get right down to it, girl, something’s missing. Some essential ingredient, aside from sex, mind you, just isn’t there. It’s an absence that’s most noticeable to me when we laugh, when we touch, when we gaze into each other’s eyes for one or two seconds too long. And it’s gotten so bad with me here lately that when we’ve been out together, rather than enjoy the good time the man has gone out of his way to show me, I find myself focusing on all that I’m not feeling. I know the torch I’ve long held for Scoobie is still there, somewhere deep inside of me, waiting to be stroked and rekindled into full flame. On occasion, it’ll flare up and burn brightly, but the simple truth is, the intensity isn’t at all what it used to be.
Of course, having to contend with all the usual little annoyances that undermine even the best of relationships doesn’t help. At the top of the extensive and detailed list I have on homeboy is all that durn late ’50s and early ’60s white-bread music he likes to unwind to. Girl, please, what self-respecting, twenty-first-century, thirty-some-year-old Black man willingly sits up and listens to that mess? I swear if I have to hear “I Did It My Way” or “The Candy Man” one more durn time, I’m either gonna croak or lose my mind.
And while I’m on the subject of both croaking and losing one’s mind, let me tell you about the all too bizarre habit homeboy has of talking to his dead mama. And I do mean fully animated, gesture-filled conversations, girl. Soon as Nora learned about it, she was like, “Uh-huh, and the first time you hear Mama Payne say something back to his monkey ass, you need to grab your shit and be up outta there.”
But anyway, Scoobie had his mother cremated and he keeps the urn containing her ashes in his study. I was over to his place not too long ago when I heard all of this fussing and cussing going on. I thought maybe he was on the phone chewing somebody out. But when I peeped in the study, all I saw was him, minus a phone or even a headset, just standing there straight raising Cain with that durn urn. When I asked him about it, he initially tried to blow it off, before finally confessing that every now and then he still feels the need to consult with his mother on certain matters.
See, unlike Nora, it’s hard for me to laugh at the brother when it comes to that sort of thing. I don’t know, but maybe it has something to do with him being an only child who at an early age lost both of his parents, his father to drugs and his mother to mental illness, which eventually led to her having to be permanently committed. But I’ve always felt more than just a little bit sorry for Scoobie and the bad hand life seems to have dealt him from the start. According to Nora, it’s a weakness on my part and one that as far back as junior high she was predicting would one day lead to my undoing.
But getting back to the present, if I had to narrow it down to the one thing about Scoobie that really gets my goat, I’d have to say it’s what appears to be his growing obsession with my weight. These extra pounds I’m packing evidently irk homeboy to no end. If he’s not badgering me about going to the gym, he’s trying to coax or coerce me into sticking to the starvation plan he took it upon himself to have his staff nutritionist design for
me.
And it’s not like I haven’t been trying to both cooperate and be a good sport about his efforts to help me be a “better” me. But I’ll be durn if a sister don’t just need a freaking break sometimes. Take last week, for instance. After being talked into skipping breakfast and accompanying him to the track for a grueling three-mile romp, I was already sore, tired, winded, and this close to being pissed off as it was when right there in the middle of our cooldown lap he said, “I hope you don’t have anything special planned for the Fourth of July weekend, because I’m going to need you to make this trip to Atlanta with me.”
I told him I thought he was going to be busy playing in some kind of golf tournament, not to mention doing promotional work for his book.
He said, “I am. Still, I want you to go with me. You’re my good-luck charm. Plus, there’s going to be someone there I want you to meet.”
“Yeah?” I asked him. “Like who?”
He smiled and said, “Like, I can’t tell you, babe. It’s supposed to be a surprise.”
Being that I wasn’t in the mood for any surprises, much less entertaining the thought of having to spend my holiday weekend watching homeboy play golf and sign autographs, I told him, “Well, Nora and I had talked about driving over to Nashville to spend the Fourth with her brother LeRoi and his family. You remember LeRoi, don’t you? He and his wife just had another baby—”
Girl, he had the nerve to jump up and cut me off. “Oh, so you mean to tell me you’d rather do Nashville with Nora than go to Atlanta with your man? Don’t you spend enough time with Nora as it is? Frankly, I’ve never understood what it is you see in her anyway.”
“Funny,” I told him, “that’s the same thing she says about you.”
“Fine,” he said, knowing all too well that was a battle he was bound to lose. “Since you’re not going to let me surprise you, I suppose I’ll just have to tell you now. The detective that I hired has come up with what he thinks is a good solid lead and he wants us to meet him in Atlanta—”
After The Dance Page 20
