Instead, after heaving a heavy sigh, she went ahead and lowered her gaze to the list. And in light of titles like “I’m Still in Love with You” and “Look What You’ve Done for Me” I thought it interesting that she would choose “For the Good Times.”
It wasn’t a bad guess, but I told her the right answer was song No. 5, “Simply Beautiful.” At first she didn’t appear terribly impressed and I thought for sure I was done for. But as soon as I put the song on, the hard, jagged lines in her face began to soften. Just to be sure, I waited several bars into the tune before sitting back down and reaching out for her hand again.
Even though she didn’t say a word, slowly but surely she slid her palms across the table. I met her halfway and for another minute or so we just sat there with our hands raised and clasped together, mine on either side of hers, almost as if in prayer. And then, unable to resist the urging we both heard in brother Green’s voice, we stood up and let the music work its magic.
HER
I know, girl, my first mistake was letting Carl up in the house at all. And yes, my second was not immediately correcting the conclusion he’d jumped to about the fate of my son. In my defense, all I can say is that by the time the brother got around to playing “Simply Beautiful” I’d gotten so caught up in all those things I’d been trying so hard not to feel that there wasn’t much I could do but get up and dance with him.
But come the end of the song, I told him it was getting late and he’d best be getting on home. To let him know I was serious about calling it a night, I went over and pressed the Stop button on the CD player.
He gave me a right pitiful look and said, “But it’s my birthday. Can’t I at least have a good night kiss?”
I broke down and told him, “Fine, but first close your eyes.”
He pulled me toward him and said, “What? And have you blast the hell outta me with some of that doggone mace Nora tells me you never keep too far away? Uh-uh, I don’t hardly think so.”
I laughed and asked him, “What makes you think I’d ever deliberately hurt you?” before ordering him again to close his eyes.
When he finally dropped his lashes and puckered up, I kissed my fingertips and pressed them first to both of his eyebrows. I kissed the same two fingers before moving down to his nose and then his chin.
When I was through, he opened his eyes and smiled before turning around and treating me to some of the same, only his fingertip kisses didn’t end at my chin. He stroked one of my earlobes and wet a space alongside my neck before moving down to the exposed skin of my shoulder. Had I let him I’m pretty sure he would have ventured well beyond the open neck of my robe. But as soon as I felt his just-kissed fingertips traveling toward the harnessed plunge created by my twin sisterfriends, I cleared my throat and gave him a look that said, Don’t even think about it.
He laughed before leaning over and whispering in my ear, “You mind if I ask you one last question?”
I said, “Like what?”
He said, “Like, you ever, you know, fake it with a guy?”
I told him, “I never faked it with you, which is what I think you really want to know. Now, having said that, shall I stroke your ego even further and tell you just how good it really was?”
He was like, “I’d much rather you stroke something else and let me do all the talking.”
I told him, “You do all the talking anyway. And like I’ve already told you more than once tonight, that other thing ain’t hardly gonna happen.”
“Umm,” he said. “Maybe not tonight, but in case you need any reminding, I haven’t blown out my candle yet.”
“Which means what?” I said.
He said, “Which means I’ve still got a wish left to make.”
Oh yeah, girl, the brother was talking some serious junk. And before I knew anything, talking wasn’t all he was doing. In spite of my best efforts, an involuntary moan squeezed itself out of my tightened throat when I felt the sweep of his mustache across my collarbone.
“Carl,” I said, trying to summon the strength from somewhere to pull away from him as he worked his way up my neck.
He said, “I hear you calling my name, baby, but until you say something that sounds like ‘no, stop’ or ‘don’t’ I’m gonna keep going for what I know.”
“And what is it that you think you know?” I asked when his mouth finally reached mine.
He stared into my eyes and said, “That deep down inside, you want me as bad as I want you.”
Even though I didn’t laugh outright, I did get kind of tickled and said, “Sounds like a line you stole from Marvin. I thought you were rapping to brother Green tonight.”
That’s when he lowered his lips to within a hairbreadth of mine and sang the verse like I’d never heard it sung before, “Oh, I want you … and you want me. So why don’t we … get together after the dance?”
When I opened my mouth to give him an answer, he was quick to claim the space with the full thrust of his tongue.
He wasn’t holding me tight. I could have easily pushed him off me. So let there be no mistaking—I was an eager and willing participant in what turned into a full two minutes’ worth of unbridled passion. He didn’t waste any time in untying my robe. All I had on underneath it was a thin cotton nightgown. But rather than go for the easy grope, the brother bypassed all of my hotspots to press his hands into the small of my back and draw me even closer. He seemed intent on me feeling every swollen inch of what he was feeling, if you know what I mean. And, girl, if you only knew how close I came to hiking up my gown and giving it up right there in the middle of the kitchen floor …
It was only when Carl stopped kissing me long enough to mutter my name that I somehow found the wherewithal to exhibit some kinda restraint.
“Faye,” he said.
I knew where he was headed. And rather than let him get there I placed two of my fingers over his lips before they jumped back on mine and I told him, “Baby, I can’t. Not here, not now.”
He placed his mouth against my ear and in a hoarse whisper he said, “Then tell me when, tell me where.”
I’m saying, girl, that’s one begging brother. But before I could respond, the phone rang. And when the answering machine picked it up, I’ll be durn if the voice on the other end of the line didn’t turn out to be Scoobie’s.
“Faye … it’s me. I know you’re there. So why aren’t you picking up? Anyway, I’ve got some more good news for you. Detective Clarke’s found us some more pictures of Tariq. Yeah, according to Clarke, our boy Tariq looks like he might be around eight or nine years old in these. I told him to go ahead and FedEx them to you. So look for them to arrive sometime tomorrow. All right? Cool. Oh, and call me back when you get a moment. Love you, babe. Later …”
After Scoobie hung up, Carl was just standing there, waiting for me to say something, and when I didn’t he said, “I suppose Tariq’s the son you were telling me about.”
I nodded, then winced at the mixture of disgust and disappointment I saw descend over his face as he stepped away from me and said, “I thought you said you lost him.”
“I did,” I said. “Lost him as in gave him up for adoption.” I reached out for his arm and said, “Why don’t you sit down and let me try to explain.”
He snatched his arm away from me and in a voice that showcased his hurt like an open wound, he said, “What’s the point, Faye? You’re no more ready to break loose from this joker than you are to stop playing games with my feelings. Until you’re prepared to do both, I think it might be best if we just kept our distance from one another.”
I don’t know if it was pride, fear, or some other unknown factor that kept me from reaching out, grabbing him, and telling him, “No, baby, that’s not at all what I want.” A part of me desperately longed to, but in the end, girl, I just couldn’t. So instead I went over and got his CD out of the player and, on putting it back in its case, I handed it back to him.
Rather than take it, Carl shook his head and said,
“No, you keep it. Maybe one day, if you’re lucky, one of these songs will remind you of me.” Then he went over and blew out his candle before turning away from me and calmly retracing the steps that led him out the door.
HIM
Rather than head straight for home, after I left Faye, I drove back to Ms. Vic’s. I mean, after all, she had extended a brother an open invitation. I parked in front of her apartment with every intention of going in and getting some. But before I could climb out of the car, I spotted the iPod Nora and Faye had given me for my birthday.
“It was Faye’s idea” is what Nora had told me. “She put some music in there for you too.”
I slid on the headset, sat back in the driver’s seat, and had myself a listen. It was all there, man, all the songs we’d danced to, fought to, made love to, and then some. And beneath the music, I heard the pain, the passion, and the truth of all those things Faye still, for whatever reason, wasn’t able to tell me.
I’m saying, man, all ol’ girl had to do was hip me from the git that there was a child involved. She and this fool had a kid, made the mistake of giving him up, and now they’re trying to find him and work things out as a family. What’s there left for me to say but hey, I wish you all the very best. For real, man, having already busted up my own family, I’m not ashamed to admit that homewrecking ain’t exactly the kind of business I’m looking to make a career of. Had Faye just told me the truth, I wouldn’t have made such a big f-ing deal about stepping back and letting her and homeboy do their thing. Instead she led me on and had me believing in the possibility of us finally getting it together enough to kick it right.
Man, I sat out there in front of Ms. Vic’s place, listening to the music for I don’t know how long. I was sad, frustrated, and horny as all get-out, but I knew if I broke down and went up there and tapped on Ms. Vic’s door, the most I’d be getting would be a weak substitute for what I really wanted. So to make a long story short, I declined yet another opportunity to get up-close and personal with Ms. Vic and her butterfly, and chose instead to go home alone and crawl into bed by myself.
But at some point in the wee hours of the morning, I got this phone call. And it wasn’t like it woke me up or anything, ’cause all I’d been doing was tossing and turning and thinking about everything that had happened earlier that night. My “hello” was met by silence, but a feeling way down deep in my gut wouldn’t let me put down the receiver. “Faye?” I said. “Say something, baby. I know it’s you.”
Even with all the drama and BS she’d just put me through, had ol’ girl stepped up and been a woman about the situation, you know doggone well I’da been ready to forgive it all. I’m saying, man, all I wanted her to do was make an honest effort for once.
As it was, she hung up without saying anything. I started to call her ass back, but then I told myself, “You know I can’t keep putting myself out there only to have this girl reciprocate with the same ol’, same ol’. If she wants to keep shortchanging herself, then hey, so be it. But this is one brother who’s through begging to partake of her precious time and attention.” Well, at least for now …
HER
Yeah, I called him. But as soon as I heard his voice, I knew I still wasn’t ready to say everything he wanted and needed to hear, so I hung up. And there was still the unresolved matter of me, Scoobie, and Tariq.
I was lying in bed praying for either a sign of some sort or else an easy way out, when the phone rang. Thinking it might be Carl, being that only fifteen minutes or so had passed since my call to him, I grabbed up the phone and had his name halfway out of my mouth when I caught myself. “Ca—Ahmm, hello?”
“Hey, and just where have you been all night?” Scoobie asked.
“Why?” I shot back at him. “You suddenly feeling a need to keep a watchful eye over me?”
He said, “That’s a good question. Do I need to?”
Not up to doing battle with him just yet, I told him, “I spent part of the night up at the hospital and part of it hanging out with Nora and some friends.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t exactly an out-and-out lie either.
After inquiring as to whether I’d gotten his message about Tariq, he said, “Something tells me we’re real close to finding him, babe. Real close.”
“You think?” I said, desperately wanting to believe on the one hand and not willing to risk letting my hopes get too high on the other.
“Yeah,” Scoobie said. “Make sure you let me know if you get those pictures tomorrow. And also, even though I know it’s late there and you’re probably tired, I wonder if you might do me a favor? There are some important papers I need you to look for in my study.”
In hindsight, girl, I wonder if it might have been a setup. I wonder if the brother had known all along that once I’d gained entry into his study, I wouldn’t be able to resist poking around and that I’d end up finding out some, if not all, of what I did.
See, what happened was before he’d left for Europe, Scoobie had basically given me free rein of his house. “I’m going to need you to help me keep an eye on things around here while I’m away” is what he’d told me. “Besides, I’m willing to bet the more time you spend out here, the sooner you’ll start to feel at home.”
To be honest, I couldn’t have cared less about lounging around up in Scoobie’s big house, keeping company with the ghost of his dead mama and listening to Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, and the crew. But as soon as Nora heard that homes was going to be out of the country and was leaving me with the keys, she couldn’t stop grinning. She was like, “Oh yeah, girl, now we’re free to see what the real deal is with dude.”
When I asked her what she was talking about, she smirked and said, “I’m talking about getting our snoop on— that’s what. Drawers, closets, medicine cabinets, under the bed, inside the toilet tank—all that.”
On playing dumb and inquiring as to just what we might be looking for, she answered me with a “Duh! Whatever in the hell it is he’s been trying to hide from you. Mark my words, as big a rat bastard as Scoobie is—there’s bound to be something. I mean, besides the fact that he’s our girl Tina’s baby’s daddy.”
So we searched for a couple of hours on end one night, only to come up with absolutely zilch. I’m talking no illegal drug paraphernalia or semiautomatic weapons; no filled or unfilled prescriptions for Viagra, Levitra, Cialis, or Prozac; no women’s lingerie, girlie magazines, homoerotic literature, or even so much as one lewd snapshot of ol’ Ms. Nasty Butt Tina.
The only thing of any real interest that we stumbled upon in our snoop-filled trek through Scoobie’s place was that I had free access to every room except for one—homeboy’s study. Not only did we find the double doors to the study sealed shut, but on closer inspection we discovered that the lock was equipped with an electronic keypad.
Nora said, “Uh-huh, how much you wanna bet the smoking gun we’ve been looking for is stashed somewhere on the other side of these doors?”
At the time I’d shrugged it off and told her it wasn’t like I was a complete stranger to the room. I knew it was where Scoobie went to write up his menu and recipe ideas, finish paperwork, pay bills, and the like. I told her besides a safe, a couple of locked file cabinets, some books, and a bunch of office-related equipment and supplies, about the only thing of any real interest we were liable to uncover in there was the urn housing Scoobie’s dead mama’s ashes.
I remember Nora shaking her head, laughing, and talking about, “Girl, you trying to tell me homeboy still feels the need to keep his poor mama locked up somewhere and her nutty butt’s been dead how many years now?”
But as I stood there punching in the numerical sequence that released the study’s electronic lock, I started wondering if Nora might have been on to something. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first walked in, but the anticipation had my poor heart skipping to a double Dutch beat.
A quick visual survey of the room turned up little that I hadn’t already seen. Th
ere was a huge desk, built out of what looked like real mahogany wood and equipped with a phone, a lamp, and a laptop. On one wall there were some nice built-in bookshelves and, on the other, a large series of built-in cabinets and drawers, both apparently constructed out of the same dark, rich wood as the desk. I was walking past the cabinetry on my way to the desk when I heard a distinctive hum. I stopped and eased open the door of the cabinet where the noise seemed to be coming from.
What I found inside the cabinet surprised me, but by all rights really shouldn’t have. It was a monitor, you know, the kind that’s generally attached to a camera of some sort and used for security and surveillance purposes.
Before he’d left, Scoobie had shown me the camera he had trained on the front entrance of the home as well as its corresponding monitor, which he kept in an area off the kitchen. He’d even shown me how to work them and had told me that he was still in the process of setting up additional surveillance elsewhere on the property. That was the main reason I’d had Carl drive his car around to the rear of the house. I’d even tinkered with the angle of the camera that Scoobie had set up to capture the comings and goings of the cars and people who visited his house and had double-checked the monitor’s view, just as an added precaution.
What I hadn’t counted on was the existence of yet another electronic eye, mainly because I’d taken Scoobie at his word that the one was all he’d had time to set up thus far. But there it was—what looked to me like a fully functioning monitor and on it a tight shot of what else but the back side of Scoobie’s property.
I pushed a couple of buttons on the monitor’s control panel until I got the machine to stop and the tape to rewind. And sure enough, on pressing Play my worst fears were confirmed. Carl’s arrival at the house, my inviting him inside, and even our brief exchange of words on the back porch had all been recorded.
After The Dance Page 27
