by Pearl Cleage
“Because, little sister,” she said, kissing me good night on her way upstairs, “you’re standing in the middle of the Great North Woods and you can’t see the forest for the trees.”
• 15
the phone rang just as we were sitting down to dinner. When Joyce answered and then brought me the receiver, I thought it was Eddie, but when I said hello, Aretha’s voice answered, instantly apologetic.
“Are you all eating?”
“We haven’t started yet,” I said, relieved and disappointed at the same time. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.” She sounded a little nervous. “I was thinking about what you said.”
“What did I say?”
“About me having a good face.”
A good face?
“Oh! For short hair!” I said, remembering my offer to give her a cut before she left for school.
“Yeah, well, I been thinking about it and I wondered if you could do it for me.”
“Sure,” I said. “How short do you want it?”
“Like yours,” she said. “It looks good and if it’s that short, I can go swimming every day. They’ve got a pool.”
“Good for you,” I said, and I meant it. Most of the black women I know can’t swim a lick because in order to learn you had to get your hair wet. “How about Friday?”
“Okay,” she said. “Do I need to bring scissors or anything?”
I smiled at that. She’d probably bring some of those little scissors with the black handles they give you in first grade. “Just bring yourself,” I said. “And be yourself.”
She giggled again and hung up. I couldn’t wait to tell Joyce. Once you get that first glimpse of another way of looking at things, you can’t get enough. Aretha was on her way.
• 16
i finally ran into Eddie in town today. He pulled right behind me at the gas station and came around to speak while the bored teenager at the pump earned his summer money lazily wiping my bug-spattered windshield. I was trying to be cool, but I wasn’t cool. Pulse city. I hadn’t seen him since he told me what he had done. I wasn’t sure if he was waiting for a sign from me or I was waiting for one from him, but a week had gone by and that was too long to ignore.
I admit, it was still weird for me to think about what he had told me, but back then he was moving through a world where people knew the risks when they stepped up in it. From what he said, his ex would have shot him first if she’d been quick enough, so I guess they were about even. He had done the crime, and he had done the time, and being sorry can’t change a thing about any of it. When you’re young, there’s a whole lot of stuff you say you’ll never do. Once you get a little older, the list tends to get a lot shorter.
I had been doing my morning meditations on the porch, half hoping he’d come by and find me there, peaceful and composed, so we could talk. Instead, here I am in Joyce’s unair-conditioned heap, sweating like a hog with a backseat full of groceries and disposable diapers. He leaned down to smile a greeting and I didn’t care whether I was acting cool or not. I was really glad to see him and I said so before I thought to censor it.
“I’m glad to see you, too,” he said.
I handed the kid five dollars and looked at Eddie still standing there, leaning on the car, watching me. Your move, I thought.
“Maybe I’ll come by later,” he said.
I shook my head. “Sewing Circus executive committee meeting at our house. They’re plotting on the Reverend Mrs. and the last thing they want is witnesses.”
“If you want a place to hide out, I’d love to have some company.”
“Okay,” I said. “Around seven?”
He hesitated for just a beat. “Do you want me to get anything for you?”
“I’m not drinking for a while,” I said, not knowing that until I heard it come out of my mouth.
His expression didn’t change, but he nodded. “All right,” he said. “Tea it is.”
I pulled away, but I did sneak a look at him bending over to pump his gas. It wasn’t just when he was doing the t’ai chi. His movements were always effortless and complete, like a dancer.
I know I’ve got to tell him. I can’t keep thinking about seducing him without letting him know what the deal is. If he’s going to throw up his hands and run, the sooner I know it, the better.
• 17
by the time I got to Eddie’s that evening, I had figured out how I was going to tell him. I was going to say it all at once and then leave, just like he did when he told me about his past, so he can have some time to think. It’s not a test. That way, if the whole idea of us moving to the next level makes him nervous, he can just write me a note or something and I won’t have to see it in his eyes. I can’t take that again.
The house was full of candles even though it was just getting dark and the smell of incense was drifting out of the open door. Eddie was playing Marvin Gaye, “Wonderful One,” and when he looked up and saw me standing there, he grinned and spread his arms wide and bowed low like he was greeting the queen.
He was teasing, but something in the way he did it made me know he’d been thinking about me these last three days, too. Then he walked up to me and stuck out his hand like the guys used to do at the dances where we’d be on one side of the room and they’d be on the other until some brave soul took that long walk and extended himself to one of us with enough courage to say yes.
I took his hand and listened to Marvin seducing every woman within the sound of his voice, no matter how long he’s been gone:
Being near you,
Is all that I’m living for . . .
Eddie put his arm around me and started that slow, easy rock that begins a bop. I had grown up dancing with Joyce and Mitch, so even though my generation is not known for its bopping abilities, I’m good at it. I could see that Eddie was surprised at how easily I followed him. When he tried a fancy turn that doubled back on itself before ending in a slide, a mini dip, and that easy rock again, and I executed it flawlessly, he grinned at me like I’d been keeping a secret worth telling.
“You’re too young to be bopping like that,” he said.
“Mitch and Joyce used to dance all over the kitchen every time a Motown record came on the radio,” I said. “I learned in self-defense.”
The next song on the album was “Forever,” a slow-down classic guaranteed to get you in trouble if you ended up dancing to it with somebody else’s boyfriend. We looked at each other for a minute, but it was too soon for that kind of risk.
Eddie lifted the tone arm and indicated his collection. “What’s your preference?”
“How about some more of those birds and bells you were playing last time?”
“You’re not just trying to be nice, are you?”
“I’m not that nice,” I said.
He put on the music and poured some hot water into a beautiful Chinese teapot, which he then deposited snugly into a basket whose brightly colored, upholstered interior had a hole cut in the center of it for that purpose.
When he closed the top and carried it over to the low table in front of where I sat, it looked like an ordinary basket, but when he opened it, the delicate, flowery smell of the chamomile tea he had brewed rose up in a cloud of fragrant steam that mixed perfectly with the incense. I had seen pictures of tea cozies, but I’d never known anybody who had one. Eddie poured us two cups and then sat down beside me.
“You know why they don’t put handles on the cups?” he said.
I shook my head. I had always wondered.
“If it’s too hot to pick up, it’s too hot to drink.”
That made a lot of sense to me. I guess when your culture’s been around for five thousand years or so, you have time to figure out stuff like that.
I took a small sip of my tea and looked at Eddie. He smiled.
“I appreciate you telling me all that the other night,” I said.
His smile faded quickly and I could see him waiting for my reaction.
; “I didn’t really know how to react to it,” I said. “I probably still don’t, but I think I understand.”
He nodded and took a sip of tea.
“Now it’s my turn,” I said.
He smiled a little and waited for me to explain. The man didn’t seem capable of rushing or trying to make me rush.
“I want to tell you something.” I sounded serious as hell and a flicker of something crossed Eddie’s face. He put his cup down slowly and let the smile go its own way.
“All right.”
I tried to remember my speech. All the stuff I was going to say to prepare him, to explain, to make sure he’d understand, but nothing came to me, so I sat there, looking at him, looking at me. He had paid his debt to society. It was my tab that was still running.
“I’m HIV-positive,” I said. “I’ve known it for a year and I feel fine . . .”
His face hadn’t registered any emotion at all and I was trying so hard to read his mind, I thought I was going to have a stroke.
“I just wanted to tell you because . . .” I couldn’t say, because I want to make love with you, so I just stopped again.
Eddie was looking right at me and even though his expression didn’t change, something in his eyes did. Then he reached over, picked up my hand, turned it over, and kissed my palm. His mouth felt warm and soft against my skin. His hair was brushing my wrist and I could hear my heart beating steadily in the room like the Wailers’ original rhythm section when they’d been smoking serious ganja and Bob was in a good mood. It seemed as if all the nerve endings in my body had gathered together right there where his mouth was pressing against my hand.
His voice was very gentle. “Is that it?”
“Yes.”
When he looked up at me, I felt like I could see every mistake I’d ever made in his eyes, but no judgment, no anger, no shame, no questions except one: “Do you want to be with me?” His voice was neutral.
“Yes.” Mine was not.
“So that means we have to use a condom, right?”
He made it sound like the simplest thing in the world. I was so relieved, I wanted to fall into his arms and ask him if he would please kiss my palm like that for about three days, but we had to finish talking business first. I took a deep breath and tried to remain calm.
I told him yes, we always had to use a condom and there was some other stuff, too. The speech they give you at those Living with HIV workshops came back strong and I started reciting the rules like it was the first day of safe-sex summer camp.
“We can’t exchange any body fluids. All noninvasive touching is okay . . .”
He was still holding my hand, but now he was moving his finger lightly around in the small circle where his mouth had been.
“What does that mean?” he said.
“It means you can’t put your fingers inside me.”
“Except for your mouth?” He leaned over and ran his index finger lightly around the outline of my lips.
“What makes you think I want your fingers in my mouth?”
“Do you?”
“Maybe,” I said, then I thought fuck it. “Yes.”
But I hadn’t finished the rules, so I started up again with the dos and don’ts until he interrupted me.
“How about instead of telling me what I can’t do, you tell me what I can do and I’ll concentrate on that.”
I hesitated. That sounded wonderful, but I didn’t want to fool myself. I wanted to have it all on the table. There’s nothing like pulling out some unexpected latex to ruin a romantic moment if you’re not ready for it.
“I won’t go anywhere you don’t invite me,” he said, and ran his fingertip over my eyebrows. I closed my eyes.
“Can I touch your face?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Can I touch your eyes?”
“Yes.”
“Can I touch your mouth?”
“Yes.”
“Can I touch your shoulders?”
“Yes.”
It was dark now and there were flickering shadows on the walls around us. He kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my chin.
“Can we take our clothes off?”
“Yes.”
We slid out of our clothes and his body in the candlelight was as beautiful as it had been under the moon.
“Can I touch your breasts?”
“Yes.”
“Your belly? Your beautiful soft behind? Your lovely legs?”
“Yes.”
And he stroked and soothed and tickled and teased and looked and lingered and sighed and savored like he’d been waiting for this moment as long as I had. And when he saw that he was bringing me to the edge of someplace I truly wanted to be, he leaned over and asked me in the sweetest possible way if he could go with me, so I took him in my hands.
“Can I touch your penis?”
“Yes.”
“Can I touch your balls?”
“Yes.”
“Can I touch your nipples?”
“Yes.”
By now, we were whispering the questions together into the darkness of each other’s skin.
“Can I touch your heart? Your soul? Your spirit?”
And we sang the answers like a duet that we had practiced for a lifetime.
“Oh, yes! Oh, yes! Oh, baby, yes, yes, yes!”
• 18
eddie wanted me to spend the night, but I wasn’t ready for that yet. If it was a dream, I wanted to wake up in my own bed when it was over. After we got dressed and I was ready to start back, he held me and kissed me for a long time and I had enough sense to let him. It felt so right to be there that, of course, I started second-guessing myself immediately.
What the hell was I thinking about? This man has spent a lot of time and a lot of mental and physical energy trying to find a place where he could tap into some peace and quiet and here I come with a shitload of problems nobody wants to deal with if they don’t absolutely have to.
“Eddie?” I said.
“What, baby?”
I leaned back to look into his face and the memory of how good his body felt close to mine made me want to just shut up, and if this was a fairy tale, just keep believing, at least for another minute or two. But I couldn’t. I took a deep breath.
“You’re not pretending, are you?”
“Pretending what?”
“That this is the beginning of something.”
“Isn’t it?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t,” he said. “I really don’t.”
I took another breath. “Pretending,” I said, hating the whiny tone in my voice. “That now we’ll get together and get married and have some kids and all the rest of it.”
He always took his own time answering questions, but this time it seemed like we stood there looking at each other for an hour before he said anything.
“I don’t need any of that,” he said. “I had a wife who was willing to help some people kill me so she could get high. I had two kids I wouldn’t recognize if they walked in here right now because they were born when I was too young to raise them and too crazy to love them. I’m not planning anything and I’m not pretending anything and I’m not expecting you to do anything except love me as hard and as strong as I’m going to love you.” He kissed me then for what felt like another hour and when we finally came up for air, he was grinning. “Fair enough?”
I just nodded and leaned into his arms again. It wasn’t like I had to rush right home or anything . . .
• 19
when i got home, Joyce was still up. I tried to ease in and go straight to bed, but Joyce wasn’t having it.
“What are you grinning about?”
“Me?” I said, feeling the grin grow wider while I tried to deny it.
Joyce just stared, and as hard as I was trying to compose myself, I must have looked guilty as hell because she raised her eyebrows at me like I was fifteen years old sneaking in after curfew.
“I we
nt by Eddie’s,” I said, still trying to sound nonchalant.
“Just a friendly visit?” she said, enjoying the futility of my efforts to look like I hadn’t just been doin’ it to death.
“Exactly.”
“Well, there’s nothing like good neighbors, I always say.”
“Is that what you always say?”
Joyce looked at me and folded her arms calmly. “Don’t try to distract me,” she said. “Are you going to tell me everything or do I have to start guessing?”
“Nothing happened,” I said, sounding so unconvincing even to myself that I had to laugh.
“I’ll bet Eddie would be disappointed to hear you say that.”
“All right,” I said. “You win.” And I told her what happened.
She whooped so loud I thought she’d wake up Imani, then she grabbed me in one of her famous bone-crushing hugs and tried to break a couple of my ribs. She looked as happy as I was, but then she got all serious and took my hand.
“You were safe, right?”
I wanted to be indignant, but it was such a loving question all the way around, I told her yes and she hugged me again.
“Ouch!” I said. “If you wanted me to seduce Eddie, all you had to do was tell me.”
“I don’t care a fig about you seducing anybody.”
Joyce says shit like that because she likes to read old British novels where the heroine is always described as high-spirited. She went through one phase when I was about twelve where if I asked her for money and she wasn’t going to give it to me, she’d say, not a brass farthing.
“What I care about,” she said, “is you sticking around here for a while.”
“In Idlewild?”
“Don’t say it like that,” Joyce said. “You could do worse.”
“I’m going to San Francisco at the end of August, Joyce. I can’t stay here.”
“Eddie going, too?”
I tried to act surprised at the question, but Joyce was doing what she always does—saying things out loud before I’m ready to fess up to them. The truth of the matter was, ever since we made love, my brain has been feeding me fantasies. Me and Eddie, driving across the country in a convertible that neither of us owns. Me and Eddie walking beside San Francisco Bay at sunset. Me and Eddie finding a place to live in one of those mixed-up San Francisco neighborhoods where everybody is a little bit of somebody else and nobody cares. Me and Eddie exploring just how sexy safe sex can be. Of course, none of these scenarios included me evolving into a person with full-blown AIDS, but that’s why they call them fantasies, right?
