Disappearing Acts

by Terry McMillan

  “Portia, I said I haven’t had one in four years, damn.”

  “I heard you, but hell, who knows when one could just pop up again?”

  “I don’t anticipate having any fits anytime soon.”

  “This is deep, Zora. And I thought I knew you.”

  “You do know me; now you just know more.”

  “Well, all of us got some kind of bullshit we gotta deal with. This is the second period I’ve had this month, girl. If it ain’t one thing, it’s something else, ain’t it? Look, I gotta run.” She got up from the couch, and I walked her downstairs.

  “Can I invite Marie and Claudette to this brunch?”

  “Marie, yes, ’cause she’s wild as hell. But Claudette, let her keep her tired ass at home with that fine-ass husband of hers and that big-headed baby. I swear, I don’t know what he sees in her, and if I’da met him before she did, she’d be one single woman to this day.” Before Portia closed the door she looked at me. “Zora, all joking aside. You’ve already had your share of losers, girl. Don’t go getting yourself all hung up on another one.”

  We kissed each other on the cheeks, and I ran back upstairs. For the most part, Portia was right. But Franklin was different. I just knew it.

  * * *

  I was tired of unpacking, but I wasn’t sleepy. It was only eight-thirty, and I didn’t feel like watching TV, so I moved my paintings from one wall to another. The harder I tried not to, the more I kept seeing Franklin’s big hands, helping me. Every time I walked past the door, I said a silent prayer. Please be downstairs, ready to push the buzzer. But there was no buzz. And please be thinking about me as hard as I’m thinking about you. My bare feet slid over the floors and tingled at the thought of him. I kept seeing sweat popping out on his forehead. Finally, I sat down on the couch, and in he walked. He sat right next to me, put my head on his shoulder, and told me I was exactly what he’s been looking for—what’s been missing in his life. When my head fell off the cushion, I was embarrassed at daydreaming again. I jumped up from the couch and stood in the middle of the floor. I was entirely too anxious, and wasn’t about to sit in here for the rest of the night going crazy thinking about him, so I called Marie to see if she wanted to see a movie.

  “What movie?” she asked.

  “My Brilliant Career.”

  “My brilliant what?”

  “Career!” I could tell she was high.

  “Where’s it playing?”

  “At the D. W. Griffith, on East Fifty-eighth Street.”

  “Shit, why isn’t it playing on the West Side? Is it funny?”

  “Not according to the reviews, but it sounds interesting.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “An Australian woman who writes, but no one takes her seriously.”

  “It sounds corny as hell. I’m not in the mood for anything heavy.”

  “You sound like you’ve been drinking.”

  “So what?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, except I blew an audition today because the subway got stuck on Eighty-sixth Street for a half hour and I was late. My landlord’s been bugging me because my rent is a month late. My check to my therapist bounced. But other than that, nothing’s wrong.”

  “You want me to stop by?”

  “For what?”

  “To talk, take your mind off of things. Sounds like you need to try to relax.”

  “Relax? You’re the one who thinks meditating solves all your problems, Zora, not me.”

  “I’ve never said meditating solves all my problems. It just calms me. It sounds like you need to do something.”

  “I am. I’m getting ready to get myself a refill.”

  “Well, maybe you should stay home, then.”

  “That’s just what I’m planning to do.”

  “Call me if you need something, Marie.”

  “You got any money?”

  “Be serious. Shit, I just moved!”

  “Enjoy your movie, Zora,” she said. “I’ll get through this. I always do.”

  So I went alone. I can’t stand being around Marie when she’s drunk. She gets loud and boisterous. Starts talking to people she doesn’t even know. But when she’s sober, she’s fine. Funny as hell, which is why being a comedienne suits her. She does have a rule: She never drinks before an audition or a show. I wish she could stick to that rule all the time, but what’s the point in giving people advice if they’re not willing to take it?

  I sat in that dark theater and was amazed. This woman had spunk, all right. She broke all the rules that applied to women during her time and did what she wanted to do anyway. Her courage paid off. By the time the credits ended, I felt reaffirmed. It was raining when I got outside. I didn’t feel like getting on that nasty subway, so I hailed a cab. Hell, I had just left Australia. By the time we got over the Brooklyn Bridge, the rain had stopped. The Manhattan skyline was blinking red, blue, and yellow. When the cab pulled up in front of my building, Franklin was sitting on my stoop, smoking a cigarette.

  “Hi,” I said, after I paid the driver.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “Waiting for me?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “Why?” But I already knew why: because you couldn’t stand it. Just say it, Franklin, and we can stop this game right now.

  “Because I wanted to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanted to see you.”

  “What if I hadn’t come home alone?”

  “Then I’da just acted like I was waiting for somebody else.”

  Portia can go to hell, I thought. “Would you like to come up?”

  “You want me to come up?”

  “Yes,” I said, before I even thought about it. He followed me upstairs, and with each step, I was thinking, Lord, what am I getting myself into?

  “Have a seat,” I said, once we were inside. I was so nervous that I turned on the TV instead of the stereo, which is what I had intended to do. Still, I didn’t want him to think I was trying to set a “mood.” If there was going to be one, then we’d have to create it ourselves.

  He hadn’t sat down; I could feel him standing behind me. When I turned around, he was right in front of me. As if it was the only thing left to do, he bent down and kissed me on my nose, my cheeks, and then my lips. His mouth was warm and sweet. I thought maybe I should resist, but I couldn’t, and then, with his lips breaking me down second by second, I asked myself, Why? I guess when my palms pressed inside the small of his back, that was his cue to go ahead and wrap those long arms around me. And that did it. I could’ve screamed, “Please don’t let me go!” but I didn’t. I was already falling in the black hole. He smelled so good, felt so warm and solid, that I couldn’t help but think that nothing should feel this good. And he kissed me so slowly, so softly and deeply—the way I liked to be kissed—that my heart clicked. My eyelashes brushed his, and we rubbed noses, back and forth, back and forth, until I couldn’t stand it. I swear, I tried to back up a little—just to get hold of myself—but he wouldn’t let me go. Then it felt like I was floating away. Maybe because he had picked me up and was laying me down on the couch. I didn’t want to open my eyes, because I knew this shit only happened in the movies. “Do you know what you’re doing?” I asked, opening my eyes.

  “I know exactly what I’m doing,” he said. And I guess he did. He eased my T-shirt over my head and unzipped my shorts and put his big hands on my waist and rubbed. I don’t know how he got my bra off, but I knew it was off when I felt him kiss my shoulder.

  Then he stopped.

  Here I was, aching all over, and he stopped!

  “Can I just look at you?” he asked, and got up and leaned against the refrigerator. He crossed his arms and legs and smiled at me like I was a prize he’d won or something.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  I smiled, because I felt beau
tiful. Then he moved a few inches away from the refrigerator, unzipped his jeans, and took off his shirt. He dropped everything on the floor, and just stood there. I wanted to put my hand over my mouth. I had never seen a man’s body so perfect. My eyes traveled from his head on down, then stopped. Lord have mercy.

  “What do you plan on doing to me?” I asked, as he started coming toward me.

  “Everything,” he said.

  The man was no liar. He stroked my hair and my back, kissed my elbows, my belly, my thighs, even my knees and toes! I wanted to scream. To pull out every strand of his hair, my hair—somebody’s hair. Finally, I thought, a man who knew that breasts had feelings too. I touched him everywhere I could reach. Brushed my lips wherever I felt skin. His body was one tight muscle after another, and so hot, so big, so strong, I wanted to beg him to never stop touching me. “Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord,” I sang, as we moved like slow tornadoes. He was so considerate and smooth that by the time I heard him call out my name, I knew it was me he wanted.

  “Franklin!” I sighed, and my body let itself loose.

  “I’m here, baby, I’m here,” he said, and kissed me on my shoulder. A river had formed in the cave of my belly, and I felt limp. He shivered. A moment passed, and he shivered again.

  “You’re too good to be true,” he said, and lifted me up on top of him. He stared into my eyes as if he was searching for something, and after he found it we held each other like it was goodbye instead of hello. Finally, we both exhaled, and sank. We kept our arms and legs wrapped around each other like octopuses for what must have been a long time, because the next thing I knew, Johnny Carson was going off.

  “Is this how you operate?” I asked.

  “Is this how you operate?” he asked me back.

  Then we both started laughing.

  “So how about that song now?”

  “I just finished singing. Didn’t you hear me?”

  “I heard you, baby, but I wanna hear you sing for real.”

  All of a sudden, a voice in my head told me to stop this. Just stop it. He felt too good too fast. It must have been all over my face.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why you looking like somebody just died?”

  “This is dangerous, you know.”

  “For who?”

  “Me.”

  “I thought you didn’t have a man, or did you lie?”

  “No, I didn’t lie. What about you? You look like you’re the type that’s probably got more than one woman.”

  “I really ain’t in the market. Trying to get my life in order. Women get me all confused.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “Sometimes you have to take detours.”

  “Oh, so that’s what I am, a detour.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “A man knows when a woman is special. Women like you don’t come along every day. I’d be a fool not to stop and check you out.”

  “Check me out? Is this some kind of game, Franklin?”

  He kissed me on the forehead and looked me dead in the eye.

  “Do this feel like a game to you?”

  “No.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I’m scared, I guess.”

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That ain’t no kinda answer. Talk to me.”

  I wanted to tell him that I was scared of him, of how he was making me feel, but when I feel so good that it makes me sad, my words get twisted up and it’s hard to say what I really mean. “Well, I’m just trying to do so many things. I’m starting a new voice coach soon, school starts next month, I just moved, I’m trying to figure out—”

  He cut me off. “You wanna know something? I been trying to talk myself into not thinking about you since I first met you. A month ago, I made up my mind that all I was gon’ do was concentrate on how I could start my own business in a year or two, and I promised myself that I wasn’t getting involved with no more women until I got my constitution together—”

  Then I cut him off. “That’s what I’m trying to do too, Franklin.”

  “So are we laying here saying we can’t do both?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do you feel right now?” he asked.

  Should I tell the truth? Yes, tell the damn truth, Zora. “I feel like I’ve been hibernating and you’re the sun and you just shined on me and let me know it’s spring. I feel like I could levitate right up to the ceiling. What about you?”

  “I feel like a man who just hit the lottery. That answer your question?”

  “You sure this isn’t just the sex?”

  “I know the difference between good sex and a good woman, baby.”

  Even though I wanted to believe him, wanted to trust him, the sadness still came back. I wanted to find out up front if this man was sincere, so I decided to go ahead and tell him how I really felt. “I’m scared that if I get involved with you and it doesn’t work out, then I’ll be right back where I started—lonely and alone again.”

  “You already involved,” he said. “And you ain’t gotta worry about being lonely no more.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because I’m here and I ain’t going nowhere until you ask me to leave. You been thinking about me as much as I been thinking about you. So let’s cut the games. That’s why you went out tonight—so you wouldn’t be in here suffocating with them thoughts, trying to figure out what you was feeling and if I was feeling anything close to it. Am I wrong?”

  “No, you’re not wrong.” Why didn’t I lie? Why couldn’t I lie? I was opening up too fast and letting him see me. But so was he, wasn’t he? Didn’t he just admit that he’d been thinking about me all day?

  “Relax,” he said, and pressed my head back down against his chest. At first his heart was beating fast, but after a few minutes, when I put my arms around his neck and stroked it, the beats slowed down.

  “Franklin, what exactly do you want from me?” Now, why’d I ask such a stupid-ass question?

  “Nothin’ you ain’t willing to give.”

  “What are you willing to give?”

  “As much as I need to, baby.”

  “Is that a little or a lot?”

  “I’d say it’s a lot.”

  “Franklin?”

  “Yeah,” he said, running his fingers through my hair.

  I didn’t want this to be just another good lay. Not this time. “I’ve been in this situation before. Where everything feels right, but then something goes wrong and I live through another sad ending. I’m tired of diving in headfirst, then swimming back to shore and it’s empty, you know?”

  “You been choosing the wrong men,” he said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because I wouldn’t be here now,” he said.

  “How’re you supposed to know who’s the right one?” I asked.

  “You gotta learn to trust your instincts.”

  “My instincts have made some bad decisions before.”

  “Do I feel right?”

  “Right now you do. But I can’t lie, Franklin: I’ve been here before too. This time I want something that’ll be good for a long time, something that’ll last.”

  “I hear you, baby.”

  I was wound up now. “And I want to be an asset to somebody—a man—but up to now it hasn’t worked both ways.”

  “Like I said, baby, you been picking the wrong men. And since we spillin’ our guts, I gotta be honest. I ain’t got no money, so if you lookin’ for some dude with a big bank account, I might as well leave now.”

  I started laughing. “I can’t hug and kiss a bank account, and if I could, I’m sure it wouldn’t make me feel like this.”

  He just kept stroking my hair and my right cheek. I swear, he felt like an easy chair I never wanted to get out of. Then he squeezed me tigh
ter. “You wanna know something?” he asked.

  I pushed my head deeper into his chest and nodded yes.

  “Sounds to me like we members of the same club.”

  4

  “Say, Franklin?” a voice called through the door. “Could you turn it down a little, blood?”

  “No problem, man. Sorry about that.” I couldn’t tell who it was, but it didn’t matter. Shit, I felt good. Sometimes life can be sweet as hell. All that shit about being by myself until I got my constitution together went up in smoke. What I mean is, the plan is the same, the rules just changed. Hell, when you meet a woman who likes you ’cause you you, not because of how much money you bring home, or how big your dick is and how good you use it; tells you she wants to be in your corner a hundred percent and means it; asks you about your dreams…. I mean, she asked me what did I see myself doing five, ten years from now? Ain’t no woman never asked me no shit like that. I told her the truth. Damn, it felt good being able to tell somebody. Felt good being able to talk to a woman about some real shit for a change. To tell the truth, we ended up doing more talking than fucking. Which was cool. A real nice change. She just sat there with those little bird legs of hers crossed like a Buddha and let me ramble. I told her my dreams, all right. That I was tired of working construction, never having no money. That one day in the near future I was planning on being my own boss. And she listened. Asked questions. Didn’t laugh or think I was being outrageous and shit. A man needs a woman who makes him feel like he can do anything. Shit, when you find one who can cook, knows how to make real love, is pretty and smart, knows what she wants outta life and is trying to get it, you see her as a asset, not no liability. You don’t find all this in a woman every day. Which is why I ain’t letting her get away.

  I could see that she was a little scared at first. I mean, sparks was flying so fast and everything, and I was just waiting for her to tell me that her heart been broke so many times she didn’t trust men no more. I was all set to tell her, “This time, baby, don’t be scared. This man ain’t interested in breaking your heart—he’s interested in gluing it back together and keeping it for hisself.” But good pussy’ll make you say the first thing that comes to your mind, so I decided to keep my mouth shut on that note till I know the shit is what it is.