Divas of Damascus Road

by Michelle Stimpson

“I knew you had some reason for stopping by.” She reached over and touched Yolanda’s knee. “But I’m glad you did. You’re my favorite, niece, you know?” She looked up at Yolanda with deep-set eyes that resembled the hand-blown glass eyes of a porcelain doll. Blank. Still. Yolanda wondered where Joyce Ann was, in her head. How she processed things in her mind. How she could have abandoned her daughter.

  Joyce Ann returned to her sewing. Her voice took on an erratic, deeper tone, “People don’t hardly want to hire you when they find out you’ve got a record and been to a mental hospital. That’s two strikes. They think you’re gonna go in and stab everybody. Little do they know, most of the really crazy people will never see the inside of an institution until they’re in the penitentiary.

  “This wedding place I’m working for, Ellen’s Bridal, they contract the work to me. They let me use their sewing machine and their notions. I got to give it back if I quit, though, else they’ll come looking for Gloria to pay for it, since she’s the one who got me the job. Shame what these machines cost nowadays. This one here’s probably a couple of thousand dollars, with everything on it.”

  She rambled on, “But they only give me so much work, you know? There’s only so much you can do without working at the place. But a few of the brides asked about me and they’ve been referring their friends to me on the side. I’ve got quite a few weddings lined up and one of those fifteen-year-old parties for a Mexican girl. Things are really picking up.”

  “That’s good, Aunt Joyce.” The small talk became uncomfortable for Yolanda. “Well, I’m gonna walk on back to Momma’s house—”

  “Have you talked to Dianne?” She stopped her sewing but didn’t look up.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you tell her that I was here? Did you tell her I’m back and that I have a job?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing, really.” Yolanda shrugged.

  “Oh.”

  Yolanda waited to see if Joyce Ann was going to ask about Dianne’s actual well-being. She couldn’t wait to tell her she’d talked to Dianne just last week, and Dianne had a poem that was slated for publication in a national magazine, and how much better Dianne seemed to be doing.

  But when Joyce Ann didn’t inquire about her own daughter, Yolanda had a few choice words to share. She asked, with a professional coolness, “How about you asking how Dianne is doing? How about you asking if she needs anything, is she in good health, does she have a job? You’re not the only one whose life was devastated by what happened in this house, you know?”

  Joyce Ann put her foot back on the sewing machine’s pedal. Yolanda could barely hear her over the hum.

  “What did you say?” Yolanda found herself almost yelling at Joyce Ann.

  “I said I know that!” Joyce Ann looked up at Yolanda, her lips trembling.

  “I’ll be praying for you, Aunt Joyce Ann,” Yolanda said. As far as Yolanda was concerned, Joyce Ann’s lips could tremble till the cows came home. Wasn’t going to change anything.

  “I’ll be down to your momma’s house in a few minutes. You go on.”

  Yolanda walked back to her mother’s house alone.

  “Is she coming?” Gloria asked Yolanda as she came through the door.

  “She said she’d be down here in a few minutes.”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “She’s busy sewing. Momma, are you sure Aunt Joyce Ann should be staying there by herself? Did you know she’s got all her stuff in one room?”

  Yolanda sat down at the kitchen table and watched her mother smooth the icing on her famous Italian cream cake.

  “Maybe that’s all she can handle right now.” Gloria shook her head. “I check on her every day. And she comes up here sometimes, too. I know she only looks like a shell of herself, but she’s alive. And as long as she’s alive, there’s hope.”

  Yolanda shook her head, wondering how much longer her mother was going to stay in denial about Joyce Ann. Her mother always seemed to have the answers when they were growing up—why was she having such a hard time now?

  “Regina’s on her way,” Gloria chirped. “She’ll be here any minute now. She had a doctor’s appointment today. She’s coming by right after she’s finished.” Gloria licked the last drop of icing from her fingertips and submerged the knife in the waiting dishwater.

  Yolanda reluctantly followed her lead away from the topic of Joyce Ann. “What else did you make?”

  “I didn’t want to make a big fuss, so I just made soup and sandwiches. Oh, I need to know if you’re inviting Kelan Sunday. I want him to bring one of his pound cakes. That boy sure can cook, you know?”

  “I don’t know if Kelan will be coming or not. We kind of had a... disagreement.”

  “About what?” Gloria asked, suspecting the truth already.

  “He just wants more out of a relationship than I do right now,” Yolanda explained in generic terms.

  “Mmm-hmm.” Gloria wiped the countertops hard. Finally, she spoke her mind. “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. You leave it up there long enough, somebody else is gonna come and take a bite.”

  “I don’t want to commit to Kelan just to keep him from someone else.” Yolanda gave a quizzical laugh. “If I make any kind of commitment, I want it to be because I love him.”

  “Well, do you?”

  Yolanda froze in her tracks. Thought about it. What a scary word, this “love.” Love of family she knew, love of God she knew, love of profession she knew. But love of a man? No point of reference, no gauge, no database. “I don’t really know what love is,” she answered.

  “Well, one of the worst ways to learn it is to figure you out had it after it’s gone,” Gloria advised.

  Joyce Ann banged through the front screen, announcing her arrival. “Hello. Where y’all at?”

  “We’re in here,” Gloria called to her.

  Joyce Ann walked into the kitchen wearing a white sun- dress and sandals. A fresh coat of red lipstick masked the crusty lips Yolanda had seen earlier.

  Her hair was pulled back into a neat, brisk ponytail. But it wasn’t just a matter of how quickly she’d changed clothes and thrown on a few accessories. She was literally a different being: jovial, lively.

  “Hey, Gloria.” She hugged her sister. “Hi, Yo-yo.” The name bounced off her lips like a giant beach ball, as though it were her first time seeing Yolanda all day.

  Earlier, when Yolanda thought that Joyce Ann was “thrown off,” she’d put her in the category of people who just lived in their own world. But this was different. Joyce Ann wasn’t the same woman she’d been earlier. Even the look in her eye had changed. Her eyes shined with spark and definition, not the dreary lostness they’d embodied before. Her switch, her metamorphosis, was eerie.

  They heard Regina let herself in the front door and readied themselves to sing “Happy Birthday.” The look on Regina’s face put an end to all thoughts of song.

  “Hey, Regina!” Joyce Ann called from her chair at the far end of the kitchen table, waving her hand like a beauty queen in the town parade. “Happy Birthday!”

  Yolanda expected Regina to give her a good eye-rolling, but she wasn’t up to it. “Hi, Aunt Joyce Ann.”

  “Regina, what’s wrong?” Gloria asked.

  “Well, nothing’s really wrong,” she said, denying the look of concern that contradicted her words.

  Gloria eyed her daughter and warned, “You better let somebody help you, girl. You can’t go through your whole life keeping things to yourself.”

  “Hmm,” Yolanda heard Joyce Ann say under her breath while Regina listened to their mother carry on, “ain’t that the pot calling the kettle black”

  Okay, she is off into her own little world. Yolanda wasn’t licensed to diagnose mental illness, but it was clear to her that Joyce Ann wasn’t well yet. Definitely not well enough to be living on her own. Why am I the only one who can see this?

  They ate and listened to Joyce Ann
go on and on about her sewing. Like everything was normal.

  Yolanda cleaned up when she got home. The hot, soapy water smelled of bleach and Pine-Sol. She dunked her gloved hands in the bucket and pulled out her cleaning towel.

  The routine of it all, with its familiarity and reliable results, calmed her. Slowly, meticulously, she scoured her house, removing hints of the imperfections that came with the living that took place there: dust settling into the nooks of the baseboards, the droplets of water that found their way into the shallow drain beneath the refrigerator’s water dispenser, and the tiny morsels of food that fell beneath the stove’s metal catching dishes.

  She cleaned and cleaned until, finally, Kelan’s ultimatum seemed to disappear like the oily residue she had discovered on the light switch panel in her garage and had attacked mercilessly, wiping, double-checking, and then wiping again to be sure. She mopped and scrubbed until everything was perfect and in order, just as it should be.

  When she saw Kelan’s name on the caller ID display at eight o’clock that evening, she breathed a sigh of relief.

  “How was your day?” he asked her.

  “Fine. I went to the my mom’s house for brunch, then I came home and cleaned my house. Took a little nap. I just got up a few minutes ago.”

  “I told you, you’re working yourself too much. Nobody needs to clean their house from the front door to the back porch every single week,” he fussed. “I could see if you had a houseful of people, but it’s just you.”

  Yolanda was glad he still took the liberty to express his concern.

  “How did the thing go with Mr. Preston—Richard’s friend?”

  “Oh, he called and rescheduled. I’m meeting with him early next week to show him some of my pieces.”

  “I know you’re going to do great.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I meant to ask, did your aunt Joyce Ann come to Regina’s brunch?”

  “Yeah, she came. But you know, Kelan, after talking to her at my mom’s house, I think she should be admitted. I mean, she had one kind of persona when I saw her at the rent house. She was cynical and subdued. But by the time she got to my mom’s house, she was Ms. Congeniality. I think she’s got some kind of schizophrenic thing going. It’s like she snaps in and out of herself.”

  Yolanda had filled enough prescriptions for antidepressants and other mind-regulating drugs to know that the brain could malfunction just like any other part of the body—especially under duress, bending and straining beyond what the average psyche encountered.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.

  “No,” she declined, “I can handle it, don’t worry.”

  “You know, sometimes I can’t tell about you.” He held his breath and then spewed out the contents of his heart. “I can’t imagine my life with you day in and day out. Then again, I can’t imagine my life without you. You keep me in line where I would stay perpetually out of line, at the same time you make me realign everything I thought I knew about life and love itself. I want to be a part of your life, but then you do these little things to kick me out.”

  Yolanda agreed with him and, for once, thought she’d give him that pleasure. “I feel the same way.”

  “Then why don’t you say so?”

  “You just said it for me.”

  “This is a classic,” he said. “I think I know where this whole thing is going. Sooner or later you’re going to say I’m too good for you and I should find someone else who will treat me better.”

  “No. I wasn’t about to say that.”

  “That’s what usually comes next.”

  “Well, this isn’t the usual relationship.”

  “I agree with you, Yolanda. But I have to tell you, I think it’s crazy when you tell me you care about our relationship but you can’t commit to me, all in the same breath. I’m man enough to admit that. But what upsets me even more is you’re not woman enough to admit you are afraid. I—”

  “You know what, Kelan,” Yolanda cut him off, “I’m tired of going around and around in circles with you about this. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “Yolanda, I’ve been... having lunch with someone at work.”

  Yolanda’s heart fell to her stomach. She was glad that he’d told her over the phone, so he wouldn’t get the chance to see her lower lip drop. She let the thought sink in and pulled her jaw up before she said, “Oh. Okay. That was quick. It was only, what, a month ago you practically asked me to marry you. It’s interesting to know I can be replaced so easily.”

  “Yolanda, I’m not going to apologize to you for refusing to be your man in waiting. But don’t worry, we can still be friends.”

  She wanted to slam that phone down in his face. “We always have been. So why are you telling me about this woman now?”

  “Because I was thinking of inviting her to church Sunday.”

  “You don’t have to ask my permission to invite a guest to church. It’s a free world—”

  “I’m not asking you for your permission. I just didn’t want it to be an awkward situation for either one of us, in case we bump into each other.”

  The thought was sickening. Kelan at church with another woman, nudging her when the preacher made a striking point. Passing her a Tic Tac. Would he bake her a pound cake for dinner after service? Probably. Jealousy got the best of her. “Oh, and I guess you’ll tell her that you love her, too, in another week or so?”

  “No. Honestly, Yolanda, I didn’t know what love was supposed to be until God built it up between me and you. But if you’re too stubborn to recognize what we have between us, what choice do I have?”

  I know he ain’t waiting on me to give him the green light. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Kelan. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

  “Okay,” he said against his will. “I think the best thing for us to do is to break it off. I can’t play buddy with you anymore, Yolanda. I can’t keep going back and forth with this thing. One night we’re holding hands at the movie theater; the next night I’m trying to convince you that we should take it to the next level. It’s wearing me down.”

  “What are you saying?” she asked him.

  “I’m saying that until we’re both going in the same direction, we’re only going to keep growing apart. So before we start saying or doing things we’ll regret, I think it’s best if we stop seeing each other.”

  Yolanda didn’t know how to respond. Her cake was sliding off the platter right before her very eyes. She wasn’t going to get to have it or eat it. She felt herself, once again, in that peculiar place where her heart screamed one thing but strong, independent Yo-yo said another. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it.”

  “That’s not the way I want it.” Kelan made it clear.

  “Whatever, Kelan.”

  “Do you really mean that?” he asked.

  Yolanda didn’t respond. They both held on to their phones. Yolanda ran her tongue across her teeth, checking for signs of buildup to scrub away.

  Kelan was speechless. Surely these wouldn’t be their last words.

  Yolanda waited for him to cave in, to say something—anything—and keep the conversation going.

  “Good-bye, Yolanda.” He hung up.

  Yolanda stared at the receiver in amazement. Did he just hang up on me? She held on to the phone through the silence, the dial tone, and the message, “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial the number…”

  Yolanda had always prided herself on the fact that she didn’t lose sleep over men. True to her game, she pulled out her Bible and attempted to close out the evening as she always did. I knew men were nothing but trouble. I shouldn’t be surprised.

  She opened her devotional guide to the marker that held her place. Things had turned out just the way they always did. She was back in her bedroom. Me, myself and I. Back to the efficient, predictable, steady way of her life.

  Yolanda’s Scripture for the evening was Ph
ilippians 3:13 and 14: Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. She read Kelan all through these verses, her anger allowing for the misinterpretation of the message. Maybe I do need to leave Kelan behind.

  To her dismay, she couldn’t turn her brain off. For the first time ever, Yolanda lost sleep over a man.

  Chapter 25

  Of all the weekends Gloria could have picked, she happened upon the coldest Saturday of all winter to clear out her garage. She didn’t have much of a choice, though, because Richard’s friend Jerry wanted to start working on the garage conversion right away.

  “The home improvement business gets pretty slow during the winter,” he’d said. In exchange for the off-season work, Jerry gave them a discount. Gloria had immediately called her daughters and Joyce Ann to help with the efforts.

  “In the garage?” Joyce Ann had balked.

  “Yeah, me and the girls are gonna clean it out. Richard and I are having it made into a den.” Gloria hoped to get Joyce Ann over, maybe run a comb through her hair.

  “Are you trying to kill me or something!”

  Gloria offered a calm tone. “What are you talking about?”

  “I can’t stand to be trapped!” She slammed the phone onto the receiver.

  Well, maybe this wasn’t the best day to establish Joyce Ann’s sanity.

  Gloria asked Yolanda to go and pick up Aunt Toe so that she could get out for a bit.

  Aunt Toe complained about being dragged out of her home on what she termed “a day that’d make a snowman shiver,” but she was happy to be in their company. Though Aunt Toe couldn’t do much in the way of lifting or pulling, having her there to sift through the cherished family memoirs would certainly make it a memorable day. Gloria warmed up some apple cider and made an event of the task.

  “Okay, we need to try and save all the stuff you two might want to pass on,” Aunt Toe had ordered. Regina and Yolanda pinched each other at Aunt Toe’s directives. Somehow she’d fallen under the impression that she was to supervise this garage clearing from her wheelchair.