Authors: Lori D. Johnson
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.
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—”
I slowed to a stop on the track and was like, “What detective? What are you talking about?”
He said, “Our son, Faye. I’m talking about sitting down with this detective and letting him fill us in on what he’s found out about our son.”
As would be expected, that particular tidbit of information changed everything. On notifying Nora of my sudden change of plans and the why behind it, she got all excited, then said, “If dude keeps this up, I guess I’ll have to go ahead and cut him some slack. Sounds like he’s really trying hard to make up for all those years he dogged you.”
About all I could say to that was, “Sure sounds that way, doesn’t it?”
But knowing me as well as she does, Nora was quick to fire back, “So what’s wrong? You having second thoughts about your boy? Or is it finally starting to dawn on you what you could have had with Carl?”
Not ready yet to own up to either, I told her, “Actually, I’d been kind of looking forward to going to Nashville—if only to hang out with you and get away from it all.”
Nora said, “Stop lying. If you were looking forward to anything, it was hunkering down over a plate of LeRoi’s barbecued ribs without all the grief and guilt that doing so in front of Drill Sergeant Scoobie is liable to bring on you.”
Rather than yuck it up with her, I said, “Seriously, Nora. Besides meeting with this detective, which will no doubt be the highlight of my holiday weekend, the majority of my time will be spent standing off on the sidelines somewhere with my stomach growling while I watch Scoobie wield a pen or a golf club.”
That’s when Nora stepped up and made me an offer I could hardly refuse. “You know, I am scheduled to be in the Atlanta area earlier in that same week. The Bulk Mail Center has me going down there to oversee some employee training sessions. But I’m only supposed to be there until Thursday, which means I could hang around and keep you company if you want.”
Sure, I still think about Faye. Even more, as much as it pains me to admit it, I miss her. I miss the insights we shared, the private thoughts, the laughs, the kisses, the way
her legs wrapped around my back when we were … No, but all kidding aside, I do miss very much playing man to her woman—if you can relate to that.
Just last week when I found myself standing, of all places, outside Baptist East’s infant ward, who do you think was uppermost on my mind? And before you even go there, man, no, stalking the girl was neither my intent nor my primary reason for going out there.
If you wanna know the truth, I try to stay as far away from baby wards as I can, the one at Baptist East, in particular. Being there stirs up too many memories and mixed emotions. And it’s not like there aren’t some fine people working up there. It’s a great facility, one of the best in the area, I’d dare say. Me and Bet went up there for all our kids—the twins, as well as the other two. Yeah, man, in the years prior to giving birth to our two girls, we suffered a late-term miscarriage on one occasion and on another, had a baby who was with us all of a week before he passed. Those were some rough times.
And that’s why I don’t hardly blame Bet for tossing my butt out when she found out about Benjamin. I’m sure every time she’s forced to look at him or hear about him, she can’t help but think about the two little boys we had to bury.
Anyway, man, the last thing I intended to do that night I went out there with my Uncle Westbrook was to wind up in the baby ward, reliving any of that. No, see, me and Unc went out there to visit a friend of the family who’s recuperating from having his prostate operated on. After we’d finished joking and chatting with our friend, Unc asked if I’d mind him taking a few minutes to rap to some ol’ girl he’d met in the infant ward on his last visit. While the old dog trotted off to work his silver-tongued magic, I strolled through the unit until I spied the window with the babies and the women in the rocking chairs behind it.
From the looks of things, it’s one of those preemie programs where volunteers come in and provide the extra
time and attention that for whatever reasons the nurses or parents can’t. But the glow of utter contentment I saw radiating from some of those women’s faces as they cuddled and cooed over the infants in their arms let me know that, for at least a few of them, the experience went a whole lot deeper than simply the desire to comfort a needy or sick child. It made me wonder if tending to those babies fulfills some deeply buried need within Faye’s soul or psyche that she doesn’t want too many people to know about. Why else would she be so intent on keeping something so admirable such a well-kept secret?
We flew out of Memphis International late that Thursday evening and we hadn’t been in Atlanta two solid hours when Scoobie started backtracking about the meeting with the private investigator. Lounging in the plush rear seating of one of Morris-Morgan’s chauffer-driven Lincoln Town Cars, we were on our way from the airport to the hotel when Nora called, looking to coordinate our schedules. So I asked him, “When did you say we’re supposed to meet with the detective? Was it Saturday afternoon or after your book signing on Sunday?”
The brother reached for my free hand and started patting it. I guess it was his way of trying to soothe me before he delivered the bad news. “Actually, sweetheart, we just might have to catch up with Detective Clarke some other time altogether. He called right before we boarded the plane and told me that something urgent had come up on another case he’s working on in L.A.”
Nora, who’d obviously heard it all on her end, said, “Uh-huh, what did I tell you? But did your ass listen? Nooo!”
Sensing my displeasure, Scoobie leaned over and whispered into my ear, “Don’t worry, babe, detective or no detective, I’m going to make all of this worth your while, starting with dinner tonight. Just wait, you’ll see.”
Yeah, right!
is what I started to tell him
. The only thing I’ve seen thus far is the extreme length to which you’re willing to go to tell a bald-faced lie
.
But no, I didn’t go off, girl. I actually kept my mouth shut for once. After checking into the hotel and freshening up a bit in my room, I went downstairs and joined him for dinner like nothing at all was wrong.
He greeted me in the lobby with a kiss and said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I invited one of my golfing buddies to join us.”
Turns out, this golf pal of Scoobie’s, one Jacob Goldstein, just so happened to be a doctor who specializes in cosmetic surgery. At first I didn’t think anything of it. The doc seemed like a nice enough guy, even if the brunt of his conversation never veered too far from his work and the inpatient clinic he runs in Florida. But while I was sitting there striving to be cordial and polite as I sipped ice water and nibbled on the rabbit food Scoobie had taken upon himself to order for the two of us, it started dawning on me that this was no incidental meeting or innocent introduction. All this talk about minor body-shaping procedures, the cost involved, and the average length of stay at Dr. Goldstein’s state-of-the-art facility, all of that was aimed directly at me.
Yeah, girl, evidently the twelve or so pounds I’ve lost thus far aren’t doing it for homeboy. Apparently, he’s got his mind set on some much speedier results, because when I up and asked him, hypothetically speaking, mind you, just how much work he proposed I get, girl, he started talking lypo, a tummy tuck, a boob job, and the whole freaking nine! Had his surgeon buddy not been there,
honey, I’da probably leaped over the durn table and, like Carl, straight started choking the hell out of him.