Always (14 page)

All that happened in 1983.

Oh yeah! The week after Easter of that year, our plans for a dream house changed. We found out I was barren.

Washington, D.C.

November 8, 2000

NBS News Studio

12:15
A.M
. EST

“Welcome back! If you are just tuning in, you have missed a lot, but hold tight and we will get you up to date momentarily. First we will swing back down to Miami, Florida, and the irrepressible Butch Harper.”

“Thanks, Franklin. I'm here with the press secretary for Mrs. Leslie Davis, Penelope Butler-Richardson. Mrs. Richardson, we were advised that you met with Mrs. Davis recently. Can you tell us how she is feeling about tonight's developments as well as the recent reports regarding the state of her marriage to the Democratic nominee? Reports from the wire indicate they are just awaiting the results from tonight before they begin divorce proceedings. Your comments?”

“First of all, Butch, you and I go back to Tsongas in '88, and you know me and what I stand for. Let me be very clear. Senator and Mrs. Davis have opened their home, their
financial records, even their past and present to public scrutiny. But there should be a line of demarcation. In a word, what you all down here have been hearing and reporting is mere gossip, and you know what they say about gossip. I think it was Baltimore essayist H. L. Mencken who said gossip is the common enemy of all decent citizens. It's theater to the souls of fools. So let me give you a few facts. I was just visiting with Leslie
and
Henry in their suite upstairs. All these reports that they are in separate rooms is total nonsense, and after hearing about the imminent demise of their seventeen-year marriage, they asked me to come down here and put an end to these rumors once and for all. As you know, it's been a tough campaign for them, but they believe in the process and most importantly, they believe that if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. They have laid it all on the line for their country and they are standing up for what they believe in and what will help this country get back on its feet.

They've vehemently tried to stay above the fray in regard to personal attacks and they believe that character does count. That's why they have taken the high road tonight and throughout this campaign. But there comes a time, Butch, when you must pull off the gloves and defend your name, and that's why I am down here this morning.”

“Mrs. Richardson, Nate Earl,
Atlanta Constitution
! So what-'cha saying is they are
not
preparing for a divorce? That they are
not
in separate suites as has been reported earlier? Marvin Mitchelson's office has not confirmed or denied that Mrs. Davis is on retainer. Can you comment on that story as well?”

“Guys, take out your pens and turn up the volume on the recorders for this quote, because it's something you can take to the bank and deposit. Are you ready? The answer is, no! Did you get that? They have absolutely
no
plans to end their marriage in spite of any
unfounded
rumors you may have heard. There was
no
stress from the campaign on their marriage, and before you ask again, there are no photos. In fact, the campaign has actually brought them closer together, I personally think. They are people just like you
and me trying their best to make it through the day, and they are looking forward to moving to Pennsylvania Avenue and being the moral and loving example of all that is good about this country of ours.”

Carol City, Florida

The Allen Residence

“She lying like a sack of shit, Momma.”

“Sarah, stop it!” Cheryl said to her still-wet daughter, who was drying her Jherri curls while sitting on the couch and occasionally dribbling her ball on the hardwood floor. Sarah had grown up fast. She'd worked for a pillow factory since dropping out of college, and now in her mid-twenties, she had a daughter of her own and visited her mom daily.

“You can tell that ho lying. All them Butlers full of stuff. I wouldn't believe a thing that came out of any of their mouths. They all about straight up flow. Henry getting ready to dump that ho Leslie. As soon as the election is over, he gonna handle his bid'ness, watch and see. Now, what you gonna do about that ignorant Negro of yours?”

Cheryl looked at her daughter with unrevealing eyes. She did not want to lie about her feelings and what she and hopefully the next president of the United States had shared, but this was her daughter and there were some things she did not feel comfortable talking about with her. “Sarah, I've told you a hundred times. I love Brandon. Okay? I really do.”

“Cheryl, please,” Sarah said, getting up and heading toward the kitchen. “Don't even fake the funk like that. I mean Brandon's cool sometimes, but
damn
, he ain't like that pretty red nigga on TV.”

“Sarah!”

“Wud-eva,” she said, opening the oven door and allowing it to “pop” to a close loudly. “Listen, you want me to heat up some popcorn or a lil' sumptin?”

Still staring at her daughter in the kitchen looking for
food, Cheryl said, “No,” and turned her attention back to the television.

When she'd married Brandon, he was a little younger than her daughter was now. She'd known there would be friction, because Sarah never gave him a chance, but she'd never anticipated this much antagonism.

Walking back into the living room, Sarah looked for somewhere to sit with the bowl of fruit and a bag of miniature Snickers bars from the cabinet. “Cheryl, I'm, umm, sorry for cursing and disrespecting your house and all, I just—”

“Don't sit in that chair!” Cheryl yelled as her rotund daughter began to squat. “I gotta take it to the shop. Come sit on the couch . . . by me.”

“Damn, when I make my comeback,” Sarah said, returning with her ball in her food-free hand, “the first thing I'm gonna do is buy you a whole house full of furniture and get rid of these sticks!”

As her daughter sat beside her, Cheryl looked at her lovingly as she ripped open the Snickers bag with her teeth. “You want me to cook you something? You shouldn't be eating all that junk while you're in training.”

“Naw, that's okay. I got a call,” she said, looking at the television, “from a general manager in Italy first thing this morning. They want me to come over there and try out in Madrid.”

“Wow. That wonderful! Madrid, Spain?”

“Naw, a Madrid, Italy. At least I think that's what she said. I told them about Greece and that was where I really wanted to play ball, but she seemed to think I'd have a better chance of making it in the WNBA if I spent a couple of years in Italy like Kym Williams and Tammy Jackson did.”

“You told her how many years you've been out of sports?” Cheryl asked as she wrapped her daughter's hair around her finger.

“Yeah, they know. They wanted me, remember, when I left TSU, but I wasn't ready for it then. Now with the WNBA kicking, I'm all for it. You got any Red Devil?”

“For what, Sarah?” her mother asked as she looked at what she was eating.

“Dag, Cheryl, you know I put sauce on everything.”

“But, Sarah. You're eating candy . . . and fruit.”

Stopping in midchew, Sarah looked at her mother as her basketball rolled away, and said, “And your point would be . . . ?”

Cheryl got up and went into the kitchen as Dan Rather came on the screen and said, “Okay, America, these are the numbers you have been waiting for.” Cheryl sprinted in from the kitchen, handed her daughter a box of cold leftover chicken and a bottle of hot sauce, and turned up the volume of the TV in almost one motion.

“CBS News is now projecting that the following states will be won by Senator Henry Louis Davis the Second: New Jersey, Michigan, and a big surprise, Minnesota and her ten electoral votes, as well as a state they were doing very badly in, Wisconsin. So let's look at our up-to-the-minute results as they stand now.”

DAVIS	127
STEINER	135
BALDWIN	112

“Damn, Cheryl, this shit is tight.”

“I know, I know.”

“I thought it would be over by now. Wasn't it two, three weeks ago they were saying he had a shot at a landslide or sumptin?”

“I didn't hear that one.”

“Well, I'm sure I heard it on
Dateline
or 20/20 or something. Maybe it was on Rikki Lake.”

“It doesn't matter,” Cheryl said, running her fingers through her hair and leaning back on her sofa.

“So tell me,” Sarah asked as Cheryl watched her put a chicken thigh in her mouth and pull out a bone. “How does it feel to have your name in the history books and shit?”

“What are you talking about?”

“C'mon, Cheryl. We both know you
slept with
the brother, and it's bound to get out when he wins tonight. You got a million-dollar book staring you right smack dab in the face. I got a title for you. How's this?
Henry's Hootchie
. Get it? If you don't sell the shit to the press, I will. I'll call Jerry Springer at his mammy's house and tell ev'ythang for enough money.”

Cheryl turned up the volume to block out her daughter's voice, switched to C-SPAN as she wondered where her husband could be, then said, “I didn't sleep with him.”

As she dropped the empty chicken box on the hardwood floor, Sarah spread her legs, put several dashes of hot sauce on her Snickers bar, and replied, “Like I said before . . .
wud-
eva.”

CHERYL

Nineteen eighty-three seems like a million years ago, but it still stands out in my mind. It took me about three years to really get over Henry. The only man I had ever been with was Darius, and for three years I constantly, unbeknownst to him, compared him to Henry Louis Davis the Second. The myth moreso than the man. He didn't walk like Henry. He wasn't as motivated as Henry. He didn't dance like Henry. Although Darius actually danced better, I preferred the herky-jerky way Henry danced. For three years I put him through that hell, and seeing Henry when we visited Florida didn't help. But soon the wounds healed, as wounds sometimes do, and I was only thinking of Henry two or three times an hour. At that point I felt I could get on with my life.

Darius and I were wed on my twenty-fourth birthday. We were married on my aunt's farm in Hope, Arkansas. We had about ten people, thirty or forty goats, and four pigs in attendance. As long as we were standing downwind, we would get a gust of fragrance from the numerous miniature rosebushes she had planted all over the farm in her youth. Unfortunately, for the few seconds when the wind shifted
we encountered a not-so-special smell from the pigpen. As the sun set over the mountains on the cool spring afternoon, I looked at Darius. Dressed head to toe in white, he smiled his cute gapped-tooth Huckleberry Finn smile at me, and I felt lucky to have him. Yes, I wore white as my child cried in the background, because I couldn't imagine getting married in any other color. If I could change anything, about that day looking back, I wouldn't.