Basketball Jones (23 page)

After meeting with a real estate agent to put my place on the market, I took one final look around the living room and my eyes landed on the phone. I knew it would be cut off soon, but I suddenly had the urge to make a call.

I was relieved when I heard a dial tone and I immediately began dialing. After a few rings there was the familiar voice that always brought a smile to my face.

“Bella,” I said.

“AJ, I was just thinking about you!”

“What were you thinking?”

“How I couldn’t wait to see you again.”

“And I can’t wait to see you, sweetheart. Is Mama at home?”

“Yes, she’s in the kitchen cooking, I think. You want to speak with her?”

“Yes, darling.”

“Okay,” Bella said.

“I love you, Bella Lynn.”

“I love you too.”

As I waited for my mother to come to the phone, I thought about how lucky I was to have my mother and sister in my life. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was going to need them more than ever as I worked my way through this nightmare of a breakup. I wasn’t about to dump the whole mess in their laps, but Mama was smart enough and knew me so well that I wouldn’t have to say much for her to get the general idea.

“Hey, baby,” my mother said. “Is everything all right?”

“I guess so,” I said somberly.

My mother could always tell from my voice how I was feeling and so I guess it had betrayed me again.

“It will be soon.”

“Is there something special I can do? Do you need me to come to New Orleans?”

“No. I just called to tell you I’ll be in Atlanta for a couple of weeks.”

My mama was no fool. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“Oh, Mama, I’ll be all right.” I paused to consider what I was about to say. “I just need you to pray for me.”

“I always do. You know that. I don’t know why you would even ask me.”

“I know you do, but I might need extra prayers the next couple of months.”

“Does this have anything to do with your special relationship?”

It was as if she’d struck a nerve. I suddenly felt tears running down my face. “Yeah,” I mumbled. “It does.”

“Do you mind me asking what happened?”

“There’s too much to go into, but it’s over and that makes me really sad,” I said. Mama didn’t know the half of it.

“Have you been crying?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Baby, let me give you a little piece of advice that my mother gave me the first time a boy broke my heart. I want you to hear this, so first stop crying.”

I wiped the tears with the back of my hand and asked my mother what my grandmother had said.

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

Christmas Day arrived in Atlanta, cold and wet. The city needed the rain, but I didn’t need the gloomy weather to take me further into a love hangover—no, make that a depression. Leaving Dray hurt just as much today as it had when I made the seven-hour drive to Atlanta.

Maurice had told me the night before Christmas that he hoped the holidays would help snap me out of my funk in time so I could enjoy the New Year. Besides, he said, he didn’t want his best friend carrying doom and gloom to his Christmas dinner. He had invited about thirty of his friends over for a huge Christmas dinner catered by S.T.E.P.S., an event-planning company that hosted most of Atlanta’s elite affairs. I guess business had picked up for Maurice because he wasn’t cutting any corners this Christmas. Or maybe he was still auditioning people for his big party.

I admired the way he poured his heart into his design firm, party planning, and everything he attempted. Failure was not a part of his vocabulary.

Maurice had hired someone to decorate his ranch-style
home in Jonesboro with lights and pageantry outside as well as inside. When I woke up Christmas morning, the chef was busy preparing dinner, but he wasn’t too busy to make omelets and fresh blueberry muffins for Maurice and me.

“I hope you’re not going to walk around here all day with that long face,” Maurice said as he took a sip of hot apple cider. The breakfast nook where we sat was full of the cider’s delicious aroma.

“You know the real reason I’m having this little Christmas party, don’t you?” Maurice asked as he took a pinch of his muffin and smiled a sly grin.

“Because it’s Christmas and you love giving parties.”

“Yes, that’s true, but my list for the big party isn’t where it needs to be. Still way too many people, and so I need to make some cuts before the New Year. So I invited some people who are at the bottom of the list and might find themselves with no invite or on the waiting list. You can help me make cuts. Won’t that be fun?”

“I don’t know if I’d be good at that,” I said, wondering how Maurice took pleasure in cutting out people who were about to be his guests at Christmas dinner.

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll teach you. Pay close attention to their conversation and wardrobe. If they can’t dress well for the holidays, then there is no hope.”

“Do they know that they’re being judged today?”

“Child, boo. They don’t have a clue. A couple of them have already been telling people they’re in.”

I didn’t say anything for a couple of moments as Maurice rambled on about the Christmas party and the big one for Labor Day. Every now and then I heard him call out names and say things like, “Make sure you watch her because she can be shady.” Finally I broke from my trance and said what I was thinking.

“I know, I should have gone to North Carolina, but I didn’t want my mother to worry about me,” I said.

“I still don’t know what happened, and I know you’re never going to tell me, but there’s a new year coming, Aldridge. You need to try to put whatever happened in New Orleans behind you and start the year out right,” Maurice said. “You deserve some real happiness.”

“I think finding a new place to live will be the first thing I’ll do,” I said.

“Well, you picked the right time. It’s a buyer’s market. I’m going to buy some of the foreclosures in Midtown and rent them out.”

“With the economy being so weak, you sure are doing well,” I said, taking a bite from a muffin.

Maurice smiled, obviously satisfied with his life. “Yeah, things have picked up, but that’s because I haven’t limited myself to decorating houses. You know me, boi, I’m always working on a bigger plan,” Maurice said.

“That’s smart.”

“Go spruce yourself up, child. Maybe Santa left you a new outfit and you’ll meet your next boyfriend today.”

“I promise not to be a drag on your party. I’m almost looking forward to it. It’s been so long since I’ve been on my own at Christmas,” I said. I couldn’t help but remember the Christ-mases Dray and I had spent in various cities. Usually there wasn’t a game on Christmas Day, but if they had an away game the next day, the team would arrive on Christmas Day. Dray always had several gifts for me. The thing about Dray was that although he was preoccupied and demanding, he still paid attention. One year he gave me a Rolex watch with 13 on it, his jersey number and the date we met, simply because, he said, he knew it would make
me smile. We used to talk about the day when we would be able to spend Christmas together in our own home. For the longest time, I held on to this hope and truthfully I think Dray did too. Neither of us knew how or when this would come about, but we held out hope. Now that was never going to happen and I needed to give up that dream. But that was not going to happen overnight.

The Hornets had a game in New Orleans the day after Christmas, so I knew Dray was spending the day with
her.
Having come face to face with Judi in such an ugly way, I couldn’t begin to guess how he could stand to look at her at all, much less start a family. From the beginning I couldn’t understand what he saw in her, and now it was impossible to even guess.

I wasn’t looking forward to my return to New Orleans the next week, but there was a buyer for the town house and I needed to be there to supervise the packing of my prized paintings. The realtor thought leaving them up would help speed up the sale.

I sat watching yet another Christmas parade on television in Maurice’s guest room when I heard the first few guests arrive. One of them broke out with a loud “Girl, you got Christmas up in here in this camp for sure!” which set my back up. Even in the best of times, I didn’t know if I was ready for a bunch of queens on Christmas, much less now that I was mending a broken heart. I’d promised Maurice I wouldn’t be a drag, so I told myself to pull it together.

I moved through the kitchen and dining room and tried to give polite smiles and nods to the guests. They all appeared to be black gay men in their thirties and forties, handsomely dressed, but there were definitely too many Christmas ensembles with dangling handkerchiefs. From first glance, Maurice
wouldn’t have a hard time getting his invitation list down. Damn, I was starting to sound like his best friend.

They stared at me approvingly, as if I were a gift who’d just jumped out of a box. Having older men cruising me was the last thing I had on my mind, so I excused myself and moved back into the kitchen.

The Christmas spread looked like it was ready to be photographed for a food magazine. There were two golden-brown turkeys, a standing rib roast, and a honey-baked ham in the center of the table. Bowls of macaroni and cheese, candied yams, dressing, rolls, cornbread, and salad completed the feast. There were two handsome waiters in tuxes attending to the food and ready to serve the all-male dinner party.

By 3:00 all the guests had arrived. They seemed to know one another, giving warm hugs and kisses as each entered the room. It had been ages since I’d been alone with so many gay men, even longer since I’d been to a gay dinner party. I felt like an outsider in a room full of men you would think I would have had so much in common with. Maurice moved from one guest to the next with a bottle of champagne, refilling empty glasses as he went. Little did these poor fools know they were being judged by their host.

I noticed his ease with gay men and thought about how I never quite got on with them, not even in the beginning, when I was young and just coming out. I seldom saw myself reflected in that new gay world, and when I did it was usually some silly snap queen who had nothing in common with me other than being another black man who preferred sex with men. It made choosing as my partners men who didn’t identify as gay but slept with men that much easier.

Watching the genuine fondness these guys at the dinner party displayed openly and unambiguously for each other, I felt tenderness for them, for the tough path any black gay man had to walk. But as much as I was touched by their camaraderie, I couldn’t quite reach it. Their world and the one Dray and I lived in were as different as South Dakota and South Beach. I imagined what Dray would say walking into this scene, and I smiled without intending to. He’d have felt as out of place here as at a bridal shower.

Looking for a place to hide out and watch a game, I located a television in the study. I soon found myself thinking only about Dray as I watched the Miami Heat compete against the Cleveland Cavaliers. I was slightly amused as LeBron James’s mother was interviewed and revealed to the national television audience that she’d purchased some diamond cuff links for her son, but only after his stylist had approved them. I thought of two Christmases before, when I’d purchased the exact same thing for Dray and how happy he was with them. When he opened the black velvet box, he was so excited that he couldn’t wait to slip them into his shirt and model them for me.

Maurice came into the room looking a lot less festive.

“Well, making the cut is going to be easier than I thought. I can’t believe the nerve of that bitch,” he said, still holding the green champagne bottle. “Sloane Mouton came to my party. That bitch was not invited. If he thinks he going to get an invitation to my party, then the bitch is crazier than I thought. And trust me, I’m going to have top-notch security there.”

“Who is that?”

“This guy who I went out with a few times. Everything seemed great, but then he just stopped calling me without explanation. He wouldn’t return my calls either. I heard he was
trying to hit on Tay, so I guess he was looking for a sugar daddy. But I got his ass. I had all his utilities cut off and tried to cancel his credit cards, but I realized the bitch most likely didn’t have any. I don’t know if he knows I did it, but I paid his ass back good,” Maurice fumed.