Choose Me (17 page)

“Love, close your mouth,” she said, kissing me on the cheek with the same lips she had used on the stranger. I forced myself
not to wipe my face like I used to do when she kissed me in front of my boys when I was young.

“Who … who was that?” I asked when I found my voice.

“Jameson Stevens,” she said matter-of-factly, turning to go inside.

“I know his
name.
Who
is
he?” I followed her into the condo and closed the door.

“He’s my friend.”

“Boyfriend?”

She laughed boisterously and gave me a patronizing look. “Boyfriends are for young girls, Love. He’s my companion.”

I dreaded thinking what the term “companion” encompassed. I didn’t want to know if she was sleeping with him, though I knew
it was unlikely. My mother took her Christianity very seriously. I didn’t want to know if she loved him or was planning to
marry him. I didn’t want to know anything, but I needed to know everything. “And?” I asked.

“And none of your business. I’m a grown woman. Now, what did you bring me?”

I handed her the shopping bag of fresh fruit and herbal teas I bought at her favorite organic grocery store, enough for two
months. She squealed like they were diamonds. My mother no longer ate sweets, so birthday cakes were useless. “Happy Birthday,
Mama,” I said dryly.

She kissed me again and I took a seat in the dining room.

“Look at this cantaloupe. Beautiful! Grapes!”

Two new stained glass creations with abstract designs hung in the dining room. Her artwork, along with the numerous stained
glass supplies, had taken over the apartment, obscuring family portraits of her children and grandchildren. The cats, Mr.
and Mrs. Jones, strolled into the dining room, barely acknowledging my presence. They knew I didn’t like them and the feeling
was mutual.

I handed her the birthday card, which she quickly opened. In her haste, the money I put in it fell to the floor.

“Adam, what did I tell you about giving me money? When I need it, I’ll ask for it.”

I picked up the money and tried to hand it to her. “Put it in the bank until you need it.”

“No, you put it in the bank and give it to me when I ask for it.” She began reading the card. “Oh, you wrote me a poem.”

I sighed and stuck the money in my wallet. “Don’t read it out loud.”

“I’ll wait ’til your sister gets here.” She put the card aside and began to prepare her infamous fruit salad.

“So, who is this Jameson Stevens?” I asked, inconspicuously examining her apartment for evidence of his stay.

“I told you. He is my companion. He lives in the building. And he accompanies me to book readings, to the museums, all the
places your father never wanted to go. We have a good time.”

“Not too good a time, I hope,” I added, half jokingly.

“Be careful what you’re implying, young man. I’m a Christian,” she scolded, but then she smiled. “How about you? Have you
met anybody? Have you even tried to find a good woman?”

“Mama,” I warned.

“Oh, you can ask about my business, but I can’t ask about yours?”

“I met a woman,” I admitted softly before I could stop myself. “We went out for coffee.” I didn’t know why I mentioned Eva.
Perhaps because I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. I hardly ever discussed my relationships with my mother. I
gave her bits and pieces about certain women I had dated, and over the years, I brought a couple of them to family picnics,
barbecues, and other informal gatherings, but I never actually brought one home “to meet Mama.” Not only because I knew no
woman would ever be good enough for me in my mother’s eyes, but because despite this, she would probably hear wedding bells
if she saw me with one woman more than once. I knew that if I were to introduce Eva to her, they would probably hit it off,
given the religion connection, and that made me very uneasy.

“Coffee? Hmmm. What’s she like?”

“She’s uh … she’s … tough, funny. Smart. And, uh … Puerto Rican.”

“Puerto Rican?” She said this like I had said she was a Martian.

“Yes.”

“Puerto Rican? Does she speak English?”

“Of course she does. She was born here.”

My mother, while profoundly spiritual, was adamant about interracial or interfaith relationships—not that she was prejudiced,
she was always quick to point out. She truly believed that the more people had in common, the more likely the compatibility.
She still believed my sister’s marriage broke up, not because of infidelity, but because she had married a Korean man. The
fact that he had been a Catholic, which my mother considered different from Christian, was just one more reason why their
marriage failed—in Mama’s eyes.

In the past few days since Eva and I had coffee, I thought about her quite a bit and found myself feeling stupid for doing
so. It had been a long time since I had allowed a woman to creep into my thoughts so often and for such a minor encounter
as having coffee. One would have thought I had had sex for the first time. Whupped was not something I have ever been and
it did not fit me well.

I had not planned to visit her church, but something woke me early the previous Sunday and so I went. I tried to remember
the last time I had stepped foot in a church other than the biannual holy days, and I vaguely remembered going back around
the time when I was sick, when I begged God not to let me die.

The Community Church of Christ was filled to capacity by the time I arrived and I was forced to stand in the back with the
other latecomers and irregular attendees. I had passed the church many times on my route to and from work but had never given
it a second glance. Churches had become part of the regular urban landscape, as ordinary as storefronts and gas stations.
As Eva had promised, I found the pastor’s voice riveting in a subdued sort of way. Although there seemed to be a lot of emphasis
on marriage in his sermon, his delivery was what captivated me, the way he held the audience’s attention without getting all
worked up. From the back, I could see only the backs of people’s heads and I took note of the varying hair colors and textures
reflecting the multicultural congregation, something I had never witnessed. I had attended all-Black churches all my life,
and been to a couple of all-White churches for the weddings of old college friends and coworkers. This was an eye-opening
experience.

When the pastor announced altar call, one of the ushers turned to me and asked,
“Do you know Jesus?”
My first impulse was to ask him,
Does anyone really know Him?
But instead I just nodded slightly, uncertain what “knowing” Jesus entailed. Did I believe He existed or was He a constant
presence in my life? I felt very self-conscious and out of place, and then I began to panic, afraid someone would discover
I was a visitor and drag me to the altar. I was one of the first ones out the door.

“She’s a Christian,” I added.

“Hmmm. Is she Christian-
Christian,
or Catholic?” she asked suspiciously. “You know a lot of Hispanics are Catholic.”

“I think the preferred term is ‘Latino.’ She’s Evangelical, I think.”

“Well, that’s good,” she said approvingly. “Maybe she’ll get you to go to church.”

As my eyes wandered around my mother’s living room, I tried not to look at the framed pictures on the walls and tables, because
my father was in almost every single one: my sister and I as children, sitting on his lap; my father and I at my high school
graduation, which he attended in a wheelchair; my mother and sister at his hospital bed at home during his last days when
he resembled a famine victim. More prominent was the eleven-by-fourteen oil painting my mother had commissioned after his
death, a portrait of him when he was young and suave and eerily resembled me. It hung over his old raggedy La-Z-Boy Every
time I looked at his hazel eyes and sly smile, all I could think about was his betrayal and the lie he had lived.

I looked away from the photos and settled my eyes on a pile of magazines on the end table. On top was an issue of
Diaspora,
the magazine Eva had mentioned. I picked it up and saw it was last month’s issue and turned to the table of contents; there
was Eva’s name, next to the article, “Bringing G-O-D Back to Schools After 9–11.”

“When did you start reading this?” I asked my mother.

She looked up and shrugged. “They’ve been sending me free copies. It’s pretty good. I might start subscribing.”

I turned to the article and started reading to get a feel of Eva’s writing style. It was more in depth than the newspaper
editorial and emphasized her objectivity, knowledge of politics, and the Bible.

“Are you coming with me next week to visit your father?” I heard my mother ask as I tried to concentrate.

My jaw tightened. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m trying to read,” I replied sternly, trying not to get upset with her. “You know I don’t believe in visiting graves.”

“Love, at some point, you’re going to have to forgive your father.”

“He’s
dead.
You can’t forgive
dead
people,” I said, stressing the “dead” each time.

“Sure you can. He’s hanging over you like a bad spirit. You’re still angry with him and your anger is keeping you from committing
yourself in a relationship. You keep bouncing from woman to woman with no plans to settle down just because—”

I looked up at her without bothering to cover up my irritation. “Mama, I haven’t been with a woman since— You know what, I’m
not having this discussion with you. Not today.”

“’Cause you know I’m right—”

The doorbell buzzed and I happily jumped up. It was Jade and the kids. After recently divorcing her husband, Jade would be
prime fodder for my mother’s nit-picking. It didn’t matter that Jade ran a successful catering and wedding coordinator business,
or that she was studying for her real estate license; she was a divorced woman and single mother, the equivalence of a fallen
woman in my mother’s eyes. “Hurry,” I whispered into the intercom and buzzed her in.

I opened the door and walked out into the hallway to greet them when they got off the elevator.

“Unc-Adam, Unc-Adam!” Kia and Daelen screamed my name as if it were one word.

I scooped up my niece and nephew in each arm and mimicked their munchkin voices, “Unc-Adam!” At four and three, they were
at the age where they were still cute and not yet annoying.

“She starting already?” Jade whispered in my ear, kissing my cheek. I nodded. My baby sister looked like a teenager in her
bare midriff top and low-riding, hip-hugging jeans, which she pulled up to hide her exposed bellybutton from our mother. She
had recently cut her long hair into a chin-length bob and colored it a very light brown, all of which my mother had criticized.
Jade proceeded toward Mama for the obligatory hug and kiss. “I know you don’t eat cake, Mama, but I bought one anyway. My
kids associate birthdays with cake, not fruit and salad. Sorry.” I could see Mama scrutinizing her, ready to attack.

“You’re the one who’s making your dentist rich,” Mama said shrugging, eyeing my sister from bottom to top as she cut up the
cantaloupe.

“You look good, baby sister,” I commented to get her on my side. I set the kids down so they could divert their grandmother’s
attention with more hugs and kisses.

Mama stopped cutting in order to bend to her grandbabies’ level. In the midst of their affectionate exchange, she looked up
at Jade. “What is that on your nose?”

Jade and I looked at each other. I hadn’t noticed the tiny stud in her nose. It was barely noticeable but she might as well
have had a hoop ring hanging out of her nostril under Mama’s radar.
Your turn,
I related telepathically Jade scowled and shoved a piece of cantaloupe into her mouth. “A nose ring,” she mumbled.

Mama shook her head, but said nothing more. This was typical Mama, storing ammunition for surprise assaults. “Your brother’s
seeing a Puerto Rican woman,” she then said.

“Mama …” I warned.

“What’s a Putta Weeken?” Kia asked.

We all burst out laughing.

“It’s someone who’s from Puerto Rico, a country,” I explained to my precocious niece, picking her up and kissing her cheek.

“Oh,” Kia said, nodding with total comprehension.

“Jade, baby. Have you decided to stop dressing like a decent woman now that your husband has left you?” Mama asked, now turning
back to Jade. Despite Jade’s annoyance, I grinned, happy once again that my mother was off my back.

When I returned home, there was a voice mail message from Ms. Miller asking me to call her back right away. “It’s about Justin,”
she said before hanging up. I sighed, wondering what Justin had done now. Before I called her, I put a couple of Maze and
Brian Hughes CDs on the stereo and took a shower. When I was finally relaxing in a T-shirt and boxers, I felt prepared for
any drama Ms. Miller would dish out.

“Ms. Miller. What’s going on?” I asked authoritatively.

“Justin didn’t go to work. I called his job and his boss said he phoned in sick. None of his friends have seen him and his
cell phone is turned off,” she said quietly. She had called before with the same complaint; the first time she told me Justin
hadn’t come home from school. I was new to the game and went to her house, only to find her dressed in a short black dress,
claiming she had just come in from a date to find Justin gone—Ricky was spending the night at a friend’s. She was slightly
drunk and crying, upset that a date had stood her up. When she tried to make a move on me, I left. Later, I found out from
Justin that she had insisted he spend the night at a cousin’s.

“What about the girl? What’s her name? Diane?”

“Her phone’s disconnected. I’d go to her house if I knew where she lived. She has a car, can you believe it? A sixteen-year-old
girl with a car? She has a cell phone, but I don’t know the number.”

“It’s only eight o’clock. It’s still early. If he isn’t home by ten, call me back.”

“I’m getting worried. Can you come over?”

Big Brothers weren’t supposed to get emotionally involved in the lives of their charges, I reminded myself every time. And
we definitely were not supposed to get involved with the mothers. We were supposed to help with homework, transport the boys
to extracurricular activities, be more like big brothers than fathers—hence the name. But it was a difficult task in a society
full of divorced and fatherless families. At orientation, the program director told the new recruits a story of a mentor who
fell in love with his protégé’s mother. When the love affair was over, the mother became angry and began to stalk the mentor,
who eventually had to file a restraining order. She then began taking out her frustration on her son and eventually lost custody
of him. It was an extreme case but an example of what could happen when bounds were overstepped.