Just Wanna Testify (23 page)

Peachy could almost see the boys slumping in relief as they realized maybe all was not lost.

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Hamilton,” Jerome said, sounding all choked up. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, yet,” Blue said. “This isn’t about defending you.
You don’t deserve defending. Your behavior toward the women in your life is unacceptable, and there will be consequences.”

The color drained from their faces, and those five different shades of brown turned into one terrified shade of gray.

“Consequences?” Hayward Jones’s voice squeaked like he was just entering puberty.

“This is not the time for you to ask questions,” Blue said quietly. “This is the time for you to listen to what I say as if your lives depended on it, because they do.”

“Yes, sir.” They spoke in one voice, their eyes as wide as children’s.

“I am prepared to protect you from these vampires at great risk to my own life and the lives of my friends, and in exchange, you will work for me here in West End for one year doing exactly as I say. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” they whispered, wishing they had enough nerve to ask him what kind of work they’d be doing, but grateful that whatever it was, it would not involve sex and death.

“Your contact with women will be strictly limited until you have completed a rigorous course of study, reeducation, and reprogramming that will attempt to completely change your inability to form and sustain productive, positive, truthful relationships with women. That will be your primary job.”

Peachy admired Blue’s resolve, but he wondered how the hell they were supposed to move these guys from where they were to where they needed to be in one short year. He figured Blue would tell him soon enough. Right now, all he had to do was get them fitted for their tuxes.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“At the end of one year, if you do everything I tell you to do, maybe you’ll begin to know what a man is and what a man does. And then, if you’re very lucky, maybe the next time you need a woman to stand up for you, you won’t have to come crawling to me because you can’t find one. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, because let me assure you that if you don’t do exactly as I say, you will wish you had taken your chances with the vampires.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Speak up!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Good, then our business is over for now. I want you to go with Mr. Nolan so he can get you fitted for the benefit.”

As they stood up to leave, the panic returned to Lance Young’s eyes. “But if we’re not going anywhere, why do we have to go to the benefit at all?”

“Because,” Blue said, “you’re going to be singing backup.”

Abbie was already standing in the back of Club Zebra talking to Miss Iona when Regina arrived. They had agreed to meet there because Miss Iona wanted them to see the decorations and they wanted to see one another. The building was buzzing with final preparations for the benefit, but Miss Iona was the calm center in the eye of the storm. Everything was so well organized that she had time to stop and give them a quick update.

Good thing she doesn’t know about the vamps
, Regina thought. Miss Iona would have called the National Guard, since her Civil Rights movement experiences didn’t include driving sharpened stakes through anybody’s heart.

“The press has been calling all day asking if we’re going to do a red carpet thing because those girls are coming,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I told them the whole idea of a speakeasy is to be hard to
find. A red carpet sort of goes against the whole idea of what we’re doing.”

Zeke Burnett always described it as “a floating speakeasy and cabaret, and the international center of bohemian negritude.” Miss Iona was taking him at his word, although Club Zebra hadn’t been a speakeasy since the early days and true negritude was as hard to find these days as true love.

“Everything looks great,” Abbie said, nodding her approval while Iona beamed. She knew that if Abbie liked it, Peachy would love it.

The small stage was already set up with the bandstand and several microphones. The front tables were so close that the people who sat there would be able to reach out and touch the performers, which is why those seats were reserved for Blue’s guests, not his fans. At such close range, fans were guaranteed to act a fool.

“Where are you going to put my candleholders?”

“Upstairs,” Iona said. “The art students over at Spelman made a completely amazing Zebra out of papier-mâché that you are going to love, almost as much as I love that husband of yours.”

“Join the club.” Regina forced herself to smile. “What’s he done now to earn your adoration?”

“Well, he knows we’ve got this huge overflow of folks coming, so he’s giving me five Morehouse seniors to help with greeting people and making everybody feel welcome.”

Regina knew exactly what five students she was talking about. She nodded her approval.

“That’s great,” Regina said.

“Peachy’s going to have them all in tuxes in time for Saturday night, too,” Iona said, as a uniformed deliveryman walked in, all but obscured by a giant bouquet of birds-of-paradise.

“Look at this chile. All in the wrong place, just as big as you please. No, no, no!” Iona said. “That goes upstairs by the … Oh, come on, sweetie. Let me show you.”

She turned to Abbie and Regina as the deliveryman struggled to
turn around without bumping into anything. “Tell Blue to call me if he has any questions or concerns, but everything will be ready for whatever he wants to do.”

She was referring to whether Blue wanted to sing or not, a decision he always made at the moment he stood up to thank everybody for coming. Folks always wanted him to sing, but he never promised he would. The anticipation made the experience even more exciting, if he actually stepped forward and nodded his head to cue the band.

“I’ll tell him,” Regina said, as the door closed behind Iona and she turned to Abbie. “Shall we sit for a minute?”

Abbie pulled out a chair at the closest table. “Absolutely.”

Regina took one, too. They looked at each other and Abbie attempted a shaky smile that she couldn’t quite pull off. Regina reached for her hand.

“You okay?”

Abbie nodded and took a deep breath. “I’m okay. It’s just that …”

“What? Tell me.”

“I don’t know how I can look at either one of them if we let them go through with it.”

“How can we stop them?” Regina had been hoping Abbie had a plan.

“I don’t know.”

“Those women told me I couldn’t understand the way they felt because I’ve got Blue,” Regina said. “Do you think that’s true? Am I out of touch with how bad things have gotten between men and women?”

“Of course you are,” Abbie said. “You’re living under ideal conditions with a perfect man.”

“Blue’s not perfect,” Regina said.

Abbie raised her eyebrows. “When is the last time he lied to you?”

“Never.”

“Raised his hand to you?”

“Never!”

“Ignored Sweetie?”

“Never.”

“Didn’t take his responsibilities seriously as a man, as a husband, as a father, as a friend?”

“Never, never, never, and never.”

Abbie looked at Regina with a small smile. “Sounds like perfection to me.”

“But what does that mean for our future?” Regina said. “If no woman will vouch for a man when a woman’s words are all that stand between him and annihilation, how can we go on together?”

They sat in silence, a small island of stillness in the midst of all the last-minute preparations.

“Maybe that’s what this is all about,” Abbie said finally, and her voice was very quiet.

“What?” Regina had been lost in her own thoughts.

“Maybe these vampires are giving us a chance to ask ourselves that question.”

She sounded so miserable, Regina squeezed her hand gently.

“Blue keeps reminding me they’re vampires, not women.”

“But they used to be women,” Abbie said. “Once upon a time, before all the bad choices and the bad men and the unavoidable consequences, they were women in love, just like us.”

That was exactly what Regina had been turning over in her mind all night. If they got this way only in self-defense, couldn’t they consider changing their ways once the danger disappeared?

“But they’re not like us anymore.”

Abbie smoothed the striped tablecloth, a Club Zebra trademark. “We don’t know that to be one hundred percent true.”

Regina looked at Abbie, who was still smoothing the tablecloth like it was the most important thing on her mind. “What do you mean?”

Abbie clasped her hands in her lap and looked at Regina. “I mean we have to find that one tiny little speck of a real woman that I believe is hiding in there right in the middle of all that vampire stuff.”

Regina thought of Aretha’s comment about Abbie’s deep-seated
belief in the goodness of all beings, even the undead. “What makes you so sure it’s still in there?”

“I’m
not
sure,” Abbie said, “but I found a new golf bag full of sharpened sticks in my back room closet and I can’t just sit here and let them do what I know they’re going to do. I
am
sure of that.”

“It’s almost like it isn’t fair,” Regina said slowly. “It was men who made their mother go looking for a spell in the first place and now it’s going to be men who …” She searched for a word. “
Eliminate
them.”

“
Our
men,” Abbie said. “The men we love.”

And that, she realized, was the real challenge of the vampires. If there was no real possibility of creating anything with any man that could be identified even loosely as a good relationship, what was the point of letting them hang around indefinitely? The vamps’ curse wasn’t that they used to drink blood, Regina thought suddenly. Their curse was that they didn’t believe in love anymore. There was only one thing to do.

She stood up quickly and reached for her purse.

“What’s wrong?” Abbie stood up, too.

“Nothing,” Regina said. “Come ride with me. We need to talk to Blue.”

When they arrived at the West End News, Abbie stayed out front with a cappuccino and a copy of
The Sentinel
, while Regina went in the back to talk to Blue. Abbie had endorsed Regina’s plan immediately, but they agreed that she should discuss it with Blue alone first. If he didn’t agree to it, there was no plan B.

Blue greeted her with a kiss after Henry closed the door and they were alone. “I heard you went by the club,” he said, pulling out a chair for her at the table where he had been sitting. “Everything looking good?”

“It looks wonderful,” she said. “Iona wanted me to tell you that if you decide to sing, they’ve got everything hooked up and ready to go.”

Blue’s face didn’t change, but his eyes darkened. “I won’t be singing this time.”

“Why not?”

“If my mind isn’t on it, then my heart won’t be in it,” he said gently.

“Not even if you’re singing to me?”

“I’m always singing to you.”

“Listen, Blue,” she said, leaning across the table and touching his arm lightly. “I have an idea about another way to do what needs to be done.”

“Tell me,” he said without a moment’s hesitation. She loved him for taking her seriously and not giving her any variation of,
Don’t worry your pretty little head about it
.

“Do you remember when I first met you?”

“You mean this time around?”

“Yes.” She smiled at his need for clarity, since he had a clear memory of her through at least two prior lifetimes. “When I had just gotten out of rehab.”

He nodded. “I remember.”

“Well, the thing I didn’t realize at first was that somewhere between the bad drugs and the bad boyfriends, I had stopped believing in love. I did not believe that there could be anything in this world between a man and a woman like what I wanted love to feel like.” She looked at Blue, trying to find the right words. “And then I heard you sing and it was like a whole different set of possibilities opened up for me. I know this sounds corny, but when you sang to me, it broke something open in my heart, in a good way—not like a sharp stick would do, but like the sweetest sound you ever heard would do. And I realized love was still real and we could still walk this road together, a man and a woman, two free people, and nobody had to bite anybody’s head off as part of the deal.”