A voice called out, “Who’s back there, please?”
I yelled, “It’s me, Juanita.”
“It’s after one in the morning. What are you doing?”
I was in the T-shaped alley by the garages, leaning my mattress and box spring against the wall.
Dana might have been right about one thing. My holding on to that bed might’ve been my way of holding on to Malaika. And the videotape was my VHS trophy. That’s not what she’d said, but I think that was what she meant. Given time, every trophy grew old.
Juanita came through the gate and asked, “What’s all that noise?”
She saw my mattress leaning against the side of the garage.
Naiomi was behind her. She saw me, and her eyes dropped for the pavement.
Juanita asked, “Couldn’t you do that at a more decent hour?”
“I could.”
Both were dressed in jeans, sandals, and rainbow-colored T-shirts. And they were standing shoulder to shoulder with cutlery knives in their fists. Naiomi’s weapon was in her right hand; Juanita’s was in her left. In this land of Uzis and Mac-10s, I wondered what they thought a couple of three-inch blades would do back here.
Naiomi stared at me for a moment. In her eyes existed no trace of the woman who had sat in my lap, chanted out her lust while she asked me to run away to an exotic land with her and live on rice and beans.
She was somebody else now. So was I. Calmer. Clearer.
Juanita said, “Naiomi and I had a discussion. Let me be direct. Things I said to you were of the emotional nature, and I had no right to express my opinion in such a manner.”
“Apology accepted. What I said to you was disrespectful. A man shouldn’t address a woman like that. My momma wouldn’t like what I said.”
“Apology accepted.”
That was the end of that. A warriors’ truce.
Juanita asked, “Where are you putting that mattress?”
“I’m leaving it outside the gate for the trash man.”
“Why didn’t you donate it to one of the neighbors?”
“Don’t want to see it. Don’t want it in my geographical frame.”
Juanita made a delicate sound, took a few steps, then turned away like she was leaving. She took a few steps, looked back and said, “Naiomi?”
Juanita paused, waiting for her woman to catch up. Naiomi went to Juanita and kissed her. Juanita smiled a little. Naiomi patted Juanita on the butt, then said, “Go ahead. I want to check the locks on the garages.”
Juanita and Naiomi shared eyes for a moment, then Juanita glanced my way. That was interrupted when the sound of a car alarm pierced the lull in our conversation.
Naiomi said, “Baby, that sounds like your car.” Juanita let Naiomi’s hand go. “Yes, it does, sweetheart.”
Juanita stared at her woman, then at me, waited another moment before she trotted toward the front of the building. Her house shoes scraped and slapped against the narrow concrete walkway, made a hurry-hurry noise as she jogged around the corner.
Naiomi sighed.
I asked, “You find it?”
“I found it. Not that finding the thing makes it any better.”
I sighed.
She said, “Mr. Browne, it shouldn’t have happened.”
I nodded.
She went on, “There was no future in what we did.”
The car alarm shut off.
Naiomi continued, “I want to apologize for the way I reacted when, you know. When I couldn’t find it.”
“Are you ovulating?”
Naiomi’s eyes widened with surprise.
“Are you?”
“Not that it’s your business, but no.” She cleared her throat, blew some air. “You didn’t cover my furniture before you left . . .”
I said, “The Hilton.”
No reply from her.
I shifted, put my hands in my back pocket, held on to my butt.
Naiomi said, “It didn’t happen, Mr. Browne. As far as I’m concerned. For what it’s worth, our curiosity has been satisfied. Let’s move on.”
The echo of house shoes flip-flopping stopped her flow. I made out Juanita’s voice having a saucy conversation with somebody. Naiomi hurried out into the alleyway, put some distance between us, and started pulling on the garage door locks, making it look like that’s what she’d been doing while her soft-legged lover was absent.
Juanita appeared. Dana was with her. Her braids were gone. Hair jet black, bone straight, parted down the center. Permed, hot-combed, I don’t know. Dark lipstick. Dressed in black stretch jeans, gray stretch blouse, black mules, leather backpack purse hang-ing from one shoulder.
Dana was irritated. “Juanita, my car barely bumped your funky little car. That’s why cars have bumpers. Just in case people bump into them.”
Juanita said, “Dana, either invest in a driving class or find some other alternative place to park. I don’t like you banging into my car, and neither do the neighbors.”
Dana’s spirit had changed as well. Strife was in her cat eyes.
Naiomi came back, stopped side by side with Dana. To me, there was no comparison. After dealing with Womack’s problem, a load had been lifted, my head clearer than the moonless sky standing over my head.
Dana finally said in a heavy voice, “Hey, Vince.”
“Hey yourself. What’s up?”
“I got your message about my laundry. And I need to get my mail.”
Dana didn’t come close enough for a hug, but her perfume touched my nose. A different brand, not by Terry Ellis. No more En Vogue for my senses. She reeked with freshness, with newness.
Dana made a strange sound, said, “You threw the bed out.”
“Yeah.”
Her lips twisted; she sucked in one side of her jaw.
She asked, “Why?”
“It was time.”
Juanita and Naiomi left, hand in hand.
Dana’s pager went off. She turned it off without checking the digits.
She said, “I want to talk to you, if that’s okay.”
“It’s okay.”
Dana headed up my stairs. I finished up, then followed.
With the exception of the streetlights slipping through the venetian blinds, the apartment was dark.
I called out, “Dana?”
She answered, “In the bathroom. Leave the lights off.”
“Why?”
“What I have to say will be easier this way.”
My feet followed her voice. I knew my way around my cave and there was enough light to outline everything. The bathroom door wasn’t closed all the way. The night-light was on, so I could see that she was sitting on the toilet, body forward, head between her knees.
I said, “Constipated?”
“Thinking.”
Conflict was in the air. I leaned against the wall in the hallway, slid down until my butt rested on the brown carpet, rested my cheeks in the palms of my hands.
Soft sensual noises slipped from Juanita and Naiomi’s apartment through my walls. They were humming a chorus of sweet sexuality and eternal forgiveness. Either Dana didn’t notice or she didn’t care.
Dana started peeing. A long, hard squirt.
My stomach ached like I’d eaten some of that mad cow beef that Oprah had warned people about. Nerves gave me gas. I shifted, let that silent killer ride, closed my eyes, tried to make the darkness darker.
She told me, “I’m going back to New York.”
“For how long?”
“Forever.”
My phone rang and interrupted us.
A guy said, “Vince?”
I responded, “Yeah. Who this?”
He hung up. Malaika’s husband came to mind. Made me want to know if he’d found my phone number laying around and dialed my digits.
I went back to the hall, picked up on our conversation.
For a few minutes we sat in a sea of apologies. We acknowledged the fight. Told her I was sorry, never meant to touch her the way I did, but those straws of discontent had worn me down. Her apologies were just as strong. We both tried to take all the blame instead of placing the blame. At some point we called a truce, let it be a no-fault.
She said, “Claudio wants me to go back to Harlem with him.”
“He’d say anything to get you to sleep with ’im.”
Matter-of-factly she responded, “Just like you did, right?”
I paused. “What if I want you to stay here?”
“I can’t do L.A. anymore. This place just ain’t me.”
“Thought you liked the weather.”
“Weather? L.A. has two seasons: wet and dry. And my season has been dry since I landed here. If I went back home, would you move there with me?”
“You know I couldn’t.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“What’s what you mean?”
“My feet are in quicksand; yours are trapped in concrete.”
Her clothes rustled when she leaned to pull off some tissue, rustled again when she leaned forward so she could clean herself.
I asked, “You love me?”
The toilet flushed. She washed her hands, then stepped into the hallway, sat on the floor across from me, her back to the wall.
Dana said, “That’s always been part of the problem. Falling in love is easy. Being in love is so damn hard.”
The
oohs
and
ahhs
that were traveling through my walls faded.
“What’s the deal between you and your ex?”
“What do you mean?”
“You love the guy, is it a physical attraction?”
A moment went by.
She said, “This is weird.”
“What?”
She ran her fingers through her straight hair. “Us talking like this.”
“Want to stop?”
“Too bad we didn’t do this in the beginning.”
“Nobody talks like this in the beginning.”
“Yeah, honesty is like seeing a crackhead up close: it ain’t that fucking attractive.”
Soft laughs.
I stared at Dana and I saw this little girl. An innocent child who played double Dutch like a demon before misery moved into her life. Sometimes I saw this twinkle in her eyes, and I swear to God that she was still six years old, skipping over cracks as she laughed all the way to public school. Soft eyes the color of a ripe potato. Full lips with no war paint, but ready to do battle at the drop of a hat. Hair a little nappy at the roots, pulled into four plaits.
Now she was a woman. The idealism has faded.
“Would you go to hell for me, Vince?”
“Considering where I’ve been, hell would be an upgrade.”
It wasn’t the child, but the innocence in her eyes, the sparkle behind her frustration, that was what I loved. In some ways the misery and suffering, I was attracted to that too. Maybe because of my own misery and suffering. Shit that made me more human.
Dana went in the living room and came back with her tote bag, the one she kept all of her ReMax papers in. She hesitated, then eased down the wall, sat down on the same exact spot where she’d rested before.
She told me, “This is my present to you.”
It was the size of an eight-by-ten, wrapped in brown paper. I tore the wrapping paper off. She’d made copies of Kwanzaa’s pictures, blown them up and had them perma-plaqued. Black, trimmed in old gold.
I said, “This is more beautiful than beautiful. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“This is so—unexpected.”
“Told you, I’m unpredictable and uncontrollable.”
Dana gathered her mail. Her laundry was hanging in the doorway to the bedroom. She grabbed those clothes, read the receipt, then took out her checkbook. I had moved into the kitchen, put a teapot on the stove.
She put a check on the counter.
She said, “I get a commission check in a few days. I’ll pay you my part of the rent, utilities, phone bill, what have you then.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I have to pay my debts. I’m not that kinda girl.”
She watched me. I watched her too.
Our gazes were broken when the yellow teapot whistled its song.
I asked, “Tea?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
I made two cups. We walked over to the love seat, took out two silver coasters, ones with Egyptian designs and soft felt bottoms, and put one close to her end of the coffee table. She sipped and cleared her throat.
“Vince, I wasn’t ready.”
“For what?”
“For you. For another relationship.”
I listened. Sipped my tea and loaned her my ears.
She went on, “I have unresolved stuff.”
“We all do.”
“Honestly, you ever really got over Malaika?”
I shrugged, looked for the answer in my palms. “I guess not.”
We pulled down our walls and we talked. I think I started it off. Told her things I should’ve told her from the get-go. Told her all about Malaika. How we met. How I went out of my way, did everything, spent every waking moment and every dime to woo her into my life. And about the comings up and goings down, told her how we broke up on that rainy night. Told her all about that night. It wasn’t easy and I didn’t sugarcoat it.
She said, “Damn, Vince. That was pretty fucked up. You were paying the house note, bought her a new car, and—damn. What did she do?”
“All she had to do was be my wife.”
“Shit, wish I could’ve had that job back then. I’d’ve been one cooking, cleaning, soap opera watching—shit. I wish.”
Some laughter.
She said, “Well, I guess we’ve been through a lot of the same crap.”
We sat, sipped cup of tea after cup of tea and talked. We should’ve done that from the start. Then the end wouldn’t be staring in our faces right now.
But that’s not the way love goes. You show the good, disguise the bad.
I didn’t tell her what I had done for Womack tonight. Didn’t tell her that every time I heard a police siren my insides jumped, wondering if they were coming back for me. Womack had a wife. His kids lived under his wings, were being raised by his words. He had a parent, living to be witness to all he had done, to testify all that he stood for. While I had a breath in my body, nothing was going to take that away. Nobody was going to force him to wear shoes like mine, heavy boots too tight to the fit.