Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun (9 page)

For several days, Reggie and I kept asking after Toussaint, wondering what had happened to him. In some ways, having someone else to worry about eased the awkwardness that still hovered between us. But nothing more was heard from Toussaint. The regular chef came back and life at Good Life returned to normal, as normal as normal could be in a place like this. And then when I heard that I was finally leaving, I gave Reggie my phone number and he gave me his. We promised to stay in touch.

I felt relieved to be going home even though I was anxious about what I might find upon my return. Sunshine and an occupational therapist would be accompanying me. The occupational therapist was there to assess whether it was safe for me to live on my own. So I steeled myself, knowing that both would be observing me closely when we got home.

The first thing I looked for were my books. I’d been dreading this and sure enough, just glancing around the
apartment, my heart sank. The only books I could see were those on the shelves and they were so neatly arranged that it looked like my apartment was being staged, as though someone was getting ready to sell it. Was this something else that Sunshine hadn’t told me? My heart started to race. There were gaps in between the books where ornaments had been placed – a vase here, a photograph there. All the books were arranged by size: the fat cookbooks sat next to the dictionaries and the slim poetry books were nestled in between the children’s books. Sunshine was watching me and asked me if I was okay. ‘I’m okay,’ I said, biting my lip. Then Sunshine and the OT left me for a moment to inspect the bathroom for handrails and other safety features. I snatched the car keys from where someone had placed them on the kitchen counter and let myself out. In the lobby I met Li Wei who handed me the latest stack of letters. He didn’t know that I’d been away and, as he searched in the crevices of his postman’s bag for any additional envelopes addressed to me, he told me that his son was now a doctor.

‘Just like you!’ he said, finally looking up and then noticing my tears. ‘Doctor!’ he exclaimed. ‘What’s wrong?’

But I didn’t want him to see me crying so I waved goodbye, apologizing as I hurried off.

I sat for some moments, tears rolling silently down my cheeks. I was happy to be back, of course I was. I was even happy to see how tidy the apartment looked, despite the missing books; but it was the emptiness that frightened me, made worse by all these cards – more personal notes and cards than I’d received in years. From France, from
India, from Nigeria, and from friends I never thought I’d hear from again. I could hear my father’s voice saying, ‘Look what magic your seventy-fifth birthday has brought! Think of how fortunate you are, Morayo.’ And yet all these friends were so far away. They weren’t friends with whom I could share my daily life. And as for my shelf friends, as much as I loved them, they weren’t real friends either. I put Buttercup into gear and set off, not knowing where, just that I was going away and speeding. I switched on the radio and found the Bee Gees singing ‘Stayin’ Alive’ so I raised the volume and wound down my window. I knew that I wouldn’t pass my next driving test. But I was, ‘Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive. Ah, ha, ha, ha stayin’ alive.’ I took Oak Street headed for the freeway, towards the airport maybe. I wanted to drive fast. To close my eyes and feel the wind whip against my face and then drive faster and faster. When I was younger, I used to dream of going so fast that I’d lose control. That I’d drive head on into something so hard – a brick wall or an armoured truck – where the force of sudden impact would kill me, instantly. I had dreamt of a swift ending to what was once the pretence of my marriage and later the struggles of living alone while trying to make ends meet on a teacher’s salary. And here I was, now back to these old, familiar, destructive thoughts when I spotted the homeless woman. Or perhaps it was her backpack and the dog that I saw first, before I recognized the thin arms with the head slumped forward. I slowed down, drove around the block and got back to where she was sitting by the side of the road. I parked and went over to her.

‘You okay?’ I asked.

It takes me some minutes to reply cos when this woman asks if I’m okay, it makes me wanna cry. That someone would see me, stop, park their car and then come ask me if I was okay, I didn’t expect that, you know.

First of all, I’m having my period today. Second of all, my car got towed. And third of all, I’m love sick. But I don’t tell this woman any of that shit. I mean she might be a kind Samaritan, but I still don’t know her from Adam. And besides, her eyes are red so it looks like she’s been crying too. So I just tell her about my dad. That it’s been two years since he’s been gone and that this is his birthday weekend as well as Jerry Garcia’s. And then I say that they’re up in heaven together and my father’s teaching Jerry how to play golf, and Jerry and my dad are playing music together – cos my father knew what a Deadhead I was, you know. And then I start laughing cos the image of that, my dad and Jerry, well that makes me
happy. And it makes her laugh too. I mean everything is relative, you know.

And if there are people that think their stuff is better than mine because they have a musician as a husband or a boyfriend, then so be it, you know. But at the end of the day we all have to ask ourselves, what did I do for myself? Each of us in on a journey, so like, did you take yourself out on a retreat somewhere, alone, and get to soul-search your own sense of self? Or, you know, can you go anywhere by yourself, you know? And I’ve proven to myself, yogic-ly, that I can do this, you know. So no, I tell her, when she asks. I don’t have a home. But I’m doing fine. I have my car (well not exactly cos it’s towed right now) but normally I do. And it’s kind of her to offer me her own car. I’m not sure she actually
means
it, but her car wouldn’t be big enough for me anyway, not for all my stuff.

Do I feel safe? As a woman? Well I don’t think about it, I tell her. If you put that vibe out there it’s gonna attract that. So I just don’t put that unsafe vibe out there. I know I’m surrounded by a lot of love out here. There’s a lot of us out here and we take care of each other. I can hear, ‘Don’t worry’ and stuff like that. I can hear it through the trees, we have a good relationship and they move. They have a pulse. Any living thing has a pulse so I don’t fear. No. You can feel the vibes. I have other brothers and sisters that are closer to me than blood. You know? Without a struggle there is no progress. It’s what my new motto is. I’m only living in the moment. I know I want to start doing yoga again but I don’t wanna go to these classes where everybody’s dressed to the nines. It’s not the same
anymore. I belong to the Y but don’t take those classes. I just stretch on my own and stuff like that. I’m learning to let go of things.

And I guess that the woman likes what I’m saying because she tells me that I’m an inspiration and that she’s trying to let go of things too. Then she asks me what I’m reading and she smiles when she sees my book on Africa. She says she knows the owner really well, like maybe they were friends or something, so I have to explain how I found the damn thing in case she thinks that maybe I took it without asking permission or something. Then she tells me that she used to be an English professor and maybe she wants me to go back to school. But what I really wanna do is get married, you know. Find a good man. And she listens to me, like really listens to me, and I almost wanna ask if she’d be my grandmother, like my spiritual grandmother cos she has this calm about her and just talking to her makes me feel better. And then she wants to know about my tattoos.

Which one you wanna know about? I ask her. Well, this one is a yoga, I explain. I thought it was beautiful and the letters meant a lot to me. And so when my father died, I’m like, Dad, where should I put it? And all of a sudden my hand went down to the ankle, so how appropriate that was, you know. You have to pay attention to signs because they’re there, you know. It’s an easy thing. This one is because I love the Zen, cos I want to practice more. This one is in Chinese and it says, ‘The best is yet to come.’ That’s a song my father loved. This one is my middle name, Rachel, which means ‘little lamb’ in Hebrew, and I put it with a lion because I see myself as a lion too. This one is stolen from Angelina Jolie, tribal. Yeah, I copied. This is a
clothing line, Free People. This one’s a necklace, and the one on my wrist is a scarf. Clothing. Yeah, I love fashion. I mean not fashion-fashion but just putting good things together. ‘Like you,’ I tell her, cos I love all her colours and the turban in her hair. She tells me she has lots of fabrics from Africa. Should we have a fashion business together? Sure! I tell her. I’d love that. So I give her my number and she gives me hers and she tucks the paper into her bra, and I like that, so I do the same.

‘Well Buttercup, you’re my lion, aren’t you,’ I say, thinking of the woman’s tattoo while caressing the car’s gearstick. ‘Maybe I should’ve named you lion.’ I downshift to hear her roar. Buttercup was what my mum used to call me, did I ever tell you that? And now I’m twice as old as mum ever was. But we’ve aged well together, haven’t we, Buttercup? You looked a little extravagant when I first bought you but now we almost blend in, don’t we? You’re still not old though, compared to me. But sometime soon, once the driverless cars arrive, even you’ll be ancient. What do you make of that? Free, free at last?

So where to now, Buttercup? Do we drive off, into the sunset, or do we go back to visit Mr Reggie? Soon I might not be able to drive, you know. At least that’s what the DMV’s saying. How would you feel about having another owner? Reggie might be a better driver than me. He certainly sees better than I do. Might not scuff your rims
when he parks. What do you think? Do you think he’s sitting out there on that little bench of his? He might be puzzled if we turned up right now.

‘Missing this place, already?’ he’ll ask.

‘No,’ I’ll have to reply, ‘but I’ve missed you. And Pearl. And Bella. Especially you.’ Then maybe I’ll tell him that I dreamt about him. I’ll tell him that we danced the bossa nova to the Ferry Building where we ambled along, sampling Frog Hollow peaches and Early Girl tomatoes at the Farmers’ Market. That he bought each of us an ice-cream cone wrapped in a paper napkin, and that we sat by the bay in the afternoon sun eating our sweet treats. I licked my fingers to catch the melted drops of honey lavender and salted caramel; while Pearl, who’d turned hers upside down to see what would happen, had lost her raspberry swirl and crunched contentedly on what remained of the cone. Then I’ll tell him that my dream changed cities and I was back in Lagos with you, Buttercup. We’d taken Toussaint there for his first trip to the motherland. We were driving back from the airport when we got lost en route to cousin Remi’s house. I was driving round and around in circles and didn’t know where I was going until someone peered through my window and told me I’d gone blind. But I’m not going blind, am I, Buttercup? ‘Come on, baby, we can make this light!’ I down shift to third and I hear you roar back. ‘Well done, my lion,’ I smile, glancing in the rear-view mirror to see how many cars we’ve left behind. ‘One, two, three, four!’ I laugh. This will be a great drive. I can just feel it in my bones. ‘Come on now, Buttercup, let’s make this next light! Let’s overtake this slowpoke in front of us. Come on baby, gimme what you got.’ I rev the engine, sit up tall, and roaring, we go.

IN DEPENDENCE