Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva (41 page)

After parking the car, I picked my way around the mix of new and crumbling gravestones, most of them dotted with sprays of colorful plastic flowers, big in the South. Folks said, “Hmph, real blooms too expensive but plastic ones? Baby, you can’t kill those things with a stick.”

Easily remembering the plot where Mamma was buried, I slowly knelt, taking a moment before clearing away dead leaves.

“Hi, Mamma, it’s Beulah.”

As I closed my eyes, my fingers traced the mason’s outline of my mother’s name, Maddie Mae Jones. Tearing up, I placed the bouquet against the granite, a headstone I’d purchased with my first
Rich and the Ruthless
paycheck but had only seen in a photograph. Listening to the whistling wind, a drop of rain on my cheek, I said, “Not in vain, Mamma, not in vain,” kissing the stone before walking back to the car.

As quickly as I started the engine, I stopped it. Walking with urgency, I headed to the far side of the cemetery in a trance. Distant thunder rumbled in the opaque sky, an eeriness taking hold, leaving me alone in the whispering cemetery. Passing the unkempt plots of a silent jury, my adrenaline surged as I got closer and closer to the
overreaching leafless arms of a craggy oak tree marking my father’s headstone. It read:

Calm on the bosom of our God,

Fair spirit, rest thee now!

E’en while with us thy footsteps trod,

His seal was on thy brow.

Dust to its narrow house beneath!

Soul to its place on high!

They that have seen thy look in death

No more may fear to die.

CHESTER ZACHARIAH WINSLOW

BELOVED PASTOR OF

CHURCH OF THE SOLID ROCK

BORN 1922

DIED 1989

A chill ran through me as I stood over him, now six feet under, unable to deceive the innocent. Mindlessly reaching into my bag, pulling out the velvety persimmon, I bit into it, spitting out the seeds before making my amends.

“Payback’s a bitch, mother——” A clap of thunder boomed.

“Happy birthday, dear Ivy, happy birthday to you. Make a wish, baby,” Grandma Jones, Whilemina, and I cried.

She tightly closed her eyes. Seventeen flickering candles danced, glowing in my daughter’s bright full-of-life face.

Ivy was now the age I’d been when I left Greenwood for New York City with all my secrets. How dramatically different our lives were, and would be, I hoped. Still, a pang of concern lingered from when Ivy had
asked, “You know, Mom, I’ve been thinking, maybe I’ll try out for the school play this September. What do you think?”

It was the last thing I wanted her to do. All I could think of was the rejection and the madness, but one thing was for doggone sure, I wouldn’t whip her for trying.

A soft smile broke across Ivy’s face before she blew her secret into the flames.

Grandma Jones had made her signature cake: vanilla coconut frosting with lemon filling. A birthday confection she used to bake for me when I was a girl.

Excitedly opening Derrick’s gift first, Ivy squealed over the newest iPod Touch gizmo he’d given her.

“Gimme that bow and the paper, I can recycle it,” Miss Whilemina said. “Think that storm’s gonna pass, Miss Candy,” she added, folding the paper against her broad lap.

Next, Shannen’s gift, a book of poetry with a journaling feature.

“Aww, sweet,” Ivy said, quickly turning her attention to an old metal box with a key placed on the table. “What’s this?”

“Open it and see,” I said.

She turned the key and lifted the lid.

“They’re beautiful.” She glowed, pulling out the same strand of pearls Grandma Jones had given me two decades earlier.

“We want you to wear them in good health, Ivy, for all of us,” Grandma Jones said, with tears in her eyes.

Hickory-smoke-filled air added to the atmosphere the following day as I reconnected with old friends and extended family who’d watched me grow up as sassy, stubborn Beulah Espinetta Jones. It was a time and a half at the Annual Greenwood Barbecue Cook-Off and as at most reunions, gossip took center stage. Between horseshoes, Double Dutch,
dominoes, and the Electric Slide, we all ate more than our fair share of greens, mac ’n’ cheese, potato salad, pulled pork, ribs, and BBQ chicken, not to mention peach cobbler and rhubarb pie.

“What’s this?” I heard Ivy ask Miss Bessie, another longtime neighbor of Grandma Jones.

“That’s monkey meat, chile,” she said as she sipped on her sweet tea.

Ivy gasped and Miss Bessie chuckled. “It ain’t monkey and it ain’t meat, it’s a candy made of coconut and molasses. Real good, here, try some.”

“Beulah?” a quiet voice said from behind me.

Turning, I saw my childhood friend Seritta, looking half who she was, accompanied by a young woman with a toddler on her hip.

“Seritta!” I exclaimed as we hugged, rocking side to side. “Girl, it’s been so long.”

“You can say that again, but you haven’t changed a bit, look just the same.”

“You are
too
kind.”

“No, it’s true. I know
I
look different, been through some thangs. My pastor taught me how to fix it though and preached, ‘Woke up one mornin’, fell into a hole, stayed there awhile, climbed out and went about my business. Next day, I fell into that same daggone hole, stayed there awhile, climbed out and went about my business. But the
third
day I went down a different street.’ ”

“Amen to that.”

“Yep, mm-hm, I needed to walk a different way, that’s all.” Seritta smiled. “I’ve missed you somethin’ terrible, Beulah, but you
nevah
did forget where you come from. You been so good to us. Even though I’m still in that trailer, that trailer is my home and it kept most of my family together, thanks to you.”

“Oh, Seritta, you’re givin’ me way too much credit.”

“I ain’t blowin’ smoke. Got my twins with me, and CiCi, she gave me my first gran. Let me say this out loud, there’s a big difference between
motherin’ and grandmotherin’. I can hug T.I. all day long, give him back to his mamma, and keep it movin’. Speakin’ of family, I see Ivy over there lookin’ pretty as a picture. How’s Dwayne?”

“Girl, he’s still butt broke, callin’ himself a housesurgeon or some such foolishness.”

Seritta snickered before turning serious, saying, “I know I’ve said it a thousand times in letters but let me say to your face, I am so grateful for our friendship. We may not have seen each other for a month of Sundays but it don’t matter ’cause I always knew you were there for me, Beulah, just like I’d be there for you. Say hi, CiCi, and take that thumb outta ya mouth.”

“Hi,” she said, looking down.

“Nice to finally meet you, CiCi, your mom’s told me so much about you, I feel like I already know you.”

She nodded, her face inscrutable, saying, “Heard a lot about you, too.”

As the night wound down, dressed in a handbrushed cotton nightie, I lay in my dimly lit room, stuffed to contentment on the same old bedroom cot my mother had slept on as a girl. A muggy breeze blew Grandma’s homemade sheers, ushering in the scent of rain signaling another storm was brewing as I listened to Ivy, Grandma Jones, Miss Whilemina
,
and Seritta, laughing and talking trash while playing bid whist on the back porch, the lone irrepressible sound of a neighbor’s harmonica echoing through the night.

“You forgot to pluck, Seritta,” said Grandma Jones.

“Did not.”

“Did too,” sided Whilemina. “Don’t be tryin’ to cheat.
Ah-choo!
God bless me, everyone.” All adlibbed blessings. “You just worried we got all these
books
and about to go downtown on ya.” They all roared with laughter.

“Wanna go to Biloxi with me and Miss Odile next Friday, Whilemina?” Grandma Jones asked.

“If you payin’, I ain’t got no gamblin’ money. But I’ll tell you what we got plenty of, these doggone mosquitoes, tryin’ to eat a person alive,” she said as she slapped her leg. “Good thing you got this porch screened in when you did, Candy. Don’t know how that man’s out there blowin’ that harmonica.”

“’Cause mosquitoes only like sweet meat,” Ivy chirped. “Ain’t that right, Mother Jones?”

“That’s right, babygirl.”

Plucking up a card, Miss Whilemina asked, “Candelaria, did Beulah say when she was goin’ back to the stories? It just ain’t the same without her.”

“And it ain’t gonna be, there’s only one Beulah. And she’s as stubborn as she pleases. Got it in her head she ain’t goin’ back till
R&R
acts right, hires folks to do her hair and things.”

“Shush your mouth, Candy . . . don’t tell me that child’s been doin’ her own?” questioned Miss Odile.

“Mm-hm, says she tired of doin’ everything herself plus act. To hear her tell it, they don’t pay her like the others, either.”

“Whaaaat? That’s a doggone shame,” said the ladies in chorus.

“I’ma stop watchin’,” said Whilemina.

“I don’t want to hear all that,” Seritta insisted. “Just tell her to go back to
The Rich and the Ruthless.
Dove needs her.”

“Tried to tell Beulah before all that mess happened, be grateful you got a job. But she fired back sayin’, ‘If you don’t stand for somethin’ you’ll lie down for anything,’ and ladies, that right there shut me up.”

All eyes fell on Ivy, who said, “Don’t look at me, I don’t know, but I
will
say I hope Mamma doesn’t go back.”

“Beulah just needs to sit her butt right here in Greenwood for a spell,” Grandma Jones added.

“Always did think that girl had too much moxie for her own good,” Miss Whilemina quipped.

“Bet you sure like having your mamma home full-time, Ivy,” said Seritta, fanning herself with her cards.

“Mamma’s been working since I was born and it’s different for both of us, but we’re lovin’ it.”

“We won again, Candy,” Miss Whilemina exclaimed.

“Whew, look at the time. Gotta get to bed. We got church tomorrah,” said Grandma as Ivy gathered up the worn cards, slipping them back into their box.

“Yes indeed,” said Miss Whilemina, “I need somethin’ to cover my press till I get home. It’s damp outside.”

The Church of the Solid Rock would be packed for eight o’clock service tomorrow morning and we all were invited to Miss Whilemina’s for Sunday dinner after. But I was bracing myself for more than oversize horsehair hats and a flat sermon. I’d have to prepare for old memories that would surely surface, sitting next to Grandma Jones under the carved pulpit where my father once preached his “buckle in the Bible Belt” service about fire and damnation.

Robed, standing six feet tall, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, he had a furrowed brow and long wiry eyebrows that made him look more like an angry eagle about to take flight than any preacher.

Without conscious thought, I wove my fingers into a shape resembling a steeple, remembering the finger game and poem Grandma Jones had taught me so long ago. Pantomiming the motions, quietly whispering, “Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and here’s all the people . . .” I realized as much as things had changed they had stayed the same. I could run a hundred miles but would always end up at my own front door.

To the pitter patter of raindrops on our tin roof, Lalah Hathaway’s sultry “Bad by Myself” ringtone jolted me out of my thoughts. Reflexively snatching my phone off the nightstand, I hoped it was Derrick. The small screen illuminated my expectant smile, reading, “i no wat u did 2 yr daddy, beulah.”

The women who encouraged me to write and beyond . . .

Dottie, Kit, Esther, Sylvia, Laura, Barbara, Patty, Paulina, Rosa, Robs, Nancy, Kasi, Wyllisa, Aunt Ruthie, Vicki and all the laughs in Antigua—everyone in my foster family who taught me to never underestimate the importance of correspondence—my first writing lesson.

Inspiration

All my children, art, blueberries, Gustav Mahler,
the South
, ballet, orphans, India, butterflies, Malaga, flowers, vintage hats, Sarah Vaughan, photography, Elizabeth Catlett, old movies, Maria Callas, Paulo Coelho, sequoias, Augusta Savage, the fans—my husband and collaborator, Radcliffe Bailey, who tirelessly read, listened, and was my sole audience as I acted out the scenes in a lampshade and curtains, BIG KISS.

Special Thanks

To my literary agent, Irene Webb, who with boundless enthusiasm, humor, and warmth believed in the bubbles from the beginning. And Malaika Adero, vice president, senior editor—the most brilliant, supportive editor in the world.

Dear Malaika,

Your steady leadership and vision to see
Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva
published is by far one of the greatest gifts ever bestowed upon me.

Infinite thanks,
Victoria

To the incomparable Judith Curr, executive vice president and publisher of Atria Books, Todd Hunter, Alysha Bullock, Jae Song, Christine Saunders, Christine Lloreda, Kathleen Schmidt, Rachel Bostic, and all of the Atria/Simon & Schuster family, especially all the hands that print, bind, box, and unload my books everywhere, thank you from the bottom of my heart. May this only be the beginning.

Special, Special Thanks

To the remarkable Heather Lashaway, Manuela Hesslup, Linda Livingston, Derek Blanks, Christopher Hayes, Stephanie Wash, “Q,” Nelson Branco, Amy Brownstein & Associates, and Jamey Giddons for your extraordinary generosity.

Daytime Divas

Ruby Dee, Margueritte Ray, Veronica Redd, Tonya Lee Williams, Debbie Morgan, Tamara Tunie, Vivica A. Fox, Tichina Arnold, Tonya Pinkins, Davetta Sherwood, Renee Jones, Rosalind Cash, Mary Alice Smith, Stephanie Williams, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Nia Long, and Ellen Holly.

Memorial Regret

Norma Donaldson, Frank Pacelli, Greg York, and Michelle Thomas.