When I saw Carla again, about four years had passed since the dance. It was a coincidence that I saw her on the very same day I saw Lorene again.
It was a lovely day and there were a few things I had to buy for my son’s schoolwear and a few little things for my house. Neil was just finishing his master’s degree and had a very good job and we had bought a house. (Smile-smile).
I still had a part-time job, though a better one at a veterinarian’s office. I was studying now to be an assistant, which means I could get a job anywhere, anytime, because people really do love their pets and spend a great deal of money on them. I loved helping animals. It also meant I could take off to be with my children when I needed to. The pay was good, also. I had two sons now, four and six years old. Our parents fought over who would baby-sit each week, we were very blessed.
I love secondhand and antique stores. One day I went into my favorite secondhand store and looked up and there was Carla, hollering at about a nine-year-old daughter and holding the hand of about a two-year-old, with a four-year-old holding on to her skirttail. I patted her shoulder and hugged her where possible, with one arm. She smiled and laughed a little, “Girl, where you been? I ain’t seen you since I don’t know when!”
I laughed with her, pleased to see her. “Carla! (I lied a little) You look good! Are these your beautiful children? (That was the truth.)”
“Chile, you see em don’t you!? Yeah, girl, they’re mine.”
Then, with my foolish self, I said, “I haven’t seen you in so long! Who did you marry?”
Carla twisted her mouth and turned her lips down. “Girl, I ain’t thinkin bout gettin married. I don’t want none of these do-nothin, no-count men. How you doin? I see you got two kids yourself.”
“Yeah, these are my boys.”
She rubbed the head of one of my sons, saying, “I bet you married that Neil of yours. You didn’t let him get away, did you?”
I smiled and answered, “No, I sure didn’t! We got married.”
She turned back to the clothes rack after hollering at the running son and said, “Well, that’s good, girl. Glad for ya. I better get on bout this clothes business. Glad to see you again.”
I started to move away, myself, then stopped because I wanted to ask her, “How is Lorene? Do you ever hear from her?”
Carla laughed a little again, turned to me saying, “Yeah. She’s back now for a short visit with her mama. Her mama’s kinda sick. I went to Chicago and visited with Lorene once; she sent me a bus ticket. Girl, she have a ball! A natural ball in that Chicago! But she be in New York and Detroit and all like that. She knows a whole lot of bands now! All sharp, fine men! She ain’t stuck with no kids like us. She’s lucky!”
I started to say I wasn’t stuck, but I knew what she meant. I was stuck, but I guess I didn’t mind it at all. I didn’t say anything in reference to being “lucky” either, because I did know how she meant that, too. I just smiled and hit her lightly on her shoulder, then moved on away to look through the things I wanted to look at.
I don’t mean to say I think everybody should be married, but . . . what are you going to do if you don’t get married or get an education? Where is your home, or your life, going to be? I have learned there is very little playing around in the very serious game of life. You can play, but it should be after you have done what you need to do for yourself!
Later, that same day, I was going into the department store Lorene used to work in and that’s when I saw her. She did a little scream, so did I and we hugged. I really did like Lorene. She was fun and alive. What she did with her life was her own business and even though I thought it was a sad life and a waste, because I like real love, steady love, it was her choice.
I knew Lorene looked good enough for any man to be proud to marry her, if she wanted to get married. But, I remembered my mama telling me, many times, that respect is the foundation of love. That without respect there will be no love, long. Check it out! Self-esteem is loving yourself! But . . . you can only get self-esteem by doing things you are proud of. And I don’t care whether you go to church or not, God has made it so you KNOW when you are doing wrong. Wrong things can destroy your life. Look around!
Anyway, we stood back from each other and looked each other over, smiling. She was the first to say, “Maisha! You look good!” I told her right back and it was true, “Lorene, girl, you look great! All the latest clothes and that hairstyle! You look beautiful!”
She grinned happily as she looked down at my children and asked, “Oh, are these your boys? Aren’t they handsome! Whose babies are they? Who did you marry?”
“Neil, you know Neil.”
“Sure, I remember Neil. He was handsome!” Then she giggled, “Girl! You got yourself a good one! Sure have! You all stayin together?”
I nodded as I smiled, “Yes. And I’m getting a degree in college; night college, but still a degree.”
Lorene laughed sweetly and waved her hand at the air. “All you smart married people bore me, but I am happy for you, old friend. Well, I have to get home to Mama. Stop in and see her for me sometimes, will you? She likes you.”
As we hugged again, I was thinking I did need to go to see Mrs. Shaky, just been so busy. But I was also thinking, “What does Lorene mean, ‘I got a good one’? I knew I had a good one, but how did she know?” I brought myself together to ask about her mother.
She answered, “Oh, Mama is much better. She is just lonely, girl, cause Dad still got his travelin jobs and she misses me. So I come check in on her when I can, you know, come home. Cause there really is nothing like home anyway.”
“No, there really isn’t. Nothing. Did you get married? Are you in love? What are you doing now?”
She laughed, with an exquisite perfume lightly filling the air all around her, and said, “I’m always in love, girl. Isn’t it grand?”
“And marriage?” I had to ask.
She pushed my shoulder a little as her laughter stopped, “Marriage! Marriage is for old people. I’m not old. I’ll . . . get married when the time comes. Been engaged lots of times though.”
I had to ask. “Don’t you want some pretty babies of your own?”
She didn’t laugh, just looked at me like I was pitiful, but it was her face that looked sad, not mine. She said, “I don’t . . . have much time for babies, right now. That’s all in the future. I don’t want to worry about anybody’s future but mine, right now. I never have tried not to have children. But I never have tried to have them either. I guess I lost a few without knowing it. I have . . . enough to think about, for the day.”
Then she put her arms around my children and they let her pull them close to her. “Someday, I want two babies just like these. Just as healthy and handsome and sweet. And I know they are smart! Just look at those eyes! Someday! I’ll have my own! Two. Maybe more! Who knows?” We laughed and I hugged her, close.
“Maybe so,” I answered, “but what I really worry about is somebody’s life.” She let that pass and we said a few more words, her big smile beneath the sad eyes brightening the moment, then . . . she was gone, with me standing looking after her as she sashayed down the street. Not vulgar sashay, but just life sashaying.
As I went home, I kept thinking about what she had said, “You got a good one!” because I did have a “good” one, a whole good husband. Later, I asked Neil about it. “Did you . . . sleep with Lorene?
He looked slightly uncomfortable, but he answered, “Sleep with her? I never ‘slept’ with her.”
“Did you have sex with her? Neil, you know what I mean.”
He rubbed the back of his neck before he answered me. “Well . . . sure. Everybody did.” (At least he didn’t lie. I was glad.)
I remembered him saying when we were younger, “The love that is only yours.” I was older now and knew a little something about life, but I was hurt. “Oh, Neil.”
He didn’t apologize or plead, he just said straight out, “Honey, it was free. I was young. How could a kid let that pass by? There it was on a platter. Everybody did it to her. But there was never any thought of ‘love’ as you and I knew it. It was just a piece of tail lying there, waiting for you. Calling for you, even. Anybody could have it. And did. Just nobody wanted her to get pregnant and have to be a father of a baby mixed up with everybody’s stuff in the same baby.”
“Ohhh, Neil.” It was all I could say. I tried to understand. I did understand; so that passed.
Well, time went on. I am always engrossed in my family and my work. That is what keeps me going on. I love them. But, I kept thinking of Lorene, now and then. I even went by to see her mother. She was lonely even with all her clubs and teas. She wanted a grandchild. Someone to take Lorene’s place; someone new to love.
Lorene went back to Chicago, or Detroit, wherever. Over the next three years she came home every once in a while to see her mother. I always missed catching her at home.
We were all going on thirty years when I did happen to see Lorene again. She was still quite attractive, but there was something shabby around the edges. Used. Tired. Hollow. It reminded me, fleetingly, of a print I had seen by Salvador Dalí, of a beautiful woman obviously used and ruined by life. Still, the vestige of beauty was still there. Strangely, the thought didn’t all come from her body, it came from her eyes. The sparkle . . . the light . . . was fading. But her smile was still brilliant as it tried to shine through disappointed, hurt eyes.
Please don’t think I am being cruel. I truly liked Lorene. And I do not think my life is the only or perfect life to live. But, my life was helping me to live, adding to my joy in life, giving me pleasure and love to hold on to. Lorene’s life didn’t seem to do that for her and I hated to see that happen to my friend. If you are going to choose a certain way, at least be happy as possible, satisfied, with it. Maybe she was satisfied even if she wasn’t happy. I don’t think so.
My children were standing on the edge of teenism when I was thirty. All of a sudden it seemed as though I was getting old. Just being a mother and sometime part-time worker and all the talk of “doing your own thing.” Liberalism and feminism made me think life was passing me by. Oh, I had no complaints about Neil. He was still a good, fine husband. But the world is so big and full of so many things, I wondered if life might not be passing me by or something.
Then . . . Lorene came home again.
Only this time . . . she did not step off a plane or a train or a bus. She was carried off . . . in a coffin. That Lorene. Oh, Lorene. Dead at thirty. Coming home for the last time.
I knew Mrs. Shaky must be in misery. Her daughter, her only, young daughter, was dead. I went by to see her, but her house was full of her neighbors; come to see what had killed Lorene. I went back home, planning to see her later. But life can be so full sometime you don’t get a chance to even breathe deep. You push your way through. I did check with the church for the place and time of the funeral. I don’t like funerals, but I was going to this funeral!
I spoke to Neil about the funeral. He was shocked at Lorene’s death, of course. But when I asked him if he was going to the funeral, he said, “Well, gee.” Shaking his head. “I . . . ah, oh, I, gee, well . . .” Then, “Honey, I have to work. I didn’t even hardly know the girl.” (She hadn’t even grown up, to him.) So I knew he was not going.
Still, I said, “You slept with her.”
“I didn’t sleep with her. It was just a . . . a . . . a quick piece. It’s not like we were even friends.”
I lost a little respect for my husband that day.
So the funeral day came and I went alone. Somehow I got the time wrong, or they changed it, but, anyway, I was early. I entered the little chapel at the mortuary with the sad organ music playing in the background. It was dark in that room the casket was in, so I couldn’t see clearly all the seats. I was looking straight at the casket, anyway. I hesitated to go toward it, but my feet kept going, slowly, and I finally reached the coffin.
Mrs. Shaky had dressed Lorene very prettily, as usual, but in a dress Lorene might not have liked. The peach color was pretty on her, but the bodice was high up to cover her neck and long sleeved so no part of her showed except her face. There was no smile, just a pitiful, grievous, defeated look, as though she had seen death coming and had been sad to meet it.
Lorene was still lovely, though. Her hair was neatly done and whoever had made her face up, made her look so natural. She was young, so young, and my feelings for her made me press my hands to my heart in sorrow for her. The tears began to run down my face for the woman I had never come to really know.
After several quiet, thoughtful moments, I leaned over, close to Lorene’s ear, and whispered a question that was suddenly important to me. “Oh, Lorene, Lorene. Did you find what you were looking for?” Then her life, as I knew it, flashed through my mind and I whispered another question. “Sister-woman . . . Was it worth it?”
In a moment I heard a rustle among the seats, so I began to move away from Lorene, drawing my hand, slowly, along her casket as I went to take a seat.
I cried, silently, all during the service. There were about twenty people there, but I didn’t hear anyone crying. Perhaps because Mrs. Shaky was hurting, moaning and crying out so. I guess she might be the one I was crying for. She had no grandbaby to hold in her arms to fill the empty place that had been Lorene’s.
When the service was over I was trying to prepare myself with which words to say to Mrs. Shaky. I knew there were no words to express my feelings for her loss. What can you say? Words are so small, can be so empty and inadequate to replace a warm, human loss. A child, at any age, is still your child, your baby. I was crying for many reasons and I don’t know them all.
The people were filing out, straggling. People were trying to move Mrs. Shaky away from the casket which the undertakers were trying to close. I went over to help and Mrs. Shaky turned and saw me in her distraction. She recognized me, not as me, but as one of her daughter’s friends. With open mouth, she let go of the coffin and opened her arms to enclose me, grasping me. She pulled me to her and buried her head on my breast, crying, almost screaming, “My baby, my baby, my baby! She’s gone! Gone! Gone!” Then she moaned in a deep, low voice, “Forever gone.”