Original Love
Page 18
Candace Mills—the greatest lady I’ve ever known.
After my shower, I drive the long way to Grace Lane taking a circuitous route past the “castle church”—the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on Browns Road. I used to go to the annual Huntington Renaissance Faire there, and though that old French Gothic mansion is the stuff of Edgar Allan Poe short stories, it is a beautiful building.
I park behind a tan minivan and see Candace’s old Pinto, “Honk If You Love Jesus,” “POW-MIA: Never Forget,” “MIA: Only Hanoi Knows,” “My Other Car Is a Limo,” and “Carter/Mondale” bumper stickers plastered on the back bumper, a tarp blown off to one side. She is here! And the “backfire bomber” is still in existence? Candace once told me that no one ever tailgated her. That Pinto is a classic, candy apple red with a black and white cloth interior.
I get out of the Nova and see the same woman, a robust woman in her fifties wearing gardening gloves, hacking at the ground with a trowel. I approach her carefully, because I have an inherent fear of robust women holding sharp tools.
“Hello, does, um, Candace Mills still live here?”
She turns and squints. “Yes.”
“I’m, uh, a friend of her daughter, Ebony. Peter Underhill.”
She stands and brushes dirt off her sweater. “Is Mrs. Mills expecting you?”
“No, ma’am.”
A voice from the house jolts me. “Who’s that, Gladys?” It sounds like Candace. I’d never forget that voice.
Gladys walks to the side of the house, and I follow close behind, whispering, “She might remember me better as Peter, Gladys.”
Gladys stops just under the window to the dining room. “A Mr. Underhill to see you.”
“Don’t know no Mr. Underhill.”
I approach the window. “Mrs. Mills, it’s me, Peter.”
“So?”
I can barely see her through the screen. “I used to date Ebony a long time ago.”
“You can go back to work, Gladys,” Candace says in a steady, strong voice, and Gladys leaves us. “She used to date a lot of boys, boy. What made you so special?” The sun glints off something metallic inside. Is Candace in a wheelchair?
“It’s Peter, Mrs. Mills. I’m the boy you and Ebony tried to teach to dance, and I’m trying to find Ebony.”
“What for?”
Because I miss her, and I still love her. “I just want to talk to her.”
“About what?”
“Old times, I guess, you know, catch up on the last twenty years.”
I see a shaky gray hand rise into the air. “That’s a long time to be catching up.”
“Yes, it is.”
“She know you’re trying to find her?”
“No.”
“Maybe she don’t want to be found. You ever think of that?”
“Yes, ma’am, I have.” I hear a whirring noise, and Candace’s upper body fills the area behind the screen. She’s in a wheelchair all right, an electric one, and she’s grayer, her hair longer, her face lined, her body shrunken. But she is still a queen.
“Peter Underhill, Peter Underhill.” She squints. “Nope. Your face don’t ring a bell at all.”
“You said once to call you Luwanna.”
Candace frowns. “Oh, yes, I remember you. You left my girl ruined. I ain’t opening that can of worms. You got to dig into that hole yourself.” Two shaky gray hands rise in an attempt to close the window then draw the blinds, but she has trouble reaching the window and unhooking the stays and gives up.
“Mrs. Mills, I just want to call her.”
“You want to get a girl’s phone number from her mama? What planet you from?” The whirring begins again, and Candace disappears. “You ain’t gettin’ nothin’ from me.”
I step closer to the screen and see her stopped under the archway to the hall. “I really don’t need her number, Mrs. Mills. Couldn’t you at least call her, tell her I’m in town? I’m staying on my father’s boat.”
I hear Candace snort. “That boat. And that father of yours. Heard he finally had the good sense to die. Never knew of a more evil man.”
“He had his moments.”
“Did he now? If I remember correctly, that daddy of yours broke y’all up.”
I am talking to a woman’s back through a screen. “Yes and no. Um, can’t we talk face-to-face, please?”
Candace laughs. “Yeah, y’all sneaked around an awful lot, but boy, you’re asking an awful lot. You broke my baby’s heart, and that broke my heart, and you expect to come up in here and bring all that back?”
“No, ma’am. I just want to see her.”
“Love doesn’t conquer everything, you know.”
True. “I’m hoping it will this time.”
“Uh-huh. You married?”
I sigh. “Divorced.”
“Figures. Was she white or black?”
“White.”
“Figures. Any kids?”
“No.”
Her wheelchair whirrs as she spins around. “No kids?”
“No, ma’am.”
Candace smiles and rolls closer to the screen. “And all you want to do is talk to her?”
“That’s all.” For a start anyway.
“Don’t you want to see if you two can, you know, start over?”
“Um, the thought had crossed my mind.”
“Only crossed it?”
“No, ma’am.” Jesus, another confessional, this one in a barren flower bed under a dining room window. “She has been in my mind for the past twenty years.”
“She had that effect on people.”
“Had?”
“People change in twenty years, Peter Underhill. You ain’t the same snot-nosed kid that used to hold my baby’s hand. You look like you put on a hundred pounds.”
“Yeah, I’ve put on a few—”
“And look at me,” she interrupted. “I ain’t been able to walk cuz of my diabetes for three years now.”
“You’re still the queen, Luwanna.”
She winks at me. “You got that right. You wanna…come inside?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Front door’s unlocked. Don’t let Gladys scare you. She’s only here to take care of me.”
I walk around and open the front door, and the weight of Candace’s illness hits me hard when she rolls into the hallway. She won’t be dancing any time soon, her lower body covered by a blanket, her hands trembling slightly.
“It’s good to see you again,” I say, stepping inside.
“What there is to see.”
I follow her wheelchair into the living room and barely recognize the room, mainly because the shag carpet and Christmas tree are gone, replaced by a beige Berber carpet and a wall of bookcases crammed with books. Before I sit on a comfortable cream-colored couch, I scan several framed watercolor scenes on the walls and find a cursive E in the corner of each.
“Did Ebony do all these?”
“What you think?” She parks her wheelchair where the coffee table used to be.
“She’s still at it, then?”
Candace nods then bellows, “Gladys!”
Gladys comes running in, the trowel still in her hand. “Are you all right, Mrs. Mills?”
“Dial my daughter for me and bring me the phone.”
Gladys rushes to the kitchen and returns with a cordless phone, nestling it between Candace’s neck and shoulder. “Go on now,” Candace whispers, and Gladys leaves. “Got her trained, huh?”
I’m having trouble breathing, and my hands shake almost as much as Candace’s hands.
“Ebony, there’s a boy here named Peter Underhill who says he’s looking for you.”
I rise from the couch. “Can I speak to her?”
“Hush, I’m only leaving a message on her voice mail. She’s at church.”
I sit. “At Bethel?”
“Hush. Call me back, girl. I’ll try to keep him here as long as I can, but you know how he is always leaving us.”
Candace shrugs. “Only church she ever attended regularly. Service will probably be going for another couple hours. That nine-eleven thing got folks on their knees longer than usual, even for an AME church. You leavin’ already?”
I can’t stand still. “I have to go, Mrs. Mills.”
“She might not be there. Service may be over early. Waste of a trip.”
I take two steps toward the door. “Nice seeing you.”
“No, it wasn’t. You weren’t here to see me. So go on. Git. See you in another twenty years.”
I drive as fast as I can to Bethel AME, and when I get there, I can’t find a parking space, cars strewn all over. I park beside a fire hydrant several blocks away and run up the steps of the old church, only to be thwarted by an overflow crowd sitting wall-to-wall on folding chairs just inside the door. There are even chairs in the aisles, the pews filled to bursting. I search faces in the choir, stare at the backs of heads, hear Reverend Moore exhorting, the symphony of amens echoing. So many fans, so many glowing faces feeling God’s presence.
And here I am standing at the door to that presence in a pair of faded jeans that doesn’t quite match the denim shirt Destiny gave me, while folks turn and look at me with wide eyes.
I back out and sit on the steps, my shoes bouncing to the singing of the choir, my head nodding to Reverend Moore’s fiery sermon on redemption, my eyes closing and filling with tears during the final prayer—
I jump up and wander into the parking lot, keeping an eye on as many exits as I can while the organ plays something holier than holy. She’s about to come out! She’s inside that church right now, and I’m about to see her for the first time in twenty years! I check my breath as the first streams of folks leave the main entrance, the organist still pounding out that holiest of melodies—
Is that her? No. Not dark enough. There? No. Too tall. Is that—no, too old. Wait, that might—no, too young and thin. Pretty though. The folks weaving around me to their cars give me funny looks, but I only smile.
But when the organ stops, the last car leaves the parking lot, and an ancient woman all dressed in black locks the front door—
She wasn’t here.
Maybe she didn’t go to church today. Maybe she’s sick or something. Maybe she got past me somehow…and she might be on her way to her mama’s house right now!
I fly through Huntington back to Candace’s and go right up to the front door, turn the knob and walk in like I used to so many years ago.
“Is she here?” I say to Candace’s back.
“No.” She spins around. “She supposed to be?”
“She wasn’t at Bethel.”
“Hmm, she must be backslidin’.” She spins away from me. “I knew you’d be back.”
“Where’s Gladys?”
“Gave her the rest of the day off.”
“Who takes care of you then?” And as soon as I ask it, I know. Ebony comes over after church to take care of her mama. “Ebony does, doesn’t she?”
“Maybe.” She laughs. “You must be blind, Peter. Ebony was at that church.”
“She was?”
“She’s always at the church, boy. Either you didn’t recognize her and she’s pissed as hell, or she saw you first and she didn’t want you to see her.”
I sink back into the couch. Was it the skinny woman in the brown dress? No, she didn’t have Ebony’s face. None of the women I saw had Ebony’s face.
“Girl hasn’t missed a service going on eighteen years.”
So she was inside the church, looked out, saw me…and sneaked away. Why? “But she’ll stop by today, right?”
Candace shakes her head. “Boy, you weren’t very smart back then, and you sure as hell ain’t gotten any smarter. College was wasted on you. My baby’s eyes don’t miss a thing. Why she’s such a good artist, right? So I bet she did see you at Bethel, and if she drives by here now—something she’s done every Sunday for the last three years—and she sees a strange car…She obviously doesn’t want to see you…at all.”
I run to the window and look out on Grace Street, empty except for my Nova.
“You know how stubborn Ebony is. She won’t stop by as long as you’re here.”
The phone rings.
“That’s probably her right now, Peter. Go get me the phone from the kitchen, and don’t you say a damn thing to her, you hear?”
I go and get Candace the phone, hearing “Mama, you there?” all the way from the kitchen to the living room. Her voice! Her voice hasn’t changed! I wish this phone had Caller ID so I could get her number.
I rest the phone between Candace’s neck and shoulder and hover behind her. “Yeah, I’m here, girl. Where else would I be?…Uh-huh…Yes, he’s still here…. What you so pissed for? And why you pissed at me?…I ain’t gettin’ in the middle of this.” She looks hard at me. “Take this phone, boy, and don’t blow it. This may be your only shot.”
I snatch up the phone. “Hello, Ebony?”
Click.
“She hung up.”
“You blew it. Again.” Candace rolls her eyes while I stand there looking stupidly at the phone. “Well, damn, hit redial. I just called her and left a message on her voice mail before you ran out of here, didn’t I? Shit, I gotta tell you how to do every damn thing.”
I hit redial, and when Ebony picks up, I say, “Please don’t hang up, Ebony, I just want to—”
Click.
“Least you got more said this time. Almost finished a whole sentence and everything. But don’t say ‘don’t hang up.’ You’re only daring her to do it. Say something else. Try again.”
I hit redial again. “I just want to talk to you, that’s all—”
Click.
I hit redial. “I’m staying on my father’s boat. I’ll be here for a while—”
Click.
“Dag, she’s listening longer than I would have. She was her father’s daughter, all right.”
I hit redial once more and hear “The cellular customer is no longer…” before pressing the “off” button. “Mrs. Mills, please tell me where she lives.”
Candace shakes her head. “Why should I?”
“Please, Mrs. Mills. I have to see her.”
She spins away from me. “You have to see her. Twenty years ago you didn’t want to see her, and all of a sudden here you are.”
I walk around her wheelchair to face her. “I did want to see her, but you moved.”
“Moved? We haven’t moved from here since we moved in twenty-five years ago.”
“What?”
“You losin’ your hearing? I said I been in this same house for twenty-five years now.”
“But that’s impossible!”
“That’s what the bank thinks, too.” She chuckles. “Gonna own this house outright in five more years.”
This can’t be happening. “But I visited over Christmas break back in eighty-one, and no one was here.”
“Maybe we were on vacation. Damn, that’s what folks do over Christmas, you know.”
They were only on vacation? “But I came by later in May, and you weren’t here then either.”
“So it was a big year for vacations. What’d you do, only come by once both times?”
She was here then, too? How could I have missed her? “I also wrote Ebony letters from the second I went off to college in August of eighty-one, maybe a hundred of them over the next two years, and she never wrote back.”
“We never got any letters.”
I kneel in front of her. “You had to have gotten them.”
“No, no letters. Maybe you wrote to the wrong address or sent them to a different Ebony.”
“I didn’t mess up the address. I practically lived here, remember?”
“Yeah. Should have charged you rent.”
“And they weren’t returned to me at college, so they had to go somewhere.”
&n
bsp; Candace blinks slowly and holds me with her eyes. “Maybe they were stolen from our mailbox.”
“By who?”
“Lots of crazy people around here back in them Reagan years.”
This is crazy! All those illustrated, long-winded, heartfelt letters! “I don’t believe you never got any letters.”
“Believe what you want. I didn’t see any of them.”
Well if Candace didn’t see them…“What about Ebony?”
Candace shrugs. “You’ll have to ask her.”
I flop to the floor, shaking my head. “How can I ask her if I can’t keep her on the phone for more than a few seconds or even see her?”
“You got me.”
Wait. They were on vacation. “Did you stop the mail when you were on those vacations?”
“Ain’t nothing but anthrax can stop the mail.”
“I mean, did you have the post office hold the mail for you until you came back?”
Candace doesn’t speak for a moment, squinting. “I don’t think we did, and those letters would be gone by now if we did.”
“Maybe they’re still at the post office.”
“After twenty years? Not a chance.”
“Doesn’t hurt to check.”
Candace sighs loudly. “What good is finding those letters anyway? If we had them hold our mail, those letters would be burned or lost by now.”
God, this is futile! “Those letters…those letters will prove to Ebony—and to you—that I didn’t run out on her. I kept trying. How long were you on those vacations?”
“I don’t remember.”
What? “You remember that you didn’t get any letters in August of that year, but you can’t remember how long—”
“I don’t remember, Peter,” she says, her eyes fierce. “I had a damn stroke three years ago, and it fucked up my memory. I can only remember different pieces of things.”
I can barely breathe. “You had a stroke?”
“What you think? How you think I got in this wheelchair?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am. I didn’t even know I had diabetes and bam—I have a stroke. Now all I get to do is sit around all day trying to remember shit. If you hadn’t said ‘Luwanna,’ you wouldn’t be here now. You brought back a whole bunch of memories with that name, and some of ’em I don’t want to remember.”
“I’m sorry, I—”