Love in a Carry-On Bag

by Johnson, Sadeqa

  Ten new emails sat in his inbox. James must have gotten home fast because the first one was from him. It was the guidelines for their upcoming gig, and Warren almost dropped the computer when he read that it was being held at the Iridium Jazz club. Talk about serendipity.

  The Iridium was where he met Erica on a humid summer night. Warren had been on stage at the jazz club jamming with a young quintet. They were rendering a song from Miles Davis’ album Sketches of Spain, and Warren knew he was failing in comparison to Davis on the tune. When he looked out into the audience to see if anyone noticed, he saw Erica.

  She was sitting alone, sipping a drink with her pink nails pressed against a red straw. Her reddish-brown hair hung loose on her shoulders, and the vanilla halter she wore reflected the tan on her summered skin. Warren was immediately attracted to her, so when he closed his eyes and blew, he envisioned himself asking her out. From that moment he didn’t miss another note.

  After the performance, he lingered on stage with the other musicians as they packed up their instruments, but his eyes never lost Erica. When she glided toward the exit, he excused himself from the guys and fell in step beside her. She thanked him as he pushed open the door for her, and it was then that he noticed miniature freckles on her cheeks. They were like cinnamon drops sprinkled on a slice of French toast, and when she smiled, Warren’s heart really did stop.

  “What would make a woman come to a jazz club alone?” They were on the corner of 51st and Broadway.

  “My girlfriend was supposed to meet me but she flaked,” Erica looked into traffic.

  “Can I hail you a cab?”

  She laughed. “We both know a black man can’t get a cab to Harlem,” she stepped into the street waving her wrist back and forth, making her gold bangles clank. When the taxi stopped, Warren opened the door for her, and then slipped into the seat beside her.

  “Then I guess we’ll have to share,” he smiled. It was a bold move, but there was something in the way she flicked her hair that told him it was okay, even though they spent the first five blocks in frozen silence.

  “Do you play trumpet full time?” she chipped at the ice.

  He tucked his trumpet case under his feet and explained that he was interning at the United Nations by day, playing his horn at night. When he asked her the same, she told him that she had attended NYU and was now climbing the ladder in publishing. Their conversation flowed, and as the driver rounded the corner of 125th Street, Warren invited her for a nightcap, which she accepted.

  The Lenox Lounge had been a landmark in Harlem since the late 1930s, serving as a popular backdrop for many jazz legends, and a place for Harlem Renaissance writers to congregate. The Art Deco club lured a spunky mix of local hipsters, students, and tourists, and as Erica and Warren shared a round of drinks in the semicircular booth, the top layer of their lives unfolded. When the house lights signaled closing time, Warren insisted on walking Erica to her apartment. And as they passed through her front gate, he remembered her apologizing for her landlady’s idea of garden art.

  “The house has been under construction since I moved here,” she said referring to the wooden porch, which drunkenly staggered toward the left.

  “When can I see you again?” Warren dabbed at the sweat forming on his brows.

  Unlocking her front door, she stepped into the vestibule, quietly analyzing him for so long it made him wonder if she had heard the question.

  “Tomorrow, I’ll be at the diner on the corner of 135th and Lenox, ten o’clock,” she whispered, and then closed the door behind her. Warren watched her through the glass pane as she walked the stairs, taking in the best pair of legs that he had ever laid eyes on.

  The memory had come to him without effort, and all he wanted was to go back.

  For the office on Monday Warren was careful in overdressing the part, selecting a brown suit with a paisley tie, wing-tip shoes and silk socks. It had been over a week since he trimmed his facial hair. The rough look suited his mood, and he didn’t care what the handbook said. As he walked through the door that led to his department, he collided with Blanche. He caught her by the arm to keep her from stumbling. She moved her bangs from her hazel eyes, studying him, like she was expecting something. When he didn’t respond, she slipped him a piece of paper.

  “It’s a doctor’s note explaining your absence,” she whispered. “Your lip looks better,” she squeezed his bicep on her way down the hall.

  In his cubicle, Warren felt out of place. Brett, his manager, buzzed him before his computer had finished booting, and Warren could tell by the way he ordered him to his office that he wasn’t happy. Still, Warren took his time walking over.

  “You wanted to see me,” he stood in Brett’s office doorway. On the mantel sat an exorbitantly large portrait of Brett’s perfect family: prom queen wife, blonde daughter, blue-eyed boy and a dog named Prissy.

  Brett had been reading the newspaper and took his time folding the section back and making a neat pile before acknowledging Warren. “Nice of you to grace us with your presence,” his tone wore spiked heels.

  “I have a doctor’s note,” Warren stretched the slip toward him, but Brett batted at it like it was an annoying flea.

  “What do you think you’re pulling, missing work without calling, and then strolling in here with some bogus note? You’re taking advantage.”

  “Of what?”

  “No one else on the team would ever pull a stunt like this. If it weren’t for your father…”

  “What does he have to do with this?” Warren replied hotly.

  “You might not be standing here.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Call it what you like it. I’m just telling you to watch what you do, Buddy. Big brother’s eyes are all over you.” Brett turned back to his paper, “And Daddy can’t help all the time.” His last remark was a whisper.

  Warren knew his worth, and at this point it had nothing to do with his father knowing Stan. Brett had a lot of nerve threatening him. Warren was the one busting his ass while Brett shuffled papers and called meetings every ten minutes masquerading as the expert. Jackass.

  If they fired Warren it would be a relief.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Unwanted Guest

  Erica didn’t know how long she sat in the stairwell in Warren’s building with the lyrics of “Fool of Me” by Me’Shell Ndegecello playing in her head. Erica felt dumb. Stupid. Blind as a one-winged bat. What kind of idiot was she? How long? That’s what she wanted to know, and as she found herself sinking into the seat cushions of the train back to New York, she felt like the playlist of every broken-hearted love song. This pain hurt worse than brand new shoes, Ms. Sade. It was the type of suffering that offered no cure, no amount of prescription drugs could help her now. All she could do was ache.

  When she emerged from the subway back in Harlem, she tried walking away her misery on the five block stretch to her house so that her mother wouldn’t ask questions. The woman was like a bloodhound when it came to detecting Erica’s mood and she couldn’t go through it with her, not tonight. Her excuse for leaving had been a book signing in Baltimore, and her mother wasn’t expecting her until the morning. Hopefully she’d be asleep, and Erica wouldn’t have to explain coming home in the middle of the night.

  As she got closer to her brownstone, Erica spotted Tess sitting on their saggy front porch, wearing a ratty French beret and an oversized army coat buttoned to her neck. No wig, no lashes, and lips covered with a thin layer of Vaseline. Something was wrong, she didn’t look herself.

  “What’re you doing out here in the cold?” Erica pulled her hat low so that Tess couldn’t see her face.

  “You look like shit,” Tess flicked an ash. “Where’re you coming from?”

  Erica couldn’t discuss it now, and stuck with the work story. Tess must have been too preoccupied with her own problems to detect the lie, because she just pulled over a vinyl kitchen chair and patted the seat for Erica to sit. The
sparse furniture on the porch could easily be mistaken as trash, but anything nicer had the potential of being lifted. Even with the gentrification taking place in Harlem, where developers were constructing hundreds of million-dollar condos on every other corner, there was still a certain street element that couldn’t be ignored. Tess lit a second cigarette and passed it. Erica dragged hard.

  “Mercury must be in retrograde, ’cause now Hercules and I are on the outs. Why can’t I find a guy who sexes well and just wants to have a good time? I’m not trying to get married, don’t want no babies. Just a good damn time,” Tess pulled a crumpled brown paper bag from a side pocket in her army coat and passed it. Erica sipped from the pint and coughed, then wiped her mouth with the back of her gloved hand.

  “What was that?”

  “Bourbon.”

  “You drink like an old woman.”

  Tess shrugged and puffed on her cigarette. A crackhead wobbled down the street lugging two shovels, and both girls watched him, knowing that the tools were stolen. Erica was glad for the moments of silence. There was no way she could tell Tess what happened in D.C. without falling apart. She was exhausted physically and mentally.

  Tess flicked her cigarette into the garden of dead art, and Erica watched the last bit of the flame die in the air before it hit the porcelain sink. Her butt was frozen and her toes freezer burned.

  “Come on, it’s getting cold,” Tess stood and unlocked the door. Erica followed her inside, happy for the warmth. Tess made it to the second floor before stopping and leaning her thick frame against the banister. She coughed hoarsely. “Before I forget, I have a big gig coming up.”

  “I’m there.” Erica replied, pleased to have something to look forward too. Tess sung like an angel and Erica was one of her biggest fans.

  When they reached their floor, the smell of cigarette smoke was as strong as air freshener in the hallway between their two apartments, and noisy, raspy voices were coming from Erica’s end.

  “Why does she have the TV on so loud?”

  The door was unlocked and when Erica pushed through to her living room, she was face to face with yet another person she didn’t want to see. It was becoming obvious that Erica had fallen out of favor with Lady Luck the instant she broke the handmirror at work, because since then her life had steadily headed downhill without a set of sturdy brakes.

  Bonnie, the devil herself, was sitting in Erica’s living room with her feet propped up on the coffee table like it was the most natural thing in the world, and it was almost funny.

  “My bad, E. Long time no see,” Bonnie waved her hand in the air and then reached for the remote control.

  Erica nodded her hello. It had been years since she saw Bonnie, but she hadn’t changed. She wore stark-white glasses that were too large for her mousey face. Her cocoa-colored skin was still pocked by black pimples, and her short hair was snatched together with a pink glittery clip. Erica knew without looking that the pink glitter was repeated in her nail polish, socks and perhaps even her shoes. For as long as Erica had known Bonnie, she had been flashy to a fault. Wearing bright-yellow running suits with matching sneakers in January, floor-length fur coats and earmuffs in April, bodysuits and cutoff jeans worn with fishnets in November. The kicker was when she showed up to Grandma Queeny’s funeral wearing blood red in the dead of July.

  Bonnie Thomasetta Clark, the woman who took her mother away, caused her parents to split, and changed Erica’s life forever. Just being in the same room with her brought up the agonizing times Erica went to bed hungry and scared, ran “code badman” to protect her and Jazmine when the doorbell rang, couldn’t call her friends at school because they didn’t have a telephone, ate spoiled food because the electricity had been shut off, all because her mother had been more concerned with Bonnie.

  “Heey, Slim,” her mother slurred, waving like they were meeting someplace other than Erica’s own living room. “Don’t be upset, we’ll clean this mess up.” The alcohol had her eyes protruding like oversized marbles, and her head was rolling around her neck like a newborn’s.

  A near-empty liter of Bacardi, two red plastic cups, and an ashtray of butts overflowed on the table where they had been playing cards. The smell of lemons and pines had been replaced with the stinking scent of betrayal.

  “You said you weren’t comin’ back til tomorrow. Bonnie came to keep me cump-nee.” Her mother was attempting to stand, but the futon was dipped so low, she kept sliding backward. The more she concentrated on getting up, the further back she fell.

  It was a dilapidating picture and Erica felt traumatized. “You need to go,” her voice was deliberate.

  “See, I knew I shouldn’t have come,” said Bonnie. “I told you.”

  “No. Her house is my house, you welcome anytime.” Her mother touched Bonnie’s hand. “I’m still the mother round here,” she mumbled under her breath for Bonnie’s benefit, but Erica had dog ears.

  “Are you?” Erica clinched her fist. “Were you?” she shouted. “When? Please tell me when. Because that’s not the way I remember it.” The wrath pushed hard against the fibers of her face, rearranging her loveliness into pure pit-bull rage. Tess piped up, “Ms. Gweny, why don’t ya’ll come over to my apartment and give Erica a chance to get settled.” Bonnie grabbed her purse and switched her narrow hips over to where Tess stood in the doorway, but Erica’s mother didn’t move.

  “I ain’t raise you to be disrespectful.”

  “You didn’t raise me at all. You were out running the streets with her,” she pointed to Bonnie, “and you left me to fend for myself.”

  “I did the best I could.”

  “No. You didn’t.” Erica moved closer. “You were never around and when you were, you were drunk or in the bed. I’m sick and tired of you acting like I owe you something, calling me for money every other day. I’m not responsible for you. It was supposed to be the other way around. And you never got it right.” Erica’s mouth scrunched as she sliced her hands through the air. “I’m done. I’m so F-ing done.”

  She tried to take a deep breath, but the words continued to fight for freedom. “How could you treat us like that, like you didn’t give a damn? What was more important than taking care of your children? I really need to know. Where were you all those nights? How could you leave us unprotected? What kinda mother would do that to her babies?” The tears welled and Erica brought her hand to her lips. She had finally said what she had been thinking for so many years, and it felt like the guck in her chest had loosened.

  Her mother’s hands shook as she reached across the table for her cigarettes, squeezing one from the package. “This ain’t the time,” her voice sounded almost sober. The lighter flickered but wouldn’t catch. “What is it that you want from me?”

  The guck had started to separate, and the untreated wounds that Erica had buried whole with her fancy degrees, company cars and job titles emerged without permission. When she parted her lips the little girl who had long since died inside of her was resurrected.

  “I wanted you to stop drinking and love me. Get a job and pay the bills. I needed you to show up at my school sober and not embarrass me. Put gifts under the Christmas tree and pretend that Santa had come. I wanted you to take me shopping at the mall, read stories, tuck me in at night...” Tears spilled down the little girl’s cheeks and her voice was soft and trembling. “I…I wanted a mother who would take me to ballet lessons and be waiting for me in the lobby when I came out of class, not outside on the pay phone. I wanted you to be my goddamn mother. And for my entire life I could never figure out why that was so damn hard for you to do.”

  Erica’s mother had started rocking in her seat and her arms were shaking so badly that her cigarette dropped. She had finally figured out how to maneuver her ass to the edge of the futon. When she leaned her hearty body forward for the cigarette, her fingertip grazed the filter. But she bent too much, and before she could catch herself she missed her footing and slipped to the floor.

  “Damn
it, that’s my bad hip.” She rolled on her side.

  “That wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so drunk,” Erica’s voice came out like a mad whisper.

  “It’s the weekend Slim, cut me a break.”

  “Every day it’s something, and all I’ve done is cut you breaks.”

  “Well, could somebody help me up?” Her mother looked like Humpty Dumpty who fell off the wall, with a cigarette clasped between her fingers.

  “I’m tired of helping you, Ma.” Erica stepped around her, pushed past Tess and Bonnie, who stood suspended in place by the tension.

  “Please don’t be here when I get back,” Erica said. And when she walked out of her apartment, she left the old Erica behind.

  Chapter Forty

  Nothing Left to Lose

  Warren was fucking Blanche.

  Her mother had once again chosen Bonnie.

  Now the only thing Erica had left was her job. Deciding that it was time to cast her personal life aside, she focused on her promotion. With Edie home on maternity leave, Erica had to make her move. She shoved her feeling inside of her gray tailored pant suit, hid what didn’t fit in her French twist, and covered what was left beneath with shimmered eye shadow and a fresh coat of clear gloss.

  In the office, she headed over to Karen and requested a meeting with Claire.

  “There’s a ten o’clock departmental scheduled today. She has a small window directly following,” Karen replied, and Erica thanked her.