by Cydney Rax
I looked at the clock. It was seven-thirty.
I glanced over at the shapely, precious lump that was sitting next to me reading a book.
“Tracey, what up with your hair, woman?”
“What do you mean? You don’t like it?” she asked, setting aside a mass-market copy of Summer Sisters.
“You just woke up and your hair is smashed up and sticking all over your head; you look like Planet of the Apes Meets the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
“And so?” she said, lifting the book and reading again.
“Uh, you need to be putting a comb to that. Or find you one of those bad-hair-day hats. Something.”
“Well, I think you shouldn’t be too concerned about how my hair is looking,” she told me, still having the nerve to read. “Think about what we were doing all night. It’s not like I can break out my wig.”
“That’s no excuse, ma’am. You’ve probably been up long enough to get yourself fixed up. That’s what I love about my mom. No matter what’s going on, she never lets Daddy see her looking like Aunt Esther on Sanford and Son.”
She dropped the book on the bed without even inserting her bookmark. “I’m glad to see you’re an expert on all your old TV shows, but Aaron, nobody can look like a ‘ten’, three hundred sixty-five days a year.”
“Janet Jackson does.”
“No, she doesn’t. I know someone who saw her at an airport one time, and unless she was purposely trying to disguise herself, Miss Jackson looked like any other broad on the street.”
“Aw, why you hatin’ on Janet?”
“I don’t even know the woman. I’m just saying hey, if you care about me, you’ll like me if my hair is wrapped or not. Plus just last night you told me I look good and that no one has a perfect body.”
“You may not have a perfect body, but you can still do something to that hair,” I told her, and reached out to smooth her flyaway strands.
“Oh, you’re just a chauvinist.”
“No, I’m not.”
“So you say. Be for real, Aaron. Do you look good all the time?” she challenged.
“Yep!”
“I see you’re very humble, too,” she said, not smiling one bit.
“I know I’m humble.”
She groaned. “Aaron, if a person has to call himself humble, he’s really not humble.”
“But I am humble,” I said, winking and reaching out for her.
“No, no, no, move,” she said, shoving me and nearly pushing me out of the bed. “Shoot, Aaron, I need to get my lazy butt up and do something resourceful. I’m so tired, though.” She yawned and rotated her shoulder. “Excuse me, but I feel like I could stay in bed for a week.”
“Let’s do it,” I said reaching toward her again, but she moved away.
“No, you need to go and live your life. You can’t be under me all the time.”
“But what if I like it and I want to be with you?”
“Well, I like being with you, too,” she said in a soothing voice, “but we just can’t keep doing this.” She shook her head. “It’s insane.”
“But why not? If we like being around each other, why can’t we?” I asked.
“Aaron, if I’m around you all the time, I won’t be of any use to you. No one appreciates things that are too accessible. They’ll take it for granted.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes, believe me when I tell you. We need a break from each other—”
“Oh, hell no.”
“Now, I know you might not want to hear it, but we need to try, Aaron. I mean, can’t we just try?”
“Well, what if I don’t want to?”
She snorted and laughed. “What you want doesn’t matter. All couples need a break sometime, and it’s going to happen either purposely or by a force of nature.”
I stiffened. “Meaning?”
“Meaning if we don’t give ourselves some space, even if we don’t want to, something else or another will cause it to happen.”
I cleared my throat and stared at her. Sighed and started getting dressed.
“DADDY, WHAT WAS IT ABOUT MOM that made you wanna be with her for the rest of your life?”
It was later on that night, and I was hanging at my folks’ place for a change. We were in Dad’s cozy study. My father, Lendan Oliver, was a man of average height but big-framed. Tonight he was dressed in a maroon and green rugby shirt and dark slacks, sitting at his desk stroking his beard while reading a day-old copy of the Houston Chronicle. Patience was having its perfect work tonight. I let him take his usual time in saying what he had to say.
After ten full minutes, Dad placed the newspaper on his lap and asked, “What’s a five-letter word for ‘Ex of “The Donald” ’?”
“ ‘Ex of “The Donald” ’? Hmmm. Marla?”
“Heh, heh,” he laughed. “You sure about that?”
“Yep, Daddy, I’m sure. Marla Trump is Donald Trump’s ex.”
“Well, what about Ivana? That’s a five-letter word, too.”
“Who?”
“Ah, never mind; maybe Marla is more of your type,” he joked.
I laughed in my throat and patted my dad on his back.
Using a pen, he jotted down a few letters, then raised his chin and smiled.
“So when’s the wedding?”
“Huh?”
“You must be thinking about hooking up with some fine young lady, since you need all these answers, Khristian.”
I winced. From time to time, Dad got a kick out of calling me by my middle name. Maybe it’s because he chose Khristian for my birth name, but Mom insisted on Aaron. I didn’t really like him calling me that, but I wasn’t about to dispute him.
“Oh no, Daddy. Don’t put that on me. I’m still in school, barely got a job. I’m in no position to get married.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because . . . I just know.”
“Ah, you don’t know, son. When you’re in love with a woman, it doesn’t matter if you have one grand or if you’re in debt by ten grand. You’ll do whatever it takes to be with her, shield her . . . love her.”
“Are you saying you were in debt when you married Mom?”
“Son, unless you’re a Kennedy or a third-generation Jackson, you’re in debt the day you’re born.”
He chuckled and turned his swivel chair back to the crossword puzzle. Although I asked him two more questions, he ignored me for the longest. Then finally he turned and asked, “Okay, here’s a good one. What’s a five letter word for ‘the future wife of Aaron’?”
“That’s not in there, Daddy.”
He chuckled again, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes.
Lauren 18
That Sunday night, after Mom left, Regis and I had a heart-to-heart. A heart-to-heart is when you let go of all the doubts and fears that have been cowering inside your mouth and head. You say whatever needs to be said. The rule is to be kind, but to say what’s on your mind.
In Regis’s room, the radio was playing very low and we listened to song after song by Ginuwine, Mya, and Destiny’s Child. Regis and I were lying on our bellies, on her bed, squinting and looking down at Vibe, Glamour, and Word Up!, strewn before us on the floor.
“Damn, what up with you and your moms today?” Regis frowned.
“She’s getting on my last little nerve.”
“I figured that much,” she said, kicking her legs in the air and crossing them at the ankles.
“Do you always get along with your mother, Regis?”
“Hell no. She don’t listen half the time, and when she not listening, she trying to run my life.”
“What life, Regis? You’re only fifteen.”
“Like I don’t know that?” she sputtered. “Still . . . I mean just because you a teen don’t mean you don’t know what you want out of life. Or what you don’t want.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t want my momma breathing down my neck every time the phone ring.
Seem like she ain’t thinking about no phone till I get a call. Then, boom, it’s like, ‘I gotta call Ma Dear’ or some other creative excuse.”
“I thought you were going to get your own line.”
“Yeah, I heard her telling my auntie something like that, so maybe I can get my own line by the end of the year or something.” She swiveled her neck back and forth like an Egyptian dancer.
“Does she listen to your phone conversations?”
Her neck-dance halted and she stared at me. “Is the Pope on crack? Moms ain’t that crazy. The most she can do is rush me off my calls. How ’bout yours?”
“No, I don’t think she really cares enough to try and peep into my phone calls. But it seems like whenever Aaron dials me up, she can’t just hand over the phone. She always has to chat with him at least ten to fifteen minutes before she lets me talk to him.”
Regis uncrossed her legs and stared at me. “Say what? She talking to Aaron ’fore you do? What’s up with that?”
I knew Regis was the type to go for the jugular, and once I started making these confessions, there was no way to go in reverse.
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s asking him personal questions about what we do or something. You know she’s scared that I’m messing around and stuff—like I’ll get pregnant like she did. She ain’t got nothing to worry about, though, ’cause Aaron and I aren’t doing a doggoned thang.” I humped my butt up and down with a sigh.
“Hey, girl, if he ain’t doing it with you, you can bet he rubbing up against some other hoochie,” Regis said, and started humping her booty, too, like she was a guy and her bed was the girl.
“I—I doubt it,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure.
Regis sat up. “Then you stupid, Lauren. That man ain’t no nun.”
“Nun?”
“Or whatever you wanna call it. He getting some. Girl, I’m telling you,” she said in a tone that made me feel uncomfortable.
“Rege, you know something I don’t know?”
“No, no, fool,” she told me. “I ain’t saying that, but you hafta use common sense. He hardly a virgin, he look like something that stepped out a doggoned magazine, and he a man. There you go,” she said, looking at me like I was dumb as a piece of soap.
“All guys don’t cheat,” I told her, disturbed by her unsettling theory. “Besides, Aaron specifically said he’d take a rain check. I don’t think he’d lie.”
“You don’t think he’d lie. Girl, you bugging big time. Aaron’ll tell you anything to keep your conscience off his ass. What, y’all been dating for almost six months? Now do you really believe that a man who loves sweets can keep his hand out the cookie jar for six months, Lauren?”
Her voice volume was climbing higher and higher like she didn’t need a microphone to reach dozens of people; all she had to do was have passion about what she was saying.
I sighed and clenched my teeth.
“Wh-when would Aaron have time to eat cookies?” I asked her. “He works and goes to school.”
“Are you with the brother twenty-four-seven, Lauren? Huh?” she asked, waving her hand in a large circle.
“No, but—”
“And ain’t there times when you can’t get in touch with him, and he MIA for hours and hours?”
“Yeah, but—”
“So where you think Aaron is during those times, catechism class?”
I covered my ears with my hands. I could see Regis moving her mouth and waving her hands, and because I didn’t want her to be screaming all my business, I removed my hands from my ears.
“—you better quit hiding your head under a rock and open up those big ole eyes, chile. I ain’t saying he’s screwing around on you for sho’, but it’s possible. Like, where your man right now? He called you? Have you even called him?”
I opened my mouth, then clamped it shut. Scratched the side of my neck and coughed.
“Lauren,” she said, her jaw sagging, “you haven’t called him, have you?”
“No, Regis, no. I’m giving Aaron some space. He pissed me off yesterday because he wouldn’t come get me, so I’m giving him a lot of space.”
She looked at me like that was the sorriest lie she’d ever heard.
“Awww, how clever, Lauren. Like that’s gone make him want you more. You giving Aaron space all right—to hook up with some other heifer besides you. That’s all you doing. Better wake up.”
Right then I could see that heart-to-hearts weren’t as great as they sounded. Telling the truth is one thing, but feeling bad about expressing the truth is another. And hearing the truth, especially when it came from Regis Collier, was an altogether different thing.
“Oh, Regis, save it. I don’t see you having a solid grip on Sporty. He does whatever the hell he wants to do and there’s nothing you can do about it. So don’t preach to me . . . need to keep tabs on your own man.”
She raised her head and announced with pride, “Me and Sporty have an understanding.”
“Oh, really now?” I told her, unimpressed.
“Yeah, really now. I understand that he sees other girls and he understand he gotta hand over the cash.”
“Ha! That’s a great substitute, Regis. A walking ATM is better than having a man that’s holding you? I don’t think so,” I said, starting to feel better about my own situation now that I knew about hers.
“Well, it ain’t for you to think. It’s for me to think, because Sporty and me have it like that,” she claimed, like it didn’t matter whether I believed her or not.
“Yeah, right,” I told her. “You can say—”
“Plus,” she said her voice drowning me out, “on top of that, at least I can get some loving from him. You ain’t getting money or loving.”
“Aaron gives me things.” My voice quivered.
“But nothing that really count.”
“Sex isn’t everything, Regis,” I said, wishing I even knew what it was like to have sex. Any sex.
“Bad sex ain’t everything, but great sex? Hey now,” she stood up, twisted her butt, and lifted her palms several times toward the ceiling.
I shrugged and watched her plop back down on her bed.
“Lauren, chile, don’t play that role with me. You know sex is important, or else you wouldn’t have brought it up with Aaron. You don’t wanna lose him, am I right?”
I nodded.
“And didn’t you tell me how you mentioned that promise about y’all getting together?”
“Yeah.”
“So you did that to keep him interested, to hold him. If sex is what you promised Aaron in order to hold him, then I’m sorry, but it screams ‘I’m important,’ ” she said, with her neck swiveling to emphasize every word that she thought was important.
“Rege, you know, it’s pointless to argue with you. You have an answer for everything.”
“I tells it like it is.” She grinned.
“Well, whatever. All I know is, if and when I do get with Aaron, it’s gonna be for the right reason and at the right time. I know it sounds corny, but I’d rather look corny than regretful.”
I hushed up after saying that. Wondered where that firm determination came from. Even though its release was a surprise, somehow, some way, those words felt right, and a peace settled over me that made me feel more confident, and I didn’t care what Regis thought anymore.
Instead of her usual snappy comeback, Regis gave me an odd look, her eyes partly covered by her wayward braids. She remained quiet for several minutes and chewed on her bottom lip.
“Okay,” she told me, “I ain’t all that cool with what Sporty and me have. I think he spoiled and like to have his way all the time, but I try to get my way, too. That’s the way it oughta be in relationships. That’s how you know the guy care about you—’cause he give in to what you want sometimes, too.”
I sighed at the fact that she didn’t seem to be listening to anything I said. “But what if he gets his way more than you do?”
“Then he the one in c
ontrol. He got the power,” she said, like all this was a clinically tested and proven fact.
“Hmmm! Regis, how can you know all this and I’m two years older than you?”
“Chile, ain’t you heard that age ain’t nothing but a number?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that song.”
“Well, it ain’t just no song, Lauren, it’s a fact of life,” she said in a tone that made me feel like I was an airhead.
“Thank you for explaining that. I had no idea. Now I feel more informed,” I said, clapping my hands at her.
“You’ll be all right, chile. You just need to keep on top of your man— in more ways than one, keep on top of that Aaron Oliver,” she said, and jumped up and ran toward the mirror.
Tracey 19
It was Monday, twelve-fifteen in the afternoon.
I was approximately ten minutes away from home and was in the process of making a side trip to Randall’s to pick up four cans of tuna, relish, potato chips, mayonnaise, a loaf of wheat bread, and a case of ginger ale. I stood behind two customers in the express lane. One person, a platinum blond who looked like Macaulay Culkin in a dress, stood elbow to elbow with another man who could’ve passed for Fat Albert with dreadlocks. Someone’s cell phone started ringing, and the feminine-looking man opened his purse. I saw him withdrawing his phone, so I didn’t bother to reach for mine. But the ringer kept ringing and I fished my Nokia from my purse and muttered, “Hello?”
“Tracey, this is Derrick. How are you doing?”
“I’m—I’m fine.” I started to ask how he was doing, but I knew I really didn’t care, so I didn’t say anything.
“That’s good. I was just calling because I tried you at home and there was no answer. Lauren with you?”
“No, she’s uh, she’s probably still at Regis’s. She—she’s probably over there.”
“Oh yeah? How long has she been there?”
“Why you want to know?”
“I’ve been trying to get y’all at home since yesterday. I guess your cell was turned off all night ’cause I tried that number too.”