Pushing Pause

by Celeste O. Norfleet

  Afterwards we sat against the back wall, drinking water and talking about our favorite dancers. Needless to say, the list was long.

  “I’m starved,” Jade said, stretching her legs out.

  “Me, too, what’s your grandmother got going on?” Gayle asked.

  They both looked at me like I should know. I shrugged, then it hit me, I did know. “Oh, right. She’s making seafood gumbo.”

  “For real?” Gayle asked. I nodded, hoping that was really what she was making for today and not for some other time.

  Jade and Gayle started laughing, so of course I looked at them, totally missing the joke. “Tyrece loves Grandmom’s gumbo and he’s gonna miss it,” Jade said, filling me in on the joke.

  “Tyrece, like in T.G., like in Tyrece Grant, he knows Grandmom?”

  “She doesn’t know?” Gayle said to Jade. Jade shook her head. Gayle nodded and smiled. “Oh, we were all just over to the house after we wrapped the video last week. She fixed this huge spread and we seriously threw down like there was no tomorrow.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “I can’t believe it, everybody was all waiting down at the pizza place for y’all to show up. Somebody said that Tyrece was gonna be there, so just about everybody showed up to see him.”

  “That was why we didn’t go,” Gayle and Jade said, joining in with my laughter.

  We eventually packed the CD player and stuff up and got ready to go. So as we’re leaving, Diamond and Jalisa were standing in the front hall. I said hi and introduced them to Gayle. They already knew Jade. Of course they were speechless and pissed that they’d missed out on dancing with Gayle.

  “We wondered what happened to you,” Jalisa said. “Diamond and I were just going to try and go to your grandmother’s house, but we couldn’t remember exactly where it was.”

  “Well, come on,” I said, “I have her car.”

  Diamond drove with Jalisa, following me, Gayle and Jade in my grandmother’s car. We pulled up in front and we all got out. Lawn mower guy was there talking to my grandmom.

  “Hey,” he said, hugging Gayle and Jade, then he smiled at me as we headed down the path to the front porch. He grabbed the packages I carried and winked sneakily, like we had some kind of secret or something. I could see Jalisa and Diamond out of the corner of my eye looking at me and smiling. I knew I was gonna have some explaining to do later on, but thankfully he left right after he put the bags in the kitchen.

  So we all went inside and ate and laughed and talked about dance and videos and music. Then Jade took Gayle back to Freeman and Diamond took Jalisa back to Virginia.

  As soon as I finished helping my grandmother clean up the kitchen, my cell rang, it was Diamond, and then Jalisa came on, too. I went to my bedroom so I could talk, and my grandmother headed off to something happening at her church.

  “You heifer, you, you were dancing with Gayle Harmon upstairs and didn’t even bother to let your girls know. I can’t believe you even did that,” Diamond said.

  “Tell her,” Jalisa said, adding to the teasing.

  “It was too hot, they are too much,” I said. “I still can’t believe it. We listened to Tyrece’s newest remixed single that was not even out to the radio stations yet and it was hot. Then we worked on outlining his next video.”

  “OMG, girl, I am so jealous,” Jalisa said jokingly.

  “Me, too,” Diamond added. We laughed ’cause I just knew that both of them were too happy for me.

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Jalisa said, stopping our laughter, “what I want to know is who is the cutie with the dimples and does he have a brother…”

  “…or cousin, or best friend, or half brother, or next-door neighbor…” Diamond continued.

  “He just hangs around. I don’t even know his name.”

  “Get out of here.”

  “How can you not know his name?”

  “We’ve never really been introduced.”

  “What do you call him, then?”

  “Lawn mower guy,” I said truthfully.

  We all broke up laughing, then I heard the door slam and I heard my mom calling my name. I told Diamond and Jalisa that I’d call them back and I hung up. As soon as I did, I heard my mom scream for me at the top of her lungs. I went running downstairs to see what was up. We met in the second-floor hallway.

  “What the hell did you tell your father?”

  “What, nothing, why?”

  “I just came from my attorney’s office and he said that your father is cutting me off completely and that he’s making arrangements to take you from me. I’m apparently an unfit mother now.”

  My mouth dropped open. “I didn’t say that, I didn’t say anything to him at all about you.”

  “Well, your father’s attorney seems to think you did, so he’s got me going to court to prove that I’m fit.”

  “Mom…”

  “Call your father now and tell him…”

  “Why don’t you call him?” I asked.

  “You call him now,” she said.

  “I’m not calling him.”

  “You need to stop being so damn selfish,” she said.

  “Me, selfish? What about you? You spend all day and half the night asleep or drugged-out because of those stupid pills you take. That’s all you ever do, that’s all you ever did, take pills and pretend that everything was all right. Appearances matter, right? You’re a hypocrite, doping yourself up so you don’t have to bother with life, with me, remember me? Your daughter.”

  “I knew you were angry and pissed off when you left out of here Sunday evening, but I never thought you would go behind my back and…”

  “I didn’t, I didn’t say anything like that.”

  “Kenisha…”

  “Mom…”

  “I don’t want to hear it. I did all this for you, to give you a home, a better life, advantages that I didn’t have. I sacrificed everything for you, and this is how you thank me, by being selfish and spoiled and going behind my back?” she screamed.

  “What, what did you do for me? You made me leave my house, my friends, my school, everything, and come here. I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t even have a choice!” I yelled back. “I hate this place, I hate you.”

  “I can’t believe how selfish you are. Everything is always about you, what you want, what’s good for you. What about the rest of the world? Grow up, Kenisha, the world don’t revolve around you or what you want. Sometimes we have to do what’s best for someone else. I damn near cut her out of my life to make it better for you and you’re gonna stand there whining about what you want and what you don’t want. I wanted something, too. I wanted a life, but I made a choice, I committed to it and I lived with it for fifteen years.”

  “Is that supposed to be my drama? If you didn’t want me, you should have just aborted me or gave me away. I didn’t ask to be here. I didn’t ask you to make a choice. You did it, now you live with it.”

  The slap came hard and loud. My left eye blurred and the side of my face felt like it had exploded. “You want to go back there and live with them, fine, go, I don’t care anymore, go.”

  I didn’t wait around after that. I ran down the steps and straight out the front door, barefoot, shorts and a T-shirt, hair wild to the wind, no money, no nothing. I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going, I just started running.

  I guess I was about eight blocks away when I slowed down and stopped, and then it was only because I couldn’t breathe anymore. My chest was on fire and about to burst. I started coughing and sputtering as I tried to get gasps of air into my lungs.

  “Hey,” I barely heard somebody, a male, say as he came up behind me, “you okay?”

  I think I tried to say something, but only a gasping, raspy sound came out. I held on to my chest as my legs weakened and I stumbled, but somebody caught me, so I leaned on, trying to get my balance again.

  “You’re asthmatic?” he asked through my fog. I nodded weakly. “Do you have an inhaler with you?�
� I shook my head. “Okay, I’m gonna get you back home. Can you walk?” I shook my head again, hoping I could, but I guess I couldn’t—’cause I almost collapsed when I tried. “Okay, why don’t we sit down here a minute. You need to take a break before we walk back.”

  I had no idea what was happening or who was talking to me, all I knew was that I was running back home, to my real home in Virginia, where everything was perfect, where my life was perfect.

  So I sat there, somewhere, with my hair all over my face, half crying and half gasping and looking like some crazy derelict or nut job from the loony bin. I coughed and wheezed and my head was spinning, I guess half from the slap and half from the asthma, and I was trying to focus on who was talking to me, but I had no idea.

  I heard this person talking and his voice sounded kind of familiar, but my head was too hazy, it could have been Marvin the Martian from a Bugs Bunny cartoon and I wouldn’t have known the difference. I think he was talking on a cell or something, telling somebody to come get us.

  Now all of a sudden I got scared. What was I thinking? I tried to stand up, but my legs wobbled and crumbled beneath me and my head was spinning and my lungs were almost gone. A few minutes later, I guess, ’cause I really didn’t know, I saw these headlights coming, flashing bright toward me and then I really got scared. I heard brakes screech and the only thing I could think of was that this person was going to take me someplace, rape and kill me, and nobody would ever know what happened.

  So I reached up and scratched the mess out of his face. I’d seen enough CSI television shows to know that if I was gonna get killed, I was taking a piece of this asshole with me. Somebody grabbed my hands and I felt somebody pick me up.

  Fine, whatever, my life was over.

  CHAPTER 13

  A Short Goodbye

  “As if I don’t have enough drama in my life right now, I still keep wondering when the other shoe is gonna drop. My mind floods with images of losing control, I just want to let go.”

  —myspace.com

  Later. The side of my face was throbbing and my head was spinning all over the place. I heard talking.

  “…you need to stop taking all those pills and talk to that child. She needs to know…”

  “…how am I supposed to tell her that everything she knows is a lie?”

  “…tell her.”

  The next thing I remember I was lying in my bed and my mom was sitting beside me with a cold ice pack on the side of my face. Jade was a blur sitting at the window and my grandmother was leaning behind my mom, looking down at me. “Kenisha. Kenisha, wake up, are you okay?”

  I took a deep breath and realized that I could actually breathe again. “I…just…need…to…catch…my…breath,” I said, slowly and haltingly.

  My head was still spinning, but things were clearer than before.

  “Here, open your mouth and take this.”

  “No,” I said when I saw my mom holding the inhaler up for me. “No more, I’m fine.”

  “Is she okay?” I heard Jade ask.

  I nodded as my mother answered.

  “She’ll be fine, sweetie, don’t worry,” my mom said.

  “It’s good to have you back, baby. Come on, Jade, let’s give her some room. You make us some herbal tea and I’ll get some cookies,” my grandmother said before she left and I saw Jade follow her out.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” my mom said, holding my hand tight.

  “No, I’m sorry, but Mom seriously, I’m not lying. I didn’t say anything like that to Dad. It was probably that skank Courtney.”

  “You know about Courtney?”

  “Dad had her there at the house on Sunday.”

  “I thought you were going to meet him at a restaurant.”

  “I wanted to see the house again. I thought I could talk to him and make everything the way it was. Maybe you two could get back together and everything would be right again.”

  “Honey, everything is right again. You’re back here with me and Jade and Momma, and my family is back the way it should be. The way it should have been. I should have never broken it apart. How’s your face feel?”

  “It still stings. I gotta learn how you do that,” I joked.

  She half smiled, but I could see that she was still concerned. “It’s all in the flat of the hand and in the wrist action.” We laughed, strange, but we did. She shook her head as tears began to fall. “I’m sorry for hurting you, and I guess I’ve hurt you more than I can even realize.”

  I shook my head. “No, Mom you’re hurting yourself.”

  “When did you get so smart?” she asked, still half smiling.

  A moment of placid calm passed between us and for the first time in a long time, it felt good to be with her, the real her.

  “So you’re getting a divorce, right?” I said. She shook her head and looked me straight in the eye. “What, you’re not getting a divorce? What about alimony, don’t we need that?”

  “We don’t need to get a divorce. Your father and I never got married.”

  “What?” I sat up too quickly. Big mistake, my head started spinning again.

  “Baby.” She sighed heavily and looked away, then back at me, holding the cold pack to my face again. “He always promised that we’d get married and I always meant to push him, but I never did. After you were born I just never did. Then time just slipped away for both of us.”

  “You’re not married to Dad?” I repeated, trying to wrap my head around what she had just told me. “That’s why he could just up and make us leave like squatters or something, the restraining order.” She didn’t say anything, so I knew it was true. “Okay, so what now, palimony?” I asked her.

  “Your father’s attorney talked to my attorney.”

  “And?”

  “He said he’d pay two hundred dollars a month in child support and that was it. He told me to sell the furniture and jewelry I took if I needed more cash and that if I wanted you to have more, I’d have to give you up, since I was unfit to care for you anyway.”

  “He said that?”

  “His attorney was far kinder.”

  “Okay, what about school, Hazelhurst, will he pay for that?”

  “No, he said it would be good for you to go to a D.C. public school for a while, to gain perspective.”

  My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe it, he made all those promises and he lied and I knew Courtney had something to do with it, too.

  “Kenisha, I can’t get unemployment benefits—I haven’t worked in over fifteen years. Your father has completely cut me off. This is our home now. Mamma isn’t rich, but she’s a port in the storm. We’ve had our differences and I’m trying to make amends. But baby, this is our life now.”

  I nodded. “I know.” The dizzying feeling returned and I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

  “Does grandmom know?”

  “Yes.”

  “About you and Dad not being married, I mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “That was what the two of you were fighting about before, when you stopped speaking, wasn’t it?”

  “I thought that we didn’t need a piece of paper to be committed to each other.” She half smiled at the memory. “We decided that our love would hold us strong, bond us together forever, till death us do part,” she said. “I was wrong.”

  “Mom, is that why you and Grandmom stopped speaking?” I asked again, thinking she didn’t hear me the first time.

  “No, no, it wasn’t,” she said, then looked directly at me.

  Even though I suspected she was lying, the truth in her eyes was so sincere, I believed her. “And Jade, does she know?”

  “Yes, she knows, too.”

  I nodded my head. “Everybody knew but me.”

  “Not everybody, just us.”

  “That’s everybody,” I whispered and lay back.

  “I know, I failed you, I failed Jade and I failed myself, but you two are the only good things in my life,” she said in a strong, dete
rmined voice.

  “I’m tired, Mom.”

  “Sure baby, lie back, get some rest, everything will be better in the morning. I love you, always remember that.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  When she left, I started wondering about what she had said about making amends and about failing and about her life. All those years, she was waiting for something more to happen to her and never stepped up to do it herself. Then for some reason, I remembered what my grandmom had said to me about making a decision, committing to it, then learning to live with it. I guess that was what my mom did. I guess that’s what I have to do.

  I guess I fell asleep, ’cause I kind of woke up a while later. It was late. I got up and went to the bathroom. Jade’s door was cracked open and I heard my mom in there talking to her. I went over and listened.

  “Jade, you are an incredible young woman, far better than I was at your age. You’re smart, in control and focused. You’re a role model, you have goals and purpose, with a determination that I could only dream about. Your future is endless.”

  “So is yours. So what if James let you go, that was his stupidity. You have so much going for you. You can do anything you want.”

  “No, it’s too late for me, I’m through.”

  “You’re just barely over thirty. It’s not too late, you can do anything, go back to school. I’ll even take a computer engineering class with you.”

  “I did so many stupid things, all in the name of love, first with you and then Kenisha. Don’t follow my example and don’t let Kenisha. I know the two of you aren’t close right now, but help her to understand,” she said.

  “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “Yes, we should, we need to. She was a child, she didn’t know any better. It was my fault, I should have protected you, I should have stepped up and said something. But I was so afraid of losing everything, and look, I lost everything anyway. Because of me, your life…”

  “No, don’t even think that, because of you I had, no, I have a wonderful life. I’m happy, really happy, school is great, I dance, I have my friends, I have Grandmom, you and Kenisha, and I have T.”