“As a matter of fact, it is, Georgia.”
Shit.
Sometimes I need to learn not to say what I’m thinking just because I’m thinking it. I often say the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong people, but apparently I have yet to learn from my mistakes.
“I’m sorry, Michael. And I apologize for being so tactless. I had no idea.”
“It’s okay. I got punked, as Ashton Kushner would say. It was all about money.”
It’s Kutcher. But this is no time to correct him.
“What happened?”
“She didn’t like the ring I chose. She wanted to live behind gates, and she insisted we go to Dubai and Bora-Bora for our honeymoon.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“I’m not rich, Georgia.”
“Does she have money?”
“Not unless she hid it under her mattress.”
“Well, at least somebody managed to get married.”
“Who?”
“My mother.”
This makes him chuckle.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Would you like to have sex?”
“No, Michael.”
“I didn’t mean to ask you that. Well, I did, but I didn’t expect you to say yes.”
“You know, you can always buy some comfort if you need it that bad.”
“I’ve just lost a stranger, don’t think I want to go looking for another one.”
It’s marathon call night, because no sooner than I hang up do I see it’s an alien. Violet. I’m almost afraid to answer it, since she put a price tag on our friendship. I do miss her, and I’ve been worried about her well-being, but she refuses to return my phone calls and even Wanda’s.
“Hello, stranger,” I say.
“Hello back,” she says. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. And you?”
“Well, I had a lump.”
“You had a what? Repeat that. I’m not sure I heard you right.”
“I said I had a lump.”
“You mean as in a breast-cancer lump, Violet?”
“Yes. But it’s gone. And they took my right breast. But I had it reconstructed.”
I almost can’t breathe.
“Georgia?”
“I’m here. I don’t know if I should just be happy or mad as hell at you for not telling me, Violet. When did all this happen?”
“Not long after I moved.”
“And you’re okay now?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty much recovered.”
“Does Wanda know?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you fucking tell us?”
“Because I just didn’t feel like it.”
“What the hell do you think friends are for?”
“Well, that’s why I’m calling.”
“Do you need some help?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“What about Velvet? How’s she doing?”
“Still trifling and unemployed.”
“And the baby?”
“He’s good, finally up to ten pounds.”
“Thank God. So tell me, Violet, what I can do for you?”
“Be my friend again.”
—
Wanda and I are in Tahoe. The snow is long gone, but we drove up here to gamble and gaze at the snowcapped mountains and look for bears and, of course, stop at the Vacaville outlet on the way back. We invited Violet, but she said she had to babysit her grandson. We did not believe her. We have tried to learn everything about recovering from having a mastectomy and breast augmentation, and we realized Violet’s probably depressed, but despite our efforts to reach out to her and tell her that we understand how she might be feeling—even though we really don’t—and that we’re here for her, she won’t let us in. Wanda and I have decided we’re going over to her house when we get back. We don’t care what she says.
“Let’s do that breast-cancer walk,” I say to Wanda as we unpack the back of her SUV.
“Violet won’t care, and you know I did it last year, but you were too lazy.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not feeling lazy now, and Violet will care, and she’s coming with us, even if all she can do is be our cheerleader.”
“It’s thirty-nine point two miles, but we can do twenty-six,” she says.
“I want to go the distance.”
“Then let’s do it.”
—
We ring Violet’s doorbell until she answers.
“What do you two want from me?”
“We’re doing the walk, and if you’re not able, we just want you to come out to support us.”
She starts crying. We all cry. And hug. And together Wanda and I start what will be the most grueling eight weeks of my life. Violet isn’t as strong as we are yet, but she can ride a bicycle. We follow the training program. I wake up when it’s still dark and meet them at the safe walking trails. We walk six miles the first day. Do a recovery walk for fifteen short minutes the next. Then three miles. Then I haul my ass to the gym and use up some of that personal-trainer credit. I’m surprised how much I like exercising, how good it makes me feel. I have more energy, my spirits are rising, and at the end of the eighth week, when I walk into my closet to try on a dress I always wear, it’s too big. I hadn’t thought of how this walk would also benefit me.
Of course we’re among thousands on the perfect fifty-five-degree day when we walked twenty-six point one miles, then thirteen point one the next, and I can’t believe I actually did it. I really don’t know how. Wanda’s not surprised. I’ve never been this high in my life, and I’ve also never seen so many shades of pink and purple and blue, nor have I ever participated in anything this meaningful with so many people who have so much in common and all gathered for the same reasons.
We meet women in recovery. Women who are walking with cancer still alive inside them. We had hoped Violet would’ve come, but she said she didn’t think she was strong enough to cheer us on for all those miles. We meet men who are the sons, brothers, fathers, and husbands of women who did and didn’t survive.
I vow to do this again next year.
I vow to keep exercising.
Wanda does, too. Even though at the end of the walk, when we’re heading to the parking lot, she tells me she and Nelson have made an offer on the condo they liked in Palm Desert and chances are they’re going to be moving down there for good next year.
I have no intention of losing my friend. But what in the world am I going to do without her?
I forgot my high-school colors.
Ma told me to go anyway, before everybody’s dead. That was comforting. I look over the itinerary, and it seems ridiculous that so little activity could fill two whole days. Ma wants me to stay with her, but I’m afraid to. I’m told that Grover Jr. is back in town, but who wants to be around a man whose wife just left him? Besides, he’s my frigging new brother!
“Good thing you lost all that weight,” Ma says when I stop by a few hours before the Icebreaker Cocktail Party.
“I’ve lost thirteen pounds,” I say.
“Well, it looks like twenty-five. Keep doing whatever you’re doing, because it’s flattering to see less of you.”
She chuckles.
“So looks like little Levi is finally getting cute,” Ma says.
“Little boys always seem to have to grow into their looks.”
“Some do. Some don’t. So what’s the 411 on Estelle and Justin?”
“What do you mean?”
“Heard it’s not paradise anymore,” she says. “And they might be in counseling. They picked a heck of a time to have another child. What do you think is going on, Georgia?”
“I don’t know,” I say, although I believe in my heart he’s probably cheating. Men stop being nice to you when they’re having an affair. “Where’s your husband?”
“At his place, and don’t ask me why, because we like our setup. He’ll be over later to watch Iron Man 3 or maybe even 4. I don’t know.”
“There is no Iron Man 3 or 4, Ma.”
“We’re asleep before the credits roll anyway. Who cares which one it is? I don’t like robots to begin with.”
“Well, maybe I’ll stop by after all the icebreakers melt and before someone falls off the stage during karaoke.”
“Wait a minute. You’re not going to this festivity by yourself, I hope.”
“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”
“You’re supposed to have an escort. Hell, somebody. You do not want to walk into your forty-year reunion by yourself. That much I do know.”
“Why not?”
“It just sends the wrong message.”
“And what message is that?”
“That you didn’t have anybody to bring.”
“I don’t care what these people think.”
“You should care. Why don’t you take Grover Jr.? His social calendar is blank. Believe me.”
“I don’t want to take anybody, Ma. And I’m not the least bit embarrassed to go by myself.”
“Who’re you going to dance with?”
“Dance? Who said anything about dancing?”
“You have to dance, Georgia.”
“Okay! What’s his number?”
“He’s right across the parking lot. In Grover’s unit.”
“How long is he staying?”
“Not sure. He said he likes Bakersfield.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“And by the way, it’s nice to see your hair again. Short and curly is so much more flattering. You looked like you were wearing a Russian hat all these years.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“I figured when you got tired of looking like wooly bully, you’d come to your senses.”
“You always know what to say.”
“Can you please call Grover Jr.?” she says, and hands me her cell phone, which has pictures of all four of her great-grandchildren on the screen.
“Nice,” I say.
“I had it made. I’ll give you the website if you want it.”
I just shake my head, and then I hear that deep voice.
“Hi, Grover, this is your new sister, Georgia. How are you?”
He says fine. He’s lying, of course.
“Look. I’m here to attend my hundredth high-school reunion and was just advised that I should have a date.”
Ma is staring me in the mouth.
“Yours was in June?…You did?…You will?…All day….That’s great.”
Ma makes a charades gesture and points at her heart and then moves her arms like she’s steering.
“How about I pick you up about six? It should be over about nine, ten at the latest. And we can talk about day two also.”
Her eyes turn into sunny-side-ups.
“Do you golf?…Me either. But there’s the long dinner and the dreaded speech during dessert and the awards for best this and that and the PowerPoint of those who aren’t with us anymore and then, so as to end the evening on a high note, the faux dancing. It’s going to be a long night….No kidding? The last five?…I don’t want to say….I’ll see you in a few hours then, Grover. And thanks.”
“Wear something as close to sexy as you can find in that garment bag,” Michelle Obama says.
“Ma, please.”
“He is not your real brother. Just keep that in mind. And if he’s anything like his daddy, you won’t be disappointed.”
I have nothing to say to that.
—
Grover Jr. looks better now than he did at Ma’s birthday. It could be that olive green shirt he’s wearing with those long black slacks. From under his sports coat, even his belt is dark olive leather. His shoes are black. The toe almost pointed but not quite. He could pass for gay considering how put together he is, but I sometimes forget that straight men also have good taste.
I’m in tangerine and turquoise because I said to hell with trying to look conservative. I’m not conservative, and I’m not putting on a front for people I probably won’t even remember. Jacket. Straight skirt. Silk tee. Size twelve. All new because those fourteens are finally too big.
“Wow, you look amazing,” he says to me when I get out of the car to greet him. Hug. Hug.
“So do you,” I say. Hug. Hug.
He gets in the passenger side.
“Dig this Prius,” he says. “So how’ve you been?”
“I’ve been fine. Sorry to hear about what happened.”
“She left me. I’m hurt, but I don’t hate her for it.”
“Really?”
“No. I’m heartbroken, of course, and I’m not thrilled this is how my marriage had to end, but I’ve heard you can recover. Right?”
“You can even do it twice.”
“So,” he says, and pats both palms on those beautiful, tight, brotherly thighs. “Now it’s time to travel back forty years.”
“I suppose it is. And I’ll say this right now: if it feels like we’re the only ones not in a coma, we give each other the look and bail for a fun bar.”
“You got it.”
—
This bar is already packed. With mostly white people. There are about fifty or sixty people here and more behind us. I get my badge with my name on it. It does not look good with my outfit, but I wear it anyway. There were only forty-two black students in our graduating class of three hundred. I don’t see any of them.
We have a drink.
I don’t recognize a soul in here. That is, until I hear a man’s voice say, “Georgia Young!” and I turn around and there’s Thomas, the jerk who ditched me at the senior prom and left with another girl. He looks like Bill Cosby and is all gray and wearing bifocals. I can spot them from across a room. I pretend I don’t recognize him. He then takes his glasses off so I can get a better look, smiles, which is when I haul off and slap him hard on the arm.
“Hi, Thomas. Long time no see,” I say.
“I deserve that,” he says. “Feel better now?”
“Yes,” I say. “How are you?”
“Well, I’m here. Is this brother your husband?”
“No, he’s my brother.”
“No he isn’t. I knew your brother.”
“His father married my mother.”
“Then he’s not even a relative. I’m Thomas, and you are?”
“Grover. How are you, Thomas? So you must’ve done something unforgivable for her to have clipped you after all these years.”
“She can tell you about it later. I had some undiagnosed issues back in the day. So are we drinking tonight?”
“I suppose we are,” I say.
For the next hour, I walk around bumping into people I don’t recognize and remembering bits and pieces of why we didn’t know each other or why did I sit in the back row or the front row and did I remember when and how could I forget, but then by the time everybody’s drunk, they start doing karaoke. Most of the songs are rock and roll and country, all from the seventies, which certainly doesn’t lift my hem. I didn’t want to be the Carpenters or Helen Reddy or Olivia Newton-John or Cher or Judy Collins, but when Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary” comes on, Grover looks at me and I look at him and we go for it. We rock the place, of course, because we’ve got soul, and I wish I had my wig on, but afterward we get huge applause. When these alcoholics start spilling their drinks and falling off their stools, I give Grover “the look.”
I drop him off without incident.
The following morning I go on the tour of our high school, without Grover (saving him for dinner), along with about seventy other reunion-goers. Except for the die-hard golfers, everyone is hungover. We walk out onto the football field, which feels weird, and of course I get a little nostalgic looking at the empty bleachers. I go on the tour bus. We have the option of getting off and on where we want because the bus circles back around until each venue closes.
I’m really enjoying just riding on the bus and marveling at how much there is to see and do in Bakersfield. There’s the Museum of Art, the Fox Theater, the Buck Owens Crystal Palace, and more and more. A lot more than I remember.
At dinner Grover wears a serious black suit with a yellow shirt and a purple-and-yellow tie. We match by accident. I’m wearing my purple suede Manolo pumps with a kelly green dress. It’s tight. And I’m glad.
We’re now having dinner in the Sequoia Room, which is just four white-and-gold doorways away from the Grapevine, because a few more people RSVP’d at the last minute. The rows of tables are lined up like those in an orphanage. It feels odd. When I locate my table number and spot my three-by-five high-school photo on a short wooden stick, I’m not happy about it. I looked like I had too many things on my mind and was trying to figure out which one to address but had failed. My lips looked like they were upside down. My hair looked like a turkey plume. My long, skinny neck didn’t look like it could handle the weight of my head. I do not remember being anorexic. But there was only half of me. Maybe I would’ve looked better if it had been in color. It’s a shame we didn’t have Photoshop back then.
And of course whose photo is sitting on the other side of me? None other than Miss Walkie-Talkie herself: Saundra Lee Jones. I’m praying she’s called in sick or something. I don’t feel like reminiscing with her, because we don’t have a plateful of good memories, and I also don’t feel like lying about how much fun we used to have. I couldn’t stand her ass. I bet they only seated us together because we’re both black.
I’m also hoping the after-dinner speech is short but I’ll applaud and laugh on cue. That the awards are short. And the PowerPoint of those who are no longer with us is even shorter. My goal is to dance through this night and cha-cha right on out into the parking lot without being missed. Grover’s game for anything.
“Hello there, Georgia.” I hear that familiar voice from behind me. It’s my girlfriend Saundra Lee. I turn around and look up and cannot believe my eyes. She’s gorgeous! She should change that tired picture she has on Facebook.
“Saundra?” I ask, standing up and giving her a big squeeze.
“It’s me. I had a makeover. You’re looking pretty snazzy yourself, girl. Change that picture you have on Facebook. Here,” she says, and hands me a gift bag with a yellow flower on it.
I Almost Forgot About You Page 25