Looking for Lily

by Africa Fine

  Jeremiah didn’t care, of course. He was a hustler, and he was happy to let other hustlers conduct their business in peace if they offered him the same courtesy. But he could see that it bothered Jon that someone saw through his attempts to impersonate the black middle class. Their dealings had always been strained, and Jeremiah considered this further evidence of Jon’s lack of pedigree. The true bourgeoisie didn’t care what Jeremiah knew—he was a means to an end.

  There was also another thing, so insignificant that Jeremiah forgot about it. The first time they’d met, which had been at the beginning of their senior year, Jeremiah laughed when Jon introduced himself.

  “Your parents named you Johnson Johnson? They must not have liked you much.” Jeremiah was joking, but he could see the fury building in the other man’s eyes.

  “It’s Jonathan,” he said, his voice tight. “My parents named me after the famous writer Jonathan Swift. But you probably don’t even know who that is.”

  Jeremiah stopped laughing and looked at Jon, who he was certain was named Johnson Johnson. What he saw was a flawless presentation, the right clothes, the right hair, the right mannerisms. And he knew that Jon was not what he appeared to be. He was trying too hard.

  Jeremiah, always the savvy businessman, held out his hand as a peace offering.

  “Hey, Jonathan, I’m sorry. I was just joking around a little, letting off some steam. Friends?” Jeremiah smiled and waited. After a brief hesitation, Jon shook his hand. The inevitable small talk ensued before Jon asked how much Jeremiah charged for his services.

  Jeremiah nodded and winked at Jon. “Well, Jonathan, let me make you a modest proposal.”

  One of the things Jeremiah had always regretted was not heeding the warning signals Jon Johnson gave off. He thought him a harmless phony, not worthy of serious consideration. In one of the last transactions of his college career, Jeremiah wrote a poem for Jon’s creative writing class. He’d been clear that poetry was not his forte, preferring short stories and essays based on characters he had known in the Army. But Jon had insisted that he needed someone to write the poem, and Jeremiah agreed to do it, although in private he thought that imagination and creativity were certainly qualities possessed by a man who told people he was named after an author whose work he hadn’t even read. Jeremiah had even gone so far as to offer Jon a reduced rate, since poetry was not his specialty. Jon insisted on paying full price, which did not raise Jeremiah’s estimation of his intelligence. But he accepted the money and delivered the poem.

  It was not one of his best efforts, Jeremiah thought. But it was good enough for Jon Johnson. He wrote it out carefully on a sheet of paper and delivered it on time.

  You are a spoiled plum

  Dark and soft

  Yielding to my touch

  Your scent is syrup, mild

  After the first bite I taste the truth

  Fleshy and weak

  Fetid and bitter

  Hating you

  Is dark chocolate melting in my mouth

  At winter’s dusk

  I shouldn’t do it

  It’s not good for me

  I’ll be sorry later

  Lick the outside

  Sink my teeth into the middle

  It feels so fine

  Heavy and decadent

  A pleasure to rival the feel

  Of a woman’s lips on my thigh

  You are not what I expected

  * * *

  Two weeks later, Jeremiah was walking across campus one night around eight o’clock, intending to hit the library for a couple of last-minute jobs. As he walked, he considered the campus and knew that he would miss this time, these buildings, even the people, although he didn’t call anyone a true friend. Jeremiah was a loner by nature, and he was okay with that. After graduation in May, he planned to return to Cleveland, which he thought of as home even though he had never had a real place to call his own there. He’d heard from an old Army buddy that real estate was cheap there, and he planned to open a legitimate business with the money he had earned in college. He was smart enough to know that hustling came in all shapes and sizes, and he also knew there was one thing people always wanted: to forget. So he planned to open a liquor store, and he envisioned it becoming a franchise down the line.

  He was mulling over what to call his franchise when Jon stepped out from the shadows of the health-sciences building, a new edifice that now housed premed and nursing students.

  “Hey, Jonathan, what are you doing out so late? Past your curfew, right?” Jeremiah was disconcerted by the way the man had appeared as if from nowhere, but he didn’t show it. He’d found that his dealings with Jon were best if he teased the other man just enough to let down his guard. Most times, it worked.

  “You fucked with me.” Jon looked sweaty and agitated.

  Jeremiah frowned, trying to remember if one of his recent conquests had belonged to Jon. He didn’t think so.

  “What do you mean?”

  Jon had been standing a comfortable distance from Jeremiah, but he stepped within a foot. Jeremiah wanted to push him away, but there was a wild look in Jon’s eyes that worried him. Instead, he took two steps back as Jon spoke.

  “You fucked with me.”

  “You said that. But I don’t know what you mean.” Jeremiah wished he had resisted the urge to be sarcastic, but it didn’t seem to change Jon’s demeanor in any way.

  “I got an F. You fucked me.” Jon’s voice had risen in volume and pitch, and he reaching into the pocket of his jacket. This, more than anything, concerned Jeremiah. The jacket was suitable for skiing and was much too heavy for the pleasant spring night. He tried to stall.

  “An F? On what?”

  “On the stupid poem you wrote. Now I’m not going to graduate.” Jon’s right eye twitched, and now he was yelling.

  Jeremiah had only a second to consider his options. Try to talk his way out of this, or run. He ran.

  He couldn’t say how far he got when he felt the bullet tear into him. He didn’t know where he had been hit, just that the bullet was in him, somewhere, and it was the worst pain he had ever experienced. He screamed and fell, and then there was darkness.

  * * *

  When he woke up in the hospital, he felt groggy and his vision was fuzzy from the pain medication. He didn’t know where he was or why. He looked around the room and saw Gillian standing next to his bed. In his haze, she was more beautiful than ever, and for a moment he believed she was an angel.

  After a few moments, he remembered the sound of the shot, and the blackness. Jeremiah didn’t know why she was there, but he was happy to see her.

  “I love you,” he said. The blackness returned.

  Chapter 19

  “Think positive”

  When I returned home from Cleveland, I had a week to prepare for all my classes. I had spent the summer dealing with Aunt Gillian and the past, and I had not thought about myself at all. In the past, this would have been a perfect opportunity for me to gain back all the weight I had lost, using my busy schedule as an excuse not to take care of myself. But now things were different. I was different. Instead of eating more when I was distracted, I ate less. When I stepped on the scale, I saw that I had lost another ten pounds without even trying.

  “You look skinny.”

  Jack sat at my desk, sipping coffee. It was our tradition to meet in the mornings, chatting before we got on with our day.

  I had arrived early, leaving Aunt Gillian’s care to the temporary nurse Dr. Ortiz recommended.

  “It will be a while before we have an official diagnosis, but I don’t think it’s best for you to try to handle your aunt’s care alone.”

  He had taken me aside at our last visit, the day after I returned from Cleveland. Jack distracted Aunt Gillian while we spoke.

  “Best for whom?”

  He smiled at me, and I noticed for the first time that he had deep dimples in both cheeks.

  “For both of you.”

&nb
sp; Our eyes held for just a moment longer than necessary. I wondered if he was flirting with me.

  “Well, thanks, Dr. Ortiz.”

  “Please, call me Tim.”

  Aunt Gillian had surprised me by being receptive to the idea of professional help. It was clear that Dr. Ortiz—Tim—was right. We both needed some time apart, and she needed better care than I could provide.

  Back in my office at the university, I felt more like my old self than I had since Aunt Gillian moved to Florida. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since I’d taught a class, read an article, sat and enjoyed a cup of coffee with Jack.

  I smiled at him. “Thin? I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  He shrugged. “Well, don’t overdo it.”

  “You can’t be too thin or too rich, right?” I laughed, but he didn’t join me.

  “You have to be healthy.”

  “I’m not going to waste away, worrywart.” Despite his nagging, I was overjoyed to be thinner than I’d ever been. It was nice not to be afraid to look in the mirror.

  “So, how’s Gill adjusting to the new nurse?”

  “She doesn’t say much, but I take that as a good sign. She seemed happy to have me out of the house, actually.”

  Jack laughed. “At least her spirits are up. When will you find out about her diagnosis?”

  Neither of us liked to say the word Alzheimer’s. If we said it aloud, that made it real.

  “Well, Tim said it would probably be at the end of this week.”

  Jack’s expression darkened. “Tim?”

  “Dr. Ortiz.”

  “I know who you meant. I had no idea we were on a first-name basis with Doctor Ortiz.”

  I busied myself, opening drawers, looking for a pen even though I had nothing to write.

  “He asked me to call him Tim,” I mumbled, my head down as I examined the stapler and paper clips in my top drawer. I could feel Jack watching me, but I wouldn’t look up. If I met his gaze, he would see that I had been thinking about Tim as a lot more than my aunt’s doctor.

  “I’ll bet he did.” Jack’s voice was sarcastic, bordering on nasty.

  “What’s the big deal? He was just being nice.”

  Jack was silent until I could no longer resist looking at him. He sat still, watching me, his brow furrowed.

  “What?”

  “Just make sure Doctor Feelgood doesn’t get too friendly. He’s Gill’s physician. Remember that.”

  I offered a laugh that was meant to sound casual but came across forced.

  “I have no interest in Tim, except as a doctor,” I lied. “Why do you care, anyway?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “I want Gill to get the best care possible, and if this guy is hitting on you…”

  “Well, he’s not.” I cut him off and stood up. “I’m going to get more coffee.”

  Without asking him if he wanted any, I snatched his half-full cup off my desk and stomped off.

  When I returned, we changed the subject by tacit agreement. It was my first opportunity to tell Jack what I’d learned in Cleveland, and I gave him an abbreviated version of Jeremiah’s story. Jack listened with the same fascination as I had to the tale of Gillian as a young woman.

  “So what about Lily?” he asked when I finished.

  I shook my head. “That’s the thing. When I asked about her, he just said, ‘I don’t know any Lily.’ But I got the feeling that he was lying.”

  “About all of it?”

  “No. Just about Lily.”

  * * *

  My week was filled with faculty meetings and refining syllabi for my fall classes. I would be teaching a class on African-American poets, a first for me and the university. I was up for tenure at the end of this academic year, and I knew I would be evaluated, in large part, based on the success of this class. If I could draw lots of students, it would go a long way toward supporting my tenure candidacy.

  I studied black poetry in graduate school, but Mizner University wasn’t as progressive as it could be in terms of offering a diverse selection of courses. People who favored the traditional Western canon argued that students were more comfortable with what they called “established tradition.” They claimed classes on African-American poetry wouldn’t attract enough students. I argued that true literary tradition reached beyond Dickens and Dickinson. I spent a large part of the last academic year campaigning to add a new class as a test case. The administration had relented, if only to shut me up. I didn’t care why they’d added the class. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to teach something different, something close to my heart.

  I spent all day Thursday deciding which poets to include and which to leave out. The class outline was broad; I had pitched it as a survey class in order to garner support. But I wasn’t sure that was the best way to engage the students. I’d decided to focus on the twentieth-century poets to make the material more accessible to the students. Now it was just a matter of picking from among some of my favorites. Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, June Jordan, Rita Dove. They were givens. I also wanted to include some lesser-known poets, and I spent a pleasant morning browsing through my books looking for good candidates.

  It was almost noon, and my stomach had just begun to protest when the telephone rang. Dr. Ortiz’s assistant wanted to schedule an appointment for me and Aunt Gillian for the next morning. Her test results were back, and the doctor wanted to discuss them.

  I made the arrangements and hung up, feeling a churning in my belly that reminded me of my childhood. I’d felt this same churning on the first day of school when I looked forward to a new year and a new start, but I knew that nothing would change, that I’d still be the fat girl, the smart girl, too, but always the fat girl. The cute, popular girls would treat me as if I were a part of the background, as if I were nothing more than an uninteresting poster on the wall. It was that indifference that hurt. I would have almost preferred outright cruelty because it would have been a validation of my existence. The churning lasted for the first few days of a new school year, the physical manifestation of hope and dread.

  I had a lot more work to do, but I couldn’t concentrate, and whatever hunger I had been feeling was gone. I packed up my books and papers and left the office. I found myself driving south on A1A, looking at the ostentatious mansions next to each other across from the beach. In Palm Beach there were no high-rises on the east side of the street. The town was elitist and self-sufficient, enabling it to resist the pull of money-makers like condos right on the beach. If you lived on Palm Beach and you had a beach view, there was at least a road in between your home and the sand, and sometimes vegetation remained to further separate you from the Atlantic Ocean.

  In South Palm Beach, east of Lake Worth, there was no such distance between humans and nature. Condos dotted both sides of the street, and majestic homes gave way to convenience and practicality. You could drive along A1A in Palm Beach without seeing a soul for miles (the really rich people frolicked in private), but the walkways just a bit farther south were dotted with people out for exercise, even in the middle of the day in hot South Florida summer. These people were not the snowbirds who populated the island during the fall and winter months. These were hearty holdouts who had given up their northern homes, out of financial necessity or optimism, and lived here full-time. These people called their two-bedroom units in the high-rise buildings home year-round, and their dark, leathery skin attested to their determination to live out the rest of their lives in the sun, even if it beat down on them without mercy in the ninety-degree dog days of August.

  I couldn’t blame them for not wanting to stay inside under the protection of coolness. Despite the architectural sterility of many of the condominium buildings, South Palm Beach was lovely. In certain places, the island of land between the Intracoastal and the ocean was so thin that it was a wonder that anyone ever felt confident building on it at all. I always marveled at the nerve it took to build an entire town on a strip of land less than a mile
wide. It was a good thing the development of Florida had not been in my hands, or else it would still be a swamp.

  I drove on, turning up the air-conditioning as I watched those brave souls walking in the humid air, not thinking too much about Aunt Gillian or school or anything of import. I just wanted to clear my head, and being close to the water always did that for me. Whenever it got too hot, or I felt too lonely, I always went to the water to remember what was magical about this place, about life.

  I soon found myself going through Ocean Ridge, east of Boynton Beach, then Gulfstream and Delray Beach. This was, in my opinion, the best people-watching beach in the area. It combined a long, wide public beach area with a variety of small restaurants on the west side of A1A and room for in-line skaters, runners, and dog walkers to enjoy the scenery. I decided to stop at Café Luna Rosa, just south of Atlantic Avenue, for the lunch I’d forgotten I needed until the fragrance of focaccia bread and cappuccino reached inside the cool cocoon of my car.

  I parked in the public lot and walked back to the restaurant, which was crowded even on a Thursday afternoon in August. After ordering a turkey and provolone panini and iced tea, I pulled a folder out of my bag. I had been collecting information on Alzheimer’s, dementia, and caring for elderly parents ever since Aunt Gillian came to live with me, and I wanted to look over the research to prepare myself for whatever tomorrow’s appointment would bring. I had two options here: become an emotional mess at the prospect of my aunt’s possible illness, or treat it like a project. I chose the latter.

  The first paper I pulled out was titled “12 Ways to Boost Caregiver Success.” I had gotten it from the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, and until now, I hadn’t done more than glance at it as I pulled it off the printer. The page contained a list, and as I read it I checked off the things I had done: