In the Night of the Heat

by Blair Underwood

  “Saw it on TV,” Dad called from the kitchen.

  Dad had hooked April up with police sources more than once, old buddies from his Hollywood division, many of whom had risen high on the ladder and were willing to speak off the record. Retired Captain Richard Allen Hardwick and April Forrest were becoming a formidable team.

  “Where’s Chela?” April asked me.

  “Chess club, till eight thirty. She said not to wait.”

  April lowered her chin, skeptical. “Chess?”

  “I bribed her into giving it a try.”

  “How much of a bribe?”

  Dad wheeled himself into the dining room, a large plate of warm nachos on his lap. Suddenly, I was surrounded by observers.

  “An iPhone,” I said. “Let’s eat.”

  “Plainfoolishness,” Dad said, or something like it. With words at easy disposal, Dad would have been ranting. A nascent rant glimmered in his eyes. April sighed, too. Tag team.

  The fact was, it was Chela’s second chess club meeting in a month, which was more commitment than she had given the drama club. Chela needed to buy into something new, and chess had a nice ring to it. Better, by far, than her alternative. Besides, Chela hadn’t come around to liking April yet and wasn’t sorry to miss Thursday dinner.

  For now, separate corners worked best.

  Dad mumbled grace too low to hear, the only time he spoke at length without self-consciousness. We couldn’t quite make out the words, but the gratitude in his voice needed no translation. “Amen,” he finished.

  April’s face lit up. “Oh, Ten, don’t forget—the Tau fund-raiser is tomorrow night.”

  I searched my memory and came up dry.

  “The scholarship fund, remember? You signed up for the celebrity booth. People come up and take pictures with you. The committee chair loves Homeland, and she was so excited when I said you’d come. Give me the dates for your episodes, and she’ll have all our sorors TiVo you.”

  I’d forgotten all about the fund-raiser. When April’s workweek ended, her community work began. Her exhausting schedule was one of the reasons we saw so little of each other.

  “So you’re tied up tomorrow night?” I said.

  “But if you’re there with me…” she said playfully, and grinned. Her dimples wrestled the disappointment right out of me.

  “Okay.” It was hard to say no to April, another growing problem.

  I felt Dad beaming silently across the table. He must have thought he’d arrived in Heaven early. If police captains had the same powers as ship captains, he would have married me to April on the spot. Dad had just heard me commit my Friday night to a scholarship fund-raiser hosted by one of the country’s most prestigious black fraternities, Tau Alpha Gamma. Dad was a Tau, too, but I had refused to pledge during my year in college, mainly because I knew how badly he wanted me to. Dad never left the house except to see his doctor, so I knew better than to invite him.

  “Thanks, Ten.” April draped an arm over me when she kissed my cheek, which gave me hope that she might come upstairs after dinner. “Guess who else committed today? T.D. Jackson.” Her voice soured. “He must be on a goodwill tour before his trial. You know it must be for a good cause if I can stand to be in the same room with him. I’ll have to meditate first.”

  T.D. Jackson. Fallen football and action star, accused of murdering his ex-wife and her fiancé. Despite a mountan of physical and circumstantial evidence, he’d been acquitted in the criminal trial six months before. No surprise there. The rich and famous rarely go to prison. Justice would have another crack at him, though: The civil trial would begin in a week.

  Twenty years before that, T.D. Jackson lived in my dormitory suite for about three months while I was at Southern California State. He was a star from the moment he set foot on campus. What I remember most was the parade of girls to and from his door. Once, I ran into him in the bathroom as he flushed a condom away at six in the morning. The lazy sneer on his face said: Most of you losers aren’t even out of bed yet, and I’ve already been laid.

  T.D. Jackson made April crazy. The thought that he had gotten away with abusing and finally killing an upstanding sister seemed to keep her awake at night, as if his very existence set back the progress of civilization. Her teeth were already grinding.

  “Innocent until proven guilty,” I reminded her.

  Dad and April both made comments, but they kept them under their breath. The guilt or innocence of T.D. Jackson and what his case did or didn’t say about the roles of race and gender in the criminal justice system had already brought too much arguing to dinner.

  But I was glad I would run into T.D. again. I didn’t expect him to remember me, but I looked forward to shaking his hand and staring into his eyes. Wondered what I would see there. If I was right, T.D.’s eyes would probably broadcast the same thing April had just told me herself: Sometimes guilty people go free. Shit happens.

  Deal with it.

  TWO

  THE DOOR TO MY OLD BEDROOM was open—Chela’s room now—so April and I stood in the doorway like fretful parents, spying on her in her absence.

  Chela had left her TV on when she went to school, so Missy Elliot was busting sly, angular moves to an empty room. Three dirty cereal bowls at the foot of my California King marked Chela’s breakfast spot. The floor was buried in the clothes I’d bought her, most of them dyed in brooding shades. A vague rankness suggested a fast-food bag concealed somewhere in the mess. I was happy about the stack of thick, shiny schoolbooks on Chela’s desk, until I wondered why they had been left behind. She SAYS she’s at a chess club meeting, but how do you KNOW?

  I pulled the door closed to shut down my doubts. Chela was right: I had to learn trust.

  “We can’t all be neat-freaks,” April said, trying to sound positive.

  “I’m just glad to get her away from the TV. And her computer.”

  Especially the computer. The therapist had told me that Chela’s sexual history might poison her current behavior, and she was right. I’d had to cancel one of Chela’s internet accounts eight months before, when I uncovered letters and photos she sent to some bastard she’d met online, three times her age if he was a day.

  She’s not my daughter, or my blood, period. But what Chela and I had been through makes family out of strangers. She was the little sister I’d never had. You don’t want to see your little sister in pictures like that. Or read her saying things like that, regardless of how she’d made a living before we met. I wish I could wipe the whole thing out of my memory banks. That was over, but it had been a hard patch. I hadn’t even told April, and I had promised not to keep secrets.

  “It doesn’t look right, Ten,” April said. “You’re a single guy. A sixteen-year-old girl living in your house…”

  Officially, Chela was off the books. I had consulted a lawyer who said I might be able to qualify as a foster parent if I passed the rigorous screening, but as a bachelor, my chances of adopting Chela ranged from slim to none. Not to mention that April thought Chela had a crush on me. No part of it was an ideal situation. I knew that.

  April was fishing for an argument, but I had other plans. I took April’s hand and led her toward my new bedroom, the smaller room at the end of the hall.

  “Lynda Jewell called Len,” I said. “She set up a meeting with me tomorrow.”

  April’s eyes grew bright. “Lynda Jewell?”

  If I’d known the news would change her face so much, I would have said it sooner.

  I moved closer to April. A slight pivot of her hip, and her delicious ass swung out of reach just when I was ready to rest my hands there. She sat on the chair across from the bed, a bad sign. Despite the grin on her face, April’s legs were crossed.

  “This is big, Ten. Lenox Avenue’s in preproduction. My book club loved it, and if she wants you for Troy, it’s the chance of a lifetime.” Since April’s roommate was a producer, April followed Variety like an agent herself. L.A. is truly an industry town. “I just wonder why
. What made her call you?”

  If I hadn’t been so baffled myself, her wrinkled nose might have offended me.

  “The commercials,” I said. “Oscar material.”

  April dismissed my sarcasm with a wave of her hand. “I told you Progress would do things for you. Didn’t I say to give it up to God? If your meeting’s tomorrow, you should prep. I’ll break the book down for you.”

  I could see how the next few hours were going to play out, and not a minute involved me unhooking April’s bra. Why weren’t we bouncing on my mattress, with her congratulating me from my lap? I should have asked her right then and there: What’s going on? Maybe Dad was right. Maybe it had something to do with Thanksgiving.

  “I wasn’t planning to work tonight,” I said.

  “Are you kidding? This meeting is…”

  “I’m more interested in this meeting.”

  I squatted beside April and let my fingertips fall to her kneecap. If she wasn’t going to spend the night, I wanted her to tell me straight out. I rubbed a lazy circle on her knee where the denim was thinnest, the place her body fought quietly to break the will of her clothes. “I can’t make the lady happy if I don’t know what she wants,” I said.

  “Try to guess what she wants.”

  “I shouldn’t have to.”

  It dawned on April that I was talking about her. The excited glow left her eyes; they narrowed before darting away, as if my face no longer held her interest.

  “I can’t stay tonight, Ten.” I’d expected the words, but they smarted more than a little, and it wasn’t about sexual desire. I took April’s fingers between mine and held her hand. Gently, I kissed her knuckle, then massaged my chin with it. “Why not?”

  “I’ve told you why.”

  Chela. April was convinced that overnight visits made Chela feel threatened, and I couldn’t deny it. Dad wasn’t much better: He gave me and April significant gazes when we appeared yawning and grinning first thing in the morning. I had offered both Chela and my father a home and a new start in life: Was I supposed to give up my life in the bargain?

  “The dynamic is hard for me,” April said.

  Dynamic was a vague, alarming word. “What dynamic?”

  “Me, you, and her. The fuzzy lines. Nothing is defined. You’re not her father, and she acts like you’re her man. I’m supposed to be your girlfriend, but…” The missing end of her sentence felt like the start of an ultimatum. I waited. The scent of jasmine on her skin made my heart race. “You feel like a secret,” April said finally. “Nobody in my family knows you. Like we’re sneaking around. Not just Chela. It’s like hiding from everyone.”

  “I’ve never tried to hide,” I said gently, and April had no answer for that.

  I’d always known that if I let her hang around long enough, sooner or later April Forrest would see right down into the center of Tennyson Hardwick, where the light couldn’t get in. She knew more about me than any woman since Alice. And we both knew that I wasn’t the man April wanted to bring home to meet Dr. Forrest and the rest of her degree-laden family, who, when I imagined them, always looked like the Huxtables from The Cosby Show, except that her father didn’t sell Jell-O or dance a lazy soft shoe. Besides, family dinners are the first stop on the way to the altar, and I wasn’t ready to board that train.

  I don’t know much about relationships—April was my first girlfriend since high school—but as I watched April’s troubled eyes pretending to study the colorful Jacob Lawrence print on my bedroom wall, I knew I was all wrong for her. April was smart: If I knew it, she knew it, too. I used to joke with April that I was an alley cat, and she was a hothouse flower. Her family groomed her for greatness—summers abroad, Jack and Jill, music tutors—while Dad could barely pull himself away from Hollywood division’s desperation long enough to make sure I had clean clothes and food every day. He was a single father, and he was a cop. Bad combo for me.

  April stood up, as if she’d made a sudden decision. She rested her arms across my shoulders, the way a buddy might at Boy Scout camp. Her breath smelled like sweet citrus. I wished our clothes weren’t still on.

  “Ten, listen…” she said. “Lynda Jewell is a huge deal. You can’t expect to walk in there, smile, and dazzle her. You have to go ready to play. Show Lynda Jewell who Tennyson Hardwick is. Make her wonder why she took so long to call.”

  In the movie Jerry Maguire, Cuba Gooding Jr.’s football star has a no-nonsense wife who adores him and always has his back, played with gusto by Regina King. I’d wondered how it would feel to have a helpmate like that. Victorious Roman generals used to have a slave who would whisper “Thou art mortal” as the crowds roared and deified them. Most of us just need someone to whisper “You can do it. It’s not too late.”

  And there she was, standing right in front of me. Almost close enough to touch.

  “Lenox Avenue takes place in 1920s Harlem,” April said. “Troy is a an ex-con poet who runs numbers. He meets this society woman, the mayor’s wife…”

  We fell into the story. Troy was a heroic, complicated dude, like a part written for Leonardo Di Caprio, the kind of role that doesn’t come along every day for a brother. A man with a taste for danger who’d made mistakes and paid dearly, whose honor would drive him to his grave. While April told me about his adventures and heartaches, I imagined myself walking the sidewalks in a long trench coat while the Harlem Renaissance raged around me.

  I recognized him. I could play that part. Maybe I could play the hell out of it.

  April squeezed my hand. “Go get it, Ten.”

  My chest fluttered, and I wondered why. Maybe I thought it was the peppers in the salsa talking to me. I kissed her. It was our best kiss all night, and maybe for two weeks or longer. We let our tongues play. We closed our eyes to sharpen the taste of each other. April reclined beneath me, giving my skin a place to rest.

  The knock on my door came with perversely perfect timing.

  From the hall, Chela let out a shriek that made me leap to my feet. When I flung my door open, Chela rushed in breathing fast, as if she had been chased up the stairs. Chela and I had met in chaos, and chaos lay inside almost every interaction. Her face burned red beneath cream-and-coffee skin.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “Bernard Faison,” she said.

  I wanted to lay hands on whoever had made Chela look so upset, unsettling her ringlets of curly dark hair. So far, I’d avoided jail in my quest to give Chela a home and halfway-normal life—and I resisted some elaborate fantasies about how to dispose of Internet Guy—but maybe jail was my destiny. “Who?”

  “Bernard Faison. From chess club. He’s a nerd, but he’s on the wrestling team, too. Nice butt.” She gave me an evil grin. “Wears glasses most of the time, but in contacts you can see his eyes. They’re green.” Her shoulders went soft, and her face was just a bit wistful. “But his name is Bernard. On the chess team?”

  My hands relaxed. Chela was in drama-queen mode. Bernard Faison, whoever he was, would live another night. Chela flopped into my easy chair without acknowledging April, demanding the full might of my attention. I noticed that Chela smelled like cigarette smoke.

  “You’re in the chess club, too,” I said.

  “But I got paid to do it. He does it for fun, and he’s actually on the team. His Alekhine’s Gun is the bomb.”

  “His what?” April and I said at the same time.

  Chela gave us the kind of smirk kids wear when they know something you don’t. “Chess talk. You wouldn’t be interested.” She was looking at April when she said that. Meow.

  “Anyway…” she chattered on. “He asked me to be his date to the homecoming dance. It’s like a prom, with a dress. It’s so retarded. What an asshole!”

  As long as Bernard Faison wasn’t a married forty-six-year-old musician living in Sherman Oaks like Chela’s internet shitbag, he was an improvement already. Every thought about Mr. Music was a felony in waiting.

  Hallelujah. Chela was buying i
nto high school. She had a crush on a boy her own age, without the exchange of either money or body fluids.

  April rubbed the top of my head with feathery fingernails. “Anyway, it’s late,” she said. “Early deadline, so I’m out. Hey, Chela. Glad you had fun at your meeting.”

  “Later,” Chela said with a careless nod, turning on my TV with the remote.

  The changing of the guard.

  CNN flared on the screen, a habit I’d absorbed from April. Before Chela turned the channel, I saw the footage of a grinning T.D. Jackson striding out of the Los Angeles County Courthouse after his acquittal, and his iconic football toss into the cheering crowd. A long pass. A blogger covering the trial from Tokyo had caught the ball, waving it over his head.

  “Killer,” April muttered to the TV as I followed her out.

  “Hater,” Chela said.

  “Homework,” I told Chela with a snap of my fingers, like my father used to do.

  In a few days, T.D. Jackson would be dead; the debate silenced at last.

  THREE

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3

  At five o’clock, I was at the Club Bar at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, and I was nervous. When the bar is also a Hollywood powerhouse meeting spot, there is more work than play despite the easy flow of drinks.

  On my way in, I’d brushed past Kevin Bacon coming out, cursing at a lawyer or agent on his cell phone. What chance do YOU have? the evil voice in my head said, and that voice worked on me the whole time I waited for the Jewells. I left a foul stink in the men’s room, but the guy who came in behind me didn’t notice, too busy swimming in his own anxieties.

  The Jewells were running late. Very late. Lynda Jewell’s assistant, a curly-haired moppet who hardly looked a day over nineteen, kept me updated from her polite distance across the room while she waited for her cell phone to ring. Every fifteen minutes, she manufactured a new excuse.

  Finishing a meeting. On a call. Managing a publicity crisis.

  My face made Jewell’s assistant stammer, so I grinned my most devastating grin at her every time she walked near. She was my staunch ally, buying me sparkling water and refilling it before I could ask. That assistant, aptly named Faith, kept me from cussing somebody out. Or running back to the men’s room.