Sometimes Love

by Victoria Kennedy

  Eventually, I pulled up to the curb in front of his apartment building and I knew I was dead wrong for what I was about to do—showing up unannounced like that. But I was compelled to go to Michael. I couldn’t think any more about what words I should say after so long or how I should act. Michael was my friend, my only true friend. He was the only person I could truly keep it real with and not be self-conscious if my actions weren’t in vogue. I didn’t know how I’d managed to avoid this very moment for so long, but the moment was now—the time to act without thinking and just following my instincts. He would understand, if nobody else did.

  I pushed the buzzer and looked down at my watch. It was 1:30a.m. After ten minutes or so, I looked around outside for his car and didn’t see it. But I pressed the buzzer again—harder, longer this time.

  “Yeah?” his groggy voice came across the intercom. “Michael, it’s me.”

  I heard his breathing through the speaker. I knew I didn’t have to identify myself.

  “Are you alone?” I asked.

  He buzzed me into his building, without a word and I walked up the one flight to his place. The door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open and walked in to find him standing in the middle of the living room with his paisley robe wide open, his boxers on and nothing else. The both of us just stood there speechless, in an awkward silence that was foreign to us because when we were together there were always sounds—joyful noises, whether they were squeals, giggles or hearty guffaws.

  I think I moved first. The sound of my heels clicking against the polished hardwood filled the cavernous space with a staccato rhythm. It almost matched the beat of my heart. I didn’t feel the usual happy-to-see-you rush. It was more like what-do-we-do- about-this? I walked into him, my hands reaching into his robe to clasp around his waist while his forearms rested on my shoulders, his hands clasped behind my neck.

  We were both moved to tears and with every new round of my sobs, we squeezed each other tighter as if we were squeezing every last remnant of apology, stubbornness and hurt from one another—the veritable support system built in our mismatched youth.

  “That email shit really works, huh?” He burst into a smile that blessed me with forgiveness. The nervousness began to dissipate.

  He said, “I missed you.” His eyes were red. “You know you’re the only woman who can move me to tears like that, don’t you?”

  “You know I never meant to hurt you, don’t you?”

  “I don‘t want to talk about any of that. I just can’t believe you’re here in Baltimore…here with me. FBI in full effect.” He swooped me up in his arms and spun me around until I was dizzy. He was giddy and I felt guilty for causing him anything other than that. His actions were real, not contrived or thought out, but spontaneous and genuine. I could never replace him, but he couldn’t understand that I hadn’t tried to.

  He always found a way to interject humor into tense situations and made a way for me to have relief. I loved him for that.

  “Come on, tell me what you’re doing here for real. Are you here in town to visit your mother? I’m sure she’s loving this.”

  “I moved back home about a month ago.”

  “Stop playing Zoë,” he said without a hint of humor. “You’ve been here all this time and didn’t call me? Hold up…what’s wrong? What happened?”

  He bombarded me with questions and the nervousness crept back upon me. I didn’t know how to tell him that everything fell apart. I fixed my lips to say something, but I couldn’t coax a sound from them. I was at a loss for words. He could see right through me.

  “Did he hurt you? ‘Cause if he hurt you, I swear to God. I will knock his …”

  “He didn’t do anything to hurt me, okay. Calm down. It fell apart…the whole thing just fell apart.”

  The tragedy of it became clear to me. It had required more than love, but that was the only thing I was interested in. Humphrey hadn’t been able to come through for me. He let me get my hopes up then, he broke my heart. It was subtler than dramatic despair, loss of appetite and great heaving sobs. It was disappointment, like the kind a child experienced, when broken promises were never fulfilled yet promised over and over again. He was never going to be that hero I fantasized about. I didn’t know who was more to blame—him for denying me my prince or me for expecting him to be one.

  Tears came again from somewhere deep down and I let them because I was with Michael and I could be true to myself and honest with him. I didn’t have to keep my emotions in check like I did with my parents because I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me.

  “I was so sure,” I managed to say between the tears. “How could I have been so wrong?”

  “You weren’t wrong, Baby. You were too trusting.” “You mean too stupid.”

  “No. That would never be you. You’re the brightest star I know. If you would let your light shine, you’d see how brilliant you really are.”

  He planted little kisses all over my face with slow deliberate moves, tracing the lines of my tears. There was something so sensuous about his actions only it was completely lost on me then. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to see the love in his eyes and the restraint he used to stay on the right side of the line between friends and lovers. If I’d been paying attention, instead of wallowing in my own pitiful world, I would have allowed myself one little moment of weakness. I would have tilted my face upward to show my compliance and waited for his lips to descend upon mine, keeping them slightly open to encourage his advance. I would have crossed that line in a heartbeat. But that would just be in the moment of weakness. In a time of reason, when I’d be more lucid, I’d stick to my opinion about keeping the two separate because I wouldn’t want to risk the chance of losing it all.

  “I love you so much, Michael.”

  He was still wiping away my tears. “I know you do. I just wish you loved me the way I love you.”

  “Maybe someday I could,” I said to let him down easy. “But right now, I have to find my place and find happiness in it. I’m not going to look for happiness anymore in someone else.”

  Our eyes met and held for a minute…two…three and his held something for me to grasp. My safety raft was there again to save me in a sea of despair. I grabbed onto it with both hands and squeezed him tight.

  “Will you still be my friend?” I asked. “Your closest friend.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Pillip and Patrice’s wedding day finally came. The ceremony was originally planned for outside at some botanical gardens, but the drought conditions had shown the lawn no mercy that summer. The guest list was fairly small so they decided to have everything at a Caribbean restaurant and bar in downtown Brooklyn where they could get married on the small stage used for live entertainment in the back. There was plenty of room to accommodate everyone and their event planners had done a wonderful job of creating a romantic atmosphere resplendent with flowers: magnolia blossoms floating in shallow bowls on the tables, stephanotis, lilies of the valley and other white flowers arranged in dramatic set-ups that coordinated with the Afro-Caribbean theme. I felt the sting of not being chosen to carry out the task, but had to admit everything looked awesome. My mother was a bundle of nerves. I couldn’t count how many times she’d cried that morning and once we arrived at the restaurant, I could tell she was still fighting back tears. This would be the first wedding among her children that had been carefully planned and required formal invitations and a real reception. Maria had eloped with her drug dealer boyfriend after he’d overwhelmed her with a wealth of material possessions and her choice of designer duds, introducing her to a ghetto-fabulous lifestyle and a destructive addiction to drugs; Eddie Jr. had a shotgun wedding at the courthouse when Angie became pregnant in high school. So my mother was entitled to have her mother of the groom angst. Most likely, she wouldn’t have to deal with that scene again anytime soon—not if I had anything to do with it.

  Several activities for the two families were held in Brooklyn and I felt une
asy being there. Brooklyn had too many memories for me. I had been on edge since Thursday and by the time wedding day—Sunday—came around, I was ready to get everything over with and be gone.

  I was so grateful for Michael’s decision to accompany me. Little by little, we’d begun resuming a semblance of our past and it was easy. I know he helped to make it that way, but there was a natural chemistry between us that made our friendship almost effortless. If he hadn’t let it be known that he’d come to want more than that, everything would have been perfect. Now he’d put me in the position of second-guessing myself and wondering if it was at all possible to switch gears from platonic love to getting busy with him. Even with that issue on the table, he still acted like Michael. He didn’t suddenly stop acting like my best friend and try to shove his tongue down my throat every time we were alone. He was patient and kind and understanding as always, but every so often I’d catch a glimpse of his eyes and behold the longing I saw there. I knew I wouldn’t have forever to reach a decision and took extra steps to ensure that I was not stringing him along. No matter what I decided, I didn’t want to lose him. I always wanted him in my life and would never make the same mistake twice of putting him on the back burner.

  “You okay?” Michael asked as I took in the whole scene of the restaurant being transformed into an island paradise.

  He was looking into my eyes as if he wanted to peer into my soul and somehow fuse his together with it. In appearance, we would make a perfect couple: a tantalizing combination of mocha and caramel, planner and dreamer, friend and lover, traditional and unconventional...balance. We would probably make a lot of sense.

  Anyone on the outside would assume that, after watching how naturally we interacted with each other and how unpretentious our movements were. We were like an old married couple with children who’d seen one another at the worst, caught one another in unnecessary lies and discovered a few skeletons in family closets, but still had a love that endured. Humphrey would detect that, mistrust it and find it suspect as if I’d been planning this thing all along.

  Patrice had two sisters who would be her bridesmaids and her best friend would serve as her matron of honor. Phillip asked my father to stand up with him and our brothers to stand up as his groomsmen. The whole wedding was going to be an Afro- Caribbean affair and tuxedos were definitely out of the question. Most of the guests had been told to wear clothing that fit the occasion. I chose a strapless jumpsuit with a duster to match, accented with African jewelry and high-heeled sandals. I couldn’t wait to see my father and brothers in tunics and sandals.

  Big changes had taken place with Phillip. His dreads were a little longer and he’d added a goatee since I last saw him. Gone was the buttoned-down professor with Rico Suave tendencies who chugged Coca-Colas and scoffed down burgers from the nearest fast food joint daily and played Mac Daddy at all the neighborhood watering holes on the weekends. In his place was an uninhibited teacher with a new earthiness, who chewed licorice sticks and sipped ginger tea. He was a new man, at peace with the world and about to embark on a new chapter, embracing it with open arms and a greater appreciation for the simple things in life. The old Phillip would have been clawing at his bachelorhood trying to latch onto any part of it to hold for life itself—a social life that had been dictated by words used to lure fresh bait, a working knowledge of the hip places to be seen and heard, and his pick of some of New York’s finest beauties. That life, however, had been devoid of love—at least on his part. But the quickest way to get to his head had been through his heart and the quickest way to his heart had been found simply through confidence. Patrice exuded confidence. She knew what she wanted, what she wasn’t willing to tolerate, what she would accept and what she wouldn’t. She had balls and that’s what he loved most about her. He told me so himself. She had no problem taking control and he no problem relinquishing it. He was a willing conquest, which was a new position for him; he was usually on the other side of the capture.

  The nuptials were set to take place at six and by five, I had to take my mother in the restroom to reapply her makeup. Her constant flitting about like a mosquito around a porch light was driving me mad, so I had to find something to do with her.

  “Ma, you need to calm down. I’ve never seen you like this. Maybe it would help if you could talk to Phillip.” I was trying my best to relax her and prepare her for the ceremony.

  “I could do that? I didn’t think I’d be allowed to go talk to him.”

  “Of course, you can go talk to him. You’re his mother. He would welcome you about right now. When I talked to him a few minutes ago, he was cool, sipping some tea and joking with Daddy, Cliff and E.J. Go on…go and see him, Ma,” I cajoled her. “Come and go with me, Zoë. I’m nervous. I don’t know why.”

  I took her by the hand and led her to the back room, off the bar that had been prepared for the wedding party. We walked in to find my father entertaining his sons, recounting some childhood story of his where he had to prove his manhood (the usual) and came out looking tough, after which no guys would pick with him and all the girls wanted him (including our mother).

  “Now, Eddie,” she said. “Why are you still lying to our children after all these years? You know that you’re talkin’ about your brother Norman, the one who bailed your butt out of many whippin’s in your day. You ought to go on and tell it like it is.”

  With the exception of Maria, we were all there to laugh away the remainder of that last hour leading up to the wedding. She had chosen not to attend and wouldn’t allow Chanel to travel with us either. She seemed to like the role of black sheep of the family. “I’m not strong enough to attend those kinds of social functions yet,” had been her excuse but I suspected a man was involved. When there were only fifteen minutes left, my “non- essential” brothers and I decided to let our folks have that time with Phillip. We went off to find another space to wait until the moment when they would escort the young ladies down the aisle, beautiful African princesses. And they were dressed like handsome African princes.

  I got my camera ready and went to look for Michael so we could be seated for the big event. A trio played to entertain the guests with smooth jazz as hostesses escorted them to their seats. I wasn’t even asked to fill that position. I felt like I’d been blacklisted from my own brother’s wedding preparations but if I was honest with myself, I would admit that I had too much baggage during their planning stage.

  I thought it would be quite nice, for a change, to relax and enjoy the ritual of matrimony while it unfolded and not have to be summoned to fix a problem or tend to the guests. A violinist had joined the trio and they struck up the first notes of Canon in D, as a host escorted my mother to her seat. Next was Ms. Carter, Patrice’s mother, a vision of Patrice from the future, petite build, tawny skin, hazel eyes subtly accented with crow’s feet and sandy- colored hair flecked with gray, pinned into an elegant upsweep.

  The musicians’ hands were stilled and quiet descended over the place—a brief pause before plunging into the point of no return. Ladysmith Black Mambasa started playing over the sound system and soon my brothers were escorting Patrice’s sisters down the aisle, strewn with greenery and long stems of grass, toward the platform where the ceremony—the exchanging of vows— would take place. Her sisters were dressed in two-piece, sleeveless ensembles made out of a white cloth embroidered with gold, with portrait collars that just barely hugged their shoulders and tight straight skirts that kissed the tops of their gold ballerina slippers. The groomsmen were wearing long white tunics trimmed in gold, loose pants and tan leather toe-ring sandals.

  Candlelight was everywhere and it transformed the restaurant into a sanctuary. The matron of honor strolled down the aisle to the last strains of the music in a champagne gold variation of what the maids wore. When the music stopped, my attention turned away from the door toward the wedding party. I couldn’t resist watching Phillip fiddle with his sleeves and his hair while he waited for Patrice to walk down the aisle toward
him. My father was standing at his side, the epitome of black royalty in his champagne gold outfit and sandals. The lights were turned off in the bar area, from the front door to just outside the area where the wedding was taking place. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face started playing and Patrice, escorted by her older brother, emerged from the darkness and stood there making eye contact with Phillip before she started walking toward him swathed in a strapless crinkled silk gown of white with her dreads hanging down her back and a wreath of white flowers and green leaves encircling her head. By the time she made her way to him, they were both overwhelmed with emotion and wiped at the tears flowing down their faces.

  The vows they’d written were brief and powerful with a ll the right words. While they were pledging their undying love and to always be honest and true, someone opened the front door of the restaurant. A streak of bright sunshine cut into the sanctity of the occasion, taking away the ambience, disturbing the peace. I slid my hand from Michael’s and walked toward the light.

  “I now pronounce you man and wife,” I heard the minister say as I continued past the bar. When I approached the door, it was flung all the way open and in walked Humphrey—just like that, just like he’d been invited.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, breathing shallow breaths that came and went to the rhythm of my accelerated heartbeat, a rhythm regulated by anger and apprehension. I trembled inside, caught off-guard by his unexpected appearance and his great presence. He always seemed to have the upper hand.

  His eyes looked wild and his movements were jittery. He looked different. There was more hair everywhere—coarse curly hair, on his head and his face; places I’d never seen it before. He looked rougher, less polished and more rugged— almost unrecognizable.