Homecoming Weekend

by Curtis Bunn

  The size of the tailgate threw Jimmy. Carter and others had told him about it. Actually seeing it jolted him.

  “We had to park about fifteen minutes from here over there off of Ballentine Boulevard,” he told former classmate, Lonnie Knox from the Bronx. They came upon each other just as they reached the heart of the activity. “It used to be nothing over there. Now there are these nice houses, a nice community. I had no idea.”

  “You’ve been away too long, son,” Lonnie said. “But I bet you’ll be back next year, though. Won’t you?”

  “No doubt,” Jimmy said. “No doubt.”

  “Look,” Lonnie said, pointing. “Look at your boy.”

  It was Joe Cosby, one of Jimmy’s close friends from New Jersey that he’d lost touch with for years. The two men shared a warm greeting and caught each other up on their lives. Carter broke away from a group of “friends” he didn’t quite remember to join Joe and Jimmy.

  Jimmy surveyed the scene as Carter and Joe chatted. He tried to figure how many new buildings had been constructed in the decade he had been away. “I’m thinking it’s about twelve,” he said. “Maybe more. I haven’t even been on the other side of campus yet, by the stadium.”

  “Well, the game is about to start. I’m gonna catch up with Jones and ’em and head that way,” Joe said. “I’ll catch you guys up there.”

  “Ah, shit,” Carter said.

  “What?”

  “There’s Barbara,” he said.

  Carter went with Jimmy and Regina to the all-black party the night before, expecting to relax, party and get his mind off of Barbara. Only Barbara showed up at the party, too, after dinner with her friend Donna.

  He noticed her while he was on the dance floor. Something about her presence always captured him, and from a distance he knew it was her. Barbara saw him, too; she stood there for a minute or so and stared at him as he partied with another woman. She waited to see how Carter would react, if he would end the dance and come over to talk to her.

  Carter did not. He danced another two songs, throwing his hands in the air and conversing with his dance partner as if he did not see Barbara. She was offended, and stepped into the lobby area, where old classmates gave her attention and conversation.

  Several minutes later, Carter made his way out there. Their eyes met and she turned away.

  “Yo, did you see Barbara?” Jimmy asked Carter.

  “Yeah, she’s right there,” he answered.

  “Look, I couldn’t talk about it much with Regina in the car, but you should go and talk to her, man,” Jimmy advised. “You gotta focus on the bottom line. And the bottom line is that she’s your girl. If you really love her, then you shouldn’t be over here and her over there.”

  Carter marinated on Jimmy’s words and then made his way over to Barbara, who was standing with Donna and Cynthia Kirby. Sadness marked their faces.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, hugging Cynthia.

  “We were just talking about our friends who are not here: Madinah and Ladina,” Cynthia said.

  Madinah Aziz Grier was a classmate who had succumbed to bile duct cancer the previous summer after nearly a two-year battle. Ladina Stevens had passed a year earlier to breast cancer. Both ladies were classy and smart, well-liked and fun.

  “I know,” Carter said. “It’s hard to believe they’re not with us anymore. You know them: They’d be on the dance floor right now, dropping it like it’s hot.”

  They all smiled at the thought. Carter asked if he could buy them a drink. Only Donna and Cynthia responded. “Barbara, can I get you something?” he said.

  Again, she looked at him and turned away. She was being stubborn; every instinct in her body told her to hug and kiss Carter. The way he eased that tense moment was one of the traits about him that she adored. But she was so disappointed in how he received her news of relocating to New York that she could not bring herself to even say anything to him.

  “Ohhhh . . . kaaay,” Carter said to Barbara’s silence.

  Two gentlemen asked Donna and Cynthia to dance before Carter went to the bar, leaving him alone with Barbara. “Would you please talk to me?” he said.

  “What’s there to say, Carter? I mean, really,” she said. Her voice was low, but the tone was sharp. “You saw me in there and you just kept dancing.”

  “Why did I need to stop dancing because I saw you?” he said. “That’s not a big deal. You’re focusing on the wrong thing.”

  “Oh, am I?” she said. “Well, let’s forget about that. What about New York? I’m moving there and you don’t want me there. That’s the bottom line. If it were anything different, we wouldn’t be going through this.”

  Carter took a deep breath and made a decision: He was not going to talk about her moving to New York. He was going to enjoy the night.

  “Can you do me a favor, please? Just one favor?” he asked.

  “You want me to do you a favor?” she said. “Wow. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. What is it, Carter?”

  “Let’s have a good time tonight,” he said. “Let’s forget about everything else and focus on drinking and mingling and dancing. That’s what we always did and we had a great time. That’s what we need to do now to turn this thing around.”

  As mad and disappointed as Barbara was, she was able to fight through those emotions and see the upside to Carter’s plea.

  “Okay. Fine,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Carter said. “I’ll start off our fun time by saying that you look beautiful. I did see you when I was on the dance floor and my heart stopped for a second. You look great.”

  Barbara agreed to put aside the issue at hand, but it was not easy. She did not crack so much as a grin at Carter’s compliment. “Thanks,” she said as flatly as possible.

  Carter smiled. “You’re something else,” he said.

  “What about you? What are you?” she said.

  “Me? I’m horny,” he said. “Horny for you.”

  That drew a smile from Barbara. “Well, I’m not,” she said.

  “Give me some time,” he said. “I will definitely change that.”

  “Oh, you think you got it like that?” she asked.

  “I sure the hell do,” he said in a high-pitched voice, and they both laughed.

  Just then, Jimmy came over. “I’m glad to see you all smiling,” he said. “Now, I feel better.”

  Barbara felt better, too. She had traveled across the country to attend homecoming. The least she could do was have a good time. And so she and Carter danced and flirted, trying hard to disguise their relationship. At one point, though, he hugged her after a dance so long that Barbara had to nudge free of his grasp.

  “I think you need to sit down,” Barbara said. Carter had been drinking all day and was downing shots of vodka seemingly every fifteen minutes. His eyes became a little glazed over and his voice a little hoarse.

  “I hope you know you have to drive when you all leave,” Donna said to Jimmy when he came over to the table. “Your boy is feeling pretty good right now.”

  Carter heard the talk. “I sure am feeling pretty great right now,” he said. Then he slid his chair so he could get into Barbara’s ear. “Baby, we should spend the night together,” he said. “I know you have Donna with you. But drop her off and come over to my room. We should be together.”

  Barbara embraced the idea with little hesitation. So when it was time to go, Jimmy and Carter walked Barbara and Donna to their car. “I see why you didn’t bring your wife with you,” Donna said to Jimmy. “Lots of single women here.”

  “It is, but it doesn’t matter,” Jimmy said. “I know how to behave myself.”

  “Oh, okay,” she said. “If you say so.”

  “I’m faithful to my wife, Donna,” Jimmy said. “Not that you care, but I just wanted to make that clear.”

  Carter chimed in. “He’s one of the good guys,” he said. “They don’t make many like Jimmy anymore.”

  “What about you?” Barbara s
aid.

  “Me? I’m a different cut,” Carter said. “You know the mold was broken when God finished with me.”

  “God or the devil?” Barbara cracked.

  “Somebody gag me,” Barbara said.

  “Glad to,” he said. “What time will you be at my room?”

  “You’re so crazy,” she said. Then she looked to make sure Jimmy and Donna were not listening. “In about forty minutes,” she added.

  Carter gave her the room number and he and Jimmy found Regina and headed back to the hotel.

  “Seems like you got things back in line,” Jimmy said in the car.

  “Once I do this business tonight, then it’ll be all the way back in line,” Carter said.

  “You probably can’t even get it up,” Regina said. She, like Carter, was buzzing pretty good, which made for a loose tongue and lively ride back to the hotel.

  “Can’t get it up?” Carter said. “She better worry that I can’t get it down. I don’t play, girl. When I go to work, I bring an extra hard hat for the woman because she’s liable to be banged right through the headboard.”

  They all laughed.

  “Let me tell you, Regina,” he went on, leaning up from the back seat, “I’m gonna go so deep that when I pull it out, oil gonna shoot up from between her legs.”

  Regina screamed and Jimmy almost lost control of the car. “You about the silliest guy I know,” he said after wiping tears from his face. “Just sit back.”

  They made it back to the hotel and Carter unsteadily made his way to the elevator. Regina tried one last pitch at getting Jimmy to let down his guard.

  “So, Barbara is married and coming over here to get with Carter?” she started. “I understand. It’s not like it’s going beyond this weekend. She lives in California. What happens at home-coming stays at homecoming.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?” he said. Jimmy was about to reveal that Barbara was divorced, making her case totally different from his. But he decided that it was her business and not his to broad-cast. “Never mind.”

  “No, go ahead,” she insisted.

  So, Jimmy made up something else to say. “Sometimes at home, I think about you and the times we had and it makes me feel good,” he said. “More than ten years later, I still remember a lot of what we did while here in college. But that was then, Regina. I’m married. If I can’t honor that, then what does that say about me? If you can’t honor that, what does that say about you?”

  A look of embarrassment covered Regina’s pretty face. “You’re right,” she said. “I wouldn’t want anyone pressuring my husband for sex. And I wouldn’t want him to give in to it, either. I’m sorry. I guess I just got caught up on memories.”

  Jimmy did not say anything. He just hugged her. They walked to the elevator and to her room. He hugged her goodnight and she kissed him on the side of the face.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said.

  By the time Jimmy got settled in his room, Barbara had arrived at the hotel after dropping off Donna. Carter had given her his room number, and so after leaving her car with valet, she made the journey to his room. She felt good, as if Carter was beginning to settle in with the idea of them being together.

  She knocked a happy beat on the door. It went unanswered. She knocked again, only louder. Nothing. She called Carter’s cell phone, but it rang and rang. She put her ear to the door and could hear voices. She heard a female’s voice and chills went through her body.

  She banged and banged on the door, but Carter did not answer it. In a full-blown panic, she hurried downstairs to use the house phone and call his room. The line was busy. “He took the phone off the hook?” she said aloud. Now she was not only hurt, but also furious.

  There was no one at the front desk. Her mind was racing. She didn’t know what to do. But she was not leaving—she knew that. Then an idea came to her. She went to her car that was still in front of the hotel and put her purse in the trunk.

  Then she went to the front desk and called out for some assistance. A male worker came from the back, and Barbara went into her plan. She explained that she had left her room key in her purse in the room with her husband, who was not answering the door or his cell phone, and that the room phone was off the hook.

  “I’m praying he’s all right,” she said, looking petrified. “He had a lot to drink, but I hope he hasn’t fallen and hurt himself. Could someone please let me in?”

  The front desk person asked for the room number, which she gave him. She told him when “they” had checked in and Carter’s address that was on the reservation. Finally, he gave her a duplicate key. “I hope he’s all right,” he said.

  Barbara was relieved that her plan worked. She hurried to the elevator and down to Carter’s room. Then a moment of trepidation occurred. She knocked once, twice. No answer. She called him on his cell phone. No answer. She pressed her ear against the door and again heard voices. And that’s when she lost all apprehension. How could he be in the room with another woman, knowing she was coming over?

  Her heart beat so fast and so hard it felt as if it were going to burst out of her chest. She slid the key card into the slot, and the light turned red. “Shit,” she said. She tried it again, and this time it lit up green, releasing the lock. Barbara opened it slowly at first and then quicker. She stepped in and was shocked by what she saw.

  Carter was sprawled out across the bed, stark naked with a beer in his hand. The room phone was knocked onto the floor. And the television was playing.

  As bizarre a scene as it was, it was still a relief to Barbara of gigantic proportions. She put one hand over her heart and the other over her mouth. The relief that came with seeing him in the room by himself—albeit it pissy drunk and passed out—made her lightheaded. She sat on the edge of the bed, her elbows on her knees, shaking her head.

  She could not believe how emotional she got when it seemed Carter was in the room with another woman. When he did not answer the door, her mind raced to the darkest places. She just knew there was someone in that room and that he was ignoring her at the door and her calls.

  It took her about five minutes, but she finally got herself together. She wiped her face, as if to discard the awful thoughts that ran through her head. She pulled the comforter over Carter, took the beer out of his hand and placed it on the nightstand, picked up the hotel phone and placed it next to the Heineken and turned off the TV. She decided she would stay with Carter and help him get over what looked to be a certain hangover.

  So, she slipped out of her elegant dress and hung it up in the closet. In her bra and thongs, she slid under the covers next to the man she wanted to be her man. Before she could get settle under the sheets, she heard Carter’s phone chime, alerting him of a text message.

  “Who the hell is texting him at almost three in the morning?” she asked herself.

  So, she went on a mission to find the phone. And under his shirt, which was on the floor near the window, she found his BlackBerry Torch. Remarkably, Carter did not have a security code on it. She paused but then rationalized that him not having the phone locked was some sign that she could go through it, that she should go through it. Anything to make acceptable something she knew she should not do.

  And so, Barbara took a seat on the bed next to a snoring Carter and went through his text messages, call log and e-mails as if she were conducting a CIA investigation. She saw text messages from a few females; nothing out of the ordinary, except one from Marlena that read: “I know you’re having a good time. Be safe baby.”

  “Baby?” Barbara said aloud. She looked back at Carter, whose snoring sounded like a lawnmower. “Baby?” she repeated. And like that, anger filled her bloodstream. She threw his BlackBerry on the bed and retrieved her dress from the closet. After slipping it back on, she stood over Carter, who had curled into a fetal position. Finally, she shook her head in disgust and left.

  So, when Carter saw Barbara at the tailgate, he wasn’t sure to be upset that she did not come to hi
s room or what? He had called her that morning, but she did not answer or return his call.

  “Hey, you,” he said to her. “How you doing?”

  Barbara did not know what to say. Her weekend was going drastically opposite the way she envisioned. But over a cup of coffee, she decided that she was going to get some concrete answers from Carter.

  “I’m okay. How are you? You had a lot to drink last night,” she said.

  “I know,” he answered. “I feel okay. I think if you drink quality liquor you minimize a hangover. I had some water and coffee and I’m feeling pretty good right now.

  “But tell me,” he added. “What happened last night? I thought you were coming to my room.”

  Barbara smiled and shook her head. Before she could answer she noticed friends from her college days, sisters Avis and Tracy Easley, and exchanged hugs with them. “You all look great,” Barbara said.

  “How’s your family?” Tracy asked, staring down at Barbara’s hard-not-to-notice ring.

  “Overall, the family is good,” she said. “We’re moving to New York, though, in a few months.”

  “I love New York,” Avis said. “But I don’t know about living there.”

  “It’s going to be a big adjustment, but I’m ready for it,” Barbara said.

  “But the people are totally different,” Avis added. “People in New York are cutthroat.”

  “But Carter lives there, don’t you, Carter?” Tracy asked. “If he can make it there, I’m sure you can.”

  “What you trying to say, Tracy?” Carter said. “I see you still got jokes. Some things never change—even if they should.”

  “I’m just joking,” Tracy said. “We know you’re almost all man.”

  The group laughed and Carter playfully put his arms around her neck. “If I didn’t know your lesbian lover would miss you, I’d choke you right here.”

  Tracy laughed off Carter’s joke—“My husband would kick your butt,” she said—and she and Avis moved on, leaving Barbara and Carter to resume their discussion.

  “Carter, I did come to your room last night,” she said.