Tim tapped her shoulder again, and she threw her cards on the table. She walked back to the bedroom and slammed the door with all her might. When Dante came in hours later, she squeezed her eyes closed. In the morning, she didn’t make his breakfast.
The next evening, Tim came by himself, and told a story about the brown girl that he’d brought as his date. She was a geek monster, but in high school, she’d walked around with an attitude.
“Tay, you remember her?”
“She was a cheerleader, right?”
“Yeah, but that was back in the day. You give that bitch a rock now, she real compromising.”
Dante touched his friend’s arm. “Hey, partner, watch your mouth. You see my wife sitting here.”
Tim let a few seconds pass before he apologized, saying he meant no disrespect. He knew Lydia was a good woman.
She went to the stove and fixed Dante’s plate. She set it on the table and walked back to the bedroom. She didn’t know she’d fallen asleep until Dante put his arms around her.
“I put a plate for you in the oven, baby.”
“I’m not hungry.” Her stomach growled, and he hugged her tighter.
“I think you lying. And I believe you mad at me, too.”
She turned around. “I don’t like how you act around that guy.”
“You mean Tim?”
“Yeah, him! That guy’s got you selling drugs!”
“Aw, woman, don’t be like that. I’m just making money for the house. And you know it’s temporary, till I get enough for my mechanic’s license.”
“It’s not just that, Dante. You act different around Tim. Like when I met your mama that time and you were rude to me? And we had just come from church, too.”
“Lydia, please don’t throw that up in my face. I know I was wrong, baby. You didn’t deserve that, but I thought you said you forgave me.”
“I did, but what I’m saying is, you turn into somebody else as soon as he knocks on the door. And then he brought that girl in here and shamed her and you didn’t say one word. I never thought I’d see you act that way, and then he came back today, laughing at that girl. Like, just in case we didn’t see what he did. He’s not a good person, Dante.”
“Yeah, he is, Lydia! Don’t say that! He’s just had things tough. His daddy beat on his mama all the time, and Tim used to run away to my house. And you should have seen his clothes. I mean, I was poor, but Tim was real poor. And the kids would pick on him. That girl he brought over? She was one of them.”
“Okay, so what she did wasn’t right, but y’all graduated high school six years ago! He didn’t have to humiliate that girl. If he wasn’t over how she did him, he should have cussed her out in private. I don’t want to see him no more. I mean it.”
Dante started weeping. His shoulders shaking with coughing sobs, as he begged her, please. He didn’t have another friend. Tim was like his blood. Please don’t do this, and she hugged his head to her chest and rocked him. Don’t cry, she whispered, as his sobs subsided into hiccups.
“All right, now. It’s okay. All right. But no more of his nasty stories. He needs to keep that shit to himself. And he better not go with nobody else into that bathroom, either.”
“I promise. Thank you, baby. Thank you.”
He kissed her cheek and then tried to fit his lips to hers, but she moved her head. She didn’t feel like it tonight. Maybe her period was coming on. Dante didn’t care what time of the month it was. They could put down some towels, but she rolled over, turning her back to him.
In the morning, though, she rose early and went to the kitchen. By the time he had finished showering, there were pancakes and sausage waiting for him on the table. And Lydia was dressed for church.
* * *
There were days of Lydia trying not to worry, of her reading pages in her textbooks, only to read them again. Concentration eluded her, and in her classes, she doodled in her notebook, her knee jiggling. She thought of Dante. Maybe he was being arrested as she sat here, listening to her professor lecture about statistics. She should be home with him. She should get a part-time job. She should do something so her husband wouldn’t have to commit a crime to support them. She couldn’t even share her worry with anyone. No one knew she was married. She hadn’t told her family or her roommate, and they would turn against her if she told them, not only did she have a husband, but he sold crack. And Lydia couldn’t share her worry, either, when she realized she’d skipped three of her birth control pills. That she was anxious that she might be pregnant, because she didn’t use condoms with her drug-dealing husband.
In the middle of the week, she drove to Atlanta. When she let herself in the apartment, there was a new picture on the wall: a huge velvet portrait of Jesus. She snapped at Dante for the rest of the evening, when he returned from work. He touched her, and she shrugged him off, saying she didn’t feel like it. And when he inquired about dinner, she told him he was making enough money to feed himself. He could pick up a chicken box around the corner.
“Lydia, why you acting so hateful? What I do to you?” His forehead was wrinkled: as easygoing as he was, she’d hurt his feelings.
The next morning, she felt guilty. She cooked him a big breakfast, but he was gruff. She put her hand on his, and he put his fork down.
“I know I was real mean yesterday,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
Instantly, he forgave her: his smile was wide. “That’s all right, baby. Everybody got they days.”
She squeezed his hand, then put another sausage on his plate.
“Dante, I need to talk to you about something.”
“Okay, but let’s do that tonight.”
“I thought you didn’t work today.”
“Not at the store. But I got that . . . other thing.”
“You told me that was just on the weekends.”
Dante leaned in and kissed her forehead, then wiped off sausage grease. “If you need me, just page me.”
“You got a pager now?”
He went to the coffee table, where her notebook lay. He ripped out a piece of paper and wrote down his number, along with instructions. Page him anytime, he told her. Even every hour. He always wanted to talk to his wife, and here was Tim’s pager number, too, just in case.
Another kiss on her forehead, and Dante was gone. She busied herself cleaning. Washing the breakfast dishes and mopping the kitchen floor. She used the new vacuum that Dante had bought, running it over the carpet. She even cleaned the bathroom, something she hated, but she noticed that Dante had been slacking on that job. So she got down on her hands and knees and used an old toothbrush on the linoleum. Then it was time for public television, but Mr. Rogers didn’t make her feel the same.
That evening, she let Dante eat in peace. She didn’t want to upset the man in the middle of his meal. She waited until he sat back, toothpick in his mouth, before telling him she had slipped up. She’d forgotten to take her pills for a few days, and she was scared she might be pregnant. She didn’t yet know. Her period was due early next week, so it was wait and see.
“I’m sorry, Dante. I didn’t do this on purpose. I hope you believe me.”
“What you sorry for, woman? It take two to make a baby. And we already married, so it ain’t nothing to be ashamed about. It’ll be tight for a while, but I’ll be in mechanic’s school by next year, so—
“Dante, I love you for being so honorable, but I don’t want a baby. I’m still in college—”
“But it don’t matter what neither of us want now, Lydia. If you pregnant, that’s the blessing God gave us. And we got to deal with that—”
“Are you serious—”
“Hell yeah! Ain’t gone be no abortions ’round here! The Bible say, thou shalt not kill—”
“Why are you always bringing up religion to make a point—”
“Woman, you know who you married! You know what I believe! Our first date was at church, Lydia! And I don’t care how I make my money. God always been at
the head of my life. Now, I’m telling you, I intend to be a man about this situation, and I’m expecting you to be a woman. Like I said, we married. We love each other and we gone make this work. Case closed.”
Before she could say any more, to tell him this was her body, not his, and not God’s, either, his pager went off. When he left the apartment, she put her clothes in her overnight bag and drove down the highway to her family’s farm. She wasn’t worried about talking to her husband: he didn’t have the number to Miss Rose’s house. She didn’t want to talk to him, because she needed to prepare herself. If she was pregnant, she’d need to put distance between herself and him. And then Lydia would lie that she’d had a miscarriage and hope he believed her, but on Sunday morning, when Miss Rose started to sing hymns, Lydia woke up with cramps. She waited until Miss Rose went to church and called Dante to tell him the news. He sounded disappointed, but told her, it was like he said, God was in control.
That Friday, they were stiff with each other. They barely greeted when she let herself in. Lydia slept so close to the edge of the bed she was afraid she might fall on the floor. In the morning, Dante’s pager went off just after dawn. He was out the door before she could start frying breakfast sausage. He returned, but only for a short while, before his pager went off again. He kept going to their phone and calling, talking low into the receiver, and he didn’t look at her or give a farewell when he stepped out the door. Each time he left, Lydia would sit on the couch and change the channels on the television. She couldn’t make herself busy, she was so sad about him. In the afternoon, she crawled back into bed, willing herself to sleep. She awoke when she heard voices and music. She wrapped a robe around her and peeked out the bedroom door. There was a house full of people. She saw someone crushing a rock to powder beneath a glass, but they placed the entire small hill into the joint, sprinkling it on top of the marijuana bud.
Lydia closed the bedroom door. When she emerged fully clothed, someone she didn’t know asked, did she want to hit this? Lydia held out a hand. Sure, she might as well, and within seconds of smoking the primo she felt a glitter. A sparkling alertness, and her worry disappeared. She loved her husband and they had made vows for life. She walked to the table, where Dante was playing cards with Tim and two people she didn’t know. She peered over Dante’s shoulder, plucked a card from his hand, and threw it on the table. Tim called, “Book!” Lydia kissed the top of Dante’s head. She touched the place at the side of his neck that only she knew about, saying she was going to lie back down. She’d see him in a while.
In the bedroom, the glitter still clung to her. She closed the door to the bedroom, pulling off her clothes and then her underwear. She put her husband’s cassette of Luther Vandross on the boom box, and when she touched herself, she was already wet. She brought herself to climax once, twice, biting the pillow to keep from screaming. She kept touching until she heard Dante call to everyone, “Y’all niggers got to go.”
The bedroom door opened, and Lydia told him, take off his pants. Luther sang as she said, Come on right now, don’t worry about the rest of his clothes, come on. Dante moved inside her with his usual tenderness, but she bit his shoulder and told him, make her feel it. Do it hard. It had been so long since she’d felt him. She needed to feel him, and she turned on her stomach, spreading herself, as Luther sang. Do it, she said, and Dante was slamming inside her, saying he didn’t want to hurt her. Give him a sign, say something if he wasn’t treating her right, because he loved her too much to hurt her, but she pushed back against him as Luther sang. Her husband moaned, damn, he’d missed her so much. Oh, she felt so good inside, and she hadn’t ever let him go this far before. Was she sure he wasn’t hurting her, but Lydia was climaxing and couldn’t stop. It kept coming back around, as he slammed into her and called, oh, there it is, oh, Lydia, I love you, baby. He collapsed, his lips on the back of her neck, but she told him she wasn’t done. She wanted some more, because it had been too long. When he rolled off and lay on his back, she took him in her mouth, and in a few minutes, he was ready again. And he laughed, shuddering. Saying, Lord, woman, what has gotten into you, as Lydia climbed on top.
* * *
After that night, she started looking forward to Saturday nights, when the house would be full of strangers, and then somebody would crush a rock beneath a glass and roll up the powder with leaves inside a cigarette paper. When the house cleared, she would be waiting for Dante in their room, wet and ready. And after, she would curl up on his chest while he caught his breath. She was wearing him out, he told her, and he didn’t mind one bit. And she would smile, all of the worries and shame and sadness gone in those moments.
She told herself smoking primos was different than sucking on a crack pipe. She just needed to relax, that was all. She just had pressures: she had a test and she hadn’t studied hard enough. Or she hadn’t yet gotten over her pregnancy scare. Or she felt sad about keeping her marriage from her family. She wanted to share her joy, but she couldn’t. She started to become impatient for Saturday nights, waiting for the primo. She had to wait, though, because she didn’t want to ask and have one of Dante’s friends think she was needy. But there came a day when she didn’t want to wait anymore until the following Saturday. She wanted more now, though she told herself her want wasn’t truly a need. She wanted to smoke a primo before the seven days were through. So one Saturday, after she had loved Dante into an exhausted sleep, she went to his drawer and pulled it open. There were the little cellophane packets. She looked back to make sure that Dante was asleep before slipping a rock from a packet. She carefully closed the drawer, then went into the kitchen and retrieved a glass and a plate. In the bathroom, she crushed the rock into powder, and distributed it into four joints.
When Lydia drove back to campus Sunday night, she waited until dark to smoke half a primo in her car in the student parking lot, but then she quickly wanted the other half in the morning, and she crouched down in her car in the early morning while she sucked in the smoke. On the fifth day, she ran out of primos and couldn’t concentrate in classes. She felt sad for no reason, and sick, and she didn’t wait until the next day to drive to Atlanta. She skipped Friday classes and surprised Dante at the apartment. When his pager went off, and he left her, she went to his drawer. She stole two more rocks so she could make it through the entire next week.
She thought she had fooled him, that he hadn’t noticed she was borrowing from his supply, but the following Saturday morning, he told her he wanted them to take a drive. She thought he’d pull onto the highway, but he only turned onto several streets, and they stopped in front of the convenience store where he worked.
Dante pointed out a guy who stood in front. His name was Marcus. Nigger used to be the one the girls chased, back in high school. An offensive guard and rope-a-dope like a motherfucker. When Marcus had walked through the halls, he hadn’t looked left or right. He’d known everybody would give him room, and he’d dressed sharp, too.
It was winter, and Marcus wore filthy sweatpants and a T-shirt with no jacket. In front of the convenience store, his smile was a shade of dun as he held out his hand to customers, pleading. Those who were polite only shook their heads. The flesh had been stolen from his bones, but his broad chest spoke of laureled days.
“Him?” Lydia asked.
“Yeah, that nigger,” Dante said.
“You sell to him?”
“He gone get it someplace. Might as well be me. But that nigger is too far gone to ever come back, Lydia. And that’s why I’m cutting you off.”
She pretended she didn’t know what he was talking about. She kept her face immobile, but he told her he knew she had been slipping rocks from his supply to make her primos. And that was gone stop, right now, because crack was dangerous. Even when you put it in weed, it could sneak up on you. And Dante wasn’t going to be married to a crack fiend.
That night, when the house crowded, Lydia sat by Dante. She was timid and didn’t say much. When the primo came her way, s
he quickly said no, she was cool. And Dante patted her knee: he was proud of her. After everyone left, he came to their room, ready for loving, and she had to pretend she still liked him to get wild with her. She didn’t want him to know he had provided only half of her pleasure. She faked her moans, urging him to go deep in her, to go hard, while she gritted her teeth at the pain. In the morning, she was sore, and she looked at him sleep. So content, like the baby he had been prepared to force her to have.
That Monday, after Dante left, she called Tim’s pager number and asked him, could he come by the apartment? When he knocked, she made his sandwich and poured his special Kool-Aid. She asked, could she buy something from him? He couldn’t tell Dante, though. Sure, he told her. She didn’t care that he smirked and lidded his eyes. When he told her he’d give her the pipe for free, she said she didn’t need it. She only smoked primos, but he still put the pipe on the counter.
* * *
The week before Thanksgiving, she rang her parents’ house. Ailey was near tears as she demanded, where had Lydia been? Didn’t Lydia love her anymore? She soothed Ailey, offering her the secret of her love, if not her marriage. A secret would make Ailey feel special, make her forget all about her hurt feelings. Mollified, Ailey put their mother on the phone.
“I’m sorry I haven’t called, Mama,” Lydia said. “It’s just been real busy. My sorors and I are practicing for a step show.”
“Baby, listen. Is something going on? Are you in trouble again?”
A slight clutch in Lydia’s chest. The first moments of fear nibbling at her, but she trilled a mortified laugh. “Oh my God!”
“Lydia, are you taking those birth control pills your daddy prescribed? We don’t want another accident like back in high school.”
Niecy came up the hall, calling Lydia’s name. They had step show practice. Come on. They were going to be late.
“I gotta go soon, Mama, but I wanted to know if it was all right if I came home for Thanksgiving. I know I usually wait for Christmas—”
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois Page 47