by CATHY L. CLAMP; FRANCIS RAY; BEVERLY JENKINS; MONICA JACKSON; GERI GUILLAUME
It was Pops who told me how to pick myself up, to carry on, and to get on with my life no matter what obstacles were thrown ahead of me. Yes, she’d hurt me. But as my folks are fond of saying, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
She’d also loved me. What could I learn from that? What had she taught me? That I was capable of a deep, abiding love that could withstand the test of time. Not the obsessive, self-destructive love that drives a person to insane acts such as stalking or suicide. But the kind of time-tested commitment and connection that wouldn’t let me settle for anything less than what Kirby offered.
Yes, we were young. And maybe we didn’t understand at the time what was happening to us or what we were doing. But God takes care of fools and angels. Me being the former. Just because he’d given Kirby and me at an early age what most folks spend a lifetime searching for didn’t make our feelings any less valid.
I’d been given a second chance. I didn’t have time to waste. While she was here, for however long that was, I would seize the moment and make it my own. More than that, somehow, I had to make her mine.
When I got back to the kitchen, Mama and Kirby were both sitting at the table, their expressions now serious. Their conversation must have taken a heavy turn.
“Just set the box over there, son.” Mama waved her hand toward the utility room. “There’s a tablecloth in there. A big bright red one in a protective plastic bag. Throw that in the washing machine.”
I dug through the box, looking for the tablecloth. She had thrown all kinds of seasonal dining room decorations in there, too—from floral wreaths with teeny-weeny Easter bunnies hiding among the foliage to table runners decorated with holly wreaths and berries.
“Careful with that, Paul!” Mama said distractedly as I clattered and banged my way through the box’s contents. She turned back to Kirby. “Go on, honey. Now what were you saying?”
“I was just telling your mother about some of the crises that I’ve counseled, Paul,” Kirby included me in the conversation.
“And I just think it’s a cryin’ shame that we even need crisis counselors in the school. I can understand guidance counselors, someone to help students get into the right colleges or find a suitable trade. But helping them find their sense of security after one of their classmates has committed some unspeakable, horrible act . . . it’s unthinkable.”
“It’s not like when you were in school, Mama, when you could be sent to the principal’s office for chewing a pack of gum. Every day I worry that some kid won’t be sent to me for packing a gun.”
“Times may be different, but kids are all the same. They all need love and understanding, a firm hand of discipline. That much hasn’t changed.”
“For whatever reason, they’re not getting that,” Kirby lamented.
“Or they’re rejecting it when it’s being offered,” I spoke up. Kirby understood what I meant. It bothered me that no one had come to her.
“They’re just afraid of being singled out, ridiculed by their classmates.” Kirby rose and joined me at the utility room. She touched her warm, smooth hand to my cheek. “Give them time. They’ll come around.”
She reached into the box and pulled out a tablecloth made from kente cloth.
“For your Kwanzaa display, Mrs. B?” she asked, holding the material up to her and wrapping it around her like a skirt.
Mama nodded, smiling. “Your father gave me that, Kirby. It came from one of his missionary trips. You were only nine years old then.”
“Oh, my God. I’d almost forgotten about that. If I recall, I was a real brat that day.”
“How you cried when he gave it to me. You wanted to keep it for yourself.”
“It was so pretty . . . yellow and red and green. I wanted to make doll clothes out of it.”
“I remember that,” I spoke up. “That was the day you, me, and Jolene wound up cutting the arms and legs off of all of your dolls and burying them in the backyard.”
“Why in the world would you do that?” Mama exclaimed.
“I guess that was my way of acting out my anger.”
“Well, good for you. I was always concerned about you, Kirby. I worried that you’d turn out to be one messed up kid the way you kept your feelings bottled up all inside of you. You were such a lonely little girl.”
“She wasn’t alone, Mama. Jolie and I were with her,” I said. “You want to know what happened to that Tonka truck that I got for Christmas the year before? I buried my Tonka truck right along with Kirby’s dolls. And Jolene buried her collection of Nancy Drew mysteries.”
“If I’d known all of that was going on, I would have kept a closer eye on the three of you,” Mama said with a sniff. “Would have marched all three of you to the nearest psychiatrist.”
I laughed out loud. “We turned out all right, Mama. We were our own self-help therapy sessions.”
“The dolls were no big loss. My mother didn’t like me playing with dolls anyway,” Kirby remembered. “Not the blond-haired, blue-eyed ones that I kept getting for presents from her side of the family anyway. She said that was only part of who I was. I guess when I buried all of them, it made me have to rethink who I was and who I wanted to be.”
Mama stood up, presumably to take that box away from me before I ruined her decorations. She tenderly ran her fingers over the cloth.
“Sounds like Dr. Marenga’s concept of Kujichagulia to me,” Mama mused.
“That’s exactly what it was. Only, back then, I was too young to really understand what it meant.”
“Nine is a little young,” Mama agreed. “But . . .” Her voice trailed off for a moment. An odd, pensive look crossed her face. “Fifteen isn’t. Or sixteen.”
“What do you mean, Mrs. B?”
“I think the students at Calhoun high could benefit from a little lesson in the Nguzo Saba. Especially Kujichagulia. If more students had a clearer understanding of who they were and what they were about, then fewer of them would be looking to outside hate groups to help define themselves.”
Kirby and I exchanged glances. Mama may have retired, but she was still an educator. Through me, she was still tied to the school where she’d attended and taught.
“After Thanksgiving, everyone will be swapping out their seasonal bulletin boards and displays,” Mama said.
“Instead of snowmen and reindeer and—” I continued her train of thought.
“And fat old white men in gaudy red suits,” Kirby spoke up.
“Not instead of,” Mama warned. “Your fundamentalists get a little crazy when you start messing with their traditional nonreligious symbols of Christmas.”
“In addition to,” Kirby amended. “It’s a little early, but we could put up a Kwanzaa display in the school. It’s a nonreligious observance, so there shouldn’t be any flak about separation of church and state. I’ll put up a display near the world cultures and history classes.”
“That’s only half the battle. Kwanzaa is a uniquely African-American observance,” I reminded Kirby. “Calhoun High School has an almost fifty-fifty split between blacks and Caucasians. What are you going to do when some of my melanin-challenged students start to feel excluded?”
“But some of Kwanzaa’s tenets are universal. Unity of the community seems to be one we all need a refresher course in.”
“You know that I’ll support you in whatever you decide to do, Kirby.”
“Thanks, Bear. I appreciate that.”
“And I’d appreciate it if I got the rest of my beans prepared,” Mama broke the mood by returning to more immediate concerns.
“And I have to be going.” Kirby sighed reluctantly. “I told my grandmother that I’d be back by this afternoon to help her finish her grocery shopping. It was nice seeing you again, Mrs. B.” Kirby kissed Mama on the cheek. “And thanks for worrying about me,” she whispered loudly so that I’d hear her.
I thought that I did a good job of not showing my disappointment. No Academy Award for me. I didn’t want her to leave.
But as she started to collect her things, I remembered Pops’s words. I didn’t have time to waste. So forget about putting up a false front. She wasn’t going to leave. Not just yet.
I grasped Kirby’s hand. “Do you have to go?”
“I’ve got a long drive back.”
“Tell me about it.” I grimaced. “Six hours.”
“Closer to seven. Traffic is getting bad out there. Lots of crazies on the road.”
“Then don’t go. Stay here tonight. I can take you out to your grandmother’s in the morning. We can finish her shopping then.”
“Now you’re being silly,” she began. “But sweet.”
I don’t remember when Mama left us. I heard her saying something about getting my Pops to run her to the store. Or maybe I just imagined that I heard her say something. I wished she was gone.
When I heard the back door slam shut, it was all of the opening that I needed.
Chapter 8
By the time I vaguely heard Mama’s car crank up, I was kissing Kirby so intensely that I didn’t give her time to think that maybe she should have walked out with Mama.
“Bear, wait!” she said breathlessly. “Wait a minute.”
“That’s about all the time we’ll have before they come back,” I muttered, nipping at her lower lip. “You sure you want to waste a minute of it arguing?”
“B-but I thought we talked about this! We’re . . . f-f-friends, r-r-remember?” Kirby stammered.
“Being rejected is not something a man forgets, Kirby.”
“I didn’t reject you.” Her voice was strained, nearly cracked with unshed tears.
“Like hell you didn’t.” My own voice was hoarse as I clung to her. My hands splayed against her back, drawing her even closer to me. I could feel her heart pounding, even through the layers of our clothing.
“Paul—” Kirby began.
I didn’t let her finish the protest. “I could understand if you didn’t care for me anymore, Kirby, or if we’d grown apart. But we haven’t. We’ve just moved apart. If you still love me, then you could teach on the moon and it still wouldn’t make a difference. So I have to know. Do you still love me?”
She didn’t hesitate, answered almost immediately. But in my mind, even the almost was enough to make me doubt.
“I do love you, Paul.”
I did what any man, desperate and wanting her bad enough to beg, would have in my situation. I improvised.
Reaching into the big yellow box, I pulled out the wreath of Easter bunnies and spring flowers. Mama’s table centerpiece. I held it up in front of Kirby and then placed the wreath on top of her head like a crown. “My queen,” I intoned.
Kirby shook her head. She was laughing as she said, “You are so cheesy, Paul Barrett.”
“The word is horny,” I said bluntly. “And it’s all your fault.”
“My fault?” She pointed to herself. “How do you figure that?”
“You shouldn’t have come in here looking delicious enough to eat.” I emphasized my point by leaning forward and nuzzling her neck.
“I don’t get roses?” she teased.
“Next time,” I promised.
“And what about a romantic candlelight dinner?” Kirby prompted.
“Man, you’re a tough woman to please,” I said as I turned back to the box. I pulled out Mama’s kente cloth and spread it over the dining room table. Then I grabbed her kinara and stuck a few candles into the holder. The final touch—I reached into the fridge and pulled out a bowl of green salad that I had intended for my lunch this afternoon.
“Good enough for you?” I asked.
“You know, you’re really not being true to the spirit of Kwanzaa,” she chastised me. “You’re just trying to get into my panties.”
“Can you think of a more symbolic way to demonstrate unity?” I asked, raising my eyebrows at her.
“You don’t even have all the candles in the right order.” She rearranged the candles. “It’s black in the middle, the three reds on the left and three greens on the right. And you’re not supposed to light them all at once.”
I wrapped my arms around her waist and drew her to me. “As crowded as it is around here, Kirby, I think I could stand one more.”
“Or even several more if we do this right,” she murmured, moving her hips in a way that was driving me crazy.
“Do you want to go upstairs?” I whispered huskily. “To my old room?”
“Have you cleaned it since the last time I was there?” she teased me.
“The bed’s made,” I assured her.
“It’s a start. Do you have condoms up there?”
“I might.”
“Then I might,” she said amiably.
Up the stairs, down the hall, and into my room—it was all a hazy blur. As we fell across my bed, Kirby tugged on the drawstring of my sweatpants. From there, she had no difficulty freeing me as I worked on her sweater and skirt.
The smell of desire filled the room, made my head swim with its intensity. I don’t think I could have stopped, even if I’d wanted to. As she stroked the length of me, the warmth of her palm moistened my skin. I felt an inevitable surge building, threatening to spill forth. A moan, low and throaty, signaled my imminent release.
“You’d better do somethin’, Bear,” Kirby said in warning. “Or it’s about to get very messy down there.”
I reached out, fumbled for the nightstand drawer. My hand closed around the foil packet even as Kirby’s hand closed around me and squeezed from me a precious drop of fluid. My hands trembled as I rolled onto my back, opened the packet, and unfurled the condom.
“Let me help you,” Kirby offered. Her fingers were sure, steady, as she drew the condom downward.
“Kirby, please. I can’t hold back anymore.” My patience, my resolve, had been tested to its limits. Both were going up in flames.
Kirby pressed the heels of her hands to my shoulders as she threw her leg over mine to straddle me. I placed my hands on her hips and eased her slowly, lovingly, onto me. I felt sweet, torturous pulsing as her body adjusted to accommodate me.
“Ummmm,” Kirby hummed deliciously. “You’ve grown.”
“It’s all the veggies,” I panted.
Kirby lifted her hands to begin unbuttoning her blouse.
“No, don’t move!” My voice was hoarse. Raw. I didn’t want her to move a muscle. Each time she shifted, waves of intense pleasure shot through me. I had no illusions about what I was feeling at that moment. Some call it love. Some call it passion. I knew it to be pure, unadulterated desire. Nothing else could have driven me to this point of mindless, instinctual coupling. After a fashion, I knew that I could come to her with some degree of self-control. I would whisper tender words. Words worthy of a song or a sonnet. But not now. Not yet.
Kirby leaned forward, offering me a tantalizing taste of her flesh. Each time she closed with me, my tongue lathed her full breasts. Greedily I suckled her. Her hips moved in perfect rhythm to my thrusts. Her hands cradled my head, keeping me fused to her.
I don’t know how many times our bodies collided. Twenty? Twenty times twenty? I rose to meet her, marking the years—the wasted passage of time—with each thrust. I came to her seeking retribution for all of the time lost and the unanswered questions. I came to her seeking absolution for the young pain that I’d caused her the first time we joined.
Kirby’s nails raked over my shoulders, down my forearms. I winced, my face twisting. Was she punishing me, too? For what, I could only imagine. As her breath quickened, her movements more pronounced, I couldn’t help wondering was she taunting me, telling me with her body of what I could have had all along? Maybe I should have fought harder to get her to stay. She had a calling, but I was the one who knew her—better than anyone else.
She was here now and I was unwilling to let her go. Not yet. Not until she fully understood how much I needed her. I arched my back, straining toward her. A sigh bubbled from my lips as molten liquid
shot from my groin.
“Paul!” Kirby sobbed my name, and shuddered as her body constricted around me. Spasms of pleasure wracked her body. She fell forward—heaving, sobbing, gasping for air.
I stroked her back, feeling her heart thud against my chest. Her tongue reached out and dabbed moisture across her lips.
“OK, so I didn’t need roses,” she panted.
I grinned at her. “Roses are overrated anyway.”
When I started to pull away, Kirby cried out in dismay, “Where are you going?”
“I’ll be back,” I promised.
She sat up on one elbow, watching me as I reached into the pocket of the jeans I’d planned to wear after my workout.
I clasped the ring in my hand, warming it to the touch before bringing it to her.
“I wanted to do this right. . . . What’s the word they use around here? With tradition?” I started slowly, my fist still closed. But I could tell from the sudden glistening of her eyes that she knew what was coming up next.
“Candlelight dinner, roses, the works,” I continued. “But you never have been conventional, Kirby. So, I’m coming at you like this, my soul bared to you and all the world.”
One by one, I unfurled my fingers. The ring I’d carried for so long, a simple diamond solitaire in a white gold setting, rested in my palm.
“Oh . . . oh, my God.” Kirby’s chest heaved. Her hands flew to her mouth. “Paul!”
“Take it, Kirby,” I urged her. “Take me.”
She closed her eyes, letting tears flow freely.
“You can’t tell me that you didn’t know how I felt about you, Kirby. I’ve known since grade school that we belonged together. I love you and I want you for my wife. Whatever I have to do to make it happen, I will. Want me to quit my job, move to South Africa, I will. Want me to wait until whatever’s calling you to grow hoarse, I’ll do that. Just say that you’ll marry me.”
“You really mean that, don’t you? You’d wait for me? Follow me?” She sounded incredulous, pleased, scared all at the same time.