“Oh, Canun,” I said.
“Yes?”
“You remember my vacation a week from Friday. Don’t you?”
“Huh? Oh, yes. Just make sure your desk is taken care of before you go. I don’t want anything left unattended to.”
“Sure thing, Canun, and thank you.”
I stopped by HR, just to make sure that they knew that I would be out the next week, before I finished cleaning up my accounts.
20
Hello Again
Tia and I sat in a booth at TGIF’s in Jack London Square on Monday evening. We were laughing, chatting, eating appetizers while waiting for our dinner to arrive.
“So how was your mother-in-law’s visit?” I asked.
“It was fine.”
“Really?”
“Well, no, actually she got on my nerves pretty badly, talking to Ron like he was a five-year-old. But I got through it,” said Tia.
I laughed.
“‘Ronnie, you want Momma to make you dinner? Ronnie, when is the last time you had a real sweet potato pie, baby?’” mimicked Tia. “Then she’d look at me and say things like, ‘You know, Tiwina, when Ronnie was a teenager, his girlfriends were always on the thick side. He sho’ changed up with you. Didn’t he?’” Tia paused.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I didn’t say anything. I just smiled with my lips tight the whole weekend. Like this.” She plastered a hard fake grin across her face.
I laughed.
“And Ron, he looked like a deer caught in the headlights the whole weekend. I was so mad at him,” she said.
I cracked up. They were a mess. The waitress brought our food and we ate and got caught up on each other’s lives some more.
My back was to a group of four or five at the booth behind me. I hadn’t been paying much attention, but I heard someone say, “True. Very true. When you have little black girls and society tells them that they aren’t beautiful, that their hair is not long enough, that their features are too much, lots of time they don’t fly like they could. Their wings stay at their sides. They stagnate. But ohhh, when you make sure that they are aware of how beautiful and unique they really are, then, my friends, you have something different. Then you have little Venuses and little Serenas running around.”
“True.”
“Well said, Doctor,” said another man’s voice.
Tia looked at me from across our table and whispered, “Eavesdropper.”
I smiled at her and shrugged. “I’ll be back. I’m going to the little girls’ room—I have to go pee-pee.”
“Uhh, that’s TMI, Too Much Information, and you know it! Just go. Please.” Tia shooed me away.
I giggled and got up from the booth.
I started toward the bathroom at the back of the building. I looked good with my light pink slacks and matching soft pink wraparound shirt. It crisscrossed in the front and tied in the back. Apparently someone else agreed, because I could feel him staring at me. I didn’t bother to see who it was, though, because it didn’t matter. My heart was set; I was going to marry Eric, and that was all there was to that.
I came out of the bathroom, and a tall figure walked over to me. I sort of looked away, staring straight ahead, looking at nothing between his head and his shoulder. I was going to say to him, “Look, sweetheart, I’m sure you’re fly and all that good stuff, but I’m already taken. Okay?” Then he had the audacity to touch my arm. Excuse you! I thought. I looked over at him and was going to speak, but I saw that there was something familiar about this face. I think it was the eyebrows—no, it was the lips. I couldn’t place it. He was maybe six feet, with a thin yet muscular frame. He had smooth chocolate skin, like Tyson Beckford. He had a perfectly trimmed goatee and thick, perfect eyebrows. Where the heck did I know him from? Then he leaned over to me, kissed me on the cheek, and said, “Hello, Frog Face.”
My heart started beating like crazy, and the wall had to hold me up. Breathe, Chantell, breathe. “Keith Rashaad Talbit?”
“Yeah,” he said with a big grin.
“Oh my God, Keith Rashaad! I can’t believe—what are you doing here?”
He laughed. “I’m glad to see you too.”
I blushed and fumbled over my words. “No, I mean, I didn’t know you were— I mean, you’re here and you didn’t call. Not that you had to call me or anything. I just haven’t seen you in a long time.”
Back then, years ago, after I’d kissed little Keith in the balcony on Sunday, he’d started shamelessly following me around. It wasn’t like I had a ton of best girlfriends. Before you knew it, we were playing Batman and Wonder Woman on the steps outside of the church while our grandmothers attended committee meetings.
I guess I had a right to say all of this to him now. I mean, he was my childhood best friend.
My grandmother used to say that bad luck came in threes, and here I was staring at the third great loss of my life. I hadn’t seen him in sixteen years.
We stood in the back of the restaurant near the bathrooms. There were pictures all over the walls. We blocked the hallway. I looked at his face. He had changed so much! As a little kid, Keith had been sickly. Eczema, broken arm, ear infections, you name it. Then as he reached middle school, he had acne galore. But he was so bighearted, and smart. And he had these eyebrows that were magnificent.
“Can I hug you?” he asked.
“Aw, man, can you?” I stepped closer to him.
Then he took his arms and wrapped them around me. It was a big strong hug, and my feet rose up off the ground. I put my arms around his neck, and felt him sway with me just a bit. When he let go, he looked at me, and with his index finger he touched the little mole above my eyebrow.
“Chantell, look at you. You’ve gone from ponytails and Band-Aids to beauty queen.”
“Stop.” I blushed.
“I’m serious, you look incredible.”
“Well, thank you, Keith Rashaad. You look amazing yourself,” I said.
I thought about when we were children and wondered about his asthma. I remembered a time when we were about twelve. We were racing in the street and Keith had an asthma attack. Keith was my acekoomboom, my buddy, my roaddawg, and I thought that he was going to die. So I ran. I sprinted, as fast as I could, four blocks to his home. I got his inhaler and brought it back to him.
A man was trying to get past us in the hallway. “Excuse me,” he said.
“Oh, no, excuse us,” said Keith. He put his hand to the arch of my back and walked with me a few steps, till we were out of the hallway. I still couldn’t get over how he’d changed. It was like the story of the duck that turned into the swan. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help it: I looked at his arms for hive marks from all those food allergies. I saw nothing.
Keith must have seen me looking, because he laughed. “It’s all gone,” he said in his smooth, deep voice.
“What?”
“The asthma, the hives, I outgrew it all. And I wear the Keri lotion every day.”
He chuckled at his own joke. Because of the hives and lack of lotion, Keith often had looked chalky as a kid.
I stood there, looking at him in awe. This was amazing. He was hypnotic. Then I realized how ridiculous I probably looked staring at him, and I was embarrassed.
“Who are you with here? I mean, I’m here with my friend Tia. Are you alone?”
He smiled. “I’m actually here with the group behind where you were sitting. We’re with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.”
“Did you move back to the Bay Area?”
“Oh, well, no. I’m here on a three-month project. But while I’m here, I am going to spend some time mentoring kids.” He motioned over to his table with his eyes. “We were talking, and I saw you when you got up. I knew that it was you right off, when I saw the mole and those sad eyes.”
I looked at him. He thought my eyes were sad.
“Keith, can you come and meet my friend Tia? Do you have time?”
He nod
ded. “Sure. I’d love to. In fact, we were just finishing up. Let me excuse myself and I’ll be right back.”
When he came back, I put my arm in his and walked with him toward my table. At the table I said, “Tia, this is a very old and dear friend of mine, Keith Rashaad Talbit. Keith Rashaad, this is my best friend, Tia Pardou.”
Keith shook her hand and sat down next to me. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said.
Tia said, “Keith, it’s so nice to meet you too. I feel like I have known you because I have heard your name so many times.”
“Good things, I hope,” he said.
“All good things,” Tia said. She looked at me and raised her eyebrows.
We chatted awhile and Tia and I learned that Keith was a new doctor, who had just completed his residency in Boston. He’d been granted the privilege of working on a special skin-grafting research team at the Oakland Children’s Hospital. I was so proud of him. His parents had died in a fire when he was an infant, and so it was fitting that he chose to work with burn victims who were children.
“I am so happy for you, Keith Rashaad.”
“Thank you, Chawnee.”
And I was happy for him. His Grandmother Edna had raised him until she died. Then he got sent away. He’d never called. I used to wonder if he’d died.
“I’m glad that you are doing well, Chantell,” he said after I told him what I had been up to. The three of us continued to eat and chat, until the waitress made her way back over to us. “Can I get you guys dessert, or something else to drink?”
“Can I have an iced tea, with no lemon?” I asked.
Tia ordered a hot tea.
“And what would you like, sir?”
Keith Rashaad said, “Um, how about a root beer?”
Tia’s cell phone rang. She answered: “Hello? Oh, hi, honey!” she piped up. She held up a finger as if to say that she’d be right back, and slid out of the booth. It was perfect timing because I had something to ask that couldn’t wait any longer.
“Keith, where did you go?” I didn’t say when we were children—I didn’t need to.
He took a long breath, then he said, “I couldn’t call, Chantell. When Grandma Edna died it was . . . it was very hard for me.”
There was a lot of energy bouncing from Keith to me, and from me to Keith. When Tia walked back, I was sure she could see it. Maybe she’d planned to sit back down with us a while longer, but that energy was unmistakable.
“Hey, look, you guys, I’m going to head home . . .” She picked up her coat from the back of the chair. “Ron’s rented videos, and he’s waiting for me.” She gave us both a hug.
“I’ll call you later,” I said.
“Tia, it was nice to meet you,” Keith said.
And before you knew it, we were alone.
“I tried to call you once, you know? I found a Chantell Meyers on AOL’s directory with a phone number. And I was just so sure it was you. I left a message, but when I didn’t get a call back, I figured it wasn’t you . . .” He looked a little embarrassed. “I was going to just suck it up and go knock on your dad’s door, once I got here. But I guess I don’t have to.”
I looked over the table at him and was reminded of those Sundays up in the balcony at church. “You have to come to church with me. It has grown so much, and Pastor Fields would be so happy to see you.”
“Count me in. I rarely miss church on Sunday mornings.”
I smiled. “Some things don’t change, huh?”
“Nope.” He smiled. “I’m still Keith.”
“Hey,” I said. “Remember Ola Rose Pearl?”
“Who could forget Mother Pearl?”
We laughed.
“She used to pass out gum to all of the kids in the balcony! While our parents listened to the church service we’d be upstairs smacking and chomping on Freedent, like little senior citizens,” I said.
We laughed some more.
“You know, I still chew that gum sometimes,” he said.
“I do too! Shoot, it’s good!”
We laughed, hard.
“Remember when we’d sneak from Sunday school and go to the corner store for candy?” I asked. “Between the both of us, we’d have maybe sixty-five cents.”
“Do I?” he said. “Spending up our Sunday school money. We’d walk into the store, and there would be mounds of candy. Now and Laters, Lemonheads, M&M’s, Boston Baked Beans, Jolly Ranchers.”
I cut in: “Oh, and don’t forget the Heath bars! Them things was good too!”
Keith Talbit looked at me and smiled. “Chantell, you’re funny!”
“What?” I said.
“Nothing.” And he just looked at me. His stare made my face warm. I loved my friend so much, and I couldn’t believe he was back and sitting next to me!
“All that candy,” he went on, “yet we always seemed to go straight to the gum section first, and find the Freedent.”
I smiled. “You want to go outside and walk around?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said.
21
Sitting on the Dock
We walked around past the closed, dimly lit shops. Keith thought Jack London Square was great.
“How long has all of this stuff been here?” he asked, stopping near a railing where we had a great view.
“For a while now. Oakland is really getting a face-lift.”
Walking with him like that, at that moment, made me feel that everything would be okay, as long as he was around. I even caught myself wondering silly things, like was he attracted to me, and thinking what-ifs, like what if he lived here. I knew that I had gone too far when I started having feelings of fear. Like I wasn’t worthy of such a good person as Keith Rashaad. He’d done a whole bunch of good. What had I done good? Nothing. Nada. Come to think of it, what did I know how to do well besides cut people with my sharp tongue and look cute? Keith’s area of specialty was medicine; mine was just plain old sin.
I needed a reality check, so that my imagination wouldn’t have me thinking of picket fences, children, and a dog named Spot.
“Keith, do you have an evangelist wife or a dentist girlfriend or something back at home?”
He laughed and stepped back. He said, “Chantell, you’re funny. I am not a saint. I try to stay connected with God, but I am by no means perfect.” He paused. “Let me put it this way. I’m just a work in progress, just like you. Just like every other Christian. I’ve made a conscious decision to try to stay close to Him.” Then he said, “And the answer is no, Chawnee.” He laughed. “I don’t have an ‘evangelist wife’ or a ‘dentist girlfriend’ at home.”
And I told myself that I wasn’t glad. It really wasn’t any of my business anyway.
We walked in silence for a while, then stopped by a bench near the water. We stood there together and looked out. Beautiful yachts were docked. We stared out and watched as the moon’s reflection danced on the ripples. The ambiance was nice. I made a note to myself to tell Eric that we should come out here and walk some night.
Keith picked up on the story of his childhood departure, where he’d left off in Friday’s. “After Grandma Edna died, I was so angry. Mad at God. Mad at the world. I felt like I didn’t have any support. No real family left. Nobody to show report cards to. Nobody to wait up for me to see if I came in past curfew and put me on punishment. I felt like I had no one to hold me accountable.”
I stared at him under the light. He kept talking, and I don’t know when I grabbed hold of his arm and comfortably folded mine around it.
He continued, “I was sent to live with my Aunt Gertie and Uncle Tommy. I guess I should have been thankful that I didn’t have to go to a foster home or juvenile. But I wasn’t. I thought that if my aunt and uncle had really thought anything of me, then I would have heard from them before then. My aunt and uncle lived in Texas alone, with no children. And that suited me just fine, because I didn’t want to talk to anyone anyways. I didn’t pay anyone much attention.”
Keith was a
lways so even-tempered. I couldn’t imagine him that angry with anyone.
“So what did you do every day?”
He turned and looked at me and said, “I started hanging out in the street. My aunt and uncle tried to sit me down and talk to me, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I went from being a straight-A student to smoking weed and stealing cars for joyrides. My aunt and uncle threatened to turn me over to the police and let them handle me.”
I stood there trying to fathom such a thing.
“Then, one day my uncle saw me. He’d turned onto the street where I was hanging out. I had a cigarette in my mouth and my pants were sagging. I was about fourteen or fifteen years old. Me and the fellas, we were tough like that.”
He smirked and went on. “My boys must have seen him coming before I did, because they started looking at the ground with their hands in their pockets, whistling and fidgeting. I just kept talking. Boastin’ and lyin’. The next thing I knew, the cigarette was knocked out of my mouth. My boys had run off, and these hands that I didn’t know were so strong were holding me by my shirt and had my scrawny teenage body pinned to the ground, and I couldn’t move.” He chuckled.
“My uncle said, ‘You are not going to f— up your life in my home, boy!’ He said, ‘I am telling you right now, come home. Come home and get it together. Be the person that your Grandmother Eddie said you were. Or come home and get your stuff out of my d**n house.’ Then he got up, went to his car, and just drove away.”
I looked at him. “So what did you do?”
“I walked around Houston the rest of the evening thinking. I had a choice to make. I realized that I’d come to a fork in a road in my life, and that I had taken the wrong path. So I made a U-turn and took the other road. I went home that evening and told my aunt and uncle that I was sorry, and that I would do better. I worked hard, and turned my grades around. I graduated from high school. I got a scholarship to study math from Harvard. After college, I stayed there and went to medical school. I did my residency in Cambridge, and that’s where I’ve been up until this last week.”
“Wow, Keith Rashaad. You’re amazing.”
Sweet Bye-Bye Page 10