Sweet Bye-Bye

by Denise Michelle Harris

  “Umm . . . Hi, Keith, it’s me, Chantell.” I waited for the door handle to turn. It didn’t.

  I said, “Keith, can we talk?”

  No answer.

  “Keith, are you there?”

  The door handle turned, and the door opened. Keith’s beautiful brown face looked at me.

  Silence.

  “Chantell. Why are you here?” He looked so serious. I looked straight in his eyes, but he didn’t look at me in mine.

  “Umm. Keith.” What was I supposed to say? “I, um, I came here—” No, that wasn’t a serious look, it was a sad one. “I, um, came here to tell you that I love you too. And that you were right. And that I’ve learned a lot from you, Keith.”

  He looked at the ground and said, “I’m glad . . . Chantell, a lot has transpired between us. But I’ve realized that my focus needs to be on my patients.”

  What was he saying? I said that I loved him too. And I really, really meant it.

  Keith went on, while staring at the tree branches behind me: “So while I think it was very noble of you to come here and share with me, emotionally I am just not prepared for a relationship right now. I am sorry if I misled you.”

  I said nothing. I just listened outside his front door and gave a simple smile, and folded my gloved hands.

  “Well, hey, I’ve got to get to work.” He sighed. “It was nice seeing you again, Chantell, but I’ve got to get ready to leave.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said like I was indifferent to how he really felt, and turned around. “Well, good-bye.”

  Keith closed the door. I took one step down the stairs, then another one. Then I realized that I’d come too far to turn back. I hadn’t told him what I needed to tell him. I walked back to his front door.

  I knocked. My voice cracked: “Keith? Keith,” I said again. “My priorities were in all the wrong places. It’s not about appearances. I know that. It’s how you feel on the inside. It’s how you feel about you. And how you feel about the world around you.”

  He didn’t respond. He’d gone away from the door and was ignoring me.

  “Keith, and it’s how I feel about you!” I screamed. I put my hand against his door. “I just wanted you to know that.” I cried. The cold air had worked its way right through my gloves. I hoped he was still at the door. “And Keith, Eric means nothing to me. I love you, Keith Rashaad, and I had to tell you that.”

  I didn’t know what to do or say. My speech that I’d rehearsed had completely vanished. And the word “honesty” came to me. I had nothing to lose, so I just spoke from my heart. “I, I want to massage your back, and kiss your temples. I want take care of you after long stressful days. And I want you to hold me, Keith, like you did that day at the beach . . .”

  Tears rolled down my cheeks and fell all over my dark green jacket. “Keith, are you listening to me?” My voice cracked. “I am not a princess, or prissy Chantell Meyers. I am just your girl, Keith. Always.”

  He didn’t respond. Maybe I was talking to the door, but I was desperate, and this was my chance. “I am staying in town for the night, at the Park Place Inn. If you can hear me, I am in room 172.” I turned and headed back to the cab that waited for me at the curb.

  When I got back to the hotel room, the light was blinking on my phone. I had a message. I was excited. Keith had come to his senses. I had gotten through to him, and he was going to give us another chance. I darted to the phone like I was still on the track team in high school and pressed the message button.

  “You have one message. . . . Mr. Davis, uh, this is Wilma Scott, I just wanted to see if you made it in okay. I got the registration form and I’ve mailed it back already. Please call me when you get this message. Thanks and talk to you soon.” A wrong number!

  I was so hurt. So angry and sad. I had done everything! I went to church. I was working on my issues. I was trying to be nice to everyone. I said aloud, “What am I supposed to do, God?”

  Weary, I just wanted to go to bed. I slipped into some yellow flannel pajamas, got under the covers, and bawled.

  My perception of the hotel that I was staying in had changed. What I first thought of as a beautiful, historic place now seemed cold, old, and drab. And in my room, it was dark, except for a tiny dim reading lamp on the nightstand. My window with the view out onto the street was covered by big, fancy golden drapes. As I lay on my back tears rolled out the corners of my eyes and to my earlobes. I could hear cars going by outside on the street. I got out of bed and went over to the thermostat and turned up the heat.

  Keith didn’t love me. That literally hurt to think about. I felt like I wanted to throw up.

  The competitive side of me was telling me that I’d lost, yet I was desperate to win back again the love that he’d said he felt for me. I heard a car turn and pull into the hotel’s driveway.

  Keith! I thought. I knew he’d come around! I knew he wouldn’t let me come this far and turn me away like that.

  I ran over to my window and looked out. It was a Lincoln Town Car, like the one that Keith borrowed in Oakland. What’s he doing with a car like that in Boston too? I smiled. I looked closely, and my smile quickly dissipated. A middle-aged white couple parked the car and got out.

  Moments later, another car pulled into the parking lot. Again, I ran to the window. Again, only to be let down. I’d lost my mind. I didn’t know why I was putting myself through that kind of torture. Every time another car pulled in I was hopeful, until I realized it was over. I had tried to fix it. I swear I tried. My opportunity to build a life with him had come and gone. I cried until I went to sleep.

  54

  A Sweet Bye-Bye

  The plane ride home was awful. A father and child were reading from a Dr. Seuss book, so I couldn’t hear the movie that was playing up above. I got little rest and was tired. The man of my dreams wanted nothing to do with me. The turbulence was almost unbearable. I just sat there in silence until we landed in Oakland.

  At the office I sat in my little cubicle and tried to get some work done. “Chantell, you look peaky, are you okay?” said Cameron.

  “Umph-humph,” I said and kept filling out the ad space reservation form for the half-page ad that was to run next Tuesday.

  “Well, you know that flu that is going around? It put my sister out of commission for two weeks, so if you start feeling sick, go home and get some rest. Okay?”

  “Umph-humph. Thanks, Cam.”

  I felt terrible, nauseous, I had no appetite, and my hair was ugly. Keith didn’t love me. Tears welled up, and I got up and went to the bathroom.

  That was pretty much how my weeks went. My feelings fluctuated. There’d be tears, then I’d get angry about how everything had turned out. Then I’d think about losing Keith again. Then I’d cry some more. I blamed myself for not seeing what God had put before me.

  When Sunday rolled around, I dragged myself into church.

  “Faith and works go together!” said Pastor Fields as she took her place at the stand surrounded by flowers. “You can’t have one and not the other. And that is what I am supposed to talk about today.”

  Everyone listened.

  “You can’t believe that you can sit on your rump and ask God to do things for you and He’s just going to do it for you. When God puts something in your spirit, you have to be willing to ‘step out on faith.’ But you also need to know that you can’t start working on plans and not ‘believe’ that they are going to work out.

  “Faith and works go together. We need to get that in our souls,” she said and pointed to her own chest.

  “What is faith?” she asked.

  All of the congregation all started talking at once. I sat there listening with my wall still up around me.

  “Turn with me if you will,” she said, “to Hebrews 11. And let’s read it aloud together.” And we read, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

  “We have to be able to see what we’re hoping for. It’s got to be real
to us. Because the Bible is saying that it’s our unseen belief that brings the things hoped for, to pass.”

  She put her elbow on the stand in front of her, set her chin in the palm of her hand, and said, “You have to let go at some point and believe that God will intervene on your behalf.” She smiled. “That’s heavy stuff, huh? But that’s the ticket.

  “So, do you have that kind of faith?” And some people stood up and waved their hands in the air.

  She smiled. “Turn with me to Mark 11:24 and let’s read what it says.” The congregation read, “Therefore, I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”

  “Do you believe that God will handle your situation for you? Have you listened for Him to give you answers? Do you rely on Him to handle it?”

  It was about that time that I started to cry, because though I loved God, I didn’t listen for anything. And I didn’t trust God or anyone on this earth to work anything out for me. Did I really believe that He would handle it? Naw! That’s why I handled it. I’d been praying to God and telling Him what I wanted, minus the faith; then I’d go out and push for it. I would say, “God help me,” and then I would just try to take the problem by the horns. And if it worked, it worked. If it didn’t, it didn’t.

  She may as well have been talking directly to me, because I got what she was saying loud and clear. I did love God, yet I was hardly practicing faith. I got it, and apparently I wasn’t the only one in the congregation who did.

  “Thank you, Jesus!”

  “Say it again, Pastor!”

  “Amen!”

  I thought back to my father’s collapse, and I realized that you can’t bargain or barter with God. God didn’t need me to make deals with Him to heal my dad. Just my faith was good enough. I closed my eyes, cried, and talked to the Lord.

  “Thank You, God, for increasing my level of understanding. I’m sorry. I get it!” I realized that I was talking aloud but it didn’t matter who heard. “And I know I fall sometimes, but I am going to keep moving closer and closer toward You. I am dependent upon You, God, I am open, and I want to hear You speak through me to me. I cannot handle everything, because I am not in control, God. You are.”

  Pastor Fields finished the message, and even before the lady from the audience walked up to the microphone and sang like a hummingbird, “I can feel Je-sus renewing my so-oul. Oh great comfort! He’s ma-king me who-ole,” I felt Him, and I was comforted.

  At home, I walked over to my mother’s bookshelf and pulled out her journal. She’d written out her thoughts often. And just weeks before she died, she’d started writing in the blue journal that I had in my hand. I turned forward a few pages and started a new chapter. I grabbed a pen and wrote:

  I have so much to be thankful for that I cannot even begin to list it all. Mostly I am thankful that He died on the cross so that I could start anew. I am thankful that He loves me and is willing to walk through life with me.

  Gone are the days that clothes, lipstick, and jewelry lead me. I have no reason for shallow thoughts. I’m learning to do things in a kinder, gentler, more peaceful way, I’m growing stronger in God every day.

  55

  Beep

  The day was long. When I got home that evening, I walked through the door with a new supply of Frombradi incense in my hand. I looked toward the answering machine without that feeling of desperation that maybe today would be the day that Keith Rashaad Talbit would call.

  In the few months that passed, I’d found myself in a different place. A better place. The kind of love that I felt for Keith was not angry or jealous. It was not resentful or manipulative, and it had nothing to do with love going in both directions. It just was. I’d learned that there were few things greater than that kind of love.

  I pressed the answering machine button, went over to my bed, and lay back.

  Beep.

  “Hi, babygirl, it’s your daddy.” I smiled, I knew who it was. Daddy had finished up all of his chemo treatments and was doing well.

  “Where you at? It’s been two days. How come we haven’t heard from you? You call me when you get this message. Okay? Bye.”

  Okay, Daddy.

  Beep.

  “Chantell, it’s Tia. You have been on my mind. Call me. I’m at home.”

  I’d call them both back as soon as I grabbed a bite to eat.

  Beep.

  “Hey, Chantell. How are you doing? It’s me, Eric. I just wanted . . . well, I just wanted to say that I was sorry about everything that happened at the lake. And I wanted to see how you were doing. And to tell you that I miss you, girl, and I’d like to see you. You know, just to talk. My new cellular number is 555-8054. Call me, okay?”

  I guess you could say that I had a revelation, because God spoke to me, through me. I let go of my pillow and grabbed my mother’s journal and wrote: “Every day I am learning. Every day I am getting stronger. There are some things that I have to do. I just have to hold on to what I know in my heart is right. I have to forgive my enemies. I have to tell Eric to stop calling me. I have to follow my spirit.” Then I closed the book and went to the kitchen to fix myself some dinner.

  56

  The Conference Room

  On my way to the office, I thought of the things that I had to do. My watch said it was 8:17 a.m. I grabbed a bright green sticky pad from my desk and wrote: “Please go to conference room C at 8:30.” I stuck it on Mina’s monitor when no one else was around and went back to my desk. At 8:28, I went into the conference room, turned on the lights, closed the blinds, and waited.

  When the clock on the wall read 8:31, the door opened. With a manila file in her arms, Mina peered at me. Then she abruptly did an about-face and was about to leave.

  “Please, Mina, stay,” I said. “I’d like to talk.”

  She took a seat at the other end of the table, holding her files close to her chest.

  I looked at her, eye to eye, and said, “Mina, I just wanted to tell you that I am very sorry for any chaos I may have caused you.”

  She looked at me, and her stern expression smoothed out a bit. “What? You mean the Tiffany box of pooh?”

  I looked at her and nodded. “Yes, and all of the battling and tension between us, I want it to stop.”

  Mina folded her arms and looked at me with a weird smile. “So you’re going to stop trying to win all the time?”

  “No, I am going to keep doing the best job that I can. I just don’t want it to be taken like I am competing with you, and vice versa.”

  “I don’t always want to feel like I am competing with you either, Chantell. I am competing with myself. Trying to do better than I did the last time.”

  I nodded. Even though the company encouraged competition, she and I were on the same page.

  I was shocked when she smiled and said, “I have to tell you, though. That dog-pooh prank was an original.” She laughed. “Where’d you get an idea like that from?”

  Surprised that she had a sense of humor, I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. It was wrong, though, and I am sorry.”

  “Well, while you’re apologizing, I am sorry too.”

  I looked at her and said with a forgiving smile, “For what? You mean for trying to take away my business, for setting your friend up with my boyfriend, or for letting the air out of my tire?”

  She put her hand over her eyes and said, “Yes, yes, yes!”

  We vowed to stop all the drama, and in the spirit of Rodney King, just all tried to get along.

  Yeah, letting my spirit be my guide was definitely a good thing.

  57

  Thank You Very Much

  It was Wednesday night, and poetry night at Dorsey’s Locker, on the Oakland/Berkeley border. I arrived at 8:30 with my mother’s blue journal in hand. I couldn’t describe how good it felt to be praying, and listening, and letting God lead the way. I was there mainly because I wanted to hear people speaking from their hearts—their truths, whate
ver they’d found them to be. I was excited to be there. The place was dimly lit, and closed in, but my eyes and ears and heart were open for truth.

  I walked over to the bar in the center of the little building and ordered a ginger ale. I was realizing more and more truths every day. Truths that I had known deep inside of me but had ignored for so long that I’d forgotten they existed. Things like: Everybody loves; everybody wants to be happy; everybody hurts sometimes; everyone wins; and everybody loses sometimes. These are things that you know, but you’re taught to act like you don’t know. Or at least that’s the way it was for me.

  Now I felt peaceful and full, 300 percent calmer than when I left Cambridge almost seven months ago. And 1,000 percent better than where I was at this time last year. I hadn’t spoken to Keith Rashaad Talbit, but he was in my heart. I’d learned a few things about life from him, and that is what it was all about. Learning and loving. I reveled in my little truth and told myself that this peace I felt, right then and right there—now that I knew it existed—I wasn’t going to let it go. I was going strive to hold on to it as best I could.

  I sat back in a chair, watched the array of people, and remembered why I loved the Bay Area so much. An Asian guy and his black girlfriend sat right next to me, but the entire place was sprinkled with enough colors to make you wonder if MLK’s “I have a dream” speech hadn’t come to pass. I walked to the front, signed up to say a few words, and was placed fourth on the list.

  A gentleman stood up and welcomed the small crowd. Then a heavyset man with a bandanna around his head kicked off the evening with a poem. He talked about “going to Carolina but not the town.” He said that he was “sneaking to see my lover no matter who’d frown.”

  Then a black woman with her hair wrapped up in a purple-and- yellow cloth walked up to the mike. She started out by saying she was half Jewish and half black, and, with a hint of sadness in her eyes, she called herself an oxymoron. Then she said with a very serious look that she was and always would be a revolutionary. She read a poem about her love for Will Smith, Lauryn Hill, and Tupac Shakur. She had a little gold stud in her nose. She read a beautiful poem that said race and color and creed didn’t matter because we were all one. And that all we needed was good love and Jah. “Amen!” I wanted to shout out. Then she read another poem. She said that everyone should meditate. And that whether we recognized it or not, God was in each of us. “That’s right!” I blurted out. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it. This conscious sistah was on a roll! Then she said that we should all light up a fat one and share our sex. And I laughed and thought, Umm . . . no, girlfriend went a little too far for me!