by Lori Johnson
While reflecting on the statement he’d heard his uncle repeat on a number different occasions, Dante turned the vehicle down a street and in a direction that would take him by Aliesha’s house. As a child he’d lack both the words and the maturity to tell his uncle Mack that while tussling and trading blows with the overgrown fourth-grade girl who’d been Laylah’s tormentor might not have been the right thing to do, given both the circumstances and his way of looking at things, it had surely been the most honorable.
Dante wondered if his uncle Mack had ever considered that being honorable and doing what was right weren’t, necessarily, always one and the same. He wondered, too, if there wasn’t some way to alter the fact that currently his behavior toward Laylah felt like one and his feelings for Aliesha like the other.
He noted the time on shifting his car into park across the street from Aliesha’s residence. 8:30 PM. A dim light cast odd shadows across the front porch, but as far as he could tell, no lights glowed anywhere inside of her house. He pulled out the phone he’d recently charged and almost called just to see if she were home. Then he remembered and realized wherever she was, she’d probably written him off as a liar and a pretender. Alas, her awful, drunken assessment of him on her porch that tension-filled night he’d brought her home had been correct after all.
He dropped the phone and slammed his hands against the steering wheel. What he hated most of all was that Aliesha would never know that his intentions had been honorable and how disappointed he’d been at not being able to live up to his own expectations. How for him, being with her had filled him up in a way no preacher’s sermon, no home-cooked meal, no single moment of physical pleasure, sexual or otherwise, ever had. And how he’d wanted, truly wanted so much more . . . What Dante would never know was that at that very moment, on another side of town, Aliesha sat in a parked car, wanting him just as intensely as he wanted her.
CHAPTER 34
While walking across campus on the Monday after her harrowing weekend, Aliesha had all but arrived at her destination—the administration building—when she spotted a lone figure on the student plaza near the fountain. The well-dressed woman’s slow, circular movements suggested she just might be lost or in need of assistance. As Aliesha detoured in her direction, she made note of the small campus map the woman kept turning over in her hands and peering at through the large sunglasses covering her face. But on drawer closer yet, Aliesha made an even more startling observation—the lost woman was no stranger.
“Julia?” she called out.
Javiel’s mother looked up from map and, on removing her shades, smiled and said, “Why, Aliesha! How are you, dear?”
The cheerful greeting and warm embrace took Aliesha by surprise. While keeping an eye out for signs of a hidden dagger, she said, “I’m fine, though admittedly more than a little shocked to run into you. What brings you here, if you don’t mind my asking? Are you looking for something?”
“Yes,” Julia said, adjusting the beautiful and expensive-looking scarf around her neck, while telling Aliesha about a lecture and discussion on the federal government’s inept response to Hurricane Katrina, which had lured her onto Wells’s campus.
On informing Julia that the lecture for that particular event was being held in a building near the library, Aliesha volunteered to show her the way. During the course of their brief walk over, the two women exchanged a few of the usual pleasantries before Julia took it upon herself to address the pink elephant marching in step alongside them. “I’m sorry to hear things didn’t work out between you and Javiel.”
Aliesha wondered just how much Julia knew, particularly with regards to the ugliness that had transpired over the weekend. She swallowed the knot of embarrassment growing in her throat and said, “As much as I appreciate the sentiment, something tells me you’re not terribly disappointed.”
Julia slowed her pace and removed her sunglasses again. “Seeing either of you hurt is the last thing I’d ever want. But in all honesty, I do think it’s better it happened now than before the two of you made the horrible mistake of getting married and bringing children into the picture. It never was anything personal against you, Aliesha, in spite of what you might think. Perhaps one day when you’re older, you’ll understand.”
Neither of them said anything else until a few minutes later when they arrived in front of the building Julia had been in search of. “Okay, let’s say I accept your insistence that it wasn’t personal,” Aliesha said, abruptly picking up where they’d left off. “What about the business with Evelyn? Did you ever truly believe Javiel had something to do with her death? I’m saying, you do realize you had me wondering if my life was in danger, don’t you?”
“And it was, dear.” Julia smiled and placed the bejeweled and perfectly manicured fingers of one hand on Aliesha’s shoulder. “Take it from someone who knows. It’s possible to take a person’s life without actually putting a gun to their heads and pulling the trigger. Eventually, it would have happened. It might not have been as bloody. But a slow death is a death, nonetheless. Don’t you think?”
She knew he wouldn’t be there, but she showed up at Wally’s Cool Cuts on the day of her regularly scheduled appointment anyway. She needed some answers and was determined to find someone who’d give them to her.
Just as she pulled up to the shop, she spied Wally coming out of the front door. He was just the person she’d hope to see. But rather than acknowledge her presence, he’d quickened his pace toward his SUV. By the time she’d exited her vehicle, he’d started his own and was already halfway out of the parking lot.
She shook her head, muttered a few choice profanities, and headed into the shop. She peered up with a frown as the bell above her head clattered and clanked, rather than sounded off with its usual pleasant ding. “I want revenge!” the classic line from James Brown’s “The Payback,” ripped and pulsated through the air.
When she lowered her frown, it landed on Gerald, who appeared to be losing in his battle to keep one of Sam Junior’s squirming, kicking, snot-nose twins seated still long enough to get his hair cut.
Gerald greeted her with a scowl and barked, “Before you ask, naw! He ain’t here. If you still wanting a haircut, check with Boyd, the new fella in the back. I’m sure he’ll be happy to take care of it for you.”
Aliesha walked toward the man who was occupying Dante’s old workstation and who was hard at work on the head of the customer seated in Dante’s barber’s chair. But what seized her attention and held it for several seconds was the coatrack in Dante’s station. Hanging from it was the now-familiar smock with the ever-present paperback jutting from its pocket.
“Something I can help you with, ma’am?”
She blinked and looked at the man. “Yes, I’m one of Dante’s customers, well, used to be, anyway. You’re filling his spot now?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m Preston Boyd. And you are?”
“Aliesha Eaton,” she said on shaking the hand he held out to her. “Pardon me for asking, Mr. Boyd, but is your presence here temporary or permanent? I mean, I noticed some of Dante’s things are still here.”
“Yes, ma’am, I was filling in temporarily, but as of this week, I am officially the new hire. I haven’t quite had time to move all of my things in just yet.”
“So, I take that to mean Dante’s not coming back?”
“From what I understand, no. He quit.”
“He quit! Wow, what about Yazz? Do you have any idea when he might be in?”
“You mean that young knucklehead that used to run his mouth all the time? He went and got his self fired.”
“What?! Okay, then, I guess that takes care of that.”
Mr. Boyd shut off his clippers. “You sure you don’t want me to cut your hair? I should be finished with this gentleman in another ten minutes or so.”
“No, not today. Thank you, though. Maybe some other time.”
On her way out, she noticed Gerald yelling into the phone mashed against his ear, while S
am Junior, now seated in Gerald’s chair, sat thumbing through a sports magazine and ignoring the twins, who were trading slaps and insults. She walked out and was about to open her car door when she heard someone call out behind her, “Hey, hey, hold up!”
When she turned, her eyes widened at the sight of Gerald lumbering toward her, cell phone still glued to the side of his head. She couldn’t help but wonder why he just didn’t get a phone with an ear attachment.
On reaching her, he snapped the phone shut and dropped it into his pocket. “Look here, Miz Professor, if it make any difference to you, I honestly don’t know where Dante is. I, for one, would have been happy to see him around here today. He’s ’bout the only somebody with patience enough to handle them badass twins. I can’t count the number of times he’s settled one of Sam Junior’s lil monsters down with a handful of comic books or by taking them over to his station and reading to ’em.”
“Well, guess I should take some consolation in the fact that I’m not the only one he’s left hanging.”
Rather than react to her sarcasm, Gerald said, “Some of these young boys pull that kind of shit . . . I mean mess, on the regular. You know, run off and be gone three, four days? Have folks wondering if they dead or alive. Long as I’ve known D., I ain’t never known him to be that type.”
“So, what are you trying to say? Because according to Mr. Boyd, Dante quit.”
Gerald scratched the scraggly bush growing atop his head. “Yeah, that’s the story Wally’s sticking to, anyway.”
“You don’t believe that?”
“I’ma tell you what I believe, Miz Professor, or rather what I know. Sometimes when a man up and disappear like that, he ain’t trying to be found.”
She pursed her lips, nodded, then said, “Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point. Thanks.”
“Hey, wait a sec.” Gerald reached into the pocket of his smock and pulled out an iPod. “I found this over in D.’s spot the other day. Why don’t you take it?”
She reached for it, then shook her head. “No, I probably shouldn’t. If he does come back for his things, I’m sure he’ll wonder where it is.”
“Yeah, all the more reason,” Gerald said. “’Bout a week before Dante disappeared, I ran up on him back there in the laundry room on his break. He had this here thing hooked up to his laptop some kind of way, and our former resident know-it-all, Yazz, was standing there overseeing, you know, trying to tell him how he was doing it all wrong.” Gerald laughed. “Anyway, I said, ‘Man, what is it exactly you call yourself trying to do?’”
“D. looked at me real funny-like and said, ‘Man, I’m just putting together a little something for Aliesha.’”
“I was like, who? He said, ‘You know Aliesha, Dr. Eaton, you know, man, Miz Professor!’ And I could tell by the look on his face and the way your name come outta his mouth, something between y’all had changed. To him, you were somebody special, not just any other customer . . . or any other woman.”
Aliesha gave in to a little smile. “I’d like to think that. Of course, with him having gone and pulled this little stunt, I’m not so sure.”
“Go on and take it,” Gerald said, shoving the iPod at her. “I know for a fact he got a couple others. And if he does show up around here again and he starts asking ’bout this one, I’ll be sure to let him know where he can find it.”
Aliesha waited until later in the evening before giving the iPod a listen. She plugged in the earbuds, stretched across her bed, and closed her eyes. “The Chosen,” the song Dante had insisted she listen to the night before his disappearance, gently flooded her ears and spread downward until it, like a blanket, covered her entire body.
Upon realizing that it was the only song on the iPod, Aliesha found herself playing it over and over again and wondering why. Why would Dante record such a beautiful song for her? Is that how he felt? Was she his “chosen”? If so, why had he taken to treating her as what could only be described as less than special? Where the hell had he gone that he couldn’t call? And what did any of it mean? Her gut told her something wasn’t right. Something had happened to Dante. But what?
She took the iPod to work and listened to the song every free moment throughout the day. Around about the thirtieth time, it finally struck her—she knew someone who just might be able to give her a few definitive answers. At that point, her attention turned to the most important question she had yet to ask herself: Was she honestly prepared to hear and accept the truth?
Aliesha had packed a lunch, and her original plan had been to eat alone in her office where she could continue to listen to the song Dante had recorded for her. But Monica had insisted they visit a new deli and sandwich shop not far from campus.
Monica tapped a fork against her glass of ice water and cleared her throat. “Hey, Ms. Thing, you made plans for this evening?”
Aliesha looked up from the salad she’d been picking over. In no hurry to revisit any of the biting nastiness of their previous falling-out, Aliesha had become more guarded about what she told Monica with regards to Dante. She’d said nothing to her about the last visit she’d made to Wally’s or the iPod Gerald had given her or the song that kept playing in her head even when she wasn’t listening to it. “Yeah, sorta,” she said.
Monica grinned. “Hopefully they don’t involve you driving aimlessly around town again, looking to accidentally run into you know who in order to tell him Lord knows what.”
Aliesha forced herself to smile. “They don’t. If you must know, I’m going to see Peaches. I’m letting her twist my hair.”
“Wow, can’t exactly say I saw that one coming. I guess that’s one way of moving on and literally getting dude out of your hair. Want me to go with you?”
Aliesha’s eyebrows rose in surprise and a genuine smile replaced her fake one. “What? You’re not scared of Peaches anymore?”
Monica frowned. “Let’s get this straight—I didn’t say a word about letting her come anywhere near my head. To be frank, yes, she still gives me all kind of heebee-jeebies. But given the little stunt you pulled last Friday night, I’m even more afraid of letting you roam the streets alone again. Pardon me for being so blunt, but you ending up in the wrong bed again with your damn legs spread is still very much a distinct possibility.”
Aliesha used her napkin to take a playful swat across the table at her laughing friend. “Why do you always have to be such a mean ole heifer?” she asked before joining in with a chuckle of her own.
When Aliesha called Peaches on Thursday night, she’d learned that only hours before, “King,” the last stray mutt Miss Margie had made a part of her small family, had died. Mixed in with the sadness, Aliesha detected a note or two of both excitement and relief in Peaches’s voice. “I’m canceling most of my appointments tomorrow. I’m taking King to the vet, so I can make arrangements to have him cremated. Then I’m going by the pet cemetery and see about getting him a plot.”
Aliesha found the last tidbit of information the most interesting, given her knowledge that all of Miss Margie’s other dogs had simply been buried in the backyard.
“But I can still do your hair at the house, sometime tomorrow evening, if you want,” Peaches said.
“What time were you planning on leaving for the vet?” Aliesha asked. “I can stop by early in the morning or else sometime after three, tomorrow afternoon, if you need a hand.”
“Oh, thanks, but that won’t be necessary. Tamara and LeRoy have already volunteered to do the honors.”
“LeRoy?” Aliesha asked.
“Yes, he’s a guy I’ve been talking to. He goes to my church and picks me up from work sometimes. Remember Mr. Hardy who owns the cab company me and Mama have been using every since I started working at Beulah’s? Well, Leroy is his son. He moved down here from Detroit and started working for Mr. Hardy a couple of months ago.”
Aliesha wasn’t sure what to make of the revelation. A part of her was tickled by the knowledge that Peaches had landed herself a boyfriend or else wa
s well on her way to doing so. On the other hand, she couldn’t help but feel somewhat concerned. Who was this guy? Some Detroit slick looking to get over on some blind, sheltered church girl? One thing she knew for sure, who ever he was, Miss Margie would not have approved. Over the years, Aliesha had come to suspect that beyond simple protection, one of the primary reasons Miss Margie kept some surly, mean-ass dog around was to serve as a deterrent to any man who might be harboring thoughts about getting too close to Peaches.
A flood of memories descended upon Aliesha as soon as she opened the gate and placed her foot on one of the circular concrete pavers that led to Miss Margie’s house. She still thought of the simple but sturdy brick structure at 6622 Alameda Drive as Miss Margie’s. She had never imagined herself thinking otherwise until she walked through the wrought iron door that day. A number of cosmetic changes had been made since Aliesha’s last visit. The old plastic-covered furniture in the living room had been replaced with a more contemporary leather sofa and a pair of comfortable-looking, overstuffed leather chairs. In place of the dark, heavy drapes were bamboo drawstring blinds. The old, shag carpeting, dingy and worn from age and years of repeated steam cleanings, had been ripped out, revealing unmarred and barely walked upon hardwood floors.
“My goodness, Peaches,” Aliesha said, with her gaze still navigating the room. “You didn’t tell me you’d been redecorating.”
“I’m just getting started, really,” Peaches said, beaming with pride. “Next on my list is to put a little paint on the walls and have the floors buffed and polyurethaned.”
“Do you have a contractor? If not, I have a friend from church, Archie Phillips, who does a lot of my handiwork. I’m sure he’d be glad to come out and give you an estimate or else recommend someone.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about letting my friend LeRoy take on a few of the jobs over the summer.”