A Natural Woman

by Lori Johnson

  Aliesha followed Peaches into the kitchen. “You and this guy LeRoy are pretty serious, huh?”

  Peaches sat down at the kitchen table and broke into a sheepish grin. “I like him a lot, Miz Babygirl. He’s a few years younger than me, but we’ve got a lot in common and so far he’s been a real gentleman. Last night, when he came over and helped me with King was the first time we ever even . . . you know, kissed.”

  Aliesha remembered Peaches asking her, not all that long ago, what it was like to have a boyfriend. She couldn’t imagine being in her midthirties and trying to navigate an intimate relationship for the first time. As she settled into a chair across the table from Peaches, she said, “So, you think maybe I could meet Mr. LeRoy sometime?”

  A stern expression replaced the happy look of contentment that had been on Peaches’s face. “Only if you promise not to try and pick up where Mama left off.”

  Aliesha laughed. “Okay, but in return, I want you to promise if you ever need any relationship advice or if LeRoy should start acting up and giving you problems, you won’t hesitate to call me.”

  Peaches’s grin returned and she reached out to shake Aliesha’s hand. “All right, it’s a deal.” On resettling her hands in her lap, she said, “Aliesha, I know you ain’t never been all that comfortable around me. So I appreciate you checking on me like you been doing here lately. Have to say, I’m surprised though. Even with you promising Mama like you did, I never thought you’d actually be able to go through with it.”

  “Surprised? You?” Aliesha said. “I thought you had the gift of discernment. Aren’t you suppose to be able to read what’s on a person’s heart?”

  Peaches chuckled. “I only wished it worked like that.”

  In truth, Aliesha was glad it didn’t. As of late, when it came to interacting with Peaches, her motives had become increasingly selfish. “How does it work?” she asked. “Seriously . . . your gift, I mean?”

  Peaches shrugged. “Tell you the truth, Miz Babygirl, I’m really not sure.”

  “So, is it sorta like mind reading? Do you get a vision—well, obviously, being blind, you don’t get a vision, or do you?”

  “No, I wouldn’t say a vision, or a voice, even,” Peaches said. She titled her face toward the ceiling. “It’s more like a feeling. Whenever I touch someone’s hair, I get a feeling for who they are and what they’re going through in that particular moment. The more natural the hair, the more intense the feeling. If someone in your life is touching your hair on a regular basis, I can also get a feel for what’s going on between the two of you.”

  She stood and circled behind Aliesha’s chair. “Remember that time a while back when you came by the house? And after I touched your hair, I asked if you were okay?”

  Aliesha nodded. “Sure, I remember.”

  Peaches brushed her palm over the unruly curls atop Aliesha’s head. “I didn’t feel anything,” Peaches said. “That’s why I asked. The man you were seeing at the time, what was his name?”

  “Javiel,” Aliesha said.

  “Yes, Javiel,” Peaches repeated. “Javiel must not have touched your hair much.”

  “No, I guess he didn’t,” Aliesha said.

  “You’ve seen him recently though, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” Aliesha cringing through the guilt that accompanied her admission.

  “But this new man in your life, he’s different, just the opposite actually.”

  Aliesha swiveled around and stared at Peaches. “How did you know? I mean, yeah, you’re right. Dante, my new . . . friend, he’s a barber. He’s the person who has been doing my hair for the past couple of months.”

  “So how come he stopped?” Peaches asked. “What happened to him?”

  Aliesha dropped her head. “I was kind of hoping you’d know,” she said, struggling to keep her emotions in check.

  Peaches plunged her hands into Aliesha’s hair and began searching with her fingers. “Umm, there so much . . . so much energy, it’s hard to say. I can tell there’s been a death. I get a sense of water. So much water . . . It’s too much for him, Miz Babygirl.”

  Aliesha sprang to her feet, her face twisted in horror. “Is he dead? Is that what you’re telling me? He drowned?”

  Peaches shook her head and scrunched her face, which only made her sunken eye sockets close up even tighter. “Dead? A part of him, yes. Drowned? I’m not sure.”

  The two women collapsed into their respective seats at the kitchen table, as if they’d each just crossed the finish line of a long and arduous race.

  “You wanna know the worse thing about this gift?” Peaches said softly after a moment of silence. “I can tell what’s going on in everybody’s life ’cept my own.”

  Aliesha left Peaches’s house with a new hairdo and filled with even more confusion and angst over Dante’s disappearance than when she’d arrived. A part of him was dead? What in the hell did that mean?

  Peaches’s reference to water instantly brought to mind the river and Dante’s mention of his cousin, who’d elected to wade into its murky, churning depths as a final cure for whatever had been ailing him. Try as she might, Aliesha couldn’t keep herself from wondering if in his own unresolved grief, Dante had followed suit. Rather than follow her urge to race down to the river and launch an immediate investigation into the matter, she took a more sensible and practical approach. She waited until the next morning before she called the local newspaper, the Riverton Appeal, and asked if there had been any reports of a drowning in recent weeks. They informed her the only person they had any knowledge of was a one “Reuben Reese” and that his drowning had been more than three months ago. Aliesha immediately recognized the name as that belonging to Dante’s cousin and recalled how she’d first spotted it on the inside flap of Dante’s worn copy of The Metamorphosis.

  Reese? Being cousins, wasn’t it possible that Reuben and Dante shared a last name? Aliesha searched through the library’s newspaper archives for Reuben’s obituary, thinking it might offer her some additional clues. But on finding it, she again encountered more disappointment. The five-line obituary included no more than the basics—name, age, date of death, and the time and place of Reuben’s funeral. No mention of Dante or any next of kin.

  A quick call to information turned up more of the same, and that being nothing. They couldn’t locate a telephone listing for a Dante Reese.

  Weary of repeatedly coming up empty-handed and knowing she was straddling the borderline of obsession, Aliesha decided that maybe Gerald had been right. In spite of the intensity of the night they’d spent together, the sweet and tender words he’d whispered and moaned in her ear, or even the music he’d left behind, maybe Dante didn’t want to be found, at least not by her.

  She abandoned her search and threw herself into her work in hopes that in time the longing would go away. She contemplated tossing out his iPod and even Miz Babygirl, the adorable, dark-skinned, natural-haired doll Dante had given her. She even considered relegating them to the junk room where they could keep company with the suitcase containing Kenneth’s belongings.

  But in the end, she’d cleared a spot on one of the crowded bookshelves in her den and placed both items there, side by side. Occasionally, she’d pull them down and allow herself a moment to reminisce. But not often. She didn’t want to put herself at risk for turning into that kind of woman—the kind, like her aunt Mildred, whose thirst for life got swallowed up and turned into bile by her own desperate and obviously, insatiable want of a man—a man who seemed intent only on bringing her heartache.

  Oddly enough, unlike her relationship with Javiel, Aliesha harbored no regrets over her involvement with Dante. Even knowing how things turned out, had she to do it all again, she probably wouldn’t have changed much. Beyond wanting to know why he’d vanished, she only wished their time together hadn’t been so brief.

  CHAPTER 35

  He spent all of twenty-one days with his Big Mama before she seized his uncle Mack’s hand and went off to be
with the Lord. In the days prior, she’d rested in comfort and contentment between the sturdy walls her beloved had sawed, hammered, nailed, and erected on her behalf. Having given up on trying to talk her into the surgery her doctor recommended, Dante and Laylah took turns indulging the old woman’s whims and catering to her every need.

  Dante grew to appreciate Laylah’s presence during that period, if only because, in her, he had someone with whom he felt comfortable sharing his burden and some of his concerns. Laylah, in turn, acted like she was only too happy to assist with the preparation of meals, administering of medication, escorting of Vivian Lee to and from the bathroom, and keeping her and Dante company. When Dante wasn’t with Laylah and his Big Mama, he was somewhere in Mr. Jessie’s funeral home, listening, taking note, or observing some aspect of the business and trying to decide if he owned the heart and the desire to work among the dead, even for a little while.

  Oddly enough, Laylah didn’t press him one way or the other. She even told him if he wanted to take another shot at school, she’d be willing to help with the financing. But having ventured down that hazardous route with her before, Dante wasn’t eager to go there again. Once, some years ago, he’d allowed her to foot his college expenses, only to have her and Reuben pronounce his interest in history and African American studies a colossal waste of time. At their urging, he’d declared himself a business major and had even completed a couple of semesters’ worth of courses when his uncle Mack had suffered a second stroke, after which Dante had again abandoned furthering his education altogether.

  Even with Laylah doing all that she could in support of his efforts to see after his Big Mama, school wasn’t a pursuit Dante felt in a position to commit to just yet. When he did go back, he wanted to do so without feeling in any way indebted to Laylah or worrying about a loved one’s well-being.

  He’d convinced himself that his Big Mama would, in fact, experience a full recovery and they’d take that trip to Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Europe together. In the days prior to the end, she’d appeared to be recuperating well and regaining her strength. On her last Wednesday night, she’d practically been giddy during the midweek Bible study, which thanks to Miz Irma and Doris Ferguson’s expert handling and orchestration had taken place in Vivian Lee’s living room.

  On the very next day, she’d arisen early and after a hearty breakfast had insisted that Dante and Laylah help her inspect each one of her flower beds. Ignoring their protests, she’d donned her favorite floppy hat and from a motorized wheelchair seat she’d passed a couple of hours fussing over the gardens she’d spent half a lifetime cultivating, while giving her caretakers specific instructions on where to weed, clip, dig, and prune.

  On Friday, she’d spent some time lounging on the front porch with Dante before later in the evening having him drive her to the family’s cemetery, which took up a small plot of land, not more than a mile from the house. She sat on a nearby stone bench and watched as Dante placed the bright bunches of zinnias, carnations, lilacs, tulips, and roses she’d culled from her gardens and carefully arranged for each individual grave.

  On completing the task, Dante went over and joined her on the bench. She patted his knee and said, “I’ve already talked to Laylah about having some of her daddy’s folks come out every once in a while and see about these plots, you know, after I’m gone.”

  Dante looked at her but didn’t say anything.

  His Big Mama continued. “I guess you oughta know as well, the last time Laylah was here, I got her to draw me up a will. Most everything, the house, the land, will go to you, of course. But I did put a little something aside for Blessed Rock’s Women’s Guild and Irma, who really has been like a sister to me. And then, there’s your mama, Helen—”

  Dante rose and walked back over to the graves. He swallowed back the grief he felt threatening to erupt in one consuming wave after another.

  “I don’t guess you feel like talking about none of this, huh?” his Big Mama said.

  “No, ma’am,” he said, kicking at the dirt beneath his feet.

  “So what do you want to talk about?” she said. “Maybe that woman in Riverton you still so sweet on?”

  He cocked his head and took in her slow-moving grin. She touched the spot he’d vacated next to her on the bench. After he trudged back over and dropped down beside her, she rubbed his back and said, “Far as I can tell, son, Laylah really does love you. But if you no longer feel the same way about her, ain’t no good liable to come from you pretending. Life is too short and seems to me you done wasted enough of it as it is.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I know.”

  “So why don’t you tell me a little something about her, this other woman, I mean, the professor who’s got your world so shook up.”

  He smiled and shook his bowed head. “Why you wanna know about her?”

  His Big Mama chuckled. “Well, for one, so as I can know who it is I need to be on the lookout for after I’ve crossed over to the other side.”

  The end came quietly, like the soft unclicking of the tumblers on a brand new lock, like a breeze, which only stirs the very tops of the trees, the type most will miss, unless, by chance, they’re looking up when it happens.

  On returning home from the family’s cemetery that evening, Vivian Lee asked Laylah to help her with a bath, after which she retired to her bedroom. She said her prayers, called for Dante in order to give him his good night kiss, and in the morning she was gone.

  While the ever-stoic Laylah made all of the necessary phone calls, Dante sat next to his Big Mama’s bedside and wept until Mr. Jessie’s people showed up for the body. For the remainder of the day, he ambled about as if in a stupor, his limbs stiff and his eyes vacant. Upon the fall of night and as soon as the last consoling visitor stepped off the front porch, he stumbled into his Big Mama’s empty room and sought the comfort of the pillow where she’d last laid her head. Laylah joined him atop the bed’s patchwork-quilt-covered mattress. She gently stroked his shoulder, his arm, and the back of his head, while he buried his face and cried into what he knew to be Vivian Lee’s scent—a volatile blend of baby powder, coconut oil, black licorice, and butterscotch.

  Laylah’s sons flew in for the funeral, and their presence, Ozzie’s in particular, helped soothe Dante’s grief and lift his sagging spirits. When the smart and playful thirteen-year-old, with whom he’d long been close, asked him one day, “So, does Mama’s moving back here mean you fixing to be my new stepdaddy?” Dante had been surprised at the ease at which he’d responded, “I don’t know about stepdaddy, but I’m always gonna be your uncle D.”

  He’d been stunned as well by the ease at which he’d extended the olive branch to his birth mother. Somehow, like she had so many other times in the past, after receiving word of Vivian Lee’s passing she’d showed up on the very day of the funeral. Dante had been leading the procession of friends and family members down Blessed Rock’s center aisle and toward the opened casket when he’d spied Helen’s slight and forlorn figure standing among the other mourners who’d come to pay their respects. The sadness he’d seen in her eyes told the tragic story of a loss that had little to do with the death of his Big Mama. He’d stopped in midstep and motioned for her to join him. After a tearful embrace, he’d escorted her to a seat on the front-row pew next to him.

  Later, he’d insisted that Helen check out of the cheap motel she’d booked for the week and come stay with him. Her acceptance paved the way for the reopening of the doors between them that had for too long been barricaded and sealed. Before she left, they’d even begun discussing the possibility of her moving back to Roads Cross and taking up residence in the old but solidly constructed home that Dante couldn’t bear the thought of renting out, much less selling to some stranger.

  During the week of Dante’s reconnection with his birth mother, Laylah took her boys back to L.A. to help them pack and prepare for their summer stay in Roads Cross. Upon the trio’s return, she sent the childr
en to stay with their dour but doting grandfather, Mr. Jessie, while she rejoined Dante at his Big Mama’s house.

  In Laylah’s absence, Dante had begun sleeping in his old room again. Though still uncertain of how to go about repairing all that had been damaged and broken between them, he couldn’t shake the obligation he felt to at least try. So when she crawled in next to him that night, naked and ravenous for the love they hadn’t made in months, he did his best to oblige her. He kissed, fondled, and stroked all of the places he’d known since the spring he’d turned sixteen, only to discover that none of them felt right. Rather than stir and harden in eager anticipation, he’d remained soft and pliable, like an unfilled sock with its match nowhere to be found.

  Unwilling to concede defeat or admit the obvious, Dante had used his hands and fingers, his mouth and his tongue, to take Laylah where she wanted to go. And afterward, when he’d experienced the tender shock of her tears as they’d rolled down his chest, tears that he knew weren’t full of sweetness and joy, he’d caressed her tightly coiled locs and acknowledged her sorrow with a softly whispered, “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  The following morning, Dante found himself staring at the ceiling and thinking about how he’d been awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of a crying baby; about how since Vivian Lee’s death, instead of bumps and creaks at night, he heard the soft buzz of whispering, which made him wonder if his Big Mama wasn’t somewhere shushing his uncle Mack. He found himself thinking about the possible reasons behind Reuben’s decision to leave him all of those damn copies of Kafka’s Metamorphosis and what his uncle Mack had once told him when Dante had gone to him upset about some mean-spirited prank Reuben had pulled: “That’s a boy that’s got a hurt that can’t be fixed, way down deep on the inside. But he blood and you gonna have to find a way to love him, in spite of it.” Dante thought about Reuben’s hurt and wondered if, like his, it had somehow been tied to the mother who’d abandoned him, Miriam, who’d died in prison before Reuben turned three or perhaps to Reuben, Sr., the father who’d beaten him yet again before depositing his bloodied and broken body on Mack and Vivian Lee’s doorstep and vanishing into the night, never to be seen or heard from again.