He was opening the door on the Mexican place, practically empty at this predinner hour, so his eyes went right to her sitting under the green and red and yellow mural of a cockatoo. He got a surge then that was not just his manhood responding to her as she picked up his face from across the room, and her fleshy mouth pulled back in a smile, and her downwardly slanted eyes lowered even more, as if she was suddenly shy, it was all of him responding to her, his intellect, his intuition, his skin, his hands, his heart, ooh, his heart. “Be still, my heart,” he whispered in her ear as she stood to greet him and he kissed her lightly on her cheek.
He asked her how was her job going and she told him about getting the four autistic children to say a collective D the other day. “I miss the classroom,” she said. “Can’t admit it because I’m told that’s a nonmanagerial stance, but God knows, I miss the extended one-on-one with those children.”
She asked him then about his project and he excitedly described the nonprofit he was raising funds for. “Teenage boys at risk, Verdi. Such an emotional tug this project has as I’m studying the population to be served, you know, these boys who are at the pivot of making it or not, you know, I keep seeing myself, keep seeing my mother in their family histories. So I’m looking in every nook and cranny, pulling lists like you wouldn’t believe, I plan on surpassing the targets for this one, baby.”
And they talked like that for three hours that flew like fifteen minutes. They sipped virgin margaritas and nibbled on tortilla chips and salsa, unaware that the place was crowded now, that the dinner hour was in full swing, that nightfall was raining in through the window. And when they did realize it, Verdi let out a small gasp, and Johnson apologized, said he hoped he wasn’t causing problems for her. And she said no, none that she couldn’t handle, that she was feeling overwhelmed when she called him the other night, that she was vacillating though.
“So vacillate toward me,” he said, and she waited for him to laugh, but he didn’t laugh. Looked right at her, put his finger to her chin so that she couldn’t look away.
She melted then, couldn’t do anything but melt as she took in the seriousness of his asymmetrical eyes, circles of heat moving through her now, reducing her to a clump of wax needing the press of his hands to shape her, form her, so malleable she’d become. Couldn’t do anything but acquiesce when he said, “Come home with me, Verdi Mae, stay as long as you want to, as long as you can. Come on home with me, baby. Please.”
Fourteen
This time Verdi told Rowe that she’d gone to Kitt’s. That Sage seemed close to a breakthrough and she wanted to spend the evening working with her. Rowe’s mouth went to paste when he listened to Verdi’s voice float through the answering machine; her voice so wavy, so excited. He just stood there in the kitchen with his hands in his pockets thinking about what to do. Felt a tug to be happy for her that she was somehow involved in a life’s calling, what if she were actually responsible for the child finally talking, how much that would alter her view of herself that had been so diminished when she was drug-devastated twenty years ago, her sense of self had never really risen again to the level of confidence she’d once had; she wouldn’t be letting her vice principal give her shit if her confidence was where it needed to be, he thought. But also with the tug to be happy for her came a pull in the opposite direction, a jealous anger that this potential opportunity for her fulfillment wasn’t because of him. Then the thought that had been working its way under his skin for a couple of weeks now—since that evening when he’d been compelled to step foot in her cousin’s house—that he’d been a large contributor to her diminished sense of self, always giving her instruction, snatching from her the opportunity to make her own mistakes. That thought had grown under his skin now over the past days like a family of mites, burrowing, nesting, laying eggs, feeding almost imperceptibly at first until the rash, the irritation, the compulsion to scratch to give himself relief, especially now standing alone in the kitchen, leaning on the center island’s unyielding granite surface because now the thought pulled the wind from his lungs—that he was losing her, her amenability, her attention was slipping from his pull the way that a worn magnet loses its hold on a nail. There was a defiance about her now. He’d seen it in her eyes when he’d pinned her against the banister the other night demanding to know where she’d been. But what was he losing her to? A recurrence of her addiction? Another man? Herself? He now wished that they’d gotten married after all. Even though he’d always wanted to, but Penda would have dragged the divorce out, and Verdi pleaded with him that she couldn’t handle the exposure of the divorce proceedings, too much about her would be revealed and hurt her family. She’d cry whenever he broached the subject of marriage, and he’d agreed and relented, and their current arrangement of living as if they were married had been comfortable and fulfilling. But suddenly standing here feeling her fingers slip away from his clutching grasp, he needed the completeness of a total commitment, suddenly he needed for her to be his wife.
Verdi was still tingling when she got home, still holding on to that silky feeling wherever Johnson’s touch had been that even went beyond the physical palpations, where he’d touched her just by the way he listened without a threatened look tightening his face, so noncritically he listened, not rushing in to say that she should feel, think, act, do, this that or the other. The only person who’d ever even come close to listening to her in such an openhearted way had been her aunt Posie. And she thought she’d reciprocated. Even when he described how he’d called his father right before he left Philly, told him he just called to say good-bye and to thank him for everything, that he’d turned into a lying, cheating, common junkie, a stuffer, and he just wanted to thank his father for helping him to become that. She didn’t stop him when he described the feeling of staring into his father’s casket years later, even as his voice cracked, she didn’t say, okay, Johnson, don’t torture yourself, she just squeezed his hand and let him talk. So she was just dripping with the feel of Johnson as she took a deep breath and walked into the tight air of the too-large bedroom that she shared with Rowe. And the last thing she wanted to see right now was the back of Rowe’s head leaning against the velvet chaise, and now his face as he came toward her smiling and she felt a dropping inside the closer he came.
“Hi, Verdi, sweetheart,” he said as he pulled her against his chest. “Lonely evening without you, but was it worth it?”
“Huh?” she said, trying to pull herself away.
“Was it worth me being here all evening watching one nonsensical pay-per-view movie after the other, huh? Did she talk? Did your cousin’s daughter talk?”
“Mnh, not yet,” Verdi said as she managed to disengage herself from the tangle of his arms. She walked toward her closet and kicked her shoes from her feet, her back to him. “But I do think it’s going to happen soon, you know, I just have to be very consistent from now on, you know, I’ll probably be spending more evenings with her, most likely it will happen outside of school, outside of an overt learning situation, you know, in a more natural setting, so I’ll probably spend at least an evening or two out of the week with her.”
“God, Verdi, she’s so lucky to have you.” He went to her and turned her to face him. “So am I. I’m the luckiest of all to have you.” He leaned in to kiss her. “I need to ask you something, Verdi,” he said as his breath was hot against her face.
Verdi sighed and turned her head so that he couldn’t kiss her, and that made Rowe drop his hands as if the silk blouse she was wearing had just scorched his hands.
“Oh, forget it then,” he said blandly, feeling her turning away like that as if she’d just stomped on his fingers, feeling that kind of throbbing right in his chest. He walked to the armoire and clicked the television off.
“No, don’t forget it, what were you going to say?” she asked, agitated, as she took off her blouse, held it up, and saw Johnson’s hands on the blouse the way they’d been just an hour ago.
“Just fuck it,” he sai
d, and then he went silent as he sat on the green velvet chaise and tightened his arms across his chest.
“Well yeah, then fuck it,” she said as she tossed the blouse into the dry-cleaning bin. Her voice screeched and she almost shouted at him and this sudden rise in her directed at Rowe when he hadn’t even done anything was new for her. It frightened them both as Verdi looked at the blouse crumpled in the bin the way her emotions were crumpled right now. “I just don’t understand what’s gotten into you,” she said, crying now.
And before she could finish her sentence Rowe had her in his arms, had her face pressed against his chest, apologizing, telling her he didn’t know what had gotten into him either, just that he adored her more now than he ever did, and he wanted for them to get married, that’s all. He just wanted for them to spend the rest of their lives as legitimate husband and wife, not just pretending at it. That’s all he started to say, he soothed her.
He mashed his chin into the space between her bare shoulder and her face and she could feel him throbbing against her, and she wanted to push him away except now she was so confused with so many emotions swirling that she couldn’t even ferret out and give names to, so she let him find her mouth this time, and she kissed him back out of pity and guilt and anger and affection and gratitude so that it was a forceful kiss and now she could feel him trembling against her.
“So what do you say? I’ll talk to Penda, she’s moved on by now, we’ll just do it, a small ceremony at city hall, you know, maybe your cousin can be your maid, or whatever they call them these days.” He swayed against her and she was really sobbing now, and he took that to mean yes, and he kissed her some more and stroked her bare back and got himself aroused against her and then they took some time and swallowed each other’s saliva and Verdi cried all the while because her feelings were so conflicted, so variant, all trying to bubble to the top simultaneously. And Rowe took solace in that as he nibbled at her neck and moaned and breathed out her name, if he could still evoke these free-flowing tears then surely her passions must still rush for him.
He was humming the theme song from Beauty and the Beast afterward, when they were dressed again and Rowe suggested they go out and find something light to eat, maybe listen to some jazz. And she knew that was for her because he wasn’t a huge jazz fan, and she figured that’s the least she could do for him this evening, even as she thought about them getting married and kept coming back to the look on Johnson’s face when he described how he felt when his father died.
Fifteen
Verdi went on like that for the next month. Vacillating between Johnson and Rowe. Wanting to be with Johnson all of the time, lying consistently so that she could. Doing whatever Rowe asked when she was with him because she was so cut up with guilt that she’d only see herself in pieces when she was with Rowe, as if she couldn’t stand the sight of her whole self. Even agreed to marry Rowe out of the inability to see herself as a whole person.
When she was with Johnson though, or getting ready to be with Johnson, she was buoyant. He’d been saying to her that they should take it a day at a time. That they would neither fret over yesterday, nor worry about tomorrow, that the space of time shaping the day they were in together is all they’d concentrate on, revel in.
And she’d grasped onto that concept, ingested it. Found that her job even felt less burdensome when she could keep it in the perspective of one day, even found herself thinking more and more about going back to the classroom, come September.
And so she was buoyant this Friday evening ushering in the month of May as she sat under the potted tree on Kitt’s porch sharing the long glider swing with Kitt and her aunt Posie. They’d just finished another one of Kitt’s scrumptious meals, tonight it was grilled salmon and roasted peppers and scallions and brown rice with a dill-and-lemon sauce. And now they let their food digest and watched the sun’s head slip under the covers as the day declined into a purple-tinged sky. It was comfortably warm out here to Verdi as she predicted a hot summer with the temperatures climbing so and this was just the early part of May. Posie agreed, said she’d been breaking out into sweats all afternoon into this evening, her hair wasn’t even holding on to its press she’d been perspiring so.
“Had to just pull it back in this little old tattered roll, didn’t feel like putting a hot comb to it, too tired this evening, arms even stiff,” she said.
Verdi sat up to look at Posie, was dazzled again by her aunt’s beauty even as she approached sixty. The hair pulled back made the skin on her face even tighter than it was, made the hollows that etched out her cheekbones even more dramatic, completely uncurtained the view to her eyes with their downward slant that lent a provocative mix of innocent and temptress. Even the perspiration had settled to give a perfect sheen to her brown-over-gold complexion. “Oh Auntie, you’re still the most beautiful woman I know,” Verdi said as she reached beyond Kitt to squeeze Posie’s hands folded quietly in her lap. “Plus I actually like your hair off your face like that; I just hope that I can age as well as you.”
She leaned back again against the swing and let her head rest on Kitt’s shoulder. Her aunt started humming some old-time love song and Sage was sprawled across the vinyl-tiled porch floor rolling her fat crayons up and down oversized construction paper. And Verdi felt so complete, so engaged in the rhythm of her life right now as if she were the last piece to a jigsaw puzzle and had just been snapped into her rightful place so that she was no longer one of a thousand irregularly shaped curious pieces, but now her edges blended with the totality of the completed puzzle’s scene around her and redefined her as part of a greater, more glorious whole.
She and Johnson met here at Kitt’s often before their evenings together so that she could at least tell Rowe a half-truth when she said she was going to work with Sage. And they were very respectful when they were here, only their hands touched maybe across the table if one was saying something that needed to be emphasized with a squeezing of the fingers, or their cheeks when they hugged politely, and of course their eyes and their intellects, but in such clean and honest ways when they were here that she never even felt the need to look away or down out of guilt or nervousness.
And even Rowe had calmed down remarkably at least in Verdi’s view. Accepted her spending so much time over here as something she needed to do that even added to her sense of completeness when she got here.
She’d tried to explain it all to Kitt, this calmness, this feeling of completeness. Still trying with her head on Kitt’s shoulder to the swing’s gentle to and fro as Kitt worried out loud about Verdi being in over her head trying to play both sides up the middle between Johnson and Rowe. “Just relax, Kitt,” Verdi said, waving her hand, “you know, everything is everything.”
“Everything is everything? You hear this flower child, Mama,” Kitt said, sitting in the middle of the swing between her mother and Verdi. “Let me remind you, Verdi Mae, that you and Johnson have both spent one Sunday, two Saturday afternoons, two Tuesdays, and every Wednesday evening at my house the past month. And you’re back again this Friday evening and Johnson’s on the way, and you telling me to relax? What if Rowe decides to show up over here again? Huh? ’Cause I’m not cloaking anybody I don’t care how much I love you.”
“He won’t show up here,” Verdi said, smiling with confidence. “He was just feeling insecure that night of Sage’s party, but he won’t, wouldn’t just pop over here unannounced.”
Kitt was not so easily dissuaded. Though she enjoyed the sight of Verdi and Johnson at her table she felt so responsible, that by putting them together as she had, she’d turned Verdi into a common cheat. And even though in the final outcome, she’d always wanted to see Verdi end up with Johnson, she didn’t want it to be like this, not starting off as a lurid affair, especially not starting off as a result of her hand stirring in the bowl that got the mix of ingredients blending the way that it was.
Verdi smiled again glowingly and pointed out the remarkable wash of colors Sage had created
against the construction paper and then went on to tell Kitt how much more precise Sage’s tongue movements were becoming during their speech-therapy sessions.
“You hear her trying to change the subject, Mama,” Kitt said to Posie as Posie sat back enjoying the sky and controlling the motion of the swing.
Posie didn’t answer, just kept her lilting hum going to the rhythm of the swing.
“I mean, honestly,” Kitt directed herself at Verdi again, “I can’t even fathom how we’ve changed sides on this; don’t get me wrong, I still think Rowe is a pompous, arrogant, overly literate drone, but, Verdi, you really got to think carefully about what you’re doing. Make sure you’re not the one who gets hurt in all of this.”
Verdi was so breezy right now, flitting on air it seemed as she continued to laugh away Kitt’s concern. Said that from the time they were little girls that Kitt never could trust her to make the right decisions.
“Yeah, well tell me this, Verdi Mae, does Rowe know that Johnson is over here every time that you are? Does he even know that Johnson’s back in town? I mean where did you tell him you were going this evening.”
“Told him I was coming here, then going to get my relaxer perm touched up and my ends clipped, and then to the gym,” Verdi said, resisting the impulse to giggle.
Kitt sucked the air in through her teeth. “See what I mean. Now, that’s dumb, just plain dumb, Verdi Mae.”
“You do have quite a bit of new growth, darling,” Posie said almost absentmindedly, still looking at the sky. “And all of Kitt’s good cooking is putting a curve back in your hips.”
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