All the Trouble You Need

by Jervey Tervalon

  “Oh, that’s good. It’s beautiful tonight, full moon. I bet you have a lot of coyotes up here.”

  “I’ve never noticed.”

  “Coyotes are the pimps of the ecosystem. Eating people’s cats and those little dogs I can’t stand.”

  Jordan paused and looked around at Trisha’s house.

  “By the way, what does your father do to make the money for all this?”

  “Oh, he’s an executive for General Electric.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s into power systems sales.”

  “Oh, that sounds impressive.”

  Trisha scooted her chair a little closer to his.

  “What do you think of David?”

  He laughed.

  “David? What am I supposed to think of him? Am I supposed to think something about him?”

  “What kind of man do you think he is?”

  “I don’t know. He seems okay if you like that kind of person.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s handsome and well-spoken, but you know he’s a little stuck on himself.”

  “There’s some truth in that.”

  “The question is, why are you asking me?”

  “He asked me a question tonight and I just wanted to know your opinion.”

  “He asked you to marry him?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “No.”

  Jordan smiled and sat back in his chair.

  “So, what did you say?”

  “I didn’t say a thing.”

  “Really? You want to be married to him?”

  “I don’t know. I have to think about it.”

  Jordan slipped his arm around her.

  “You don’t want to marry him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, for one thing, you like me.”

  “So? Maybe I want to be married.”

  “You’re too young. What, twenty-three years old and ready to settle down?”

  “I believe in long engagements.”

  “So do I.”

  “Do you ever think about marriage?” Trisha asked.

  “Only in the abstract.”

  “Maybe David is my only option.”

  “You’ll have plenty of other options. Plus, it’s pretty obvious about David.”

  “What’s obvious?”

  “He’s gay.”

  “Gay? You don’t know David. He’s not gay. That’s out of the question.”

  “Maybe you don’t know the right questions,” Jordan said.

  “I was serious with David for almost two years.”

  “I’m not trying to say something bad about David. Soon as he said a word I assumed he was gay.”

  “What does that say about me? That because I’m not experienced I can’t tell if a man is gay?”

  “I don’t think it says anything. If David turns out to be straight I’m not going to shoot myself, but you know, some men do that. They want the best of both worlds on the down low.”

  Jordan stood and led Trisha to the edge of the deck, which provided the best view of the ocean. He kissed her.

  “You should come spend the night at my house,” Jordan said.

  “I’d like to but I can’t.”

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way . . . you know.”

  “Do you always talk this way? You’re never serious.”

  “You just aren’t paying attention. I’m always serious.”

  Jordan pulled away from Trisha as though his feelings were hurt. She ignored him and rested her head against his chest.

  “So, you have any idea when you’ll be ready to settle down?”

  “You know . . . out of all the women I’ve dated, you’re the only one who’s so up front about marriage. It’s sort of refreshing.”

  “You’re pushing thirty.”

  “Hey, I’m twenty-eight. Thirty is two years from now. I’m still good to go.”

  “Things do happen.”

  “Soon as I’ve decided to tie the knot I’ll give you a call.”

  “Give you a call? Why would I want to hear from you if you’re getting married.”

  “Maybe I’ll be calling for another reason. Maybe I’ll be calling for you,” he said, with an arched eyebrow, and tried to kiss her again. She pulled away, gasping.

  “I’m okay. . . . I forgot to breathe.”

  Jordan laughed.

  “You’re like a character out of a Victorian novel. You sure your corset isn’t on too tight?”

  Trisha pushed him away.

  “You make me nervous.”

  “Me? I’m harmless.”

  A light in the den of the house came on and Trisha froze.

  “My father’s awake.”

  “Is that a cause for alarm? Does he have a gun?”

  “Stop joking.”

  “Who’s joking?”

  “You should go. Can you drive quietly?”

  “Wow, you demand a lot of a brother with a messed-up muffler.”

  He gave her a quick kiss and walked quickly to the Triumph.

  He took off the brake and coasted downhill, hardly making a sound.

  * * *

  Trisha saw her father in his pajamas and robe, peering through the open sliding-glass doors with a golf club in his hand, looking a little silly, but dignified in his silliness.

  “Hi, Dad,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep so I’m getting some air.

  “Were you out front?”

  “Me, no.”

  “I thought I heard something out front.”

  “Maybe coyotes?”

  He shrugged.

  “Do they come around here?”

  “They’re all over the place.”

  He eyed his golf club as if he needed something more substantial.

  “Good night,” she said, and went to bed.

  CHAPTER 4

  Jordan’s worst fear was that he’d have too few students and the Japanese literature class that he had wanted to teach for the last two years would be canceled; then he’d have to scrounge up a composition class or he’d be back at the Hour Glass scrubbing hot tubs. He was right; not one student filled a seat in the dimly lit room. This was serious and something drastic had to be done; or he’d be showing horny couples to their steaming, overchlorinated hot tubs, and afterward cleaning up their empty beer bottles and used condoms. Even Provost Mudrick couldn’t keep an empty class open. After rearranging his notes on the Tale of Genji and The Makioka Sisters, he reexamined the enrollment papers; seven people had signed up. Where were they? Disgusted, he headed for the halls to see if he could talk some soft-hearted student into adding his class, but the hallway was just about as deserted as the classroom.

  Then his attention was seized by a tall, shapely woman with her hair pulled back in a loose braid that hung to her shoulders. Dressed in narrow, pleated gabardine pants, a striped blouse, and pumps, she stood out as a beacon of fashion among the post-hippies and sorority chicks. Her attention was focused on the class descriptions posted on the far wall. He watched her, wanting to see her face clearly, wondering if it was as attractive as her figure.

  “Need some help?” Jordan finally asked.

  She turned to answer, but his question was answered before she said a word. She was beautiful.

  He tried to place her. Maybe she was foreign, maybe Ethiopian and white, something . . . Her coloring, even in the bad fluorescent lighting, was like rich honey. He wondered if it was natural, or did she fry herself sitting long hours in the sun to achieve one of Santa Barbara’s most important assets, a perfect tan. Her hair was kind of unruly, with curls dangling in her face. She shook her head and he saw that the hair concealed very pretty gray-green eyes.

  She smiled generously.

  “I’m looking for a Japanese lit class.”

  “I’m the—you know—teaching that class.”

  “Great.”

  He led the way to the class tryin
g to look professional and not almost giddy to have a student, and a beautiful student at that.

  Seated, he flipped through the fat volume of Tale of Genji, keeping his eyes on the pages as they flipped back and forth. He didn’t want to look at her and maybe make her uncomfortable.

  “Are you a history major?” he asked.

  “No, literature.”

  “You look foreign.”

  “I do?”

  He realized he was babbling badly and making a fool of himself. He looked away from her and fumbled nervously with his notes about the Seidensticker translation of Tale of Genji.

  “How did you get interested in Japanese literature?” she asked, pleasantly, as though rambling like an idiot wasn’t a bad thing. He tried to pull himself from the quicksand of his stupidity.

  “Watching samurai films, going to sushi bars, gambling, and tattoos—the low-brow approach to culture,” he said, again worried that he was rambling.

  “What about you?” he asked, grasping again for land.

  “I love reading, and Japanese literature appeals to me.”

  He felt himself looking at her like some pathetic puppy.

  Two students walked in. At first he was relieved, knowing he had already blown it with her. He hurriedly welcomed them, gave each a syllabus, and pointed to the registration information on the board, but his attention returned like a homing pigeon to the woman.

  “I didn’t get your name,” he asked tentatively, as though he had no right to ask.

  “Daphne Daniels.”

  He reached to shake her hand, but in the three years of teaching at the university, it had never occurred to him to shake any student’s hand. Daphne smiled at him as if she understood his discomfort. Finally, he pulled himself together enough to start the class, but it was an unbearable tightrope walk. He wouldn’t even look in Daphne’s direction for fear he’d be paralyzed once again. All he could manage was to go over the course syllabus, word for word, as though they weren’t capable of reading it for themselves. Usually, he would start with a phrase or two in Japanese, but somehow his Japanese fled and then his English abandoned him too. After forty minutes, it occurred to him to end the class. The students asked their last few questions about the Tale of Genji and the other assigned texts, but Jordan didn’t hear them; his attention had flown with Daphne, who had magically slipped out.

  CHAPTER 5

  She was hopelessly late; somehow she couldn’t get out the door. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t get it together; stockings shredded if she put a foot in them, her hair had frizzled up until it looked like a sad Afro, and she fucked up making coffee, spilling it all over the kitchen floor. Maybe if she hadn’t stayed up until 3:30 reading the last three hundred pages of Genji, she wouldn’t feel like shit.

  One more cigarette before heading out. The sun shining through the glass of the enclosed porch was so intoxicating she couldn’t rush. She thought of him again, and the fact that halfway through the quarter he had yet to make a pass, even though his crush was very obvious. Last week he tried to explain something about Japanese court life and glanced at her and started stuttering. The other students had to think that they were seeing each other.

  She thought they would be going out too, but he was shy, and she was hesitant. She hadn’t dated a black man before. She was who she was, uncomfortable on both sides; once white men realized that she was a quarter African, they changed toward her, like she was withholding some aspect of her personality, that at any moment she might spontaneously start doing an African fertility dance. She assumed that most men thought of her as exotic, as if they wanted to claim her for their tribe. Jordan didn’t seem like that; she genuinely liked him. Maybe it was because he seemed to have fallen for her so quickly and hard, but didn’t inflict it on her. He kept it to himself.

  She wanted to keep her life as calm as possible and to do that meant keeping her parents calm. Nothing agitated them more than her choice in men, especially after Frank, but Jordan they would have to approve of, if it got to that.

  * * *

  Time had gotten away from her again. Twenty minutes to the hour and she had yet to leave the house. She rushed for the door but her mother burst in before she could reach it.

  “Daphne! I’ll need help tonight.”

  “I’ll be there,” she said, slipping by her mother, clutching books, purse, and coffee mug to her chest, juggling them all the way to her Volvo. She searched through her purse for keys and for a minute thought they were in another purse, but she found them wrapped in a wad of tissue.

  Wet! At least an inch of water pooled up from the floorboards as a result of last night’s unexpected rain and the open sunroof. Her shoes were soaked, but she had no time to do anything but drive if she wanted to get to class before it was over.

  * * *

  Everywhere she looked on campus, cars were jockeying for parking spots. So hopeless a situation she gave up and resigned herself to the long walk with sopping, squeaking heels. She found a spot by the lagoon that had a view of the bluffs’ choppy, rain-swollen ocean. She had to remember to close the sunroof if it looked like rain. Did it look like rain now? She left the sunroof open.

  The walk to class took less time than she remembered, but still she was later than her worse projections, and she still couldn’t go to class without stopping in the rest room to see if she could do something about making herself more presentable. She darted from the rest room and headed for the class. No matter how much she wanted to go home she couldn’t give in to the impulse; everything falls apart so quickly. At the end of the short hallway to the class she couldn’t bring herself to make a left. Stuck ridiculously on the verge of turning the corner, she couldn’t bring herself to move. Approaching footsteps propelled her on. She saw Jordan in front of the class, books in hand, resting against the door. Maybe she could slip away.

  “Hey, Daphne, I’ve been waiting on you.”

  “Me?” Her heart sank. What had she done? “Waiting on me?”

  “Remember? Class is in the library so we can look at the reproductions of the Genji Scrolls.”

  “Really?”

  “I . . . you know . . . didn’t want you to miss it. The scrolls are beautiful, and I had a feeling you had forgotten that we’re supposed to meet there.”

  Daphne waited for him to lead the way but instead he looked at her feet.

  “Your shoes are squeaking.”

  “No they’re not,” she mumbled.

  “Oh,” Jordan replied as they headed for the library.

  She walked beside him trying not to draw more attention to her feet.

  * * *

  It was a short walk to the art library, but they still arrived at the special collections room almost forty minutes late. No one from the class was there at the meeting place but Daphne could see that Jordan was delighted to have her to himself.

  “This wasn’t a mandatory meeting. I hope some people went ahead and checked out the scrolls without me.”

  The special collections librarian found the heavy, oversized book and led them to a windowless room.

  “You have a half hour before the next class. I’ll knock when your time is up.”

  As soon as the door was closed, Jordan grinned. He flipped open the book and pointed to various prints of Genji chasing kimono-clad geishas. While they examined the prints, Daphne felt Jordan’s arm pressing against hers. She wondered how long he would keep it there. She didn’t mind the contact; it endeared him more to. her. He came on like a high school kid. It seemed ironic that he was so fascinated with this randy Genji, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to take the next step in dating a student. The way it’s done, he must ask her out for coffee to discuss something incomprehensible: (I’d like to get your opinion on Genji supposedly being an icon of male beauty in contrast to iconic female objectification); or something innocuous (Let’s talk over your paper, just brainstorm some ideas . . .)—those were two approaches she expected. Could she bring herself to help him alon
g? The half hour passed quickly. Would he attempt a date now before parting? The knock came for them to clear out. Jordan looked tense as though something was up. He returned the reproductions, then as they walked outside he became visibly nervous.

  He cleared his throat.

  She was about to ask him to call her, when he blurted it out.

  “Would you like to have coffee sometime?”

  “Sure,” she said, with confidence.

  He sighed, like life after death.

  “We don’t have much time to talk in class,” she said.

  “Tonight?” he asked.

  “Great,” she said, and scribbled her phone number on the back of a traffic ticket.

  He looked at the ticket with surprise.

  “You’ll need this.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, they’ll impound your car.”

  “Somehow they get paid.”

  “Seven, is that good for you?”

  “Fine,” she said, then abruptly walked away.

  Another moment of pure panic. She needed to be in the car driving south but it was debatable if she could manage to keep the panic from escalating. Last week she had to pull off the road and huddle on the floor until it passed. This time, though, as she hurried into the car, the cold surprise of the rainwater pooled onto the floorboards short-circuited the rising panic attack.

  Now, feeling more reasonable, she drove home figuring ways to break her date. She had to resist that impulse to do what she knew she shouldn’t, but if she begged out of seeing him, she might as well just drop the class, and she needed the class because it was another foothold up and out of the mess she had made of her life.

  Instead of exiting at Mission, she drove another five miles south to the nude beach on the other side of Summerland. She needed a swim even if it was a cold, gray day. She parked above the beach, but after a short hike and a careful crossing of the rocks, she reached Boys’ Beach, the gay stretch of sand where she felt more or less safe. Women who wanted to sunbathe were almost assured to be left alone if they stayed beyond the rocks. Other than a few lone strollers, the beach was nearly empty. She hid her keys beneath the towel and quickly slipped out of her dress and charged into the surf. She swam to the breakers even though the water was frigid. There, she could see the shoreline snaking back to Santa Barbara. She thought of Jordan again, which surprised her. It was a dead issue. His feelings would be hurt over the date but it was unavoidable. There was nothing she could do for him but bring him trouble.