A Pinch of Ooh La La

by Renee Swindle

  “Morning, sleepyhead.”

  “If your goal is to spoil me, you need to try harder,” I said. “You’re doing a terrible job. I mean, come on, a balloon ride, wine tasting, and now breakfast. You call that an effort?”

  He turned and grabbed me all at once. “I need to work harder, huh? I didn’t hear you complaining last night.” He gave my ass a slap before letting me go. “I’m not a cook, but we have bacon and eggs and muffins from my new favorite bakery in Oakland.”

  “After last night’s dinner, I don’t know how much I can eat.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do fine. You had a pretty good workout after our meal, if I remember correctly.”

  “I guess I could go for a little somethin’.”

  “Give me about ten more minutes and we’ll be ready to eat.”

  “We could’ve gone out.”

  “Nah. I’m not here as much as I’d like to be as it is. Need to make use of the place. Now, go get cleaned up and let me finish this.”

  After washing up, I wrapped myself in my sweater and went outside and picked a few wildflowers I’d noticed growing near the tree in front of the house. I took a moment to gaze out at the vineyards in the distance and the trees that framed Samuel’s half acre. Their orange and red leaves popped against the gray sky. The houses on either side of Samuel’s property were far enough away that the property felt secluded. I thought: I want this. I want to be a part of his life. I saw our two older kids, a boy and a girl, running around the front yard while I bounced our latest baby in my arms. No, wait. I was closing in on forty; there would be no time for three kids. We still needed to date and marry, after all. Maybe I should stick with two. Yes. Okay. Start over . . . I saw Samuel chasing our oldest child, a son, running around the tree, while I bounced our baby girl in my arms.

  My daydreams were becoming hokier by the minute—and I reveled in every single one. But that’s what Samuel did to me; he made me believe it was possible to have a home and family. So when my brain told me to slow down—You’ve only been dating for three months!—I told it to shut up. I knew I was being hokey, but I couldn’t help it. If I wanted to fantasize about having his kids, that was my prerogative. And with that, I went back inside for breakfast.

  • • •

  “The thing about working at the firm is that I feel I’m being watched.”

  “Watched?”

  “Yeah, like everyone is expecting me to ruin a case.”

  We were midway through breakfast. Samuel was explaining the frustrations he was feeling at work. Dave Brubeck’s Take Five played in the background. I imagined Phin or Theo rolling his eyes. What is this, Jazz 101? You need to show the brother what’s what. Come on, Dave Brubeck?!

  “Have you ever messed up a case?”

  “No, I’m one of few in a predominately white firm. I have to prove myself.” He pointed with his fork. “Besides, you always have to be ready for the other shoe to drop in life. Always. You always have to plan for the worst. Never be caught off guard.”

  “Sounds harsh.”

  “Hey, life is harsh.”

  I picked up my coffee and let my gaze wander toward the refrigerator, where under a magnet that read FUN IN THE BARBADOS SUN there was a picture of Samuel’s parents standing on the beach and waving to the camera. On the fireplace mantel there was another family photo of Samuel, his parents, and his two younger sisters, who were only a few years older than Carmen.

  I sipped my coffee. The flowers I’d picked in the yard sat on the table in a small vase.

  “Did your parents teach you to plan for the worst?” I asked.

  He turned when he saw what I was staring at and regarded the picture a moment. “Yeah. They did. Father raised me to have to prove myself. You were expected to make top grades and behave yourself. Anything less meant punishment.”

  “Sounds harsh,” I repeated.

  He dug into his eggs with revived interest. “Not really. It was nothing out of the ordinary—to me anyway.”

  “How would he punish you?”

  “Let’s just say he didn’t have a problem taking out his belt when he needed to.”

  I was shocked. I wasn’t raised around belts. Belts to me sounded like abuse.

  He saw my alarm and shrugged it off. “Hey, he might have been hard on me, but it was for a reason. He’s just old-school. Mom, too. She’d lock me in the closet and call it solitary confinement. I’d be in there for hours. Sometimes I’d fall asleep, which helped pass the time. Don’t ask me what I did to warrant it. I swear I don’t remember being that bad a kid. They just didn’t want their son misbehavin’.”

  “Samuel.” I couldn’t believe he sounded so cavalier. Belts and closets? He’d been just a boy.

  “Hey, I’m not looking for anybody’s sympathy. No sirree. Father was preparing me for everything he knew I’d have to go through in life. Black boys are expelled at triple the rate of their peers. If the teacher is going to have her eye on any student, you can bet it will be the little black boy. Dad and Mom weren’t going to expect anything less than the best, because they knew we had to prove ourselves. Coming up, you were expected to make top grades on every assignment. You knew exactly what to expect if you brought home anything lower than an A.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bringing home a B?” He set his fork down and held up both hands. “And a C?” He held up ten fingers, then raised his hand again and held up five.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Licks of the belt.” He grinned slowly as though surprised I hadn’t understood. “Ten licks for a B, fifteen for a C. I never found out how many for a D. No way. Father had no problem holding back with his belt. Sometimes he’d whip me just because. That thing was leather, too.” He cupped his hand around his mouth and laughed, but there was nothing genuine about the gesture and only betrayed that his story was no laughing matter.

  I could feel my stomach turn. I didn’t see the handsome man sitting across from me. I saw a boy terrified of bringing home any grade lower than an A. I saw a boy locked inside a closet with his knees pulled to his chest and trying to pass the time by thinking up stories or playing games until he fell asleep. Samuel saw an old-school traditional father. I saw an authoritarian’s abuse. “Samuel . . .” My voice was barely above a whisper.

  “Don’t, Abbey. I’m not looking for sympathy. I was the kid in class who always had his hand raised and always knew the answer. I was obnoxious as hell, but it got me where I am today. Father was tough, but I appreciate him for it. And nothing felt better than to make him proud. Still doesn’t.” He cut into his bacon, then dug his fork into his eggs.

  I pushed my plate away. “It sounds like abuse.”

  “Stop.” He chewed on his food with hard bites and would not look at me.

  “I feel bad for you.”

  “Don’t. No one is asking you to feel sorry for me. Look around, Abbey. Whatever my parents did? It worked.”

  “But—I feel bad just thinking you’d be whipped like that. And locked in a closet? How old were you?”

  “Old enough to know better.” He leaned back in his seat. He stared at the ceiling as if irritated.

  I reached over and wrapped my hands around his wrist. It took a moment before his eyes met mine.

  “We were having a nice time. Let’s not ruin it.”

  “Nothing is ruined. You never talk about your family. I want to know.”

  He picked up his fork and started eating. “Your food is going to get cold.”

  “Samuel.”

  “Look, my parents did the best they could. My two sisters never gave them any trouble, because they might be harsh, but they know how to parent. I mean no offense, but you would never see my sisters getting pregnant before marriage.”

  I pulled back. “My parents love us.”

  “My parents love me, too
. I really don’t want to talk about this. Let’s eat.”

  He continued to eat. End of discussion.

  Fine. I didn’t want to force him. I used my fork to swirl my eggs on my plate. I was too upset to eat. Yeah, maybe my folks were too lenient, but I didn’t understand the mistreatment of children. Avery had grown up in foster care, and his stories were heartbreaking. He’d told me about the family that made him serve the meals and do most of the cleaning up before he was allowed to eat whatever little remained. And another set of parents who called him names like stupid and dummy. The stuff that made for bad TV? He’d lived it. Anyway, maybe I was projecting Avery’s stories onto Samuel. Maybe I wasn’t being fair. Samuel seemed fine.

  He touched my arm lightly. “Hey. Where’d you go?”

  I looked up from my eggs. I wasn’t sure how long Samuel had been watching me.

  “What were you thinking?”

  I shrugged and reached for my coffee. “Nothing.”

  He picked one of the flowers from the vase and held it under my nose. “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “Promise?”

  “Samuel, I have nothing to be mad about.”

  He returned the flower. “You have a good heart. You’re sensitive. I didn’t mean to spoil your mood.”

  “You didn’t.”

  He moved his chair next to mine and took both my hands. “You really do have a good heart. You make me feel special.”

  “You make me feel special, too, Samuel.”

  He touched his forehead to mine. “Do you love me?”

  I cupped his face between my hands and closed my eyes. In all my daydreams and fantasies about Samuel, I never imagined that I’d say it first, but I didn’t mind. I wanted him to know. “I do,” I whispered. “I love you.”

  He pulled back and searched my face. “I’m glad. Because I love you, too, Abbey.”

  “You do?”

  “I do. You make me very happy. I love you.”

  9

  Don’t Worry About Me

  A week later, and Bendrix and I were driving a rented van to the Jamela Graham Center in East Oakland. Bendrix was holding his annual celebration in honor of his mother, Arlene, who’d volunteered at the center before she died. The Graham Center was a place for youths to visit after school and for seniors to play nightly bingo, and a general community center for hosting meetings and small events. Adjacent to the building was the clinic where Bendrix volunteered bimonthly, giving free exams and taking on cases the volunteer nurses needed help with. Once a year, he rented the center and threw a birthday party in honor of his mom that included games, music, and baked treats provided by Scratch. The highlight of the night, though, was the raffle. With donations from community leaders and his colleagues at the hospital, he’d load a van with flat-screen TVs, Game Boys, bikes, electric heaters, iPads—a slew of prizes that were often out of reach for many of the people who came to the center. All the winner had to do was provide a winning raffle ticket; and for kids eighteen and under, if they earned straight As, they picked the prize of their choice. It was a fun night and the perfect way to honor Arlene’s memory.

  We took a left on Grand and began to ascend the on-ramp to the freeway. We were in the middle of deconstructing my weekend in Yountville with Samuel for the umpteenth time. Bendrix had already met Samuel again by then—over lunch and a second time at the bakery.

  He said, “Type A personalities like Samuel are usually hiding something, even if it’s letting the world know how insecure they are.”

  “You should know,” I said dryly.

  He gave me a sideways look. “Hysterical.”

  I said, “He might be type A, but when he kisses me, I can’t think straight. I’m so happy.”

  “I get that, but he sounds like he has issues.”

  “Don’t we all? Besides, when he kisses me I feel like we can solve anything.”

  “Fabulous. I wish you’d stop sounding like you’re in a 1950s romantic comedy, though.”

  “I can’t help it! I’m Doris Day and Samuel is my Rock Hudson.”

  “Abbey, you do realize Rock Hudson was gay, don’t you?”

  “He was?”

  “Good Lord.”

  He switched lanes and said, “What you’ve told me about his childhood explains why he seems rather on guard at times. His parents sound more than overbearing. Frankly, I agree with you. They were abusers.”

  I made Bendrix promise not to tell a soul about my conversation with Samuel. We were vaults when it came to keeping each other’s secrets, but I’d made him promise, nonetheless.

  “Do you know if he’s ever been to counseling?”

  “I doubt it. He barely wanted to talk about it.”

  He paused. “A certain someone once said the only way we escape the past is to walk through it.”

  “Oh my God, are you quoting Anthony? You are, aren’t you?” As soon as he tensed his jaw, I knew I had him. If Bendrix was willing to quote his ex-lover, it meant he was thinking about his ex-lover and love of his life. And that was a start. “Say his name, Bendrix.”

  “No.”

  “Say it.”

  “I refuse. I was only trying to make a point. Don’t start.”

  “I think you’re thinking about Anthony; that’s what I think. It’s okay, you know. It’s only natural that you’d think about him right now.” For once I didn’t exaggerate. Anthony and Bendrix had first met at the community center. Anthony worked there as a counselor before his position was cut. On the day he and Bendrix were introduced, that was it: Take two abnormally handsome men, introduce them to each other, mix, stir, and voilà! Passion. Romance. Love.

  Bendrix turned up the volume when Sammy King’s version of “Everything Happens to Me” began playing, no doubt to drown his thoughts and the conversation. It worked.

  King’s quintet increased the tempo faster and faster until we began nodding our heads at the flurry of notes coming at us. “Miles is so jealous of Sammy’s solo here!” I said over the music.

  “As he should be,” Bendrix shouted in return.

  We descended the freeway and drove directly into the bowels of East Oakland. Some argued there were two Oaklands: East Oakland and large sections of West Oakland were infamous for high concentrations of crime and drugs; North Oakland was the antithesis. If Oakland made the news, the broadcast usually had something to do with the latest murder or shooting. North Oakland, especially areas like Rockridge and Temescal, where Scratch was located, were gentrified bubbles of fine dining and low crime.

  Bendrix had grown up in East Oakland and called it Oakland’s forgotten child. People moved up and out and either forgot about it or avoided it altogether.

  He looked out the window as we passed by the familiar pattern of liquor store, liquor store, church; liquor store, liquor store. . . . Windows were barred, buildings abandoned. He turned on East Twenty-second Street and slowed. Back in high school, when we were Benz and Ross, we’d tagged a few buildings in the area. All the buildings Bendrix and I had painted were long gone, except one factory that had been set for demolition, but year after year it remained. We made it part of our routine to stop by before Arlene’s birthday celebration.

  The building was covered in mostly shitty graffiti; someone would paint his street name only to have someone else come along, cross it out, then paint a new name over it. And there were the more insightful comments on police brutality—Fuck da poleeces. Pigs suck. Holding its own in the center of the building, though, fading and surrounded by tags and profanity, was our version of Chagall’s Lovers in Green, left unscathed. We’d used as many variations of green spray paint as we could find and a perfect red for the woman’s dress. We’d changed things up by putting a large yellow Afro on the female’s head and the man in a hoodie. Our painting was pale now but as striking as ever, and that it
had been left untouched meant that the other artists and taggers still gave Benz and Ross mad, proper respect.

  I turned in the passenger’s seat, and Bendrix and I bumped fists. “Word, baby.”

  “Word.”

  • • •

  Once at the center, we went about setting up. We placed a photo of Arlene on the main table with candles and flowers. Arlene had raised Bendrix as a single mom on her bus driver’s income. She took Bendrix to every event that included the word free or educational and applied for every scholarship out there. She knew early on she was raising a gay son in the hood and taught him to fight, literally, in their garage when he was just a boy. She taught her son how to throw a punch, to kick, to do whatever he had to do. By the time he’d turned fourteen, she’d saved up enough to move into a neighborhood with a better public high school, which was where we’d met.

  We’d just finished putting out the desserts and hanging the banner when the gaggles of single women started pouring into the center.

  To explain, a brief fairy tale . . .

  They came every year, these young maidens, from the heart of East Oakland. Their prince was a handsome doctor who drove a shiny BMW and lived in the North, a land rich in Whole Foods, farmers’ markets, and fine dining. The maidens knew their prized prince was gay (hello)—many had even met his ex-boyfriend—but that didn’t matter! Skanks walked up and flashed cleavage and mothers introduced their daughters, all in hopes of turning the prince’s eye. Even the security guard hired for the event secretly gave Prince Bendrix his card. Take my number, man. I like your style. But their actions were all in vain. The prince refused to date because, as his best friend knew, he was brokenhearted over Prince Anthony. The end.

  One good thing about having Bendrix’s suitors around, with all his groupies banding together, was that the event went off without a hitch and the center was cleaned up and the van packed by nine. Bendrix’s aunt Nag found us as we were heading out to empty the last of the trash bags. Aunt Nag was Arlene’s oldest sister by sixteen years. She was in her late sixties and as tall as a ten-year-old girl, with the same body weight. Her hair was combed in its usual four plaits, and she wore one of her many oversized T-shirts paired with matching tennis shoes. Her underbite was so severe that when she stared up at Bendrix, it looked as if the bottom half of her mouth was swallowing up her nose and upper lip.