Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White

by Claudia Mair Burney

  I wonder if Mac thought my jokes about her furniture were funny, while I sat in the living room on my Cheryl Riley originals. Oh, Lord. And now it looks like the Grinch stole my Christmas.

  My knees feel week. I realize that hours have gone by since I woke up and I haven’t eaten a thing. I walk on shaky legs into the empty kitchen. My dining room furniture is gone, not as fancy as my mother’s, but a scaled-down version by the same designer. All my linens with the Adinkra symbol embroidery that went with the stencils on the walls are gone too. I’m grateful I didn’t rent a house, because maybe he’d have taken the stove and refrigerator too.

  Thank God I had the good sense to get the lease in my name. He’d tried to cosign for me, or get the lease in his name, but I persevered. He can’t take my apartment. But he has my job. And my car. And all the credit cards. My clothing. My computer.

  My résumé is in my computer. Not that I can go job hunting. What am I going to do in my pajamas? I don’t even have any shoes. And what about interview clothes? Clothes, period?

  I don’t want to think about the implications of any of this. I want to call MacKenzie. She’ll help me through it. I’ve helped her.

  I go back into her room since he took my phones. I pick up her old-fashioned princess trimline, and a feeling of heaviness overcomes me. Didn’t Mac tell me I needed to apologize? She practically idolizes this apartment. She’s going to flip her weave when she finds out The Bishop came in and took everything I own. I put the phone down.

  It feels like my blood sugar has gone down. I’m not usually hypoglycemic, but the stress of the day, my nerves, and no food has wreaked havoc on my body. Once again, I walk from MacKenzie’s room to the living room. I sit down, cross-legged on the floor. I’d read my Bible but he took it. And the thought of that makes me laugh. The Bishop went so far in punishing me for my sin of disrespecting him that he took my Sword of the Spirit.

  How am I supposed to speak the Word? How am I supposed to find the victory in my mouth? Ha! I’ll bet that to him the only victory in my mouth are the words, “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  I wonder how many slashes across his back before he said “I’m sorry” to Granddaddy? I wonder if he had to say the actual words, if he had to concede his defeat in the exact way Granddaddy specified.

  Maybe if I showed up at church in my pajamas and put my arms around his neck, just held onto him, maybe he’d circle my waist with his arms and that would be I’m sorry for both of us.

  What would that mean for our lives? Would he have Mike and Tim come back bearing my things with a smile? All is forgiven? As if I’d ever forget that the two guys I’ve gone with to children’s church, to youth group, to singles group, sold me out like two overseers on a plantation.

  “Miss Zora gon’ fly away, Massa Jack. She gon’ cleave da’ air an fly away.”

  What’s the matter with me?

  I lie down on the floor and tell myself I’m thinking crazy. I shouldn’t have gone to Spelman. I definitely shouldn’t have majored in African American studies. If I’d gone to Parsons, I wouldn’t be lying on my empty floor thinking about slaves and overseers and wings I don’t seem to have.

  All that black stuff. It just makes you angry. Sometimes I think it’s better not to know it. Any of it. But even the most ignorant of us, the straight-up hood rat with no education at all, gets it. It’s in us like a mourning song that we can’t remember all the words to. Like an old spiritual that wounds and heals at the same time. Even the hood rat can hear the ghosts howling in the trees where the brothas hung. Smell the blood and sweat in the soil down South. Hear the wails of the ancestors in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. God, we hear it, and it makes us angry, and it comes out in our rap music, and our ghetto violence, and our hopelessness. It comes out when we bite back our rage and smile at every Mister Charley we work for, and it comes out when we bite off the head of every Mister Charley we work for.

  In so many ways, we are still caught in the same drama that others created for us so they didn’t have to work so hard. We are still house slave and field slave, trying to be that talented tenth. We’re still giving ourselves brown-paper-bag tests, and hoping whitey approves of us. And sometimes, we take on all the attributes of our oppressor, whatever color he is, because in the end, humanity is basically evil, and it hasn’t a thing to do with our skin tone.

  We’ll turn on a dime if the price is right.

  I need to call somebody. I need to get out of here. I need to get out of this headspace.

  I glance around the room. My eyes land on the fallen papers and Linda’s card.

  Not a chance I’ll call that white woman. I’ll sit here and lose my mind first, God.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  NICKY

  I glance at the caller ID and answer the phone, complaining from the first word. “Come on, Linda. I’m entitled to a day off now and then. You should be glad I’m having a Jesus day.”

  “I am glad. I don’t mean to interrupt you and the Lord, but Jesus needs a favor. Someone we know needs help.”

  “He didn’t tell me that. He didn’t say anything about favors or helping anybody, and I’ve been chatting with Him all morning.”

  “He’s saying it now.”

  “Aw, man, Linda. Can’t you just let me be an uninvolved, marginal Christian? I don’t want the kind of demanding Christianity that actually has to help others. I don’t really want to be Jesus for people.”

  She laughs. “It’s Zora. Would you be Jesus for Zora?”

  I close my eyes. Try to breathe deeply. Pause and wait for my heart to take the elevator back up to where it’s supposed to be.

  “Tell me you mean another Zora, and not the one who had me laid out in the shape of a cross all night.”

  “Laid out in the shape of a cross, huh? Sounds very Richard. You’ll have to tell me about that later. Anyway, I’m thinking she’s probably the same Zora. How many other Zoras do you know?”

  “You suck, Linda.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you, but I can’t leave here today. We’re short of people because somebody called off work so they could let Jesus love on them. Now Jesus needs to love on somebody else, and Billie can’t get away from the house, and Richard didn’t answer his phone.”

  “Richard is probably asleep because he was up half the night with me. Don’t you know any other Christians, preferably better Christians than me?”

  “Can you just go take her some clothes?”

  For a moment a delightful image of Zora sans clothing fills my head. Of course Linda the prophetess knows.

  “Nicky. Grow up. Something happened, and she’s lost everything.”

  “What do you mean she’s lost everything? Did her apartment building catch on fire or something? I saw her last night and she was fine.”

  “She told me about last night, including the fact that she saw you, and it goes right into why she doesn’t have anything today.”

  “What happened? You mean seeing me is part of why she lost everything?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Everything isn’t about you. She can tell you herself what happened. Will you take her some clothes?”

  “Where am I supposed to get women’s clothes?”

  “Be creative, Nicky. I don’t care where you get them. What’s most important is that you help your sister in Christ in need. More than anything, she needs your presence. This is the kind of incarnational living we talk about at Bible study. Be Jesus for her, not just Nicky, okay? I know you can do this.”

  “Didn’t I tell you I didn’t want to be Jesus for anybody? Especially her! I can’t, Linda. I have … thoughts. Feelings about her that aren’t squeaky clean, if you know what I mean. I don’t want to end up flirting with her or something, especially if she’s vulnerable.”

  “Nicky Parker. You’re a better man than you realize you are. I’m sure you can put your adolescence to the side long enough to hand her an outfit and tell her you’re sorry for her trouble.”

  “You’re wrong there
. I can’t help her. I’m sorry. You’ll be off of work at five. She’ll have to hang on until then. She has a roommate, MacKenzie or something. Maybe she can help her before you can get to her. I can’t.”

  “She wears a size eight. Clothes and shoes. You only have to remember one number. You can handle that. Thanks a lot.”

  She hangs up on me.

  I call her back. “Linda, I’m not going over there.”

  She tells me she doesn’t have time to engage me if I’m going to keep acting stupid. What am I supposed to say to that?

  I’m not going. I told Linda I’m not going, and I’m not going.

  And that’s that.

  HOW DO YOU dress a Black American Princess?

  I have no idea.

  I find myself at the fifth store in the mall. The mall! And I want to give up. First of all, the only place I have interest in shopping for Zora is Victoria’s Secret, and I’m thinking that’s not what Linda has in mind. I go to the place where my mom shops, Eddie Bauer, and then I realize my mom shops here. Bad idea. I call Rebecca, and God, was that ever a colossally bad idea. I ask her where she buys her clothes, and I can hear the delight in her voice. She thinks I’m about to up the ante, and now I gotta get Rebecca something too. Then I’m appalled to find out that she shops where my mom shops. I get terrifying visions of the life that is set before me: my father’s life, complete with pot roasts, the ’burbs, a four-door sedan, and recycled sermons nobody realizes are recycled.

  Kill me now, God. Please.

  I go into Macy’s. I’m sure not going to be buying her any Prada or Kate Spade—I don’t care what her MySpace page says—but maybe I can find something nice that I, the pretzel-machine guy, can afford. I go through rows and rows of clothes. Lovely, incredibly expensive clothes that make me want to smoke a joint I feel like such a failure in life. I will never, ever be able to afford that woman. I end up getting depressed by exactly how much the pretzel-machine guy cannot afford. Finally, I go back to Eddie Bauer and pick up a necklace I hope Rebecca won’t think is engagement jewelry and head back to my truck, not only defeated but steaming mad at Linda.

  Mad or no, Zora still needs some clothes. I take one more trip to downtown Ypsilanti and go to Puffer Red’s. That’s the spot for urban chic in Washtenaw County, and when I say urban, read “black.” All the rappers that come to town stop into the boutique and get their picture taken with Red, and they really do have the coolest clothes and shoes. Pete introduced me to the place when he first began his—forgive me for saying this—wigger stage. Don’t make me explain the term. Please don’t.

  I realize I’ve seen Zora twice. I have no idea what she wants to wear. Both times she wore jeans. I head over to the denim, and the first thing I see is a brand called Apple Bottom. Apple Bottom? I start having visions. Really, really good ones of Zora in Apple Bottom jeans. I stand there an inordinately long time caressing the hanger until I realize I look like some kind of “off the rack” freak.

  Gonna be a cross for a long time tonight.

  A long time.

  I can’t buy her these jeans. Pete’s freakin’ voice rings in my head about sistahs wanting their bodies to be seen. I don’t want to think about what Zora’s motivation is for wearing jeans. Maybe it’s the same as my own. Jeans are comfortable. Easy to wear. But my brain feels stained by the thought.

  I let the hanger go. I can’t do this. I knew I couldn’t and tried to tell Linda. My anger rises like bile to my throat, and I think it will explode out of my mouth. And I don’t care. I’m gonna let Linda have it.

  I pick up my cell phone and punch our work number. The kindness in her voice as she answers the phone shames me.

  I pause, and she waits, as if she knows it’s me. I sigh into the phone. “Linda. I have no—”

  “Go to Janelle’s.”

  “What?”

  “Janelle’s. It’s a boutique. It’s on Washtenaw by the K-Mart in Ypsi. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s a nice lady. A sister in Christ. She’ll help you.”

  “How did you know what I was going to say?”

  “The Holy Spirit. Now get going. You’ve wasted enough time. Victoria’s Secret!”

  “I didn’t go in!”

  She laughs.

  I stare at the phone and hang up before God can tell her anything else about me.

  I GET TO Janelle’s, and despite what Linda said, I still feel like I’m spinning my wheels. Nobody is in the store. I see all kinds of church lady suits in pastel colors. If they were egg-shaped, I’d feel like I walked into an Easter basket. Immediately I think Linda has steered me in the wrong direction. This doesn’t look like a place a Black American Princess shops. It doesn’t even look like a place Linda shops. Thank God for that.

  I start yanking hangers around the racks, looking at clothes I doubt Zora will wear. I think about the Apple Bottom jeans. And all the racy little halter-tops I’ve looked at today. I think about the Eddie Bauer twin sets and black pencil skirts. I think about the dizzying array of skirts, blouses, slacks, capris, and I have no freakin’ clue what to do.

  I just want to please you, Zora.

  She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know that it’s taken me hours because I want to get just the right thing. That I want to get that dazzling smile out of her. She has a dimple, just on one side. And she wears CK One, the same freakin’ Calvin Klein unisex scent I wear. Her skin looks like blackberries, and she glows from the inside out. She’d be gorgeous in white. A dress she can twirl in when she dances, but how practical is that?

  I feel a presence behind me. I turn and see an older black woman. I notice her eyes first. Black as obsidian. Crinkled, crow’s-feet-marked eyes full of wisdom and laughter like I imagine Jesus’ are now. Not before. I use to imagine Jesus with stern brown eyes of judgment, but now His eyes are loving.

  She’s the color of café au lait, and her face is covered with brown freckles. I never see black people with freckles, so the sight of them startles and delights me. I like her.

  “Can I help you?” she says.

  I nod. “I need help, badly. I’ve gotta get something for my woman.”

  “Something for your woman, you say?”

  For a moment I don’t answer. The question takes me by surprise. Janelle smiles. “Is that what you said, sweetness?”

  “I’m sorry, what did I say?”

  “You said, ‘I’ve gotta get something for my woman.’ At least that’s what it sounded like you said.”

  I scratch my head. “Did I? I meant to say for a woman.”

  “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”

  “It would appear that you’re right.” I shake my head. My slip unnerves me. “She’s not my woman.” I chuckle. “Right now, it’d be good if I can just figure out an outfit for her.”

  “That’s a big step, an outfit.”

  I laugh. “Oh, no. We’re not at the buying-clothes stage or anything. We’re not even at the friends stage. There’s a need. I’m not sure what it is, but I hear it’s bad. Like ‘she’s lost everything’ bad.”

  “The poor thing.”

  “I want to get her something until we can take her shopping. The people in our Bible study. At least I think so. I’m Nicky. My friend Linda sent me.”

  “I’m Janelle. I figured you were Nicky. Linda called me and told me you were coming. I don’t get many handsome twenty-something young men in here.”

  She makes me blush, and I notice she didn’t call me white. “Thank you, Janelle. I’m not even sure exactly how much I should get. I really don’t know the plan. And I don’t have much money. I can use my credit card, but I don’t have much credit, either. Student loans.”

  “That’s okay, sweetness. We’ll go easy. We don’t always get the plan, but we still have’ta act, don’t we? You say you think she lost everything? Linda didn’t say much to me. Just that you were coming.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know the details. I just need
to tide her over until we all meet or something. I don’t know. I’ve been at the mall for hours.” I throw my hands up. “I’m. Just—” I thrust my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “Lost.”

  I look at her. “You don’t sell Apple Bottom jeans, do you?”

  She seems to laugh with her whole body. “No, baby.”

  “Do you sell other clothes like that? I don’t want those. Well, I do, but Linda would kill me.”

  She chuckles. “I can’t imagine Miss Linda hurting a living soul. How ’bout you tell me about your young lady?”

  My heart races to think of her. “She’s beautiful, Janelle, and complicated. In the way the horizon is beautiful and complicated at dusk and dawn. She’s a dancer and a painter.” I imagine those MySpace pictures, and the thought of them takes my breath away. “And she’s smart. Sassy. She’s an Ella Fitzgerald scat, or a Thelonius Monk melody. You know?”

  Janelle shakes her head at me. “You’ve got it bad, Nicky.”

  “Can you tell?”

  “I’m afraid so. Is she African American, sweetness?”

  “Yes. And she’s totally not into me.”

  Before Janelle can address my dilemma, I throw this out there before I can change my mind. “Can you find something modest for her?”

  She smiles and nods like I’ve pleased her.

  “Not like old lady modest or, forgive me for saying this, even Linda modest. And please, Janelle, don’t even show me something Eddie Bauer white-lady modest like my mom would wear. Zora is … a sistah.”

  I didn’t mean it like Pete. I meant it in a good way. I said it with respect. “I want her to look like Zora, the artist, the dancer, the sistah. Not somebody else’s image of who they think she is, and that includes me.”

  I hesitate, not knowing how to say this next part without sounding crazy. I look at Janelle. Those kind black eyes gaze into mine. “Janelle, if she were, like, to pray, lying prostrate, with her …” I gesture toward my rear. “You know, in the air a little bit … I don’t know. What kind of thing could she wear so that her, you know, so she’d still be okay to pray like that around … me? And it not drive me crazy. In a bad way.”