Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White

by Claudia Mair Burney

  “This is about so much more than that. And if I’m having a tantrum, what is he having?”

  Miles turns away. Looks back at me. “Zora. Don’t do this. You have it so good. Don’t you see what we can be together? Where is your vision, baby?”

  “I want to paint.”

  “You paint, Zora.”

  “I want it to be my life’s work.”

  “You’re not meant to be a painter, baby.”

  “I am, Miles.”

  “You’re not that good at it, baby.”

  I feel like he’s just slapped me across the face. I can’t even form a reply.

  Miles doesn’t even notice my jaw drop; he just keeps talking. “And here’s another thing for you to think about: if you were really a painter, nothing—including me or your daddy—would stop you from painting. What you are is scared of growing up. You’re having growing pains, baby. You weren’t groomed to be a painter. You were made to be a pastor’s wife—just like that prophet who came to our church told you that time. He was right, baby. I knew it. You’ll be just like your mother: beautiful, classy, godly, magnificent. We’re going to be everything I wished—that my poor mother wished—I could be when I was a little boy. You should have seen her, Zora. Every day, without fail, that woman prayed over me. She confessed God’s word over me. I’m just like you, Zora, the hope of my parents, only without the advantages you had. But that never stopped my mother from having faith. She believed that I had a call of God on my life, and now, I’m going to see the fruits of all those prayers. I’m so close. Your father wants me to be his son-in-law. And I want to do that. I want to be a good man. I do, Zora. Listen to us. We’ll take care of you, but you can’t be in rebellion.”

  His arms feel strong. Arms like my father’s. Miles holds me like my daddy does.

  “You don’t have to worry. Because as soon as your daddy lets you go, I’m going to take over. I’ll be Daddy. And Daddy Miles is gonna take good care of you.”

  I don’t like the way that sounds. Something about it scares me.

  “That sounds incestuous, Miles.”

  “I promise you’ll like it.”

  Miles is trying to comfort me. I just turn and stand in the corner. He says I don’t want to grow up. I’ll prove him right. I turn around and stand there facing the wall while he rubs my shoulders and begs me to call my daddy, The Bishop.

  I want him to kiss me. Finally. I want this big, chauvinist pig to take me in his arms and be my hero. Make everything feel better—take me off into the sunset on his white horse. That’s how vulnerable I feel. Miles, who’s been a jerk since all this happened, looks good to me. But he doesn’t do any of that, lest his actions get back to The Bishop, whose covering must still apply, despite all evidence to the contrary. Miles just rubs my arms, though he stands closer than usual. I can tell he wants to do more, but he restrains himself. He leaves me with these parting words: “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.”

  He leaves me standing there in the corner, mute and chastised like a little girl.

  For a few hours, I sit on the floor in my apartment, truly empty except for the box of clothes Nicky bought me and the food and necessities Linda and Billie provided. More hours pass, and I try to sleep but dream about a big plantation, only the slave masters are black and they’re all people in my life. Ms. Pamela is in the field with me, and she’s dying, but we keep getting whipped, and we have to keep going. I’m so scared. I don’t know how to keep her from dying, and I start feeling sick too. I start coughing and thinking I’m going to die, me and Ms. Pamela right here on this plantation.

  I wake up, and I don’t know how I’ll endure all the silence. All the nothing around me. It feels like the blue walls are caving in on me. The Sankofa bird mocks me. I don’t know what I’m supposed to go back and find. I don’t know what I’ve left behind.

  I have to get out of here. I think maybe if I just go to the mailbox I’ll feel better. Maybe. Please, God, let that small thing, because it’s all I’ve got, help me feel better.

  I get up and go to the door. Open it. My door is covered by a huge canvas. It’s almost as tall and wide as I am. And there’s paint. All kinds of paints.

  Maybe Miles has come through. Maybe this is his way of showing me he’s with me. He’s going to support my desire. Maybe I can be The Bishop’s wife one day and paint on this amazing canvas. Miles has provided everything. This huge canvas. Oils, watercolors, acrylics. There are brushes and pads, paper, charcoals, and pens. It makes me so happy that I laugh and laugh.

  He’s taped a note on bright red paper where I can see it. “Zora” in big, bold letters with a smiley face.

  Wait a minute. This isn’t Miles’s handwriting.

  My heart pounds. Did MacKenzie do this? She couldn’t. She had to use everything she had to get to New York. Even if she could sacrifice something, she’d never be able to do this. Besides, it’s not her handwriting either.

  I tear open the envelope. That snake in the garden of my heart, I can’t find it anywhere. But I feel a butterfly. A tiny one, released from its just-born wings, now freed from its dark chrysalis. Fluttering. Fluttering. Fluttering.

  Inside is a poem about the earring, and after the poem this note: “Okay, so it looked like me. What else can you do?”

  I’m not the dreamy one. Nicky is. He must have written the poem right after he left me.

  I don’t get you, Nicky Parker. But I like you. I like you way too much.

  And what is this thing emerging between us?

  You’ve gotta be kidding me, God.

  I spend a few hours sketching on that enormous canvas. Little children. I don’t know why children. I think they’re going to be of every color. Some of them are holding hands.

  Maybe I’ll just paint Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream right there on that canvas, where it’s safe.

  NICKY’S SUPPLIES have given me a bit of freedom. And what do you do with freedom? I have no idea.

  I think maybe I should go to Meijer to get a flat iron for my hair. For all their kindness, Linda and Billie didn’t think of what I need for my hair.

  I still don’t have any cash, but I can walk right down Ellsworth to get to Meijer by way of what MacKenzie calls Pat and Turner: pat your feet and turn the corner. It’s late, but Ann Arbor is pretty safe. I don’t normally walk around at night, but I don’t think much will happen. Ellsworth is a major street. There’s a sidewalk I can walk on, and traffic. I don’t have a cell phone, but I can pray. I think it’ll be okay. I want to do something to my hair. It’s getting pretty ratty. I want to look pretty. Maybe just get some cheap lipstick. I don’t want to buy any MAC. Just something so I can look decent the next time I see him.

  Oh, man. I’m plotting to see Nicky.

  Well, what’s wrong with that?

  I take the gift certificate, fold it up, and for lack of any other place to put it, stick it in my bra. Lord, have mercy. Necessity is the mother of invention, indeed. I miss you, Kate Spade. Truly.

  After about a mile, I’m thankful for all that dancer’s training. Today was dance-team practice. Today I would have been dancing for Jesus at LLCC. I’m thinking of twirling right here by the side of the road, on Ellsworth, in the dress Nicky bought me, a dress that looks like it’s just made for dancing. But I don’t. I just keep walking.

  That’s right. Keep walking, Zora.

  I wonder if I’ll ever dance for Nicky. Maybe I will. In this dress.

  That’s so silly. What’s wrong with me? I’ve never wanted to do a personal dance for Miles, and he’s my boyfriend.

  I’m about halfway to Meijer when a car—and not a very nice one—slows and comes to a stop beside me. Oh, man. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this is some crazy person who’s going to hurt me. MacKenzie would never let me walk out in the middle of the night just because Meijer is open twenty-four hours.

  The window rolls down. I’m about to sprint when I hear a familiar voice.

  “Miss Zora!”

  Good
grief! It’s Ms. Pamela. My hand flies to my chest.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

  “Girl, whatchu doin’ out walkin’ the streets this time a night?”

  “I’m just going to Meijer to get a flat iron.”

  “Girl, if you don’t get in this car …”

  I slide into her ancient Honda Accord. I don’t think I’ve gotten in a worse car since Mac had an old beat-up Escort. Most of the time if we rode together, we took my car. It happened to be getting serviced once or twice, and we had to roll out in hers. I didn’t appreciate her Escort’s performance and was quite vocal about it.

  How did she stand me all those years?

  Ms. Pamela and I bump and shake the last mile to Meijer, and it feels like it’s the longest trip I’ve ever taken. She’s still got the cough. I’m still concerned.

  “Did you ever make it to see a doctor?”

  “I had The Bishop lay hands on me and anoint me.”

  I don’t want to say anything disparaging, and not because The Bishop is my daddy. I want to honor her faith. I think about the dream of us being on the plantation. Both of us slaves. Aren’t we both trying to cling to Jesus, despite some semblance of oppression? And me, what kind of oppression is somebody dreaming up a life for me? A life of affluence? Yeah, Zora, how hard is it going to be as that kind of slave?

  Maybe I should ask my mother.

  Oh, girl. Don’t you start that. Not tonight.

  “Ms. Pamela, I’m glad you got prayed for. I’m just wondering if Jesus doesn’t think it might be wise to see a doctor, too.”

  “You know, your daddy always preaches whatever is not of faith is sin.”

  He must be the chief of sinners then, because maybe he should have a little faith about letting me live my life. It was him standing in the way. Right?

  Wasn’t it, Z?

  “I don’t think it means you have less faith if the doctor took a look.”

  “Maybe I’ll go. Tessa thought I should go. Maybe.”

  Every breath seems to be a struggle for her. She’s hanging in there, but she doesn’t sound right. “I’ll go with you. I’m not doing anything but trying to get something to do my hair with. We can just turn the car around and head to U of M’s Emergency Department.”

  “Naw, baby. I think the Lord sent me out. You been on my mind.”

  “What?”

  “I was just wantin’ some lemons to make me some lemon and honey tea. Had it so strong, but Tessa said she was tired and my other baby, Vernice, she sleep. My other baby out on a date.”

  It’s one in the morning. Their mother is half-dead, and the no-working heifers won’t get up to get her some lemons. The other one is out with some clown from MySpace probably. Yeah. They really are tired.

  “So you had to get up yourself?”

  “But I think the Lord sent me. I been thinking about you. The Lord lay you on my heart. People talk, honey.”

  “People at our church do.”

  “I heard your daddy and you having some problems.”

  “Apparently, I’m the only one with the problem. The sin of witchcraft. That’s what I heard they’re calling it.”

  “I don’t know ’bout that. I just know sometimes girls come to a certain age, and it’s hard for their fathers to let them be women. And it’s hard for the girls, too. They want to be women and little girls at the same time. It can be confusing sometimes. My girls, their father ain’t been around for years. They missed so much. But I had a daddy. I think I know what you’re going through.”

  “Did your daddy take all your stuff because he was mad at you?”

  “I didn’t have much for him to take. But he tried to control me in other ways. He was just scared that if he lost control, everything would fall apart. That’s all.”

  “I can’t imagine The Bishop being scared.”

  “The Bishop didn’t take your stuff, honey. Your daddy did. I’m not saying I agree with what he did. I’m just saying sometimes daddies make bad decisions because they want their little girls to stay little girls as long as they can. And little girls have to become women. Don’t they, honey?”

  “I suppose they do, Ms. Pamela.” All except those morons at your house.

  But I don’t say that.

  We get to Meijer, and Ms. Pamela buys her lemons and more groceries for me than I know she can afford. I believe she is the world’s wealthiest widow who knows how to work the heck out of a mite.

  Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven? I see what You mean in this child of God, Jesus. I pray God really does give her back one hundredfold what she forces me to take.

  She still won’t let me go with her to the emergency room, even though she insists on taking me home. I leave her with this:

  “My daddy would have taken me to the hospital by now.”

  I spend a long time in prayer. Before morning dawns, liberally gifting us all with new mercies, I ask again and again with my miserly faith for God to heal her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NICKY

  I almost knocked on her door. The problem is, if she’d have let me, I would’ve gone in. And since I was in such a kissing mood, I would have given her the kiss I shouldn’t have given Rebecca. The one that really belonged to her. The one that would have been full of feeling. Too much feeling.

  I can’t go around feeling things.

  Not for Zora.

  I just left the stuff at the front of her door. I’d said enough. Too much. The poem. The art supplies. The note. I tried to leave my feelings at the door with the gifts.

  I ended up taking those feelings right back home with me.

  ZORA

  Sunday morning. Every Sunday morning, barring deathly illness—which we weren’t allowed to have, and fortunately, we never did—I was in church. Mostly black churches, and whether those churches had organs or praise teams, whether they had choirs or a quartet of barber-shop-style warblers, whether there was a dance and flag team or old ladies shouting out their press-and-combed hairstyles, I worshipped with my people, and I did this with great love and reverence.

  Today I want to go somewhere else. I want to go to True Believer Gospel Tabernacle.

  The day is sunny. It’s unusually warm, in the seventies. God, what a precocious April You’ve allowed. Nature coming alive in this cold Midwestern land before its time. What a gift this is to me. You know I don’t own a jacket, much less a coat right now.

  I put on the white dress again. And oddly, I don’t grow tired of it. To me, it’s like the clothing of the Israelites as they walked toward the Promised Land. That one outfit that takes you where God wants you to go. Even though he gave me another one, even though Billie offered more, this is my Promised Land dress, and I want Nicky to see me in it again.

  Maybe, if I can get him alone, I’ll dance for him in it.

  I put on the “last all day” lipstick I got last night. I want to add just a few brushes to my lashes of the Wet n Wild mascara that cost a mere ninety-nine cents. My mother would die if she saw this makeup. But it’s all I can afford. I just want to look pretty for him.

  When I’m ready, I head out the door. Once again, I take Ellsworth, but I keep walking past Meijer and Target. I used to look down my nose at these very ordinary stores. I didn’t remember that until now.

  I was a Nordstrom girl. Macy’s. Saks. MacKenzie was so right about me. Oh, girl. I am so sorry.

  I keep walking past the Wal-Mart. I really wouldn’t have been caught dead at a Wal-Mart. MacKenzie loves Wal-Mart. Did I make her feel bad about her things? God, exactly how insensitive have I been through the years? Prancing around with my little Kate Spade and Prada bags and more designer clothes than I’d care to name, like it would never end, and in truth, even now it doesn’t have to. All it takes is a call, and I can get it all back. For the cost of a phone call.

  I think about Nicky Parker coming all the way back from California to put things right with his father. How far had he gone? H
e said he was a rascal. He probably did more than mouth off at his father. And how far had he strayed from his heavenly Father’s commands?

  How far have I? I mean, really?

  I don’t know. I can’t tell where it began. Was it Thursday at dinner? Sunday when I walked out of church? Was it before then when I began to wonder if there was more to life than believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them?

  I watch the cars whiz by me—beat-up cars driven by folks with not so much money, and shiny new cars with smug drivers with lots of money. And now I’m walking instead of flying carelessly by in my black Lexus. Everything can fall apart in an instant. Or it can all become clear in a single moment seen through the eyes of grace. Things change that quickly.

  Will Nicky’s girlfriend be there in their lily-white church? Will she be the perfect model Barbie doll—or worse, Bratz doll—I think she’ll be? Does she love him? Is he going to marry her and have perfect white babies that will grow up to have his smile and eyes like sapphires?

  Maybe I shouldn’t go. I should let Nicky Parker be so he can have a great life with blonde, pretty, nice Rebecca.

  But, I argue with myself, I should say thank you.

  And it’s Sunday. I don’t have any place to go. I want to do something different. It wouldn’t be different going to another black church. And God, I don’t want to be alone today.

  NICKY

  Honest to God, Rebecca is surgically attached to me. I don’t have to wonder if she’ll notice if I walk out this Sunday. I’d definitely have to drag her out of the door with me today. And all I can think about is Zora. Wondering what would have happened if I’d knocked on her door last night. My stomach leaps around inside of me just thinking about it. I don’t hear a word of Dad’s preaching, as usual.

  What am I doing?

  I called Richard again last night when lying in the shape cross did nothing to banish Zora from my thoughts.

  He laughed at me. “It’s not a formula for success, you idiot.”

  And I thought it had worked so well that first time.

  When I told him about kissing Rebecca, he groaned. “Tell me you just gave her the kiss of peace.”