Ada's Rules

by Alice Randall

  Ada put up a prayer that he was talking about more than fishfry food. She knew that compared to the other ladies, she looked a little old-fashioned. All in white, she could be a nurse or an attendant in one of the fainting Baptist churches. She hoped she looked real good to Preach.

  Healthing became Ada. The way her feet didn’t hurt, the way her shoulders didn’t hurt, the way her back didn’t hurt. She felt these absences as pleasures.

  The presence of her girls, seeing her look better than they had seen her in years, was a greater pleasure still.

  When most of the guests had left and the trash had been tied up into big black garbage bags and someone had ridden Queenie around the corner for her early bedtime, the family and some of the closest friends gathered on picnic benches and opened presents and drank coffee from thermoses as the first stars came out.

  Most of the presents were accessories. Maceo had planned it.

  “Your mama used to say all a woman needs to get through life is a good name, a big smile, and the proper props: a great scarf, a fabulous pair of shoes, an alligator purse, some glamorous sunglasses (my gift), and ladylike gloves. Since all your other sizes are changing, we decided to get you the good props,” said Maceo proudly.

  Ada took the scarf and tied it around her neck. She threw the purse over her shoulder and put the sunglasses on like a headband; she slipped out of the shoes she had been wearing and into the shoes she had been given.

  She no longer looked like a nurse or a church attendant.

  Looking at herself in the Tahoe’s side mirror, walking back to the car in the parking lot, Ada realized for the very first time that looking good could add to feeling good. She let out the last good-time holler of the evening, “In the immortal words of James Brown, ‘I feel good.’”

  The little dog had to eat, too. That night. With the little bowl of plums sitting on their chest of drawers, Ada invited Preach to her body. He declined the invitation.

  Next morning, as soon as the twins hit the front door in a taxi to the airport, Ada called the divorce lawyer.

  42

  UNI UP: GET YOURSELF A UNIFORM FOR DAY AND FOR NIGHT

  JOEL ANGEL, ESQUIRE, couldn’t see Ada till noon. Aside from being a member of the vestry and having the office closest to the Manse, Joel Angel, Esquire, was the lawyer who had drafted up their wills and handled the small matters to do with Preach’s father’s estate.

  He was surprised by Ada’s call, and relished this moment of power. More so than in vestry meetings, it felt as if the future of the church was in his hands. He had no intention of letting either party walk out wanting a divorce or in search of a lawyer who might actually help his pastor and his First Lady move toward the dissolution of the marriage. He had let Ada make the appointment and notified her that he would be notifying Preach, as he was the family’s lawyer. He said that if they decided to move forward, he could help them each find counsel that would work in tandem for the benefit of all involved. But Joel Angel would not let push get to shove. Thinking that a noon appointment would give Ada time to cool off and Preach time to prepare to grovel, without leaving either to brood too long, he set the time.

  Noon worked perfect for Ada. It was time enough to get on the treadmill and try to hold on to what was left of her mind before heading to KidPlay.

  There was a hole in Ada’s biker shorts. She noticed it just as she was about to wriggle into them and head out to the Dayani Center.

  The day before, on the treadmill before leaving for the park and her party, she had told herself, and told herself, nothing was irritating her. She had told herself she was imagining things.

  But she hadn’t been. If there was a hole in her bike shorts, and there was, some of the pudge of her thigh would have barged out of the hole, forming a round, brown bubble. Every step she had taken, the seam of the other leg of the biker shorts had grated against the naked pudge, chafing and chapping her skin.

  She spread her legs—she sought and found evidence, the slightly red circle, then thanked God for unbroken skin.

  She took another look at the hole. This time she looked because the hole was a funny little triumph. She poked her finger through the hole, oddly delighted.

  She had walked far enough to fray fabric. She had worn something out that wasn’t herself. It was her anti–John Henry moment. She had almost hurt herself—she had worn the pants out.

  She grabbed another pair of biker shorts to walk in, and her iPod, and headed for Dayani. On foot. Victorious. When she got there, she hopped on the treadmill and cranked up “Spike Driver Blues.” It wasn’t the only John Henry song on her iPod, but it was her favorite. Ada thought a lot about the hammer that killed John Henry. She loved the way Big Joe declared he wouldn’t let John Henry’s hammer kill him. Ada wasn’t going to let it kill her either. No, sir. She sang along way too loud and didn’t care who looked. Another victory.

  Then she was humming along to another John Henry song she loved, “Nine Pound Hammer.” How could she roll when her wheels had come off? She couldn’t except she put them back on. Listening to “Nine Pound Hammer” she was ready to do just that.

  Ada had a strange relation to tools. Until this day she had thought them dangerous, like John Henry’s hammer, or unnecessary, like fancy cooking equipment. She didn’t believe a craftsman was only as good as his tools. She couldn’t. She was Temple’s daughter.

  Healthing had taught her different. Having the right tools, and taking care of her tools, helped get the job done. Tools facilitate and buffer. And just at that moment, wearing out a tool, instead of wearing out her skin, was a big triumph. She could, and did, throw the shorts away and start again. And she prayed she would walk enough to wear out another pair.

  As she pondered tools on her treadmill, she asked herself what else she needed in her tool kit. Quickly her thoughts went to clothes—to the stuff that went under the props that she had been given. She needed some new everyday clothes. She was tired of walking around in sweatpants and a raincoat.

  She was especially tired of it if she was about to get a divorce.

  An acronym and a slogan occurred to her at once: Keep it simple, sexy. She liked calling herself sexy where some would call themselves stupid. And she knew that part of keeping it simple was to have a uniform for day and for night.

  Many people had black. She didn’t want that. Except Preach liked black, and it was cheap and simple and sexy, and her proper props would set it off right. Besides, she knew it: Divorce was a kind of death. If she was getting divorced, her go-to uniforms might as well look like mourning. Black would be her go-to color.

  She would buy some size-10 black dresses, stretchy and knitty and good quality, and she would fit them. She would get two good day dresses and a good night dress. The dresses would be a uniform. The uniform was a cushion and a signal, a tool. It said, I have figured out how to look good now. She liked it. And she could afford it.

  She had sold an Oscar Schmidt Stella Jumbo twelve-string guitar with a peculiar provenance. Which also meant she had enough money to pay the divorce lawyer.

  Joel Angel stood in front of his great big desk with arms outstretched. Ada and Preach sat frosty in Angel’s beautiful large chairs. Angel had asked who wanted to start. He had expected it would be Ada, as it was Ada who had called, wanting to file for divorce. No one was saying anything. No one had said anything for too long.

  “Well, Ada, what grounds were you thinking of?”

  “I think it’s called …” Ada couldn’t finish her sentence.

  Preach was clearing his throat. “You need to leave the room.” He was staring at Joel Angel.

  “This is my office.”

  “And we need it. Right now.”

  Joel Angel looked at Ada. She nodded assent.

  “I’m safe with him. I don’t know if he’s safe in here with me and that heavy-looking paperweight I see on your desk, but he can take his chances.”

  Joel Angel nodded his head in very grudging assent.
r />   “Fifteen minutes,” said Joel Angel.

  Angel left the room, curious about who would be standing when he got back.

  When they were alone again, Preach placed his chair right across from Ada’s and took a seat. Their knees touched. He took her hands in his. She took hers out of his. She put them back. Much as she didn’t want to, she still trusted him.

  “What is it?” asked Ada.

  “The money, you being my congregant, not just my wife, the people calling all day and all night, everyone looking to me to be a big wheel because the church is grown, the getting fifty, the high-blood-pressure medicine, I … I …”

  “Slept with someone else.”

  “No.”

  “Started gambling?”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “Can’t perform. The big dog’s too tired to stand up and eat.”

  “Winky’s on the blink?”

  “Ada.”

  “Handle your stuff! There’s medicine for that.”

  “I can’t go into the pharmacy and get those pills and have every Negro in north Nashville know!”

  “Rob a drugstore. Get some samples.”

  “I’ve been seeing a head doctor, pro bono, trying to get everything in order … I’m too young for this.”

  “We are at our half century. Get the little pill.”

  “I want to take you on a anniversary trip, but I was waiting till I had this situation under control.”

  “You let me worry I wasn’t pretty enough, and you were cheating, because you too proud to handle your stuff? I’m not sure I believe you that stupid. Some men need Viagra because they trying to do too many women … I saw that on Big Love.”

  “That’s TV. That ain’t you and me.”

  “Sometimes TV is just like real life.”

  “I love you, Ada.”

  “How often do you want to love on me, lately?”

  “Every day, baby.”

  “It’s hard for me to believe the big dog isn’t barking. Somewhere. I need a few days to think on all of this. If we gonna have a reunion, we both have some getting ready to do. You got to get that pill. I may need to beat you half to death once, first. Or put you in some time-out for messing with me over nothing, over mythic-Mandingo-male drama. I don’t want a mythic big wink. I want your big wink, or maybe I will want it, in a week. I don’t know if I believe you.”

  “Come over here and let me half show you.”

  “Naw.”

  Preach gave Ada his best pout. Ada gave him a smile. He sidled on over and kissed her on the lips. She opened her mouth. His tongue distracted and his fingers slid up her thigh and into her panties. In a few minutes she was sighing like a happy old married woman.

  They walked out, past Joel Angel, Esquire, thanking him profusely for he didn’t know what. Ada looked so satisfied, Joel Angel, Esquire, wondered if his preacher and his First Lady had resolved their differences on his sofa.

  43

  FRONT-LOAD: EAT BEFORE YOU GO TO PARTIES; DRINK WATER BEFORE MEALS

  WITH WEDDING SEASON in full swing, Ada felt like an engaged virgin, lusting and uncertain. She and Preach had picked a day and a place to revisit their vows and their bodies. Privately. At the beach on an anniversary trip. Willie and Joel Angel had been all too happy to loan their house at Seaside. Ada was excited and anxious. The exciting part was, she and Preach were a bit like strangers to each other now. And the anxious part was, she and Preach were a bit like strangers to each other now. Had all his little flirtations been a way to mask ED? Or, had Winky been on the blink because he felt guilty for cheating?

  She was counting on ignorance being bliss. So far it was a motley bliss—but bliss nonetheless. Ada had never in her life been as excited about wedding season as she was this one that would end with their—Big Bang.

  With full-on sexing on the horizon, it was time to put the finishing touches on her sizing and her primping.

  She was trying to knock off and down fifteen pounds that were hugging her tighter than a punch-drunk boxer in the twelfth round hugs the about-to-be-champ. She took that as a sign she was about to win.

  And she also took it as sign to work just a little bit harder. She had gone to nine weddings in four weeks and gained three pounds. Approaching the tenth, she decided to reinvent her definition of both the good wedding guest and appropriate wedding behavior.

  She would imbibe every noncaloric detail, not only the scent and sight of the flowers but also the soft of the petals and the poke and scratch of green fronds and leaves. She would lift the goblet for the wine, feel the heft and see the sparkle, but she would have it filled with water. She would not only smile at the bow on the back of the chair and the bows in the little cousins’ hair, she would touch their smooth shine.

  And she would carry and share the kit she took to every wedding over which her husband was presiding: needles and thread and tiny safety pins, an extra set of wedding bands, an antinausea patch, extra pairs of pantyhose in at least three different shades, an extra two hundred dollars, three sizes of tampons and thin pads and thick pads, a package of condoms, a few travel-size bottles of mouthwash, and a package of chewing gum.

  And Ada would dance every dance she was asked to dance, with little boys, with old men, with whomever it was that needed being taken off the bridal party’s hands.

  And she would admire the colors and the folds of the linens and the sparkle of the table-toppers, as she took a napkin to her mouth, or as the cloth brushed her knee. She would even sip a tiny bit of champagne when the appropriate moment came.

  As for the food, she would eat whatever lettuce was available, undressed, and exactly four other small bites of whatever it was least distracting or wasteful to have four bites of.

  And she would not be hungry. She would not be hungry because she would eat at home before she went to the wedding. Halfway through wedding season, she had figured it out.

  The thing to do was arrive with a full tummy. Like the thing to do at the start of a meal or twenty minutes before a meal was to drink a glass of water or maybe eat half a grapefruit: front-load. Before a wedding, she did a big front-load, then allowed the sight and scents and feel and talk and sway of the reception to delight every sense but the tongue.

  This was easy to do when the meal was a buffet and the food so-so. It was harder when the food was good.

  It was hardest if the dinner was seated and the food was amazing. And there was a lot of that. Black folk love a delicious wedding. When the food was amazing, she would remind herself that this was not the last great dinner she would sit down to. And amazing as the meal was, it was not as amazing as the bride, or the love in the room.

  Before she went out that night, she ate a special frozen Kashi meal, Chicken Florentine, because it reminded her a bit of Romeo and Juliet and a little of hotel wedding banquet food. She planned to feast at the wedding reception on the sights and sounds and touch and love in the room.

  Until she got to the museum where the tenth reception of her wedding season was being held, and read the seating chart, she didn’t know how very fine a feast it could be.

  Matt Mason was on the seating chart. Matt Mason had come to the wedding. He was a distant cousin of the groom’s. He had RSVP’d at the last moment.

  When the mother of the bride told her all that, Ada hoped the problem would be magically solved by the fact she had lost another twenty-something pounds, and he was a fatty-chaser.

  It wasn’t. He saw her across the aisle and the pews at the wedding before she had seen him, and he thought, She is the best of both worlds. When he smiled at her across the tables at the reception, it was a smile of unveiled invitation.

  Seeing Mason, she knew that if things hadn’t played out exactly as they had, if Preach hadn’t been afflicted, if Winky wasn’t on the blink, she would have wanted her one dalliance. She would have felt some kind of human right to be free in the place she was sexual. It was disturbing to discover that the sexual reawakening of mi
dlife was as hungry and reckless, was as itchy, as the sexual awakening of adolescence, when the itch must be scratched. She had gone fully latent, fully underground, like a flower bulb in winter. Preach, she sensed, had stayed at a slow burn, his fire never fully extinguished. And he had not come to her for anything this last year, or slightly more. Was it two? Had he gone elsewhere for something? That niggling question did not stand alone. It braided into two other hot topics. What does it mean when the mother is the least sexually experienced person in her family? And, Is it easier to forgive a cheater if you’ve cheated yourself? Taken together, these three questions had Ada bothered by Mason’s presence.

  If she knew for sure Preach had cheated, Ada might have lured Mason into a coat closet and made love to him.

  But she didn’t know, so she took him out onto the dance floor. She thought it the safest place in the room. She was wrong. Matt Mason started singing one of her father’s original songs, a song her daddy had sung to her over and over in her babyhood, into her ear, while the band played a long instrumental in the middle of “My Cherie Amour.”

  Then the band played “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” and they didn’t talk at all. They danced, and he danced different than Preach. It wasn’t better, it wasn’t worse, it was different and somehow interesting, particularly because his dancing different caused her to dance different. Delila, dancing with Joel Angel on the other side of the dance floor, smiled at Ada’s new “get down” moves. Ada held tighter to Mason. She thought: This man is a bomb I can use to blow up my life—or blow me out of it.

  He was talking about a lecture he was giving at the B. B. King Museum in Mississippi. He was joking about getting B.B. to play at one of the girls’ weddings. He was teasing her about running away with him to Los Angeles.

  These were missteps. She didn’t want any old man but Preach at her daughters’ weddings. She thought of all the parties her father had played for so many years, all the times he had sung covers instead of originals, and she knew her daddy’s blood, sweat, and tears were in the Southland. She would not leave the South. Preach had known that about her before she had known it about herself. Matt Mason was saying there were worlds of good she could do in South Central L.A. And worlds of good she could do with a black educational television show. He said all of this like he was talking as her friend, as a consultant, but he also seemed to say it in a way that was meant to imply she could be more to him. She couldn’t be.