by Pearl Cleage
Blue and Abbie talked about past lives the way most people talk about high school. It was disconcerting to people who didn’t know them well, and truth be told, it sometimes startled people who knew them very well. Out of consideration, they refrained from such references as much as possible, but around each other, there was no such prohibition. They spoke freely, effortlessly moving back and forth between the centuries.
Blue had always accepted his past lives. Abbie had come to her understanding of this phenomenon later in life after she started having visions. Initially, she’d been a little nervous about this new gift, but when one of her visions predicted Blue’s entrance into Regina’s life so perfectly that even her sometimes skeptical niece could not deny it, she stopped being nervous and embraced her second sight with curiosity and enthusiasm. She printed up cards identifying herself as a “visionary adviser” and never looked back.
At this moment, Abbie was enjoying the quiet of Blue’s company, the gentle pull of the water around her ankles as the tide receded, the perfect blue of the cloudless sky just before sunset splashed on the colors of day’s end. She was delighted at the baby news, but there was a question she wanted to ask. Blue had been in other worlds, other places. He had been a full-grown man many times before he met Regina and Abbie had to know.
“Blue?”
Turning to her, he took off his sunglasses and she smiled. Something about those eyes made her feel happy. In beach light, they were somehow less startling. Reflecting sky and sea and sand, they seemed just one more natural wonder.
“Yes, Miss Abbie?”
Blue had affectionately adopted the Southern custom of adding Miss to her first name to show both love and respect.
“Is this baby your first one?”
“Yes.”
She wasn’t sure she’d been clear. “I don’t mean just this time around. I mean ever.”
He smiled. “I know what you mean.”
Abbie smiled back. “Good. I’m glad for Regina.”
“Would it matter?”
“No,” Abbie said thoughtfully. “I don’t guess it would. It’s just that you’ve already had so many lives, so many experiences. It’s nice for her to be the first at something.”
“Just like you were.”
A trio of low-flying pelicans were scanning the waves for dinner possibilities and the shrimp boats were coming in with their usual escort of hungry gulls.
“Just like I was what?”
“The first at something.” He hadn’t replaced his glasses, but he was gazing out at the horizon again.
“Stop being so mysterious.” Abbie dug her toes into the warm sand. “What are you talking about?”
“You were my first wife,” he said, without turning in her direction.
Abbie felt herself blush. His wife? Even as a practicing visionary adviser, she had a hard time getting her mind around such an idea. She suddenly felt intensely disloyal to her niece.
“Where was Gina?”
“She was my adviser, my confidante, my conscience, my muse, although she’d probably deny that one.”
“Go on,” Abbie said.
“By the time she came to the palace, I already had three wives. It would have been greedy and scandalous to take another one just because I could.”
“Three wives? I thought you said…”
“You were the first,” he said. “Not the only.”
“Typical king behavior.” She laughed. “So what was my relationship to Gina? Did I know her?”
“She made you very nervous.”
“Why?”
“Because she was a rebel. You were a wife.”
“Couldn’t I be both?”
“Not in those days.”
Blue turned suddenly and looked over his shoulder as if someone had called his name. Abbie followed his gaze and saw Regina standing on the back deck waving a long blue scarf to get their attention. They waved back, and as she beckoned for them to come inside for dinner, the scarf she was holding blew out of her hand and fluttered out of reach. Carried by the wind, it undulated like a gossamer ribbon with a life of its own. Blue took two steps forward, and as the scarf fluttered just over his head, he reached up and plucked it out of the air like picking an apple off a tree. From the balcony, Regina applauded with delight like a child at the circus.
Abbie laughed and shook her head. “You two Negroes make such pretty pictures, you ought to be in the movies.”
Blue grinned at her. “I thought this was a movie.”
She linked her arm through his and they started back up to the house, knowing Peachy didn’t like folks to be late for dinner. “Was I a good wife?”
“You were a wonderful wife.”
“Then why did you take two more?”
He patted her hand where it rested on his arm, lightly, like the touch of a butterfly’s wing. “I was trying to produce an heir.”
She stopped in her tracks and looked up at him. “You’re kidding, right?”
“The king was required to produce an heir.” His voice was apologetic, as though he might still be held responsible for a two-hundred-year-old heartache. “We had been together five years and had no children. I had to take another wife. Then in five years, one more.”
“And none of us produced an heir?”
“Or I didn’t.” He smiled and looped the blue silk scarf that still carried his wife’s scent around Abbie’s shoulders.
She started walking again, but she was clearly deep in thought. When they reached the back steps, they could smell the spicy seafood that Peachy had prepared and see Regina through the window, setting a bowl of flowers in the middle of the table. She was smiling. These days, Abbie thought, Regina was always smiling.
“Do you think this is the one?” she said, stopping again halfway up the stairs. “Is this your heir?”
Blue leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’m not the king anymore. This time, I get to just be Daddy.”
They both knew Blue was never just one thing. Abbie smiled, but she had one more question before they went inside.
“Have you ever told Peachy about me being a past-life wife?”
He laughed. “It never came up.”
“Well, don’t. I don’t think he’s ready for that particular piece of our personal history.”
“No problem,” Blue said, reaching for the sliding-glass door and winking at Abbie. “This time around, it’ll be our secret.”
24
Lee couldn’t have been in a better mood. Her meeting with Precious had gone exactly as she’d hoped it would. The possibility of an innovative partnership with the new mayoral front-runner pleased the police-department brass and further burnished Lee’s growing reputation as someone who could get things done. Add to that the bonus of having a chance to rub Bob Watson’s nose in his recent political disaster and, to Lee’s way of thinking, you had the makings of a perfect evening. She was looking forward to some spirited verbal jousting and then some equally spirited sex. The fact that she was planning to cut Bob loose soon didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy what she knew would be one of their last few times together.
Driving slowly up the long, winding driveway to Bob’s house, she wondered what Marian Watson would say if she knew that while she was away for a week at the most recent in a long line of spas she visited in search of the skin she’d had at twenty-one, her house was going to be the scene of her husband’s infidelity one more time. Lee didn’t care. She felt no loyalty to Marian and enjoyed the times she and Bob had the house to themselves. Her only concession was to refuse sex in the master bedroom. That was going too far.
She pulled around to the back of the house, cut the lights, and got out, smoothing her skirt over her hips. Lee had made Bob wait a year before she had sex with him. He’d raised the possibility almost immediately and she turned him down flat, saying she had no interest in being just another of the girls Bob Watson used to fuck.
“It’s a very exclusive club,” he had teased, gliding past his
disappointment. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
He wasn’t sure exactly what made her change her mind. She wasn’t sure either. Maybe it was just a moment when her curiosity got the better of her. They had dinner at her place one night to handle some business transactions, and after they had coffee, she put down her cup and asked him if he was still interested in having sex with her. He said absolutely and put down his cup, too. To their mutual surprise and satisfaction, they were good together. Bob was in his midfifties and she had expected one of those endless Viagra erections, but Bob was the real thing.
After that, they had sex regularly without the need to pretend they were in love or wanted to be. In fact, their relationship remained primarily that of co-conspirators and business partners. The sex was simply an unexpected bonus, but tonight Bob wasn’t holding up his end of the bargain. His invitation had been explicitly sexual, but when she arrived, sex was the last thing on his mind. He was watching the eleven o’clock news and fussing. Standing in the beautiful living room of his perfectly designed, tastefully appointed house, sipping hundred-year-old brandy from an oversize crystal snifter, he was not happy.
“I despise that woman,” Bob said, frowning as Precious Hargrove conducted another interview about her political future on his wall-size, flat-screen, high-definition television.
The interview was just a short feature on the local news and Lee was surprised at the vehemence of Bob’s response. In past conversations in which Precious’s name came up, he had been at most mildly irritated. This aggressive dislike was new. Maybe because a Hargrove candidacy suddenly had a lot more currency since Bob’s choice, the former front-runner, had just been forced to withdraw on charges of massive corruption. In supporting the guy against Lee’s advice, Bob had put his eggs in the wrong basket, and he knew it. Lee knew it, too.
“Despise her?” Lee sat down on the couch and hoped this mood was temporary. “Why?”
“She’s bad for business,” he snapped, like the answer was almost too obvious to suffer the question.
“Then why do you always give money to her campaigns and causes?”
“Because that’s how Atlanta works,” he snapped. “Haven’t I taught you anything at all? We’re both power players. I don’t have to like her and she doesn’t have to like me. All I have to do is give her money and all she has to do is return my call personally.”
“What call?”
“Whatever call I make! All the money I’ve coughed up for her lousy state-senate campaigns and statewide voter education drives buys me a personal callback from the lady herself. It may not be worth much now, but who knows?” He groaned suddenly. “Jesus! Listen to me! I’ve already elected her just like they have! What are you drinking?”
“Perrier.” Lee watched Bob pour the warm sparkling water into a glass without asking if she wanted ice or a wedge of lime. He handed her the glass and sat back down beside her as she took a sip of the tepid liquid. “The chamber of commerce doesn’t seem to think she’s bad for business.”
“Are you talking about that quote in the paper this morning about how pleased they were that she was considering getting in the race?” Bob snorted with disgust. “That bunch of hicks and boosters! They wouldn’t know a good deal if it bit them in the ass!”
He took a big swallow of his cognac and sighed. “I’ve had eight long years of this damn do-gooder drought. Mayor Franklin’s so clean she practically squeaks when she walks. Now here comes Senator Hargrove, another Girl Scout. You can’t even do business in this town anymore since the bitches took over.”
Lee kicked off her heels and tucked her feet beneath her. His frustration amused her. “Maybe you just don’t know how to talk to women.”
“I do all right with you,” he said, glancing over at her long, shapely legs and seeming to see her for the first time that night.
“Yeah,” Lee said, “but I have a vested interest.”
He touched her knee lightly. “What kind of vested interest?”
“I need you to help me get what I want.”
He fell back, feigning shock and disappointment. “You mean you’re using me?”
“Don’t think of it like that.” She grinned at him. “What are a few faked orgasms in the wider scheme of things?”
Bob winced. “Now you’re just being cruel.”
“Sorry.”
Taking another swallow of his drink, he tried to let it go, but he was still annoyed at the sudden change in his political fortunes. “It’s just that I’ve been here when the mayor didn’t do business, like now, and I’ve been here when the mayor knew what time it was, and trust me, there’s a difference.”
“You’re doing all right.”
He frowned at her. “I have no interest in doing all right.”
“Stop worrying.” She wondered what he would say if he knew she had already met with Precious and offered support.
“I always worry. That’s why I’m rich.”
“Well, what do you propose?”
“I need to find another viable candidate who can beat Precious Hargrove.”
Lee raised her eyebrows. “Who did you have in mind?”
“There are other candidates in the race besides that fool who’s on his way to the pen. Maybe one of them will step up.”
“They’re a sorry bunch of party hacks and clueless community activists and you know it,” Lee said. “They couldn’t beat Precious Hargrove if the election was five years away. If that’s your plan, you need a better one.”
He stood up and paced around the room. “Okay, you’re right. None of them could beat her now, but what if her image got tarnished somehow?”
“Like how?”
“I don’t know. What if she had a lover?”
“She’s not married.”
“How about a lesbian lover?” Bob looked hopeful.
“That’s not really an issue anymore, remember?”
She wondered if he had forgotten that an openly gay woman had already been elected president of the Atlanta City Council.
“All right, then,” he said, still pacing. “What about her relationship with Hamilton?”
“Blue Hamilton? How do you see that as a liability? He’s as close as this town’s got to Robin Hood. People love him.”
“People loved Al Capone, too.”
“But he couldn’t sing and make your toes curl up.”
“Spare me your sexual fantasies.” Bob sneered.
“I’ll remember you said that, but if Blue Hamilton is her only liability, you’re fucked.”
“No, we’re fucked.”
“Speak for yourself,” Lee said pleasantly. “You’re the one who needs a new candidate.”
“Last time I checked, you did, too.”
“I’ve got one.”
“Who?”
“Precious Hargrove, of course. I had an appointment with her today to talk about the peace precinct.”
Bob was taken aback. First, because he had been scornful of the whole idea, taking the insane position that any woman who allowed herself to be abused deserved whatever she got. Second, because he didn’t like surprises. “When were you going to tell me?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“I see. Did you use the opportunity to kiss a little ass?”
Lee ignored that. “All I know is, she’s going to be the mayor as sure as we’re sitting here. If I play it right, I’ll be a serious contender for the chief’s spot.”
“There’s lots of guys ahead of you in line, remember?”
“Never underestimate the power of the sisterhood,” she said, draining her glass.
He stared at her, then smiled slowly. “I admire your foresight, Captain Kilgore.”
Men were forever underestimating her. Bob was no different. “Thank you.”
“She’s still bad for business,” he said, touching her knee again, mollified now by the fact that Lee was already on the case. Maybe this cloud could still have a silver lining.
&nb
sp; “Depends on what business you’re in.”
He ran his finger under the edge of her hem. “And what business are you in?”
“My own business.” She didn’t lean toward him, but she didn’t move away.
“Still don’t trust me, huh?”
“Never did, never will.”
“I thought women couldn’t love a man they didn’t trust.”
“Who said anything about love? Weren’t we talking about business?”
“Just checking.” He grinned, reaching over slowly to run his fingers lightly over the slippery silk of her blouse. “Where’s your cop uniform?”
“In the trunk of my car.”
“Go get it.”
“Fuck you.”
“Exactly.”
25
General had been in Montre’s for the last four nights. He didn’t even pretend to be doing business anymore. He was coming to see Brandi and they both knew it. With Blue down at Tybee again, General could set his own schedule, and for now, that schedule revolved around Brandi. Sometimes she’d dance for him. Sometimes he’d pay her just to have a drink. Sometimes he’d make arrangements to see her later. He always had money and he always gave her more than she expected. She rewarded him by being available whenever and wherever and by enthusiastically sharing her full repertoire of sexual tricks and treats with him.
Tonight, she saw him come in just as she was finishing up her pole routine. The stage was covered with dollar bills and two guys down front were on their feet throwing fives as she grabbed the pole, turned herself upside down, and shook herself silly in her trademark big finish. Her legs were open as wide as she could spread them. Her breasts were jiggling wildly and her butt was bouncing so fast it looked like it had a life of its own.
“Goddamn, girl, you shake that thing!” somebody shouted as she slid slowly to the floor, scooped up her money, and strutted off the stage to enthusiastic applause from the house.
She could have sold ten lap dances right then, but she acted like she didn’t even see the men waving fives and even a few tens in her direction. She was headed for General’s table. She got close enough for him to smell the sweat running off of her body and then stopped as if she’d just spotted him for the first time.