by E. N. Joy
When Paige walked through the doorway, the room fell completely silent. The world just seconds ago had been spinning so fast, Paige thought she’d lose her balance. Now it had abruptly stopped, and Paige nearly toppled over, because she was still spinning. Her mind was, anyway. What was Tamarra going to say to her, if anything? What was Tamarra going to do? Could Tamarra even see and speak? Would she know who Paige was? These were the questions that had just hit Paige’s mind. It had been so crowded with so many other thoughts, she guessed that these had been waiting in the wings until there was sufficient room for them to join in.
Tamarra was lying there in her California king–size bed. She was surrounded by four king-size pillows with burgundy and gold linen pillowcases and was covered up by a nice thick matching comforter. She looked like a woman on her own private island. Paige used to tease Tamarra about being single yet having that big ole bed. She’d tried to tell her that if she got a smaller bed, it would make her bedroom look bigger and roomier. Tamarra had always replied that just in case she never found that man who treated her like a queen, she’d make sure the place where she laid her head was fit for a queen, and that it was.
Tamarra had hired a decorator to come in and decorate her room. From the drapes to the sitting area set up by her bay window, it was definitely like a throne. And right now Paige was feeling a little bit like Esther in the Book of Esther. She hadn’t gotten prior permission to enter. Would it be off with her head?
“P-Paige,” a weak Tamarra managed to get out.
Her voice was so low and flat, Paige couldn’t read it one way or the other. Because Tamarra’s body was covered, Paige couldn’t see it, but if her sunken-in face was any sign, Tamarra was probably paper thin.
“Hi, Tamarra,” Paige greeted.
Tamarra just lay there, staring at Paige. She was in pure disbelief. “Paige, is that really you?” she finally asked.
Paige nodded, still not sure in which direction things were going to go. “Yes, Tamarra, it’s really me,” she confirmed.
Tamarra stared at Paige for a few more seconds before she parted her lips to say, “Get out.”
Paige stood frozen stiff at Tamarra’s words. The way her blood seemed to chill, she probably really was frozen. Her breath got caught, and she couldn’t breathe out. Good thing, because all of a sudden it was so icy in the room that if she had been able to breathe, a puff of frost would have formed before her face.
“Tamarra, what did you say?” Mrs. Evans asked as she walked toward her daughter.
With her eyes still glued on Paige, Tamarra repeated, “Get . . . out. . . .” She swallowed and steadied her breath. “Please.” She looked around at everyone in the room. “Do you all mind? Just for a moment?” She looked at her mom. “I’d like to talk to Paige alone.” Tamarra began to cough.
“You okay?” asked Unique, Lorain’s daughter, as she sat next to Tamarra. “Here. Drink some water.” Unique grabbed a water bottle filled with ice and water that was sitting on the nightstand next to the bed. She lifted it to Tamarra’s mouth and squeezed it.
Tamarra looked relieved to take in the cold liquid. After a few seconds, Unique moved the water bottle away from Tamarra’s mouth. “Ahhh,” Tamarra said.
“You need some more?” Unique asked with much concern.
Tamarra shook her head.
“Okay, well, we’ll give you guys some time alone,” Unique said. She stood up.
There was a woman in scrubs, who Paige assumed was the nurse, in a chair over in the sitting area. She had been reading a book but had been torn away from its pages by Tamarra’s coughing fit. She stood as well. There were two other women in the room, and they were standing on the opposite side of the bed from where Unique had been sitting.
“I’ll fix everybody some tea and coffee,” Mrs. Evans offered. She was the first to exit the room, patting Paige on the shoulder as she walked by.
Unique followed Mrs. Evans, and when she got to Paige, she stopped and gave her a hug. “Hey, Sister Paige,” Unique said, squeezing her tightly. She knew Paige and Tamarra’s history. It blessed her soul to see that Paige had come to see about Tamarra in her final days. “I’ll be praying out there,” Unique said as she broke from the hug and headed out the door.
The other two women, Paige did not recognize. They could have been women from the church Tamarra now attended or maybe her new best friends. A twinge of jealousy bounced throughout Paige’ spirit. She smiled at the women, and they each gave her a friendly smile as they exited the room. The nurse followed behind them.
“Can you close?” Tamarra asked Paige, nodding to the door.
Paige looked behind her at the open door. “Oh, sure.” She immediately turned and closed it. She then just stood in front of the now closed door.
“Hot in here,” Tamarra complained with a frown.
Paige walked over and pulled Tamarra’s covers down some. She stared at Tamarra’s frail body and her skin, which looked so aged due to dryness and wrinkling. Her hair was long, and it flowed in front of her shoulders and down to her breasts. Her eyes looked lifeless, almost as if she’d given up even before her body had. Seeing Tamarra like this melted any remnants of coldness Paige might have ever exhibited with this woman. She felt no bitterness and no hate, only sympathy and compassion.
“Sorry, I didn’t call,” Paige began.
Tamarra raised her bony, flimsy arm. She struggled to hold her hand up to halt Paige’s words. She shook her head. “Thank you so much for coming,” she said, and she then coughed.
The cough, to Paige’s ears, sounded so painful. Apparently, Tamarra had had something in her throat, because after she finished hacking, she seemed to be able to speak in clearer sentences.
“I don’t know if you came to cuss me out, to come spit on my grave, to tell me this is what I deserve, or to—”
“Please, Tamarra, don’t. None of those are reasons why I’m here,” Paige said. “I would never come here to say those things to you.”
“Bet you’re thinking it.” Tamarra coughed.
Paige walked over and retrieved the water bottle she’d seen Unique give Tamarra a drink from. She lifted the bottle to Tamarra’s lips and squeezed. Back when Paige used to listen to rap music all the time, she recalled how a very popular rapper died from complications from AIDS. He had AIDS-related pneumocystis pneumonia. His death had been so sudden that it rocked the hip-hop world. She wondered if that’s what Tamarra was experiencing, but didn’t dare ask. None of that had anything to do with her just being there for her friend right now. Tamarra took a drink and then held up her hand to signal that she’d had enough. Water dripped from her mouth. Paige looked around and saw a box of tissue on the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed. She walked over, grabbed one, then dabbed the water that was dripping from Tamarra’s mouth.
“Thank you,” Tamarra said.
“You’re welcome.” Paige sat the water bottle down next to the tissue box.
There was silence. During the silence Paige allowed her eyes to wander, as if she was admiring the room. She could hardly bear seeing Tamarra like this.
Tamarra started to speak. “I’m sorry, Paige. Don’t want to beat around the bush. My days are numbered. Years have already passed. Don’t want another minute to pass without saying I’m so sorry.” She took a deep breath, as if saying the words had used up a lot of her breath.
“Tamarra I’ve already forgiven you,” Paige said. “Truly I have.”
“I know you said you forgave me, but you kept away from me like I had the plague.” She looked down at her body. “Guess now I really do have the plague.” She gave a laugh, which turned into a cough. Paige reached for the water, but Tamarra held her hand up to let her know she was okay.
“Tamarra, you do not need to apologize to me again.”
“Please, Paige, let me do this. I’ve carried it with me for years. Please don’t let me have to take it to my grave.” She swallowed and paced herself. “I want to own up to everything. I want to apologize f
or everything.”
Paige put her head down and shook it. “Tamarra, I didn’t come here to rehash the past. When I heard my best friend was sick, I came running. I practically left my fiancé standing at the altar in order to come see about you. Girl, my being here should show you that I forgive you, that I love you. That at the end of the day, nothing you ever did or ever said matters. What matters most is you, and me being here to make sure that you know that no matter what, I love you. I’ve always loved you. I will always love you.”
“If you break out in Whitney Houston’s most famous song, I’m going to die . . . not that I’m not going to die, anyhow.” Tamarra laughed. She coughed.
“I see you still have your sense of humor,” Paige said, laughing lightly.
“Yeah, at this point all I can do is laugh. I gotta laugh to keep from crying.” Tamarra turned serious. “Because every time I thought about leaving this earth without talking to the best friend I’ve ever had in my life, all I could do was cry.”
Paige nodded her understanding. There had been times when she’d thought about Tamarra and her past relationship, and it had brought tears to her eyes that they were no longer even cordial with one another. But then the tears would turn into tears of hurt. All the pain would try to come to the forefront. So in order to push it away, she had had to push all thoughts of Tamarra away.
“We were like Laverne and Shirley, huh?” Paige said.
“Lucy and Ethel.”
“Frick and Frack.”
Both women laughed.
Once their laughter died down, Tamarra spoke. “I’m sorry I ruined all that with the whole Blake incident. Secretly setting you up with him. Having slept with him.”
“Please, Tamarra.” It was like nails down a chalkboard for Paige to hear it all. She’d just had to hear it all over again from Blake. Enough was enough, already.
“Paige, this guilt and shame I’ve been carrying were killing me long before I ever knew this disease was. I did you wrong. You might not believe me when I say that I truly never meant to hurt you, but I didn’t. I hooked you up with a man I had already been with, and then I slept with him again . . . after you two got together. When people who weren’t there to witness our downfall ask me about how come I don’t hang out with you anymore, I can’t even bring myself to tell them the truth. Not even my own parents know what a low-down, conniving, and backstabbing friend I was to you.” Tamarra coughed a few times while she spoke, but managed to get out everything she wanted to say.
“Come on, Tamarra.” Paige hadn’t even put Tamarra down as much as she was now putting herself down. She honestly had not come there to get a deathbed confession from Tamarra.
“It’s the truth. Call a thing a thing. I’ve watched Iyanla: Fix My Life enough times to know that I’m a thing. But I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about it all. Every lie, every moment of deceit, and about connecting you with a man who I knew meant the female species no good. I placed you in death’s path, and now look at me.” She raised her arms as best she could and then allowed them to fall.
“For the record, yes, I was upset,” Paige admitted. “And hurt and disappointed. But some of the things you are saying, I never—”
“You never said them to me,” Tamarra interrupted. “You never said them to anyone else, at least not that I heard. But at your angriest times, you had to have thought it, felt it. Because I know I sure did,” Tamarra said. “When we were friends, when I used to hurt, you would hurt. When you would hurt, I would hurt, so when I hurt you . . . I was hurting as well. If that makes any sense.”
“It does,” Paige said. “And even though I did not come here seeking any type of apology from you whatsoever, I hear you. I hear your apology and the things you are apologizing for specifically, and I accept your apology. It is truly water under the bridge. I don’t want to speak about it, and I don’t want to think about it ever again. Okay?”
Tamarra nodded. “Okay.”
“But since we are apologizing, I’m sorry for just completely cutting you off.”
“I did hand you the scissors,” Tamarra acknowledged.
“I’m sorry for getting physical with you,” Paige continued. “I’m sorry for turning you away when you were trying to be there for me when I was going through that mess with Blake. I may not have wanted to be a friend to you, but in the midst of it all, you were still willing to try to be a friend to me. And Lord knows, I could have used one.” Paige looked down.
“I get it,” Tamarra said. “And I accept your apology. Like you said, it’s water under the bridge. So we can start anew in fresh waters. How about that?”
Paige smiled. She began to fight back tears. “I just wish I hadn’t waited so long,” she said as her tears fell faster and flowed down her face. “There is just so much wasted time. So many things we could have done together. Moments we could have shared.” Paige sniffed. “You were supposed to be my children’s godmother.”
Tamarra became teary eyed as well. “I thought we agreed to move forward, not backward.”
Paige grabbed a tissue and wiped her tears away. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“So, this fresh start . . . Is it as friends, associates, or can we pick up where we left off and just be best friends?”
Paige looked at Tamarra. “Looks like what you need right now is a best friend.”
“I think you’re right,” Tamarra said. “So in that case, can you pull open that drawer please?” Tamarra nodded to the nightstand that Paige was standing next to.
“This top drawer?” Paige asked as she bent to open the drawer. Tamarra nodded and Paige opened the drawer.
“There should be a document right there on top somewhere.”
Paige fumbled around in the drawer a little bit.
“You’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it,” Tamarra remarked.
Paige was a bit confused at first, but then she knew instantly what Tamarra was referring to when she saw a document drafted to look as if it was an official court document. Paige paused, stared at it for a moment, and then slowly pulled it out of the drawer. She looked at Tamarra, then back at the document.
Using every ounce of strength she had, Tamarra turned her body toward the other nightstand and reached for the drawer. Paige raced around to the other side of the bed in an attempt to help her.
“Let me help you with that.”
“No,” Tamarra snapped. “I have to do this.” She coughed.
Paige got tired and worked up a sweat herself just watching Tamarra scoot across the bed and open the drawer. It reminded her of the times she’d taught Adele or Norma to do something that they were having a hard time achieving. She’d wanted so badly to help them do it or to do it for them, but she could see their desire to accomplish the task themselves, without her.
Tamarra fiddled around in the drawer until she got her hands on whatever it was she was looking for. She finally pulled her hands out of the drawer, and dangling from her fingers was a pair of scissors. She lay flat on the bed, huffing and puffing, catching her breath. “I didn’t have a problem handing you the scissors to cut me off. So it only makes sense that I hand you the scissors to get rid of the document you gave me to cut me off officially.”
Paige looked down at the document she had retrieved from Tamarra’s nightstand drawer. She remembered it well. It was the document she’d had Rudy draw up for her. It officially documented the fact that Paige was divorcing Tamarra as a friend. Paige looked up and saw that Tamarra was extending the scissors to her. Paige reached for the scissors, touching Tamarra’s hand in the process. She took the scissors from Tamarra’s hand and then proceeded to cut the document into pieces. Once Paige was all done, she threw the pieces into the trash can next to Tamarra’s dresser.
“As far as I’m concerned, it never existed,” Paige declared.
Tamarra smiled as she slid her hand forward and then extended it to Paige. “Friends?”
Paige stared at Tamarra’s fragile hand as it quivered in the ai
r. She reached out and took Tamarra’s hand in hers. She then looked into Tamarra’s eyes and said, “Best friends.”
“Forever,” Tamarra whispered.
Chapter 30
After Paige and Tamarra made their rekindled friendship official, the nurse and the other visitors, minus one, returned to the room. Paige excused herself and stepped out into the hallway to make a call. She had to call Samantha to let her know what was going on.
“Hey, Sam. How’s it going?”
“It’s going great. The girls and I just got back to my place,” Samantha said through the phone receiver. “I thought you guys would be up in the air. Are you at a layover or something?”
Paige exhaled. “There was a slight change in plans. I uh, didn’t get on the plane.”
“What?” Samantha said, shocked.
“Did you get the girls’ book bags?” Paige asked, setting up the story to tell Samantha.
“Yes, a Lorain gave them to me.”
“Yeah, well, Lorain used to attend my church. We have mutual friends. Long story short, she shared with me that one of my best friends, who I hadn’t been in touch with for years, was dying.”
“Oh, no! That’s horrible.”
Just then Paige heard the doorbell ring. She continued talking with Samantha. “Yes, and she also told me that the doctors didn’t think she would make it through the week. So I just couldn’t get on that plane, knowing there was a chance she might be gone when I returned.”
“I completely get it. But what did everyone else say about canceling the trip?”
“Everyone else went. I’m the only one who stayed behind,” Paige said.
“Oh, my.”
“But, anyway, I was wondering, since you planned on keeping the girls for a week, anyway . . . I’d really appreciate it if—”
“Say no more,” Samantha said before Paige could even finish her sentence. “You spend every moment you can with your dear friend. And if you need anything, anything at all, you just let me know.”
Paige let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much, Samantha. Girl, I love you so much. You have always been there for me and the girls.”