Clarice couldn’t concentrate on the movie enough to laugh or cry. She was still dwelling on her visit to Odette and James’s house. She watched her handsome husband and thought, Would you do that for me? Would you do my hair for me if I was too sick to lift my arms and do it myself?
The answer she came up with was a decisive yes.
Yes, Richmond would style her hair if she was sick. He would do it for her and do it with no complaints. And he would probably do it well. Those big, beautiful hands of his were capable of anything he put his mind to doing with them.
But she also knew that one night, as Richmond combed through her hair, their phone would ring and he would go to answer it. After he hung up, he would return to her with a lie already worked out to explain why he had to leave for just a little while. She would sit, hair half done, smiling in her sickbed, and pretend to believe his lie as he scooted out the door. If she was lucky, there would be no mirror in the room in which she might catch a glimpse of her face contorted into an imitation of that lovely, soft expression that came over Odette’s face so naturally when she gazed at James.
That vision was in Clarice’s head when she stood up from the sofa, walked over to the television, and turned it off.
Richmond said, “Hey, what are you doing?” He lifted the remote from where it rested on his lap and pointed it at the television. But Clarice was standing in the way and the set wouldn’t respond.
When she didn’t move, he asked, “What’s going on?”
She said, “Richmond, I can’t live with you anymore.” It came out easily and sounded totally natural, even though her heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear her own voice.
He said, “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m tired. I’m tired of you, tired of us. Mostly I’m tired of me. And I know I can’t live with you anymore.”
He let out a long sigh and set down the remote. Then he spoke to her in the low, calming tone people reserve for interactions with hysterical children and brain-damaged adults. “Now, Clarice, I’m not sure what’s gotten into you that you think you need to make this fuss right now, but I want you to know that I’m sympathetic. You’ve gone through a lot lately with Odette being sick, your mother’s problems, and whatever’s going on with Barbara Jean. And I understand that the change can hit some women extra hard, mess up your hormones and everything. But I think you should remember what the truth is. And the truth is, I’ve never pretended to be anything other than the man I am.
“Not that I’m claiming to be perfect. Listen, I’m more than willing to accept my portion of the blame for a situation or two that may have hurt you. But I have to say that I believe most women would envy the honesty we have between us. At least you know who your husband is.”
She nodded. “You’re right, Richmond. You never pretended to be anyone other than the man you are. And that might be the saddest part for me. I really should have helped you be a better man than this. Because, sweetheart, the man you are just isn’t good enough.”
That came out meaner than she had intended it to. She really wasn’t angry—well, no angrier than usual. She wasn’t sure what she felt. She had always assumed that if this moment ever came she would be yelling and crying and trying to decide whether to burn his clothes or glue his testicles to his thighs while he slept, the way women on afternoon TV always seemed to be doing to their unfaithful men. Now mostly she felt fatigue and a sadness that left no room for histrionics.
Richmond shook his head in disbelief and said, “Something’s not right about this. Really, I’m worried about you. You should get a checkup or something. This could be a symptom of something bad.”
“No, it’s not a symptom,” Clarice said, “but it might be the cure.”
Richmond hopped up from the sofa. His shock and confusion had faded. Now he was only mad. He started to pace back and forth. “This is Odette’s idea, isn’t it? It’s got to be her idea, all the time you’ve been spending with her.”
“No, this idea is all mine. Odette’s idea was to castrate you back in 1971. Since then she’s kept quiet on the subject of you.”
He stopped pacing then and tried a different approach. He walked over until he stood close to her. Smiling his slickest, most seductive smile, he put his hands on her arms and began to stroke them up and down.
“Clarice, Clarice,” he whispered, “there’s no need to go on like this. We can work this out.”
He pulled her to him, saying, “Here’s what I think. Let’s plan a little trip together. Maybe go see Carolyn in Massachusetts. Would you enjoy that? I could buy you a new car and we could make it a road trip. Just you and me.”
His mouth was at her ear now. “Just tell me what you want me to do, baby. Tell me what I can do.” This was Richmond at his best, Richmond the lover. That part of their relationship had always been perfect. But now, when she thought about his extraordinary abilities in the arena of lovemaking, she was forced to think about the countless hours he’d spent honing those skills with other women.
Clarice put her hand on his chest and pushed him away. She shoved him harder than she meant to and he lost his balance for a second. She was shocked by how good it felt to see him stagger, on the brink of crashing ass-backwards into the glass-topped coffee table.
She said, “Evolve, Richmond. What I want you to do is evolve.”
He started pacing again, faster this time. “I don’t get it. All these years and you pull this on me now. You had plenty of time to say something if you weren’t happy. This is on you, Clarice.” And more softly, to himself, “This is not my fault.”
She could see the gears turning as he tried to figure a way out of this. When he couldn’t come up with a way to turn things around, he settled on rage. He stalked up to her and bent over so his square chin was just inches from her nose. His breath hot on his wife’s face, Richmond said, “And I’ll tell you something, Clarice, I’m not moving out. This is my house every bit as much as it is yours. More, actually, since I paid for it. So, you’d better think this foolishness through a little more.”
He crossed his arms over his broad chest and stood up straight, looking satisfied that he’d made his point successfully and put her tantrum in its proper place.
Clarice walked out of the living room then, and headed toward the stairs and their bedroom. She said, “That’s okay, Richmond. You’re welcome to stay here. I’ll leave.”
That night, after stopping by Odette’s place to pick up the keys, Clarice carried a suitcase of clothes and a cosmetics bag into the front door of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson’s old house in Leaning Tree. When her piano was delivered two days later, Clarice inaugurated this new phase of her life by playing Beethoven’s melancholy, powerful, and joyful Les Adieux Sonata and allowed the second love of her life to reassure her that she’d done the right thing in leaving the first.
Chapter 23
Despite Clarice’s pleas, her parents maintained their insistence that Odette chaperone all of their daughter’s dates throughout her senior year of high school. Barbara Jean was as disinterested in dating boys as boys were eager to date her, or so it appeared at the time. So she often came along to keep Odette company. From Clarice’s standpoint, the situation was tolerable when it was just the Supremes and Richmond out for the evening. Richmond, the lone male among a group of females, enjoyed the appearance that he was keeping a harem. And Odette and Barbara Jean were good about giving her some time alone with Richmond. The arrangement was upended when Barbara Jean began to decline Clarice’s invitations in order to spend more time with Chick. Claiming she had taken on extra hours at the salon, Barbara Jean withdrew from the foursome.
So Richmond dragged James Henry along again. Late nights out came to an end and conversations about topsoil resumed. Even on the rare occasions when Clarice was granted an extended curfew, usually as a reward for a well-reviewed piano performance or as a way to end her relentless begging, the presence of sleepy James was guaranteed to cut the evening short. Finally, a
fter one too many nights of getting back home before ten o’clock, Clarice put her foot down and demanded that Richmond find someone for Odette who kept grown-up hours. That was when Richmond began bringing Ramsey Abrams along to serve as Odette’s date.
Ramsey was a night owl, but he was also an idiot. Odette spent the evenings she was paired up with him cruelly mocking the stream of inane blather that poured out of him. And if Ramsey noticed her sharpening her claws on him, he was content to ignore it for the opportunity to spend a few hours ogling Odette’s breasts.
Odette didn’t appear to be bothered by James’s absence from date nights. She only asked Richmond once what had become of James, and that single inquiry was phrased as a question about the health of James’s mother. After Richmond told her that Mrs. Henry was no better or worse as far as he knew, Odette didn’t ask about James again.
Switching out James for Ramsey worked fine as far as Clarice was concerned. She and Richmond saw more of each other than they’d been able to for a long time. They stayed out later, usually meeting at Earl’s and then going for a ride or to a party or somewhere in Louisville when they had time. Ramsey had just enough sense not to make the potentially fatal mistake of copping a feel off Odette, and she seemed amused to have Ramsey around to insult. Everybody won.
After several late nights with Ramsey, Odette and Clarice showed up at the All-You-Can-Eat one Friday night in March assuming that Ramsey and Richmond would be waiting for them at the window table. Instead, James Henry sat in the chair to Richmond’s left.
Clarice walked over to the table and said hello. Then she took Richmond aside to express her disapproval. She said, “What is he doing here?”
Richmond said, “It’ll be all right, I swear.” In response to her raised eyebrow, he added, “The thing is, James really likes her. He found out I’d been bringing Ramsey along for Odette and he got so mad I was scared he was gonna take a swing at me.”
He was exaggerating just a bit. Richmond hadn’t really worried that he’d be attacked when James barged into Richmond’s dorm room the night before. Either of Richmond’s biceps was nearly as big around as James’s waist, so even if James had violence on his mind, Richmond knew any danger posed by him was minimal. Still, Richmond had been amazed to see James that agitated. It wasn’t James’s way.
James had worked like a grown man to help support himself and his mother since he was thirteen years old. In high school, when Richmond and the other guys were playing sports or sharing a bottle of rotgut whiskey in the woods, James was likely to be at home cooking and cleaning. And James never showed any sign of being justifiably pissed off about any of it or even seemed to notice that he was being cheated, not that Richmond saw, at least. But there James had been, jabbing his bony finger into Richmond’s chest and yelling about Odette Jackson, of all things. Richmond had wanted to laugh, but instead he promised James he would help him.
Richmond put his big hands on Clarice’s arms and slowly slid them from her shoulders to her elbows and back again, trying to massage away her anger.
He said, “It’ll be good, really. I told James exactly what to say to her. I gave him some great lines to use. And I filled him up with coffee before we got here. It’s going to work. Trust me.”
When they got back to the table, James was saying, “So tell your mother she should put herbs in her perennial border to keep pests down.” Then James sat back and began silently studying Odette the way he always did after he had run out of gardening talk, as if he were a scientist and she was something rare he’d spotted growing in a petri dish. Odette stared back at James, her mouth set in a scowl. If he had tried any of those good lines Richmond claimed to have given him, Clarice assumed that they must not have worked.
As they sipped pop and ate chicken wings, Richmond and Clarice tried to keep some sort of conversation going. But neither Odette nor James talked. James just watched Odette with a mixture of affection and curiosity while she squinted back at him with an expression that approached fury.
Richmond talked about maybe driving down to Louisville and checking out a dance club he had heard about. Clarice suggested that they stop by a secluded place by the river on the way back.
The plans for the evening were just about finalized when Odette blew up. “What the hell is wrong with you, James Henry?” She leaned toward him until their noses were just inches apart and said, “I’m so sick of you staring at me like I’m gonna sprout another head all of a sudden. This is how I look, James. If you don’t like it, you can just go stare at somebody else.” She sat back in her chair then. “Now, you got something to say? Or do you just wanna stare some more?”
James looked surprised and then embarrassed. He broke eye contact with Odette and watched the tabletop for a few seconds. Then James said, “I love you. And I’ve been thinkin’ that if you ever get married, it should be to me.”
Odette, Richmond, and Clarice all said, “What?”
He said it again, “I love you, Odette, and I’ve been thinkin’ that if you ever get married it should be to me.”
Richmond threw both of his hands in the air in disgust. He said, “I swear to God, Clarice, that is not one of the things I told him to say.”
Odette narrowed her eyes at James. Clarice could tell that Odette thought he was making fun of her.
But James just sat there, still watching her. Only now he sported a grin on his face, as if he were proud of himself for finally having his say.
Right then, at their table at the All-You-Can-Eat, Clarice saw Odette rendered speechless for the first and last time of their long friendship. Clarice watched as Odette scrutinized James for a good long while. That was when she saw it for the first time, that softness in Odette’s face. The lines on Odette’s forehead disappeared, her jaw relaxed, and the corners of her mouth tilted up just the tiniest bit. Clarice understood then that she had witnessed more than one unusual sight that evening. She had also seen something Odette was afraid of. All this time, her tough friend had been frightened that this scarred boy might not love her the way she loved him.
Odette had seen enough movies and heard Clarice rhapsodize over Richmond often enough to know that there were things a young woman was supposed to say at a time like this. She tried her hardest to think of one of those things, but nothing came to her. Her mouth dry and her pulse racing, she sensed the onset of what she guessed was panic. But when Odette looked at James’s satisfied smile, she was comforted by the certainty that he wasn’t a man who would ever need long-winded reassurances or grand pronouncements of affection. And that made her want to wrap her arms around him and hold on till he begged her to let him go.
Odette covered James’s hand with hers and nodded her head a couple of times. She said, “Okay then, James, just so’s we understand each other.”
Chapter 24
Barbara Jean knew that Clarice leaving Richmond and returning to Leaning Tree didn’t have anything to do with her; it had been a long time coming. Still, it felt like another piece in the conspiracy the whole world was engaged in, a sinister plot to drag her back into the past and lock her up there. Here they were, the Supremes, gathering again in Leaning Tree, in the same house where they had talked, laughed, and sung along to records on Odette’s pink and violet portable record player forty years earlier.
Driving to and from Odette’s old house—Clarice’s house, now—Barbara Jean saw the Leaning Tree of her girlhood all around her, instead of the one that existed in the present day. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted landmarks that hadn’t stood in decades—Abraham Jordan’s law office, the five-and-dime where her mother bought her cosmetics, the carpentry shop Odette’s father had once owned. They were there, more real than the large homes and cute, overpriced boutiques that had replaced them, until she blinked her eyes and made them vanish.
The people of the past continued to visit her as well. And when they came—Lester, Adam, Loretta, Chick, Big Earl, Miss Thelma, the other Supremes and herself as young girls—Barbara Jean
gave in completely to the past and let the force of it pull her drunken mind along as if it were caught in the tide under the surface of the frozen river she now dreamed about every night.
Lester asked Barbara Jean to marry him on April Fool’s Day in 1968. At first she thought he was kidding.
Lester had taken the Supremes, Richmond, and James out to dinner. Being a Monday, it had been an early night. James worked mornings. The girls had school.
Barbara Jean was the last to be dropped off at home that night. Lester parked outside Big Earl and Miss Thelma’s house, and she waited for him to jump out of the car and come around to open her door the way he always did. But Lester sat gazing forward as the Cadillac idled. So she said, “Well, good night, Lester,” and she reached for the handle to open the door.
Lester put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Hold on a minute, Barbara Jean. There’s something I want to talk to you about.” He left his hand on her shoulder, the most physical contact they’d ever had, and began to speak.
“Barbara Jean,” he said, “I’ve been trying hard not to make a fool of myself about this, but I’m sure by now you know that I have feelings for you.”
She expected him to grin and shout “April Fool!” But he continued with a straight face, and she realized, with as much fear as interest, that he was serious.
“You probably think of me as an old man—”
“No, I don’t, Lester,” she interrupted.
“It’s okay. You’re young. When I was your age I thought forty-two was ancient. But, here’s the thing. Forty-two isn’t really all that old. And you’ve always seemed like someone more mature than your years. So, I’ve been thinking that maybe you and me could spend more time together.”
When she didn’t respond, he added, “Just so you understand, I’m not talking about just messing around or something. I’m talking about you and me really being together. What I want is a wife, Barbara Jean.”
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat Page 19