Jared’s tears flowed freely now. He never thought he could feel as badly as he did when Melvin died. He thought nothing could hurt him like that again. Well, he was wrong. He was feeling that same emptiness, that same loneliness, and he was scared—scared that he could end up alone. He had to get Tandi back. Hopefully, since she would not listen to MJ, maybe she’d listen to Evonne and meet him for dinner. Hopefully.
Suddenly his eyelids felt heavy. Letting his body relax, Jared closed his eyes and let himself sink into the vacuum of darkness that embraced him.
14
Michael Jared must have reminded Tandi ten times by the time she drove up in front of his school that she had promised she’d drop him off at Jared’s office after school. Before he ran off, his face had lit up like it was Christmas morning, making her feel worse than she did the night before when he started crying after she made him get off the telephone. If Jared only knew how much his son loved him, he might think about reworking his priorities. Simply saying he wanted them to come home and that he loved her wasn’t enough. And really, at this point, it meant nothing to her. It was too late. There was no going back for her, but she would not stand in the way of Michael Jared having a relationship with his father—it wasn’t too late for them.
Beyond that, what was uppermost in Tandi’s mind was finding her own place. She had gone through the real estate section of The New York Times, she had made several telephone calls, and had seen two apartments. Neither was right. Either they weren’t large enough or in one case, it was in the back of the building—no light, no view. Nothing was more depressing than looking out at a washed-out, red-brick wall twenty feet away or at someone else’s back window with a pink or blue bath mat hanging from the windowsill to air out. That view she knew all too well. She and Glynn used to spend many a day being babysat by Aunt Gert in her Brooklyn apartment when Sporty went away or wanted to send them away. Aunt Gert wasn’t their real aunt but a friend of Sporty’s. For years Aunt Gert lived in a rear fifth-floor apartment facing an array of bath mats, underwear, sneakers, pants, and even containers of milk and juice out on the ledge to keep cold. Tandi often wondered if people had run out of space in their refrigerators or if that was a way of keeping their own private stash from greedy relatives.
And the underwear? Tandi couldn’t understand how a woman could hang her panties out a window for the world to see. Panties were such a private thing. Once when she talked about a pair of obscenely large panties hanging from a clothesline across the way, Aunt Gert said, “One day your panties might be that big and you’re not going to want anyone talking about them.” That Tandi couldn’t imagine, but that did stop her from talking about the different sizes and styles of panties she saw on the clothesline and the kind of women who might wear them. Glynn, on the other hand, got a big kick out of looking at those panties. In fact, he developed a serious panty fetish and a love for big butt women. Throughout junior high and high school, Glynn went after the girls with the big butts whose panty lines showed through their pants. He was proud of his reputation for being an ass man. The little freak lived his fantasy, and as far as Tandi knew, that’s why he married Leah. Her wide ass was the biggest thing on her, never mind that she was so obnoxiously self-important. Glynn didn’t mind that. He only cared that Leah wore her pants and skirts butt-hugging tight and that her panty lines were as prominent as the lines on the sides of an oversized cantaloupe. If he was true to his nature, Glynn was still buying Leah’s panties. He was a pro at that. He used to buy panties for all of his girlfriends.
If Aunt Gert had known how that view through her back window influenced Glynn, she would have painted her windowpanes black and nailed her windows shut. Though she did once smack Glynn upside the head when she overheard him say about a pair of bikini panties, “I’d like to get inside the girl who wears those.” The next time they went to Aunt Gert’s apartment, she had hung large pots of draping pothos at her windows to keep Glynn back, but he would part them like curtains when she wasn’t in the room and look out anyway. Hanging the plants did, however, do the trick for Tandi. She thought they brought floral life to the otherwise drab scene out the back window.
Jared’s house may not have been her dream house. It did, however, have a wide open view of a spacious backyard, which Michael Jared played in happily. One day, hopefully soon, she was going to get a house he’d like just as much. Until then, she at least wanted a large bright two-bedroom apartment facing the front of the building.
Sitting alone at a table at The Pancake Hut, Tandi picked at the cold western omelette she’d ordered. She had to think seriously about how much she could afford to pay for rent. Her commissions were respectable but few and far between. Realistically, unless she got a full-time job, she wasn’t sure if she could earn enough to pay rent for a pigeon on a ledge. She had enough money saved to get an apartment and furnish it, but after that, she might have a problem. Finding another job was the next order of business. She had never been all that serious about her job. In fact, she didn’t much like it, but until she could find something else, she was going to speak to Bob, her boss, about giving her more listings.
As Tandi was beginning to see, getting her life on track wasn’t going to be easy. Being the breadwinner while trying to be a full-time mother to Michael Jared was kind of scary. She had no doubt that she could do it—so many women did it every day—it was not having enough money that worried her. Again, Daina came to mind. She really needed to talk to Daina who, with her devil-may-care attitude, would have put everything she was going through in perspective. Sure, Daina would have called her a fool for walking out empty-handed, but Daina would have also understood why she had to leave. Evonne, on the other hand, for the past two days had been pressing her to go back to Jared, and she was tired of hearing it. Until now, Tandi hadn’t realized how small her circle of intimate friends was.
Tandi pushed her plate aside. She had four hours to kill before Michael Jared got out of school. Leaving behind a half-eaten omelette, she set out for the supermarket. She needed some ammonia. Her room and Michael Jared’s could use some serious cleaning. If she thought they were staying more than a week, the first thing she’d do was paint the dingy white walls and put up banners and posters in Michael Jared’s room similar to the ones in his room at Jared’s. In lieu of all that, the least she could do was vacuum the carpet, clean the blinds and the windows, and wipe off decades of dust from the furniture.
Unhurriedly pushing her shopping cart, Tandi took her time going up and down the aisles inside Key Food. By the time she got in line at the checkout, she had picked up five pounds of chicken cutlets, a quart of milk, a loaf of whole wheat bread, a two-pound box of rice, frozen carrots, a gallon of ammonia, a can of furniture polish, some air freshener, and a pair of rubber gloves. At least tonight Michael Jared would be able to breathe.
“Tandi? Is that you?”
Tandi looked to the next line at the buxom woman smiling at her. Something about her smile was familiar but she couldn’t say she knew who she was.
“I know you know me, Tandi Belson. Kathy Orson. Actually, Kathy Pilgrim Orson. Francis Lewis High School.”
Tandi took in the woman’s wide hips, large breasts, and round face. A different body, a rounder face, but the same smile. She remembered. “My goodness, Kathy. Hi.”
Kathy stepped off her line closer to Tandi. “It took you a minute to recognize me, huh? Hell, I’m twice the size I was in high school.”
“But you look great,” Tandi said, taking Kathy’s hand and holding it. It was but a gentle holding of hands for a brief moment, but it was nice. It was warm like their friendship had been during their junior and senior years. Of course, she remembered Kathy.
“Tandi, you look really great. How have you been?”
The woman in front of Tandi moved up, leaving space for Tandi to put her groceries on the checkout counter. “I’m good.” She stepped back on line and began putting her groceries on the counter. “How about you?”
“I’d be lying if I said my life was great, but it’s not bad. Hold on,” Kathy said, going back to her shopping cart. She pushed it up and began to quickly put her groceries on the counter. She continued talking. “I have three kids, a girl and two boys, and an ex-husband who gives me the blues. When I was with him, he cheated on me; now that we’re divorced—four years—he claims he’s ready to settle down. Now we’re dating. I should marry his ass again just to make his life miserable.”
Tandi chuckled. Jared wouldn’t know if she was making his life miserable or not. He wouldn’t notice. She moved along with the conveyer belt carrying her groceries to the cashier. For a minute she couldn’t see Kathy until she also moved closer to her cashier.
“Tandi, are you married? Do you have any children?”
Tandi glanced at the older woman behind her. The woman seemed to be waiting for her to answer. “Married with one son,” she said across to Kathy while taking out her wallet. She saw her total ring up. She paid the cashier with two twenty-dollar bills.
“So you still live out here in Queens?” Kathy asked.
“Yep. I live in Queens Village, but my father still has the house in Hollis.” Tandi saw no reason to explain that she was back at her father’s.
“I’m in St. Albans now.” Kathy paid the cashier. “I’m amazed we haven’t run into each other before now.”
“Small world, but many roads,” Tandi said, accepting her change and helping the cashier bag her groceries.
“Tandi, we should get together sometime to talk about old times.”
“I’d like that.” Tandi took her two bags of groceries.
Kathy took her four shopping bags. Together they walked out of the store to the parking lot. At Kathy’s car, they exchanged telephone numbers. Tandi gave her office number. She went on to her own car and was about to pull out when Kathy pulled up alongside her.
“Tandi, you won’t believe this, but your name came up just a few weeks ago.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I was at Morton’s Restaurant in Manhattan and my ex and I were leaving when I bumped into, of all people, Brent Rodgers.”
Tandi’s heart fluttered. She couldn’t believe it. “Brent Rodgers?”
“Girl, Mr. Fine himself. He’s back in New York.”
She made herself ask casually, “Where has he been?” But she wanted to ask, Is he married?
“He’s been living in California. Girl, he’s been married and divorced twice.”
“Whoa.”
“He asked about you.”
Again Tandi’s heart fluttered.
“He asked if I see you anymore. Of course I told him no because we’ve been out of touch. He said he would love to see you again.”
Tandi’s cheeks warmed, yet, it wasn’t lost on her that Kathy was the one who told her that Brent liked her when they were in high school.
“I can tell by the look on your face that you wouldn’t mind seeing him again. I remember you guys were inseparable. I thought you would eventually get married. What happened?”
“Time and distance, I guess,” Tandi said, although at one time she had thought she and Brent would marry also. When he joined the Navy right out of high school, he forgot about her. He stopped writing, he stopped coming to see her on his furloughs. Now she understood why.
“Well, now you’re married, which means—”
“My husband and I recently separated,” she said quickly.
“Girl, that’s fate. You want Brent’s telephone number? I have it right here in my daily planner.”
Tandi wanted to shout, Give it to me! but she quickly suppressed the urge. She didn’t want to seem overly eager. Boy, but did it make her feel good to know he had thought of her. “Did you say he’s been divorced twice?”
“Hey, maybe Brent was looking for you in his ex-wives.”
“Yeah, right.” Tandi wouldn’t even let herself believe that. “Kathy, I think I need to leave Brent alone.”
Kathy opened her pocketbook anyway. “Girl, you know you want his number. Don’t be shy.”
“Oh, I’m not shy. I’m just cautious. I pass.”
“Are you sure? I have it right here,” she said, holding up a small leather-bound daily planner.
Tandi shook her head.
“Okay, if you’re sure, but I can’t believe you’ve never thought about him.”
If Kathy only knew. “Kathy, it was great seeing you again. I’ll call you soon,” she said, waving as she turned out, leaving Kathy probably wondering why she didn’t take Brent’s number. Oh, how she wanted that number—even more so knowing he asked about her. The fact that Brent did ask meant that he might have secret desires for her as she had for him. Oh, God. Wouldn’t it be a dream come true if she and Brent got together?
Girl, as Daina would say, get a grip. Brent was part of her fantasy and not her reality. For the time being, there were complications aplenty in her life. Adding Brent to the equation would only make it worse, especially while she was staying at Sporty’s. Sporty would throw a serious fit. He never liked Brent. Not to mention it would be bad timing. Michael Jared wouldn’t be able to handle it. He would die if she introduced Brent to him as the man she was seeing.
“Oh, Lord,” Tandi said aloud. “Girl, you have got to get a grip. Regress. Just because Brent asked about you does not mean he wants to be with you. That’s your fantasy, not his, and before any fantasy can be indulged, you have to take care of your child first and foremost. So get Brent out of your mind. Poof!” She flipped an imaginary magic wand. “Be gone.”
The wand didn’t work. Brent danced around in Tandi’s head every minute of the drive back to the house. She wanted so badly to see him, she started fantasizing again. Boy, was she in trouble.
Pulling up in front of the house, Tandi saw, to her surprise, that Sporty was out. She rushed upstairs to her room and changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and went straight to Glynn’s old room. Tackling first the old Venetian blinds whose metal slats were covered with dust and dirt, she sneezed twice. They had been closed for so long, the stiff dirty pull string was stuck to the rusty pulley. She pulled on it several times to loosen it. Who else in the world still had Venetian blinds made out of metal slats? No one! Once washed, she saw that the blinds were speckled with rust and yellowed by time; no longer white, but lighter by far than they had been the hour before. Drawing them up, she went at the old wood-framed windows with the same determination to let in as much sunshine as possible.
“I can smell that ammonia all the way down at the front door,” Sporty said, gruffly. “What you cleaning for? I thought you weren’t planning on staying long.”
“Hi, to you, too.” Tandi continued to wash the window.
“What you cleaning up in here for?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s dirty in here. I don’t want my son coming down with some allergy.”
“If you take him back home, he won’t catch anything from my house.”
Tandi stopped wiping. She began to count to ten as she looked up at the mountainous white clouds that filled the sky. It was cold out, as it should be for the end of January, but the sun was shining and the sky was clear and picture postcard blue. New Yorkers had been lucky—very little snow had fallen this winter. A single bird caught Tandi’s eye as he alighted on a branch. He didn’t stay. He took off like he was in a hurry. When she was a little girl, she often wondered where birds hurried off to. That was something she still hadn’t figured out. Turning away from the window, she dropped the large yellow sponge into the bucket sitting on the chair next to her.
“Daddy, I’ll be out of here in a few days.”
“You going back home?”
For a heartbeat Tandi glared at Sporty before taking up the sponge again. She squeezed the sponge hard, choking every drop of water out of it.
“Wherever I’m going, Daddy, I’ll be out of your way. That’s all you really want to know, isn’t it?”
Sporty frowned. “It’s never
been easy to talk to you. I’m just gonna say my peace and I’m not gonna say one word more.”
“I doubt that,” she said under her breath.
“Tandida, I heard you yelling at your boy to get off the phone last night. I guess he must’ve been talking to his daddy. I heard him crying going up the stairs, so I guess you don’t plan on going back home, but I think you oughta. It’s best for the boy.”
“I know what’s—”
“I’m talking,” Sporty said, his voice heavy with bass.
Tandi was dumbstruck. No matter how used to her father’s harsh ways she was, he could still shut her up in an instant.
“Now, Tandida—”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“I told you last night, Daddy, you will not speak to me any way you want.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You never do.” She turned her back to Sporty and dunked the sponge in the water. Slowly squeezing the water from it, she counted to ten.
“All I’m trying to say is, it’s your own business if you don’t want to go back home, but you better think about lettin’ that boy go back to his daddy.”
You old bastard. Tandi squeezed the sponge until her fist was a tight ball and the yellow cellulose fanned out on either side of her fist.
“It’s a fact that a man can do about as good as a woman raisin’ kids. I know what I’m talking about. That’s all I gotta say.” Sporty started to leave the room.
Tandi quickly turned around. “It’s funny you should say something like that. A lot of women, including myself, would not agree with you.”
Distant Lover Page 10