Disappearing Acts

by Terry McMillan

  What I’ve got is a good set of lungs and vocal cords.

  Mount Olive Baptist used to be standing room only when word got out that I was doing a solo. I used to make people cry and speak in tongues, and those fans would be swaying so fast you couldn’t even see the name of the funeral parlor on ’em. There is no greater feeling than singing a song that makes people feel glad to be alive.

  Marguerite—that’s my stepmother—has always accused me of being too idealistic. “You always reaching for what you can’t see, chile.” My real Mama died in a car accident when I was three years old, which is how I got stuck with Marguerite as a replacement. Not that she hasn’t been a nice stepmother, but I’ve never had anyone to compare her to. She did teach me how to cook, how to shave my armpits and legs, and told me when to douche. Daddy married her when I was thirteen. She’s taller than him, flat-chested, with an evergrowing behind and hazel eyes. Every six weeks she dyes her gray hair black, because she says, “I ain’t got no time to be looking old.”

  My Daddy looks old, but I guess if you’d worked for the railroad for thirty-six years and married someone who insisted you take all the overtime you could get, then snatched your paycheck every Friday and lived at Sears, gave you an allowance, and only closed the bedroom door on Saturday nights, you’d look old too.

  When I told my Daddy I was moving to New York City to sing, he just blew a cloud of smoke out of his cigar, tapped off an inch of ashes, grinned—that gold tooth sparkling—and said, “You go ’head, baby. Life ain’t nothin’ to be scared of. ’Sides, the Lord’ll follow you wherever you go.”

  I’ve had my doubts.

  The problem is I’ve been influenced by so many folks that I sound like a whole lot of singers all rolled up. This has bothered me for too long, because I don’t know what my real voice is. Sure, every now and then I hear myself with such clarity, with such precision, that I get surprised—even a bit scared—because what I hear sounds like someone I could envy. But it’s not consistent. I can imitate just about anybody I admire. Joan Armatrading. Chaka Khan. Joni Mitchell. Laura Nyro. Aretha and Gladys too.

  Sometimes I stay after school—since my piano’s in layaway and I still owe three hundred dollars on it—and compose. I sit there with my eyes closed, and when my fingers press against the keys and I start to sing, the room often moves. My heart opens up and lets in light. Writing songs allows me to fix what’s wrong. And when I’m singing, I’m not lonely, just overwhelmed by desire. I’m not looking for a man; I’ve found one. Folks aren’t starving; I’m giving ’em food from my plate. I invent jobs. Get rid of torment and racism and hatred, and spin a world so rich with righteousness that usually, by the time I finish, I’m perspiring something awful, and I don’t even realize how much time has passed until I walk outside and see that it’s dark.

  As it stands now, I do most of my singing in the shower. I get clean and let out pain at the same time—watch it go down the drain. And not just my pain but everybody else’s that I’ve known who’s ever felt or known hurt. And there are millions of us. To tell the truth, sometimes I get scared when I think of myself being in a world where I don’t make a bit of difference. Where I could die and the only people who would ever know I was here would be friends, lovers, and relatives. I want to affect people in a positive way, which is one reason why I teach music. But it’s not enough. I want to sing songs that’ll make people float.

  That’s why I’m looking for a coach. I need to learn how to control my voice. Find my center. Learn to pay attention to what I feel in my heart so that it comes out of my pen, then my mouth, instead of screaming inside my head. I don’t care if I’m never as famous as Diana or Aretha or Liza or Barbra. I don’t have to make Billboard’s Top 40 either. I’d be just as content squeezing a microphone in my hands in some smoky club, with an audience who came to hear me sing. The only way I’ll ever be able to afford a voice coach is by moving out of this expensive-ass apartment, which is precisely why you can have Manhattan and its Upper West Side. I’m going to Brooklyn, where they say you can at least get your money’s worth. My Daddy always said, “You gotta give up somethin’ to get somethin’.” I’m giving up roaches, water bugs, mice, $622 a month, and a view of a brick wall.

  Right now I’m staring at the ceiling and can hear birds chirping. This is a good sign. But I can’t lie: I am lonely, and it has been almost six months since I’ve been touched by a man. I’ll live, though. Instead of wasting my time wishing and hoping, sleeping with self-pity and falling in love over and over again with ghosts, I’m going to stop concentrating so hard on what’s missing in my life and be grateful for what I’ve got. For instance, this organ inside my chest. God gave me a gift, and I’d be a fool not to use it. And if there’s a man out there who’s willing to ride or walk or run or even fly with me, he’ll show up. Probably out of nowhere. I’m just not going to hold my breath.

  1

  I stood outside the apartment I came to look at, and my first impression was that the building was beautiful. That is, until I walked inside and saw that stairwell. Talk about old. The railing looked as rickety as the ones you see in horror movies, and the stairs were so dusty that when I put my foot on the first step, a claylike powder puffed up like a cloud under my dress, and I could’ve sworn they were going to collapse. I was making a mistake—I knew that already. Something had told me the ad sounded too good to be true: “Large one-bedroom, fully renovated brownstone, 10-foot ceilings, all new appliances, exposed brick, southern exposure, 10 minutes to Wall Street, close to shops, subway: $500.”

  I heard the sound of hammering from the top of the stairs, so I took my chances and ran up. Sawdust was flying around the white room like gold snow. I looked down, saw a curved red back, then a long arm flying up, thick black fingers grasping a hammer, and when it swung back down, the sound of the impact scared me. I jumped.

  He looked up, then stood. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “Lord have mercy,” was all I heard inside my head. I couldn’t move, let alone speak. I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This man had to be six foot something, because he was towering over me. His eyes looked like black marbles set in almonds. He wore a Yankees baseball cap, backward, and when he lifted it from his head to shake off the dust, his hair was jet black and wavy. That nose was strong and regal, and beneath it was a thick mustache. His cheeks looked chiseled; his lips succulent. And those shoulders. They were as wide as any linebacker’s. His thighs were tight, and his legs went on forever. He was covered with dust, but when he pushed the sleeves of his red sweatshirt up to his elbows, his arms were the color of black grapes.

  “Did you come to look at the apartment?” he asked.

  I cleared my throat and heard a word come out of my mouth. “Yes.”

  Then he smiled down at me, as if he was thinking about something that had happened to him earlier. “Well, we running behind schedule—as usual—and I don’t know when we gon’ be finished. I been trying to figure out how all these damn mice been getting in here. Ain’t found it yet. And I don’t know how the roaches and water bugs getting in here either. Tribes of ’em. We gon’ have to fumigate this place good before anybody even think about moving in here.”

  Mice? Water bugs and roaches? This place is brand-new. Was he joking? “Are you the owner?”

  “I wish I was. He’s back there,” he said, pointing down a long hallway. “Hey, Vinney!” he yelled. “Somebody’s here to see you, man.”

  Before I started in that direction, I did notice that the living room was big and shaped like an L. Three tall windows extended from the ceiling almost to the floor, which meant sunshine. The kitchen was over in a corner, but I could live with that. Halfway down the hall was the bathroom. I peeked in and turned on the light. I couldn’t believe it. A sea-blue bathtub, toilet, and sink! And clean white tile on the floor and walls, and one of those orange lamps in the ceiling to help you dry off. So far so good. When I entered the doorway at the end of the hall, I wa
s standing inside a sunny bedroom, with two more windows.

  “Hello, Miss Banks,” the owner said, then reached out to shake my hand. I shook his, even though it was filthy.

  “Let me say first off that we’ll be finished in a day or so. You like what you see?”

  “The man up front said he didn’t know when you’d be finished. He also said there were problems with bugs and mice.”

  “That’s bullshit. First of all, like I said, we’ll be finished in a day or two. And we ain’t seen nothing crawling around in here except men. The place has been completely gutted—everything in here is brand-new. Frankie’s known for being a jokester, but today he’s pushing it.”

  Frankie? What a stupid name for such a striking man. “What’s this little room over here?” I asked.

  “Oh, that’s just sort of an extra-large closet. It’s too small to call it a bedroom, which is why we didn’t put it in the ad. Perfect for a kid, though. But you said you didn’t have kids. Use it for storage, whatever.”

  It was a tiny room, but I guessed I could squeeze my piano in. I walked over to the window. At least there were trees back there, even if they were in other people’s yards. I looked down at the wooden planks under my feet. “What are you going to do to the floors?”

  “We’re laying the finest carpet available in every room except the kitchen area and bathroom. Sort of a beigy color—neutral, you know. That suit you?”

  “There’s no way you could put in hardwood floors?”

  “You want the apartment? There’s plenty of interest in it already. I coulda rented it this morning, but I knew you were coming, and I wanted to be fair, you know.”

  “If you can put in hardwood floors and guarantee that the stairwell won’t look like it does now for too much longer, I’ll take it.”

  “First off, when you renovate a whole building, you always save the stairs till last, or they’d be worse off with all the ripping and running the men do up and down ’em. And hardwood floors? It’ll cost you a few dollars extra for the labor, and’ll add a few more days to the job.”

  “How much extra?”

  “Not much, if you get pine. Don’t worry, we can work something out. You positive you want wood? They collect dust like there ain’t no tomorrow.”

  “I’m positive.” I didn’t care about the dust. When I first walked in here, I had already pictured shiny wood floors, not some drab carpet. And I hate beige. It’s so boring.

  “Frankie,” he yelled. “Come in here a minute, would you?”

  He walked back into the bedroom, ducking his head under the arch. I tried not to look directly at him, because I was thinking that I wished he came with the place. I tried, instead, to look indifferent.

  “What’s up, boss?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Why’d you tell this young lady all those lies?”

  He threw his arms up in the air and grinned. And had the nerve to have dimples. “I was just kidding, boss.”

  “One day all your kidding is gonna cost me money, Frankie. Anyway, she wants wood floors ’steada carpet. I want you to get over to Friendly Freddy’s and get a estimate today. Can you have everything finished in four or five days?”

  “Maybe,” he said, lighting a cigarette. He blew the smoke upward, and my eyes watched his lips close around the filter again. I wished I was a cigarette.

  “He’ll have it done in five days,” Vinney said. “If that’s soon enough?”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Come on down the street to my office, and we can tidy up the particulars. Oh, hell, I ain’t got any lease forms. I have to run to the stationery store and pick up some. You can help yourself to a cup of coffee. This won’t take but a minute.”

  “Watch him,” Frankie said to me. “He’s Italian.” I started to follow Vinney down the hall and had to brush past Frankie, because he acted like he didn’t have any intention of moving out of my way. My breast wanted to brush against his chest, for the pure warmth alone, but I did just the opposite. When he saw this, he flung his arms up over his head and pressed himself stiffly against the wall. I ignored him and gave the place another once-over. Yep, I thought, I could definitely live here.

  “Vinney just sold you a bunch of crap. You the first person to look at this place. This is a racket, they just call it business. See you in three weeks,” Frankie said. He was back in the living room, driving more nails in the floor.

  * * *

  When the mover pulled up to my new home, Frankie was sitting out on the stoop in a tight white T-shirt, smoking a cigarette and drinking a Heineken. I swear, he looked like a black Marlboro Man without a hat and horse. Orchards of soft black hair were peeking out from the V, but I didn’t want to stare. And muscles? They were everywhere. I wondered if he worked out or just worked hard. His face was drenched with sweat, and it looked like black tears were falling from his temples. I can’t lie: I had to stop myself from walking over and patting them dry.

  “Your bedroom floor is still wet, so you gon’ have to put all this stuff in the living room.”

  “What? Vinney told me it was finished.”

  “It is finished; it just ain’t dry.”

  Shit. I turned to the driver of the truck and explained the situation to him. He got out to open the back, and I put my hands on my hips and looked up at my windows. “Well, I’m here,” I said, to no one in particular.

  Frankie just kept on smoking.

  When I’d hired the guy to help me move, he’d told me there’d be two of them, but this morning only he showed up. I’d asked some young guy who happened to be passing by if he wanted to make a quick forty dollars, and he jumped at it. Of course I didn’t want him to know where I was moving, so I didn’t ask him to come to Brooklyn. I had carried enough boxes myself, and now I was tired at the thought of hauling all this stuff upstairs. “Moving sure is hard labor,” I sighed.

  “Yes, it is,” Frankie said, and took a sip from his beer. I thought maybe he’d at least offer to help, but he didn’t.

  “Would you mind giving me a hand?”

  “I don’t work for free.”

  Not only was he a handsome creep, I thought, but he was nasty. Even so, I couldn’t carry all those heavy boxes up the stairs. “How much?”

  “Not much,” he said. He flicked his cigarette about three feet away and at the same time jumped off the stoop. For the next hour, I watched him lift and pull things off the truck. Those muscles kept popping up in his arms and shoulders, and he was sweating like crazy. And every time he walked past me, all I could think about was that I bet some woman loves to roll over into those arms at night.

  It took close to two hours for us to get everything except the trunk upstairs. It was full of records, and I knew it was too heavy for one person to carry, so I offered to help, but Frankie refused. He slung it up in the air, balanced it on one shoulder, then walked on up the stairs like it weighed twenty pounds.

  I paid the driver and ran upstairs. Frankie was busy pushing the larger things against the living room wall. Boxes were stacked everywhere, including on top of the couch. I walked back to the bedroom and stood in the doorway. Sunlight was streaming through the windows, and the floors looked like strips of gold. When I felt his presence behind me I turned around, and my nose grazed those soft black trees on his chest. My lips felt moist, and my heart was about to jump out of my chest. I inched away from him and almost stepped onto the wet floor, but Frankie grabbed my elbows and pulled me back into the hallway.

  “Don’t you mess up my floor,” he said.

  I was nervous, but I willed my mouth to talk. “You did a fantastic job on the floors, Frankie. Really. I didn’t expect them to turn out this beautiful.”

  “Thanks,” he said, turning back down the hallway and winking at me. “I try to do everything good.”

  I guess this was supposed to be his way of flirting. It must’ve been working, because all the air in the place seemed to be disappearing. I took a deep breath and prayed I could say what wa
s necessary without sounding like I was going through any major changes. “How much do I owe you?”

  “How much did you pay the white boy?”

  “I gave him a hundred dollars.”

  Now, why did his eyes light up like that? “Was that too much? All the movers in the Voice asked for about the same.”

  “Naw, that wasn’t too much.”

  “I’ve only got about thirty dollars in cash left, but if there’s a cash machine in the neighborhood, I can go get more. I really appreciated your help.”

  “Keep your money.”

  “No, really. You earned it, and you said yourself you didn’t work for free.”

  “I know what I said. A little charity every now and then won’t kill me. So tell me, are you a Miss or a Mrs.?”

  He sat down on a box and crossed his arms. Before I could tell him it was none of his business, I blurted out, “A Ms.”

  “Oh, so you one of those feminists?”

  “What if I am?”

  “I just asked. Does that mean you like women?”

  “Give me a break, would you? Do I look like I like women?”

  “Looks don’t mean nothin’ in this day and age. But to answer your question, no.”

  “Then you’ve got your answer.” I started looking at box labels, to see which one had the dishes in it, not that I really needed a dish right then. He was making me nervous. Shit. Talk about being direct. I had to do something—anything—to keep moving, because he didn’t act like he was getting ready to leave, and even though what he just asked me was tacky as hell, I didn’t want him to leave yet either. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Only if it’s personal.”

  “Is your real name Frankie?”

  “No. It’s Franklin. Why?”

  “You just didn’t look like a Frankie to me.”

  “You can call me Franklin if you want to.”

  Had I already given him the impression that I planned on seeing him again? Men. Not only are they presumptuous, but this one here can read minds.