Just Lunch

by Nia Forrester

  “But how’s that different from any other woman? There are hits and misses, and …”

  “Yeah, but with you, it’s a hit right out the damn gate! And that’s just …”

  For a second, I think she’s going to stamp her foot and say, ‘that’s not fair!’ And when she stops speaking, I realize that that was precisely what she was about to say.

  I feel tears prickling my eyes.

  “Is nothing good supposed to happen to me, Trudie?” I ask quietly.

  She swallows and I see her eyes soften. “Of course I want good things to happen to you,” she begins.

  “But only if similarly good things happen to you,” I say. “Right?”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “It’s not that. But I …”

  “It’s okay,” I say wearily. “I understand.”

  And I think I do. For so long, our friendship worked because we were neck-and-neck. But all of a sudden, I seem to be pulling yards ahead.

  Seem to be.

  That’s the operative phrase. Because regardless of what Trudie thinks she sees, Randall Reese is not my man. Not really. And because it’s so early, I’m cool with that. What Rand and I have, what we’re growing into, feels good to me. While I’m learning how to be in a relationship, I sometimes get the sense that he’s learning too. I like that we’re doing it together, feeling each other out, and trying each other on. I don’t need to define it just yet and it doesn’t bother me that he hasn’t either.

  But at times like now, even though I know no one’s opinion should matter except ours, I allow the fact that Trudie thinks he’s my man to underscore for me the fact that he is not.

  ~2~

  Two hours into the drive, and I’m fidgeting with my phone, turning the music on, and then off again; and finding it hard to concentrate. Even though it was all smiles when I left, I’m not comfortable. And I get all the confirmation I need that I’m not imagining reasons to be uncomfortable when my cellphone rings, and I hear my brother-in-law’s voice on the other end.

  “Rand.” The way he says my name is a hint that he’s working up to something. “What in the hell was you thinkin’, man?”

  “I spoke my mind. I didn’t think it was all that …”

  “On your first live broadcast, though? You couldn’t save all that for the end of the season?”

  “Didn’t know there was a probationary period before I could start speaking my mind.”

  On the other end of the line, Garrett snorts. “For real? Then you ain’t been payin’ attention.”

  For a few moments, I replay the segment in my mind, considering what I might have said differently. I decide that I wouldn’t change a thing, and tell Garrett so.

  “Ohhh,” he says, letting the word drag. “You ‘bout to be the field Negro up in there. That it?”

  I laugh.

  Garrett has this theory about being a Black man in America that he repeats most often when he’s been drinking. That there are House Negroes and Field Negroes; the former being well-behaved, humble and grateful for their piece of the American Dream, and the latter being hard-to-control, volatile, and apt to cause a ruckus by challenging the powers that be. Not an original concept, except that Garrett takes it one step further.

  His theory is that the White male power structure likes to occasionally elevate Field Negroes to a place of prominence, or permit them to reach that place on their own. And then, as a cautionary tale to other big-mouthed, rabblerousing, prone-to-wander-off-the-plantation Negroes, the power structure will systematically and publicly strip the Field Negro of everything he has, or most of what he values—money, reputation … whatever. Just to make an example of him.

  And for shits and giggles, sometimes they do it to the House Negroes as well.

  “You need to watch yourself for a minute, man,” Garrett says. “Just play the game the way they want it to be played. Don’t …”

  I hear a beep and look at my phone.

  “Garrett, lemme hit you back. I got another call comin’ in.”

  “A’ight. You comin’ through to see little man, or …?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A’ight. I’ll let Frey know.”

  I pick up the other call and listen to the sultry voice come through the Land Rover’s speakers.

  “So … that was an explosive debut,” the voice says.

  It’s Alexa Chang. She’s one of my new co-workers at ESPN and does sideline reporting. She is a sexy, Blasian sister with chocolatey dark skin, catlike eyes and jet-black hair that she wears in a pin-straight sheet that falls to her well-shaped butt. On my first tour of the Bristol office, when she was introduced, she smiled at me with plump, beestung lips and said, ‘I wear your number to sleep, Rocket.’

  I’m pretty sure she’s trying to fuck me, but for now, what she’s offering is feedback on my broadcasts. I told her I was a little apprehensive about my live on-camera performance, and she told me she’d watch, and give me her honest opinion. So that’s what this call is about. Supposedly.

  “Hey, I didn’t know we were goin’ there,” I say. “But when it happened, I had to speak my truth.”

  “Well, that was certainly one way to go, Rocket. But remember Jimmy the Greek?”

  “Who?” I ask.

  “That’s my point exactly.”

  “You lost me.”

  “Jimmy the Greek Snyder spoke his truth in 1988 when he said he thought Blacks were ‘bred’ to be better athletes. That back in the day, they took a big Black buck, and bred him with a big Black woman, and …”

  I laugh aloud. “You’re shitting me.”

  “Nope. He said it, and CBS Sports let him go, quick and in a hurry.”

  “Well it’s not like there isn’t some historical basis for that,” I say.

  “Yeah. Historical. But talking about how Black folks get ‘bred’ in 1988? He had to go.”

  “Well, I was only two-years old in 1988 so I missed all that.” I say. “And come to think of it … you probably weren’t born your-damn-self.”

  “I was six years old in 1988,” Alexa says. “In case that’s your sneaky way of asking my age. But my point is, you need to be a little more calculated with how you share your opinions, that’s all.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say it’s the same thing. Some racist talking about how Black players got … made, and me talking about …”

  “It’s the same, Rocket. We live in a politically-sensitive society. You have to be careful not to get aligned with a ‘side’. The fans don’t like it. The owners, and management don’t like it.”

  I say nothing. After all, she’s been in this business a long time and I just got here a minute ago, so it would do me well to listen, even if I wasn’t sure I agreed. And my brother-in-law, whose opinion I respect, had the same instinct.

  “Just stay away from those landmines if you can. Anyway, you sounded good otherwise, and you looked damn good as well.”

  Damn good. I looked damn good. That was the green light. My read of Alexa was that she was a seasoned player in the mating game. Working where she did, in the arena she did, I was sure she was hit on plenty. By players, other reporters … it had to be a constant, being as beautiful as she was, with those improbably long legs, and those intriguing, melting-pot features. So, when she was interested in someone, she didn’t need to light up flares, just send out a tiny penlight signal, like this one.

  “You’ll have to let me take you to lunch to celebrate,” she adds.

  “Just left town,” I tell her. “Headed back home to be there with my son for the week.”

  “Okay. So maybe next weekend then. When do you come in? Saturdays?”

  “Fridays for now. Looking for a perch up there so I can stick around sometimes.”

  “Well let me know if you need any help with that. And let’s make time for that lunch.”

  “Yeah. Cool,” I say. “We’ll do that.”

  Dani flashes through my mind.

  “You have a good evening, Rocket. Co
ngrats on today.”

  Something about ‘you have a good evening’ is so much more suggestive than just ‘good evening.’ Why is that? I mull that over for a second, then check the time.

  A little way to go before I’m home. It will be just getting dark when I arrive. I need to see my son, since he was sulking a little when I left early the previous morning. He isn’t used to not being with me basically all the time, so working in another city is going to be an adjustment for us both. All the driving, I can tell, will wear on me.

  So, the plan is to find a place. Just a place where I can crash during the week if I need to; and where I can set Little Rocket up with his own room for when he comes with me sometimes. Then I’ll have to find him a sitter or daycare place as well.

  That part worries me a little. He already does daycare, and when I need a sitter—which is more often lately—my sister Freya, my brother-in-law or nephews usually come through for me. And even if they use a sitter, one or another of them is always there as well. Little Rocket has never in his short life been left alone with someone who is not family.

  And the frequency with which I’ve been relying on Freya is probably not something I should count on going on indefinitely, just because it’s my preference. I need to broaden my support circle for the sake of my son. Especially now that there’s Dani. We manage to hang out pretty regularly, but I haven’t taken her out. It’s mostly been nights hanging at her place, or mine. I like keeping what we have close to my vest like this. It preserves some of what we had in those crazy twenty-some hours when we just got together, and it was just me and her, alone, absorbing each other.

  It can’t be like that forever, but I need that right now. Just for a little while more.

  Thinking about her makes me glance at the time again, wondering what she’s up to. When I spoke to her the night before, she said she had some girls’ thing to go to. I hope it’s over by now, and that by the time I get to her house, she’ll be waiting for me.

  Little Rocket isn’t into me right now.

  When I walked into the bedroom that is his room at Freya’s, he was sitting in front of a Lego tower that he probably built with the help of his older cousins, Lance and Matt. He glanced up and then turned back to the task, without saying a word when he saw me.

  Now he’s building and removing pieces, and even though I’m right next to him, it’s like he’s all alone. I ask occasional questions, but he doesn’t answer, or he shrugs and grunts.

  I know he’s just a little kid, but I’ll be damned if my feelings aren’t hurt. Like, hurt.

  I look at his curls, and at his little onesie pajamas that Freya put on him, and my breath almost stops, because I love him so much. It slams me right in the center of my chest when I look at him sometimes, seeing a little clone of myself, but also traces of his mother, now two years gone. His eyes are hers, and his curly hair. And sometimes, when he’s upset with me like now, it’s as though Faith is staring back at me.

  “You want to come home with me tonight?” I ask.

  He shakes his head vehemently from side to side, and I know he is punishing me for leaving him.

  “We can get a Happy Meal for dinner,” I say. “And a milkshake.”

  Little Rocket’s hands, moving busily moments before, stop for a few seconds, and I smile. He is considering the bribe.

  “I ate pizza,” he says finally. “I not hungry.”

  I almost respect him for hanging tough, even in the face of the offer of a chicken McNuggets Happy Meal, possibly his favorite food in the world.

  “I’m,” I correct. “I’m not hungry.”

  “I’m not hungry,” he says. He still doesn’t look at me.

  “I’m going downstairs to talk to Auntie,” I tell him. “I won’t leave without saying goodnight, okay?”

  He doesn’t acknowledge that I’ve said anything, and I leave the room.

  Downstairs, my sister is at the stove, and what she’s cooking smells really good. My stomach rumbles audibly as I take a seat at her kitchen table.

  “You staying to eat with us?” she asks.

  “Nah. I’ma push off in a minute. Rocket doesn’t want to come home, so …”

  Freya doesn’t turn around but shrugs. “He’s been a little sulky all day, but he’ll be fine. It’ll take him a minute before he gets used to being without his usual playmate.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that job,” I say almost to myself. “I could’ve taken another year before I had to think about money.”

  At that, Freya does turn to look at me. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.

  “No. You did the right thing, Rand. It was time for you to rejoin the world of the living. Before you know it, Rocket will be in school, and he won’t need you nearly as much. He’s adjusting. But he’s doing fine.”

  “But when I’m in Bristol …”

  “I’ll keep him,” Freya says.

  “Not all the time, though, Frey. Sometimes I may have to be up there all week.”

  My sister nods thoughtfully. “You’ll interview people. Find a nanny. It’ll work out. People been doing this for centuries. Finding other people to look after their kids.”

  “I know. But he’s just never been …”

  “My dude!”

  I turn at the sound of Garrett’s booming voice. My brother-in-law is about six-five, three inches taller than I am, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested. Back in the day when he was just starting to come around, I remember looking him over, sizing him up and concluding that—regrettably—I wasn’t going to be able to kick his ass if I felt like it.

  His head is shaved bald and his skin the color of coffee low on the cream. He looks, now, in a plain white t-shirt, like the Black Mr. Clean. Whenever he makes an appearance, my sister turns into a little girl and just … succumbs. I used to hate that, how she would turn—it appeared to me anyway—weak, when Garrett was around.

  Later, I realized that Garrett was precisely what Freya needed—a man who would take care of things, especially since, once we were on our own, she had to take care of everything. Garrett is her resting place. And I am eternally grateful, because my sister deserves that.

  “You didn’t see it, Frey,” he says. “But your baby brother was on TV causing all kinds of mess today.”

  “What kind of mess?” Freya wrinkles her brow in concern.

  She is no stranger to mess that I’ve caused, that’s for sure.

  Garrett recounts for her the segment that Alexa called “explosive.” It was hardly all that, but I am beginning to see that in broadcasting, just as in football, maybe there are lines that one just should not cross. I don’t think I’ve crossed one today, but I got real close up on that sucker, apparently.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is,” Freya says when Garrett is done. “They asked him what he thought, and he told them. And?”

  Garrett is shaking his head even before she’s done. “Y’all act like you just got here yesterday. Rand’s role in that moment was to reinforce the status quo, not challenge it. He s’posed to reassure viewers that football—team sports—is the great equalizer. That there are no colors in football. Just team colors.”

  “Yeah, right,” I say. “Anyone who says that never played on a team. The only ones who say that are the White boys. And when we said it, if we had to say it, it was for the camera.”

  “Well, this is the same thing, then,” Garrett claps me hard on the back. That shit stings. “Do what you got to do for the camera. We know who you are. Ain’t no point in taking one for the team on this issue. The only team that matters is you and Little Rocket right now.”

  I glance over at Freya and she is wiping her hands on a dishtowel, and looking down. Without asking, I know she disagrees with Garrett, but she’s not about to say so.

  I leave just as everyone is coming down for dinner, after checking one last time to make sure Little Rocket hasn’t changed his mind about coming home. He hasn’t, so I back out of Freya’s driveway alone.
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br />   Before I even hit the corner stop sign, I am calling Dani. It’s almost eight forty-five and I’m hoping she’s home by now.

  “Hey!” she answers with that chirp in her voice that always makes me smile. Like every day is a holiday.

  “You watched me?” I ask, aware that I sound like a little kid needing assurances that she showed up for the school play.

  “Some. I had to go to that thing. What did I miss?”

  “You free right now? Can I …?”

  “Come over?” she says, her voice brightening even more. “Yes. Of course.”

  I smile. “You sure you don’t have to …”

  “Shut up, Rand. Come over.”

  “You hungry? I haven’t eaten yet.”

  “Bring something,” she tells me. “Because if you think I’m cooking …”

  “Damn. Did I ask you to cook?” I pretend that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

  Dani’s really good in the kitchen. And the few times she’s made me a meal, I fell into an almost immediate food-coma afterwards. Now, I occasionally hint that I want her to make me dinner, and most of the time, she shuts me down like she did just now, because as good as she is at it, it isn’t her favorite thing to do.

  It isn’t just the food for me, though. I like watching her move around a kitchen, especially when the kitchen is mine. She talks the whole time while she’s cooking; about nothing in particular; and I pretend I’m barely listening. Doesn’t matter to her, though. She lives life with a soundtrack, narrating just about everything that happened to her in a given day; from what she watched on television the night before, to the cute little old lady she spoke to in the grocery store.

  Listening to her talk reminds me of the year before we met, when I almost never spoke to another human being besides Freya and her family, and my three-year-old son. My days were about taking care of Little Rocket, punctuated by watching game reel, and the occasional two or three, or four beers, sneaked in with lunch so I could feel a little ‘nice’ without being drunk around my kid.