Searching for Tina Turner

by Jacqueline E. Luckett

  “The palm, my dear, is simply a reflection of our lives. Yours are beautiful. Youthful.” He stares at her left hand, pushes and presses the Mount of Venus beneath her thumb. “The lines on the dominant hand vary across the span of one’s life, because of the changes in life’s path. This section of your hand tracks midlife. See? A Y. The Y represents choice and change.”

  “Everybody has that.” Lena wonders if this is what the psychics saw in Tina’s hands.

  “But, everybody isn’t here.” Vernon opens his hands. His right hand is without a little finger. Any other time she would have asked the story of this missing digit. Better to see this odd injury instead of something, like a sixth finger, he claims enables second sight. She searches for the Y. Nothing on his palm resembles that letter.

  “Say what you want, dahlin’, but you’re the one willin’ to plop down your husband’s hard-earned money in the middle of the night, fuzzy slippers and all, for me to tell your future. You rang my doorbell. This isn’t the time to be indecisive. Look where that got you this evening.”

  Lena jerks her hands away from Vernon and pushes back from the table. “What would you know?”

  “It’s not what I know, but what I sense: you can’t keep letting people push you around. Sit still and let me have your hands so you can get your money’s worth.” Vernon sips his tea and peers around the room as if to search for scones and crumpets. His face is playful and serious. He pulls a gold watch on a chain from his pocket and sets it on the table. “Now, take your watch and set it beside mine.”

  “You’re pushing me around just like everybody else.”

  “Like I said, Lena, you rang my doorbell. Don’t fight me; I’m not the one you need to show your strength to. Trust.”

  Lena looks around the room and through the open kitchen door. The house is quiet; the chirring of night insects outside the door is the only other sound she hears. She stares at her watch, another gift from Randall, another expensive gift from Randall.

  The night he gave her the watch, he insisted that she stretch out her arms and look away. She flinched when the cold metal touched her skin but kept her eyes averted from her wrist. It was the same night she discovered she was pregnant with Kendrick, but not ready for a baby. He hugged her, held her there in the middle of their bathroom; convinced her she would be a wonderful mother. They would be wonderful parents. Trust.

  “Dahlin’,” Vernon’s is a voice reserved for church. “If I was gonna steal from you, I’d’a conked you on the head by now, taken your watch, and that big ole diamond ’round your neck, and tossed you down the front steps. Give me your hands.”

  Lena picks at the double-locked clasp and puts her wristwatch next to his, then her palms in his hands again while Vernon explains that the metals throw off their magnetic fields. The dimple in his chin—an uncanny resemblance to John Henry’s, along with the same soft edge to his words—sinks deeper into itself when he laughs.

  “I feel an energy surge coming from your watch. What’s your husband’s name?” Vernon reaches for a thick green book that resembles a Bible, a ribbon bookmark sewn into its gilded binding. “And his date of birth?”

  “Randall’s name is Randall. Birthdate: July 24, 1945.”

  Vernon shuffles through the pages. The gray hairs at the top of his head wiggle as he scans a lengthy paragraph. “Your husband is a dogmatic Leo. He is pragmatic. Is that the word? This is his approach to life. He doesn’t understand any other way.”

  Lena shudders at Vernon’s truth and inches to the edge of her seat. Pictures, books, furniture, and Vernon spin around her, a blurry montage of color and light.

  The pitch of Vernon’s voice raises for the first time since she arrived; he folds his stubby hands over Lena’s palms and pauses, looking more through her than at her. Lena feels the emptiness of his absent finger. “These intertwined lines, see? Independence and forward progression. These movements clash with his. But, forget him. You’re not a delicate woman, but convenience makes it easy to pretend. You are meant to be powerful. Follow your creativity.”

  Lena focuses on the small blood spot beside the iris of Vernon’s right eye. She shuts her eyes and processes Vernon’s words. His stare says that he is waiting for her; he will only guide not lead. Tina’s psychics gave her a direct notion—that she would be successful; they offered direction and promise. “Tell me what to do.”

  “You have found the star who shines for you; she leads the way. Begin your journey with her. Reconnect with the past. Someone you closed yourself off from is waiting for you.” Vernon beams and points to a bold line in her right hand. “As for me telling you what to do: you already know.”

  “Yep, I’m a fool in love.” Lena leans back in the chair. “And I need to accept my life or move on.”

  “Don’t indulge in what might have been. Delight in what can be.” Vernon squeezes her hands; his grip is tingly and rough. “You’re stubborn, and you don’t always listen to advice: even your mother has something to offer. Just like the silver ball in a pinball machine spins, moves at the whim of someone else, you move backwards before you understand how far you can go with just a little push.”

  “Go ahead. Push me.”

  “You don’t need me.” Vernon releases her hands, pulls a monogrammed handkerchief from his shirt pocket, and pats his forehead where perspiration threatens to fall into his eyes. “Step into your power.”

  Chapter 10

  What smells so good?” Camille plucks a strip of sautéed chicken from a bowl and dips it in the peanut sauce beside it. She is a nibbler, like her mother, though the empty soda cans and candy wrappers in her room attest to her unhealthy choices. “And low lights, too? Hmm.”

  “Take this.” Lena feigns a blush and hands fifty dollars to Camille. If only she could send the kids to bed early after a fast food treat of hamburgers and pasty french fries. Compromise with Randall was less complicated when the kids were young. “Dinner and a movie. And where’s your brother?”

  Camille tickles Lena’s shoulder. “Glad you and Dad are getting back to normal.”

  “Out!” Lena flushes at her daughter’s insight, shooing her out of the kitchen, even as Kendrick walks in to meet them. Lena doesn’t have the slightest idea whether or not her son shares his sister’s insight. Silent meals, Randall’s late hours, her clothing piled in the guestroom for three days—her kids are no fools.

  The tension between mother and son is palpable. She fans herself with both hands, a gesture meant to clear the air, and hopes that Kendrick gets her hint. “I do trust you, Kendrick, I hope you know that.” She speaks as if their confrontation was moments instead of days ago and points to his keys on the counter with a wide smile.

  “Thanks, Mom.” Kendrick ruffles Lena’s hair and then juggles his keys between both hands, like the metal Slinky he had as a kid. As nosy as his sister, he heads to the stove, lifts a lid from a saucepan, and dips a finger into the curry. “Food works for us, too, Mom, in case you forgot.”

  With one swift turn, Kendrick and Camille connect palms with a loud high five and slap a second one with Lena. “What’s that corny old-school saying? Something about a man’s heart?” he asks. Lena offers a thumbs-up to her son’s obvious hint, knowing that if the timing were different—or more full of the happiness of the old days—that would have been her only intention.

  f f f

  Lena places small, square white bowls filled with curried carrots topped with fresh basil—for color and contrast—and strips of sautéed chicken fillets on the kitchen table. Mixed green salad and jasmine rice balance the Thai food; the proper mix of carbs, protein, and veggies. She stirs passion and love into the tangy coconut soup in the hope that Randall will taste those emotions and daydreams of contentment while the lemongrass stems soak in cool water.

  The first time Lena cooked for Randall, it was a disaster. She called the New Orleans hole in the wall they had visited and begged the cook for his shrimp Creole recipe, then labored hours more than she should
have, given how simple the recipe read. Once they sat down to eat, the shrimp were tough, the sauce salty, and the rice mushy. After two mouthfuls, Randall told Lena to get her coat. “I’m not the kind of man who’ll suffer through his woman’s bad cooking.” He chuckled when she playfully twisted his arm. “You just remember those words when you cook for me.” She wanted to tell him that her feelings were hurt, that if the tables were turned she would have eaten his salty food. That was the first time she held her tongue with Randall. In that moment she learned his intolerance for error, and it bothered her, but not enough to stop seeing him. That was the first and only time he left her food on the table. In the end, her cooking snared him.

  Surely, she thinks, it will help her keep him.

  At five minutes after eight Randall opens the kitchen door, his tie loosened from his collar. His lips are tight; his moves calculated like a boxer considering which corner is neutral territory.

  “Truce.” Lena helps Randall slip out of his jacket and leans close.

  This night her neck and the dip between her breasts, behind her ears and knees are covered with jasmine. Jasmine is the scent that mixes best with Lena’s own. Randall gifts her with bottles, bars, and creams of the lavish fragrance every other Valentine’s Day, though Lena cannot remember the last time she wore the perfume. Perhaps when malaise overtook her long before Randall’s nearly month-long departure? Or after the Christmas holiday party and the argument, in front of Candace and Byron, over the best route to take home? Or last summer when she asked him not to take her car to the horrid, lecherous man at the flatlands automated carwash and he did anyway? Randall sniffs. The jasmine will do its work; help them to recall that first year of marriage, that first serious argument, and making up.

  “Truce.” He gave her a bottle of jasmine oil, and later, massaged it all over her. All those years, it stood for apology, if needed—his or hers—for romance and good loving. Now, a hint of prim satisfaction stretches across Randall’s face, and Lena wonders if he remembers that first time she wore the perfume, much less expensive then, the scent still the same. Randall looks from the food to Lena and slides onto the upholstered bench. He sniffs. At the food. “Smells good.” At Lena. “You, too.”

  Lena scoops a healthy portion of the made-from-scratch green curry sauce over his rice. This food comes close to what she thinks he experienced in Bali: spicy, thick, and rich. Once she settles in beside him, she takes his left hand in her right. They sit that way for a time that she does not count, the smell of her jasmine mixing with the curry, until he reaches for the remote control on the bench. When she grabs it first, he tickles her arm until the remote falls loose so that his fingers can now dance on its pad. The TV screen explodes like lightning in the darkened room. Even as she scrutinizes him, his eyes puffy from concentration and the long day, Lena knows he seeks solace in the inanity of TV.

  “I’d like to talk about the party and about us. We need to clear the air and make a fresh start, and we can’t talk if the TV’s on.” Lena catches herself and the sigh about to escape her lips. One. Two. Three. It took all day to concoct this exotic meal, to gather the ingredients, to select the right tiny red chilies to heat up their food and their marriage. “I worked hard today to make this evening… special.”

  “And I worked hard today so you can make fancy food. Are you ready to apologize?”

  “I think we need to apologize to one another.” Lena uncovers the tureen and hastily ladles chunky soup into Randall’s empty bowl.

  “I don’t see it that way.”

  With exacting synchronicity, Lena’s jaw twitches at each abrupt change of channel—the staccato of newscasters, commercials, random dialogue—and his casual acceptance, his expectation that all of his meals will be this grand, this tasty.

  “Let’s make a deal. A little food. We’ll talk.” Lena presses her hand to the back of his neck, and the spot at the base of his ear that usually makes him melt. “Then we’ll watch the last quarter. Upstairs. In bed. That is, if you feel up to it.” For Lena and Randall, makeup sex has always been their best.

  “But the Warriors play the Lakers tonight.” Randall grins like a mischievous boy. “Last game before the playoffs.”

  Lena pushes thumb against the Y, Vernon’s Y for change, on her palm while the basketball players on TV run up and down the court. Run, run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man. The urge to scrape scrape scrape the fragrant food down the garbage disposal, to flip the on/off switch again and again until the whirring is smooth and food, ground to pulp, washes down the drain, is strong. As are Kendrick’s last words. She yanks away the remote from Randall’s hand and turns the TV off. Wineglass in hand, Lena pushes away from the table and goes to the sink full of the pots and pans and skillets she used to prepare the special dishes.

  “You’re acting like a spoiled brat.” Randall clicks the TV on again.

  “I’m sorry.” Anxiety rushes to Lena’s tongue, mixes with her spit, and swims over her taste buds. Maybe I am, she wants to shout, a spoiled, frustrated midlife woman unable to get her husband to accept her apology, her food, her sweet jasmine perfume, to understand she seeks change for the benefit of the both of them. In the instant she hurls her glass across the floor, Lena both intends and regrets the action. The glass shatters, scattering wet shards from the sink where Lena stands all the way to the table at the opposite end. Only the stem remains intact. The odor of wine mingles with the basil and curry, and the kitchen smells more like a cheap bar than home.

  “Look, Lena. I don’t know what more you want.” Randall stands, a man on the verge of action, looking from Lena to the shattered glass to the louvered door that separates the kitchen from the hallway. The long, low sigh he releases is like, Lena supposes, the tears she fights with a barrage of rapid blinks. “I’m tired. And you’re obviously irrational.”

  “Don’t leave, Randall, we’ve got to do this sooner or later.”

  “I’ve done all I’m going to do tonight, Lena.” The door swings hard and wide as he passes through it.

  If she were taller and huskier, if she were a man, Lena knows she would punch Randall, punch him hard until he fell, until he understood. She tiptoes around the pieces of glass and through the swinging door. Keeping a healthy distance between his body and hers, she points a trembling finger in his face. Randall backs away, hands clenched at his sides. He watches her hands, keeps his distance.

  “I don’t have time for tantrums. You’re only pissed because you think I’m having an affair with Sharon. Charles told me what you said.”

  “I don’t doubt it, but this is about more than who you’re fucking. This is about our life.”

  “I don’t need drama at work and at home.”

  “No, you’re the drama king, lover man. Like that little trick you did with your tongue the night you came home?”

  Randall’s face is motionless except for his pulsing, left eyebrow. “Stop.” He grabs Lena’s wrists. She yanks them away with a force that startles them both. The TV blares with the announcer’s scream and the crowd’s roar. He walks past the photos that mark their years together: wedding day, chubby Camille at six, Kendrick’s senior prom, their first time in Paris. The frames rattle with the weight of his footsteps. Lena steps to the opposite side of the hallway. Is this how it begins?

  “Is that why you’re offering me ultimatums, Randall? Answer me!”

  “What do you want me to say?” He holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender. Once at the stairs, he takes them two at a time.

  “Is this one of those decisions, like the lemon tree or what restaurant we’ll eat in, what movie we’ll see, that don’t mean anything to you so it’s left to me?” She wonders why what she thinks is not what she says. Power is powerful.

  “I’m a businessman, Lena. I have to consider the pros and cons.” Randall shrugs.

  Footsteps clamber outside. Randall and Lena used to confine their occasional fights to their bedroom, used to close th
eir door and muffle their words, used to make up and apologize ignoring who may have been right or wrong. They stand stock-still while Lena searches for the right words, the most expedient way to say what’s on her mind in the seconds before Kendrick and Camille come in and shatter this moment as cleanly as the wineglass strewn across the floor. Lena loves her kids; lately, though, they appear at the most inconvenient times. It didn’t matter when they were toddlers and they walked in on her naked or on the toilet. Now, she wishes fifty dollars bought more time.

  “I won’t go on like this. I have to consider my pros and cons, too.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Lena.” Randall heads for their bedroom and reappears within minutes, overnight bag in hand. “I was thinking about doing this anyway. I need a head start on tomorrow’s work, and you need time to cool off. I’m going to the corporate apartment.”

  This is not the Randall she knows. Not the man who talks loyalty. She wasn’t his first girlfriend, or his first wife, but he said she would be his last, that he would be faithful, take care of her, the opposite of what his old man had done with his mother.

  Now, Randall’s eyebrows are lumpy with frustration; Lena’s emulate his—proof that married couples look and act alike after so many years together. In better times, if they were to see themselves in one of the many gilt mirrors Lena has placed around the house, they would tease one another over who was the original and who the copy.

  “Hey, parents,” Camille calls out. “What’s up with the glass all over the floor?”