“My grandma. She read up on life after death and she told me they’re all trying to get to the light.”
“Is the light God? Are they trying to find their way to heaven?”
“I hope that’s where they’re headed. I don’t know all the answers, but they usually look relieved when I mention the light and they go on their way.”
“But you said they look scared. Our ghost lady does not look scared. She looks furious.”
Rome laughed. “Yeah, she’s pretty fired up about something. She’s probably mad because she’s lost…that’s why she does that confused running thing. A few steps forward, then whips around and starts heading in the other direction.”
“I honestly can’t handle seeing her again. So if you bump into her while you’re out patrolling the area, please make sure you give her good directions. That lady is in desperate need of some white light.”
“I think she’s gone already. She’s the first spirit I’ve seen more than once.”
“But I saw her twice, also,” Jen reminded, looking worried. “I saw her on the bridge and before that, I saw her on Ethan’s computer. You’ve got to admit, there’s something weird about all this.”
“Hey, it’s not the dead we have to worry about. They can’t hurt us,” Rome reassured. “She’s gone back to wherever she came from or she finally found her way to wherever she was going.”
“How do you know?”
“I can feel it.”
After their meal, Jen and Rome sipped their second round of fruity martinis and listened to the soft music in the background. Jen stole a glance at her watch. Her face completely stoic, no one could tell that she was horrified that so much time had flown by.
She was already fifteen minutes past her expected return time. She hated to have to end such a wonderful evening, but her nanny duties beckoned and she was going to have to call it a night real soon.
“So, you grew up around cornfields…what was that like?” Rome asked, seeming to have forgotten that she had to be back on her nanny job by nine.
“Boring. And like I said, the nearest neighbors were the Amish kids and they weren’t allowed to play with me. They kept to themselves and worked all day.”
“Sounds rough.”
“I wouldn’t call it rough, but I had a lonely childhood. Just my folks and me. Oh, and Pogo, the family dog. Pogo wasn’t much fun, though. He was old and cranky, ever since I can remember. Blind in one eye, crippled, and could barely run.”
Rome started laughing. “Aw, damn. Excuse me, but the way you’re saying it is really funny.”
“I’m serious. Pogo would growl and even bite me whenever I tried to play with him.”
Rome leaned over and gave her doubting look. “Your own dog bit you and your parents didn’t have it put to sleep?”
“No. They loved Pogo and blamed me for being too rough. He belonged to my dad. He had Pogo for years before he had me.”
“That’s fucked up, that they let that dog bite you. I woulda shot that mutt if he bit my baby girl.” Rome scowled, his voice filled with fury.
“Do you have a daughter?”
“No, but I’m just saying. If I did, I’d shoot a muthafuckin dog for sinking its teeth into a child of mine.”
Jen started laughing. “You’re taking it the wrong way and getting all worked up and mad. I wasn’t abused by Pogo. I was raised to be gentle with him because he was sickly and cranky. He never bit me hard enough to break my skin and he certainly never attacked me like a pit bull gone wild. He mainly snarled and snapped.”
“Oh. All right. So, what about school? Didn’t you have friends at school?”
“I had a few white friends but they didn’t live nearby. Our community is rural…people live miles and miles apart. There weren’t too many black kids in our neck of the woods and certainly none with fire-red hair.” She touched her hair, which she’d painstakingly blow-dried for her hot date. “I got teased a lot.”
“Why?”
“For being different.”
“I love your hair.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” He looked at her bone straight hair and frowned. “I even like it slicked down the way you’re wearing it tonight.”
“I went through a lot of trouble working on my hair. Just for you!”
“Don’t do me any more favors. I like it natural—wild and untamed.”
Jen scrunched up her nose. “Are you serious? You like my hair when it’s looking like barbed wire.”
“Barbed wire?”
“That’s how my mother always referred to it.”
“I think your hair is beautiful.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she agreed, squirming at the compliment. “But it’s too much work to keep it looking this way.”
“It’s beautiful either natural or straight, all right? But I like it when it’s all fuzzy and windblown like it was yesterday.”
Jen looked down; her cheeks flushing.
“Your red hair is beautiful and unique and so are you.”
She couldn’t keep her head down forever, but his compliments were putting such a gigantic smile on her face and she was too ashamed to look up. “Thank you,” she muttered.
“Look at you, all blushing. That’s cute. There’s nothing fake about you, Jen. I dig you. Now, will you please look up?”
“Okay, but you have to promise me…no more compliments. I’m not used to getting too much praise for my looks. That’s enough for one night,” she said, laughing.
“No, you can’t stop me from speaking my mind. You’re beautiful and you need to know it. Mothers can seriously mess up a kid’s self-esteem.”
“My mom didn’t mean any harm,” Jen said, finally looking up as she came to her mother’s defense. “I have a ton of hair and it gets impossibly tangled and it’s a lot to handle when it gets wet.”
Rome looked at her. “No offense to your mom, but she has you thinking you need to waste valuable time straightening out that crazy curly hair that I happen to enjoy the challenge of running my fingers through.”
Smiling, Jen shook her mane of temporarily soft tresses. “Sorry.” She laughed.
“Seriously, though. Your hair looks good in whichever style you wear it.” He gave her a big, approving smile.
“Thank you. Now, tell me about your childhood. Which part of Philly did you grow up?”
His sunny expression darkened. “I spent a lot of time at my grandma’s house.”
“How come?”
“My grandma is really the only mother figure I ever had in my life.”
“What happened to your real mom?” Jen asked, recalling that he’d mentioned his mother the night before, but hadn’t gone into any details.
Rome shifted in his chair. His facial muscles tensed and Jen braced herself to hear about a tragic death—from cancer—or a brutal and unsolved murder. Maybe that’s why he’d selected law enforcement as a career, Jen thought…to avenge his mother’s death.
Rome smiled sadly. “I have two mothers, but neither one of them really wanted me.”
Jen had to use great restraint to keep her jaw from dropping open. “What do you mean?”
His mouth tightened into that sad smile again. Jen wanted to reach across the table and smother him with her inexperienced version of a motherly hug. “Well, there’s my father’s wife, Sylvia. Her name is on my birth certificate. And then there’s my birth mother, Twyla, who paid a large sum of money to get her name expunged from all records associated with me.”
With this shocking newsflash, Jen lost control. Her jaw dropped wide open and remained in that unhinged state. With her eyes wide and mouth agape, she held her breath and became very still as she waited for Rome to offer an explanation that would bring clarity to his sorrowful and bizarre beginnings.
Rome waved his hand in front of Jen’s face, snapping her out of her stunned stupor.
She finally blinked, closed her mouth, and gulped. “ The Twyla Tanning! The big star known as the Big Tee?
She’s your mother?”
Rome nodded.
“Wow! I heard the rumors that Tee had a child, but from what I read, I thought she had a girl…who’d be around—”
“Around my age—twenty-five,” he said solemnly. “She wanted her career more than she wanted me. And unfortunately, my pops took the money without giving a shit about what that lie would do to his son.” Breathing hard, he clenched his fist in anger.
“You don’t have to talk about it—”
Rome gave a rueful laugh. “I want to talk about it. I’ve been keeping this bottled in for most of my life. Just like you, a confidentiality clause or some bullshit like that has kept me from opening my mouth. And the one time I slipped up…believe me, I learned it was wiser to keep my mouth shut.”
“You signed an agreement?”
“Hell no. My father and his wife did all the signing for me; a few months before I was even born. They got paid big bucks to do it. Up until I was six years old, I thought Sylvia was my mother. But one day, after a big fight with my pops, I heard her talking to one of her friends over the phone. She said my pops and his son could both kiss her ass. She was sick of playing mommy to some other bitch’s child.”
Jen reached across the table and patted the top of his hand.
“I asked my grandma if I was some other bitch’s child. My poor grandma didn’t have anything to do with those decisions that were made and she told the truth about my parents. According to my grandma, Twyla and my pops were two teenaged recording artists trying to get a hit. Twyla got hers first. My pops never did. Twyla’s big break happened when she was seventeen years old and six months’ pregnant. It was too late for an abortion, so the bigwigs from her record label, along with her family, paid my pops to keep his mouth shut. My pops was eighteen. Too young and dumb and too damn greedy to refuse. In my opinion, he sold his soul…and offered up mine along with the deal.” Rome’s voice cracked with emotion.
“Where is your dad—still in Philly?”
“State pen.”
“You’re kidding! What for?”
“Bad checks.”
“I thought he had a lot of money.”
“Used to. He lived the life of a big baller, but the money stopped coming in when I turned eighteen.”
“Do you visit him in prison?”
Rome grimaced. “Hell no. I don’t owe him anything. Ain’t no love lost between me and my old man.”
“But he was only eighteen when you were born. He was a kid who made a big mistake.”
“People are supposed to apologize after they realize they’ve made a mistake. My pops never even came close to saying he was sorry.”
“Did he put any of that money aside for your future?”
Rome shook his head. “He didn’t have to. Twyla took care of me.” He paused. “Financially, I’m set for life. But everything isn’t always about money. On the emotional side of things, I’m as broke as a joke.” He laughed wryly. “Especially with my grandma gone.”
“No other relatives?”
“No, my pops was an only child. No cousins or aunts or uncles on his side. It’s just me now.”
Now Jen felt guilty about the way she’d taken her parents’ love for granted. Resented them for raising her in a boring, rural community. Trying to live at a faster pace in Philly was her way of rebelling.
Now Rome was pointing out that family love was really one of the most important things in life. She was definitely going to call her parents. After the Provosts hired a new nanny, she’d take a trip home. Invite Rome to meet her folks. Show him the cornfields. Hmm. Make love in the cornfields. She wondered if he’d be willing to try that.
“If you could see the situation from your mother’s teenaged perspective, maybe you’d understand the decision she felt forced to make. Things were different twenty-five years ago. She had that squeaky clean image to live up to back then. After she turned twenty-one, she threw away that good girl image and became a sex symbol. When you think about it, the Big Tee persona, with all the surgery and the humongous boobs, seemed like an angry young person, mad at the world. She was probably furious because she’d listened to the people who forced her to give you away.”
“She wasn’t forced. She willingly went along with the decision. What kind of heartless person could give up their child and never look back because she doesn’t want to tarnish her public image?”
“Probably more stars than we realize have made similar choices.”
“None that I ever heard about. Everybody has heard about Twyla’s abandoned daughter. Fucked-up part is that she doesn’t have a daughter…she has me…a son.”
“Have you ever met your mother?”
A shadow fell over Rome’s face. “I met her once. A long time ago.” His Adam’s apple became visible, bobbing up and down as if something were caught in his throat—something really hard to swallow.
She’d unwittingly conjured a memory that Rome was having difficulty reliving. Jen didn’t know what to do or say. She caressed his hand; her eyes filled with an apology for bringing up an unpleasant topic.
While staring at him, she started to see some of Twyla’s features in his face. The features Big Tee possessed when she was a cherub-faced young woman. Before the outrageous breast implants, ribs removed, liposuction, and before she started allowing plastic surgeons to restructure her face. Today at forty-two years old, Twyla Tanning barely resembled her former self.
“What was she like?” Jen asked, filling the uncomfortable silence.
“Distant.”
“Oh.” Jen lowered her head, sorry she’d asked.
“The fucked-up thing is that if I had kept my mouth shut, I could have spared myself some additional pain, but when I was in the elementary school, my classmates were really feeling Twyla. The girls danced like her and tried to imitate her hairstyles. The boys…well suffice it to say, my mother was the fantasy of every little boy. One day, trying to get some props, I blurted out that Twyla Tanning was my real mother. And like I said, there aren’t any birth records to prove it and I became a laughingstock.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah, I know all about being the butt of jokes.”
Jen touched her hair self-consciously. Her hair issues seemed so minor compared to what Rome had gone through and obviously, from his pained expression, he still hadn’t made peace with his mother’s abandonment.
“My grandma was furious about what I was going through. She tried to get her son…my pops…to get in touch with Twyla, but he refused to make waves. He wasn’t trying to stop that gravy train he had coming in. Finally, my grandma took it upon herself to contact Twyla’s people. After about six months or more, she finally got a call from my mother. It took a year of negotiating before she sent for me.”
Jen smiled. “What did you two do together?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. She met with me in a hotel room. She came in looking beautiful, surrounded by bodyguards. She smiled at me and shook my hand like I was an underprivileged child who’d won a contest to spend five minutes with her. She didn’t introduce me to her security team and I really wasn’t sure if she actually knew I was her son. I mean…for real…she treated me like a fan. As she was breezing out the door, I told myself to yell, ‘Mom,’ just to make sure she hadn’t mistaken me for one of her kiddy fans.”
“Did you?”
His eyes hooded over. “No. I punked out. She left me with a hired nanny who was instructed to show me a good time.”
Hit with a flash of memory, Jen recalled Rome telling her that he’d had a nanny for a couple of days, but she hadn’t taken him seriously. “That was it? Your mother left you like with a stranger?”
“Yeah. She called my grandma and told her that she’d held up her end of the bargain—she met me. She told my grandma that if she continued to pester her, she would have her lawyers contact her—with a lawsuit that would cost her everything she owned.”
“So, your grandma gave up?”
“Wha
t could she do? She couldn’t force my mother to love me? She held up her end of the bargain.”
“Did you meet your relatives on your mom’s side of the family?”
“No, she didn’t introduce me to anybody.” His voice broke again, revealing his immense pain.
“She sent me a birthday card for my eighteenth birthday. It was generic and didn’t mention the word son. But she signed it, Love, Tee, and that card gave me the hope that one day when the fame and the beauty faded, maybe she’d come around and be a loving grandmother since she missed out on being a mom. It’s a fantasy of mine,” he said with a very sad smile.
His story was so sad; so unfair. Jen wished she could give that selfish Twyla Tanning a piece of her mind. Feeling helpless, she hung her head and joined Rome in silent sorrow.
“Now you know more about me than I’ve ever told a soul. And you know what, I feel much better. I feel purged.”
Jen looked at her watch and made a face. “I have to get back. I promised the senator I’d be home by nine.” Jen didn’t miss the disappointment that shot across Rome’s face.
“Aw, damn. You have to go?”
She nodded. “But after he hires the new nanny, I’ll have a lot of extra time.”
“It’s cool. I understand. Just a little disappointed. I had a big surprise for you.”
“What?”
“It’s a surprise. I get off work at six tomorrow. Think you can get away?”
“I’m going to make it my business to get away. I want my surprise.”
Leaving the restaurant, Rome put an arm around Jen. His hand slipped down and publicly caressed her butt. He caught himself and smiled that boyish smile of his. “When I’m around you, it’s hard to keep my hands to myself.”
Jen didn’t have to use the key pad. The senator, impatiently waiting for her, pulled open the door.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“It’s okay, really. You deserve a lot more free time than a few hours. I hope you had an enjoyable evening.” The senator seemed antsy, raking his fingers through his hair as he spoke.
“I had a very nice time,” Jen said, noticing how ill-at-ease the senator seemed.
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