Black Girls Must Die Exhausted: A Novel for Grown Ups

by Jayne Allen

  “Dad, how’s it going?” I asked. He turned in my direction and appeared to relax just slightly.

  “I needed a little breather,” he said. When he looked at me, I saw a fleeting trace of the small boy that I had imagined so often, from Granny Tab’s stories.

  “Where’s Diane, and the girls?”

  “They went to grab a bite and pick Tanner up from the airport.”

  “Tanner’s coming?”

  “He wanted to be here, so he flew back from school. He’ll make it for the burial.”

  “You doing alright?” I asked him, giving a pat on the arm.

  “I suppose I should be asking you that.”

  “I don’t know that rules applied to these sorts of things,” I said.

  “Then let’s go get some ice cream,” he said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Don’t I look serious?”

  In all honesty, he looked sad, and a little spent. But I understood what he meant. So, for the first time since I was a little girl, I took my father’s hand. And out the door we went without a single word to anybody else.

  Epilogue

  Almost exactly a year following Granny Tab’s funeral, I was at home on a Saturday afternoon, singing along to music in my bathroom, hovering close to the mirror, while getting myself ready for a very important date.

  For once, I wasn’t running late. Denisha and I reached a compromise on my hair, and she agreed to cut it into a short tapered natural with a well-placed side part. I agreed to let her place those highlights that she always insisted would look so good on camera. She was right. And I was right too, my natural hair did look good, and became much more manageable as a “wash and go,” with some slight application of product. Denisha had also been right about chasing the Daequan Jenkins story, and I chased it all the way to the end. The DA declined to press criminal charges, but the officer that shot Daequan was suspended indefinitely and a departmental investigation was launched into training protocols. As the investigation continued, any new developments, I reported on. The story was picked up by every local news station, and became national news for quite some time. My original interview segment on the steps even ran internationally. Daequan and the Jenkins family hired an attorney and successfully sued the city, reaching a settlement that more than funded Daequan’s education, all the way through what remained of undergrad for him, along with medical school, residency, fellowship, post-doc and even business school if he wanted. The irony was lost on no one, as it was the need to fund his education that precipitated the entire incident. The story won an Emmy Award for me as a reporter and another for my entire reporting team. It was a good year for KVTV. Now, I was up for a promotion again, to weekend anchor. This time, there was no competition. I had not one, but two excellent mentors—Chris, and Lisa.

  True to her word, Lisa took on the challenge of pushing the Women’s Issues group forward. Once I recovered from the loss of my grandmother, the heavy demands of the most intense period of the Jenkins shooting story, and the physical experience of freezing my eggs, I was finally able to make time to attend a meeting. By then, they had already successfully lobbied for a change to our health care coverage, which now only included birth control, but also infertility treatment for women and families. This was a landmark development for our industry and catapulted KVTV to the very top of the local news stations in the Southland. In addition to being her mentor, Lisa and I became pretty good friends, meeting at least once a month for our spa day and tea party, which allowed us to let off some steam just between the two of us.

  Finishing my makeup in the mirror, and the last bit of mascara applied to precision, with the extra time, I decided to pour myself a glass of iced tea and relax in my backyard for a bit before I put my dress on. The change to our insurance allowed me to preserve my down payment, and Granny Tab left me with a little bit more to afford the house that I really wanted. The room that I always had in mind for her was here, but now it was littered with random artifacts left from time to time by my little sisters, Danielle and Dixie. I’m still learning how to say that, “little sisters,” and I’m still learning how to be a big sister. There was never an official decision of let’s all try to be a family. I just started accepting a few more dinner invitations in Calabasas, and started extending a few of my own. Diane and I still are not close, but we have a respectful orbit that she usually doesn’t cross. Last time I hosted dinner, I served the wine from a vineyard that Laila, Alexis and I visited on our girls’ trip to Napa, just a few months after Granny Tab’s funeral.

  Alexis and Rob were still working their way back to a marriage, but without a final decision between them, she continued her own policy of not wearing her ring. He still wore his faithfully and still lived outside the home, now in his own apartment. It’s been no easy road for Laila either, but she found a great life coach and eventually included Alexis and me in a few group sessions. Once we realized that we were talking about everything to each other except for what really mattered, we each realized we needed to do better—for each other, and for ourselves. The counselor gave us a short affirmation to say when we didn’t quite know what to say or how to ask for what we needed. It felt awkward to say to one another at first, but it eventually become such second nature, I started practicing it in the mirror on myself every morning:

  I see you.

  I love you.

  I acknowledge your struggle.

  I think you’re beautiful.

  Sitting outside on my patio, I pulled up a chair to enjoy a few minutes with the sun, a gentle breeze and a refreshing glass of tea, already covered with the light coating of sweat from condensation. I was looking forward to this evening. My date, I hadn’t seen in over two weeks. Relaxing into my chair, I reached over to my phone to check for any work messages, and saw that I had a missed call from Marc. I sent him a quick text back to let him know I’d call him tomorrow. Tonight I would be busy—it was Senior Prom at Crestmire again and Ms. Gretchen was waiting on me. Marc’s appearance at Granny Tab’s funeral was the entry point to a new kind of relationship between us. It wasn’t lost on me what my father taught me about the kind of damage a person carries, or what my mother taught me about claiming only what’s yours and leaving the rest behind. In spite of perhaps his evolving intentions, I realized that Marc was what I called, limited. He was limited in his capacity to commit, to love, to support and to show up for me in the ways that I couldn’t always name, but well knew I needed. So, for now, we’re friends. Just friends—at least, most of the time. Sometimes, our chemistry could still get the best of us. Was he the rare type? Maybe. Only time could tell me that. It did take me a very long time to tell anyone about what happened after Marc and I broke up, the confrontation in the car, and the episode after Granny Tab died. For a while, I was really ashamed. In retrospect, perhaps that was my breaking point, and I just happened to break wide on him, spilling my guts. Eventually I told Lexi, and then Laila and they both said they were shocked that he hadn’t ghosted me entirely, after either time. “Guys ghost women now if they do anything that makes them even slightly uncomfortable,” Laila said. “And look at what the fuck you did, Tabby, you went full-frontal with your crazy. I’m shocked he even reached out to you with that ‘WYD?’ text.” But Marc did reach out, he always did. Sometimes it would take him a while, but sure enough, something would pop up on my phone. I was learning my own way of trusting him.

  Before it got too late, and I got too relaxed and too tired, I headed back into my house, and into my bedroom to slip into my dress for the evening’s festivities. I offered to help Ms. Gretchen get ready, but she refused, saying that she’d let one of the girls at the salon do her makeup after she got her nails done. Ms. Gretchen said to me, “Now, what you need to learn is if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready. You know I stay sittin’ on ready.” True to form, Ms. Gretchen was still taking ride shares, watching makeup tutorials and maintaining that
dye job in her particular shade of blonde that drove all the men at Crestmire crazy.

  C

  Pulling up at Crestmire, the visitor’s parking lot was almost empty. I was thankful for the proximity to the door this time, as I clacked my kitten heels through the entrance. Usually, on Saturdays during my regular visits, the spaces were packed. I continued to keep almost the exact same schedule with Ms. Gretchen as I had with Granny Tab. It was another unspoken thing between us. After the funeral, she’d never ask me again to come visit her, but I made sure that she’d never need to. I showed up every week on Saturdays, just as usual, unless I had an emergency work assignment, which did happen sometimes.

  I met Ms. Gretchen at her apartment and handed off the flowers that I brought. She looked resplendent in a bright magenta fitted mermaid-style dress, with an off the shoulder top and a flare at the bottom, just below the knee. She even had on her two-inch “high-heels” that were black and white polka dot. Her hair was curled perfectly into a just slightly elevated, more polished version of her regular style and her makeup was subtle, but immaculate. Today, she had chosen metallic magenta polish to match the color of her dress.

  Standing in her kitchenette, I said to Ms. Gretchen, “Clearly I have the hottest date at Crestmire!” She smiled in a big way, dropped the flowers on the counter, along with my purse and keys and pulled my hand to usher us out the door.

  “Now you know I had to show these old biddies how it’s supposed to be done!” We shuffled quickly down the hallway to the re-appropriated activity room, where the Senior Prom would be. “I have Mr. Parker holding some seats for us at the good table, the one near the dance floor,” she said.

  “Mr. Parker, Ms. Gretchen? Is he somebody special?” I asked, teasing.

  “No more special than lunchmeat!” she said quickly. We both laughed. “Although,” she continued in a playful tone, “this is a special night…and on special nights, special things can happen,” she said with a wink.

  Walking into the event space, I was surprised to see that Crestmire had been decorated true to theme. The activity room that was normally reserved for Bingo, crafts, and rocking chairs in front of the willow tree, had been transformed with gold and black balloons, streamers, confetti, cloth coverings on the tables, and floral centerpieces. One of the aides I recognized from my regular visits even wore a black suit and crisp white shirt, as he manned a makeshift DJ station that was already playing music. I took a seat at the table that Ms. Gretchen had indicated for us, and she went directly to the dance floor, led by Mr. Parker’s shuffling, yet confident steps. Their departure gave me the opportunity to sink into my own thoughts. I placed Granny Tab here in my mind, and wondered if she’d be drinking the punch, or eating one of the hard candies that were scattered across each table. Maybe, she would have even been up dancing with Ms. Gretchen, enjoying herself with a gigantic smile, similar to what I could observe tonight on so many of the other residents’ faces. I imagined that I could feel her presence there with me, and maybe she’d be observing in her own quiet way, taking in everything around her and seeing magic in places that other people missed. I thought of the sea of former students at her funeral, and for some reason, my sister Dixie’s eyes. In fact, sometimes I imagined if you put the three of us together, Danielle, Dixie and me, you’d almost have a version of Granny Tab. Danielle had her quiet strength, Dixie, her eyes and fearless ability to connect, and as for me, I liked to believe that I shared her passion for the spirit of humanity—that part of her that could see past the color of my grandfather’s skin to find a great dancer with a brilliant smile; the part of her that could hold a space for the tears of a friend; and keep a door open for redemption, even for those who had hurt you the most. The thought made me realize that somehow, in everything I’d lost, as imperfect as it was, I’d gained a family.

  As the evening continued, from my seat across the dance floor, I watched Ms. Gretchen shake it to every song, including the most disorganized version of the “Wobble” line dance I had ever seen. It literally looked like the slow motion version of a cage match, with walkers and stepped-on toes and cracking knees—everything colliding everywhere. But, even in the midst of the chaos, I couldn’t help but notice the joy that still streamed in all directions. People seemed to forget their limitations, even if just for a moment. Even crotchety Mr. Lim was up, turning around in offbeat circles. And, to my further amusement, in the rolling sea of many-colored dresses, lace and ruffles, neatly-coiffed grey hair and gleaming tops of bald heads atop time-rounded shoulders, Ms. Gretchen stood out almost as if she had her own spotlight. Her face lit up from the inside like a bright flame, as I watched Mr. Parker steal a swat at her ample behind. She pretended to be offended, but giggled when she caught my eye and realized that I had seen it.

  Ms. Gretchen made a big gesture for me to come and join her on the dance floor. My feet were hurting, even from just sitting, but there was no way I could say no. As I headed in Ms. Gretchen’s direction, I envisioned what Granny Tab must have been doing out there dancing, and for the first time I felt a true sense of ease in knowing that my presence was not required for a good time on this kind of night. I thought of the light sparkling in her faded blue eyes, the smile that stretched wide across her face, and her hands waving in the air as she might have also have been trying to catch the rhythm of whatever song she danced to. I imagined that Granny Tab’s heart quit that night because it had been overfilled with joy—and that she had died exhausted in the best way, that the fullness of her life had finally overflowed and that happiness burst through her at the seams, like an explosion of vibrant, expansive light. In that moment, I was certain that Ms. Gretchen would also one day die exhausted, and when my time came, when I finished filling out the corners of my own life’s adventure, so would I.

  And as for my little secret, there were only a few more weeks to go before I could let everybody know…that soon enough, a baby would make two.

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  AND BABY MAKES TWO

  And Baby Makes Two is the next enthralling installment of the Black Girls Must Die Exhausted Trilogy coming from Quality Black Books in September 2019!

  Did you enjoy this book?

  I sure hope so!

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  Much love, Jayne

  Contents

  Acknowledgmentsiii

  Chapter One1

  Chapter Two27

  Chapter Three53

  Chapter Four61

  Chapter 577

  Chapter 687

  Chapter 797

  Chapter 8101

  Chapter 9109

  Chapter 10121

  Chapter 11129

  Chapter 12141

  Chapter 13151

  Chapter 14157

  Chapter 15163

  Chapter 16169

  Chapter 17177

  Chapter 18187

  Chapter 19203

  Chapter 20215

  Chapter 21221

  Chapter 22229

  Chapter 2323
5

  Chapter 24247

  Chapter 25259

  Chapter 26267

  Chapter 27277

  Chapter 28283

  Chapter 29295

  Chapter 30305

  Chapter 31311

  Chapter 32319

  Chapter 33325

  Chapter 34333

  Chapter 35347

  Chapter 36351

  Chapter 37355

  Chapter 38361

  Chapter 39365

  Chapter 40371

  Chapter 41377

  Epilogue387

  Wanna chat about the book?396

  Did you enjoy this book?397