As the light begins to wan, late, I wander back home, dazed as a creature let free from a fairy kingdom. It feels that my skin must shine, that my eyes will reflect all that I have done this afternoon, and I’m glad when Annie isn’t there. I float upstairs and shower, wash my hair, and comb it out.
There’s a note on the table from Annie, along with the mail. Her note says: Mom, I will be late. Going out after work with Travis. See you then. (Where were you??) Love, Annie.
I smile to myself and flip through the piles of Christmas cards, finding a tuition bill for next semester, a water bill, and a thick packet from a travel agency that catches my interest.
At the very bottom is a letter from Rick. It sends an odd pain through me, and I am tempted to just leave it there until morning.
First I open the travel agency packet and it’s the brochures I sent for on Seville. I laugh at the timing—maybe I didn’t need to go to Seville. I just needed a lover from Seville, and that makes me chuckle because I think of the Barber of Seville, and I realize that I’m as giddy as a girl, which is a very good feeling and one I haven’t had in a long time. The pictures of the city make me think of Angel walking there, and I wonder again if I have the courage to do something like travel completely alone.
I put it aside and pick up the letter from Rick. I should just leave it. But the truth is, I’m curious. A single page of notebook paper, written in blue ink in his tiny, hurried way:
December 8 (?)
Dear Trudy,
Just been sitting here, thinking, wondering how I got here. I’m not too good with words, but I’m thinking of that song, the Pink Floyd song, “Wish You Were Here.” I don’t know how things got all fucked up, babe. I know it’s me and there’s something wrong with me. Remember how my grandpa Tom used to never eat a strange woman’s food because he said they could curse you? That’s what I’ve been thinking about. Like some bad mojo got in my food and made me stop thinking like myself and made me crazy.
Jesus, this is hard and I don’t know what I’m trying to say, just that maybe I wish we could figure out a way to get back to where we were, and have this all over and forgotten, and be living a regular old life. I miss the kids so bad I can’t stand it. I miss sitting in the backyard.
I guess its not fair to do this when I’m still out here, all fucked up. Maybe I just wanted you to know I’m really thinking about it. About you. About us. I just don’t know what means anything anymore. Mostly I’m afraid this screwed it up so bad we can never get back that old good thing, that you won’t ever forgive me.
Anyway, there’s the line from the song. Maybe sometime we could just sit down and talk, like normal, huh? I wouldn’t mind going to have a beer w/you or something, if you wanted.
Love,
Rick
For one long second, I’m tempted to cry. I hate the timing. It’s not fair. Then I think of myself lying with Angel, his hand brushing over my belly lazily, and I pick up Rick’s letter and throw it in the trash.
BOXING TRIVIA
After the death of a male fighter in October of 1997, the Federazioni Pugilistica Italiana outlawed female boxing entirely. They even stopped a televised WIBF flyweight fight that was to be in Milan to enforce this ban. The police were brought in to restore the peace and order.
30
JADE
What I don’t expect is all the shit I get over the black eye. My grandmother, yeah, I expected her to fuss. She makes me put some stinky ointment on it every day. That’s what grandfolk do. If my mama saw it, I’d never hear the end of it.
But they’re older women, you hear what I’m saying? They’re strong, but not in the way I want to be. They want me to be pretty and helpful and female. They’re ladies. And I don’t want them any other way. I don’t expect them to understand this.
It’s everybody else who pisses me off. The women at work who shake their heads like I’ve been brawling with a man. They oughta know me better than that. Shannelle, who is straight-up horrified that I could have “ruined my looks.” She actually said that. What I didn’t say was, Honey, what if your mama could box? It just would have hurt her feelings.
Even if it’s true.
My supervisor calls me on the carpet for providing a bad example for the clients. “You can tell them whatever you like, Jade,” she says. “But they’re all going to think it’s okay for somebody to hit them because you’ve been hit.” And she sends me home until the bruises fade.
I drive away from the office with a burn in my chest. For a long time, I just drive. Drive and drive. Up to Liberty Point to look at the valley between two mesas, where the reservoir now lies. Drive down to the south side and by the house of a friend of mine from college, but she’s not around anymore and I know it and don’t stop. I drive through the seedy part of Bessemer, a proud, poor neighborhood where a lot of my clients eke out their lives. Get out of the car at Wal-Mart and stomp around inside, looking at the women in there. What would their lives be like if they were as strong as men? What if we just stop being pretty and get strong? How does that change us? How does it change society?
I’m so angry. It pulses through me in sparks and waves and ripples, winding through my intestines and lungs. I see a young girl with ribbons in her hair and want to yank them out. Stop! I want to yell at the teenagers trying on lipstick. It’s not gonna get you a goddamned thing.
I look at the cashiers with their worn faces, their bad haircuts, and I judge them. I do. I judge their softness, their wornness. They’re like rag rugs washed too many times. What if they turned all that bitterness into something sharp and hard and fought back for once?
When I find myself nearly in tears of fury, I stomp back out and stand on the sidewalk in the bright, cold day, breathing hard.
As I’m standing there, a man passes and whistles low under his breath. Another one gives me a wincing look, touches his head. A woman in a nice dress and high heels averts her gaze.
I’m still playing the game myself. Everybody is still measuring me by my physical attractiveness because I’m still in the game. Playing it to the hilt. I think of Rueben laughing when I protested that I didn’t want to be beautiful, just strong.
Next door is a MasterCuts, and before I know I’m going to do it, I stomp over there and push open the door and stand there feeling ten feet tall. I feel every muscle in my body, primed and strong. I take off my coat to show that my arms aren’t soft, but very hard, and not because I want to be a hard body for the gaze of men.
“Can I help you?” says a young girl with red lips and long lines of eyeliner, and hair that takes an hour to curl, if not more.
“Yeah,” I say. “I need a haircut.”
* * *
It takes forever to convince her I really mean cut it all off. She starts with snips here and there, chattering about what good condition it’s in, and how everybody spends so much money to get a perm that makes their hair look like this. Even when she starts to cut big hunks of it off, she’s sure I mean some cute little cut that shows off my long neck.
“More,” I say when she hesitates. And, “More,” again.
I stare at my emerging head in the mirror, and I’m scared of what I see. A hard woman’s face is coming out from beneath that softness of hair. Her eyes are level and steady. Her chin is high. And she is not as pretty.
I let the girl stop cutting when it’s an inch and a half long. There are copper-and-brown piles of curls all over the floor, and I kick it with a grin. “Yeah,” I say, running my hand over my head. I give her a twenty-dollar tip and a wink.
And before I can chicken out, I drive straight down Northern to the gym. That’s where it will matter. I don’t even say it to myself, but it’s Rueben’s eyes I want to see. I let him down the other day.
There aren’t many people around, but they do stare. Rueben is across the gym and he stops jumping rope when he sees me. I stop and meet his eyes across that space. My heart is beating harder than I wish as he just looks at me for a long, long minut
e.
Then he smiles. A big, knowing smile. I want him so bad, my ribs ache, and in that single second, I see that he wants me, too. The haircut wasn’t for him, it was for me, but his getting it matters. “You want to go have some coffee, Rueben? No bullshit.”
One side of his mouth lifts. “All right. Let me change.”
* * *
We go in my car to a coffee shop not far away. I realize I haven’t eaten all day and am starving, and order a cheeseburger and fries and a shake. “You want something?”
“Nah. I had a big lunch.”
When the waitress leaves, I meet his dark eyes and say, “Tell me your story, Rueben Perry.”
He bows his head, settles his big hands around the coffee cup, and considers it. “What do you want to know?”
“Start with the tattoos.”
“What do you think? They’re gang tattoos. Thought I was one badass little nigga. Went to jail, did my time, got my ass out of that town, and started over. Clean,” he adds.
“Did you ever have a wife?”
“Yeah. No kids.”
“Kill anybody?”
The half-beat of silence before he speaks tells the story for him. “Yeah.”
“Was it self-defense?”
His jaw goes tight, then relaxes. “No.”
Something in me presses on. “How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
I nod. “I’m sorry.”
“For what, Jade? For asking, because now you’ll have to deal with it? For knowing? What are you sorry for?”
I glare at him across the table. “I’m sorry,” I say fiercely, “that you had to go there. People don’t end up in that life because they want it. You think I don’t know that? I don’t know about your mama or your neighborhood or anything like that, but I know that a man as good as you must’ve had some bad times for that to happen.”
“Don’t social-work me, all right?”
We stare at each other across the space. His irises are as smooth as a river stone, but there’s heat in them. He gives himself away in a thousand ways that I haven’t noticed before because I was so damned sure I didn’t deserve a man like this. He strokes his thumbs. He looks at my mouth. He narrows his eyes. “What?”
I smile. “Tough guy.”
He wipes a hand over his face. Closes his eyes for a second. Then he looks directly at me. “I’m not gonna sleep with you, Jade, you understand that?”
I blink. “Oh.” Heat touches my face. “Is it me, women in general? I know you don’t like boys.”
His chuckle eases things. He takes my hand across the table, turns it over. Strokes his fingers across the heart of my palm. “I don’t sleep with anybody.”
“Why?”
He pulls his lower lip into his mouth. “Because that’s not my way anymore.”
“You mean you’re celibate?”
“That’s right.”
“Completely?”
His grin is slow and unbelievably sexy. “Yes.”
“How can you stand it?”
He gives me a look like, Please.
“Oh.”
“That’s why I don’t want to be alone with you.”
I smile. “So sometimes you’re tempted?”
“You have no idea.”
“Like when?”
His fingers slide over my life line, over the heart line. “When you knocked Chantall down. When you’re all sweaty and slick-looking and I know you’re in the shower in the other room.”
At least that much was good. Maybe I could spend a lot of time sweaty. The thought must have crossed my face because he says, “I’m asking you not to tempt me, all right? If you do, I can’t be your coach anymore.”
“Okay.” I say it seriously, but he’s touching me and I’m wanting nothing more than to throw myself across the table and convince him, right now, that he’s wrong. “Don’t you ever want a woman again?”
“Sure.”
“Well, how do you get one if you can’t touch her ever?”
He grins. “The old-fashioned way, Jade. The way our grandfolks did it—just don’t spend too much time alone.”
I yank my hand away, make a noise. “I’m getting mixed signals here, Rueben. I don’t know if you’re saying you want to see me or not see me.”
He stands up, holds out his hand. “Come on. Leave your coat.” He says to the waitress, “We’ll be right back.”
He takes my hand, which is not something he’s done before, and we go outside into the windy, dark day. I don’t have any hair to blow around and it makes me feel free somehow. “What are we doing?”
“This,” he says, and he hides me from the world with his giant self and bends down his big old bear head and puts his beautiful, sensual mouth on mine. His hand goes up around my cheek, slides around my neck, and it’s not a simple, light kind of kiss. His head is angled just right and our lips fit exactly, and he tastes like a long Saturday night. His tongue invites mine to play. And we kiss like that for a minute. Two. I would keep doing it for ten, twenty, thirty.
He raises his head. “Okay?” he rumbles.
“How can you kiss me like that and not want to have sex right now?”
His thumb goes over my lower lip. “Who said I didn’t want to?” And for the first time ever, he lets me see, looks at my face and my body, and shakes his head a little bit. “You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, Jade. But you’re about more than that.”
Something inside me goes still. I put my hand on his face, because I’ve wanted to for so long, and I say, “How do we do it?”
“Just like the old folks did,” he says again. “Be careful about being alone too much.”
“You really think that’ll work?”
“If it doesn’t, then maybe I’ll only meet you in church or the gym.”
“Okay.” I laugh. “I’m willing to give it a try.”
“Let’s go back inside. Chantall is on my case to let you guys spar again.”
“Are you going to let me?”
He takes my hand. “Yeah. Maybe in a couple of weeks. Let’s do some more work first.”
I can’t help a little bounce. “Yippee!”
“You got heart,” he says. “I’ll give you that.”
Bitter.
The ache in the soul of the foot
is the ache inside the face,
and it aches in the fresh trunk
of night only just lopped off.
Love, my enemy,
bit your bitter root!
“Gacela of the Bitter Root”
FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA,
Translated by EDWIN HONIG
31
TRUDY
At least Thanksgiving is only one day. Christmas lasts for weeks.
The mall gives me a headache. It’s overheated and crowded and the design seems more and more dated every time I shop there. I hate the Christmas cheer—snow falling outside, Santa in his chair ho-ho-hoing to the little kids. Christmas carols piping in over the speakers, all my favorites: “Joy to the World,” “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” “What Child Is This.”
I grit my teeth and steer around the choir of fifth-graders singing “O Holy Night,” trying not to remember when Rick and I had sometimes as many as ten—count them—Christmas events to attend with the children. Recitals, plays, programs, parties.
This year, all I have to do is shopping, and the lists are straightforward. Colin needs a new Palm Pilot, Annie a new television for her room, since the old one is on the fritz. I’ve already taken care of those big things, plus the gifts for Richard and his family, so all I need to do today is buy some smaller things. Stocking stuffers. Computer games for Colin. Socks and underwear for Annie, because in this I can still please her. It cheers me marginally to pick out the prettiest panties. Aquamarine bikinis with purple sparkles, leopard-print thong and matching bra. Socks in purple, her favorite color, ten pairs. Some with multicolored toes, some with furry texture, some sturdy wool to keep her fee
t warm.
I buy chocolates and peppermints for the stockings. Life Saver books, which have been a tradition since I was little. Wrapped butterscotch, a small box of pralines for Annie, another of toffee for Colin, chocolate-covered cherries for Richard, caramels for his wife. No Jelly Bellies this year for Rick, who isn’t a big chocolate fan.
Don’t think about it.
At the big box stores, I buy gift certificates for a new CD for everyone, also always a tradition. Three, not four. While I’m there, I can’t help stopping by the new twenty-five disk CD player on sale for fifty dollars less than I saw it for in June, when I picked it out for Rick’s Christmas present this year.
Standing there, it seems I am surrounded by couples. Young couples. Old couples. Middle-aged couples shopping for children. One guy says to me, “Oh, God. It’s got a remote?”
“Yeah.” The whole reason I picked this particular model. I hand it to him and walk away. I hate not buying Rick anything this year. I mean, I really, really, really hate it. He was raised in a large family, one of the middle ones, and there wasn’t a lot of money for fussy birthdays and Christmases. He pretended to be embarrassed by the way I staged Christmas so extravagantly, but you’ve never seen a man’s face glow like that in your life, trust me. He gets as excited as the kids.
Don’t think about it.
As I’m paying for the gift certificates, “Little Drummer Boy” comes on over the store speakers. First time I’ve heard it this year, and it slams me.…
I’m sitting at Mass with Rick, pregnant with Richard. The air smells of evergreen and spice and perfume. Rick is holding my hand, and the choir is doing a beautiful rendition of “Little Drummer Boy,” complete with drums and bells. Rick sings along, eyes shining. When he notices that I’m gazing at him with adoration, he actually blushes, squeezes my hand, leans over to kiss me. “I love you so much.”
At the counter at Circuit City, with a youngster so dewy ringing up my purchases he looks like an elf, I am suddenly overcome. Tears, not the kind I can blink away, are streaming down my face, and I’m humiliated and put on my sunglasses, attempting to take control. They keep coming, streaming down my cheeks. The boy is horrified. A woman behind me takes out a tissue from her purse and nudges me with it.
The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue: A Novel Page 21