Abide with Me (6 page)

There were letters and cards Raymond had sent his parents and even letters his mother had discovered from his first love, Sela, the young lady he had fallen in love with on sight at a high school basketball game. Numerous pictures of Raymond and Sela at their high school prom, parties, and sporting events, and fraternity and sorority mementos from their days at the University of Alabama. Every important person and event that occurred up until his graduation from law school was lovingly placed in this special book.

During his parents’ weekend visit Raymond had mentioned how much he was dreading tracking down all the information required for his confirmation. The financial stuff would be easy. All Raymond had to do was call his accountant and the reports would be ready. But the FBI wanted more. Organizations in which he held memberships, papers he had written, and a random sampling of cases he’d handled as a lawyer, not just in Seattle, but throughout his career.

They also requested information on the schools he attended, including the names of teachers and friends who might vouch for his good character, and evidence that he had always been a good citizen. His mother appeared pleased when she said she might have something that would help him out. When Raymond and his father asked what, she had said, “That’s my little secret and I don’t know if I’m ready to let go. What did I always tell you? Save some secrets for yourself.”

Some of the secrets Raymond had saved for himself didn’t make the book. There were no pictures of Kelvin, the handsome University of Alabama football player who had seduced Raymond on a beautiful fall Friday during his senior year. But how would Raymond’s mother know about that life-changing experience? He wondered where Kelvin might be at this exact moment, whether he was dead or alive, if he had remarried or was spending his life with a man. There was one picture of Kyle, Raymond’s first openly gay friend, in a group photo his mother had taken on a visit to New York, but no pictures of Kyle during his last months on earth, before he succumbed to AIDS. Raymond’s smile disappeared as he thought about Kelvin and Kyle, but it returned quickly when he thought of the great times he had shared with each of them. The romantic snowy night when Raymond and Kelvin came oh so close to making love with only a winter sky covering them. Raymond could hear Whitney Houston singing “You Give Good Love,” even though no music was playing. He thought of a warm spring night in New York’s Greenwich Village, standing outside
of Keller’s, where he and Kyle would comment on the good-looking men going in and out of the bar, waging bets on who would take home the best-looking guy. Moments like these were missing from the book. Moments in his life he’d never shared with his mother or any member of his immediate family, simply because he thought they just wouldn’t understand.

But there were other memories of his New York tenure in the binder. A newspaper article about Nicole Springer, the Broadway actress Raymond had fallen in love with harder than ever before, harder even than with Kelvin. He’d always known in his heart of hearts that Kelvin and he wouldn’t last. Nicole was now an official part of his family after she married his best friend and play brother, Jared. There were no photographs of the hospital hallway where Raymond confessed to a stunned Nicole his sexual desires for men. Yet, like hearing the silent music, Raymond could still see Nicole’s horrified face.

There was a picture of his mother, himself, and Sela on her wedding day—to someone else. For a moment, it looked like the picture everybody in Birmingham thought possible. Raymond and Sela married. There they were, Raymond’s mother looking like the mother of the groom, Sela in a beautiful wedding gown, and Raymond smiling in a handsome black suit. He was not the groom but only a guest, at a wedding that occurred a few weeks after his confession to Nicole. The day he realized there would be no wedding day for him.

Raymond smiled to himself, and his eyes became moist as he reviewed the melancholy milestones of his life. And then a tear escaped from his left eye and rolled down his cheek. He felt overcome with emotion from the gift his mother had given him. He wanted to call her and thank her and share some of the moments she’d left out simply because he hadn’t shared them with her before. But Raymond didn’t pick up the phone, only inches away. He wanted to share this moment with Trent, and yet a part of him relished being able to review his life in solitude. It was a special feeling, a special moment.
And even though the house was still silent, he could hear Trent’s voice after the first time they made love in their new home, quiet like now. Trent had whispered in his lover’s ear,
“Some of the best moments in life are when we don’t have a clue of what to say or do.”

Later that evening, Raymond got a call from Trent saying he was working late and asked if he wanted him to stop and pick up something to eat.

“Naw, that’s okay. I’m not that hungry,” Raymond said softly.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Just enjoying the evening and life,” Raymond said.

“What was in the package?” Trent asked.

“A really special gift from my mother. It’s hard to describe it, but I’ll show it to you after I’ve enjoyed it,” Raymond said.

“Okay. I’ll see you later on.”

“Trent?”

“Yes, Raymond?”

“Thanks for being such a gift to me,” Raymond said.

“What a nice thing to say. Are you sure everything is okay?”

“Never been more certain,” Raymond said.

After hanging up, Raymond picked up the phone and called Jared. Nicole answered the phone. He still loved the sound of her voice.

“Nicole, how you doing?”

“Raymond? Of course it’s Raymond. I’m doing fine, sweetheart. Is everything okay?” Raymond was thinking people close to him didn’t understand the sweet sadness he was enjoying. But how could they?

“I’m doing just great. I know you’re happy to be back in the Big Apple,” Raymond said.

“I sure am. Matter of fact, I’m on my way out the door. Going to a party one of the members of the cast is giving. Want to speak to your boy?”

“Is he there?”

“Sure, let me get him. It’s nice talking to you, Raymond. I hope we’ll see you and Trent real soon,” Nicole said.

“Same here. It’s always nice hearing your voice,” Raymond said.

After a few seconds Jared came on the phone.

“Whassup, whassup, my niggah?”

“You, my brother. How is everything?”

“Everything’s cool, couldn’t be cooler if I was sitting in a tub of ice,” Jared joked.

“You sound happy.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? Life is sweet.”

“I’m not keeping you from nuthing, am I?”

“You know I always got time for you. Besides, Nicole’s gone to her party and I’m getting ready to look over some work and hit the sack,” Jared said.

Raymond and Jared spent the next hour talking like they hadn’t talked for months. In reality they spoke briefly at least once a week, sometimes two or three times.

Raymond, knowing Jared was really a small-city type of guy, asked him how he was dealing with New York. When Jared said he was loving it, Raymond teased him about how he used to say he could never see himself living in New York.

Jared asked how things were going with Trent and the confirmation and if he had any dates for the hearings.

“You know, I know people in D.C., so when you go down there for the hearing, I want to be in the front row. In case any of them congressmen wanna act stupid. I got yo’ back,” Jared said.

“And you know it,” Raymond said.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Jared asked as the conversation neared an end. Before answering the question, Raymond told Jared about the gift his mother had sent and how it had got him to thinking about his life and everything.

“Your moms and pops are some special people,” Jared said. “What a wonderful gift.”

“So you see, my brother, I’m fine. I just wanted you to know what a gift you are to me. And I love ya, man,” Raymond said.

“And I love you back,” Jared said.

“I did something strange the other day,” Basil said.

“You want to tell me about it?” the doctor asked.

“There was this honey at the gym. I noticed her checking me out for a couple of weeks, but, of course, there was nothing strange about that. I mean honeys and knuckleheads check me out all the time. Sometimes I speak … sometimes I don’t. It all depends on how I’m feelin’ at the particular time.”

“What was strange about this lady?”

“It wasn’t anything strange about her physically. I mean, she was beautiful. I couldn’t even tell if she was black, probably mixed with something. She kinda reminded me of this honey in Spike Lee’s movie
Mo’ Better Blues
, the one with Denzel Washington. Did you see that?”

“No.”

“Cynda Williams, that’s her name.”

“The young lady?”

“No, the actress, but back to the honey I was talking about. She was beautiful. I said that, didn’t I? So anyway, the other day she finally walked up to me and asked if I was John Basil Henderson, which was weird ’cause everybody calls me Basil. When I said yeah, she looked at me and said she’d been wanting to meet me for a long time. I’m thinking she must be a reporter or something, but I suddenly find myself looking at her eyes. They’re hard to ignore, brownish-gray babydoll eyes. There was something sincere and sad in her eyes.”

“How so?”

“It’s kinda hard to explain. I mean, it was like she knew me.”

“Was she a reporter?”

“I asked her and she said no,” Basil said.

“Did you ask her if she knew you?”

“No. But, of course, she did know me. She knew my full name at least. When I was playing ball, I was in the newspaper and magazines all the time. And honeys, just like little boys and some men, collect photos of their favorite players. And now with my gig at ESPN, I have a whole new group of fans,” Basil said confidently.

“So she knew you from your football playing days or your current position?”

“I think both. We didn’t talk about it that much. We went to lunch and she didn’t want to talk about sports at all. And she wasn’t really coming on to me, but I know she wants me.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Think about it. A good-looking honey comes over and says she’s been wanting to meet you for a long time. I mean, come on. Her approach may be a little different, but in the end I’m certain she wants what they all want … a piece of the beef. The honeys nowdays are getting slicker all the time. They’re starting to think and act like men. I kinda feel sorry for the dumb mofos making all that money playing sports. Honeys be reading the sports section like it’s a romance novel or something. They do their research and then they go in for the kill.
The next thing some of those mofos know, they’re in court trying to work out child support payments.”

“What did you and the young lady talk about during lunch?”

“First just some general things. And then she asked me about my childhood, and even though I didn’t tell her much, she seemed really interested in me. She asked me about my father. Said she had read an article on me where I talked about how tight I was with my father, since he was a single parent. I started to tell her don’t be trying to analyze me, I’ve already got somebody doing that,” Basil laughed.

“Are you interested in pursuing a relationship with her?”

“I don’t know. I ain’t really hanging with anybody seriously. I might ’cause she is fine, and I like it when honeys want to talk about something besides sports and who I fucked that was famous. You know?”

“You want somebody who’s not interested in what you do for a living?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“That’s understandable. So you had a nice time talking with her?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Are you going to see her again?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Does she have a name?”

Basil looked up and smiled at the doctor like a mischievous little boy and said, “Yeah, her name is Campbell. Like the soup!”

On Friday, Trent prepared a special celebration dinner for Raymond, who was looking forward to a quiet evening with his partner. But Trent had invited Dexter, who invited his own guest. Trent didn’t actually invite Dexter. He invited himself, by leaving a message saying he was going to drop by, even though he knew that Friday was Trent and Raymond’s regular date night. By the time Trent called to tell Dexter and remind him of that, Dexter and his friend were already ringing the doorbell.