Between Lovers (34 page)

We leave there and drive back to Oakland, land on the outskirts of Lake Merritt at the Jahva House on Lake Shore. A shotgun-style hangout that reminds me of the original 5th Street Dicks in Los Angeles's Leimert Park. Jeans. T-shirts. Turtlenecks. People are drinking Heinekens and talking about the revolution. Where the sisters aren't trying to look Caucasian, Japanese, or Asian. With the dreads, twisties, braids, a few who haven't let go of the perm, all the women are as beautiful as the African photography on the wall. Mostly African-American, African, and Jamaican with some non-black Berkeley-ites who appreciate the culture in the place.

I'm comfortable here.

While Bob Marley sings that he doesn't want to wait in vain, we grab coffees and head upstairs, sit on a soft peach velour love seat underneath a picture of Ram ses. Everything here is friendly, including the furniture. The way the brothers are watching the sisters up in here, and the way the sisters are sipping their brew and peeping at the men over the rims of their cups, the place looks hetero. But in this world, sexuality is smoke and mirrors. I'm learning that. There are so many appetites in this world. So many different versions of God.

Nicole asks, “You record your book signing?”

“What?”

She repeats the question. I tell her I didn't record.

She asks, “What kind of questions did Ayanna ask?”

“Ask her to give you a repeat performance.”

“I heard she was slaughtering you. Sure you didn't record?”

“Positive. Now let's move on.”

We talk about other things. Allow our soft words to blend in with other meaningless mumbles.

Nicole asks, “How you like this place?”

“Off the chains.”

“They keep it real here. I don't get to hang out in this environment too much. Not like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Couples. Like this. I miss going to Atlas Bar and Grill, kicking it at the Sky Bar with you.”

“Where do you hang out up here?”

“Ayanna likes the gay joints. If it's the first Friday, she has to go to Backstreet. That's all she ever wants to do.”

“Power struggle?”

“Always.”

She cuddles up against me like we were at home in front of the big screen. She moves the conversation in a new direction, tells me that Dwayne Wiggins from Tony Toni Tone owns this place, and Greg Burgess from KPFA hosts a spoken word show here on Wednesday. Talks about poets Paradise, J Crow, and Roxanne, claims they are the best from the political to the erotic. I tell her that I doubt if they can touch the poets out of World Stage in Leimert Park. Those poets are deep.

She says, “Is everything a competition with you? Can't it just be about the art?”

We laugh.

She tells me about other places I might like, places like the Blue Candle and Mambo Mambo. She talks, flirts, kisses, each word sounds like she's back to selling me Oakland, but I know Nicole. She's trying to ease the conversation somewhere else, trying not to be abrupt.

Nicole asks, “Do you think I'm an animal?”

“Nicole, baby, don't go there. Let's have fun.”

Nicole says, “I keep thinking about my life. The damage I've created. Momma, never saw her look like that. She brought it all to me. I've hurt my family. Disappointed my friends. Even got you to pull away from your family. Got your daddy running up here. Momma flying out here. Made Ayanna compromise her mind and sexuality to please me. Driven you crazy. I'm one powerful bitch.”

I let it go for a moment. She sniffs.

I ask, “You crying?”

“Nope,” she says. “When Ayanna suggested that we complete the circle, why did you pretend you were asleep?”

“How did you know I was pretending?”

“I didn't. Not until now.”

“You're a regular Perry Mason.”

“What did you think about what she was saying?”

“Everything's been so hedonistic. Dunno. Not sure how to answer that.”

The waitress comes by, checks on us, tells Nicole she's wearing a very nice engagement ring, checks it out without shame, then leaves with a friendly wink. I sit and people-watch, something I can do all night long.

Nicole says, “You think that this thing with us and Ayanna could work?”

She says
Us and Ayanna.
Like Ayanna's the odd one out now.

I say, “Given the right compromises.”

She chuckles. “Damn. Both of you have done a one-eighty.”

I rub her hand.

We sip our java. Listen, rock, and sway to the reggae. Reminds me of us years ago, when we first held hands, before the first kiss. Before the Jeep. Long before Paris.

I'm trying to remember who I was then. But I can't. I'm the same, but at the same time I've changed in so many ways. Seven years ago there was no way I would've considered woman-sharing as an option to curing a broken heart. At least I don't think I would have.

“Ayanna was at our wedding,” I say.

That catches her off guard. She sighs, puts her drink down, sits up, steeples her hands, straightens her back the way a person does when they are ready to face the truth head-on.

I ask, “Why didn't I know about Ayanna?”

“She used to call me at work. We usually chitchatted between nine and five. Think she called me at home once or twice over the years and you answered. You never asked who she was.”

So true. If I was at Nicole's and answered the phone, and I heard a professional female voice on the other end, I would have no reason to question who she was laughing with.

I ask, “When did you two hook up?”

Nicole tells me that Ayanna would fly down to L.A. early in the morning, they would hang out, run together, shop together, go to the Body Clinic and get massages and facials, or go to the Herb King in Santa Monica and get acupuncture, maybe drive to Malibu and eat at Gladstone‘s, do whatever they wanted to do on those honeymoon days, and Ayanna would be back home in Oakland that same evening, in time to cook her husband chicken and waffles. Nicole would do the same and get back in time to be with me.

She asks, “You're angry?”

I say, “Keep talking. Tell me about these rendezvous.”

Sometimes Ayanna stayed overnight in L.A. and they'd meet at Peanuts, a soft-legged alternative joint in Hollywood, and somewhere down the line they went to Palm Springs, two hours outside of Los Angeles, miles away from anyone Nicole might know, shopped at the mega outlet out that way off the 10, then checked into a private women's resort at Casitas Laquita.

She emphasizes, “But it was not sexual.”

“You went to a lesbian compound and it wasn't sexual?”

“It's not a ... I wasn't sexual. Sensual, not sexual. Just running with the wolves. Investigating. Not like I was doing that every week. Just a handful of times. Curious. I was curious. Having fun.”

I nod, bite my top lip. Remember how Ayanna said her husband went off on her, beat her down. I'm feeling that right now. I rub my palms until the sweat dries, until my heart calms.

She says, “She was in school, working full-time, changing careers. I was doing the same. Ain't like we had a lot of extra time. Mostly we kept in touch by e-mail.”

“I see.”

“Lots of people build relationships on-line.”

“Yep.”

A girl across from us gets happy, shouts and almost breaks out with a Holy Ghost dance when she hears Marley's “Redemption Song” on the system. Everyone laughs and smiles at her enthusiasm.

I clear my throat, rub thumb over thumb until they start to burn. I ask Nicole, “Where was I when you finally crossed that river with Ayanna?”

“On tour. I doubt if you paid any attention.”

I do have that type of job. Gone for weeks at a time.

Just like my father. I sell stories. He sells hope.

She tells me, “But I was through with Ayanna. Through experimenting.”

“Were you?”

“I was dealing with my issues, but I was off that page, out of that book, completely yours.”

“What happened?”

“Paris.”

I see something that I didn't see before. It comes back to me in a rush now. It's surreal, I'm here, but I'm also back in Paris, in bed with Nicole, looking down on her tortured face as she says,
“I close my eyes and I can't stop seeing her ... smell her perfume all over my skin ... can't stop tingling ... feel her breasts on me ... so wet ... her nipples ... little-bitty penises ... wanted them in my mouth ... on my skin ... never felt like this before.”

Wrong. That day, I think I'd seen it all wrong, heard it all wrong.

I think of Ayanna, of that first moment I saw her naked, when she stood in Nicole's garden facing me, her nipples, those ripe blackberries looking so full, so erect. Like little penises.

I ask Nicole, if that day in France, if she was talking about the French girl, if that was whose touch was haunting her then. Or if she was talking about Ayanna.

She smiles a nervous smile. “It was Ayanna.”

“Not the French girl.”

“The French girl touched me and ... I guess ... guess she only made me think about Ayanna.”

Nicole says more, tells me that when the French girl danced, in Nicole's eyes, she saw Ayanna. Nicole can't remember the French girl, not the way I do; she can't remember the color of her hair, the freckles. Only the feeling.

I could let go, but there are things I have to know.

“How many times did you get with Ayanna?”

“Three times.”

“First time?”

“After Paris.”

“Where?”

“Palm Springs. Queen of Hearts.”

“Another resort.”

She says, “Well, I wasn't gonna go to a Motel 6.”

“Second time?”

“Not too long after that.”

“Third time?”

“Weekend before the wedding.”

“Geesh, Nicole.”

“The last time just sort of happened. Was not planned at all. I had avoided her after that first time.”

“Why do it and avoid her?”

“Women do it with men and avoid them. Same difference.”

“Don't get off on a tangent.”

“Guess I wasn't too happy about it. About me going there. I liked it, loved it, loved her, but it's not the kind of thing a sister wants to put on her resume.”

“Back to the third time. When? Where?”

Nicole fidgets. Sighs again. “Weekend before the wedding, Ayanna brought me a gift. I went to Santa Monica, met her there, just went to tell her good-bye. We met for lunch on the promenade.”

“How did you get from the promenade to being butt-naked?”

“When you care, when you love, when two people meet to say good-bye forever, well, it got to be a bit emotional, on both of our parts.”

I rock and nod. I'm about ready to shoot the sheriff and the deputy.

Two songs, “Rebel Music” and “No Woman, No Cry” come and go.

Nicole says, “I feel better. Since you know I feel better.”

“Not sure how I feel.”

She leans against me, snuggles up to me, softens me with her touch. “I love you both.”

“But?”

“But right now, I don't think I can stay with Ayanna anymore.”

“Where did that come from?”

No answer. Not right away.

She says, “I want to be able to go back home and see my nieces and nephews, maybe take them to the Rendezvous to eat ribs, or Memphis in May, or walk through the Civil Rights Museum. Want to be able to do that and not feel like I'm being whispered at, don't want to be looked at like I'm a child abuser or some kind of freak. I hear them whispering now. I always hear them whispering.”

She leans back into me again and I rub my fingers on her hand.

She asks, “Ever wonder where we would be if we were married?”

“Every day.”

“Hmm. Wonder what people would say, how they would act if we eloped.”

I want to tell her that people whispered yesterday, whisper today, will whisper tomorrow. And I know they say things about me. The fool who pursues the woman who left him at the altar.

She goes on, “Like Momma said, it's not like anybody threw a parade, right?”

I let that settle.

She asks, “What if I had married you and kept this to myself?”

“Had your thing on the side?”

“Could have. Seems like everyone does.”

I remember all that Ayanna told me about her and her Latin lover, how they did their thing and fooled two husbands, and I hate to admit it, but in my heart I know she's telling the truth.

Nicole says, “I was fine yesterday, now I'm afraid.”

“What's there to be afraid of?”

“Being alone.”

“After tonight, why would you feel like that?”

She sighs. “Ayanna wants to complete the circle. What if you do it with Ayanna and like what she gives you better than what I give you? Or the same with her? What if neither of you need me anymore because all you need is each other?”

I say, “I don't love Ayanna.”

“What if she flipped the script and went ... and went ...”

“Straight?”

“Yeah. What if you stop desiring me?”

“And what if you went insane trying to win me back?”

“Yeah.”

I pause a moment, let all of that seep into our pores, then I say, “Thought this wasn't about competition?”

She runs her tongue over her lips. “Hard to not be jealous when it comes to you.”