Friends and Lovers (24 page)

Chiquita said, “How do you like the band?”

I said, “They’re nice. Me and Tyrel saw them a few months ago in L.A. on Melrose at Debbie Allen’s restaurant.”

A jazz sextet was under a chandelier playing Norman Brown-style melodies from a circular stage. A few of
the brothers San Diego had to offer were by the door. Most of them were in suits. They held drinks and stopped talking long enough to check out every sister’s backside when she strolled in.

Chiquita and I were at a marble table sitting in bar-stool-height seats, lollygagging, adding to the mild chatter.

Couples were slow dancing; the music and spirits gave the air of old romances being rekindled and new romances in the making.

This was the last place I wanted to be.

Chiquita said, “Told you it was the bomb.”

“I should be at home unpacking.”

“You can unpack anytime. Today’s your birthday. You’re the big thirty now.”

Tyrel’s birthday is on July the ninth. Day after tomorrow. I said, “Don’t remind me.”

“This is much better than being cooped up in an apartment all evening.”

“If you say so.”

I ran my fingers through my new lace braids, a style that was elegant and professional. My mud-cloth miniskirt was riding like it had a mind of its own. It looked better than it felt.

Chiquita said, “Next week we have to check out Humphrey’s by the Bay, and there might be a TLC party.”

“Sounds cool.”

“If me and Raymond don’t get together, I’ll call you.”

That flip-flop attitude let me know not to depend on her.

I’d been settled in San Diego—actually in Mission Valley—for three weeks. Long enough to get a new hairstyle, get my nails done, and jazz up my wardrobe with a few sparkling dresses and a couple of golden accessories. Long enough to get antsy.

Chiquita said, “So your friend Brenda—”

“Debra.”

“So, Debra and her husband went to Europe?”

“For a couple of weeks.”

“Must be nice being married to a celebrity. Hell, must be nice being married.”

“I think that institution is overrated.”

Chiquita had picked me up in her Miata and we were in a Radisson hotel located in the upper-middle-class area of San Diego called Mission Bay. The jazz band was supposed to play until ten thirty, then a DJ was going to take over and send it to another level. So the early crowd was classy, and it gradually changed to a sugar daddy and hoochie momma convention.

Chiquita didn’t really know anybody down here. She was like me—motherless, fatherless, and friendless.

I put on another coat of blackberry lipstick, then looked over my new clothes, fresh hair, and hollow attitude. I had been eating healthy, so my weight was down a couple of pounds. I was stronger than ever. I’d run my best 10k in Oceanside last weekend. I wasn’t bloated. My breasts were back to normal.

I kept thinking about it. I’d be three months right now.

Chiquita danced with a couple of brothers, then came back to the table. She yawned. I did the same. It was before nine, but it felt like it was after midnight. The band was back from their break. People were partying. Other than making a potty run, I’d been glued to my leather high chair all evening.

Chiquita tapped my arm, “Somebody is staring. You know him?”

“You don’t have to know a brother for him to stare at you.”

I peeped toward the bandstand and accidently made eye contact with him. He had a smile of fascination.

He was six-foot, brown-skinned, with short hair that was faded on the sides. A full beard. His haircut was sort of like Tyrel’s, only a little longer. Tyrel had curlier hair.

The stranger buttoned his suit coat, strutted through the crowd, came my way, but didn’t walk his walk too fast.

He said, “Good evening.”

“What’s up?”

“You are what is up.”

“Glad to hear I’m what is up.”

Me and Chiquita exchanged subtle glances.

He said, “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“Am I supposed to know you?”

“You’re a flight attendant. Right?”

I nodded.

He said, “I was on a flight with you a few months ago.”

“And?”

“It was a rough flight from Atlanta.”

“My life is a rough flight.”

“Somebody’s kid hit you in the head with a toy or something.”

I definitely remembered that. I said, “Small world.”

Me and Chiquita looked at each other. She knew the flight.

“My name is Richard Vaughn.”

“Nice to meet you, Richard Vaughn.”

Chiquita kept bouncing her leg to the beat.

I told him my name. Chiquita stopped swaying to the music long enough to do the same. Richard invited himself to a seat.

With giggling eyes, Chiquita crossed her legs and fixed her body in a way that said she wasn’t including herself in the conversation.

Richard said, “Guess you really don’t remember me.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, I didn’t forget you.”

He offered to buy us drinks. We let him spend his money.

The moment Richard treaded away to get us sodas, I leaned to Chiquita and said, “That’s the brother who kept buzzing me the last time we flew together.”

“When you were constipated and kept throwing up?”

“Ah, yeah. When I was coming down with the flu.”

“Thought you didn’t remember him.”

“I don’t forget much.” I thought about bowlegs and dimples. Honey. A borrowed room in Obispo. I said, “Not much at all.”

Chiquita ran her hands over her cute, short, texturized, reddish Afro. Her mane looked good on her gleaming brown skin. Maybe I should cut mine off too. Make a whole new me. I’ve got the body and the moves. If I could sing without making dogs howl, I’d give Toni Braxton a run for her money.

Chiquita stood and smoothed her hands over her narrow hips.

I said, “Where are you going?”

“To a pay phone.”

“Calling Raymond again?”

“He should be home by now.”

“You said that three hours and five phone calls ago. Anxious to get those windows smeared?”

“If you’re not a virgin, you’re not a virgin.”

“Once you’ve stained your panes, you’re never the same.”

We laughed. It wasn’t the same kind of laugh I shared with Debra, but it was a true laugh. It didn’t have that kind of openness, didn’t have a history. At the rate Debra was fading from my life, the way she was slipping into her new life, I’d give her a few months and I’d be lucky to get a returned phone call. Pretty soon we’d be having those “Girl, what have you been up to, I’ve been meaning to call you” conversations.

Chiquita didn’t go to the phone. For a few moments, she stood and stared at her empty hands. Then she sat back down. The way she poked her lips out made her look like a pouting child.

I told Chiquita if a man hadn’t made a date with her for a Saturday night before Saturday night, he didn’t want to be bothered with her on a Saturday night. The same thing went for me.

Chiquita made her eyebrows dance. “Shelby, you got it going on. It’s your night 360.”

“What’s ‘360’?”

Chiquita drew a circle in the air. “At 360 degrees. You got it going on ail the way around. That handsome brother is on you like white on rice.”

When Richard came back, Chiquita smoothed out her
black, wide pant leg, adjusted her white silk blouse that showed hints of her seductive camisole, then thanked him with an accent that had sweet traces of Southern hospitality in every word.

I signaled for Chiquita to stay close, did the same batting-the-eyes signal me and Debra had shared since birth, but Chiquita either missed or misinterpreted the clue. She winked, grabbed her Coke, and did a sultry yes-I’m-single stroll through the crowd to the other side of the room.

Chiquita poured herself into an armchair facing the band and grinned with the beat. Every other second a different brother tried to get some play. She waved them all away, even the cute brothers sporting nice shoes, flattering ties, and coordinated belts. Tyrel was always coordinated head to toe.

Chiquita saw me, winked, then drew a circle in the air.

I damn near blushed.

Then she checked her watch and headed for the payphone.

I pretended I was listening while Richard small-talked by himself for a while, told me about this flower business, about how he was putting his sister and brother through school.

He said, “Are you married?”

“Nope. Not married.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve never been asked. Never been engaged.”

“Children?”

I sighed. “Nope.”

He said, “Are you single?”

“Pretty much.”

“Pretty much?”

“That’s what I said.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve got strong feelings for somebody.”

“So, he brought you up here to San Diego?”

“He’s still in Los Angeles.”

“Is he moving here with you?”

I shook my head. “I’m here by myself.”

“You love him?”

I tried to shake my head, sell myself a cup of denial, but I nodded. He smiled. That smile didn’t do a damn thing for me.

He said, “Well, all I can say, from what I see, and from the way you carry yourself, it’s definitely his loss.”

I tasted my soda and glanced toward the people chachaing. The band was playing an old George Michael song, from way back when I thought he was fine and he had hit records.

Richard said, “Would you like to dance?”

“I don’t dance. These big feet have got no rhythm.”

He asked three more times. I said no three more times.

Richard said, “He must’ve really hurt you to make you leave.”

“Yeah. He messed up and lost a good thing.”

Chiquita was dancing with a brother who was so old I’d bet he used to baby-sit God. But he could cha-cha his dentures off.

Richard chuckled. “Can I change your mind?”

“Nope. I hate dancing.”

“I meant about this brother that dogged you out.”

The brother was redundant. I said, “It’s been nice talking to you, Richard.”

“Are you leaving?”

“Nope, but you are. Me and my girlfriend came together, and I don’t want to be rude and leave her sitting by herself all evening.”

“She looks like she’s doing fine.”

“It was nice meeting you. Take care.”

Richard gave me his business card. He said, “Since you’re new down here, let me take you to dinner.”

“If I get hungry enough, I’ll let you know.”

“May I have your number?”

I patted his card. “I’ve got yours.”

He cleared his throat, touched his beard, and said, “Okay.”

“Thanks for the soda.”

“Enjoy the night.”

We shook hands. I knew he did that because he wanted to touch me. His hands were softer than mine, like he’d never had a hard day of life or a cruel moment of love since he’d been born.

He buttoned his jacket and went back to his side of the room.

Chiquita came back. She had two glasses of Chardonnay.

I took mine without complaining about the calories.

For a few songs, I was lost in the music. The band had a serious groove, played like a symphony. I sipped my wine, closed my eyes, and enjoyed the way one instrument talked to another in harmony, how all the sounds overlapped, how it made a melody.

That was how me and Tyrel used to kiss and make love.

I wondered how much time I would need to feel normal. To get over my shame and forget about Tyrel. The way I felt right now, I needed something stronger than the tick-tock of the clock to cauterize my back-to-back thoughts about Tyrel. I’d had too many daydreams. And the all-night dreams about him definitely had to go. Repetitive, intense, night dreams. The kind of hallucinations that came too often and in too much detail, felt too real, like he was loving me in thirty-one different flavors, ones that made me wake up touching myself, pretending my hands were his. I’d have to be honest, the leftover passion made me scared to take a nap, let alone go to sleep.

Off and on, me and Richard made brief eye contact.

“May I speak to Vardaman Williams?”

“He ain’t here. Who this?”

Outside my twenty-sixth-story window was an overcast Oakland. I was in my high-rise at 1200 Lakeshore, living
a life so elevated that everybody below me looked like ants wandering to and fro. Not many brothers and sisters were jogging around Lake Merritt’s three-mile course. Bodies of water gave me peace. Composure. I should’ve been across the lake at Gold’s Gym, working off stress, but I didn’t have to open my ivory linen curtains to see it was a drowsy morning made for being inside watching game after game.

I said, “Tyrel Anthony Williams.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m his son.”

“Uh-huh.”

I played the game and asked, “Who am I speaking with?”

“Yeah, this is Mrs. Williams.”

I readjusted my mental barometer, set it to calm, clear, and smooth, before I asked Mrs. Williams, “How are you doing?”

“What you want?”

“Well, is my father coming back home soon?”

“I don’t know what time Vardaman gonna be in.”

“Is he at one of the stores?”

She made an irritated I-don’t-know grumble. This fight was an upstream battle. Sounded like she put her hand over the phone and said a word or two to somebody. I glanced around my place. Wondered how long I’d have to be here before it felt like home.

Purple satin panties and a dark padded C-cup bra were on the back of my maroon wingback chair. Fresh cut sun-flowers were in a purple vase on top of the whitewashed dresser. My entire place had bright colors—reds, yellows, greens. Almost everything was new; most of the furniture I’d owned in L.A. was sold.

Down the hall, my toilet flushed.

Then Mrs. Williams finally took her hand off the receiver.

She said, “Uh-huh. What was you saying?”

I said, “I left my new number on your answering machine, do you know if he got it?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Could you write it down and give it to him?”

“I ain’t got nothing to scribble on.”

I walked in the living room, stood near all the pictures of my family. “When will he be in?”

“I ain’t sure.”