Friends and Lovers (37 page)

She put her hand on my hand. “Be honest with me.”

I said, “Okay.”

“Did I sound prejudiced today? When they were talking to me about what I felt, did I sound prejudiced?”

I shook my head and held her hand. “No. You sounded like somebody who was hurt. Sounded real. That’s all.”

We sat and held onto each other.

Debra nodded, bit her top lip with her bottom teeth. She said, “Good. I’d hate to send the wrong message. It was Nikki that fucked up. If people thought I was mad at her people, it would make everything be in vain.”

* * *

A couple of people were in Faith’s office. Soft jazz played over the intercom. Peaceful, soothing. No security prowling.

On the way over, Debra didn’t say much. But she didn’t look like she wanted to cry either. I knew she was troubled because she wasn’t changing the radio from station to station like she always does. Like Leonard always did.

Faith peeped over the counter and rushed to greet us. “Come on in,” Faith said, then hurried over and shook my hand. “Hello, Tyrel. Nice to see you again.”

“Hi, Faith.”

“I thought you wanted me to come by the house,” Faith said as she ran her hand over a gray spot in her short Afro. “Are you all right? I was just about to drive up to your place, since I hadn’t heard from you.”

“I needed to get some air,” Debra said and handed me her purse. “Hell had broken loose.”

Faith said, “Something wrong?”

“I’ll tell you what happened. Make sure my baby’s okay.”

Faith asked, “How’s the family holding up?”

“Everybody’s fine. The rest of my family is driving in tomorrow. Leonard’s family got in this morning, and they called right after I finished the interview.”

Faith looked at me. “When’s Shelby coming?”

My head tried to lower with the weight of resentment, but I held on to a blank face, sent my eyes to Debra.

Debra saved the day and said, “She’s already here.”

I waited for Debra to tell Faith that Shelby was here, at my best friend’s house, shacking in a bedroom with her fiancé.

“Good,” Faith replied. “Alejandria was in for a checkup this morning.”

I headed toward the lounge room that had a small radio television. Faith took Debra into an examination room.

Fifteen minutes later, we were on the road again. I drove her over to Hyde Park to see the rest of Leonard’s family, the ones they hadn’t heard from since they’d loaned them some money. We got there just as they were on their way to see Debra. She told them she had some more errands to run and would meet them later. They wanted to help, but Debra told them everything was under control and wanted them to relax as much as they could. The looks on their faces said they didn’t understand why Debra was doing so much, but they didn’t force the issue.

We were heading back to the house when Debra said, “I’m not ready to go back.”

I still had the passkey to the hotel in my glove compartment.

When we got in the room, Debra went to the bathroom. She came out with a wet towel over her face and lay across one of the beds. I took my shoes off and relaxed across the other. She’d pulled the thick curtains
back just enough to leave a streak of day lying across the room. The window was closed, so the noise rising from Sepulveda Boulevard and the 405 was shut out.

“Tyrel?”

“I’m here.”

“Your feet stink.”

I laughed.

She giggled. “I’m joking.”

“Good.”

She clucked her tongue. “What do you think about Richard?”

My chest expanded. I said, “What?”

“
Don’t
do that. Shelby always does that same shit.”

“Sorry about that.”

A second later she said, “Well?”

“I guess that he’s what she wants. They make a good couple.”

“Nice general answer, but not to the specific question I asked.” Debra sang, “Well?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say what you feel, and stop being such a man.”

I rested on the bed in silence for a few moments, thinking.

She said, “What’s the first word that came to your mind when I said his name?”

I eventually said, “Jealous.”

We held on to the peace and quiet for a while.

She said, “There were so many things I wanted to say to Leonard. And I did. He knew exactly how I felt, and I knew how he felt. We weren’t afraid to tell each other how we felt. Mad, we’d say it, talk about it, and get over it. Knowing that is part of what keeps me going. I have no loose ends so far as that’s concerned. When I cry, it won’t be because of some coulda, woulda, shoulda bull. It’ll be because I miss and love him.”

Debra didn’t move or say anything for the next thirty minutes. She fell asleep. I did too. When I woke up, Debra was on the phone.

“Who else?” she asked. “Okay. Yeah, I want Stevie to sing. When did he call? His people called? Why
couldn’t he call? One song will be fine. Keep it simple and short. I don’t want it to turn into a circus. What time did the insurance company call? Set an appointment for next Saturday. Put Shelby on the phone.”

Debra saw I was awake, smiled, then went back to talking.

“Hey, selfish. What’s wrong? You sound funny. You sure? I’m at a hotel with Tyrel. Call the funeral home and tell them to pick up all the flowers that were delivered. No, don’t take them down. And confirm the jazz band. Make sure we have everything we’re going to need for the celebration at the house tomorrow afternoon. Tell them don’t start CP time either. Who’s in the house? Lock my bedroom door, and make sure they don’t steal shit.”

Debra pointed at the television. I wandered over, turned it on. She whispered, “No, the radio. Jazz.”

Debra hung up the phone and lay back on the bed. “Bobby and Shelby are returning all my phone calls. People have been in and out all day. Leonard’s folks are there but are about to leave and go visit some more people.”

I opened the curtains and gazed across the 405 freeway. Glanced toward Dan L. Steel, then toward the condo I used to lease. Sometimes it felt like I still lived there. All of the dreams I had while I was in San Francisco were about L.A.

Debra let out a long scream. When I turned around she was stretching, with a sunny grin on her face.

“You’re going to be the baby’s godfather. Shelby’s going to be the godmother,” Debra said matter-of-factly, like she’d just made a critical decision. “I want this family to stay together.”

“Okay.”

Debra rubbed her hands over her stomach like she was soothing the itching from her stretching skin. She straightened her clothes then played patty-cake on her belly.

She said, “Let’s go before somebody starts some rumors.”

After the funeral home had picked up the flowers, I loosened the scarf around my neck and headed toward Leonard and Debra’s bedroom. Richard called my name over the music when I left the den, but I let my sashay lead me away. Walked through the wafting flower smell, closed and locked the bedroom door while my name was being called again. I popped a mint, grabbed my clippers, polish remover, sat on the bed, pretended I didn’t hear him when he knocked.

I caught a cramp when I tried to fold my legs under me. It hurt like hell, and when I snatched my feet from under my butt, I kicked the purse off the bed. It bounced across the floor and my stuff went every which-a-way: cosmetics, perfume, a sewing kit, and six dollars in change. That was my laundry money. When you lived the apartment life, a bag of quarters was a necessity.

Richard called my name over and over like it was the word of the day. He was wearing it out. He did a few more soft knocks.

A minute after that, his footsteps faded back down the hallway. By then I was topless in front of the full length mirror, unbuttoning my Levi’s, stopping to touch my neck three or four times. The scarf I’d been wearing was on the dresser.

I put a little thought into it, then draped the paisley scarf around my neck again. Practiced smiling just to see how silly I’d been looking all day. Then I let go of the scarf, let it fall in the trash can, and went to the window. No smile on my face, just a bunch of thoughts rattling inside my head. Heard them clinking like a pocketful of change.

When I got down to my birthday suit, I slipped into my dark green unitard. No shoes. No bra. No makeup.
No scarf. Hair barely combed. I didn’t give a—. I was tired of this game.

By the time I made it back to the den, the music had stopped. Maybe it screeched to a halt when I walked into the room. It was a little on the quiet side, so I stooped in front of the Panasonic and put on a Sade CD, let it flow through the Bose speakers anchored to the walls. It was the one room in the crib that was never clean for too long, mainly because it was the kind of room that wasn’t meant to be too clean. It wasn’t dirty, just looked comfortable and lived in. Like a home.

The den was my favorite part of the house because it reeked of intelligence. Wall to wall, it was filled with Leonard’s and Debra’s books. New books that smelled of fresh knowledge; old books with the scent of wisdom. Debra’s bookcase reached from the floor to the ceiling, lined from end to end with small plants. Magazines were on the bottom shelf, and the other rows were filled with everything from Morrison to Mosley to Shakespeare to Ice Berg Slim to Cummings to Dickinson.

Anyway, when I bent over to find some uplifting music Richard shot me a hard look. He was on the sofa watching TV. A few people were here a while ago, but now the only loiterers were a couple of the not-too-funny comedians, Kwamaine and Perry. They’d dropped by to leave word for Debra that they had set up a tribute to Leonard at the Color of Comedy. That part of the celebration was happening later on tonight. The brothers had stopped chewing their food and started gawking at me the moment I’d sashayed back into the room.

Richard’s mouth was tighter than a mummy. One look at the brothers lounging in the room should’ve let him know they would never be my type. Perry was five feet tall and dressed in oversized designer everything, so he looked like a walking billboard from head to toe. Kwamaine was a beanpole, about six-two, and barely had enough meat on his bones to hold up his baggy jeans.

“All right, Kwamaine. I told you about staring at me like that. If you can’t respect me, get out.”

“Aw, Miss Thang.” Kwamaine shook his head and
took another bite of his turkey sandwich. “I wasn’t looking at nothing.”

Perry cackled, “If that’s nothing, I hate to see something.”

Grunting and throat-clearing sounds came across the room, loud and clear. Richard moved over enough to block Perry’s view, then glared at me and once again cleared nothing from his throat. Instead of counting my mistakes, I should’ve been counting the times Richard had done that since we’d been together.

I went to Richard, stood toe-to-toe and tilted my head. “Richard, is something in your throat?”

Richard grunted, “No.”

“Then stop doing that. It irritates the hell out of me.”

When I turned to sashay away, he put his hand on my shoulder. He lowered his voice. “Why’re you dressed like that?”

“Problem?”

Richard dropped his shoulders and ran his fingers through his beard. “Shelby, you shouldn’t be half-naked in front of these kind of brothers.”

“What kind of brothers are you talking about, Richard?”

He tsked and had the nerve to sharpen his tone, like he was talking to somebody’s child. “I can see your nipples. Your outfit is hugging your crotch kind of tight too.”

Well, I guess my clothes did fit like a glove and made my coochie look like a fist. A nice-sized one too. Never noticed that. Cooch must’ve been mad and ready to hit somebody.

Richard gave me an aren’t-you-gonna-change? frown. You know what I did? Said forget the dumb stuff, grabbed my bosom, fell into a bodacious you-want-summa-this? stance, turned and looked at everybody: “Does anybody have a problem with what I’m wearing?”

Perry’s eyes bucked out and the brother choked on his soda. “Lawd help us all, you go, girl!”

“Naw, babe!” Kwamaine smiled. “You straight.”

“You all that and a bucket of hot wings,” Perry added as he straightened up and high-fived Kwamaine.

“Babe, you all that and ain’t nothing left for nobody.”

I playfully raised a hand. “Thank you for the competitive vernacular, my brothers. Now keep your eyes off me.”

Everybody except Richard laughed.

I skipped like a preschooler back over to Leonard’s desk and sat down in front of the computer. E-mail was coming in left and right. Before I could see if it was anything Debra should know about, a sharp pain woke up my calves. Time for some ibuprofen.

I must’ve looked too happy and had too much space, because Richard dragged a small chair across the carpet, parked in my real estate, and sat next to me. I picked up the phone, made sure the limo and band and whatever and whoever were confirmed.

For a minute I was back at Momma’s grave site, wishing she could’ve been sent off with a celebration, instead of sad songs and dark colors and a handful of people surrounding what was starting to turn back into dirt.

Those thoughts went away when Richard touched my elbow. I didn’t pull away. He leaned over and kissed my cheek.

He was glaring at my neck like he was a carpenter who’d just finished building the house of his dreams. My emotions switched gears. What was on my mind now was that struggle. That battle for control yesterday, early in the a.m. If I could’ve kicked myself for letting him do that to me. I would’ve. Better yet, I should’ve been kicking him.

He touched my neck. Rubbed all three spots like he was making a wish. I moved his hand away.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “All of it’s still there.”

Alejandria walked Perry and Kwamaine out. Richard exhaled and rubbed his neck. Alejandria came back, took out two novels, and relaxed against Bobby. They kissed, whispered a few words to each other, then kissed again before she opened one of her books.

“We haven’t kissed since we got here,” Richard said.
Now he’d eased his hand on my leg. Started massaging. He winked and dropped his voice an octave. “I hope you’re not going to sleep with Debra tonight. I want my wife-to-be in my arms.”