Inside Out (4 page)

“Thank you for understandin',” he quipped. “
Extensive
contact with alcoholics?”

Tracey started laughing and he did, too. “By the way, I was not being hostile. I was being offended.”

“I never meant to offend you,” he told her with a quick sobriety that bore believing.

“I understand that.”

“Good,” he chirped. “But I'm pretty sure you've been tryin' to offend me. Man, I can't say
anything
to you.”

“I don't think I've been particularly nasty to you, but if I have, I'm sorry.” They were silent for a moment, then—Tracey didn't know what got into her—she asked, “Why didn't you go find your girlfriend?” His lion eyes flared for a moment. “I mean, you said you couldn't talk to your family or friends, but I'm sure you have a girlfriend, if not a wife.”
Smooth, Tracey, very smooth.

All he said was “Yeah.” Then he shook his head and looked down into his lapis-colored coffee mug. Finally, he slid down further into her chair and offered, “I need some perspective.”

“That's what shrinks are for,” she muttered before she could stop herself.

“See what I'm sayin'.” He raised a wry eyebrow.

Tracey opened her mouth to naysay him, only to shut it again. She was only digging a deeper hole, which seemed to delight him. She didn't want him delighted. “Then why pick me to be your sympathetic ear? Okay! Okay! I'm sorry. I'm listening! One hundred percent focused on you.” He clasped his hands over his heart and fluttered his eyelashes. She laughed and he beamed a smile back. She said to him, “You know, you've really got a beautiful smile.” His cheeks were flushed as he thanked her. “Don't thank me, it's true. So, what exactly do you need perspective on?”

“Do I just spill it? Just tell you what's been on my mind here lately?”

“I'm not a professional, but I think that's how it's done. Yeah.”

“Just like that, huh?”

Tracey nodded.

He took a sip of his coffee. “It's my girlfriend,” he started. “Okay, if you were a girl in college—” She raised her brow and began to stir her coffee. “I mean, would you quit school right now to start havin' babies?” Her answer was no.

They spent that night getting drunk and getting sober and getting drunk again. He told her everything from the huge amount of student loans he was amassing to pay for law school to how his girlfriend wanted to drop out, get married, and start breeding as soon as possible.
Babies
. The word made her shudder. Tracey wanted to ask how he'd gotten mixed up with her. But she already knew. The marriage virus had hit many, many girls from her old dorm. Instead of saying as much, she made some crude, drunken reference to “poppin' out puppies.” She liked him, and she didn't want to spoil the tenuous comfort between them, but she didn't want to get involved with his life, either.

It was about an entire pot of coffee and half a bottle of single malt past four a.m. when Tracey recalled that she had to get up early in the morning. She said as much to Garrett. He yawned and stood up, stretching his arms way up above his head. He wore short sleeves and she could see the shape of his biceps, the rounding of his forearms beneath his elbows, that little muscle that miraculously appears on the sides of a man's upper arms. His shoulders were broad, his waist and hips narrow. There was definitely something wrong with the way she was looking at him, but she just couldn't stop. He told her he would see her later. Tracey didn't know if he meant around school or back at her house. She didn't ask.

A couple of hours later her head was pounding and dark circles ringed her eyes, but her body still felt better than it should. She drank a huge glass of orange juice and then got into the shower after bringing three of her bushy, macho ferns into the bathroom with her. Tracey lined them up on the floor beside the shower and turned on the water. Wild green arms folded over and over each other, swelling and rising. Babyish plants, they loved the heat and humidity and the care she lavished on them. They flourished in her little house. When she got out of the shower, Tracey checked the time, got dressed, then headed out to the Carlisle Center. She was meeting her new friend, Monica, a counselor at the facility, for lunch when she finished her teen pregnancy counseling session.

“Where do you want to go?”

“I feel like Thai.” Walking out of the building, Moni took a cursory look around the parking lot. All clear. She pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “I'll drive ‘cuz I don't want to get smoke in your car.”

“I didn't know you smoked.”

“That's because no one sees me smoke around here.” Monica pulled her short self up into the seat of the burgundy SUV. She always felt as if she were climbing a tree when she got in the thing. “You like Thai?”

“Yeah,” Tracey answered. “Love it, but nobody ever wants to eat it with me.”

“Well, you're in luck.” Monica smiled and drove them to the only Thai restaurant in town, the Siam House. When they got there, the parking lot was packed. Moni ended up parking on the grass next to the building. Inside, the small restaurant was so full that no booths or tables were left.

Then Tracey made an offer that was completely unexpected. Even as she said the words, they seemed to surprise her as well. “I don't live far from here. We can order and eat at my house. The only thing is, I have to get my car. We can pick it up and go back to my house.”

“I like that plan.”

It actually didn't take long to get their food. They were at Tracey's in twenty minutes. Monica had a tough time processing the invitation. Tracey seemed like a very private person. Though she obviously had friends, she didn't seem exceptionally close to any of them, and Moni seriously doubted she had invited any of them into her home. This woman seemed to be at war with outside perceptions all the time, even those of her family.

Monica chewed her lower lip. She didn't know that much about Tracey but she had learned to trust her instincts. Tracey's home was probably the only place where Tracey felt she could be herself. And, people didn't bring judges into their one sanctuary. Monica shook her head. She didn't want to psychoanalyze her new friend, but that's exactly what she was doing. Still…

Monica tried to be a friend without judgment or expectation. She tried to be as open as possible to show Tracey that she could do the same.

Tracey walked into the kitchen to gather plates, silverware, and glasses. Moni took it upon herself to tour the house. “This is a nice place, Tracey.”

“Thank you. It belonged to my grandma up until she died and left it to me.”

“I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother. How long ago did she pass?”

“Thank you. It's been years now. We were very close. This house has helped me deal with it.”

Moni nodded as she came back into the living room. “Interesting. You know, looking from the outside, you wouldn't expect for it to be so plush in here.”

“Don't tell the burglars.”

“Is this an authentic boomerang?”

“Yeah. My dad got that a long, long time ago when he was in the service. He gave it to me when I moved over here.”

“Did he give you all this stuff?”

“Most of it. Everything except for those shells and necklaces, which I got in St. Thomas, and those castanets and Spanish things I got when I lived in Salamanca. Oh yeah, and that stupid, plastic Eiffel Tower statue—”

“You lived in Salamanca?”

“Yeah,” Tracey responded, coming into the living room. She set two places on the coffee table. She pulled some brown and cornflower chenille cushions off the sofa and laid them on the soft Indian-style area rug. “You don't mind sitting on the floor do you? My kitchen table is serving as extra counter space right now.”

“Girl, please, I don't care.”

They sat down and Tracey continued, “I lived there for a year after high school. My dad thought it would be a good idea if I took a break from school, so that was my graduation gift from him. It started out that I would live in Madrid for a year, but my mama was so mad that was already out of the question.” She chuckled. “She didn't want me going. She insisted that Spain was too dangerous, I didn't speak the language well enough, and there were terrorists just waiting around every corner to sell young girls into slavery. So, my dad made some arrangements for me to attend a Spanish language institute in Salamanca for a year.

“The worst part about that is when I got there, Salamanca was ten times worse than Madrid ever could have been in all the ways Mama warned. I hated it there. Though I didn't tell my folks, I spent more of my year in Paris with some friends from high school than in Spain. I believe that was the most fun I've ever had in my life. It was like no matter where I went or what I did or who I did it with, it was all just right. Maybe it was because I barely spoke French and didn't fully understand anything. I don't know. I just had this freedom I had never felt before or really since. Oh,” Tracey gasped. “I didn't mean to go on and on like that. I try not to even mention it. Most people think I'm bragging or something when I bring it up.”

“No, it's okay. In fact I'd like to hear about it. My oldest, Tamia, is thirteen. Her private school takes a European trip every year. Of course she can't go until she's sixteen, but I'd like to know what kind of experiences you had.” Then Moni had to go and put her foot in it in her normal way. “Besides, I'd like to talk about this freedom you felt you had there, and why you felt that way. In my experience, when a person feels so extraordinarily free in a removed circumstance—”

“Define ‘removed circumstance.' ” Tracey folded her arms across her chest defensively.

Moni knew it was time to back off, but she didn't. “A place where you're anonymous. It's a place where you don't have to make any significant social contact. Well, when someone flourishes in that environment, losing inhibitions and all that, it usually means they struggle with their image of themselves.” Tracey didn't say anything.

Moni shook her head and averted her eyes. Tracey wasn't ready to have this kind of discussion with her, with anybody. And, as Monica's psychological tangents sometimes did, they just snuck into the conversation without warning and took over. “I'm sorry, Tracey.” She kept her voice soft. “I can't help it sometimes. Part of why I do what I do is that I've always stuck my nose into business where it didn't belong. There's something about you that seems very unhappy to me. I don't know.”

“I'm not unhappy.”

“Right. My bad.” Moni leaned over to squeeze her forearm. They finished the meal in silence.

Before Monica left, she asked, “Hey, Tracey, did I tell you? I'm having an anniversary party in a few weeks. You want to come?”

“Sure.”

Moni walked out hoping Tracey meant it.

Sunday night, Garrett came back. When he came to the door and knocked, Tracey let him in. He wandered around her living room again, and sat down in her favorite chair. She was eating cubed steak steaming with the tickling scent of pepper, so tender that it was hard to keep a whole piece on a fork. On the side were mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, English peas, and the dinner rolls her great-aunt Terry was famous for. She asked if he was hungry. He told her that if he wasn't before, he was then. They ate together and chatted. She deemed the evening pleasant.

Monday night Tracey was expecting him, and he showed up around eight-thirty. He ate with her again and they talked about class. They ended up studying for midterms. They worked in silence for hours on end. It went that way that whole week, and the next. Sometimes they would take a break, have a drink, watch something stupid on television, or talk about whatever it was they were working on. Sometimes she confirmed his understanding of a business concept for corporate or tax law. And always, if she had a question about Employee Rights, he could answer it correctly and thoroughly. He answered with such a serious, authoritative tone, it was as if he went into a work mode that transformed him into an intellectual. Tracey didn't know how he managed to retain so much information, but he was really extraordinary as far as academics went.

During the day, mostly at the law library, she saw him, he saw her, but they didn't say anything more than “Hey” and they didn't always say that. He would quickly avert his eyes, or she would. Tracey didn't know how to feel about that. It wouldn't have been completely strange for them to have a conversation. For all anyone else knew, they were probably classmates. But it just felt like people would think more. It already felt like they were all watching them. Paranoia? Maybe. But he knew it, and Tracey knew it: They could spend as much time as they wanted together as long as they didn't bring it to school.

* * *

The Omega Psi Phi pledges had just finished an unforgettable and touching step routine. It was their first appearance that year and they had
showed out
.

The young smooth-faced black youths walked up with heads shaved and backs naked save for defined muscles. The pants they wore were torn burlap and they wore chains around their throats and ankles. They dragged their chains, singing something deep, haunting, and haunted. They carried torches; some were blindfolded. The only thing saving Tracey from becoming heavy-hearted was the fact that they wore combat boots spray-painted purple and gold. She remembered one black-as-midnight back, skin stretched smooth. A horseshoe, pink and black and puffy as the brand healed, swelled on his shoulder blade, marring it. She had watched the whole show spellbound and proud and hurting all at once. And she had that feeling a person has—if that person is an average black American—when watching
Roots
, or
Amistad
, or any period piece with Denzel Washington in it. She felt briefly as if she wanted to kill every white person she knew.

A little after the show, Rett was standing with a group of his friends and Tracey with a group of hers out on the lawn.

She saw Garrett wave but averted her gaze and didn't wave back. It was just a reflex. Tracey knew she shouldn't have done it, but how would she have explained him to her friends? He passed it off as a joke to his friends. The next night around nine he showed up at her house. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know if he knew what she had done. He never mentioned it. Instead, he asked if she was hungry. She was. To avoid going out or even having someone deliver to them, she offered to cook. Again.

“I wouldn't want you to go to too much trouble. Besides you always cook. Let me do it,” he insisted.

“I don't know,” she hesitated, biting her lip. “My kitchen is very important to me.”

“Come on, I know my way around a kitchen.”

“I don't think so.”

“Please,” he whined, reminding her of a little boy wanting to stay up late at night watching his favorite television show. “At least let me help.”

There went that tickle again. This was all unfair, very unfair. “Sure, what would you like to eat?” Tracey had a five-star kitchen. Her father had made sure of it. He had a penchant for exotic liquor, exotic music, and exotic food. He had passed it on to Tracey. She was most like him.

He was the only one who understood everything that went on inside her head. He understood it, even if he didn't always like it. So even though they were close, he spent a lot of time being angry with Tracey. But he was ever proud. He thought she was a warrior against adversity as he was. But that was before everything happened.

* * *

The first time Garrett forgave her was that night after she snubbed him. After actually getting dinner prepared, a chore with Garrett making himself a general nuisance, they talked mostly about law. At some point, he tried to get her to talk about herself and the circumstances behind her living arrangements. Tracey didn't want to. She was relieved when he didn't press her. There were some things she hadn't ever talked about and never intended to talk about with anyone. She was relieved that her sophomoric behavior on the lawn had apparently gone unnoticed. Or so she thought.

The next time she saw him and they were at school, she was posted at her usual spot on the steps laughing at some guys freestyling about an Econ 111 exam. She'd always known there'd be a rap one day about shifts in the oil demand curve. She laughed so hard tears slipped from the corners of her eyes. She dabbed at them, and, when she looked up, Garrett was looking right at her, and then he was walking right towards her. Until that time, never had her knees gone weak. It was a good thing she was leaning against that pillar. Tracey watched him, her eyes locked to his, and slowly she rolled her head from side to side hoping no one would notice. He stopped in his tracks but was not kind enough to release her gaze. Tracey was helpless until, with a disgusted look, he turned and walked away.

That same night, she sat for hours slowly sipping brandy and Coke, trying for the mildly disoriented effect.

He came to her that night and asked for an explanation. He told her not to say she didn't know what he was talking about or that she hadn't done anything because it was the second time. The first time, he hadn't made a big deal about it because he hadn't wanted to embarrass her.

He didn't want to embarrass me,
she thought. She wilted with that revelation.

He wanted to know why. Tracey put a cushion over her head and replied, “Because I'm stupid that way.”

“That's it?”

Indignant was a good word for his tone. Drunk and belligerent did a better job. “Look, I don't even know you. You just show up here from time to time and that's it. I don't owe you anything. I don't know why you think—”

He snatched the cushion from her. “Because I never,” he said through his teeth, “never would have done that to you, Tracey.”

She stood to face him. “Really, Garrett? You've done it to me plenty of times before now. There was nothing different about my behavior today. The only difference was you.” She poked her finger into his chest and went on. “You smile at me, I smile at you. That's the way it goes when we're in class.”

He didn't say anything, but grabbed her hand, holding it still so she couldn't poke him anymore.

“What else do you want? You don't feel comfortable, and I don't feel comfortable. What do you want?” Her voice did not shake. She was lucky at times.

“I want to be friends.” That just made it worse. And even though Garrett and Tracey had known each other only a few weeks, they had become friends the first night he'd come there, good ones. Even worse was that they both knew there was no safe friendship between the two of them. She felt helpless and tugged her hand out of his. He continued, “Listen, I don't even know why this is such a big deal. People meet each other and hang out and become friends and say ‘Hey' when they pass each other in the halls. All kinds of people. But you and me, we can't.”

“I know,” Tracey breathed, taking her cushion back from him before slumping back down into her seat.

He sat down near her again. Neither of them asked why. Tracey didn't ask 'cause she sure didn't want an answer. They were silent. She didn't know where all that had come from. Her only defense was that she'd had too much to drink. All she knew was that somewhere under her ribs she felt a pain grow. He pulled the pillow from her arms again, gently this time, and watched her. God, he was always watching her, always paying such close attention. She felt that, somehow, he was trying to learn her.

The worst of it, the very worst of it, was they weren't exactly forging new territory. There were plenty of black and white people that hung out, that were good friends. There were even a couple in the law school. But there was that something that was dangerous for the both of them.

For Tracey it had started almost from birth. From the time she learned to talk to the time she left high school, she had people calling her an Oreo, a “wannabe,” everything a person could think of to say she wasn't a “real” black person. Why? Because she spoke “proper,” she was smart, she had white friends, and her parents were wealthy but from self-made wealth. Half the things she was socially obligated to identify with, she didn't, because that just wasn't where she came from.

Proud to be black? She was, but she also felt an unnatural pressure to shout it to doubters every day. As she overcompensated, she felt uncomfortable in her own skin. In truth, she never felt that she belonged to anybody or to anything other than her family. But now, even though she didn't belong, she had this tenuous grip on what was shaping up to be a new life for her. She had people to hang out with. She said the right things in the right way. She only gave when she got, as with her new friendship with Monica.

She couldn't figure out this thing with Garrett, though. She could only assume it was because he was all-American, the boy next door. He was probably engaged at birth to a girl named Susie and had a mock wedding ceremony when he was six and she was five. He was probably in his father's fraternity. He was classic and white without an ounce of “soul.” Maybe their mutual affinity just confounded her enough for her to continue to be interested in it.

“Tracey, you don't seem like you care that much about what other people think.”

“Good, aren't I?” she mumbled, grabbing another pillow and holding it over her face. He took that one away from her, too, then came to sit beside her on the couch, forcing her to crowd herself into the corner at the other end.

“Listen, this is stupid,” Garrett grated.

She turned her head into the sofa, hiding her hot face. “Maybe, but that's my reality.”

“So that's it?” he asked and then was quiet. Tracey heard him swallow deep. She felt his hand reach for her left, which twisted in the folds of her shirt. He untangled it and held it. “Yeah, I guess that's it.”

Tracey nodded and sighed heavily, pained by this conversation, pained by how much it felt right to have her hand in his… They had actually agreed to deny each other. He got glasses and ice and poured more brandy.

“You need to eat something. I know you haven't eaten,” he told her in the voice her mother used when Tracey was sick. He headed into her kitchen, taking her bottle of brandy with him. Tracey heard him put something into the microwave. He came back and sat upside down in her favorite chair. Blood rushed to his head. He didn't bring her bottle back. “You should stop trying to please everybody. You should stop trying to be someone you're not.”

“Thanks, Dr. Atkins, but I think you should try that yourself,” she returned sarcastically.

“Oh, you'd be surprised how well I'm overcoming it.” He stood after hearing the microwave ping, and then he brought her a bowl of chili.

So they ended up telling each other their life stories of infatuation with social comfort and attempts to please everyone they knew. They ended up more than mildly disoriented. They ended up asleep together on her couch.

All Tracey could remember was drifting off murmuring something about pretty arms and soft hair. She awakened to a feeling she hadn't had since she was small when her father had let her fall asleep in his arms every night. Without opening her eyes, just from the sheer warmth and weight, she knew Rett was on her. She felt the arms wrapped beneath her waist and the head resting on her chest. She felt the chest spanning across her abdomen and the hips pressed against her thighs. Tracey opened her eyes—careful not to move—and could've sworn that she saw his close. She closed hers again. Nearly an hour later, he got up. She still pretended to sleep.

* * *

Garrett kept flashing back to what it was like having Tracey under him all that next day. Clay had asked him thirty times when he got home that morning where he'd been and why he was smiling so much. Rett had answered thirty times that it was none of his damned business. Rett took a shower, got dressed and went to class, all with Tracey in his head. Even during lunch with Kim, he couldn't get her out of his mind.

Kim noticed and did the same thing she always did when she felt that he wasn't giving her enough attention. She told him she thought she was pregnant. Rett answered the same way he did every time she said it, and told her that she was not. But his heart wasn't in this monthly fight with his girlfriend of eighteen months. The phrase “bigger fish to fry” kept playing in the background.

* * *

That night at Tracey's they didn't drink. They agreed that they didn't want to turn into alcoholics. Or rather Tracey suggested it, and Garrett went along with it. That was as good a reason as any.

When he walked in, Tracey was sitting on the floor working on her laptop at the coffee table, and John Coltrane's version of “My Favorite Things” was playing. Tracey never left her music on when he was there. She started to turn it off but Rett touched her arm. “No, leave it. I like this one.”