On the Divinity of Second Chances (13 page)

The end of the story, or the beginning, depending on how you look at it, always makes me laugh to hear Grace tell it.

“Yeah, I’m sure I didn’t know bein’ a white girl was part of the contract,” I add.

“Yeah, God wanted to make sure you purified that hatred of white people that you exited that last life with!” Grace laughs some more at my journey. “Child, do you think you can get back to sleep now?” Grace asks me tenderly.

“Nah,” I answer. I never can get back to sleep after these dreams.

“Well, then, what do you say we put on a little Motown and dance these blues away?”

“How about a little Kirk Franklin?” I propose. “You know, I really miss listening to you-all sing that glorious gospel choir music.”

Grace makes my radio play some Kirk Franklin gospel choir music and I savor the sweet sounds of my favorite soul, Grace, singing along as we dance together in celebration of all that is light.

Jade on Alien Guy Again and
Her Specialty, Burned Pan
(June 14)

Alien Guy picks out some of the weirdest music I’ve ever done massage to. The first night he played
Diana Ross’s Greatest Hits
, but night two he played
K-Tel Hits of the 80s
featuring “Ghostbusters” and “We Built This City on Rock and Roll.” Tonight he has chosen
Bob Seger’s Greatest Hits
. As I work on his quads, he begins to sing “We’ve Got Tonight” along with Seger.

Grace appears. “Girl, you better change the subject! You talk to him about that nasty toenail fungus of his. That’ll snap him out of that heinous serenade!” If I had a dollar for every time Grace saved my ass. . . . I give Grace an appreciative look. “Man, and why can’t he play that Diana Ross again? What do white people hear in this crap anyway?”

I finish his quads as quickly as the serenade began, spend about thirty seconds on his tibialis anterior, and then go to his foot. “You know, Garth, there are pills you can take that will keep this toenail fungus from breeding,” I interrupt. “Left untreated, sometimes people have to have their toenail removed or their whole toe amputated.”

“I’m not too worried about it. With my other health problems, I’ll probably only live another ten years or so.”

“Mmm! He is one foul creature! You watch yo’self here,” Grace warns. Times like this, I am so glad to have Aretha at my feet.

“You’ve probably noticed that I don’t have male massage therapists. I’m not really comfortable with that, plus I just kind of like having women touch me,” says Alien Guy.

“Garth, I wish you hadn’t said that.” His comment makes me feel like a whore instead of someone who helps facilitate healing. “How’s your injured knee, Garth?” I grab his medial collateral ligament on the inside of his left knee and roll it mercilessly between my fingers and thumb like a pencil. I feel scar tissue tearing like Velcro. He yelps. “Pretty gunky in there. Lots of connective tissue building up.”

“Oh, yeah, girl, he needed that,” Grace says.

I finish his arms and neck, pronounce him done, and go to the kitchen to wash my hands. I pack up, take my seventy-five bucks plus tip, and rush home with Aretha to shower his vibes off me as fast as I can.

Wrapped in a towel, wet cornrow braids whipping water everywhere, I jump up and, after a few tries, knock the cover of the fire alarm off to stop that horrible screech. I open the door and let the smoke drift out. Once again, I forgot to put water in the pan of what was supposed to be steamed vegetables. I put the pan on the stove, turned it on high, and then stepped into the shower. Burned pan, my specialty. When the fire alarm goes off and the pan is welded to the element, it’s done.

Aretha runs outside when I open the door, hating the metallic smoke and fumes and the noise of this regular occurrence.

I put the bottomless pan on the doorstep. The phone rings, and I run to turn down the Geoffrey Oryema CD I was cranking while I was in the shower. Instead of picking up the phone, I stand there in my towel and wait to see whose voice I’ll hear on the answering machine. A silly voice says, “Hello, this is Peter Lemonjello, and I would like a four-hour butt massage.”

I pick up. “Ya, Peeta,” I say in my fake Swedish accent. “Ya, dis is Helga and as you know da butt massage is my specialty.”

“Knock, knock,” I hear from my open door. Shit. Josh.

I hold up a finger to ask for a minute. “Forrest, I have to go. Tell me when and where . . . okay, ’bye.”

“Hey, neighbor. . . .” I’m clearly frazzled.

“So butt massages are your specialty?”

“That was my brother. Running joke. Sibling thing. You know.”

He smiles. “So, am I too late for dinner?”

With a small chuckle, I close my eyes and drop my head.

“No, actually, you’re right on time. I made my specialty, burned pan. I put it on the doorstep because I had you pegged for a man who likes to dine alfresco.”

Josh smiles and nods. “Yes, absolutely. Alfresco.” He pauses for a minute. “Hey, if you like, I have spaghetti on the stove next door. You’re welcome to join me. No need to dress up. Come as you are,” he teases.

“Thanks.” I accept.

“Come over whenever you’re ready.” He steps over where Aretha has fallen asleep on the sidewalk behind him, and walks back to his place.

I leave the stove and go to my bedroom to dress. I survey my clothes and decide this is a T-shirt and overalls kind of occasion. Then I walk out into the kitchen to find Grace looking at the element.

“Girl, when are you gonna learn to cook?” Grace badgers.

“Grace, when are you gonna let me know I’ve made this mistake before I wreck yet another pan?”

“Can’t you do anything for yo’self ?”

“I don’t need this!” I sass.

“Well, you sure needed my corn bread and collard greens an awful lot last time around, didn’t you, Reverend? I made you Sunday dinner every week for ten years and this sassing is the thanks I get?”

I don’t really remember this part of my Reverend Byron James life very well, but Grace likes to tell me all about the part where she played the organ and carried a secret torch for me, which I was apparently too focused on my work to notice. Once a week, though, she could hold my attention with Sunday dinner. Grace tells me that, in fact, we have been friends many times throughout our lives. We have even been married a time or two.

“Grace, I’m going over to Josh’s now. Are you finished razzing me?”

“Lot of good razzing you does. One of these days you’re gonna kill yourself in a fire if you’re not careful,” Grace cautions.

“I already died in a fire.”

“Very funny.” Grace is not laughing. “Well, you’re just asking for that exit again.”

“You mean if diabetes doesn’t get me first.” She’s always razzing me about eating so much sugar.

“That’s right. See now, I’m so glad to see that you’re actually listening to me,” Grace replies.

“Be a little hard not to, now, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, after all the boring sermons I sat through during your last life, I think you can probably listen to a few things I say this time around. I think you owe me that.” Oooh. Low blow.

“Okay, Grace, good talk. We’re working on Alien Guy and Barry White Guy tomorrow. I’ll see you then.”

“Oh, yeah,” Grace says, imitating the way Barry White coos throughout his whole massage.

Aretha follows me to Josh’s house. I knock.

“It’s open!” he calls.

We walk in.

“You changed!” He sounds disappointed.

“Well, you know, this time of day it begins to cool off rather quickly,” I explain.

“I suppose.” He concentrates on dicing the tomatoes for our salad and then says, “You know, I hope it’s okay that I give you a hard time. Sometimes after I say something, I think, Josh, I can’t believe you just said that! You don’t even know her! But you know how there are some people you meet that seem so familiar? It’s hard to remember you haven’t known them your whole life?” He looks up to see if I get what he’s trying to say.

Nisa, you little cutie.

“I do that all the time.” I look around his living room for clues about what he’s done in this life. “So where are you from?”

“Most recently, Denver. I spent the last eleven years there. The boss wanted to start a small office up here since this area has so many investors. I grew up in Philly. You?”

“I’ve been here since I was a teenager. Before that, Summerville, South Dakota.”

“Your family still here?” he asks.

“Oh, yeah. . . .”

He laughs. “Sounds like there’s quite a story there.”

“My mom sleeps in the backyard on a lawn chair and paints raisins all day, my dad is learning to play bagpipes, my brother lives in a tree house a few miles out that way, and my oldest sister recently discovered she’s pregnant right after she and her partner broke up. That pretty much sums it up.”

“Is your sister going to raise her child on her own?” he asks.

“Yep,” I answer.

“What about you?” he asks. “Do you want kids?”

“Not if I have to raise them by myself.”

“What if you didn’t have to raise them by yourself? What if you met the perfect guy—then would you want kids?”

“Ask me after I meet the perfect guy. What about you?”

“Yeah, I want kids.”

“Do you think those things are up to us or up to destiny?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he answers. “What do you think?”

I go out on a limb. “I think we make some agreements before we come here.”

“Like with other people?”

I wish I could feel him out better on this before I say too much. “You know how when you meet someone you feel like you’ve known a long time . . . maybe you feel a sense of connection . . . I think those are the people with whom you share agreements.” I wonder what he’ll do with that.

“So you think you and I had an agreement?”

“You mean you don’t remember?” I try turning the question into a joke.

“Refresh my memory.” He sits back and smiles, waiting for the entertainment to begin.

“If you don’t remember, I’m not going to tell you.” I fake offense.

“So you don’t remember, either.” He thinks he’s called my bluff.

“Oh, I remember,” I assure him. “Ultimately it doesn’t matter if you remember or not. You’ll still fulfill your part of the agreement.” I take a couple sips of my wine. “So what’s your family like?”

“My mom’s family immigrated here from Sierra Leone in the sixties. She met my dad in college. He’s a journalist. My sister is a chef and owns a Thai restaurant in Miami. That was a nice try at changing the subject.” He carries the spaghetti and salad over to the table. “So what did we agree to do?”

I look him directly in the eye as though I’m joking. “Get married,” I answer honestly. “So your family—are you close to them?” I try to change the subject again before I freak him out. I’m not capable of lying. The best I can do if I can’t dodge a question is to tell the truth and make it sound like a joke. If he keeps asking direct questions, though, the conversation is going to get really weird, and then perhaps he’ll use his free will to change his mind about our agreement. I don’t know. I wonder about that a lot—how easy or hard it is to mess up destiny, and if I mess it up, whether it really is messed up, or if it just is what it is, and so I move on to plan B and it’s really okay. I don’t know. I really don’t want to mess this up, though. We’ve waited hundreds of years to be together again. I roll some spaghetti onto my fork.

“Sort of. I don’t get to see them much, though. Work keeps me really busy. So we’re getting married?” He takes a bite of spaghetti, wipes his mouth, and waits for my answer.

“I think our agreements are like signing up for college classes—you can always choose to drop them later.” Wasn’t that an artful and honest way of dodging his question?

“So what are you saying, that you’ve already decided not to marry me?”

“No, I’ll marry you,” I say like I’m being silly, “but I don’t recall you asking me yet. This wine is delicious.” Please let my subject change work this time. I take another bite of spaghetti.

Josh’s voice softens. “You’d marry me, huh?” He seems flattered.

I just roll my eyes, feel my cheeks burn once again, and continue eating.

Jade on What Happens When You
Ignore the Signs
(June 15)

On night four, Alien Guy plays some Cher album from the late eighties—the one with “If I Could Turn Back Time” on it. It physically hurts me to listen to it. Grace hates it, too.

Aretha and I wait in the kitchen while Alien Guy gets on the table. I take a mental inventory of the contents of his kitchen. More plastic plates in the garbage. “So, Garth, what’s with all the disposable dishes?” I had to ask finally.

“I don’t like to do dishes,” Alien Guy responds.

“I can relate to that, but can’t you at least use paper?”

“Um, no. I have to eat steak every night because I don’t have the enzymes to digest vegetables, and steak knives cut through paper plates.”

It was in that moment that I could no longer tolerate him. I could no longer see him as a child and feel maternal toward him as I did with my other clients. My maternal vibe is the key to feeling no disgust for anyone or anyone’s body. His unapologetic confession to disposable plate abuse broke my good vibe, and for the third time in my eight years of practice, a client disgusted me. I’d had it. I’d had it with his painful music, I’d had it with his serenades, I’d had it with his naked lady paintings, I’d had it with his toenail fungus, and I’d had it with the smell like something was rotting in his colon. I could take no more.

“I’m sorry. You’ll have to find someone else to work on you tomorrow,” I announce. “Something came up.”

I watch the clock throughout the whole massage. I figure I make a dollar twenty-five a minute before tip, so every time the minute hand moves, I think, That’s another dollar twenty-five, and it makes me feel better. When my hour with Alien Guy is up, I rejoice.