Second House from the Corner (11 page)

“And so do you.” I pinch his butt cheek.

*   *   *

I close the upstairs gate so that I can put Liv on the floor, change out of my smoky clothes, and bury them in the bottom of the dirty laundry pile.

“Go find a book and sit on the floor,” I call to them from the bathroom. The door is cracked so I can hear what's going on while I brush my teeth, and then move the washcloth in the places that need to be freshened. Gran calls that a “whore's bath.”

After Liv is changed and clean, I sit all three children on my lap and read a New Age version of Humpty Dumpty by Mark Teague, about a prince who is afraid. They love the story and I take my time acting out all the characters. When I'm finished Rory puts his arms around my neck.

“Mama, can you tell us one of your stories from your head?”

I don't have anything better to do than avoid Preston, so I agree.

“Yes, I'll tell you one while I feed the baby. But you have to get in your bed and keep your heads on the pillow.”

“Can I sleep with the girls tonight?” Rory asks.

I nod, and settle into the glider by the window. Liv reaches for my breast. I lift my shirt and unhook the snap on my bra. It's not until she gets the milk to flow that I remember the drinks and cigarettes.

Bad mommy, unfit
.
Just triflin'.

I don't give her strength, and start in on a story about a leaf that got separated from its leaf family in a storm. When I'm finished, Liv is asleep and Two reaches for a cuddle.

“That was the best story ever, Mommy.”

“Many more to come, Two. Now don't get out of this bed or tomorrow there will be no dessert. Good night.”

I kiss Rory and tuck him tight.

I head downstairs. Every step fills my belly with dread. Preston is sitting on the sofa. The living room and dining room lights are on. His scratch-offs are sitting in a pile on the coffee table.

“Win anything?”

“Thirteen dollars.”

“I can use that for groceries.”

“You going to tell me where you've been?”

I ease into the loveseat, opposite from the sofa where Preston is seated, and pull my vanilla throw over my lap.

“Stop with the tight leash, would you?” I snap.

“Leash?”

“Yes, you move how you please. The moment I take some time for myself you're calling the National Guard.”

“Because you said you were going to CVS.”

“And I did. But I didn't feel like rushing right home. I've been with the kids all day. I needed a break.”

Preston stares at me. “Next time, just say that. I was worried.”

I flip the covers from my lap, am on my feet, hands on my hips, lips poked out. “Worried for what? I was in the neighborhood, for Christ sakes.”

“You weren't answering your phone.”

“So fucking what? You guys drain the shit out of me.” I move for the stairs, but he's up, pulling me by the waist. “Let go.” I squirm but he holds tighter.

“Calm down. What has gotten into you?”

“I'm going to bed, Preston. Move.”

“Sit down, Foxy.”

“No.”

“Why do you have to make everything so difficult?” He grabs my chin and pins my waist to his. “I don't have a problem with you getting air. I just want to know. It's different when I'm out. I'm a man. I can handle myself.”

“That's some sexist bullshit.” I push away from him but as soon as I break free he's on me again.

“Relax, Fox. Let's make some drinks. It's Friday.”

His hand pulls my ponytail loose and his fingers on my scalp calm me.

“Please?”

I untangle myself from his arms and head back to the sofa. He brings me a mixed concoction and then sits next to me. The television is set to the Food Network and we watch
Chopped
.

*   *   *

The drinks, my worries, my week put me right to sleep, and Preston has to nudge me awake after he's secured the house for the night.

“Want me to carry you?”

“No, I'm fine.” I get to my feet.

In the bedroom, I strip down to my camisole and panties. Preston is on my side of the bed, reaching for me, smelling me, adoring me. I'm not really in the mood but his lips, his hands are so persistent that I turn my body over to him and let him have his way with me.

Before the fluids dry between us, he's knocked out cold, snoring like sex is a sedative. I'm wide awake. The cigarette craving is back, and I don't know what's come over me.

 

THIRTEEN

The Colored Museum

Two hours have ticked by on the wall clock and I am still awake. I have gone through three rounds of tapping, rubbed down in lavender oil, counted backward from five hundred, played the city alphabet game in my head, imagined myself sleeping in a peaceful meadow, adjusted my pillows, changed my body position, but still sleep eludes me. Preston's not snoring tonight, but he's breathing heavily, and the air from his nose makes the sheets ruffle. On his back with his head lulled to the side, chest naked, one foot flung from the covers, the other nestled between the sheets. He looks at peace. I watch him, sick with sorry.

Preston is the one person I'd never intended to hurt. The omission of my past just happened. There never seemed to be an opportune moment to bring it up. By the time we were serious and I was ready to shed and share, Preston distracted me with his perfect vision of our future, and I didn't have the courage to smudge his picture even if it was man-made and unauthentic.

*   *   *

When I met Preston, I was in a play called
The Colored Museum
by George C. Wolfe. It was the first performance at the Theresa Lang Theatre with an all-black cast. Monumental really because the theater was on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where the rich white folks lived, and people came from every borough to see it. I had minor supporting roles throughout, but my time to shine was in the role of Topsy Washington, and I loved all five minutes and thirty-two seconds of it.

Topsy came onstage in the last vignette, titled “The Party.” Do you remember the first scene of Spike Lee's 1989 movie
Do the Right Thing
, where Rosie Perez danced to Public Enemy's “Fight the Power” so hard, you thought she was going to lose a breast? Picture me as Topsy dancing just a fraction calmer, but not by much. My costume was ridiculous. I wore a neon halter top, and a blazer with metal bottle caps sewn all over it. The skirt had little cowrie shells and bells attached, so when I pumped my chest back and forth and threw my hands in the air, I was the music. Dancing, dancing, and dancing until I was sweating and out of breath. Then I stopped, looked out into the audience with a dramatic pause, and said,

“Have you ever been to a party, and there was one fool in the middle of the floor dancing harder and yelling louder than anyone in the room? Well, honey, that fool was me!”

From that moment on I had the room mesmerized as I talked about going way, way, way, way, way, way, way uptown to a party where every black icon you could think of was in the room—Nat Turner, Eartha Kitt, Malcolm X, Aunt Jemima, Angela Davis—discussing things such as existentialism and the shuffle ball change. It was a powerful piece, and when I left the stage every fiber in my body was high. So high I could have just glided back to my apartment and called it a night. But my friend Serena, who was the stage manager, convinced me to come celebrate opening night with the cast and have a drink. When I walked out into the lobby, Preston was standing against the wall looking right at me. I looked back, thinking, have we met before? Then he walked over to me. He was a cute thing—tall, bookish, but handsome. Not the badass boys from Brooklyn that I normally liked. There was something behind the horn-rimmed glasses that said security. Safe.

“Excuse me, Topsy Washington, but could you sign my Playbill?” His left dimple deepened. His accent was south of New York, but I couldn't place it.

Tickled, I turned on my stage charm. “Of course. Did you enjoy the show?”

“Very much. You were fantastic.” His eyes drank me in. “I'm not really into plays but my friend's sister, Yolanda, is in the production, so I tagged along.”

Our fingers touched as I handed back the Playbill. I didn't care for Yolanda. She played the part of the girl with the egg. I wanted that part and when she got it, she flicked her nose up at me. I stayed away from her after that.

“Felicia, ready?” It was Serena, impatient for her liquor. I motioned to her to give me a second.

“Let me see that Playbill again.” I took it from him and wrote my telephone number on it. “So we can continue our conversation. What's your name?”

“Preston, Preston Lyons.”

“Felicia Hayes.” I extended my hand. “See you around.”

*   *   *

The cast and crew went around the corner to the Dive Bar, a favorite hangout for Marymount students on Third Avenue. Serena had to stop at the ATM for cash and refused to go to the Citibank on the corner because she banked with Chase.

“I'm not paying those high fees for taking my money from another bank. It adds up,” she scoffed.

So we walked five blocks to the Chase and then back to the bar. When we walked in, Preston was already there. He spotted me immediately, came over, and offered to buy me a drink. I ordered a Jack and ginger. It was my cool grown-up girl drink, the one that let the boys know I could get down like them. We tried to get up a conversation while the DJ spun G Love & Special Sauce, but then he switched to hard-core metal. The white girls ran to the bar top, kicked their high heels off, and danced berserk, as was the norm in Upper East Side bars such as the Dive. It was time to go. I cornered Serena and told her I was leaving. She was wrapped up in the guy who worked the stage lights and waved me off.

“I live down the block. Walk me home?” I shouted into Preston's ear. He took my hand.

*   *   *

Outside, the fall breeze felt good. It was a few weeks before Thanksgiving, and the air had a mild quality to it with no bite. Preston and I walked two blocks down Third Avenue and then cut across Seventieth, heading toward York Avenue. I lived in a dumpy fourth-floor walkup with Serena and another friend. It was a two-bedroom that we converted into a three, by dividing the living room with a curtain and a Chinese screen. I decided when we got to my building that I wasn't going to let him come up. We'd just met, I liked his straight-up demeanor and I didn't want him to think I was easy.

“Want to sit?” I pointed to the bench near the corner.

We watched the headlights of the cars and cabs race back and forth up York Avenue.

“Foxy.”

“Excuse me?” I said, lowering my eyes at him.

“Sorry, did I say that out loud?” He looked sheepish. “You just, I don't know. You're name should be Foxy.

My eyes found his, so brown and gentle.

“You have that reddish-brown skin and onstage you seemed so clever, so crafty, so sure of yourself. Made me think, Foxy.”

He got all of this about me from a first encounter? I wasn't sure if it were entirely true because there wasn't much that I was sure of and I often felt myself coming apart at the seams. But it sounded good coming from his lips and I bought into it on the spot. On my thigh, I traced Preston and Felicia and drew a heart around it. On our third date, we headed to Spice, my favorite Thai restaurant, near NYU.

It was over crispy basil spring rolls and massaman curry shrimp that Preston trusted me with a part of his past.

“I was raised in downtown Newport News, affectionately known as ‘Bad Newz' by the neighbors. Have you ever been to Virginia?”

I willed my eyes to stay focused. “Yeah, 'round Lynchburg.”

“Well, the city is basically nondescript urban sprawl—shipyards and ports.” What he didn't have to say was violent crimes, drug-addicted neighbors, and fast-food joints on every corner, because all of our black neighborhoods were the same.

“The city got a little fame when Michael Vick's dog fighting made national news. My godmother would see Allen Iverson's mom every weekend spending his NBA money at the bingo.”

“Really?”

He shook his head. “What most people don't know is that my hometown is also the hometown of Ella Fitzgerald and Pearl Bailey, but I guess that's for the history books.” Preston sipped his Thai iced tea, and I could tell by the way he clenched his jaw that this trip backward wasn't breezy.

It wasn't until our fifth date that he revealed, “I was raised mostly by my godmother, Juju.”

Preston's mother, Peaches, was a misguided orphan raised in the group home where Juju worked as the director. Peaches was sixteen when she gave birth to Preston, and Juju took a liking to him. His young mother was in and out of foster care, juvenile detention, and jail for everything from prostitution to writing bad checks to selling drugs. You name it, Peaches did it. None of it stopped her from having children.

After Preston came Patrik, who lived with his grandmother on his father's side, and then a set of twin girls who were raised mostly by their father. Peaches wouldn't let Preston see his father because she wanted him and he didn't want her. When Preston was eight years old, Peaches wanted to follow her new man out to Las Vegas to live.

“Juju always tells me she said, ‘You aren't taking Preston more than five miles from me. If you want to go, then you need to sign him over so I can give him a proper home.'” Preston removed his glasses and wiped them with a napkin.

We had just seen an indie movie at the Angelika Film Center. I nursed a latte and we shared biscotti.

“She was gone about six months, and then after that I saw her now and then.”

“Juju drilled into me, ‘The only way you going to be something is to get out of Newport News, baby.'” He imitated his godmother with a southern drawl. He went on to tell me how Juju wrote letters to local organizations and programs for funding. When Preston entered fifth grade, she got him into an elite private boarding school, Randolph Macon Academy, seventy miles west of DC, on a full scholarship. When he graduated with honors, it was off to Columbia University for his undergrad degree.