Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do (19 page)

33

W
HEN PRECIOUS HARGROVE CALLED
and said she needed to see me, I agreed immediately. She said she had something to show me and it couldn't wait. Of course, I knew it was about Beth. There was no other urgent business possible between me and the senator. What had Beth done now in her quest for open options and deals with the devil?

We agreed to meet at Soul Veg for a cup of late afternoon tea. When I walked in at just after three, Precious was the only person there. She waved, and I grabbed a cup of peppermint tea and joined her at a booth near the big front windows. It seemed appropriate that we could watch our neighbors going by as we talked. All you can see from Beth's house is trees.

“Thanks for coming,” Precious said as I slid in across from her. Her expression was hard for me to read, but she was unhappy about something. That much was clear.

“I'm glad you called me,” I said. “What's wrong?”

There was no point in a bunch of meaningless chitchat. We were here to do business. What
kind
of business would emerge, but it had nothing to do with commenting on the sudden cold snap or her son's blossoming affair with my downstairs neighbor.

Precious sighed and withdrew a white business envelope from her purse. She slid it across the table toward me. It had been sent to her home with no return address. On the lower front corner, I would see that someone had written the classic plea for postal mercy: photos! please do not bend!

“This arrived two days ago,” she said. “I've been trying to reach Beth ever since, but I haven't gotten any response.”

I picked up the envelope and pulled out a folded note and a snapshot. It was the woman in the photo with Son that I had given to Beth, except Son wasn't in this picture. In this picture, the woman was wearing a demure pale green dress and holding a little boy on her lap who looked so much like Son that the conclusion was inescapable:
This was his child.

I looked at Precious.

“Read the note.”

I opened up the single piece of plain white paper. Someone had typed:
“I wonder if Beth Davis is going to include her grandson on her campaign brochures,”
and then an address.

There was no signature. No blackmail demand. Nothing but a question for which neither of us had the answer.

“Who sent it?” I said, refolding the note carefully, but unable to take my eyes off the picture. The woman looked radiantly happy, and the small boy was smiling at the camera like one of those commercial-world babies who coo their unending approval of Pampers or Huggies or Gerber's so sweetly that we buy the product just to please them.

Precious shook her head, frowning. “I have no idea.”

“How hard is it to get your home address?”

The question elicited a small smile. Her political career was based on accessibility. “I'm in the phone book.”

“Any ideas at all?”

“Well, I have no idea
who
, but I think I know why.”

I was still trying to absorb the idea of Son having a child. Was that what Beth was trying to get me to find at the bottom ofthat great big pile ofbullshit she'd been feeding me?

“I think whoever sent this is pretty sure Beth is going to be a candidate for governor and pretty sure I'd like to keep her out of the race if I can,” Precious said. “They'd be right on both counts.”

Her tone was devoid of emotion. She was making sure we both understood what was being discussed. I kept quiet.

“There are a couple of problems here,” she said. “The first one is that her candidacy would effectively split the black female vote and nullify all the work I've done building a record and all the work she's done registering new voters.”

“She hasn't said she's going to run.”

Precious looked at me. “I know that she's considering a draft. There has already been a committee formed, and she's promised them an answer in two weeks.”

I was impressed. Precious had a network that reached into Beth's living room, and Beth didn't even know it.

Precious clasped her hands on the table and leaned forward. “Let me be very clear about this. I don't care if there is a child or not. Son Davis was a good man who did a lot of good things for this community, and if he had lived, I'm sure he would have done a lot more. I always felt that his perspective, in addition to Beth's, was crucial to the whole mission of Son Shine.”

“It was.”

She nodded. “But this message comes from somebody who wants her out of the race pretty badly and is prepared to play dirty to make that happen.”

She picked up the envelope like it pained her to have to touch it and looked at me. “I think her candidacy will be the worst thing she could do for the women who trust her. It will make my job immeasurably harder, but this is the life I've chosen, and I'm not prepared to use blackmail to pressure her to withdraw.”

She slid the envelope back toward me with the tip of her index finger. “Give this to her and she can do with it what she will.”

I picked up the envelope and stashed it in my purse quickly. “I don't think she has any idea that she has a grandson.”

Precious sat back and took a sip of her tea. “I think,” she said putting her cup down gently, “that it's been a very long time since anything surprised Beth Davis.”

We both sipped our tea for a minute. I felt bad. Precious and I were on the same side, but I was working for Beth. There was only so much I could do, but I was prepared to do all of that.

“If it means anything, I've been trying to tell her what a bad idea I think this is.”

Precious shook her head. “It's worse than that. She's being used. Once black folks split between me and her, a strong white candidate will be able to slide right in without owing any of us anything.”

“Have they got a strong white candidate?”

“They always have a candidate,” she said. “We're the only ones who go at this hit and miss.”

That tone was as familiar to me as a lullaby. My parents and their friends spoke it to one another when they had been outvoted or outfinanced or outadvertised by a lesser white opponent whose victory came by default because, as my father said, Negroes failed to rise. This was the voice of the true believer, forced to confront the disorganization that Marcus Garvey said was the race's most indomitable foe. I knew the pain and disappointment in that tone, but I also knew that within the deepest disillusionment, there were the seeds of the next campaign, the next confrontation, the next chance to pull it all together and
win
.

“The sad thing is,” Precious said, “that the two of us make one perfect candidate. Beth can move a crowd better than anyone I've ever seen, but she couldn't get a bill out of committee if her life depended on it. I can remember everybody's name, where they live, where their grandbaby goes to school. I know how to make alliances with people who never thought they'd be doing business with a black woman and not give up who I am in the process. I can take a bill from an idea to a reality, and I've run five campaigns without ever incurring a penny of debt, financial or moral.”

She was ticking off her credentials, and I knew she wasn't bragging. When I told Beth that Precious was an ideal candidate, I wasn't kidding.

Precious smiled and shook her head. “But there's one problem. As a speaker, I'm just not very exciting. Well informed, overprepared, sincere, but just no … pizzazz.”

She was absolutely right. Her performance at the growers meeting was a prime example. What she needed was a good speechwriter. Someone who could take the raw material and shape it into something that sings. Writing for Beth was always a pleasure because she's already so charismatic. It's like having Mary J. Blige record your song. If you are any good at all, she's going to make you sound
great
. Writing a speech for Precious would be a different kind of challenge, but she already had the big three:
passion, program
, and
purpose
. All she needed was number four:
polish.

“The governor isn't required to have pizzazz,” I said.

“But the
candidate
for governor had better.”

She was right again. We smiled at each other. No point in denying the obvious.

“So, I'll work on my pizzazz, and you give Sister Davis that envelope. I assume she'll take it from there.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, and I was. These women should be able to make an alliance. Their united front could change the face of Georgia politics overnight. Pitted against each other, they were easy to neutralize.

“I'm sorry, too,” Precious said, and her voice had softened around the edges. She smiled at me across the table. “Beth was one of my sheroes, you know. She's the reason I went into politics in the first place.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “It's a great story. I'll tell it to you one day, but right now, I've got a meeting.”

“I'll hold you to that,” I said.

She stood up and gathered her things. “I appreciate the delicacy of your position,” she said. “But you might give her a message from me.”

“That's why I'm here, isn't it?”

Precious smiled. “Tell her I intend to stay in this race, tell her I intend to win, and one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“Tell her I'm not getting off the Legacy Committee. Son Davis was a friend of mine and a friend of this community. Ifshe's planning to announce anything at the ceremony, she'll have to have enough nerve to do it to my face.”

“I'll tell her.”

34

I
T WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY.
I walked home the long way, realizing I was beginning to recognize some of my neighbors. They'd wave and I'd wave. It was only a matter of time before I knew their names and they knew mine, but I wasn't thinking about the beauty of neighborhood camaraderie at the moment. I was thinking of Son's secret life. That sounds melodramatic, but having a kid your mother doesn't know about by a woman she's never met qualifies as pretty secretive, I think.

What did Precious say when I said I didn't think Beth knew about any grandchild?
It's been a long time since anything surprised Beth Davis.
There was so much going on at our short meeting, I didn't have time to ask her to explain. Maybe I should ask Beth instead. She was in Augusta with Jade doing a series of workshops and a dinner speech tomorrow night. I looked at my watch. If I hurried, I could catch her at the hotel before she went out for the evening.

I turned down my block and hurried toward home. Wanna-be Coltrane was playing his heart out, but I didn't recognize the tune. If I were his teacher, he'd definitely get an A for effort, but beyond that, there was a lot of work ahead of that child!

Flora and Aretha were in the garden, and I could hear their laughter as I came up the walk. Flora was standing among the last of the winter greens with a bunch of them held in the crook of her arm like she'd just been elected Miss Black America and this was her soulful bouquet. Aretha was moving around, snapping pictures and laughing encouragement.

“Hold that! Hold that! Stop laughing! You're supposed to be dignified!”

Flora really laughed at that as she spotted me. “Would you tell this child any woman who carries a bunch of collard greens at her coronation has already put dignity behind her?”

“Way behind her,” I said.

“Aretha's recording the last of this crop for posterity,” Flora said, still laughing.

“Queen of the collard greens!” Aretha said, still snapping away. “Go get in the picture,” she said, waving me over.

I went obediently to stand beside Flora. “Your majesty,” I said, giving her a little curtsy.

Flora grinned. “I prefer 'your highness.'”

“You see,” I said to Aretha, “she's only been a queen for a few minutes and already she's a diva!”

“That's the end of the roll,” Aretha said. “We just caught the good light.”

“Now I see why those supermodels get paid so much to do this stuff,” Flora said, heading inside. “Anybody want tea?”

I shook my head. “I've got to make some phone calls. Thanks.”

Aretha came in behind us, her camera slung around her neck the way somebody else would have worn a gold chain. “Not me,” she said. “I've got a dinner date.”

Flora and I gave this the required double take and rolled our eyes at each other.

“That's three nights in a row,” Flora whispered loudly, like Aretha wasn't standing right there.

Aretha laughed. “And it's going to be four, five, and six if I have anything to say about it!”

“Listen to this girl!”

Aretha's eyes were shining. “Tease me all you want. He's my
soul mate
.”

“That serious, huh?”

“Exactly that serious,” Aretha said, disappearing into her apartment with a suddenly shy smile.

“I know you have to go,” Flora said, “but mark next Friday on your calendar.”

“Consider it marked,” I said. “What's the occasion?”

“Lu's turning twelve, so I'm having everybody over for cake and ice cream.”

“I wouldn't miss it.”

“Good.”

She turned to go, and I started up the stairs when I remembered something. “Flora?”

“Yeah?”

“Have the gardeners across Stewart had any more problems?”

Flora shook her head. “Not since last weekend. Everything's been quiet as a mouse.”

Why didn't that surprise me?

35

W
HEN I CALLED BETH'S HOTEL
in Augusta, the phone didn't complete a ring before Jade's voice answered briskly. “Hello?”

“Hey, Jade,” I said. “This is Regina. I need to speak to Beth.”

“She's resting,” Jade said, very cool. “She was in workshops all day and the dinner with the sponsors is at six.”

“I think you should wake her. It's important,” I said, not at all comfortable with being screened like a stranger. “I just had lunch with Precious Hargrove and, trust me, she'll want to hear what I have to tell her.”

She'll want to
see
it, but that will have to wait until they get back to Atlanta.

“Why don't you tell me, and I'll make sure she gets the message as soon as she wakes up,” Jade said smoothly. She was loving this moment as much as I was not loving it. “Is there a number where she can reach you later?”

There was no reason to be mad at Jade. She was just doing her job. I've asked that question of Beth's callers a thousand times, and it's always a kiss-off. Maybe not a permanent kiss-off, but definitely one that's reserved for those whose calls are not automatically put through.

All right
, I thought.
So be it.
I wasn't the one trying to run for governor.

“No, actually there isn't a number. I'll be out of town all weekend, so why don't you just tell her I'll call her on Monday.”

“She'll call your cell,”Jade said.

“I'm not taking a cell,” I said, realizing it as the words left my mouth. This was not a weekend during which I wanted to be distracted from whatever was going on in front of my face.

“Not taking your cell?”

Jade couldn't have been more shocked if I had said, I'm not taking my spleen.

“I'll talk to her Monday after the meeting at Morehouse.”

“Will you be checking messages?” I could hear the rising panic.

“Not until Monday morning.”

“Well, how can we get in touch if we need to?”

“You can't,” I said, then suddenly felt sorry for Jade, a victim ofa recently instituted cultural beliefthat not being immediately available by phone/pager/beeper/e-mail, or the now quaintly old-fashioned fax, is tantamount to scrubbing off your fingerprints with steel wool and dropping into a mysterious demimonde where no respectable citizen of the twenty-first century would voluntarily venture.

“I'm sure Beth will be disappointed that she won't be able to reach you,” Jade said, still incredulous.

“There's a way around it,” I said.

“And that is?”

“Next time I ask you to wake her up,
wake her up
.”