Part 60 (1/2)

James looks wonderful in his denim s.h.i.+rt. His mother's almond-shaped eyes and my checkbones and chin combine to give his face a regal, dancing quality. But at that moment, the planes of his handsome face contorted in laughter, he has become a fine and heartbreaking mirror in which I can see all the gray hair that I no longer camouflage with black dye. I see the paunch and the wrinkles that lost me my job. I see the gla.s.sy eyes of a drinker whose wife considers him as good as dead. I see me, and realize that this dinner is a success because I feel overwhelmingly happy at the sight of all those flaws I haven't patched up. I feel like dancing.

And in my laughter, through the tears that I know are there, I try to imagine Dennis, a grown boy called Nissy, and Jackie, the unnamed costar in this family drama, dancing down Exceptional Boulevard. But here I am now in the middle of The Front Row, lifting my young almond-eyed son and pulling my youthful wife onto the table, breathing in the scenty hint of illacs, dancing a group solo to the strains of arch violins in the restaurant pavilion, then falling, to the floor, like a heavy brocade curtain, yes, indeed, falling.

Love.

BY BERTICE BERRY.

The sweet sounds of Maxwell played softly. I walked in the room and wanted to cry. I was tired, both physically and spiritually. Success is draining. Most folks looking at it from the outside can only see what they call glamour.

I made my way over to the CD player and pushed the volume b.u.t.ton to the max. I don't drink, so I needed more Maxwell. The soulful sounds dulled the pain, at least for the moment.

I imagined myself in the younger man's audience, and noticed that even in my imagination, I was the oldest person in the room. For years my biological clock had been ticking, but because of my success and the use of new technology, it had been digital, so I couldn't hear it. But now, it was flas.h.i.+ng midnight.

I watched the imaginary ”other women” in my fantasy as they strolled about in antic.i.p.ation that Maxwell would notice them. ”Desperation is the world's worst perfume,” I thought to myself. Maxwell entered the audience, and walked over to me. ”Just a while longer baby,” he sang for me alone. He moved in close enough to cause the other imaginary folks to disappear, and just as his wild mane of hair brushed across my eyelashes, the telephone rang.

”Peace,” I said, not meaning it.

”Hey baby. What's that loud noise I hear? Are you having a party or something?” My mother's voice was as familiar to me as my own. I could read her like a book. I could tell that things were not good, because of the effort she was putting forth at sounding happy. ”Hey Mom what's wrong?”

”What makes you think something's wrong? Maybe I'm just calling to say hi, or that I love you. Did you ever think of that?”, she demanded.

”You're right, Mom,” I offered. I knew better, but I dared not show it. My mother had a way of making me feel guilty for the things that happened to her as a child. She was even better with events after my birth.

To make matters worse, or better, depending on which side she stood on at that moment, my mother and I had what some might call a psychic bond. I could tell when things were going wrong with her, and she with me. The only difference was in how we received the message. For me it was just a feelling. Something like a shadow would cover my mood whenever my mother experienced pain or sadness. My mother received her intuitions in a much more dramatic fas.h.i.+on; the big toe on her left foot would throb. I don't know if she ever had these feelings for my other six brothers and sisters, and I never bothered to ask. I was too afraid she would share the graphic details of all the places on her body that ached or throbbed when one of her children was in need.

”Well, I might as well tell you, cause I know you, you'll find out sooner or later. Can't keep anything from you. I never have been able to from the time you could talk, and probably before that as far as I know. G.o.d only knows what you were thinking before you could talk. Cause you know you were born with a veil, a head full of hair and a couple of teeth . . .” My mother talked on and I allowed it. As she chattered away, I reduced the volume of my now dissipated imaginary boyfriend.

”What happened to the music?” My mother asked. ”That was starting to sound good. Sort of like a young Al Green. Lord, me and your Aunt T, bless her soul, used to love some Al Green.” My mind flashed back to the two of them at Aunt T's dinning room table. They would get as drunk as the proverbial skunk, and Al Green's voice would croon as loud as my music had earlier.

”Sing it to me Al, yes, yes, yes, yes. G.o.d knows that man knows how to make me feel.” Aunt T and mom would listen to the same song over and over. ”Love and Happiness” was their song.

”Make you wanna do right, make you wanna do wrong. G.o.d knows you know all bout that, girl,” Aunt T would say. My cousin and I would laugh, not understanding the pain that sat around that table.

After years of my own struggles and loneliness I had learned a few things. ”You there?” I heard my mother ask. ”Lord chile, I hate these new phones. Don't ever work right. I told you I should have kept my phone with the rotary. Those were some good phones. But no, you want to bring me into the future. What for? Wasn't nothing wrong with my phone. I had that phone for bout twenty-five years. This new thing aint even a year old, and it already don't work. You there? h.e.l.lo?” ”I'm here Mommy,” I told her. ”I was just listening.”

”No you wasn't,” she informed me. ”You were daydreaming again, weren't you? Lord chile, you got some kind of imagination. I used to get all kinds of calls from your teachers. 'She won't pay attention, she has an over active imagination.' If it wasn't one thing, it was something else.”

I'd heard all of this before, but if I said that, my mother would hang up.

But not before telling me that I was sa.s.sing her, and that I thought I was too important to talk to my mother. And after all she had done for me and the other ungratefuls, as she often referred to us.

”Mom, I was daydreaming,” I relinquished. ”I just thinking about you and Aunt T. You two sure did love Al Green. You used to play the same songs over and over again.” My mother laughed the way she always did right before she corrected me about something I thought I was sure of.

”We didn't love Al Green. True, we liked his voice, but it wasn't the man we played over and over again, it was what he was talking about. That man was a little too far on the funny side for me. But he could sing. Yes he could. I don't know what he's up to now. Every other day, he done found G.o.d, like G.o.d was lost or something. Anyway, I'm glad you think of Aunt T from time to time. That means you need some love in your life. Your Aunt T was the most loving woman G.o.d ever made, not counting me of course.” She laughed her, now-you-know-I'm-lying laugh. ”Aunt T could smile at vinegar and turn it into syrup. Never said a mean thing about n.o.body. If you cut her that woman would bleed love.”

My mother got quiet and I knew that she was crying silently. Aunt T had done just that. Her husband of thirty years had been cheating on her from the moment they first married. One day when Aunt T got up the nerve to ask him about it, he turned crazy, as my mother called it. Uncle Charlie went into the kitchen, right past that dining room table where she and my mother had listened to AL Green, got the largest butcher knife he could find and stabbed her twenty-two times. Throughout her attack, Aunt T told Uncle Charlie that she still loved him, and there wasn't nothing that he could do about it. I try not to think of Aunt T.

”You keep on thinking about her,” my mother said, confirming the connection between us. ”She sure did love you, too. Besides,” my mother said, sniffing, ”When you think of her, you keeping her alive. She comes to you cause you need love. And before you try to get all intelligent on me, you need to go on and admit that I'm telling you the truth.”

She was telling the truth, but I had no intention of admitting it.

By now, though, you know I didn't need to.

My mother dropped the subject just as easily as she had picked it up.

”Well,” she said after what was for her a lengthy pause, ”I should probably be asking you what's wrong. But that's not why I called. When you want to talk, you call me on your dime.”

Her last comment was as absurd as most of the things that seemed to flow from her mouth. I had been paying most of my mother's bills for most of my adult life. My dime was her dime. But it never really needed to be said. I paid her bills along with my own, as if they were bills I had made. My mother was even more conscientious of my money than I was. If ever there were a need for more than the usual bills and the monthly amount that was deposited into her account, she would call. She never asked for money; she would simply talk in her, I-need-money-but-I'm-not-going-to-say-so tone.

”Life can be cruel. You know I don't like to bother you. G.o.d knows you got enough on your hands. Even without children, I know you got a lot on you.” Whenever she did this, I wanted to use the line she had used on my siblings and me years before: ”Signifying is worse than stealing, Mommy.” I could hear myself say, but I never did. If I had, she would not be trying to have a conversation with me today. It was fine for me to think mad thoughts, but better not to say them.

”Well, as I was saying before you got me off on Aunt T, and Al Green, I called about your sister.” I never had to ask which one. I had four sisters, one had pa.s.sed, two were referred to by name, and the fourth was always called ”your sister.”

”What has Ophelia done now, Mommy?” I asked, waiting to hear about another crazy boyfriend, or some kind of money-making scheme she was trying to pull my mother into. ”Well, you know she has always been a little on the selfish side.”

When it came to Ophelia, my mother was the queen of understatement. Saying that Ophelia was a little selfish would be like saying Hitler was a little mean. Ophelia thought only of herself. She was the mother of three children, and they existed only for her pleasure.

As soon as I thought of the children, I knew why my mother was calling.

”No Mom, don't tell me. She's pregnant again?” I asked expecting the worse.

”Alright, then I won't tell you,” My mother said right before she hung up.

I called back immediately, knowing that I had better. Once when my mother did this, and I hadn't returned the call quickly, I was talked about for weeks. I knew this because my relatives all called to tell me how horrible I had been to my mother.

”Mom, what is she going to do?” I asked as if there hadn't been a break in the conversation.

”Well,” my mother said slowly, ”you know your sister. She gonna do what pleases her. Most likely that will be to have the baby. I don't know for sure, but I don't think that girl would ever think about having no abortion. I know you way more liberal than that, but well, you got your own life.”

I had never discussed my false pregnancy with my mother. It happened during my marriage that lasted two years and too long. My now ex-husband decided that we didn't need children, because I was not ready for them. I agreed with him, but it was not until after we were divorced that I was glad that I had.

After the decision was made for me to have an abortion, we went to the doctor's office. Although my tests were all positive, nothing appeared on ultrasound, so I was told to come back in a month. When I did, I was informed that I had had a false pregnancy. My husband accused me of being so emotional, that I had caused a positive test.

I never told my mother, because she felt the same crazy dedication to my ex as she did for my sister.

Now, for the first time, I realized that she knew what I had been through.

”Well baby”, she said, ”life is funny, what's taken away from us, is always given back.”

Now I knew that she was talking about me and not my sister.

”What you saying, Mom?” I braced myself for the response.

What followed was a long statement that was disguised as a question.