Part 3 (2/2)
”Men need to see see things to understand them. They don't like to things to understand them. They don't like to hear hear about women's problems. If a woman understands the man, the man will understand the woman.” about women's problems. If a woman understands the man, the man will understand the woman.”
”I think you're never on my side.”
”I know you don't like what I'm saying, Lena. You probably think it's old-fas.h.i.+oned, but that little piece of advice kept my man by my side for one day short of fifty-nine years. Figure out how to handle your husband while you think think on that.” on that.”
Chapter 7.
Shoppers stare at Lena's tear-smudged eyes; a toddler points a chubby finger; his mother shushes and whisks the child away.
”Why did you talk to Lulu about you and Randall?” Bobbie asks. The sister Tina loved, Lena recalls, was not around when life turned bad. Growing up, Lena went to Bobbie when she wanted to know about life, bribing her first with hot cocoa and extra marshmallows before Bobbie would talk to her little sister. Lulu's advice was most thorough when it came to etiquette and politics. She told her daughters how to vote (Democrat) and why (hundreds of Negroes beaten with hoses, arrested, suffered, some killed so that every Negro in America could), but not how to handle a man; just that they needed one. Lena knows that Bobbie, miles away in New York, is more than willing to tell her what to do.
The courtesy clerk crams the last grocery bag into the trunk. Lena tips him five dollars and paces, phone crunched between shoulder and ear in the same way Lulu held hers. The converted warehouse in front of the parking lot is shaped more like an apartment building than a grocery store.
”At least I include her in what's going on in my life.” And you never do, Lena wants to say, but then Bobbie would hang up like she always threatens to do whenever the conversation comes close to the intimate details of her life. ”I'm all dis...o...b..bulated. Why Randall wants a party so soon after coming home-”
”Because he knows he can.” Bobbie taps a pencil against the receiver, and Lena wonders why both Bobbie and her mother like to make noises when they talk on the phone. ”How's Lulu?”
”She seems a bit dis...o...b..bulated, too. I think I might go with her to her next doctor's appointment. But if you must know, I was getting... perspective.”
”You wanted 'perspective' from the woman who ate, slept, and dreamt John Henry Harrison?” Bobbie laughs.
”What do you know?”
”I don't have to be heteros.e.xual, or married, to know that you let your husband get to you. You're too hard on yourself.”
”It's what I do.” Lena sighs like her eight-year-old self under fire from her big sister. ”And why don't you call Lulu more often? You haven't been home in a year.”
”Lulu doesn't know how to have a regular conversation without implying that religion and a good man can cure all she believes is wrong with me. I love her, and I forgive you for being rude, but don't change the subject. This is about you, not me. You love being married. You love Randall. I simply tolerate him because he's the father of my niece and nephew.” Randall and Bobbie argue whenever they are together. The last time Bobbie was home, it was over music: easy-listening jazz versus bebop. ”He would not be where he is without you. And that's a fact.” Lena imagines her sister wagging her finger on the other end of the phone.
”What difference does it make?” Lena groans at the sight of Dr. Miller's stocky frame between cars one aisle over. She ducks and rattles her purse. ”G.o.d, where are my keys? Kendrick's therapist is headed this way. Dammit, I don't want him to see me.”
”Tell him to go f.u.c.k himself. Hand him the phone-I'll say it if you won't.”
At the end of his first session, Kendrick stepped into the waiting room and told Lena that Dr. Miller wanted to see her. Lena a.s.sumed he wanted a payment and stepped into the tiny office, checkbook in hand. Once inside, she was surprised by the kitschy coziness of the middle-aged doctor's office. Flowered cus.h.i.+ons on a slouchy sofa. Masks smeared with white ash, African spears, and fertility G.o.ddesses with swollen bellies and distended b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Their shared heritage seemed all the more reason to like him.
”My grasp of family dynamics will const.i.tute a critical area of Kendrick's therapy.” Dr. Miller settled into his recliner, his stubby legs struggled to reach the ottoman. ”Kendrick has given me permission to discuss our conversation with you. While I will not breach doctor-patient confidentiality, I do sense that there are other issues, as they relate to you, specifically, that cause Kendrick to question your... value.”
”As opposed to his father's? And measured by what? His income as opposed to my... non-income?” Lena focused on the cable-st.i.tched afghan folded over Dr. Miller's armrest. The st.i.tches were uneven and lumpy: a gift from a feeble-handed grandmother for her adored grandchild. ”What does that have to do with why he took drugs?”
”There may be clinical depression. I'm not certain, of course, we've only spoken once. It's like a puzzle, and I have to fit all of the pieces together to a.s.sess the reasons Kendrick chose to use drugs so heavily. What you you have to consider is the impression you've created and how it will affect his relations.h.i.+ps with women and his view of women in general. Especially if the woman appears to be weak.” Nothing moved on Dr. Miller's body, not his eyelids nor a finger chilled from the air conditioner's breeze. have to consider is the impression you've created and how it will affect his relations.h.i.+ps with women and his view of women in general. Especially if the woman appears to be weak.” Nothing moved on Dr. Miller's body, not his eyelids nor a finger chilled from the air conditioner's breeze.
Lena pushed off the sofa like a baby and stumbled to the door. She glowered at the therapist and did not bother to ask how he could make such a snaky a.s.sumption after only fifty-five minutes with her son.
Now, Dr. Miller stands in the middle of the parking lot, four plastic grocery bags in one hand, and pats his jacket and pants pockets with absent-minded vigor. Lena pretends to search underneath the car while Bobbie yells, ”Give it to him! Give the phone to him!”
Lena shakes her head no and stays lowered until she hears a car engine start. The doctor, his head swiveled in the opposite direction to monitor the parking lot traffic, drives away when she peeks over the hood. In the car, Lena pulls I, Tina I, Tina out of her purse and riffles the edges with her thumb to let Tina provide inspiration, this time for how to keep away from people she doesn't like. ”Don't laugh. I'm reading Tina Turner's autobiography. I like her guts.” out of her purse and riffles the edges with her thumb to let Tina provide inspiration, this time for how to keep away from people she doesn't like. ”Don't laugh. I'm reading Tina Turner's autobiography. I like her guts.”
”She has more than guts-surprise, I read the book. I own bookstores, remember? And she left without fear and without money.”
”I haven't been on my own since I was thirty-one. I could never make as much money as Randall does. Maybe Lulu is right.” Like John Henry, Lena is not much of a risk taker.
”Sell yourself short if you want to, but all you have to do is want it bad enough.” Bobbie puffs on a cigarette and yells to a distant voice in the background that she can't help right now, that she's unavailable for a while so would they please close her door. Papers rustle, and Lena imagines stacks and to-do lists atop her sister's antique desk. ”Once she left, Tina only looked forward and took every opportunity that came her way. She even cleaned houses, for a minute, until she got a break.”
”Stop smoking. I can hear you puffing all the way from here.” Lena swerves out of the parking lot and steers through the streets. ”I want my life to be the way it was. And I don't know how to get it back.”
”You wouldn't be so into Tina if that was your intention. And slow down, I can hear you gunning the engine all the way from here all the way from here.”
”It's not so easy to give up your dreams.”
”You don't have to give up anything, and you don't have to meet any of Randall's stupid ultimatums. This is not not a corporate takeover. Tell a corporate takeover. Tell him him to go f.u.c.k himself. If you don't want to have a G.o.ddammed party, don't.” to go f.u.c.k himself. If you don't want to have a G.o.ddammed party, don't.”
”It's too late. I've already called everybody and shopped at three different stores.”
Lena senses Bobbie shaking her head on the other side of the line. Unh. Unh. Unh. Exit, stick to the twisty road, left at the stoplight, one right, another couple of lefts, and she is almost home. From a half block away, Lena watches exhaust sputter from Kendrick's nearly new, lemon-colored Mustang. A brown delivery truck blocks his car. She extends her hand out of the open window and waves to Kendrick and the deliveryman.
”Stop waiting for Randall's permission. Let's see, when you were seventeen you waited for Leonard Templeton to ask you to the Senior Ball. As I recall, you never went. You waited for Randall to tell you when you could go back to work. And you still don't work.”
The second time she asked, they sat on the couch in Randall's home office working on a speech he was about to give at the annual board of directors' meeting. He read it through, noting changes, words, phrases, commas, and periods that gave him time to breathe or the audience to ponder. Lena suggested memorizing the first paragraph to make immediate contact with the audience and gain acceptance and interest right away.
”I went to the bank today,” she said.
Whether he heard her or not, she couldn't tell. He recited the first paragraph, experimented with his delivery-serious, with humor, smiling, not smiling, hands, no hands. ”When I gave my father his first cell phone last year, he was astonished at the power of such a small device. 'Dad,' I said, 'you ain't seen nothing yet.' As I stand before you, on the cusp of a new century, ready to introduce the future of telecommunications, I speak those same words to you as I did to my father: ladies and gentlemen, you ain't seen nothing yet!”
As soon as he finished, her thumbs lifted in approval, Lena started again. ”I talked to the manager about my photography business. It's been two years, and I'm ready.” She smiled at the end of her sentence, hoping her declaration was light enough to encourage Randall's agreement.
”You're happy aren't you? The kids are happy. I'm happy.” He took her hand and didn't wait for her reply. ”I know I promised, and I mean to keep that promise.” Randall stood and paced the length of his office, delivering his words in the same way he had practiced his speech: her expertise, her willingness to polish his speeches, not to mention her first-rate entertaining had become critical to his success.
”Bottom line, the next couple of years are key. I know we can make this work.” He knelt in front of her, his eyes willing her to agree. ”C'mon, Lena, it hasn't been that bad, has it? You help me, and I'll help you. I'm not breaking my promise, just asking for an extension.”
Hadn't she known it would come to this moment all along? Lena swore she could handle all of that, take a few cla.s.ses, develop a signature style, and check out galleries. How many extensions would it take to get to her dream? She reminded Randall that she had mult.i.tasked her way through kids and work and entertaining and managing the household for years. It would work, she reasoned, until she heard him say his goal was to be CEO. The sensation, like vertigo, went from head past stomach to knees easier than she thought it would. Like falling into a cushy ball of fluff. Surrender. Without fight, without words, just the certainty that the loyalty Randall valued would cost her her soul.
”Okay! I get it. There's a delivery truck in my driveway. I won't wait wait for him.” The gloved driver jumps out of the van, opens its double doors, and shoves three boxes onto a handcart. Lena points to the front porch and a white envelope taped to the wrought iron railing. The driver tips his baseball cap and heads in that direction. for him.” The gloved driver jumps out of the van, opens its double doors, and shoves three boxes onto a handcart. Lena points to the front porch and a white envelope taped to the wrought iron railing. The driver tips his baseball cap and heads in that direction.
”See? The universe has just sent you a message. Make things happen. And why don't you call Cheryl. Your old buddy always could knock sense into you.”
”I haven't talked to Cheryl since Daddy's funeral. Too much time has pa.s.sed to cry on her shoulder. Especially about Randall.”
”Promise me you'll call her. If you don't, I will.”
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