Divas of Damascus Road Page 12

  Aunt Toe had seen too many of her friends sell their homes at their family members’ request, trusting their good intentions and promises to take care of their elderly relatives. Maybe the children promised to set up a room for Big Momma in their new suburban home, or rent a house not far from them, or put her up in a fancy hotel-ish retirement community. Then came life—divorces, job losses, transfers, illnesses, and other unexpected changes in financial or social status. Next thing you knew, Big Momma was in a cheap, nasty old-folks’ home, thinking of how she could just kick herself in the behind for selling her house. No, Aunt Toe wasn’t about to leave the security of her property so she could end up in a nursing home, chewing on her tongue all day.

  Besides, she had memories in this house. Memories were music to her soul—some were gospel: uplifting and hopeful. Others were the blues: sad and painful. But she could feel them all through the house, singing the tunes of her life. If she left, she might never hear the music again.

  The cats meowed, and Aunt Toe grabbed the metal railing of her wheelchair to let the cleaning crew in. Yolanda, with her scary self, was backed up against the door. Aunt Toe smiled and let the child in.

  “Hey, Aunt Toe.” Yolanda quickly closed the door behind herself.

  “I keep tellin’ you, those cats ain’t studyin’ you,” Aunt Toe insisted.

  “All I know is, the day one of them scratches me, I’m calling the Humane Society,” Yolanda warned.

  “Naw, you ain’t. Those cats keep the rats and squirrels away. I’d rather have cats on my porch than rats in my house.”

  “I’d rather have you come live with me,” Yolanda offered again, knowing she was wasting her breath.

  “Then what am I supposed to do when you get married to what’s-his-name?” Aunt Toe teased.

  “Who said I was getting married to anybody?”

  “You ain’t funny, is you?” Aunt Toe’s eyes probed for Yolanda’s reaction.

  Regina’s car made the gravel hum as she pulled up behind Yolanda’s late-model Toyota Camry. Cleaning up at Aunt Toe’s was not what she’d call great Friday evening plans, but it was better than nothing. She could get out of the house and talk to adults for a change while Orlando bonded with their son at home.

  She walked toward the door, eyeing those cats as if she were a cat herself, with her back arched and ready to strike at any one of them if they weren’t careful. After the morning she’d had, she was ready for a good fight. “Get back!” she fussed. They all scattered, even the one that was usually stubborn. Regina bounced on the balls of her feet while she waited for someone to come to the door. What’s taking them so long?

  “Yo-yo! Aunt Toe!”

  “Hold your horses, gal,” Aunt Toe snapped at her.

  Just as Aunt Toe opened the door, Regina’s stomach cramped up. The sharp pain, like an ice pick hooked up to an electric toothbrush, shot through her, almost taking her breath away. She grabbed her midsection and doubled over in pain, mentally repeating the mantra that she called on when the spasms hit: No pain, no gain! No pain, no gain!

  Aunt Toe fumbled with the locks just long enough for Regina to regain her erect posture but not her composure. “You okay, Regina?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “You don’t look all right.”

  “I just need to go to the bathroom.” Regina pressed past her great-aunt and locked herself inside the matchbox of a restroom. The laxatives did their job, but Regina stayed on the toilet seat for another fifteen minutes, recovering from the sudden plunge into pain.

  “What’s she doin’ in there?” Aunt Toe asked Yolanda, as if she would know.

  “I don’t know. Probably lightin’ up your room,” Yolanda laughed with Aunt Toe.

  “Well,” Aunt Toe joked, “if you can’t fart in a bathroom, where can you fart?”

  Yolanda continued looking through the mail Aunt Toe had saved for further scrutiny. Regina would go through technical notices; Yolanda went through everything else. “Ooh, look, you might have won a million dollars!” Yolanda announced with mock excitement, waving the brown envelope in front of Aunt Toe’s face.

  “Get that thing on out of here.” Aunt Toe pushed Yolanda’s hand.

  “Think of all the good you could do with a million dollars,” Yolanda said.

  “I’d get myself a shotgun so those old buzzards at the senior center would leave me alone,” she fussed.

  “Aunt Toe!” Yolanda scolded. “You would never shoot anyone.”

  “Don’t have to shoot. Just havin’ ‘em look down the barrel ought to be enough.” She laughed at herself now.

  “You really ought to stop pushing those men away.”

  “You should talk.” Aunt Toe threw a line, but Yolanda wasn’t biting.

  Regina tried to appear settled as she finally came out of the bathroom, but dishevelment was written in the folds between her eyebrows and the tight creases of her lips. “What?” she finally asked them.

  “Regina, when something’s wrong, you need to let somebody know.”

  “You look tired, Regina,” Yolanda did her best to describe her sister’s appearance. “Like maybe you’re not getting enough rest.”

  “Hello! I have a five-month-old. How much rest do you think the mother of a five-month-old gets?” Regina laughed, trying to drown their inquiries in humor.

  Yolanda switched into pharmacist mode. “No, it’s not just that. Your eyes are sunken and your skin looks dry, which is not at all like the Rucker women. Are you drinking enough water?”

  “Yes, I drink water. I don’t know why y’all just have to find something to worry about.” If laughter didn’t work, maybe getting an attitude would. Everybody already said Regina was sometimey. It didn’t hurt to reiterate that theory every once in a while, and she would have no trouble mustering up an attitude after the morning’s frustrations in bed with Orlando.

  “I’ll look it up tomorrow on the doctors’ diagnosis website. Maybe then I can get an idea. Are you having any other symptoms?” Yolanda had gone so far as writing on the back of a discarded envelope.

  “I don’t have any symptoms, Yo-yo. I’m fine. Neither one of you has given birth, so you can’t possibly understand what I’m going through, okay”

  Aunt Toe had had just about enough of this sassing, and needless to say, Regina was getting mighty close to rippin’ her panties with that reference to childbirth. “You ain’t got to have no baby to be able to see when somebody ain’t takin’ care of theyself! Now, I’m telling you, you are sick—or something. You don’t look like yourself, and you ought to be glad Yo-yo can help you figure out what the problem is. Everybody don’t have a real live pharmacist in the family who can understand all these different sicknesses and diseases that you young folk keep coming up with!”

  “They’re mutations, Aunt Toe.” Yolanda managed to ease the tension with a chuckle.

  “I don’t give a fat rat what you call it; we didn’t have it back then.”

  Regina got busy cleaning.

  Chapter 14

  Kelan was fast becoming Yolanda’s “Sunday night friend.” They often went for a bite to eat after Sunday evening Bible study class. Sometimes they’d continue discussing the topics covered during Bible study. It was amazing how much the Bible could be debated and reviewed. Yolanda already knew that, of course, but it was nice to have someone to go back and forth with.

  Slowly, Kelan had carved himself a niche in her life. A midday phone call here, a door held open there. Yolanda could get used to this. He did have to talk to her now and then about the difference between being a realist and a pessimist—a fine line Yolanda walked. And she threatened to block his e-mail address if he didn’t quit with the mass forwarding. He had it bad about forwarding every little joke, picture, and friendly message he got.

  “Could you be a bit more discriminating?” she’d commanded, but then softened her request with an explanation after seeing a scowl creep across his countenance. “Sending o
ut all these mass emails is like crying wolf. I don’t know when you have something really important to say. Besides that, everybody you sent it to then has my e-mail address, and they put me on their mass-forwarding list, too. Pretty soon, I’m on the pervert list, getting all kinds of e-mail about X-rated videos and other inappropriate events that I probably need to alert authorities about.”

  In Yolanda’s eyes they had that platonic thing working. He talked to her about a few ladies he was interested in and she talked to him about...well, no one in particular. Every once in a while, she made up something or other about a potential love interest, so that Kelan wouldn’t think he was the only item on her agenda.

  At one of their usual dinners out, Kelan and Yolanda sat so close they might have been mistaken for a couple. Their waitress that evening was their usual server, a single mom with two school-age children who often sat in a booth and colored as their mother worked. Kelan always tipped her well.

  After ordering drinks, Yolanda reached into her purse to turn off her cell phone. It was their time to talk, her time to feel that little tingle in her mind, even if Kelan did have Carla, his newest prospect, on the brain.

  “So you think I should date Carla?” he asked.

  “I think Carla is great for you. She’s down to earth; she’s realistic. That’s what you need in your life, Kelan,” Yolanda surmised in a big sister’s tone.

  “Yeah, but she’s moving to Colorado with her job in a few months,” he said.

  Yolanda encouraged him. “I think you two could work it out. I mean, you stay pretty busy with teaching and with your art—it’s not like you see her every day as it is. You could at least attempt a long-distance relationship.”

  Kelan explained, “If I’m gonna be in a relationship, I want to see that person on a regular basis. I want to talk to her. I want to be able to have lunch with her, you know? All the stuff that usually happens when a man and a woman are dating exclusively. This business of ‘catch me if you can’ is not for me.”

  “You know this is strange, don’t you?” Yolanda laughed.

  “What?”

  “Here I am, the woman, telling you to lighten up on the relationship and stop trying to be so tied up in it, and you’re the man, telling me that you want it all. Role reversal, don’t you think?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” he disagreed with her. Their waitress placed a family serving of catfish between the two of them. They said grace and dove into it.

  “It’s really not about roles. It’s about desires and what we want out of a relationship. I find that often I want more out of a relationship than the woman does.”

  “Stop right there,” she interrupted him. “If that’s happening over and over again, maybe you should think about it.”

  “I don’t see what there is to think about. I want a commitment. She doesn’t.”

  “Most women want a commitment at some point, Kelan, but not at the beginning.” Yolanda wanted to be tactful with Kelan; after all, he was her friend. “Take Shayna, for example. You knew her for, what, two months?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you gave her a necklace for her birthday.”

  “It was a token of the feelings I had for her.”

  “It was a big mistake!”

  “So, what are you saying? Is there a time minimum before you give a necklace?” he asked with a fake grin.

  “No, there is not a time minimum per se, but if the relationship itself is still pretty casual in nature, you don’t give a commitment kind of gift. That can put a lot of pressure on a woman,” she explained. “Some of us were taught not to accept expensive gifts from men because y’all always want something in return—hint, hint.”

  “I wasn’t expecting anything physical from her. I told her straight up front that I was a Christian and abstinent. I never gave her any reason to think sex was the issue,” he argued. “Besides, it wasn’t a casual relationship.”

  “Not to you”—she pointed her finger at him—“but maybe it was still casual to her.

  “Kelan, no offense, my brother, but how long have you been dating? I mean, you are so smart and you know so much about the Bible and you interpret all these scriptures with such insight. How is it that you seem to know so little about relationships?”

  “You want to know the truth?” he laughed.

  “Naw, tell me a lie.”

  “Here it goes. I grew up fat, and—”

  “For real?” She smiled but quickly erased it when she saw that Kelan was serious.

  “Well, I was. I was pretty chubby from kindergarten until my sophomore year in high school. I had some girls who were friends, but everybody just knew me as the fat boy who was still cool. During my sophomore year, I grew almost five inches, and suddenly I wasn’t so chubby anymore. But by that time most of my friends were already talking to their second baby’s momma, and I hadn’t even gone out on a date.

  “So there I was in the eleventh grade, still hanging up in people’s faces—playing tricks on the phone and stuff that I should have been doing in middle school. I think I’ve been playing catchup ever since. It’s not so bad now that I’m an adult. I understand people have to play these games. They have to unlearn some things and learn themselves the way I did as a lonely child. We all get our turn.”

  “Aw,” Yolanda said, “that sounds like something straight out of a teen magazine.” She thought of her own sister and wondered if the years as an obese child had affected Regina’s adult life.

  “I wish it weren’t true,” he said, “but my theory proves itself over and over again, like when I introduced myself to you at church and you dissed me.”

  “What!” Yolanda rushed to swallow her food and protest.

  “Oh, don’t even try it. You know you dissed me.” He shook his head, bringing his hand to his chin and resting an elbow on the table. He watched Yolanda attempt to squirm out of what they both knew was true.

  Yolanda moved her mouth in vain, like a fish on land gaping for air. She stuttered and gestured herself into a corner. Oh, just admit it already. “Okay, I dissed you, but it wasn’t because you were a chubby child.”

  “Go on.”

  “I dissed you because of the dreads and because... you just seem like the artsy type. Mind you, I was right about the artsy stuff. You do paint.” She went down swinging.

  “So what if I have dreads and I like to paint?”

  “You have to admit, there aren’t many brothers out there who stop in a store full of Texas memorabilia, let alone buy something. That’s different.”

  “Different is bad?”

  “Different is difficult.”

  Kelan smiled. “Difficulty brings about a change.”

  “Difficulty brings about frustration, unnecessary explaining to do, stuff like that.”

  “You are so fastidious, you know?” He stared at her for a moment. He wondered if she knew how difficult she was being. And how much he liked it.

  “What?” she asked him.

  “What would happen if everything in your world wasn’t perfect?”

  “It’s not perfect,” she said to him. Little did he know that she’d been battling her feelings about him for several weeks now. “I have issues just like everybody else. I ask God to help me with them. He is faithful, and I keep it movin’.”

  “I’m talking about the things you have reasonable control over. What if all the little things weren’t exactly in the right order?” he rephrased the question.

  “The little things like what?”

  “Let me take a wild guess. Are all your CDs arranged alphabetically?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact, they are,” she said proudly, sitting straight up.

  “What would happen if they weren’t?”

  “I would put them back in the right order.”

  “What would happen if you couldn’t?”

  “I’d pay somebody else to do it for me.”

  “Could you rest knowing that the cases weren’t in there the right wa
y?”

  “Yes, but it would bother me every time I went to look for a CD and couldn’t find it. I like order, Kelan. I guess that’s where you and I just don’t see eye to eye. I mean, let’s start with your vehicle.” She turned the tables.

  “What’s wrong with my truck?”

  “I parked right next to you, and I took a look inside your truck. You’ve got newspapers all in the front seat, and you’ve got a coffee mug in the holder that you’ve probably had in there since you were on your way to church this morning. It’s an overall junky vehicle, Kelan. You need to vacuum that thing out.”

  He leaned back and gave her a smirk. “You’ve been spying on me.”

  “I have not been spying on you,” she said.

  “Mmm.” He gave her that “yeah, right” look.

  They decided to stop by Bruno’s Ice Cream for dessert after dinner. Kelan had a banana split, and Yolanda ordered a double-dip hot caramel sundae with nuts and whipped cream. Yolanda wasn’t really all that hungry, but she needed an excuse to stay with Kelan a little longer. There was something about him that irked her and drew her at the same time.

  Regina beat herself up all the way to Bruno’s, her eyes serving as faucets for her soul. She’d left Orlando Jr. with his father and dashed off to run a few errands. Once she was out of the house, the ice cream had begun calling her, and she couldn’t stop herself from making this last stop. She knew that she would have to pay for it tomorrow when she stepped on the scale, but some foods seemed to have a spell over her, especially when things weren’t going her way—the scale being one of those things.

  In addition, she’d stopped by Gloria’s house and seen Joyce Ann lounging on the couch watching television. Joyce Ann reeked of a nauseating combination: sweat, hair grease, and a slight tinge of urine. Regina could almost taste the stench in her mouth. She put her finger to her nose to keep from vomiting and kept out of smelling distance, racing straight to the kitchen to drop off pictures of Orlando Jr.