This time Verdi told Rowe that she’d gone to Kitt’s. That Sage seemed close to a breakthrough and she wanted to spend the evening working with her. Rowe’s mouth went to paste when he listened to Verdi’s voice float through the answering machine; her voice so wavy, so excited. He just stood there in the kitchen with his hands in his pockets thinking about what to do. Felt a tug to be happy for her that she was somehow involved in a life’s calling, what if she were actually responsible for the child finally talking, how much that would alter her view of herself that had been so diminished when she was drug-devastated twenty years ago, her sense of self had never really risen again to the level of confidence she’d once had; she wouldn’t be letting her vice principal give her shit if her confidence was where it needed to be, he thought. But also with the tug to be happy for her came a pull in the opposite direction, a jealous anger that this potential opportunity for her fulfillment wasn’t because of him. Then the thought that had been working its way under his skin for a couple of weeks now—since that evening when he’d been compelled to step foot in her cousin’s house—that he’d been a large contributor to her diminished sense of self, always giving her instruction, snatching from her the opportunity to make her own mistakes. That thought had grown under his skin now over the past days like a family of mites, burrowing, nesting, laying eggs, feeding almost imperceptibly at first until the rash, the irritation, the compulsion to scratch to give himself relief, especially now standing alone in the kitchen, leaning on the center island’s unyielding granite surface because now the thought pulled the wind from his lungs—that he was losing her, her amenability, her attention was slipping from his pull the way that a worn magnet loses its hold on a nail. There was a defiance about her now. He’d seen it in her eyes when he’d pinned her against the banister the other night demanding to know where she’d been. But what was he losing her to? A recurrence of her addiction? Another man? Herself? He now wished that they’d gotten married after all. Even though he’d always wanted to, but Penda would have dragged the divorce out, and Verdi pleaded with him that she couldn’t handle the exposure of the divorce proceedings, too much about her would be revealed and hurt her family. She’d cry whenever he broached the subject of marriage, and he’d agreed and relented, and their current arrangement of living as if they were married had been comfortable and fulfilling. But suddenly standing here feeling her fingers slip away from his clutching grasp, he needed the completeness of a total commitment, suddenly he needed for her to be his wife.
Verdi was still tingling when she got home, still holding on to that silky feeling wherever Johnson’s touch had been that even went beyond the physical palpations, where he’d touched her just by the way he listened without a threatened look tightening his face, so noncritically he listened, not rushing in to say that she should feel, think, act, do, this that or the other. The only person who’d ever even come close to listening to her in such an openhearted way had been her aunt Posie. And she thought she’d reciprocated. Even when he described how he’d called his father right before he left Philly, told him he just called to say good-bye and to thank him for everything, that he’d turned into a lying, cheating, common junkie, a stuffer, and he just wanted to thank his father for helping him to become that. She didn’t stop him when he described the feeling of staring into his father’s casket years later, even as his voice cracked, she didn’t say, okay, Johnson, don’t torture yourself, she just squeezed his hand and let him talk. So she was just dripping with the feel of Johnson as she took a deep breath and walked into the tight air of the too-large bedroom that she shared with Rowe. And the last thing she wanted to see right now was the back of Rowe’s head leaning against the velvet chaise, and now his face as he came toward her smiling and she felt a dropping inside the closer he came.
“Hi, Verdi, sweetheart,” he said as he pulled her against his chest. “Lonely evening without you, but was it worth it?”
“Huh?” she said, trying to pull herself away.
“Was it worth me being here all evening watching one nonsensical pay-per-view movie after the other, huh? Did she talk? Did your cousin’s daughter talk?”
“Mnh, not yet,” Verdi said as she managed to disengage herself from the tangle of his arms. She walked toward her closet and kicked her shoes from her feet, her back to him. “But I do think it’s going to happen soon, you know, I just have to be very consistent from now on, you know, I’ll probably be spending more evenings with her, most likely it will happen outside of school, outside of an overt learning situation, you know, in a more natural setting, so I’ll probably spend at least an evening or two out of the week with her.”
“God, Verdi, she’s so lucky to have you.” He went to her and turned her to face him. “So am I. I’m the luckiest of all to have you.” He leaned in to kiss her. “I need to ask you something, Verdi,” he said as his breath was hot against her face.
Verdi sighed and turned her head so that he couldn’t kiss her, and that made Rowe drop his hands as if the silk blouse she was wearing had just scorched his hands.
“Oh, forget it then,” he said blandly, feeling her turning away like that as if she’d just stomped on his fingers, feeling that kind of throbbing right in his chest. He walked to the armoire and clicked the television off.
“No, don’t forget it, what were you going to say?” she asked, agitated, as she took off her blouse, held it up, and saw Johnson’s hands on the blouse the way they’d been just an hour ago.
“Just fuck it,” he said, and then he went silent as he sat on the green velvet chaise and tightened his arms across his chest.
“Well yeah, then fuck it,” she said as she tossed the blouse into the dry-cleaning bin. Her voice screeched and she almost shouted at him and this sudden rise in her directed at Rowe when he hadn’t even done anything was new for her. It frightened them both as Verdi looked at the blouse crumpled in the bin the way her emotions were crumpled right now. “I just don’t understand what’s gotten into you,” she said, crying now.
And before she could finish her sentence Rowe had her in his arms, had her face pressed against his chest, apologizing, telling her he didn’t know what had gotten into him either, just that he adored her more now than he ever did, and he wanted for them to get married, that’s all. He just wanted for them to spend the rest of their lives as legitimate husband and wife, not just pretending at it. That’s all he started to say, he soothed her.
He mashed his chin into the space between her bare shoulder and her face and she could feel him throbbing against her, and she wanted to push him away except now she was so confused with so many emotions swirling that she couldn’t even ferret out and give names to, so she let him find her mouth this time, and she kissed him back out of pity and guilt and anger and affection and gratitude so that it was a forceful kiss and now she could feel him trembling against her.
“So what do you say? I’ll talk to Penda, she’s moved on by now, we’ll just do it, a small ceremony at city hall, you know, maybe your cousin can be your maid, or whatever they call them these days.” He swayed against her and she was really sobbing now, and he took that to mean yes, and he kissed her some more and stroked her bare back and got himself aroused against her and then they took some time and swallowed each other’s saliva and Verdi cried all the while because her feelings were so conflicted, so variant, all trying to bubble to the top simultaneously. And Rowe took solace in that as he nibbled at her neck and moaned and breathed out her name, if he could still evoke these free-flowing tears then surely her passions must still rush for him.
He was humming the theme song from Beauty and the Beast afterward, when they were dressed again and Rowe suggested they go out and find something light to eat, maybe listen to some jazz. And she knew that was for her because he wasn’t a huge jazz fan, and she figured that’s the least she could do for him this evening, even as she thought about them getting married and kept coming back to the look on Johnson’s face when he described how he felt when his father died.