Too Dark
Too Wild

Since the proposal, Clint seemed distant. He didn’t want to really talk about details, the date and such. Kandi guessed it was just like he had told her, the men don’t care about the theatrics. He did his part by asking. By making the first call, telling someone, that would make it real, Kandi thought as she dialed her mother’s number. The phone rang four times before Jolene picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mamma. How are you?’

“Fine, Kandi. I have been worried sick over here. I thought you were coming to Tennessee for Christmas. You didn’t call. I left two messages. I know your sister left at least two herself, I was standing right there when she called.”

“I’m sorry. I told you I’d let you know if I was coming.”

“That means you let us know either way. I can’t believe you. Is everything okay?”

Kandi pictured her mother’s deep-set eyes wide and questioning, her hair pulled neatly in a bun on the top of her head with fine baby hairs smoothed into a line around her face. It wasn’t hard picturing her mother with the same frown she’d worn for the last twenty years as well.

“Never better. Guess what?”

“Oh God. Just tell me. You know how I hate anticipation. Just say it.”

“I’m getting married.”

“Married? To who? I haven’t met any fiancé. Kandi, who are you marrying?”

“You ready?”

“What do you mean am I ready? Just tell me.”

“A doctor, Clinton Fairchild, M.D.,” Kandi professed proudly.

No response. “Mamma, did you hear me?”

“Well . . . I’m happy for you. When did all this take place? Is this why you can’t ever be found? Never home when anybody calls you. A doctor now. I have got to see this.”

“And you will. I need help planning this, Mamma. I really want it to be nice.”

“Well, how nice? You know your father isn’t going to help with anything. I just retired. I don’t have hardly nothing that I’m not going to need myself. How nice are we talking?”

“Not that kind of help, Mamma. I just need your planning expertise. You know how you can run a tight ship. I’ve got enough in my savings to pay for it.”

“Well, what about this doctor? He doesn’t have any money, his family, nothing?”

“He’s just getting started, Mamma. I mean, he’s been in school up to now.”

“That’s just beautiful, Kandace Lillian Treboe. That’s just great, a broke doctor. I didn’t know they could exist, but if they could, you’d be the one to find him.” Jolene let out a disappointing sigh. “You know, you never stop surprising me. I raised you to be something. Not to be nobody’s fool, and it just seems on every turn you’re showing me that college and education just numbs your senses. I have to go. Jezzy’s waiting. We’re going shopping. You know, Alex just became a junior partner with his firm. Jezzy says they’re looking at those new houses over in the Warrington district. You know how much those cost!”

“That’s nice. Tell Jezzy I said hello. I’ll talk to you later.” Kandi hung up frustrated. She needed to release the aggression and resentment, which meant writing in her journal. She pushed the power button on her computer and drifted to the past.

Jolene Treboe. What else was her mother going to say? Nothing she had ever done was good enough compared to her sister, Jezzine, who’d married a lawyer straight out of law school. His parents were rich, not nouveau riche either. The kind of rich that was handed down from generations of well-educated black doctors, bankers, and lawyers.

Kandi’s mother hadn’t thought too highly of Alex the first time she’d met him until he dropped his last name. Everyone in Tennessee knew about the Lancasters. They owned the Lancaster Bank. Kandi watched her disposition change from “what you doin’ in my house?” to “so pleased to make your acquaintance.” Kandi was fifteen then, and it had never been clearer to her what was expected, what was acceptable. Her own father had been sent packing because he couldn’t keep a steady paycheck rolling in. But Kandi didn’t remember that part, until that day, listening to her mother’s voice turn soft and palatable with the smell of money.

Kandi’s mother hadn’t done too bad as a single parent. She was an elementary school teacher. Including the sporadic child support payments her father sent, she assumed they had everything. What they didn’t have, Kandi never missed. Every once in a while, her daddy would come around with a big wad of money, flashing it at Jolene, hoping she’d soften up enough to let him come back home. But Jolene had her eye on a bigger prize, Mr. Honely, who owned a brewery outside of town. He’d come through once a week and take her mother out for a Saturday or Sunday evening.

When Mr. Honely was around, Jolene was witty and full of laughter and girlish giggles. Around Kandi’s father, by contrast, Jolene used language Kandi hadn’t even heard in the movie theaters. The scowl Jolene wore on her face while Kandi’s father was in her presence was so callous, Kandi thought it might hurt, with her brow squeezed tight and her teeth grinding on each other. Kandi went to bed many nights crying and praying her daddy could be rich so Jolene could love him, then they could be a whole family. Wishing one day he’d walk through the door with more than his same old red-and-black flannel jacket and twill pants, maybe even driving something shiny, without all the rust and sanded spots on the door. But it never happened.

Mr. Honely was seen as the way to the promised land. He smelled of black licorice and always had his chemically curled hair full of squeamish gel. Kandi aptly became her mother, laughing charmingly when Mr. Honely gave her a pack of Big Red gum, or two dollars to go to the matinee. She ignored his hand that sometimes slipped onto her doorknob breasts. If he smiled, she smiled, hoping for a bigger prize. Hoping all the smiles and good manners would win her mother the husband she wanted.

When Jolene became aware that after six years of weekly visits, he was not going to trade in the wife and kids he already had in Mottsville, the scowl showed up, permanently.

Vicariously, through her daughters, Jezz and Kandi, she hoped to make up for Mr. Honely and their father. The girls had inherited their mother’s Dorthy Dandridge beauty, but the determination and skill would have to be taught. Jezz fulfilled her part of the bargain. Kandi, on the other hand, fell through the cracks of Jolene’s educational system on how to snag a rich man and keep the bums away.

Jolene had kept her daughters’ appearances to the quality of the only real references there were to go on back then, the society pages of Ebony, which featured the junior misses and debutantes with their manicured smiles and silkened hair. Jolene tutored children on the weekends for extra money just to keep up their bimonthly visits to Emma’s House of Beauty.

“Don’t no man want a nappy-headed woman,” she’d retort every time Kandi and Jezz whined about spending a whole Saturday being sequestered in the broken-down shack that was propped up with two bricks on each side. House of Beauty, more like house of horrors. A whole day wasted listening to whose wife had taken a knife to who for sleeping with someone else’s. And the screams of yet one more scalp burned and scalded. “Let me put some butter on it,” Emma would whisper in her customer’s ear. Grease on a burn was like petroleum oil to a fire, but who knew. The forty-five-minute drive back to their side of town was spent with Jolene’s rearview mirror tilted just so, for a perfect view of her little girls in the back seat, with their perfect ringlets and freshly cut bangs. If they dared to doze off, Jolene would squeal in shock, reaching back to pinch them as hard as she could. “I didn’t drive all this way and pay all this money for you to smash those pretty curls. You’d think you girls would appreciate all I do for you.”

“We appreciate it, Mamma,” they’d say in unison, wishing just once they could spend a Saturday playing and jumping in the lawn sprinklers like the Eldridge brothers. Those boys had not a care in the world, their dark half-naked bodies doing flips through the water until it flooded their lawn and ran down the street. Needless to say, Kandi and Jezz were prohibited from playing with the Eldridge boys, in the sprinkler or anywhere else. “Too dark and too wild,” Jolene would say as they pulled up in their driveway. The Eldridge boys would be out front with their long narrow bodies soaked with water, seeing who could slide the farthest in their makeshift water slide.

“Not going to amount to much at all. You’ll see,” Jolene would repeat as she escorted the girls into the house.

That’s what she would say about Clint when she saw him, Kandi thought, as she logged off her computer. For sure he wouldn’t be passing any brown paper bag tests. And no, he wasn’t rolling in trust funds and inheritance, but he was caring, sincere, and honest, and most importantly, in love with Kandi. For the first time she actually felt she had accomplished a huge part of her dream. Someone loved her, truly loved her.

Kandi heard the intercom buzz and pushed herself away from staring at the now-blank screen. It was another flower delivery. She signed the delivery man’s log sheet and carried the ceramic pot to the sofa table. The flower arrangement had a fall theme, full of bright yellow sunflowers, daisies, and rich eucalyptus. She tore the card open, hoping it was from the right person.

“Puhleeze.” She tossed the shredded card from Tyson in the trash. He couldn’t seem to understand she was serious this time. It was over between them.

The intercom buzzed again.

“Yes”

“It’s me, Kandi. I’m double-parked, babygirl. You’re going to have to come on down.”

“On my way.”

She flicked off all the lights and blew out the candles she had burning. She made one last stop in the mirror and held up her two crossed fingers to her elephants. She had one more milestone to accomplish, and that was winning over Clint’s sister. They were invited for Christmas dinner, and it was her chance to make a lasting impression. Kandi knew how much Clint’s family meant to him.

She walked quickly from the elevator and made her way through the slush of rain into Clint’s waiting car. She laid a fresh wet kiss on his lips.

“Don’t you look handsome.”

“Thank you. Had to kick those tight-ass Dockers to the curb. Those pants were not made with a brother in mind.”

“Oh, been shopping I see.”

“A little.” Clint adjusted himself, smoothing a large hand down his chest.

“You’re already out trying to spend your big doctor bucks.” Kandi leaned over and put more lipstick on his face, this time on his cheek. She dabbed it off with her thumb. He grabbed the offending hand and kissed it.

“I haven’t told my brother, you know, about us, so . . .”

“I won’t spill the beans.”

“I just want to be the one to tell him. I don’t want it being like, oh by the way, me and Kandi are getting married. You know. He’s like my father. More like my father than a brother.”

“I know. I understand.”

Cedric’s boys, Daryl and Rodney, were out shooting hoops in the front driveway when Kandi and Clint pulled up. They were jumping around in their little hard-sole shoes. Their mother, Shelly, must’ve forced them into the buttoned-up shirts and ties. They looked so cute, Kandi thought to herself.

“Uncle Clint’s here.” Rodney ran up to the car. “Uncle Clint, did you bring me anything?”

“Yeah. Me.”

Clint got out and tipped the little boy over his shoulder, rounded him down his side landing him on his feet. Clint kissed him and sent him on his way.

“Hi there, Rodney. Hi, Daryl. I have something for you guys.” Kandi pulled out sticks of gum from her purse.

“Thank you.” The boys ran ahead, inside.

“We were getting worried.” Shelly came to the front door.

“Traffic was a mother . . .”

She put her finger to Clint’s lips. “Don’t make me pop you.”

“I wasn’t going to say it. Daaang.”

“How you doing, Kandi? Nice to see you again.” Shelly sped off back toward the kitchen.

“Is there a doctor in tiz-house.” Alison came in and gave Clint a long hug. “Congratulations. I hear you’re in the big time now.”

Clint blushed a little. “Not quite the big time, but I’m on my way.” He moved from in front of her, “Alison, this is Kandi.”

Alison’s face was bright with enthusiasm. It was strange, seeing a female Clint. They had the same features, the dark-toned skin, only she was softer, more polished. Her hair was pulled back, showing off her deep dimples and slanted eyes.

“Nice to meet you.” Kandi stuck out her hand, only to be pulled in and embraced by Alison.

“No handshakes around here, girl, we’re all family.”

“Hey man, you made it.” Cedric walked in with beer in tow. “Kandi, sweet Kandi. Good to see you.” He squeezed her, leaving her a little off balance. “Come on in, y’all. Don’t just stand in the doorway.”

“What you want to drink, Clint?” Alison was right behind them as they all made their way down the hall.

“Beer’s cool.”

“Kandi, what about you? Can I get you something?”

“Oh, I’ll come with you. Maybe I can decide then.” Kandi followed Alison to the kitchen, where Shelly was moving around like she’d had too much premium lead coffee.

“I’d be glad to help out,” Kandi offered.

“We’ve got it covered, pretty much.” Shelly whisked past Kandi. “Go ahead and have a seat.” A small stool appeared out of nowhere.

Alison, moving at a much slower pace, put a wineglass in front of Kandi and began pouring. “You look like a Zinfandel kind of girl.”

“Thank you. I didn’t want to ask for it in front of the guys.” She smiled as if they had a secret.

“Believe me, they know we’re not in here because of our health. Right, Shelly? Girls got to have their fun, too.”

“Got that right.” Shelly slid her glass next to Kandi’s. “Fill me up.” After the first glass, Shelly’s rushed gait was replaced with one movement at a time. Their giggles were ringing through the other room.

Cedric pushed his way through the saloon-style shutter doors.

“Hey, what’s all this noise coming out of here. A little less hee-hawing and get that food on the table, woman.” Cedric slapped Shelly on the derriere. She giggled wildly. “Uh oh, you guys been hitting the sauce. Hey, Clint,” he called out, “we might have to put on the aprons. These women are in here getting lit.”

Clint walked in and let a warm breath rest on Kandi’s face. “In that case we need to be getting home. I need to take advantage of someone before it wears off,” he chided in her ear.

The music from the radio was on and went unnoticed until Marvin Gaye’s soulful voice blasted, “. . . betcha wondering how I knew . . . You could’ve told me yourself, instead I heard from someone else. . . .” Cedric turned it up and captured Shelly’s hands and spun her around. “Don’t you know that I heard it through the grapevine.” They were dancing and singing with the music. Alison pulled Rodney and Daryl, who had been watching the bizarre behavior of adults silently, to the middle of the kitchen floor. They were shaking their little butts. Clint pulled Kandi up to her feet and started clapping and swaying in his suave style, reminiscent of the first time they’d met. Kandi started snapping her fingers, moving her hands above her head, feeling the beat that was rising through her. The wine on top of an empty stomach left Kandi uninhibited. Together all at once, in unison, they started singing at the top of their lungs. It couldn’t have been better if they’d planned it.

Don’tcha knooow that I heard it through the grapevine and I’m justabout to lose my mind. . . . You could’ve tooold me yourself, but I heard it from someone else, don’tcha know that I heard it through the grapevine. . . . How much longer would you be mine . . .

They sang a few more bars of chorus before Alison belted out a solo. She could really sing, and they all clapped and cheered for her.

“Thank you.” She bowed and blew kisses. “Thank you. No applause. No applause needed.”

Instead of the traditional turkey and stuffing, Shelly served up cooking from her hometown of Baton Rouge, shrimp creole and gumbo. The delicacy of each bite left Kandi wanting more. She ate unabashed. This was no time to be cute. Her lipstick was gone, and she didn’t care. It was by far one of the best holiday meals she’d ever eaten. One of the best holidays period. This family was pure love.

Kandi caught Clint watching her a couple of times. He did that a lot, watching, studying her. The heat he sent through his eyes surrounded her. Left with a rush in unspeakable parts of her body, she’d quickly turn away. She didn’t want to be that transparent, not in front of his family, anyway.

After dinner Kandi stayed in the kitchen with Shelly and Alison. They loaded the dishwasher and put away food. Alison updated Shelly on her long-distance love affair with the Jordanian man she’d met while he was an exchange student at Georgetown, where she worked as a financial aid counselor. Alison did not want to hear Shelly’s warnings of all his possible motives for choosing her to fall in love with. “Those men like their women wrapped tight, subservient, and anxious to please. What’s he doing interested in you?” Shelly had asked Alison when they’d first started writing each other back and forth. “I’d say sistahs fall as far away from that description as possible, wouldn’t you?”

“What do you think, Kandi? Doesn’t that seem a little odd to you? Keeping this longer than long-distance relationship going, when this guy knows he has no chance of returning to the States unless he can tie the knot with somebody who lives here.” Shelly scraped the last of the gumbo into the large plastic container and tapped the wooden spoon excessively on the side.

Alison stepped up and answered for her. “Okay, Shelly I get your point, and you know what, I agree with you. But who cares? If that’s the only reason he sends me five letters a week and calls every Sunday like clockwork, I’ll take it. Because guaranteed, everybody’s got an agenda. Fahja’s no different from the guy who chooses a woman because she’s got big tits or a big heart. He has a need for me, and if I can fulfill it, regardless of what it is, I’ll do it, because that’s what it’s all about.”

Kandi was relieved when Alison spoke. Kandi didn’t add anything, but only let out soft sighs where appropriate. She herself was guilty of ulterior motives. At first, she’d seen Clint as a conquest to be had for only one reason, his good looks and doctor status, but that was all in the past. Since then she’d found a thousand and one reasons to be in love with Clint Fairchild. Did it matter what motivation started the process, as long as what happens after is the hard work that helps the relationship survive?

“But what’s going to happen when he stops needing you, when you’ve served your purpose? That’s all I’m saying. There has to be so much more there for a relationship to last.”

“And how do you know there isn’t, Shelly? He might actually be in love with me. It’s not impossible.” Alison was brimming with animosity.

Kandi swallowed her fear and stepped in as a buffer. “You know what, you’re both right. There’s always that first motivation for choosing the person you fall in love with. Always. But I know for a fact that when that person makes you feel good about yourself, and takes you to another level, one you thought you’d never reach, how you got there doesn’t matter.”

Kandi turned directly to Alison. “Fahja’s not going to remember what was going through his mind the day he laid eyes on you.” She grabbed Alison’s hands. “Maybe he was thinking, hey, if I marry this one, I can come back to America. So what? We all have an agenda. We’ve all got a spec sheet and qualifications before we allow ourselves to love, otherwise we’d never get what we wanted. This ain’t high school, we’re in the real world. Remember what our mothers told us, or at least what my mother told me, ‘it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man, as it is to fall in love with a poor one.’ Well, we’ve all got standards, right? And then, at some point, all that stuff doesn’t matter. If he really has fallen in love with you, ‘why’ or ‘how’ doesn’t matter. It won’t hurt to give it your best shot if he’s got what it takes to make you happy. Right? Who cares why he loves you, as long as he does?”

Shelly broke through, half laughing. “Oh, that is just sad and pathetic. Don’t you stand there and listen to that horse, cow, manure, whatever mess. A man has got to take the good, the bad, and the ugly. We all do. You can’t be running around with some little list, talking about what you want. You get what you get. Love is truly blind.”

Alison turned toward Shelly, “Oh, so I guess you didn’t notice my brother’s debonair good looks and solid abs when you met him, huh? You just saw a great personality from a mile a way and honed in. And he didn’t see all that Jayne Kennedy hair hanging on your head? Huh, is that what you’re saying?”

Shelly couldn’t keep in the laugh. She remembered her instant attraction to Cedric when she’d met him at a friend’s birthday party ten years ago. They’d slept together that first night. “You got a point there,” she admitted shamefully.

“I’m with Kandi.” Alison spoke heroically. She was on a roll now. “When a person chooses you or you choose them, it’s got some kind of reason behind it, and who’s to say which is the noble one. We’ve all got our needs. I might have started loving Fahja because he’s got a big dick, but that’s my business.” She let Shelly’s eyes pop back into her head before continuing. “And what keeps our relationship going is not going to be that big dick, well maybe a little, but what keeps it alive is truly going to be the sincerity of my love for him; then, and only then, can I accept the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

“Lord, help these wayward souls.” Shelly was raising her hands and looking up while she was talking. “These poor children know not what they say, Lord.”

Alison nodded and turned her body toward Shelly, giving her a full body embrace. “Keep praying for me sister, ’cause I’m getting mine.”

They all fell out in fits of boisterous laughter.

Clint and Cedric looked at each other as they sat on the couch watching the Holiday Bowl football game and shook their heads as the sound of the women’s laughter wafted through the den.

The drive home was dark and peaceful. The gearshift and armrest didn’t prevent Kandi from getting as close to him as she could. The fullness, the contentment, was still swelled up inside of her. She meshed her face in his sleeve to get a good fill of his scent.

“I love your family. They are so sweet.”

“They love you, too.” He massaged her through the fabric of her dress.

“Do you love me?” Kandi asked out of the blue.

“Do I love you?” He paused for a second. “You know I do.”

Kandi closed her eyes, abandoning any more skepticism. Feelings don’t lie. It really didn’t matter that he’d never said the words I love you. How many times had she heard it? Since the days of platforms and polyester, she’d been hearing “I love you,” and it meant nothing. She didn’t care that he was unable to say it. Actually mouthing the words held little value when you could feel it. Like something gripping your heart, tight, making breathing difficult at times, but when you finally took a deep breath, it’s only because the other person is there. Kandi saw Clint for a moment as she was dozing, his smile, holding her, whispering, “You know I do.” She fell off into a deep sleep of course I do.