After a week of smoky nothingness the stars had returned, scattering their blessings across the night sky like a sigh. Even though I had gone to the gallery opening partially to check out Mitchell, I had actually enjoyed myself. Not even Sandra Douglass or Jamilla Brown showing their asses could diminish the encouragement I felt seeing young artists trying to make chicken salad from the chicken shit of life in L.A.
Beast stood behind my chain-link fence, a steel-jawed sentry under the starry sky, trying to decide if Aubrey’s car was friend or foe. The familiar sight of my leg emerging from the passenger’s side door was his all-clear signal, and he began to prance a canine welcome in the driveway.
We stood on my front porch. “Thanks for a great evening, Aubrey. The exhibit was . . . interesting, and dinner was great.”
“Is that all?” he asked.
I could feel my face grow hot. “And I enjoyed the company, too.” I turned to open the door. “You want to come in for a minute? I can make you some coffee.”
You don’t even know where that coffeemaker is, the voice in my head chided me.
“I don’t drink coffee. Do you have some tea?”
“Sure.” I gave thanks to a God who understood my nervousness. “Come on in.”
As I let the dog in the back door and put on the kettle, I could hear Aubrey walking around. “Where did you get the John Biggers lithograph?” he called out from the dining room.
“Shotguns? It was a Christmas present from my parents last year. They bought it from Spiral West.”
I got the napkins from the sideboard in the dining room and gazed at the lithograph above it. “I love the way the women stand in front of their narrow little shotgun houses, carrying the smaller houses in their hands.”
The kettle called me, and I headed back to the kitchen. Aubrey followed me and watched while the hot water worked its magic on the dried herbs and leaves.
“Can I see the rest of the house?”
“Sure. I can give you the nickel tour, but there’s not a lot to see.”
Aubrey brushed past me. “People’s homes say a lot about them, whether they know it or not.”
The heady aroma of the herbal tea and Aubrey’s cologne mingled with the warmth radiating from his body, temporarily throwing me for a loop. “What did you say?”
“I like your kitchen,” he said. “You must be some cook—you’ve got all the gadgets.”
“Not really. My mother keeps giving me these appliances I think in a misguided attempt to domesticate me.” And impress potential husbands, I didn’t say.
He took his time inspecting the rest of the kitchen, soaking it all up the way I had the paintings earlier that evening. The air in the room soon took on a fragrant, disorienting electricity.
“What about the rest of the house?” he asked.
I shook off the spell and walked him through the laundry room to the main hallway.
“Is this your bedroom?”
“Mm-hmm.” I turned on the light. Beast plopped down on his bed by the door, looked at us quizzically, then dropped off to sleep.
Aubrey was staring at a collage opposite my bed. “I like this.”
“Me, too.” At first it was hard to understand the hold Betye Saar’s Letters from Home/Wish You Were Here had on me, but it had haunted me from the moment I first saw it at Uncle Reggie’s gallery. It was as if the artist had made art from the scraps of my life. The envelope at the top of the collage reminded me of letters I used to get from my Aunt Winnie, my mother’s sister, and my uncles when I was little. The old photograph in the middle looked like a picture I had of my father with his brothers and sisters in Arkansas, and I was the solitary woman in the high heels at the bottom of the canvas, walking down a long, rough road. And while I was probably reading too much into it, the blue collage spoke to me of southern roots and the disconnected loneliness that was peculiar to L.A.
I didn’t notice Aubrey had entered the closed office across the hall until it was too late. I stood uneasily in the dim light from the hall as he took in the orange and brown Marimekko-covered futon, a man’s sweater draped across the office chair, the broken eyeglasses on the desk. He sneezed in the dusty stillness of the room. Reaching for the tissue box, he almost knocked the photo off the desk. I dove for it and anchored it to my chest. Beast came running, ears up and ready for trouble. I tried to turn on the light, but the bulb sputtered, then went out.
There was sad acknowledgment in Aubrey’s eyes. “This was your husband’s office, wasn’t it?”
I put the picture back on the desk; Keith and Erica’s smiles drifted back to us in the half light from the hallway. My family had been trying to get me to clean this room out forever, but I never seemed to get around to it. The last time I tried, six years ago, I was stopped by the smell of Aramis that permeated Keith’s sweater and his smudged fingerprints on his eyeglasses. They were the last bits of him I had, and I couldn’t bring myself to let them go.
“What’s that?” Aubrey pointed to the package wrapped in faded Snoopy paper on the end table by the futon.
I fingered its curled pink ribbon, faded now to almost white. “It was a present my girlfriend Katrina had bought for Erica. She had given it to me the day we went to the library, the day Erica and Keith were . . . I never had a chance to give it to her.”
I shivered; the room had gotten chilly. Aubrey drew me toward him, whispered in my hair, “Fourteen years is a long time to keep a shrine.”
I jerked away and moved back into the bright hallway. “The tea’s probably ready.” I stood at the door with my hand on the knob. Aubrey eased by me and walked softly down the hall to the light of the living room, Beast trailing him like a guard.
I spent a few extra minutes getting the tea—and myself—together. Thankfully, Aubrey kept his distance in the living room, but I could hear him rummaging among the CDs. The stereo clicked on; the Funky Divas reached out to me in the kitchen and told me it was my life and I should live it my own way.
I had recovered by the time the tea was ready. Aubrey helped me with the tray while Beast lay on the carpet under the dining-room table, watching and dozing by turns. Aubrey sat on the leather sofa, one of the few new pieces of furniture I’d bought since Keith and Erica were killed.
“I never told you about what happened to my marriage.”
I positioned myself on the edge of the sofa, unsure I wanted to play relationship show-and-tell at this stage of the game.
“Janet never saw me the whole time we were married. Even in high school, I was just a prize to her. Something she could brag to her girlfriends about: ‘My boyfriend is captain of the basketball team. My boyfriend’s going to an Ivy League college.’ ” He purred it out in what sounded to me like a perfect imitation of how I remembered Janet Murphy’s voice.
“But it couldn’t have been all one-sided? I remember she had some pretty impressive tickets, too.”
“Big breasts, big smile, big ambitions.” There was something in Aubrey’s voice I couldn’t quite read. “I was the envy of all my friends. Even your brother,” he teased with a sly smile.
“Perris was into her?” I couldn’t imagine sexy Janet being interested in my goofy teenaged brother. In the background En Vogue, singing “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” seemed to agree.
Aubrey laughed, took a bite of Mrs. Franklin’s pound cake. “We were all young and dumb back then. No one looked below the surface or saw anything beyond what was put right in front of his face.”
“And Janet sure put what she had in your face,” I smiled, remembering. “You really didn’t have a clue, did you?”
“I guess not.” He looked a little sheepish.
That was about par for the course in those days. Katrina and I called sisters who were fixated on ball players “tennis-shoe freaks,” but there were all kinds of predators back then, including those who were obsessed with being what Grandmama Cile called “Mrs. Dr. Somebody.” And while I was a little too young and too chubby to join the chase in high school, I watched the older girls from the sidelines, laying their sweet-smelling traps with feigned interest and butt-hugging minis. And all the while, the poor harebrained brothers thought because they were the hardlegs, they were in control.
The hunter gets captured by the game.
“When she told me she was pregnant, I didn’t even question it,” Aubrey was saying. “I knew I’d been dipping my pen in her ink—as Pop would say—and since she swore I was the only one, I stepped on up to the plate. Too bad she was more into my M.D. than m-e.”
He shrugged and sipped his tea in the suddenly quiet room.
“Since we’re playing truth or dare,” I offered, picking at my cake, “I have a confession, too.” I was afraid to look at him. “While Janet Murphy was scheming on you, there was someone else who was interested, too.”
It took a moment for it to register, then Aubrey asked, “Are you serious?” He stared at me with what looked like real surprise, and shook his head. “Your brother kept telling me you had a crush on me. I thought he was just putting me on.”
I shrugged it off. “You wouldn’t have noticed a butterball like me.”
“You still could have said something.”
“Most girls weren’t as bold then as they are now,” I reminded him. “Remember the big party Katrina had the summer before you went back to New Haven? Losing all that weight had given me the courage to tell you how I felt. We were dancing by the pool. They were playing the Five Stairsteps’ ‘Ooh Child,’ and you were singing in my ear.”
“ ‘Ooh, child, things are gonna get easier,’ ” he sang. “I’ve always loved that song. It reminds me of my mother.”
I remembered Mrs. Scott had died of cancer in the fall of that year. “Well, I thought you were singing to me. And I was all prepared to tell you how I felt, when Janet . . .”
“Cut in on us. Now, that I remember.” He wagged a finger into the past. “She wasn’t feeling well and wanted me to take her home. That was the night she told me she was pregnant.”
“Maybe I should have said something.”
We sat that way for a few minutes, our revelations swirling in the soft lamplight. Aubrey broke the spell. “Char, I can’t call back the past. Even if I had known how you felt, I wasn’t mature enough to do anything about it.” He shook his head and told the ceiling, “I was so out of it then.”
I swept away the crumbs and memories from my lap. “Well, it’s all in the past now.”
“That’s what I was getting at earlier.” He turned to face me on the sofa. “The past is gone—the good and the bad of it.” He touched my hand. “You can’t live in the past, Char.”
I grabbed my empty teacup and quickly poured myself some more tea. This was not where I expected this conversation to go.
“I’m not saying this to make you uncomfortable,” he hurried on. “I say it because I know. Living in the past will keep you from the present.”
I hunkered down behind my teacup, wishing for my bulletproof vest.
“I’m not going to bite you.” He reached over and carefully pried the cup from my fingers. He bent down and peered into my face until my eyes met his. “This is your journey. You’ve got to make it in your own time. I’m just letting you know that you’re not the only one who’s had to make a new life for herself. Once you take a step or two, it gets easier, and pretty soon you figure out there is life on the other side.”
I wasn’t sure Aubrey was referring to my situation or his. He gathered up my hand in his and sat silently looking at it, turning it over slowly in his. “Giving Him Something He Can Feel” was playing on the stereo. Nervousness made me want to jump out of my skin. I tried a joke instead: “Taking my pulse on the sly, Doctor?”
“No. I’m just thinking how I enjoyed being with you tonight. And how I want to see you again.” When he looked up at me, his face was serious. “That is, if our mutual fantasies and ghosts don’t get in the way.”
Still holding my hand, he turned it over and did a double take when he glanced at his watch. “Damn! It’s almost one o’clock! I gotta go—I’ve got a staff meeting tomorrow. And you need your rest.”
“Doctor’s orders?”
“That’s right.” He led me over to the front door, bent down to whisper in my ear. “Dr. Feelgood.”
My smart answer lay in my mouth, stilled by a kiss so soft that at first it felt like butterfly wings had fluttered against my lips. Soon he began to apply just a little pressure as he slowly kissed and sucked every inch of my parted lips before he introduced tantalizing bits of his tongue. My mouth began to feel like a hungry bird’s, anxious for the delicacy being dangled in front of it.
His hands, both of which were holding my face, decided to divide and conquer. Dread flooded my pores. After his examination of me in the ER, I feared my body would hold no surprises, but Aubrey moved his right hand down my neck and to my shoulders as if he had never touched me before.
He took me by the shoulders and gathered me into him with a gentle but unrelenting pressure. Despite my immobilized arm, I could feel his heart pumping, and an insistent swelling pressing against my stomach.
This wasn’t a make-out fantasy played out when I was twelve, grinding my hips against the doorjamb in my bedroom, trying to imagine how Aubrey Scott would feel. It wasn’t even the semi-safe slow drag we did at Katrina’s party that long-ago summer. This was consensual fondling by two free, black, and over-twenty-one adults. And, good as it felt, it was scaring me to death.
It took all of the restraint within me to break contact. “Aubrey, I’m not sure we should . . .”
“Sshh . . . let me just hold you for a minute.” His second kiss, slow and warm, melted into my bloodstream and did battle with the fear. He held me closer. “I’m not going to hurt you, Char.”
We stood that way for so long I began to feel myself drift away. I barely noticed at first, but soon realized he was untying my sling. The silk fluttered to the floor, and he started undoing the buttons of my jumpsuit. His fingers unclasped my bra, slowly moved the lace aside until his hand cupped my left breast, and his fingers began making little circles around my nipple. I could feel it awaken and stiffen under his touch and a hot dampness gather between my breasts and legs. My blood began to tom-tom in my ears, and my knees started sending messages to my brain that they were about to give way.
Every so often the lights from a passing car bathed us in a blue-gray glow, allowing me to see in snatches that expression men have on their faces when they’re single-mindedly engaged in the hunt. And I was lost at sea, unsure of my instincts, of what to do with myself. My left hand reached up to stroke his cheek. He caught it and slid it down his chest. I tried to unbutton his shirt, but he stopped me.
“Let’s sit down,” he whispered.
We stumbled to the sofa in an age-old dance step, my hands drawing him toward me by the belt buckle, his trying to keep up with my retreating nipple-hardened breasts. Once on the sofa, he eased the top of the jumpsuit off my shoulders. He hummed to himself as he gently took both breasts in his hands.
He bent to kiss them.
I knew I was lost.
I called Aubrey’s name, my mind shrouded in fog, hoping to get a bearing. “Are you sure we should be doing this?” I moaned. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know what I see,” he whispered back, “and I know what I want.”
He kissed my nipples again, and I felt a warm, open wetness begin to flow through me. But something had shifted in the universe because the intensity of his touch ebbed and he stared up at me. “I could say the same thing to you, Char. Do you know me?”
I saw a break in the storm and stumbled toward it as best I could. “I know that everything I’ve seen of you these past few days is better than I could have ever imagined,” I began and struggled to raise up on the sofa, “But I also think this is going awfully fast, Aubrey. Moving this fast could be dangerous for both of us.”
Aubrey sat back on the sofa and regarded me for a moment before reaching into his back pocket. “If you’re wondering about my health status, I’ve been celibate for the past year . . .”
I put my fingers to his lips. I didn’t want to admit it had been even longer for me.
He unfolded a sheet of paper he pulled from his wallet. “I’ve got my last three AIDS test results . . .”
“Aubrey, as far as that goes, I’m negative, too. But you know that’s not what I mean. ”
He sucked my fingertips, sending electrical messages straight to my clitoris. “Then what?”
“God knows I want you, Aubrey.” I brushed my fingers over his short, gloriously kinky hair and gazed into his eyes. “But how do I know you’re not just taking pity on a poor sister who used to have a crush on you? I know about sympathy fucks and where they can—and can’t—lead you.”
He sat back on the sofa and looked at me long and hard. Finally he said, “Look, Char, I’m very attracted to you. You’re smart, brave, principled, and very sexy.” He ran a finger down my breastbone and sighed in confirmation of his own assessment. “But you gotta believe me, seeing you last Friday was like meeting you for the first time. I see you as you are today, not twenty-some-odd years ago.”
His eyes traveled around my living room and toward the hallway leading to the back of the house. “But I’m not sure what you see. There are too many memories in this house. And as much as I’m attracted to you, maybe I need to be sure I’m just not another ghost come to life for you.”
I closed my burning eyes and felt a scarred, parched desert of longing constricting my chest. I pushed him back on the sofa and struggled to kiss my way up his chest, until I found his mouth and drank deeply, hoping for salvation.
He must have sensed the drought in me. He kissed me.
Gently.
Slowly.
Deeply.
And pulled away. “I’d better go.”
“What will my neighbors think?” I pointed to his awkward, stiff-legged stride. “At least stay until you can walk out normally.”
He laughed a little. “Around you, woman, that could be forever.”
My face grew hot, and I had to smile in spite of my disappointment. I got up and walked him to the door. “Maybe we’d better not try another good-night kiss.”
Aubrey bent down to pick up my scarf at the door. He pressed it into my hand, wrapped his around mine, and pulled me to him. I stood molded against the hardness of him, quiet as a church mouse, afraid to start up again, afraid I’d be swept out on the sea flowing through me.
A pager vibrated between us. “Is that yours or mine?” I asked.
“I think it’s mine.” He laughed and checked the number on the display.
“Want to use the phone?” Anything to get him to stay.
“No, I’ll get this in the car. It’s my service; probably another crisis at one of the hospitals.” He kissed me again, so softly I wished I remembered how to cry.
I went back inside and lay for a minute with my face buried in the warm, musky imprint Aubrey had left on my sofa. There hadn’t been a man to leave that kind of impression on my furniture, my mind, or my body (come to think of it) in a long, long time. The scent of his cologne blended with the leather made me wonder if maybe one day something other than my job would be a reason to get up in the morning, maybe even be a part of my prayers at night.
I lay there giddy, touching myself in the places his hands had been, inhaling the possibilities for so long I embarrassed myself. Finally I got a grip and went to the bedroom to put on my sling. I cleared the coffee table and decided to make myself another cup of tea before going to bed. The clock on the microwave read 1:38; it would have to be herbal tea this time of night. I fired up the tea kettle and opened the door to let the dog out. When he ran bristling to the gate instead of to his tree in the back, I looked toward the driveway in time to see Aubrey’s car pulling up.
Thank you, God. Maybe Aubrey decided his misgivings were bogus and was going to pick up where we left off (hope, hope). I checked my reflection in the bathroom and ran a comb through my hair before racing to the door.
Aubrey’s face was rigid. “Char, can you ride with me over to Baldwin Hills?”
“What’s the matter?”
“The service . . . a Sergeant Barnes called . . . he said . . . they just found Lance. He’s dead, Char.”