Holding Pattern (17 page)

Lee actually felt a little better.

It was a long time ago.

Okay. What do you want me to do? He would play along. Stupid to be jealous of a dead man. What harm could it do? She’d see that all this talk about the soul was just that, talk.

We need a Ouija board.

The next day Lee bought a Ouija board. For months they held hands and tried to make the pointer move. Nothing happened. They attended séances and consulted mediums. Nothing happened. Loretta would lock herself in a closet and read for hours.

One night they spread molasses on the Ouija board. Loretta had read that sweet sticky food helped to attract spirits. Lee had to fight to keep from laughing. They held hands before the board. Nothing happened.

That night, Loretta lay curled in his arms, as always. Her teeth were clicking. A sound like abacus beads knocked together.

The following morning her black skin glowed.

I saw Phil last night.

What?

He came to me in a dream.

Oh.

He said something to me, but I couldn’t understand it. His voice was all muffled.

Didn’t God, the Overlord of all the dimensions, teach him how to talk? She had gone just too far.

She looked at him. I don’t need your sarcasm.

Who’s being sarcastic?

His voice sounded like a growl, she said. Like it had to come up from his belly.

What are you telling me, that God put the man’s mouth in his belly?

It had a lot of pain.

Lee didn’t say anything.

That night, Loretta’s teeth made the same sounds. In the morning her skin was radiant.

Lee, Phil’s going to teach me how to talk to spirits.

Wonderful.

Now, don’t be that way.

What? Carry on your dialogue with the dead.

Now—

He can’t talk himself. How is he going to teach you to talk with the dead?

She just looked at him.

How can you understand what he says?

Don’t ask stupid questions.

I’m not asking stupid questions.

You’re just jealous.

Fire moved over Lee’s skin. Why should I be?

Don’t play games.

You’re the one who’s playing games. He left for work.

He returned that evening to an apartment smelling of gasoline and burned rubber. The smell led him to the bedroom. He heard Loretta moaning. Lee opened the door. He saw Loretta with her legs spread and a man between them. A strange-looking black man. With long red hair that hung to his shoulders. Standing up, he was probably as tall as Lee. But skinny. So skinny that his bones showed beneath his yellow skin. His back glistened with sweat.

Get your dead ass off my wife, Lee said.

Phil—who else could it have been?—stopped pumping Loretta. Turned his head and looked Lee in the face. He was beautiful. You aren’t speaking to just anybody, you know, he said, in a voice so deep that it might have come out of a cannon. A tear brightened his eye. He evaporated, steam on a mirror.

Lee saw Loretta’s black eyes. She pulled the bedsheet over her face. Lee fled the house. Found a room in a motel, and there he remained.

Only in that room did it dawn on Lee that he had seen a ghost. He didn’t fear it. The ghost’s existence contradicted the world as he knew it. But this wasn’t the important thing. He had other fears, and he had anger too. He didn’t understand what the ghost saw in Loretta. He was beautiful. She was ugly. That’s all there was to it. And he loved her enough to return from the dead. And Lee loved her too.

A week later, he ret urned home. Loretta was sitting in the kitchen with a glass of tea. Lee looked at her shadow, quivering on the wall.

I swear on my mother’s grave that I love you. How could you do this to me?

Loretta poked at a lemon slice. I had to know if he was all right.

What?

I felt so bad. I had to know if he was all right.

Lee felt her reaching out for him. What do you mean? He lifted his eyes to meet hers.

I just felt so bad inside.

Loneliness washed over Lee, burning his body. He took what she said with a glad heart, even if she didn’t love him. Without her, life would run out of him.

I just felt so bad.

Lee didn’t say anything. Her words were concrete. He could weigh them in his hands.

Come here.

This he did.

About a month later, Loretta discovered that she was pregnant. She began to want ice cream for every meal. A month later, she bought a ten-pound bag of candy. Lee attributed this strange diet to maternal craving. The next month, she purchased a bag of balloons, filled them, and taped them everywhere in the apartment. Next, she filled their bedroom with stuffed animals. Once, Lee tried to kiss her, and she moved away, giggling. And when he tried to stroke her breasts, she replied, Unh. That’s nasty. You mannish. Each month brought a new element. In the ninth month, Lee caught her jumping rope with her full belly. As it was, on her skinny frame her belly was so large that Lee wondered why she never fell forward. And here she was, skipping rope. Lee spent more than an hour chasing her through the apartment. Catch me if you can, she said. He cornered her. Eased her into a chair.

The day she entered the hospital to deliver their child, she entered a world he didn’t belong to.

Lee moved to another city. The business and the buildings—he bought more—were really making money now. Money in his hand—as common as day and night. He bought a house. Hired a servant to care for Samantha (raised by one servant or another until she was thirteen—each year bringing a new slab of fat and a new servant to tend it—when Lee felt she was old enough to care for herself). Loretta’s death left a hole inside Lee that he didn’t know how to fill. He read her books, attended séances, consulted mediums, worked the molasses-sticky Ouija board. Loretta never returned to him. Never visited him in dreams. He had to suffer alone with a fat ugly daughter who never asked about her mother. It was only when Samantha ran away from home that he decided to cut loose from the past. He still loved Loretta. But maybe he could grow to love Peanut too.

And there he was, on a shady side street right off Turtle Avenue. This isn’t a real avenue, Lee thought. Days before, driving Peanut home from the Southway Lounge, he had tried to explain this to her.

You know, this isn’t a real avenue. Lee had had both hands on the steering wheel.

What you mean?

Like I said. It’s not a real avenue.

Can’t you spell? The signs say it. Turtle Avenue. A-v-e—

I know. But it’s still not a real avenue. A real avenue is made like a horse shoe.

What are you talkin about?

I’m tryin to explain.

God. Sometimes you talk about the most boringness stuff.

It isn’t boring. Lee didn’t mean to let his anger slip out.

Oh yeah?

Why don’t you let me explain?

I don’t want to hear about no avenue.

Okay. The hot feeling still moved over his skin.

Another night on the avenue, they discussed Boo’s father.

His father always be tryin to come by and see Boo and whatnot.

Why don’t you let him?

Lee could feel her eyes on him. Boy, you is really dense.

Lee laughed.

I told you. I don’t believe in messin wit no butt hole.

Lee didn’t know if she was calling him that or Boo’s father. I see.

He buy Boo clothes and toys and whatnot. Give me money. Bring some food by sometimes.

Well … Lee watched his words, careful not to say the wrong thing. That’s good.

Yeah, but that’s all I let him do. I make Boo go in the bathroom when that butt hole come by.

I see.

A week ago, Lee had first learned of Boo. He had taken Peanut to his office. He leased the fiftieth floor of the Garden Tower, one of the most distinguished office buildings in the city. The Black Widow Exterminating Company at one end of the hall, and Archer Realty, his other company, at the opposite end. His office was the size of a four-room apartment. A glass-and-steel box that projected out from the side of the building. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Marble floors. His desk centered on a single rug. As long as a dining table. With an ivory inkstand with a pen, and a telephone on its top. (Lee never used the phone or the pen. Rarely came to the office. A group of lawyers and executives ran the company. For years, Lee had spent most of his time searching for Loretta.)

Wow, Peanut said. Her voice echoed.

You like it?

This place bigger than my apartment.

Stupid, Lee thought. Of course it was bigger than her apartment. She lived in a studio. Yes, he said.

What kind of rug is that? She moved forward to get a closer look. Her footsteps drum taps on the marble.

It’s from Afghanistan.

You been there?

No. Lee had no interest in traveling. It’s completely handwoven. Every thread.

God. It musta took somebody a long time to finish.

Another stupid thing to say. Lee played along with it. I guess so.

Boo would like this place. She looked around.

Boo?

My son.

Oh.

His real name is Goodwin Junior.

Lee nodded.

After his father and whatnot.

How old is he?

He seven.

I didn’t know that you had a son.

Now you do.

Lee didn’t like being insulted in his own office.

Why do you call him Boo?

Cause he scare me.

He scares you?

Yeah. His love be so strong.

I don’t follow.

Boy, is you dense.

Lee didn’t say anything.

I can’t deal wit no dense folks.

I just don’t understand what you mean.

She rolled her eyes. Look, Boo love so strong for me that it scare me.

Oh. I see.

Finally.

Lee didn’t say anything.

Anyway. Don’t you want to meet him?

Only if he don’t scare me.

Peanut just looked at him. That joke sure was corny and whatnot.

Lee felt delighted. His heart glowed inside. She’d missed his sarcasm.

Boo won’t scare you.

Good.

I want him to see yo office.

Sure. When are we going to bring him by? Next Sunday? That was Peanut’s day off.

Bet. A week from today.

Okay. Sunday, then.

Bet.

Lee was tugged by two feelings. On the one hand, he didn’t like kids. On the other, Boo’s existence offered him the chance to start a real family. Boo wasn’t his own child, but Lee was certain that he could learn to love the boy. He told Peanut that he made sure only singles or married couples without kids rented in his buildings. Children were simply destructive. Lee believed that a group of children might literally tear a building to the ground or, at the least, wreak irreparable damage.

Why don’t you move into one of my buildings? My best building. I have an apartment for you.

Now, you know I can’t afford to live in one of your buildings.

Rent free, of course.

Well, I thought you don’t low no kids in your buildings.

Of course, I’ll make an exception for you and Boo.

Ain’t you sweet. She kissed Lee on the cheek.

How soon can you move?

Real soon. She laughed.

Lee laughed too.

But I don’t want to live around no Section Eight tenants and whatnot. She was serious. Boo needs a wholesome environment.

Lee laughed. Hey, I don’t deal with welfare cases.

Well, all right, then.

Why don’t you move on the first of the month? That was two weeks away.

Bet.

Lee was determined to be a father to Boo, if for no other reason than to impress Peanut. That was one reason why he had questioned Peanut’s habit of leaving Boo home by himself. (And, it dawned on him, all the nights he and Peanut were at the lounge, Boo was at home alone. And Boo was alone whenever she was working.) So, the previous night, he had suggested that they all go to the zoo.

Boo’s never been to the zoo, she said.

What?

I said, Boo ain’t never been to no zoo.

Well, let’s take him.

Why?

It’s not right that a kid’s never been to the zoo.

What you mean, it not right?

I just mean that the zoo is somewhere every kid should go.

A zoo ain’t got nothin but animals.

But kids like animals.

The zoo boring.

It’s not boring. Kids like animals.

How you know?

Trust me. I know.

Just animals.

We’ll go Sunday.

We sposed to be going to yo office Sunday.

We’ll go to the zoo, then we’ll go to the office.

Boo might not like the zoo.

He’ll like it.

He better.

Lee bit his tongue. Tasted fire. Hey, we’ll all go have dinner afterward.

That sound good.

I know a nice restaurant.

Sound real good. What next?

Well … let’s go back to my place. Watch some movies. Play some games.

Yeah. Then we gon put Boo to bed. We gon talk.

Talk?

Yeah, talk.

Yes, we can talk.

You know,
talk.
Boy, you dense.

In his car, parked in a sleeve of shade, Lee sat remembering the previous night’s conversation. Thinking,
Yes, we will talk.
Something fine was going to happen to him today. He’d had enough of the past. Time to forget the dead. Time to start dealing with live people. Lee started the car.

Underneath a thick yellow yoke of light, Peanut and Boo stood in front of the building where they lived. Peanut bright in a light blue summer dress and white pumps. Boo small, even for a seven-year-old. Looked more like a midget than a child. White cotton double-breasted suit. A red and white polka-dot tie. White loafers. A square house cut, like Lee’s. Sharp. As bright as a fresh egg. A cute midget.

Hey, baby girl.

Hey, honey.

They touched lips.

Hello, Mr. Christmas, Boo said. He extended a tiny hand.

Lee chuckled. Took the hand into his own. Hello, Boo. Aren’t you sharp today?

The boy squeezed Lee’s hand. He had a powerful grip.

We must go to the same barber. Lee tried not to concentrate on the pain in his hand.