My Daughter's Boyfriend (17 page)

Lauren 18

That Sunday night, after Mom left, Regis and I had a
heart-to-heart. A heart-to-heart is when you let go of all the doubts and fears that have been cowering inside your mouth and head. You say whatever needs to be said. The rule is to be kind, but to say what’s on your mind.

In Regis’s room, the radio was playing very low and we listened to song after song by Ginuwine, Mya, and Destiny’s Child. Regis and I were lying on our bellies, on her bed, squinting and looking down at
Vibe,
Glamour,
and
Word Up!,
strewn before us on the floor.

“Damn, what up with you and your moms today?” Regis frowned.

“She’s getting on my last little nerve.”

“I figured that much,” she said, kicking her legs in the air and crossing them at the ankles.

“Do you always get along with your mother, Regis?”

“Hell no. She don’t listen half the time, and when she not listening, she trying to run my life.”

“What life, Regis? You’re only fifteen.”

“Like I don’t know that?” she sputtered. “Still . . . I mean just because you a teen don’t mean you don’t know what you want out of life. Or what you
don’t
want.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t want my momma breathing down my neck every time the phone ring. Seem like she ain’t thinking about no phone till I get a call. Then, boom, it’s like, ‘I gotta call Ma Dear’ or some other creative excuse.”

“I thought you were going to get your own line.”

“Yeah, I heard her telling my auntie something like that, so maybe I can get my own line by the end of the year or something.” She swiveled her neck back and forth like an Egyptian dancer.

“Does she listen to your phone conversations?”

Her neck-dance halted and she stared at me. “Is the Pope on crack? Moms ain’t that crazy. The most she can do is rush me off my calls. How ’bout yours?”

“No, I don’t think she really cares enough to try and peep into my phone calls. But it seems like whenever Aaron dials me up, she can’t just hand over the phone. She always has to chat with him at least ten to fifteen minutes before she lets me talk to him.”

Regis uncrossed her legs and stared at me. “Say what? She talking to Aaron ’fore you do? What’s up with that?”

I knew Regis was the type to go for the jugular, and once I started making these confessions, there was no way to go in reverse.

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s asking him personal questions about what we do or something. You know she’s scared that I’m messing around and stuff—like I’ll get pregnant like she did. She ain’t got nothing to worry about, though, ’cause Aaron and I aren’t doing a doggoned thang.” I humped my butt up and down with a sigh.

“Hey, girl, if he ain’t doing it with you, you can bet he rubbing up against some other hoochie,” Regis said, and started humping her booty, too, like she was a guy and her bed was the girl.

“I—I doubt it,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure.

Regis sat up. “Then you stupid, Lauren. That man ain’t no nun.”

“Nun?”

“Or whatever you wanna call it. He getting some. Girl, I’m telling you,” she said in a tone that made me feel uncomfortable.

“Rege, you know something I don’t know?”

“No, no, fool,” she told me. “I ain’t saying that, but you hafta use common sense. He hardly a virgin, he look like something that stepped out a doggoned magazine, and he a man. There you go,” she said, looking at me like I was dumb as a piece of soap.

“All guys don’t cheat,” I told her, disturbed by her unsettling theory. “Besides, Aaron specifically said he’d take a rain check. I don’t think he’d lie.”

“You don’t think he’d lie. Girl, you bugging
big time.
Aaron’ll tell you anything to keep your conscience off his ass. What, y’all been dating for almost six months? Now do you really believe that a man who loves sweets can keep his hand out the cookie jar for six months, Lauren?”

Her voice volume was climbing higher and higher like she didn’t need a microphone to reach dozens of people; all she had to do was have passion about what she was saying.

I sighed and clenched my teeth.

“Wh-when would Aaron have time to eat cookies?” I asked her. “He works and goes to school.”

“Are you with the brother twenty-four-seven, Lauren? Huh?” she asked, waving her hand in a large circle.

“No, but—”

“And ain’t there times when you can’t get in touch with him, and he MIA for hours and hours?”

“Yeah, but—”

“So where you think Aaron is during those times, catechism class?”

I covered my ears with my hands. I could see Regis moving her mouth and waving her hands, and because I didn’t want her to be screaming all my business, I removed my hands from my ears.

“—you better quit hiding your head under a rock and open up those big ole eyes, chile. I ain’t saying he’s screwing around on you for sho’, but it’s possible. Like, where your man right now? He called you? Have you even called him?”

I opened my mouth, then clamped it shut. Scratched the side of my neck and coughed.

“Lauren,” she said, her jaw sagging, “you
haven’t
called him, have you?”

“No, Regis, no. I’m giving Aaron some space. He pissed me off yesterday because he wouldn’t come get me, so I’m giving him a
lot
of space.”

She looked at me like that was the sorriest lie she’d ever heard.

“Awww, how clever, Lauren. Like that’s gone make him want you more. You giving Aaron space all right—to hook up with some other heifer besides you. That’s all you doing. Better wake up.”

Right then I could see that heart-to-hearts weren’t as great as they sounded. Telling the truth is one thing, but feeling bad about expressing the truth is another. And hearing the truth, especially when it came from Regis Collier, was an altogether different thing.

“Oh, Regis, save it. I don’t see you having a solid grip on Sporty. He does whatever the hell he wants to do and there’s nothing you can do about it. So don’t preach to me . . . need to keep tabs on your own man.”

She raised her head and announced with pride, “Me and Sporty have an understanding.”

“Oh, really now?” I told her, unimpressed.

“Yeah, really now. I understand that he sees other girls and he understand he gotta hand over the cash.”

“Ha! That’s a great substitute, Regis. A walking ATM is better than having a man that’s holding you? I don’t think so,” I said, starting to feel better about my own situation now that I knew about hers.

“Well, it ain’t for you to think. It’s for me to think, because Sporty and me have it like that,” she claimed, like it didn’t matter whether I believed her or not.

“Yeah, right,” I told her. “You can say—”

“Plus,” she said her voice drowning me out, “on top of that, at least I can get some loving from him. You ain’t getting money
or
loving.”

“Aaron gives me things.” My voice quivered.

“But nothing that really count.”

“Sex isn’t everything, Regis,” I said, wishing I even knew what it was like to have sex.
Any
sex.

“
Bad
sex ain’t everything, but
great
sex? Hey now,” she stood up, twisted her butt, and lifted her palms several times toward the ceiling.

I shrugged and watched her plop back down on her bed.

“Lauren, chile, don’t play that role with me. You know sex is important, or else you wouldn’t have brought it up with Aaron. You don’t wanna lose him, am I right?”

I nodded.

“And didn’t you tell me how you mentioned that promise about y’all getting together?”

“Yeah.”

“So you did that to keep him
interested,
to hold him. If
sex
is what you promised Aaron in order to
hold
him, then I’m sorry, but it screams ‘I’m important,’ ” she said, with her neck swiveling to emphasize every word that she thought was important.

“Rege, you know, it’s pointless to argue with you. You have an answer for everything.”

“I tells it like it is.” She grinned.

“Well, whatever. All I know is, if and when I do get with Aaron, it’s gonna be for the right reason and at the right time. I know it sounds corny, but I’d rather look corny than regretful.”

I hushed up after saying that. Wondered where that firm determination came from. Even though its release was a surprise, somehow, some way, those words felt right, and a peace settled over me that made me feel more confident, and I didn’t care what Regis thought anymore.

Instead of her usual snappy comeback, Regis gave me an odd look, her eyes partly covered by her wayward braids. She remained quiet for several minutes and chewed on her bottom lip.

“Okay,” she told me, “I ain’t all that cool with what Sporty and me have. I think he spoiled and like to have his way all the time, but I try to get my way, too. That’s the way it oughta be in relationships. That’s how you know the guy care about you—’cause he give in to what you want sometimes, too.”

I sighed at the fact that she didn’t seem to be listening to anything I said. “But what if he gets his way more than you do?”

“Then he the one in control. He got the power,” she said, like all this was a clinically tested and proven fact.

“Hmmm! Regis, how can you know all this and I’m two years older than you?”

“Chile, ain’t you heard that age ain’t nothing but a number?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that song.”

“Well, it ain’t just no song, Lauren, it’s a fact of life,” she said in a tone that made me feel like I was an airhead.

“Thank you for explaining that. I had no idea. Now I feel more informed,” I said, clapping my hands at her.

“You’ll be all right, chile. You just need to keep on top of your man— in more ways than one, keep on top of that Aaron Oliver,” she said, and jumped up and ran toward the mirror.

Tracey 19

It was Monday, twelve-fifteen in the afternoon.

I was approximately ten minutes away from home and was in the process of making a side trip to Randall’s to pick up four cans of tuna, relish, potato chips, mayonnaise, a loaf of wheat bread, and a case of ginger ale. I stood behind two customers in the express lane. One person, a platinum blond who looked like Macaulay Culkin in a dress, stood elbow to elbow with another man who could’ve passed for Fat Albert with dreadlocks. Someone’s cell phone started ringing, and the feminine-looking man opened his purse. I saw him withdrawing his phone, so I didn’t bother to reach for mine. But the ringer kept ringing and I fished my Nokia from my purse and muttered, “Hello?”

“Tracey, this is Derrick. How are you doing?”

“I’m—I’m fine.” I started to ask how he was doing, but I knew I really didn’t care, so I didn’t say anything.

“That’s good. I was just calling because I tried you at home and there was no answer. Lauren with you?”

“No, she’s uh, she’s probably still at Regis’s. She—she’s probably over there.”

“Oh yeah? How long has she been there?”

“Why you want to know?”

“I’ve been trying to get y’all at home since yesterday. I guess your cell was turned off all night ’cause I tried that number too.”

“Oh.” I was hoping Derrick’s asshole-itis wouldn’t take over.

His pause choked the air, suspended with suspense.

“I see you’re not answering my question.”

“What question, Derrick?” I asked him. “Yes, I found everything,” I told the cashier.

“What did you say, Tracey? You talking to me?”

“I’m in the checkout line at Randall’s, Derrick, buying groceries. What did you want? I’m about to get off the phone and go home.”

“Well, are you going to be busy later on tonight?”

“I don’t know if I’ll be busy or not. Who wants to know?”

“When will Lauren be home?” he asked.

“You know, I’m really not sure. She may be spending the night with her friend again.”

“Again?”

Damn!

“Yes, Derrick. Lauren stayed with Regis last night.”

“So what did you do after I saw you?”

“I don’t know what you mean by all these nosy questions.” I had popped open the trunk of my car and was trying to load plastic bags in the back and talk to Derrick at the same time.

“Tracey, just answer the question.”

“What are you getting at, Derrick?”

“Tracey, I need to ask you something, and I know it might be a big stretch, but I’d like for you to be honest.”

I gritted my teeth and plopped my butt in the front seat of the car.

Derrick asked, “Are you doing inappropriate things with Aaron?”

“What you mean? Inappropriate like what?”

“Sexing.”

I sat up and pressed my lips against the phone, wanting to spit through the mouthpiece but knowing it wouldn’t do any good. “Excuse me? Derrick, who the hell you think you are to judge me?”

“Hey, I thought it looked very scandalous—”

“I don’t give a damn how you think something looks, you just can’t sit up and judge me and assume that I’d do something . . . I mean Aaron . . . th-that’s Lauren’s boyfriend, Derrick . . . you know that.”

“Tracey, I’m not stupid, of course I know that, I was just—”

“You were just smoking crack, reefer, or whatever the hell the druggies use these days. Derrick, I suggest you break out your HMO card or start dialing 1-800-MANIACS and make an appointment ASAP.”

Click.

It’s rare that I throw up. That’s why, when I opened the car door and puked on the ground, I didn’t think it would harm anything. After all, it was so rare that I did that.

AS SOON AS I GOT HOME I YELLED,
“Lauren.”

No answer. Good. I checked caller ID. Aaron had just called. Shoot. I really wished he wouldn’t call me at home. I mean I was glad he was calling, but I still wished he wouldn’t do that.

The apartment seemed so dead and lifeless. Or maybe it wasn’t so much the apartment as my optimism. All the thoughts of what happened with Derrick came crashing against my mind. My head was hurting so bad I ran to the medicine cabinet and jammed three Advils down my throat. My aching body pleaded with me to get some sleep but every time I tried to lie on the bed, I’d hop right up and go look out the window. Lauren still hadn’t pulled up. So I fell across my bed and jumped up three minutes later to get a sip of apple juice. Then I picked up an
Essence
magazine, one from June 1998, and by the time I read Susan Taylor’s column, it might as well have been written in Arabic.

My mind skipped to my daughter.

Maybe I’ll call her. Maybe she’s waiting for me to come get her.

I picked up the telephone and started punching buttons.

“Hello? Hello?” Sounded like someone was talking inside the phone.

I put the phone against my ear and sat on the couch. “Hello?”

“Tracey, I’m trying to call you and it sounds like you’re trying to call out. You trying to call me?”

“Hi, Aaron. Nope, I was trying to call Lauren. Have you heard from her today?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Oh, well, her father called me a little while ago and he asked me the foulest question.”

“Which was?”

I held on to my answer for a bit. “He asked if you and I were sleeping together.”

“Oh yeah? What you tell him?”

“Told him to go get some therapy.”

“Tracey. Why’d you say that?”

“What did you expect me to say? ‘Oh yes, Aaron and I have been screwing for a few weeks and he sure knows how to make me moan’?”

“No, noooo.”

“Then what? Huh?”

“It’s just that you need to know how to give an answer that doesn’t put things back on Derrick.”

“Wait a second, Aaron. I hope you don’t think I’m going to go around and willingly tell people I sleep with you, even if it is true. Haven’t you heard of discretion?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Look, if you’re going to be with me, if we’re going to do this, do not blab and give people the juicy details. You cannot kiss and tell, you hear me?”

“Okay, okay.”

“I’m very serious, Aaron. I’m not trying to threaten you, but nothing, absolutely nothing’s going to happen if you act all happily juvenile and tell people whatever they think they want to hear. I don’t want to lie, but this is nobody’s business.”

“Yeah, but—”

“And please don’t be so insecure as to think that just because I haven’t gone on Jerry Springer to tell America I sleep with you, that I’m trying to deny you. Hey, I have a job, a kid, I can’t just go out and behave like I don’t have a bit of sense. They’re already going to think I’m nuts.”

“See, there you go. You’re too concerned about what other people think. I told you this relationship won’t work if you care too much—”

“It’s not that I care—”

“But see, Tracey, you
do
care. You do care what other people think, or else you wouldn’t be going off like you are. You’re afraid of Derrick Hayes. You let him scare you just by his insinuations. Just by his questioning. Have you thought about what you’re going to say when the truth really comes out? Then he’ll know you’ve lied to him.”

“Huh! Like I care.”

“But Tracey, you
do
care, or else you wouldn’t have played it off, am I right?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s slow this down.”

He paused.

“You need me to come over? You want me to call Lauren and get this over with right now?”

“No!”

“No, to both questions?”

“Yes. Don’t come over, Aaron. I’ll be okay and please don’t tell Lauren anything just yet.”

“You changed your mind, Tracey?”

I was silent.

“Tracey? Tell me—”

I hung up.

Lauren was home.

It was too late for me to delete Aaron’s incoming calls from caller ID. So instead of me hurrying to erase any fiber-optic evidence, I grabbed a damp dishrag and started wiping down the kitchen counter. Rub, rub, rub I went, rubbing dirt that didn’t even exist—at least not on the counter.

“Hey, Lauren. Indira drop you off?”

She looked me up and down, then answered, “Yeah.” Her face was so sour-looking you’d have thought all the malls in America had been foreclosed. Her gloomy mood made me put that rag down real quick. I went into my bedroom and locked the door. I rubbed both my arms and rocked on the edge of the bed.

A few minutes later I heard knocking.

“Mommy? Did Aaron call me?”

“Uh, yeah. You gonna call him back?” I yelled, my mind distracted.

“Oh, I don’t know. We’re having problems right now.”

Aw, damn.

“You—you want to talk about it?” I mumbled.

Just say no, please just say no.

“Yes.”

I sighed and took a deep breath before opening the door. Lauren walked in, and the first thing she looked at was my unmade bed. Then she looked at me, but I went and got in bed and pulled the covers up to my chin.

“What’s going on with you two?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“Mom, Aaron’s not acting like himself. He treats me like he doesn’t have time like he used to, like he doesn’t want to be with me. Not sure why, though.”

“Hmmm, have you asked him?”

“No, not really. I keep thinking he’s going to go back to his old self. But so far he’s still like a stranger. Like I never knew him.”

She tapped me on the leg.

“Mom? Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

I yawned, produced a few crocodile tears, and rubbed my moistened eyes.

“No, I don’t know what you’re talking—”

“I mean, do you have any idea of what it’s like to be involved with someone who suddenly seems like a stranger? Like you thought you knew them, but you find out you didn’t know them at all?”

I turned over in bed, facing the wall and wishing other walls would suddenly spring up and surround me; helping me to disappear. Maybe that way Lauren couldn’t see me, the flawed parts of me that I wasn’t ready for her to see.

“I, um, that too bad,” I said and slurred my speech.

“Mom, are you listening? You going to sleep on me?”

“Lauren, I’m just tired right now.”

“Well, I won’t bug you anymore. Daddy called and said he’s going to pick me up.”

The hairs on my neck rose.

I sat up.

“He is? Wh-when he say that?”

“He called me while I was at Regis’s house,” she said, and lifted her eyes toward the ceiling like I should have been able to know all that without having to ask.

“Did he? I didn’t know he even knew that number,” I murmured, and hoped my enlarged eyes wouldn’t betray me.

“Daddy has all my friends’ numbers. You know Daddy,” Lauren said with a wide wave of her hand.

“
All
your friends?”

“Yes, Mommm,” she sang. “He always wants to know who I’m involved with, where I’m going. Anyway, he said he’ll pick me up and later we’re going to get some burgers.”

“Hmmm. Interesting.” I pulled at my hair, yanking the strands and twisting them between my angry hands.

“You going to spend the night with him, or will you be back?”

“Oh, I’ll be back. I’m tired of being everywhere else except at my own home. Anyway, go on back to sleep, Mom. I’ll see you later.” She brushed my cheek with a dry kiss.

I stared into a blurry and unfocused space and stroked my cheek once I was sure she had left.

LATER THAT NIGHT I CALLED INDIRA.
I was sitting on the edge of my unmade bed, with pillows surrounding me like I was in a cave, and bedcovers sprawling partially on the floor.

“Indira, it’s me,” I sniffed, and dabbed underneath my nose with some facial tissue.

“Oh, hey.”

“Uh, thanks, girl, for letting my daughter stay over there.”

“No problem. Were you able to handle your emergency?”

“Y-yeah. Somewhat.”

“Hmmm. You wanna talk about it?”

“God, Indira,” I said, reaching down and pulling the misplaced covers over my shoulders, “I feel
sooo
stupid,” I whispered.

“What, what?” she whispered back conspiratorially.

“It’s
sooo crazy,
” I exclaimed with one big astonished shake of the head.

“What, Tracey,” she laughed, “are you talking about?”

Even though I was at home by myself, I sprung up, closed and locked my bedroom door, walked all the way to the back of my walk-in closet, and sat in the dark, Indian-style.

“First, Indy, promise me you won’t judge me,” I commanded, “because what I’m about to tell you is very sensitive and all I want you to do is listen, that’s all.”

“Okay.”

“The quickest way for me to go from being your friend to your enemy is for you to judge me. So please listen and maybe you can help me to make sense of this.”

“Gosh, girl,” she said, “you’re scaring me.”

My voice softened. “I don’t mean to scare you, I just need an ear that hears. You got it?” I pressed, knowing I was being anal, but making sure Indy was with me nonetheless.

“Got it.”

“Well, Indy,” I told her, my voice rising, “Lauren’s boyfriend and I are . . . are
talking
.”