Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White (25 page)

It kills him to call her that—my friend. I can only imagine what he wants
to call her. Rebecca is looking like a statue of a martyr. And Zora is trying to
walk away from all of us.

“Wait,” I say to Zora.

“I don’t need anything else from you. Thank you.”

“Please, it’s too far for you to walk.”

The cab, windows rolled down, pulls up to the curb.

Dad and Rebecca stand behind me like a Greek chorus, only they’re
silent, but I can sense them urging in harmony,
Get in the cab, get in the cab,
get in the cab
.

But not Zora. “I can walk.”

“Please. Take the cab. I promise you can be as proud as you’d like while
you ride.”

The cabdriver, a black man, steps out of the car, takes one look at Zora,
me, my dad, and Rebecca and says to Zora, “I think you should take the
cab.”

Zora seems to war with herself. She looks from him to me and back to
him. He nods his affirmation to her, and she sighs and relents.

Dad reaches for his wallet, but not this time—I take my last forty dollars
and hand it to the driver. It’s twice what the fare would be or better, but I
really need a little help, and as far as I’m concerned, he is Christ to both Zora
and me in that moment. “Take care, man.” I shake his hand.

He snickers at me. I don’t care. She gets in the cab without so much as
looking at the rest of us.

I should be taking her home but he does. She leaves with the black guy
she doesn’t know. Although maybe she knows him better than she knows
me.

And who am I trying to kid saying Zora doesn’t know me? She just laid
my soul out like the bone china on the dining room table right in front of my
family. She knows more about me than they do. A few things she said made
me wonder if she knows more about me than I know about myself.

Am I an artist? Can I dare to listen to my yearnings?

Am I racist?

But I can’t explore these things with Zora. She wouldn’t even let me take
her home.

I don’t think she’s ever going to see me again, even though for some crazy
reason she kissed me. Maybe it was just her way of saying good-bye. The
thought of her not being in my life anymore makes me unbearably sad.

And angry, and I’m not sure why.

I don’t understand anything that just happened.

Nothing.

I look at my dad and at Rebecca.

I’m sure
they’ll
have a lot of explaining to do about my behavior, as
usual.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ZORA

Because I have broken into a million pieces. Because I have shattered like
glass and pieces of me are scattered all over the sidewalk. Because I am
not flesh and blood, only glass and dangerous dust that can burrow in
your eyes and cause you to bleed, I try to remember that my broken soul
is em
bodied
and no one can see that only some shell of a soul is nearly all
that is left.

Embodied, this shell I am makes a move toward the cab. The body of
Zora has hands, and one of those brown and barely responsive hands takes
hold of the handle of the back passenger side door, and somehow I enter the
cab. I sit down inside. I watch Nicky give the driver what looks like more
money than he should. I see them shake hands.

It is this Zora that still feels Nicky’s hands at my waist while the pieces
inside of me slide downward. I still feel the sensation of my stomach dropping
to my knees. Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord. Could he hear those pieces of
me shifting to my toes, sounding like falling water? Like a rain stick turned
upside down again and again?

I put my hand to my mouth and press my lips to my open palm. I can
still feel the pressure of his lips, in turn fierce, firm, gentle. I can still taste him
on my tongue, and I savor him.

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than
wine.”

No wonder that mysterious book of songs starts that way. I understand
this now.

Nicky’s kiss was a song. A poem. It was like that crazy earring falling
in front of us—something strange and beautiful, silly and senseless in the
middle of our painful thrashing. I don’t understand it, but I can’t get out from
under the awful beauty and mystery of it.

The cabdriver slides inside the cab. He takes a look back at me.

“You all right, little sistah?”

“Yes,” I lie. Then, “No.”

“Where you goin’?”

I rattle off my address. He leaves me be with a warning. “Buckle up.
Wouldn’t want you in harm’s way.”

I laugh.

I’m already in harm’s way.

It wasn’t supposed to be Nicky. Miles was supposed to give me my first
kiss. Maybe when he asked me to marry him. Or at the altar when he kissed
the bride. And even if for some miracle or accident it was Nicky, it wasn’t
supposed to be like that. Not that nightmare. Not that mess.

Oh, God. I think I’m going to die right here in this cab.

Everything has fallen apart. Nicky Parker gave me my first kiss right after
his grandfather called me a nigger. And why would he do that? To shut me
up? I don’t even know. And the worst part? As much as it infuriated me, I
took it in like a life force, let it energize and awaken me.

Oh, God. I’m disgusting. I’m like Sally Hemmings. Next thing I know
I’m going to have a bunch of little tragic mulattos Nicky Parker doesn’t claim.
I’ve got to fix this. Fix me. Everything has fallen apart, and I’ve got to get the
feel, the scent, the taste of that white boy off me.

I run my shaking hands through my hair. “God, I’m not gonna make it.
I’m losing way too much here.”

“You’ll make it,” the incarnational cabdriver says. I take it. Sometimes all
you need is a little gift from God.

“Thank you, brotha.” I make sure I say “brotha” because I need to
sound—to feel—as black and proud as possible.

“You’re welcome, little sis. Was that your boyfriend?”

A hollow, empty sound, rises from my throat.

“Sure did look like it,” he says. “That was some kiss.”

“That, my brotha, is an understatement.” I shake my head. “He’s not
supposed to be my boyfriend. He’s supposed to belong to the white girl that
was behind us. My boyfriend, in the words of the guy I was kissing, sucks.
But my father took all my stuff, and my boyfriend went with my father. And
Nicky—that’s the one I was kissing—he started giving me my stuff back—
but not the stuff I lost. He started giving me the stuff nobody took. The stuff
I had to give away myself, but I didn’t know it.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“You were kissing him like you meant business.”

“At the time I did.”

“Which one of them do you love?”

“Love? How should I know? What do I know about anything? I asked
Jesus to teach me what He meant by ‘blessed are the poor,’ and then my
daddy took all my stuff. And then these white people came along.
White
people
! And I don’t do white people. At least I didn’t think I did. And that
one I was kissing? He’s a real cutie, and a good kisser. And I want to kiss him
again. In fact, I could spend a good long time kissing him, but I don’t go with
his lifestyle, if you know what I mean. So don’t go asking me anything about
love. Not at this moment. Cause, like Tina said, ‘What’s love got to do with
it?’”

The cabdriver didn’t say anything else to me. I sat back, my spine
bumping softly against the seat, flushed and aching, reliving my kiss with
Nicky all the way home, and wishing he hadn’t opened something terrible in
me. Something unthinkable.

Desire.

I wanted—no needed—more of him.

NICKY

My father gives me “the look,” full of disapproval and recrimination. With a
sideways glance of his eyes, he tells me that before I even begin to deal with
him and my mother, he wants me to talk with Rebecca. On this, I actually
agree with him. And if she wants to beat me like Zora did, I deserve it.

I wish she were angry. She should be angry, and maybe she is, but all I can
see on her face is how much I’ve hurt her. I’ve been a coward since our first
date when I realized she’d bore me numb, and if I’d have just owned up to it
then, I’d have spared her this senseless pain.

Man. I suck.

Her blue eyes—beautiful blue eyes—are full of her readiness to forgive
me my trespasses. I take a few tentative steps toward her. She ought to slap a
back molar loose on me, but she doesn’t. She makes a very simple statement.

“You told me you loved me.”

I don’t speak.

“Do you love me? Because your dad said sometimes guys do things, and
they don’t mean—” Her voice breaks.

I don’t know how to comfort her because I don’t love her the way she
wants me to. All I can do is offer her the truth, something I didn’t do from
the beginning.

“It’s not like that, Rebecca. It’s not some thing I’m doing.”

“Are you just friends with her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what we are.”

She takes a deep breath and asks what I know she doesn’t really want to
hear the answer to. “Do you love her? Is it her? Is she the one, Nicholas?”

I can’t bring myself to say the words to Rebecca that we both know are
true. If I say I love her, it will hurt Rebecca more than saying I love someone
should hurt anybody. I just say, “It’s her.”

She nods slowly, and a tear slides down her cheek. I wish I could wipe it
away, but I don’t think I should.

“How long has this been going on? You’ve been taking her to restaurants.
Buying her things. Going to her apartment.”

“Honest to God, Rebecca, I met her Wednesday. It hasn’t been a week. I
know that sounds crazy, but—”

“But it’s her. You know that in less than a week?”

“Yeah. I think I do.”

She lets out the most pathetic little laugh—a heartbreaker of a laugh.
“Any chance you could be wrong?”

“You deserve better than me. Don’t waste another minute with me.”

“Nicholas, I love you. I want you to be sure about this.”

This time I take a risk and grab Rebecca’s hand. “I’d say I’m sure, but I’m
not. The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m the biggest screw-up around. I’m
not going to be what you want, and if you really took a good look, you’d see
it. You need a man like my father, and that’s not me. Rebecca, I don’t really
like pot roast that much.”

She laughs. “I don’t have to make pot roast, Nicholas. I can cook chicken.
And I can call you Nicky.”

“You don’t say Nicky the way she does.”

For a moment she’s quiet. Then, “I’m really going to miss you.”

“You’re a really amazing person, Rebecca. Don’t give me another minute
of your time.”

“Is she worth it?”

“Yeah.”

“I can tell by how she fought for you.” She pulls her hand out of mine.
“Try to be happy.”

“I will. You too.”

She nods. “I’ll try, but I don’t think I will be for a while.”

“I’m so sorry, Rebecca.”

I could have left then, but my keys were in my jacket in the house. I was
tempted to walk home, like Zora wanted to, but Detroit is a bit of a ways from
Ypsilanti. I trudge behind Rebecca, trying hard to surrender to my fate.

A million thoughts and feelings compete for my attention, but I want to
stop and dwell on the feel of Zora. And dear God in heaven, I felt. Too much.
More than I’ve allowed myself to feel in the past three years.

Now what am I going to do?

If only I were so smart. But no. I go inside my parents’ house to face the
abuse I know is coming.

My mother is God only knows where. Maybe sewing what I’ll wear in my
casket once Dad kills me. Maybe she’s weeping into tomorrow’s pot roast. Or
maybe she’s somewhere trying to figure out why I broke her heart this way.

I go into the living room, and there’s my dad and grandfather. Their
sober expressions tell me to sit down. It’s the look I got when I said I wanted
to go to Berkeley. The look I got when I said I got a girl from youth group
pregnant. The look they seared into me, not much later, when she had an
abortion I didn’t want her to have.

I sit down, my own expression, third-generation Parker, equally grim.
“You shouldn’t have said that, Grandpa.”

“That gal had no right coming in here talking all uppity.”

“She was only defending me. Something nobody else around here
does.”