Hometown Favorite: A Novel (9 page)

"Is this your idea of working late?"

Jesse knew it was a subtle chastisement for being a no-show
at dinner. "Yeah, it was lame. I just..

He wanted to explain, but the truth remained aloof and he
released the grip on his friends.

"We missed you, that's all," Dewayne said, rubbing a hand down Jesse's side, his friend's weight loss noticeable to the touch.
"You know you never need an invitation."

"Yeah, I know that" Jesse was careful not to make direct eye
contact.

"You missed meeting D-man's girl;" Sly said, giving Dewayne an elbow. "He not careful, that girl is gonna end up in
Miami."

Dewayne returned the elbow to Sly's ribs and laughed. "He's
all talk. Nothing's changed with this boy."

"I keep up with you in the papers and the sports channels;' Jesse said. "You're superstars. You're making Springdale
proud"

"We miss seeing you, brother;" Dewayne said.

"Yeah ... ancient history." Jesse fumbled his cigarette pack out
of his shirt pocket. "I guess you heard about my bad luck:'

"I thought you'd get back in the game once your leg healed,"
Dewayne said.

"I thought so too." Jesse rubbed the spot on his thigh where
the femur had been shattered. "The game had been knocked
out of me. I saw no reason to keep going."

Dewayne nodded his head toward Jesse's leg. "I see you're
still hobbling."

"Never fully healed. Guess I'll be a gimp the rest of my
days."

"You drop out of school and come home to this?" Sly said,
indicating the room with his hand.

Jesse had secured a cigarette from his pack, and in the time it
took to light it, he found the backbone to look Sly in the eye.

"Nothing changes with you, man" Jesse smiled and pointed
his finger toward Sly's face. "You know how to cut through it.
I came home to this because this is my place, and I know my
place:"

"Hey, ain't no judgment allowed between us." Dewayne gave
Sly a second jab with his elbow-but this time he didn't accompany the playful gesture with laughter. "We're here just to
encourage you, brother."

"I'm encouraged, my man. Let me buy you a beer."

Jesse lifted his hand toward the bartender, but Dewayne
shook his head.

"Not tonight, Jesse. Maybe next time."

Sly begged off because of the next day's early departure, and
Dewayne allowed the snub to cover his own desire to exit. The
pair dared not confront Jesse with the truth of how they saw the
downfall of a best friend. Neither of them had a magic solution.
They had not left Springdale to become miracle workers. And
they could not join him to drink from his fountain of anguish.
The agony would have to curdle in Jesse's gut alone. So after
another group embrace and the exchanged lies of promised
future reunions, one last plea from Jesse accompanied their
exit.

"Hey, if you stick around, you might see Coach Hopper," he
said, his cheerleader friend returning to his side with a fresh
beer. "He's here most nights"

But the cry had come from too far away. The faintness of its
echo failed to register on ears that had gone deaf to the past. Sly
and Dewayne gave a last wave of recognition as though Jesse
was a mere fan, and they faded out of his sight as startlingly
as they had appeared. Sly backed out of the parking lot in his
Tahoe and mumbled a bitter critique of their onetime inseparable friend.

"Jesse never did have the sense God gave a turnip;" he said,
and Dewayne offered no rebuttal.

Cherie and Rosella had spent their evening together sitting on
Dewayne's bed as Cherie gave a rambling saga of Dewayne's
life represented by specific objects: painted handprints from
elementary school-God's first visual sign of his future in
football; a piggybank of the Bible where he squirreled away
his coins; a picture of his father with a collage of pictures of
Dewayne at different ages, cut out and glued in a circle around
Robert's smiling face; an African mask he had made from
beans, beads, buttons, and safety pins, revealing a creative side
of Dewayne that Rosella never suspected; a Best Sportsman
award given in his junior year in high school and the only
one on display in the room, the other trophies boxed up and
hidden away in his closet; a bronze casting of a cross with the
inscription "No Greater Love" at the base, given him on the
day of his baptism. Rosella absorbed it all in rapt attention,
and by the end of the evening, Cherie told Rosella that if she
ever heard her son was not treating her with proper respect,
she would be on the first bus to California prepared to visit
upon him divine wrath. Rosella assured her such a trip would
not be necessary.

When Dewayne got home, he heard the ladies cackling before he unlocked the door and followed the laughter into his
bedroom to find Rosella modeling his high school helmet and
shoulder pads. Both women screamed when Dewayne said
hello, and Rosella, her adrenaline racing, charged him with
lowered head, only to bounce off his laughing abdomen like
a coin off the head of a drum. Dewayne and his mother were
laughing so hard, neither could help Rosella to her feet.

Dewayne gave a minimalist explanation of his time with
Jesse, avoiding any details of how he and Sly had found him
or any mention of the disquieted feelings he was still trying
to process. Given the late hour, Cherie had not pried, so after the exchange of "good nights," Rosella was the first to climb
into bed and turn out the light in Cherie's room. Dewayne
came out of the bathroom and saw his mother spreading her
blankets across the sofa. He looked under Cherie's bedroom
door to be sure it was dark before speaking.

"What do you think?" he whispered, nodding his head in
Rosella's direction.

"I believe you wouldn't have brought her home if you thought
she would not have met my approval;' Cherie said.

"You approve then?"

"What I approve of is your heart and your mind and your
God-given ability to make a good decision. I trust your judgment, just like I trusted mine when it came time to decide
about your father"

"But I want your blessing too. Rosella just might be ... just
might be your daughter-in-law."

"Son, my blessing is freely given."

Cherie approached Dewayne and wrapped her arms around
him. When she pulled away, she invited him to sit down in the
recliner, and she took her place on the sofa.

"In your letters you've been talking about being in love with
this girl, and you said that Rosella comes from money. It's all
right she comes from money cause from what you've said and
from what I see, money hasn't corrupted her. I can tell when
folks are condescending. I got the intuition to know when
people can't see beyond the end of their nose. She's not trying
to hide any airs, and I got no sense she was just doing the time
so she could impress the boyfriend's mother. She's real."

Dewayne released a sigh of relief. Cherie's appraisal of Rosella was vital, and in this case, welcome, because it matched
his own.

"Now as for her daddy, don't let him get you riled. You keep on loving his daughter like the gentleman you are, and you'll
win him over. You want her parents' blessing. You want that
spiritual covering when you start your own life together. That's
God's way of handing down blessing from one generation to
the next. You must not take that for granted. Are you hearing
me?"

"Yes, ma'am"

"So have you broached the subject yet?"

"We've talked about it, but I haven't asked her. I think she's
ready, but I wanted to talk to you first, and I was thinking
once I got your blessing, I might ask her here, where I grew
up, where I'm most comfortable.'

"I approve, and I got one more thing to add. Have you got
something to offer her?"

"What do you mean?" Dewayne asked, eyeing her with playful misgiving.

Cherie pulled a black jewelry box out of the pocket of her
bathrobe and waved for him to move closer. Dewayne slipped
out of the recliner and knelt beside his mother.

"You've never seen this until now," she said, opening the lid
to reveal an engagement ring encircled with diamond chips.
"It's not fancy or pricey by today's standards, though it set us
back a couple of house payments back in the day, but if a man
is going to ask a lady to marry him, he should offer a token
of his love"

"Mama, this is beautiful! But why don't you ever wear it?"

"I wear the band, and that's enough. I figured when this day
arrived, I would make a bequest along with my blessing. That
is, if you like it and think Rosella might."

"I love it, and I believe she will"

Cherie dropped the box into his open palm. He looked at
the ring as if he'd been handed Solomon's treasure.

"I held her hand tonight as we said the blessing and felt her
ring finger ... should be a perfect fit:'

Dewayne's jaw dropped with a short guffaw. "Mama, I should
start calling you `Sly."'

"Conniving for a good cause is the way I look at it."

They had to hush each other so as not to wake Rosella with
their laughter and be caught in their conspiracy. Then Cherie
took her son's face into her hands. Her laughter had subsided,
replaced with an earnestness that silenced the last of Dewayne's
laughter.

"Son, one last thing. I too think Rosella is the type to cherish this small ring, but it's a test" She gently patted the sides
of Dewayne's face to assure him she did not mean to hurt him
or insult Rosella. "This is not a judgment. There is nothing
wrong with being raised in a high-dollar lifestyle, but it's a
world where you will have to find your feet. You'll grow into
it, and Rosella will be your guide. This ring will link you to
your past and your future."

"Thanks, Mama," Dewayne said, and then kissed Cherie on
the cheek before going to bed.

Cherie had taken a personal day from her job so she could
spend it with Dewayne and Rosella touring the sights of Springdale. It was another test Cherie had concocted. She wanted to
appraise the authenticity of Rosella's reactions when she saw
the disparity of upbringing between Dewayne and her. It began
at Webb Furniture.

"The place of my boy's birth;" Cherie said, her air of pride
evident as they walked across the factory floor. "Most babies
are born in a hospital. Mine came on a conveyer belt:"

Cherie pointed to the spot beside her workstation, the one she'd had for over twenty years. A drop of sweat bubbled to
the center of her forehead and trickled down to the bridge of
her nose. She wiped it away.

"It was as hot a day as today, and I felt like I was roasting
my baby. The heat was stifling and nobody seemed to know
how bad I was feeling"

Rosella scanned the workers-human humidifiers performing their assigned tasks with mechanized precision.

"Making recliners for the fat man is what we do"

Cherie nodded at her girlfriends around her workstation.
It was near break time and the ladies were ready for hugs and
introductions.

"It's what we do, and we do it well;" Cherie said, and the bell
for the ten-minute break clanged and the amplified sound of
the mass assemblage of cheap recliners for furniture outlet
stores all across America shut down.

Cherie introduced Rosella to her co-workers, and she greeted
each of them warmly, with no politician's glad-handing. It was
Cherie's friends who embarrassed her, going on about what
a fine catch Dewayne was, all the time rubbing and patting
him as if he was some mammoth pet with Rosella standing
in plain sight.

Amused by the gushing feminine affection given Dewayne,
Rosella said with a smile, "The man is taken"

In Cherie's mind, Rosella was passing her covert test.