Naughty or Nice (14 page)

Y
ou need me to get Frankie and come over there?” I'm half awake, rolling out of my bed, grabbing my jeans from the floor. My clothes are scattered all over the room, some in laundry baskets. I step on a bag of Doritos, bump into the wall, say forget the jeans, grab my purse, and make sure I have my keys, wondering if I'll need to use the Mace. “I'll call Frankie as soon as I hang up and I'll be there in five. Coming in my pajamas and slippers.”

“Tommie, no. Calm down.”

“Do I need to dial nine-one-one?”

“Tommie,
will you calm down?
”

Livvy sounds distraught and I need to see her. By the time I get to the back door, she convinces me to not come over there. She tells me that Tony is upstairs and she is okay.

“Okay, okay.” I take a sharp breath. “He put his hands on you?”

“I'm okay.”

“Yes or no.”

“No.”

Livvy needs to talk it out. She tells me what just happened between her and Tony, how she woke up and he was playing Eye Spy with her purse, and the argument.

I'm pacing, shaking my head. “Divorce?”

“He didn't say the D-word, but that's what he meant.”

She's in her living room, sitting on the floor, talking to me on her cell phone, crying soft and easy. I'm walking from room to room, listening to her talk about her marital problems.

She says, “He's so in denial.”

“Denial is a defense mechanism, all about self-preservation.”

“Look, if I wanted a shrink, I would've called a shrink.”

“Yes or no, you need me to come over there?”

She sighs. A moment goes by.

I head into my living room, turn on the light, walk around, then turn the light off.

She says, “Let me pack and come over there. Won't be able to sleep without dreaming he's going to kill me. And I can't stay awake because I'll start dreaming about killing him.”

We hang up.

My place is bright and colorful, cheap Salvador Dalí prints tacked on textured red and orange and blue walls, colors and art that reflected my mood when I was painting, my furniture just as colorful. My world is a mess. Dirty dishes for days. Dust covers both my secondhand and IKEA-style furniture. I turn on a few lights, rush to start cleaning up before Livvy gets here.

I'm straightening up the pile of bootleg CDs on my living room floor when my phone rings. I rush and put the CDs on top of my small television and they all fall down. I get to the phone, see the name Jerry Mitchell on the ID, and answer in a distant tone, “Yeah, Blue?”

“Whaddup?”

I click my teeth, wish I hadn't answered, and say, “Whassup?”

“Catch you at a bad time?”

I want to say yes, that it's four in the morning, but instead I repeat, “Whassup?”

I let my word hang there, biting my lip and suppressing any emotion in my voice.

He asks, “Everything all right over there?”

“What you mean?”

“I saw you pacing back and forth.”

“You're watching me?”

“No. I was up listening to Front Page and working on my screenplay, looked out my window, your lights were on, saw you pacing.”

“You hide in the dark and watch me walk around my apartment?”

“I saw you. I don't watch you.”

“You're watching me now.”

“Okay, I look over there sometimes.”

I tell him, “You're stalking me.”

“No, isn't that what Neighborhood Watch is all about?”

“Put down the binoculars and watch the neighborhood, not me.”

“Just making sure you're okay.”

“Why would you care if I'm okay?”

I frown at my full garbage can when I go into the kitchen, frown because a brown rice box, cotton balls, and Crest toothpaste are about to spill out. I tie a knot in the plastic bag and rush to load the dishwasher. Blue is talking but I'm busy moving the garbage to the back door, then racing back and groaning at the sink filled with dishes. A couple of my orange plates have crusty, unidentifiable leftovers, so I have to rinse and scrub those first.

He says, “I haven't heard from you since . . . since you were over.”

“I know. Saw you when I came in.”

“I waved.”

“I waved too.”

He says, “And you kept going.”

“Didn't want to . . . Look,” I lose my thought when I start cleaning the chicken residue off my George Foreman grill. My place is a neglected messy, like a college dorm room, and I'm trying to rush it back to being a livable messy. “I . . . Look . . . whassup, Blue?”

“Any particular reason I haven't heard from you?”

“Whassup? Does Monica need me to hook up her do?”

“Rosa Lee braided her hair. What's that noise?”

He hears me spraying air freshener. “That's good. She got her six braids. Real good.”

“Why are you sounding like . . . never mind.”

I drop a glass in the sink. It breaks. I think I cut my finger, but there is no blood.

I grab paper towels, try to clean that up and say, “Glad you connected with Rosa Lee. They're good people. I'm probably going to be too busy to do her hair for a while anyway.”

“She was over playing with Rosa Lee's daughter, and I didn't ask Rosa—”

“It's getting close to Christmas so I'll be working longer hours because I need the cheddar, so maybe you can ask Rosa to keep her hair tight. I'm sure she won't mind.”

“Why do you sound like that?”

“Sound like what?”

It takes me a moment to find the Windex so I can squirt my glass kitchen table. The legs are uneven and the table wobbles as I wipe away the dust and scrub off the glass rings. My journal, notebook, and a few books are there too, things like
Prozac Nation, 203 Ways to Drive a Man Wild in Bed, Delicious Sex, Kama Sutra, Unleashing the Sex Goddess in Every Woman, How to Make Love to a Man, The Good Orgasm Guide.
I leave
Prozac Nation
and my notebook, but grab the rest of the books and hide them in the washing machine.

I ask, “Where's Monica?”

“Sleep. We're mad at each other. She wet the bed and we were up fighting.”

“Bad dream or something?”

“She gets real funky like that after she spends time with her mom. A couple of hours with her mom and it seems like all the hard work I put in goes down the drain.”

“Well, going to a trailer park can be traumatic, especially during tornado season.”

I hurry into my bedroom and start throwing clothes into the laundry basket.

Blue asks, “Okay, what are we doing, Tommie?”

“Blue, I'm not stupid. I got your message.”

“You're mad because Rosa Lee did Mo's hair?”

“You know this isn't about Rosa Lee or Monica.”

He hesitates. “Okay.”

“I'm not a child. I understood what you were saying.”

Then I'm in the living room. Standing in my bay window, a bottle of Windex in one hand, a roll of paper towels under my arm, looking across the street at Blue's silhouette, talking to him like we're in the same room, face-to-face. I feel his energy. First it tickles the hair on my neck, then spreads like a morphine itch, makes me want to run my fingers through my braids.

“Blue, I'm twenty-three and you're . . . not. I work like a mule and make the paycheck of a Hebrew slave. I don't have my degree and I'm kinda scared to go back to school. I left town because of an abusive relationship, but I'm doing a lot better, and I'm still in therapy because of those past issues, so who would want to hang out with a pill-popping woman who gets depressed from time to time. I've been celibate for the last two years because . . . just because. I'm living in my oldest sister's duplex pretty much rent-free. And I'm sales associate of the month at Pier 1 because I help idiots who can't coordinate colors pick out a bunch of candles and knickknacks.”

“I don't think you understood what I was saying, Tommie.”

“My shit ain't together and your shit ain't together.”

“That's not what I said, Tommie.”

“I understood. There's no future in what . . . I can't even say what it is, don't know how to address it, because there is nothing to address, so you're right, it's nothing. I was tripping.”

“Tommie—”

“You know what it's late or early and Livvy just called over here with episode fifty of her drama and that took a lot out of me and she's on the way over because her and her husband got into it and I'm irritated and I have to get up early because I'm opening and I'm working zone three tomorrow so that means I'll have to clean the toilets and I'll be on my feet all day so I
better get my sleep and I'll talk to you some other time and make sure you give Monica a kiss for me and please say bye because I'm feeling really stupid and I don't know how to end this conversation without . . . without . . . Just don't ask any more questions and I'm fine so say bye.”

I stand in my bay window, feeling like a fool.

“Okay, Tommie.”

We hang up. Neither one of us moves from the window.

I count to ten, swallow, then close my blinds and start using Windex wherever I can.

I'm in the kitchen trying to sweep the crumbs on my floor when my phone rings again.

I answer, “Whassup, Blue?”

“Look . . . I need to give you something, so let me know when you have a moment—”

“You know what? Bring it over and drop it off now. And I can give you Monica's Christmas present and we can get that out of the way.”

“Mo's sleep. Would be cool if you gave it to her.”

“Well, I'm . . . I can . . . Look, right now, I'm busy, and I'm waiting for my sister.”

“Let me check on Mo. I'll throw on some sweats and run over real quick.”

I pause. “Sure.”

As soon as I hang up, I grab the broom and get ready to sweep the hardwood floors.

Then I almost can't move.

My body tingles and an anchor holds me where I stand.

Numbness rises. Anxiety come in waves, tries to steal my breath.

At first I think the sudden stress is because I'm not sure if I want Livvy to meet Blue; I stop sweeping, drop my broom. But I know why I feel that way.

Blue's never been invited over here, has never been in my space.

We'd be alone.

I break free from that monster's grip, race to the phone, and call him back.

My voice wants to give away my anxiety, but I focus on my breathing, my words, then I talk in a controlled tone, tell him, “Look . . . if . . . since Monica's sleep, I'll run over there.”

He says, “I'm dressed and I was on the way.”

“No,” I snap. Again, I focus on my breathing. “I mean . . . Blue . . . I'll . . . let . . . I was about to take the trash out and then . . . then . . . then I'll run over there.”

 

Livvy is coming down Fairfax, on the other side of the stop sign at 62nd Street. I see her bright headlights zooming this way as I jog across the street. My front door is open so she can get in. I wave, not sure if she sees or can tell it's me, then rush up the stairs to Blue's building.

His door is open and I go in without knocking, wanting to rush inside before anyone sees me. I say his name, then walk to the kitchen. He has on jeans and a
GARY COLEMAN FOR GOVERNOR
T-shirt. Blue is putting a cup in the sink, as if he were cleaning up the kitchen before I came over.

We're face-to-face.

I say, “Hi.”

He says, “Hi.”

We say that as if we haven't seen or talked to each other in weeks.

He says, “Nice pajamas. Matching duck slippers. Cute.”

“Thanks. From the Peabody in Memphis.”

He walks by me. We don't touch. I stand in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, watching him go to a table near his bay window. The table is small, has a candle-holder with seven candles: three red, three green, the center one black.

I say, “Nice Kinara.”

“Thanks.”

The wooden table is set up with fruits, vegetables, one ear of corn, and a straw place mat.

I say, “It's beautiful.”

“Bought the table and place mat yesterday.”

“You're getting geared up for Kwanzaa.”

“Have to get to Leimert Park and find a better Unity cup.”