Searching for Tina Turner (3 page)

“Nothing is predictable anymore.” Lena lowers her eyes; afraid to let on that this sad reflection is as well suited to herself
as it is to Dana.

“Oh, bullshit. Predictable or not, I’ve been married to Byron Stokes for thirty years, and I’m not about to put myself in
Dana’s position. Doesn’t matter what her husband did or didn’t do.” Candace points to her sparkling diamond tennis bracelet
and fingers the five-carat wedding ring Randall gave Lena for their twentieth anniversary. “I’m not giving any of this up,
sweetie. At our age, it’s hard for a sister to find a man with the same
abilities
.”

“It’s got to be about more than… ‘abilities.’ Whatever happened to trying to work things out? What about love?”

“You heard me: what’s love got to do with anything?” Candace conveys Dana’s story with a half-pity, half-tattletale smile:
early last year, Dana told her husband that she would leave him after their twins graduated from high school, unless he changed.
“From what I hear, he told her she had nowhere to go without him and his connections. Translation: money. Well, the twins
graduated early, and she’s living with her mother. She has to get a job, make new friends, and find a new man.”

As if, Lena supposes, those simple things are the solution to a woman’s problems.

“And she’s almost sixty.” Candace tightens her long ponytail, her sign that she denies her almost sixty years. Lena knows
that underneath the slicker, Candace’s body is tight, thanks to her trainer. Her makeup is perfect, her skin flawless thanks
to modern chemistry and a good esthetician.

“Should we call her and take her out to lunch, try to cheer her up?” Lena asks.

“You can if you want to. Sometimes divorced women are double trouble. Some
husbands
don’t want their wives to see how women can improve after divorce—and unless you’re Ivana Trump, with a big settlement, that
doesn’t always happen. Let’s face it, some
wives
don’t trust their men around them. Happens all the time.”

“You mean you won’t have anything to do with her just because she’s divorced?” Lena gawks at Candace. For eleven years they
have lunched, visited, bestowed gifts, and socialized. She knows Candace is notorious for cutting off women who don’t give
her the attention she loves, but not because of divorce. “You’re still friends with Gail Coleman, and isn’t Ada Munson divorced?”

“People grow apart. We don’t do the same things.” Candace dismisses Lena with a wave of her hand. “I’ll catch up with Dana,
of course. I love her to death. But Byron and Carl are friends; more than friends, actually. They’ve helped each other’s careers—you
know what I mean—the networking our men do. Byron wouldn’t want me to jeopardize that. Besides, she’s competition now, honey.”

“Why do you think she would compete for your husband?” Lena presumes that Candace is the only one who wants her portly, beady-eyed
husband, money or no money.

“I don’t need any single women around Byron. His eyes wander enough, and he’s always talking about Dana: how nice she is,
how she takes such good care of herself, how her husband is a fool for dogging her. A lot of married men believe divorcées
are lonely and horny, and they try to do something about it. I wouldn’t want a woman like Dana around my man.”

Lena makes her way to the pharmacy as she has done all these months without Randall’s reminder. As if, in his absence, she
could forget her responsibilities; as if in twenty-three years she hasn’t been mother and father, doctor and nurse, teacher
and tutor every time he goes away.

Without prompt or invitation, Candace follows. At the counter, she stops alongside Lena and squints at the prescription in
her hand. “For Kendrick? Is everything okay? Did he decide to go back to Chicago or transfer to a school out here?”

“Kendrick is fine. If you’d wear your glasses, Candace, you’d see that’s
my
name on the prescription.” Lena turns away from Candace’s line of vision and shoves the paper into the clerk’s hand. “You’re
being pretty hard on Dana. What if I got divorced?” Lena coughs in hopes that sound will throw Candace off track.

“Ha! You and Randall are perfect: the black Barbie and Ken. Big everything: house, cars. And trinkets.” Candace flicks Lena’s
heavy gold watch. Randall, Lena recalls, likes Candace because she is never embarrassed by what she has or what she does.

Six months ago, Lena might have considered those words a compliment. This isn’t the first time someone has labeled them perfect:
the symmetry of their physicality—she tall, he taller; complementary brown skin tones—neither fair nor dark; stylish, hip
clothes from New York and San Francisco designer boutiques— coordinated, but not; their speech proper and grammatically correct—hints
of slang at the right time and in the right company.

“I’ve known Dana for as long as I’ve known you.” If only Candace would stop her blabber and look beyond her frown, Lena thinks,
she would understand. The glint in Candace’s eye says she doesn’t see anything but Lena’s clothes and the questionable prescription
as fodder for more gossip. “I wouldn’t chuck her friendship just because she’s made a decision to save herself.”

“Dana was naïve. She should have planned better—if she’d done that she wouldn’t be at her mother’s.” Candace looks Lena up
and down and follows her out the front door. “You’re no fool. And
if
you’re thinking that way, or something close to it, take my advice: don’t. Be happy.”

If she were the kind of woman who got into physical fights, Lena might find this the perfect time to smack Candace for her
ability to think about plans and consequences. She chuckles at the thought of the petite woman falling, more worried about
her hair and her jewelry spiraling across the dirty linoleum floor than the fact that she had been assaulted. Then again,
perhaps Candace would lie on the floor, the way Lena lies in her bed unable to figure out how to tell her husband that honoring
herself does not mean dishonoring him. Once on the floor, she knows, Candace would take action: yell for help with her wretched,
squeaky voice, or devise a case to sue, courtesy of pictures taken with her rhinestone-encrusted cell phone.

“Stop frowning. You take everything too seriously. We all have our bad days.” Candace harrumphs in a way that means she’s
never had a day as bad as the one Lena seems to be having and shoves a business card into Lena’s purse. “My personal shopper.”

f   f   f

Outside the pharmacy, a sullen-faced woman steps back from the sidewalk and stares like she would at an escaping shoplifter
as Lena rushes to her car. In Montverde—a hillside shopping district that is called by a different name to distinguish it
from the flatlands of Oakland but is still Oakland—white people act like they are not used to seeing black people in fancy
cars. As she steps into the car, Lena assumes that the contrast between what she is wearing and what she is driving is so
great that it raises the question: does the car belong to her?

“Come on now, I don’t look that bad.” Lena waves to the woman. “Can’t a black woman have an expensive car and a bad hair day,
too?”

Lena negotiates her sleek car between the broken lines on the freeway’s asphalt and ponders Candace’s focus on possessions.
In that way, Candace is like Randall. And, she supposes, how she used to be. How many times can she tell Randall?

Last November, Randall asked Lena what she wanted for her birthday. “A weekend,” she’d said without missing a beat. A weekend
together—just the two of them—no laptop, no BlackBerry, like they used to. A simple celebration. A shared, uninterrupted soak
in the tub. Maybe in Sonoma or Napa—taste new wines, ride bikes, take pictures, laze in the sun.

She should have suspected something when Kendrick stayed home longer than usual after Thanksgiving. The evening of her birthday,
Randall slipped off his silk tie, blindfolded her with it, and escorted her to the back door. Camille and Kendrick, obviously
in on whatever surprise Randall had in store, giggled as the three of them led her out of the house to the driveway. Lena
giggled, too, stepping carefully into the brisk twilight.

When Randall loosened the tie, Lena screamed at the top of her lungs. There, in the driveway, sat a low, red Mercedes SL convertible
with shiny alloy wheels, buttery leather seats, and keys dangling from a red ribbon tied around the rearview mirror.

Lena eased behind the steering wheel, while Randall, Kendrick, and Camille faked a silly squabble over who would be the first
to ride with her in the two-seater. Randall claimed his right, having paid for the car, Kendrick claimed his as first-born,
and Camille claimed hers as the only daughter. In the end, a giggling Lena made them pick a number between one and ten and
drove down the driveway with the same enthusiasm and high speed each time one of them buckled themselves into the passenger
seat.

Two days later she thanked Randall again for his extravagance and explained that she loved the car, but she really wanted
more of him, not material things, while his voice rose louder and louder. “Just keep the damn thing.” Lena knew he didn’t
understand, knows he doesn’t understand.

Speed is the excitement in her ordinary errands. Zip. Grocery store—milk, juice, bread, peanut butter. Zip. Hardware store—light
bulbs, batteries, that thingamabob for the stereo that Randall drew a picture of before he left.

The radio is off. After Candace’s frenetic proclamation, all Lena wants is the hum of the engine, the alternate whine—like
ascendant chords—of the gears, the constant attention required to handle the car. She avoids pillows of exhaust; manipulates,
teases, plays in and out of the gaps in the afternoon traffic. Her foot presses down on the accelerator: 300+ horsepower.
Her biceps tighten with the thrill of the push past fear and carbon fumes. Gravity takes over with the increased speed; it
forces her back into the cushy seat, pumps adrenaline through her body, moistens her palms. A little more, a little more.
She moves from the fast to the slow lane, eases up on the accelerator, and exits the freeway.

In the ten minutes between the pharmacy and home, Lena works herself into a state of disgust—with herself, with Candace. She
swerves into her driveway and races up the stairs and into bed. The phone beside the bed calls out to her: pick me up, call
Candace and offer an explanation, call Randall, beg for more time. Apologize? Instead, she reads. In the bed, across the bed,
on the toilet, then back to bed, Lena reads about Tina’s ups and downs for the rest of the afternoon.

What comes through Tina’s autobiography is the realization that she already had everything she needed for success inside.
Tina thought about leaving for years, but she also thought—or so Lena interprets—that when you love someone you stay with
them. Through good times and bad. Lena blesses herself with a small sign of the cross for the differences in their circumstances
and because Randall has never treated her that way—but the emotions, the doubt and fear of the future, are similar.

Maybe, she thinks, she should make a plan. Maybe she should get a yellow legal pad and a red pen and label two columns + /
– like Randall does when he thinks through a decision. Like the night they decided, together, to buy this house. Like he did
the night before his vote on the TIDA merger, Lena, his sounding board, next to him on the couch. What would she put in her
columns? What does love have to do with anything? she reminds herself—he is far from perfect, but so is she. There is the
mole on his left shoulder, his generosity, his love for Kendrick and Camille, how he doubles back to leave money by a sleeping
homeless person’s side, the way he huffs when he exercises and talks nonsense in his sleep and used to reach for her and take
her in his arms in the midst of a dream, how he cherishes Lulu as if she were his own mother. If these qualities all fall
on the + side, why isn’t she happy? Or, was Candace right—are they the same?

Lena shakes away the thought of any resemblance to Candace and imagines what her +/– list would look like.

++Camille and Kendrick; – Camille and Kendrick’s attitudes

+ Tina left at forty-five; – she is fifty-four

+ Tina had marketable talent; – her photography is pretty good

+ Tina fell out of love with Ike

+/− She loves Randall

T
he bedroom windows rattle lightly with the
ba-boom, ba-boom
of the surround-sound speakers. The system Randall had installed two floors beneath this one can be turned to a volume loud
enough to make the walls of this fifty-year-old home shudder. She has no idea how long Kendrick has allowed the music to pound
or why it needs to be so loud. On her left, the red planner beckons from the nightstand. The enrollment slip extends beyond
its rounded edges. When she registered for the six o’clock class two months ago, she hoped that Randall’s attitude would mellow,
and he would be happy that his wife wants to follow a dream that complements their life. Lena checks her watch: one hour to
pull herself together and get to campus. A smile breaks across her face: one hour of lecture and two of lab. Oh!—the bitter
smells of developer and fix.

Dressed in the same sweatshirt and cotton pants that Candace criticized her for earlier, Lena gets out of bed and strolls
to an armoire in the corner of the bedroom. Inside there are freshly pressed linens, her boxed wedding dress and Randall’s
old tuxedo, Camille’s cotillion gown, and Kendrick’s first communion suit. Her old Pentax 35mm with manual controls, not the
palm-sized digital she has used over the last couple of years to capture her family’s history, sits at the back of the top
shelf.

“Mother?” Camille pokes her head into the doorway. “What’s for dinner?”

Tonight Lena’s excuse is valid. “Call Hunan City, Camille, and have them deliver. My photography class starts tonight.”

“Starless, Mother.” Camille’s tone is matter of fact and insistent— use the name I’ve chosen, it says, not the one you gave
me. No matter how hard Lena tries to accommodate Camille’s recent capriciousness, her younger child’s desire to change her
given name is not easy to accept.