Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do (21 page)

He smiled back at me. “So are you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?” I knew exactly what.

“What's going to happen next.”

“I'll write what I think in the sand and you write what you think in the sand. Then I'll read yours and you can read mine and we'll see how close we are.”

I didn't wait for his reaction. I just stepped a few paces away and started writing my one-word answer to the question in the wet sand. The question of what lies ahead. The question of what we're getting ready to do. The question of what we will probably upset in the life of the other one. The question of what I'm prepared to give if he really is prepared to take it. To all those questions, I have only one answer: everything.

In big block letters I scraped it into the sand with my toe. Blue was watching me.

“Ready?”

He nodded and as he walked over to read my answer, I did the same, although I didn't need to bother. It was like holding up a mirror. everything, he had written in the sand in big block letters just like mine. everything.

38

W
E WALKED ALL THE WAY TO THE
pier and back around to the lighthouse. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we didn't. Sometimes we stopped to watch the dolphins or the large cargo tanker ships easing out of the mouth of the Savannah River and heading out toward the open sea. For the first time, I understood the real meaning of having all the time in the world. I always thought that meant a lot of time.
Hundreds
of hours,
thousands
of minutes, but it doesn't. It means that you have complete and utter possession of this one fleeting moment you're moving through on the way to the next one and the next one and the next one. And in all this world, that's all the time there is—that one perfect moment that Blue and I were strolling through. The sweetness was, we both knew it.

By the time we got back to the house, Peachy was already in the kitchen cleaning the shrimp. He had a big pot of hot water seasoned with some kind of seafood boil that was smelling so good all by itself that my stomach growled as if all that fruit and cheese I had eaten earlier was nothing but a distant memory. He had turned on the radio to a Saturday oldies show, and as we came up the stairs and slipped in the door off the deck, he was singing along all loud and happy.

“'All you soul brothers, jitterbugs, hip cats in crazy hats, pretty girls with pretty smiles, all decked out in the latest styles!'”

Blue jumped right in:

“'And Farmer Jim and Guitar Slim, Betty Boop and Ooh Boopa Doo, Mohair Sam from Alabam and Minnesota Fats from Hoboken Flats.'”

Peachy turned around and grinned, but never missed a beat.

“‘Breathtakin', hip shakin' cuties now, talkin' 'bout some fascinatin', devastatin' beauties now.’”

He came out from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel, and picked up a dance move that Blue slid into like they'd been practicing all week as the song wound up its complicated recitation of the delights that are awaiting those lucky enough to attend this particular “function at the junction.” As a description of a perfect Negro party, Shorty Long's classic rivals Paul Lawrence Dunbar's “The Party,” plus you don't have to sing it in dialect!

“Big finish,” Peachy said and Blue executed a flawless turn that Peachy echoed a split second later and then hit a quick split worthy of James Brown in his prime and pulled himself up just in time to strike a pose that Blue completed.

“'They'll all be gathering here, from far and near, for the function at the junction!'”

When the song ended, they held the pose like the professionals they were. This was showing off at the highest level, and I loved it.

“More!” I said laughing and applauding. “Encore!”

Peachy laughed and waved a hand. “
More?
That's all there is, baby. There ain't no more!”

Blue laughed, too, and jerked his thumb toward the kitchen. “I thought I was cooking, old man.”

“I'm just doin' the prep work,” Peachy said, turning down the radio. He was wearing a big black apron with white letters on the front that said don't make me poison your food!

“Can I help?” I said.

“Yes, you can,” Peachy said. “You can sit right here while I finish cleanin' this shrimp and tell me what the hell you see in this Negro.”

“You don't have to answer that,” Blue said, laughing and slipping his arm around my waist.

“You ain't in it,” Peachy said. “You gotta go up to Chu's Liquor and get the Andre's.”

Blue pretended to be aghast. “I got a refrigerator full of Moãt and you're sending me out for Andre's? That's not going to do much for my image.”

Peachy snorted. “What image is that?”

“The cool, suave, man-of-the-world brother who knows his way around a bottle of good wine.”

“That's your image?”

Blue grinned. “Okay, how about a brother who has traded up from Andre's and ain't goin' back?”

“Get two bottles,” Peachy said, ignoring his friend.

“Lillie is the only person who could get me to buy a bottle of that stuff.”

“And the only one who could make me drink it, so we're even,” Peachy said, going back to the shrimp. “Go on, now! Me and Miss Lady got plenty to talk about without you hangin' around.”

Blue grabbed his keys. “Don't let him do any real cooking until I get back, okay?”

“I'll do my best.”

Peachy smiled at me as Blue headed out the door. We heard the car backing out and the sound of it fading as he pulled away. I sat down and waited to see if he really did want to talk to me or he was just teasing.

“You comfortable?”

“I think I'm all right until the Andre's gets here,” I said, teasing him.

He grinned at me. “You know the story about the Andre's?”

Peachy is one of those storytellers who likes to begin with a question. When you answer it in the negative, you are triggering the start of whatever tale he was going to tell anyway.

“Not yet.”

He dumped some more shrimp into the sink. “Well, when my wife and I got married, we were so broke all we could afford was Andre's for the reception, so it meant something to her,” he explained. “When I started making money, I'd try to bring home the expensive stuff instead—Moãt, Dom P.—but she always wanted a bottle of Andre's for the memories in it.”

“I'm sorry I never met her.”

“Me, too. That was my baby, all right. She was down for me all the way, and that's something rare. People act like it's only rare these days, but it always was. It's always more people down for bullshit than down for love.”

He went over to the sink and busied himself for a minute spraying cold water over the shrimp, and I could tell he had gotten a little choked up just thinking about Lillie. I went to the refrigerator and got a bottle of water while Peachy gathered himself together. Thinking the radio might help, I turned up the oldies again; Chubby Checker's voice boomed out the hit that forever changed the way people danced in America.

“Come on, baby
,

Let's do the twist!”

“Twist it, y'all!” the DJ shouted. “You know you want to! Twist it, children!”

I looked at Peachy, and he gave me a small smile. That was all the encouragement I needed. I put down my water and held out my hand to Peachy. “I need a partner.”

He hesitated for a second, but then he whipped off his apron and headed for our makeshift dance floor. From that point on, Peachy and I became twisting fools! The beauty of the twist is that anybody can do it, and it's fun or funny or sexy or silly, depending on how fast or slow you want to move. Peachy and I hit a midtempo rhythm that suited us, and we hung with Chubby to the end before collapsing, breathing hard and laughing, into two of Blue's white slipcovered chairs.

“You Negroes are going to kill me up in here,” Peachy said.

“I think you can hold your own.” I grinned at him.

He grinned back. “Well, as my grandmama used to say, ‘If you don't hold it, who gonna hold it?’”

I laughed. “Your grandmama must have been a very wise woman.”

“She was, she was, but what I want to talk about is
you
.”

He had changed subjects so abruptly that I almost felt a little defensive.
Almost.

“Me?”

He nodded. “Don't be nervous. This ain't no test or nothin'.”

“I'm not nervous.”

“Good.” He smiled. “Here's the question, okay?”

I wasn't sure if I was being asked to agree to hear it or to respond. Either one was cool with me. “Okay.”

He looked at me, suddenly serious. “Do you really like this Negro?”

Was that what he really wanted to know? “Yes.”

“You know he's different, right?”

I nodded, wondering how much Peachy knew about the past lives and everything.

“Not just the eyes.”

“No,” I said. “Not just the eyes.”

Peachy stood up and paced a little. I couldn't imagine what was making him so agitated.

“What's wrong?” I said softly.

He stopped and looked at me. “Just this. The boy been divorced three times, and I'm gettin' old. My heart ain't what it used to be.
He
might be able to survive going through all that again, but I can't.”

“We're not even married yet,” I said gently.

“You will be. It's only a matter of time.”

The way he said it surprised me. He sounded so definite.

“How do you know?”

He looked at me like the question was so ridiculous, he had to decide if he was going to answer it at all. “I know what the love of a good woman can do for a man.” He looked at me. “And I know the opposite is true, too. You can only get your heart broke so many times before you forget how to offer it up at all. I don't want that to happen to my boy. You're not like the others he was trying to make into something they were never meant to be. You might be the one he's been looking for all this time.”

He stopped again. There was something sweet about being asked so formally not to break somebody's heart.

“He'll be safe with me,” I said. “I promise.”

Peachy relaxed immediately, as if I didn't need to offer him any further guarantees.

“But now you have to promise me something,” I said.

“Shoot.”

“Let us take it one step at a time, okay? This is all new for me.”

“Which means stay out of your business, right?” He grinned.

I just smiled and turned up the radio so The Supremes could be my musical amen corner.

“You can't hurry love, no, you just have to wait.”

Peachy laughed. “I hear you, Miss Ross! 'Nuff said!”

“You got to just give it time, no matter how long it takes.”

“'Nuff said!”

39

W
HEN BLUE GOT BACK WITH THE
Andre's, crab legs were already boiling, shrimp were frying, and the oldies had segued into a salsa show that was clearly being beamed from a Florida station. Even the DJ spoke Spanish. I had been allowed to shuck the corn, prepare a mixed green salad, and set the table for three.

Blue took it all in and grinned. “This Negro thinks he's the only one who knows how to boil a shrimp.”

“Got tired ofwaiting,” Peachy said. “What took you?”

“Tourists,” said Blue, the way desert nomads might say “sand flies.” “The brother in front of me bought every flavor Alize they had.”

He grimaced at the name of the cognac and sweet juice drink favored by young people who want to get the taste of Kool-Aid and the buzz of malt liquor in one illconceived package.

I laughed. “You must have fit right in with your Andre's.”

Blue winked at me, put the bag down on the table, and withdrew two of Andre's famous green bottles with the bright orange $4.99 sale price tags stuck on the front. “I had to buy these in self-defense,” he said, pulling out two more bottles, both Dom Perignon, their price a secret between the consumer and the liquor store owner. If you had to ask the price of the stuff, you couldn't afford it.

“Well, pop the cork on one of each,” Peachy said, “and let's eat.”

In addition to the seafood feast, Peachy had steamed some asparagus, boiled some corn, and made a pitcher of sweet tea. Like Blue, he did all this with a minimum of fuss and only when we sat down to eat did he allow himselfa small smile ofsatisfaction at a job well done. I had brought down some of the birds-of-paradise from upstairs to make a centerpiece, and Peachy nodded his approval.

Blue poured us each a swallow of Andre's and put one of the Doms in a silver ice bucket. It was sunset when we raised our glasses to toast the memory of Lillie, and the sky was streaked with bands of orange fire and splashes of gold. We had left the doors open and the gulls were calling to one another as they swooped down into the waves looking for their supper.

“Happy birthday, baby!” Peachy said as if she were sitting across the table from him, and his voice trembled just a little. “Miss you like crazy.”

We clinked our glasses, downed our Andre's, and Peachy closed his eyes to send a private message to his beloved. At that moment, one of the gulls flew up, landed on the deck railing, and looked in at us looking out. Peachy opened his eyes, but nobody moved. The bird sat there for a long minute and then caught the next breeze back out over the water. I looked at Peachy, and two big tears rolled down his cheeks. Blue was watching him, but he didn't make a move in his direction.

I reached over and took Peachy's hand. “You okay?”

He nodded. “I asked her for a sign,” he said softly.

“And she sent you one.”

“What did I tell you?” he said, wiping his face with a napkin. “That woman was always down for me, you know? Look like she still is.”

Blue was smiling now. “Do me a favor?” he said to his friend, reaching for the expensive champagne. “Next time, ask Lillie if we can let go of this Andre's and start drinking something better in her honor from now on.”

“If it ain't broke,” said Peachy, grinning and refilling his own glass with Andre's. “Don't fix it.”