Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do (6 page)

8

B
ETH'S HOUSE WAS AT THE END
of a leafy cul-de-sac in an Atlanta suburb whose distinguishing characteristic is the presence of Stone Mountain, a granite monolith bearing the carved images of four Confederate generals on horseback. They were presumably riding off in defense of slavery and Scarlett O'Hara, but they now preside over an integrated community of working people who want to be close to the city, but not too close.

The formerly all-white community had flexed enough to accommodate the initial incursions of black folks and several waves of immigrants and the place was certainly more diverse than it used to be. The only thing that hadn't changed was the economic status of the residents. Polls show middle-class people tend to want the same things regardless of race: safe streets, good schools, city services. Poor people want those things, too, but nobody ever asks them about it, since they rarely vote, and opinion polls tend to be tied to who's running for something other than the border.

Son andBethboughtthishouse withher first roundof royalties from
Son Shine
. They ran the business out ofa well-equipped home office and still had space for staff. I lived in this house for almost five years while I was working for them. Turning up into the driveway still made my stomach clench just a little. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I wasn't going hat in hand.
She called me.

Her new assistant, a young woman who identified herself as Jade, showed me in, offered coffee, which I declined, and said Beth would be down in just a minute. The room hadn't changed much. There was still the oil portrait of Son and Beth over the mantel. There were still the framed honorary degrees and overposed photographs of Beth with sponsors and celebrities. There were still Son's degrees and awards from first grade on, all neatly framed and arranged in a sort of mini-shrine. There were still the green velvet sofa and chairs where we used to sit and talk for hours, sometimes the three of us, sometimes in twos. It felt like home, except it wasn't. Not anymore.

From the beginning, Son had insisted that we hide our relationship from Beth, elope, and present our marriage as a fait accompli. I begged him to let me tell her, but he couldn't face her disapproval. I kept asking him why she would disapprove. I knew she liked me as an employee, so why not as a daughter-in-law? After I kept badgering him, one day he finally told me that when he had broached the subject with her, she had immediately dismissed the possibilities of a romantic connection between us by reminding him that I was “hired help” and not worthy of being his wife.

That hurt my feelings, but I never blamed Son, and we kept sneaking. Somehow she found out, and she went berserk. When she confronted him and he blurted out his plan to start up his own company based on developing a complementary male constituency, she accused me of planting the idea as a means to my own selfish ends, and him of being a cruel, ungrateful son who didn't seem to care that he was going to break his mother's heart and undo all the good work they'd done in the last ten years.

Then she cried. He was no match for all that, so he apologized profusely and decided to break my heart instead.

Beth entered the room like she always does, walking fast like she's got somewhere more important to go as soon as she dispenses with you. As usual, she was simply dressed in full-cut pants and a dark tunic, her salt-and-pepper hair brushed smooth and twisted back severely in a style that served to focus your attention on her face. She was as striking as I remembered her, with those big dark eyes and that wide, surprisingly sensual mouth, but she seemed to have aged ten years in the last two. The loss ofher son had clearly taken its toll, and I felt a pang of sympathy for her.

She must have seen it in my face because she relaxed a little and greeted me warmly.

“Gina!”
She looked undecided about whether to hug me, so I stuck out my hand.

“Hello, Beth. It's been a long time.”

“Too long.” She looked at me like she really meant it.

“I'm sorry it took such a terrible thing to bring us together,” I said.

Her bottom lip trembled slightly, and her eyes filled up with tears. “I am, too,” she whispered, then cleared her throat as if to regain control of her emotions. “And thank you for coming. I know the circumstances might make these first few moments a little awkward, but for Son's sake, I hope that we can rise above all that.”

“I hope we can, too,” I said.
For thirty thousand dollars, I'm sure we can.

This kinder, gentler Beth was not fooling me for a second. In the dictionary under
hidden agenda
, there should be her picture.

“I wanted to invite you to the memorial service at Morehouse in October,” she said, “but I didn't get any answer at your house and I didn't have another number.”

Of course, I was in rehab in October, but there was no reason to tell her that, just like there was no reason to believe she ever called me.

“That was thoughtful of you. Did you get the flowers I sent?”

I had sent a small bouquet, all I could afford at that point, to express my condolences. She offered me a sad, apologetic smile.

“There were so many flowers, but I know Son would have appreciated it.”

Jade came in with coffee service for two on a silver tray, smiled at me apologetically as if to say,
You ain't got to drink it, but she told me to bring it
, and left without a word. Beth poured us both a cup.

“Do you still take it black?”

I nodded. We each took a sip, then she set down her cup, walked over to the mantel, and turned slowly back to me. Beth is so theatrical, even in a small setting like her living room, every scene is played for maximum drama.

“Shall we put our cards on the table, Gina?”

“And what cards would those be?”

“I know where you were in October.”

I put down my cup. “Why doesn't that surprise me?”

“Is there any particular reason why you didn't mention it?”

Her tone was hovering somewhere between reproach and reprimand, and it pissed me off.

“I didn't mention it because it wasn't any of your business. You called me because you need my help. That's the only reason I'm here.”

“I thought you were here because you're about to lose your mother's house.”

Now
that
surprised me. Beth knew as much about the history of the house as the weasel did. When I considered her a friend as well as an employer, we talked a lot about growing up, and all my girlhood stories begin and end right in that house. How did she know I had almost lost it? Beth had an impressive network of professional and political contacts in Washington, especially since she had gradually intensified her flirtation with the Republican Party, to Son's chagrin, but I never expected this level of inside information.

“Have you been spying on me?”

Her smile was a study in insincerity. “Is it spying to be concerned about an old friend?”

“It isn't necessary,” I said. “I'm not hiding anything. I had a cocaine problem and I made some really stupid choices. I've been to rehab and I'm in the process of rebuilding my life.”

I sounded like a bad movie on the Lifetime channel, but I plowed on. “I'm doing this contract for the money and for Son. Anything else you'd like to know?”

“That about covers it,” she said, gliding back to the couch with a much more genuine-looking smile.

I had the feeling I had just passed one of her tests. She wanted to see if I would lie. She could have saved herself the trouble. Lying is as toxic as cocaine. When I gave up one, I gave up the other one, too.

“Good,” I said, “because now I have a question for you.”

She raised her eyebrows slightly.

“When are you going to tell me what I'm really doing here so I can get going on it or tell you to find somebody else to do your dirty work?”

The eyebrows stayed elevated. “Why do you assume it's dirty work?”

That question didn't require an answer, so I didn't dignify it with one. Her face relaxed a little, but she was still watching me.

“When Son died,” she said, “we were in the last stages of negotiations with a sponsor who was prepared to underwrite the kind of national tour we've always talked about. It was our dream, but when he was taken the way he was, I couldn't even think about touring, or anything else. …”

Her voice trailed off, and even I couldn't deny the pain on her face. She took a deep breath. “Then a few months ago, our sponsor reached out to me and said they were still very interested. When I suggested a national legacy tour, dedicated to Son's memory, they couldn't have been more enthusiastic.”

“Who's the sponsor?”

Her eyes flickered away from mine and then back, but veiled. “I'm sorry. I can't say right now.”

“No cigarettes or alcohol?” There are some things that can't be justified, even in dire economic straits.

She shook her head vehemently. “Of course not. I wouldn't cheapen Son's memory that way.”

“Good. Go on.”

“We're going to announce the tour in May when Morehouse dedicates the new communications center in Son's name, but …”

Again with the eye flickering. “But
what
?”

She stood up again, but this time out of nervousness, I think. “I can't afford to have anything go wrong.”

Now we were getting somewhere. “What could go wrong?”

She didn't say anything, so I took another sip of my coffee and waited. When she finally spoke, she chose her words carefully.

“I've had some phone calls. A few letters.”

“What kind of phone calls?”

“About Son.”

“What about Son?”

“He went a little crazy after you left him, Gina. He wasn't always as discreet as a man in his position should be.”

The idea that Son's equilibrium was thrown off by the way we parted was news to me. I was so surprised, I let her blatant misrepresentation of
who left whom
go unchallenged.

“He had a string of brief relationships with women he never would have considered his equals if he had been in his right mind—”

“And now they're calling you?” I said, cutting her off. The kinds of women Son might have had sex with on the rebound was of no interest to me.

She cringed at my directness. “Several of them have, yes.”

“Blackmail?”

She nodded, her disappointment in this posthumous manifestation of her son's imperfection written across her face. “It's nerve-wracking, especially with the dedication and the tour coming up. Lord knows, black folks don't need another hero with feet of clay. Jesse Jackson ought to be the last!”

Under the circumstances, Beth's indignation didn't quite ring true. “Your sponsors probably wouldn't like it either.”

Her eyes hardened along with her smile. “I'm sure they wouldn't.”

It all made sense to me now. “So you want me to go through his papers and make sure Son didn't leave any incriminating evidence lying around to mess up your deal?”

I was being cruel, but I didn't care. She had been cruel to me, and now we were even.

“You're as sharp as you ever were,” she said evenly. “I'm glad you haven't lost your edge.”

“Why don't you do it yourself?”

Then her face seemed to crumple in on itself. The tears that had been a promise earlier now came splashing down across her cheeks. She made no move to wipe them away, and I had to resist the impulse to offer her a tissue.

“Because I can't bear it,” she whispered.
“I just can't bear to touch his things.”

I felt sorry for her. However she had treated me, Son had been her life, and now he was gone. All of sudden, she was just one more grieving mother who had lost a son and wanted him remembered a little better than he actually was. That wasn't a crime. I swallowed hard and resisted the urge to embrace her. You have to understand that Beth was not only my employer for five years. She had been my mentor, my teacher, my friend, my shero. She was trying to shape and activate a constituency that had never felt or experienced its real power, and I had wanted so much to be a part of that.

I know, I know! Sue me!
I told you I was the child of movement people. It's in my blood and Beth gave me a place to focus all that energy. I had loved it until she changed up on me and started selling herself to the highest bidder. When I saw her urge an auditorium full of first-time black female voters to cast their ballots for a good ol' boy who still called his secretary “sweetie face,” I knew it was time to move on.

But by that time, I was in love with Son, so I stayed, and I stayed too long. The worst thing a true believer can do is to stick around once the bloom is off the rose, and by the time Beth accused me of disloyalty, she was right. I had stopped believing in her, but I was still on the payroll, so who was I to criticize? All things considered, we were probably about even.

“I'll take care of it,” I said. “And the speech and the video, too, but first you have to promise me two things.”

She took a small white handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose delicately. “What's that?”

“No more spying,” I said. “If you want to know something about me, ask me.”

“Fair enough,” she said, dabbing at the corners of her eyes. “What else?”

“Let's start from today,” I said. “We can't change what happened, or what we think about it, but I did some of my best work with you. That's why you called me, and that's part of why I'm here. We both know I need the money, but I'd like to finish up the way I started, at the top of my game.”

Beth just looked at me for a moment, then she reached into her jacket pocket and took out a check, discreetly folded in the middle, and handed it to me.

“Welcome back,” she said with a thin smile. “Now, shall we have some breakfast?”

“No, thanks,” I said, standing up and dropping the check in my purse without looking at the amount. “I rented a place near the campus yesterday and I want to get settled in this morning.”

“Near the campus?”

She looked surprised, just like I knew she would.