Sweet Bye-Bye (2 page)

Signs were plastered all over the walls, saying, “No Cellular Phone Use.” I picked up the tan phone from the bedside table and pulled it over to the window.

“Eric, it’s me, Chantell, again. I wish you would answer the phone. I’m really going through it, Daddy just got out of surgery and he is on a breathing machine.” My words felt again like they were choking me. “They have operated on his heart, and he has cancer.” I broke down. “Eric, call me, okay? I’m at Summit Medical Center, the second floor, room 231, okay? Bye.” I hung up.

The physician attending to my father walked into the room in green scrubs and Reeboks. I asked him what was going to happen next for my dad. When he looked at me and suggested I call my relatives, I just blocked him out. When he hinted that they weren’t even sure if Daddy would wake up, I told him off good. Then I marched straight down to the nurses’ ward.

“Who is the chief of staff?”

“That would be Dr. Lambert,” said a nurse with a smile.

“Well, get him. I’d like to speak to him,” I said.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, that is not possible.”

“All things are possible!” I screamed through my tears. “Now go get him! Go get him right now!” My arms were outstretched and moving all around limply. “I will
not
call my relatives! I will not call anyone!” The nurse ran from around the station and put her arms around me.

“Ma’am! Ma’am?”

I cried out, “And I, I, I’m not going to! So you just— So—”

“Ma’am! Dr. Lambert’s in Atlanta.”

In my father’s hospital room, I rested my head on his bed, and thought back. He’d done a good job of raising me. I’d blocked out a lot of my really early years, but I remembered how miserable my father was after my mother died. He was trying to raise me, take care of the bills, the house, and the garage. Folks said he gave me too much, and that I was spoiled. But my grandmother said I wasn’t spoiled. She said I just had the gift of gab, like her. My dad would say we were having meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner, and I’d talk him into pepperoni pizza and jawbreakers for dessert.

I laid my head on my dad’s bed and smiled. I remembered Grandma also used to say that she thought I’d end up marrying Keith Talbit, an ashy little boy from church. She said we matched like hot and cold. She said that when you put us together, we could surely warm a room. I didn’t know about all of that, but we were best friends up until junior high. Then, just like Mom and Grandma, Keith left me too.

Anyway, just about four months after my mother died, my father met Charlotte. They married almost a year later. Charlotte and I got along pretty well. She treated me decent, and I liked that my dad seemed to be getting back to his old self. The three of us, we had our ups and downs, but we made it.

I looked at my daddy in his coma-like state, and it broke my heart. I looked up at the machine that monitored his heart. His life. And that was when it hit me. That’s when I remembered. “All things are possible.” My grandmother Hattie Brumwick’s words came back to me like the north star returning to its place in the sky. When her words registered, I grabbed hold of them. My grandmother used to say, “When all else fails, call on God. He’ll never leave you and He’ll never forsake you.”

I knelt down beside my dad’s bed. “God, please. I hope you hear me. Spare my dad. Please. He’s all that I have. He’s a good guy, God, he loves everybody.” I hadn’t prayed in years. And I didn’t know if I was praying right.

“You won’t be sorry if you heal him, Lord. I know you can do it. Because you can do all things.” I hoped that God was listening.

“Through you everything is possible. And, God, forgive me for my attitude, and everything that I’ve done wrong. If you do this for me, and let him live, God, I will work hard to be a better person. I promise you I will. I promise.”

Through the tears, I prayed harder, as I’d seen my grandmother do probably a hundred times. “Please, Lord, thank you for your intervention. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus . . .”

Then I sort of zoned out, and I was on this consciously unconscious level. And I kept praying my grandmother’s words. “Nothing is too hard for you, God. Through you everything is possible. You can do all things, God. Thank you, Jesus . . .”

And I’ll be darned if when I opened my eyes Daddy didn’t turn his head toward me and whisper, “Hey, pumpkin. Whatcha know good?”

2

My Mind's Eye

E
ric and I arrived at the Sushi Boat in downtown Fremont before Ron and Tia did. We sat at a little table for four and held their places and talked.

“Eric?”

“What?”

“You know that I do love you.”

“Then why am I being punished?”

“You’re not. It’s uncomfortable for me too. I miss you too, I just feel—no, I know—that we’re doing the right thing.”

Eric was silent. He looked so sad.

“Baby,” I said, “I’m trying.”

I felt sorry for him, but I wanted him to understand me clearly. It felt good connecting with God. God woke up my dad, He did it right there with me in the room. And He was helping me to be a better person too. I mean, I knew that I could probably be a little high-maintenance, maybe a little high-strung, but I was starting to feel more peace, and I was really trying to be right.

“So the solution is to sacrifice my needs for your promise,” said Eric.

“Well, babe, it’s not like we’re going to go without sex forever. It’s just until we make that next level of commitment.”

I thought maybe he’d catch a hint and ask me something, but he didn’t. Then he blew out such a sigh that I thought his glass of water would tip over. He spoke very carefully. “Chantell. We’ve already been through this. I know that you made a promise to God, and that’s a good thing. I am not knocking that, but you are going to have to chill out on the pressuring me thing. I mean, we’ve already been having sex. Why can’t we keep doing what we’ve been doing?”

“Eric, we’re supposed to be more connected.”

“After two years I think that we are about as connected as we’re going to be.”

“We can be more connected, Eric—”

“Chantell,” he interrupted, “just stop, aiiright?”

On the one hand, I thought Eric was being selfish; on the other hand, I understood. He missed me and he wanted me. I looked up. “Okay. Shh! Here they come. Let’s finish this later . . . Tia! Ron! Over here.”

“Hi, you guys!” Tia strode over in a powder and navy blue pantsuit that had been tailored to fit her little waistline. Ron was right behind her.

“Hi!” I said and gave them both a big hug.

“Hey, how is it going?” said Eric, standing and shaking Ron’s hand and hugging Tia before he sat back down.

We ordered our drinks.

“Chantell, how is your father?” That was Ron.

“Dad is hanging in there. He’s a trouper. On Friday they let him go home, and he was talking about ordering more redwood for the deck out back that he was building but we told him to slow his row.”

Everyone chuckled.

“Thanks for the flowers, you guys.”

“You’re welcome,” said Tia.

At that table, we all wore something that I think we were particularly proud of that day. Tia’s husband, Ron, a forty-two-year-old real estate developer originally from Naw’leans, wore his traditional smile. You heard it when he spoke, almost more than his drawl. And Eric, my handsome, six-foot-two-inch, twenty-seven-year-old boyfriend, wore a new tattoo that resembled a thick bolt of lightning going all the way around his big biceps. I, Chantell Meyers, a twenty-eight-year-old newspaper executive, wore a black wraparound dress that accented my small waist and ample hips. My best friend Tia, a thirty-one-year-old sistah friend, wore a look of admiration, and love, that showed up whenever Ron was anywhere in her sight.

Love. As a naive teenager, I used to say that I’d rather meet my soul mate in my dreams than give my heart to anyone else. But by the time I finished college, I’d determined that my prince had pulled a no-show. I decided that soul mates were relative to your situation. For example, if you were a big L.A. Lakers fan and you went to a game and were attracted to another avid L.A. Lakers fan, and the two of you decided that you were going to be together and spend all of your free time going to games and buying Lakers paraphernalia, then, voilà!—you were soul mates.

That’s why I kept my eyes open whenever I frequented places like the Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton. I didn’t meet Eric at Stoneridge Mall, though. Nope, I met him at the outlets in Vacaville. He came up to me with those Eddie Bauer bags in hand and told me that I reminded him of a beautiful, exotic butterfly. He said I moved with a grace that was only matched by my beauty. I knew that it was love. I didn’t have to look anymore.

“Ay, Chantell, tell them. Tell them how looong I, I mean
we,
had to wait before we could get in to see the movie the other day.”

“Huh? It wasn’t that long, only maybe fifteen or twenty minutes,” I said.

“Sure it was. I had to wait, and wait, and wait.” Eric fixed me with a stare, and continued sarcastically, “The line ahead of us was so long, I just knew that the ticket sales were going to just suddenly get
cut off.
”

I eyed Eric and he beamed with this ridiculous smile. “It was okay,” I said. “We finally got to see it.” I looked at Eric and bit the side of my lip.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Eric. “I just think it’s wrong to make somebody wait, then cut them off.” He looked across the table and added, “Ron, man, I bet Tia never cut you off—”

“Stop it, Eric. We saw the freakin’
movie
! Okay?”

Eric’s lips went into a bit of a smirk but his eyes looked so serious.

Tia tried to save our lunchtime bonding session before it turned sour. “Chantell, gurl, did I tell you? I am lovin’ that dress on you!”

She was such a peacemaker. I smiled. “Why thank you, darling,” I teased with a deep, sexy tone. “You too look quite lovely, as usual.”

“So true. So true,” she teased back.

We laughed like schoolgirls.

The guys just shook their heads at our silliness.

“So, let me tell you how my father woke up,” I said.

Ron and Tia sat next to each other and shared one cup of water while I talked.

“So then I was crying and I was calling out to God and asking Him to help. It was strange because in some kind of way, while I was crying, I knew Daddy was going to wake up.”

“Wow.” Tia nodded.

“God does do things like that,” Ron said.

“Yep, and maybe God woke him up because He needed to stop you from disturbing the other patients,” said Eric with a smirk.

“Wrong. Whatever, Eric, you’re not funny.”

I looked at Ron and Tia, who sat close together comfortably. I was always amazed because I didn’t think that they even consciously decided to share the cup of water. They just automatically sipped from one glass. I was still trying to figure out what “it” was that Ron and Tia had in common when the waitress came over and took our order.

When the lady asked what we would like, it was Ron’s turn to get silly. “Um, yes, I’ll have the avocado and shrimp sushi roll, and the salmon lunch special . . . And my wife here will have the eel—the
unagi.
”

Tia, who was taking a sip of hot tea, suddenly put her hand up and tried to swallow her drink quickly. “Um, no, stop! Please excuse my husband. He knows I don’t eat eel.”

Ron laughed. “Aw, baby, I thought you were going to live dangerously today.”

“Stop it, Ronnie. I’m not foolin’ with no eels and you know it,” she said while leaning over and pecking him on the lips. Then she looked at the waitress and said, “May I please have the chicken teriyaki lunch instead?”

Ron just smiled. He was so funny. I teased her often about Ron being her sugah daddy, but they had something great. I scooted over and got a little closer to Eric. We had been together for over two years and were headed into the village of soul mates ourselves. He always made sure he looked nice, as did I, so we shopped a lot, and traveled a lot, and had lots of fun together.

We ate our food and chatted as tiny fishing boats rode past the front counter, circling the kitchen and chefs’ area in a tiny metal pond displaying varieties of sushi. Orange ones, yellow ones, sushi with crab legs sticking out, sushi wrapped in seaweed, and sushi covered with rice.

Yep, I’d adapted my recipe for happiness a couple times over the last five or ten years. The latest version was a lot simpler, and it didn’t really involve a soul mate per se. It basically said, there were three things that you should always keep. Keep your man by your side, keep your game face on, and if at all possible, keep a Coach bag in your hand. If you were a person who could manage all three of those things, then I’d bet that you were somewhere having a nice life.

Yeah, Eric and I had some good times. He was funny, and he had this really deep, sexy voice. We usually took advantage of all that the Bay Area had to offer. Salsa dancing, Rollerblading, festivals, concerts. We’d do whatever sounded good. He liked to project a bit of a bad-boy image, but basically he was a pussycat. He liked excitement. And although I was happy when we began dating, I sometimes still found myself feeling a little lonely. Sometimes I questioned us. When I found myself doing that, I’d remind myself to stop being silly and look at what I had. I mean, Eric was Boris Kodjoe fine. Eric was make-you-wanna-haul-off-and-slap-somebody fine! He had a six-pack that a lot of models on television would envy, and he was always dressed to the nines.

People always said that I was beautiful too. I don’t think that I ever completely bought into it, though. I didn’t necessarily think that I was bad-looking; I got hit on often. I was five feet eight inches, curvy, and 140 pounds. I had brown skin, the color of caramel, and blunt-cut shoulder-length hair that Tia normally took great care of for me. I was experimenting with it then, though, and had taken to washing and conditioning and just letting the air lock in the body and natural texture. I had curious eyes that slanted, and pouty lips, and a little mole above my right brow that every boyfriend that I ever had found irresistible.

However, of all the people in my lifetime that had said to me, “Wow, that’s a great mole,” or “I wish I had a little mole on my face,” I never forgot a comment from my childhood, made by the little boy next door. Little Timmy said it looked “jus’ like a booger on yo head.” Oh, I laugh now, and I punched him in the stomach then, but that’s the kind of thing that one doesn’t easily forget.