The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat (24 page)

Was it possible that she had allowed the person she loved most in the world to believe that she saw her as something other than beautiful? And she did love Odette most of all. More than she loved Richmond. And, she asked the Lord to forgive her even as she thought it, as much as she loved her own children. Words Clarice had spoken to Odette over the decades rang in her ears, obliterating any other sounds or thoughts. “Do something about your clothes.” “Fix your hair.” “Let me help you with your makeup.” “If you could just take off twenty pounds, you’d have such a cute figure.”

A wave of shame struck her so hard that she pulled her knuckles
away from the wood frame of the door and backed off of the porch. She walked to her car as quickly as she could and drove away with the shopping bag containing two pre-styled wigs, now destined for the Salvation Army, resting on the passenger seat.

Clarice was at her piano, trying not to think, when Richmond came home a couple of hours later. He surprised her by announcing that he would be spending the evening in, something he hadn’t done on a Saturday night in months. They had dinner—leftovers since she had thought she would be dining alone and hadn’t cooked anything that day. Then they cuddled together under a throw blanket on the living room sofa and watched a movie he had picked up from the video store. Later, Clarice would recall that the movie had probably been a comedy. She would carry with her a hazy memory of Richmond laughing just before things took a turn.

Clarice couldn’t concentrate on the movie enough to laugh or cry. She was still dwelling on her visit to Odette and James’s house. She watched her handsome husband and thought,
Would you do that for me? Would you do my hair for me if I was too sick to lift my arms and do it myself?

The answer she came up with was a decisive yes.

Yes, Richmond would style her hair if she was sick. He would do it for her and do it with no complaints. And he would probably do it well. Those big, beautiful hands of his were capable of anything he put his mind to doing with them.

But she also knew that one night, as Richmond combed through her hair, their phone would ring and he would go to answer it. After he hung up, he would return to her with a lie already worked out to explain why he had to leave for just a little while. She would sit, hair half done, smiling in her sickbed, and pretend to believe his lie as he scooted out the door. If she was lucky, there would be no mirror in the room in which she might catch a glimpse of her face contorted into an imitation of that lovely, soft expression that came over Odette’s face so naturally when she gazed at James.

That vision was in Clarice’s head when she stood up from the sofa, walked over to the television, and turned it off.

Richmond said, “Hey, what are you doing?” He lifted the remote from where it rested on his lap and pointed it at the television. But Clarice was standing in the way and the set wouldn’t respond.

When she didn’t move, he asked, “What’s going on?”

She said, “Richmond, I can’t live with you anymore.” It came out easily and sounded totally natural, even though her heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear her own voice.

He said, “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m tired. I’m tired of you, tired of us. Mostly I’m tired of me. And I know I can’t live with you anymore.”

He let out a long sigh and set down the remote. Then he spoke to her in the low, calming tone people reserve for interactions with hysterical children and brain-damaged adults. “Now, Clarice, I’m not sure what’s gotten into you that you think you need to make this fuss right now, but I want you to know that I’m sympathetic. You’ve gone through a lot lately with Odette being sick, your mother’s problems, and whatever’s going on with Barbara Jean. And I understand that the change can hit some women extra hard, mess up your hormones and everything. But I think you should remember what the truth is. And the truth is, I’ve never pretended to be anything other than the man I am.

“Not that I’m claiming to be perfect. Listen, I’m more than willing to accept my portion of the blame for a situation or two that may have hurt you. But I have to say that I believe most women would envy the honesty we have between us. At least you know who your husband is.”

She nodded. “You’re right, Richmond. You never pretended to be anyone other than the man you are. And that might be the saddest part for me. I really should have helped you be a better man than this. Because, sweetheart, the man you are just isn’t good enough.”

That came out meaner than she had intended it to. She really wasn’t angry—well, no angrier than usual. She wasn’t sure what she felt. She had always assumed that if this moment ever came she would be yelling and crying and trying to decide whether to burn his clothes or glue his testicles to his thighs while he slept, the way women on afternoon
TV always seemed to be doing to their unfaithful men. Now mostly she felt fatigue and a sadness that left no room for histrionics.

Richmond shook his head in disbelief and said, “Something’s not right about this. Really, I’m worried about you. You should get a checkup or something. This could be a symptom of something bad.”

“No, it’s not a symptom,” Clarice said, “but it might be the cure.”

Richmond hopped up from the sofa. His shock and confusion had faded. Now he was only mad. He started to pace back and forth. “This is Odette’s idea, isn’t it? It’s got to be her idea, all the time you’ve been spending with her.”

“No, this idea is all mine. Odette’s idea was to castrate you back in 1971. Since then she’s kept quiet on the subject of you.”

He stopped pacing then and tried a different approach. He walked over until he stood close to her. Smiling his slickest, most seductive smile, he put his hands on her arms and began to stroke them up and down.

“Clarice, Clarice,” he whispered, “there’s no need to go on like this. We can work this out.”

He pulled her to him, saying, “Here’s what I think. Let’s plan a little trip together. Maybe go see Carolyn in Massachusetts. Would you enjoy that? I could buy you a new car and we could make it a road trip. Just you and me.”

His mouth was at her ear now. “Just tell me what you want me to do, baby. Tell me what I can do.” This was Richmond at his best, Richmond the lover. That part of their relationship had always been perfect. But now, when she thought about his extraordinary abilities in the arena of lovemaking, she was forced to think about the countless hours he’d spent honing those skills with other women.

Clarice put her hand on his chest and pushed him away. She shoved him harder than she meant to and he lost his balance for a second. She was shocked by how good it felt to see him stagger, on the brink of crashing ass-backwards into the glass-topped coffee table.

She said, “Evolve, Richmond. What I want you to do is
evolve
.”

He started pacing again, faster this time. “I don’t get it. All these years and you pull this on me now. You had plenty of time to say
something if you weren’t happy. This is on you, Clarice.” And more softly, to himself, “This is not my fault.”

She could see the gears turning as he tried to figure a way out of this. When he couldn’t come up with a way to turn things around, he settled on rage. He stalked up to her and bent over so his square chin was just inches from her nose. His breath hot on his wife’s face, Richmond said, “And I’ll tell you something, Clarice, I’m not moving out. This is my house every bit as much as it is yours. More, actually, since
I
paid for it. So, you’d better think this foolishness through a little more.”

He crossed his arms over his broad chest and stood up straight, looking satisfied that he’d made his point successfully and put her tantrum in its proper place.

Clarice walked out of the living room then, and headed toward the stairs and their bedroom. She said, “That’s okay, Richmond. You’re welcome to stay here. I’ll leave.”

That night, after stopping by Odette’s place to pick up the keys, Clarice carried a suitcase of clothes and a cosmetics bag into the front door of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson’s old house in Leaning Tree. When her piano was delivered two days later, Clarice inaugurated this new phase of her life by playing Beethoven’s melancholy, powerful, and joyful
Les Adieux
Sonata and allowed the second love of her life to reassure her that she’d done the right thing in leaving the first.

Despite Clarice’s pleas, her parents maintained their insistence that Odette chaperone all of their daughter’s dates throughout her senior year of high school. Barbara Jean was as disinterested in dating boys as boys were eager to date her, or so it appeared at the time. So she often came along to keep Odette company. From Clarice’s standpoint, the situation was tolerable when it was just the Supremes and Richmond out for the evening. Richmond, the lone male among a group of females, enjoyed the appearance that he was keeping a harem. And Odette and Barbara Jean were good about giving her some time alone with Richmond. The arrangement was upended when Barbara Jean began to decline Clarice’s invitations in order to spend more time with Chick. Claiming she had taken on extra hours at the salon, Barbara Jean withdrew from the foursome.

So Richmond dragged James Henry along again. Late nights out came to an end and conversations about topsoil resumed. Even on the rare occasions when Clarice was granted an extended curfew, usually as a reward for a well-reviewed piano performance or as a way to end her relentless begging, the presence of sleepy James was guaranteed to cut the evening short. Finally, after one too many nights of getting back home before ten o’clock, Clarice put her foot down and demanded that Richmond find someone for Odette who kept grown-up hours. That was when Richmond began bringing Ramsey Abrams along to serve as Odette’s date.

Ramsey was a night owl, but he was also an idiot. Odette spent the evenings she was paired up with him cruelly mocking the stream of inane blather that poured out of him. And if Ramsey noticed her sharpening her claws on him, he was content to ignore it for the opportunity to spend a few hours ogling Odette’s breasts.

Odette didn’t appear to be bothered by James’s absence from date nights. She only asked Richmond once what had become of James, and that single inquiry was phrased as a question about the health of James’s mother. After Richmond told her that Mrs. Henry was no better or worse as far as he knew, Odette didn’t ask about James again.

Switching out James for Ramsey worked fine as far as Clarice was concerned. She and Richmond saw more of each other than they’d been able to for a long time. They stayed out later, usually meeting at Earl’s and then going for a ride or to a party or somewhere in Louisville when they had time. Ramsey had just enough sense not to make the potentially fatal mistake of copping a feel off Odette, and she seemed amused to have Ramsey around to insult. Everybody won.

After several late nights with Ramsey, Odette and Clarice showed up at the All-You-Can-Eat one Friday night in March assuming that Ramsey and Richmond would be waiting for them at the window table. Instead, James Henry sat in the chair to Richmond’s left.

Clarice walked over to the table and said hello. Then she took Richmond aside to express her disapproval. She said, “What is
he
doing here?”

Richmond said, “It’ll be all right, I swear.” In response to her raised eyebrow, he added, “The thing is, James really likes her. He found out I’d been bringing Ramsey along for Odette and he got so mad I was scared he was gonna take a swing at me.”

He was exaggerating just a bit. Richmond hadn’t really worried that he’d be attacked when James barged into Richmond’s dorm room the night before. Either of Richmond’s biceps was nearly as big around as James’s waist, so even if James had violence on his mind, Richmond knew any danger posed by him was minimal. Still, Richmond had been amazed to see James that agitated. It wasn’t James’s way.

James had worked like a grown man to help support himself and his mother since he was thirteen years old. In high school, when Richmond and the other guys were playing sports or sharing a bottle of rotgut whiskey in the woods, James was likely to be at home cooking and cleaning. And James never showed any sign of being justifiably pissed off about any of it or even seemed to notice that he was being cheated, not that Richmond saw, at least. But there James
had been, jabbing his bony finger into Richmond’s chest and yelling about Odette Jackson, of all things. Richmond had wanted to laugh, but instead he promised James he would help him.

Richmond put his big hands on Clarice’s arms and slowly slid them from her shoulders to her elbows and back again, trying to massage away her anger.

He said, “It’ll be good, really. I told James exactly what to say to her. I gave him some great lines to use. And I filled him up with coffee before we got here. It’s going to work. Trust me.”

When they got back to the table, James was saying, “So tell your mother she should put herbs in her perennial border to keep pests down.” Then James sat back and began silently studying Odette the way he always did after he had run out of gardening talk, as if he were a scientist and she was something rare he’d spotted growing in a petri dish. Odette stared back at James, her mouth set in a scowl. If he had tried any of those good lines Richmond claimed to have given him, Clarice assumed that they must not have worked.

As they sipped pop and ate chicken wings, Richmond and Clarice tried to keep some sort of conversation going. But neither Odette nor James talked. James just watched Odette with a mixture of affection and curiosity while she squinted back at him with an expression that approached fury.

Richmond talked about maybe driving down to Louisville and checking out a dance club he had heard about. Clarice suggested that they stop by a secluded place by the river on the way back.

The plans for the evening were just about finalized when Odette blew up. “What the hell is wrong with you, James Henry?” She leaned toward him until their noses were just inches apart and said, “I’m so sick of you staring at me like I’m gonna sprout another head all of a sudden. This is how I look, James. If you don’t like it, you can just go stare at somebody else.” She sat back in her chair then. “Now, you got something to say? Or do you just wanna stare some more?”