Tina Mcelroy Ansa (20 page)

“Oo, baby, baby. Ba, baby, baby, baby,” Lena sang along, grinding naked in the wide lighted mirror in the bathroom with her burnished braids pulled up on top of her head in imitation of “her girls” on their latest video.

Lena washed her face with a soft loofah that Nellie had grown herself when she read that the gourd’s soft skeleton sloughed away old dead skin and age. Nellie had grown so many that even now, ten years after her death, Lena still had enough—dried, seeded, bleached and hanging from the rafters in the barn—to last her the rest of her life. And that was after she had given one to every woman she knew.

The women didn’t use the loofahs, but Lena felt she had done her part. They didn’t think she could, but Lena could hear the women tell each other, “Yeah, but she don’t tell folks she got a sauna and swimming pool out there in her house by the river, too, along with that loofah thing!”

The women could talk all they wanted. Lena was not about to share her few private retreats. She had a steam room, too, in her
bathroom and whether or not the women in town knew about it, she cherished it as much as she did her shower.

It had been specially designed and built just the way she wanted it. Mr. Crockett had just shaken his head at Lena’s luxuries. The triangular steam room was built into one corner of the cavernous bathroom with two long white tile seats forming a comfortable “V.” The third wall and door to the room was made of frosted glass that let in just enough light to keep claustrophobia from settling in on Lena in there.

As she rinsed her face with handful after handful of tepid water running to her faucets from the deep well dug into the aquifer under her land, she could hear “Sexy Noises”—her favorite dancing-in the-shower music—flooding the room with percussion. She lifted her head above the sink and grabbed a thick white hand towel from the heated rack to her right to pat her face dry. Her mother had taught her never to rub her skin dry after bathing no matter how invigorating it felt. Even when she was a little thing, no more than three or four, her mother would lift her from the tub in the upstairs bathroom on Forest Avenue, set her down on the thick bath mat and gently instruct her in the proper way to dry soft, delicate female McPherson skin.

“See, baby, just take the towel and pat, pat, pat
all
over. Pat, pat, pat. Uh-uh, don’t rub like that, like your brothers or your daddy. They boys. But I always want you to treat your skin gently, okay? You gonna do that for Mama, baby?” In Lena’s head, her mother continued to talk in the soft sweet tones she reserved for her only baby girl. “Take care of that pretty skin God gave you. They can call it McPherson skin if they want to, but you get it from my side of the family, too.”

Lena could only safely think of Nellie’s maternal instructions for a few seconds. If she lingered any longer in her childhood, she knew she would soon be recalling other less sweet memories.

“Oh, shoot,” she said under her breath, a little shudder running up her back.

Lena thought she had caught a glimpse of a figure standing behind her in the mirror.

She had to make herself turn and look directly into the spot where the figure had stood. It was empty.

“Well, damn!” she said.

She did not want to give in to this vague presence, these ephemeral eyes that seemed to peep out at her from all kinds of places. Lena had never been completely comfortable with mirrors. Since she was a toddler, she had lived in fear that anytime she looked in a mirror, the glass would throw back more than just her reflection.

But Lena had gotten over many of her fears. And now she stood her ground and looked herself dead in the eye in the mirror over the bathroom sink.

“You gon’ have to get a grip, girl. We ain’t going back to that! I just can’t live like that again.” It was hardly living. Ghosts showing up whenever they felt like it.

“I thought I was gonna lose my mind.”

Along with the sensation in the pool the night before, this fleeting figure in her mirror was really giving her pause. She continued to give herself a good talking to.

“I’m a big old rusty woman now. I’m not a baby scared by ghosts in the night. I live way out here by myself. I’m not afraid of the dark. A glimpse of something out the corner of my eye is not going to send me into a hizzy fit. It’s not!”

I wish I had a mama or grand I could trust to hear my sadness and not get upset, she thought. I’d tell them just how hard it’s been. But she knew from experience whenever she shared her sorrow and pain, her fear and terror, with anyone other than Sister, the word spread so quickly through town and around that she had to do extra duty to calm the city down. She knew no one had ever
intended
to betray her confidence. But her sadness, it seemed, was just too heavy a burden for anyone to bear alone and before Lena’s confidante knew it, word was out.

Others seemed to just make jest of anything she worried about, belittling the problem. “Aw, Lena McPherson, get out a’ here. If I had all your money, I wouldn’t have a care in the world. Just like you.”

“Lonely? Hell, you get first crack at every man in town.”

“Yeah, I wish
I
could sit out by the river by myself without all these little crumb-crushers climbing all over me.”

Lena finally took the advice of Miss Annie Mae, whom Lena had discovered rocking and moaning on her porch one afternoon as Lena made her rounds.

“Miss Annie Mae, tell me,” Lena implored her, used to making everything right. “What’s wrong?”

Miss Annie Mae looked up with bleary, cloudy eyes and half smiled at Lena.

“Baby,” the old lady said, “I’ll just tell my troubles to the Lord.”

That’s what Lena did now, especially with Sister away in West Africa. She just told her troubles to the Lord.

Right then she said a quick little personal prayer.

And she did feel a bit more confident as she stepped in the shower, glancing boldly into the full-length mirror by the steam room door as she did. She stood inside the stall and listened to the thump of “Sexy Noises.” Even in the early morning light, Lena could see the outline of some of her favorite juniper trees outside the glass shower wall.

“Aren’t you afraid ghosts will be looking in at you while you’re naked?” Sister had teased uneasily about the legendary spirit-haunted trees.

The water from the shower massage reminded her of the unusually warm water in the pool the night before. Lena didn’t even have to aim the spray of the revolving shower head at her body to recall the sensation from the night before of air filling her, tickling her clitoris and lifting her hips into the air.

I’ll have to tell someone to take a look at that thermostat, she thought. I’ve never had my pool that hot.

Suddenly, an unexpected sound cut through the shower spray and the seductive music

“Ahem.”

Lena stopped shampooing her pubic hair with a soapy white
shower mitt and playing with the shower massage she held in her hand. She stood stock-still with the spray from the shower head pelting her in the chest and listened.

“Is there someone out there?” she called over the sound of the shower’s water. She hit a button on the tile wall with one soapy hand and “Sexy Noises” ceased. She listened.

She heard it again. “Ahem.”

“My God,” Lena gasped as she grabbed at the loose shower massage that was splashing water all around and trying to regain her footing. “Who is that? Who is that??”

Again, all she heard was, “Ahem.”

“Who is that? James Petersen, is that you?”

She knew it couldn’t be James Petersen, since he tried at all costs to avoid her whenever she might be walking around nude. There was no way he was wandering into her bathroom while the shower was running.

“Who is that? Who the hell is that?” Lena was insistent now. She looked around the shower stall for something, some weapon, with which to defend herself. All she had was a loofah on a light balsa stick; some pink and purple plastic bottles of herbal soap, shampoo and conditioner; a small plastic hippopotamus in a hat and a tutu that one of her godchildren had given her, and a short-bristle back brush and a tiny wooden nail brush. There was a huge maidenhair fern growing over the top of the shower stall. But it was no good to her as a weapon. The stiff brush was the heaviest thing in there, so she grasped it. It was a puny defense, but Lena didn’t have much experience defending herself. She usually didn’t have to. She thought briefly of the shotgun Jonah had bought for her and taught her to use. But she did not know
where
that was.

“I’m not in this house all by myself,” Lena shouted toward the shower door, her voice cracking and giving away her fear and deception.

There was a split second’s pause. Then came back the reply.

“Lena, it’s me. Herman.”

Lena was truly speechless. She thought, Now, who the hell is Herman? He said his name as if he were identifying himself for some official position.

“It’s just me,” the intruder said, “Herman.”

He had a real country-sounding voice that had an unfamiliar, foreign taste to it, a little flat on some syllables and words, but somehow smooth.

He pronounced “Herman” as if it were “Hur-mon” with the emphasis on the first syllable. She almost didn’t know what he was saying at first. She appreciated his repeating it.

“It’s me, Lena. Herman.”

She opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. She was thinking, Herman?
Herman?

Lena started to open her mouth to scream, but she smacked her lips and felt the Sahara Desert in there. So instead she turned the shower’s spigot toward C and filled her dry mouth with cool water. It didn’t help. She still could not find a voice to speak. She did not know what to say if she could. But she did like the sound of this Herman’s voice.

“Lena, I’m a spirit,” Herman said.

Oh, God, she thought. It’s the ghosts and stuff. It’s starting again.

Herman kept right on talking.

“Lena, I come ’cause you called me.”

Lena started to say, “Oh, you must be mistaken. I most certainly didn’t invite or call you in here,” as she stood on the other side of the shower door with her large white wash mitt in front of her vagina. But she heard herself sounding like somebody from Milledgeville, if the state still kept the insane in institutions there. Yet, she did not know what else to do.

Her heart was racing and so was her mind. A man, a spirit come here to my bathroom??!! she thought.

“You called me here, Lena. I couldn’a come if you hadn’a called me up,” explained the voice on the other side of the door. “I sho’ looks forward to meetin’ ya.”

The invitation for Lena to step outside hung in the air like steam. Then, there was silence again.

The image of calling up a ghost reminded Lena of her friend. “God, I wish Sister was handy,” she muttered to herself inside the steamy shower stall.
“She
might be able to handle something like this!”

But the very thought of her can-do friend seemed to make her brave.

Lena couldn’t help herself, she was intrigued. She cleared her throat.

“Hope I ain’t being a foolish fool here,” she said softly as if Sister were right there to stop her if she were.

Her heart was still thumping in her chest like the machines at the paper plant, but she dropped her “weapon” on one of the shower seats and moved toward the door. Lena had yet to utter a complete sentence to this “Herman” outside. She couldn’t believe she was doing this, but she opened the shower door a crack, just wide enough for her to reach her hand out and grab the big white Turkish towel hanging on a hoop nearby. It felt a little like sticking her hand into a dark hole at the fun house of an amusement park—frightening and exciting.

Okay, she thought, making a deal with herself, if nothing grabs my hand and pulls me out, then I’ll know it’ll be safe to proceed.

Snatching the towel inside the stall without looking out the door, Lena breathed a shaky sigh of relief. But she also felt a thrill of exhilaration. She had to stop for a second or two to catch her breath. Then, she tried to wrap the fluffy white towel in the least seductive fashion she could. It did not work. No matter how she threw and wrapped and twisted and tucked the towel, she managed to look cute. So, she covered herself as decently as possible, shook her long heavy wet braids free of excess water and took a deep breath.

She had not heard a sound from the other side of the door since she had snatched the towel inside. But she sensed that “Herman,” or rather “Hur-mon,” was still there.

She felt some trepidation. But surprisingly, she was not scared.
She thought back to meetings she had had with other ghosts when she was younger. How her heart had raced, how the hair on her arms had stood on end, how sometimes she had felt dizzy at the sight of a headless body or huge animal or a mist or vapor covering and smothering everything in its sphere. But this time she was different. Lena felt just a little anxious, like before a blind date.

Her mother would have warned, “Curiosity killed the cat, Lena. Watch yourself.” Nellie and Grandmama had always told her she was too curious for her own good. But now she didn’t care about taking any solid advice from ghostly relatives. She
had
to see what this Herman looked like.

Under her breath, she muttered, “Well, Lord,” sounding like her dead Granddaddy Walter before he embarked on an adventure.

She opened the shower door all the way, letting out a puff of steam, and stepped out. Lena was surprised the door didn’t make a creaking noise like in a haunted house when she closed it. But she steeled herself anyway for what she was about to see. She didn’t even flinch when she turned and saw him.

H
erman had a noble face.

Lena loved his face immediately.

It was a face that she had seen in the arrangement of leaves on a tree in the woods, a shape that was there in the sunlight, then gone in the shade. It was a face that she had seen in the clouds. It was a face that showed innate gentleness.

It was a face, she realized suddenly, that she had seen in her dreams.