When You Come to Me (42 page)

Brandon sighed. “Like I said, it might be smart for me to stay here.”

Maya smiled. “You’re afraid of my mama, aren’t you?”

“Not necessarily,” Brandon stumbled. “I would just like to stay here. Besides, it’s cooler under here.”

“You’ve been living in Athens for how long, and you haven’t gotten used to the heat yet?”

“Nor the mosquitoes…”

“Oh, why is Natalie marrying you?”

“I’ve been asking myself the same question since I asked her…”

Maya leaned in a little, the breeze carried her thick black hair into her face, and the girl smiled with fascination. “How’d you do it?” she asked, resting her round face on her small fists.

“How did I do what?”

“Ask her…how did you ask her to marry you?”

“Nat didn’t tell you?”

Maya shook her head. “Nope…was it romantic? Tell me it was romantic…”

“It’s a very long and complicated story…”

“The best kind…I have the time…”

“For this one…I don’t think you do…”

Natalie came out of the house then, spotted them, and rested a palm atop Brandon’s head. “Maya, I know you’re asking him a million questions…”

“He looked bored,” Maya told her sister. “So, I thought I’d ask him about how you and him got engaged.”

Natalie looked at him, her eyes grew big and she pursed her lips funnily. “Long story,” she told her. “Too long and complicated to tell…”

She forced him to help her mother with the grill, and as Brandon approached Helen Chandler, extending his hands as a means of offering his services, the mother retracted a little, parted her lips to speak, but stumbled, and continued to fumble with the cover.

“You can go back and sit down,” she told him. “I can handle this myself…”

“The grill looks heavy, Ms. Chandler,” Brandon told her. “I could move it in a second and you could get to cooking…”

“Is that all you think we do? ‘Get to cooking?’”

Brandon felt his stomach turn a little. “No ma’am, of course not,” he said with difficulty. “Natalie told me that you were a great cook, and I’m anxious to see what you have planned…”

Helen Chandler looked him over once, sighed, and dropped her hands. “Here, boy,” she told him. “Give it a try…”

Brandon took a hold of the grill with one swift movement, moved it in the direction that the mother had instructed, and clapped his hands together when he was finished.

They looked at each other and Helen Chandler didn’t say a word, only walked away, in the direction of the screened porch.

Natalie had watched the entire thing from where she stood, had shrugged her shoulders in his direction and had attempted a smile of comfort.

Helen and Marie Chandler grilled and fried till the sun fell lowly beneath the magnolias, and the crickets cried, and the fireflies danced about the small backyard, the torches aglow around them, the large Chandler clan, with the chuckling aunts, and the drunken uncles and the skidding cousins, aged young and old, all arranged in plastic outdoor furniture in a cluster, feasting on Styrofoam plates of fried chicken, fish filets, potato chips and baked beans, R&B unfamiliar to him, playing from a stereo in the kitchen.

And Natalie was beside him, having finished her plate, her hand on his leg, claiming him, them, equally exhausted from all of the questions about the wedding, all of which, neither of them could answer, none of which, Mother Helen enjoyed hearing.

After awhile, Natalie removed herself from beside him, got to her feet, her two sisters, following suit, and they began collecting the plates from the other guests, Maya, the playful one, doing a slight two-step to one of the songs she recognized on the radio, singing along with the melody.

“Maya, could you please let the artist sing that song?” Natalie teased, gathering the plates into a neat little stack.

The youngest Chandler sister rolled her eyes, clicked her teeth and said, “You’re just jealous, Nat…you’re just afraid that Brandon will like my singing so much that he’ll leave you…”

Brandon managed a smile and Natalie looked in his direction, winking.

“Please, young one,” Natalie told her sister. “It’s going to take a lot more than singing to pull him away from me…”

He agreed. He couldn’t think of anything that could tear him away. He watched the sisters take their individual stacks of plates into the kitchen.

Brandon swallowed hard.

“So, Brandon, that’s your name, right?” Uncle Marty began, taking a swig of beer.

Brandon nodded. “Yes, sir…it is…”

“Brandon,” Uncle Marty repeated, his accent vividly southern. “He’s too tall…you think he’s too tall?”

The uncle looked in the direction of one of the Chandler aunts. The aunt smiled a crooked one, nodded in agreement, and murmured, “He is tall…how tall are you, boy?”

“Six-four,” Brandon said quietly.

“Really tall, huh, Miriam?” an aunt said, looking at the other.

“Yea, June, he is,” the aunt said, glancing Brandon over. “But Natalie’s tall…”

“She is tall,” Uncle Marty, a stout, balding man with the darkest complexion, said. “Why is that girl so tall, Helen?”

Helen did something funny with her eyes, cleared her throat, and readjusted her position in her chair. “Her father was tall…”

The Chandler clan fell silent for a moment; some nodded their heads slowly.

Brandon could tell that this Raphael character had not only affected Helen Chandler’s life, but the rest of them as well.

Then they all turned their attention to Brandon again.

“He’s a big boy, too, Miri,” the other aunt said.

That aunt nodded and pursed her brown lips. “How much you weigh, boy?”

“I haven’t weighed myself in a long time,” Brandon admitted.

“Give us an estimate, honey,” Marie Chandler chimed in.

Brandon sighed and searched his mind. While he came up with a solid estimate, he also attempted to think about why his weight mattered.

“Uh, two-fifteen,” Brandon claimed. “About two-fifteen…”

“You ever play football? You should be playing football…” Uncle Marty asked him, cracking open another can.

“No, sir, never played…”

“Basketball?”

“When I was in high school, sir…”

The uncles then joked about picturing him standing under the goal and doing nothing more than tossing them into the basket. They laughed about this for at least three minutes. Brandon, all the while, didn’t find it funny.

“Where are you from?” one of the aunts asked.

“Saratoga Springs.”

“Where on earth is that?”

“New York, ma’am…”

“I thought so,” the aunt said. “You didn’t sound like you were from here…”

“Don’t look like it either,” another aunt said. “He don’t look like one of those country boys…”

“How’d you and Nattie meet?” Uncle Joe asked.

“At school,” Brandon told him. Brandon certainly left out the part where he was belligerently drunk, had knocked her unconscious, and then proceeded to drag her into the woods like some madman.

He simply said, “I was a junior and she was a freshman…”

“Nattie was that young?” one of the aunts asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Brandon replied. “We’ve been friends for a long time…”

“Friends, huh?” Uncle Ronnie asked. “What happened to that other boy she brought home that one time?”

“The light skinned one?” one of the aunts asked. “I was thinking the same thing….”

Brandon was too. Natalie never got around to telling him how she got to the house on Trent road, how she broke up with Anthony. As a matter of fact, she never mentioned him. Brandon then made a mental note to ask about him later…that is, if he could get through all these damn questions!

“He wasn’t for Natalie,” Marie Chandler interjected. “And we must respect that…isn’t that right, Brandon?”

Brandon smiled a little. “Yes, ma’am, that’s absolutely right…”

“And how long were you and Nattie together?” an aunt questioned.

“A year,” Brandon said. “We were together for a year…”

“And what happened? Did you fall on hard times all of a sudden…?”

“Sort of,” Brandon began. “We were the typical young couple and decided that taking a break for awhile was the best thing.”

He figured that giving them a nice answer like that would keep them from probing further, would keep him from picturing in his mind how bad that period of separation was for him, how, deep, deep, down, all he could dream of doing was returning to Natalie.

Natalie’s family all fell silent for a moment, and he couldn’t think of where Natalie and her sisters had gone but wished that they would come back soon.

“Why do you love her?” Helen Chandler, who’d kept silent for most of the conversation, approached him, walking steadily, folding her arms. The absurd question knocked Brandon unsteady for a moment, making it difficult for him to swallow and he only stared at Natalie’s mother for several seconds. He could easily think of a million reasons why, starting with how he felt inside whenever he was around her, or the way she wore her hair, or her unassuming nature. Hell, why did anyone love Natalie Chandler? Was it her gracefulness, her enigmatic silence, her soft glare? Was it everything? Yes, all these things were good, but he assumed that her mother wanted more from him, wanted a more decent, detailed answer, wanted to know exactly where he came from, and how he managed to steal her baby girl away from her so swiftly.

“Natalie makes me happy,” he told the woman.

Not a good answer, Brandon. Try again. Tell her why Natalie Chandler makes you so happy.

“Surely there are plenty of other girls that would make you happy,” Helen Chandler replied. He instantly assumed that she meant other white girls.

Brandon shook his head. Damn it, he couldn’t think of one girl that matched Natalie, could he? But, how could he put those feelings into words that her mother would be satisfied with? And where the hell was Natalie?

“No, ma’am,” Brandon replied. “Just Natalie…only Natalie…”

Bran, you have to do a little better than that. Think hard, you bastard. It’s Natalie, for chrissake! The girl who used to put up with your drunk ass in college, who would pick you up when you and Scotty got stranded at a bar, who would help you with your math equations when you got stuck, who would force you to study even when you didn’t want to, who would listen to you whine and moan about Sophia when she didn’t even want to, who cooked for you even when she couldn’t afford groceries, who made you laugh, even when you didn’t want to…

You don’t live in a perfect world, Brandon Greene, but Nat’s as close as you’re going to get to perfection.

“She’s special,” he told the mother, who had begun to tap her foot, making him feel even more nervous. “She’s light, she’s air, she takes care of me…she listens, she’s incredibly smart, she’s focused, and she gives me the space that I need sometimes…she’s an excellent cook, I love her smile, she’s beautiful…and she’s been my best friend for as long as I can remember…”

Good answer, Bran. Look at her face, she’s speechless!

“Got my vote,” Uncle Marty chuckled, letting out a long belch.

“Mine too,” Uncle Joe agreed.

“I guess he’s alright,” one of the aunts sighed.

“But you do understand, boy, that if I ever hear about you doing something to that girl, I’ll kill you,” Uncle Ronnie said.

Brandon nodded compliantly. “Of—of course…”

Then Helen Chandler narrowed her eyes. Uh-oh…

“Do you even realize how hard it’s going to be for the both of you?”

“Of course,” Brandon said again. “I’ve thought about it several times…but we can manage…”

“I’m not talking about the money, I’m talking about what you look like…”

He thought about it, of course. But, ignorantly enough (maybe), he’d never thought much of Natalie being any different than him, other than the fact that her silence drove him completely out of his mind sometimes. Other than that, Natalie was simply the same: analytic and nerdy and soft and sweet, all in one.

“What people think doesn’t matter,” he told her strongly. “And I’ve tried to stress that to Nat several times…it’s all about us, and our happiness, and our marriage…”

“And what of her family, huh?” the mother questioned. “What happens to us? Do we get shoved out of the picture simply because we disagree…?”

“Are you talking about the family, Ms. Chandler, or just you?”

Helen Chandler pursed her lips, and she could hear the mother’s brothers and sisters make a small noise of surprise. But Brandon Greene never took his eyes away from the mother, could feel his heart pounding relentlessly, could feel the sweat form at his brow…and where the hell was his fiancée?

“Yes, I’m white,” Brandon told the woman. “But why should that make me any less capable of taking care of your daughter? I believe that something you fail to realize is that I love your daughter. And I definitely wouldn’t be sitting here right now, taking this from you, if it weren’t for her. She’s in good hands, Ms. Chandler. Very good hands. I’ve most certainly placed taking care of her as one of my top priorities. And the day you start believing that, will be the day that you’ll be able to let your daughter go. I’m marrying her, Ms. Chandler. I’m marrying her because I’ve always wanted to, because I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life with another person. And the sooner you start acknowledging that and acknowledging me, the better off you’ll be…excuse me…”

He removed himself from the wicker chair, dusted himself off, and headed in the direction of the house. He walked all the way through the house, and when he didn’t see Natalie, he placed himself on the curb outside of Marie Chandler’s house on Hargrove, in the darkness, fireflies dancing around him peacefully. Brandon lowered his head, cupped his face in his hands and exhaled. He had to clear his mind, and ask for some greater power to forgive him for saying those things to Helen Chandler. But he meant every word. He knew that this would take time, that everyone wouldn’t be able to adhere to the marriage the way that he and Natalie had. But he couldn’t wait to get it all over with, couldn’t wait for the moment that he said “I do”, couldn’t wait for the moment that he would be able to run off with Natalie, and not look back. All he had to do, in the meantime, was breathe, and make sure that he didn’t step on the wrong toes, say the wrongs things. All he had to do was make sure that he didn’t lose Natalie…