Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White (44 page)

I read the passage again, put the Bible down, and pick up my laptop and
begin to type:

If the words I write
broke the hearts of men,
and staggered angels
and I did not love
I am mere noise, needing
grace to silence me.

And if my prophecies, opened
the fragrant bud of mystery
and my faith made mountains bow
and leap, and I did not love
what is the use of me?

If I emptied myself of myself,
and gave all I had to the poor,
and if I yielded flesh to fire
willingly, and on my knees
and I did not love
I should be pitied for my poverty.

Love stays.

Love cares for others more.
Love doesn’t ask for
what is not for love.
Love bows,
and love gives way.

Love doesn’t think too highly
of itself, nor does love
violate. Love doesn’t insist
that it has its way.
It doesn’t remember sins.
Love doesn’t make you beg.

It just lets it go.

Love loves when truth blossoms
like lilacs and gardenias
swollen with scents
sweet as a mercy.

Love allows.

Trusts Abba always.

Love opens wide eyes
to see the best
and shuts them tight
to what is behind us;
It doesn’t comprehend
the past.

Love never,
ever
fails.

Like God,
Love stays.

I decide to stay where love is. I’ll fight whatever demons I must to be with
Zora, even if the demon is me.

She comes out of the bedroom and passes by me without a word. Goes
banging around in my kitchen. I don’t know what she’s doing, short of looking
for the sharp instrument she’ll kill me with. I only hope she stabs with less
power than she slaps with.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ZORA

He’s calling out to me from the living room where he’s stopped typing. When
I passed him, he had that contented look about him, and I know despite what
I said, he’s just written something wonderful. I can’t wait to read it.

Nicky has a dismally ill-equipped kitchen, not that I know my way
around a kitchen. But Mac did show me a few things. My collard greens have
come a long way, and I can make a box of Jiffy cornbread sing. My chicken is
melt-off-the-bone good. A sistah’s got to do chicken right. But I’m not here to
cook for him, at least right now. I pray we’ll have plenty of time for that later
if we can make it through this awful right now.

I’ve got the cans. He doesn’t have collard greens but he has string beans.
Abundant string beans. I’m going to have to learn how to cook fresh string
beans for him. Show him what a string bean is supposed to taste like. But
if that man thinks I’m going to make him a chitlin, he’d better get himself
another black woman.

I don’t care how he pronounces it.

I just need rope. I open all kinds of drawers, but I don’t see any. I have
to call MacKenzie again. That means I have to cross the living room. It also
means I have to go back into the bedroom. Even if I use my cell phone, my
purse is in his bedroom.

I take a deep breath, throw my head back like a runway model, and
catwalk out of the kitchen like I own his apartment and he’s annoying me
just being there.

He looks up at me. “Hey.”

I ignore him. Communication at this point would completely defeat my
purpose. I get my cell phone out of my purse in the bedroom, just in case he
makes me get off his landline. Hit MacKenzie up. She answers on the first
ring, sounding frantic.

“What now?”

“I need to know where he might keep his man stuff?”

She fires questions at me like her mouth is a machine gun. “What kind
of man stuff? Girl, what you need man stuff for? What are you about to do?
Don’t do nuthin’, okay? I’ll walk you through this all, but you got to take it
slow. You ain’t ready for man stuff.”

“I just want some rope.”

She moans. “Oh, Jesus! Jesus, stop her! That freaky white boy done broke
her down and she talkin’ ’bout rope, Lord! I knew I shoulda stayed. I could
just look at him and see he was trouble.”

“Mac, what are you talking about?”

“What am I talking about? You’re talking about rope and man stuff.”

“I just mean where would he keep tape, and nails, and that sort of thing.”

“Oh, Lord, what are you tryna do, girl?”

“I just want to make a tin-can telephone.”

I can hear MacKenzie take several breaths. She seems calm for a moment,
until she starts yelling. “
Why would you need a tin-can telephone
?! Are y’all
having vacation Bible school?! What is the matter with you, Zora?!”

“We had a talk once. It would be sweet and meaningful. I think it would
be a good way to end our argument.”

“I just had a stroke because you want to do something sweet?”

“I told you I’m not going to do anything.”

“Zora, you drivin’ me crazy.”

“Stop worrying about me, Mac. I just want the chance to grow up, just
like you’re doing. I’m worried about you, too, all the way in New York, alone.
But I had to let you go. Why don’t you just let me go, and take the call when
I need you? You don’t need to come back home for me.”

She doesn’t say anything, and I know she’s thinking it over.

“Mac?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“You can let Jesus take care of me.”

I hear her sigh. “I guess I have to.”

“Are you really on your way here?”

“Girl, I’m so on my way.”

“Turn around and go back to New York.”

“Just ask him if he has any rope.”

“Just ask him?”

“He’s a white boy. He’ll think you want to do something freaky. If he got
some, he’ll tell you.”

“You’re gonna have to work on your racial profiling, you know.”

“Oh, no. Now you ’bout to turn in to
that
sistah.”

“The one who is trying to lay her racism at the cross?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Bye, Mac.”

“Bye, Z. Stay good. Okay?”

I tell her I will stay good, and I pray that God will give me the strength
to, and I mean that. I try to act like I’ve got some sense and go out of Nicky’s
bedroom, and actually say something to him when I get to him sitting on the
futon.

“Nicky?”

“Your highness is speaking to me now?”

“Do you have any rope?”

“Will you be tying me up and torturing me before you kill me? I’m
assuming you were in my kitchen drawers looking for knives.”

“Are you still mad because you couldn’t get in
my
drawers?”

A wide smile spreads across his face. “You are way too clever. And it hurts
when I smile. It hurts when I laugh. It also hurts when I kiss you. You’ve been
tormenting me all day.”

“You don’t have to smile, laugh, or kiss me anymore. Now, about that
rope.
String
, Nicky.”

He goes to his living-room closet, of all places, and pulls out a roll of
string. Gives it to me as if it were an offering. “Zora?”

“Have a seat, Nicky.”

He sits on the futon.

I go into the kitchen to finish the telephone. I’d already punched the
holes in the can, and make quick work of adding the string. I didn’t want to
be in another room to talk with him. I just wanted it to be a simple peace
offering. It was silly, but I wanted it to be something innocent. This may be
the last childhood thing we’ll do.

I come into the living room holding the tin can telephone.

He grins when he sees it. “I’m assuming you’re not about to kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you, cowboy.”

“I would have recommended you shooting me, anyway. It’s less personal
than stabbing. You don’t want to get close or personal with me, do you?”

I hand him a can. He takes it reluctantly. “No sparring, Nicky. You can
talk about horses though. Or cowboy stuff.”

“Guns are cowboy stuff.”

“No guns.”

“Are you going to be controlling when we grow up?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I hate making decisions,” he says after he puts the can to his
mouth. I put mine to my ear. “Hello, Dreamy.”

It doesn’t sound good. He notices I’m not thrilled by the sound quality.

“Why don’t you pull out your blackberry and text message me, princess?”

“Do you have a Blackberry, Nicky?”

“No.”

“Then shut up.”’

“Do you?”

I don’t answer him.

He says, and not into his can, “You have one, don’t you? You have every
freakin’ thing.”

I don’t say into my can, “That doesn’t mean I’m not lonely, cowboy. Just
like you. Despite what I have, I can see you’re lonely, and here I am. I’m the
one trying to talk to you through a stupid can.”

I take my can and throw it across the room. His sails along with it.

He doesn’t look upset. He looks delighted. “Hey, Dreamy. Are black
women in general violent, or is this unique to you?”

“It’s just me, and only when I’m with you, Nicky.”

“So I make you a she-beast?”

“In more ways than one.”

“I wrote you a poem, she-beast.”

“I don’t care.”

“Come and read it anyway.”

“I don’t want to read your poem.”

“Please read it, Dreamy. It’s a love poem.”

The dreamy way he calls me Dreamy, the lulling timbre of his voice when
it’s full of sweetness and play, his words, they all conspire to tame the wild
thing he rouses inside of me. I remember why I love him.

I think maybe we’ll make it.

NICKY

We sit on the futon together, Zora curled into me. I ask her to go for a walk
with me, mostly because Zora is curled into me and we’ll be safe this way for
another two seconds or so.

It’s going to rain. We’ve had so much good weather, and now, finally, the
heavenly mood seems to have shifted. The sky looks angry, and though clouds
haven’t spilled their furious waters, the cold moisture in the air is enough to
dampen the bones.

I give her one of my jackets and the sight of her in it makes her look more
womanish to me. We walk around my building, talking about living at The
Beloved Community while I get a better job and she can go to the Center
for Creative Studies. CCS is my idea. She hadn’t even thought to dream of
anything so big. We talk about how we can make a life that’s perfect for us.

Despite the ease of our conversation, each step I take feels like a funeral
march to the end of our relationship because I’ve got the princess in the heart
of Cass Corridor with its worn brown buildings sidled next to ruins. We’re in
the cultural center, but not the bright and shiny part that houses the museum
and the art school she’s dreaming of. We’re where I’ll worry about her getting
mugged, raped, or hounded by crackheads.

I try to beat back my thoughts with the hope of love and the God who’s
bigger than my fear.

I tell her I’m called to be a pastor, but I don’t know how that’s going to
work now. I tell Zora I want to be a writer, mostly, but sometimes I want to
be the guy that does it better than my dad. She just says God told her once
she’d marry a pastor, and she didn’t believe Him. I said we’ll follow God and
figure it out. I’m so in love I don’t know if I can be any happier. I didn’t think
what I feel was possible a week ago.

Her hand in mine. Her beautiful hand, dark and lovely, intertwined in
mine. I look at the stark contrast of us as we walk along. Black and white. But
it doesn’t seem so much with all this love I feel. It’s just some color. I won’t let
anything come between us, even though I’m scared. We’ll make it somehow.
I’ll take care of her. If I can get through my fear and be willing to stick with
this for real, a little color and a whole lot of life isn’t going to get the best of
us.