Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White (45 page)

I hear voices, “brotha” voices behind us, directed at Zora because no one
would mistake me for a “sistah.”

“Wassup, sistah? What you doin’ wit da white boy, girl?”

Another one. “He ain’t got nuthin’. Baby, come on over here. Let me give
you some Mandingo love.”

Zora, this woman I plan to marry, without breaking stride, or looking
back, pulls her hand out of mine.

I’m stunned. I can’t look at her. I feel this aching void along with the chill
where her hand was. I thrust both hands into the pockets of my jacket. I won’t
give her another opportunity to hold them. Not again.

Our hecklers like what she did. Start cheering for her, though she doesn’t
give them anything else. They follow us for another block, talking trash.
Asking for her phone number, until one of them says something lewd.

I turn around.

He rises to the challenge. Tall as me. Dark, like Zora. Has a diamond stud
in one ear. Bald head. “What you gon’ do, white boy?”

“I’ll show you, black boy.”

His friend walks up on me. This one shorter. Heavy, fair-skinned, and
boyish looking, but his eyes are as black and hard as flint. “You call him boy?
Huh, honky? We got yo’ boy.”

I ready my fist. The two of them can take me, but I’m going to give them
a hard time of it. That’s when Zora lets out a scream like we’ve been plunged
into a scary movie and she is the person about to get the ax across the head.

She scares all of us. The “brothas” back up. Look at each other. One says,
“Man, that sistah is crazy.”

His friend says, “She into white boys, anyway.” Just turns and walks away.
One calls her a foul name. I lunge at him, but she grabs me. They don’t even
get to see my burst of chivalry.

But I yank away from her grasp. “Don’t touch me
now
, Zora.”

“You shouldn’t have called him ‘boy,’ Nicky.”

“Why not? He called me a boy. I just called him the same thing.”

“You didn’t call him the same thing. You called him a lot less. You’ve got
four hundred years of history behind what you said. You stripped him of his
manhood. He was a lot less than a boy to you. You’re a
white
man.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did you hear what he called
you?”

“I heard him, Nicky. It’s not the same. You’ll never understand.”

“I understand you pulling your hand out of mine. I understand you’ll
always feel your solidarity is with him. The
brotha
. Not me, the
white
man.”

“I just didn’t want them to give you any trouble.”

“You’re the one who didn’t want the trouble.”

“That’s not true, Nicky. I mean it is, but what’s wrong with not wanting
any trouble?”

“You were ashamed of me.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were. You pulled your hand away because you wanted to distance
yourself, way too late might I add, from me. You didn’t want
brotha man
and
his friend to know you love a white boy.”

She doesn’t bother to deny it this time. It spares me having to flat out call
her a liar.

“You’re a racist, Zora. You and your calling me ‘white boy’ and being
ashamed of letting the outside world hear you listening to my ‘white boy’
music in your car. You and
your
stereotypes. You want all of America to be the
big bad racist, but what about you?”

I stride ahead, spittin’ mad. I don’t worry about her keeping up. Not with
those long legs of hers. Of course she catches me. Tries to link her arm in mine.

“Don’t touch me, Zora. Keep your racist hands off of me.”

Her anger comes down with the rain. Words pour out of her like droplets
from the sky.

“What about you? What about your racism, Nicky? You think because
you’re funny and charming it’s not there? Or that I don’t see it? You think
because you kiss me, or even love me, you’re not infected with the disease
we’re all infected with. You’re a racist. I’m a racist. We were born with it
because we were born here. The soil is seeped in the blood of its African and
Native American ancestors. This is a sick land full of sick people who don’t
remember how sick they are. Well, sometimes I remember, and that’s why
I pulled my hand away. I didn’t want to hurt them. I didn’t want to hurt. I
didn’t want you to hurt, or be hurt—”

“I don’t want to marry you, Zora.”

“Wait a minute, Nicky.”

“It’s over, Zora. This is way too heavy. I’m just one
white boy
, as you’re so
fond of reminding me. I can’t change America. I can’t change my family or
yours. How long are we going to have to fight racism? And I’m not even sure
you want to fight if you’re more concerned about two thugs who walk up on
us than you are me.”

“Nicky, I’m sorry.”

The rain pounds us, which only angers me more, triggering the memory
of something I saw on television.

“Do you think I smell like a wet dog?”

For a moment she looks confused. “What?”

“I said, do you think I smell like a wet dog?”

She’s not confused anymore. Her words ask a question but her hooded
eyes reveal her shame. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t know what I’m talking about, Zora?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Do I?”

“Who told you that, Nicky?”

“I saw a comedian talking about it on Comic View. He said black people
think white people smell like wet dogs, and nobody in that mostly black
audience was surprised. And I thought that was the meanest thing. I want to
know since we’re laying it out there if that’s what you think.”

“Can we just go back to your apartment? It’s raining hard now.”

“Answer me.”

She doesn’t even sound angry. More resigned. “No. You don’t smell like a
wet dog, Nicky. And white people didn’t have to drain their pools when one
of us got in. And they don’t have to spray their lawn furniture with Lysol,
like a neighbor did when she realized my fair-skinned sister was black when
I came to pick her up. We needed our wet dog thing because white people
had so many things like that. And it’s ugly. And mean. And it’s sin. And I’m
sorry. You don’t smell like a wet dog. You smell like a wet man because we’re
standing here getting soaked.”

She tries to touch me again.

“Don’t.”

“Nicky. Let’s get out of this rain. I said I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too. I don’t need this. I don’t want this, Zora. I can’t do it.”

“No, what you needed—what you wanted, was an excuse. This is you
running away. Just like you ran off to Berkeley to run away from your father.
I’m glad I could be your excuse before you had to run off to Paris to write or
something. That would have been pretty expensive. And we both know you
don’t have that kind of money, which you seem to enjoy reminding me of.”

And that was that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ZORA

Sopping wet, I drive back to my apartment, and I realize I’m homeless. All my
stuff is back, and none of it is mine. I know Daddy won’t take it again. Mama
will see to that, but I feel separated from love. I’m a stranger here. My name is
on the lease, but I can’t possibly
live
in the truest sense of the word here.

I get showered, warm and dry, and call Billie. I tell her I’ve got a lot
of clothes and furniture to donate. I decide to do what I told my mother I
would, only I’ll do it without Nicky.

In the morning, with the new mercy God gives with the rising of the
sun, I will become a servant for the first time. I will give my whole life away.

Tonight, I will cry out all the tears I’ve got inside of me.

The buzzer rings. With all my heart I pray it’s Nicky, but his truck is still
in my parking lot. I doubt he could get to me so fast.

It’s not him. It’s Miles.

I buzz him in.

He comes to me, and in his hands he’s got a bag of groceries he doesn’t
know will go to the poor and needy, distributed through the Beloved
Community.

I take the groceries and tell him to have a seat. He looks like he’s been
run through an old-fashioned washing machine wringer. His slick veneer is
gone.

“What’s going on, Miles?”

“I’ve been talking to your father.”

“Have you.”

“He told me you talked to him about what happened. And I’ve been
thinking.”

“I don’t know if you should think, Miles. It might be dangerous.”

“That’s not funny, Zora.”

“You’re right. It sounds suspiciously like someone else I know. I apologize.
What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about what that white lady with the dreads was saying
when I came here with that stuff. And your father. And how I just let happen
what I’ve been doing in my head for a long time. I mean, what good is all this
positive confession if you really aren’t thinking positive thoughts?”

“I agree.”

“Will you forgive me?”

I don’t want to. I don’t like Miles very much, but I haven’t been the most
likeable creature God ever made lately, either. “I forgive you, Miles. Forgive
me. I sincerely mean that. I’ve been pretty awful, too.”

“I don’t want to rush into anything if you’re not ready. I just want things
to go back to how they were.”

I reach over and touch his hand. Just briefly. I don’t want to stir him up
and have to give him a beat-down. If I slapped the man I’m in love with today,
I’m liable to put a real hurt on Miles.

“Miles, forgiving each other doesn’t mean we’re going back together.”

“Are you serious? You can’t tell me you want that white boy?”

“Can you describe people using adjectives besides
white
?”

“Zora, he’s—”

“Miles, I don’t care what he is or isn’t at the moment. That has nothing
to do with this. You’re not the man for me, Miles. But there are dozens of
women at LLCC plotting to get you as soon as they think ‘ding dong the
witch is dead.’”

Just like that, Miles slips back into his smooth, cold bishop-to-be suit. He
gives me the full length of his veneer smile.

“You’ll be back.”

“Keep on confessing that, Miles. I’ll see you out.”

And praise the Lord, I did, with nary a hitch.

NICKY

I lasted three weeks.

I thought the first one would be the hardest. That was the tearful one that
made me feel like a girly man. That Tuesday I didn’t answer my phone, not
even when Linda called repeatedly because I was a no-call/no-show for work.
When I missed Bible study for fear that she’d be there, they started calling
me. Linda, Billie, and Richard. That night, I asked Pete to take me to get my
truck. And when she got back from Bible study she’d see that I’d been there
and of course she’d be devastated by the mere thought of me.

Yeah, right.

Zora wasn’t calling. She wasn’t leaving messages on my machine or cell
phone. Finally, to escape the lack of messages from Zora, and the excessive
messages from Richard, Billie, and Linda, I finally called the job to tell Linda
I quit. Of course Linda wanted to know the scoop on what happened with
Zora and me. I told her she could ask Zora.

In typical Linda fashion, Linda said, “Zora has only Zora’s story. What’s
your story, Nicky?”

I got off the phone.

I spent the rest of the time at Pete’s, job hunting in the daytime, and
kickin’ it with him to stave off my Zora hunger. The last week, I was too
exhausted by my efforts to keep pretending. I got a job offer as a teaching
assistant at, of all places, Sankofa Shule high school. I think they hired me
because I’m white. Maybe they needed to fill some kind of reverse affirmative-
action quota. I know I applied because I want to know everything she knows.
It isn’t possible with me just being a teaching assistant there, but I wanted to
be where she’d been. I missed her.

I spent the next-to-the-last day so sick with love I thought it’d kill me.

I spent the last day of that three weeks with her dad.

ZORA

Three weeks. I didn’t know it could hurt so much to love someone. Billie
and Pet try to cheer me up, but I can’t be consoled. Even Ms. Pamela noticed
my sorrow when I finally got through to her and took her to the hospital. I
couldn’t even be consoled with the thought that I may have saved her life. I
just keep painting golden people on the big canvas Nicky gave me, and one
golden child in particular with sapphire eyes I paint with painstaking detail.
I’m working on the tin-can phone the child is holding in his hand when
Pet comes running into my room with her mother. They’re holding hands.
They’re grinning their fool heads off.

My heart pounds because they are two of the most hopelessly ridiculous
romantics I know, and every bit of paint on this huge canvas is the hope of
love. Oh, Lord, could it really be?

“You got company,” Pet says in a singsong voice.

I put the paintbrush down. “Who?” I say, knowing. I don’t know what to
do with myself. I look a hot mess with paint all over my cut-off overalls and
T-shirt. My hair looking like Billie combed it.

I wipe my paint-smudged hands on my shorts. Billie and Pet each grab an
arm and practically drag me to the living room, ready or not.

Oh, my. He’s more beautiful than I remembered. The bruises and abrasions
on his face are healed. He looks a little paler than before, a little sadder, much
thinner, but the light in those gemstone eyes sparkles when he sees me.

He still loves me. And that crazy man is holding the tin-can telephone
in his hands.

John is standing with him, like he’s Daddy and he’s gonna be watching us
carefully. He beckons me over like I’m his little girl.

“Here’s my baby,” he says. “And I’m more than just her father confessor
now, Nicky. You catch my drift?”

He gives John a very serious look, but his eyes are full of mischief. “Yes,
sir.”

“And you may talk with her right here in the living room. There’ll be no
being alone, young man.”

“That’s not a problem.”

“All right, then. Billie, Perpetua, and I will just go over to the table and
pretend we’re not listening to every word.”

“Thank you, sir.”

John opens his arms, he and Nicky embrace, and he and the ladies file
into the dining room, which would be out of earshot to most, but they are
well-trained in nosy.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey yourself.”

“It’s good to see you.”

He extends a can like it’s a gift. “May I speak to the little princess?”

“Come on over to the sofa and sit with me.”

He follows me to the sofa, and it feels like he’s unleashed a thousand butterflies
inside me. All kinds of flying is going on inside of me because he is here.

We sit. Side by side. I hold the can to my ear.

“Tell me about your first kiss?” he asks.

I don’t know what he’s done to it, but the sound quality has dramatically
improved. He puts his can to his ear, and I respond.

“You already know about mine. But I can tell you I fell, deeply, irreversibly
in love, and it was just the beginning. I used to see myself as a tiny shoot on a
great big brown tree. And I used to think that tree was my history. My people.
But that’s only part of the tree. I realized the tree is all God’s people. That tree
is a body like His Body. All of us are nourished by the river that is His Word.
His Spirit. His Life. And we’re all connected. You were right about me being
a racist. My first kiss scorched me and sent me to find the shade of that tree.
And when I found it, it didn’t look like I remembered it. There were blossoms
of every color on it, Nicky. And one particularly beautiful white blossom. I
knew I could love every flower blooming on that tree.”

I put my can to my ear.

“Wow,” is what he says. Then, “I guess I should tell you about my first
kiss.”

NICKY

“Put the can down, Zora. This isn’t a children’s story.”

She lets me take the can from her and set our childish phone on the floor.
I anchor my soul to the tempering kindness in her eyes.

I take a deep breath. Once Zora said to me the Sankofa bird looked
behind itself to retrieve something from its past it may have left behind. I
never wanted to dredge anything up from there, especially this. I have to.

“I got my first kiss at my friend Pete’s family’s summer house on Lake
Superior. Both our families vacationed there in the summers. I already told
you about how much I loved to go there when I was a kid.”

She nods to encourage me, staring at me, eyes wide in rapt attention,
brow a bit furrowed, lips slightly parted. She’s concerned. I go on.

“He’s got this aunt, Jerri. A real hottie. Redhead. In her thirties. Wildly
inappropriate.”

She takes my hand.