Mr. Right Now, page 8
Why did she think I needed or wanted to hear about my daddy? I’d asked her about Jake.
She got up from the table. “Do you want some more cobbler?” she asked.
She took her time, serving herself a generous piece of cobbler and freshening our coffee before she sat down.
“He was a handsome man, delicate featured and compact, with large eyes and a mobile mouth, not too tall. He looked a lot like you, child.”
“I’ve heard,” I said, hiding my sour expression in my coffee.
“You haven’t heard everything. He was from New Orleans, an old family. He was a priest.”
This was new. “He was a Catholic priest?”
“No, child. A Santería priest.”
I searched my brain for what scant information I had on Santería. “Great. Another insane relative who sacrifices chickens to the gods like the gods can’t go to Kentucky Fried like everybody else does.”
“You’ve been hurt badly by your mother. Don’t take it out on your world.” She pulled out a folded piece of paper from her pocket. “Your father wanted you to have this when you were twenty-seven, but I think you need it now.”
I smoothed out the aged and crumpled piece of paper. The following words were highlighted:
The sacred world of Santería is motivated by ashe. Ashe is growth, the force toward completeness and divinity. The real world is one of pure movement. In fact, the real world is one not of objects at all but of forces in continual process.
“Mumbo jumbo.”
“It’s not mumbo jumbo. It is about the principle underlying the use of magic. All magic.”
I didn’t realize that I’d spoken aloud. I sat back in my chair and stared at Grandma. “Jake believes in magic,” I said. “He said he’s not human, but a vampire. He bit my neck.” I pointed. “You’re telling me that he’s not crazy, that I am?” Near the end of my speech, my voice started to waver. I felt utterly ashamed when I realized that I couldn’t stop the tears dripping from my eyes.
“I’m trying to tell you that you’re not crazy. I’m telling you about the world beyond this world. The one you fear so much.” She leaned forward, her rheumy eyes blazing with an inner light. “I’m trying to tell you that it’s real and you need to deal with it.”
The tears only dripped faster.
Grandma sighed. “I wanted to give you a spiritual foundation, a real faith. I feel as if I failed.”
“What does my faith in God have to do with this ... ” I’d never curse in front of Grandma, no matter how upset. “Stuff,” I finished. “You tell me about ghosts and divination, about vampires and a voodoo priest for a father whose sole paternal legacy is a page torn from a book with mumbo jumbo highlighted. What the heck does that have to do with faith?”
“Ashe is the energy of the universe, the substance of magic, all magic, from the heart light of the Christ to the Santería rites. Learn what ashe is, manipulate it and hold it, and you can control your destiny.”
I didn’t raise my eyes from my creamy coffee. Dread crawled through me like a living thing. Grandma’s voice filled the room with ringing tones. Truth, which reverberated through her voice. She believed in magic and she sounded insane. Passionate insane.
“Fear is the ultimate evil and you are filled with it. Face your fears and release them.”
I moaned and buried my face in my hands.
But Grandma wouldn’t stop, her words lashing at me as if they were whips. “I’ve sheltered you too much. Made you afraid of any reality that threatens your small world. Look at me, Luby Uniquoncie. Look at me!” she thundered.
I raised my head and gasped when I saw Grandma surrounded by a halo of shifting colors—pink, gold, green, and white. My heart felt as if it was going to explode in my chest. Everything dimmed as my head expanded and I felt myself slipping— “Don’t you dare faint!” Grandmother ordered me sharply. “I know I didn’t raise that much of a coward.”
My head snapped up. “What is it?” I asked.
“Something all things share, my energy matrix. Some call it an aura. This is the smallest slice of what your father was trying to let you know, everything is energy—and we have the gift to be able to manipulate energy in greater or lesser ways.”
“Please, please turn it off,” I almost pleaded.
“Why, are you afraid?”
“No, I’m not afraid.” I tried to swallow the giant lump in my throat that was evidence otherwise. “I’m over whelmed.”
I tried to sort through what my grandmother was trying to tell me, verbal and nonverbal as her aura gradually faded.
The birds chirped, the sun shone through the windows and it looked as normal a summer Saturday morning as it had fifteen minutes ago. But everything had changed as much as if a cataclysm caused all I knew to lay in ruins.
“You’re telling me that vampires, witches, and ghosts exist? That magic is. And that my mother isn’t really crazy?”
“Your mother is crazy enough. You have enough of her traits to frighten me. She never could face the reality of things enough to deal with them. Soon she could deal with nothing, not even her own life.”
Grandma couldn’t have said anything that would’ve hurt me more—that I was like my mother. I know the pain was raw on my face, but she took a breath and continued on.
“Your mother hears the spirits. She told me some things that I think are truths. First, I want to let you know that I believe your young man is the same as you are.”
“He said I was like him.” Did that mean I was a vampire and doomed to run around in ugly black leather, shrinking from crosses and drinking blood? I didn’t see how. I don’t even like liquid meal replacement drinks. “He’s a vampire.” I tried to be straightforward and blasé when I said it to my grandma, but you understand it was hard as fuck to utter the words as fact.
“No vampire can make true love with a human,” Grandma said. “They’re demons, beings who reside mainly in the astral sphere. Creatures such as that can no longer clothe themselves permanently in flesh.”
I barely could wrap my mind around the fact that Grandma didn’t deny the existence of vampires and mentioned demons in the same breath. I had no clue about the astral sphere or the other stuff. But I decided to be proactive. Obviously she was informed on such matters, matters that I once referred to only as freaky shit. “He bit me on the neck. I think he drank my blood. And he wanted me to taste his, a drop.”
She drew in a breath. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“Grandma, I just told you of his existence.”
She waved me silent, preoccupied in thought. “He bonded you to him.” She looked worried.
“And what’s this that Lily said about him being the death of me?”
“I didn’t see this man ever hurting you, but I did see that knowing him could put you under some sort of threat.”
“Death is a pretty major threat. And his tendency to gnaw on my neck is rather unfortunate.”
Grandma looked at me in surprise, then threw back her head and laughed.
CHAPTER 9
I will rise now and go about the city ...
—Song of Songs, 3:2
“I’m happy that I entertain you,” I said to Grandma, and I admit that I said it somewhat sulkily.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she said, wiping her eyes. “It was funny.”
“I don’t think being bitten on the neck is in the least funny. And if I’m like him as he says, I’m not looking forward to the monotonous liquid diet.”
My eyes narrowed when Grandma looked as if she wanted to laugh again.
“He’s human, child. He’s not going to drain you dry. Nor does he live only on blood or would be burned to a crisp by the sun. Those are fairy tales.”
“Weren’t you just asking me to accept all manner of fairy tales?”
“No. I was asking you to have faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Substance and evidence are tangible and reality-based. There is no need to take flights of fancy, or fear insanity. What I want you to accept are merely unacknowledged parts of the natural world.”
She got the coffeepot and refilled her cup again, offering me some. I shook my head and she reached for the cream and sugar. “Most of today’s legends and myths are based in the realities of an ancient world. Few peoples of that world survived, but remnants of their blood remain in humans down to this day.
“There are great families, witch families some call them, who practice magical arts. Some hold great power in the world, manipulating governments, world finance and multinational corporations.
“Some keep a low profile. But they’re all interested in not diluting their magical bloodlines. Most choose to mate only with others of a similar kind and some have no choice, but must do so if they want their seed to be fruitful.”
“So you’re saying the world is run by witches?”
“A totally inaccurate word. I would prefer to call them, um, people of power. That has a good sound, don’t you think?”
She stirred the liquid in her cup until it was pale beige. “They don’t run the world, I’d say they probably manage a generous portion. The most powerful ones keep to themselves though. Some are unknowing of their heritage and many reside in far-flung great families. Your Jake is certainly one of these people.”
“And I’m one too?”
Grandma lifted the cup to her lips. “I believe we are.” I blinked at her in disbelief.
“My daughter told me that there was once a race of people, snake or dragon people many called them,” she continued. “They drank the blood of living things to sustain them. A human with this trait has an affinity toward blood, among other possible talents. In your young man’s passion, he might have lost control.”
“Why were you concerned that he wanted me to drink his blood when I first told you?”
“Why, I once saw the snake people in a dream performing a similar bonding ritual, except that they exchanged great quantities of their blood. I believe that he’s taken you as his life mate, child. Seems as if it would have been polite to tell you so first.” She sucked her teeth. “It was like your father to pull something like that, to fixate on his mate and take her regardless.”
“My father took my mother as his life mate? I thought he disapproved.”
“He did, but she ran away from him while she was heavy with child, you. I don’t think he would have let her leave him that easily though. He would have found her and come to get her. I was right. Years after she left him, she told me that she killed him.”
I was taken aback, and then angry, then shattered. Why had no one told me? “It’s true then, that she hates me because I remind her of him?”
Grandma shook her head. “Maybe, in part. But your mother’s difficulty is she’s always believed that you were going to kill her.”
“What?”
“I told her that the spirits have it wrong, that such a thing is not possible and I’ve never had any visions of any such thing, but she won’t believe me. You see, ever since you were born the spirits whisper death in her ears. They tell her that you’re the tool of your father’s revenge beyond the grave.”
By then you can imagine the headache I had. Absorbing that my mother killed my father and hated me all my life because she thought I’d kill her was a little much.
“Are you about ready to go shopping?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
“In a while. Why don’t you go and take a couple of painkillers and lie on your bed for a while? Think things over. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
She woke me from a light nap in an hour. We went shopping with no more talk of magic, visions, magical beings or mama killing. And although the direction of my life had again changed completely, the sun still shone, the birds still chirped. It seemed like an entirely normal day.
It was early evening when I returned from Grandma’s and I had to rush to dress. Danni and I were having our first blind date via the online dating service. We were going to meet two men at a restaurant. I rushed to her apartment as we had arranged.
Cat opened the door. “She’s almost ready, finishing her make- up. You look good. I’ll only be a few minutes. C’mon and keep me company, okay?”
I sat on the bed with Cat while Danni stood in front of her dresser. “We need a signal,” Danni said.
“A signal?” I echoed.
“We need to let each other know if we need rescuing.” She bent close to the mirror to apply her mascara. “If things aren’t going well, I’ll put a finger on the right side of my nose. If the man is so bad I think I’m going to puke, I’ll put my finger on the left side of my nose?”
“I personally think fingers and noses are indelicate. The guys are going to be watching to see if you start flicking boogers,” Cat said.
“Ewwwww,” I said. “I have to agree with Cat, fingers and nose signals aren’t going to work.”
“Cat isn’t going with us. Did I ask you for your two cents, girl?” Danni asked.
“Nope, but I gave it, and see, Luby agrees.”
“So what are we going to use as a signal if we want to get away from those guys?”
“How about a word?” I suggested.
“It would have to be a word common enough not to draw undue attention to itself,” Danni said.
“But uncommon enough so you won’t miss it in the flow of conversation,” Cat added.
I thought for awhile, then my gaze fell on the flowers on Danni’s bedside table. “How about vase?”
“Vase?”
“Yes. The restaurant will probably have vases on the tables, so we can work it into casual conversation. Nice vase, we can say.”
“That’s pretty good,” Danni agreed. “Who talks about vases out on a date?” She laid the wand down with a flourish and surveyed her image in the mirror. “I’m ready.”
“You two look wonderful,” Cat said. “I want to know all the dirty details as soon as you get back. Hell, maybe next time I’ll be going with you.”
We’d got to the restaurant right on time and were seated. We figured the guys probably came early to check us out and bolt if we were hideous.
We were right. We’d started on our first glass of wine when two black guys approached our table from the bar. They were dressed appropriately in slacks and sports jackets, casual, but not too casual.
They both knew not to show up with raggedy, unpolished, fake leather shoes. They wore decent shoes with spit shines. I checked out their shoes before I looked into their faces closely. The face can lie, but most men don’t realize how much the choice and care of his footwear say about his character. They could be as fine as hell, but if they had scuffed shoes it wouldn’t matter.
Acceptable, I thought, until I saw the roses they both carried. Not real roses mind you, but fake roses, the ones made out of polyester and plastic.
“You must be Danielle,” one said to Danni. “You have the most astounding eyes.”
He sat across from her and the other guy took the chair across from me. Danni and I tried not to look at each other and roll our eyes as they handed us each a fake rose with a flourish.
“I’m Bill. The engineer,” he added and waited espectantly for my response.
“Uh, thanks for the rose. I’m Luby Jones.” I extended my hand.
“This is Michael. He’s a lawyer too,” Bill said. “He turned to Danni. “And you must be Danielle. You’re a registered nurse, correct?”
I wanted to roll my eyes. Work titles were damn important to these guys.
Danni didn’t look impressed either. I suspected it wasn’t only because the professional types I insisted on choosing weren’t her cup of tea. “I’m an LPN,” she said.
The guy across from her, Michael, had the nerve to look crestfallen. “When you said you were a nurse, I assumed you meant a real nurse,” he said.
CHAPTER 10
Until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away ...
—Song of Songs, 2:17
Nope, I’m not joking. He told hardworking, feet-hurting, bedpan schlepping Danni that she wasn’t a real nurse. I saw her jaw tighten, but she didn’t say a word.
Then Michael decided to assess the size of my breasts, which even with Danni’s implants were larger than hers. I could see the equation working in his mind, boobs or not, boobs or not.
Then he turned his attention from my boobs and grinned in Danni’s face. I guess she won, poor thing.
They both were decent-looking. Bill was red bone, with nice teeth, good bone structure, average build, and height. In his correspondence, he assured me he was a Christian. I glanced over at the other one. He was about the same, but darker and a bit taller.
We studied our menus. Engrossed in choosing either penne pasta primavera or a Caesar salad, I was slow to notice that Bill was talking to me. “It’s important to have pride in your image,” he said.
“I guess,” I said. What did that have to do with anything I wondered.
“I think both husband and wife being working professionals are essential to affording the image that matters. Don’t you agree?” He looked at me in anticipation.
The image that matters? What was he talking about? Did I miss something? I must have missed a lot. I looked toward Danni. She gave a tiny shrug.
“I agree,” Michael said. “It is so hard for a couple to lay a solid economic foundation nowadays. It takes effort, hard work, and most of all, investment.”
“Investment?” Danni echoed, now looking as perplexed as I felt.
“Oh yes. I’m a member of the Black Republican Investment Association.”
Oh Lawd, he was like a chocolate-flavored version of her father and brother. He might as well have stood up and gone home right then as far as Danni was concerned.
“Hmmmm,” she said. “Interesting.” She had that tone in her voice. “I think couples should work hard toward self-sufficiency too,” she said.
