Daykeeper, page 8
“I don’t know what we’re doing,” she says. “I just know I like being around you.”
“I like being around you, too. That’s why I want to see you.”
“It’s almost midnight, though.”
“I know. I want you to stay the night.”
“Are you sure about that?”
I take a deep breath. “Yes. Or I could go over there.”
She laughs. “Yeah, right. My roommate would never let me live that one down.”
I laugh along.
“So you’re coming?” I ask.
Although I sense reluctance in her voice, I am relieved when she finally answers, “Yes.”
I have removed all of the pictures from the walls and even those on the nightstand by the time Tanya arrives. I know I will put a few of them back up in various places in the house, but for now, I put them in the closet on one of the shelves.
When Tanya pulls into the driveway and gets out with a backpack, it dawns on me that we are well past the point of mere curiosity. She has a pretty good idea of how I will touch her, and she knows that when she leaves I will want her even more. Our bodies are no longer strangers, and if we both consent, neither will our minds.
We embrace when she walks into the house, and I hope she feels the desire rolling off my skin in waves.
“I’ve missed you,” I say, my cheek against hers.
“I’ve missed you, too,” she responds.
I move to kiss her, and she allows me. It feels different from the other times, though. There’s a knowing in the way we touch each other, and it seems as though something other than lust is carrying us back to my bedroom.
I undress her by the bed. She lies down, and I proceed to kiss her from her forehead down to her toes. As I work my way back up her legs, I lift them over each of my shoulders and bury my tongue inside of her. She rocks her hips against my face, her hands gripping my head tightly.
Our movements evolve as we find ourselves intertwined in ways that can only be felt, not planned. When I enter her, my thrusts are deep, and I hold her tightly, her legs hugging my back, as we move fluidly with each other. Her gasps dance against my lips, and as we build to a climax, we disappear into each other.
Afterwards we lie across the sweat-soaked bed, her head nuzzled in the crook of my arm. She does not comment on the absence of the photographs. She only exhales sweetly against my chest.
I close my eyes and try not to think of anything, just enjoying the feel of her fingertips swirling in small circles across my shoulder.
“Can I ask you a silly question?” I say, as she rises from my bed and begins to dress the following morning.
“OK.”
“What is your last name?”
She laughs, buttoning her shirt. “Hendrix.”
“Like Jimi?”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s Tanya Hendrix?”
She laughs again, shaking her head. “Actually Tanya’s my middle name.”
I sit up, my back propped against the headboard. “So what’s your first name then?”
She pulls up her jeans and fastens them, her blushing face looking downward. She seems to be playing with the idea of whether or not she will tell me. I stare at her, smiling, in hopes she will not feel so embarrassed.
“Oreetha,” she says, shaking her head as if she were the victim of a drive-by naming.
“Aretha?” I say.
“No. With an O and two Es.”
“Good lord,” I mutter before I realize that I am making the comment aloud.
“I know,” she says. “That’s my grandmother’s name.”
I nod, understanding her preference for her middle name. As I rise from the bed, I realize that her name feels really familiar, but I can’t place it. Maybe I’m just in an Aretha Franklin mood or something.
“I know that neither of us is looking for anything serious, but I was wondering if you were seeing anyone else,” I say.
She sits down on the bed and watches me dress. “I don’t have time for any of that. Not with school and my sorority. I can’t even work this semester like I had planned. So the short answer to your question is that you’re the only guy I’m kicking it with.”
“So that makes this situation pretty exclusive, right?”
She ponders this. “Exclusive like I’m only having sex with you? If that’s what you mean, then yes.”
What she says feels safe, not obligatory. We are just two people finding comfort in each other’s company. And maybe that’s all we really need to be.
When she leaves later in the morning, I watch her from just inside the threshold of my front door. I would prefer my neighbors not speculate about my personal life, so I avoid walking her out to her car.
Once Tanya drives out of view, I consider returning to the bedroom and lying down to relive the previous evening. I walk over to the couch instead. I lay my head against a throw pillow and inhale. There is no scent there, no memory. There is only me.
I fall asleep, and this time I am dreamless.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Charlotte and I got married in the gazebo of a small park just outside of Memphis. The ceremony lasted only twenty minutes, which served me well, since I was so nervous anyway. Marcus would occasionally lean over from his post as my best man and tell me not to lock my knees. “It’s too hot out here, little brother. You could pass out.” In fact, with my mind completely blank, I could only hold on to two thoughts throughout the ceremony: not locking my knees and responding “I do” to every question put to me by the minister. The only time I really snapped out of my daze was when I kissed Charlotte. At that point I felt that we were alone in the shade of some giant magnolia tree, sharing a private moment. When I opened my eyes, I could hear people fawning and clapping.
I can still remember carrying her across the threshold of the small apartment we were renting. Back then, everything seemed possible. We were two kids in love, and the world lay before us like a yellow brick road.
That first apartment was so small that we didn’t have enough space to put all of our things in it. I decided to put most of my stuff in storage so she wouldn’t have to throw out any of her things. Our kitchen didn’t leave much space either. The thin space between the stove and the sink didn’t allow either of us to stand back-to-back, although neither one of us was very large. The worst part, though, was the toilet, which made a violent five-minute groan after being flushed. Even worse, the flushing strength was so weak that we had to make a habit of flushing twice. Fewer things could help a person to realize the reality of marriage quicker than walking into a bathroom and seeing remnants of your spouse’s fecal sediment sitting at the bottom of the toilet bowl.
That first year was tough, but we kept up with our bills through student loans and academic fellowships. When I finally got my first teaching job, we went out to celebrate at a Chinese food buffet, one of the few places we went to when we were in a position to splurge. In those days, as cliché as it might sound, all we had was each other—which suited me just fine, but made her family dislike me all the more.
On one of their visits to our apartment, Charlotte’s father pulled me aside and point-blank asked me, “So is it your intention to make my daughter live the rest of her life in section 8 housing?”
“No, sir,” I responded. I knew our digs were not great, but I didn’t think that they were as bad as he was inferring they were. I gritted my teeth and tried to steady my expression. “Things are starting to go well for us, and we should be moving out at the end of the lease.”
“When I met you, I wondered if you’d be able to take care of my daughter. Now that you’re married, I’m still wondering the same thing.”
I realized right then and there that he and I would never have a good relationship with each other. If he didn’t have the basic faith I could provide for his daughter, then he was no friend of mine. Sadly, it seemed whatever Charlotte’s father thought of me, it became the family’s view as well. I thought all of that madness would have ended when Charlotte and I moved to Mississippi and then on to Georgia, but it didn’t.
“Why do your parents hate me so much?”
“They don’t hate you,” Charlotte responded. “They just have their own views about the kind of life they expect me to have.”
“Well, I might not have the ability to give you everything that they can give you, but I can give you everything I have,” I said.
“Baby, you don’t have to prove a thing to me. I know you love me, and that’s all that matters. You’re a good husband.”
“What about your family?”
“Baby, the only family you need to be worried about is this one,” she said waiving her index finger between the two of us.
From then forward, I swore not to let her family get to me. We had even succeeded at getting along during Charlotte’s illness, but now that she was gone, they had disappeared. I have not heard anything from any of them since the funeral. I guess now that the link between us is no longer there, they have no obligation to keep me as a part of their lives.
It’s probably for the better that I never grew to count on them for anything anyway.
In those Hollywood movies, the widower is usually wracked with so much heartbreak that he spends the next few years of his life suicidal, longing to be with his wife again. I remember once watching a movie where Robin Williams went inside of one of his deceased wife’s paintings to find her, ultimately searching for her in the depths of Hell. If novelists and filmmakers had their way, I would be tossing stones into a lake out in the middle of the woods, talking with my wife’s ghost. And I’m not even saying that a widower’s grief does not run so deep that it can be paralyzing, but there’s a difference between living with pain and being a character in a movie based on a Nicholas Sparks novel.
Watching Charlotte wither away was the most painful thing I have ever experienced. When she left me, I just wanted to crawl up inside of myself and stay there, buried in the dark emptiness of my heart. I don’t know what would have happened if my brother didn’t step in and pull me back from the ledge. Now I want to live again. I love the feeling of the autumn sun pushing through the grayness of a cool day. I smile when I hear Minnie Riperton’s voice on the radio station. I am trying to find those good memories to cherish, but if I were to sit still, maybe—just maybe—the darkness would sweep over me again. And I don’t want to go there.
Tanya has kept my mind away from the darkness. We have been doing this unnamed thing that we do for over a month. She spends at least three days a week at my house, usually on the nights after she finishes the pledging activities of her sorority. She arrives late, and as soon as I let her in, we head back to the bedroom. When we are lying naked, holding each other, she tells me about her day, and I tell her about mine. We are not a couple, yet we are. We don’t love each other, yet we are lovers. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Let’s go away for the weekend,” Tanya says, scrambling eggs on an early Saturday morning.
I am sitting at the table in the dining room area, just outside of the kitchen, with a copy of Ebony lying open in front of me. “Sure. Did you have any place in mind?”
“Not really. It’s just that I know we can’t really go out around here without stirring up a shit storm, so I figured we could drive somewhere people didn’t know us and actually do things that couples do. Don’t get me wrong. I love coming over here, but I sometimes feel like a vampire hiding from the sunlight. Know what I mean?”
“OK. So let’s go somewhere today.”
“Really? Are you serious?”
I smile. “Well, you already have a bag packed. I can put together one and we can hit the road.”
“I would really like that,” Tanya responds.
“Now we just have to figure out if we want to drive into Alabama, two hours away; South Carolina, two and a half hours away; or stay in state and drive toward Columbus or Savannah, which would take between two and five hours, depending on which one we pick.”
“Let’s get out of Georgia, please.”
After breakfast, we load up my car and head toward Birmingham, Interstate 20 West blazing brightly ahead of us.
We get a suite at the Hampton Inn in Hoover, next to the Riverside Galleria just outside of Birmingham. We are close enough to nice restaurants and shopping, while still being able to see the gorgeous low Alabama mountains from our window.
Tanya insists that a walk through the Galleria will be a good way for us to stretch our legs. When we enter the spacious mall, I suddenly become self-conscious. I feel like I look every bit of my age and that I will receive sneers from the people we pass. “Look at that fine ass woman with the old ass dude.” My stomach tightens another notch when Tanya reaches for my hand, interlocking her fingers with my own. She senses my tension and stops in her tracks.
“What’s wrong? We’re not in Atlanta. No one knows us here,” she says. The look on her face makes it abundantly clear that she really wants this trip to work out well. She has been so patient with me up till now that I feel I owe her to help this trip be what she wants it to be.
“I’m just tripping. Feeling like an old man and all, but maybe it’s just in my head.”
She chuckles. “Here I am thinking that women will think I don’t deserve to be with a brother as fine as you, and here you are, doing the same damn thing.”
I know she’s just flattering me, so I soften up a bit.
“Kiss me,” she says.
“Here?”
“Just do it. Don’t think about it.”
I lean in slowly to kiss her, and she quickly grabs the sides of my face pulling me closer to her, where she kisses me deeply, her tongue taking control of my mouth. She punctuates the kiss by reaching around and squeezing my behind with one of her hands. When she finishes, she pats my behind, loops her arm around mine, and says to me in an assertive, yet sexy, tone, “This weekend you are my man, so I need you to act like you’re the man who rocks my world every time he touches me. OK?”
I nod and smile. “Let’s do this.”
From that point, each step we take is taken with the confidence that what we are doing is not taboo. We are leading with our hearts and not our heads, and I must confess it is a beautiful thing.
After a surf and turf dinner at one of the gourmet restaurants down the street from the hotel, we find ourselves nestled in the back of a bookstore, seated on a bench with her legs perched on my lap, as I read Pablo Neruda love poems to her. She listens to the translated words of the Chilean poet, her eyes closed, a smile on her face. As I read, I glance at her occasionally, watching her absorb each word. I wonder if I will ever let her read any of the poems I have been writing or if I should keep those thoughts to myself. There is just as much of Tanya in those words as there is Charlotte.
“Ed,” she says, interrupting me. “Let’s go back to the room. Now.”
I start to close the book. “You sure you don’t want to hear the rest of this poem first?” I joke.
“No. I want you to take me back to the hotel and fuck me until I can’t remember my name—that is if you don’t mind.”
Her smile brings me to my feet, my fingers interlocking with hers, as we make haste toward the store’s exit.
No. 39
She pushes the ceiling away from us,
Leaving exposed our small bodies, far from
The closest star. We are the only
Matter that matters, this ball of energy,
Words and breath and skin and lust,
Wrapped like woven threads, an onyx cocoon,
Hoping to one day fly far away.
“Are you still awake?” she asks in the early hours of the morning. We are draped across each other, naked, a disheveled bed sheet pushed down near our legs. Outside of our window is the soft glow of city lights against a deep blackness.
“Yes,” I say, leaning over and kissing her.
“Something’s been on my mind a lot lately, and I just wanted to know what you thought about it.”
“Go ahead,” I say, rubbing her arm softly with my thumb.
“I know we said that we weren’t going to get serious or anything, but it’s starting to feel like that’s what we’re doing.” She pauses and sits up. She turns on the lamp next to the bed and faces me. “How do you feel about me? I mean, for real.”
As I adjust myself in the bed, I realize that this conversation has been in the making for a while. I’d been asking myself the exact same question over these past several weeks, afraid to commit to an answer that would be ultimately unrequited. Yet, here is Tanya bringing up this very concern. “I have very strong feelings for you.”
“Does that mean that you love me?”
I smile, unsure of where this is headed. “Why are we having this conversation? Didn’t you say that you wanted to keep this as uncomplicated as possible?”
“I know, but there are so many things I want to tell you, and I don’t know if I can say them to you unless I know how you really feel about me.”
Her words are confusing, and I don’t know whether she wants me to profess my love for her first so she can do the same or if there is something else she is hinting at. Instead of answering her question, I counter back with one of my own. “Do you love me?”
“Yes,” she says matter-of-factly. There is no hesitation in her voice. It’s as if she has known this fact for quite some time and has chosen to arbitrarily withhold it until it served a greater purpose. “I love you, even though I know that it’s probably dangerous for me to feel this way. Still, you haven’t answered my question. Do you love me, too?”
I look into her eyes and a memory of Charlotte singing on stage the night we met crosses my mind. The memory blends almost seamlessly with Tanya’s face from that first night at Jean-Louis’s. I hear the sweet song of Charlotte’s voice and see the tender, agile movements of Tanya’s body, its fluid dance speaking to the beauty of the space around her. I know I should feel divided, but I feel strangely enmeshed in a warm glow, as if what I am feeling is natural and real. I take Tanya’s hand in mine and say, “Yes, I love you.”
