Endless Summer Nights (13 page)

Seated at the end of the rectangular table farthest from Marlo, I turned what was left of my broth around in my bowl and promised I wouldn’t ask for seconds. I also promised not to participate in the conversation that buoyed between these grown folks cheering for more of Marlo’s gumbo and gushing random outbursts of praise and worship at whatever he’d just said.

“So, Marlo, I’m a big fan,” Leticia said after helping her greedy self to a second bowl of gumbo. “I love your music.”

I shot her the ultimate stare of betrayal and gave her a little kick under the table.

“Thanks. That means a lot to me.” Marlo tried to sound humble and responded to her smile with his indulgent grin.

I sharpened my eye again. Who did he think he was fooling, trying to pretend he was all nice? He was only doing all of this so I wouldn’t tell Kimya about his party.

“Sunny and I used to play your songs all night in our dorm room freshman year, especially your song ‘Ridda Chick.’”

“No, we didn’t,” I objected.

“Yes, we did! And I remember that after we listened to that song like a million times, Sunny drove to Tower Records the day the album came out. You stood in line for hours. Remember?”

I ignored her.

“Well, I’m honored you liked my work. I wasn’t excited about singing that song, but my producer insisted,” Marlo explained, as I rolled my eyes at his usual self-indulgence.

“That album went, like, quadruple platinum, right?” Leticia asked.

“Not quadruple, but it did well.”

“What’s next for you?”

Marlo looked off timorously.

Icey jumped in with “Tell shorty about the new jam.”

“Spit some bars,” Milt said.

“You have new work?” Leticia asked, catching on.

“Just some stuff. I’m in the studio.”

“The comeback kid at it again!” Icey bragged, getting up to slap Marlo five.

“It’s more than a comeback. I’m showing these young boys how it’s done. R & B isn’t about grinding and humping the stage. It’s love music. Truth. That’s what I represent.”

“I can’t tell,” I said a little louder than I meant to.

“Excuse me?” Marlo called and everyone got quiet.

“I said I can’t tell that’s what you’re ‘about.’ Everything you put out is like grinding and humping. If you call that love music, I guess it’s all love music.” I laughed rather wickedly. “If it’s even music.”

“Shots fired!” Unique with the fake breasts said, shooting finger guns in the air.

“I don’t agree with you.” Marlo dropped his spoon in his bowl and the handle made a loud, angry ding on the rim.

“You are so wrong,” Icey snarled.

“She can speak on it. I mean, a lot of people who aren’t artists don’t understand the industry...what will sell.”

“So, you don’t like the bumping and grinding R & B but you put it out there because it would sell?” I pushed with irony in my voice.

“I had to do what I had to do,” he replied. “I wanted to be heard. I had responsibilities.”

“What’s going to be different now?” I asked, staring right into Marlo’s eyes. “The industry hasn’t changed. Have you?”

“Changed how?” Marlo leaned in with slight concern on his face.

“Changed the fact that you were obviously willing to sacrifice your art. I think they call that a ‘lack of integrity.’”

“Sunny!” Leticia murmured to stop me.

Marlo sat back and laughed detachedly.

“That ain’t funny, man,” Icey said, looking at Marlo as if he was sitting there naked.

“Yes, it is.” Marlo pushed his chair back and started getting up.

“Where you going?” Milt asked.

“Upstairs for a bit,” Marlo said, pushing his chair in and looking everywhere in the room but at me.

“Don’t go,” Leticia begged. “You don’t need to leave. Right, Sunny?” She looked at me.

Unique tried to get up to follow behind Marlo as the others repeated sentiments to get him to stay, but I sat back and watched him just long enough to consider that maybe I’d finally pushed him to the point of deciding to leave the house altogether.

“Anyone want more gumbo?” I asked, reaching over for the pot in the middle of the table.

Leticia looked at me and grinned nervously before attempting to get up from her seat. “Sun, I’m going upstairs to find that important thing we talked about.”

“I don’t remember talking about anything.”

“You should come with me, so I can remind you,” Leticia added, focusing her eyes on me like a mother does just before she drags a screaming five-year-old out of the grocery store for a butt-whipping.

I stood as if I’d been voted off the island on
Survivor
and trudged up the stairs in front of Leticia complaining.

“What’s wrong with you?” Leticia prodded once we were in the guest room. She closed the door and pressed her back against it.

“Wrong? It’s those people downstairs. The fake-ass basketball team and cheerleaders.” I laughed.

“Do you hear how old and crotchety you sound?”

“With good reason. I came here to clear my mind and develop a plan for my new life—and then here they come and ruin it,” I pointed out.

“Granted. But that doesn’t give you the right to go insulting people. Damn!” Leticia pushed away from the door and went to sit on the bed.

“Insult? If you’re talking about Marlo, drop it,” I said, walking to the mirror and looking at myself. “His head is too big to be insulted. That man thinks the world of himself. God only knows why.”

“Sunny, you basically told him he has no talent and no career. That’s a lot to hear from someone who barely knows you. Damn, that’s a lot to hear from anyone.”

I remembered the softened look in Marlo’s eyes before he got up. How he didn’t look back at me.

“He’ll be fine,” I said, turning away from the mirror to sit on the bed beside Leticia. The bedspread was a weaving of watery blues and greens, so it looked as though we were both floating on top of ocean waves. “Not like my opinion counts. He was just being nice so I don’t tell on him.”

Just then, there was a loud splash outside the window that was quickly followed by girlish giggling. Next, music from the radio on the deck started playing.

“See, everything’s back to normal,” I said. “He’s fine.”

“This isn’t about him being fine. It’s about your behavior. I don’t think I can ever remember you talking to anyone like that.”

“He’s a jerk, Leticia. Don’t fall for it.”

“He just seemed like a guy having a good time. A guy who was actually being pretty nice to you. You were just taking everything he did so personally that you couldn’t see that. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you being so critical of this dude?”

I stood up again in protest. “I’m not.”

Leticia looked me up and down and grinned knowingly.

“What are you grinning about?”

“You’re digging him,” she said.

“You must be drunk,” I replied. “Because there’s no way I’m tripping over that man.”

Leticia fell back on the bed cracking up as if I were doing a stand-up routine.

I jumped on the bed beside her.

“Now I’m funny?” I asked, half laughing myself.

“Because,” Leticia started, snapping up quickly to look into my eyes, “Sunshine Embry, I have known you since freshman year at Howard University and I know when you have a crush on a guy.”

“No!”

Leticia cut her eyes on me again like a lawyer trying to break me.

“Okay...maybe there was a crush before—like a long time ago,” I confessed under duress. “What’s not to like? He’s handsome. And I admit, I once loved his music. But he doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“I don’t believe you,” Leticia said, lying on her back and looking up at a large skylight that invited the moon and stars into the bedroom with us. “If you like him, why don’t you just go for it? You know what I think? The next time he’s nice to you, you should be nice to him. Invite him in.”

“Invite him in?” I repeated, lying down on the bed beside her to see the stars catching her eyes. The room was pretty dim with only the bedside lamp on. “What does that mean?”

“Let him know you’re open. Don’t close him out. Be available. I think you’ve been unavailable for too long. You know?” She turned away from the stars and looked at my silhouette.

Leticia and I lay there shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the stars for a long while. I pointed up at one shining away from the rest of the figures in the constellations.

“It’s pretty,” I said. “All by itself.”

“Bet it gets lonely sometimes,” Leticia said softly.

I felt for her fingers on the bedspread and clasped her hand.

I said, “Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for inviting me.”

* * *

After a while, Leticia got up and went into the bathroom to giggle on the phone with Clayton, no doubt telling him everything that was going on in the crazy house. I kept my position on the bed, looking up at the little star and reviewing its loneliness. I started thinking about what Leticia had said about Marlo being nice to me and perhaps me being so angry I couldn’t recognize it. If that was true, I wondered what else I was missing.

Listening to her laughing in the bathroom, I thought about everything I’d said to Marlo since he’d been in the house and while I understood why I’d done what I’d done, she was right. I was being mean. I hadn’t come all the way to the Hamptons to crush people’s dreams. I’d come to find my own.

When the shower started running in the bathroom, my mind went back to my arrival in the house. How excited I’d been. Where was that now? What had happened? I searched every step I’d taken to find where I’d lost my vision, my direction. I stumbled upon the little things. The boxers on the kitchen floor. The men’s things spread out on the counter in Kimya’s bathroom. Those big shoes in the bedroom. It all came together like a big puzzle. Those weren’t Sean’s things in Kimya’s house. She hadn’t been sneaking to the Hamptons to spend weekends with him. Those were Marlo’s things. He was the one who smelled like the French cologne. He was the one who’d been in the house. That was why he wasn’t leaving.

I padded down the hallway toward Kimya’s room to confront Marlo with my discovery. I wasn’t going to call him out or scream at him. I’d already done enough of that. I just wanted the truth.

Soft chords played on a guitar outside Kimya’s bedroom. The door was slightly ajar and dim light hardly escaped. I stood out there listening to the music. The notes Marlo strummed, slightly melancholy and a little kind, even open, held my feet in place beneath me but took my mind somewhere else. I rode his notes from interest to memory. The dim light on the floor became the sunlight in my father’s bedroom. Then there was the dresser. His bottle of English Leather sitting on top. My little hand playing with the Black Ken and Black Barbie. Everything was in its place in my past. I was happy. I was without a past. Then the cologne fell. The glass broke. The scent came up to my little pudgy nose. I was in trouble. I needed to escape. But then the sound of Daddy’s feet on the cracking Brooklyn staircase. And then his melody came to me in my memory. His singing on the way upstairs. Me not moving. Standing, not in fear, but in awe. His song about the bird. The one about me.

“I know that song,” I said, finding myself standing in the threshold of Kimya’s bedroom.

Marlo’s brown frame was on the bed, hung over a guitar like it was something precious. He looked up slowly, as if he knew I’d been standing there. “‘Bird,’” he trickled. “Embry. You familiar?”

“Very.”

Marlo looked back down at the guitar and strummed a few chords from the extended cut. “Best soul singer ever. Wrote his own music. This is his best—in my opinion.” He looked back up at me. “You have
Finding Love in Brooklyn?
”

“A few copies.”

“Impressive,” Marlo approved with a nod. “You don’t meet many people who know of musicians like Embry. He was a purist. You know?” Marlo went back into the guitar and played notes from the title track on
Finding Love in Brooklyn
and I realized he wasn’t even talking to me anymore. He was somewhere tackling his thoughts with the music. “No fame. A man and his music. He risked everything for it.”

“I’m sorry,” I offered, stepping into the room, “about how I acted downstairs. I had no right to say those things to you.”

“Humpf,” was all Marlo managed over the notes. He played on.

I stood and listened for a while. I wanted to sit on the bed beside him. To sing the words I knew over the melody.

Marlo played a song from an EP my father released on his own before he was diagnosed with HIV. Marlo improvised in the spontaneous joy of the head tempo and I sensed he knew my father had passed. His play was bold but melancholy. At the end of the song, there was a buildup and release that climaxed into what anyone else could hear as noise, but Marlo played it in a new way that even my father would be proud of. When it was over, he looked tired. He set the guitar down on the bed and looked up for a long exhale that seemed to relieve his mind more than his body.

Sweating, he looked at me. “You want to go for a walk?”

The house was quiet for our escape to the beach. I think Leticia had gotten out of the shower and into bed. She was driving back to New York at dawn to get to church with Clayton. And I couldn’t find any traces of Marlo’s crowd in the living room.

The night sky was where and what it had always been, and still spectacular.

Marlo and I walked silently for a while. We headed through bluffs toward the ocean like strangers who were frustrated at trying to figure each other out, but thought we should. He was more than two feet away from me, and save random peeks at my feet when I slid off my flip-flops, he didn’t look at me. But still, I felt as though he was staring into me again.

At the shoreline, Marlo threw a shard of broken sea glass at the stars. I imagined it never fell into the ocean, but maybe turned into a bird and flew away. I knew not to tell Marlo what I was thinking. He’d think I was crazy. Probably laugh at me.

We walked on and the weather suddenly felt cold. I think Marlo, dressed only in his tank top, was feeling the chill, too. He pushed his hands into his pockets.