God Only Knows (4 page)

Julia already had her arms crossed, but the sound of the name moved her to press her upper limbs even closer into her chest.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” she said, her chipper tone a clear act.

Rosie crossed her arms now. “You want to speak to the man or not?”

Julia nodded toward Amber, who was absentmindedly playing with her bubble gum. “Do you have a few minutes to stick around
and watch this little one?”

Rosie rolled her eyes before crooking a finger toward Amber. “Come on,” she sighed.

Julia was still holding her door open when Dr. Maxwell Simon crossed the threshold of her office. It had been nearly fifteen
years since they had seen one another, but Julia had admitted to herself earlier this evening that the good doctor had held
up well. His head of tight dark brown curls had morphed into a bald, gleaming caramel-colored dome, but Julia grudgingly admitted
it enhanced his appeal. As he nodded respectfully and strode easily toward her desk, the jacket of his navy pinstripe suit
resting over one shoulder, Maxwell Simon looked like he had walked off the pages of an
Ebony
eligible-bachelor spread.

Too bad he preferred his women white.

D
r. Turner,” Maxwell said, laying his jacket over the chair opposite Julia’s desk, “I won’t keep you long —”

“Please, Maxwell,” Julia replied, gently shutting the door behind her, “I’m still Julia. Just so you know, I have no intention
of calling you ‘Doctor,’ one-on-one, not when I’ve seen your bare-naked butt cheeks and watched you wet your pants.”

Maxwell leaned against the chair but stayed standing. Grinning, he snapped his fingers. “Eighth-grade recess, right? Lyle,
Jake, and I mooned you and your girls. I should have known that would come back to haunt me.”

“Impressive,” Julia replied, chuckling as she wound back around to her own desk chair. “I’m guessing you blocked out the pants-wetting
episode, though.”

“I, er, um, believe you’re confusing me with someone else on that score,” he said, his lips breaking almost unwittingly into
a smile. “But you have a point, Julia. We spent twelve years in the same school system. Why put on airs?”

Trapped alone in her office with Maxwell, Julia felt the irresistible pull of the past as she stared into his wide gray-brown
eyes.

In Julia and Maxwell’s day, the handful of African-American kids at Christian Light were split into two opposing camps. Along
with their sullen male counterparts, there were the disaffected girls, like Julia and her friends, who shared kinky hair and
complexions that were closer to coffee than to coffee with cream. These girls —basically all the black girls except for Cassie
—quickly caught on to the ways the school’s social order deemed them “invisible” and wore their status as a badge of honor.

Opposite them were the kids, mostly boys, who chose instead to use every available tool —humor, wit, athletic ability, and,
when they had it, economic advantage —to win the favor of the preppy white kids who ran the in crowd.

In those days, Maxwell Simon was as in as they came. In a school where football was not offered because it was too “violent”
(Julia later learned the real issue was that the equipment was too expensive), Maxwell was a star forward in soccer, a starting
guard on the basketball team, and a straight-A student. On top of that, his innocent good looks, nonthreatening manner, and
wealthy physician parents bought him favor with just about everyone who mattered. Voted homecoming king, Maxwell dated one
creamy blonde after another, incurring the wrath of a few racist fathers along the way, but living to laugh about it. Julia
still recalled the way her grandparents back then had marveled at Maxwell’s popularity in such a traditionally prejudiced
environment. Their surprise at his audacity was comparable to the amazement they expressed today at Barack Obama’s ambitious
bid for the presidency.

“Yes, Maxwell, there’s no sense applying silly formalities,” Julia said even as she decided to abruptly shift her tone. No
sense letting the lighthearted rapport fool anyone; she hadn’t invited Maxwell to be on the board because they were friends.
This was business. “Now, what are these questions you have?”

“Well” —he loosened his tie and finally plopped down into his seat —“let’s catch up first. I have to know how you keep yourself
in such great shape. I don’t think you’re a pound heavier than you were the day we graduated.”

“Maxwell,” Julia replied, rubbing at her neck self-consciously, “you’d be really bored with my answer, trust me. I don’t mean
to be rude, but I need to get my niece home and start our usual weeknight routine.”

“No problem,” Maxwell replied, waving nonchalantly. “I’ll get to the point then. It’s complicated, but I couldn’t attend another
Board of Advisors meeting without sharing a concern.”

Her posture still ramrod straight, Julia spread her arms and shrugged. “I’m all ears, sir.”

Crossing his legs, Maxwell sighed gently before saying, “You didn’t sell me tonight.” His posture straightening, he continued.
“I walked away unsure of exactly what it is we’re trying to save, Julia.”

Julia felt her eyes narrow as she pressed her right thumb and forefinger together, a calming mechanism she’d employed for
years. “I thought I was pretty clear. I need the board to help me figure out how to build a donor base and a financial foundation.
It’s the only way to keep the school system alive once the church pulls our funding.”

“Okay, yes,” Maxwell replied. “I picked that much up from your invitation letter.”

“Well, I’m glad we are clear there,” Julia said, fighting hard not to roll her eyes, and annoyed that he was already getting
under her skin.
He’s just another man challenging your authority,
she told herself.
You handle men with more power and more racism inside them than Maxwell Simon all the time. Don’t let him get to you.

Problem was, Maxwell had always “gotten” to Julia, in one way or another. She and her “invisible” friends hadn’t been impressed
with his ability to climb to the top of the in crowd —sickened was more like it. She, Toya, and Terry had developed nicknames
for Maxwell and his fellow strivers, most of them picked up from their parents’ comedy albums: “Uncle Tom,” “Stepin Fetchit,”
“Bootlicker.” The nicknames were rarely used in front of their targets, employed instead as private jokes and coping mechanisms.

“So,” Julia said, staring back into the doctor’s large, intense eyes, “tell me what you don’t understand about what we’re
trying to save. But please make it quick.”

“Well, frankly,” Maxwell said, “I’m not so sure I want to save Christian Light as it is today, and I don’t think I’m alone.
Julia, I’m not here to give you a hard time. I’m just giving you insight into what a lot of people on the outside are thinking.”

Julia leaned forward, her elbows nearly touching her desk and her hands clasped together. “Please go on.”

“First point,” Maxwell said, “is that while everyone you recruited for this board is a prominent citizen, we’re all working
hard at our day jobs. Very few of us have time to do anything but help donate and raise money. That’s it.”

Julia raised a hand. “I understand that.”

“What it means is that you have to motivate us with a vision of what we’re fighting for.” Maxwell hopped to his feet and walked
toward Julia’s window, which looked out over the front lawn of the high-school campus. “The motivational part of your speech
tonight was excellent. You made it clear that we’re going to have to go beyond what we think we can do —to do more than fund-raise,
to really dig in and help you and the dedicated faculty and staff keep the doors open. That said, you didn’t address the fact
that the Christian Light school system you’ve run the past few years isn’t the same one we all graduated from.”

Julia nodded grudgingly at Maxwell’s truth. In the years since their class had graduated, the white middle class that was
once Christian Light’s bread and butter hadn’t just fled Dayton’s city limits, they had founded their own Christian schools
north, south, and east of town. As a result, Christian Light was now a majority-black school, with 60 percent of students
hailing from homes with poverty-level incomes. Beginning in the early 1990s, test scores had fallen dramatically, year over
year. As embarrassing as that had been, Julia knew the factor that had most confounded Pastor Pence and the Christian Light
megachurch was the ongoing legal battles with parents who openly rebelled against the schools’ “morals clauses.” The increasing
number of low-income single mothers were less interested in observing the schools’ insistence that they set a good example
by refraining from cohabitation, gambling, and out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Few were surprised when Pence and the church lost
patience with a school no longer living up to its initial vision.

“We’ve done the best we can since I have come on board,” Julia now said, still in her seat as Maxwell turned toward her from
the office window. “In three years, we have cut the school’s debt levels in half, stabilized enrollment, and increased test
scores by over twenty percent.”

“Too little too late at the end of the day, at least for Pastor Pence and the church,” Maxwell replied, his hands sinking
into his pockets. “We can argue all day about why you weren’t given more time —racism possibly, the church’s increasing focus
on helping end the genocide in Darfur, et cetera —but the bottom line is you didn’t get it done, Julia. So, if we’re going
to raise the funding you need, you’ve got to first convince us that you’ll get better results, drive some real transformation
in these halls.” Maxwell paused, his eyes searching Julia’s face from twenty feet away. “I’m talking too much, right?”

“No,” Julia replied, motioning toward him with her best portrayal of an encouraging gesture. “Save me from myself, Maxwell,
please. Pour your wisdom out so I don’t mess everything up.” She slipped into a Paul Laurence Dunbar dialect as she said,
“You know I’s just a po’ black woman scraping by’s best I can.”

“Okay,” Maxwell replied, sighing and striding toward the chair with his jacket draped over it. “I’ve apparently offended you.
I’ll see myself out.”

“You know what, if you don’t want to be on the board, just say so.” Julia was embarrassed both at the sharp edge of her tone
and the sudden warmth spreading across her face. She was very angry with Dr. Maxwell Simon right now, and the Holy Spirit
was not pleased.

The heel of Maxwell’s right dress shoe nearly cut a hole in the carpet, he stopped so fast. “I never said I didn’t want to
be on the board,” he replied, whipping back around to face her. “If that was the case, trust me, I would have just ignored
the letter. I don’t have time to waste, Julia; every ten minutes I’ve been here has meant another patient of mine was not
seen, meaning they’ll all be waiting when I get back to the clinic.”

Poor you.
Julia let the smart remark stay in her head. Maxwell’s recent return to Dayton had turned more than a few heads, and even
more stunning than his decision to close a flourishing Dallas internal medicine practice had been the fact he’d traded it
in for a nonprofit clinic in the heart of West Dayton, just across the river from Sinclair Community College.

Julia steadied herself against her desk as Maxwell slipped his suit jacket back over his athletic torso. “I guess,” she said
weakly, “every night is late when you run your own medical clinic.”

“Something like that.” Staring her down, Maxwell rested a hand on the nearest chair. “This feels like it’s getting personal.
After all these years, I hoped your invitation meant you had outgrown your understandable urge to hate me.”

Julia decided it would be unprofessional to answer, especially given the unexpected wave of memories coursing through her
as she matched Maxwell’s troubled stare.

I have a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago,
she told herself.
I escaped Dayton for nearly twelve good years. I’m raising a beautiful, bright little girl. I am fearfully and wonderfully
made!
So why was Maxwell Simon, simply by speaking his mind, dragging her down the sinkhole of unwelcome memories?

During their years at Christian Light, Julia had never told Toya, Terry, or even Cassie about her lingering, stubborn attraction
to him. She still recalled the day in sixth grade, Mrs. Richardson’s homeroom, when a flutter in her heart at the sight of
his smile told her he was cute. Worse yet, he had caught her staring one day and initiated the type of playful back-and-forth
that led to a lot of the boys and girls “going together.” For one glorious week, Maxwell Simon had let Julia think he could
be her first boyfriend, and he had been her first kiss, their secretive five-second clinch occurring behind a playground slide.
She would never know what might have followed; before she knew it, hormones flew fast and furiously through the school’s halls
and one pink-skinned girl after another began slipping Maxwell love notes.

As the years passed at Christian Light, Julia’s unrequited feelings for Maxwell were one more “secret” she didn’t need. As
it was, she fought daily to hide her good grades from Toya, Terry, and the other disaffected brothers and sisters. Her granny
and grampy would not accept anything less than their granddaughter’s best, and once Julia got accustomed to excelling in school,
she enjoyed the learning too much to stop, despite the fact that her friends wore their mediocre grades as proof of their
blackness.

Unlike her other friends living on the margins of Christian Light’s social order, Julia’s problem was that she had never really
been that impressed with the world outside, the world of street corners, blasting hip-hop, and predatory men offering smooth
talk and teen motherhood. Quite simply, Julia was her grandparents’ child; she wanted a boyfriend who was decent, Christian,
and smart, and who just might make a good husband someday. Someone like Maxwell Simon.

The humiliation of her young life had been the rare chance she had taken senior year, when she finally revealed her attraction
to the only relevant party: Maxwell himself. The recall of that day and of the uncomfortable look in his eyes as she had stood
there feeling tall, skinny, and flat-chested, now had Julia’s eyes welling with tears.