Hometown Favorite: A Novel (11 page)

Dewayne looked over at his friend and smiled, fluttering his
glass of champagne in his direction.

Sly shook his head and waved him off. "That's father-in-law
talk," he said, just loud enough above the applause for Dewayne
to hear him.

"Join Joella, Cherie, and me in saluting this new couple with
an ancient Jewish blessing: `May the Lord bless you and keep
you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you
peace.

All glasses rose in the air. All champagne was consumed. All
heaven seemed to be focusing its benevolent attention on this
blissful couple.

A horde of reporters, girlfriends, fans, and family had gathered in front of the team's entrance to the USC stadium,
waiting for their particular player to emerge from the locker
room. It would take Dewayne time to work his way through
the masses, speaking to those demanding a quote for a paper
or an autograph, and waving off the disappointed females who
hoped to score their men by their power of seduction. The
oversized wedding band on his finger was a big deterrent.

Because the team had won its first home game, Rosella knew
it would take longer for Dewayne to run the gauntlet, so she sat under a tree studying her textbook while she waited. Dewayne was taking his usual light load, and because he had gone
to school through the last four summers, he would only have
to take a couple of classes the last semester of his senior year,
allowing him time to train for the spring combines.

Without being rude, Dewayne passed through the mob like
he was parting the waters. When he saw Rosella under the tree
absorbed in her textbook, he slipped behind the tree, giving
her a fright that elicited a squeal and a smack on the chest. He
scooped her into his arms and stretched out the kiss so all single
females who thought they might have some future chance with
him could see his heart had been subjugated.

The walk home would take ten minutes, and when one lone
female approached with a paper in her hand, Rosella was prepared to allow a brief pause for Dewayne to sign her paper, but
she hooked her arm through Dewayne's and drew him closer,
a visible sign of ownership.

The woman had the emaciated face of an African refugee with
a tipsy expression, and as she drew near them, she gabbled in a
strange tongue. Her hair was a nest of windblown street trash.
The shapeless clothes she wore outsized her shrunken frame, and
the odor rose from her body like heat waves off hot pavement.
She became a roadblock on the sidewalk, forcing Dewayne and
Rosella to stop. Dewayne reached for his wallet, and the woman
unfurled the discolored and wrinkled newspaper she was carrying. On the front page of the society section of the Los Angeles
Times, above the fold, was a half-page random collection of
some of LA's finest celebrating the Caldwell/Jobe union.

"'USC Football Star Marries Caldwell Daughter"" she said,
looking into their annoyed faces. She had memorized the headline. "You don't look so happy today. You don't look so happy
to see me"

The creature's voice had the croaky sound of an old hag
who had stepped out of a fairy tale. She tapped the image of
Dewayne's face in the picture of the newspaper.

"You don't look like a gold digger to me," she said. "Looks
like you didn't need to marry her for the money."

"Excuse us," Rosella said and began leading her husband
with an end-around move away from the creature.

"Don't be in a hurry now," the creature said, trying to counter
the couple's sweep. "I'm just happy for you is all. Not every day
you get married and make the society page"

Dewayne and Rosella sidestepped the creature and quickened their momentum. The creature wadded the paper and
kicked it like a soccer ball over their heads.

"Not every day you get to see your family either"

Rosella stopped dead in her tracks. She released Dewayne's
arm and turned around.

"I guess you bought into the crap that I was dead."

"Bonita?"

The last time Rosella had seen her sister was on a street
corner with two children, one just a baby crying in her arms.
Her mother had picked Rosella up from school to run errands,
but they drove through a part of town that was not the normal
errand route, and by its rough environs, she knew it should be
off-limits. But Joella traveled the different streets at a steady
school-zone speed, looking at every human they passed for any
sign of recognition, while strangers glared at them as though
they were foreign invaders.

Joella sped up when she spotted a woman on the street corner with two children, but drove past them and stopped a half
block beyond the corner where they were waiting. She ordered
Rosella to stay put before she scooted out of the running car
and jogged back toward the huddled trio.

Rosella turned around in her seat to see her mother open
her purse and hand the woman cash, brush her fingers once
down the right side of the little girl's face, stroke the forehead
of the crying baby, and return to the car, all without saying
a word to any of them. She would not have even known she
had seen her sister, niece, and nephew had she not overheard
Joella tearfully telling Franklin what she had done when they
thought Rosella was asleep in her bedroom.

"Back from the dead," this haggard woman now said, raising
her arms to support her point. "Never really died except in the
minds of the Caldwells"

"Bonita ... Bonita;" Rosella said, as if repeating the name
would confirm she was not looking at a ghost.

In the depth and rustle of her heart, Rosella felt as if she was
waking from years of slumber, unsure of the altered landscape
and vivid characters. It seemed one night long ago she fell
asleep and was told her sister departed to a world from which
she would never return nor Rosella could ever visit.

"So why didn't I get my engraved invitation to the big
event?"

"Bonita;" Rosella whispered, restraining the impulse to touch
her sister. She could not decide on a slap or an embrace, so she
locked her hands behind her back and felt relief when Dewayne
came behind her and took her hands into his.

"Is `Bonita' all you can say?"

Rosella's inability to articulate anything beyond the mention
of her name brought a hostile expression to Bonita's face.

"I guess it's been so long you'd need a DNA test to prove I
was your sister"

"Calm down, ma'am," Dewayne said.

"Well, the jolly green giant is not just pretty to look at. He
talks too"

"Don't, Bonita, please"

"Don't what, sister dear? Don't admire the pretty addition
to the family? Don't speak to him? Don't what?"

"I don't know what to say," Rosella said. "I don't know how
to deal with this"

"Ma'am, is there some way I can help you?" Dewayne started
to reach for his wallet. "I've got a little money-"

"He's pretty, he talks, and he's willing to help. Looks like you
hit the jackpot, girl" A grin appearing on Bonita's withered
face exposed a number of chipped and missing teeth. "Yeah, I
need some money. My kids are hungry."

"No. No money. We're not giving her any money," Rosella
said, beginning to gain some control over this shock to her
ordered world. "If you're real, if you're really my sister, then
tell me where you live. Give me an exact address, not some
street corner. I'll get you some groceries. I'll buy some food
and bring it to you tonight. If you're there, you'll be real to
me. If you're not there, then you're still dead."

Neither woman moved, their eyes locked. Rosella's brain
was in overdrive searching for identity and meaning to this
unexpected discovery.

"Do I still have a niece and nephew?" she asked.

Bonita nodded.

"You have them there. I want to see them. I want to touch
them. Now what's your address, and it better be real, not some
shelter"

Dewayne was dumbfounded as he watched the two sisters.
Never in his life would he have imagined a scene like this. He
couldn't help but look for similarities between his wife and
this disheveled woman.

Rosella flipped open her textbook and clicked on her pen. She looked at Bonita as if daring her to offer a lie. Bonita
coughed and swiveled her head as though she might be casting around for a fake address, but the address she gave seemed
legit. It was in East LA, a numbered apartment in a recognizable complex off a main street. No phone number-there was
no money for a phone.

Rosella snapped her textbook closed. "I'm coming to this
address. I'm knocking on a door, and I'd better see you there.
I'd better see two children with you. You had better not be
messing with me"

With that, Rosella turned and strode away without her husband.

Like a lost child, Dewayne stood before Bonita. He turned
to leave and saw his wife on her forced march, then reached
for his wallet and removed two Andrew Jacksons and handed
them to Bonita before starting his jog toward Rosella.

Bonita's whisper was just loud enough for Dewayne to hear
as she stuffed the bills in her pocket.

"He's generous too"

The brisk wind scuttled the litter along the street and around
their feet as they unloaded the groceries from the car. Since he
carried the lion's share of the sacks, Dewayne was thankful his
sister-in-law's apartment was on the first floor of a two-story
complex. This was a place he did not want them to be after
nightfall. There was no grass except the weeds growing through
the cracks in the sidewalks and concrete courtyard, no foliage
except a few withered bushes at each end of the complex, no
views except straight up into a smog-filled sky, no vistas except
the empty lot across the street-an apocalyptic playground of
abandoned cars and rusting home appliances. Undernourished dogs, rodents, and scavenger birds lurked through the rubbish of the ailing terrain, searching for any nutritious scraps.
Random clusters of human life moved through the city blocks
like spies of nature on the lookout for an escape route. No life,
human or animal, showed any comprehension of the world
outside this wretched cubicle of a neighborhood.

The groceries got heavier and heavier as Dewayne and Rosella endured the long wait for the door to open and listened
to two stories of gangster artists and domestic squabbles at
different levels of volume conflict. A beautiful young girl with
skin as black as ink opened the door and slouched in the entry
as though daring them to gain admittance. She was dressed
in shorts and a loose halter top, her thin body pierced in the
nose, in the right eyebrow, and in stair steps up each earlobe,
and she was chewing the life out of a stick of gum. The music
coming from the inside was at concert level.

"Who are you, honey?" Rosella asked, studying the young
girl's face for any Caldwell features.

"No, honey, who are you?" The girl's voice dripped with
mockery accentuated by popping gum sounds inside her
mouth.

Her sarcasm was a slap in the face, but Rosella smiled and
continued.

"I believe I'm your aunt Rosella. I believe ... I mean, your
mother is my sister-"

"I know what an aunt is. I ain't stupid."

"No, you're not ... you're definitely not;" Rosella said. "I'm
sorry. Is your mother's name Bonita Caldwell?"

After a brief, nondescript look, the girl slammed the door
and began shouting at someone. Dewayne was thankful for
all the weight conditioning he had done over the years, but he still had to set the twenty-pound ham on the concrete to
lighten his burden.

A moment later, the door opened, but the girl still blocked
the passageway.

"What you want?" The music level had dropped but only
by a few decibels.

"I saw your mother today. I told her we'd bring some groceries." Rosella shifted the sacks in her hands and pointed to
the ones overflowing in her husband's arms.

The door slammed in their faces once again, followed by
more muffled shouting. When the door reopened, the music
was playing at a manageable level, and the guard at the door
appeared ready to allow admission.