I Wish I Had a Red Dress (20 page)

I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT
to expect from a meeting between Nate and Tee. She’d been on the phone several times with Nettie, but they were still
talking among themselves
and I was busy following up a few more funding leads that seemed promising. When he arrived on time, Tee was in the bathroom making last-minute braid adjustments, but his entrance was greeted with stunned silence by Deena and the kids, who stared at him openmouthed as if T. rex had just lumbered into the room, looking for lunch.

“Welcome,” I said, wondering if I’d done the right thing by not warning Tee any more specifically than a fairly generic “he’s tall.” I could have added bald and smart and fit and fine, but I thought the basics should suffice.

When she walked into the office and saw him standing there,
taking up almost all the available space, her expression told me I was wrong. Her eyes and her mouth flew open simultaneously, and she was, for probably the first time since I’ve known her, speechless.

“Nate Anderson,” I said, as he turned to face her. “This is Tomika Jackson. The festival was her idea and she’s running the whole show for us. Tee, this is Nate.”

“Good to meet you,” Nate rumbled, holding out his big hand to shake hers. “I appreciate your taking the time.”

“No problem,” Tee said, trying to look him over without looking him over. “I am . . .” She paused like an actor searching for a line and I realized that’s probably exactly what she was doing. “I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to say.”

She nailed it and Nate looked as proud of her as I know I did.
You go, girl!

“I promise I won’t take much of your time,” Nate said as we all sat down and Tee took out her yellow pad. She wrote everything down these days, which was great. We didn’t have to remember anything.

“I’d like you to reconsider allowing males to attend your festival,” he said, getting right to the point.

“Why?”

“Because I think they’ve got at least as much to learn as females, and left to their own devices, it’s going to take a whole lot longer to teach them.”

A convincing argument. Tee was usually open to alliances based on mutual self-interest, but right now, she looked unimpressed.

“Is that why they wanna come?” she said. “To learn something?”

Nate nodded. “Yes.”

Tee consulted her legal pad and looked back at Nate. “How can we be sure of that?”

Nate looked a little surprised by the question. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“I mean”—Tee sounded firm but not unpleasant—“that when the guys usta come over here for activities and stuff, they’d always mess it up. That’s why we stopped invitin’ ’em.”

Nate frowned. “Mess it up how?”

“All kinda ways,” Tee said. “They come late. They come loud. They drunk when they get here or they tryin’ to go out in the yard and smoke some reefer.” Tee was picking up steam. “They hollerin’ at the kids or pushin’ they girlfriends around. All kinda stuff.”

Nate was listening intently and her words seem to wound him. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he rumbled.

“It was bad,” she said. “Nobody could concentrate, and the thing is . . .”

She hesitated, searching for her lines again. “The thing is, we tryin’ to change people’s lives up in here. It’s serious business and we take it real serious.”

“I understand,” Nate said. “And I respect your mission, but can I ask you to give the brothers one more try? I’ll take responsibility for their behavior.”

Tee looked a little skeptical. “How you gonna do that?”

“Anybody who doesn’t act like he’s got some sense will have to answer to me.”

Tee sat back, considering the offer. I already loved it. I had an immediate mental picture of Nate tossing rowdy Lattimores out the back door like bad babies with the bathwater.

“That’ll work,” Tee said, slowly, “and we have one more house rule.”

This was news to me. What house rule would that be?

“They can’t talk durin’ the discussion. Their participation . . .” She faltered slightly and consulted her legal pad quickly. “Their participation will be limited to viewin’ and listenin’.”

Nate’s face mirrored my own surprise and I remembered Nettie’s words:
Seen and not heard, dear. That’s how you maintain control
. The partnership was working its show!

“Do you think that’s fair?” Nate said.

Tee nodded, setting her braids into motion. “The main thing we can never get ’em to do is
listen
. They always busy arguin’ their side of it, when most of the time, they ain’t even got no side. This way, they ain’t got no choice. They gotta hear us for a change!”

Nate looked at her for a minute, debating his options, then he sat back and grinned, shaking his head. “I wish I could say you’re wrong about my brothers, but you’re right. Listening is definitely not our strong point.”

Tee grinned back at him, relieved that he understood; emboldened by her own ability to present her case and hold her own. She shot a glance at me and I winked my support.

“All right, then,” Nate said. “Let me be sure I got it straight. The brothers are welcome as long as they don’t act a fool, but they can’t participate in the discussion
at all?
”

“And if anything jump off, they gotta answer to you,” Tee added.

“It’s a deal,” he said, extending his hand again to shake hers across the table.

“You the witness, Miz J.” Tee spoke to me directly for the first time since they sat down. Nate looked at me and I put my hand on top of theirs in a three-way shake of solidarity.

“Done!”

Tee’s smile could have lit up every town in northern Michigan. Nate stood up and reached for his coat.

“Well, I’m going to get out of here before I agree to anything else,” he said, smiling down at Tee.

“Thanks for comin’ by,” she said.

“It’s a pleasure working with you,” said Nate.

I picked up my sweater. “I’ll walk you out,” I said.

When we were standing at the back door out of earshot, Nate grinned at me. “You’re not the only one around here who drives a hard bargain, I see.”

“Each one, teach one,” I said, laughing.

“She’s got a lot of heart,” he said. “Is she the one who wants to buy a gun?”

I nodded.

“That’s a damn shame,” he said. “But if she goes ahead with it, tell her I can take her to the range anytime she wants to go.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll tell her.”

His smile returned. “Good.”

As soon as I got back to the office, Tee and Deena exploded.

“How tall is he?”

“Is he really a teacher?”

“How long have you known
him?
”

Finally Tee shushed Deena and looked at me. “So what’s the deal? You couldn’t tell me the man was a
giant?
”

“He’s not a giant.”

They rolled their eyes. “Not in a room full of NBA players he’s not, but around here, he’s about as close as we get.”

Deena sat down. “You know what my baby said the second he walked in the door? ‘Giant, Mama! Look at the giant!’ ”

Tee had added tiny silver bells to the ends of several of the braids near her face and they were tinkling madly. “Out of the mouths of babes! I can’t believe he’s teachin’ at the school!”

“He’s a vice principal,” I said, like his job description had anything to do with his overall appeal.

“Whatever,”
Deena said, heading back out to where the kids were twittering about Nate among themselves, presumably in agreement on the fact that this was their first real giant, but everything seemed to be cool, so in the absence of fear, they could focus on wonder.

“So when were you gonna tell me?”

“Tell you what?” I said.

“That he was
fine,
” she said, echoing what I’d wanted to ask Sister that first night when he surprised me in the middle of my mambo. It was undeniable, so I decided to stop trying.

“Okay,” I said. “He’s fine.”

“And
big!
” Tee said, like omitting it was tantamount to refuting the obvious.

“And big,” I agreed, wishing we could change the subject, but knowing that was impossible.

“So is he married?”

“He’s divorced,” I said, “and he used to be a policeman.”

“You like him?”

“He seems okay,” I said.

“Okay,
okay,
” she said. “You better keep an eye out, Miz J. You might be up on your Denzel.”

“How do you think the meeting went?” I said, changing the subject before she married us off.

“I think it went great,” she said, “He couldn’t believe I said they can come, but they can’t say nothin’!”

I laughed. “I knew you and Nettie were going to be a formidable team, but this is above and beyond.”

“You got that right!”

“Do you think the others will go for it?”

We had already announced it was for women only, but Tee grinned and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Sure they will. Who gonna pass up a chance to be in a room with a bunch of guys and they can’t say a word? We could charge double for that!” She grinned at me again. “Especially since we got
the enforcer
to make sure nobody forgets the rules.”

“Is that what he agreed to be?”

“He don’t have to agree,” she said. “All he gotta do is be there!”

NATE WAS AS GOOD
as his word. When Tee called him, he made us an appointment. When we got to the range and were assigned a lane with a target, he chose a gun for Tee from a small black bag he was carrying. It didn’t clank when he walked, but when he put it down, it landed
solid
. I wondered how many guns were in there, but the idea of peeking made me nervous, so I just tried to stand as near Tee as I could and look supportive, whatever that means.

He showed her how to load the .38 Special, which he said was the smallest gun he owned, and how to hold it. Then he stood behind her, steadied her arm, and told her not to pull the trigger, but to
squeeze
it. While Nate was holding her wrist, she was able to hit the target four times.

“That was good,” he said. “Now try it by yourself.”

The kick of the gun jerked her hands up in a way it hadn’t before and a look of panic came into her eyes. Nate just smiled.

“Relax and remember to hold your wrist steady, take aim and
squeeze
the trigger.”

She nodded solemnly and looked at me while Nate went down to the last target in the row, as far away from us as he could get. There were two other men in their own shooting lanes, using the same three-step pattern:
steady, aim, squeeze.
I’m sure Nate was trying not to make Tee feel like he was looking over her shoulder while she practiced. What he didn’t seem to understand was, she
wanted
him to look over her shoulder. We both did, but he was shooting a much bigger gun at a target much farther away than Tee’s and we were on our own. I smiled at her in a way I hoped was encouraging. Tee took a deep breath, pointed the gun, closed her eyes and went for broke.

Nate took us back to The Circus after an interminable forty-five minutes during which, despite her best solo efforts, Tee never did hit anywhere near the man on the target again. I don’t know who was more disappointed in how things had gone, him or Tee. I couldn’t tell yet if I was disappointed or relieved, so I tried to stay neutral but positive, assuring them both that it hadn’t been all that bad for a first-time effort.

When Tee went inside to collect Mavis, I stayed behind to thank Nate.

“Sorry it didn’t go well,” he said. “What now?”

“I don’t know. At this point, I need to think it through and see what I can come up with, I guess.”

I could have added
but first I need to get the sound of that gunfire out of my head.

“I’m good for dinner at any restaurant within a fifty-mile radius,” he said, smiling that slow smile.

I was tempted, but I needed to go home and regroup. “Can I take a rain check?”

“Sure,” he said, looking genuinely disappointed. Things had been so crazy around here lately with Junior on the loose and the festival opening Friday that we’d barely seen each other, and when we did we were working. I missed him.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We can figure this out.”

That was the best kind of
we.
I just smiled.

“I have an idea,” he said. “After the festival opens Friday night, how about I bring a bottle of champagne over to your house and we’ll toast your success and see if we can grab a quiet minute for some non-work-related conversation.”

“That would be great,” I said, already feeling the bubbles tickling my nose. “I don’t think I ever had a date that started at midnight.”

“You don’t have a curfew, do you?”

“Not on Friday nights.”

Through the window, I could see Deena putting on the kids’ coats; Tee turning off the inside lights, locking up. It was only five-thirty and it was already dark. In the soft light inside, they were a movie, lovely and laughing; unafraid. I realized it was beginning to snow.

We were standing very close together and Nate’s voice was a soft rumble in the stillness. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about not feeling safe and free and I want to ask you something.”

“Go ahead,” I said, watching Tee scoop Mavis up in her arms and nuzzle her neck.

“If you did feel free, what would you do differently?”

I looked at him. “Everything.”

“Can you be more specific?” he said, like he really wanted to know.

“I’d wear more red,” I surprised myself by saying. “I’d wear a lot more red.”

His voice dropped another few notches and became an impossibly sexy rumble. “Like that dress you had on at Bill and Sister’s the night I met you?”

What was he talking about?
“I was wearing black.”

He looked surprised. “Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

He laughed softly. “
My bad.
I could have sworn you were wearing red.”

“Maybe it was the music.” I laughed too.

“No,” he said. “I think it was you.”

And he leaned down for a kiss and I tilted my face up, up, up to meet him and the sky was indigo and the snow was soft as baby’s breath and how could I ever get too busy to remember how to do this?