Pretty Hate (New Adult Novel) (34 page)

“Show Mama what you did for her, Beth. Mama,” she said and looked down the table at my mother, “Beth made you a gift.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d call it a gift,” I said.

“Show her!” Rebel Love said as she twirled her spaghetti on her fork.

I grabbed the photograph off the counter and walked around table and knelt beside my mother’s chair.

“What did you do?” my mother said and shook her head.

“Um, I want you to have this. I developed it in--”

“Beth built her own darkroom, all by herself,” Mazie Goodnight said. “She is an amazing photographer. She really has the eye, Mama. She’s going to be very successful.”

“Photographer?” my mother said and stared at me. “I didn’t even know...”

“I never told anyone,” I said and handed her the photo. “I want you to have this.”

My mother stared at the photograph and shook her head as her eyes watered. Big drops of tears dripped onto the picture as she looked down at it.

“I’m gonna ruin it,” she said and wiped her eyes.

“The thing about this picture, Mama, the first thing I noticed, was you. Do you see yourself?” I said.

In the photo, I held a broom that we used for a microphone wearing one of the few dresses my mother owned. My mother stood in the corner and the sun shone through the window and covered her in warm light. She was absolutely gorgeous. There were no bags under her tired eyes or swollen cheeks from the alcohol. And she had a smile on her face as she watched me sing that went from ear to ear.

“I see you,” she said and looked at me. “And I see me.”

“You look beautiful in this picture, Mama...so happy.”

“I was happy, Beth,” she said and closed her eyes, “I was watching you.”

I won’t say that my relationship with my mother was fantastic after that, but when I showed her another side to herself, things seemed to improve.

A few weeks later, I was in the darkroom and scanned the picture of me and Nicolas into my computer. I attached it in an email to him with a note that only said: I’m sorry.

“We’ll see if he responds,” I said and pressed send.

“Beth,” Rebel Love said as she knocked on the darkroom door, “can we come in?”

“Yeah, lights are on, it’s open.”

“Beth?” Rebel Love said and tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned around and looked at her and Ivory-Lou.

“What’s up? Are you crying?” I said and stood.

“Oh, Beth,” Rebel Love said and cried, “I can’t...”

“What happened? Is it Mama? Tell me!”

“Your sister got a call,” Ivory-Lou said. “Bad news...sit down, Beth.”

“I’m about to pass out here, Ivory-Lou. You tell me what happened!”

“Uh,” he said and took a deep breath, “it’s India. She committed...she killed herself, Beth.”

I fell back into my stool and stared at them.

“Lucia called me,” Rebel Love said. “India had my number pinned to her cork board.”

“Yeah,” I said and ran my fingers through my hair, “I gave it to her before I went to Montauk in case she ever couldn’t get ahold of me. How?”

“She uh, oh, Beth, she hung herself,” Rebel Love said and looked at the floor. “Lucia said she tried to call you, she said that you were her best friend and she wanted to tell you before you saw it on Facebook or something.”

“I can’t believe it,” I said and stared at Ivory-Lou. “I don’t know how I feel.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to feel anything if you don’t want.”

“There’s a...ceremony,” Rebel Love said and cleared her throat. “Lucia said that she would never have a funeral for anyone. She called it a, um, a reabsorption ceremony. It’s at their house. She asked if we, that is, you and your family, would attend. Uh, the more the merrier, she said.”

“I don’t know,” I said and shook my head.

“I told your sister that there was no way in hell you were going to go, but your sister seems to think it’s a good idea. What did you say, baby, oh, so you could have closure on this relationship. I’m on the fence.”

“We would like to go and support you, Beth. It is one day and I think it’s important. I know she did you wrong and you don’t have to forgive her for that, but this girl was in so much pain, Beth, it just hurts my heart. And then I think of you, Bethy, and I wonder if you’ve ever been in that much pain, I just can’t imagine,” she said and cried.

I looked at the picture of Nicolas as tears slid down my face.

“She called me so many times,” I said. “I shouldn’t have turned my back like that.”

“You walked in on her having sex with your man, Beth,” Ivory-Lou said and shook his head. “Don’t go feeling guilty about this.”

“We were all on drugs, Ivory-Lou. Christ, I almost had sex with a Swedish hand model named Ingrid except India was already in the bed with Declan.”

Ivory-Lou raised his eyebrows as he stared at me.

“Be that as it may,” he said and shook his head, “you could not have done a thing to prevent this.”

“I prevented it that night we sang the song to her. I was sure that she was going to do it that night and we stopped her.”

“Which furthers my point,” he said. “She was suicidal from the get and she was gonna do it no matter what.”

“None of this matters,” Rebel Love said and wiped her face. “It is, unfortunately, done. The, um, reabsorption ceremony is the day after tomorrow. If you want to go, we will go with you. Not so much for India, Beth, but for you.”

“But, how?”

“Declan...Lucia said he’s offered his plane,” Rebel Love said.

“Is he going to be there?” I said and shook my head. “I don’t--”

“No. Lucia said he’s in Japan.”

“I told your sister there was no way you’d take that ass clown up on that, even if you wanted to go to the malnutrition ceremony.”

“Reabsorption, baby,” Rebel Love said.

“Whatever. Beth doesn’t need no fancy private plane ride as an apology. That’s all he’s doing.”

I turned around in my stool and looked at the photographs I printed of my family. I thought of India’s life, how jealous I was when I went to Montauk and the horrible things I said to my mother.

“Do you think Mama would have been a different person if she had a life like Lucia’s? Would we have grown into different people?” I said.

“Well, sure,” Rebel Love said. “It would have been impossible not to. Now, would we have had a
better
life? I don’t know.”

“India’s dead, Beth,” Ivory-Lou said. “She had all those things and look what happened to her.”

“Yeah, but if Mama had those opportunities; the whole family,” I said. “Take Merry-Bell, I met people at India’s that were a thousand times crazier than her and--”

“Nope, that is not possible,” Ivory-Lou said and crossed his arms. “Ain’t no one crazier than her.”

“It’s true,” I said. “But the difference is if Merry-Bell had all that money she would just be considered artistic or, even better, eccentric. If Merry-Bell was rich like them, swimming in a public fountain naked would have been considered her interpretation of a Fellini movie or something. But when dirt poor Merry-Bell swam naked in the fountain, she’s convicted crazy.”

“Don’t matter,” Ivory-Lou said. “Bat-shit is bat-shit. I don’t give a damn how much money’s in the bank account.”

“Don’t you see?” I said. “Merry-Bell knows everyone thinks she’s nuts, same way Mama knows people, Mama included, think she’s a loser. But throw the money in there, or at least the lifestyle, and Merry-Bell is an eccentric artist and Mama is this romantic character straight out of a Victorian novel pining for her lover lost at sea. And what’s more, they think that of themselves too. They no longer have anyone standing on their necks. They are free to be whoever and whatever they want.”

“Sure,” Rebel Love said, “it would have been nice to give them that kind of hope, but we did not grow up like that.”

I looked down at the floor and took a deep breath.

“We will take the plane to Montauk,” I said. “We will all go, Mama and Merry-Bell included. I want them to see what I saw.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Ivory-Lou said.

“I think it’s a perfect idea,” Rebel Love said. “Besides, that fucker owes my sister a lot more than a tankful of gas in his private jet. And we have never taken a trip together, sad occasion that it is, except that one time Mama drove us to South of The Boarder in South Carolina and Merry-Bell’s dog, Dusty Roads, threw up all over us the whole way.”

“That ain’t what I’m talking about, baby,” Ivory Lou said. “I’m talking about Aunty Loopy. You take that woman out of her environment and she’s gonna be more of a lunatic than she already is.”

“Who cares?” I said. “It is who we are. We are a tribe.”

Rebel Love looked at me and smiled.

“Fine,” Ivory-Lou said and pointed at me. “Don’t you dare ask me for help when she goes motherfucking Rain Man in New York. I done told you, Beth.”

As I packed for the trip to Montauk, I put the picture of me and Nicolas and the copy of
The Stranger
he gave me into the suitcase in case he came to the reabsorption ceremony.

“You almost ready?” Ivory-Lou said and came into my room.

“Yeah, I think I have everything,” I said. “You ready?”

“I’m flying on a private plane with four crazy white bitches to another crazy white bitch’s house so I can be the only black man in the history of black men to go to something called a reabsorption ceremony for some really crazy white bitch. Yeah, I’m ready.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

At five-thirty in the morning, me, Ivory-Lou and Rebel Love sat outside the airport in Charleston and stared at Declan’s plane as Ivory-Lou chain smoked and we waited for my mother and Merry-Bell.

“Does that tire look flat?” Ivory-Lou said and pointed at the right tire on the plane.

“Not to me,” I said. “Anyway, we’re not going to be using the tires.

“It was really kind of you to invite Mama and Merry-Bell,” Rebel Love said as she stared at the jet. “You know, this is something that they would have never experienced in their entire lives if it wasn’t for you?”

“Well, hopefully the plane doesn’t go down because I’d never hear the end of it from our mother.”

“Don’t even joke around about that shit!” Ivory-Lou said as he dragged on his cigarette.

“What is wrong with you?” I said and stared at him. “Oh, shit, you’re scared to fly!”

“No, I am not.”

“You are! You’re sweating like a pig and it’s not even fifty degrees.”

“Okay, I get a little nervous, but I take a pill and I calm down. Should I take my pill now, baby?” Ivory-Lou said to Rebel Love.

“Yes,” she said as she looked at her watch, “it’s time.”

“Mama just pulled up,” I said as I looked across the private parking lot for the private plane passengers.

“Okay,” Ivory-Lou said as he held out his hand, “give me the pill.”

“Um, I don’t have your pills,” Rebel Love said. “You said you would pack yourself. You said I pack in such a way that wrinkles your clothing. Bullshit, by the way.”

“We have to go back, then,” Ivory-Lou said and shook his head. “I can’t fly without them.”

“We don’t have time,” I said.

“Baby,” Rebel Love said, “you will be fine. Remember when we went to Cancun? You only took half a pill and you were fine. This is a short flight.”

“It’s a short flight in a tin can! I don’t think I can go.”

“The hell you can’t,” I said. “What do you always say to me? You say that if I think like a warrior, I will become a warrior. Well, you’re a warrior too, Ghost Dog! It’s not going to be--”

“Oh my God,” Rebel Love said and covered her mouth. “Merry-Bell.”

She walked across the tarmac toward us in a blue furry coat wearing big Jackie-O sunglasses and I looked at Rebel Love and shook my head.

“Is she wearing leather pants?” I said.

“Her...hair,” Rebel Love said and turned to Ivory-Lou. “Baby, just use Merry-Bell as your point of focus. You’ll be fine.”

“I told you bitches,” Ivory-Lou said under his breath as Merry-Bell and my mother walked up to us.

“That the plane?” Merry-Bell said and lifted her sunglasses. “Though it’d be bigger. Some rock star. Next time, find yourself a better rock star, Beth.”

“You died your hair?” I said.

“It’s a tint,” she said as she fluffed her hair. “I was looking at Dolly Parton pictures. I always loved the way she wore her hair.”

“It’s purple,” I said and touched it. “Why’s it so high?”

“Teased it,” she said and turned to Ivory-Lou. “Hey, you got one of those pick combs y’all do your hair with? I couldn’t find mine.”

“I do not use a
pick comb
,” Ivory-Lou said as he pulled the pocket square out of his suit jacket and wiped the sweat off his face.