Searching for Tina Turner (38 page)

“I love you, Tina,” Lena shouts.

Tina twirls around to see the face behind the distinctly American accent. She glances at Lena’s sole black face among her
adoring fans, and Lena raises both hands and waves.

“Thank you,” Lena shouts louder this time.

Tina looks Lena straight in the eye, breaks into a wide smile, and blows Lena a kiss, just before the car door closes, and
the limo eases down the road.

O
n this wonderful journey of writing my first novel, I have traveled down and around the paths of discovery, surprise, rejection,
and acceptance. With all that is in my heart, I thank God and the Universe for my blessings, for the lesson that family is
connected by more than blood, for friendships. My heart and my head have learned so much. I am pleased and privileged to have
such wonderful people supporting and encouraging me every step of the way.

My dear friends, The Finish Party, you have taught me that, sometimes, simple words work best, but a simple “thank you” doesn’t
seem to do justice to your wisdom, help, and love. I am filled with gratitude that each of you smart, witty, talented, and
truly wise women is in my life: Farai Chideya, Alyss Dixson, ZZ Packer, Deborah Santana, Renee Swindle, Lalita Tademy, Nichelle
Tramble. Wherever you go, wherever you are, I will always value and trust you.

Richard Abate, my agent, and Karen Thomas, my editor. Thank you for believing in me!

The Fourth Saturday crew, Sharline Chiang, Cheo Tyehimba, and Phil Wilhite, you bring me joy.

Felicia Ward, you are an ongoing source of inspiration and wise words.

My friends, my cheerleaders, who believed in me and kept me on the straight and narrow: Piper Kent-Marshall, Yacine Bell,
Arlene Hollis, Brenda Thompson, Pamela Thompson, and Stacy Stone, a big light who shined in my world for a little while.

The Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA) workshops, and the fabulous authors in that program, provided a powerful,
safe place for this new writer to learn and grow strong.

1. In the beginning of
SFTT,
Lena is scattered and no longer able to manage her life. Were there other ways that Lena could have maintained balance in
her life? If she had, do you think her marriage would have fallen apart?

2. What can a younger woman gain from Lena’s experience? Does age have anything to do with Lena’s situation?

3. Lena chose one aspect of Tina Turner’s life as a role model for strength. Were there other aspects of Tina’s life that
helped her as well?

4. Are role models important? Who are your role models? How have their lives inspired you?

5. What lessons can women learn from Lena’s experience?

6. Lena chose to leave the life she and Randall built together. What other ways can women regain “self” without giving up
what they worked so hard to gain?

7. Lena and Randall talk to their children separately about their divorce. If the four of them had discussed the situation
together, do you think Kendrick and Camille would have been less bitter toward Lena?

8. Lena tries to explain how she feels about her life to Camille. Can Lena be a role model for Camille? What is it about her
mother that Camille should be proud of?

9. Why do you think that Candace comes to Lena’s aid at the dinner party? What did Lena learn about friendship from that situation?

10. When Lena picks up Randall from the airport, what could each have done differently to connect with the other? Or was their
marriage already over?

11. Lulu offers this advice to Lena: “…
make
it enough. Make it enough to last until death do you part. I hope you’re not thinking about doing something foolish. There’s
no way you could live like you do without Randall.” Given the generational difference between the two women, what could Lena
take from this advice and pass on to Camille?

12. Do you think that Randall was aware that his best friend was flirting with his wife? If so, why didn’t he do anything
about it?

13. If Lena understood the differences between her and Cheryl, why do you think Lena agreed to go with her to France?

14. How do the differences between Cheryl and Lena help Lena? What does Lena learn from Cheryl?

15. What does Lena learn from her relationship with Harmon? Is he good for her?

16. Lena forgives Harmon for past behavior. Is there an old flame in your past like Harmon? What would it take for you to
reconnect with that person?

17. Did Lena do anything that hints to what her future with Harmon could be?

18. What does Bobbie’s support mean to Lena? What are the differences between the sisters?

19. Why do you think Bobbie decided to visit Lulu?

20. What, if anything, did Bobbie learn from Lena?

21. If Lena had gone with Randall in Paris, would he have accepted the “new” Lena? How would the two of them have reconciled
the changes in Lena?

22. If Lena had accepted Randall’s offer in Paris and reunited with him, do you think she would have fallen back into the
pattern of their old relationship?

Turn the page for a sneak peek at

a novel

by

Jacqueline E. Luckett

A
rm in arm, like sisters, Yvette and Ruby rounded the corner. Buildings, their surfaces chipped and cracked, lined the streets
around them: apartments—shutters weathered from neglect, poverty, or both—filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of men,
women, and children. A woman behind a table selling small pots of humble flowers that she had cultivated on her balcony. More
people walking than riding bicycles. Men with berets, women in straight skirts and sweaters. Repetitions of shallow wrought
iron balconies, a geranium pot here and there. A twinkling strand of lights strung between two buildings. Stores where Ruby
shopped for food that her mother had never heard of: baguettes, croissants, brioches, bonbons.

Yvette chatted in French and waited while Ruby repeated her words and phrases: How much does it cost? Do you have more? When
will my clothes be ready? Can I pay for this a little bit at a time?

“Your French,
cherie
, is getting better every day. Soon you will speak as well as me, and then you will not have a need anymore for your poor
amie
, Yvette.”

“
Mais, non,
Yvette. We’ll be friends forever.”

Yvette lived with a Negro drummer from North Carolina who’d had more success at getting gigs than Arnett. Yvette had convinced
the concierge to rent to Arnett and Ruby the apartment two floors below her and walked with Ruby until she learned her way
around the neighborhood. Her kindness kept Ruby going, those first days, until Ruby believed she could make it on her own,
pointing to what she needed: toilet paper, coffee, milk, sugar, and fruit.

“Regardez!” Ruby pointed to the open seats at a nearby café. Passing men tipped their hats at the two women, different in
their looks: Yvette blond and pale, Ruby curly-haired and brown in comparison to her friend. “Arnett will practice ’til it’s
time to go back to the club. He might take a nap, he probably won’t eat, and I know he’ll take at least two sips from that
bottle of brandy in the back of the closet he thinks I don’t know about. We’ll pretend we’re rich and waiting for handsome
men to discover us.”

“You are not happy with your handsome Arnett?” Yvette laughed. “Oh,
cherie,
I wish my Freddie loved me so much!”

“
Mais, oui
! But a woman has to know that she’s attractive to all men.”

“Ah, Ruby, we are in the wrong
arrondissement
for wealthy men. Handsome men, yes. Paris is full of them. Like the ones who wait for the beautiful dancers outside
le Casino Royale
and
les Folies-Bergères.
If they could afford it, these poor men here with their wives and children waiting for them at home, they would stop and
buy
un café
for us.” Yvette looked at her friend. Ruby could have found the best prices on eggs and bread on the days that that was all
their money could buy, and chicken or a little meat on the days that Arnett was paid in more than meals or liquor or drugs
that got him high enough to forget that he should have asked for money not the good times a few sticks of reefer could bring.
Gaining a friend, a woman friend, surprised Ruby, but once she understood Yvette’s kind heart, there was no turning back for
either of them. “
Cherie
,” Yvette asked. “You have found Paris all that you wanted,
oui
?”

“There’s no place else I’d rather be.” No fields of dandelions, no lawns green with spring rain, no magnolias or june bugs
to catch and bind with string, no lightning bugs to wear on fingers like rings. Not the smell of red dirt or its dust on her
shoes. All those years ago, Ruby had known Arnett would come for her. She believed no man could hold a woman the way he did
and not want to take care of her. This day, and all of their days together, she felt his love. Ruby’s face, a new look she’d
perfected, encouraged men without words. “I want to be a woman who lives with no regrets.”

“Ruby!” Arnett’s voice rang out from the other side of the street. His saxophone hung from his neck. The instrument beat against
his chest as he paced from one side of the street to the other. He had been playing for so long that his saxophone blended
into neighborhood sounds—the bling of a bicycle bell, the clacking of heels hard against the cobblestones, the patter of rain
just beginning to fall. Ruby no longer heard it. “Ruby, where are you?”

Ruby leaned back in her chair and tilted it ever so slightly until she disappeared into the shadow of the walls behind her.

“He will see
me
,
cherie
, and then he will know that you are here.”

“One minute more.” She scooted farther back, her chair moving soundlessly on the planked wood floor. “Sometimes a girl just
needs a minute.”

“Ruby!” Arnett rushed to the café, his eyes wide, hair tousled from fingers working through his waves. “I didn’t know where
you were.”

“You were in one of those spells, baby. I’m right here and see? Yvette is with me.”

He stood at the edge of the table and eyed their two cups. Two big men sat behind the women. Arnett glared at them. “I didn’t
know where you were.”

“And you found me.” Ruby smiled at Arnett in that way that soothed him when he wallowed in uncertainty. She backed away from
her chair and waved at Yvette. They would settle the cost of the afternoon coffee later. Ruby guided Arnett back to the rue
Ventimille and walked him up the five spiraling flights of stairs, him holding her hand as if he couldn’t make it without
her help.

“You’re gonna be fine, baby. That man today, he liked you. Just play like you do for me. I’ll be there. Aren’t I always there?”
The door to their room was wide open. She made him sit on their narrow bed and lifted the saxophone from around his neck.
Carefully, she rested the sax on its case. She took off her dress and set it on his practice chair, then lay beside Arnett
and pondered this change that had come over her man.

In her arms, his body was limp and clammy, drained like his practice had taken his spirit. She rocked and sang a little “God
Bless the Child” until he drifted off. The street lamplights glowed below the window. Trapped in the half-dark and the length
of Arnett’s body, Ruby was left with nothing to do except wonder why Arnett had become this way in Paris when never in all
of the days they wandered away from Mississippi had he been so concerned about his playing.