Searching for Tina Turner (4 page)

“Mom, Starless.”

Most days, Camille is cranky. Cranky and reclusive. How can she criticize her child for the very behavior she is guilty of?
The discontent that started last fall continues. Lena longs for the two of them to be close again. Either way, come September,
she’ll shed tears when she walks past the door of Camille’s disused room or when the clock’s hands sweep close to the normal
hour her daughter would come home from school. For seven months Camille has been searching for answers. This new name, Starless,
Camille told her parents, signified her preparation for college and separation from them. Her given name, she constantly reminds
them, no longer reflects who she is. She is without a fixed point: one foot almost in college, one foot at home.

Camera in hand, Lena kneels on the floor and unscrews the lens cap. She points the camera upward at Camille’s heart-shaped
face, plays with the f-stop, and adjusts the shutter speed. Snap. Wind. Snap. Camille shrugs, seemingly equating the prospect
of Lena’s class and the possibilities of Chinese food equally dull. Her resemblance to Lena, save for her demonstrative hands
and round eyes, lessens each year. But still, Camille resembles Lulu’s side of the family more than Randall’s: small bones,
an imperceptible smatter of freckles between her eyebrows, clear skin, and oversized teeth that fit well with her lips when
she smiles.

“I think I’ll puke if I have to eat Chinese food again.” Camille’s hint of a grin slips quickly to a pout. “You’ve hardly
cooked since Dad left. Kendrick and I have to eat, too.”

“I’ll rustle something up before I leave. Maybe I’ll bring back ice cream.”

Camille turns her back and heads down the hall. “And I need cat litter.”

The almost nine months since Randall gave her Kimchee on her birthday have made Camille more demanding, not responsible. Her
room is a mess, and she rarely makes it to school on time. Tomorrow Lena will chauffeur Camille to the store because she refuses
to learn how to drive and complains when she has to carry sacks of cat litter on the bus. Camille will take the two twenty-dollar
bills Lena will hand her to buy cat litter and a few extra items for her pet, and perhaps wander beyond that store to buy
something for herself. Lena will sit in the car and read about Tina while Camille considers which of the fourteen generic
and specialty brands of cat litter is the best for her precious Kimchee.

Ba-boom, ba-boom.

“Kendrick!” If she could remember where her cell phone is, she would call Kendrick because she would have a better chance
to reach him that way. Lena grabs two tall containers from her purse and jams them into her pocket. She walks down the staircase,
a half-circle of seventeen regular and five pie-wedge stairs that end at the front hallway, and continues to a second, shorter,
and straight flight that stops at the open door of the family room. “Turn that down, please.”

Eight of Kendrick’s friends loll on the floor, the couch, and the recliner. They greet Lena in unison, while their eyes focus
on the TV and two wrestlers in skimpy underwear entangled in the ring.

“Chill, Moms. This is the no-nag zone.” Kendrick is at the door in two lengthy strides. His body is lanky like his father’s
once was. He is tall, taller than Randall is now. He has his father’s thick curly hair, high and sunken cheekbones passed
down from Choctaw ancestors, a narrow forehead. His large ears, his dimples, his smooth brown skin are his father’s. At twenty,
his face is still like the boy who used to cry when he saw a dead bird or squirrel in the yard. “My friends want to stay for
dinner.”

Lena searches the corner of Kendrick’s eyes for their old impish crinkle. She can’t decide if he wants to impress his friends
or shame her. His eyes are clear and brighter now than when he came home from college at the end of last semester, but they
still lack spark.

“I don’t have much time.” With a hasty glance at her watch, Lena takes a mental inventory of the freezer and pantry. “I’ve
got a photography class tonight.”

“Aw, Moms, nobody can teach you a thing. Your photographs are already great.” Kendrick stares at Lena with the look of a neglected
puppy. “How’s about a little soul food? Fried chicken, cornbread on the side, a sweet treat…”

Eight sets of eyes peer at Lena as if to say, “We love your fried chicken, Mrs. Spencer.” As if their votes count.

“Yeh, Moms, it’s been a while.”

Lena checks her watch and calculates the twenty minutes it will take Kendrick to get to the grocery store, shop, and return
home—if there isn’t any traffic, if the store isn’t crowded. She guestimates before she commits: “The first part of the class
will probably be introductions and a review of the syllabus. I’ve got forty minutes, maybe an hour, max, if you leave for
the store right now.”

“Does that mean the vehicle thing is over?” Randall laid down the law when Kendrick came home. No driving until he had clearance
from his parents and his doctor.

“No.” Lena sighs. “I’ll go. But take the garbage cans to the bottom of the driveway. Now.” Lena purses her lips so that Kendrick
understands she is in no mood to awaken at five tomorrow morning to drag the heavy containers from the backyard to the front
of the house.

“I’m watching the fight right now. Later, for sure.”

What did her sister say when Lena complained how Camille, Kendrick, and even Randall forget to clean up, pick up, take out,
bring in? When she fusses, and she always fusses, they complain, and they always complain that she fusses too much. It’s not
the messes and the forgetfulness but the assumption that she will take care of it all. And she will. Bobbie said, “Get over
it. That’s what Mother’s Day flowers are for.”

She removes Kendrick’s medicine and a bottle of vitamins from her pocket and tosses them in his direction. Kendrick’s therapist
believes in integrative medicine. Kendrick follows most of his instructions: support group on Mondays, therapy sessions on
Wednesdays, and long runs.

“You’re embarrassing me.” Kendrick drops his voice to a deep, quiet timbre and tucks the bottles into his pocket.

“If you don’t do what I ask, you’re going to be even more embarrassed.”

Kendrick steers Lena to the door like an impatient escort on the dance floor. “Just call us when the food is ready.” The door
slams shut when she steps beyond the threshold. Behind the door, a voice mocks Lena in a high-pitched, falsetto: “Yeah, Kendrick,
you’re going to be even more embarrassed when I kick your ass across this room.”

In the kitchen, the granite counters are covered with the remains of Kendrick’s pantry raid: wrappers from two packages of
Double-Stuf Oreos, empty, oversized potato chip and pretzel bags. The clock blinks 5:45 and Lena calculates her time: drive
to the store, shop, wait in line, cook, clean up. A lone can of soda sits on the counter. Lena pops the top, sips, and scribbles
a grocery list wishing all the time that she knew someone to call and find out what she missed in class.

f   f   f

When the last of the plates have been loaded into the dishwasher, Lena sets cookies on a saucer and covers them with a napkin.
The kitchen still smells faintly of frying oil—another reason why she no longer cooks this way—and fresh-baked chocolate chip
cookies. She saunters through the back hallway, stopping halfway through to shut the laundry room door on the heap of dirty
clothes that will stay there until hours before the housekeeper comes. Thursday she will wash them and leave the clean clothes
piled atop the dryer for the housekeeper to iron or fold. She ignores a dead bouquet of flowers on the antique table she found
at a garage sale and the vase’s murky water and heads for the stairs.

“Camille?”

Camille has not made a sound since she emerged from her room to grab a hefty helping of chicken and cornbread. Kimchee mewls
behind the bedroom door, and Lena thinks the cat might mean for her to stay away. “I mean, Starless. I have cookies.” Lena
realizes, maybe for the first time, that her conversations with Camille through closed doors have become a metaphor for their
relationship—another barrier to keep them from seeing eye to eye. “Can I come in?”

A chair scrapes against the hardwood floor. Not once, but twice. Camille is not heavy footed, but Lena can tell from the abrasive
sound that she has backed away from, not moved closer to, the door. So much for Camille’s promise to differentiate herself
from friends who withdraw into their rooms and never talk to their parents. The door opens no more than five inches when Lena
leans against it. Kimchee slides through the gap and trots down the hallway like he owns the house. Cookies tumble from the
saucer when Camille dashes after her cat.

Lena stifles a sneeze against the immediate tingling reaction that starts whenever she comes in contact with the furry feline.
When Randall surprised Camille with the cat to motivate her, Lena had no idea she was allergic. No animals of any kind were
part of her childhood household except for the summer night when she was eight and a neighbor’s cat dashed through a torn
screen door and onto Lena’s bed. Her Grammie shrieked when she found the scraggly cat at Lena’s mouth. The incident was funny
to Lena until Grammie warned there was nothing funny about dying young because a cat sucked away your breath.

Kimchee jumps into Camille’s arms. Claws drag across Lena’s sweatshirt as Camille scoots past. She scowls with the face of
the girl who changed from sweet to sour, once she turned fifteen; tension flits around them like a bothersome moth.

“Please try to control Kimchee, Starless.”

“
You’re
the one who opened my door, Mother. Nobody else cares.”

f   f   f

Sleep comes faster when you read in the bed. That was Bobbie’s reasoning in the days they shared a bedroom, and Lena complained
she couldn’t sleep with the light on. Lena splashes Drambuie into her only glass of the night and rubs her eyes. Beyond the
open curtains, the trees are black silhouettes against the sky. The house is hushed and still. What worked for her big sister
never worked for her. At nearly two in the morning, and near the end of Tina’s story, Lena is wide awake.

“Let’s see what else you’ve got to say, Tina.” Without bothering to turn on the lights, Lena slinks down the hallway to her
office. “I’ll take all the help I can get.” One flick of the push-button switch and lamplight blanches the desk and everything
across it: neon-colored sticky reminders to call the handyman and pay those bills not automatically deducted from their checking
account, twenty or thirty square and rectangular envelopes. Lena brushes aside the old mail: an invitation to an art gallery
exhibit last weekend, another to a cocktail party the day after Randall left, a charity fashion show this weekend.

Eyes closed, she tries to conjure up Tina’s Mediterranean blue, but all she sees is black. Once she had confidence like Tina.
Before Randall’s schedule and his corporate social obligations, before the rush to and from soccer practices, sleepovers,
dentist appointments, and drama lessons became what she did best; before her chores became more burden than blessing.

A shallow drawer beneath the cherry wood top runs the length of the desk. Lena tips the lamp base, removes the key hidden
underneath, and turns it in the brass lock. Inside an open cardboard box sits embossed letterhead and business cards.
Lena Harrison Spencer, Photographer
is printed in an elegant and simple type. The spiral-bound booklet beside the box opens easily to the first page:
The Lena Harrison Spencer Gallery, A Business Plan, May 15, 1999.
Her plan was written in hopes of bank approval on her father’s birthday—fifteen, her good luck number. The table of contents
summarizes financial requirements, an implementation schedule and darkroom costs, possible mentors, and clientele from her
former job at Oakland’s Public Information Office—contacts she wanted to make before they forgot what a capable director she
was.

Randall came home early that showery April day four years ago, excitement written all over his face. Lena stood at the bedroom
window hoping the rain would stop so that she could get in a short run before dinner. The sound of his voice, from all the
way downstairs, preceded his arrival. “We did it, Lena!” Once in the room, Randall swept her off her feet and spun her around
until they were both dizzy. Camille and Kendrick ran into the bedroom, energized by the joyful commotion. Randall grabbed
Camille; Lena grabbed Kendrick. Laughing and spinning, spinning and laughing.

The four of them were infected with Randall’s news: they were in the presence of TIDA’s new executive vice president, worldwide
operations, six-figure bonus, IPO options, possibilities of golden parachutes. Kendrick and Camille jumped around the room
and chanted “IPO, IPO” like they understood what it meant.

Before this promotion, when the dot-com building boom filled Silicon Valley, TIDA’s board of directors broke the mold and
expanded northward from San Francisco to Novato. Randall spearheaded the Novato operations, putting him another step closer
to running TIDA; neither he nor Lena felt he could turn down the offer, though the daily, almost eighty-mile roundtrip commute
from Oakland would be wearing.

For all of the talk and plans beforehand, Lena underestimated the impact of Randall’s worldwide operations appointment. In
the beginning, for every day he was out of town, Randall called home. Five-minute conversations where business took a backseat
to the ordinary details of their lives; enough time for “I love you” to all three of them and “I wish you were here” to Lena.
No coaching Kendrick’s soccer team or boisterous applause in the middle of Camille’s solemn ballet recitals or input at teacher
conferences; no banter, no repartee crisscrossing their dinner table, no middle-of-the-week dates. He couldn’t back Lena up
when she disciplined Camille or control Kendrick’s defiance.

Randall’s responsibilities increased. He worked. Hard. The bonus was that he returned to work in San Francisco, but in any
given month, he stayed at least two nights in the corporate apartment in Novato. He traveled to their twelve national and
international locations. He assembled a new staff, analyzed, brainstormed, strategized new company directions. He dabbled
in golf; started smoking cigars and let himself be cajoled into joining the 95 percent white, male-only club on San Francisco’s
Nob Hill—all to expand his connections, to expose him to the business powers that be. At TIDA, there were introductions to
the board and other key players. Lena entertained executives in their home, gave dinner parties, and assured that Randall
sat next to those who could further his career.