Sweet Bye-Bye (13 page)

I looked at him. He thought my eyes were sad.

“Keith, can you come and meet my friend Tia? Do you have time?”

He nodded. “Sure. I’d love to. In fact, we were just finishing up. Let me excuse myself and I’ll be right back.”

When he came back, I put my arm in his and walked with him toward my table. At the table I said, “Tia, this is a very old and dear friend of mine, Keith Rashaad Talbit. Keith Rashaad, this is my best friend, Tia Pardou.”

Keith shook her hand and sat down next to me. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said.

Tia said, “Keith, it’s so nice to meet you too. I feel like I have known you because I have heard your name so many times.”

“Good things, I hope,” he said.

“All good things,” Tia said. She looked at me and raised her eyebrows.

We chatted awhile and Tia and I learned that Keith was a new doctor, who had just completed his residency in Boston. He’d been granted the privilege of working on a special skin-grafting research team at the Oakland Children’s Hospital. I was so proud of him. His parents had died in a fire when he was an infant, and so it was fitting that he chose to work with burn victims who were children.

“I am so happy for you, Keith Rashaad.”

“Thank you, Chawnee.”

And I was happy for him. His Grandmother Edna had raised him until she died. Then he got sent away. He’d never called. I used to wonder if he’d died.

“I’m glad that you are doing well, Chantell,” he said after I told him what I had been up to. The three of us continued to eat and chat, until the waitress made her way back over to us. “Can I get you guys dessert, or something else to drink?”

“Can I have an iced tea, with no lemon?” I asked.

Tia ordered a hot tea.

“And what would you like, sir?”

Keith Rashaad said, “Um, how about a root beer?”

Tia’s cell phone rang. She answered: “Hello? Oh, hi, honey!” she piped up. She held up a finger as if to say that she’d be right back, and slid out of the booth. It was perfect timing because I had something to ask that couldn’t wait any longer.

“Keith, where did you go?” I didn’t say when we were children—I didn’t need to.

He took a long breath, then he said, “I couldn’t call, Chantell. When Grandma Edna died it was . . . it was very hard for me.”

There was a lot of energy bouncing from Keith to me, and from me to Keith. When Tia walked back, I was sure she could see it. Maybe she’d planned to sit back down with us a while longer, but that energy was unmistakable.

“Hey, look, you guys, I’m going to head home . . .” She picked up her coat from the back of the chair. “Ron’s rented videos, and he’s waiting for me.” She gave us both a hug.

“I’ll call you later,” I said.

“Tia, it was nice to meet you,” Keith said.

And before you knew it, we were alone.

“I tried to call you once, you know? I found a Chantell Meyers on AOL’s directory with a phone number. And I was just so sure it was you. I left a message, but when I didn’t get a call back, I figured it wasn’t you . . .” He looked a little embarrassed. “I was going to just suck it up and go knock on your dad’s door, once I got here. But I guess I don’t have to.”

I looked over the table at him and was reminded of those Sundays up in the balcony at church. “You have to come to church with me. It has grown so much, and Pastor Fields would be so happy to see you.”

“Count me in. I rarely miss church on Sunday mornings.”

I smiled. “Some things don’t change, huh?”

“Nope.” He smiled. “I’m still Keith.”

“Hey,” I said. “Remember Ola Rose Pearl?”

“Who could forget Mother Pearl?”

We laughed.

“She used to pass out gum to all of the kids in the balcony! While our parents listened to the church service we’d be upstairs smacking and chomping on Freedent, like little senior citizens,” I said.

We laughed some more.

“You know, I still chew that gum sometimes,” he said.

“I do too! Shoot, it’s good!”

We laughed, hard.

“Remember when we’d sneak from Sunday school and go to the corner store for candy?” I asked. “Between the both of us, we’d have maybe sixty-five cents.”

“Do I?” he said. “Spending up our Sunday school money. We’d walk into the store, and there would be mounds of candy. Now and Laters, Lemonheads, M&M’s, Boston Baked Beans, Jolly Ranchers.”

I cut in: “Oh, and don’t forget the Heath bars! Them things was good too!”

Keith Talbit looked at me and smiled. “Chantell, you’re funny!”

“What?” I said.

“Nothing.” And he just looked at me. His stare made my face warm. I loved my friend so much, and I couldn’t believe he was back and sitting next to me!

“All that candy,” he went on, “yet we always seemed to go straight to the gum section first, and find the Freedent.”

I smiled. “You want to go outside and walk around?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said.

21

Sitting on the Dock

W
e walked around past the closed, dimly lit shops. Keith thought Jack London Square was great.

“How long has all of this stuff been here?” he asked, stopping near a railing where we had a great view.

“For a while now. Oakland is really getting a face-lift.”

Walking with him like that, at that moment, made me feel that everything would be okay, as long as he was around. I even caught myself wondering silly things, like was he attracted to me, and thinking what-ifs, like what if he lived here. I knew that I had gone too far when I started having feelings of fear. Like I wasn’t worthy of such a good person as Keith Rashaad. He’d done a whole bunch of good. What had I done good? Nothing. Nada. Come to think of it, what did I know how to do well besides cut people with my sharp tongue and look cute? Keith’s area of specialty was medicine; mine was just plain old sin.

I needed a reality check, so that my imagination wouldn’t have me thinking of picket fences, children, and a dog named Spot.

“Keith, do you have an evangelist wife or a dentist girlfriend or something back at home?”

He laughed and stepped back. He said, “Chantell, you’re funny. I am not a saint. I try to stay connected with God, but I am by no means perfect.” He paused. “Let me put it this way. I’m just a work in progress, just like you. Just like every other Christian. I’ve made a conscious decision to try to stay close to Him.” Then he said, “And the answer is no, Chawnee.” He laughed. “I don’t have an ‘evangelist wife’ or a ‘dentist girlfriend’ at home.”

And I told myself that I wasn’t glad. It really wasn’t any of my business anyway.

We walked in silence for a while, then stopped by a bench near the water. We stood there together and looked out. Beautiful yachts were docked. We stared out and watched as the moon’s reflection danced on the ripples. The ambiance was nice. I made a note to myself to tell Eric that we should come out here and walk some night.

Keith picked up on the story of his childhood departure, where he’d left off in Friday’s. “After Grandma Edna died, I was so angry. Mad at God. Mad at the world. I felt like I didn’t have any support. No real family left. Nobody to show report cards to. Nobody to wait up for me to see if I came in past curfew and put me on punishment. I felt like I had no one to hold me accountable.”

I stared at him under the light. He kept talking, and I don’t know when I grabbed hold of his arm and comfortably folded mine around it.

He continued, “I was sent to live with my Aunt Gertie and Uncle Tommy. I guess I should have been thankful that I didn’t have to go to a foster home or juvenile. But I wasn’t. I thought that if my aunt and uncle had really thought anything of me, then I would have heard from them before then. My aunt and uncle lived in Texas alone, with no children. And that suited me just fine, because I didn’t want to talk to anyone anyways. I didn’t pay anyone much attention.”

Keith was always so even-tempered. I couldn’t imagine him that angry with anyone.

“So what did you do every day?”

He turned and looked at me and said, “I started hanging out in the street. My aunt and uncle tried to sit me down and talk to me, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I went from being a straight-A student to smoking weed and stealing cars for joyrides. My aunt and uncle threatened to turn me over to the police and let them handle me.”

I stood there trying to fathom such a thing.

“Then, one day my uncle saw me. He’d turned onto the street where I was hanging out. I had a cigarette in my mouth and my pants were sagging. I was about fourteen or fifteen years old. Me and the fellas, we were tough like that.”

He smirked and went on. “My boys must have seen him coming before I did, because they started looking at the ground with their hands in their pockets, whistling and fidgeting. I just kept talking. Boastin’ and lyin’. The next thing I knew, the cigarette was knocked out of my mouth. My boys had run off, and these hands that I didn’t know were so strong were holding me by my shirt and had my scrawny teenage body pinned to the ground, and I couldn’t move.” He chuckled.

“My uncle said, ‘You are not going to f— up your life in my home, boy!’ He said, ‘I am telling you right now, come home. Come home and get it together. Be the person that your Grandmother Eddie said you were. Or come home and get your stuff out of my d**n house.’ Then he got up, went to his car, and just drove away.”

I looked at him. “So what did you do?”

“I walked around Houston the rest of the evening thinking. I had a choice to make. I realized that I’d come to a fork in a road in my life, and that I had taken the wrong path. So I made a U-turn and took the other road. I went home that evening and told my aunt and uncle that I was sorry, and that I would do better. I worked hard, and turned my grades around. I graduated from high school. I got a scholarship to study math from Harvard. After college, I stayed there and went to medical school. I did my residency in Cambridge, and that’s where I’ve been up until this last week.”

“Wow, Keith Rashaad. You’re amazing.”

“Thank you, but I’m not amazing.”

“Yeah, but you’ve been through a lot, Keith, and you came through it.”

“Yeah, but I had it wrong, though.”

I looked at him curiously.

“About the support thing. I had a support system. God gave me Grandma Edna, and He gave me my aunt and uncle in Texas, but Chantell, He carried me. He was my system. No doubt about that.”

Keith was so sincere, and honest, and grounded. He was all of the things that I was not. I loved my old friend, and just wanted to squeeze him. Just talking to him was helping me to be a better me. I wouldn’t lose contact with him again.

The cold night air hit me. I wrapped my arms around myself. “Brrr, it’s getting cold.”

He put his jacket around me and said, “Yeah. It’s getting late. Where’d you park?”

“In the parking garage across from the theater.”

“C’mon. I’ll walk you to your car.”

We headed out of Jack London Square and toward the big parking lot.

“So, Saturday,” he said.

“Saturday what?” I asked.

“Saturday, do you have any plans? Can we hang out?”

“Sure. I’m open. What time?”

“How about five p.m.?”

“Okay. Where are we going?” I asked.

“Who knows? There’s so much that I want to do while I’m home. Just be ready,” he said.

I smiled. “Okay.”

We stood on the corner and he said, “Let me look at you.” He stared at me under the streetlight. “Yep, you’re as pretty as the day you first called me Frog Face.”

“Oh, here you go. Why you have to bring that up?”

We laughed.

“Because, Chantell, you were terrible!” Then he mocked me, in a little-girl tone: “‘Umm, excuse me. Excuse me, you guys! Move out the way, I need to go first. Cuz my daddy said that I was the princess.’”

We laughed again. “Stop exaggerating!” I said.

“I’m not!” he said. “None of the kids wanted to be your friend because you acted so awful.”

I looked him square in the eyes and said, “Well, you were my friend.”

“Yes, I was,” he said, “and I always will be.”

We took the parking lot elevator up to the third floor. When we reached my car, Keith saw how dusty it was and said, “Wash your vehicle, woman! Where’ve you been driving?”

“Hey, buddy. You just watch it! Don’t start no mess wit’ me.”

“Come here for a moment,” he said.

I walked over to him. He looked at me. I stared back and made a note of what I saw. Chiseled jaw line, chocolate skin, curly eyelashes, long physique, full lips, magnificent eyebrows, bald head, goatee, and the faint smell of a cologne that reminded me of trees. Lots of trees.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“I just want to look at you. I missed seeing your face, and your eyes.”

“You think my eyes are sad.”

“I think your eyes hold a lot of your feelings.”

Then he kissed his finger and touched my mole.

When I pulled out of the parking lot, I could still feel his finger’s touch above my brow.

22

Whatchu Doin’

I
t was such a beautiful day! I had my curtains open and was dusting the shelves when my phone rang. “Hellooo!” I said.

“Hi, it’s me.” It was Tia.

“Hey, T! Whatchu doing, gurl?”

“Don’t hey, T, whatchu doin’ me,” she said mockingly with a chuckle. “I’ve been wondering when your happy butt was going to call me and tell me what happened with you and Keith. That’s what I’m doing!”

I giggled. “Tia, I don’t even know where to begin,” I said. “I think I am still in shock. I am so happy he’s back. I don’t ever want to lose contact with him again.”

“Oooo. Somebody is whipped!”

“Stop it, Tia.”

“Is he single?”

“I don’t even know. I think so. It’s not really important.”

“Well, it sure looked important last night. You guys were intense!”

“No we weren’t. It’s not like that.”

“Chantell, save it. Y’all was hotter than the jalapeño poppers that they serve up in there!” She cracked herself up.

“Girl, you’re silly. That sounds like something my daddy would say. Anyways, Eric and I will be married by this time next year. That’s where my head is.”