Who Asked You? (4 page)

Of course I’m worried about my daughter, but she’s grown. And knows exactly what she’s doing. I’m more relieved that my grandsons aren’t anywhere near her, so I say nice and slow like: “Pay extra-close attention, Trinetta. Do not even think about picking these kids up until you can show me a few pay stubs and a clean drug test. Now. Suck. On. That.”

W
hen I hear a succession of quick knocks on the front door, I know it can’t be anybody but BJ, especially at this time of morning. I crack the door a few inches. “I’m standing in here dripping wet with just a towel wrapped around me, BJ, so you better not be here to tell me something neither of us can handle.”

“It’s Trinetta . . .”

I pick up my heart. “Please don’t tell me she OD’d.”

“Do I sound petrified or pissed off?”

“What’d she do this time? Wait. Don’t tell me. What is it you need me to do, BJ?”

“She didn’t show up to get the boys and they’re on the sunporch waiting for me to take them to school and you must not’ve heard the phone when you were in the shower. Anyway, would you mind sitting with Lee David for about a half hour or so, until Nurse Kim gets there? But you and I both know she always runs a little late.”

“Of course I don’t mind. I’m not due at the attorney’s office until eleven. Why didn’t you call in sick or take a vacation day and just keep them at home today?”

“Because Lorinda’s relatives are visiting from Norfolk and she’s taking them to Disneyland and Magic Mountain, so I at least have to go in for a few hours. These kids have missed enough school as it is. I’ll be back in time to pick them up.”

I peek over her shoulder and see the screen door opening and closing and then I see a cute little brown face poke out. That’s Ricky. He’s looking for his grandma. Bless his cute little heart!

“Whose car is that in the driveway?” BJ asks.

“Trevor’s.”

“You mean you let that boy spend the night over here?”

“She’s twenty-three, BJ. What difference does it make if it’s here or in his dirty bungalow?”

“Just a minute,” she says, and turns around since Ricky is apparently now banging the door shut and open. “Luther! Make Ricky stop doing that. Please. I’ll be right there!” She turns back to face me. “A sleepover, huh? So is this a sign she’s serious about this one?”

I roll my eyes. “And counting.”

“Anyway, how long will it take you to put something on?”

“Two minutes. So go! If you weren’t so doggone nosy I could’ve been over there by now.”

“Thanks, Tammy.”

“Pay me later.” I throw the towel over a chair and run down the hall to my bedroom to get my terry-cloth robe. Lord knows Lee David isn’t exactly Jack the Ripper, so if one of these droopy girls were to plop out, I doubt if he’d even notice.

I know the lovebirds are upstairs sound asleep, but I grab my keys and lock the front door out of sheer habit. Something we didn’t have to do back in the good old days. The neighbors on my left are Korean, and they don’t like anybody who’s not Korean. They refuse to hire a gardener, which is why their yard looks more like a desert. I planted purple and white hydrangeas all along the fence just to give them a clue of what beauty can do. They have refused to take the hint. On the right are two black racists who have not spoken to me in the six years since they moved in. A dynamic duo: like father, like son. They let their avocados, olives, and lemons fall into our yard, hoping I’ll complain. But all we do is eat them. I am not intimidated by black people anymore, and I refuse to apologize for being white. Here it is the new millennium, when it shouldn’t matter what color you are. But it does. Even here in liberal frigging California. For years, I’ve wanted to say: “Hey, I never had any slaves, so stop holding me responsible for what happened two hundred years ago!”

There are twenty-two homes on our street. None of them is worth a dime and only a handful are worth fixing up, and quite a few folks have done just that. Too bad money doesn’t grow on trees, because that’s one thing we’ve got plenty of on this block. Trees help block roofs that need to be replaced. Lee David had a new one put on right before he got sick. I’m guesstimating it’s been about nine or ten years now. He painted the trim cocoa brown, which I didn’t particularly care for but I pretended to love it. My own house is stucco, the color of cashews. The trim matches. It’s ugly, too. I don’t know how long roofs are supposed to last but it seems like mine didn’t start leaking until I kicked my husband out a little over three years ago, after twenty-six years of marriage. Good thing I’m not violent or he’d be in a plot in a cemetery. For years, Howard had an on-again, off-again love affair with the crap tables, but the last straw was when I found out the hard way he had lost half of the kids’ college tuition. I walk on into BJ’s house and back toward their bedroom. Lee David is lying there with his hands clasped, smiling about something. The television isn’t on, which is unusual.

“Good morning, Lee!” I say loudly, even though he’s not hard of hearing.

He turns to look at me and frowns. “You ain’t Nurse Kim,” he says.

“Sorry. I’m still Tammy,” I say. “She’ll be here soon.”

“Good. I want my snack. Then my lunch.”

It would do no good, of course, to tell him it’s morning and he’ll probably be having breakfast. I walk over and turn on the vitamin D light I talked BJ into buying because Lee David hardly ever goes outside anymore. When he squeals and holds his hands in front of his face like he’s a vampire and I just held up a cross, this tells me to turn it off. Which I do. “Sorry, Lee.” I walk back out to the living room and sit in BJ’s La-Z-Boy, grab the remote, and the
Today
show is on. I never watch morning TV, but I am also not in the mood to sit here and listen to that Katie Couric. I can’t stand the nasally way she talks, like people from Wisconsin and both of the Dakotas. I turn it off, lean back in the recliner, and pull out an
Ebony
magazine from the right pocket. But I’ve read this one. I reach over on the left and my hand hits a big brown envelope that slides out and falls onto the carpet.

I already know it’s yet another essay pretending to be a letter from Dexter. I used to read them while sitting here with Lee David. At first they just broke my heart. That’s because I watched him grow up. I remember when he used to help out anyone in the neighborhood who needed their grass cut, their driveway hosed down, or something from the corner store. He volunteered and most of the time wouldn’t take any money. BJ didn’t put him up to it, either, because I asked her.

But like a lot of youngsters, he started sneaking and hanging out with the wrong crowd, and that was when he started changing. He stopped being available and it got so that BJ and Lee David couldn’t manage him. It’s hard to compete with the lure of the streets, and I believe in my heart this is how they lost Dexter.

Dexter gave himself permission to become a criminal, which is why I can’t read his letters anymore. Now he reminds me of my two brothers. They’re full of shit, too, and don’t apologize for anything they do wrong either. They live on our ranch in Billings. Our parents knew they were screw-ups when they were teenagers, always getting expelled, and then in their twenties, they thought the local jail was a hotel. Their thirties were nothing but a miniseries of the previous ten years, which is probably why our parents made me executor of the whole estate years before they both passed. All hundred and sixty acres. My brothers weren’t happy about this even though they got enough cash for anybody to live on for years. Just to be fair, I turned around and deeded them twenty acres each, including the house (which wasn’t worth half as much as the land), since they wanted to live in it for what they claim were sentimental reasons. But a funny thing happened while they partied the years away: They blew their inheritance and are now flat broke, which is why they’ve decided to sue me for what they call “our fair share.” Mine has been earning 3 percent interest.

It’s unfortunate that Jackson, the oldest, has yet to find steady employment even at the tender age of forty-eight. He claims to be handicapped but has yet to reveal what his disability is. Clay, a year younger, a high school dropout, never quite got the hang of working and has never demonstrated any marketable skills unless you count rounding up cattle. They’ve always resented me for marrying a black man and have never met him or the kids, which hurts even though I understand. Regardless, they’re still kin, so once I get this ordeal all straightened out, I’ll most likely give them some more acreage to do with as they please, sell off the rest, give them just enough money so they won’t kill themselves, and then maybe I’ll move to a more pleasant neighborhood out in the Valley, and definitely get my boobs lifted.

My moving to Los Angeles was not an accident. I dropped out of college to escape my family, boredom, and the brutal Montana winters with hopes of becoming an actress or a dancer—whichever happened first. (I was also a gymnast, but a broken tibia prevented me from going to the Olympics in Mexico City.) I managed to become a professional cheerleader instead. Which is how I met my husband. Howard was a rookie point guard for the Lakers but got cut after sitting on the bench for three years. From there he followed in his dad’s boots and started putting out fires. Last I heard, he retired the dice and worked his way up to captain. Instead of dancing, for the last twenty years, five days a week I have sat in a courtroom and typed into my steno machine some of the most horrific crimes imaginable when it comes to what folks do and don’t do under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Some things they don’t even remember. My daddy was a drunk. My mama was his memory. Everybody I knew played with guns. Especially my brothers when they were stoned out of their minds. Once, Jackson accidentally shot Clay in the foot. He didn’t even feel it. Guns have always frightened me. All this stuff has added up to why I’ve never tasted alcohol or smoked marijuana. I didn’t want any of them to play a role in my life. After all I’ve seen and heard, I don’t think everybody who drinks a little too much on occasion is an alcoholic or that people who smoke marijuana on an occasional basis are potheads. I take that back. They are potheads. If you smoke only three cigarettes a day instead of the whole pack, you’re still a smoker. It just always seemed easier and saner to deal with life with a clear head instead of one that’s overcast.

Lee David and BJ were the first people on the block to treat us like our mixed marriage was no big deal. Howard and I didn’t really have that hard a time. We got an occasional stare when we went out. But black women have been the worst. Whenever we were in public, when his back was turned, they’d look me up and down quickly, then again slowly, as if they were trying to figure out what I had that they didn’t—nothing—and they’d cut their eyes at me or give me the finger or twitch their nose and lips to one side or mouth the word
bitch
, all while leaning back on one leg, either with their arms crossed or with their hands on their hips. Sometimes all of the above at once.

I had never even thought about dating a black guy until I met Howard. It was his smile and the silk in his voice that caught my attention more than his skin color. He was also polite and warm and extremely sexy and didn’t even seem to know it. No one was more surprised than I was how much I found myself being attracted to him. I fell in love with him and his blackness was just an added bonus.

When the twins were still babies and I proudly pushed them around in their double stroller, some folks would do double takes. We got used to the stares, and white and black alike would ooh and aah and smile at the children, but most looked at me like they weren’t sure if they were mine. Sadly, it was mostly white people who would say, “Aren’t they just adorable!” Their problems didn’t start until elementary school but lasted through middle school. They were called niggers and half-breeds and nerds and got hit because a lot of the black children picked on them. On top of this, too many kids didn’t believe they were real twins, because Montana looked like me, blonde and blue eyes, and Max (short for Max) looked just like his dad: a beautiful root beer, with curly black hair. On too many occasions I had to leave work and go to their school, and there one or both of them would be sitting in the principal’s office in tears, sometimes with a busted lip or a bruise or some token of the hatred or anger they faced for being mixed. This is when we took them out of one and then another school and finally into what was called a charter school. It was full of every ethnicity we could possibly imagine, including so many varieties of mixed-race children we felt comfortable. The kids thrived there. And we slept good at night.

I put the envelope back and look around this living room like I’ve done hundreds of times. I love how the walls are covered with family photographs but then there’s me and Howard and the twins, too. The Rainbow Coalition.

When the doorbell rings, I’m thinking Nurse Kim has finally realized that this is a real job and is not only on time, but early. “It’s open!” I yell.

“Mom, it’s me! Tanna!”

What in the world is she doing here, and up so early?

Lately, she’s been working as a fitting model for wedding dresses because she’s a perfect size six, but they don’t usually get started until ten or eleven. “What in the world are you doing up so early? Is something wrong?”

“Not for me. But maybe yes, in your eyes.”

I study her face to see if I can detect whether this is going to be something my heart needs to be prepared for. Her cheeks are rosy. She’s a dirty blonde. I’m a bleached one. Her eyes are almost cobalt blue.