Friends and Lovers (40 page)

When I sat up, I faced myself in the closet mirror. I ambled over to the glass, stood nose to nose with my reflection. Reached out and put my hand up to my hand. Added a few stains to the already smeared glass. Dabbed my prints everywhere.

I sat on the shower floor, warm water raining, eyes closed, seeing the bites on Shelby’s neck. Imagined her and Richard in the throes of passion, expressing themselves in such a way that made my wildest fantasies bland. I’ve been here, holding back grief, and that bitch has been in my best friend’s house fucking.

I didn’t want to go to the tribute. Didn’t want to go anyplace that might be surrounded by sadness and tears. The only reason I said I was going was because I needed an excuse to get away from the house. Bobby and Alejandria said they might go, so I’d have to go. At least make an appearance. Which would be the right thing to do anyway. My mood wasn’t its best, and I had planned on going back to the hotel room and sitting around until about three, maybe four in the a.m., then slipping back after I thought Shelby and Richard had finished doing whatever and had gone to sleep.

I had to focus on the reason I was here. Didn’t want to lose focus. Didn’t want Debra upset. This was really hard on me. I was biting holes through my tongue.

Five minutes later I was in Girbaud jeans, black
leather boots, collarless white shirt, Pierre Cardin blazer. Back in style because I knew how it was when my people had a function. Casual never meant casual. It meant be ready for a fashion show.

The parking lot next to the Color of Comedy was packed. Sisters sauntered and sexy-swayed from the lot and up the street, draped in everything from kente fashions and mud cloth dresses to jeans and short Lycra skirts. Everybody from the broke to the bourgeois was in line. Brothers sported
GQ
styles and African fashions. Nobody wore tennis shoes.

A comic was passing out black armbands with red L’s embroidered on them. He handed me a satin band, told me I didn’t have to pay the cover. I slid the band on, stepped around the crowd.

About three hundred people were in the club, listening to the DJ jam some old-school. I found some solitude up front at the reserved Robin Harris section. Ordered a 7
UP
, buffalo wings, and fries. The show started thirty minutes late.

Comic after comic celebrated the friendship they had shared with Leonard. Everyone laughed as each stood in line and told an anecdote. Straight-up lies mixed with the truth. Comedy.

One too-fine sister named A.J. told a hilarious lie about the time Leonard’s car broke down on skid row, and when he got back three homeless people and a one-eyed cat had moved in, complaining about his eight-track messing up their Sly and the Family Stone tapes.

Everybody referred to him in the past tense. That didn’t feel right. Especially when I felt him in the room. But I knew that in a few days one of these tables would be named after him. I just hoped they’d put it up front.

After a couple of hours, the tables were moved and the house DJ took over. I stepped to the bar while they were playing some Warren G and everybody started dancing.

Before I could wave down the bartender, somebody tapped my shoulder. It was Shelby, standing in my space, wearing a black body suit, white jacket, golden earrings,
necklace, and bracelets. I saw her and wished I was blind.

She took off her armband, slipped the satin sadness in her pocket, then smiled at me. “Hello, Tyrel.”

“Hello, Shelby.”

“I saw you sitting over there when we came in.” She pointed. “We sat in the Negro Baseball League section.”

My eyes followed her fingers to the front. Bobby and Alejandria waved from the dance floor.

“Feel like dancing?” she asked.

I said, “Not in the mood for bullshit right now.”

“Don’t take that tone with me.”

“Why don’t you get out of my face.”

“Sounds like you want me to ‘pack my shit and go.’”

“That’s what you do the best.”

“You’re an asshole. Some brothers never change.”

“Why are you up in my face?”

“Dance with me,” she asked me again, then poked out her bottom lip. “C’mon, pah-wheeze dance wiff me?”

“You think Richard would like that?”

“Do you feel like dancing?” she repeated. Her dark and lovely skin was still smiling. She crossed her eyes and hand signed her words. “Are you deaf? Will you dance with me?”

She laughed. I didn’t. Her tone changed when she touched the spots and said, “Stop looking at my neck.”

Her phony lightheartedness faded. We stood and stared at each other’s emotionless faces like we were both in the other’s way.

“Tyrel, the record will be over in a minute.”

“And?”

She held her hand out. I didn’t give her mine. She grabbed my arm and pulled me through the crowd, bumped around people without apology, and led me to the dance floor. Her soft hand slid down my arm, held my fingers.

Shelby had always been a great dancer. Smooth and elegant. She would take all the hip-hop dances and Shelby-cise them. Like Leonard, Debra was a hard-core
rump shaker. They’d dance all night and sweat until they couldn’t sweat any more.

Shelby was subtle. On the floor was the only time she looked tame. While we grooved to Toni Braxton I had a hard time not watching her float with the music. We danced the cha-cha. Each time she grinned and invited me to follow her rhythm. Watching her threw me off a couple of times, but I grooved in place until I got back on track. She danced close, slid her hands on my hips, moved closer, and rocked with me.

I pushed her away.

I asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

She tilted her head, mocked my tone. “’What’s wrong with you?’”

The music changed to a slow groove. I turned to walk away, but she took my hand and pulled me to her. I looked for Richard. Didn’t see him in the room. Either way, I backed off.

She put her face close enough for me to feel the texture of her skin. Her perfume was magnetic. Her breath, pleasing. I inhaled when she exhaled and stole what she was leaving behind. The aroma of a sweet liqueur breezed over my lips. She slid her hand up and down my back. For a moment I was hexed, forgot we’d broken up. Expected to glance to my left and see Leonard and Debra sneaking in kisses while they danced. I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see all the armbands in the room, sent myself back to a safe time. I pulled Shelby closer to me. She lured me closer, her hips slowly bouncing side to side, rocking. My groin tingled. I almost ran my hand down her back and across her butt. But I caught myself. Then I did it anyway. She jerked her face back from mine and frowned. I thought she was about to curse me out, but she eased her face back where it was at first. She ran her hand over my backside the same way I’d done hers.

Shelby whispered, “I need to talk to you about something.”

“What?” I asked. She was curt and serious. “Debra okay?”

“Debra’s doing okay. Something else.”

“What kind of something?”

“Something something.”

“Okay.”

She held my hand and led me through the sweaty crowd, toward Alejandria and Bobby. Shelby’s middle finger raked across my palm. I smiled at Bobby. “Nice suit.”

“Thanks.” Bobby had surprise living in his eyes.

“I bought it for him,” Alejandria said. “I’m trying to get him out of those same old dirty blue jeans.”

“Uh, Bobby,” Shelby said, “I’m riding back with Tyrel.”

My body shifted. I must’ve missed part of the conversation because I didn’t remember offering to take anybody anywhere.

Alejandria smiled at Shelby, took her hand, then said, “We can all sit down and have breakfast together in the morning, no?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Shelby said. “We’ll see you back at the house.”

She hugged Alejandria. Bobby and his wife headed for the dance floor. Shelby led me to the exit.

After we got in my car, she reached over and stopped me from starting the engine.

Shelby said, “Wait.”

“What’s wrong?”

She adjusted her body so she could stare me in my face. “Did you kiss me last night?”

It was foggy, but I remembered. “Yeah, I did. A little.”

“A little?”

“Can’t kiss a woman much when she’s asleep.”

“Debra told me. I thought she was lying.”

“I’m sorry. I was—I guess I was, you know …”

“No, I don’t know.” She put her hand on my chin, made me look at her. “You always kiss sleeping women?”

Before I could answer, she leaned over and kissed me. First her soft lips were on mine, barely touching, over
and over. Then her mouth parted a little; she eased her tongue to mine. Pulled me a little closer, adjusted her rhythm, kept kissing me, slow, long, and deliberate. Kissed me until her breath roughened with passion. Her tongue tasted like Chablis and a peppermint stick.

When she finished, she sat back, blushed, and put on more lipstick. The light from a streetlight fell through the windshield and cast a soft shadow across her face down to her lips, gave her a sultry, Max Factor appearance. Her face was mysterious, serious, and sensuous. Arched eyebrows. Perfect makeup. Smelling like a rose, and built like an intelligent Nubian goddess. Arrogant enough to make her unapproachable. And she was sitting in my car. She had slipped me the tongue.

Her voice was plain when she said, “You love me?”

“I’ll always love you. Even after you’re married.”

“Tyrel. Damn. Why did you have to say it like that? A simple yes would’ve been cool.”

We both laughed. Then talked. Old times. Kept the conversation light. What concerts I’d been to. What celebrities she’d met on the plane. She reached over and took my moist hand with her sweaty palm. I felt her trembling. Her eyes widened. She took a couple of short breaths, then went back to normal. She used her other hand to pull her hair back.

“Tyrel, I want to know something.”

“What?”

She clutched my hand, opened and closed hers. “Well, actually I wanted to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, I have to tell you something.”

“All right.”

“I want to get this out of the way today.” She sighed. “Before I lose my courage.”

I nodded. “All right.”

“I was going to wait until after the funeral, but I don’t think I can wait. And I didn’t know how long you’d be around. We need to clear the air before we go our separate ways.”

She quieted for a couple of minutes.

Bobby and Alejandria came out of the club holding hands and crossed the street into the parking lot by the BBQ place that was giving the area a cultural aroma. A moment later, Bobby’s Paseo headed up MLK Boulevard.

Shelby was smoothing her right hand over her legs. I was holding her left hand and felt the trouble rising from inside her.

She said, “So many memories are inside that building.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s really gone, huh?”

I paused. “Yeah. He’s gone.”

We held hands, but in a different kind of way.

I asked, “Are you gonna cry?”

“I don’t know. Ignore it. Don’t feel sorry for me.”

I took my hand away from hers.

She said, “What’s wrong?”

“Where’s Richard?” I asked, and threw her rhythm. She jumped. My voice carried ill will. My tone startled even me.

“San Diego. He’s gone back home.”

“Back home?”

“Yep.”

“Oh. So, he’s coming back?”

She told me they had had it out, broke up. That he left in a cab a few hours ago. I didn’t have any real reaction.

“So what about your wedding?”

She raised her left hand, wiggled her empty fingers.

I asked, “Is that why you’re all in my face?”

“What do you mean?”

“Using me to get even or something?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Shelby took my hand back, my questions were still coming, then she shushed me. Asked me to listen for a moment. She closed her eyes, puffed, then talked over her trembling lip.

“Tyrel, I lied to you. I got an abortion.”

With slow and uneasy words, she told me the whole thing. I held her hand tighter.

She confessed, “I lied. I was afraid.”

I didn’t say anything, but I kept my eyes on her. Watched how humble she was. Yesterday was yesterday and what was done couldn’t be undone. Everything else, except how she was doing right now, was irrelevant. How she felt in the present. The past seemed so trivial in comparison to what I supposed she was going through and had gone through. And since I would’ve never really known, just supposed, she didn’t have to tell me.

“Well, Tyrel Anthony Williams, do you forgive me?”

“Yeah.”

“Please be honest.”

“What part of
yeah
don’t you understand?”

“Why?”

“I love you.”

“Who am I?”

“Shelby. The only woman I’ve ever wanted to be with, the only person I’ve ever wanted to share everything with.”

“Who’s Shelby?”

I grinned. “Don’t do this to me, okay?”

“Stop stalling.” She beamed and twisted her fist into my shoulder. “Who am I?”

“
S
is for Sexy.
H
is for Headstrong.
E
is for your Ebony skin.
L
is for the Love you give.
B
is for your firm Butt.
Y
is for You. You are all I need.”

“You still remember that?” She cackled and blushed. “How do you do this to me?”

“You’re the only one I’ve ever given three keys to.”

Shelby wiped her face. “The key to your house.”

I nodded, said, “Yep.”

“The key to your car.”

“Yep.”

“And the key to your heart.”

“Yep. I’m surprised you remember.”

Shelby smiled. “I thought it was nice.”

Shelby let her seat back and looked up at the stars that were guarding the night. “That night you gave them to me was nice. Beautiful. Different. But if somebody had’ve walked in, they would’ve thought we were about to sacrifice a goat.”

“So what’re you trying to say? You didn’t like it?”

“I
loved
it.” Shelby fanned her face like she was still there. “You lit
too
many candles. It was so hot in there.”