I Left My Back Door Open (6 page)

“I was afraid that you might not like me anymore.”

“Not like you anymore! Why?”

“Well, you know …” Jade looked apologetic again. “Because I'm not down with the people, as you would say.”

“Honey, let me clarify something. I wanna help the po', not be po'. You're my new best friend.”

“Yeah, right.” Jade smiled, giving her face an attractive, mischievious look. “I'm glad you're so accepting.”

“Not to change the subject, but, what's up with you and that sexual harassment case? I meet with the mediator on Thursday. Do I need to have a lawyer present or what?”

“The point of mediation is to keep the lawyers out of it. Obviously the station is trying to avoid a lawsuit.”

“And to keep from firing Bill.”

“Yeah, I noticed that, too,” Jade said.

“I don't even know why the mediator wants to talk to me. I told Rob that doing a mediation with Bill is the last thing I want to be bothered with. I just wanted to support you,” I said, giving Jade a caring look.

“I think the mediator just wants to give you an opportunity to reconsider. In case you want to tie up any loose ends. I'm sure management doesn't want any remaining residue.”

“Yeah, right. Speak now or forever hold your lawsuit?” I laughed. “Well, I'll just reiterate what I said to Rob,” I continued. “As far as I'm concerned, my situation with Bill is history. Unlike with you, he took ‘no' for an answer. So my meeting with Skylar Thompson should be pretty short.” I yawned and covered my mouth. “By the way, has he actually met with you yet?”

Jade hesitated. “Yes, but he asked me not to discuss it. You know how it is.” Jade stifled a yawn. “You made me yawn.”

“You know they're contagious.” I paused. “Well, can you at least tell me if the brotha's tall, dark and handsome?” I asked, rocking harder in the porch swing. “And more importantly, if he had a wedding ring on his finger?”

“I don't remember seeing a ring, but I wasn't looking for one. And he
was
tall. When he stood up, he towered over me. And
I'd
say he was good looking.”

“But not
too
good looking?”

“I don't know what you mean.” Jade shrugged. “Besides, I wasn't really focused on his appearance. I wasn't there to hit on him.”

“Yeah, that would've really been tacky, under the circumstances. Anyway, I just don't want a man that looks so good that people wonder how I got 'im.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't want it to look like I'm taking care of him, if you know what I mean.”

“You're selling yourself short. Not to mention projecting. I mean, you haven't even met the guy yet.”

“Yadda yadda yadda, so how old is he, about?”

“I'd guess around our ages.”

How angelic of Jade to group me with her, I thought. A lesser being would've pointed out our two-year age difference—Jade was still under forty. “You wonder about men who aren't married after thirty-five,” I said. “I hope he's at least divorced.”

“Don't you care if he seemed like he was a nice guy or not?”

“Of course. Well?”

“You can imagine that I was disappointed that they sent a
man
, but after I got over that, I liked him all right.”

“He didn't seem gay, did he?” I raised my eyebrows. “You didn't pick up any of those tendencies, did you?”

“I don't know. I mean, he didn't show up in a dress or anything.”

“You don't understand.” I pointed my finger. “I've been burned before. I told you about Randall.”

“Oh yeah, I remember.”

“Maybe men see me as matronly. I could stand to lose twenty pounds. Thirty would even give me a cushion. If I lost forty, I'd be skinny.”

“You have a great body for belly. In a year, you could perform.”

“Don't even go there! I will never roll my belly around onstage in public.”

“You gotta come to our Annual Student Night in August. It'll be so inspiring.”

“I don't mind being a spectator. I'm even open to taking a class or two. I'd love to tighten up my abs.”

Jade sat up straight, like she'd received a sudden burst of energy. “You'll take my class?”

“Sure.” I nodded. “So long as I don't have a male audience.”

Jade jumped out of her seat. “Dee Dee, you're going to stop dwelling on not having a man!” She shook her fists, excitedly. “And you're going to walk like an Egyptian!”

“Maybe so,” I mumbled, trying to muster up some enthusiasm.

Jade threw her head back and held her arms high. She strutted, shifting her hips from side to side.

Jade was definitely not a stereotypical, unemotional Asian, I thought. That's why it's good to get to know people as individuals. It makes it harder to put folks in a box.

“Did it ever occur to you that the grass is not always greener on the other side?” Jade asked.

“Yeah, it has. I got a massage last Mother's Day to treat myself, and the masseuse told me that I was the happiest person that she'd worked on all day. I confided to her that I'd be happier if my mother were still alive and I were married. She said that was ironic, because all day she'd heard women do nothing but complain about their mediocre lives and especially their mediocre marriages. I was sort of surprised.”

“Well, I'm not. Married women are the most depressed segment of our society.”

“Yeah, I heard that on Oprah, too.”

Jade paced with her arms folded. “Marriage is an institution. And the purpose of institutions is to keep the wheels turning, not to make individuals happy.”

“Does that mean you're not exactly walking on air yourself?”

Jade groaned. “I'm married to a passive aggressive.”

“I thought you said he was a workaholic.”

“That, too. Anyway, Yoshi says to me, ‘Honey, don't worry about making money, just do what you love to do,'” Jade mimicked in a syrupy sweet voice. “‘Besides, with your bachelor's degree in anthropology, you couldn't possibly earn enough money to make a noticeable contribution to our income anyway,'” she added with a fake smile. “Makes it kinda hard not to feel useless.”

I stood up and looked at Jade's face. It was etched in sadness. I guess you could feel trapped in a marriage, despite the fact that it had yielded material rewards, an heir and a spare.

“I understand what you're saying,” I replied. But there was a time when I
wouldn't
have understood. I would've thought that if a woman like Jade was unhappy, it was her own damn fault. I'd been raised in the black female tradition. And feeling useless was not one of our fears. I didn't know what they told Chinese girls. But nobody told “colored” girls some knight in shining armor was going to ride in on a white horse and save us.

They told us to always have our own money. “Always be prepared to make it by your dammie—i.e, your damn self,” they advised. “The only person your children can
really
depend on is you,” they warned. “They” included female relatives and women on buses and in beauty shops, on front stoops and over backyard fences. They put their hands on their hips or pointed their fingers and warned, “Love don't pay the bills.” They cut their eyes and asked, “What has he done for you
lately
?” They folded their arms and twisted their necks and declared, “No finance, no romance.” They said they could do
bad
, all by themselves. And they sucked their teeth and said, “Only a fool would put her trust in a man.”

But maybe a girl is supposed to dream
, I thought, watching a tear form in Jade's eye. I suddenly felt burdened by the armor that had been offered to protect me. I found myself pondering what my life would've been like if I'd been encouraged to see the world through more hopeful eyes. A part of me wished that they'd never told me all that stuff. But another part of me understood that all that stuff came with having been born Negro and female in 1955. They were my operating instructions; back then a colored girl couldn't be raised without them.

“If I complain about Yoshi's being a workaholic”—Jade sighed—“he just says he's Japanese, and Japanese feel guilty if they're not working. Yoshi says he plays golf mainly because of the networking opportunities.”

Typically, it was unheard of for a sista to complain about a man working too much. Instead, she bragged about her man working on two jobs. “I just wanna man who's got sense enough to work” was a popular expression when I was a child. Work was what a man was 'spozed to do. If the bills were paid and the credit was good, the sista had no reason to complain.

“Yoshi says that the financial burden is all on him,” Jade added. “He says, all I do is wiggle my waist.” Tears finally spilled out of her eyes and splashed onto her face.

“That's not true,” I said, reaching out and hugging her. “You've created a beautiful home. You're an artist and a teacher, besides being a wife and mother. And you're a good friend.”

“My self-esteem means more to me than any of this shit!” Jade shouted, her voice choked with emotion.

“I hear you,” I said, looking out toward the blooming garden. I understood about self-esteem. I knew that you could look good on the outside and feel bad on the inside. I knew that you could take a bath and still feel dirty. I knew that you could have a belly full of food and still feel empty. I knew that a child could be read a fairy tale and be tucked into her own bed and still not be safe. But I didn't want to think about that, because I didn't want to fall apart. I hadn't forgotten that all the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.

four

I hadn't seen Freddy on the way into the radio station, but he was all up in my face on the way out.

“Heard you went to Jade's, after y'all left Taste last Saturday,” Freddy said when I walked off the elevator.

“I see the grapevine is popping.”

“Very little gets past me. Jade said you might start taking a belly dance class.” Freddy winked and twisted his shapeless hips.

“Don't quit your day job,” I teased. “Boy, you must've really grilled Jade on her way up. It's a wonder she made it to the mike on time.”

“I know Jade must have a nice place if she's out there in Lake Forest, huh?” Freddy asked, wide-eyed, like a child peering into a candy store.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “It's real nice.”

“I'm surprised she let you come out there,” Freddy said, folding his arms and leaning against the desk.

“What do you mean? We're friends.”

“I just know that if I had money, say if I won the lottery”—Freddy lowered his voice—“I wouldn't let black people know where I lived. Uh-uh.” He shook his head. “Not unless they had money, too.”

I rolled my eyes and leaned back against the wall. “I don't think she has to worry about me robbing her or anything.”

“Maybe not you, personally.” Freddy rubbed his chin. “But she don't know who all you know.” He raised his eyebrows. “And what all they into.”

“Oh, please.”

“People can set you up without you even knowing it,” Freddy insisted.

“The same can be said of white people.”

“Yeah, but white folks are less likely to go in on a minority. That's why I'd be slow to let a Negro know what I've got. I'll be fifty years old in October and I've never heard of a white boy snatching a black woman's purse. Never!” Freddy pounded the desk.

“I don't know.” I sighed. “I just remember when I was growing up in Morgan Park, even though it was still on the South Side of Chicago, it really
was
like a village. When we crossed the railroad tracks into the black section, we felt home. And we felt safe. You could practically sleep out in Ada Park on summer nights. Imagine that, feeling safe when you saw black men at night. It sounds funny now, but that's how it was.”

Freddy sat on top of his desk. “I left Mississippi in 1962. I remember on my last day, I went to say good-bye to my best friend, Delmar, out in the cotton fields. For him, it was just another hot, dusty, delta day. For me, it was the beginning of the rest of my life. I bragged that I was going up north to Chicago and find me a good job, buy me a nice car, finish high school, buy me a house and get married and raise a family. Those were my dreams.”

“And you accomplished them, didn't you?” At least more or less, I was tempted to add, because of Freddy's modest position. But when I saw the pride shining in his dark eyes, I was glad I'd bitten my tongue.

“Yep, I did.” Freddy nodded solemnly, as though he'd invented medicine or at least made partner in a law firm.

“Not everybody can say that,” I added, enjoying boosting Freddy's ego.

“That's true,” Freddy said, with a faraway look in his eyes. “That day, I asked Delmar what he dreamed about. First, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure the bossman wasn't looking. Then he stopped picking cotton long enough to shade his eyes from the sun. ‘I dreams about getting outta this field. That's what I dreams about,' Delmar answered.” Freddy sighed. “I remember feeling guilty.”

“Why?”

Freddy's voice softened. “I guess, on accounta my dreams was bigger.”

“Did Delmar ever get outta that field?”

“Oh yeah!” Freddy exclaimed as he jumped down from the desk. “You can't tell them Negroes nothing now! They living it up down there with them casinos. Your money goes a long way in Mississippi. That's where I plans to retire.” Freddy stuck his chest out like he already felt prosperous. “I never thought I'd hear myself say that.” He shook his head. “I used to say, ‘Mississippi, goddamn.'”

“You and Nina Simone, both. Hey, I can relate. I was born in Alabama, and folks used to call it the meanest state in the union. Probably still do.” I glanced at my watch. “Nice talking to you. I had a little extra time to kill, but now I'd better bounce.”