Red Hats

red hats

also by damon wayans

Bootleg

 
a novel
 

DAMON WAYANS

A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.simonandschuster

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Damon Wayans

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Atria Books hardcover edition May 2010

and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Designed by Suet Yee Chong

Manufactured in the United States of America.

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wayans, Damon.
     Red hats : a novel / Damon Wayans.—1st Atria books hardcover ed.
         p. cm.
1. African American women—Fiction. 2. Widows—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. I. Title.
     PS3623.A953R43 2010
     813'.6—dc22
                                                                                       2010004682

ISBN 978-1-4391-6461-7
ISBN 978-1-4391-6478-5 (ebook)

In life we all get a mother . . .
I just happened to get the most amazing one on the planet.
This book is dedicated to Elvira Wayans,
my inspiration.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

—JENNY JOSEPH

The Boeing 767 began to
shake like a carnival ride as the red seat-belt light flashed on. The captain put on his official intercom voice and told Alma what she already knew as a result of the water in her lap.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats and fasten your seat belts,” the captain droned with authority. “I’ve been informed there’s a severe weather system up ahead, and it may get a bit bumpy for a while.”

“A bit?” Alma muttered as she fought to keep her stomach in the place God intended it to be. Right this minute, it was in her throat.

She peered out the tiny window to see a tar-black sky, blotted with angry, bruised clouds. Massive, blinding
flashes of lightning, from beneath the rocking plane, convinced her they were doomed. Alma reached for Harold’s hand. He was engrossed in the
New York Times
sports section and didn’t even notice her trembling appendage.

“Harold!” she yelled.

“What, woman?” Harold fumed.

“We’re goin’ to crash.” Alma started to weep.

“Woman, these things were made to withstand turbulence. Shut up and enjoy the ride.” He laughed and went back to reading his paper.

Alma squinted her eyes, shooting tiny poisoned darts at him, knowing Harold would never take this tone with her had his feet been firmly on the ground. In a petulant fit, she grabbed the miniature bottle of whiskey he was sipping and sloshed the liquid at his face.

After twenty-seven years of marriage to this unpredictable woman, Harold had developed quick reflexes. The brown liquid splashed against the window as a flash of lightning lit the sky. The sticky liquor wandered slowly down the glass.

“What’s wrong with you, Alma? Why do you always have to show out?” Harold demanded. “You can’t just say, ‘I’m scared’? You can’t ask me nicely to hold your hand?”

“Why do I have to ask?” Alma tossed back.

Before it could get a firm hold, the coming argument was interrupted by a violent explosion in the rear of the plane. Alma joined the chorus of screams ripping through the now descending tube of death.

A bolt of lightning had hit the plane. The cabin began to fill with smoke. The plane jerked and sputtered. Alma could hear the engines shut off, and they began their stomach-clenching drop from the sky.
Shortly, I will return to these heavens. This time, though, I won’t need to check no bags.
Alma prided herself on always being able to find some good in any situation.

The captain’s breathless voice was heard again. He wasn’t as cocky now. She could hear the tight knot in his throat as he warned them to assume crash position, which amounted to leaning forward as far as you were able so that, as Alma joked with Harold, “you can kiss your own ass good-bye!”

Harold smiled at her as the plane broke in half.

“’Bye, Alma,” he called faintly as a deadly gust of wind and torrential rain jerked him from his seat, tossing him like an empty, worthless husk into the darkness below.

“No! Harold, don’t leave me!” she begged. Alma attempted to loosen her seat belt to give a free-fall chase, but the latch wouldn’t unlock. She pushed the call button for a stewardess—
ping ping ping.
Then, in the blink of an eye, she was falling, too. Alma gazed above to the somber sky as it distanced itself from her. She asked God to watch over Harold—
ping ping ping.

Five twenty-seven
A.M.
Alma’s eyes popped open. A strong will allowed her to force herself to wake up from the
recurring nightmare, which included the two things she feared most in this world.

First, she dreamed she was flying in a plane, something she’d vowed she’d never do after witnessing firsthand the disaster of Flight 101 at Kennedy Airport. The plane was struck by lightning, fell from the sky, and burst into a fireball of death and lifelong pain for the families of the victims, some thirty years ago.

In her dream, sitting in the seat next to her was clueless Harold, her worthless husband.

She had no idea where they were going because money was scarce, always had been. Besides, there was absolutely no way in hell she’d willingly straddle that death cylinder. Not on her own, anyway. She shuddered, recalling the familiar climax to the nightmare.

With a violent,
soaking thud, she slammed into the ocean waters, only to wish she had suffered a fatal heart attack and died, because in her sixty-four years, she’d never learned to swim—fear number two. She fought the giant waves as they crashed over her time and again.

Alma thought she’d never swallowed so much water in her entire life. She petitioned God either to help her or to take her life, because she couldn’t breathe for another instant or drink another drop of this damn salty water.

Hallelujah!
God was alive. The waters calmed. Alma used what little energy she had to roll over. She drifted
weightlessly on her back as the blinding sun ordered the clouds away. Alma floated the distance to dry land but couldn’t move. She lay in the hot sand, exhausted, allowing the even flow of the waves to rock her lovingly. Her eyelids became droopy.

Slowly, Alma stood, searching the area, calling for Harold, who was nowhere to be found.
How much time has passed?
She noticed a long row of footprints in the sand heading in the direction of a gathering of lazy, bending palms in the distance. She struggled to follow the footprints as they disappeared, one after another, beneath the zombielike shuffle of her sluggish walk. By the time Alma reached the trees, the clouds that had terrorized the dreary sky were gone.

The warmth of the sun calmed her nerves. As she passed the trees, Alma saw what looked like a paradise of exotic blossoms—gorgeous pinks and violets, yellows, purples and bright reds, a magnificent rainbow of colors—rising from a meticulously manicured island of lush green grass, giving over to reed and towering brown and tan cattails.

“Isn’t this the living end, Harold?” she asked, searching for his hand. It took her a moment to remember he wasn’t with her any longer.