Up at the College (2 page)

Yvonne was not going to dignify that comment with a response—even though she had plenty to say on the matter. The one time
she tried to listen to a song by that group just to please Darrell, the leader’s voice, which was weird, gave her a splitting
headache. He sounded just like Chewbacca from
Star Wars
. She stared at Darrell for a moment and thought about going off on him and putting him out of her office. But she heard a
soft voice in her spirit whispering, “Get still and be quiet.”

Neither said a word. The longer they were silent, the more peaceful Yvonne became, even though her husband’s agitation escalated
with each passing second. When Darrell finally spoke again, he was so mad for a moment he literally forgot how to unclench
his teeth. His words came hissing out.

“We’ve been together a total of sixteen years and it feels like an eternity spent betwixt and between Heaven and Hell. I want
you and the girls out of my house seven weeks from today. And here are the terms of our pending separation,” he said as he
tossed a heavy envelope at her feet.

Yvonne was stunned. She didn’t know that her husband, her babies’ daddy, felt this way about her. Oh, she knew that Darrell
was going through something—he was
always
going through some kind of dramatic episode. But this? This was something beyond the usual “Darrell is going through something
or another.” This was a carefully planned
kill, steal, and destroy
mission.

When Darrell stormed out of her office that day, it was the end of her marriage and life as she’d known it over the past decade.
Yvonne remembered sitting at her desk staring at the ocean screen saver on her computer until she got bored enough to initiate
the excruciating process of putting her shattered life back together.

Even now, Yvonne marveled at all the things she didn’t do or didn’t say. Whenever she relayed the story to family or a close
friend, they all said the same thing.

“Girl, you mean to tell me that he said all of that and you didn’t yell, get to cussin’, cry until snot ran down into your
mouth, put sugar in his gas tank, smear his car with creamed corn, send nasty e-mails to his boss, or open up a bunch of magazine
subscriptions in his name?”

“Nope,” was all Yvonne had said. As much as she had wanted to do all of the above and then some, she had not been able to
do anything but ask the Lord to provide her with protection in the midst of this raging storm—a Holy Ghost umbrella that wouldn’t
bend back and be ripped out of her hands by a particularly harsh and bitter wind.

Yvonne dropped the wedding album on the floor, stepped on it, and then kicked it across the room. She sealed the box and went
through the house one last time before the movers were scheduled to arrive. When she was sure that all was in order, Yvonne
went into the kitchen and made herself a big, fat,
simple
,
country
, and ghetto-licious sandwich with the bologna she bought specifically for this day. She washed out the empty mayonnaise jar
in the sink and filled it up with red Kool-Aid. She wrapped the sandwich in a piece of wax paper, grabbed the jar of Kool-Aid,
and went and sat on the kitchen chair she’d put on the front porch to sit in while she ate this sandwich. She swallowed the
last bite right before she saw the nose of the moving truck rolling up the street. It was the best meal she’d ever eaten at
this house.

Y
vonne’s oldest daughter, D’Relle Copeland, sneaked and turned the car radio from her mother’s favorite station, the old school
Foxy 107, to her favorite, 102 Jamz in Greensboro, then turned the radio off right before Yvonne walked out of the house.

“You know she is going to turn it right back to her station. She always does.”

“Shut up, Danesha,” D’Relle snapped at her younger sister. Sometimes Danesha acted like her calling in life was to tell and
comment on everything.

Danesha rolled her eyes at her sister, mumbling, “You are such a butt-head.”

“God don’t like ugly.”

“Then He sho’ don’t like you. ’Cause whenever I look up the word ‘ugly’ in the dictionary, all I see is a picture of D’Relle
Lenaye Copeland.”

“Middle schooler.”

“Yo’ mama,” Danesha shot back, and then shut up when Yvonne opened the car door and it dawned on her that she was talking
about her own mama, too.

“
Middle schooler
,” D’Relle said as she licked her finger and wrote an invisible score in the air. Danesha, an eighth grader, hated that she
had to wait another year before she could go to Hillside High School with her older sister.

Yvonne slid into the driver’s seat, buckled her seat belt, and turned on the radio. One of her favorite older rap songs, “Just
Walk It Out,” was playing: “East side walk it out, west side walk it out …” She knew D’Relle had rigged the radio and
wished something her old school ears couldn’t stand to listen to was on so she could flip the switch on her smarty-pants fifteen-year-old.
But she opted for an even better comeuppance for Miss Thang.

“D’Relle, you go and sit in the backseat with your sister.”

“But, Mama, you drop me off first.”

“So what’s your point,” Yvonne replied, knowing that D’Relle was working hard to think of a reason to stay in the front.

D’Relle got out of the car and went and sat in the back with Danesha, who snickered and then said, “Mama, D is breathing on
me and rolling her eyes just ’cause she has to ride in the backseat like she is in
middle school
.”

“Stop breathing on your sister.”

“But, Mama, I look like a chump sitting back here like this, losing cool points.”

“Then get up and get moving and don’t miss your bus again,” Yvonne told her, not caring if she never earned a so-called
cool point
ever again. “And from now on,” she continued, “every time your lazy butt misses that bus, you will ride in the back for the
entire day. ’Cause I get tired of driving you to school when I don’t have to.”

“I ain’t never heard you complain about driving
Trog
to school, just me,” D’Relle snapped at her mother, and then rolled her eyes to add to the effect.

Yvonne drove back up into the driveway, put the car in park, and got out. She opened the back door and reached for her oldest
child.

D’Relle grabbed the passenger-side seat belt strap in a feeble effort to stay in the safety zone of the car. But when her
mother began to climb into that backseat, D’Relle started to cry and whimpered, “I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean it. Okay,
Mama? Okay, Mama?”

“D’Relle, if you ever take a mind to talk like that to me again, you are going to need the SWAT team to get me up off of you.
Do you understand me,
little girl
?”

“Yes, ma’am,” D’Relle said, sheer relief pouring all over her when Yvonne finally retreated from the backseat.

Danesha was still and quiet, hoping to fade into the seat upholstery. The last thing she wanted was for her mama to break
off a piece of what she was about to put on D’Relle and then give it to her. But her plan to remain unnoticed wasn’t foolproof.
Yvonne’s keen
mama eyes
bore into Danesha with greater precision than any laser.

“And you better watch your step, too, missy. I have plenty left over of what I was planning to give your sister. Do I make
myself clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Danesha whispered.

“Now let’s see if we can do what we’ve been trying to do all morning—leave this house and get you two to school,” Yvonne snapped,
and then turned the radio to the Light gospel station. She hiked up the volume on what she secretly knew D’Relle and Danesha
believed was the countriest gospel song ever written in modern history. She tried not to laugh when she saw the sisters try
to sneak and roll their eyes when the words “Jesus is my doctor, He brangs me all my medicines … in the room” blasted
out of the car windows for
eerr-body
to hear.

D’Relle started praying under her breath, “Lord, PLEASE end this song before we get to the turn light for Hillside.”

Yvonne waved at Danesha and pulled off from her last school stop, Durham School of the Arts Middle School entrance, and gave
a sigh of relief. If those two weren’t getting on her last nerve this morning, she didn’t know who was. Yet irrespective of
the “lil’ negro chirrens show” the girls had put on this morning, life was more pleasant and peaceful than it had been in
years. And to add to her joy, Yvonne couldn’t even describe the relief she’d felt when Darrell called to announce that he
was going on an academic sabbatical in Vietnam.

Six whole months without having to lay one eye on Darrell Edward Copeland and his wifey-to-be, Dr. Bettina Davidson, was the
best news she’d heard in a very long time. Darrell was pompous and difficult. But that Bettina? The heifer was sneaky, mean,
and always trying to take a shot at a sister from somewhere in the cut. Six whole months without those heathens in her life
was enough to make Yvonne want to get out of her car and do the Holy Dance right out here on Highway 751.

Yvonne turned the radio to Foxy 107. An old Keyshia Cole song was playing. She turned the radio up, so as not to miss one
note of one of her favorite songs. “I remember when my heart broke, I remember when I gave up loving you …” Yvonne could
practically feel those words, sung to such a lovely melody with the smoothest jazz piano solo tinkling in the background.

Yvonne remembered the day her heart broke—felt as if it would never be made whole again. She used to wish, in the most painful
moments, that there was some kind of Krazy Glue from Heaven she could apply to all of the fragments of her heart and put it
back together. And sometimes it seemed as if nobody understood what she was going through. It was in those moments of the
worst pain that she realized Jesus understood and He had everything she needed to put her heart back right. The day she gave
up loving Darrell to Jesus was the day Jesus took her heart in His hands and healed her.

She was glad to be at a stoplight—it gave her some time to enjoy the beautiful blue sky, made even lovelier by the fluffy
white clouds, and the warm sunshine bathing her face. It was a wonderful day and Yvonne was glad that her heart was free and
full of joy. Folks just didn’t know how heartache and too much struggling could dim even the sunniest day. But to be able
to pray those clouds back and bask in God’s love was something wonderful, and Yvonne didn’t take it for granted.

“Thank you, Lord, for all that You’ve done for me,” she said out loud, glad the DJ decided to really go old school and do
an “instant replay” of the song. Sometimes, you just needed to hear one of your favorite songs more than once. Yvonne knew
that God had been so good to her. She had a wonderful home in Cashmere Estates, and the perfect job as a designer and adjunct
professor in the Department of Interior and Exterior Design at Evangeline T. Marshall University, or Eva T., as the school
was called by most black folk in Durham County.

Yvonne turned left onto Okelly Chapel Road and then turned left again when she reached the entrance of the university, which
was located where the Durham and Chatham County lines intersected. She drove down the narrow street leading to the Daniel
Meeting Building, where she worked, eyes scanning the area for a parking space. There was a shortage of decent parking spaces
on campus, and if that wasn’t bad enough, just across the road stood the brand-new Athletic Department with more spaces than
they needed or ever used during working hours. She wished somebody could get through to the athletic director, Gilead Jackson,
and persuade him to let her department use some of those spaces.

But Gilead was the kind of negro who loved having something other people wanted. And it made his day every time he stood in
his picture window and watched folks from other departments driving around and around the campus looking for a decent place
to park. When asked why he was so mean and stingy, Gilead said, “Those parking spaces are mine, and I can do whatever I want
to do with them. If I choose to let them sit there empty, then that’s just the way it is going to be.”

The departments in close proximity to the Athletic Department’s parking spaces, like Yvonne’s building, decided to go over
Gilead’s head when he issued that bold, ugly, and callous statement during a faculty senate meeting. But they soon found out
that those efforts were in vain because their president, Sam Redmond, was prone to looking the other way when Gilead Jackson
was the subject of his faculty’s concern. A few folks decided that they would just up and out-bold Gilead and parked in those
spaces anyway. That rebellion was quickly put to rest, after everybody’s car was towed to a barbed-wire-fenced lot in Chapel
Hill with pit bulls running all over the place.

The faculty was furious, especially when they heard about those mean guard dogs standing watch over some folks’ prized Mercedes
and Lexus cars. They threatened Gilead with a boycott of all Athletic Department activities at the next faculty senate meeting.
His response?

“This is a historically black institution of higher learning. Do you honestly think that I believe all of you black people
are going to give up football, basketball, track and field, tailgating parties, homecoming, butt-jiggling cheerleaders, and
the Battle of the Bands competition over some parking spaces? Y’all negroes best get up on out of my face before I honor my
well-earned reputation as a Class A, Division I Butt-Head.”

Yvonne had been at that meeting. She could not believe Gilead had gotten up at a university meeting and talked like he was
a thug on the corner, getting ready to throw down. But she had to remember that they were at an HBCU, and there were some
behind-the-scenes black people shenanigans occurring that boggled the mind and would run a white person crazy. Black people.
She loved her people and she loved and cherished black institutions. But sometimes … black folk were something else.

She spied a decent parking space and eased her brand-new, sea-blue metallic-colored Infiniti FX45 SUV into it. Yvonne and
the girls loved this car. The day they bought it, they rode all over Durham smiling and laughing, having the time of their
lives, and hollering out the windows at anybody they knew. But this car was just the icing on the cake of the many blessings
God had poured into their lives once Yvonne released her old life into His hands, and the divorce became final.