“Yes, he did!”
“So this is about sex?” I asked.
“No. We're talking about love.” Kayla's voice filled with passion. “About how he probably made her feel so free, she thought she was probably going to explode if she didn't have him. She turned her back on everybody to be with him.”
“Now that's crazy love,” Billie added.
“But it was also cracky love,” I added, and they both laughed.
“Good point,” Kayla said, still laughing. “I guess there's a thin line between the two.”
“I'll pass then,” I said.
“So, what kind of love do you and your husband have?” Kayla asked casually and I had no response. We had love. Just love. No adjectives. I'd never even thought to define it. It was just always there. And anything I could think to sayâdeep, true, realâsounded cliché and textbook in the face of crazy and even cracky. Anyone could have deep, true, real love. I wanted to say I had more. “I didn't mean to pry,” Kayla added, looking concerned.
“No, you're not prying. I just never thought I had to define the kind of love we had.”
“Anglerfish!” Billie said randomly, as if she'd just returned mentally to the table.
“What?” Kayla and I asked.
“I was trying to remember what Evan's mother used to call you two when we were in high school. She called you two anglerfish.”
“Anglerfish?” Kayla said.
“Yes!”
“You remember that?” I asked.
“The female anglerfish uses a light on the top of her head to attract food,” Billie started.
“A real light?” Kayla asked.
“No, it's just a collection of bacteria, but deep underwater it shines really bright like a light,” Billie went on. “Anyway, the male anglerfish is like forty times smaller than the female and when he sees the light, he becomes hypnotized and just like her food, he just swims straight to the light. And when he gets to the female, the male bites into the side of her body and doesn't let go.”
“Oh, I can't believe you're telling her this foolishness,” I said.
“And the craziest part is that he doesn't even have his own guts, so he just continues to chew into her skin until he becomes a part of her. He becomes a little knob hanging on the side of her body, disappearing into the female. Giving up his whole life for her. For a long time scientists didn't even know male anglerfish existed. They thought the bumps on the females were just growths.”
“That sounds pretty gross.” Kayla frowned.
“Don't listen to her,” I said.
“It wasn't me. That was Mrs. DeLong. Even she could see how much Evan loved you. He's the one who's crazy in love!”
“My husband and I have a great relationship,” I said to Kayla. “Evan's mother was right. He can be very giving when it comes to me, but there's nothing wrong with having a man at home who loves you.”
“You can say that again!” Kayla cheered.
Â
Â
Evan was sitting in the living room when I walked in the door. Still dressed in his work clothes, he sat back in one of the cozy chairs by the fireplace with a bottle of beer in his hand.
“Well, hello,” I said, setting down my keys and purse on a huge oak table that sat in the middle of the foyer before the living room.
“Hey!” He jerked and turned to me quickly, making it clear he didn't know I'd walked in.
“You okay?” I asked as I walked toward him. We hardly ever sat in the living room unless we had company.
“Yes. I was just sitting here admiring my big house and waiting for my lovely wife to come home.” He grinned and motioned for me to come and sit on his lap.
“Oh, don't try to flatter me, Mr. DeLong.”
“What? Why can't a man just admire his life? His wife. His home. His baby on the wayâ” He tickled my stomach as I sat down.
“I guess that's perfectly innocent. So, you've been sitting in here all night?” I said, laughing. “You haven't even taken off your work clothes.”
“No. I just got in about thirty minutes ago. I was in a meeting with the school attorneys and then I met with Mr. Williams about those scholarships. Everything ran over, so I'm just getting home.” I could tell he was exhausted. Evan got like this sometimes. He'd work himself until he was literally turning blue at his temples from the pressure.
“Have you eaten?”
“No ... I'm fine.”
“Evan, I told you not to do that. It's not healthy,” I said, rubbing his temples.
“There was just a lot to do. I have to get ready for this thing with Dame and you know the white folks are nervous about having a rapper come to the school.”
“You're kidding me.”
“Yeah. There's all this stuff about image and what the other districts will think,” he said.
“I don't think Black Warrior needs to worry about image. Besides, we need the money. I'm sure they understand that.”
“It's hard to understand people needing money when you have it and you've had it for a long time. They think the kids are just lazy. And the teachers aren't doing their jobs. And with me standing over the whole thing, it's so easy for them to say, âAnd they have a black man leading the ship.' ” He sighed and took a sip of his beer. “It's just a lot of crap, but I have to play their game until I make it to the top.” He paused and looked at me. “That's why I'm glad you'll be there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I'm gonna play this thing with Dame from a distance. Take a few photos and get out of the way. The last thing I need is for him to get into some trouble down the road and it comes back to me. They'll use it to bury me when I run for office.” Evan sliced at the air with the side of his hand with each point he made. He always did this when he was nervous. He'd been considering a run for mayor for years.
“So you want me to play babysitter? Is that the real reason I was selected to accept the check?”
“No, he really did request you. Called me himself.”
“Hmm,” I murmured, shrugging my shoulders. “I'm not happy about being in pictures with him either. What will people say about me?”
“Nobody's looking at you, sweetie.”
I narrowed my eyes at Evan.
“No, baby,” he said, laughing. “I didn't mean it like that.... I meant it more like, more people will be looking at me. I'm not asking you to sleep with the boy. I just want you to take a check from him.”
I folded my arms and turned away from him.
“Oh, baby,” Evan pleaded playfully. “Now, I was just sitting in here thinking about how beautiful and fine and funny and brilliant and wonderful and sexy andâ” He stopped and kissed me on the back.
“What, you ran out of words already?” I said, poking my lip out farther.
“No. When I said, âsexy,' I just remembered what you look like naked,” he said between kisses.
“Evan.” I giggled and turned around, swatting him with my hand. Evan seldom made direct passes at me.
“Sexy,” Evan said again. He put down his beer and grabbed my hand. His voice turned deep and suggestive. He traced the imprint of my nipple beneath my shirt with his tongue and moved his hand down toward the hem of my skirt. He slid his hand between my thighs, scratching at my leg a bit.
“Now, tell me, sexy, did you take your pill today?” Evan asked, looking into my eyes dreamily.
“No,” I whispered.
He groaned and began to kiss me more deeply, as if he was afraid of getting caught. I cupped the back of his head and grabbed some of the loose curls at the nape of his neck, pulling his face closer to mine. That's when Evan opened his mouth wider and began clawing at the insides of my thighs, tearing my stockings and then my panties, too. He undid my blouse, and gently tugged at my breasts with his mouth as he kept his eyes locked on mine.
“Take my pants off,” he whispered as he moved from one breast to the other.
I stood up and teased him, slowly opening his buckle and then his button, and then unzipping his pants.
“Oh, shit,” Evan cried and knocked the beer to the floor. Neither of us reached for it.
He bent down and kissed me again, stroking my thighs as he worked my skirt up around my hips. He moved so quickly, so forcefully that I was out of breath when he picked me up and tried to carry me to the bedroom. We made it there ... eventually.
Â
Â
We laid beneath the sheets, shoulder to shoulder, our mouths wide open, our bodies breathless. Our love-making had lasted more than two hours and by the time we'd finally ended up in the bed, it was after midnight and the moon was peeking into our bedroom like never before. Probably at us. Because we'd never had sex like that before. And I'd had sex enough with Evan to know the range. This time was different. I felt like Evan was putting his whole self into me. He'd stop and start again, coming at me harder and harder and each time his fiery passion echoed throughout my body, vibrating so deeply, the energy exhausted me.
“You okay?” He sounded like I had earlier.
“Yeah,” I said, still trying to catch my breath. “That was a lot.” I turned to him, grinning and kissing his shoulder.
“It was. I don't know what happened.”
“Don't apologize,” I purred. “You've never been like that before.”
“I think it was the idea of making a baby ... it really got me excited.” He smiled and kissed me on the nose.
“That's had you excited every night this week,” I teased.
“Did you really stop taking the pill?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Chapter Eight
I
was convinced I was pregnant. My period wasn't late, I wasn't vomiting and in contrast to the other symptoms listed on the long list of Web sites I'd visited, I wasn't experiencing breast tenderness, cramping, or weight gain. But I just knew. It was like I felt a light spinning in my belly, and with each hour that drifted past, I was sure that the fizzing tickling me after lunch or the extra trip to the bathroom was my new baby letting me know our time together had begun.
All this and it hadn't even been a week since my birthday. I knew it was a long shot, but I'd stopped taking the pill and Evan and I had been having sex every night. While months before we would meet between the sheets and he'd complain that he was too tired, now he was holding his arms around my body tightly and making passionate love to me until we could do nothing else but go to sleep. He was smiling and tracing circles on my stomach most nights. And watching him glow, I grew more excited at the thought of being a mother. I was still nervous, but it was easier to look forward to something the world seemed to want for me.
I needed confirmation, of course. And while I was a grown woman with health benefits and a gynecologist I'd been seeing for fifteen years, I felt funny about requesting a pregnancy test. Dr. Maple, who I called Aunt Maple, was everyone's gynecologist. Visiting her office was like going to a sorority social, where I was certain to share old magazines with friends from high school, college, church, and the grocery store. We all knew and loved her and had our baby pictures tacked to the walls of her office. Although I was seldom excited to step in to see her for my annual, I was never nervous. Evan and I did have sex before we got marriedâlong before we got married, but we'd always practiced safe sex, so an unplanned pregnancy or STD was never written on the list of concerns when I checked in at the nurses' station. If I got pregnant now, it would be celebrated, but I didn't want it to be front-page news. I wanted to avoid whispers in the office or the knowing smile on Aunt Maple's face as she announced the news to me. And I certainly didn't want her to share the information with my mother, who was sure to then hit the ball right out of the park long before I was ready to run the bases.
All of this amounted to my being horrified about getting tested at Aunt Maple's office.
Scanning the shelves at the drugstore on Saturday afternoon as Evan played golf with my dad, it became clear that this “knowing” wasn't going to come easily. There were hundreds of pregnancy testsâsome for early response, immediate response, and even easy response. I just wanted any response, so I bought all of them. I hid the little boxes deep in the bottom of my basket, concealing them with a set of cheap T-shirts, a picture frame, nail polish remover, and a copy of the
Rolling Stone
magazine with a sweaty Dame on the cover.
As I made my way to the front of the line, smiling at a few familiar faces and turning around to be sure none were too familiar or close, I thought of the other ways I could've gotten the testâBillie, mail order, sent Evanâand then, as I tipped my sunny-day glasses, I thought of how ridiculous it was that I'd felt a need to stash the tests in the first place. It was my first time buying pregnancy tests, but I was a married woman. An adult. Thirty-three years old. Not some teenager sneaking around to hide a bump beneath her sweatshirt. When I got to the front, I just dumped the things on the counter, tired of playing into my own episode of
Desperate Church Wives
and starring as the neurotic daughter in
The Preacher's Kid
.
The cashier, a pretty Asian girl with glossy lips and too much eyeliner, looked down at what had to be seven or so tests and then looked back up at me.
“Everybody does the same thing,” she said.
“Really?” I asked, taking off my shades.
“Yes, ma'am.”
As she scanned the boxes and began dropping them into a bag, I felt more confident and looked down into my purse for my wallet. An eerie chill swept through my body and I thought maybe I'd left my wallet in the car, but I dug a bit deeper and fished it out from beneath my cell phone and the feeling quickly dissipated. Yet, as I handed the girl my check card, it returned.
“Journey?” my mother said, poking her head right over my shoulder.
“Mama.” I looked at the cashier and she rolled the bag up quickly like she'd been in this situation before.
“I knew that was you right when I turned the corner,” my mother said as I turned to face her.
“Yeah, I just stopped inâ” I slid my wallet back into my purse and picked up my bags.
“What you got?”
“Nothing, really. Just some ...”
She tugged at one of the bags and I snatched it back abruptly.
“Journey?” She looked up at me in disbelief. “Did you just snatch the bag?”
“It's just some things for Evan, Mama. Nothing.”
“Oh, you should've told me. You know I work two blocks away from the drugstore. I could've picked it up and it would've given me a reason to visit my favorite two people.” She smiled and combed my hair into place with her fingers.
“Thanks, Mama. But it's okay.”
“Well, what did he need?”
I was sure this trade sounded silly to anyone else, but to my mother, at least when it came to my life, a conversation could be culled from anything. How long I kept meat in the freezer. If I used color-safe or regular bleach. The flowers we were expecting to bloom in the front yard in the spring and when was the best time to have them planted. If Evan and I had tried the new, organic toothpaste she'd bought us... . The nuances of our lives were of utmost priority to her and I knew if I kept trying to snatch the bag away, she'd grow more and more suspicious and only keep tugging. I had to get her mind off the bag quickly.
“Mama,” I said enthusiastically as she ogled the bagsâprobably tapping into the X-ray vision she'd developed bringing up three children. I slid the bags behind me and tried to think of something she'd be so happy to hear that she'd lose focus. “Let's go to lunch!”
“Lunch?” she repeated, straightening up. “Now? I'm working. You know I'm at the clinic on Saturdays.”
“Yes. But I want to spend time with you.”
“But I have to pick up the prescriptions for some of the women at the clinic, and then I was supposed to have a business meeting.” She ground her teeth in frustration. I was just happy to see she wasn't looking at the bag anymore.
“Oh, I understand,” I said. I was off the hook. “Maybe another day.”
“No,” she said suddenly. “I should spend some time with you. I'll pick up the prescriptions and have Lisa cancel my meeting, so I can have lunch with my baby girl.”
“No, Mama, I didn't mean for you toâ”
“No way I'm missing the chance to spend private time with you,” she said, cutting me off. “It's done. Let's meet at Harry's at 1 p.m.”
“Great,” I said between clenched teeth. “Harry's at 1 p.m.”
“Wonderful,” she said. “I can't wait.”
Â
Â
Daddy was talking expansion again. Adding a few thousand seats more to the House, building a secondary education tutorial center and buying another twenty acres of land from the family that owned a farm behind the church's campus. My mother looked exhausted just talking about it. She twirled the tomato soup around in the bowl in front of her and reminded me of how he'd promised the last expansions would be final and that he was thinking of retiring in five years.
“There's no way he's retiring in five years if we add more seats to the House,” she said. “Then we'll have to get more members to fill those seats and he's the only one who can draw them in. We'd have to get people driving in from Birmingham to keep the money right.”
She frowned and her cheeks pinched back. It was the same look I discovered on her face when we moved into our second church, when we built the church bookstore, and then the credit union. I knew this was really bothering her because she never talked to me about things concerning my father. She'd just smile and in her eyes I could see that something was wrong. But if I pushed, she'd deny everything.
“What's Jr saying about it?”
“You know your brother. He's all for it. He says with the services being televised nationally after the summer, we'll attract more people anyway. Says we need to be prepared.” She leaned into the table and breathed out deeply. “You know I've always supported your father and I love serving God, but sometimes I wonder how we can know people are getting the Messageâreally getting the Wordâwhen we can't see most of them. We have deacons and sisters and greeters touching our members. I remember when I could touch each one myself. I could really be there when they needed me. I could stand outside the church with you in my arms and greet everyone as they walked into our church. Now it's impossible to make a personal connection. Sometimes that makes me miss that little church.”
“Mama, the Message is still the same,” I said. “The Word doesn't change. I guess we all just have to adjust.”
Looking forlorn, she leaned back in her chair and nodded slowly in agreement.
“But if you can't take it, you have to tell Daddy.”
“I've been trying to tell your father to cut the hair growing on the tops of his ears for forty yearsâyou think he's going to listen to me about a church?”
“But this is your life, too. You have rights.”
“I know. But when I signed up for this thing, marrying your father, I knew I'd have to share him ...” âshe pausedâ“with the church. The pastor's wife is never selfish.” She spooned the soup and then looked up at me, a refreshed smile now on her face, but thin tears in her eyes. “So, tell me, how are things with Evan?”
“We're fine,” I said. “Just doing what we do.” I knew better than to tell her about the fizzing in my stomach.
“Your father tells me that Evan's really considering running for mayor next year.”
“He's still getting some things in order. If we get the right backing, I think he's going to try.”
“That'll be something, won't it? A black man in the mayor's office in Tuscaloosa and one in the White House in Washington, D.C.” She matched my grin with a hearty laugh.
“Let's not speak too soon.”
The waitress slid our bill onto the table as my mother looked off reminiscently.
“I remember a South where none of this was possible. But it's good to see you young people changing things. Chasing your dreams,” she said.
“Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out mine.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, putting cash onto the table.
“Nothing,” I said, regretting my slip. I didn't want to become the topic of conversation. And I was already late meeting Billie at my house so I could take the test.
“No, really. Tell me,” she pushed.
“It's nothing, Mama. I just wonder sometimes what I'm doing with my life,” I blurted. “Jr is begging me to come work at the church. Daddy wants me in the choir. The kids need me at the school. Evan wants me at home. And I have no idea what I want. I know I love teaching, but I don't know if I want to do that forever. It's like you said at church the other week, I'm thirty-three and I feel like I should have all this figured out by now.”
“Dear, I told you that so you could see the blessing that your life is and move ahead in that peace,” she said. “You know your father picked out your name, and sometimes I think we cursed you with it. Because, forever, you've been trying to find somewhere to go when your life is right here.” She pat me on the hand and smiled meaningfully. “I'm not saying you need to just accept whatever life gives you, but you must have the wisdom to know when you have a good thing going.”
“I know, Mama. But sometimes I wonder if a good thing is enough to make a life on. Like maybe there's somewhere else for me to be. Something else for me to have.” I thought of Kayla and how she just packed up her life and moved South to chase love. I wished I had that kind of passion for anything.
“No, listen to me. Some people search the planet looking for something to fill them up, never happy with anything. But in the end, they realize that everything they needed was right in front of them. They wouldn't notice it only because they thought they could find something better.” She sat back and laughed. “When I was young and we were trying to go into town to just sit at white restaurants like this one and order a soda, we had a little joke. We'd ask if the apples in a black yard were better than those in a white yard. We always said the white ones were better. Bigger. Sweeter. But really, they just seemed better because we'd never had them ... and when we did have them, we'd fought so hard to get them that they just seemed better, bigger, and sweeter. But you know, after you have five of those apples, you realize that they're all the same. In fact, those black apples are better because they came from your yard.”