Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do Read online

  “You doing all right?” Blue said, taking a seat at our table and squeezing my hand.

  “I'm fine,” I said, taking another small sip of champagne. The line between social drinking and silly drinking is too easy to blur if you aren't paying attention.

  The band was returning to the stage, and the tables were filling up with couples and foursomes who were chatting, laughing, greeting old friends. Behind us a young couple waved at their friends on the bandstand, who acknowledged them with an unflappable cool that identified them as jazz musicians even more clearly than their ability to play their instruments.

  Peachy chuckled. “These young sisters are something else, aren't they?”

  I nodded, glad Blue was still holding my hand. Our table was right at the edge of the tiny stage and as I watched the women launch into the version of “My Favorite Things” that my less gifted neighbor has been trying for, I wished my mother could have seen them. Sure, it would have touched off a long discourse about what her generation sacrificed to get us this far down the road, but looking at these girls at their keyboards and drum sets, I figure she had some braggin' rights coming.

  Zeke escorted Precious Hargrove through the crowded room, deposited her at a table near the other side of the stage, and headed straight for Blue, who squeezed my hand again and stood up.

  “We're going to make a few presentations,” he said. “You've got the best seat in the house.”

  “Show time,” said Peachy, polishing off his champagne and winking at me as he stood up and straightened his dinner jacket. “How do I look?”

  “Fabulous!” I said, and he did.

  “Gentlemen?” Zeke appeared at the table. “The hour is upon us. I'll welcome everybody and call this Negro up.” He inclined his head toward Peachy, and his dreadlocks shifted and swung the way they might have in a Jamaican breeze. “He can present the check to the senator, and then Blue can give us a few words of wisdom.”

  “A very few,” Peachy said.

  “Well, Brother Blue is always a man of few words, so I don't think there's any problem there.”

  Zeke waited for the girls to finish their number and took to the stage as the audience applauded warmly. Peachy and Blue stood near the steps, waiting for their cue.

  “Thank you to the Club Zebra House Band,” Zeke said, and the girls grinned at one another, fully aware that their college would probably be surprised at the name he had given their collective alter ego. “And welcome. This is a special night and one we look forward to every year.”

  The audience, which now included people standing at the rear of the room and in the doorway, applauded again. Flora threaded her way between the tables and sat down next to me, still clapping.

  “I didn't mean to abandon you,” she whispered. “Peachy didn't need to remind me that Hank wasn't around tonight.”

  “No problem,” I whispered back. “Do you know why they call him Peachy?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Peach pie, peach cobbler, peach wine …”

  We giggled, and I saw Blue glance in our direction and grin. I grinned back.

  “We want to give a special thanks to the ladies who worked so hard on this year's committee,” Zeke was saying from the stage. “And when I say ladies, I mean real ladies—the members of the Sensuous Ladies Social Club. Miss Green, are you here?”

  A pretty brown-skinned woman in a tight green dress that celebrated her curves instead of trying to camouflage them waved from another table and blew him a kiss. “Thank you, baby!”

  “Watch out, now! You know my wife doesn't like anybody calling me baby but her!” Zeke said as the crowd laughed. “I could introduce some more of y'all, but if I start that, we'll be here all night, so let's get to the most important reason for this gathering, which is to give away your money.”

  More laughter. “You the best at that!” a voice shouted from the rear of the room.

  Zeke laughed, too. “About to get better, so get out your checkbooks and give a big Club Zebra welcome to the man who started it all. Peachy Nolan, come on up here and relieve these well-dressed folks of their cash.”

  Zeke surrendered the mike to Peachy and left the stage as people rose to their feet in a heartfelt greeting. Peachy, clearly pleased, waved them back into their seats.

  “All right, all right,” he said, “what do the young people say? I'm feelin' you, but we got business.”

  I saw Zeke go over to Precious Hargrove's table and escort her to the steps on the other side of the stage.

  “When me and Blue started hosting this party fifteen years go, it was just something we did at his house or my house to honor the memory of my baby sister, Miss Janet Cassandra Nolan, and raise some money for anybody who was trying to do something good around here. We started with a couple hundred bucks for the soup kitchen over on Lee Street. Then we bought some band instruments for Washington High School and some athletic equipment for the program at the Boys and Girls Club.”

  I hadn't realized until that moment that it was Peachy's sister's murder that had changed the course of Blue's life. The party was only a symbol of what was a much greater offering from one friend to another.

  “And as y'all started makin' more money, we were able to do more and we gonna keep doin' more because if we don't, who the hell will?”

  More applause.

  “Talk to 'em, Peachy!” Miss Green called. “Talk to 'em!”

  Peachy waited for quiet before continuing. “So this year, we're doing something different. We're going to give some money to a political candidate, something we've never done before, but that's because we never had a candidate like this one before.”

  There was a smattering ofapplause as people began to realize who he was talking about. Standing next to Zeke, waiting for her cue, I saw Precious smile her acknowledgment. Sitting beside Kwame, Aretha clapped enthusiastically.

  Peachy motioned for quiet. “Now I could take an hour or so of your time and tell you what this sister has done for the people of her district, including this neighborhood right here, but we ain't got that kind of time, so I'm just going to say her name reflects how we feel about her, and we are more than happy to give this contribution to support her efforts to make history. Ladies and gents, and the rest of y'all who snuck in the side door, put your hands together for state senator Precious Hargrove, the next governor of Georgia!”

  The room erupted into sustained applause, accompanied by whistling, whooping, and the general mayhem that accompanies the presentation of popular politicos to the people whose dreams they carry. Zeke walked Precious to the mike where Peachy was waiting.

  “It is an honor to present you with checks totaling ten thousand dollars to support your candidacy.”

  The applause was now full of pride not only for Precious, but for their own impressive fund-raising efforts. I looked at Blue, standing alone, watching the presentation with a small smile of satisfaction.

  Precious accepted the checks and a hug from Peachy, and stepped up to the mike. “I am honored to accept this contribution from my good friend Peachy Nolan on behalf of so many of you. It is my intention to use these funds to help me run the best-organized, most participatory campaign this state has ever seen. It is time for our voices to be heard, and believe me, when I am elected governor, they will be heard!”

  Applause, applause.

  “I'm not going to make a speech, since that would be a true example of preaching to the choir, and because Peachy told me not to!”

  Laughter. Peachy loved it, wagging a finger in her direction like a disapproving teacher.

  “So I'll just say thanks and you can rest assured, I will never, ever let you down.”

  It was probably the shortest speech I've ever heard from a campaigning politician, but she read the crowd exactly right. They were already supporting her. A speech they didn't need. Applause followed her back to her table as Peachy reclaimed the microphone.

  “Sock it to 'em, Senator!” Peachy said. “Sock it to 'em!” He glanced
in Blue's direction as if to be sure his friend hadn't eased back into the crowd. “And now I'd like to bring to the stage the man who makes it all happen around here. The man who took it upon himself to reclaim this neighborhood for hardworking people trying to raise their children in peace. The man who gave up the bright lights and the big cash to come on home and be a part of this community. The man who isn't afraid to do what has to be done, whatever it is.” He grinned at the audience. “And did I say he can sing his ass off?”

  “You got that right!” a woman shouted.

  “But I'm wasting your time telling you what you already know, so let's bring him on up here. The man I'm proud to call my friend and my brother. Mr. Blue Hamilton.”

  The audience literally went wild. Peachy came back to sit beside me and left Blue alone on the stage. He said something to the bandleader, who nodded and took up his position in front of the girls who were watching him expectantly.

  “Sing, Blue!” another woman's excited voice called out.

  More wild applause greeting the suggestion. Blue waited for silence and then spoke so quietly we all leaned forward so we wouldn't miss anything he said.

  “It was my intention to come up here and thank you for your support and for your money, and sit down.”

  Immediate groans of disappointment, but he had said it was his intention. Was there still a chance that he might sing?

  “But a friend of mine has a song she wants to hear, so I thought if I can get the band to help me out,” he nodded at the director, who raised his eyebrows and hit a downbeat that the girls responded to perfectly, “and if you all don't mind—”

  He looked around as if to entertain any objections.

  “Sing, Blue!” the woman cried out again.

  Blue laughed and pointed a slender finger in my direction. “All right then, this one's for Gina.”

  I blushed, realizing that people were craning their necks to see who I was and why their hero would be dedicating a song to me. Flora was grinning and hunching me like we were in high school, but I tried to be cool.

  “You go, girl!” somebody yelled, giving me a shout of encouragement that was immediately shushed as Blue stepped up to the mike and began to sing.

  “The very thought of you, and I forget to do, the little ordinary things that everyone ought to do.”

  You could have heard a pin drop. He had a wonderful voice, a smooth, smoky baritone as rich as dark chocolate and filled with the sound of a life fully lived. He rolled the words around in his mouth like candy, and the young women on the stage were watching him with as much admiration as the audience. He was looking straight at me, and I couldn't look away.

  “I'm living in a kind of daydream,” he sang. “I'm happy as a king.”

  But it wasn't the words. It was the feeling he was sending through the words. Whatever the words said, he was offering them like a gift, an apology to every woman in the room for every time somebody had broken her heart or not been the man she hoped he could be. Something in his voice was apologizing for all the betrayals from the moment the slave ships pulled up on the shores of West Africa until now. He was confessing to every crime, real and imagined, that black men have ever committed against black women, and, more than that, he was trying to make it right.

  What he was doing with his voice had nothing to do with the lyrics of the song I had requested. What he was singing was an ancient song and one we all recognized so clearly that, when he reached out a hand, we had to reach back, the way you have to stand up at the stadium when the wave rolls over you, no matter how much you thought you wouldn't.

  By the end ofthe second verse, I had fallen so deep into what I heard in his voice and saw in his eyes that I couldn't have climbed out if I wanted to, which I didn't. I didn't know if this was a gangster movie or a revolutionary romance or a sci-fi thriller where the hero has X-ray eyes or a corny old-school musical where the heroine arrives on the scene wounded, but on a mission, and the hero sweeps her off her feet with new definitions of manhood and then takes her to an old-fashioned speakeasy in the middle of an unexpected urban oasis where people still laugh together and talk together and your landlord may also be able to stand on the stage and make magic.

  It felt like a fairy tale, and if it was, then this would be the moment where I stop trying to figure out why and start wondering when. This is the moment where I don't try to reason it out. I just try to lean in. The moment when I realize that maybe I'm falling in love. Maybe for the first time. Maybe for the last one. But it feels just the way I thought it would, hoped it would, prayed it would, and if this were a movie, this would be the moment where everything around the lovers fades away and they recognize in each other the promise of something sweet, and then even sweeter. If this were a movie, this would be the moment where the heroine considers the possibility of a happy ending and the hero just keeps singing his blue-eyed ass off like he couldn't stop if he wanted to. …

  But it wasn't a movie, and the song finally came to an end. There was a moment of absolute silence as the last notes faded away, and then the crowd erupted into delighted applause. The youthful band members looked at one another in amazement, having experienced their first taste of the magical possibilities of the life they'd chosen, and there I was, applauding as loud as anybody, grinning at Blue, and resisting the impulse to toss my brand-new silk undies on the stage like those long-ago Royal Peacock audiences. After all, it ain't that kind of movie.

  26

  THE NEXT TWO HOURS WENT BY in a blur. Aretha came over to introduce me to Kwame, who was so clearly smitten that he could hardly take his eyes off of her long enough to say hello. Flora introduced me to a steady stream of her gardeners and neighborhood folks. Peachy made sure I met all the old-timers, and Precious Hargrove found time to come over to say hello, but I could hardly hear a word they said. I just kept thinking about Aunt Abbie's vision. He will sing an ancient song. Add that to those big blue eyes, and you've got two out of three. That's all my brain kept saying: Two out of three. Two out of three.

  After a while, Flora looked at me strangely. “You okay?”

  I nodded and tried to play it off. “I never heard anybody sing like that before.”

  “And you never will,” she said. “It's like there's something in his voice that says everything you want a man to say and mean it.”

  “Exactly!” I said. “How can he do that?”

  Flora shrugged. “I don't know, but women always respond to it the same way. We go crazy!” She laughed. “I don't know what I'd do if he ever sang right to me the way he did you tonight. We've been friends for fifteen years, but I might not be able to trust myself!”

  “I'm not feeling all that trustworthy either,” I said, and I wasn't kidding.

  “Don't worry,” she said, waving and moving in the direction of yet another gardener. “I'll make sure you get home okay.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then you're on your own!” She laughed over her shoulder.

  Across the room, I saw Blue in a circle of admiring women, all smiling and touching his arm, his hand, his shoulder. They were still in the warm glow of that ancient song just like I was, but they were free to enjoy it without hearing another voice inside their heads that seems only to know the words: Two out of three. Two out of three.

  Blue looked up from the swirl of his admirers, caught my eye, and held it; there was something so familiar about that look that I couldn't help but smile. He smiled back, inclined his head slightly in my direction, and turned back to a woman at his elbow who wanted an autograph, another at his side who wanted to take a picture. And what did I want, watching him from across the room? I wanted some answers. Visions are fine, and two out of three ain't bad, but if you're going to change your whole life, a perfect score would be nice.

  27

  FLORA WAS AS GOOD AS HER WORD. At two a.m., Blue walked us to the same limo that brought us, and I wished for nerve enough to invite him to stop by for a drink after he had bid farewell to th
e last of the night owls, but all I could manage was a thank-you for a lovely evening. I needed some advice. Some clarification. Some guidance, but Flora was already grinning at me like she knew a secret I hadn't walked up on yet, so I wasn't able to enlist her help to sort things out. I needed an objective voice. Someone older and wiser. I needed to talk to my visionary adviser.

  I hugged Flora good night at her door and hurried upstairs to kick off my shoes and dial the one person who would understand what the hell I was talking about and not think I was totally crazy.

  “Aunt Abbie? Did I wake you?”

  “When's the last time you knew me to be up at two in the morning? What's wrong?”

  “Nothing's wrong. I'm sorry. I should have waited until—”

  She interrupted me impatiently. “Then what's right?”

  “Nothing. I mean, everything is fine.”

  “Listen, girl, I know you didn't wake me out of a sound sleep to tell me nothing's wrong and nothing's right. That news could have waited until a decent hour to be conveyed.”

  I took a deep breath. “He can sing.”

  “Who can sing?”

  “My landlord, the one with the blue eyes? He can really sing.”

  I could hear her chuckling. “Is this the moment when I get to say ‘I told you so’?”

  “This is the moment when you get to tell me what I'm supposed to do now.”

  “Keep doin' what you're doin'.”

  “But what if he really is …”

  “Is what?”

  “I don't know! The one! The one you said was looking for me across time and stuff.”

  “Seems pretty obvious to me. Two out of three is almost a done deal.”

  I could hear her yawning. Here I was trying to get some advice about the rest of my life, and she was only half awake.

  “I'm sorry if I'm boring you,” I said, trying to be sarcastic.

  “Oh, don't get snippy,” she said calmly. “You're working yourself up for no reason.”

  “This kind of stuff doesn't happen! Not in real life!”