Chasing Sophea: A Novel Page 4

  “Yeppy,” Isabel responded, nodding her head. “What about you, Mama? Did you have a good day, too?”

  Time immediately seemed to slow down while Milky waited for an answer. He could smell the simmering chicken and hear Jill Scott singing powerfully in the background: “You woo me, you court me, you tease me, you please me.” He watched Dahlia intently then. “Invite me, you ignite me, you co-write me, you love me.” Jill crooned on, and their eyes met, and he knew that she knew what he was waiting for.

  “Yes, pumpkin,” she said, looking straight at him. “I had a very good day.”

  Milky rested on the edge of the bathtub and decided to draw a bath for his wife while she read Isabel “The Stinky Cheese Man” for the fourth time. He hadn’t realized how much he missed such simple pleasures. Perhaps the worst was over. Perhaps his coq au vin did possess some medicinal qualities after all. His mother, Miko, always swore that his cooking could make a blind man see, a deaf man hear, and a bowlegged woman straighten up and walk like she had some sense. He chuckled absentmindedly and tested the temperature of the water. He wondered and hoped that Dahlia missed him as much as he longed for her. And then she was there, kissing his neck and massaging his shoulders. He ached to confess just how much he adored her. He needed her to know that he’d do anything to make her life easier, anything to make her happy. He wanted her to trust him enough to share what was happening to them but didn’t want to push her any further away than he already had.

  “I thought maybe you’d like to relax in the Jacuzzi and have a long, hot soak,” he said softly, without turning around.

  “I would, but only if you’d join me.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to—”

  “Shhhhh,” she interrupted. “I’m sure.”

  Milky stood and turned to face his wife. When he looked in her eyes, he saw their lives together, and that was all he needed to take another step closer. They undressed each other silently and lowered themselves into the water. It was almost as if he were being transported into another world, a world where nothing could touch them—no headaches, no arguments, no blackouts. The oval-shaped tub was somehow reminiscent of a womb, and he imagined that every man longed to feel this good, this safe, this complete. Soon long legs wrapped around his waist and mercifully intruded on his complicated daydreams. She pulled him closer.

  “Do you still love me?” she asked matter-of-factly, reaching for him under the water.

  “Every moment of my life,” he answered.

  “Then show me, Milky. Show me.”

  He guided her on top of him and made love to her as if his life depended on it, slowing just enough to leave her thirsting and impatient, wanting and out of breath. And when she was at her zenith, ready to explode around him, he maneuvered her hips in front of one of the swirling jets and smiled as she screamed his name for the first time in a long while.

  Lucius Jeremiah Culpepper walked around in circles and tried to ignore the nagging pain in his chest. He was certain it wasn’t the kind that was supposed to warn him of an impending heart attack. It was the kind threatening to put him down, though, just the same, flat on his back, or curled up in a fetal position in a corner somewhere. He’d been carrying such a load on his heart for so long, the weight of additional emotional pounds was becoming more than he could bear. Sadly, it appeared that nothing he did could lighten the massiveness that now caused him to feel unsteady on his feet.

  So what in God’s name was he supposed to do now? He was, or had been, a champion at expertly navigating every crisis or catastrophe that crossed his path. He was a rock, plain and simple. Hell, the whole town knew it. Everyone counted on him to make their world a better place, smooth things over, fix the unfixable, and he had—except for this. Somehow he’d thought, hoped, believed that time would heal his wounds, her wounds, make every unpleasant emotion disappear. Well, time hadn’t healed a damn thing, and he’d wasted so much of it waiting for a resolution that obviously didn’t exist. Inexplicably, he felt like he’d aged twenty years overnight. December 15 came around every year, and every year he had been able to work right through it, pretend like it was just another ordinary day. God only knew why he was unable to do that now.

  He leaned against the wall in Reva’s old sitting room and closed his eyes. It must have been a Saturday because he heard “Now’s the Time” in his head—a spirited blues tune by the troubled Yardbird. Bird knew trouble was coming. Why didn’t he? He could envision them all now laughing in the living room. He could even see Dahlia. She must have been about nine then and was begging him to lift her up so she could put a star on top of the Christmas tree. She was so beautiful and smart, kept him on his toes, that one. He’d started saving for Harvard the day she was born. He knew fathers weren’t supposed to have a favorite child, but he couldn’t help utterly spoiling her. Dahlia looked and acted so much like him that denying her anything was tantamount to denying himself. All he could do was adore her. He loved all his children, but he loved her the most, and he’d failed the one he loved the most. And in failing her, he’d failed himself. He began to weep silently and became disgusted at himself, crying in the middle of the day like a damn baby. He comforted other people when they cried. He didn’t cry. He was really losing it. He’d be walking into walls next if he weren’t careful.

  He heard footsteps and quickly regained his composure. No one could ever see him like this. Weak. Lucius wiped his face with the back of his hand and prepared to go back to work on Buster Perkins. Poor old crusty bastard caught a stroke wiggling and carrying on underneath his nineteen-year-old girlfriend, Portia. The family, including Buster’s wife, Sister Pearl, ordered him to remove the peculiar grin that seemed to be plastered all over Buster’s face. So, nervous breakdown aside, it was back to business as usual because rocks didn’t weep.

  “Lucius, what are you doing up here? I thought you didn’t come in here anymore,” Aunt Baby inquired gently.

  “I don’t know. I just felt compelled to visit this old room. There’s a lot of history in this room.”

  “Lucius Culpepper, have you been crying?”

  “No, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. Got a little chemical in my eyes. Today is the day, you know. Anyway, when was the last time you spoke to my daughter?”

  “I know, I know. I talked to her a couple of weeks ago, I think.”

  “And?”

  “We didn’t really talk about anything important.”

  “Do you ever?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes, Lucius, but I don’t push. I never push. She’s not ready.”

  “It’s been nearly twenty-five years, Aunt Baby. If she isn’t ready by now, I don’t think she’ll ever be. She won’t talk to me, you know. It’s like she’s erased me from her memory. I suffered, too, Baby. God knows we all suffered behind what happened.”

  “Yes, Lucius, but you were a grown man, and she was a child. Children suffer differently from grown folk.”

  “Hell, suffering is suffering. Why couldn’t we suffer together? Families are supposed to suffer together.”

  “Your wife, her mama. Different relationship, different pain.”

  “Maybe she thinks I didn’t experience enough pain. How could she think that? How could anyone think that?”

  “Nephew, everyone expresses their pain differently. And, well, frankly you can’t blame the girl for not understanding how you chose to express yours. Hell, none of us understood that.”

  Lucius raised an eyebrow and inhaled deeply. How did this conversation turn into an analysis of his personal life? Why couldn’t she just stick to the subject at hand and leave Mercy out of this? He attempted to refocus Aunt Baby on the issue at hand.

  “Okay, what about that husband of hers, the half-black Chinaman, and my grandchild that I’ve only seen pictures of? If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t know anything about my own daughter. I’ve lost her, Aunt Baby. I’ve lost her for good.”

  “Well, then, nephew, there’s only one thing left to do. F
ind her; fight for her before it’s too late.”

  “What if it’s already too late?”

  “Boy, it ain’t never too late to save your soul. Hers or yours.”

  “She’ll hate me. She’ll hate me for bringing all of this up again.”

  “She’ll hate you if you don’t. It’s time now, Lucius. You should have done this thing long ago. I always told you that the way you handled it wasn’t natural. But, see, you were hardheaded just like any other man. It’s not your fault, though; you come by it honestly. I told you then that this would come back to haunt you.”

  “I just couldn’t handle it.”

  “Well, Dahlia couldn’t either, but she was a child—a child that you—”

  Lucius interrupted before she could finish. “Don’t say it, Aunt Baby. I … I just couldn’t do it. Why can’t you understand that?”

  “Boy, who do you think you’re talking to? You could have done what needed to be done, Lucius. You just chose not to, and now you have to. You can do this, my love. And anyway, I have a bad feeling right about now. The joints in my left knee have been throbbing for damn near a week. Now you and I both know that’s a bad sign.”

  Lucius left Aunt Baby feeling just a little bit worse and wandered around the grounds until he found his way to his office on the north side of the funeral home. He pressed a button on a shiny silver remote control and reclined as Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue filled the space where he came to hide. He only played Miles when he was feeling out of sorts, lost inside himself. All this time, he had been managing his life, his wife, his home, and his business with a kind of determined calmness. He had somehow accepted that not having a relationship with his firstborn was completely normal. He moved from day to day, year to year, surviving, pretending that it wasn’t killing him, a malignancy consuming his soul. Aunt Baby was right. If he didn’t do something now, they would both be lost in a tragedy that never seemed to end. How did he get here? When did it all start to fall apart? And how, in God’s name, could he have let it go this far? What kind of man was he? He leaned back when the answers were not forthcoming, closed his eyes, and allowed the sounds of a forlorn trumpet to steal him away until the urgency of the moment left him—if only for a little while.

  Phoebe slammed the phone down for no reason in particular. She was irritated more than usual today and couldn’t quite figure out why. She hastily surveyed her split-level condominium and plopped down on the couch like a thickster who’d lost her balance. Truth be told, she knew exactly what or who was bothering her, getting her panties all twisted, making her butt hurt. She hadn’t heard one word from that pain in the ass Dahlia, not one word. Phoebe narrowed her eyes. She did not appreciate being ignored. She’d been to hell and back with Dahlia, and this was how she was repaid? Ungrateful self-absorbed bitch. It seemed to Phoebe that Dahlia was trying to come down with amnesia, straight out pretend like she didn’t exist at all. And really, why shouldn’t she? Feigning like a problem or a person wasn’t real was nothing new to Dahlia. She’d managed to make her own daddy disappear somewhere in no-man’s-land, and now it was obviously Phoebe’s turn. After all these years, Dahlia was still merely surviving, struggling desperately to go it alone when she didn’t have to.

  Bottom line, maybe it was time for Phoebe to just leave her alone, focus on her own uneventful life. She was a grown woman, easy on the eyes, and completely bored out of her damned mind. She didn’t have to work, but she was considering opening some kind of business, a gallery maybe, in Pasadena. Although Dahlia would probably think she was stalking her if she moved to her neck of the woods. She had to face that her preoccupation with Dahlia was turning into some kind of freak obsession. But God help her, she couldn’t all of a sudden stop caring, stop loving, and stop protecting the best friend she’d ever had. If it weren’t for Phoebe, who knew where Miss High and Mighty would be? Most likely tripping up and down Hollywood Boulevard with a venereal disease and some lopsided silicone tits. Certainly not thriving with two careers, a family, and enough shoes to rival Imelda Marcos. In spite of Dahlia’s pissy attitude, abandoning her just didn’t seem like the right thing to do. Wasn’t that the same as kicking someone when they were down? Couldn’t a person go straight to hell for something like that?

  Still, she yearned to be free to live her own life without being consumed with Dahlia’s. It was time for her to relax, prop her feet up, and throw back a couple of apple martinis. Shit, it was time for her to get a life. She had to face the fact that maybe she’d finally done enough, worried enough, and yelled enough for the both of them.

  She simply needed to unwind and find a man to help occupy her time. Yeah, baby, some suave Mandingo with perfect pectorals to titillate her and numb her mind when her life began slipping into an abyss of monotony. Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember the last time she had an orgasm without Roscoe, her fourteen-hundred-dollar blow-up doll. It was a pity she wasn’t allergic to latex. That would at least force her to find a real flesh-and-blood man.

  She should be a good friend and go spend some quality time with Milky. He, like she, was most assuredly in need. All men were in need, and she was such a giving and compassionate woman. Really, just because Dahlia had stopped contributing to their relationship didn’t mean she had to be equally distant, did it?

  Phoebe smiled and sipped on a glass of Sangiovese. Well, then, it was settled. She was just going to have to drive on over there and graciously offer her support. She flipped open her journal and began writing furiously. Timing was everything.

  Mercy smoothed the folds of her crimson dress and refreshed her matching lipstick, Lancôme 452. She was diminutive in size, but that never affected her vivacious disposition. She admired her flawless deep brown skin in a full-length mirror and wondered aloud how in the world her husband could keep his hands off her. She was ebony perfection, a work of art constantly in progress. Mercy Culpepper was forty-one, svelte, and tired as hell of being cooped up in a creepy old mortuary with people who refused to appreciate her God-given talents. Folks around here would rather pay more attention to formaldehyde than acknowledge the work of art gracing their presence every day. There was only so much shopping a woman could do.

  Of course, she never thought she’d ever ponder such a notion, but the truth of the matter was, she needed some serious maneuverability in her life. Suddenly, prowling the aisles of Neiman Marcus wasn’t as fascinating as it used to be—and neither was her husband. Lucius used to be such a mystery to her, someone to dismantle, decipher, and then reassemble again like a jigsaw puzzle. Ah, Lucius—handsome, moody, eccentric Lucius. She had been young then and somewhat idealistic when she believed that she could make him happy, keep his mind from venturing too far into the past. But no matter what she did, how beautiful she became, or how many times she shimmied buck-naked in his office, he looked right through her. Soon she realized, not long after they married, that she’d become an annoyance, an unwanted distraction. And maybe, just maybe, she always had been.

  She’d thought about leaving him, starting over somewhere else, Miami maybe, but she’d been with Lucius Culpepper for too long now. Packing her life up in five Louis Vuitton bags seemed so implausible. Although she believed that she would walk away with a little nest egg if they divorced, she also believed that Aunt Baby would cast some kind of backwoods New Orleans voodoo on her. That old witch was hell on wheels, and the best that Mercy could hope for was a quick, unexpected death sometime soon. She’d heard stories about Aunt Baby for a long time, and truth be told, she did not intend to become a chapter in her book of “get rid of the trifling wife” spells. So she would bide her time and wait for the inevitable. Everybody had to die sometime. In the meantime, she’d make nice like she always did and continue to pretend that the mere sight of Lucius’s aunt didn’t make her face twitch.

  She couldn’t find her moody husband anywhere, so she took a deep breath, made the sign of the cross, and went to look for Aunt Baby instead. She found her ten minutes later bent ove
r the dining room table writing furiously.

  “What are you doing, Aunt Baby?”

  “Minding my own damn business.”

  Mercy rolled her eyes and tried to will her face to be still. “Have you seen Lucius? I’ve been looking for him all day.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to be found. Have you considered that? And stand up straight, for the love of God.”

  “Look, I don’t wanna start a ruckus, Baby. I just need to talk to my husband, ifn that’s okay by you.”

  “My, my, my that fancy talk of yours sure seems to disappear when you get all riled up.”

  Mercy felt her face twitching so hard she thought she’d blow up right then and there. She itched to slap an apology clean out of the old woman’s mouth. Lord knows she had never hated another woman as much as she hated Aunt Baby. No wonder Lucius’s first wife went crazy. Who wouldn’t lose all their marbles living in the same house with the wife of Satan cleverly disguised as an evil-ass old woman? “Are you going to answer me or not?” she asked in her sweetest voice, with her hands on her hips.

  “Lucius had a meeting to attend in North Dallas. Why don’t you take a drive over that way and see if you can find him on the freeway? And while you’re at it, stop by NorthPark and buy yourself another red dress.”

  “Now was that so difficult? Goodness, you’d think I was asking you for a kidney or something.”

  Mercy sauntered off feeling as if she’d won some kind of door prize. Perhaps before all was said and done she’d win Aunt Baby over, convince the old bat to retire to a nice old folks home someplace a million miles away. Mercy slid into her red CLK 55 Mercedes-Benz. Dream on, sucker, she thought. Fat chance. That old biddy is going to stay alive out of spite just to antagonize me. She won’t be happy until I’m twitching like an epileptic.