Searching for Tina Turner - By Jacqueline E. Luckett Page 0,15
assignment so that I can keep up?”
“My policy’s simple: skip one class, you’re okay. Skip class twice, you gotta problem.” He presses on with more terse words about dedication and continuity that Lena tunes out. “It’s up to you, but the more you miss, the more behind you get.”
The phone clicks off before she can tell him anything more. Sinking back into the bed, Lena lets sleep take over. Snakes and water. A man’s hand beckons her into a gently breaking black surf, and she slips below. Her fishlike mouth opens to swallow people-plankton drifting by: Randall entwined in a headless woman’s arms, a baby Kendrick morphing into a man, Camille crowned with stars, Candace’s hand covered with pinky rings. Lena twirls, the reverse of falling into the sucking liquid, yet able to watch herself, hair swirling in slow motion, shrunk to its beloved nap. Diamond earrings glimmer in shrinking lobes, vibrant red fingernails. Wedding bands float past like dazzling schools of fish.
Beside an open coffin Tina Turner wears a zoot suit. Lena belches bubbles full of a merry Randall, Kendrick, and Camille. Each bubble rises past schools of silver fish, past coral and seaweed and thrusts her up, up, up. Lena rises to the surface, naked before God’s bluest sky and Tina Turner’s outstretched arms.
The sheets are soaked when Lena awakens. The room is neither hot nor cold, yet she shivers as if it is the middle of winter and tries to understand her dream. Listen to Tina. Be the good girl—a girl at fifty-four. Follow the rules. Consider the blessings. Randall wants a party. He’s tired. What’s a little attitude in exchange for the life he has given her? And she has more than enough: this house, clothes, no worries, and diamonds on her fingers, neck, and ears.
The pictures, the memories spill from the planner when Lena picks it up. How innocent Kendrick looked in his Halloween costume, his first one. He was a puppy. When Lena explained that animals didn’t make good costumes, he looked at her with a serious face and insisted. Camille liked ballet, liked dressing up and being the center of attention. She posed for hours in the mirror practicing pirouettes and pliés.
The account withdrawal slip is thin and narrow. Randall and Lena’s full names are imprinted in block letters in the upper left-hand corner. On the photography enrollment paperwork her name is written in the same way and, looking from one piece of paper to the other, it seems odd to see hers by itself. Taking the two pieces of paper in her hands, Lena tears and tears until they blend into an unrecognizable heap atop the sheets.
Chapter 5
Ten after eight. Step fast, faster. Randall hates waiting, especially after a long trip. This afternoon Lena cleaned the house from top to bottom, right alongside the housekeeper. She cancelled Randall’s car service and decided to pick him up like she did when his business trips first began to take him around the world. The Drambuie is back in the liquor cabinet; fresh linens envelop the bed. Run, Lena, run. Past people speaking in French, Spanish, and a myriad of Asian languages all intoned with joyous inflections that need no translation. Past a smattering of kohl-eyed Indian women swathed in silk saris, Filipino men in embroidered linen barong shirts, and Asian businessmen in conservative sharkskin suits.
Run, Lena, run. Passengers exit customs through two cordoned-off hallways. TV monitors flash weary and preoccupied faces to watchful loved ones and chauffeurs with handwritten signs. Randall’s image crosses the screen. His trademark heavy-heeled gait is slow. Lena giggles; a surprise to herself and the man next to her.
Nearly fifty-eight, Randall is handsome in a way Lena knows women envy men for, the good looks that seem to get better with age. His head bobs to a rhythm only he can hear; maybe Miles or Charlie Parker or one of the little-known jazz artists he loves to discover. Scrunched forehead, heavy eyelids and tight lips; yet clean-shaven and crisp. How he manages to keep his clothes wrinkle free after long drives and even longer flights is a mystery that Lena appreciates but cannot understand. Thirty-four days of meals in fancy restaurants have left his stomach with a slight paunch that Lena knows he’ll work off with his trainer. He looks good, as good as he did all those years ago when she spotted him on the dance floor, and her heart commanded him to look her way.