Searching for Tina Turner - By Jacqueline E. Luckett Page 0,23
side.”
“I know you don’t like what I’m saying, Lena. You probably think it’s old-fashioned, but that little piece of advice kept my man by my side for one day short of fifty-nine years. Figure out how to handle your husband while you think on that.”
Chapter 7
Shoppers stare at Lena’s tear-smudged eyes; a toddler points a chubby finger; his mother shushes and whisks the child away.
“Why did you talk to Lulu about you and Randall?” Bobbie asks. The sister Tina loved, Lena recalls, was not around when life turned bad. Growing up, Lena went to Bobbie when she wanted to know about life, bribing her first with hot cocoa and extra marshmallows before Bobbie would talk to her little sister. Lulu’s advice was most thorough when it came to etiquette and politics. She told her daughters how to vote (Democrat) and why (hundreds of Negroes beaten with hoses, arrested, suffered, some killed so that every Negro in America could), but not how to handle a man; just that they needed one. Lena knows that Bobbie, miles away in New York, is more than willing to tell her what to do.
The courtesy clerk crams the last grocery bag into the trunk. Lena tips him five dollars and paces, phone crunched between shoulder and ear in the same way Lulu held hers. The converted warehouse in front of the parking lot is shaped more like an apartment building than a grocery store.
“At least I include her in what’s going on in my life.” And you never do, Lena wants to say, but then Bobbie would hang up like she always threatens to do whenever the conversation comes close to the intimate details of her life. “I’m all discombobulated. Why Randall wants a party so soon after coming home—”
“Because he knows he can.” Bobbie taps a pencil against the receiver, and Lena wonders why both Bobbie and her mother like to make noises when they talk on the phone. “How’s Lulu?”
“She seems a bit discombobulated, too. I think I might go with her to her next doctor’s appointment. But if you must know, I was getting… perspective.”
“You wanted ‘perspective’ from the woman who ate, slept, and dreamt John Henry Harrison?” Bobbie laughs.
“What do you know?”
“I don’t have to be heterosexual, or married, to know that you let your husband get to you. You’re too hard on yourself.”
“It’s what I do.” Lena sighs like her eight-year-old self under fire from her big sister. “And why don’t you call Lulu more often? You haven’t been home in a year.”
“Lulu doesn’t know how to have a regular conversation without implying that religion and a good man can cure all she believes is wrong with me. I love her, and I forgive you for being rude, but don’t change the subject. This is about you, not me. You love being married. You love Randall. I simply tolerate him because he’s the father of my niece and nephew.” Randall and Bobbie argue whenever they are together. The last time Bobbie was home, it was over music: easy-listening jazz versus bebop. “He would not be where he is without you. And that’s a fact.” Lena imagines her sister wagging her finger on the other end of the phone.
“What difference does it make?” Lena groans at the sight of Dr. Miller’s stocky frame between cars one aisle over. She ducks and rattles her purse. “God, where are my keys? Kendrick’s therapist is headed this way. Dammit, I don’t want him to see me.”
“Tell him to go fuck himself. Hand him the phone—I’ll say it if you won’t.”
At the end of his first session, Kendrick stepped into the waiting room and told Lena that Dr. Miller wanted to see her. Lena assumed he wanted a payment and stepped into the tiny office, checkbook in hand. Once inside, she was surprised by the kitschy coziness of the middle-aged doctor’s office. Flowered cushions on a slouchy sofa. Masks smeared with white ash, African spears, and fertility goddesses with swollen bellies and distended breasts. Their shared heritage seemed all the more reason to like him.
“My grasp of family dynamics will constitute a critical area of Kendrick’s therapy.” Dr. Miller settled into his recliner, his stubby legs struggled to reach the ottoman. “Kendrick has given me permission to discuss our conversation with you. While I will not breach doctor-patient confidentiality, I do sense that there are other issues, as they relate to you, specifically, that cause Kendrick to question your… value.”