Searching for Tina Turner - By Jacqueline E. Luckett Page 0,25
memorizing the first paragraph to make immediate contact with the audience and gain acceptance and interest right away.
“I went to the bank today,” she said.
Whether he heard her or not, she couldn’t tell. He recited the first paragraph, experimented with his delivery—serious, with humor, smiling, not smiling, hands, no hands. “When I gave my father his first cell phone last year, he was astonished at the power of such a small device. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet.’ As I stand before you, on the cusp of a new century, ready to introduce the future of telecommunications, I speak those same words to you as I did to my father: ladies and gentlemen, you ain’t seen nothing yet!”
As soon as he finished, her thumbs lifted in approval, Lena started again. “I talked to the manager about my photography business. It’s been two years, and I’m ready.” She smiled at the end of her sentence, hoping her declaration was light enough to encourage Randall’s agreement.
“You’re happy aren’t you? The kids are happy. I’m happy.” He took her hand and didn’t wait for her reply. “I know I promised, and I mean to keep that promise.” Randall stood and paced the length of his office, delivering his words in the same way he had practiced his speech: her expertise, her willingness to polish his speeches, not to mention her first-rate entertaining had become critical to his success.
“Bottom line, the next couple of years are key. I know we can make this work.” He knelt in front of her, his eyes willing her to agree. “C’mon, Lena, it hasn’t been that bad, has it? You help me, and I’ll help you. I’m not breaking my promise, just asking for an extension.”
Hadn’t she known it would come to this moment all along? Lena swore she could handle all of that, take a few classes, develop a signature style, and check out galleries. How many extensions would it take to get to her dream? She reminded Randall that she had multitasked her way through kids and work and entertaining and managing the household for years. It would work, she reasoned, until she heard him say his goal was to be CEO. The sensation, like vertigo, went from head past stomach to knees easier than she thought it would. Like falling into a cushy ball of fluff. Surrender. Without fight, without words, just the certainty that the loyalty Randall valued would cost her her soul.
“Okay! I get it. There’s a delivery truck in my driveway. I won’t wait for him.” The gloved driver jumps out of the van, opens its double doors, and shoves three boxes onto a handcart. Lena points to the front porch and a white envelope taped to the wrought iron railing. The driver tips his baseball cap and heads in that direction.
“See? The universe has just sent you a message. Make things happen. And why don’t you call Cheryl. Your old buddy always could knock sense into you.”
“I haven’t talked to Cheryl since Daddy’s funeral. Too much time has passed to cry on her shoulder. Especially about Randall.”
“Promise me you’ll call her. If you don’t, I will.”
f f f
“Where do you think you’re off to?” Lena opens the trunk and sets the grocery bags on the ground.
“I’m late for Dr. Miller,” Kendrick says. Teenage girls suck their teeth, boys newly out of their teens, or at least this one, Lena thinks, smirk. Is this what I’ve taught you? she wants to ask. Is this the way you’ll look at your girlfriend, your wife, when things get tough? She walks to his car and lifts her hand to rub his cheek like she did when he was three, and they were full and round, but Kendrick bobs out of her reach.
“It’s only two thirty. Your appointment isn’t for an hour and a half.” It takes no more than a glance for Lena to double-check her calculations on the dashboard clock. “I’ll take you.”
“I can drive myself.” Kendrick throws up his hands, looking, Lena thinks, just like Randall. “I’m almost twenty-one, I don’t need my mother to drive me around like I’m a kid in grammar school. Anyway, Dad says it’s okay.”
Six months ago, Kendrick’s phone calls and emails became sporadic, unlike his first year at Northwestern, when he called with weekly updates. Lena and Randall assumed that the demands of his second year and his academic scholarship kept him busy. He was sulky and distant and had been that way at