Searching for Tina Turner - By Jacqueline E. Luckett Page 0,6
that she denies her almost sixty years. Lena knows that underneath the slicker, Candace’s body is tight, thanks to her trainer. Her makeup is perfect, her skin flawless thanks to modern chemistry and a good esthetician.
“Should we call her and take her out to lunch, try to cheer her up?” Lena asks.
“You can if you want to. Sometimes divorced women are double trouble. Some husbands don’t want their wives to see how women can improve after divorce—and unless you’re Ivana Trump, with a big settlement, that doesn’t always happen. Let’s face it, some wives don’t trust their men around them. Happens all the time.”
“You mean you won’t have anything to do with her just because she’s divorced?” Lena gawks at Candace. For eleven years they have lunched, visited, bestowed gifts, and socialized. She knows Candace is notorious for cutting off women who don’t give her the attention she loves, but not because of divorce. “You’re still friends with Gail Coleman, and isn’t Ada Munson divorced?”
“People grow apart. We don’t do the same things.” Candace dismisses Lena with a wave of her hand. “I’ll catch up with Dana, of course. I love her to death. But Byron and Carl are friends; more than friends, actually. They’ve helped each other’s careers—you know what I mean—the networking our men do. Byron wouldn’t want me to jeopardize that. Besides, she’s competition now, honey.”
“Why do you think she would compete for your husband?” Lena presumes that Candace is the only one who wants her portly, beady-eyed husband, money or no money.
“I don’t need any single women around Byron. His eyes wander enough, and he’s always talking about Dana: how nice she is, how she takes such good care of herself, how her husband is a fool for dogging her. A lot of married men believe divorcées are lonely and horny, and they try to do something about it. I wouldn’t want a woman like Dana around my man.”
Lena makes her way to the pharmacy as she has done all these months without Randall’s reminder. As if, in his absence, she could forget her responsibilities; as if in twenty-three years she hasn’t been mother and father, doctor and nurse, teacher and tutor every time he goes away.
Without prompt or invitation, Candace follows. At the counter, she stops alongside Lena and squints at the prescription in her hand. “For Kendrick? Is everything okay? Did he decide to go back to Chicago or transfer to a school out here?”
“Kendrick is fine. If you’d wear your glasses, Candace, you’d see that’s my name on the prescription.” Lena turns away from Candace’s line of vision and shoves the paper into the clerk’s hand. “You’re being pretty hard on Dana. What if I got divorced?” Lena coughs in hopes that sound will throw Candace off track.
“Ha! You and Randall are perfect: the black Barbie and Ken. Big everything: house, cars. And trinkets.” Candace flicks Lena’s heavy gold watch. Randall, Lena recalls, likes Candace because she is never embarrassed by what she has or what she does.
Six months ago, Lena might have considered those words a compliment. This isn’t the first time someone has labeled them perfect: the symmetry of their physicality—she tall, he taller; complementary brown skin tones—neither fair nor dark; stylish, hip clothes from New York and San Francisco designer boutiques— coordinated, but not; their speech proper and grammatically correct—hints of slang at the right time and in the right company.
“I’ve known Dana for as long as I’ve known you.” If only Candace would stop her blabber and look beyond her frown, Lena thinks, she would understand. The glint in Candace’s eye says she doesn’t see anything but Lena’s clothes and the questionable prescription as fodder for more gossip. “I wouldn’t chuck her friendship just because she’s made a decision to save herself.”
“Dana was naïve. She should have planned better—if she’d done that she wouldn’t be at her mother’s.” Candace looks Lena up and down and follows her out the front door. “You’re no fool. And if you’re thinking that way, or something close to it, take my advice: don’t. Be happy.”
If she were the kind of woman who got into physical fights, Lena might find this the perfect time to smack Candace for her ability to think about plans and consequences. She chuckles at the thought of the petite woman falling, more worried about her hair and her jewelry spiraling across the dirty linoleum floor than the fact that she had been assaulted. Then again, perhaps Candace would lie