Searching for Tina Turner - By Jacqueline E. Luckett Page 0,62
and walked out of the office, into the elevator, and held her tears until she got to her car.
f f f
Her tears flow freely now and wash away all emotion, so that by the time she faces Randall later this morning to sign their finalized agreement, she will not cry at all. His face has been so stern, the crease in his forehead so deep through each of the mediation sessions and the nasty correspondence in between. She cannot help but question his motives when his behavior is so aloof. Which compartment has she been relegated to? Where did he put that man who could never remember the punch line to a joke but made up his own, who held her when John Henry died and worried about how Lulu would get along, who cradled each of their children on the day of their birth and marveled at the miracle of their perfect fingers and toes, who rode with her in that fancy new car as excited as she was?
Back in her apartment, Lena steps into the living room and beams. It has taken three months to make this apartment feel like home. Furniture and flowers, walls covered with her photographs—rusty wrought iron fences entwined with weeds, aged doors from the decaying West Oakland train station, junkyard capitals atop Corinthian columns, abandoned cars, and a homeless man preaching to a garbage can. She cannot deny that the absence of playful shouting, the smell of food in the oven, hugs, and no one to say good morning or good night makes her feel sad.
The phone rings as Lena strips off her sweaty clothes.
“That Randall. I’m so disappointed.” Through the phone Lulu’s noisy slurping reassures Lena that the world is normal.
Lena snickers. If only Lulu knew. If only Lena had a dollar for each time Randall has scratched a red marker across Mr. Meyers’s drafts or told Lena she couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t do one thing or another with his money, his kids, his house, his season tickets, his schedule, his job, his friends, his life.
“Want me to come with you?”
The thought of Lulu at her side—outfitted in fuchsia or sunflower yellow, complete with coordinating fingernails and toenails— in the mediator’s office with Randall and their very proper lawyers is enough to make her chuckle.
“I love you, Lulu.” Outside the window and fourteen floors below, a single rowboat, its crewmembers tiny dots, skids across the lake’s glassy surface. Sections of the path she walked this morning, will walk again for many days to come, are easy to see. “After all these weeks, I believe I can handle it on my own.”
“I love you, Lena. You get your strength from my side of the family, you know.” From the shallow sound of her sips, Lena can tell that Lulu’s coffee cup is almost empty. “Dress sexy, and do whatever it takes to soften him up.”
“Sexy,” Lena says, “won’t do me any good anymore with this man. I’m invisible to him; a parasitic harpy he believes wants to bleed him dry.” She settles on the bed and laughs until more tears come into her eyes. Flick.
“That’s my baby girl!” Lulu laughs, too. “Always the drama queen.”
In the shower, the hard, hot water blends with the last of Lena’s tears, sprays over her cheeks, back, and thighs. If, all those years ago, Randall could go back to his first ex, the gold digger, could he come back to her, and would she want him if he did? Could the lilt of her laugh make Randall regret this decision, make him change his mind? Months of sitting across from him at the mediator’s table have changed hers. He no longer looks familiar. Lena is amazed at how callous Randall has been. Is he surprised by how tough and prepared she has been?
Lena takes her time to dress in a conservative, body-hugging, taupe pantsuit (that’s just a bit sexy) and admires herself in the mirror above the sink. The whites of her light brown eyes are clear, the stress acne is gone, the hair is growing back in the tiny worry-patch above her right temple.
The glass top of the small bottle of jasmine essence on the bathroom counter is shaped like a flower. Randall never told her how much it cost, preferring to keep her supplied himself, but the cut crystal bottle and the gold filigree hint at its price. This bottle is nearly full of the delicate perfume. She rubs jasmine on her neck and wrists and