Nandi and Joie spend a little sister time together.
Nandi and Joie laughed together as they thought about Momma’s upcoming trip to Greenville, MS. They had been chilling at the house, eating chips and dips, watching movies like HavPlenty and The Best of American Idol, Second Season today because it was their unofficial sister time and movie day where they watched movies all day. Between the fine brother in HavPlenty and the goofy folks that thought they were the bomb in the second season, both women were having way too much fun. Nandi couldn’t believe how long it had been since she had seen her sister laugh as much or just look so relaxing. And she couldn’t believe Joie’s attitude had somewhat changed.
She was no longer that Ms. Independent woman that Destiny’s Child used to sing so flowery about. She was just a woman who had normal struggles like everyone else. And Nandi was glad that Joie had changed, not that she was being a pest. But it was good to see her being a normal woman.
Joie had called Nandi early in the day to say she was coming over and that wanted to see her and hang out for a few. Nandi was delightfully surprised but made arrangements so that Crystalle could be watched. It wasn’t every day that her sister came by the house and Joie did look much better since the last time they spoke. Her eyes were wide and bright as an eagle’s. She was looking sharp in her denim get up, so relaxed with her skin so clear like she had been drinking lots of water, and she may have lost a few pounds but Nandi wasn’t gonna touch that one. She knew how sensitive Joie was. She didn’t want the day to end on a bad note, so she stuck that thought deep into the recesses of her mind.
Joie’s hard laughter brought Nandi back to attention as she noticed Joie’s beautiful red shiny nails cupping around her small mouth yelling, “Girl please. The last time I saw cousin Boogey, he was like seventeen! I remember meeting some trifling girlfriend of his. I can’t even remember her name.” She shook her head at the hilarious memory. “I remember how she looked though. She was really homely. I guess that’s what they like down there though.” She leaned down to tie her white and red K-Swiss athletic shoes as she listened to Nandi.
Nandi said, “You ain’t right girl. Let that boy love his woman.” She paused as she tried to clear her voice as it suddenly got hoarse. “Ugh. Sorry about that.” She rubbed her throat and responded, “Remember what happened at the last family gathering down there? Everybody was like putting in money for the dinner and then we ran out of food cause some people brought too many friends. Momma was too pissed.” She wiped tears from her eyes as she waved her short arms in Joie’s face and snapped her fingers hoping to get her attention. “Now, Momma wants us to come with her to see Boogey and them?”
“You know I don’t want to go.” Joie’s lips were pursed as she absently mindedly heard her sister. Instead of focusing on the conversation, she brushed the lint off her denim blue jeans and pulled on her short white beater shirt. Looking into her sister’s angry eyes she commented, “But maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea since I haven’t been down there in a long long time. Lord knows I haven’t seen any of them for a hot minute. And it might be a good time for me and mom to work out our issues. ”
“Is Joe going? I hope he is. Lord knows he needs to go, since he acts like he can’t go with us on these type of trips. I know he worries about people finding out about his sexuality but he needs to just let that go and come out of the closet.” Nandi worried about Joie’s attention span today. Her eyes were bugged out like she was on crack or at least sleep deprived. Her responses were very slow going like she had a memory defect or something. It was so odd.
Then her emotions were all over the place. First she comes in acting all happy, hopping around the apartment, then she’s suddenly occupied with her clothes and shit. Something doesn’t add up.
“I’m sorry. Yeah, I am listening. I hope Joe goes because it’s time to be real. I’m sure Mom would not trip that much about it. Hell, she might even know that he is gay. I keep telling him he should just tell her. She adores that boy.” Running her fingers through her wild mane which she had stuck underneath a black cap, she noticed the fire in Nandi’s eyes. The only time she does that is when she feels she is being ignored. “I’m kind of nervous today. I know you notice it. My energy is just crazy and I haven’t been sleeping like I should. And I didn’t get enough sleep last night because Issac came home.” She continued to scratch her head which was all over her head, some strands stuck out of the haphazard ponytail she had thrown together with a single rubber band.
“Wanna talk about it? I mean, I know ya’ll got to work out the issues.” Nandi’s voice softened. “I can imagine how hard it was seeing him last night.” Nandi heard silence at the comment and decided not to further the conversation when she saw Joie’s eyes get misty like she was going to cry. She knew Joie too well and her baby sister wanted to talk about it, but might need just a little more privacy on the issue.
Clearing her voice she ignored the silence and continued the previous conversation as she composed her response well, “ If Joe is going we’ll have to keep a close look on him. You know how sexist Boogey is. Aunt Clara and her kids ain’t no joke either. Do you think they know he’s gay?”
“Stop worrying about Joe. Aunt Clara can’t say shit especially after finding out Uncle Tommy was living a life of a bisexual. Now, come on!” She slapped her knees hard as she stifled a nervous laugh because she still couldn’t believe that Clara didn’t know that man was sweet. Anyone in his radius could figure out that shit, especially when he swished his hips better than any woman that she had ever known. Plus, he was a flame!
“What the hell could they do or say that would be so cruel? Shit, Tommy was on the down low. They can’t say nothing. It’ll be fine.”
“So you saying, you actually going on this trip?” Nandi’s jet black eyes were assessing Joie’s hazel brown ones which were filled with moisture from her laughter. “You going on this trip?”
“Yes.” Joie spit out as she struggled with getting out the sunflower seeds she had been sucking on and wiping her face in response to Nandi’s first question. She knew Nandi was curious about the reunion but she had no intention of sharing what happened last night or even this morning at breakfast. Even though Issac had promised he would get counseling through his Employee Assistance Program at work, she was unsure of how committed he was. And when she found a community-based program that would do family counseling with them, would he really go through with his part of the deal? She wanted to make it work, lord knows she did, but there were way too many holes in their picture at this point and they needed to fill them up. And although she missed having Issac around, she knew they needed to get back in church and also work on some serious communication issues not to mention she wanted to finally meet his mysterious mother Tia Thomas. She had heard nothing of the woman who had bore her baby, her husband.
It would be interesting to see what would finally happen to bring them back together. She was hoping and praying for the best.
She rubbed her mouth hard as she looked directly at Nandi and threw the seeds in the brown bag she had gotten from the store and shoved her personal issues aside so she could thoroughly enjoy her time with Nandi. “Come on, you act like I haven’t gone on a family trip in a minute.” There was an eagerness to her eyes. “I’m gonna enjoy the trip too.”
“Really. This I got to see..... Bringing husband with you?”
“Maybe, if we work things out. We have some things to work out.” Her eyes were filled with a longing that deserved some serious sister conversing, but maybe later they could talk about it. “We’re trying to work it out. We’re taking it one day at a time.”
“Sounds good to me.” Sitting on the floor near her old Ninteen-Inch Sony TV, she flipped her long fingers through the pile of tapes and spread them on the floor contemplating the rest of the movies they had rented from Hollywood Vidoe Love Jones, Love and Basketball, Best Man, Coffy, I’m Gonna Git You Sucker and Waiting to Exhale were on the list today and were going to be seen, even if that meant Joie had to spend the night. She shoved them near Joie as her short stubby legs got twisted and she almost fell on her wide butt which her ex-boyfriend called “like rubbing a baby’s ass”. She stood straight up with a serious look in her eyes noting that Joie had a grin placed on her face and she rubbed on the center of her bottom. “Don’t even laugh!” Softly giggling she instructed, “Start a movie, girl - any movie! I’mma pop some Act II real quick! And please don’t put in Best Man. We already seen that shit too many times!”
While Nandi walked into her small but efficient kitchen and Joie heard the snap and crackle of the popcorn, a date popped again in Joie’s head: September 30th. It was a date that caused her pain and she couldn’t erase any agony away and seeing Issac walking in her door last night reminded her that she needed to purge this secret. It was nearly eating her alive. Not telling it. It was just one of those things that she totally regretted.
Her eyes were awash with the memories like it was branded in her brain forever. A tear escaped her sad oval eyes as she remember a time. A time that she did something she would never forget.
It seemed so long ago....
It was a nice indian summer day and she had woke up at 5 am in the morning, went for a jog down to Foster Avenue beach, and cooled down with Pilates. Issac was sleeping in the bed and she recalled how sweet his eyes looked, how wonderful it felt to be connected to him, and the happiness that was in her soul when she mused on him being in her life. There was no breakfast that day. The doctor told her not to eat a thing.
She couldn’t eat a thing anyway. Her body kept rejecting food for days leading up to her appointment. She just wished she had told Siah or Nandi to come with her but she had to do this by herself.
To boost her little ego, she had showered, then vigorously scrubbed her body with Mango Body Scrub from The Body Shop. Then she prepared an outfit to bring out her beauty.. a short white wife beater that hugged her upper body like a cup and Phat Farm denim blue jeans that were almost like her second skin and topped it off with her white and red New Balance athletic shoes When she looked in the mirror she smiled at her bright brown eyes, flawless makeup, perfect french roll but she felt hollow inside. She pat her chunky stomach which she had spent a few months hiding with stupid huge clothes in the summer before she had married Issac. A stupid glaze came over her happy face like a dog when he knows he’s about to get a treat. But she wasn’t about to get a treat. She was about to trick the whole world. Her whole world - Sandy, Issac, Siah, Nandi, Joe and everybody else. She was about to destroy a life.
Grabbed her bag and kissed her husband like she was going to work, but instead of taking the 147 to the loop, she had taken the Red line train at 8: 00 am from the Berwyn station to Jackson/State where she snuck to the library for a few hours. She loved being at Harold Washington Library. It was a second home. Where she could curl up to a book real quick and hide in the safe arms of the library. She would normally be crawling her way up to the 14th floor in the 200 N. Michigan Building but today was a day that she needed to read some Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, and Sonya Sanchez. It was the day she was going to kill the baby inside her body.
Her doctor’s appointment was kind of late, like mid-afternoon, so she stole a few hours at the library, cramped up on the 8th floor, in a comfortable chair where she read a few volumes of poetry and then at noon met up with her mother for a quick lunch date at the Daley Center to see a local choir perform. Lord knew she needed a uplifting.
She never did tell her mom a thing. Acted like everything was okay. They enjoyed the performance by the Orr High School Choir and Sandy went back to home to the south side, while Joie walked around aimlessly between Bath and Body Works store, Old Navy, Marshall Field’s and stole a few hours at Border’s on Randolph and Michigan.
As people walked by she smiled to herself but felt something in her dying.
At 3 pm, she began her long track to the Women’s Clinic at 55 E. Washington and gritted her teeth as nervous sweat set in. She felt like a fraud when she noticed happy women coming with their children and she knew she was about to kill her own child.
It was time to go to say good bye to a life that she and Pharell had created and when she touched her stomach for one last time she prayed. She prayed that she had learned her lesson. She just had hoped God could forgive her because she was having a hard time believing she was a murderer. But she was.
And when she laid down in the quiet room filled with steel machines and all kinds of medical gadgets, opened her shaky legs that she had problems keeping still, and closed her bloodshot eyes, all she saw was the disapproval of Sandy, the upturned lips of Nandi, and the shocked look of Issac. Even though it was all in her head, she knew her family would be so disappointed and especially since she had just gotten married to a man they didn’t know. If they really knew the “super-diva!” was in a doctor’s office not even sure if the baby she was carrying was her ex-lover’s, would they really want her around? Would they really support her?
No, she didn’t think so.
And that is why she never told anyone the truth about September 30th . It was a date that only she and God knew about.
And she was going to keep it that way.
She shoved the thoughts out of her mind when Nandi entered the room with the buttery smells of fresh popcorn and stopped her bruising of her own soul as she grabbed a small bowl and began munching from the huge green plastic bowl she had given Nandi last Kwanzaa as the movie started. She grabbed her green plastic cup and sipped on her Tropical Punch Koolaid. She uneasily laughed as she tried to erase the heavy thoughts. It wasn’t that easy to erase her negativity but she knew she had to let it go. She was a pro at that, after all didn’t she have a great teacher of that - Momma knew how to let it go. She knew how to move on. If she could survive her heartbreak after daddy left, then so could Joie.
There was nothing she could do but smile at her sister who loved her and hope and pray she could keep her little marriage together. She had to at least try.
(c) 2004 Pam Osbey
