“Sure, we’re always looking to diversify our investments.”
“That’s what I can help you with. Land-use planning.”
He scoots his chair next to mine. “And when you don’t agree with the board’s decisions, Telisha — if, say, we go condos instead of historic preservation — you’re cool with that?”
“No. But I’m an adult. And a professional. And believe me, as a city planner, I’m used to losing. As you say, Dallas is a mess.”
“I’m glad we could talk.” He touches my shoulder lightly. “I’ll get the wine. And how about dinner Thursday? I’d like to hear more. You know, how you’d define the job.”
The man knows how to smile. And how to wear his shirts. “Thursday’s good,” I say.
We meet at the River Café, and before I know it we’ve emptied a bottle of pinot gris. He hasn’t officially offered me a job, and I have no clue whether he’s really interested in my ideas. I tell him I’d like a chance, with the help of a corporate benefactor, perhaps, to explore the marshlands near Kwako’s place, see if the city’s running sewer lines out there, and if not, if it might. I’d like to study the possibility of mild grading and leveling, to facilitate sheet-drainage.
“What’s in it for E-Future?”
We kick around investment alternatives: housing projects, shopping parks.
He worries that we’re getting too far afield from the company’s Internet core. Abruptly, he switches subjects, lightens the mood. He tells me about an avant-garde play he saw once in Dallas. He lusted for the white actress. “She was droning on and on in a deliberate monotone, but I didn’t care. ‘God, she’s beautiful,’ I thought, ‘I could watch her all night.’ But, in fact, after twenty grating minutes, I thought, ‘God, how long will it take her to die?’”
I fear I’ve lost my shot at the job — before I’ve even decided if I want it — but from time to time he circles back to my suggestions. I’m convinced, finally, that he is taking me seriously and is simply trying to balance business with amiability.
After the plates are cleared, and we’re sipping amaretto, he says, “So. Is it a stretch for you to trust a black conservative?”
“Still being candid? I don’t have a lot of experience with people like you.”
“You really want to live in Freedmen’s Town?”
“I don’t know. It’s where I grew up. After my mama died … I just … I needed to see it again.”
“Doesn’t Ariyeh work at the school there, where all those kids went missing? The janitor or some crazy — ”
“Yes.” The drink tickles my throat, a pleasing burn. “They’re saying he once tried to talk the city into opening separate schools for black boys. Ariyeh told me this. He felt they were straying, all of them, a whole generation — they needed tough love, hard work. A boot camp kind of deal was the only way to save them. When his proposals were rejected, something in him snapped — ”
“Ah, the famous snap.”
“—and he went around like the Axeman, ‘eradicating’—his word — the community’s ‘evil.’” Surprised at myself, I pull a Kleenex from my purse. Dab my eyes.
“Telisha?”
“I’m sorry. Those missing kids just …”
He takes my hand.
“Shut me up.” I try to laugh.
“No, it’s all right.”
“How could he hate his own people so much … despise those poor kids … I don’t want to believe my mother felt even a smidgen of that kind of hatred — of Houston, of me, but maybe, on some level, she did …”
“How does it go? ‘Love is a struggle … no, love is a battle, love is a war, love is a growing up. No one in the world knows love more than the American Negro.’”
I blow my nose. “James Baldwin,” I say.
“One of my favorites.”
“Truly.” I push my empty glass away. “No experience with a man like you. A CEO quoting James Baldwin?”
“Would you like to come work for me?”
“Am I really needed?”
“You’re really needed.”
“Too far afield? On the fringes of your mission?”
“As I say, I trust my intuition. I know I can use your skills.”
I feel my face flush. Another benefir of the tumble with Rue: I actually feel attractive now. And someone has noticed.
“I’ll get you home now,” Rufus says and picks up the tab.
Outside Some Other Time, with the parked car purring, he leans over to kiss my cheek. I touch his earring, the half-moon slope of his ear. “Business and pleasure,” I say. “I don’t think — ”
He moves away. “You’re right.”
“Not yet, anyway. Okay?”
He smiles.
“I have a lot to think about. But thank you.”
“Two weeks? Can you let me know by then?”
“Two weeks.”
“Good.”
“Rufus?”
“Yes?”
“Are you married?”
A long belly laugh. “No.”
“Just checking all the parameters.”
“As a solid professional should. It’s been a pleasure, Telisha. See you soon, I hope.”
“Good night.”
Once he’s gone, I stand for a while listening to crickets, watching the moon rise; its milky light, through low, ropy willow limbs, casts braided patterns on the sidewalks. On the stairs, inside, I’m startled by a young soldier. No. He’s no ghost. Just a kid dropping dexies, wearing a faded old army shirt — the kind you can get in a secondhand store.
Stuck with duct tape to my door, a torn piece of notebook paper, “Rue” scrawled in runny blue ink. That’s all. I suppose I’m to understand he’s mad at me for not sitting and pining for him. I crumple the paper, stuff it into my pocket.
Blouse, pants, hose — I take them off and lay them all on the bed, wash my face and arms and chest. A baby cries down the hall, then drops into a hurt-dog whimper. Three or four others take up the call. I weave to the window, a little drunk, watch nothing move in the moonlight.
A knock at the door. Jesus. Rue? “Who is it?” I throw on some clothes.
“The night manager, ma’am. Sorry to disturb you.”
I slip back the chain. A skinny kid, identical to the afternoon Star Trek freak. “You just got a phone message.” He hands me a Post-it note:
Ariyeh.
Bitter — Med Center — Emergency
My face goes numb. So. It’s finally happened. “I see.” A drop of saliva slides from my lip to my chin; I’m too slow to catch it. “Thank you.”
“No problem. You have a good evening, now.” As he ambles down the hall, he snaps his fingers to a tune in his head.
I turn back inside. The room is just as I left it, which somehow surprises me. Dirty, almost empty; except for my suitcase and a few scattered clothes, no sign that anyone sleeps here. I wipe my mouth, grab my keys, and head for the hospital.
18
THE DOCTOR smells the wine on my breath. He frowns, turns away. Ariyeh watches me closely. Behind a closed pink curtain we sit in a lemon-colored cubicle just off the emergency room. Bitter’s propped on a gurney, on blocky blue pillows. His shirt is open, tossed to the sides like discarded wrapping paper. Rubber pads, the size of clam shells, cover his chest. Wires connect them to an EKG machine. The doctor, who resembles a chubby Humphrey Bogart, has fed Bitter a couple of nitroglycerin pills. The chest pains have eased, Uncle says, but now he complains of a headache.
“You say he refused an angiogram once before?” the doctor asks Ariyeh, writing on a fat yellow notepad.