The front of the white envelope had her name scribbled in purple ink. She had not noticed it before when she had first grabbed it from atop the pile of stamped mail, but now the more she stared, the more she could see that he had squeezed the letter ‘H’ between the ‘C’ and the ‘O,” as if he had forgotten how to spell her name.
As if he had already forgotten that first day -- make that night they had met -- he bartender, she drinker. He was fine. Too fine, her friend had said. But she couldn’t resist. They had smiled. Bobbed respective heads to the music supplied by the DJ. Flirted. Laughed. She had chair danced, while he moonwalked from one end of the bar to the other. Thrown back several colorful shots. And so, at the end of the evening, encouraged by her best friend and vodka, she had written her name and phone number on the teal cocktail napkin and placed it in his hand. She thought he would have at least waited until she was out of the door to unfold it, but as she gave him her back to put on her coat, and slid as gracefully as possible off the bar stool, she heard,
“Who spells Nicole with an ‘H’?”
“I do. The ‘h’ is silent,” she said, spinning back around and trying to glare and smile at the same time. He smiled back, wide and welcoming, and said:
“Well ok then, that’s different. I’m Terrance with an ‘A’ so I guess we fit.”
So, he knew. He definitely knew how to spell her name. It’s what made her special.
Now, as she stood in the middle of the living room staring at the bright purple ink and an ‘’H’ that couldn’t fit, she wasn’t sure which was worse: that he had obviously forgotten, or that he had tried to correct the mistake.
She shifted her focus, reached inside the envelope and counted the money for what felt like the hundredth time, but in reality was probably the eighth. As her fingers moved, she already knew that when she was done, there would be: 3 one hundred-dollar bills, 1 fifty, 3 twenties, 4 tens and 2 fives. $460. Total. Child support, she supposed. Couldn’t call it monthly because she hadn’t gotten any money from him in over 8 weeks. And what he’d finally given wouldn’t even cover daycare for two weeks.
Of course, he didn’t even have the decency to call first, to let her know the he was on his way, because if he had, then she would have made sure to be home. Would have made sure he saw his daughter and understood that she was not a fading gold-plated mail slot, but was instead a real, breathing, laughing, loving, and expensive as hell human being that was getting bigger and hungrier with each sunrise and sunset. And that his little $460 wasn’t shit once she invited him inside, poured him some ice water, told him to have a seat and then spread the bills across the table. Rent. ‘Lectric. Daycare. Dentist. Clothes. New shoes. College fund. Toys. Food.
She gripped the money with her right hand and stopped tears that she wouldn’t dare allow fall with her left. Simone, 22 months, sat at Nichole’s feet humming a low tune to herself or maybe to her imaginary friends. Nichole could never be sure. Her ears followed the melody downward and her eyes saw two undone ponytails, one pair of dirty jeans, a hungry belly, an unbathed body, an unread-to mind, and an untucked-in and unkissed child.
The humming stopped suddenly, and Simone babbled, “daddy, where daddy,” as if she could smell him in the dirty, worn/faded bills, or on the plain white envelope, or in the ridges of the slanted purple letters of the almost misspelled name. Nichole resisted the urge to say, “who the hell knows and, even more, who the hell cares,” or “with that ho” -the one that she had heard about too many times in urgent tones of “girl you won’t believe who he’s with now” so that she was properly equipped with hate by the time she saw them together on the street one Saturday night in the wee hours when he had told her he couldn’t take Simone because he was working.
“At work, Monie-love. Daddy’s working.”
“Work,” Simone repeated, as she added the word to her lexicon. And then she clapped her hands and shrieked out a laugh, forcing Nichole to put down her sadness and join her.
Nichole headed towards the kitchen and once inside the cramped space found that she was too tired to season a meat then cook it for an hour, prepare a starch, steam vegetables and warm rolls.
“Breakfast for dinner,” she called out mainly to the air.
As she cracked eggs into the bowl, put on water for the grits, set out a skillet for the bacon, the phone rang. Terrance’s face and ‘Baby Fava’ popped up on the screen.
“Yes?”
“Did you get it?”
“Hello to you too.”
“Yo. I’m bout to start my shift. Did you get it?”
“Get what?”
“Don’t play, Nichole.”
“Is that Nichole with or without the ‘h’?”
“Cool. So, you got it?
“Yeah. I got it. So, you don’t know how to spell my name now?”
“Look, I was rushing. Damn. My bad. Was it all right?
“No, and you know that. I been told you. I need more money and consistently. I swear if I had any sense at all I’d take your ass to court.”
“Look, you know I’m struggling right now.”
“And I’m what? An heiress or something? I live in a mansion now?”
“I’m trying to--”
“You ain’t tryna do shit,” her voice rose slightly. She stuck her head outside the kitchen door and saw that Simone was now having tea with her dolls and stuffed animals.
“Where’s Simone?”
“Why do you care?”
“Cause I don’t want her to hear you talking like that.”
“Boy, stop. Right now.”
“I’m serious. I don’t wanna have to--”
“Have to what? Come over here and actually see your child?”
“Yo. I been working some crazy ass shifts, and I been in the studio trying to get the band to--”
“Whatever Terrance.”
Silence. And she knew that he was now running his hand over his beard. That’s what he always did whenever they argued and he was in the wrong and had to pause, figure out the exact words to get him out of that corner. She would stand there with arms folded across her ample chest asking him why the hell he had come home with the sun, and he would stroke his beard for a few seconds. And then a jigsaw puzzle of words would tumble from his mouth. Fast.
Boss made him stay late and clean. Car trouble. Great jam session. Friend needed a lift. It was a cold night and he took ‘Joe, you know the homeless dude who’s always hanging around the bar, to the shelter. Jesus met him in the parking lot and wanted to sit a spell.
She could never catch every piece, all at once depriving her of the chance to take the time to put it all back together, stand back and see the complete picture. What was lie. What was truth.
And maybe if there had been time to put all the pieces together, she would have been able to see him in his entirety. Seen a man who lacked direction instead of what she had made him – a man trying to find his place in this world. Would have seen a 28-year-old, college graduate who strung together bartending and music gigs, not because of some artistic calling, but in order to avoid a suit and a cubicle. Or maybe to avoid the reality of trying and failing and then having to try again. Would have seen that he was a man who never said “no” to anything – not a woman, a drink, or a good after hours party. A man who had rubbed her belly while they were both covered by blankets and darkness and said that he would never do his seed the way his father had done him. Or hadn’t done for him, rather. He wouldn’t do it.
In a time of uncertainty, when Nichole vacillated between life and abortion, she had yearned to believe him. Believe that he would be there for his child and for her by extension. But she could not see, had not yet learned, was not ready to accept, that words spoken in the darkness are easy. It is actions in the light that are difficult.
This all talk man, who just today had the nerve to leave her $460 in a mail slot, now dared tell her to watch how she talked to her child. Their child. No, her child. His when it was convenient.
She chipped away at the silence.
“Simone is fine by the way.”
“Cool. I’ma come get her this Saturday.”
“What time?”
“Don’t know yet, still trying to figure out my schedule.”
“Ok then, I’ll try not to hold my breath.”
“Nichole.”
“Terrance.”
Each voice tight, a warning shot, daring the other to say something to set them off and explode. Terrance brokered the peace first.
“So, I’ll see y’all Saturday.”
“Ok then.”
She ended the phone call and remembered words her brain could never let her forget. Nichole’s Gramanda, as she called her, had known Nichole was pregnant before she told anyone. They had been on the front porch watching the season change when Gramanda had grabbed her hand and said:
“You know a baby won’t keep no man. Won’t make him love you neither.”
But what did she know?
***
There would be no more communication between them for the next three days. Saturday’s sun rose, birds chorused, lawns were mowed, clouds rolled, cars were washed, children’s tears wiped, and Friday’s paycheck spent on clothes and liquor. The day moved and Nichole moved with it, all the while waiting.
For anything. A phone call. A knock on the door. A text message. A carrier pigeon to bring her word that Terrance was on his way - he had just gotten held up at the gas station. Or the bank. Or his mama’s house. But there was no word from him. And she resigned herself to the reality, with every banal errand, from grocery shopping to shoe shopping, while observing Simone pirouette across the room, and while flouring and frying chicken wings for dinner.
The moon knocked the sun out of its place. Nichole’s sister picked up Simone. And Nichole squeezed her hips with the 15 pounds of baby weight she had never been able to lose, plus the “single mom” pounds she kept putting on, into some size 18, really should be 20, but she just couldn’t go up to that size, jeans and threw on a too-low cut top revealing breasts that were making its descent.
Nichole and her friend Tanya visited their favorite bars, partook in one too many shots, sobbed in glasses of tequila and vodka and whatever someone bought for them, about these men. These no-good men. Weekly war stories were traded. They revealed their scars. Pointed out their bruises. Picked at their scabs, never allowing them to heal.
“Girl, he had the nerve to leave me $460 the other day, you know, like he was doin’ somethin’.”
“Ha. That ain’t nothing. How about Derrick told Jaylynn he would come to his birthday party. And did his ass show? No. So, now I have to explain to J why his sorry excuse of a father didn’t come. But I can’t say that.”
“Right. Can’t make them look like they ain’t shit.”
“Supposed to let the kids figure that out on they own.”
A shared laugh. A shared heartbreak.
Once she and Tanya parted ways, Nichole found herself not just drunk off liquor and loneliness, but also a mere two blocks away from Terrance’s bar. Armed with rage and self-righteousness, Nichole stumbled all the way there. And there he was pouring, shaking, laughing, and there was that ho holding court at the end of the bar.
As Nichole stared at them through the window, she also saw her reflection – an ass that was too big, pants that were too tight, a shirt that clung around her belly its fabric pleading for mercy, eyebrows that were in serious need of waxing, and hair she had been too tired to comb and had thrown into a ponytail. What the mirror couldn’t show, past the clothes and the makeup, were the stretch marks that had lightened, but never disappeared, across her stomach, her thighs, her heart.
In the moments of intense concentration, she did not notice the man who had brushed passed her, opened the bar door, and was now calling out in her direction, “you coming in?”
And so, come in did. The room seemed to be moving from left to right, and so did her feet, causing her to step on the toes of everyone lined against the wall behind the bar stools. She didn’t bother with “excuse me,” just pressed her way to the bar and cut in front of a woman who was in mid drink order.
“It’s Saturday, mothafucka.”
This was her least used curse word. And so, she hoped that it had come out sounding authentic. Forceful. Hard.
“Nichole? Hell wrong with you?”
“Wrong with me? No, what’s wrong with you? Who the fuck says they are coming to get their child and then doesn’t fucking come?”
She could feel on her right-hand side, the woman who still had her money in her extended hand, whose lips immediately pursed when Nichole shouted first, was now backing away. The man sitting on the stool to her left was now scooting over. And Nichole rose to her tiptoes, lifted her body over the bar, and released a scream. A real, bonafied, scream.
In a perfect world, it would have shattered the glasses, caused the DJ to stop playing his music, and made the patrons run towards the exit. In the real world, it barely registered in a bar full of drunks occupied with the game on TV, the music, the chase of trying to take someone home for the night. And in Nichole’s world, the scream were her words. Her tired. Her alone. Her stressed. Her scared. And in need. Of money. Of time. Of love.
She could tell that he didn’t get it because he was still standing there, looking at her as if she were the one who had lost her mind. And in the mirror behind him she could see that ho had made her way towards her, was tapping Nichole on the shoulder like she was going to ask her if she were sure that all the bathroom stalls were taken. This chick with her “I’m down with the people” dreadlocks, her skinny-ass waist, hips that had never bore a child, perfect skin, and look of calm, was touching her goddamn shoulder.
Nichole’s hand clutched the nearest glass and threw until liquid was flying in Terrance’s direction. It was the shattered glass on the bar that made her fully aware of potential consequences. With a wet face and a crowd of people that was finally taking notice, he reached over the bar, tried to grab her wrists, but she was already backing away.
“You have lost your damn mind,” his voice rose higher than what was typically used to take orders and to sweet talk people who had just popped in for a drink into regulars. And then anger stomped across his face.
And then movement. Terrance sprinted from behind the bar and headed towards her direction. And Nichole, even too many drinks in, knew that she had broken the cardinal rule that you should never, ever, ever make a scene at a man’s job, and began to head toward the door. But by the time she arrived outside, he was at her back, his hands shaking her shoulders, turning her body around.
“The fuck, Nichole? My job, yo!”
“I didn’t mean--”
Her jumbled words were mixed with tears, and snot, and vodka. And the only coherent things that emerged “you promised, Saturday, you promised, you promised,” and, “it’s Nichole with an ‘h’, you should know that, you should know that” were repeated as she crumpled into his arms that had begun to widen in embrace. Once relaxed into his chest, she inhaled all of him. Hoping.
“I know,” was his refrain.
There had been other scenes between them in the past. There had been fights. And there had been begging. For him to come back home. To come make love to her. To come see his child.
But there had never been this. Weakness. Vulnerability.
The nerve, the courage, the space taken to breakdown.
Breaking down was for white women.
Sometime, somehow, during her sobs, Nichole’s back turned to the street, he had hailed a cab with one hand, while rubbing her back with the other. Once the wails became sniffles, Terrance took Nichole’s hand and led her toward the curb.
“1625 Spring Street NW,” he said, while handing the driver a wad of bills and easing her into the backseat.
“Terrance,” she whispered.
“Yeah, baby?”
“Why won’t you just be there for us?
“Look, I’ma do better. I promise. I will. I’ll be there. Next Saturday.”
“You promise?”
“I do.”
A closed door. A faded image. A distant scene. And Nichole, left alone again, leaned back into the seat cushion, now drunk off the promise of next Saturday.
Diana Veiga is a writer and storyteller. Her freelance writing work has been featured in various online sites including: For Harriet, The Root, and Very Smart Brothas. She was selected for the first class of the Kimbilio Fellowship for writers from the African Diaspora. Her short stories have been published in Politics and Proses' anthology, District Lines, Volumes 1 & 2. Diana is a Spelman woman, a DC resident, and DC Public Library employee.