By the time we secured the dinghy and I’d turned down Mike’s dinner invite, it was approaching five o’clock. I drove straight to Jeannie’s to pick up Solange.
XVI
When I pulled Lightnin’ into Jeannie’s yard, I saw B.J.’s black El Camino parked on the far side of her van. I had hoped to just grab Solange and take off for Mambo Racine’s, so this was an unwelcome complication.
I saw him through the screen door when I reached the top of the landing. He was sitting on the couch talking to Jeannie, and in the few seconds before I knocked, when neither of them knew I was there, I watched him. He still gave me that shivery feeling—the way his biceps stretched the fabric of his white T-shirt as he raised his arm, his brown thighs showing beneath his khaki cargo shorts. His back was angled toward the door, and I could see his sleek black ponytail and his neck hairs pulled up into that rubber band. I had a sudden urge to kiss him right there, on his neck, just behind his ear.
I shook my head and knocked.
He was smiling when he unlocked the screen door. “We were just talking about you,” he said.
“Great,” I said as I walked through the door. “Hi, Jeannie. I came to pick up Solange.”
“Hey. I think taking that girl up to some Voodoo lady is nuts, but I can see you’ve got your stubborn heart set on it.” She rocked back and forth a couple of times to build momentum and then lifted her bulk up into a standing position. “I’ll go get her ready. It’ll take me fifteen minutes or so. She’s not dressed.”
I had the distinct feeling that she was giving B.J. time to talk to me.
“I wanted to see you,” he said. “I felt bad about the way we left things yesterday.”
“Listen, B.J., I really don’t have time to get into this now. I’m supposed to have this kid at Racine’s by seven, and I’ve just been on this ridiculous dinghy trip with Mike.” I was still in a bad mood from the conversation with Joe.
“What dinghy trip?”
“I was trying to find out something about my dad. It’s hard to explain. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
We sat in silence for a while then, the only sounds in the room those of the wall clock ticking and, through the screen, the city sounds of traffic and sirens and the far-off music of an ice cream truck.
B.J. took a deep breath. “Sey, I know what it’s like to hear stories about your father. Stories are all I’ve ever had about my dad.”
I knew that B.J. had been raised by a single mother in Southern California and that he had absolutely adored her. She’d died when he was only a few years out of graduate school. It was then that he abandoned the corporate lifestyle, moved to Florida, and started working as a boat carpenter. He rarely talked about his life before Florida, only occasionally letting loose with little tidbits.
“Even though I never met my dad, by his very absence, he played a part in my life. I would imagine he was this very powerful man, and it was the people around him who were preventing him from ever coming to visit his son. When I was in high school, my mother told me that he came from a wealthy Hawaiian family. He had been slumming in Southern California before going back to school up at Berkeley. She was seventeen and dancing in a Polynesian restaurant, and when he found out she was pregnant, he offered her fifty thousand dollars to get an abortion. She refused, he left, and that was the last she ever heard of him.”
“I’m sorry, B.J.”
“Don’t be. I had the greatest mom. No complaints. I just know that I want the chance to do the fatherhood thing right. Sey, being a family doesn’t have to mean polyester clothes and a minivan. Look at me. I was raised in women’s dressing rooms in a handful of Polynesian restaurants.”
I rolled my eyes. “That explains a lot.”
His mouth spread wide, showing his incredibly white teeth. “So I love women. But Sey, of all the women I have known, I’ve never felt like this. I miss you when you’re not there. I’ve never ever missed anyone before.” He took my hand.
Jeannie appeared in the hallway with Solange at her side, and she clutched at her chest and gasped. “Oh, my God. He didn’t propose to you, did he?”
I pulled my hand back and stood up. “Of course not, Jeannie. B.J.? Propose? You’ve got to be kidding. The man loves women. Plural. He’ll probably have a new girlfriend by the end of the week.”
The street where Max and Racine lived looked even less inviting in the dark than it had in the daylight. I was acutely aware of how little protection the Jeep’s soft top afforded us as I rounded the corner and began peering down the unlit street, trying to recognize the cinder-block house that was set so far back from the street.
Jeannie and I had argued before I’d climbed into the Jeep, after B.J. had smiled sadly and left the house. I hadn’t been nice to him. He deserved better than that. Jeannie told me all that and then some, and I knew she was right. Then she called me irresponsible for taking a child into Collier City after dark to see some kind of Voodoo priestess. When she put it that way, it did become difficult to defend. Then I thought of B.J.’s words on the topic, how he had explained it to me the other night, and I tried to tell Jeannie that she needed to step out of her middle-class American point of view and accept the fact that there were alternative religions, alternative ways of healing. She looked like she wanted to slap some sense into me. It had all sounded so much more convincing when B.J. said it.
It wasn’t the house I spotted finally, but rather the number of cars parked in front of the house. What had been a wide, empty dirt yard was now covered with a varied collection of cars, everything from huge sport utility vehicles with dark tinted windows to older-model sedans and shiny new imports.
I parked the Jeep close to the street, so as not to get blocked in by any late arrivals. Solange was sitting up, her eyes open, but she took no more interest in these surroundings than she had taken in me or anything back at Jeannie’s house. She simply stared ahead as though she had retreated to some place deep inside. I helped her out of the car and held her hand as we walked to the door.
Still a few feet from the front door, I hesitated. The front porch was dark, but colored lights behind the house illuminated the branches of the huge strangler fig tree. Loud island drumming and the sound of people laughing and talking drifted over the top of the house, intensifying the stillness in the front yard. I felt like a voyeur about to peep through a window.
I leaned down, closer to Solange’s face, concentrating, trying to see her features in the darkness. “Solange, I wish you’d help me out here, kid. Is this right? I’ve got to find somebody who can help you.” As usual, she showed no reaction. “Do you want to go in? I want to help you, but you probably know more about what’s going on here than I do.”
Nothing. She stared straight ahead. I had no idea if she could hear me or understand me. I didn’t know what else to do, so I took her small hand in both of mine, squeezed it, and walked forward.
Max opened the door. He was wearing a formal black suit and black bow tie. “Bon soir! Bienvenue! I am so glad you have come, both of you.” He bent down and peered into Solange’s face. “This is your young friend?”
“Her name is Solange.”
He said something to her in Creole, which I didn’t understand, and for all the reaction he got out of her, it was as though she didn’t understand, either. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he looked at me again. “She will be fine,” he said. “Ne t’inquiet pas. Don’t worry. Mambo Racine will take care of the child.”
Max led us through the house, and when we stepped into the backyard, it was like stepping into another world. All my senses were immediately under direct assault. At least fifty people stood around the yard, clustered in groups, talking, drinking, laughing. No one turned or paid any attention to us. The women all wore scarves on their heads, and most wore bright, colorful dresses, although a few were dressed entirely in white. Many of the men wore their work clothes, while others were dressed in white with red sash-like belts.