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“You look beautiful, Lief. Breathtaking,” he said, his eyes smiling at her. Histwoeyes.
Motherfucker…
Through a sigh, Brooklyn said, “Thank you. I’m sure my mother does, too.”
He dropped the smile, and I had to wonder what was going on.
“Yes, well, I just wanted to let you know our Bailey is with Mrs. Mack. I’ll be retrieving her in the morning.”
Brooklyn shrugged. “I figured as much.”
“Okay, um…it was good to see you all,” Isaac said. “Have a grape evening!”
Grape?
“I need a damn drink,” Brooklyn mumbled as the man sauntered off.
“What you want? I’ll get it,” I said, sounding way too damn eager, but shit, I couldn’t help it.
She jerked her head around to face me, her brows knitted. “What?”
Lowering my voice because I felt eyes on us, I repeated, “What do you want to drink?”
Her eyes met mine. “I don’t know. Not this shit on the table. Something strong.”
I nodded. “I got you. Be right back.” Standing, I addressed the table, “I’m headed to the bar. Anyone else want something?”
I ended up with more requests than my two hands could handle, so Jovani accompanied me. I placed the order, including whiskey for myself, and was standing by the bar waiting when Jovani asked, “Something going on between you and Brooklyn?”
If I’d been drinking, I might’ve choked. “What?” I asked. “Why you ask that?”
“I can tell because I love your sister, and I’ll be damned if you don’t look at Brooklyn like you love her.”
“Ain’t nothing going on between us.”
“But you want something to be going on?” he asked.
I stared at him for a moment, turning his question over in my head. I knew the answer but wasn’t ready to admit it. Or maybe Iwasready.
“Hey,” he said, raising both his hands, “it ain’t my business so you don’t owe me an answer. I was just thinking; if something was going on, that’d be a good look for both of you. I know she’s got a past, but she’s good people from what I can tell. Sharla said she’s changed a lot.”
A past? Sharla hadn’t told me about this past. I had half a mind to ask him to elaborate, but the bartender called my name, and we gathered our drinks, heading back to the table without another word.
BROOKLYN
“Thank you,” I said as Vann handed me my drink, one of the specialty cocktails Sharla had designed for this event and named Alumni Punch. It was so fruity; I barely tasted the alcohol, but it didn’t take long for the phantom liquor content to cause warmth to spread all over my body. Consequently, the crippling sense of regret I always felt around Isaac eased and I relaxed a bit, having both the cocktail and a flute of champagne at my disposal on the table.
As the jazz quartet played with the undertone of voices buzzing in the room and people continued placing their silent bids, others traveled from table to table greeting old classmates and catching up on each other’s lives. I lost count of how many people visited our table to chat up Sharla and Vann with a few old band members greeting me. Nadia, whose table was one over from ours, came and hung out with us for a while, too. Then the MC was on onstage imploring everyone to take their seats as the program portion of the evening’s event commenced. That was when the real struggle began for me. In essence, the speeches and presentations that were characteristic of these types of affairs always bored me, so it made it hard to shut my thoughts off. Thoughts like,I wonder what my mother is wearing?Of course, I knew where Isaac’s table was and had been working overtime to avoid looking at it, but the curiosity was burning a hole in my brain now that the music and hum of activity was gone.
So, I poured more champagne and damn near downed it in one gulp. I could feel Vann’s concerned scrutiny but didn’t look at him. His presence was even less comforting than Isaac’s and my mother’s. I was fucking surrounded by heartbreak.
Needless to say, I was well on my way to being properly inebriated by the time Messiah took the stage, his long body covered in black slacks and a white dress shirt, gold chains gleaming against his muscled chest where the shirt was unbuttoned. He was lean and indisputably attractive with a voice of velvet. He opened with one of my favorite songs of his—Perfect, a tune about a love shared with his dream woman.
Barely holding on to my inhibitions at that point, I chair-danced to the music as others rushed to the tiny dance floor situated right in front of the stage. The women in the room were collectively losing it as he performed vocal somersaults during this sensual performance.
Following the opening song, he segued into a string of his hits as stage lights flashed and he moved smoothly from one side of the stage to the other. Then he took a break to talk to his audience, telling us how he loved Tennessee and what all HBCUs mean to him. He honored the legacy of Romey U and its founders, and then he said, “In honor of this school’s alumni, all the old heads in the building tonight, please allow me to take it back for a few minutes.”
I was so focused on him, I’d forgotten about the man sitting across the room with my mother and the man sitting next to me. That is, until the music began to play. A mid-tempo beat of bongos with soaring strings filled the ballroom as Messiah tapped his feet and nodded his head in perfect time with the rhythm until his distinct tenor floated over the music. He was singing Marvin Gaye’sI Want You.He wasn’t joking about taking it back. He’d taken it and me all the way back to my senior year of college, to the night of that year’s homecoming game, to me and Vann.
