“What’s the matter?”
“How are we, Florida?”
“What?”
“How are we? You and me?”
“We’re OK.”
“I mean, really?”
She eased out of my arms and raised up on one elbow. I couldn’t see her features clearly in the dark. “We’re how we’ve always been.”
“And how is that?”
“You’re not going to get complicated.”
“Maybe.”
“We haven’t been together that long.”
“Long enough for me.”
“The cliche is women are the ones who always want to get married.”
“I didn’t say anything about getting married.”
“But if we get serious, that’s what you mean?”
“I guess so.”
“Every guy I’ve dated has been ready to put a ring on my finger, Hap. A few dates, especially if they get a piece of ass, they want to tie the knot.”
“I don’t want to hear about that part… dating. Is that what we’re doing?”
“Yes, we’re dating. We’re fucking too, but that’s sometimes part of dating.”
“I thought we made love.”
“Oh, Hap. Don’t get technical.”
“Fucking’s technical. Making love is the same as the flow of a river. A cloud in the sky.”
“Where in hell did you get that shit?”
“I think the big-cheese monk on Kung Fu said it to Grasshopper. Ever watch that? David Carradine didn’t know kung fu from shit.”
“Before my time. I’m twenty-nine.”
“No shit?”
“You think I look older?”
“No. I just thought you were older. Lawyer and all.”
“See, Hap, way it works, some of us go to high school, get out, go to college, and in my case, law school, then go right into gainful employment. Some of us.”
“Is there a hidden slight in that?”
“Some. Hap, I like you. I like you a lot. You’re funny. You’re a decent guy. You’re not bad looking, and you make love beautifully. But you don’t strike me as a secure bet.”
“You’re boiling it down to financial prospects. What happened to love?”
“I’m not in love – hear me, completely. But I could be. In love, I mean. But…”
“But what?”
“My mother married for love. My father married to be mothered. After I was born, he decided he’d work when he wanted to. He had a college education, Hap. He was smart. He was a sweet man. But my mother ended up working and supporting him and me both, and every now and then, the time of year was right, he’d work at a pecan orchard over by Winona. He liked to make just enough for a six-pack or two before he came home. I love my father. But my mother was miserable. Is love worth that?”
“Who says I’m going to lay around with my feet propped up watching TV reruns while drinking six-packs of beer?”
“What’s your profession, Hap?”
“I do field work most of the time.”
“That’s not a profession. That’s a temporary job. Or should be. You’re in your forties, correct? And right now you’re living off Leonard-”
“He lived off me for a while. Hey, listen. I pay my bills. I tote my load. I’m not your father.”
“Maybe you aren’t. But I like ambition. I like someone who gets up in the morning and has a purpose. A real purpose. I have one. I want whoever I love to have one.”
“I always look forward to breakfast.”
“You dodge behind jokes too much too.”
“And you don’t listen to your heart enough.”
“My heart isn’t as smart as my head, Hap. And who says I can’t find someone I love who has ambition and purpose? For that matter, maybe my heart isn’t telling me what you want it to hear.”
“I’m not without ambition. I’ve just been temporarily derailed, that’s all. Something will come along-”
“That’s exactly what I mean, Hap. You’re waiting for luck. Waiting to win the lottery. Waiting for something wonderful to show up on the doorstep. You’re not out there trying to make anything happen.”
“I’ve got enough money for now.”
“For now. And it’s not money, I tell you. It’s purpose. Ambition. You’d rather coast.”
“And maybe it looks bad for a beautiful black lawyer to have a rose field worker for a husband too. And I’m white. Let’s throw that turd out and dissect it. Not once since we’ve been…dating, as you call it, have we gone out together. Really out. You come here or out to my place, and we eat here and go to bed and make love, and then in the morning you leave. You don’t want to go to a movie with me, out to dinner, because someone might see you with a white man.”
She rolled over on her back and looked at the ceiling. She pulled the sheet up tight under her chin. “I never said anything other than I had problems with it.”
“So it boils down to I’m white, I’m lazy, I don’t have money, and I could have a better job.”
“That makes it all sound so harsh. I don’t mean it that way. Not exactly. If those things really bothered me, I wouldn’t be here.” Florida rolled over and put her arm around me. “Are you really in love with me, Hap, or are you in love with being in love?”
I thought that over. I said, “You’re right. I’m pushing things. Maybe I just been lonely too long, like the Young Rascals song.”
“Who?”
“Before your time. Like Kung Fu.”
“Do you want me to go?” she asked.
“In this rain?”
“Do you want me to go in the morning and not come back?”
“Of course not.”
We lay quietly for a while. Then she said: “Hap, even though I’m a racist castrating bitch that wants you to be better than you are, wants you to do something with your life besides be a knockabout, do you think you could find it in your heart, in your itty-bitty white man’s dick, to get a hard-on for me? In other words, want to fuck?”
I rolled up against her, kissed her forehead, her nose, and finally her lips. She reached down and touched me.
“Is that your answer?” she said.
“Sure,” I said. “I have no shame.”
19.
In the gray morning I awoke to the smell of Florida’s perfume and the dent her head had made in her pillow. I had not heard her leave. It was still raining.
After breakfast, Leonard and I went to work on the subflooring, our hammering not much louder than the pounding of the rain on the roof.
We worked off and on until about suppertime. Then the rain quit and so did we. We locked up and took
