Feather had been mad at me for making Bonnie leave our house. She identified with Bonnie’s broken heart and her need for love in her life. Now she felt guilty about going to the wedding and angrier still that I would feel betrayed about her going.
I was her father. I never felt pain or weakness. I never got tired or brokenhearted. I was invulnerable and could therefore hear her anger without danger of being hurt.
But the moment that sound came from me, Feather understood the pain that had been festering inside me, the pain I had never shared with her.
She put her arms around me and said, “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, honey,” I said in constricted little words. “I know you love both of us. I know I was wrong. You do whatever you feel is right, and I will love you no matter what.”
“Mr. Rawlins,” Easter Dawn said, running from Feather’s room. “I have all the dolls set up for you to see.”
IT TOOK ME ALMOST an hour to get dressed for dinner. I closed my door and sat on the bed, trying to will myself into normalcy. Feather’s words had cut so deeply that I couldn’t even think of a place that wasn’t filled with hurt.
Deciding on a pair of socks took me five minutes; putting them on took ten.
FEATHER AND E.D. kissed me good-bye at the door. My daughter looked at me, feeling for the first time what it was like to be in my mind. It was a curse I wouldn’t have wished on my worst enemy.
14
On the drive to Brentan’s, I tried to imagine myself at Bonnie’s wedding. I got stuck on what color and kind of suit to wear. I knew that I would never be able to go, but I wanted to
I parked on the street and climbed out of my car. It was 7:48 by the gold-and-copper Grumbacher watch on my wrist.
A police car was passing by. The cops slowed down and stared out their window at me. Me: dark as the approaching night, tall, in shape enough for one good round with a journeyman light heavyweight, dressed in a deep gray suit that fit me at least as well as the English language.
The car slowed down to three miles an hour, and the pale faces wondered if they should roust me.
I stood up straight and stared back at them.
They hesitated, exchanged a few words, and then sped off. Maybe it was close to the end of the shift for them, or maybe they realized that I was a citizen of the United States of America. Probably, though, some real crime had come in over the radio and they didn’t have the leisure to bring me under their control.
In the first-floor lobby, another white guard, this one tall and lanky, came up to me.
“May I help you, sir?” he asked.
Manners before insults. Little blessings.
“Goin’ up to the twenty-third floor to grab a bite,” I replied.
“Do you have a reservation?”
“Is the pope Catholic?”
“What?”
I walked past him to the express elevator door. I pressed the button, conflicted about whether I wanted the guard to come over to me so that I could break his jaw, or just to be left alone.
The car came and the doors slid open. The guard was nowhere in my vicinity.
ANOTHER WHITE WOMAN in a lovely gown adorned the podium. The dress was scarlet, and her face contained the beauty of youth. It was full, with green eyes and a nose that stood out like a petite lever on a whole world of laughter.
When the woman-child saw me, the potential for laughter dimmed a little.
“Yes?” she asked, giving me only her insincere smile.
“Rawlins for dinner for two at eight,” I said.
Without looking at the log in front of her, she asked, “Do you have a reservation?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
The pretty thing looked down and moved her finger around.
“Excuse me a moment,” she said very politely.
As she walked away, I lit up a cigarette. Jackson Blue had once told me that cigarette smoke constricts the veins and raises the blood pressure to a dangerous degree. But all I felt was calm. The smoke took off the sharp edge that I’d honed on the way to that restaurant.
A white couple came up behind me.
“Excuse me,” the tall white man said. He wore a tuxedo and had a white cashmere scarf around his neck. He was my age. She was twenty years younger, platinum from head to toe.
“It’s a line, man,” I said, no longer wanting to placate a world seemingly filled with my adversaries.
Hans Green arrived a minute or two after that. He was attended by the young scarlet-clad beauty. The man in the tuxedo went around me and said, “We’re here for our reservation.”
Hans turned to the hostess, saying, “Go change your clothes, Melinda.”
