Read Online Bebe Moore Campbell by 72 Hour Hold - Free Book Online

people remained on the bottom it was because they wanted to be there. He’d adopted this philosophy after he learned there was money in conservative politics. Now he had a syndicated radio show from which he broadcast his right-wing sentiments during drive time, Monday through Friday. The talk show, his books and speaking engagements, not to mention his very public anti-affirmative-action campaign, had made Clyde popular and rich. Or unpopular and rich, depending on your party affiliation. Clyde had switched parties, switched streams, and was off course, as far as I was concerned. He was a man with a hole in his soul.
    Trina giggled. “Dad pulled me aside and he was like, ‘So, do you and Melody hang out together? I mean, she’s a lot older than you, isn’t she?’ ”
    “What did you tell him?”
    “I was like, ‘Dad, we don’t hang out, per se. We just go to Crazy School together.’ You should have seen his face, Mom. Anyway, they were both nice to her. They didn’t act stuck up or anything, even when she started speaking Ebonics.”
    “It’s a miracle,” I said. Trina made a face. “Mom, you shouldn’t stay mad just because you and Daddy broke up before he got rich.”
    Before Daddy got rich. The transformation occurred after two failed businesses and reasonable success with a third. Just a chance encounter made all the difference. He’d run into a fellow alum. Coffee and conversation followed. Then came lots of cocktail parties with people who frightened me. An invitation to work on a political campaign followed. Keep an open mind; there are rewards, the fellow told him when he balked. Don’t do it, I advised. But Clyde’s mind had already opened. Something else had closed. Soon I was another thing he’d outgrown.
    “I’m not mad,” I said, and Trina rolled her eyes.
    We were waiting at the corner light. Beyond Trina, on a sidewalk strip of lawn, stood a lemon tree, filled with blossoms. I rolled down the window and took a deep breath. I’d once read that lemon was the strongest of all flavors, not curry or chocolate or coffee. Plain old lemon, which grew anywhere there was warm dirt, could overpower all other tastes. The red light faded to green. Just before driving off, I spotted a heart and two sets of initials carved into the tree trunk. Below them was a hole, the size that a bullet might make.
    Trina was quiet during the ride to the shop and stayed in my office, flipping through a magazine, until we closed. The phone was ringing as I drove into my garage, and by the time I got inside there was a message on my answering machine:
This is Mattie. Please come to the meeting
tonight. Gloria and I want to see you. Milton, too.
    The dinner with Marie, Brooke, and Nichelle was on my kitchen calendar. Old friends. New friends. Old life. New life. I called Marie, who had already come by the store, bought the shoes, and reconfirmed our dinner date, hoping she wouldn’t be at home. But she answered the phone, listening politely as I explained quickly that I wouldn’t be able to go to dinner. Something had come up.
    “We really wanted to see you,” she said.
    If my mind had been clearer, maybe I would have addressed the hurt trickling through Marie’s statement. As it was, I was mostly concerned with getting off the phone. “Oh, we’ll get together, girl.”
    “No, we won’t.”
    “This is just a very busy time for me.”
    “We’re all busy.”
    Eyes shut, I visualized Marie, Brooke, and Nichelle, eating in some restaurant, laughing about nothing at all. They’d be talking about casual things, even when they brought up their children. I still couldn’t say Trina’s name without holding my breath. We had been very close once, bonded women. Soon, Trina would recover, catch up, resume her life. When she got back to normal, all the way back, when the bad days faded like ink in the sun and God handed me my freedom papers, then I’d go to dinner with Marie, Brooke, and Nichelle. Then I’d be