A Sunday Kind of Love

I guess you can call it dumb luck, if luck is what you really want to call it. But luck for me is never like it is in the movies. No, my kind of luck happened to me on a day when I decided to go to a fast food restaurant for a five dollar meal. I was standing in front of the register when one of the machines started malfunctioning. A rather large employee walked over and tried to fix it as best he could. You could tell that this was an ongoing issue as he was getting agitated and just started hitting and shaking it.

Then suddenly he punched the machine and a piece of it flung out and struck me in the eye. The manager tried to reassure me that I would be ok and offered me a bag of ice and a lifetime of free meals. He really tried to avoid the matter from getting out of hand, but they eventually had to call for an ambulance. The local news channel caught wind of what happened and had their news vans parked right outside, I was all over the news later that night. In the end I had to undergo eye surgery and actually lost about 5% of my eye sight.

Fortunately my sister, Simone, happened to work for a prestigious law firm. She pulled some strings and got me connected to one of the best accident lawyers in town, a cut throat lawyer named William DeVoe III. He got them to settle out of court for 7.5 million dollars, for permanent injury and pain and suffering. After attorney fees I was looking at roughly 5 million dollars in my bank account. I guess having one good eye was starting to look pretty damn good.

After the settlement it seemed like every cousin and distant relative I knew or never met suddenly knew where I lived or had my phone number. All that publicity I was getting, all it did was paint a large bullseye on my back. I was tired of all the nonsense and needed to get away. I called Simone and told her to pack her traveling bags and come over to help me pack mine. She got so excited, she hung up before I could even tell her where we were going.

I was ready to do more than just get away for a few days. As long as I was here and folks knew of my settlement, this house would just be a revolving door of nonstop handouts. I was actually thinking about selling our home. It didn’t feel right to even be thinking about it, there were so many memories, but of all my childhood memories, the fondest were of my mama dancing.

When mama was in one of her moods she would take out her old record player and put on some of her favorite jazz records. Her favorite was Etta James, A Sunday Kind of Love. I knew every time she played that particular song, she was missing someone. Mama would dance like no one was in the room watching, unafraid and perfectly shameless, dancing with memories only she knew.

I was young but somehow I knew mama wasn't always dancing alone. I always wondered who mama was dancing with, I remember asking her once. Mama looked at me startled for noticing, but she just took my hand and said she was waiting to dance with me. Grandma told me later not to ask her that question again. I figured I would when I got older, but I never got the chance.

Mama died fairly young. She was only 44 when she had a sudden brain aneurysm in her sleep. I was the one who found her in her bed, unresponsive. I was 15. Our grandmother cared for us after her funeral, but she would die a few years later. She left this house to my sister and me and yet here I was thinking about selling it.

When Simone finally arrived, she came to the house with a smile on her face and a Loui Vuitton bag in each hand.

“Traveling a little light there, don’t you think?” I asked.

“I figured there’d be shopping malls where we’re going, right?” she replied “So where we going? I can hardly wait!”

I wanted to find out more about mama, I was curious about the life she left behind to raise us. I may not have understood when I was young, but when I got older I began to realize that mama was dancing with our father. Mama couldn’t erase him from her memory, so she made sure he would never enter ours. That never felt right with me and grandma always told us, “It’s never too late to make things right.”

We were in the middle of packing my things when Simone wandered into mama’s room. She found that I left mama’s room the way she had it. The only thing I did was empty out her closet, and put everything she had into moving boxes and put them in the basement with the rest of her belongings.

“Well I see you cleaned out her closet at least,” she sighed, changing the subject. “Where did you put all her stuff, in the basement?”

Before I knew it, we were bringing all of mom’s boxes up to the house from the basement and started going through mama’s old things. We found things we’ve never seen before, pictures, letters, poetry, mama’s dance costumes and stage jewelry, and hidden under a very fine silk scarf, was a fancy gift box. I got Simone’s attention and showed it to her.

We eagerly sat down to open it and found an old newspaper clipping. It was an article about a new jazz club that had just opened up in Harlem and there was a picture of mama right in front, striking a pose with a band. I took a close look and thought I recognized one of the members. He looked familiar, but I couldn't quite make out his face, the focus was mainly on mama.

I noticed under the clipping was a blanket of tissue paper. I pulled the tissue back and underneath was a little black notebook. It was made of soft leather and had a dark, red ribbon for a bookmark attached to it. I opened it slowly, half expecting for mama to walk in the room and fuss at us for going through her personal things. The book had so many pages filled with different things, lists of names and numbers, and addresses. There were even pages where it looked like she was keeping a record of people who owed her money. Next to every number, were letters, like someone’s initials. Confused, I showed Simone the book and asked her to take a look. She set down the newspaper clipping and glanced over it.

“What do you think all of these numbers are?” I asked her.

After flipping through some of its pages, her eyes grew wide and her jaw dropped a bit.

“Girl, this is a ledger book! It looks like mama was running numbers!”

“No she wasn’t,” I said in disbelief. Mama was a dancer. I couldn’t see her running numbers for anyone.

“Look”, she explained, “All of these letters are initials, these numbers are their bets and how much money they either won or owed. She probably didn’t write anyone’s name for privacy matters or protection in case someone found or stole her book. If they did, they wouldn’t really know who anyone was.”

This book may have opened up the path to discovering all of mama’s secrets including who our father was. I knew what I needed to do. We could use the book to track him down and find out who and where he might be, and if he was even still alive. I just needed Simone to get on board, she was convinced that our father abandoned us and didn’t want anything to do with him. After some time of pleading and making a few promises of exotic trips, she finally agreed to come along.

As I continued to look through mama’s book, I kept noticing the same initials over and over. L.W., R.S., C.R., and M.R. The only name written in the book besides mama’s and a few family members, was someone by the name of Lorraine Williams. I figured that was who L.W. stood for, her address was the closest to home; she lived in Los Angeles. We decided to visit her first.

The plane ride from San Francisco to LA was a tumultuous one. I actually felt a little motion sickness, but it was mostly just my nerves. My mind was racing. What were we going to say once we got there? What if we were making a mistake?

“I can’t believe you got us flying in coach!” my sister complained, interrupting my flow of thought. “Girl, you could afford first class tickets now!”

“It’s an hour flight Simone, relax.”

“I’m trying to relax, but you got me sitting next to stinky Joe over here.”

I shook my head. “It just would have been a waste of money.”

Simone gave me the, “are you kidding me” look. “Really Nelly?”, she asked, “Girl, you gotta learn to live a little. We spend all our lives working just so we can live comfortably or sometimes paycheck to paycheck. That ain’t living, that’s surviving. And guess what? You don’t have to do that anymore. Besides, if there’s anybody who deserves to be sitting in first class right now, it’s us!”.

I didn’t think about it that way, so when we got off the plane and went to rent our car, I decided to try a little something more extravagant. I called a transportation service and arranged for a chauffeur to escort us around.

When our car pulled up, I handed the driver the address to our destination. We were escorted to a peaceful cul de sac in the West Hollywood Hills. Our driver stopped in front of a two story home, with a huge front yard and a silver Mercedes Benz parked in the driveway.

We walked up the driveway to the front door, but I suddenly turned nervous and couldn’t even bring myself to ring the doorbell. Simone just rolled her eyes and muttered, “Girl, I can’t with you.”

She rang the doorbell and waited a few seconds before ringing it again. A middle aged woman with a slender build answered the door. She saw Simone first and then turned her gaze to me. She looked taken aback a bit and gave me a quick look up and down. Then her face hardened and her body shifted.

“Can I help you?” She asked.

“Yes”, I answered, “Hello, my name is Natalie Hughes and this is my sister Simone. We were hoping to find Ms. Lorraine Williams. We’re the daughters of Ms. Nadine Hughes. We were hoping maybe she knew her?”

“Well, I’m Lorraine and no, I can’t say that I know anyone by that name.”

“Well, your name and address are in her book. She has your initials written on several of the pages.”

“What book?”

I pulled out mama’s notebook and showed her what I was referring to. She looked at the book and became increasingly agitated.

“This looks like a number’s book. You’re here to collect a debt or something?”

“No, that’s not why we’re here!” Simone snapped, clearly annoyed by this woman’s tone. “Our mother is deceased. We're here to see if you knew her and to see if you could possibly help us find our father.”

Lorraine scoffed, “Well honey, I didn't know your mother. I don’t know how my name ended up in her little black book, and I certainly can’t help you find your father. And just because my initials happen to be L.W., that doesn’t mean it was me.”

“We were just trying to look for some answers.” I said calmly.

“Well you won’t find any here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to need the two of you to get off my property.” And just like that she stepped back and slammed the door.

Simone’s neck nearly snapped back in two.

“No this heffa did not just slam the door in our faces like that!” she exclaimed.

“Simone, let it go. Let’s just go.” I grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the door.

She was lying, I saw how she looked at me. Something about me disturbed her, and that’s what triggered that nasty attitude. Simone probably missed it, but I didn’t. I could tell we weren’t going to get anything from her.

We called our Aunt Diane and asked her about the book. She confirmed for us what Simone had already figured out, mama really was running numbers.

“Your mama and her notebooks. She just kept these records for Madame Rose.”she explained.

“Madame Rose? Is that who M.R. was”? I asked.

“I believe so. Madame Rose, was the one who owned that jazz club in New York your mama danced for. The money she made dancing wasn’t enough to pay all her expenses, so she ended up running numbers to make ends meet.”

Then she told us about a man named Carl Rivers, Madame Rose’s right hand man. She said we might find him in New York.

There were several addresses in the book from New York some had phone numbers listed. The next day Simone and I divided up the numbers and addresses and started making phone calls. After an hour or two Simone perked up.

“I think I got something”, she said. She showed me the address and handed me the phone. “Here, you talk to her.”

The voice on the other end sounded young but mature. She was very sweet and explained to me she was in fact the daughter of Carl Rivers and that he still resided in New York, but in the state penitentiary where he was serving a life sentence. I was excited that we were getting closer to finding our father, but I was not looking forward to visiting anyone behind bars to do it.

“Where to now?” Simone inquired.

“Looks like New York.” I replied.

We flew into New York in the early morning and arrived at the state penitentiary midafternoon. Simone wasn’t feeling up to going in with me. She said it was too much like going back to work, and she wasn’t ready for that yet.

After the long check in, I was brought into a room guarded by two officers. I sat on the other side of the window waiting for Mr. Rivers to enter the room.

When the guard opened the door, a man of medium height and a lean build walked through. He was nothing like I was expecting him to be. He was about in his 60's, fair skin with piercing blue eyes, and shoulder length gray hair he had pulled back in a ponytail. He walked calmly over to his seat and slowly sat down, then he sat back in his chair and gave me a look like he was trying to figure me out. I almost lost my nerve to speak when he picked up the phone and gestured for me to do the same. I held the phone up to my ear and found my voice.

“Hello Mr. Rivers. My name is Natalie Hughes. I spoke with your daughter, Nicole, a few days ago. She told me you were here. I hope you don’t mind me coming.”

“No, not at all love,” he said. His voice was raspy but surprisingly kind.

“Yes, that’s right.” I started to tell him about mama’s little black book and before I knew it, I started to tell this perfect stranger my whole life story. He listened attentively the entire time and never interrupted me once. When I finally got to the part of how I ended up in front of him, he just smiled and nodded.

“You look just like him.” he said.

“Like who?”

“Your daddy.”

My heart dropped, “You knew him?”

“I was the one who introduced him to your mama.”

“So you knew my mom too.”

“I was sorry to hear of her passing. She was a good woman, sharp and beautiful, and one hell of a dancer.”

I smiled trying to hold back tears, but they still managed to escape my eyes.

“How did you know my father?”

“He’s my brother, or half-brother but I never called him that.”

And just as I told him my story, it was his turn to tell me his. He explained to me that L.W. was actually Lester Woods, who they called Rim Shot. He was the LW/RS in mama’s book and he was in the picture in the newspaper clipping with mom. Dad was the drummer in the band that used to play in Madame Rose’s jazz club. Mama used to work with Carl and he introduced her to him. It was love at first sight for both, but as Carl explained, my dad was known as a ladies man and was never good at making the best decisions. He didn’t tell mama right away that he was already married to a woman named, Lorraine Williams and that they had two children together.

He wouldn’t tell her that news until after he learned mama was pregnant with me. When he did, mama was so upset and embarrassed that she left New York and went back home. Lester tracked her down and begged for her forgiveness. He promised he’d divorce Lorraine as soon as he was able, but when he got ready to make the move Lorraine told him she was pregnant. He wasn’t even sure the baby was his, but he told Nadine he couldn’t leave her yet. Mama had had enough of his games, and this time around she left him for good.

“How did you learn about mama’s passing?” I asked him.

“Your daddy told me, he even went to her funeral.” He replied.

Suddenly I remembered the face from the newspaper clipping. It was him! He was at mama’s funeral. We saw each other but he had this strange look on his face. I remember looking for grandma so I could ask her if she knew who he was, but he was gone by the time I found her.

“Daddy was at mama’s funeral and he saw me, so why didn’t he say anything?” I asked.

“He saw your sister.”

“ I don’t understand.”

“Nadine never told your father she was pregnant when she left. He told me he saw you and was going to speak to you but then he saw your sister. He did the math and figured that she could be his, but he didn’t want to ask right then and there. It was your mother’s funeral, he didn’t feel like it was the right time.”

I tried to make sense of how dad even knew about mama’s passing if she never told anyone about him. Then it dawned on me who did, “It's never too late to make things right”. Grandma told him, mama must have told her about him.

“Mama’s been gone for 13 years. Why hasn't he come to see us yet?”

Carl's eyes softened, the solemn expression on his face said it all. I didn’t want to hear him say it, but I knew I had to.

“Lester’s dead love. He died in a car accident about a year after your mother’s funeral.”

I couldn’t believe what I just heard, it was all too much. Our time ended and it was time for me to go. We concluded our conversation with a promise that we’d keep in touch and that we’d look after his baby girl, Nicole.

“It was nice to meet you Mr. Rivers.”

“You can call me Uncle Carl, love.”

“You know, Uncle Carl, according to mama’s book, you owed her $25 dollars.”

“Really? I thought I paid her that back.” he said with a wink.

My head was still swirling with everything our Uncle just told me. When I got to the car, I told Simone everything I had learned. We were both emotionally exhausted from our travels and definitely deserved a nice get away to take some time to digress. I made a promise to Simone that we’d travel to exotic places, so I let her choose our next destination.

A few days later, we were on a plane in our first class seats to Fiji. The flight this time around was more relaxing and less turbulent and although our adventures didn’t end the way I had hoped, I had finally gotten closure on what really happened between mama and daddy. Learning about mama and how she lived her life fearlessly, inspired me to do the same. I decided not to sell the house, but there was no need for me to go back to living there. I was ready to move on and start dancing with a few new memories of my own.