Love Is Proud Page 19

  “Everything is fine. I’ worked half a day today. I met with staff this morning, made some calls to line a profile I’m working on for next month’s issue, approved the galleries for this month’s issue, and then left around noon.”

  Audre took her hand and dropping her voice to a come-hither whisper said, “So here we are, alone. The kids are at school and not expected for another three hours. What are we to do?”

  Several things flashed through Octavia’s mind. Then she remembered the cake. She had left work early to bake Audre a cake.

  “Honey, so many things come to mind, but I left work early because I have some errands to run around town. I came home to grab some lunch before I headed out again.”

  Audre’s leonine features slowly adjusted from anticipation to acceptance, “Well, m’love, don’t let me keep you from heading out. I needed to prepare for court tomorrow anyway. Don’t forget it’s your turn to pick up dinner. I think I’m feeling Thai. I have heard good things about that place near Science and Math. Maybe you can swing by there. That is if your errands take you out that way.”

  “We’ll see,” Octavia said, watching Audre get up and walk out the kitchen. Watching her lover’s firm bottom caressed by her favorite burgundy silk blend pants exit her second favorite room in the house, Octavia felt a little aroused. Damn, my baby is fine, she thought. Then she remembered the task at hand.

  The brief time the bowl sat in the oven resulted in the ingredients baking into something that didn’t look at all appetizing or useful. Octavia tossed the mixture in the trash and considered her options. Inspiration hit after a few minutes and she pulled out her phone to check the whereabouts of the North Carolina Central University professor who gave birth to her. She would use her mother’s kitchen to make the cake. Grabbing her car keys, she headed out to the split-level house across town but first, she needed to buy eggs. She assumed her always mother could spare some poultry products, but didn’t want to take any chances.

  * * * *

  Fall had arrived just three days ago, but Durham temperatures lingered in the mid-eighties. Driving to the grocery store, Octavia reminisced about the Winston-Salem State University alumni mixer where she met the love of her life.

  It happened five years after her college graduation. She was newly single and living in Asheville, NC. All she wanted to do that homecoming weekend was to have fun with old friends. That is until she met the gaze of someone she’d probably passed several times as a college student but never noticed.

  Audre and Octavia attended the university within a year of each other, but their college experiences had been vastly different. During her four years she served as the chapter president for her sorority, editor of the school newspaper, and represented her dorm as part of the homecoming court in her junior year. Audre spent her four years primarily in the library studying, working a part-time job to help pay for college, and volunteering in the community.

  They came from different backgrounds and had followed different professional paths. Still, when their eyes connected across the ballroom floor each swore later they felt a connection neither had experienced before. Audre usually swore she could still hear the song that played in the background when they had their first conversation. Even today, “Percolator” by Cajmere brought a smile to her face.

  Twelve years later there were three children, two cars, and a pit bull terrier named Shaky Van Struddel.

  Octavia pulled into a parking lot to get ingredients to make her lover a red velvet cake for no other reason that simply to show her love. She clicked her car alarm and strode toward the store’s entrance with light steps.

  “Sister Banfield, it is always so good to see you. I was just asking your mother about you when I saw her at conference last month,” the former football player turned God’s mouthpiece boomed at Octavia, blocking her path into the store.

  “Reverend,” Octavia said curtly. Amazing, she thought, how quickly a good mood can be destroyed by a series of words from a jackass.

  “How have you been? You know the church’s newsletter hasn’t been the same since you stopped coming. I hope you would consider coming back.”

  “I’m sure. But as I said in the letter withdrawing my church membership and as I will say to you now, I refuse to worship in a setting that does not acknowledge my family or accepts me as being as much a child of God as the person sitting next to me. I can’t force anyone to believe the way I do, but I can decide how and where I worship. Now if you will excuse me, I have some shopping to do,” Octavia said tartly while maneuvering her cart around the stunned and silent pastor.

  She was fuming as she picked up eggs, wine, and a few other grocery items. Octavia had withdrawn her membership from Gethsemane Baptist months before, yet she still carried around the sting of the betrayal of the church community whom she felt had turned their backs on her.

  Earlier in the year, North Carolina’s state legislature and governor pushed through a measure which caused a massive wave of outrage throughout the state and country. Known by two initials and a number, the bill became known primarily for defining how people used the bathroom. It forced the transgender community to go into a restroom that corresponded to the gender listed on their birth certificate rather the gender which they felt reflected their true self.

  The Sunday following its passage, the pastor said such blatantly ignorant things about the LGBTQ community, Octavia and her daughters felt compelled to walk out. That afternoon she sent a letter to the church clerk withdrawing her membership and had not looked back.

  Octavia realized, while walking around the store, she wasn’t so much angry at the pastor but rather betrayed by those in the congregations who “Amened” his words of hate and distrust.

  More than two decades after she accepted her sexuality, she still struggled with how people had such a hard time dealing with members of the LGBTQ community.

  She truly felt there was so much more important stuff to worry about beyond whom and how people choose to love. Octavia often wondered about the point of protesting pride events, trying to limit someone’s ability to work, get married, or raise a family.

  Love was stronger than almost any other emotion and when done properly, inspired people to greater and higher heights. It led people to create works of arts, build businesses and homes from the ground up, and make the sacrifice of bringing another life into the world.

  It even led people to work half a day to make their lover their favorite dessert for no other reason than to say, “You make me happy so I want to make you happy.”

  No matter what some people may think about gays and lesbians having the ability to use the bathroom, get married, or do anything else most “normal” people do without question, you really can’t fault someone for doing something strictly for the sake of showing how much they love the other person, she thought while paying for her items. Smiling back at the cashier with the black buzz cut whose touch seemed to linger when she gave her the change, she thought, All you gay haters are just going to have to suck it. We aren’t going anywhere.

  Octavia walked out of the grocery store in a better frame of mind than when she walked in. She even felt upbeat enough to sing along with the Nina Simone song playing on the car stereo as she turned down the street leading to her mother’s house. Pulling up behind the sapphire colored Volvo she smiled as she caught sight of the buxom woman waving hello from the doorway.

  “Sunshine, it is so good to see you, but, I have to tell me I’m a bit confused why you are here,” her mother asked her after accepting Octavia’s hug. “Why aren’t you at work and what is wrong with your oven? I know Audre and you moved into that house just two years ago and I thought you said everything was new.”

  “My oven is fine. It’s just I took half the day off to make Audre a cake and she came home early. I wanted it to be a surprise so I need to use someone else kitchen.”

  Octavia read the confusion on her mother’s face, but knew she wouldn’t pepper her with questions. Ins
tead, she would engage in what may seem to be light-hearted conversation, but the real intent would be to gather information.

  “Oh, I see. Is there a special occasion for your desire to bake? It’s not her birthday, is it,” Navassa Watts asked, following Octavia into the kitchen.

  “No, there is no special reason. Just felt like doing something special. I mean, this is the first time in about a year that I think we are at a good place where we can breathe. The girls are all settled in their new school, the magazine is doing well, and Audre’s has settled in as a partner of the firm. It seems we have spent the past three years always in the middle of something. I just wanted to do something to mark the era of calm.”

  Octavia’s mother made a noise of understanding prior to biting into an apple from the fruit bowl on the kitchen table.

  “Well, the kitchen is yours. I haven’t done too much baking since your father died last year, but I’m sure the oven is in fine shape. That man really did enjoy my peach pie,” Navassa said, her voice drifting downward in sadness.

  Octavia felt herself tearing up as she thought about her father. Of all her siblings, she was the one that most resembled him and the only one of the five to follow in his journalistic footsteps. His death from a heart attack took everyone by surprise. Even now, she could still see traces of grief on her mother’s face.

  “I think Daddy loved anything you cooked, but your peach pie was definitely up there on the list. Someday you are going to let me have the recipe,” she said.

  “I plan to leave that to you in my will along with my pearls and your grandmother’s quilt,” Navassa said, smiling.

  Octavia measured the cake ingredients and responded, “Just don’t do like Aunt Ruby did when she died and left the brown dog recipe to Joy. She wrote down detailed instructions, but left out the one ingredient that made the whole thing come together.”

  “Honey, those brown dogs are just some jazzed up pralines Ruby created when they were rationing sugar and butter during the war. She always thought herself some great cook, but your great-aunt just knew how to improvise in the kitchen.”

  Chitchatting in the kitchen was a far cry to how the two interacted when she came out as a lesbian two years after her college graduation.

  For years, her sexuality was a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” situation. They never talked about who she dated and she never brought anyone home to visit. She never went so far to switch pronouns when talking about who she dated. She just didn’t acknowledge they existed.

  That changed with Audre. Since she lived in Durham when they met, Octavia thought it foolish to have her visit in Asheville all the time to avoid running into family and friends.

  The first few times Audre and she visited family were awkward. Her father, who mastered the art of conversation, would be lucky to dole out fifty words over a two-hour family dinner. Navassa, who still recalled the name of students she taught decades earlier, called Audre every A name possible for months. Her siblings tried to run interference between their parents and Octavia but their efforts were met with stony stares and conversation changes.

  The winter of her parents’ discontent about her lesbian relationship began to thaw when she moved back to Durham to be with Audre. It really melted when the two welcomed their twin daughters, nine years ago.

  It took a while, but her parents soon drew Audre closer into the family circle. Her father bonded with her lawyer to lawyer while her mother connected with Audre on a literary level. The two could go for hours talking about books they have read, books they were reading, and books they planned to read.

  “You know, Mommy, I can only hope Audre and I make it as long as Daddy and you. Forty-six years is nothing to sneeze at, especially in this day and age,” Octavia said, pouring a glass of iced tea for her mother and herself.

  “We had some hard patches, but we made it though. Back in those days, you didn’t see a lot of Hispanics marrying black people but we made it work. I think your grandmother had a fit when I brought your daddy home. Everything was good when she thought he was just light-skinned with really good hair, but baby, when he started talking and that Cuban accent came out, it was a whole different story,” Navassa said, chuckling. “People have problems when they see people together they don’t think should be together. Hell, I know I had no right to give you a hard time like I did when you told me you were you were gay, especially considering the grief your father and I caught.”

  “I understand. It wasn’t right how you acted but I’m glad you were able to come around.”

  “So have the two of you talked any more about making it legal and official?”

  “One of Audre’s sorority sisters is a minister and offered to do the ceremony for us,” Octavia said, looking over her shoulder at the clock to check how much the cake need to cook. “Since we did the ceremony in Boston a few years back and did all the legal paperwork here when we got back, half of me doesn’t think it’s necessary. I’m already a Banfield, so no need to travel over that bridge again just so I can wear a white dress and feed a lot of people at a reception.”

  “That’s true. Speaking of the reception, did you hear about Claudine’s reception at the church last month? They ran out of food and had to run to the Chicken Hut to get back-up. It was all people could talk about during service last week.”

  Octavia smiled and continued to gossip with her mother. She allowed the flicker of a thought about how some parts of the outside world may have a problem with her relationship. But for her, she was just a daughter talking to her mother about marriage and other mundane things while baking and frosting a cake.

  A whisper of time before five P.M. Octavia headed home to enjoy family time. Steering her car toward Broad Street to pick up dinner, Octavia noticed the rainbow flags in front of business and homes along her route.

  This weekend was NC State Pride and Audre and she planned to attend with their families. The day long festival held on Duke University campus served as a time for the LGBTQIA community to come together. Visitors from throughout the state came together to participate in the parade, listen to singers and speakers, and shop at various vendor stalls.

  Octavia reflected that even with the legislature fight, the homophobic feeling of church leaders, and some family and friends, being a gay black woman in North Carolina overall wasn’t that bad.

  No matter how many laws legislatures passed, they couldn’t change the way she felt about her wife. No matter how many churches moved to close their doors or preach hate, understanding and willingness to change still won out. Her mother, a proud deaconess of Mount Calvary Baptist Church was proof of that.

  All Octavia knew was that she loved her wife and her life and no matter what came, she was going to continue to live and love.

  Armed with an order of curry and pad Thai, she left the restaurant, excited about the night. While the red velvet cake promised to be a tasty treat for her Audre to enjoy, she was looking forward her wife to be her own sweet treat after they put the kids the bed. Backing out the parking lot, Octavia felt her mouth water as she imagined licking a different type of icing from her fingertips.

  * * * *

  ABOUT LA TOYA HANKINS

  La Toya Hankins is the author of SBF Seeking, and K-Rho: The Sweet Taste of Sisterhood. She currently resides in Durham, NC, and bestows her love and affection on her partner of three years, two cats, and a dog, when she is not bingeing on Bravo network shows. For more information, visit latoyahankins.com.

  The Last Goodbye by William Holden

  I never thought I’d be standing here without you by my side. I feel empty, helpless, and alone. I try to look ahead to the days, weeks, and months looming in the distance. All I see is darkness. There is no sun, no light, no smiles, or laughter. I walk into the blackness with my arms outstretched. I feel my way through as if I’m blind. I reach into the void where I hope to find your hand to guide me back to the life we once knew—and the love we once shared.

  We were good together. We stood
side by side regardless of what life threw at us. Our friends and family said we would never make it. They told us we were too young, and the odds were against us. We beat the odds and proved them wrong. Tomorrow we would have celebrated ten years together. Ten years of tears, laughter, and unconditional love.

  We were the Dynamic Duo, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Laurel and Hardy, and Ozzie and Harriet all rolled into one life—one love. It’s part of the reason why your leaving has thrown my life into a tailspin. We promised each other we would be together forever. I know this is going to sound corny, but I had always imagined we would walk off into the sunset together. Just the two of us, hand in hand. Our life won’t have a happy ending will it? Our hopes and plans lie around me in a million shattered parts. I want to pick up the sharp, jagged fragments of our life and somehow put all the pieces back together, but I can’t. The edges burn as they cut into me. I bleed from the pain and sorrow your departure has left. All I have now are the memories of what we once had.

  I remember the day we first met. The day is forever engraved into my memory. The visions of the life we once had are flooding me. They drown my mind and my heart with sadness and an unending pain. You were twenty, and I was twenty-two. We were on break from history class. You were digging through your pockets for some change to get a cup of coffee from the vending machine. You had a cigarette dangling from your lips. The embers smoldered as you searched your pockets. I had been watching you throughout the semester. Your long, dirty-blonde hair fell around your face and shoulders. You were always unshaven and had thin, dark whiskers. You wore the bad-boy image to perfection. Your toned and well-developed body stretched the fabric of your black T-shirts. You wore black every day of your life. Funny how things like that just became part of the backdrop of a person. I remember staring one time at your all black outfit and wondered if your underwear was also black. I later learned your obsession with black went as far as your boxer-briefs.

  When others would mention you they always referred to you as “the guy in black.” I don’t think anyone knew your name. Your ice-blue eyes seemed to pierce everything. We were complete opposites and the one reason I never talked to you. You scared me and thrilled me at the same time. I was the preppy one. The one with groomed black hair, clean-shaven and with a hint of Old Spice aftershave. My wardrobe consisted of dress shirts and sweaters, black dress slacks and dress shoes. I wasn’t scrawny but wasn’t by any means well-toned. Someone would have to scrutinize my body to find a noticeable muscle. You must have felt me staring at you that day because, for the first time, you spoke to me. You asked me if I had a dime. I dug into my pocket as I walked over to you. Our fingers touched when I handed to the dime. We lingered in the silence and in that split second, my life changed. I fell in love with and I never stopped loving you. I never will stop loving you.