Searching for Tina Turner Read online

  In the ten minutes between the pharmacy and home, Lena works herself into a state of disgust—with herself, with Candace. She swerves into her driveway and races up the stairs and into bed. The phone beside the bed calls out to her: pick me up, call Candace and offer an explanation, call Randall, beg for more time. Apologize? Instead, she reads. In the bed, across the bed, on the toilet, then back to bed, Lena reads about Tina’s ups and downs for the rest of the afternoon.

  What comes through Tina’s autobiography is the realization that she already had everything she needed for success inside. Tina thought about leaving for years, but she also thought—or so Lena interprets—that when you love someone you stay with them. Through good times and bad. Lena blesses herself with a small sign of the cross for the differences in their circumstances and because Randall has never treated her that way—but the emotions, the doubt and fear of the future, are similar.

  Maybe, she thinks, she should make a plan. Maybe she should get a yellow legal pad and a red pen and label two columns + / – like Randall does when he thinks through a decision. Like the night they decided, together, to buy this house. Like he did the night before his vote on the TIDA merger, Lena, his sounding board, next to him on the couch. What would she put in her columns? What does love have to do with anything? she reminds herself—he is far from perfect, but so is she. There is the mole on his left shoulder, his generosity, his love for Kendrick and Camille, how he doubles back to leave money by a sleeping homeless person’s side, the way he huffs when he exercises and talks nonsense in his sleep and used to reach for her and take her in his arms in the midst of a dream, how he cherishes Lulu as if she were his own mother. If these qualities all fall on the + side, why isn’t she happy? Or, was Candace right—are they the same?

  Lena shakes away the thought of any resemblance to Candace and imagines what her +/– list would look like.

  ++Camille and Kendrick; – Camille and Kendrick’s attitudes

  + Tina left at forty-five; – she is fifty-four

  + Tina had marketable talent; – her photography is pretty good

  + Tina fell out of love with Ike

  +/− She loves Randall

  Chapter 3

  The bedroom windows rattle lightly with the ba-boom, ba-boom of the surround-sound speakers. The system Randall had installed two floors beneath this one can be turned to a volume loud enough to make the walls of this fifty-year-old home shudder. She has no idea how long Kendrick has allowed the music to pound or why it needs to be so loud. On her left, the red planner beckons from the nightstand. The enrollment slip extends beyond its rounded edges. When she registered for the six o’clock class two months ago, she hoped that Randall’s attitude would mellow, and he would be happy that his wife wants to follow a dream that complements their life. Lena checks her watch: one hour to pull herself together and get to campus. A smile breaks across her face: one hour of lecture and two of lab. Oh!—the bitter smells of developer and fix.

  Dressed in the same sweatshirt and cotton pants that Candace criticized her for earlier, Lena gets out of bed and strolls to an armoire in the corner of the bedroom. Inside there are freshly pressed linens, her boxed wedding dress and Randall’s old tuxedo, Camille’s cotillion gown, and Kendrick’s first communion suit. Her old Pentax 35mm with manual controls, not the palm-sized digital she has used over the last couple of years to capture her family’s history, sits at the back of the top shelf.

  “Mother?” Camille pokes her head into the doorway. “What’s for dinner?”

  Tonight Lena’s excuse is valid. “Call Hunan City, Camille, and have them deliver. My photography class starts tonight.”

  “Starless, Mother.” Camille’s tone is matter of fact and insistent— use the name I’ve chosen, it says, not the one you gave me. No matter how hard Lena tries to accommodate Camille’s recent capriciousness, her younger child’s desire to change her given name is not easy to accept.

  “Mom, Starless.”

  Most days, Camille is cranky. Cranky and reclusive. How can she criticize her child for the very behavior she is guilty of? The discontent that started last fall continues. Lena longs for the two of them to be close again. Either way, come September, she’ll shed tears when she walks past the door of Camille’s disused room or when the clock’s hands sweep close to the normal hour her daughter would come home from school. For seven months Camille has been searching for answers. This new name, Starless, Camille told her parents, signified her preparation for college and separation from them. Her given name, she constantly reminds them, no longer reflects who she is. She is without a fixed point: one foot almost in college, one foot at home.

  Camera in hand, Lena kneels on the floor and unscrews the lens cap. She points the camera upward at Camille’s heart-shaped face, plays with the f-stop, and adjusts the shutter speed. Snap. Wind. Snap. Camille shrugs, seemingly equating the prospect of Lena’s class and the possibilities of Chinese food equally dull. Her resemblance to Lena, save for her demonstrative hands and round eyes, lessens each year. But still, Camille resembles Lulu’s side of the family more than Randall’s: small bones, an imperceptible smatter of freckles between her eyebrows, clear skin, and oversized teeth that fit well with her lips when she smiles.

  “I think I’ll puke if I have to eat Chinese food again.” Camille’s hint of a grin slips quickly to a pout. “You’ve hardly cooked since Dad left. Kendrick and I have to eat, too.”

  “I’ll rustle something up before I leave. Maybe I’ll bring back ice cream.”

  Camille turns her back and heads down the hall. “And I need cat litter.”

  The almost nine months since Randall gave her Kimchee on her birthday have made Camille more demanding, not responsible. Her room is a mess, and she rarely makes it to school on time. Tomorrow Lena will chauffeur Camille to the store because she refuses to learn how to drive and complains when she has to carry sacks of cat litter on the bus. Camille will take the two twenty-dollar bills Lena will hand her to buy cat litter and a few extra items for her pet, and perhaps wander beyond that store to buy something for herself. Lena will sit in the car and read about Tina while Camille considers which of the fourteen generic and specialty brands of cat litter is the best for her precious Kimchee.

  Ba-boom, ba-boom.

  “Kendrick!” If she could remember where her cell phone is, she would call Kendrick because she would have a better chance to reach him that way. Lena grabs two tall containers from her purse and jams them into her pocket. She walks down the staircase, a half-circle of seventeen regular and five pie-wedge stairs that end at the front hallway, and continues to a second, shorter, and straight flight that stops at the open door of the family room. “Turn that down, please.”

  Eight of Kendrick’s friends loll on the floor, the couch, and the recliner. They greet Lena in unison, while their eyes focus on the TV and two wrestlers in skimpy underwear entangled in the ring.

  “Chill, Moms. This is the no-nag zone.” Kendrick is at the door in two lengthy strides. His body is lanky like his father’s once was. He is tall, taller than Randall is now. He has his father’s thick curly hair, high and sunken cheekbones passed down from Choctaw ancestors, a narrow forehead. His large ears, his dimples, his smooth brown skin are his father’s. At twenty, his face is still like the boy who used to cry when he saw a dead bird or squirrel in the yard. “My friends want to stay for dinner.”

  Lena searches the corner of Kendrick’s eyes for their old impish crinkle. She can’t decide if he wants to impress his friends or shame her. His eyes are clear and brighter now than when he came home from college at the end of last semester, but they still lack spark.

  “I don’t have much time.” With a hasty glance at her watch, Lena takes a mental inventory of the freezer and pantry. “I’ve got a photography class tonight.”

  “Aw, Moms, nobody can teach you a thing. Your photographs are already great.” Kendrick stares at Lena with the look of a neglected puppy. “How’s about a little
soul food? Fried chicken, cornbread on the side, a sweet treat…”

  Eight sets of eyes peer at Lena as if to say, “We love your fried chicken, Mrs. Spencer.” As if their votes count.

  “Yeh, Moms, it’s been a while.”

  Lena checks her watch and calculates the twenty minutes it will take Kendrick to get to the grocery store, shop, and return home—if there isn’t any traffic, if the store isn’t crowded. She guestimates before she commits: “The first part of the class will probably be introductions and a review of the syllabus. I’ve got forty minutes, maybe an hour, max, if you leave for the store right now.”

  “Does that mean the vehicle thing is over?” Randall laid down the law when Kendrick came home. No driving until he had clearance from his parents and his doctor.

  “No.” Lena sighs. “I’ll go. But take the garbage cans to the bottom of the driveway. Now.” Lena purses her lips so that Kendrick understands she is in no mood to awaken at five tomorrow morning to drag the heavy containers from the backyard to the front of the house.

  “I’m watching the fight right now. Later, for sure.”

  What did her sister say when Lena complained how Camille, Kendrick, and even Randall forget to clean up, pick up, take out, bring in? When she fusses, and she always fusses, they complain, and they always complain that she fusses too much. It’s not the messes and the forgetfulness but the assumption that she will take care of it all. And she will. Bobbie said, “Get over it. That’s what Mother’s Day flowers are for.”

  She removes Kendrick’s medicine and a bottle of vitamins from her pocket and tosses them in his direction. Kendrick’s therapist believes in integrative medicine. Kendrick follows most of his instructions: support group on Mondays, therapy sessions on Wednesdays, and long runs.

  “You’re embarrassing me.” Kendrick drops his voice to a deep, quiet timbre and tucks the bottles into his pocket.

  “If you don’t do what I ask, you’re going to be even more embarrassed.”

  Kendrick steers Lena to the door like an impatient escort on the dance floor. “Just call us when the food is ready.” The door slams shut when she steps beyond the threshold. Behind the door, a voice mocks Lena in a high-pitched, falsetto: “Yeah, Kendrick, you’re going to be even more embarrassed when I kick your ass across this room.”

  In the kitchen, the granite counters are covered with the remains of Kendrick’s pantry raid: wrappers from two packages of Double-Stuf Oreos, empty, oversized potato chip and pretzel bags. The clock blinks 5:45 and Lena calculates her time: drive to the store, shop, wait in line, cook, clean up. A lone can of soda sits on the counter. Lena pops the top, sips, and scribbles a grocery list wishing all the time that she knew someone to call and find out what she missed in class.

  f f f

  When the last of the plates have been loaded into the dishwasher, Lena sets cookies on a saucer and covers them with a napkin. The kitchen still smells faintly of frying oil—another reason why she no longer cooks this way—and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. She saunters through the back hallway, stopping halfway through to shut the laundry room door on the heap of dirty clothes that will stay there until hours before the housekeeper comes. Thursday she will wash them and leave the clean clothes piled atop the dryer for the housekeeper to iron or fold. She ignores a dead bouquet of flowers on the antique table she found at a garage sale and the vase’s murky water and heads for the stairs.

  “Camille?”

  Camille has not made a sound since she emerged from her room to grab a hefty helping of chicken and cornbread. Kimchee mewls behind the bedroom door, and Lena thinks the cat might mean for her to stay away. “I mean, Starless. I have cookies.” Lena realizes, maybe for the first time, that her conversations with Camille through closed doors have become a metaphor for their relationship—another barrier to keep them from seeing eye to eye. “Can I come in?”

  A chair scrapes against the hardwood floor. Not once, but twice. Camille is not heavy footed, but Lena can tell from the abrasive sound that she has backed away from, not moved closer to, the door. So much for Camille’s promise to differentiate herself from friends who withdraw into their rooms and never talk to their parents. The door opens no more than five inches when Lena leans against it. Kimchee slides through the gap and trots down the hallway like he owns the house. Cookies tumble from the saucer when Camille dashes after her cat.

  Lena stifles a sneeze against the immediate tingling reaction that starts whenever she comes in contact with the furry feline. When Randall surprised Camille with the cat to motivate her, Lena had no idea she was allergic. No animals of any kind were part of her childhood household except for the summer night when she was eight and a neighbor’s cat dashed through a torn screen door and onto Lena’s bed. Her Grammie shrieked when she found the scraggly cat at Lena’s mouth. The incident was funny to Lena until Grammie warned there was nothing funny about dying young because a cat sucked away your breath.

  Kimchee jumps into Camille’s arms. Claws drag across Lena’s sweatshirt as Camille scoots past. She scowls with the face of the girl who changed from sweet to sour, once she turned fifteen; tension flits around them like a bothersome moth.

  “Please try to control Kimchee, Starless.”

  “You’re the one who opened my door, Mother. Nobody else cares.”

  f f f

  Sleep comes faster when you read in the bed. That was Bobbie’s reasoning in the days they shared a bedroom, and Lena complained she couldn’t sleep with the light on. Lena splashes Drambuie into her only glass of the night and rubs her eyes. Beyond the open curtains, the trees are black silhouettes against the sky. The house is hushed and still. What worked for her big sister never worked for her. At nearly two in the morning, and near the end of Tina’s story, Lena is wide awake.

  “Let’s see what else you’ve got to say, Tina.” Without bothering to turn on the lights, Lena slinks down the hallway to her office. “I’ll take all the help I can get.” One flick of the push-button switch and lamplight blanches the desk and everything across it: neon-colored sticky reminders to call the handyman and pay those bills not automatically deducted from their checking account, twenty or thirty square and rectangular envelopes. Lena brushes aside the old mail: an invitation to an art gallery exhibit last weekend, another to a cocktail party the day after Randall left, a charity fashion show this weekend.

  Eyes closed, she tries to conjure up Tina’s Mediterranean blue, but all she sees is black. Once she had confidence like Tina. Before Randall’s schedule and his corporate social obligations, before the rush to and from soccer practices, sleepovers, dentist appointments, and drama lessons became what she did best; before her chores became more burden than blessing.

  A shallow drawer beneath the cherry wood top runs the length of the desk. Lena tips the lamp base, removes the key hidden underneath, and turns it in the brass lock. Inside an open cardboard box sits embossed letterhead and business cards. Lena Harrison Spencer, Photographer is printed in an elegant and simple type. The spiral-bound booklet beside the box opens easily to the first page: The Lena Harrison Spencer Gallery, A Business Plan, May 15, 1999. Her plan was written in hopes of bank approval on her father’s birthday—fifteen, her good luck number. The table of contents summarizes financial requirements, an implementation schedule and darkroom costs, possible mentors, and clientele from her former job at Oakland’s Public Information Office—contacts she wanted to make before they forgot what a capable director she was.

  Randall came home early that showery April day four years ago, excitement written all over his face. Lena stood at the bedroom window hoping the rain would stop so that she could get in a short run before dinner. The sound of his voice, from all the way downstairs, preceded his arrival. “We did it, Lena!” Once in the room, Randall swept her off her feet and spun her around until they were both dizzy. Camille and Kendrick ran into the bedroom, energized by the joyful commotion. Randall grabbed Camille; Lena grabbed Kendrick. Laughing and spin
ning, spinning and laughing.

  The four of them were infected with Randall’s news: they were in the presence of TIDA’s new executive vice president, worldwide operations, six-figure bonus, IPO options, possibilities of golden parachutes. Kendrick and Camille jumped around the room and chanted “IPO, IPO” like they understood what it meant.

  Before this promotion, when the dot-com building boom filled Silicon Valley, TIDA’s board of directors broke the mold and expanded northward from San Francisco to Novato. Randall spearheaded the Novato operations, putting him another step closer to running TIDA; neither he nor Lena felt he could turn down the offer, though the daily, almost eighty-mile roundtrip commute from Oakland would be wearing.

  For all of the talk and plans beforehand, Lena underestimated the impact of Randall’s worldwide operations appointment. In the beginning, for every day he was out of town, Randall called home. Five-minute conversations where business took a backseat to the ordinary details of their lives; enough time for “I love you” to all three of them and “I wish you were here” to Lena. No coaching Kendrick’s soccer team or boisterous applause in the middle of Camille’s solemn ballet recitals or input at teacher conferences; no banter, no repartee crisscrossing their dinner table, no middle-of-the-week dates. He couldn’t back Lena up when she disciplined Camille or control Kendrick’s defiance.

  Randall’s responsibilities increased. He worked. Hard. The bonus was that he returned to work in San Francisco, but in any given month, he stayed at least two nights in the corporate apartment in Novato. He traveled to their twelve national and international locations. He assembled a new staff, analyzed, brainstormed, strategized new company directions. He dabbled in golf; started smoking cigars and let himself be cajoled into joining the 95 percent white, male-only club on San Francisco’s Nob Hill—all to expand his connections, to expose him to the business powers that be. At TIDA, there were introductions to the board and other key players. Lena entertained executives in their home, gave dinner parties, and assured that Randall sat next to those who could further his career.