Life and Other Love Songs by Anissa Gray

Author:Anissa Gray [Gray, Anissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

Deborah

1978

The Wiz was all Trinity could talk about, so when the show came around in the spring of 1978, we decided to make a night of it. After we got through the Fisher Theatre’s golden doors and settled in our seats, Oz leaned over me and told Trinity, “One time, me and your mama saw the Supremes here.”

“Uh-huh,” Trinity said, with the couldn’t care less tone of the preteen she was. She was huddled close together with her friend, Virginia, the little redheaded, green-eyed girl who’d come over from across the street the day we moved in. Virginia had a strange way of looking at adults without breaking eye contact—I don’t think the girl blinked at all—and she’d introduced Trinity to hamsters and guinea pigs, which I didn’t appreciate. But I was happy Trinity had her.

Still, friend or no friend, I worried. Trinity was alone in that neighborhood and that school. I was reminded of that every time she came home with questions like, “What’s a porch monkey?” Oz said she’d grow a thick skin, but I didn’t want my child to have to harden herself in order to go to school or just exist in the world.

Oz tapped my shoulder. “When were we here last? Sixty-eight? Sixty-nine?”

“Sixty-eight,” I said, shifting in my seat and feeling the whole mood of the night shift with that question. That had been a full decade ago, back when I just knew I’d be a star. Had time gotten away from me that fast?

In the lobby at intermission, Oz gave a history lesson on the Fisher Building and its architecture, which put me in the mind of a real fancy cathedral with its arches and sophisticated paintings on the ceiling. “It was built in 1928 . . .” he read, straight from the brochure, while Trinity and Virginia sipped ginger ales, a special grown-up drink we’d let them have for the occasion. I took a swig of my tonic water. I was careful about drinking when I was out with Oz. He was noticing too much. I gazed around the crowded lobby, looking at nothing in particular, but my eyes caught on a familiar face. I stared for a second. I was pretty sure . . .

I tugged on Oz’s sleeve. “I think that’s Mary over there.”

He glanced up from the brochure. “Who?”

“From my old group!”

I’d only seen Mary a couple times since she moved out East with Lloyd. She was leaning against a marble column, talking to another woman. When she saw me waving from across the room, there was half a tick of hesitation before she recognized me. I had a little pixie cut now, which was shorter than I’d ever worn my hair before, but I otherwise looked like myself. Me and Mary met in the middle of the lobby and threw ourselves into each other’s arms, but careful not to spill our drinks. I found myself for a few seconds paying more attention to Mary’s drink than to her. She was holding a glass of bourbon, neat.

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