Ada's Rules (31 page)

The ladies didn't speak English, and her mother didn't speak Spanish. Ada, who spoke a fair amount of Spanish, told the ladies to do what they thought they should do—and trusted Bird didn't have the Spanish to countermand her instructions. And there was also always the possibility Bird would sleep through the cleaners' visits.

That didn't happen. The first time that they went to the
lake, the time Ada went with them, to show them around the place and make the introductions that needed to be made, what happened was, the ladies saw stuff they needed, and Bird gave it to them.

“I didn't want it thrown away. Didn't say nothing about giving it to someone who needed it.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

“You welcome, Ada.”

Bird pulled the big doorknob ring from her finger. She pressed it into her daughter's hand.

“This one's real. Sell it. Hire somebody to clean out here. Tote this stuff away.”

“For real, Mama?”

“For real. Go get your man. You looking good, gal.”

And she was. Even before spa week got started.

THAT NIGHT MACEO, muttering about Buddy Bolden, died. He left Bird and Temple all his old suits and shoes. Left his old instruments to the W. O. Smith Music School. Left Ada his gold watch.

Bird sang “Welcome Table” at the funeral. It was the first time she had sung out of her house in a decade. Her house was too cluttered for the repast, so they had it at Ada's. Bird walked all around that house, asking for Ada, who was standing right beside her. After her mama left, Ada said, “I guess my mother's got her very own kind of diabetic retinopathy.”

The earth kept spinning, just like eighty-five-year-old Maceo would have wanted it to have done. Everybody at the wake said it: “Maceo would have wanted y'all to have a Big Time. Go on yo' trip, gal.”

Six days later, spa week was almost over. It was Saturday night. Preach was putting the final touches on the next morning's sermon. His bag was already packed and waiting in the front hall.

Ada had one thing left to do. She locked the bathroom door. From the back of her tampon drawer she pulled out a box of very special hair dye. She was a grown woman and proud of it. She wasn't waxing her privates bald as a prepubescent child, a porn star, or a 2009-era grown-twenty-five-year-old.

While Lucius put the final touches on his sermon, she put the final touches on her twat.

Thank God for Amazon. She hadn't had to go in anywhere and buy her box of Betty. She was going to get better hair down there. No gray. But first she had to use Bikini Nair on the stragglers.

First she took care of the sparse but distinct “happy trail,” the little hairs on her belly that led from her belly button to her private parts. Noting that none of those hairs were gray, she smiled at the perversity of aging bodies, squeezed on a little depilatory foam, set a timer, waited the suggested minutes, then wiped off the foam and the hair with a washcloth.

Lying on a beach towel spread across the bathroom tile, she repeated the process on her inner upper thighs, then stood at the mirror to inspect her work. It needed a bit of refinement. It was time for a little scissor work. Armed with a tiny pair from her new manicure kit, she trimmed her triangle, taking care to only touch the few that were clearly longer or straighter than the rest. She trimmed only the obstreperous.

She took a quick shower, washing her breasts with antibacterial soap. When she got out of the shower she took a tweezers to the five—three on one, two on the other—fine but dark hairs she believed distracted from the beauty of her breasts.

Her woman fur was halfway to looking great. She took a deep
breath. She wasn't doing Botox, she wasn't going under the scalpel. She was taking advantage of the fact he hadn't seen her down there in the clear light of day since the gray had sprouted.

Permanent dye. No washout color. You didn't want it coming off on his tongue. She ripped open the box and got started. Forty-five minutes later, she would be head-to-toe beautiful, and she would know it.

As she lay sprawled on her bathroom floor with her legs splayed, dark brown goo slathered between them, singing along to the Godfather of Soul, it was clear to God, and anyone else watching, for real and for sure: Ada loved her some Lucius.

She cranked up the James Brown. She laughed to think that an entire generation of rappers and rock stars had probably never seen a woman with any hair down there—and James Brown had probably seen his share of gray.

Whatever.
Lucius Howard liked a cute black thatch, and that's exactly the snatch Ada Howard was going to have.

Again, now.

SUNDAY IN THE South struts in, sun and chin up, colorfully loud church hats on, just after the low-down dark deliciousness of Saturday night creeps off.

The older Ada got, the more she liked the juxtaposition.

What she had originally loved best about belonging to an independent tabernacle instead of a “regular” Episcopal or Baptist or Methodist church was, she never knew what Preach was going to say or how the service would be shaped.

Over the years this had become less and less true. Living the week with Preach, she could usually predict the subject of his Sunday sermon. Preach rarely surprised Ada on Sunday at eleven.

It was Women's Day Sunday. This year Ada suspected Preach might talk about their daughters, Naomi and Ruth, or the young women of the church. Usually Women's Day is for talking about mothers and grandmothers and elder women icons like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer. Previous years Preach had talked about Queenie, had talked about Ada, had even talked about Bird. But Preach had
doodled the phrase
the power and the possibility and the promise
on his breakfast napkin, along with
gift
and
God's best gift
. That was the tip-off.

Ada knew God's best gift was babies, was children, so Ada knew what Preach was preaching about—daughters, young women.

Sidling into the front pew, pink church hat on her head, Ada felt good looking a little glamorous. In a twenty-year-old size-8 white brocade suit stretched tight across her butt with the help of Spanx, a girdle, God, and an itty-bit of seam-letting-out, Ada felt just a little like a bit of God's glory was giving her a Women's Day glow. If the back seam of the skirt didn't rip as she flopped down on her knees and prayed to prepare herself for the service, she would know God loved her.

She flopped. The skirt didn't rip. God loved her. She had been waiting a very long time for a clear sign. Now that she had it, she seized on it. She told God what she really wanted. It had been a long time coming, this telling. She wanted a little—sometime soon, please, if it wasn't asking too much—toe-curling Saturday night s-e-x, crazy, hot, married love, s-e-x that promised love without ending, adventure without fear, and gave good sense-rattling pleasure beyond knowing. She wanted her husband to have gone to the doctor, gotten the prescription, and gotten it filled.

Her prayer was interrupted by Bunny bringing her a corsage made out of orange Kleenex tissue flowers and a safety pin. Bunny beamed as Ada attached the flower to the lapel of her suit.

The church was full way before eleven o'clock. Mothers and grandmothers and beloved aunts and great-aunts and even sisters were surrounded by people who loved them. Three pews back, Bunny's mother was wearing five pink flowers pinned to the bosom of her dress. Eleven o'clock came. The choir sang. Preach was ensconced near the altar in the chair in which he always sat. As the church rolled into the first hymn, Preach nodded for the head usher's attention. After Preach whispered into his ear, and he gestured to his team, the ushers proceeded to pass the offering baskets during the hymn. It was a change from the usual. Some of the old heads and many of the young heads nodded their assent to Preach getting the money part out before he got to the worship.

Preach moved from his chair by the altar to the pulpit. He stood quietly in his pulpit, looking out at his congregation, for longer than anyone remembered him standing without saying a word. He seemed to be looking into the faces of the women. Drinking them in, nodding, smiling at the beauty. Then he stepped out of his pulpit, took off his robe with a flourish, and laid it on the altar, reminding Ada a little of a cross between James Brown and Father Divine. This time, when he looked out at the congregation, he looked straight at Ada. There was a look of surprise on her face as Preach walked back into his pulpit, displaying the plain gray suit beneath his preacher's robe.

“I have a confession to make. Due to the nature of this confession, it's a good thing my mama and my wife's mama don't come to church. It's Women's Day, and I didn't love my wife
last night. It's Women's Day, but I am standing here to tell you I have been unfaithful and idolatrous. The church is Christ's bride. And I have been acting like she was mine. God will take care of his church. God gave me Ada—and I have been cheating on her with you. And like a girlfriend, you, my church, tell me what I want to hear: that I'm a good preacher, a fine man, always there when you want me. Ada tells me what I need to hear. And sometimes she tells me without words. With her exhaustion I have refused to see and with her self-renovation I have refused to fully understand, I'm standing at a crossroads, see and understand, or lose Ada. Be a man, or lose Ada. This is Women's Day. I'm here to talk about something we don't talk about on Sunday morning at eleven. Saturday night. When a good man loves a good woman, God smiles. When a good man loves a good woman, God smiles so broad and bright that the angel guarding the gate to Eden puts down his fiery sword. I've been too busy to get to Eden. What kind of man is too busy to make God smile? I got things to do. You men out there, you know. You busy, too. You may be a truck driver or a teacher, or a doctor or a janitor or an electrician or a lawyer. That's what you call yourself. When God looks down and thinks about the work he put you on earth to do, he doesn't see truck driving or school teaching or doctoring or janitoring or lawyering or preaching. He sees lover! How many of you been too busy to take your woman to Eden as often as she might like to go? Man invented the car. Man invented the house. God made woman. God made man. But instead of prizing what God made, we prize what we made. Money in the bank. A promotion. A raise.
A boat. A trip. Now we got to work, but we got to know why we working—to serve our families, not to make ourselves the big shot. We got to 'umble ourselves in our work. Me first. Ushers, I want you to pass the collection plate. Again. I put my robe over there. Y'all can tell me if you want me to put it back on by what's in the basket. I can't be Ada's man, Ada's good man, without an assistant. We need forty thousand dollars for that. And I don't know whether you will give it or not. But I know this. I ain't above begging to do right for Ada. I don't care if y'all hate me, fire me, say I have embarrassed the church, or ruined Women's Day. I want you to know, God doesn't give a man anything more precious than a good woman. When I first came to this church, I said I would never pass the collection plate more than once a service. We gonna pass it three times today, and I don't care if nobody puts even a penny in it the second and third time it come round, 'cause it's not about the money we collect today. It's about me breaking my word to you so I can keep my word to God. When I married Ada, I gave my word to God that I would stand by Ada, would be her helpmate. The money I have not asked you for has come out of the too many times I left my woman alone, trying to do the job of two men, leaving responsibilities at home, Saturday-night responsibilities, neglected. Leaving Eden unentered. Leaving God's best gift to man, after grace, ignored. If God struck me down now, I would not be surprised. The gifts of God are for the people of God. When we love on the right woman, the right way, we are treasuring what the good Lord gave us. We are giving thanks and praise for creation. And the best of that is women, starting with the mamas who bore us, and the good
women they were when they lay down with our fathers, like Eve lay down with Adam. I will not be cheating on this woman no more. I have bought myself a second phone. My wife thought it was for nefarious reasons—that's how much I have neglected her, she almost lost the excellent sense God gave her—but this second phone”—here Preach reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a phone that he lifted high to show all the congregation—“is for emergencies, real and true emergencies. And y'all best not abuse it. Unless you want to start looking for a new minister. My regular cell phone is turning off at eight P.M. every day God sends. I'm not cheating on Ada no more. Usually on Women's Day I give my wife what my mother-in-law calls the ‘proper props.' The things most of us give our wives on Women's Day: hats and scarves and expensive purses. This year I'm giving her the ‘true props' of respect and real good wide-eyed time-taking loving. That's what the Reverend Franklin's daughter meant when she sang about getting her props when her man got home. When a woman takes care of herself, she doing what God wants her to do. Ada showed me that. Look at all the grace in your First Lady. That's the Lord at work. I been interfering with that. A year ago your First Lady looked exhausted, and I was helping exhaust her. Not anymore. Not again. Will the church say, Amen?”

The church said Amen. Eight thousand, seven hundred dollars was raised in a single morning. Nine women had to be carried out by ushers, and six babies were born nine months to the week later. One member of the vestry resigned.

In the front row, under her veil, Ada cried. She did not cry like a baby, as some said later, nor like a bride, as others said
later. She cried like a woman whose man had reclaimed her, in front of God and her neighbors.

The flight to Jacksonville, Florida, from Nashville is not long, but it was long enough for Ada to whisper into Lucius's ear a thing she wanted to do with him. And it was long enough for her to tell him that she had been to see his special friends.