Searching for Tina Turner by Jacqueline E. Luckett Read Free Book Online Page B

fifty-eight, Randall is handsome in a way Lena knows women envy men for, the good looks that seem to get better with
     age. His head bobs to a rhythm only he can hear; maybe Miles or Charlie Parker or one of the little-known jazz artists he
     loves to discover. Scrunched forehead, heavy eyelids and tight lips; yet clean-shaven and crisp. How he manages to keep his
     clothes wrinkle free after long drives and even longer flights is a mystery that Lena appreciates but cannot understand. Thirty-four
     days of meals in fancy restaurants have left his stomach with a slight paunch that Lena knows he’ll work off with his trainer.
     He looks good, as good as he did all those years ago when she spotted him on the dance floor, and her heart commanded him
     to look her way.
    Lena was twenty, and Randall just turned twenty-four, that summer she walked into the party and noticed him. It was the cock
     of his head, the bass in his voice, and the confidence in his hands as he gave the high sign to his buddy, Charles, that first
     attracted her. She walked to his side of the room, lingered close to where he stood, and popped her fingers to the music.
     She figured he was bright, or she obvious, when he turned to talk to her and flaunted his credentials like an Easter litany:
     almost done with his MBA at Wharton, new GTO, the only summer intern in an all-white corporate communications firm, just shy
     of being a token, because he was smart. His stance, his articulation, assumed she would swoon over his budding potential.
    Instead she told him a joke. A stupid joke. “Knock, knock.” She tapped on his arm and made him ask who’s there. “Orange,”
     she answered. “Orange you glad I came over here?”
    Lena sashays to the end of the customs exit corridor and lifts onto her toes to meet Randall’s face four inches above her
     five-eight frame. “Welcome home!” She sniffs: pepper, cinnamon, and a hint of the fifteen-hour plane ride. He is her first
     love. Her love is centered in that place of emotion, not words; she will always love him. At this moment, she longs for that
     old heart-to-stomach-to-toes tingle she used to feel with the very thought of him. She angles her head in what she hopes is
     a seductive tilt and stretches her arms around his neck.
    “Well, this is a surprise.” Randall makes a smacking
mmm-wha
sound as he brushes her lips. “What got into you?”
    “You!” Lena grins and lowers herself, but not her expectations, for there is a bottle of Duckhorn merlot in a sterling silver
     wine bucket at the foot of the six-foot bathtub at home.
The Gentle Side of Coltrane
, one of Randall’s beloved albums—a compilation much like the one that played after the memories of the Tina Turner concert
     faded, and he seduced her—is on the stereo queued and ready to play.
    That night was romantic, one of a kind. There was a shadow of beard on his chin then, like the one there now, but that was
     the silky shadow of a young man not in need of the daily use of a razor. Lena slides her fingers down Randall’s cheek and
     over his prickly overnight stubble. “Tired?”
    “Bushed.” He stretches his empty hand and wavers momentarily; his hand stuck between handshake and hug, between peace offering
     and affection. His lips form a tight smile; fatigue or disinterest Lena cannot tell. Her hand goes up while his goes down,
     brushing only at that point, that fulcrum of mismatched timing, capturing only electricity and knobby knuckles.
    Sadness and sameness run from her heart to her stomach to her toes. She picks up the lighter of his two bags, a leather duffle
     she gave to him one Christmas, and heads for the parking lot. “That’s all?”
    “If I said anything more, I’d have to sing, and I thought you said I should leave the falsetto to Smokey.” He chuckles and
     stretches his arm around her shoulder; the airport, the exiting passengers, the gigantic monitors and patrolling security
     guards, anything but her eyes