“Fine. I’ll see you on Wednesday.”
“All right, baby. I love you very much. Travel safely.”
The ticket agent straightened, his green eyes narrowing. “Miss Garfield, I’m sorry, but this doesn’t look a thing like you. Do you have another form of identification?”
“Sure I do, but it’s me, all right. And it’s Ms., not Miss. You sure it doesn’t look like me? I’ve lost a bit of weight.”
“A bit? The woman in this picture is pretty heavy.”
“And aren’t you a gentleman for implying that I was fat?”
“It’s not my intention to be rude. I’m just trying to make sure our country is safe.”
“Every time I’ve come through this airport, someone asks me for another form of ID. I get patted down and have my bag randomly searched. But if it’s random, why am I always the one searched? Why don’t I get skipped sometimes?”
“Ms. Garfield, you wouldn’t want us to be lazy about our jobs, and then have a terrorist sneak in, would you?”
“Do I look like a terrorist to you? Do terrorists wear horn-rimmed glasses and carry bags of potato chips and trashy gossip magazines?”
“I’m not sure, but if you gave me another form of identification, maybe I could verify that.”
I gently placed my birth certificate on the counter. I wanted to slap it down, or even better, throw it at him. But I was Black, and he wasn’t, though he would deny that as motivation when he called a rent-a-cop to flog me on some pretense of national security.
He looked as closely at the birth certificate as he had the license.
“So are you sure it’s me now?”
“I suppose, Ms. Garfield.”
He gave me back the license, and I didn’t feel sorry for him anymore. Let him go bald immediately. He deserved it, the fascist abuser of power. Let him go straight to Hell with gasoline drawers on.
In the baggage claim, David didn’t see me beside the carousel. He looked at the floor, his mouth covered with fingers splayed.
I came up behind him: “Boo!”
“Girl, stop playing! I almost knocked you out!”
“Please. I can kick your ass anytime. And why you so dressed up?”
“Some people have jobs, Ailey. We can’t stay in the library all day like the leisure class. Ooh, girl, look at you! You done got skinny!”
He wrapped an arm around me, lifting me from the ground, but he couldn’t be depended upon to tell the truth about the size of my behind. He hadn’t seen me naked since I was sixteen, in a faraway time before stretch marks and orange-peel thighs.
He gently wrestled the bag from me, pushed down the handle, and carried the suitcase. Grumbled that certain women needed to let somebody be a gentleman. I walked in front of him, flipping my hair as two brothers gave me the eye. It was dark in the garage, but they seemed vaguely cute.
And there it was: the Eldorado. The same tank with the red velvet seats inside.
“Are you ever going to get a new car? And do you even have insurance?”
“Yes, I do. It’s the law. And this is a registered classic.” He opened the door for me. “You better be glad I ain’t asking for gas money.”
“I got five on it.” It was Boukie’s saying from back in the day, though he never put money in the tank.
“Yeah, I won’t hold my breath on that!” On the journey, we laughed and told stories about our beloved, cheap friend who had become a teetotaling deacon at Mt. Calvary. Rhonda and Boukie were married now, with a passel of kids. The wedding had been a reluctant one, after his church minister had cautioned, he couldn’t be having a single deacon spreading his seed throughout creation.
David slipped one hand off the steering wheel. He fingered a lock of my hair. Touched my cheekbone with his finger. “I like your hair longer. Remember when it was down your back? Man, that was pretty.”
When we pulled off on the road to my granny’s house, David and I stopped at the creek. He opened the car door and climbed out, and I saw him go to the base of a tree and pull out a plastic bag. A few moments later, he handed me a loose joint and a container of safety matches.
“Damn, Negro! You slick as grease.”
“Nobody comes out here but me. I have it buried in a secret spot.”
“Who you get this from, anyway?”
“Ma’am, that is covered by attorney-client privilege.”
I took a hit, then opened the glove compartment, rummaging inside until I found an old Jet magazine folded to the “Beauty of the Week,” a woman in a bikini with the roundest, most exquisite ass I’d ever seen. I waved the magazine, fanning the smoke in David’s direction.