Curious about Aisha's poem? Go here, to hear the poem "Phenomenal Woman" read by Maya Angelou: http://youtu.be/VeFfhH83_RE

11.

I feel kind of like a tool after all that drama at the end of the last part. I mean, she hugged Big Man pretty much the same way when we got to the Vee. And he totally took it in stride, of course. No visible signs of stress or strain of any kind.

She’d been attacked, she’d had all that stuff to help her sleep—she was just trying to stay on her feet, basically. Probably didn’t even know she’d hugged me.

So, you know what that means, right?

The drama was all on me. Which meant I was probably in a heap o’ trouble, emotionally, with this woman—a new sensation for me. I usually don’t even notice other women on the street or…wherever. Not that much. If I do, it’s like the way you look at art in a gallery or something.

I notice something pretty or something “hot” or intriguing--or something weird, maybe, too, I’ll notice. But having a smorgasbord of sexy at home usually keeps me from making that U-turn after some nice little ass I got a glimpse of. I’ve got a house fulla fine asses. That I can have, you know?

So I shouldn’t’ve have felt any way in particular when Wyatt got hold of me like that.  But you know those pictures that go all 3-D when you stare at them long enough in the right place? How they just open up and you feel like there’s this whole other dimension you’re seeing suddenly? It was like that. Or maybe like how people must’ve felt the first time movies talked or went from black and white to Technicolor—you know what I’m trying to say.

And I did not know what to do with it.

I couldn’t decide if I liked it or hated it or was scared of it or what. So I did what I do best. I rebuilt that wall right quick—stomped all those new dimensions back down flat, pal. I couldn’t let some woman mess with my mind that bad that fast.

It worked for the most part. On the ride home, I was able to sit there next to her without getting all giddy or anything. Even when she fell over and put her head on my shoulder—I put my arm around her to test myself. Tiny tingle. Not the four alarm buzz I’d felt before--genie back in bottle. No worries.

A little flat, the “safe” world. But I like safe. After all the hell years, “safe” was a blessing. We wallowed in “safe,” the girls and me. Grateful for it.

 And I was still congratulating myself when Wyatt sat up and said,“Is that a…ferris wheel?”

“Yep!”

“That’s a ferris wheel,” she said, as if checking to make sure she’d heard me right.

“A whole carnival,” I told her.

Big Man looked at her in the rear view and said, “Wanna ride, Lil Mami?”

She fell back against the seat again and said, “I don’t think I need quite so much visual stimulation right now.”

“And the church folks’d be a little put out,” I warned him. In case he was even a little bit serious.

“Church folks?” she asked.

“Yeah, this is all their doing. I mean, it’s a carnival, but there are all these social service agencies—“

Her face lit up—she even sat up. Sort of listing to one side, but she was up, at least.

“Oh, I’ve read about this, yes!” she said. “I’ve thought about volunteering. Thought.”

“But you don’t do Christmas.”

“Well, I thought it might…be a way of…”

Took her a few second to find the gist of that thought. But then she looked at me and said, “A way of making it meaningful…”

It was like she was asking me to validate that. Like she needed me to tell her it would make Christmas meaningful. Like she needed a lot of things--yeah, you guessed it.

Damsel still in distress--buzz initiated.

But I reined in hard and said, “It does. Believe me.”

“Is it too late to do that? Volunteer?”

“We can ask. I’m sure there’s always room for one more.”

Her eyes went all sad again. And she said, “You’ve done enough. And I’ve got too many loose ends to tie up.”

The smile that came next was a heart breaker—how did she do that? Make even a smile look sad?

“I’m homeless,” she said, giving me those big puppy eyes—and the smile.

Damn, that woman--I was soooo happy when Big Man eased us right up to the front entrance.

I said, “Home sweet home,” and almost jumped out of the Vee. But Big Man beat me around to her door and helped her out very carefully. It was sort of comical how they looked next to each other. She was so tiny…

And she pointed somewhere and smiled a much happier smile.

“It’s in your back yard, the ferris wheel!” she said. Like it was magic or something.

“Well, in the parking lots. Behind the two buildings.”

“And you own them. The buildings?”

“Well, you know the city wanted to save them,” I said. “See the designs around the top and windows and all?”

She managed to look up without falling over—she wobbled, but I got hold of her arm before she could topple all the way over.  The “faux Egyptian” designs were like landmarks—very Deco. Gold “King Tut” looking faces instead of gargoyles or something, with geometric tiles running all the way around the top and windows.

Both buildings we bought had the same designs. And tourists, architects and students hoping to become architects someday made pilgrimages to see them.

“They were going to gut them and turn them into parking garages,” I told her.

She frowned real deep and said, “Of course they were,” in this super sarcastic voice.

“Well, it costs a lot to restore something like this. And then they couldn’t decide what to do with them after that, either. All the suggestions they got from the public were expensive, too—you know about the budget issues better than anybody. So finally someone came to us about it—this organization of locals that tries to save all the good stuff around here.”

“Colton to the rescue again!” she said. Teasing me, naturally.

“We needed studio space,” I said, trying to play it down. “And a place to live in town, too—all kinds of space, actually, we needed. We’re expanding so fast it’s ridiculous. And I didn’t wanna be in some…office building or something. Not the usual kind. I don’t like feeling like it’s work, you know? Our franchise is called The Fun House. So I wanted it to actually be fun. Something crazy cool that stood out—something really unique.”

“We got a coupla floors fulla big old guest suites, too,” Big Man told her. “So forget about that homeless shit, girl. We got you.”

She sort of lost her balance trying to look up at him. And gave him a goofy grin that I would’ve killed to get a picture of and show her the next day.

“You are big,” she said.

“All over, baby girl,” he said.

I shot him a look, but I didn’t really mean it and he could tell. I mean, she was totally cool with us saying things like that. And I didn’t think it was just because she was high. She was down for whatever all the time, probably.

She handled the business of getting up to the nursery floor pretty well—that’s where we went first. I’d found out that Bonnie's spa treatments had put sent her to her happy place, so she’d gone to a movie, by herself, to give herself even more “me” time. Which meant the kids could stay with me a while longer.

Wyatt was cool with the size of the place and all, until the elevator doors opened into the play room foyer and she fell against the back wall of the elevator all wide eyed.

“That’s an elephant!” she cried.

She meant the big, life sized stuffed toy one that sort of greets you when you get there. Well, actually, we swap them out every month but Dumbo, as we predictably called him, was there that week.

“That’s very good!” I said. And in my best Misterrogers voice I added, “And that’s a giraffe, and that’s a hippopotamus—can you say hippopotamus, boys and girls?”

She looked over at me and said, “I know that!” all indignant and missing the point entirely. Big Man had to look away to keep her from seeing how badly he wanted to bust out laughing.

But then we got a really nice surprise while Wyatt was going up to all the big stuffed animals and petting them—very carefully, by the way. Like they might turn around and bite her.

The surprise was Aisha singing—I haven’t told you about that yet. But the girls were banking on that voice to help them become the star attraction on the Vegas strip soon—it’ll happen, too. No doubt about it. The girl can blow. No, really—she’s scary good. And so’s the idea. Simple one, actually. She was watching some kind of Entertainment Tonight thing about people having their own clubs in Vegas, and she looked at me and said, “We could do sum like that. Couln’ we, Papi?”

And you know me by now--her wish, my command. We were working on it within a month after she said it. And by Christmas, it’d grown into something even bigger. Wait for it. It’s going to blow your mind, I promise.

That night we were treated to the literally stunning sound of Aisha just killing that Whitney Houston song, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, full voice. I’m talking mega lung power, man. Needs no mic or anything, that girl. You can hear her all the way down the block sometimes.

Big Man hurried on ahead of us, wanting to get to her even faster.

“Aisha,” I told Wyatt. Because she’d stopped staring into the mouth of the big, shaggy camel to do that RCA dog thing. You remember, the one sitting in front of that old record player with his head cocked to one side. JJ had to tell me it was an RCA ad, but I knew the image already. I bet you do, too.

Wyatt needed to be told that she was hearing a real person.

“That’s Whitney Houston,” she told me. Like I was the silliest fool she’d ever had to deal with in her life.

“The song’s Whitney’s,” I said. “But that’s my girl right there—Whitney wished she could sing like my girl.”

That wasn’t a lie. She said it once, Whitney, before she OD’d. She gave Aisha one of those sassy stares and said, “I’m gon’ have to put a hit on you, honey.” And Aisha got all flustered. It was the cutest thing, I swear.

Wyatt wouldn’t take my word for it, so I sailed us into the play room where Aisha was dancing around with Tyler in her arms, while Kelli, Big Man and the other two watched and listened.

She smiled when I came in. Stopped singing and danced him over to me. And I hoisted him up like I always do.

“I was afraid you’d be gone,” I told him. “Or sound asleep. Where’s your mother?”

“The mad Russian,” Kelli said.

“Got really mad,” Mike said. “Thought we were plotting to take Maddie somewhere or something—who knows? We had to call security on ‘im.”

“We always have to call security on ‘im,” Big Man said with this deep smirk.

But Aisha had noticed something far more interesting than our “mad” Russian.

“Hey, pretty!” she said—to Wyatt. Who was still too stunned—and stoned--to say anything back.

“That’s the voice,” I told her. “And we also have—“

“Babies…” Wyatt said, in this “What the fuck” voice of her own.

And then she looked up at me and said, “Two babies.”

“That’s very good,” I said, in my Misterrogers voice again.

And before Wyatt could come back at me for that, Aisha grinned and said, “That ain’t no teacher.”

“Yeah, she is,” I said. “English teacher, to be exact.”

“Din’ none o’ my teachers look like that! My teachers was all old and mean,” Aisha declared, just as the other girls came over to greet her, too--Wyatt definitely couldn’t speak then.

But Mike gave me a little wink and said, “Nice.”

“Don’t even think about it,” I warned her.

She put on this innocent “Who me?” face that wasn’t fooling anybody.

And Cat gave Wyatt her most gracious smile, and a hearty, “Welcome to our not so humble abode!”

Mike hip bumped her out of the way and said, “Let me do the honors. I’m Michelle, but everybody calls me Mike for reasons that you probably guessed already. Cat’s the one with the cat eyes and dangerous curves. And the song bird with the even more dangerous curves is Aisha.”

“I can’t…remember my name at the moment,” Wyatt said.

That cracked us up so bad we couldn’t talk, either, for a minute.

But then Aisha said, “For real, though--you a teacher?”

“I think I am,” Wyatt said.

“Named Wyatt Taylor,” I said. And everyone’s eyes lit up.

“Really?” Cat said. The smile said she was very impressed.

“Baller, right? I know,” I said.

Mike gave her a little wink and said, “Got a head start on that Christmas cheer, huh?”

“She took something to help her sleep,” I said. I gave her a “Watch yourself” look on the side, too. People don’t always know they’re teasing. And Mike can be really sly.

But she put a twinkle in her eyes and voice when she asked, “You save us some?”

“Girl, quit!” Aisha said. “She a teacher!”

And then she looked at Wyatt and said, “I won’t let ‘em mess witchu. You been through enough mess today.”

“I thought you hated teachers,” Mike said.

That woke Wyatt up even more—they were definitely killing her buzz, my ladies.

“May I ask why?” she said. Not angry or anything, just sincerely curious.

Aisha frowned a bit, but I knew she couldn’t pass up that opportunity.

“Cause they didn’t give a damn about me,” she said. “Let me set up there lookin’ like Boo Boo the Fool—couldn’ read, couldn’ write. An’ all they did was sen’ over one o’ the smart kids to sit wit me—how you gon’ let somebody else do yo’ job for you like that? So I figured if they din give a damn about me, I didn’t give a damn about them. Hot minute I was in school, anyway.”

“Yeah, her and me, both,” I said.

“Well, he had all them other kids he was tryin’a keep them damned truancy peoples away from,” Aisha told her. “An’ Grace wasn’t no better than a child herself—his mother. So by the time he got ‘em up, fed ‘em and put ‘em on the damned bus every mornin’ he was too tired to go to some stupid school.”

“You had your own issues, though. I mean, they really didn’t try, I have to admit,” I said. “There had to be tests or something they could’ve given her, right?”

Aisha’s eyes lit a little bit.

“I got what you call a disability,” she told Wyatt—almost proudly. “Lil Daddy axed this  psychi-tris’ to come tes’ me.”

Wyatt was in full teacher mode by then. Totally dialed into the conversation at hand, nodding and frowning and adding it all up, visibly.

“Can you remember what it’s called?” she asked Aisha.

Aisha shrugged and said, “Even if I could I couldn’ pronounce it.”

“Can you describe it?”

“I don’t know! Just…the words be movin’ all around on the page’n’ shit.”

“That’s the…scientific definition, of course,” I said.

And even though Wyatt had to know I was teasing, she shot me this deep frown.

But Aisha saved my life by asking, “You know about that one?”

“I do, actually,” Wyatt said, very directly to Aisha. She was sort of snubbing me now. Like Aisha was one of her students being insulted by some rude fuck.

“How would you deal with it?” Mike asked. Which was when I noticed that everyone was into it--even Big Man and Kelli.

“Well, it depends,” Wyatt said. “If it’s the one I’m thinking of the fix is relatively easy.”

“And all those teachers over all those years—why didn’t they know that?” Cat asked.

“Well, it…can be difficult to tell whether a student is simply—“

“Dumb,” Aisha said.

“Quit that,” I said.

“Well, that’s what they thought. Me, too. ‘s why I din’ go back.”

“God, I hate that you were made to feel that way,” Wyatt snapped. Boy, she was in it now. All pistons firing.

“So what should they have done?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know if I’ve chosen the right one. But some people just have trouble with black letters on white backgrounds. It’s…as if the words were hazy or…floating. I mean, they feel as if the words are actually moving, but it’s their eyes having trouble with the constrast. But it’s alleviated when we change the background color on the screen or put a sheet of colored cellophane or something over the pages of the book.”

It was my turn to get all indignant.

“That’s it?” I said.

“If  I’ve got the right one,” she said. “Quite often there’s more than one problem.”

“One teacher did teach me sum, though,” Aisha told her. And then she looked at the girls and said, “Y’all don’t even know about that!”

After which, she went into this demure, class presentation stance and proceeded to blow our minds completely.

“This called Phenomenal Woman. By Miss Maya Angelou,” she told us, sounding like a very studious little girl with a very serious Ebonics issue.

We didn’t move a muscle as she launched into that poem. And I will always cherish that moment, not just because she could recite it but because it also described Aisha to a “t.” It’s this poem about how people underestimate this woman because they can’t see all the good stuff she brings, you know?

But what made it even more memorable was what she did when she got to the parts about how:

It’s the fire in my eyes,  

And the flash of my teeth,  

The swing in my waist,  

And the joy in my feet.

AND the part that went:

It’s in the arch of my back,  

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I mean, she acted it out, you know? Put a little dip and swerve into it. I was tickled to death—my eyes teared up, even. I think everybody got a little misty.

But nobody was more moved than Wyatt, boy. Talk about love at first sight, almost—those puppy eyes were just swimming.

And when it was over, Aisha delivered the coup de grace.

She looked at all of us there sniveling and sobbing and went, “I could learn if you jus’ gave me sum worth learnin’.”

Damn. I dissolved, man—didn’t care who saw or what they thought. I turned around, though, to give myself a little private crying time.

Big Man grinned and went, “Go ‘head, Miss Phenomenal.” Big Man said. She went over and bear hugged him. And then she kissed me—she would never give anybody love without saving some for me. We’ve got it like that, me and Aisha.

When she turned around and saw Wyatt’s face glistening wet, too, she ran over,  grabbed her hand and led her away while the rest of us stood there looking like that Boo Boo the Fool she’d mentioned.

We finally met them over by the playpen that looks like a little merry go round. The animals do go around, by the way. You push this button, and they revolve while the babies sit there in the middle laughing and pointing at them. Real little kids can ride them, too, but the Terrible T’s were too little to do that yet.

I plucked Taylor out of it--she was kinda out of it, too. Doing that weird thing where they rub their ears and nose and their eyes get all bleary.

I kissed her cheek and put her up against my chest so she could snuggle up and she grabbed hold of my t-shirt with both fists and sort of burrowed in. So I kissed her. I’m going to hate it when they’re too big for me to hold that way anymore—I actually dream about holding my children. A little baby face, burrowing into the crook of my neck. The smell of baby oil and powder. The silky skin and hair.

That’s my happy place.

“They’re yours and hers?” Wyatt asked. Like she was hoping Aisha and I had made beautiful babies together. I liked her for that. I don’t know why. Given all the little palpitations I’d been having over her, I should’ve been sort of disappointed, I think. But I give props to anyone who loves the people I love. Especially if they really seem to understand why I love them. And I could look in her eyes and see she knew exactly why that little “recitation” had made me cry. Even if she didn’t know our history or anything, she felt us.

“His’n’ the other one had to leave with that Russian fool,” Aisha said. “I cain’t have no babies, sweetheart. And if you’d a seen they mother you’d be hopin’ she never tries her luck again.”

Wyatt looked up at me all disappointed. So I said, “Long story…”

And then this air horn went off and the babies went off, too.

Joie. Who else?

She covered up her blood red lips and said, “Oh, shit—sorry!”

And then she reached out her red stained fingers to caress Taylor’s face, but stopped midway, scowled at the fingers and said, “Smudge proof my ass!”

Which…cracked Taylor up. No kidding. She went from wailing like a heart broken banshee to laughing her toothless little butt off in a second flat.

“Not exactly the reaction I was going for, but we’ll take it,” Joie said.

And then she wheeled around and yelled, “Party train, leaving on track 69!” and started strutting off toward the foyer in those silver stiletto heeled boots all her “squirrels” were wearing with their little Christmas booty shorts outfits. Always stylin’, Joie and her “ladies.”

Taylor did this priceless little, “What the hell” frown just as Kelli came over and held out her hands to get her to lean toward her. It took a few seconds, but when I kissed her on the head and leaned toward Kelli myself, she finally reached out her hands and let Kelli “catch” her.

“I owe you, like I said,” I told Kelli.

“Oh, I’m not cut out for Fun House stuff,” she said. “You guys’d make Fellini blush.”

She laughed at the face I made when she said that. See, she’d made me watch Satyricon once—real film buff, that girl. Into the “auteur” movement which his outdated as hell now, but it was all that back when it was going on, I gather. There are huge gaps in my film knowledge base.

But that movie taught me never to ask her to recommend one for movie night at the House ever again. I mean, I’m a pretty open minded guy, but that shit gave me the jeebies. I had some dreams I’ll never tell anyone about behind that thing, too--made me worry about myself, to be honest, the freakish stuff my subconscious mind dredged up that night.

And I don’t mean freaky sexy, either—you know how you worry about people who come up with ideas like that human centipede flick almost nobody can even watch all the way through? Yeah. Waking up in a cold sweat freaky—you feelin’ me?

Anyway, Aisha managed to get Tyler to hush so both kids were asleep before they even got to the elevator.

Someone else was starting to look a little drowsy around the edges, too. Yeah, you guessed it. But how I discovered it was the fun part. I turned around and Wyatt was laying all splayed out on her back in the middle of the playpen looking up at the ceiling.

And when I went over, she pointed straight up at the huge gold sun painted right above her—glows in the dark like a night light--and said, “Can you say, really spoiled children, boys and girls?”

I got a huge kick out of that, but I didn’t get to come back at it because Joie’s little drag queen crew swarmed in and started yanking people into this insane clown conga line. They were belting out that stupid Barry Manilow Copacabana song at the top of their lungs and snaking us all around like one of those Chinese New Year dragons.

And they hoisted Wyatt up on their shoulders, like she’d won some big race or something and yelled, “LOW BRIDGE” so she’d duck as they were getting close to the door to the foyer.

She fell backwards into well manicured hands, laughing her pretty little ass off.

Of course, she had no idea she was in for a night that would make her forget the rest of the day.

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