The Future Has a Past by J. California Cooper Page B

that would be difficult for them to fulfill for themselves, or for them to fulfill for anyone else.
    One never looked away from the other’s eyes. Oh, those lyin eyes were on the promise. Even when they made dance turns, their eyes sought and found the other’s without a second lost. They came to an uneasy understanding during that dance. When the music stopped, they stood together waiting for it to begin again, and although the music was faster this time, they danced at the same slow rhythm. Silki wanted She-She. She-She wasn’t sure if she wanted him; she had already had many of him. Ahhhhh, but . . . the promise, the promise. It was “love” they wanted, but “love” was breaking the rule of the game they wanted to play. To the Silkis and She-Shes of the world, love was a weakness. It cost you. Their need was so great they possibly couldn’t afford to pay.
    Near the end of the third dance, Silki stopped and pointed to Luella with his thumb, then made an outside motion, like pointing to the rooming house, then pointed back to himself and then at the floor. As if to say, “After I get rid of her, I’ll be back!”
    Sitting at the table over the watered-down drinks, Luella was wide awake and sleepy by turns, but she had been watching Silki when she could hold her eyes open. She looked at what she thought was the beauty of She-She and it looked ten thousand times more beautiful than it actually was. She looked at She-She’s tight yellow dress and felt her own dress ripping even more. The girdle was choking her soul that wanted to breathe. Her heart was like something that had been washed and stretched all out of shape, never to be whole and good again.
    When she saw Silki coming back toward her, her poor little heart got ready to leap for joy. He took her arm and pulled her up. She asked him to wait until she could put her shoes on again, but he pulled her out the door as she dragged her feet trying to get her heel to go down into the shoes; they wouldn’t, so she just clopped out to the cab. They had to take a cab even though the rooming house was not far, because Silki was embarrassed by her, and she absolutely could not walk and struggle with the numbness of her behind.
    Silki helped Luella undress, but not with lover’s hands. With hasty hands. He put her to bed. Through a yawn, she asked, “You comin?” A yearning for the knowledge of love still struggled for awakening in her tired pained body.
    He didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “You go to sleep, I be here directly.” So she relaxed and went to sleep. When he had finished fooling around, wasting time until she was asleep, he was packed again and his bag was by the door. The last thing he did was go through Luella’s purse which was on the dresser and remove all the money that was left. “That’ll teach her she shoulda brought all of it, then I coulda left her some!” Then he was gone, tipping down the stairs so he wouldn’t wake Ms. Ready. Ms. Ready saw him anyway. It was her business to see everything and she almost always succeeded in her business.
    Part IV
    When Luella woke up the next morning, it goes without saying, she knew Silki had not stayed the night with her. In this strange city, she was alone. It felt as though the girdle that had caused her such distress the night before was now wrapped tightly around her heart. She hurt with every fiber of her body. But she did not cry. Too hurt to cry. Just out done, finished, tired. Her mother’s words of her never finding love kept running through her mind. “You just ugly! Nobody ever gonna love you but me! Your mama!”
    The third day she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t cry and why she was more worried about her situation, being broke and alone, than she was about Silki. She wished she was home, Silki or not. But . . . there lingered the thought, the hope, that he would, he might, return.
    The fourth day Luella was still sitting in a chair looking pathetically through the one