Resurrecting Mingus - Hardcover

Adams, Jenoyne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684873524 ISBN 13: 9780684873527

Publisher: Free Press, 2001

Synopsis

Resurrecting Mingus is the story of a young woman lost -- striving to find her own identity while dealing with powerful and painful questions that force her to confront everything and everyone that matters to her. In this stunning debut novel, Jenoyne Adams, a PEN Center USA West Emerging Voices Fellow, displays a rare talent for a first-time author: the skill and courage to write about some of the most controversial issues today in an absorbing and compulsively readable manner. Mingus Browning is a successful, young, beautiful lawyer whose life is falling apart. After a thirty-five-year marriage, Mingus's African-American father has suddenly left her Irish mother for a black woman. A daddy's girl, Mingus is torn between the father she has always been closer to, the mother she may have to defend in divorce proceedings, and a sister hell-bent on winning their lifelong sibling rivalry. Mingus is caught in middle of the three, a woman alone, and, in turn, realizes that she has probably always felt more comfortable that way because she is part of no one group, let alone a united family. Juggling her parents' grief with her own proves to be too much for Mingus as she stumbles from one questionable relationship to another, further complicating her life. After years of isolating herself from those who have tried to care for her, Mingus finally meets someone who rips through her protective defenses and exposes her need to be loved. Eric Simms, a smooth-talking television producer, is through playing dating games and is looking for love for real this time. With Eric, Mingus finally learns to forget the fear of a broken heart and opens herself completely. That is, until word starts circulating that her new love has his secrets as well, and suddenly what was a perfect relationship begins to look like yet another minefield of hurt, as Mingus is forced to choose between her man, her sister, and the truth. After facing a long, sad string of heartaches and betrayals, Mingus finally reaches the point in her life where she realizes who she is, what she wants, and how she doesn't need another man to get it. Marked by raw images and poetic prose, Jenoyne Adams's affecting first novel candidly explores the bonds of family, faith, and finding someone to love when you can't even find someone to trust.

About this title

About the Author

Jenoyne Adams is a writer, poet, and dancer as well as a 1998 PEN Center USA West Emerging Voices Fellow. A member of the World Stage Anansi Writer's Workshop in Leimart Park, she has been featured in programs at the National Black Arts Festival, Pan African Film Festival, Mark Taper Auditorium, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and J. Paul Getty Museum. Adams was born and raised in San Bernardino County, California. She now lives in Los Angeles with her husband, writer Michael Datcher.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

June 3

He left her for a black woman. Eva called first thing Saturday morning to make sure I heard it from her first. Punk Ass Nigga.

She lay on the couch, butt cheeks wedged between cracked leather cushions, knees pressed into her swollen breasts. It was this position she hated most -- being twisted into a pretzel by 4:00 A.M. sweats and contractions riding each other piggyback across her abdomen.

With the windows shut, the room held the musty scent of unstirred air. The smell nauseated her. Mingus swallowed the acid in the back of her throat and made her way down the unlit hall to the bathroom. A vanilla candle rolled in coffee beans sat next to her perfume tray. She grazed her fingers across the cold porcelain counter, locating a book of matches. The candle flame illuminated her flat stomach and cast dancing shadows across the knee imprints on her breasts. She leaned in toward the mirror. Fuzzy ringlets of almost black hair tickled her lips. With both hands, she parted the hair like a curtain down the middle of her face, making a clearing for her eyes. She could feel them coming on again. Contractions with sharp bony fingers burrowed into the walls of her pelvis. The blood would start to flow soon.

Mingus kicked the cotton underwear from around her ankles and lowered herself into the tub. Water gushed over her unpainted toes. Massaging currents gathered between her thighs. The water was soothing, but it was no consolation for seventeen years' worth of periods. She was empty again.

The roundness of her breasts buoyed in the water. Mingus rested her head against the green tiled wall and clasped her hands over her naval. Her stomach was warm like freshly cooling muffins. Pressing her fingers into her belly, she felt energy stir below the surface. She hoped it wouldn't come this time. Even though Keith was the wrong one. Even though they used protection. Even though they broke up almost a month ago, when he decided that moving back to New York, without her, was best for his career. She splashed her face. I'm not gonna cry, I'm not gonna cry, she repeated in a quiet breath.

A heavy procession of blood moved down her uterus. She felt it coming. Mingus crossed her legs; her vaginal lips pulsed from the tightness of her hold. Blood pooled at the entrance of her womb. She looked down. A thin stream of crimson ribboned under her thighs. She watched as it dissolved slowly in the slight sway of water. Her vision blurred from the tears filling her eyes, but not one fell. She uncrossed her legs. The color of ripe beets flooded the water. Within moments, she sat in a uniform shade of pink. Empty.

The water was lukewarm when the phone rang. Mingus threw her bathing sponge past the bathroom door into the hallway. Suds splattered the wall, leaving drip lines on the flat latex paint. Ring. There was no one she wanted to talk to. No one who could save her from splintering. She groped the sides of the tub and vertebrae by vertebrae stood up. Pale sudsy water ran down her legs. She stepped onto the lime green floor mat and pulled a towel from the brass bar. The towel was rough against her skin. She rubbed it over her breast, onto her stomach, between her legs. She rubbed hardest between her legs.

Mingus walked past the couch to her desk with the blood-stained towel in her hand. She sat, her nude spine curving like a newly wilted flower toward the phone. What if it was Keith, she thought. It made sense with the hour time difference. Maybe he missed her. Maybe he realized he'd made a mistake.

The phone rang again.

"Hello."

"You cryin'?"

Mingus didn't answer. She bunched the towel to her mouth and tried to steady the dampness in her voice.

"Sound like you busy or somethin'. You got a nigga over there?"

Her breath was hot and moist at the same time. Heat radiated through the towel into her cupped fingers.

"You may as well tell it, dick is a good thing. You ain't got to be shame."

"It's none of your business, Eva."

"Ooooh, you nasty this morning. He musta stood you up, huh?"

Mingus ripped a sheet of paper from the spiral notebook in front of her and began to pick off the broken edges. She didn't know why her relationships kept blowing up like this. She'd thought she'd done things right this time. Made him wait a few months before having sex. Didn't fuss about his schedule. Only called a couple times a week. This one was supposed to be different.

"And you playing the silent treatment," Eva said, rattling her attitude like a fast-flying epithet. "I didn't have to call you. Shoulda left your ass in the dark, that's what I shoulda did -- M'Dea wasn't going to tell you nothin' no way."

It never amazed Mingus how easily Eva switched from kind to cold; it was Eva's mention of their mother that made her nervous.

"What happened?"

"You sure you wanna know?"

"Don't play with me Eva, all right. Not today."

Eva smacked her lips and let out a heavy sigh. "You know how Carl's been trippin' and stuff right?"

"Yeah," Mingus said, not knowing what Eva was talking about.

"Well, looks like he does have another woman."

Mingus felt the muscles tense in her forehead. "I don't know why you keep making stuff up, Eva. He's your father. Don't you get tired of this?"

"He's your father. And you're a damn fool if you can't see what's going on. The man don't come home for days at a time. What you think he's doin'?" Eva smacked then paused for dramatic effect. "Only difference between then and now is that this time we got proof. M'Dea found his letters in the tool shed."

There was surety in Eva's voice. Mingus tore another sheet of paper from the notebook and began to doodle inadvertently.

"She's sure it's another woman?"

"Didn't you take logic or something in law school? What else could it be, they've been married thirty-five years. You know what they say, new puss -- "

"I gotta go."

"Whatever, but if you planning to call M'Dea, which you are, you may as well hang it up. She ain't answering the phone."

Click. Mingus sat at the desk with the unhooked receiver pulsing a dial tone between her thighs. Her mind was full. A salad spinner gone mad with no lid. She reminded herself to focus on what she could control. Stop sleeping on the couch, Mingus, she thought. She grabbed the pillow from the couch and headed into the bedroom. On tiptoe, she outstretched her arms and placed the plain white pillow above the stacked sheets in the utility cabinet. One by one she pulled the perfectly folded sheets onto the floor. Comforters to the floor. Pillowcases to the floor. They needed to be restacked. All of them. Refolded and restacked. The coffee cup. Mingus grabbed a pillowcase from the pile at her feet and walked over to the bed. An empty coffee cup sat on the nightstand. Kenyan roast dripped hardened chocolate lines down the curves of the cup, leaving a circle on the blond oak. She covered her index finger in a corner of the pillowcase and began to wipe the stain. The softness of the fabric made it smooth. Smooth so that its hardness rounded but didn't disappear. She could have scraped it away, let the sugary brownness collect under her nails, but it wouldn't have changed anything. She was alone again. And after thirty-five years, M'Dea's bed was now empty.

The house was the color of mustard seed, tucked behind tufts of pine and sweet gum trees on County Road 320. Beyond the trees, visible from the kitchen window, was a small lake stocked with catfish and Gasper Goo. The tires kicked up dust as Mingus curved around the gravel driveway past the lake. The house looked the same. She hadn't expected it to. Pink and fuchsia zinnias lined the flagstone walk. Spanish-style brick laced in ivy arched the double door entrance.

With brass knocker in hand, Mingus closed he

Edition details

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0684873524
• ISBN 13: 9780684873527
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256