Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas - Maya Angelou [83]
“It's I am loving you yet. It's that when you are leaving tomorrow I am dying.”
“Yes, Mr. Julian.” The night before, I had joined Joe Jones, Martha, Ethel, Ned and Attles in a slivovitz-and-song fest at a local bar. I felt as if the harsh brandy had baked my brain, and if Mr. Julian could wait until the next morning to die I would best him by twenty-four hours.
“I am not drowning. It is being very difficult for me. Because I am being Yugoslavia's Olympic swimming champion.”
Swimming champion? Mr. Julian? Doggone it, I had slipped a bet. His voice had sounded ancient, as if it belonged to a body in the last stages of deterioration. I liked strong and muscular men. Had I known Mr. Julian was an athlete, I'd have seen him the first time he called.
“I am loving you and wanting to see you, oh …”
“Maybe I can see you tonight, Mr. Julian.” I couldn't make up for the time wasted, but there was no reason I should lose another night.
“It is true? You will let me take you to one expensive café? And watching you drinking down coffee with cream in your lovely lips?”
“Yes, Mr. Julian.” You bet. “After the theater you come to the stage door.”
“Mistress Maya, there are always being so many people around your theater. Is it that you can be meeting me one block away?”
“Sure, yes. Of course.” It seemed a little late for him to show a shy side.
“One block away near the park. I will be standing. I will be wearing a green suit. I will be smiling. Oh, Mistress Maya, my heart is singing for you. Good-bye, my lovely.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Julian.”
I hung up the telephone as Martha and Ethel turned over and sat up.
“So, at last. My Lord, we'll get to see this damned Mr. Julian.” Martha was grinning and nodding her head.
Ethel said. “Maya, you are cold-blooded. You know the man loves you. And you wait until the last night to see him.”
Martha added, “It is cold—he wants to marry you so you can take him to the States. Now there's no time to get a license. You're just going to use that poor man and toss him away, like a sailor does a woman in a foreign port.” She was laughing. “Ohh, you're mean.”
I told them both to go to hell and went back to sleep.
Ned met me at lunch. “So you're finally going to see Mr. Julian?”
Annabelle Ross, the coloratura, asked, “Tonight's the night, huh?”
Georgia Burke, the oldest member of the cast and veteran actress, said, “I understand Mr. Julian's finally got lucky. Well, there's nothing like sticking to it, they say.”
Barbara Ann sat down at the table. “What made you wait so long, Maya? And what made you change your mind?”
I told her I had thought that he was an ancient lech and I couldn't abide the idea of going out with an elderly stage-door Johnny who would slobber on my cheek and pinch my thighs, but that he had finally told me he was a swimming champion and now I was sorry I waited so long.
She understood and sympathized with me.
An hour later Bey appeared at my door. “O.K., Maya. Got yourself a swimming champion, huh?”
On the way to the theater, a few wags in the back of the bus began to harmonize: “I'd swim the deepest ocean …”
Among the cast no news was private and no affairs sacred.
The audience began applauding in the middle of the finale. They were on their feet, throwing roses and shouting before the curtain fell. We bowed and waved and repeated the bows unremembered times.
Backstage, Marilyn, the wardrobe mistress, was supervising the labeling and packing of costumes. Departures were always her busiest time. She had to tag the clothes that had been torn so they could be sewn or replaced before our next opening night, and to keep separate the pieces due for cleaning and the shoes needing repairs.
As I passed the wardrobe room the door was open on a havoc of disarranged clothes, hats, shoes, baskets and umbrellas. She looked up from her counting. “Going to meet Mr. Julian, huh, Maya?”
My only chance of escaping the curious eyes of my fellow singers was to leave the theater by the front entrance. I gathered my