Babylon Sisters (10 page)

22

I made it until midnight without calling her. It took me that long to figure out what I was going to say. Baby Doll had imposed only one condition to end our estrangement. She wanted me to admit that I had lied about the fantasy gaggle of possible baby daddies and tell her the truth. Although I thought her use of the fake diaries to send letters to those guys without my permission was really a terrible thing to do, she was doing it in self-defense because of the big lie I kept trying to get her to swallow, or at least pretend she did.

Turns out, she learned the things I taught her about how important truth was so well that she was now applying the same standard to me. She wasn’t prepared to pretend. Even if her method was wrong, her question was legitimate, and I was prepared to answer it. Part of it, anyway. I was prepared to tell her the diaries were fakes and admit that I did know who her father was. But his identity was still going to have to be my secret for a while longer. I was going to ask her to respect that, woman to woman, and I hoped that she would.

Then I was going to tell her she got a letter from Smith.

I made myself a cup of tea and sat down with the number Louis had given me in my hand. Phoebe is everywhere in this house, in this room. There are baby pictures, and christening pictures, since my mother insisted. Pictures of us with the family we stayed with in Martinique the summer she learned to speak French and play blackjack. There are pictures of her with Amelia and Jason at his graduation from high school, and one of her and Louis on horseback the time they took lessons together on a dare from me and loved it so much they went once a week for years.

In every picture, my daughter is fully engaged in the world around her. Her eyes reflect curiosity, happiness, confidence, and peace. She is an unself-conscious beauty whose intelligence and good health shine through at every age. Maybe Louis was right. Maybe her father
would
want to know. The thing that’s hard for me to explain about B.J. is that I don’t hold it against him for leaving. Loving somebody doesn’t mean you have the right to change who they are, even when you wish they could be somebody else, just for an hour or two. Which, of course, they can’t. I know that now, but I also know that whatever else we did, or didn’t do, our baby girl turned out perfect.

Except for being stubborn as a mule, which, no matter what Louis says, is a trait she gets from her father’s side, not mine. Mothers can’t be stubborn. We have to see all, know all, understand all, and forgive all. Or get as close as we can, anyway. It was time for me to show her how it’s done. I smoothed out the card, picked up the phone, and punched in the first of the three numbers I had to use to get through Phoebe’s protective sisterhood shield, when I realized there was somebody already on the other end of the line. I hadn’t even heard it ring.

“Hello?”

“Catherine?” said a voice I thought I’d never hear again. “Burghardt Johnson. It’s been too long.”

There was no way to prepare. No way to figure out what to say to make it through such a moment without sounding like an idiot. His voice sounded exactly the same as it had on all those late-night phone calls when he had spun his dreams for me like the finest silk on a golden loom. His voice was all it took for all those memories to come flooding back. All those memories I am careful to keep locked away for examining when I’m finally old enough to understand and probably too old to care. There they were, reminding me that I had been in love once, too. And how long ago was that, anyway? Two years? Ten? Almost twenty?

“It has been a long time,” I said. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

That was nice. Truthful. Just the right note of friendly surprise. Warm without being too fuzzy.

“You sound exactly the same,” he said. “How long has it been?”

Nineteen years, fifteen months, and sixteen days, but who’s counting?
I hadn’t realized
I
was counting until the number popped up like the lottery when you win and the identical digits suddenly leap off that ticket like they’re six feet tall.

“Long enough,” I said. “Are you in Atlanta?”

Our airport is one of the busiest in the world, and sooner or later, everybody you know passes through it. “Not yet, but I’ll be there next week. I’m working on a story about Haitian refugees, and several of my contacts out there told me that if I was serious, I needed to get in touch with a sister named Catherine Sanderson.”

After eighteen years, he was calling me professionally? I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed. Confusion seems to be the zone I immediately gravitate to when I’m around B.J. When I had told him what I intended to do about Phoebe and he didn’t try to talk me out of it, I had the same problem. Did that mean I hadn’t made any progress at all?

“I do work with a lot of refugee programs,” I said, marveling at how quickly I clicked into that tone. Two could play this game, whatever the hell it was we were playing. “Was there something specific you needed to know?”

He didn’t say anything for a minute; then I heard him release his breath in a long whoosh, or maybe he was still smoking.

“There’s something very specific I need to know,” he said. “Do we have to do it like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like I pretend it’s not a little strange for me to be calling, and you pretend I’m just another reporter trying to research a story.”

“Is that what we were pretending?”

“Can we start again?”

“Sure,” I said. “The phone didn’t ring so the call doesn’t really count anyway.”

“Shall I hang up?”

“You don’t have to do that,” I said, surprising myself with how quickly I assumed control. Maybe I had made some progress after all. I guess that’s what learning to be strong will do for you. “Let’s just have a moment of silence and then I’ll answer.”

“All right,” he said. “How long a moment?”

“As long as it takes,” I said.

“As long as it takes for what?”

“For me to figure out what to say!” And that was really the truth, even though we were falling into the kind of easy back-and-forth we’d always had.
That was then and this is now.

“Don’t think about it,” he said. “Just go with the flow.”

“Nobody says ‘go with the flow’ anymore,” I said.

“Where I’ve been, everybody says ‘go with the flow.’ ”

“Then go with it,” I said. “Starting now.”

I sat there, holding the phone while he exhaled again. This time it sounded more like a sigh than a smoke, but I still had no idea how to play this scene. I guess I had no choice but to take his advice and
go with the flow.

“Babylon Sisters,” I said. “This is Catherine. Can I help you?”

“ ‘How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?’ ” he quoted another part of the verse from which I’d taken the name. “I like that.”

“Good. Are we still pretending?”

“I’m not. This feels much better. How about you?”

“Much better. So are you really coming down here?”

“Yeah, and people really did keep telling me to contact you. They didn’t know I knew you, of course.”

“Are these the same people who were telling you to go with the flow?”

He laughed. “I take it you’re not a big fan of New Age clichés?”

“I’m not a big fan of clichés. A great journalist I used to know told me once that clichés were the last refuge of an undisciplined mind.”

“
Used
to know?”

“I haven’t seen him in a very long time.”

“Do you miss him?”

“Are we pretending again?”

“Maybe just a little.”

“I miss him like crazy,” I said. “How’s that?”

“Best news I’ve had in ages,” he said, sounding like he really meant it. “I’ll call you next week. We’ve got some catching up to do.”

Suddenly the thought of sitting down with him over a glass of wine, trying to fill in the last two decades, did not appeal to me. Amelia had said to let sleeping dogs lie, and that was what I was going to do.

“B.J.?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s don’t.”

“You don’t want to see me?” He sounded disappointed.

“I’d love to see you. I just don’t want to . . .”
To what? Take a stroll down Memory Lane? Have to ask you why you didn’t even bother to say good-bye?
“I’d like to start from where we are now, you know what I mean? I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about the past. Okay?”

“No problem,” he said quickly, like I was about to hang up on him. “We can pretend we just met.”

“No pretending,” I said. “Let’s just be who we grew up to be and let it go at that.”

“No pretending at all?”

“None.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Cat.”

“That’s part of my charm, remember?”

“How could I forget?”

23

Miss Iona had gone to visit her sister, so Louis was in the office alone when I walked in and dropped the Smith letter on his desk.

“And good morning to you,” he said. “What’s that?”

“Phoebe’s letter. I think you’d better handle it.”

He turned it over in his hands gently. “I really figured you were going to break down and call her.”

“I did. The call didn’t go through. There was already someone on the line.”

“On Phoebe’s line?”

“On mine. You know how sometimes the phone doesn’t ring and you pick it up and there’s already somebody on there?”

“Who was it?”

“It was Burghardt Johnson.”

He couldn’t have looked more surprised if I had said Colin Powell. Agreeing to keep the secret of Phoebe’s birth had made it impossible for Louis to maintain their friendship. How could he, with that big lie squatting right in the middle of the proceedings? “B.J.?”

I plopped down on the couch. “The one and only.”

Louis came around and sat down beside me. “He didn’t get a letter, did he?”

“God, no!” I said. “He’s working on a refugee story and some people told him he should call me.”

“I wish I could get that Negro to write something for the
Sentinel,
” he said. “But I can’t afford him.”

I looked at him. “That’s all you have to say?”

He shrugged. “How’s he doing?”

Men are hopeless. “Ask him yourself. He’ll be here next week.”

“In Atlanta?”

I nodded.

“Where’s he staying?”

“The Regency downtown.”

“Well, tell him to call me. Maybe we can get together.”

Louis was acting like this was the most natural thing in the world, but I knew the potential for world-class weirdness was very high.

“Promise me something.”

He looked at me. “Sure. What?”

“Promise me you’ll back me up if things get weird.”

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know. Just weird.”

“I promise.”

His earlier question was buzzing around my mind like a fly on a horse’s tail.

“You don’t think Phoebe contacted him, do you?”

“Is he in the diaries?”

“No.”

“Then there’s no way for her to know. He’s telling you the truth. He needs your help.”

“Should I give it to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s no kind of advice,” I said. “What good are you?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but this is every man for himself. I need your help, too.”

“It never rains but it pours. What’s up?”

Louis walked back over to his desk and pulled out an invitation, which he handed to me with a flourish. “Ta-da!”

The card was printed on heavy ivory stock and requested the presence of the bearer at the annual Atlanta Association of Black Journalists dinner in a couple of weeks, where Louis Adams Jr. would accept an award for his father, posthumously, on the anniversary of the
Sentinel
’s fortieth year. Miss Iona had been urging people to “do something for freedom” longer than I had been alive.

“Congratulations,” I said, and I meant it. Longevity counts for something, even if the glory days are an increasingly distant memory. “But you’re already getting the award. What kind of help do you need?”

“I need a date.”

“A date? What was all that talk about falling in love? Now you’re asking me for a date?”

Louis laughed. “I have fallen, for your information, but my beloved has to go to a conference in Chicago. She’s approved you as her surrogate.”

My eyes scanned the invitation. “It’s formal,” I said. “Did she approve my wearing one of her many beautiful ball gowns?”

“We didn’t discuss your attire,” he said. “I, however, will be wearing a tuxedo.”

“You hate tuxedos.”

“Which is why I need your support. An unescorted man in formal attire is either a gangster or a gigolo, and I can’t let either one of those rumors get started.”

“Don’t knock gangsters,” I said, in deference to my dad. “Are you going to have a real bow tie?”

“Amelia says she couldn’t love a man in a clip-on.”

I could tie a perfect bow tie in under thirty seconds. One of my favorite memories of my father is of him teaching me how to tie all manner of knots, from a Windsor to a formal cravat with a stick pin. Of course, he could do it himself, but he said it made a man feel like a king to have a woman tie his tie and that my husband would appreciate it as much as he appreciated a home-cooked meal.

“Then I’ll come by early and tie it for you.”

“Bless you,” Louis said. “You’re a woman of many talents.”

“And so is my daughter,” I said, getting up to go. “Let me know how she made out at Smith.”

“You know I will,” he said, giving me a quick hug as he walked me out the door. “But tell me this. Would you have called her if B.J. hadn’t been on the phone?”

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Lost my nerve. How many reconciliations do you think a woman can stand in one night?”

24

They were wearing white. All twenty-seven of the women who had completed their GEDs in the last year while employed as Mandeville Maids were now dressed like participants in a mass wedding. All they needed were enough grooms to go around. But this wasn’t a marriage ceremony, so they had to settle on a few bored boyfriends, a baby daddy or two, one embarrassed husband struggling with two-year-old twins, and one very young, very famous R&B star named Busy Boy Baker who had come to support his sister, a recovering crack addict, and was refusing to sign autographs on the basis of this being “her day,” not his.

All the other members of the audience of about two hundred were women coming to show support for mothers, sisters, friends, cousins, aunts, and drinking buddies. They sat in the small auditorium, patiently waiting to honor their own. Sam stood in for Ezola and introduced State Senator Precious Hargrove, who congratulated the women and read a letter from the governor. The mayor sent a representative, who also read a letter of congratulations and high praise.

In the midst of all this attention, the brides began to shift restlessly in their seats. They had been promised a day off with pay to attend the ceremony and smile for the cameras. Now these fools were going to talk away damn near the whole morning. The program coordinator, an intense-looking young woman whose braids were swept up in a dramatic mound on top of her head, went on and on about how bright their futures would be now that they had taken the first step. It was all true, but as she kept talking I couldn’t help wondering how much difference a GED would really make in their lives. I put that thought out of my mind. This was a day to celebrate one small step. They could figure out the rest later.

Then Sam stood up to make remarks on behalf of his boss and mine. This was my first experience as a speechwriter, and I was curious about how it would feel to hear my thoughts filtered through Sam’s beautiful voice. He stepped up to the microphone, dressed, as always, in a dark, expensive suit and with a presence that made him seem much taller than he actually was. He looked around long enough to focus the crowd’s wandering attention; then he spoke slowly, letting each word have its due.

“There is a sisterhood,” he said, although at first he had balked at the use of the word as too ideological, “that exists among black women that has sustained us as a people from the first day we arrived on these American shores.”

I wanted to just say
America,
but Sam wanted some rhetorical flourishes, so he insisted on
these American shores.
It didn’t matter. That voice could caress a cliché until you would swear you were hearing it for the first time. Even the two-year-olds sat quietly on their fathers’ laps, and I found myself wishing I had written something worthier of that voice. He deserved better than what I had given him.

“It is a sisterhood of strength and courage and discipline and determination. By your actions over the past twelve months, you have shown yourselves to be full-fledged members of that rare and noble group.”

I’m pretty sure I didn’t write
rare and noble,
but the audience was loving it, and Sam was giving them just enough of that Sunday-morning sway to get them going.

“You have shown yourselves to be more than meets the eye. You have shown yourselves to be the best of what we have to give to our familes, our communities, our world.”

Then he stopped suddenly and looked around.

“Make it plain,” a woman said from the back of the room, and several others tittered nervously. It was the voice effect. Nothing we could do about that.

“If you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’d like to flip the script just a little.” He smiled like he was actually waiting for their permission; then he turned toward Busy Boy, still sitting in the audience, and called him by his legal name. “Mr. Baker, would you come and stand with me, please?”

The audience and the honorees gasped, then squealed and applauded wildly as young Mr. Baker, clad in a giant T-shirt, oversize jeans, and spotless white tennis shoes made his way to the small stage. By acknowledging his presence, Sam had set them free, and fan frenzy was suddenly in full effect. Busy Boy took it in stride, hopped up on the stage to exchange a handshake with Sam, and then turned to face the sudden flash of cameras busily recording the moment to prove that those in attendance had actually been in the presence of a real, live superstar.

“All right, ladies,” Sam said gently, urging the women back into their seats. “As some of you know, Mr. Baker is a big supporter of our GED program.”

His sister beamed.

“Mr. Baker and I were talking the other day, and I told him how much Miss Mandeville wished she could afford to send all of you girls right on through college.”

Ladies? Girls?
Sam had sneaked right back to the language of the fifties when I wasn’t looking.

“We wish she could, too!” somebody shouted from the back of the room and was rewarded with scattered applause and a few “amens.”

“Well, Mr. Baker said he’d like to see that, too. So he’s here today to make me a promise.”

You could have heard a pin drop. The brides leaned forward en masse.

“Any one of you who is accepted into an accredited college or junior college within the state of Georgia, Mr. Baker and Mandeville Maids will guarantee your tuition and all college expenses paid until you finish!”

There was another gasp and then an explosion of applause. The women jumped to their feet. Their friends and family threw programs in the air. The pop star looked properly humble, and Sam smiled like an indulgent paterfamilias. When things calmed down a little, Sam said Mr. Baker had a gift bag for each of the graduates, including his latest CD, and if they’d join him downstairs at the reception to follow, he’d be happy to sign autographs.

That was all they needed to hear. Sam pumped Busy Boy’s hand again and they did that chest-thumping, backslapping thing brothers do that passes for a hug. Bodyguards hovered nearby. Ezola’s official photographer recorded every moment, and the media that had come to cover a routine human-interest story found themselves with a celebrity angle that guaranteed a place in the first fifteen minutes of the local news.

Although I admired the partnership, I was a little surprised that Sam hadn’t mentioned it to me. He’d asked me to prepare remarks without ever giving me an inkling of the rabbit he was about to pull out of his hat. Not that he was obligated to tell me. It just seemed odd that he didn’t.

The auditorium emptied out in record time as the graduates and their friends rushed down to claim their goody bags and their autographs. Sam handed the star over to one of Ezola’s top assistants and two huge bodyguards, who hustled him down a back stairway to avoid the crowd. Another guy with his hair pulled back into a small ponytail hung around watching people leave the room like he had to be sure there were no terrorists present among the excited throng.

I made my way down front as Sam retrieved his notes. “Congratulations,” I said. “That was some speech.”

“Catherine,” he said, smiling, tucking the notes back into his soft leather envelope, and stepping down to greet me. “So glad you made it!”

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” I said. “That’s a pretty amazing commitment you just made.”

He chuckled softly as the last of the women hurried down to the reception. “You think so?”

The response surprised me. “Yes, I do.”

He looked at me like I was hopelessly naive. “How many women took the test?”

“Twenty-seven,” I said, having heard each one’s name as it was called aloud.

“Out of that twenty-seven, how many you think will actually apply to college?”

“Maybe half?” I said, guessing.

He raised his eyebrows. “These women are still working full-time. It’s very hard work, and when they get home, they’re tired. They’ve got families and boyfriends and all the things that made them drop out of high school in the first place, except more so. Now, realistically speaking, how many would you say?”

His question took the pleasure out of the moment in a way that seemed unfair, since he had orchestrated it so perfectly. Even worse, he was probably right. Most of these women had extended themselves as far as they were going by finally getting a GED. To assume that meant they were ready for college now was to deny the reality of their lives.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Try none,” Sam said. “One or two at the most, and those won’t finish. The most this kid will have to fork over is tuition for a couple of semesters at some junior college. It won’t add up to two grand, all total, and the publicity he’ll get will be worth a hundred times that much.”

“They’d probably do better if they had some counseling,” I said.

Sam nodded, the light playing across his bald head. “They probably would, but this is a business, Catherine, not a college campus. We’re not
really
here to educate the masses and uplift the race. We’re really here to make money.”

“Miss Mandeville said we were here to bear witness.”

His smile never wavered. “And I think we did that today in fine style.”

“Yes, I guess you did.”

“
We
did, Catherine,” he said, turning to look at me as we walked toward the door. “You’re part of the team now, and everything we do here is a team effort. You do understand that, don’t you?”

He was talking to me like those corporate guys at the ad agency where I had worked once for three months that seemed like three years. The tone was one that always sounded friendly and concerned, but vaguely threatening around the edges. Like they always wanted you to know your job was at stake if you didn’t hurry up and get on the good foot.

“I think it would be helpful,” I said, being diplomatic, “for us to sit down together and share some ideas.”

“That is first on my agenda,” he said, all smiles again. “How about next Thursday at two?”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll look forward to it.”

“Aren’t you coming to the reception?”

“I have another appointment,” I said, heading toward the parking lot, not the reception downstairs, where Busy Boy’s CD could now be heard blasting from the sound system. “Please give my best to Miss Mandeville.”

I didn’t wait for him to reply. I pushed open the door and headed for my car, repeating the date and time of our appointment so I wouldn’t forget the details before I wrote it down. Thursday at two—but where? I had been so busy extricating myself from whatever mind game Sam was playing, I hadn’t confirmed a location. My carelessness annoyed me as much as his cynicism, so I headed back inside to complete our business.

When I opened the door to the auditorium, there were only two people left there: Sam and the bodyguard with the ponytail, if that was what he was. They had their heads together and they were talking intensely. When I pushed the big door open, letting in a shaft of light that traveled up the middle aisle and spilled around them, they both turned toward me with a look of annoyance at the interruption.

Sam’s face softened a little when he realized it was me.
A little.
Ponytail’s face might as well have been on Mount Rushmore. “Yes, Catherine? Did you forget something?”

“You didn’t say where we were meeting on Thursday.”

“My office.”

“Fine,” I said, backing out. “Sorry to have interrupted you.”

“No problem.”

But Ponytail seemed to think there was. He may not have said anything, but his face sure had the look of somebody who specialized in bringing the bad news.