Bring on the Blessings (2 page)

N
aked and lying on the bed in the dark, Lily Fontaine stared unseeingly up at the ceiling. Her lover, Winston, was in the bathroom with the faucets running, but the sound of the water was not loud enough to drown out his off-key singing. The song, an old-school hit by Rick James, was begging a woman to
give it to me, baby
. Winston sang the chorus as if he’d written the lyrics personally. She supposed the tune was appropriate—she had just
given it to him
, but she didn’t know why he sounded so pleased? Winston was terrible in bed.

Lily sighed. Professor Winston Seymour had been after her for over two years to marry him, but Lily kept putting him off. Why, she wasn’t sure. They’d dated, gone on trips, seen plays; hell, even her godmother, Marie, wanted to know what the problem was? Everybody knew Winston was a catch; he wasn’t gay, didn’t live with his mama, and was a highly respected professor at the local community college. Winston had it going on. Except in bed.

Lily sat up and tried to figure out how she was going to fix her face to lie when he asked her how
it
had been for her. She couldn’t tell him the truth. A woman wasn’t supposed to tell a man he had no sex skills, especially not one determined to put a ring on her finger. She sighed again. Was she so hard up that she’d marry a man who didn’t seem to know the first thing about knocking boots, as the kids used to call it? Lily had been divorced at the age of nineteen, and although she’d been without a steady man since then, needs were still important. Just because she was forty didn’t mean she was dead—or maybe she was: Winston’s version of lovemaking certainly hadn’t made her feel alive.

She picked up her robe and slipped it on.

Winston stuck his head around the door. He had a thin towel wrapped around his paunchy fifty-five-year-old waist. “Hey, baby doll. You want to get in here?”

She gave him a small smile. “After you’re done, is fine.”

He started singing the chorus again, “Give it to me baby,” complete with gleaming eyes and waggling eyebrows.

She grinned.

“How about another round?”

The grin faded. “I—need to get home, Winston.”

He studied her for a moment. “You sure?”

She nodded.

Their eyes met. He said, finally, “Okay. No problem. Let me get through in here, then it’ll be your turn.”

“Thanks.”

An hour later, Lily was showered, dressed, and ready
to head back to her small townhouse on the other side of Atlanta. She was slipping on her raincoat when Winston asked, “So, what’s wrong?”

Lily shook her head and lied, “Nothing. Why’d you ask?”

“Because you’re not acting like a woman who just had her world rocked,” he boasted proudly.

Lord.
“I’m just tired. Been a long day.”

“You sure, baby?”

She fussed with the belt on her coat. “I’m sure.”

His face said he didn’t believe her, but she looked past it. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Okay?” She walked over, gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Stop worrying, you were fine.”

After telling that lie, she left and closed the door softly behind her. On the drive home, she wondered why she didn’t just give in and tell Winston she’d marry him. No, he wasn’t any good in bed; rabbits took more time, but he was steady, dependable. He even got along with her twenty-two-year old son, Davis. Could she live life without fire? Every now and then she saw flashes of his sense of humor, but the times were so few and far between she could count them on one hand. So why was he even in the running?
Because I think I am getting desperate,
she admitted to herself.

She turned onto her street. Her place was in the middle of the block nestled amongst the other townhouses and condos in the upscale subdivision. She eased the car up her driveway and into the matching brick garage, then turned off the car’s engine. For a few moments, she sat there in the dark trying to empty her mind of all the jumbled thoughts,
but it was hard.
So what is it that you want, girl?
her inner sister asked. Lily answered truthfully:
Not to be alone.

She thought back on her life. After her unplanned pregnancy, her quick marriage, and even quicker divorce, she’d had no choice but to pick herself up and keep stepping; she had her degree in business management to finish and a baby to feed. There’d been no time to feel sorry for herself. The phone company didn’t care that her husband, Randy, had broken her heart by sleeping with half the women on campus. They just wanted their money. The electric company didn’t care about her troubles, and neither did her landlord. In order to make it through those early years, she’d had had to transform herself. Life made it clear that she could no longer be the wide-eyed small town girl she’d grown up as. What she needed to do to get over was to become a walking, talking urban Black woman. Once she figured that out she embraced the role and her new self. When life shouted at her, she stuck her hand on her hip and shouted right back. She didn’t take no mess, not in school, not on the job, not in the line at the unemployment office. Lily’s late mama, Cassandra, had raised Lily to be a lady, and those parts of herself were always out front, but she’d learned to stand up for herself and for her son.

But now, twenty-one odd years later, she was tired of being strong, tired of carrying the load alone. Davis would be graduating from college in a few weeks, then off to Silicone Valley for a good-paying job at a high-profile tech company. With him gone, she’d be able to kick back and chill, especially now that she’d taken her company’s cash buyout and didn’t have to take on another job unless she
wanted to, but she had no special person in her life to chill with, and hadn’t for a very long time.

She opened the car door and stepped out into a dimly lit, cluttered garage. As she stuck her key in the door, she told herself maybe the melancholy feelings were a result of empty nest syndrome creeping in. She didn’t believe that for a minute, but went with the assessment anyway because it was much easier to deal with.

The message light on the phone was flashing when she entered the kitchen, so she took a moment to listen. It was her godmother, Marie Jefferson, and the sound of the familiar voice put a smile on Lily’s face. Marie had called to tell Lily about the party she was throwing to celebrate her sixtieth birthday party and wanted to know if Lily could attend. Lily decided then and there that she would. Going back to Henry Adams where she’d grown up came with its own unique issues, but hey, maybe returning to her past would help her figure out her future, so she picked up the phone to give Marie a call back.

At Detroit’s 13th Precinct, Sgt. Greg Fisher looked up from his paperwork at the perp being brought in by two uniformed officers. “You again?” he asked in a voice filled with disbelief. The kid grinned. “Yep. How ya doin’, Sarge?”

Fisher questioned the female officer, “Where was he this time?”

“Freeway. I-94. Doing ninety.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“Nope. Car was stolen though.”

“Of course. His last name is Steele. What was he driving?”

“Escalade.”

Fisher was outdone. “How can you even see over the wheel? What are you, ten?”

“Eleven last week, and I roll with my own pillow and blocks.”

The male officer raised a dirty black chair pillow for the Sarge to see, then showed him the short stiltlike block of wood Amari “Flash” Steele had made so he could reach the car’s pedals.

Fisher leaned down and looked the kid in the eyes. “You know, if you’d use that sharp mind of yours for good instead of this, you could be something one day. How many times have you been arrested?”

“Recently? Or all together?”

Fisher knew that if he looked it up the number it would just inflame his ulcer, so he said, “Never mind. What’s your foster mother’s number, Amari?”

“All you’re going to get is cussed out. She said if I got picked up again, don’t call her—call CPS.”

Fisher studied the bright, engaging kid and said resignedly to one of the officers, “Call Child Protective Services. Tell them we got the ghetto’s version of Jeff Gordon in here again.”

“Yes, sir.”

Amari flashed a grin, made himself comfortable on one of the benches, and settled in for the wait.

W
hen Trent awakened at dawn, Rocky was already gone, and he thought that was as it should be. They’d been two lonely souls seeking solace and warmth and now he would go on alone. That was as it should be too, he supposed, since every relationship in his life had left him in the same place. He and Rock had never loved each other; he’d used her and she him in a symbiotic relationship that satisfied both of their needs, but it hadn’t been just about sex and lust though: they’d traveled together, watched DVDs together, drove to Kansas City to shows and ball games. For ten years, they’d been a couple, but not in the real sense because she’d seen others and he had too, but they’d always drifted back to the familiar when things inevitably fell apart.

He didn’t think her relationship with Bob would fall apart. Rocky wanted this marriage, and he knew she’d wade through fire to make it work. She’d been looking for someone to love her the way she deserved to be loved for a
long time. Sadly, it hadn’t been him. After two failed marriages he was real gun shy about committing himself. His first wife, Felicia, a high-powered lawyer, had picked making partner over the kids he’d wanted. He hadn’t held her ambition against her, in fact he’d done everything possible to support her dream, but upon finding out that she’d had a secret tubal ligation in order to not conceive had crushed his heart. Two years later, his second walk to the altar with bookstore owner Mia ended after only six months. She and his business partner had been conducting an affair right under his nose, and the sense of anger and betrayal made him chuck life in the fast lane and move back to the place where he’d been born, a place where he could go to ground and lick his wounds. A place he’d sold.

He sat up and looked out of the window at the sun coming up. The decision still weighed on him. Intellectually he knew selling had been the only option, but it didn’t salve the guilt he felt inside from being unable to keep the town going. Henry Adams had been handed down for five generations, and no matter what life or the country threw at it, it had survived. Until now. Now there was no tax base, no population, no schools. Farms had gone under, elders had died. The young people who’d left in search of real lives and never returned. Except for him, of course, but this wasn’t about him. It was about legacy and family and a way of life that would be no more. Back in the day, his great great-great-grandmother Olivia Sterling July had been Henry Adams’s mayor. She’d loved her town and her people. Now, because of him, she was probably spinning in her grave.

Trent sat in the half dawn for a few moments longer,
then got up to start the day. He was due to pick up Ms. Brown at the airport that afternoon, and frankly he wasn’t looking forward to it.

After her flight from Kansas City to Hays, Bernadine walked into the terminal and followed the other passengers from the small jet to baggage claim. While waiting for her luggage to show, she glanced around for Trent July. Although she had no idea what he looked like because her lawyers had handled everything so far, she assumed he’d be Black but saw no one fitting that description.

Once the bags arrived she grabbed her two sand-colored suitcases off the belt and followed the exit sign to the doors leading outside. After being cooped up in airports and planes since early that morning, the fresh air felt good; it was hot though. From the discreet stares she received from people walking by, she assumed they didn’t get too many folks at the airport who looked like her, but she didn’t let it bother her and continued her visual search for the man she was supposed to meet. As time passed and no July, she wondered if he’d forgotten about picking her up or just running late.

She was digging around in her handbag for her phone just as a big black pickup eased up to the curb. A tall dark-skinned Black man wearing shades, jeans, a worn green plaid shirt, and a straw cowboy hat stepped out and went inside the terminal.

A few moments later he returned. He glanced at his watch and then at the faces of the few people milling about as if searching for someone in particular.

“Mr. July?” Bernadine asked, hope in her voice.

He hesitated, looking her over. “Yes. I’m July.”

She stuck out her perfectly manicured hand. “B. E. Brown. Pleased to meet you.”

His jaw dropped. “You’re Brown? Nobody told me you were—”

“Black?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Does it matter?”

He sized her up. She sized him up.

“No. No it doesn’t. Just surprised I guess. How about I pull my foot out of my mouth and we start over?”

She decided she liked him. In this day and age, some people would rather lose a limb than own up to an apology—for anything. “I’d like that. I’m Bernadine Edwards Brown.”

“And I’m Trenton July. Most folks call me Trent. Welcome to Kansas, Ms. Brown.”

“Thank you.”

“Let me take those bags and we’ll head out.”

Bernadine let out a sigh of relief. First hurdle passed.

“Watch your step.”

He opened the door and she stepped up as gracefully as she could in her dark green Italian suit and matching pumps and settled into the seat.

“Buckle up.”

She reached for the seat belt and he closed her in.

Bernadine had never ridden in a pickup. The interior was soft gray leather and the space was clean. It was a stereotype, of course, but she’d always associated pickups with
empty beer cans, discarded jerky wrappers, and pork rind bags. This truck was nothing like that. The air-conditioning felt good too.

The door to the driver’s side opened and Trent got in. “I put your bags in the bed.”

With a smooth turn of the steering wheel, he guided the truck back into the traffic and drove away from the terminal.

Although Trent didn’t express it aloud, to say that he was surprised by her race was an understatement. He naturally assumed she’d be White, and so did everyone else in town. It never occurred to anyone that B. E. Brown would turn out to be someone who looked like them, but here she was, dressed in a fancy designer suit and shoes, and sporting tasteful diamonds in her lobes and around her neck as if she were on her way to Paris or L.A. instead of a dusty little town in north-central Kansas. He just hoped she was ready.

“How far are we going?” she asked.

“About forty miles. Should be there in under an hour if we don’t get stuck behind a combine.”

Bernadine knew what a combine was. She’d seen the huge farm machines on the Discovery Channel. It never occurred to her that one would be out on a road though. The TV always showed them working in some field. Not wanting to expose her ignorance she nodded her thanks and turned her attention to the countryside.

They rode along in silence, and to her it seemed as if they’d left civilization behind. She couldn’t believe the sparseness of the land. Pancake-flat plains of green and gold
shimmered unchecked to the horizon. The number of trees could be counted on one hand—the number of houses on the other. For the hundredth time that day, she wondered if maybe she had been crazy to take this all on. How in the world was she supposed to grow a community out here in the middle of nowhere? She had enough confidence in herself and her mission to know that everything would work out in the end, but getting there was going to be the problem. “Not many trees out here.”

“Nope. Not enough rain.”

“Must make it hard to farm.”

“Sometimes. Some years are drier than others.”

They left the interstate and were now on a bumpy dirt road traveling past fenced-in rolling fields that could only be described as amber waves of grain. “What’s that growing?”

“Winter wheat.”

“Is there spring wheat?”

“Yeah,” he said smiling as he looked her way. “Winter type grows better around here. Mennonite immigrants brought it to this part of the country when they came from Europe.”

She waited for him to say more, but when he didn’t it made her wonder if he was just not much of a talker or if he still felt guilty about his small faux pas at the airport. She hadn’t been offended. Out here on the plains of Kansas, she was sure the local population had never met a woman with her spending power, and especially not a Black women, but rather than press him, she sat back and watched the wheat.

Now Bernadine appreciated silence and introspection, but after ten miles of it, she was ready to talk—about anything. “You must have some questions about why I’m doing this.”

“I do, but thought I’d let my neighbors do all the asking. I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one day, I think.”

Yep, she liked him a lot. “I bought Henry Adams for two reasons. One, it’s not often we Black folks get the opportunity to save
our
history. When I saw the piece on TV about the town going up for sale, I knew what I had to do.”

“Not many people in the country know how famous Henry Adams was once upon a time.”

“I didn’t either until I Googled it.” And she was astounded by what she found. “I’d never heard of the Dusters or the Great Exodus of 1879.” Tens of thousands of Black people fled the south after the Civil War and settled in places like Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado in order to escape the violence perpetrated by the Redemptionist Democrats against the newly freed slaves and their families. It was the largest mass exodus of the race of its time. “I was surprised to read that Frederick Douglass was against our people leaving the South.”

“Douglass was a politician losing his constituents just like the White planters were losing their cheap labor.”

“And Congress held hearings about the Exodus?”

“Yep. The country thought so-called agitators were behind all those Black folks pulling up stakes, like maybe the race couldn’t think for themselves and enjoyed all the killing and murdering the Klan and the Democrats were doing.”

She shook her head. One of the articles she’d read on the subject told of an army general writing to President Hayes to inform him that in an effort to keep the Blacks from leaving the South, planters were lined up along the Mississippi armed as if the country was still at war.

He went on, “Entire church congregations from places as far east as Tennessee and Kentucky packed up everything and everybody and lit out for Kansas, looking for peace and opportunity. During the first winter, many of the colonies didn’t have housing, so folks lived underground and in places carved out of hillsides; called them dugouts.”

Bernadine found that amazing. As much as she loved her creature comforts she couldn’t imagine having to live that way, but she supposed if she had been one of the dusters dealing with all the violence and hate, underground might not have looked too bad.

“We called our high school sports teams the Henry Adams Dusters.”

“I saw in the report that the town no longer has a high school.”

“No. Tornado came through about ten-twelve years ago and took it to Oz.”

“And you never rebuilt?”

He shook his head. “The state told us if we did, we’d have to pay
x
amount for new insurance, new site developments, new environmental assessments. We didn’t have that kind of money, so we shut down. The few high school kids left were bused over to Franklin, about fifteen miles west. Been no Henry Adams Dusters since.”

Bernadine sensed his disappointment. She thought how
hard it must have been for him to watch his hometown slowly disappear like sand through fingers. In its prime, Henry Adams and the surrounding valley had been home to nearly six hundred people. Presently there were fifty-two.

“You said you had two reasons for wanting to buy. What’s the second?”

She told him.

When she finished he whistled. “That’s pretty ambitious.”

“It is, but when much is given, much is expected, and I have a
lot
.”

“Then if I were you, I’d wait to drop that dime. Let folks get to know you first.”

“You don’t think they’ll like the idea?”

“Can’t really say. I’ve no problem with it, but there’s a small group who didn’t want to sell. They’ll scream long and loud when they hear this.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. “They have any clout?”

“Only if you call making me crazy clout, but I’ll let you judge them for yourself. Wouldn’t be fair of me.”

“You always this noble?”

He grinned but kept his eyes on his driving.

They turned off onto another dirt road so filled with holes and ruts the truck bounced and bucked like a rodeo rider. Bernadine swore her behind was cracked in at least six places. “How much would it cost to put in a paved road?”

Humor flashed across his dark brown face. “You’ll have to ask the state.”

The next turn was onto another road barely wide enough for the big truck to negotiate. Door-high grass slapped against the windows like a bizarre car wash. The bucking and bouncing continued. She supposed if she planned on living there she’d get used to the rocking and rolling, but for the moment all she could do was hang on and hope she didn’t hit her head on the ceiling of the truck.

When they came out into a clearing and the road evened out, her rattled bones gave up a weary and grateful hallelujah. Off in the distance she spotted weathered old wooden homes standing against the horizon like abandoned sentinels. “Is this it?”

“It’s just around the next turn.”

Bernadine could feel her excitement rising. She’d owned a lot of things in her life, but a town? Never.

“This is what’s left of the neighborhood closest to town. Back in the day a good two hundred families lived here.”

Viewing the scene through her window, she noted that now there was nothing to mark their existence but occasional piles of bricks hidden within stands of tall grass that made the homesteads look like the deserted nests of some strange bird. The truck rolled past the remains of fences, and sad-looking barns with caved-in roofs perched on walls too tired and too old to care. The area could have passed for the movie set of a ghost town.

And it got worse. He turned into what had once been the main business district. “This used to be downtown. There was a hotel over there, a livery, a general store. Had a couple of barber shops, tailors, and a seamstress shop. At
the end of the block was the local gambling joint called the Liberian Lady, and next to it was the post office.”