Calling Me Home (16 page)

She didn’t look at Brother James and he didn’t look at her, but a nearly palpable connection flowed between the two of them as they issued an invitation for the members of the congregation to respond to the message.

Clearly, they were meant to do this. Together.

My heart ached. My throat swelled. Tears pricked my eyes. Would I ever have such a partnership with a man I loved? So far, the interest my mother had tried to stir in me with the local boys had fallen flat. I’d met only one fellow with whom I could imagine sharing my life and living my dreams, and it was an impossible notion.

Yet here I was.

My shoulders shuddered, my sigh now broken by tears.

“Powerful good together, Nell and James,” Robert whispered.

I could only nod. Nell began a new verse, and several people moved forward to line up before Brother James, where they spoke and prayed with him one at a time, some openly weeping. Others knelt where they were, heads bowed toward the rustic benches, issuing unspoken requests directly to God, without a human intercessor. It was beautiful and more inspiring than anything I’d seen in my own place of worship, where we sang the same hymns over and over, and our minister, who’d been there more years than I’d been alive, delivered the same fire-and-brimstone messages Sunday after Sunday, so monotone, nobody shook with fear unless called out publicly by Reverend Creech for dozing during his sermon.

When the last one reached Brother James, and no others stood to follow, Nell began humming the song’s chorus quietly, and the choir joined her in a soothing, almost lullaby. James raised his hands high again, beckoning his congregation once more, and when no one else responded, he lowered them and clasped them behind his back. He offered a spoken prayer to end the service.

After his benediction, the choir sang again to send out the members, this time in a fast and rhythmic chorus. Some sang and clapped along; others gathered up sleepy children or embraced one another. I’d never seen such a joyful group. The state of their clothing, threadbare and outdated in most cases, indicated they struggled with poverty, barely hanging on even as America finally emerged from terrible times, yet they seemed thankful regardless.

“So, Miss Isabelle.”

Robert’s voice startled me. He seemed amused even in his annoyance, and I knew he’d reverted to “Miss” only to tease me. I’d temporarily forgotten him behind me, and he tilted his head now and eyed me with curiosity. I struggled to speak, my voice momentarily lost after watching his family and friends worship. Finally, I said, “I know you think I’m stupid for coming here. Isabelle and another one of her dangerous ideas.” I sighed. “But that was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I do envy you sometimes, Robert, even if you can’t believe it. Your family and your church and all the people who surround you, they amaze me. That young mother who found you? Once she got over the fact that I wasn’t a white boy come to cause trouble, she was so gracious, just like that sign out front says. I didn’t even know what I longed for, but now I know. This.” I spread my hands, indicating the last few lingering under the arbor and more. My voice became ragged and I nearly wept. “If only I could have it.”

Robert laced his fingers together and rested his chin on them awkwardly, as though uncertain what to do with his hands. “Be careful now, Isabelle. You might make me feel something I shouldn’t. Make me want to do something I can’t do.” He took a short step back.

“What, Robert? What do you feel? Was I
not
wrong that day in the arbor? It’s not just me? Tell me. Show me.”

The crowd behind the church had dissipated quickly at this late hour, and the lanterns hanging near the arbor swayed in a light breeze that had begun to stir, the only other movement visible now. The current raised gooseflesh on the back of my neck where my hair, freed from my brother’s cap, clung to my skin, damp with perspiration.

“You know I can’t,” he said. “You know it would be wrong, cause all kinds of trouble.”

He was right. I knew he was right. So why didn’t his protests cool my feelings? Why couldn’t I step away from this folly and ask him to walk me to the outskirts of Shalerville, once and for all, back where I belonged—even if it no longer felt like home.

“Robert,” I said, and shook my head the tiniest bit and gazed up, bolder than ever, into his eyes. Then he was there. He erased the space between us. Slid his hands around my waist to pull me close, then lifted one to press my head against his shoulder, just as he had during the storm. I stayed there, almost not breathing, listening to the
tum tump, tum tump
of his heart beating against my ear. I felt safe there, harbored in his embrace, and I didn’t want to be anywhere else, ever again. I didn’t want to move.

But then he lifted my chin with his finger and met my eyes with his, asking a question I’d never been asked, all with those simple gestures.

I leaned my head back, still cradled by his hand, and raised up on tiptoe. Yes.

He pressed his mouth to my mouth, gentle and hungry, and his lips, soft and warm, against mine. I gasped when his tongue gently prized them apart to explore the very edges of their interior. He drew back again, then dropped barely perceptible kisses on my forehead, my cheeks, my jawline, and even on the underside of my chin, where I’d never dreamed the nerves could be so sensitive to a touch lighter than the tickle of a blade of grass.

I was unable to contain my giggle. He stopped. Held me away from him and studied my face. I wondered if I looked different now.

“Where did you learn to do that?” I asked. I was serious. I couldn’t picture him reading the racy stories my classmates hid from their mothers. Perhaps he’d seen movies—a love story in a Cincy cinema that permitted Negroes in the balcony.

He tilted his head. “Maybe I’m a natural. Or maybe I can’t reveal my sources.” I felt a twinge of something. Was it jealousy? Jealousy of the other girls he might have kissed this way before? But what right did I have to think I should be the first? The only?

What right did I have at all?

He must have detected my sudden doubt, because he slid his fingers down to my elbows, then pushed me slightly away and rested his hands on his hips. “You make a right pretty boy, Isa, but I suspect it’s time you were getting home.”

We walked in silence at first. I’d forgotten my worries again and was so caught up in the euphoria of the evening, I didn’t notice when his steps began to drag. His face grew more serious and anxious the closer we came to that sign at the edge of Shalerville. “Isabelle?” he asked finally, and dread wormed its way through my stomach.

“Don’t say it. Don’t,” I muttered, and pulled his hand to mine, not caring we were mere feet from a place opposed to his very existence except for the services he could perform by daylight.

But he did say it. “That can’t happen. It didn’t happen.”

“I don’t care about them, you know.” I jutted my chin toward town, then leaned my head back and gazed blatantly into his eyes. “I don’t care what anyone thinks. I meant everything I said. Every word.”

“Isabelle. What happened tonight? It can’t ever be more than that—a nice memory. For the both of us. You know it. Anyone ever finds out I kissed you, you know what they will do to me? What your momma will do to you? It’s impossible.”

“But—” I drew a breath. “Robert Prewitt, I think … I think I might love you.” My heart raced and my face burned and my fingers, wrapped around his, trembled.

“You just—you’re just a girl, Isa. A child. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

I flinched at his dismissal. But I was convinced it was his way of denying what I believed he felt, too. He was right; I was only a girl, not even seventeen, but I couldn’t deny the feelings I’d finally acknowledged, feelings that had grown each time we’d met. In my yard. At the creek. Every week under the arbor. Tonight. More than ever, tonight.

“But I do know what I’m saying. I do, Robert. Can you tell me you don’t feel it? That you don’t feel the same? I have to ask. I know you’re afraid. I’d be afraid, too. I
am
afraid.” He tried to turn away, to fix his gaze elsewhere, but I let go of his hand and reached to turn his face toward mine. “Do you love me, too?”

He shrugged. “What if I said I did? What if I said, yes, I—I think I might love you. What good would that do either of us?”

I couldn’t and didn’t answer his question. All I wanted, more than ever, was to know my feelings weren’t unfounded. His statement, in its roundabout manner, gave me enough of a hint to understand he felt them, too.

12

Dorrie, Present Day

I
TWITCHED AROUND
on the bed all night, worrying about my money. Then worrying about trusting Teague with my money. Then worrying about anything else I could think of to worry about. By morning, I felt as wiped out as if I’d spent all night walking a newborn baby who never stopped fussing. Not something I planned to do for real anytime soon, see, so I worried about my son and the probability he’d knocked up his girlfriend, too.

I hoped my restlessness hadn’t kept Miss Isabelle awake, especially since she said she didn’t sleep well anyway. What a pair we’d make on the road, trying to stay awake.

But she surprised me again, pert and ready to hitch an elevator ride to the complimentary breakfast buffet she figured she’d actually paid for as part of the room charge. She liked to get her money’s worth. When I did her hair, she always pointed out any spots I missed—not often, please note.

“Rise and shine, Dorrie Mae. Sun’s up.”

I groaned at her voice and said, “Damn you, Susan Willis.” When Miss Isabelle shoved open the blackout drapes I dragged a pillow over my eyes, because, sure enough, the sun was right there glaring at me. I reluctantly pulled the pillow away and swung my legs over the side of the bed, burying my face in my hands as I ordered the rest of my body to wake up. It didn’t work so well.

“I heard you over there worrying all night. I’m sorry we have to get going so early, but we need to get on the road or we’ll be running behind schedule.” I’d always figured her for a morning person, and now there was no doubt. But I also figured she had on her game face, and this was no vacation.

“No problem, Miss Isabelle. Just doing a limb check here to be sure I’m alive. I’ll be fine once I get a caffeine drip going.” I forced myself up and dressed quickly. I’d taken a quick shower before bed, and since I couldn’t do much about my hair on the road, I patted it flat as I could and promised I’d do better when we arrived at our destination.

People were often surprised that, as a hairdresser, I wore such a simple hairstyle. Early on, I’d discovered I had no inclination to devote much time to my own hair. I kept it trimmed evenly all over, short and natural, sometimes with a deep auburn rinse. In my humble opinion, I had a nicely shaped head, and my style always got plenty of compliments—if mostly from white folks. Momma ceaselessly complained that I was letting a head of good hair go to waste, believing I should advertise my services by making the most of it. I disagreed. My customers came to me for one thing—to leave feeling shiny and pretty, like a new penny. They didn’t give a rat’s anything how my hair looked as long as it was neat and unobtrusive. (Seventeen across, eleven letters: “inconspicuous, unassuming.”
Unobtrusive.
Big, fancy word.) I was the vehicle to get them from zero to beautiful in sixty minutes or less. Along the way, if we became more than casual acquaintances, then hallelujah and pass the potato salad, because then my hair ought to be the least of their worries. I counted on that from my friend Miss Isabelle as I gave it one last pat.

Downstairs, we settled ourselves before plates of steaming eggs and toast, cold milk over cereal, and lukewarm coffee. Miss Isabelle turned her nose up at the cinnamon rolls, saying she figured they weren’t worth the fat it took to frost them. No wonder she kept so trim. I’d seen photos around Miss Isabelle’s house of her at various ages, and in every one, she looked like she’d just come off six months of Jenny Craig, her waist tiny and cinched in by belts the likes of which I hadn’t worn since before Stevie Junior came along. Or never. I sighed and passed up the rolls, too, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to follow her lead. I could smell them, though, and it nearly killed me not to have one between my lips. Or a cigarette.

“How do you know a good man when you see one?” I asked. Abrupt, yeah, but I needed to know. I hadn’t had enough sleep to ease into the question.

“A good man,” she said, and raised her fork to nibble scrambled egg. So much for a quick answer.

“See, I know how to find the scummy ones, no problem,” I added. “Well. I don’t even have to look—as soon as one leaves off, the next comes running. I’m a loser magnet.”

“A good man,” Miss Isabelle began again. “For starters, he treats you well. But just as important is how he treats everyone else.”

“Like, how do you mean? His kids? His momma?”

“Sure. But there’s more. Whenever he takes you to the movies, does he thank the ticket takers? When you’re riding in his car, does he hog the road? Even after two weeks, or two months, is he respectful to his fellow man, no matter that person’s position in relationship to him? In other words, does he still tip the waiter?”

“That’s good, Miss Isabelle. That’s really good.” She was right. I’d never thought about it before, but nearly every man I’d dated had treated me like a queen the first few times we went out, but griped at servers about food being cold or bland when it was just fine, or cut off drivers who were desperate to enter the highway, even if there was plenty of time to get wherever we were going. Eventually? He treated me the same.

“I’ve known a few good men in my life. They’re out there.” Her eyes went a little hooded and soft, as if she’d drifted into a memory, and her lips curved in a small, private smile. I wished I could climb inside her memories beside her. I wanted to see the things that still gave her happy thoughts after so many years. “My husband was a good man. But he wasn’t the only one,” she said. Then she focused sharply. “You think you’ve found a good one, Dorrie?”