Fireflies in December (19 page)

A couple more smacks on the flashlight sounded before I got up the nerve. At the count of three, I bolted for the door, smacking my foot on something metal on the way. Pain shot through my foot, but I didn’t hesitate. I had just reached the doorway when a hand gripped my wrist, jerking me to a stop.

My screams pierced the air over and over again. I was hysterical, shrieking in short, loud gasps, flailing against the grasp of my captor.

That was when the flashlight decided to click on, but I had my eyes clamped shut, and it wasn’t until I heard my name that I paused to identify the voice that said it.

“Miss Jessilyn,” he was saying, “what’s wrong with you?”

It was Jeb, and his presence there with me in the dark did nothing to relieve my fears. But I knew that my screams would have alerted half the county by then, and in sheer weariness, I collapsed to the ground in a heap.

“Heaven’s sake,” he said, stooping down in front of me. “You’re in a state!”

By the time he got me back outside, Daddy and Luke were flying up the path in horror. “Jessilyn! Jessilyn, you hurt?” Daddy demanded. “What happened?”

“Don’t rightly know what happened,” Jeb said. “I found the shed locked and barred by somethin’, and then she tried to run out past me, so I grabbed her arm and she just went off like a banshee.”

I stayed on the ground to get my composure, and Daddy and Luke both bent down in front of me.

Mr. Tinker came running up last. “What in tarnation is goin’ on here?”

“Someone locked me in,” I said breathlessly. “I couldn’t get out.”

“What do you mean someone locked you in?” Daddy asked.

“I mean just that. I went to get out of the door, and I couldn’t get it open.”

“Maybe it was just stuck,” Mr. Tinker said. “You know the humidity does that to the doors.”

I shook my head. “No, sir! That door was locked. It wiggled but it wouldn’t open.”

Daddy sat back on his heels and tipped his hat off his head, thinking.

“It was locked when I got to it, Harley,” Jeb said. “She’s right about that. And there were some crates in front of the door on the inside. I had a heck of a time gettin’ in.”

“Crates in front of the door?” Luke asked.

“I did that to keep anyone out,” I said. “Someone locked me in, and there was no telling if they’d come back for me.”

“Now, honey, I just can’t believe anyone locked you in,” Daddy murmured unconvincingly. “Most likely that lock fell into place when you shut the door, is all. Stranger things have happened.”

His denial of the reality of my experience angered me, but I held my tongue, realizing that he didn’t know how fully I’d been threatened of late. Luke looked suspiciously at Jeb and came over to help me up. I gratefully let him, but even the touch of Luke’s rough hands couldn’t ease my spirits.

I saw Mr. Tinker exchange a meaningful glance with my daddy, but they didn’t voice their worries in front of me. I thought it was pretty stupid for them to think they shouldn’t talk about it in front of me. After all, I knew better than anyone how much trouble I was in. But I just kept silent knowing that saying such things to my daddy would have been the stupidest thing of all.

As we walked back to the house, Daddy offered all sorts of different ways that the door could have locked by itself. “Could’ve been the breeze. Or the force of the door closin’. Did you slam it, Jessie? That’s probably all it was. Or maybe it really was swollen stuck. You know how old that shed is. Maybe the hinges are rustin’.”

It was unlike Daddy to come up with so many guesses. He liked facts, not speculation, and I saw his eagerness to make excuses as evidence that he was worried but didn’t want to let on that he was.

Jeb walked as far as the house with us, and then he tipped his hat in our direction. “Sorry you got so scared, Miss Jessie. S’pose I’ll say good night now.”

Luke stared at Jeb, his head cocked to one side. “Now, how is it you’re on this property this time of night?”

“I was stayin’ in the lean-to, since I had extra work to be done this evenin’.”

Luke looked at my daddy for confirmation of Jeb’s story.

“You know I let him stay there on late days, Luke. There ain’t nothin’ wrong with Jeb.” Daddy said those words very determinedly, as though he were vowing Jeb’s innocence in his simple words. I couldn’t be as sure as he was, though. The way I saw it, Daddy didn’t know all there was to know about Jeb Carter. “Thanks for helpin’ my girl, Jeb,” Daddy said. “We’ll be seein’ you tomorrow.”

I watched Jeb walk off, my mind full of suspicions. The lean-to was attached to the very shed where I’d been stuck, and there wasn’t a single soul who had been better able to lock me in than Jeb had been.

While Mr. Tinker went back to fixing the truck, Daddy and Luke got me settled inside the house with Gemma, who we found in front of one of the windows, her face pressed closely to the glass. “Land’s sake!” she shouted when we came in, sounding like her momma. “I was nearly faintin’ in here wonderin’ what happened! What was all the screamin’ about? Jessilyn, you okay?”

“I’m okay, Gemma. Just got scared, is all.”

“Scared by what? You see a snake or somethin’?”

I glared at her. “I ain’t afraid of no snakes!”

“Well then, what?”

“She’ll explain it to you in a minute, Gemma,” Daddy said. “Let’s get her settled down first.”

Gemma obeyed and went to get me some cold water. She came back with a glass mostly full of ice with a little water in it. “Cold helps you calm down,” she told me. “Crunch some ice.”

I did as she said, and loath to be the center of attention again as I had been so often that summer, I told Daddy they should get back to fixing the truck. “Ain’t no reason to hang around starin’ at me,” I said, pulling the tape from my pocket and handing it to him. “Gemma’s with me.”

“Truck can wait. But Otis wants to borrow my good saw, and I’d better get it for him before he goes. He was searchin’ for it in the barn when you started screamin’, and he more’n likely forgot all about it himself. You sure you’ll be okay, Jessilyn?” Daddy asked, clearly concerned.

“Yes’r. I’m fine.”

“Maybe I should stay with her,” Luke said. “If I’m in here, then you can finish up on the truck. You boys could do it without my help.”

“You’ll just be outside,” I said, trying not to be too convincing. “But if you want to, Luke . . .”

Gemma put a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing at me, but I figured if I was going to have such a trying night, I may as well get something out of it.

“Fine idea,” Daddy said. “That would ease my mind a bit if you stayed inside, Luke.”

So Luke, Gemma, and I sat in the den sipping on tall glasses of sweet tea, the Tinker boys’ snoring as our background music. I told Gemma the short version of what had happened, and I could tell that she believed I’d been locked in. She hadn’t been oblivious to the spite I’d received, and I think she suspected there was even more to it than what she’d noticed. But she didn’t say anything about it. She just took my hand in hers and held it. Maybe she thought if she held on to me tightly enough nothing bad could happen to me.

Gemma had turned the radio off when she heard my screaming, so Luke turned it back on, and the three of us sat there listening. I put my head on a pillow and listened to the music and the rhythmic tapping of Luke’s boot on the floor.

Peace had begun to flood back into my spirit until the front door opened and Momma entered all flustered.

Daddy followed her. “Sadie. Now, Sadie, darlin’,” he was saying, “tell me what happened.”

Momma rushed up the stairs without answering. I could hear her breath coming in hiccups, and I knew she was crying but trying not to let it show. Daddy went after her, taking the steps two at a time.

Luke, Gemma, and I exchanged glances. I laid my head back down and closed my eyes, my heart sinking.

I didn’t need to hear Mrs. Tinker’s quiet and quick explanation to us as she gathered the boys’ things to know what had upset Momma. “Seems people have longer memories than I thought. And we’d made it through the first bit of the night so well too. . . .” She noticed my unhappy face and said, “Oh, your momma’ll be fine after a while. She’s just feelin’ people’s smallness, is all. Thank you for takin’ care of the boys.”

Mr. Tinker piled both sleeping boys into his arms and nodded at us, and the family left us just that quickly.

Luke said nothing, but he smacked his knee so hard I figured it had to have stung something fierce. Gemma squeezed my hand more tightly, and we sat in silence, no doubt wondering how long life could go on like this. Or for that matter, how long
we
could go on like this.

Chapter 17

I sat down at the table next to Gemma and swirled my eggs around with my fork. The clock chimed halfway, announcing six thirty. “Daddy already in the fields?”

“Got a lot of work to do today. He was out before sunup.” Momma sat at the table with us and urged me to stop playing with my food and eat. “Growin’ girls need food for energy.”

I nodded and picked up a piece of bacon, crunching it without enjoying it.

“Daddy tells me you had a mishap at the shed last night, Jessilyn,” Momma said in between blows to cool her tea. “Said you got locked in.”

“Yes’m, I did. No big deal,” I told her, not wanting to make things harder for her than they already were. I could see her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and I figured she’d cried herself to sleep last night. I didn’t want to upset her more.

“Sure it’s no big deal? He said you were pretty scared.”

“It was just dark, is all. I couldn’t see nothin’. Makes a body scared.”

Momma added some more sugar to her tea and stirred it, clanging the spoon from side to side. “Got you scared too, no doubt, Gemma. Hearin’ that screamin’ and all.”

“Yes’m,” Gemma replied. “Did my heart good to see them comin’ back to the house.”

“Well, I must say I’m glad I wasn’t home,” Momma told us. “I’d have been takin’ a stroke hearin’ that kind of screamin’ from my girl like that. I don’t know how I would have made it through.”

“Weren’t nothin’,” I assured her. “Like I said, no big deal.”

After breakfast, Momma sent me down to the fields with some iced tea for Daddy, but I found Jeb instead. I was uneasy the moment I came upon him. “Oh, it’s you. I was lookin’ for Daddy. I’ll just go find him.”

“He’s gone to town quicklike, Miss Jessie. Seems he ran out of somethin’ he needed to fix the back fence.”

“I’ll see him when he gets back, then,” I said and turned away.

Jeb caught my arm. “Hold up. I gotta talk to you for a second.”

I jumped away from him, wrenching my arm free.

My movements made Jeb turn worried, and he held his hands up in front of him. “Now, I ain’t gonna hurt ya, Miss Jessie,” he said in what seemed to be grave sincerity. “Honest. Just need to talk to you for a second.”

I stood still, my shaky hand sloshing tea over the side of the glass. Despite my suspicions, and Luke’s for that matter, I still found it hard to mistrust Jeb. I instinctively wanted to know what it was he needed to say. I looked around anxiously and said, “All right, but I ain’t got long.”

I stayed well away from him, and Jeb didn’t try to get closer when he talked. “You know last night, when you got stuck in the shed?”

I nodded.

“Well, that was me that done it.” He lowered his voice and glanced over his shoulder. “But you got to believe me. I did it for your own good.”

Remembering the terror I’d felt in that shed, I had a hard time feeling anything but anger over what he was saying. “You? But why?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know the answer.

Jeb rubbed the back of his sunburnt neck and said, “I can’t rightly tell you that. You just got to trust me that I did it for your own good.”

“I can’t trust no one no more,” I told him wearily. “Ain’t a single soul I can trust.”

“That’s a frightful way for a body to think,” he scolded gently. “You got your momma and daddy and Luke and Gemma . . . you got lots of people you can trust. And I think if you ask your daddy, he’d tell you that you can trust me too.”

I gave his words a few moments thought, and then I backed away slowly. “No, sir. No, sir. Ain’t nobody to trust, and that means you, too.” I spilled the sweet tea onto the ground and ran, ignoring Jeb’s calls to me.

When I got back to the house, I made sure to put on a brave face so no one would ask me what was wrong. It was a dull, still morning, and I found Gemma rocking listlessly on the tree swing.

“I’m bored,” she told me. “Where you been? You ain’t supposed to go off alone.”

“I ain’t alone in my own fields,” I said. “Anyhow, Momma sent me to take some tea to Daddy, but he’s gone to town.”

“Well, we’d best find somethin’ to do, else this’ll be one fine, borin’ day. Your momma says we ain’t got any chores to be done today, and it’s a day for bein’ lazy.”

“I don’t feel like bein’ lazy,” I said.

“Neither do I, but what’ll we do?”

After long thought, Gemma and I decided we would head over to Miss Cleta’s. Since I’d been sleeping very little at night, I had read through her books in just a few days, and I wanted to exchange them for others. Knowing Walt had come upon me last time I ventured out alone, Gemma was determined I shouldn’t stray far without her, so we walked through the ninety-degree heat together.

Miss Cleta was pleased as punch to see us, and we were glad we hadn’t come too early to catch some fresh-baked goods. “About ready to get some popovers from the oven,” she told us. “Hope you brought your sweet tooth with you.”

No doubt we had, and we spent the next hour gathering books and eating sweets and milk. Around ten thirty, Miss Cleta clapped as though she’d come up with a fine idea. “This is my goin’-into-town day. Why don’t you girls go home and get dressed on up, and we’ll go in and have lunch together? How would you like that?”

“I don’t know,” I said, already nervous at the idea of meeting more ornery people in town. “Momma might not want us to.”

“Oh, your momma’s an understandin’ woman. I’ll bet she’ll say yes.”

“Well, Jessie may be able to go,” Gemma told her adamantly, “but I got busy work to do.”

I glanced at Gemma, who had told me barely an hour earlier that we had a lazy day ahead of us.

Miss Cleta took a long swig of milk, wiped her mouth daintily with her napkin, and stared hard at Gemma and then at me. “Just what is it you girls are really sayin’? You think I shouldn’t take you to town for some reason?”

Gemma and I looked at each other.

“Well, is that it?” Miss Cleta tossed her napkin onto the table. “You think just because some people say white and colored don’t mix, I have to listen? There any law that says that if most people believe somethin’, it must be true? Is there? Because to my knowledge, there ain’t no law in this country that says I can’t do as I darn well please. And I darn well please to go into town with my two friends. The white one
and
the colored one.”

“But there’s bunches of trouble aimed at us these days,” I exclaimed. “You don’t know the half of it. You’re liable to get in trouble yourself. We know what we got comin’, but we don’t want you gettin’ hurt.”

“Nonsense. I can take care of myself against the rabble in this town.”

“I’d worry about it, Miss Cleta,” Gemma said. “Ain’t no way for me to have fun in town with you if I got to worry all the time about causin’ you trouble.”

“Now listen here. I ain’t lived on this earth for seventy-five years to sit in my house cowerin’ from human ignorance. I’ve certainly earned my right to do as I please around here within the law. And havin’ lunch with you girls is within the law.” Miss Cleta sat back and crossed her arms. “You girls think you’re wrong for bein’ friends?”

“No, ma’am!” we both shouted.

“You think colored people are less than white people?”

“No, ma’am!”

“Well then, enough talkin’ about me. I’ll be fine. The question is, do you girls have the nerve to go into town with me and stand up to all those people?”

“Me?” I asked, sitting up good and tall. “I got plenty of nerve. You ask my momma.”

“Well then, prove it. You too, missy,” Miss Cleta said to Gemma. “You two girls want to say you got nerve to stand up to people, then you got to prove it. Ain’t no way to change the world for the better if you can’t stand up for what’s right when everyone else is wrong.”

Gemma and I watched her ferocity with amazement, not uttering another word.

And that’s how one o’clock in the afternoon found us stepping from Mr. Lionel Stokes’ taxi cab in the center of town. Being a colored man himself, Mr. Stokes had done plenty of talking to Miss Cleta on our way into town, trying to persuade her to change her mind. As we exited his taxi, he shook his head. “Uh . . . uh . . . uh,” we heard him grunt slowly. “Just askin’ for trouble. That she is.”

He hadn’t helped calm our nerves any, but Miss Cleta seemed as serene as ever as we marched toward the Callo-way Inn, where she planned to have us dine. We drew plenty of stares on that short journey. Men peered from behind their newspapers. Ladies whispered behind gloved hands. I trained my eyes on Miss Cleta’s flower-covered blouse and walked ahead stoically.

“Miss Cleta,” the hostess cried with a clap of her lily-white hands, “we ain’t seen you here in an age. What a delight!” She stopped dead when she saw me and Gemma. It was like the smile just melted off her face like hot wax. “My, my,” she gasped, stricken.

“I’d like a table for myself and my two friends,” Miss Cleta said politely.

“Why, I’m so sorry to say, but . . . well . . . I believe we are full today.”

“Full? On a Thursday?”

“Yes, ma’am. You know, we get some workin’ folks in here durin’ the week.”

Miss Cleta eyed her for a second and then walked past her to peer into the dining area. She returned and put both hands on her hips. “Looks to me that you got a total of five people in that dinin’ room. You tellin’ me the rest all had to visit the restrooms at the same time?”

“Miss Cleta, please. Do be discreet!”

“And I would say the same to you, young lady. Do be discreet and show your customers to a table.”

The hostess came forward and covered her mouth like we wouldn’t hear her when she whispered loudly, “Miss Cleta, we don’t have coloreds in our restaurant.”

“Do you have a sign in your window?” Miss Cleta asked.

“Well, no, ma’am, but it’s just understood. . . .”

“I understand nothin’. All I know is I’m good and hungry, and I want to eat.”

The hostess just stood there, a menu in her hand, stumbling over words that only came out as random syllables.

“Oh, heaven’s sake, just give me that,” Miss Cleta said, snatching the menu from her hand. “I’ll do it myself while you get your tongue back in your head.” She grabbed our arms and ushered us to a table square in the middle of the restaurant.

The five diners turned with gasps and blatant stares, and within moments the manager appeared, whispering apologies to his current patrons before hurrying over to us.

“I’m sorry, Miss Cleta,” he said with forced politeness, “but I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“Do you still make food here?” Miss Cleta asked.

“Why, yes, ma’am.”

“And do you still take American money?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well then, I see no reason why you cannot allow me and my friends to eat here.”

“Miss Cleta,” he said, tugging at his tight collar, “please don’t make me be blunt.”

“Why not? I am.”

His cheeks turned red. “Very well, then. We do not have coloreds in here, ma’am. It offends our customers.”

She looked at me. “You offended, Jessilyn, by our Gemma here?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Well, neither am I,” Miss Cleta said to the manager. “So that makes two of your customers that aren’t offended.”

By this time the manager was becoming very anxious, and he leaned closer to say, “Miss Cleta, I’m gonna lose business if you stay. Now, either you leave politely, or I’ll call the sheriff.”

Gemma looked near to tears, and with a glance at her, Miss Cleta said, “Very well. We’ll leave. But let me assure you that I will never set foot in this establishment again, nor will I recommend it to my friends.”

The manager backed away from the table as we rose, his arms folded in determination. The other patrons watched us as we walked away, and Miss Cleta stopped as we passed one of their tables. “Don’t eat the shrimp,” she said loudly. “I got the diarrhea from them once.” The women gasped as Miss Cleta turned with a smile of satisfaction and led us out of the restaurant. “That ought to fix their appetites,” she said with a hoot once we were outside. “Well now. Where should we go next?”

We stood on the sidewalk for a second thinking up our next move when Hobie Decker came out of his diner across the street. He lit up a cigarette and leaned against the wall before catching sight of our odd little trio.

“Hey there, Miss Cleta.” He put out his cigarette in a show of respect and tipped his head at me and Gemma. “Ladies,” he added. “You out for a day on the town?”

“Yes’r,” Miss Cleta called back. “We figured on gettin’ a bite, but it seems this here inn ain’t too obligin’ about servin’ all God’s creatures.”

“Well, you’re welcome to have a bite in my place anytime you want.”

“Why, Hobie Decker,” Miss Cleta exclaimed, “I can’t think of anythin’ better.”

Gemma and I smiled at him, just thankful at the prospect of actual food.