Four Spirits (37 page)

I'LL TAKE THE AFTERNOON I NEED,
STELLA THOUGHT,
for normality, for fun.
Even Aunt Krit used to tell her, “You can't
go
all the time. You have to have fun.” All her life, Stella'd had fun with Nancy. Or comfort. At the funeral of her family, it was Nancy who held her hand. Stella couldn't remember time before Nancy was her friend.

Stella arranged to meet Nancy at the old red clay tennis courts on Norwood Boulevard at two in the afternoon. Nancy had to drive from across town—her family had moved over the mountain to Homewood—but her mother let Nancy drive the big black Cadillac. When they were little, Nancy's mother ferried them across Birmingham so that they could visit. And then Nancy's father had died, and the bond between the girls strengthened again. The car was old now, seemed a little hearselike; it was so long, not like the latest cars, but Stella loved that car.

Stella breathed deeply, filled her lungs with the air of roses. The high Cyclone fence around the court was bedecked—there was no other word for it—bedecked with climbing roses. Outside of a fairy-tale illustration, Stella had never seen such cascades of roses. Planted decades ago when Norwood Boulevard was a fashionable address, now the robust rose canes wove in and out of the fencing. The main stems topped the fence and then arched over like the curve of a wave, and underneath, inside the wave was a cool shady place where you could sit on the ground and wait. Bouquets of small clusters of roses, some white, some pink, some red, dangled through the fencing.

Because the tennis net itself was a piece of the Cyclone fencing, it had
lasted more than twenty years. The net was rusty, but who cared? She thought of Stephen Dedalus in
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,
how he'd wanted to fly over the nets of language, religion, and culture of his homeland. This beautiful place existed because the city fathers had forgotten to destroy it when wealth moved over Red Mountain.

She could hear but not see birds chirping (were there four?), despite the mounting heat. She thought of Virginia Woolf, who, in her madness, heard birds speaking Greek. The tennis court birds were happy, but what were they trying to say?

Probably Nancy didn't even see her there, hidden among the roses. When Nancy jumped out of the Cadillac holding two tennis rackets and a can of balls, she looked like Doris Day, wearing only two colors—green shorts and a matching green-and-white-checked top. So fresh and fashionable! Her hair was up in a ponytail with an elastic band covered in white terry. Nancy's ponytail was a beautiful shape, like an
S
curve, an arabesque graceful as the cabriolet leg of a fine chair. Without looking at it, Nancy passed the stubby marble war memorial incised with the names of Norwood boys, dead now almost twenty years from World War II—
but what does it mean to be dead twenty years? A name incised in white stone.

Aunt Krit was glad to have Nancy in the wedding; she would be a credit to the occasion. Aunt Pratt simply loved Nancy. Stella called to her friend (Nancy had outlasted Stella's parents, brothers), who waved the rackets in reply and then came to sit with Stella in the rose bower.

“We haven't done this in ages!” Nancy exclaimed. “I love coming back over here.” Her face was bright, her big eyes the pale blue of forget-me-nots. She swung herself onto the ground inside the bower of roses.

When Stella told Nancy that she and Cat were teaching at Miles, at night, Nancy's face wrinkled in concern. “I'm not a bit prejudiced. You know that. But it's not safe.”

Stella just shrugged and smiled.

“I know you won't listen,” Nancy said. “What does Aunt Krit say?”

“She doesn't know. Not unless the birdies told her.”

“Stella Silver!” But Nancy wouldn't scold.

 

NANCY LUXURIATED IN
the beautiful summer day; her middle name was June, and she always loved this month, despite the ever-increasing
fierceness of the heat. (Nancy didn't want to argue with Stella, she just added, “I'm Cat's friend, too, but I wouldn't go out there at night, even with Jesus. It's against the law, and, moreover, it's just not safe.”) The sky was piled with clouds. Nancy knew they'd be hot after five seconds of play—the red clay court was baking in full sun—but she had brought a thermos of lemonade in the car. After they were tired of playing tennis, they'd talk, which was why Nancy came over anyway. They'd come back, sit under the roof of roses, sip lemonade, and talk.

Stella was wearing cutoff blue jeans, strings on the thighs, and a red T-shirt. Primary blocks of color. (Nancy was a student of color.)

The ball thunked and thunked between them (Nancy loved the sound of it), they called out the points
Love! Love!
(both of them were a little preoccupied), they swapped ends, they tolerated their sweating (they were girls again, not recent college graduates); they ignored the sunburning of noses, cheeks passing from pink to glowing red (huge puffs of white clouds crowned the summer day); and to Nancy's surprise, she won. Usually Stella, who was thinner and quicker, won. Then to Nancy's horror, she saw that Stella was going to run and leap over the heavy-gauge wire net to congratulate her.

Stella galloped like a colt, as hard as she could, but Nancy was afraid. She knew she herself could never clear the net. “Don't! Don't!” she yelled, but Stella, blocks of colors, red and blue, raced on.
You'll get hurt!

Stella raised her front foot and arched over the net. She landed still running.

“You won! You won!” Stella shouted, happy, waving her tennis racket in the air like a pennant. Happy to affirm her friend. Happy to lose.

 

LATER THEY SAT
again in the bower of pink roses.

“This is it,” Stella said, “the heart of being alive. This beautiful flowery place.”

“And the sky,” Nancy added, nodding at the cloud puffs.

“I've never felt so strong or nice.”

“Is it being engaged to Don?”

Stella wrinkled her forehead, hesitated. “No. It's
now.
It's friendship. Feeling and action.”

BITTERLY, CHRISTINE WATCHED CAT, PUSHED BY STELLA,
cross the campus. It was only dusk.
Push, push, pushy white people. Had no business coming out here
to help.
Should of come out fifty years ago, when
help
was needed. And where were they seven years ago when Fred Shuttlesworth tried to enroll children in Phillips High School? Probably sitting inside, that's where.

(Christine didn't suppose what she imagined was true. She would have been shocked to know that she had guessed the exact truth. Cat and Stella were safely inside Phillips High School, safely inside, when Reverend Shuttlesworth was beaten with chains in front of the school, his wife stabbed in the thigh.)

Christine supposed the white women had come early to chat with Arcola and Gloria. The white women wanted to be friends. Take charge. They'd be surprised to see she, Christine, was standing there, too, beside Arcola and Gloria. They couldn't see who she was, leaning against the building, a silhouette against the setting sun. But she could see them, bathed in red-gold. The metal of the wheelchair was like a chariot reflecting the dying sunlight.

Christine thought of Apollo, of Greek mythology, everything white marble. No reference to black people by the art teacher, but the Greek statues had full lips, curly hair sometimes. Christine loved the blankness of the eyes of the statues. That was the way she felt sometimes.

“Christine,” Cat called. “You look like a caryatid standing there.”

“Humph!” Christine turned away, but she knew what a caryatid was. She had learned it just today in art appreciation. Yes, her head felt like she was
holding up a building on it. But how did Cat know that? Spooky girl, she'd recognized Christine immediately.

“They said they might come early,” Arcola said to Christine. “Give us a chance to get acquainted.” She sashayed across the little porch and down the one step. “What you got, Cat-girl?” Arcola called pleasantly.

Then Christine noticed: Cat's lap was full of little roses, all shades of pink.

“Didn't nobody tell me to come early,” Christine grumbled.

“Hey.” Arcola flashed her pretty smile back at Christine. Was that girl always relaxed? “You was out of here like a shot last night. We didn't have any chance to ask you.” Then Arcola Miss Impudence winked at her. “You had to get to the Athens Bar.”

“Stella picked them,” Cat said to everybody. She held up her hand, signaling to Stella to stop pushing. “Let's just sit out here. Probably cooler than inside.”

Awkwardly, Cat suddenly held out a chunk of the roses to Gloria. “For you,” she said.

Slowly Gloria stepped forward and held out her hand. “Thank you,” she said.

Stella reached down and picked up another bouquet from her lap. “These are for you, Arcola.”

They were pairing up. Cat wanted to be friends with Gloria; Stella had chosen Arcola.

There was one bunch of pink left in Cat's lap.

“The stems are in damp tissue,” Stella said. “They probably need some water.”

Wordlessly, Cat held out the remaining bouquet to Christine.

As Christine accepted the rose bouquet, she muttered ungraciously that they'd put the flowers in paper cups so they wouldn't wilt in the heat.

“Where'd you get these little roses?” Arcola asked. She put her nose into her bunch.

“Norwood. They don't have much smell,” Stella said apologetically. (She'd gotten some sunburn;her nose was brighter than the roses.) “They grow wild at the tennis court, all over the fences.”

White girls playing tennis in a pink rose garden—the picture made Christine angry. Not at Cat, though, she wouldn't be playing any tennis. Christine imagined Cat sitting on the sidelines, probably holding a parasol up over her head. Cat wasn't sunburned.

Then Christine thought how pleased Diane, her little girl, would be when she brought home roses in a Dixie cup. She had some rose scent in her handbag she could pump on them.

Diane would sit and stare at those roses in the middle of the kitchen table as if they were TV.

CLAVICLE, STERNUM, RIBS, VERTEBRAE.

He does; they do. He sings; they sing. He has; they have. To conjugate—a pattern of three singulars, three plurals. What is a plural?

That Stella knows how to dig,
Gloria thinks. She digs down and down, finding out what they don't know, what they need to know.
I want you to understand,
Stella has said over and over,
not just memorize.

“Look, there's a dead bat outside on the windowsill.” Always some distraction. Who said that?

 

GLORIA CAN FEEL
the sweat drops starting to roll down her sides.

Christine accuses, “I thought I heard somebody in your group saying ‘Tits.' ”

Oh-oh.
(Was Christine smiling just a little bit?)

Cat grins. “Yeah. Parts of the body. You know, we were learning parts of the body.” Cat wasn't scared of Christine.
(What's wrong with Cat;not broken, kind of twisted, a little humped. Real weak seeming.)
“Somebody jumped the gun from naming bones to flesh,” Cat says wryly.

“You can't let 'em say things like that,” Christine snaps.

“Why?” Oh Lord, Cat asking like she just wants to know.

“Why!”
Christine can't believe it.
“Because they won't have any respect for you if you do. They don't have any respect anyway, but you got to make 'em
act
like they do.”

“I don't want to come on too strong.” Cat frowning up her face like she's really worried about coming on too strong.
Might as well be me worrying about coming on too strong, she can't even walk; I can't hardly open my mouth.

“Hum! No chance of that.” Christine spins around. “Arcola, didn't Mr. Parrish say Miss Silver supposed to help you?”

“No.” Arcola shrugs. She looks down at the floor. “He said you was always late and so she better be with you. I don't care, though. You work with me if you want to, Stella.”

“Late! What's he mean,
late
?” Christine talks like Stella's not even there. To Christine, Stella's just another mosquito.

“I reckon he means you not always on time, Christine,” Arcola says.

“You see how easy it is to be on time, when you got three children at home and your sister always late coming to baby-sit.”

Arcola answers quietly. “I'm not criticizing you.”

“Sure 'nuff sounds like it. I think Miss Silver better work with Gloria now.”

“Whatever y'all decide, fine with me.”
Was that me, speaking up so quick
?
Wish the students would come on back from break time.

“You
better
learn to speak up for yourself, girl, or this world gonna run right over you.”
Christine speaks to me like I'm a child.
“Miss Green Eyes, you gonna be squashed flat as a beer can in the street.”

“Yes, ma'am.”
But I just did. I just did speak up. We've been getting along. Then, tonight, Boom! Christine comes down like a ton of bricks.

“What you want to go picking on Gloria for?” Arcola asks, but she grins. “She's not hurting you.”

“I thought last week things went pretty well, didn't they?” Stella asks. “Maybe we could work together, Christine.”

“My name is Mrs. Taylor.” She seals her lips up tight.
But I know Christine is my friend. When the church was bombed, it was me holding Christine. I wasn't nervous then.

“I'm sorry. I'm just used to calling everybody by his first name.” Stella speaks very politely, sounds sincere.

“So I noticed. You know, that's the trouble with you white people. You think you got a right to call anybody by their first name.”

Now you shut us all up, Christine. Quiet enough now, Christine. Pin-drop time now. Ain't nobody gonna breathe now. How long this gonna last? Everybody holding her breath. Sure wish my voice box just open up—any old squawk be better than this. Silence. Silence. Silence.

“Mrs. Taylor?” That's Cat talking, so serious. “Have you ever made a mistake in your life?”

Arcola just
bust
out laughing.

“Yeah.” Christine relaxes on down a little. “I made enough mistakes for everybody in this room.”

“Ain't we all,” Stella says quietly, regretfully.

“Not me,” sassy Miss Arcola jokes. “I'm perfect.”

Christine reaches over to whack Arcola's behind. “She think she gonna be Miss Negro America!” Christine's feeling high now. Feeling good.

“Why not be the first Negro Miss America?” Stella asks.

“Right on. Right on, there,” Christine answers, but the bitterness still flavors her tone.

“Y'all gonna be sorry,” Arcola teases. “I'm gonna be walkin' down the aisle, Bert Parks gonna be singin'—” She starts to sing, “ ‘There she is, beautiful Miss Black Amer-i-ca.
There
she is.' I have on my all-net evening dress, I be throwin' long-stem red roses out in the audience, and I won't give you all the time of day.”

“Christine's cousin”—that's me talking—“she was killed in the church bombing.” I think of Christine shaking in my arms, the face of Jesus blowed out of the stain glass. Me feeling strong. Feeling the bones in my body were strong and bright white.

“I'm sorry.” Cat and Stella say it together, like a duet. Both say it. Both mean it.

“I wish more white people were sorry,” Arcola says. I never hear her speak so sober and serious before.
Like me, Arcola's starting to want Freedom. She's ahead of me. She demonstrated in May of '63.

Christine looks like she's going to cry. Arcola goes over and puts her arm around Christine's shoulder. Cat takes off her brakes and rolls over. She can't stand up to put her arm around, but she takes Christine's hand and presses it against her cheek. Just boldly picks up that drooping hand.

We all are quiet.

And then students are coming in.

Cat grins like a big Cheshire cat. “Think I could be the first wheelchair Miss America?”

“Naw, girl,” Arcola answers. “They just want
normal
people. Like me.”

And we're all comfortable. Miss Cat most of all.

Cat lets go of Christine's hand and rolls herself toward the science corner.

 

NIGHT AFTER NIGHT
the students come, the room hums for an hour: review in every corner. Break time. Then new lessons for the second hour. June passes into July, and the temperature rises steadily.