Leaving: A Novel (22 page)

“Here.” She placed his hand on her stomach. “Meet your own daughter. She ain’t goin nowhere, so you might as well as introduce yourselves.”

She held his hand on her stomach. There was no protrusion of her body yet, but they smiled at each other.

Thinking back on that time, Ruby could hardly believe how the unbearable pain she used to feel had melted into the melancholy sweetness of memory. As she looked out at Cranston, remembering, she swayed with Lida in her arms, almost too big to hold now. It was a beautiful, quiet day in West Oakland, and not a person was on the street.

In a few minutes, Sandra joined Ruby on the porch, pulling the door closed but not all the way shut. She came up next to Ruby and put her hands on the rail. “I’m all done now, if you want to call.”

Ruby nodded her head and rubbed Lida on the back. “You talk to your papa?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“What he say?”

“He thinks it was the Cubans behind it all. He always says it’s some foreigner. When the economy gets bad, he says it’s the Mexicans, and when crime gets bad, he says it’s the Communists or, you know, other people.” Sandra spoke quickly, excited by the interest Ruby showed. Ruby didn’t usually ask her about herself.

“You tell him where you at?” Ruby asked.

“Nab. I don’t talk to him much about my politics. He doesn’t go for that.”

“I’m sayin, did you tell him where you was callin from?”

Sandra turned and looked at the house as if she needed to remind herself. “You mean here?”

“Yes.” Ruby had not looked at her the whole time they were speaking, and now Sandra detected more hostility behind the questions than friendly interest.

“Sure.” She folded her arms and cleared her throat.

“What’d he think?”

“I told him I was at a friend’s house.”

“So he don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“We colored,”

“No.” They stood in silence for a moment more, and then Sandra headed back to the door.

“You going to tell him?” Ruby asked.

Sandra kept her hand on the doorknob but didn’t turn it. “Sometime.”

“Not every White man’s proud to have his daughter out wit a colored boy. But dey don’t hardly never blame de girl. Most always de boy be gettin killed.”

“My father isn’t going to kill anyone.” Sandra came back out and faced her. “You don’t like that I’m White, do you?”

Ruby put Lida down but held her hand. The child bent to the floorboards and picked up a tack.

“Give me dat.” Ruby took the tack from her, then turned to Sandra. “I’m going to be straight wit you, ’cause you always askin us straight-up about how it is. I don’t mind so much dat you White. What I mind is dat you can’t tell your papa you seein a colored boy. Either you think maybe you’ll hang around and tell him later but you don’t know your own mine, or you scared to tell him and you ain’t never plannin to tell him; you just figure you wait long enough and den one day you just gonna up and go.”

Sandra was about to argue, to get indignant and say she knew her own mind, that she would stand up to her father or any other bigot, and that she resented the accusation. But she looked into Ruby’s eyes and saw no anger, just a serious concern, and then resignation.

“I know what you’re saying,” Sandra replied. She looked at the houses along the street, the brightly painted Victorians with wooden gates. “To be honest with you, I never really thought it through, how I’m going to tell my father and all if it gets more serious. It just makes me so angry that it’s such a big deal to be together. I’m not planning to just leave; that’s not what I want to do.”

Ruby nodded her head. “Well, at least you honest about it. I got to say dat.”

Lida toddled to the door, pushed it open, and went inside.

“Well, I got to call my mama now.” Ruby followed her child in, and Sandra stayed out on the porch alone, watching the empty street.

*   *   *

CHRISTMAS EVE, RUBY
sat at her sewing machine while little Lida slept on the couch. Ruby wet the frayed end of a blue thread with her lips and slipped it through the needle in a fluid rotation of her wrist. Her foot pressed against the pedal, and she turned the light blue chiffon so that the stitches hemmed in the collar.

She was making a dress for Sandra. Perhaps it was a peace offering, or an indirect gift to her brother. In either case, she had always thought that nice clothes made a person more attractive. She would have made a dress for herself if there had been someone who cared how she looked. But that was self-pitying nonsense, and she wouldn’t let herself go there. If she could do nothing useful for herself, at least she could help out her brother. Easton was out with Corbet celebrating; he’d finally landed a job at a garage.

Ruby’s hands were still young, the skin still tight and smooth. She loved her hands when they turned the fabric. She would finish this dress and then get back to making the yellow banana dresses for the stores. She made only half as much money from the dresses as from cleaning, but she couldn’t afford to lose any extra money now. Even if she could, she wouldn’t ever stop sewing and let housecleaning be her only job in life; that would be like chewing without tasting.

The water bill, the property tax, the ants, the food, the medication for Corbet’s amputation and diabetes, her own rotten tooth, Lida’s coughing—it all spun around in her mind. But the needle pumping up and down into the fabric narrowed her focus. She watched her hands and listened to the machine whir, and soon she was back home in Norma, her mother sitting next to her at the dining table in the kitchen, sewing on the pocket by hand. Elise had said on the phone that her hair was getting gray now, but Ruby couldn’t imagine that. She saw her mama’s chestnut-brown hair wrapped in the black bandanna, her forehead glistening red in the summertime as she told her stories, lived her stories, which never had beginning or end, just endless interruptions.

Ruby remembered how their house filled with light and space in the summer; pollen floated in through the open windows, and the sun made streaks through the slats in the wooden walls. The house was old. Ruby’s great-great-grandmother, Pearl, rented the house from her former master, Ruby’s great-great-grandfather, after the Union Army burned down Norma and killed most of the White men in the Marlboro family. Elise always looked to the side when telling her stories, as if she were remembering the day when it happened, though it had been forty years before she was born. And Ruby imagined it too, since, as Elise told it, appearances hadn’t changed much.

“Nanna Pearl could take one a her shoes and hit a mouse ’cross the room. Wham!” Elise laughed like the wind coming around a corner, a burst of air with no voice. “She could do it in the dark when you asleep: wham! An you sit up. ‘JE-SUS, Lord, what was that?’ An Pearl’d say, ‘Go back to sleep, baby. You safe now.’ My Nanna Saluda slep in the same bed wit her mama Pearl till she was ’bout six, and she tell me she never get a night’s rest till both shoes been throwed.”

Ruby would finish the dress and hand it to her mother, and her mother would always say, “That’s another quarter for your pocket.” And she was good to her word: a quarter for every dress sold in town. But neither of them ever kept the money; they just put it in the pickle jar for the family—like Ruby did now in Oakland.

Ruby tried to keep her head back in Norma, but the bills started to swirl around. She finished the dress for Sandra and shook it out. Now, one more banana dress and she would finish the stack. This order would bring in another seventy-five dollars, which would pay for the shopping. She felt her sore tooth with her tongue and sucked at it, a warm sweetness in her saliva.

Lida coughed and Ruby turned to her sleeping daughter. Elise had asked on the phone about her, wondered if she had Ronald’s beautiful long lashes. She did—those long black lashes. She was going to be a beauty, and she would have any man she wanted, marry a lawyer and never clean a house or sew a dress, unless of course they had their own business together, mother and daughter.

Ruby changed spools and slid the yellow linen under the needle. The foot pedal whirred and clicked in the circular rhythm, speeding up and slowing down, everything under her own effortless control. She turned the fabric between her hands and hummed.

SANTA RITA JAIL

I READ TO
you today from
Justice Denied:

Thomas James, Jep’s second son, had cast his eyes on a handsome young Negro girl, to whom he made dishonest overtures. She would not submit to him, and finding he could not overcome her, he swore he would be revenged. One night he called her out of the gin-house, and then bade me and two or three more, strip her naked; which we did. He then made us throw her down on her face, in front of the door, and hold her whilst he flogged her—the brute—with the bullwhip, cutting great gashes of flesh out of her person, at every blow, from five to six inches long. The poor unfortunate girl screamed most awfully all the time, and writhed under our strong arms, rendering it necessary for us to use our united strength to hold her down. He flogged her for half an hour, until he nearly killed her, and then left her to crawl away to her cabin.

… there were often certain concrete advantages to be gained by surrendering themselves to the men of the master race that overcame any moral scruples these women might have had. In some cases it meant freedom from the drudgery of field labor as well as better food and clothing. Then there was the prospect that her half-White children would enjoy certain privileges and perhaps in time be emancipated.…

The relations between the White men and the slave women naturally aroused the jealousy and antagonism of the women of the master race.… Sometimes White women used more direct means of ridding themselves of their colored rivals … witness the following excerpt from the family history of a mulatto:

My father’s grandmother, Julia Heriot, of four generations ago lived in Georgetown, South Carolina. Recollections of her parentage are, indeed, vague. Nevertheless, a distinct mixture of blood was portrayed in her physical appearance. And, because she knew so little of her parents, she was no doubt sold into Georgetown at a very early age as house servant to General Charles Washington Heriot. Julia Heriot married a slave on the plantation by whom she had two children. Very soon after her second child was born an epidemic of fever swept the plantation, and her husband became one of the victims. After her husband’s death, she became maid to Mrs. Heriot, wife of General Heriot. From the time that Julia Heriot was sold to General Heriot, she had been a favorite servant in the household, because of the aptitude which she displayed in performing her tasks. General and Mrs. Heriot had been so impressed with her possibilities that in a very short time after she had been in her new home, she had been allowed to use the name of Heriot … in the midst of her good fortune, a third child was born to her, which bore no resemblance to her other children. Reports of the “white child” were rumored. General Heriot’s wife became enraged and insisted that her husband sell this slave girl, but General Heriot refused.

During the winter of the following year General Heriot contracted pneumonia and died. Before his death, he signed freedom papers for Julia and her three children; but Mrs. Heriot maneuvered her affairs so that Julia Heriot and her three children were again sold into slavery. In the auction of the properties Julia Heriot was separated from her first two children. She pleaded that her babies be allowed to remain with her, but found her former mistress utterly opposed to anything that concerned her well-being. Her baby was the only consolation which she possessed. Even the name Heriot had been taken away by constant warnings.

CHAPTER 12A

MARCH 1964   •   EASTON 18, SANDRA 19

EASTON SAT ON
a stool and drew Sandra as she lay at the edge of his bed. She wore the light blue chiffon dress that Ruby had made for her. The strapless dress came to just above her chest, leaving her shoulders and neck bare. She posed as elegantly as she could, her head turned away and chin slightly raised. She’d been talking to him, while moving her lips as little as possible, about a gallery her friend had set up in Emeryville for new artists.

“They’re into finding what’s real. You know, playing drums, reading poetry. They’d like you. I’m sure of it. I bet they’d put up your work.”

Easton held the charcoal delicately between his fingers, then lifted it to his nose and sniffed. No matter how hard he washed after work, the smell of gasoline would not come off completely, and he went around smelling everything he touched.

“People would buy it,” she added. “I know they would.”

He looked at her and nodded, not at what she was saying but at what he was seeing. Sandra was smiling and looking out the window as if in a dream about his success, a smile like a proud mother might have about her child. He began sketching her this way. Now that he saw something other than just the shape of her, now that he saw an attitude, he sketched quickly and easily, drawing sweeping lines and shading them without pausing.

With the sound of Easton working passionately, Sandra stopped talking and waited. She knew it wouldn’t be long and believed that she must be still for him to capture whatever it was that excited him.

In five minutes he had finished and put the tablet and charcoal down on his dresser. Sandra leaned toward the picture, but she knew he would want to wait. He crossed his legs, put his elbow on his knee, his mouth against his hand, and contemplated her.

“What is it?” She smiled uneasily.

He nodded. “I think I understand now.”

“Well, that’s good,” she said. She was used to his cryptic statements and was no longer baited by them.

“Yes. You see, all this time I thought you were just playing hard to get. But you were just hard to
get.
” He nodded his head. “Uhh-huh. Yes, it was hard to
get
you. But now I got you.” She straightened her dress, pulling up on the elastic around her shoulders and then pushing it down again, but not as low.