Rhythms of Grace (10 page)

Ron’s starched T-shirt brushed my skin as he draped one arm over my shoulder, trying as always to stay somehow between Jeremiah and me without really getting between us. It had been years since he’d gone this far, to come this close. His sweet breath warmed my nose as he leaned in acting as though he was trying to listen. I inhaled deeply, thankful that his oral hygiene hadn’t changed: Cinnamon Bianca Blast was still his habit. Sometimes I bought it for myself just to taste it, but it was never the same.

Never.

I smiled and pulled away, not wanting to make a fool of myself in the store any more than I already had. Half the choir would be calling Daddy by the time I got home. My father would never mention it, though others would. I loved him for that.

The phone felt slick against my cheek. “What’s up, Jeremiah?”

“Nothing much. Ready to get back to school?” He sounded tired, as usual.

Crisp cotton brushed my waist, right where my jacket stopped but before my pants began. I tried to put down my arms, but it was too late. The cinnamon was back again, spicy and sweet as Ron rested his temple on mine, still trying to hear our conversation. His hair, auburn and wavy this summer, fell down and touched my cheek. I tried to remember Jeremiah’s question, but I couldn’t focus, couldn’t think. Everything but Ron’s closeness poured through my mind like rain.

“Did you hear me?” the voice on the phone asked again.

“
I’m sorry,” I said, pushing Ron away with a half-threatening look. “Your friend is acting crazy over here.”

A nervous laugh echoed over the line. “You guys have fun. I’ll talk to you later. Tell Ron I’ll see him in a few. Bye.”

“Bye.” I closed the phone and passed it to Ron.

He raised one eyebrow, then finally accepted it. “You guys through? I’ve got free weekends.”

I nodded, wondering if I had enough sweet potatoes for two pies. “We’re done.”

Ron dropped the phone into one of his many pockets. Crimson flushed at his throat. “Jerry and I are going to a concert tonight after your school orientation. It’s at Shekinah. The Shiloh Sisters. Want to go? He said that you two have the early session.”

Alone with the both of them? This was bad enough. “I’ll probably head home after. My friend Diana is moving into Myrrh Mountain today. The unit near me that I tried to get you to buy.”

He sighed, looking as though he regretted not going through with the purchase, among other things. “That’s a nice one. I’m sure she’ll love it.”

I started to ask him if he remembered her, but Diana was all top secret and everything and I didn’t need any drama. She worried that people would remember her for the wrong reasons, that they’d know what had happened to her. I didn’t want to tell her that her biggest worry should be if they forgot. I’d learned that the hard way.

I tapped my foot. “You can come by after the concert. I’ll put the food up for you and call when it’s warmed up.”

He looked pained, but didn’t move. “Just me? Or Jerry too?”

Ron knew the answer, but he just liked to hear me say it. Jerry and I had gone out, but he never came back to my house. It just wasn’t wise. “Just you.”

That got a smile out of him. “Call me before if you need some help. With the moving, I mean.”

“I’m pretty much done. She was supposed to meet me, but something must have happened.” I rolled my neck. “Probably got a late start on the road. I took a break to come up here before they closed.”

Ron had me again, almost off the ground. I tried to say more, something sensible and appropriate, but I choked on something. A scream, I think.

He set me down quickly. “Are you okay? Did I mess up? I figured since Jerry was single now, you two were back together.”

I lifted my sweet potatoes out of the child’s seat of my cart and hugged them to my chest, swaying like only veteran choir members can. “That’s just it, Red. We were never together in the first place.”

12

Grace

Daddy has a new job and he couldn’t take me to
dance. I had to take the bus. I died before it came.

Diana Dixon

The ninety-minute trip to Testimony from Cincinnati seemed like a time warp. Despite the new buildings and lots of bright signs shiny with promises, a dread that I’d long forgotten pressed me down as I pulled into town. People looked happy enough. They certainly dressed a lot better. But there was still something old and foul, an invisible thickness of race and class that had only retreated, not disappeared. Maybe it never would.

My mother told me Testimony had started out as a place where slaves came to start over, a plain settlement with kindness and sacrifice. Then they found the gold. In a crag of hills past the Indian mounds, a few smashed gold bars were found along with some jewels. Most folks said it was booty some slave had brought along and hid until a good time so as not to make themselves obvious. It’s the soundest story of many, but whites in neighboring counties and towns refused to believe it.

The Quakers thinned, easing out of the county as the greed moved in. Fear came next, carrying night torches and speaking in whispers. There were too many Negroes coming in and with the possibility of treasure, the influx had to be stopped, they decided. So they instituted the
testimony
, five hundred dollars per slave, an amount some people couldn’t pay today to be free of the things that hold them captive. An impossible amount in those days for a walking, talking piece of property to pay. Or so some people thought.

Some came up with all the money and little explanation. Others passed over from Louisiana mulattoes or Virginia freedmen, with their wheat-colored hair and hazel eyes, to Ohio whites, living a shadow life far from any sunlight. Some from plantations in Georgia or Kentucky disappeared with the Indians only to be seen again with a papoose and a vacant look. Freedom was precious in those days with men and women on every side praying to a God with the same name: Jesus.

Only the midwives truly knew who was what—white, black, red, or a little bit of all—they saw the babies whose fingers turned brown around the cuticles, who showed their color on the backs of their ears, the children whose hair curled tight like question marks. In later years, some of those children would disappear or be given to the family maid, according to local lore. As a child, I only knew that my fair, light-eyed father didn’t mind being out after dark anywhere in town. My brown, smooth mother regarded the setting sun with haste and concern, determined to be home before dark.

There were other towns like ours above the Mason-Dixon line, sleepy little places who’d sent their sons to fight for Dixie instead of Lincoln, towns that somehow managed to keep a black school and a white one in spite of integration. Places with churches who taught that love came in many colors—as long as those colors were all the same. While I’d detested my ballet class, I learned later that I’d been the first and last black girl to ever dance at that school. It closed up not long after.

I could see now that there was more diversity, but it was still a heterogeneous mix, with each group distinct and separate while sharing the same space. I’d seen the same thing most places I’d lived, but usually there was some part that gelled in the center, with no start and no end. It didn’t happen often or for long, but when it did, it was glorious. For all my faith, I doubted it would happen here if it hadn’t in all these years.

And yet I felt hopeful, despite spending most of the morning on the phone with Mal, fending off his feeble apologies and lackluster prophecies. He was right about one thing though: God had a plan, one I was determined to discover. The day had begun as every day had since my showdown with Mal—with the notebook Joyce had sent me and all the beauty and hurt it contained. My musings had ended with me on a packed highway zooming toward Labor Day traffic, a blur of green mile markers and sometimes bumper-to-bumper cars. Other drivers got off at the exits with skyscrapers and neon signs. I’d kept going, with my transmission protesting all the way.

As I pulled off exit 83, promising food, gas, and fun, I thought about those Testimony ex-slaves, tired and afraid but willing to lose everything for what seemed like freedom. Now I felt some deceit in the air, as though I’d fallen for the same trick.

Mal had gone so far as to call Testimony hopeless. He quoted rising crime statistics and plummeting test scores. He’d heard they were planning to close the projects and remove the rusty playgrounds and the people whose children played on them—both eyesores, as far as some were concerned.

Everyone would go along, he said. Everyone would give in. They had no other choice. Then the street would be dug down to the historic cobblestone to draw tourists to a make-believe town where no one could afford to live. It was a sound and cruel plan with one flaw, underestimating Dr. Joyce Rogers.

If you ever loved me, please come.

The lady drove a hard bargain. Unsure of the exact distance to my new place, I pulled into the first gas station I saw. An attendant approached quickly.

“Filling up, sweetheart?” he asked.

I nodded, noticing immediately a difference between the tightlipped courtesy of Cincinnati and common flirty talk of Testimony. He pumped the gas quickly and cleaned the windows before I could protest.

“There you go. Come back soon with your pretty self. Anytime.”

Too stunned to speak at first, I stared at him for a long time. “Right . . .”

Looking into the rearview mirror, I pulled away slowly. I remembered him. He’d been homecoming king at my high school in my freshman year. His hair was still blond and his shoulders square, but the years had not been kind to him. In many ways, time hadn’t been my best friend either.

The fallen king hadn’t recognized me, but already I knew that this might be harder than I’d thought. Especially the driving part. My car bucked under me like one of those electric broncos. I escaped just as Mr. Homecoming started toward me, no doubt to offer his shade tree mechanic services and perhaps his undying love. I turned onto Main Street, thinking I might be in need of both before this was all over. Probably not. Love had caused me enough grief. Or was it the other way around?

It didn’t really matter. This car had brought me this far. Now I just needed to make it home.

Home.

That seemed strange to say, but it came to me naturally, even when I drove past the neighborhood where I’d once lived. There were two guards working the gate now. I tried not to think about what that might mean. Instead I took in the new chain supermarkets and fast-food joints.

I found my place pretty easy with a final turn. I passed Zeely’s condominium and stopped in front of mine, unit eighteen eighty-two. There was a stack of flattened boxes at the curb. My front door was open. Music streamed out the door. Zeely’s music.

In seconds, I was headed up the sidewalk. Zeely met me at the door. We shared a tight, fierce hug, and went inside. I purred almost like a cat when I saw it. It looked the way I’d always wanted my house to look. Eclectic. Honest. I gave her another squeeze for putting everything together. “I can’t believe you pulled this off all by yourself. I just meant for you to air the place out.”

My furniture, the first I’d picked out by myself, looked perfect against the desert-colored carpet. A black sofa with kente accents graced the left corner of the living room with a coordinating rug. A Japanese table I’d had in storage for years caught my eye as well as the Nigerian art and mudcloth throw blankets. Flowers and candles cascaded above my biggest piece of art, a framed black-and-white of a Sudanese mother holding an infant’s shoe. A streak of blood, the only color in the scene, stained the hem of her clothes. In spite of the scene, there is hope in her eyes.

Though I’d seen it many times since buying it, once again it took my breath. “It’s exactly straight. I never could have gotten it like that.”

Zeely reached for her ankles and did a cat stretch. “I let the furniture guy in and the rest is history.”

I gave a knowing nod. Unlike friendships built on chitchat and frequent interaction, Zeely and I had a sisterhood that picked up wherever we left off. And we left off more often than not. In my years with Peter, we’d survived off cards and phone calls, then came email, which made things easier, but still wasn’t the same. Now here we were, face to face, friend to friend. We’d spent more time together in the last few weeks than we had in years.

The hard thing was that Zeely hadn’t changed at all and I, it seemed, had changed completely. Zeely had a knack for getting her way, which was how I’d gotten such a choice place to live on such short notice. Still, I knew that most times I didn’t meet up to her expectations. Most times I wasn’t sure I even understood them. And yet, we both longed for the friendship we’d shared as girls. Whether it was unattainable now, neither of us was willing to concede. Living on the same block would either make us or break us.

Zee wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. It was the only evidence that she’d been working. Her pink sweats, matching T-shirt, and hat looked as though she’d just put them on. “It really wasn’t that bad. You had the layout on your boxes. That’s the only reason I kept going. You had it organized. You know I can’t stand a bunch of mess. You know . . . prayer plus planning—”