Saving CeeCee Honeycutt (20 page)

With our bellies stuffed with lunch and the rhythmic sound of the waves lulling us to sleep, we reclined beneath the shade of the umbrella to take a nap. I dozed for a while but the soft tug of the wind lured me toward the water. With my hat on my head and my new bracelet on my wrist, I headed across the sand.

I waded into the water and stood ankle-deep. The waves licked my skin as I gazed across the ocean and thought about Omu.
How old was she when was captured? Was she ever happy again? Was she a slave until she died?

The heat of the sun prickled my cheeks, so I turned and walked along the edge of the ocean with the burning rays at my back. Every so often I’d stretch out my arm and admire my new bracelet, marveling at how the faceted beads took hold of the light and sent it spinning through the air with nothing more than the slightest turn of my wrist.

My imagination took flight, and I began dancing on the edge of the foamy white waves. I imagined Omu dancing next to me, splashing through the surf as droplets of water gathered on her skin, gleaming in the sun like liquid jewels.

“You havin’ fun?”

Startled, I turned to see Nadine walking up behind me. “Hi. I’m having a blast. Look how my new bracelet sparkles in the sun,” I said, turning my wrist in the light.

She smiled. “All of us girls like sparkle. Last week I ordered some pretty glass beads that have specks of silver on the inside. When I get them, would you like me to make you a necklace?”

“Sure. I’d love a necklace,” I said, glancing at the golden chain around her neck. I pointed to the round pendant that held an icy-white stone. “Your necklace is beautiful, Nadine. Is that a diamond?”

“Yes, it is,” she said with pride, lightly touching the stone. “My husband gave it to me for my fi ftieth birthday last year. I haven’t taken it off since.”

She looked at my shoulders and raised her eyebrows. “Oooo, you sure are pink. You got too much sun today. Good thing we’re goin’ home now. Chessie and Oletta already took the cooler and chairs up to the car,” she said, nodding toward our spot on the beach.

Side by side we wandered through the sand, talking and examining seashells along the way.

“We’re just about ready,” Oletta said, brushing sand off her fortune finder while Chessie closed the umbrella. Nadine handed me the blanket, swung her beach bag over her shoulder, and we headed for the car. Oletta and Chessie lagged behind, laughing and kidding each other like schoolgirls.

I followed Nadine across the beach, around a windswept dune, and down a narrow path. Just as we passed beneath a shady stand of trees, a man wearing a cowboy hat stepped from the shadows. He raised his hand and a
click
sounded. A silver blade flashed in the sunlight.

Nadine gasped. I froze.

He moved toward Nadine, his eyes ferocious with something I’d never seen before. “One word, one move, and I’ll cut your throat.” He reached out, took hold of her necklace, and ripped it from her neck with so much force that she lost her balance and fell in the sand.

His eyes fixed on me, round and wild. A nameless horror clawed at my throat. I was so terrified I nearly shook clean out of my skin. The blanket slid from my hands. Then his eyes darted back to Nadine.

“Gimme the watch,” he said, pointing the knife at her nose with one hand while he shoved her necklace into the pocket of his jeans with the other.

Nadine fumbled, her hands trembling as she tried to loosen the clasp.

“Hurry up, you stupid nigger,” he growled, shaking the knife in her face.

Nadine freed her watch from her wrist, and he reached out and yanked it from her fingers.

“One sound and you’re dead,” he said, glaring at us with so much hate that my arms went weak in their sockets. He took a few steps backward and looked over his shoulder. From the corner of my eye I saw Chessie moving through the sand like a barge, spinning her bag of stones at her side. She stepped from the shadows and stopped, the whites of her eyes bright.

A glint of sunlight sparked off the knife’s blade. He smirked, moving toward Chessie, step by slow step, like a lion eyeing his prey. But Chessie just stood there as solid as a mountain, staring down at him as she spun her bag of stones. Oletta appeared behind Chessie, her eyes wide and her fortune finder poised over her head like a weapon.

There came the sound of a
whoosh, whoosh, whoosh
as Chessie spun the bag faster and faster. His eyes flashed from left to right, and just as I thought he was going to turn and run away, he aimed the knife at Chessie’s throat and lunged. She stepped to the side and walloped him with her bag of stones, right across his face. She hit him so hard a sharp
crack
sounded. His hat flew off and he let out a howl of agony and fell over, landing on his side in the sun-dappled sand.

He writhed back and forth with his hands over his face, groaning and moaning as ribbons of blood oozed from between his fingers.

“Let’s go!” Nadine said, grabbing the blanket and taking hold of my arm.

We raced down the path, around a pile of canoes, and headed for the car. Oletta and Chessie thundered behind us, the panting of their breath loud in my ears. Everyone piled into the car as Nadine fired up the engine, and when we reached the highway, she was driving so fast my eyes began to water.

Oletta called out through the buffeting wind, “Nadine, stop at a gas station so we can call the police.”

“What do you think the police will do?” Nadine yelled through the wind. “You think they’ll take the word of three colored women over the word of a white man?” Her jaw hardened as she tromped on the gas pedal and rocketed down the road.

Chessie turned in her seat. “Nadine’s right. Ain’t no justice to be done.”

Oletta nodded and put her arm around my shoulders. I sunk low into the seat and watched the landscape spin into a blur. My stomach was in knots, and I closed my eyes, leaned against Oletta, and hoped I wouldn’t get sick.

When we arrived at Aunt Tootie’s house, Oletta ran to unlock the back door so Nadine could phone her husband at work, while Chessie and I unloaded the trunk in slow, foggy movements. As we carried the cooler toward the house, I couldn’t wipe the image of the man’s face from my mind—how his lips curled when he’d sneered at Nadine, and how his eyes had narrowed to slits of pure hatred. I thought about all the scary stories I’d read where evil-eyed villains left me paralyzed with fear in the wee hours of the night. Yet, no matter what they did or threatened to do, I always knew I could close the book and make them go away. But the man at Tybee Island was real, and what he did had changed my view of the world. Forever.

The four of us gathered at the kitchen table. Nobody said much, but as I went down the hall to use the bathroom, I heard Nadine say, “That son of a bitch deserved a whole lot worse than a broken nose.”

“Devil’s spawn,” Chessie said. “That’s what he is.”

What they said after that, I don’t know. The minute I closed the bathroom door, I got down on my knees and clutched the toilet bowl, retching until my eyes watered. I flushed the toilet and curled up on the cool tile floor, feeling my pulse throb at the base of my throat.

Oletta rapped on the door. “Cecelia? Child, are you all right?”

I sat up and wiped sweat from my face. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be out in a minute.”

After washing my face with cold water and rinsing my mouth, I returned to the kitchen and sat next to Oletta. Nadine sat slumped in a chair, arms crossed over her chest as she stared out the window. “That bastard stole my diamond necklace,” she said, angrily. “My gold watch too.”

Chessie reached out and rested her hand on Nadine’s shoulder. “His judgment day is comin’, sistah.” She leaned close to Nadine and shook her head. “Look what he done to you. That chain cut into your skin.”

That’s when I saw a bright red mark on the back of her neck.

Oletta went into the pantry and returned with a small bottle of iodine. She dabbed it along the wound, her lips pressed together, a scowl on her face.

The
toot
of a horn sounded from the street and Nadine turned from the window. “I’d know the sound of that horn anywhere. That’s Taye.”

We all fi led down the hallway toward the front door, and before Chessie descended the steps, I reached out and touched her arm. She covered my hand with hers and looked deep into my eyes. As I watched her lumber down the steps, her sack of stones hanging heavy from her fingers, I thanked God that her name had been written in my Life Book.

Minute by slow minute, the afternoon light faded into the long shadows of evening. Though Oletta kept me busy, washing out the cooler and vacuuming sand from inside Aunt Tootie’s car, I couldn’t stop thinking about the man at Tybee Island. He had ignited a dark, unnameable fear that burned deep into my bones. Every sharp sound made me jump, and it felt unbearable when Oletta moved out of my sight. When she used the bathroom, I stood outside the door, breathing in small puffs of air while my stomach churned.

After a cold supper of leftovers, of which neither of us ate much, we sat outside on the porch glider. I curled up close to Oletta and rested my head in her lap. As she rocked her foot from heel to toe, sending the glider into an easy rhythmic movement, I turned and looked up at her. “Oletta, are we safe?”

“Yes, child, we’re safe.”

“What about Aunt Tootie, will she be able to help get Nadine’s jewelry back?”

“I don’t know. But when she gets home, I’ll tell her what happened and see what she thinks we should do.” Oletta then closed her eyes and started humming a song.

When it was time for bed, I clung to Oletta like lint to a wool sock as she went through the house, locking the doors and securing the windows. Slowly we climbed the stairs, and as we reached the doorway of her bedroom, she stopped and pulled me close. “These legs of mine are tired, but before we go to bed I’ve got something to say. Now, I want you to listen. Will you do that?”

I nodded.

“What happened today was a terrible thing, but I believe with all my heart that the Good Lord is holdin’ all of us in His arms. That man don’t know who we are or where we live, and he ain’t gonna find out. We all need to be careful in this world, but I promise you, for every bad person on this earth there’s a hundred good ones.”

I buried my face into her soft bosom. Though I wanted to ask if I could sleep in her room, I didn’t want her to think I was a big baby.

“Everything will be all right, child. The house is locked up nice’n tight, so you go on up to bed and get some sleep. I’ll be right here if you need me. I’ll leave the door open.” She patted my arm, said good night, and shuffled into the bedroom.

For hours I lay on my bed, fully dressed, eyes pressed wide against the darkness. When the grandfather clock sent eleven slow
bongs
into the night, I slid off my bed. With my pillow and blanket tucked in my arms, I crept down the stairs. The rugs felt cool and smooth against my bare feet as I moved down the shadowy hall. I stopped at the doorway of Oletta’s bedroom and peeked in. The moonlight fi ltered through the window blinds and fell across her face in pale stripes of blue. She was sleeping on her side, covered lightly by a sheet. One of her arms was dangling over the side of the bed.

Careful not to make a sound, I tiptoed across the room, set the pillow on the floor next to the bed, and lay down. Being close to Oletta calmed my mind, and soon my breathing fell into rhythm with hers.

Though I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, my thoughts were pierced by images of the man at Tybee Island: the hatred in his eyes, the icy glint that flashed from the blade of his knife, his sneer. The horror of it crawled like a living thing beneath my skin.

I thought about the terror Omu experienced when she was ripped from the sandy beach of her homeland. And now, all these years later, her magic stones had saved us from harm on what we thought was a safe beach.

I thought about how Oletta, Chessie, and Nadine were too scared to call the police for no other reason but the color of their skin. Though nearly two hundred years had passed since Omu’s life had been destroyed, I realized that in some ways things really hadn’t changed all that much for colored folks. I thought about that for a long time.

As I watched a slant of moonlight glide across the flowery wallpaper, I reached up and took hold of Oletta’s hand.

T
he day following the attack at Tybee Island left me raw with fear. I wouldn’t even go out on the porch in broad daylight unless Oletta was with me. No matter what she was doing, I’d hover close, but she didn’t seem to mind. Even when I got underfoot, she’d give me a squeeze and tell me everything was all right.

After we did laundry, I helped Oletta make a cherry pie. When she pulled it from the oven and turned to set it on the counter, she nearly fell over me. The bubbling hot juice splashed over the edge of the pot holders and burned her fingers. Though she didn’t scold me, she sat me down at the kitchen table for a long talk.

“I know you’re scared,” she said, smoothing an ice cube over her blistering fingers, “but you gotta grab hold of yourself. Every time you give in to your fears, you’re lettin’ that man win. And every time you do that, he gets stronger while you get weaker. Givin’ in to your fears will rob you blind. You’ll end up a prisoner to that man for the rest of your life.”

I sat quietly and listened to all she said. Deep down I had the feeling that Oletta most likely knew all that was worth knowing, not in book-learning ways, but in the ways that really mattered, ways that let you hum songs during the day and sleep peacefully at night. I knew she was right about me needing to take hold of myself, but I was at a loss as to how to go about it. No sooner did I wonder about that than Oletta rose from the chair. “C’mon, today’s the day—you’ve got to reclaim your power.”

She took Aunt Tootie’s floral snips and wicker basket from the shelf in the hall, handed them to me, and opened the back door. When we stepped onto the porch, she said, “Now I want you to go on over to the garden and cut me a nice bouquet. Keep the stems long enough to put in water. I’m gonna stand right here and watch. Nothing bad is gonna happen to you.”