The Quaker Café (15 page)

“I see that now,” Liz said humbly
, and slipped away.

The only saving grace was Chase’s father and sister
. Grandpa Hoole took both of Liz’s hands in his and gave them a squeeze. He stooped down and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, my dear,” he said. “You add so much life to our meeting.”

He could never know how much that meant to her
.   He was the one man whose forgiveness she needed. If Grandpa Hoole could see past her weaknesses, she’d survive.

Sophie slipped her arm around Liz’s waist as they walked out to their cars and said, “You’re great, you know
. My kids had a terrific time. It’s probably the one parade they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. Don’t let the others get you down.”

“Oh, Sophie,” Liz returned the embrace
. “I can’t even handle a simple float in a ten minute parade. How am I ever going to make it through a formal wedding in Charleston?”  

“Don’t worry,” Sophie said
. “I’ll be there to help.”

******

              Late afternoon Liz headed over to Cottonwoods to try to dislodge Maggie from whatever hole she’d climbed into. There was no answer at the door. As usual everything was unlocked. Liz opened the door and called Maggie’s name, but got no response. When she returned to her car she saw LuAnne back in the cemetery. She had on a loose fitting plaid flannel shirt, workpants and gardening gloves. A wheelbarrow filled with the dried wreaths from the Judge’s grave sat just outside the brick wall.

             
Liz called out so as not to frighten her. “Hey, LuAnne. Don’t you know for every stitch you sew on Sunday you’ll have a thousand to take out with your teeth when you get to heaven?”

             
LuAnne looked up. “Don’t think that message ever got to poor folks.”

             
“Whatcha doing?”

             
“Just cleaning up a bit.”

“I’m
looking for Maggie. Is she around?” Liz asked.

             
“No, ma’am, she’s in Raleigh—been there most every day since the funeral.”

             
“We’ve missed her. I’ve talked to her on the phone a couple of times, but she didn’t mention she’d be in Raleigh so long.” The fresh dirt on the grave reminded her that it had been less than a month since the Judge died. “She promised she’d be at the Easter Parade.”

             
“She must have forgot.” LuAnne leaned down and picked up a bouquet of dead roses. Liz took them from her and threw them into the wheelbarrow outside the wall and then bent down to help with the remaining assortment of dried-up arrangements held together with ribbons and metal ties.

“Court’s on Wednesdays
. She’s always back for court days.”

“What are you going to do with all this?” Liz asked, motioning to the dried sprays of flowers.

              “Put it in the burn pile back yonder,” LuAnne said, nodding in the direction of the cotton field. Though it was still too early for planting, with warmer days they’d soon start turning the fields.

  Liz moved in next to
LuAnne and worked by her side. She knew that LuAnne didn’t drive. “How did you get here?” Liz asked, knowing it was pretty easy for LuAnne to get a ride, although she wasn’t afraid to walk the mile between her house and Cottonwoods.

“My nephew’s daughter was in town for church
. She dropped me off on her way back to Norfolk.”

Liz realized with some embarrassment that she knew very little about
LuAnne’s family while LuAnne knew a great deal about hers. “She got children?” Liz asked.

“Thank goodness, no
… only seventeen. I’m hoping she might go to a community college for a couple of years before she starts having kids. Lord knows, these young ‘uns are in such a hurry to get on with life.”

“So,
LuAnne, do you have brothers and sisters?” Liz was trying to connect the families.

LuAnne
stopped what she was doing, straightened up and applied pressure to the small of her back with her left hand. “Just one brother… he’s dead, Miss Liz.”

“Oh,” Liz paused
. “I’m so sorry, LuAnne, I didn’t know.”

             
“Yes ma’am,” she said and looked Liz in the eye. “You knowd…Isaac Perry. He was my brother.”

At a complete loss for words, Liz’s mouth went dry
. She knew LuAnne was a Perry, but there were so many. It seemed everyone in the black community was Perry, Wilson, McFadden or Jones.

LuAnne picked up a rake against the brick wall and started to run it across the grave. “You heard of Isaac Perry?” she asked.

             
“Yes,” Liz said. “I’ve heard of him. I’m sorry about all the hurt it had to cause your family. The memories must be very painful.”

             
“We’re all sorry,” LuAnne said as she continued to rake the trash into a pile. “Sorry don’t do a lot of good.” 

             
“People won’t talk much about what happened.” Liz said. “I don’t know what to say.”

             
“People want to forget what happened.” LuAnne shook her head and made a
humph
noise as she picked up more trash. “I think about it every single day.”

             
Liz was desperately trying to think of anything that might sound consoling. “Chase told me a lot of folks don’t believe he did anything wrong.”

             
“He didn’t,” LuAnne spit back. “He was the kindest, most gentle man you’d ever want to know. Lived his life only doing good for others. Could have been a preacher. Loved his wife, Molly, and adored that baby boy of his, Johnson.”  She grit her teeth. “They hurt lots of people. They killed Isaac, but that was only the half of what all happened afterwards.”

             
“Was there a trial?” Liz asked.

             
“Trial?”  LuAnne turned and stared at her. “Trial?” she repeated the word in disbelief.

             
“I meant for the men who lynched him.” Liz already knew that Isaac hadn’t gotten a trial.

             
“Pshaw, they said they had no proof who done it. But they was parading around town like they was heroes—people shaking their hands, laughing, having a grand time. It tore me up inside. Filled me with so much hate.”

             
“So nobody ever knew for sure who did it?” Liz said, a bit surprised.

             
LuAnne bent over and scratched the rake in the dirt with disgust. “I know. I know who done it. Their faces are burned in the side of my brain.”

“Are they still in town?
” Liz said, suddenly terrified that LuAnne might actually give her names. She didn’t want to know. They might be people she saw at The Quaker Café, people she liked.

             
“All dead. I trust they’ve each had their reckoning with God and Isaac was waiting for them when they tried to pass through those pearly gates.” LuAnne raked up the last of the rubbish. “I could have taken a gun and shot every one of them myself, but I was scared back then. Scared of what they might do to my mama or me. That was then, and this is now, and I stopped being scared a long time ago. I seen being scared don’t help. And I seen what it’s done to Isaac’s wife and his son.”

             
“What happened to them?” Liz said with genuine concern.

             
“Molly, she died a broken woman. A broken heart, really… what they done to Isaac just killed her, too. And Johnson, he’s been an angry man all of his life, in and out of jail. Blames white folks for everything that ever gone wrong. I’m praying for his kids, though. Praying somehow they can get by this.”

             
“I’m sorry, LuAnne,” Liz said. “I’m so sorry your family has had to suffer like that.”

             
“Me too, child. But God gives us all our burdens to bear.”  She straightened up and bent her head back to the sky to stretch the muscles in her neck. “You just hadn’t had to shoulder yours yet.”

Chapter Fourteen

Maggie Kendall made her way across the café on Thursday evening as if nothing unusual had happened during the past month. She stopped to talk at each table as locals rose to greet her. Based on the premise that you can never be too thin, Maggie looked good, in a striking tan suit with a peach colored blouse that matched her heels. She was actually wearing make-up at the end of a workday.

Liz and Chase sat with Billie and Gill watching her entrance
. Billie was in a carnation pink jumper with a long sleeve cherry blossom pink blouse. Gill looked like he’d just gotten a white wash in the local drive-through.

“Listen, about last weekend,” Maggie said when she reached their table.

Liz didn’t say a word. She was irritated that Maggie had pulled one of her disappearing acts without as much as a phone call. “Maggie, we were worried about you. You went to Raleigh and didn’t tell anyone.”

“I told you,” Maggie insisted.

“You said a couple of days. It’s been over two weeks.”

“Well, I’m a grown-up
. I don’t have to check in.”

“You don’t,” Liz conceded, but still felt slighted that Maggie didn’t acknowledge the importance of their friendship.

              “You missed quite a show at the Easter parade,” Billie piped up.

“I heard things didn’t go well,” Maggie said
. She looked at Liz, but couldn’t even get eye contact. Liz screwed her mouth into a pout.

             “What’s happening in Raleigh, Maggie?”  Chase made an honest effort to break the tension.

“I’m looking at a job possibility, and
I’ll be back in Raleigh
next week,” she said with emphasis directed towards Liz.

“What kind of job?” Billie asked.

“Everything’s only tentative. It’s a political appointment, so I don’t know what my chances are with a Republican governor right now.”

“But a Democratic legislature,” Chase said.

“Which brings us to your campaign.” Maggie focused the conversation back to Liz. “Have you started thinking about what you’ll do?”

Liz looked a bit surprised
. “It’s only April, Maggie. You were the one who told me not to worry about doing anything before October. We’re talking basically hitting churches and putting up a few billboards.”

“October’s a big month,” Billie said
. “Wedding, campaigning, new baby due in November, and then the holidays; it never hurts to plan ahead.”

“Nat and
Lexa are driving up this weekend,” Liz said rather defensively. “Possibly we can get things finalized for the rehearsal dinner. I can give some thought to the campaign after that.”

*****

Nat and Lexa announced that Frogbelly would join them when they came for the weekend. The thought of seeing Nat and his fraternity brother Frogbelly had Nicholas and Evan bouncing off the walls. Frogbelly had been considered part of their family since Nat and he were both in Kappa Alpha at Wake Forest University.

             
“It
is
his real name,” Evan insisted as he sat on the floor next to Lady stroking the dog’s blond hair, which seemed to be a magnet for every piece of material in the house. Liz had opted for This End Up Furniture so that the dark plaid cushion covers could be removed and washed frequently, although frequently was less often than she intended, and the blond hair on the dark colors was hard to miss. But the furniture itself proved to be durable, so much so that they were long overdue something new.

Nicholas paced in front of the window h
oping to see the lights of his brother’s car turn in the drive. “Is not,” Nicholas said.

             
“Is too,” he and Evan ricocheted back and forth.

             
“Mom, Frogbelly is his real name, isn’t it?” whined Evan.

             
“No, honey, it’s a nickname.”

             
“What’s his name then?”

             
“Arthur McBride Tiller.”

             
“So why does Nat call him Frogbelly?”

             
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”

             
Nat and Frogbelly both majored in business and now worked with competitive banks. For three years they had rented a house together with four other Wake Forest grads at the corner of Providence and Wendover in Charlotte, but a year ago Nat had moved into an apartment with Lexa. This Chase and Liz did not mention to Grandpa and Grandma Hoole, but they considered it a sign of another passage into adulthood, surpassed only by the day he started to pay all of his own bills. Step-by-step he was breaking the ties. The wedding would be the grand finale.

            Their second son, Adam, just thirteen months younger than his older brother, was 
gregarious and outgoing like Liz. Adam was the story teller in the family. He had worked the farms during his summer months and turned everyday occurrences among the farmers and laborers into evening entertainment around the dinner table. Liz and Chase planned to pay for him to fly to the wedding in October. Heather would be too pregnant to make the trip safely.