The Reading Lessons (25 page)

But Mama did not intend to be so hasty. “And what does Mrs. Worther-Holmes have to say about all this happiness, I’d love to know?”

“Mrs. Worther-Holmes is keeping me busier than a soldier ant on the Fourth of July, but I don’t care. Sundays are all mine.”

Mama stopped on the sidewalk in front of Browning House. “I know this much: you and Miss Gibbs would make awfully pretty babies together.” 

That was Mama for you. Until the Crump Curse was broken and he gave her a baby properly born to a husband and wife, Mama was never gonna shut up about babies.

 “Slow down there, Mama,” Hadley said. “I ain’t even kissed her yet.”

###

Lucinda was waiting in the front hall when he got home, tapping the corner of a new
To Do
List against her shiny scarlet lips. Hadley was in such a hurry, he didn’t notice her red robe. 

“It’s Sunday,” he said when she waved her list at him. “Give it to me tomorrow.”

“Sunday Smunday,” Lucinda said. The clip-clop of her fur-trimmed mules followed him into the bedroom. “I need your help with something.”

“What is it?” He snatched the list and gave it a split-second read. “These things can wait, Lucinda.” 

“Not number five.”

Hadley skipped to number five:
Brainstorm fundraiser
. 

“What’s that mean?”

“It means that no-good, lazy Martha Truesdale has put me in charge of the charity event for the annual
Daughters of the Confederacy Pie Bake-off & Family Fun Frolic
.” 

Sadly, Lucinda’s penchant for joining civic organizations had not diminished over the years. Besides
V.I.L.E
., she belonged to at least five other social clubs.

Hadley had his own things to worry about. He hoped to have Helen back in shape by Flora’s birthday. “What’s brainstorming have to do with me?”

“I need help,” she whined. “Martha says I’m to come up with the best idea anyone’s ever heard of, which means a quilt auction is out of question because it’s been done to death, and you can forget about Bingo, too. And a dance marathon. And any of the usual mumbo jumbo that everyone does for the poor. Honestly, Hadley, I’m not as clever as everyone thinks.” 

She ran her hand over her hip, and for the first time, he noticed the robe. It was silky and red and split open down the middle from her waist to her feet. “It could take hours to come up with a suitable solution.” 

It surely was a nice robe. “I need to be somewhere at one, Lucinda.”

“We’ll meet at four then. Just you and me.” Lucinda stepped closer so that Hadley was forced to come chin-to-cleavage with that red robe. “Between the two of us, I just know something wonderful is bound to come up.”

###

Hadley could tell that something was wrong the minute Flora opened the door. “Oh thank goodness you’re here,” she said. She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him in the house. 

Flora was not easily distressed. “Look,” she whispered. 

Hadley peeked between the crack in the swinging door that led to the kitchen. Mr. Gibbs was sitting at the kitchen table eating. Things looked perfectly normal.

“He won’t stop with the peas,” Flora said. 

Sure enough. Hadley watched Mr. Gibbs wolf down an entire bowl in about ten seconds with one of Flora’s little spoons. 

Ever since the applesauce, Flora served everything with her souvinir spoons. “Which spoon is he using?” Hadley asked.

“Does that matter?”

“I was just wondering.”

“Mississippi, I think. Look at those cheeks. I swear to God, he’s turning green.” 

Hadley squinted through the crack. Damned if Mr. Gibbs didn’t seem to be turning a grayish, brownish,
Those-Good-Peas
green. “Ain’t he sick of them by now?”

“I asked him that very question not one hour ago. He said, ‘Who am I to be sick of them? Those peas are like pennies from Heaven, Flora.’”

“Pennies from Heaven?!”

“That’s what he said.”

“Jesus Flora, we have to get your daddy off those peas. I think they’re turning his brain to mush.”

“What should we do?” she said.

“How many cans are left?”

Flora shuddered at the thought. “Enough to color him green as a turtle. I’ve been sneaking cans off to the neighbors while he’s napping. There are a lot of people who could use some peas, but he’s starting to get suspicious. Last night he called me a
pea-thief
.”

Hadley scratched his head. “Say, this gives me an idea. I think I got a plan that might help out everyone involved.”

###

“You’re late,” Lucinda said. She was waiting for him in the Reading Room, dressed in the slinky robe.

“I’ll make it worth your while, I promise,” Hadley told her. He dragged a
Brick’s Minced Meat
crate into the middle of the room. 

Seeing how Lucinda didn’t have the best eyes in the world, looking inside the crate involved the sort of bending over that jiggles all things great and small. “Peas?” she said, when she could focus.

“They’re for the poor.”

Lucinda felt his forehead. “Are you delirious?” 

“A little,” he confessed, staring at her robe. “I’ve been doing some brainstorming like you asked, and I figure there are a lot of folks out there that just might have an extra can or two of food around to lend to a good cause. Why don’t you collect cans for your club? You can call your fundraiser PEAS FOR THE POOR. Or better yet, how about PENNIES FROM HEAVEN?”

It had taken Flora all afternoon to convince Mr. Gibbs to part with his good fortune. Luckily, he had a heart for charity. 

Lucinda jiggled upright. “You really are delirious. No one collects peas for poor people. I’ll be a laughing stock.”

“You can do peaches and tomatoes, too.”

Lucinda tapped her slipper. “I don’t know. It’s different, I suppose. Why don’t we have some tea and talk things over more?”

Hadley glanced at the robe. “I got another crate in the wagon outside. Where do you want me to put it?”

Lucinda stuck a leg out through the silky slit. “Where do you want put it?”

Hadley laughed, in spite of himself. Only Lucinda would have the nerve to turn a project for poor people into something dirty. He thought about Flora brooding over the greenness of her daddy in the house back on Dixon Street. 

“I’ll stash it somewhere safe for now, if it’s all the same with you.”

Lucinda’s canned food collection was proclaimed an unprecedented success. There was even talk of instituting an
Annual Daughters of the Confederacy
PENNIES FROM HEAVEN
Can Drive for the Poor
. Better still, Mr. Gibbs was beginning to return to his former ordinary brown self. 

###

Hadley had been scrupulously setting aside money for a bus trip to Alabama, but when Flora’s twenty-first birthday rolled around, he decided to use the money to take her to the
Salamander Club instead. The Salamander Club was on S. Pearl Street where all the Negro clubs were located, and the place was creating quite a stir. Most of the joints in blackie town were dim, smoky places with no running water, and you had to use an outhouse if you needed to go. Hadley had never visited any of them, but Flora had been to the Swing Inn a few times and also Dizzy’s Café. The Salamander Club was a big new place with an elegant atmosphere and strict codes for behavior and dress. People said it was so nice, white folks were showing up with flasks of corn whiskey inside their dinner jackets and money to burn, hoping to get a seat in one of the fabled Pink Booths near the music stage. The Pink Booths were reserved for big tippers, celebrities, and pretty girls hand-picked by the club owner, Virggie Liggins, who strolled about every night looking out for beauties. 

Liggins was creating quite a splash, arguing permits with the city and serving Coca-Cola to coloreds when usually only Nehi and Double Cola were allowed. He was hailed for muscling his way past politicians in order to provide the fanciest Negro club anywhere around, and at the same time, he was lambasted for catering to wealthy white patrons. The newspaper said you could recognize him by his pink cigarettes and flashy stickpins.

Flora had heard that Charley Patton and Willie Brown were known to stop in and play their guitars on the spur of the moment, and this was why she brought up the club to Hadley. She said the Salamander was a real nightclub, unlike the little makeshift jukehouses and cafes all around it. 

“My friend Marva went last weekend and ate stuffed clams and a fruit cocktail cup with little marshmallows and powdered sugar sprinkled on top. She danced until her feet fell off.” 

Hadley didn’t know Charley Patton from Adam. They listened to operetta and white radio shows at Wisteria Walk. Flora, on the other hand, was more worldly, what with working at a library and reading all those Harlem magazines. When he said he wanted to take her to the Salamander Club for her birthday, she assured him the place was too costly. 

“It’s far too much money to spend in one night.”

 “I wouldn’t be spending it all on just one night,” Hadley said. “I’d be spending it on one perfect night we’ll remember as long as we live. It’s a bargain when you think of it that way.”

As the son of a cook, Hadley knew which fork to use when eating a refined meal. He’d learned all it all—the butter rules, the napkin placement, how to cross your silverware on your plate when you were finished eating. He gave Flora lessons before the big night. Luckily, she was a quick study when it came to utensils. 

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Hadley said, “what, with all your experience with spoons.”

By the time her birthday arrived, the sun porch had been restored to its natural disorder, and Hadley had begun work on Helen. The structural problems weren’t as bad as he’d first thought. He’d fixed the masonry in one day and cleaned out the chimney so Flora’s father could have a fire on chilly nights when he got around to building his radios. Mr. Gibbs grumbled like the improvements were a bad thing. He said that Hadley had made the place too nice for the rakes and buckets now and wondered, did Hadley have any ideas about where he ought to put them instead?

The more time Hadley spent repairing Helen, the more attached he got to the old place. The building contained two medium-sized rooms, several nice windows, and a hearth built of good sound quarry rock. Declarations of love had been scratched into the glass on one of the windows.
Conny Barbour & Letty Swann Owctowber 3, 1812. Big Brown loves Matilda 18403. Marry Me Alice! 9/2/46. All right I will 9/3/46. Ginny and Flournoy Nelson 1-1-1901. I love Ampy Anderson June 12 . . . 

If the mayor had gotten his way, all of this love would have been lost forever. One day, Hadley found a corncob baby stuffed between the hearth rocks. The eyes had just about bled away, but the smile was still good. He stood it on the mantle next to Mr. Gibbs’ pruning sheers and decided that Flora’s father was right. This place was too good for the rakes now. 

Using the edge of a penny, he scratched his own declaration into the glass.

###

Hadley was permitted to leave work three hours early on Flora’s birthday, which, as luck would have it, was also Mama’s birthday. In his request, he neglected to mention that it was not his mama’s birthday he intended to celebrate.

Flora clapped her hands when he gave her the magnolia. “No one ever gave me flowers until you came into my life.”

“Not even Countee Burkes?” 

“Countee Burkes wasn’t as romantic as you are when it comes to gifts.”

“Oh, the magnolia isn’t your gift,” Hadley said. He pulled out a package from behind his back. “This is your gift.”

Flora tore through the paper like she’d never gotten a real present in all her days. “An Alabama spoon? Did you sneak off to Alabama without my knowing about it?”

“Nope. I found it at
Pringles Second Hands
. I know I ain’t been to Alabama yet, or you neither, but I think we should go there sometime and smell those lemony azaleas.” The rims of his ears fired up like a griddle. “Maybe we could go for our honeymoon?”

“Honeymoon?” Flora said. “Are you drunk?”

“I’ve been thinking about this real hard, Flora, and I can see it in my mind. I mean, if you can? I can see us together. I can see our life and our kids and our cluttered-up house. We’d be so happy, don’t you think? We’d be real good to each other.”

Flora ran her thumb over the Alabama spoon. “It wasn’t that long ago that you imagined your life with someone else.”

“I knew you’d say that, but the fact of the matter is, you need me. I never knowed it was true before, but not everyone has business using a paintbrush on a room. You and your Daddy don’t fix anything. You don’t even open your mail. I’m good at those things.
Women’s Voices
might say otherwise, but I think I’d make you a fine husband, Flora, and I’d be the luckiest man alive to have you.”

“Do you love me, Hadley?”

Hadley took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “In a better, more right, and happy way than I ever loved anyone else. I live for Sundays, Flora. You mean everything to me.”

“My goodness.”

 “And your pie is special, too. I meant to mention that right off. And you aren’t too short. You’re just right.” He sucked on his lower lip, trying to think what else he might have forgotten. “Oh yeah . . . what do you think of me, Flora? I was going to ask you that before I asked about Alabama.”

It should have seemed risky after what happened with Lucinda, but Flora made him feel safe. She threw her arms around his neck. “I love you, too, you crazy boy. You make me very happy.”

“What about my . . . obligation?” A few weeks earlier, Hadley had told Flora about the pressure he was under to produce the first lawful baby in his ill-begotten line. He was giving
trust
a chance at the time, testing to see if she’d be scared off, but Flora was sympathetic as ever.

She rubbed her fiery cheek against his and softly whispered, “I’ve dreamed of being a mother all my life.”

“Do you want to marry me, Flora?”

“Yes. I do.”

###

It felt like a funny place for them to be, with Hadley in one of Dickie’s cast-off jackets, and a long line of fancy cars lined up out front. Hadley had to tip ten dollars just to get a table.