The Red Rose Box (7 page)

That night, as I washed the sand and salt from my body in a tub filled with bubbles, thoughts made circles in my mind. Colored go to the back door. No colored allowed. Whites only. Nigger. Go to the back of the bus. Nigger. In Sulphur, it was the way we lived, the way it was.

The next day Mama and I sat in the backyard on the brick steps, under the shade of a tree. It was hot. She took my hand in hers and a summer breeze cooled us.

“Why we gotta go back? I like it here.” I was looking for answers.

“Daddy ... our little house.” Her answers sounded like questions.

“Daddy would come, once we tell him bout it. He could get a job here. Daddy would wanna come. I know he would. Then he could buy us a big house and drive a fine car just like he's always talkin bout.” She dropped my hand.

“It's what we got.... It's what we got, Leah.” Nothing else was said.

All I could wonder was why any colored man or woman would ever go back to the South, below the Mason-Dixon line, after knowing what freedom felt like.

We ate lunch and drove to a movie theater where we saw Marilyn Monroe
in How to Marry a Millionaire.

Driving downtown to Chinatown, Mama stared from the window in silence as Gramma and Olivia, Ruth and I chirped and chattered about diamonds being a girl's best friend.

“Sure wish I had some diamonds to call my best friend. A diamond necklace might keep me good company.” Gramma looked over at Olivia and smiled.

I said, “Diamonds cain't be your best friend.”

“And why is that, Leah Jean?” Gramma asked.

“Cuz they cain't listen to your secrets.”

Aunt Olivia looked at the diamond ring on her finger and said, “You're right about that, Leah.”

Ruth said, “Leah's my best friend ... and my sister. I listen to all her secrets.”

Olivia parked the car and looked over at Mama, and smiles came to their lips.

In the restaurant, I didn't know what I was supposed to do with the two wooden sticks they gave us with our food.

“They're chopsticks,” Aunt Olivia said. She handled them like an expert, picking up rice that was covered with a salty brown liquid called soy sauce.

Mama, Ruth, and I tried but failed, and finally asked for forks. Gramma looked at the shrimp fried rice, shook her head, and jabbed a shrimp with the tip of the stick. Carefully she brought it to her mouth. Then she asked for a fork too. I broke open my fortune cookie. It said, “You will always have good luck and overcome many hardships.” Ruth's said, “You will meet a tall, dark stranger.” I tucked mine into my sock and Ruth gave hers to Mama to keep in her pocketbook. The people who served us had dark narrow eyes and pin-straight black hair. I knew where they were from. China was in Asia.

Someday, I thought, I will go there. Someday.

Three days later, with tears in our eyes, we were back on the train, bound for New Orleans, the red rose box in my lap.

 

 

 

S
eems like as soon as we finished waving good-bye to Aunt Olivia and Uncle Bill Chapel, we were waving hello to Daddy and Elijah. They were waiting inside the train station with their hats on, grinning. I was so happy to see them.

Ruth and I got in the back of Elijah's truck with Daddy, curled up beside him like two snakes under a river rock, and fell asleep.

When I woke, I was in my bed, Ruth tucked in at the foot, Daddy standing over me. I thought I was dreaming. Being close to him almost made me forget about California and chopsticks.

He said, “Seems like your mama dun gone off to Hollywood and got a little fulla herself.”

I said, “No, Mama isn't the only one, we's all a little fulla ourselves.”

Daddy said with half a smile, “Long as y'all know how to come back down to earth, I ain't bout to worry.”

I replied, “Daddy, ain't isn't no real word. That's what Mrs. Redcotton says.”

Daddy smiled a big smile, a funny look in his eyes, and said, “Well, you tell Mrs. Redcotton that Willie Hopper said thank you very much for educatin my children to speak proper English.” He paused. “I can see now that Leah's on her way to better things.”

Ruth added, “Me too.”

“Daddy, could we move to California? It's real pretty and they don't have no Whites Only signs and no hurricanes neither. Least that's what Uncle Bill Chapel said.” I was trying to convince him.

“Got earthquakes though, plenty of those.” Daddy caressed the top of my head.

“What's a earthquake?” Ruth asked.

“The earth begins to shake and rumble, opens up, swallows up people, cows, horses, whole towns sometimes, then the earth closes back up till the next time ... never no warning.” Daddy was wearing a straight face but part of me thought that he was stretching the truth.

“Is that true, Daddy, or just another tall tale?” I was getting sleepy.

“Part truth, part tale. You gotta decide what is what, Leah. Good night, pretty little gals.”

He tucked us in again and we drifted toward sleep, listening to Mama and Daddy giggle in the next room like they always did when he came home.

July was hot, smelling like too much rain, feeling like a hurricane, thunder in the distance. Lightning struck and lit the sky.

Sunday mass. We said good morning to Sunday and saw Micah and Nathan Shine, their straight-haired, half-Indian mama with them in the pew ahead of us. Ruth and I thought at the same time about hot dogs and started laughing. Daddy looked at us once. Once was enough and we quieted, listening to Father Murphy. The smell of incense filled the church. Candles glowed. The statue of Christ on the cross loomed above us. The altar boys stood beside the priest. Father Murphy's bug eyes reminded me of a grasshopper. When the time came for communion, I didn't go, only because of what I thought about Nathan Shine and hot dogs. Ruth went anyway. Daddy looked back at me as he made his way to the front of the church. I hung my head.

We walked home slowly. Daddy and Mama were behind us, holding hands. The country ground felt good beneath my feet but I remembered my red rose box, the pink room, patio furniture, marshmallows, and flowers tucked behind one ear.

I asked Daddy if we could get a book.

He said, “We gotta book, the Bible.”

“I want a real book like the ones at Aunt Olivia's house, like the books in the library in Lake Charles.”

My request was met with a smile and the next day he brought me, in his torn back pocket, a well-used copy of
Tom Sawyer.
That was how we came to have books of our own. I finished it in one week and after that, when he was home, he bought me a different torn, worn book. He said he bought them for three pennies each from a blind man who used to pass for white. Those books kept the ambition hovering around me. I learned many things from those frayed pages, and though the words rolling off my tongue still sounded Louisiana country, the words themselves started to change.

Emma Snow, the girl with seven braids, taunted us after school the first day back. “Who you think you is just cuz you went somewhere on a train? Summer vacation in Hollywood. Your mama ain't even got but one washtub and you's still colored.” Three other girls who sat in the one-room schoolhouse with us sneered.

One boy hurled mean words toward us and threw a rock that grazed my temple. “You ain't no better than nobody else cuz you still gotta sit in the back of the bus just like the rest of us.”

I hoped we weren't going to have to fight.

Ruth pulled one of Emma's seven braids. “Pickaninny!”

“I ain't no pickaninny!” Emma balled up her fist.

Ruth ducked and I grabbed her hand. We ran toward home. Fast, faster, faster.

“Chickens! ... Ragamuffins!” We heard them say.

“Dumbbells!” I screamed.