The Sleeping Night (11 page)

Sunday morning dawned sloppy, wet and cold, a fact Angel noted with more than a little dismay. Mornings like this in the past, Georgia had always driven out from town to take her to church. If she’d only had to carry herself and the cake in the sunshine, it wouldn’t have been a problem, but she’d show up for the pageant looking like a drowned cat.

Swallowing her pride, she called Georgia. “Morning, Aunt Georgia,” she said. “I know you’re mad at me, but I really a need a ride to church this morning. I have a cake and the children are giving a program.”

“I fully intended to come down there for you, Angel. I’m not heartless, you know.”

“Thank you.”

A half hour later, Georgia showed up in her big black car. She carried the cake to the car and Angel carried the materials for the pageant. When Georgia put the cake down next her on the seat, she peeked inside the safe. “Oh, honey, you outdid yourself this time. That’s the prettiest cake I’ve ever seen.”

“Been thinking about it a long time,” Angel answered. “There was just never the right occasion.”

“Be sure you hide a piece for me, all right?”

“I will.” Angel peered out at the drizzle. “Thanks for coming out here this morning, Aunt Georgia. I really didn’t know how I was going to get there in this mess.”

“I may not approve of everything you do, baby, but you’re my dead brother’s only child. I owe him at least seeing you to church where the Lord might change your mind.”

In the interest of peace, Angel simply nodded.

“You hear about Mrs. Pierson’s niece yet?” Georgia asked.

“I met her last Sunday.”

“Pretty thing, if she gained some weight, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure she will,” Angel said mildly. “Takes time.”

“So it’s true, then?”

“What?” Angel felt a stirring of disappointment, seeing the point to this ride to church.

“That she spent the war in a concentration camp.”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, you do, too. I heard that nigra your daddy was so fond of is fixing your roof. He’s the one brought her back. Didn’t he tell you?”

“I didn’t ask.” Angel sighed. “You just do that to bother me.”

“Do what?” Georgia waved her hand. “That’s polite! You’re too sensitive.” Too enmeshed in her story to fully register Angel’s disapproval, she continued, leaning forward over the steering wheel as if the story were rolling out on the dashboard. “When I saw her yesterday, I thought to myself it was just like when your mama showed up here, out of the blue.” She cocked her head, sending the feather on her hat dancing. “Wonder what it is about Gideon that would attract pretty women?”

“How is Gudren like my mama?”

“Oh, she isn’t not really. Just that suddenness and the prettiness.”

“I’ve never once heard you say my mama was pretty. You said a whole lot of other things—none of them particularly nice.”

“You’re right, Angel. And I’m sorry about that. The truth is, nobody knew where she came from till the day she died. But young women don’t usually come from nowhere unless they got something to hide and I speculated like everybody else.”

“Wasn’t it enough she was a good wife to my daddy?”

“Your daddy never had a lick a sense about women. He always liked the sexy ones.”

“Was Mama sexy?

“Law, yes!” Georgia rolled her eyes. “About lit the street afire. I was so jealous of her I could spit.” She chuckled, mellow and expansive since her place of importance was guaranteed by Angel’s known relationship with Mrs. Pierson—and therefore the beautiful stranger. “And you look just like her, honey, but you’re sweeter. You don’t sizzle like she did. Just as well.”

She swung her big car into the lot behind the church, waving to various members as she took her place. As Angel got out, she said, “Thank you, Aunt Georgia. I appreciate the ride.”

“You’re welcome, honey,” She lifted the cake almost reverently. “I’ll take this in for you. You go on and get those children ready.”

The small room where her Sunday school class met could hardly contain the feverish mood of the children. They fidgeted and jabbed each other with elbows in nervous stage fright. Angel managed to get them dressed, and then ran through a quick rehearsal before regular services started.

As the pianist struck up the prelude to services, she herded the children toward the sanctuary. The miniature villagers squirmed in agitation as the pastor announced the special play Angel had written for their study of the Old Testament. She’d chosen the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who defied Nebuchadnezzar, mainly because she loved the names of the principles, although she kept that fact to herself.

The pianist took up the music Angel had found to complement their story as the narrator, a mature girl from town, began to read. Among the nervous children only Shadrach was calm, his dark curls cascading over his ears, dark eyes clear and untroubled. Angel was touched, looking at him, pleased at the dignity he lent his simple role. She would have to remember to tell him he was a natural actor.

After the pageant, the church applauded, the hymns were sung and the pastor delivered his message. As Angel listened, she was puzzled at the anger that edged his words, surprised that he chose “Love thy neighbor” as his subject when the pageant would have given him such a perfect opening for any number of other things.

Still, it wasn’t her place to question his direction from God. A warmth spread through her as she listened. Whatever the end result might be, she was serving her neighbors to the best of her ability. Perhaps time would mellow the rigidity of the townspeople. Hadn’t Georgia come around?

When the congregation stood to sing the Doxology, Angel’s voice rose sweet and clear. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise him all creatures here below .
 . .”

Her neighbor in the pew glanced at her and Angel smiled around her singing mouth.

Because of the weather, the potluck had been transferred to the basement, a damp but serviceable room below the sanctuary where long tables had been set up with folding chairs. Along one wall, tables groaned with the best the women had to offer—a huge, shining barbequed brisket with slices of orange and lemon peel clinging to the meat, a ham slick with brown sugar and studded with pineapple, heaps of fried chicken and potato salad and deviled eggs, a fruit salad swimming with cream, cakes and pies and gallons of sweet tea. Freshly brewed coffee sent up its fragrant steam from a fifty-cup container.

Flanked by her Sunday school class, Angel made her way down the line, filling her plate with a little of everything until it nearly collapsed under the weight.

“Are you gonna
eat
all that?” asked Harold, the boy who had played Shadrach.

“You betcha,” Angel answered. “I’m hungry enough to eat a hog.”

“Me, too,” piped Margaret, the child on Angel’s other side. “I’m specially gonna have some of them debiled eggs.”

“You’re gonna have some of those deviled eggs,” Angel corrected gently.

“Right. Those.”

Edwin Walker eased up behind Angel. In his suit and tie, his hair combed neatly from his face, it was hard to think of him as a threat. “Which one of them cakes is yours, Angel? I know you had to bring a cake and I want me a piece.”

He leaned a hair too close, until her vision was filled with his neon eyes and full lips. She turned her head. “The chocolate with mint leaves on top.”

“I’ve been waiting all morning for this.” He handed his plate to the matron behind the table. “Miz Hayden, would you be so kind as to cut me a slice of that chocolate cake there?”

“Certainly, Edwin. How’s your mama?”

“Oh, she’s fine. Doc says she’ll have that cast off in a week. I know she’ll be glad to be up and around again.”

“You tell her I said hello, won’t you?”

Edwin smiled, his mesmerizing eyes fixed directly on Mrs. Hayden. “I’ll do that.”

He’d managed not to dump a whole bottle of cologne upon himself this morning, Angel thought with a smile. A wisp of the exotic aftershave he wore drifted toward her, making her think of seaports and sailors.

“You gonna let me sit with you today, Angel?”

“I don’t think there’s room, Edwin. My class already asked and I told them they could.” She pointed to a chess pie. “I’d have a piece of that one, Miz Hayden. And cut a piece of the chocolate for my aunt Georgia. I promised I’d save her a piece.”

In spite of her indication that the children would leave him no room, Edwin followed Angel to one of the long tables, her Sunday school class trailing her like a hive of bees, bees that settled around the table. Edwin squeezed between two of them cheerfully, right across the table from Angel.

She didn’t speak much to him, listening to the children instead, but his gaze, bright and unnerving, was fixed upon her face as he ate. As she finished her meal and the bees began to buzz away, he spoke.

“How’s life down in nigger-town, baby?”

She winced. “You’ve got the manners of a mongrel dog, Edwin Walker.”

“Aw, honey, I didn’t mean no disrespect.”

Angel looked at him.

“You Coreys are just touchy, that’s all. No white person in this county gets upset about niggers ’cept y’all. And your daddy was crazy, Angel. Everybody knew it. Why don’t you just realize your natural place and forget about them poor colored folks?”

She folded her hands on the table. “And do what, exactly?”

“Get outta that store and find yourself a husband, have some babies or something.”

For a brief second, Angel wished for the clarity of his clear-cut world. If she had been raised like Edwin, she’d never think about her deepest heart being afraid of standing alone in the presence of Isaiah High and what that meant. She’d be afraid for a simple reason then, because any decent white woman was afraid of being alone with any colored man. Not this complex thing she felt constantly with Isaiah, that pinching in her chest she couldn’t shake. She’d never have to despair over the business in her store falling off. She would go to town and see silly movies instead of working herself half to death.

Then she thought of Paul’s grandmother, dragging the child with her to work until she no longer had a place. And thought of the women who stopped in the store early, because she’d decided to give them a place to have a cup of coffee. She thought of the Walker brothers cheating their colored customers, thought of the rhythms of black laughter and black voices lost to her.

She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s what God has planned for me, Edwin.”

He laughed and tipped back his chair, folding his hands over his tie. “We’ll see about that, honey.”

Angel stood. “Excuse me. I’ve got to take this cake to my aunt.”

“Nice talking with you.”

“The pleasure was all yours.”

His laughter followed her as she walked quickly away.

Georgia was sitting
with her friends Margaret and June Green.

“Here’s your cake, Aunt Georgia.”

“Now, isn’t that beautiful?” Georgia patted the place next to her. “Have a seat, sugar.”

Just then, the pastor touched her shoulder. “Morning, y’all,” he said to the older women. “Angel, can I talk to you for a minute, please? In private, if you would.”

“Of course,” Angel said. “Excuse me.”

He led her to an empty corner of the room, past the full tables and animated conversation of the diners. His steps were filled with a stony heaviness rare to him and a clutch of worry rippled through her stomach—had there been some violence or a death she would mourn? When they reached the corner, he turned, a frown creasing the pale flesh between his clear, intelligent eyes. He licked his lips.

“You’re scaring me to death. Whatever it is, just spit it out.”