Till You Hear From Me: A Novel (15 page)

“Well, good morning! The Rev didn’t tell me you were going to be joining us today!”

“I’m joining you two for coffee only,” I said, giving him a hug. “After that, you’re on your own.”

He put his hat on the table by the door where we always toss our
keys and followed me into the kitchen. “The Rev will be right down.”

I knew Mr. Eddie drank his coffee black, so I poured him a cup. He leaned against the counter and took a long sip.

“You doin’ all right?”

I nodded. “Can’t complain.”

“We’re all very proud of you.”

Would it never end?
“Thanks, but nothing definite yet.”

He looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

Maybe I should have some cards made up that I can just hand to people with a picture of the White House in a red circle with a red line through it.

“Well, it’s going to take some time before anything’s official.”

Mr. Eddie frowned. “It’s official
now
, isn’t it? They swore the man in
twice
, what more do they have to do?”

That’s when I got it. He wasn’t talking about my job working for the president. He was talking about my role in
electing
the president.

“Nothing,” I said, smiling and patting his arm. “Not a thing. I misunderstood you.”

Relief flooded his face. “All right, then! For a minute there, I thought we were going to have to march on Washington
one more time!”

I laughed. “They don’t want that!”

He grinned at me and sipped his coffee. “Not if they know what’s good for them. Me and the Rev don’t cut the mustard so good anymore, but we can still spread the mayonnaise.”

Mr. Eddie was the calm ballast to the Rev’s more volatile personality. Think Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, without the women and the gangsters and the booze.

“The Rev told me about the schedule for the next couple of weeks. Aren’t you ever going to slow down?”

He shook his head. “Not likely. Your father thinks he’s got to show up at every one hundred percent church in the same month. I
told him, that’s a great idea, but there are one hundred of them and only twenty-eight days in the month. We gonna do four or five of ’em a day? And you know what? He actually stood right there and thought about it. Like we could physically hit one hundred churches even if we went eighteen hours a day!”

I had an image of my father and Mr. Eddie looking like two sped-up cartoon characters, tearing up and down the road in a cartoon car that lengthened out like a long black train as they barreled from Macon to Moultrie, Savannah to Statesboro, barely stopping for sustenance as the shortest month of the year blew by in a sepia-toned rhetorical rush.

“How’d you talk him out of it?”

“I didn’t.” Mr. Eddie laughed. “You see me standing up here at the crack of dawn, don’t you? I might as well be back on the Crescent if I’m gonna be keeping these hours.”

Mr. Eddie was a Pullman porter and then a sleeping car attendant for over forty years, and by his own account, really loved his work, although he never liked having to regularly rise before the sun came up to get things ready before his passengers slid open the doors to their tiny roomettes, yawning and sniffing the air for coffee.

Glancing at his watch, Mr. Eddie frowned slightly. “Speaking of which, we need to get out of here if he’s gonna make this breakfast on time. He’ll be the main one fussin’ if they start without him.”

The food reference reminded me. “You’re invited for dinner tonight when you two get back,” I said. “I’m cooking.”

He shook his head. “Too late. I’ve already got plans for dinner, and so do you.”

“I do?”

“Wes is home. You and the Rev are invited to my place.”

It’d been years since I’d seen Wes Harper. I had a massive crush on him when I was a teenager, but he left West End for boarding school in the wilds of New Hampshire when I was eight and he was
twelve. Aside from catching him kissing on his back porch, my most vivid memory of him was at the going-away party his parents threw to let the community express their collective pride in his achievement. He spent most of the evening looking alternately bored and restless while people who had known him all his life pressed envelopes into his hand with Hallmark cards and hard-earned twenties enclosed to help him on his way. He had seemed to me then to be one of those people who think they deserve better without ever realizing that
everybody
deserves better.

“Great,” I said, actually a little relieved that I didn’t have to deliver on my well-intentioned promise to have a meal waiting when the warriors returned from the road. “Do you want me to bring something?”

“Just your own sweet self,” he said. “I’ve got some lovely catfish fillets I’m gonna bake with some lemon. We’ll make out okay.”

“Make out okay on what?” the Rev said, carrying his briefcase, wearing his coat and hat like he was already halfway out the door and could therefore not be accused of holding up progress.

“You’re both invited for dinner,” Mr. Eddie said, putting his cup in the sink beside the Rev’s. “Wes is staying at the house for a couple of days.”

“At your house?” The Rev looked surprised. “Who’s he hidin’ from?”

“He didn’t say. You can ask him yourself at dinner.”

“Well, if you don’t, I will,” the Rev said, giving me a quick peck on the cheek and heading for the door. “Come on, then. Let’s hit the road.”

When she used to be the receptionist at
The Sentinel
, Miss Iona would finish every exchange by telling the caller to “do something for freedom today,” and that’s exactly the way the Rev lived his life. Come hell or high water, the Rev was going to do something for freedom every day God sent him. I watched them head down the walk, laughing and joking like they always did, and all of a sudden, I
wanted to go, too, but before I could throw up my hand, the Rev put his coat in the backseat beside Mr. Eddie’s, opened the passenger-side door, and got in without looking back. He never saw me there, standing in the doorway, waiting for a wave.

I watched the car until it turned the corner, fighting back a powerful rush of déjà vu, and then realized my phone was ringing. I dashed inside and snatched it off the key table. “Hello?”

“Where the hell are you?”

My mother was not known for her flowery salutations. It was a trait she shared with Miss Iona, but even for her, this was a bit abrupt.

“I’m in Atlanta,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

It was four o’clock in the morning in San Francisco. My mother was an early riser who did group tai chi in the park every morning at six, but nobody calls this early unless there is a crisis.

“Nothing’s wrong. What are you doing down there?”

“I’m spending a couple of days with the Rev,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Why are you calling me so early?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m telling you now,” I said. “It’s no big deal. Now why—”

“I’m in D.C.” She sounded annoyed. “I was trying to surprise you and when I got to your place, your landlady was kind enough to tell me you had gone to Atlanta. Imagine the egg on my face!”

“It was a spur of the moment kind of thing.”

“You saw it, didn’t you?”

There was no use pretending I didn’t know what she was talking about.

“I saw it.”

“That’s why you’re there, isn’t it?”

Both my parents could have second careers as mind readers.

“Don’t deny it,” she said. “Tacos and sangria! Has he lost his mind? I hope that’s what you went down there to ask him.”

“His mind is fine,” I said. “What are you doing in D.C.?”

“National Women’s Studies Association. Big doings.”

“Yeah?” My mother loved to gossip with me about the latest goings-on in the rarified world of feminist scholars even more than she liked to critique my dad.

“Can you keep a secret?”

She was forever swearing me to secrecy about things I had so little interest in or information about, I probably couldn’t have remembered them under torture.

“Absolutely.”

She lowered her voice conspiratorially. Sometimes with all the sotto voce going on, I felt like I was surrounded by spies. “I’m on the short list for the Director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman.”

I was shocked. Not that Spelman, a women’s college with a nationally celebrated Women’s Studies program was looking for a new leader to replace their founding director, who was retiring, but that my mother would even consider moving back here. The only thing that made possible the uneasy peace between my parents was the fact that my mother had had the good sense to relocate herself two thousand miles away when she left the Rev. Spelman College was smack in the heart of West End. It was literally in the Rev’s backyard.

“Surprised, right?” my mother said. “That I would even allow myself to be considered.”

“You know they’re going to offer it to you,” I said. “Are you going to take it?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” she said, as if I had questioned her right to do so. “It’s a great program and it would be an amazing opportunity to build on a strong foundation.”

“That’s not what I mean,” I interrupted her before she could launch into her spiel. “And you know it.”

She sighed loud enough for me to hear. “The problem is, it’s not like I’d be across town. I’ll be right up the street.”

“You don’t have to live in West End,” I said, glad the Rev wasn’t here so I didn’t have to lower my voice, too. I wasn’t prepared to be the messenger on this one if I could possibly help it.

“I love West End,” my mother said. “I helped create West End. Why should I come back to Atlanta and not live in West End?”

My mother is capable of arguing all sides simultaneously so I cut to the chase. “Does the Rev know?”

“I certainly haven’t discussed it with him,” she said, sounding restrained and self-righteous, difficult to pull off, but she executed it flawlessly. “But you can tell him if you like.”

I did that bridge of the nose pinching thing again. Still nothing. “Are you trying to make this as stressful as possible for me, or is it just something that comes naturally?”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with you,” she said, as if she was amazed that I would think such a thing.

“Exactly,” I said. “So why are we talking about it again?”

“I just thought you might like to know I’m being considered,” she said. “Aside from all that other stuff.”

“They would be lucky to get you.”

“I’d die to have it, if it wasn’t for the Rev being right there, but even with that, I’ll have to give it serious consideration.”

That meant she was going to take it. It never rains but it pours.

“What’s your father doing these days anyway, when he’s not making a complete fool of himself all over the Internet?”

“Uplifting the race, of course. It’s Black History Month, remember?”

“You’re not riding around with him handing out flyers, are you?”

“Not this time.” I didn’t tell her
almost
.

She sighed. “I think the thing I could never forgive your father for is that he’s so good when it comes to race and such a fucking Neanderthal when it comes to gender.”

I wondered if it was too soon to hang up. I didn’t want to hurt
her feelings, but this conversation was bringing me down and the day hadn’t even gotten started good yet.

“Listen, Mom, I’ve got to go.”

“Me, too, but Ida B?” She lowered her voice again. “Is he really okay?”

This was for a fine line. My mother’s concern was real. I knew that. But I also knew that anything I said could and probably would be used in future heated exchanges with the Rev without regard to pledges of confidentiality.

“There’s nothing wrong with him,” I said. “That interview was a fluke. They caught him at a … bad moment.”

No need to tell her he laid the blame for that moment at her feet.

“Well, you keep an eye on him, that’s all. How long are you going to be down there anyway? Don’t they need you to help run things up here?”

“I think they’ll be able to muddle through without me for a couple of days.”

“Have you heard anything yet from the Great God Obama?”

Both my parents voted for the man and in their hearts, they realize how lucky we are to have him, but it’s almost like they can’t admit it, even to themselves.
Tavis Smiley syndrome
. Easy to recognize. Impossible to argue.

“Not yet.”

“Then what are you doing down there? Shouldn’t you be up here lobbying on your own behalf or something?”

“Haven’t you heard that absence makes the heart grow fonder?”

“Haven’t you heard that out of sight is out of mind?” she said. “Don’t forget to tell your father about Spelman.” And she was gone.

SEVENTEEN