Till You Hear From Me: A Novel (17 page)

T
HE HOUSE HADN’T CHANGED AT ALL
. O
R IF IT HAD, THE CHANGES
were so minimal as to be invisible to all but the most careful observer. Wes had no interest in the details. He knew every inch of this house. There were no surprises here. The carefully arranged living room suite, his mother’s pride and joy, was still holding court in front of the fireplace. The badly framed photographs documenting his youth and later successes still covered the wall just inside the front door, along with pictures of his parents at all manner of dances, picnics, house parties, community gatherings, and a wedding or two. The Rev was well represented in this gallery, including one photo with Wes on the day he left for Phillips Exeter, leaving the world he’d been born into and stepping into the one he’d chosen.
And not a moment too soon
, he thought.

Wes took his bag upstairs to his old room and quickly unpacked. Unlike some people who enjoy the nostalgia of spending a few nights in a former bedroom, Wes regarded the space as he would a hotel room. The artifacts of his adolescence held no more fascination
than a brochure welcoming him to one more Holiday Inn. He had already hung up two suits and a week’s worth of shirts before he noticed the paper taped to the center of the mirror above his dresser.

“Welcome, son,” it said in his father’s spidery hand. “I’ll be back around five. Rev and Ida B coming for dinner. Make yourself at home because you are.”

He had known the Rev would show up fairly quickly, but Ida B. Dunbar? He sat down on the edge of the bed. The house had fooled him. This was a surprise all right. He hadn’t expected to find her here. Not that she was working necessarily, but he didn’t believe in coincidences and if his guys were after the list, the Obama people probably had it, or had sent the Rev’s baby girl down here to get it. Wes smiled to himself. He loved a challenge and this shit was about to get interesting.

There had been a couple of times when he’d come across her name during the campaign. The first time, she was looking into some shit he and Oscar had done in Santa Fe and she got too close for comfort. They had to shut it down fast or risk big exposure. The next time, same thing in Pennsylvania. She was good, but his cover was so deep that he doubted she even knew he’d been involved at all.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and Toni’s voice greeted him on the other end.

“So how does it feel to be playing in the big leagues?”

“The eagle has landed,” he said. “All systems are go.”

“You’re mixing your metaphors, aren’t you?”

“Probably, but guess what? I think the Obama people have already got somebody down here.”

“Doing what?”

“Same thing I’m doing, probably. Trying to get hold of that list.”

“Which is where all those years of singing in the boys choir are going to come in handy, right?”

“She’s closer than that.”

“It’s a woman?”

“The Rev’s daughter.”

She laughed. “You’re kidding. You know her?”

“All my life. She used to have a big crush on me, as I recall.”

“You think everybody has a crush on you,” Toni said. “So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to charm her with my winning ways.”

Toni laughed and he could imagine her running her fingers through her hair. “Works for me,” she said. “Go get ’em, tiger!”

TWENTY

B
ETWEEN THE TIME
I
WALKED IN, AND THREE HOURS LATER WHEN
I walked out, Flora told me everything about her gardens. I say “her gardens” because it was very clear that her vision had shaped the thing, from the very first rows of collards and tomatoes that she and a few volunteers had planted on a couple of empty lots, to the multifaceted organization she was now overseeing. Way more than just a few neighborhood plots, the Association, which Flora sometimes called WEGA, included a network of almost a hundred gardens, including fifty of the Coretta and Martin Luther King Peace Gardens, which, she said, focus on flowers instead of vegetables and are located across the country; the school garden project, which Mr. Eddie sort of ushered in by allowing himself to be drafted into Lu’s dream of growing tomatoes for her high school cafeteria; and a distribution operation that not only supplies the neighborhood’s amazing well-stocked grocery store that could give Whole Foods a run for the money, but all the restaurants in West End.

She also ran a website, responded to inquires from urban gardeners all over the place, and maintained a free library, offering an eclectic selection of books where gardens or gardening or farming play some role in the lives of the people, including a complete set of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House on the Prairie series, the usual seed catalogues, and a bunch of “how to grow it better” books.

While I was there, a steady stream of people trooped in and out, and to each one, she offered her full, calm, attention. As we talked, I could see that WEGA was standing at that classic make or break crossroads that all small, nonprofit organizations reach one day. Their founding charismatic was leaving at a moment of growth, innovation, and increased national visibility. The question was, would they continue to thrive without her? As we talked, I could see how passionate she was about the project, but I knew the question that was keeping Flora up at night was not could the organization survive without her, but could she survive without the organization. I thought I could probably help her on both counts, but first I had a bone to pick with Miss Iona.

When I stepped up on her porch, I could hear the vacuum cleaner. She came to the door wearing a pair of brown slacks, an orange sweater, and a pair of brown leather flats. Her hair was covered with a brightly colored silk scarf and gold hoops were swaying in her ears. This was as casual as Miss Iona ever got.

“I’ve been calling you for hours,” she said. “I thought all you big-time professional women had cell phones permanently attached to your ears.”

“I went over to the Grower’s Association,” I said. “Flora wanted to show me what they’re doing.”

“She’s a jewel,” Miss Iona said, closing the door behind me and pushing the vacuum cleaner over to one side. “I don’t know how they’re going to survive without her.”

“That’s what she’s worried about, too.”

She cocked her head at me. “Now, there’s a thought. Why don’t you take it?”

I looked at her. “I’m not here looking for a job, remember? I’m here to respond to an SOS from someone who said my dad was going off the deep end.”

She smiled and took my arm, guiding me over to the couch. She had a little fire going and the room was cozy. “And so he was,” she said, poking the fire gently, before taking a seat next to me.

“And now?”

She spread her hands and smiled brightly. “And now he’s back. Aren’t you glad?”

“Of course I am, but I just need to know if you were really worried about him or if you were just trying to get us back together.”

She looked disappointed. “You saw that video.”

“Yes.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

“Of course I did.”

She raised her eyebrows. “And?”

“He said it was all Mom’s fault.”

She looked at me for a second like maybe she hadn’t heard me right and then she burst out laughing. “Oh, Lord! Those two are going to be the death of me!”

“If they don’t kill each other first!”

“You don’t need to worry about that. They’re going to grow old together.”

Now she was the one with the obvious mental lapse. “What are you talking about? At this very moment, they’re not even speaking to each other.”

“Mark my words,” she said. “This is all foreplay.”

“So can I go home now?”

“You are home, darlin’. That’s what I keep trying to tell you.”

A timer dinged in the kitchen and Miss Iona glanced at her watch. “I’ve got a pound cake in the oven,” she said. “Want a piece?”

“I haven’t had my lunch yet,” I said.

“Good. Then come on in the kitchen. I’ll make us a couple of sandwiches.
Then
you can have a piece.”

I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I bit into the leftover turkey sandwich Miss Iona put in front of me. She poured us each a glass of ice tea and sat down, nibbling her own sandwich delicately around the edges.

“Listen, Ida B,” she said. “I need to tell you something.”

Her voice was so serious. I swallowed hard.
Here we go
.

“I was telling the truth about being worried about the Rev, but it wasn’t just that video that made me call you.”

“What’s wrong?”

“A couple of weeks ago,” she said, “one of the reporters down at
The Sentinel
started working on a story about how the Republican party never shut down their dirty tricks operation after the election. They just sort of went underground.”

I put the uneaten part of my sandwich down and took a sip of ice tea. “Go on.”

“Somebody told this guy that they’ve got a plan to use the old Civil Rights warriors to attack the president so they can begin to erode his support in the community.”

“That will never work,” I said. “Black folks haven’t loved anybody like we love Barack Obama since Dr. King died.”

“They
think it will. They plan to target the ones they know already feel left out after the whole Jeremiah Wright thing. Even they recognize Alan Keys and that crowd don’t have any credibility, but if they can get some of the guys who actually walked with Dr. King, some of the
icons
, like your dad …” She looked at me and shook her head impatiently. “And with the Rev they’d be getting two birds with one stone because of that damn list.”

“The Rev would never do anything like that,” I said.

She shook her head and frowned. “I never thought he would either, and I don’t think he would now, if he was thinking straight.”

“What makes you think he’s not?”

She raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “Tacos and sangria?”

There was no denying he had behaved badly, but the idea that the Rev would ever sell out the race, for any reason, was simply not within the realm of possibility.

“Did you tell him what you heard?”

“He practically bit my head off. Accused me of being disloyal, paranoid, not trusting him. All sorts of good things.”

It was hard for me to imagine the Rev accusing Miss Iona of anything. She and Mr. Eddie had been the ones who always had his back, through good times and bad. They were always there.

“What do you want me to do?” I said. “The Rev and I haven’t had much luck talking about politics lately.”

“I know that, but this is what you do, right? Find the dirty tricks before they can play them?”

“That wasn’t the part I was involved in,” I said. “I bumped up on a couple of things, but the campaign is over, remember?”

“So you mean to tell me after all that time you spent with these people, day after day, for two years, you don’t have anybody you can call, just to check it out?”

She was right, of course. All I needed to do was make a couple of calls and I’m sure I could put Miss Iona’s mind at ease.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

“Thank you, darlin’,” she said, sounding relieved. “I don’t think the Rev has any idea how many people would love to get their hands on that new voters list he keeps bragging about. Or what they’re prepared to do to get it.”

“He seemed to know
exactly
how valuable it was last time I talked to him about it,” I said. “Don’t forget, this is the Rev we’re dealing with here.”

She took a deep breath, pulled the scarf off of her head, and shook her hair out a little. Never at a loss for words, she seemed to be trying to figure out the right ones and not having much luck.

“What?”

“See, the thing is, Ida B, getting old is a lot harder than any of us thought it would be. It’s like becoming invisible a little at a time, and that’s the one thing these guys don’t know how to be.” She smiled almost to herself. “They used to face down the baddest white men in America, I’m talking about stomp down crackers with guns on their hips, and the cameras made sure the world was watching. Now they sit around at Paschal’s, drinking coffee and talking about the old days and there’s not a camera in sight. Once Black History Month is over, how many speeches you think the Rev’s got lined up?”