by J. J. Murray
Ebony hands the next fifty pages to me completely mark-free.
But when we get to 2001, the reading session almost becomes a race to the finish, and Candace just can’t keep up.
“Slow down, y’all, damn! This book is like good whiskey. It shouldn’t be guzzled. It should be sipped.”
Gladys finishes first, dries her eyes with a tissue, hugs Ebony and me, and leaves without a word.
“Y’all better write more books together,” Candace says. “I like a quiet Gladys.”
Aunt Wee Wee gives us a thumbs-up and heads to her room to smoke.
Destiny smiles a lot, kisses Ebony, and stands in front of me.
“Well?” I ask.
“Daddy,” she whispers, “I hope one day to find a man like you.”
She then takes Ebony’s car keys and disappears, leaving us with Candace, the last batch of the novel sitting in a pile to her right.
“Are you getting tired, Mama? You can finish tomorrow.”
“No, no, I’m all right.” She smiles at me. “Thanks for not making me into a complete bitch, Peter.”
I don’t know if saying “you’re welcome” to that question is all that appropriate.
She rubs her eyes. “My eyes are getting weary, though, so Ebony, why don’t you read me the last few pages.”
The last few pages, written at four this morning, both of us writing with tears in our eyes, are in Ebony’s hands. I hope I can listen without crying again.
“Um, Mama,” Ebony says, “we wrote this last part together.”
“Makes sense,” Candace says, her eyes closed. “You all started off together, you should end together.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know if I can read this, Mama.”
I reach out my hand for the pages, and Ebony places them in my hands.
“Peter is going to read them to you, Mama.”
Candace opens her eyes. “Is it that bad?”
“No, Mama. It’s just that…you’ll see.”
I take a sip of water and clear my throat. Maybe I won’t be as affected now as I was this morning.
“Twenty-five years ago, we fell in love at a time when our love wasn’t accepted by society, but we didn’t know that at the time. We were young, innocent, and naïve, and we didn’t know any better or care what anyone thought. That is the ultimate power of love: to focus so strongly on one person that the entire world disappears. Now that we’ve been reunited, we see that our love still isn’t completely accepted by society, and though we’re no longer young or innocent, we still don’t care what anyone thinks. We don’t consider ourselves pioneers—just survivors. There are thousands of other couples out there who made it through without twenty years of sorrowful separation, and to them we say: ‘You all are the real pioneers, the real survivors who really know what love is all about.’”
I pause to catch my breath. Here comes the hard part.
“We have so many people to thank, and we pray that our feeble words do justice to them. First and foremost, we’d like to thank God for looking out for us, for bringing us back together, and for giving us loving parents.”
A lump forms in my throat.
“We’d also like to thank our ancestors, who fought to make our futures more glorious than their own and taught us the true meaning of sacrifice and devotion; our fathers, who fought for this country and taught us the true meaning of discipline and loyalty; and our mothers, who fought for our happiness and taught us the true meaning of freedom and compassion. We could do nothing without them, and we are all that we are because of them. We have, as the Bible says, ‘a goodly heritage,’ and we hope we’ll do our collective heritages proud.”
I blink away several tears.
“And Mama, for you are truly our Mama, we know God has a special field in heaven for you to run around in and plant flowers and grow the most beautiful garden, because we bloomed in your garden here on earth. We can never thank you enough, but we’re going to try.”
I take a deep breath. “That’s the end of it.”
Tears stream from Candace’s eyes, but she’s smiling. “No, Peter, it’s only the beginning.”
I am a bundle of nerves when Ebony and I enter Olympus Publishing and ride the elevator up to Henry’s office, and if it weren’t for the lady beside me, I don’t know if I could do this. We are about to deliver a book I didn’t contract for, and a somewhat literary nonfiction novel at that. We are about to give Henry the novel based on the outline he red-lined three months ago. We are about to end Desiree Holland’s career. And we may have to return the money from the advance. Good thing I haven’t spent any of it. And if things go really badly with Henry, we may have this deception follow us from publishing house to publishing house, if we have to strike out on our own.
“You worry too much,” Ebony whispers as we exit the elevator.
I nearly drop the satchel containing the manuscript. “It’s in my nature.”
“We’ll be fine,” she says. “Think good thoughts.”
When Edith opens Henry’s door for us, Ebony strides in first and extends a hand to Henry. “Hello, Mr. Milton. I’m Ebony Mills.”
Henry takes her hand with both of his. “A pleasure, and please call me Henry. I’ve heard and read so much about you.” He motions to a chair, and Ebony sits.
I set the satchel on Henry’s desk, opening it and withdrawing the manuscript. I want to hide the title page, but it’s too late for any of that now. I sit next to Ebony, my shoes tapping on the carpet. Ebony grabs my knee, and I stop tapping.
Henry picks up the title page, and I squeeze the life out of the chair arms. “Did you change the title on me, Pete?” Henry asks. “‘By Ebony and Peter…Underhill’? You two are getting married?”
“Yes,” Ebony says. “This spring.”
Henry blinks several times and waves the page in the air. “What’s going on here, Pete?”
I want to explain everything to Henry, but Ebony finds her voice first. “Just read it, Henry.”
Henry scans the first two pages. “This is your book, isn’t it, Pete? This is the book from that outline.”
Why do my eyelids choose this moment to start sweating? “Uh, yes, Henry, but with the addition of a better voice to tell it.”
Henry blinks at me. “But what about the Desiree novel, the novel we’ve been paying you to write? What about that?”
There go my feet again. “There isn’t one, um, Henry. There, uh, never was going to be one. My heart just wasn’t in it.” And my heart is threatening to burst!
“The old bait and switch,” Henry says, and he starts to get up.
“With a better book,” Ebony says, “one that I guarantee will sell.”
Henry settles back in his chair and sighs. “You think so?”
“I know so,” Ebony says. I wish I could be as confident.
“Well, as I told Pete before, there isn’t a big market for literary nonfiction right now. There is, however, a burgeoning market for Desiree Holland, for relationship books, one that your future husband seems reluctant to tap.”
Ebony leans forward. “But you haven’t even read the book yet, Henry. Give it a chance, that’s all we’re asking.” She shrugs and smiles. “And if it’s not something you believe in one hundred percent, we’ll return the advance money today and take it elsewhere.”
I look at the woman who once talked a man at Milldam Bait and Tackle into giving us ten cents apiece for thirteen scurvy-looking bunker, and I smile. She’s at it again, only the stakes are much higher. I relax my grip on the chair arms.
“I’m sure there are other publishers in New York City with more open minds and deeper pockets,” Ebony says.
Henry glances at the manuscript. “You’re sure of this?”
Ebony smiles, and she takes my hand. “The day is young, Henry. Who knows where this book will end up by sundown?”
He leans forward. “Well, I’ll only read the first chapter—”
“You’ll have to read the first two,”
Ebony interrupts, “so you can hear both of our voices.”
Henry looks at me. “Is that okay with you, Pete? Just the first two?”
He’s going to read it! I could press my luck and go for Henry’s holy three, but I don’t. “The first two will do.”
“For now,” Ebony adds.
Then we watch Henry reading, his red pen dancing above the pages. The pen drops occasionally, but doesn’t bite the page, though I can tell he really wants to bleed on it. I count the pages for lack of anything better to do, while Ebony rises to look out Henry’s window, tapping the window in front of several startled pigeons.
“You have a unique voice, Miss Mills,” Henry says, and he keeps turning the pages.
“Thank you, and please call me Ebony.”
“You have a unique voice, Ebony,” Henry says. “I read the review of your most recent show.” He reads and turns another page. “Morton should be hung up by his suspenders and force-fed that bow tie of his until he writes the truth.” More pages fly by. Have we hooked him?
“I love your view, Henry,” Ebony says. “I might be tempted to paint it one day.” She raises her eyebrows at me. “It’s a little too linear for me, but I’ll manage.”
Henry’s racing now, the pages fluttering like butterflies. “Do you have pictures?”
“Lots of pictures,” Ebony says. “And art. I can get Sir John to send you some of my earlier works if you need them.”
“We’ll probably need them,” Henry says.
Yes! I want to jump out of this chair and yawp!
Henry skims through to the end, reads the last page, nods, and stops. “This is good.”
Ebony doesn’t even turn from the window. “Good enough or just good?”
“With some more revisions, this could be a bestseller.” He looks up at me. “But you already knew this, right, Pete?”
I can’t find any words to say!
“Pete? You okay?”
“Um, yes, I’m fine.” A bestseller? Is that even possible?
“There are three additions that I’d like to suggest to make this complete,” Henry says. “First, you’ll need to add another chapter near the end, Pete, something like ‘Why I Wrote as Desiree.’ We need to give her some closure, so to speak, and in doing so, we may give those books another boost. Those who read this book will be curious about those other two books and hopefully read them to get a deeper level of understanding.”
“So Desiree can fade away?” I ask.
“Yes. Second, we may want to add a subtitle, something like ‘An American Love Story.’”
Promises to Keep: An American Love Story. It sounds perfect! And no one is sucking down margaritas!
“And third, Ebony will have to design the cover.”
There is a God!
Henry sits back and stares at the ceiling. “I see a collage on the cover of some old Polaroids of you two, perhaps a love letter, some of your earliest art from when you were in junior high. Do you still have some of those?”
“They’re on the walls at my mama’s house,” Ebony says.
“Oh, and a picture of Ebony’s mother and Pete’s father, pictures of your old homes, the works.”
“And the tapestry, and maybe a landscape or two.” Ebony adds.
“You’re the artist,” Henry says with a smile. He stands and straightens the manuscript. “Now if you two will excuse me, I have to go see the publisher. I shouldn’t be long.”
As soon as Henry leaves, I rush to Ebony and kiss the life out of her. “You did it,” I say.
“We did it, Pete,” she says. “Doesn’t it bother you to have him call you that?”
I hadn’t even noticed. “No.” It actually feels good to have someone call me that.
She turns to the window. “The city is waking back up, isn’t it?”
I look down at the traffic, the movement, the sheer power of the American dream bustling beneath us. “This city will never die. It was just hibernating. It’s hungry again.”
Ebony pouts. “And so am I. Can we have pizza?”
“The greasier the better.”
Henry returns only a few minutes later, and I feel as if the floor has dropped twenty feet. So quick? The publisher isn’t interested? Now what?
“Relax,” Ebony whispers. She smiles at Henry. “That was quick.”
Henry shakes his head and sits in his chair. “So quick it’s almost historic.” He smiles at me. “Pete, the publisher absolutely loves the idea!”
The floor rises too fast, and I almost stumble. “Loves…the idea?”
“After I read her the revised title and the first two pages, she told me to stop, and she also told me to sign you two right away.”
I return to my seat. “Right away?”
“As in now.” He pulls out a sheaf of papers and begins writing. “You are to consider the money we already sent to you as part of an advance, and we need to negotiate a two-book deal pronto.”
“Two?” I ask.
“Yes, two, Pete. I still think that A Whiter Shade of Pale has some promise, and the two of you could rewrite it together, right?”
“Right.”
Henry turns to Ebony. “The publisher also suggested that we have pictures from your upcoming wedding to end the book. What do you think?”
Ebony laughs. “I’ll start looking for kente cloth, Peter, if you get us some giraffes.”
“What?” I laugh back. “You’re not serious!”
“I sure am,” Ebony says. “Destiny is usually right about these things.”
24
I’m writing this log from the windswept stern of the Argo while I add to my collection of freckles and Ebony steers us out of Long Island Sound around Montauk Point into the teeth of the Atlantic, seagulls hovering overhead. The Argo seems to love the open sea and shows no signs of her age. And despite misgivings about sailing to Barbados for our honeymoon, I’m getting to be a pretty decent sailor, and my shipmate, well, she’ll always be better at the helm than me, because our daughter taught her everything my dad taught her.
This same ocean that our ancestors crossed so long ago—willingly and unwillingly, on deck and chained below—this ocean seems infinite. We’re just one little dot of humanity out here in all this infinity, yet I feel bigger and freer than I’ve ever felt before. What our ancestors must have seen—either the land of horror, or the land of promise, or both—from boats not much larger than this. The blood of this giant, this Atlantic, runs cold and bold, and neither of us cares if we make it to the Bahamas, or Barbados, or South America—as long as we’re together, nothing can keep us apart.
I look behind us as Long Island slips away into the mist, and I wonder how I’ll feel when I see land again, if I ever see land again. I’m no Odysseus, who planted his oar and put his sailing days behind him forever, oh, no. My true adventures have just begun.
I think about all my original loves and find that I have a long list. I love this old boat and its old captain, though I much prefer the sexy woman steering and showing me a whole lot of leg right now. I love my country and its people, who wake up after smoky nightmares and go about their business despite unimaginable sorrow. I love my old neighborhood, my old hometown, and my old friends, some of whom have left us in body but not in spirit. I love this ocean and its currents, its monstrous waves, and even its storms that remind us what it’s like when the storms are through and life resumes once more.
With a beckoning finger, Ebony motions for me to join her at the helm.
“I’m almost done,” I say.
“No, you’re not,” she says.
She knows me too well. “Just one more paragraph?”
She licks her lower lip. “Only if you write your hands all over me all night long.” She lifts up her shirt, exposing her licorice gumdrop belly button and shakes her butt just right, the kente cloth tie I wore for the ceremony (and all those pictures) holding her wild hair back from her eyes. Her hair looks good wild and free like that, and I’m pretty sure
that she didn’t pack a curling iron.
“I’ll try to write at least three chapters tonight.”
“Just three?” She smiles and tilts her face to the sun. “I thought I inspired you more than that.”
But I’m forty years old. Three times practically kills me, mainly in my knees. “I’ll shoot for four, but I’m not promising anything.”
“Just four? I want a novella.”
Gulp. I better shut the laptop down before I shut down.
“Go ahead, finish what you’ve started.” She starts cranking in the mainsail, and the Argo begins to slow. “I’ll just tidy up out here and start working on the preface below.”
Oh, I love it when she talks literary to me!
Now where was I? Oh, yeah. My original loves.
And I love this woman, whose mother is my surrogate mother, who is the mother of my precious daughter, who is my wife and the love of my life in this utopian land of originals from sea to shining sea. And I love the God who allowed me to find her again, who brought me back, who kept me to the promises I made to my original love.
Author’s Note and Acknowledgments
This is a work of fiction, at times autobiographical, at times allegory, at times mythology, at times American history, at all times pure invention. In my attempt to modernize the Odyssey, I also drew inspiration from the Iliad, the Aeneid, Metamorphoses, Dante’s Inferno, Norse mythology, and Beowulf. If I have mangled these classics beyond recognition, the mistakes are all mine.
While Peter, my “man of sorrows,” is like me in most respects, the other characters are composites of the hundreds of people whom I have known through twenty-odd moves and forty years of life. Peter’s father in no way resembles my own father—except for the geraniums, his short hair, and his passion for boats. The Captain, then, is an archetype, a melding of every racist whom I have had the displeasure to know. While there is much to despise about the Captain, there is much to admire, hence Peter’s dilemma.