Swimming Between Worlds

by Elaine Neil Orr

  The truth was he thought himself superior to Joshua if not the other members of the team, and the man knew it and had gotten even, and maybe Tacker did deserve some payback, but not sacking, not in a straitjacket.

  Tacker still had some blue aerograms in the zippered lining of his suitcase. He pulled them out, the sheets permanently contoured. The paper crackled as Tacker’s hand made its way across the page.

  Dear Samuel,

  Please forgive me for not writing sooner. I’m very sorry to hear about your brother’s accident. In a separate envelope, I’m sending ten dollars to help pay for whatever he needs right now and I’ll send more later. Thanks for explaining about Joshua. It doesn’t add up for me. Besides the incident at his father’s compound, do you know if there’s anything I did against him? Don’t try to spare my feelings. It would help to know.

  I never got to thank you for everything you did for me. I was afraid that what had happened to me might have made things hard on you. I’m glad to know it didn’t. Great to hear you’ve been hired by Godwin and Hopwood. I expect you to be famous before long. How’s life in Lagos?

  Tacker needed to get his own career back on track. He thought about the swimming pool in Hanes Park. It would need a bathhouse. Maybe he could moonlight with an architectural firm, do some renderings, and get in on a nice assignment like that. He’d always excelled in drawing.

  On Saturday he called Kate. She didn’t answer. Days passed and he didn’t see her.

  * * *

  • • •

  A SLEET CAME mid-December but it thawed by noon and he opened the store. He had a steady stream of customers and was glad to have Gaines. Around three o’clock, Tacker found him on aisle two, shelving cereal. The man had a knack for organizing and Tacker let him experiment. His presence hadn’t caused a ripple in the store. From the first day, Gaines displayed a comfortable adaptability and Tacker wondered where he’d learned it.

  “What were you studying at Fisk?”

  “History,” Gaines said.

  “What did you plan to do?”

  “Still planning to do it. Plan to finish my degree as soon as I can. Teach.”

  After three days in the store, Gaines had claimed management of the baseball card display near the checkout, pairing Cracker Jack boxes with the cards. “Every boy’s dream,” he’d said. “Who’s your favorite player?” Tacker had said. “You have to ask?” Gaines answered. Tacker sold more baseball cards that week than in the previous two months.

  Tacker’s father gave Gaines two weeks to acclimate before he came in, pretending to be a customer. He drifted down the aisle where Gaines was unloading boxes of paper goods. Tacker overheard his father ask where the maraschino cherries were.

  “My baby sister loves those things,” Gaines’s voice sang out. “Have to hide them from her at home. Right this way, sir.”

  “That’s a good boy,” his father said at the service counter. “I like him.”

  “He’s Frances’s nephew.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought it was fairer for you to see for yourself. No prejudice.” The word wobbled out of Tacker’s mouth before he could stop it.

  * * *

  • • •

  ON A WEDNESDAY evening when store traffic was light, Kate came in just before closing, purchased a bottle of vanilla, and asked if Tacker would see her home. Her fingers traveled up and down her scarf. Connie was closing out her register. Gaines had left.

  “Happy to,” he said, a little irritated that she’d disappeared and was suddenly back asking something of him. Was he her lackey? “We’ll have to walk. Left the cycle at home today.”

  “I’ll just mosey around.” Eventually she returned and leaned against the front windows, looking out onto the darkened street, still bundled up as he locked everything away.

  It was cold out and gusty and they leaned into the wind, heading uphill.

  “I got the spot on the city library board,” Kate said. “I’m working with Mrs. McCall two days a week and Saturday morning. One of my neighbors drives me.”

  That explained Saturday when he called and she didn’t pick up. “That’s great,” he said. “You seemed to have disappeared.”

  “If I had my mom’s car . . .”

  “What?”

  “I’d do what men do. I’d leave.”

  Tacker left that alone. They veered left onto West End, not right as Tacker would, going to the foursquare. An untrimmed holly bulged over the sidewalk and they had to step into the street. Tacker trotted to Kate’s right and held her arm until they were back on the sidewalk.

  “At least the job keeps Aunt Mildred out of my hair,” she said.

  “Aunt Mildred?”

  “My dad’s sister. She thinks I should come live with her.”

  Good glory, no, Tacker thought, conjuring Kate’s pink walls, the marble mantel, the library where he assumed they were going right now. Pursuing Kate under an aunt’s supervision sounded dismal. Not that he knew for sure he was going to pursue her. She was lovely. But she also seemed like a handful. They’d arrived at her front door. Indoors, she showed him into the parlor. It housed a white-brick fireplace that had never seen a fire and two short, stiff settees facing each other over an empty coffee table.

  “I’ll be just a minute,” Kate said. She returned with a silver tray laden with a teapot, china cups, cream and sugar, and little sandwiches you might throw to the birds. When she was seated opposite him, Tacker had the sense he was going to be interviewed.

  “I wanted to thank you for the other night,” she said.

  “You don’t need to thank me,” he said.

  “It was an unusual situation.”

  What was she talking about? “You were distraught.”

  “Yes. But I don’t usually act that way.”

  She wanted out of any obligation. Fine. Still, his hands felt suddenly empty. “I was happy to keep you company,” he said.

  “I don’t want you to misunderstand.”

  “About what?” He heard the impatience in his tone. She would too. Good.

  “This is harder than it should be,” she said.

  “Listen. Come find me someday when you know what you want to say.” In a minute he was really going to be steamed.

  “You’re making this difficult.”

  “No, I’m not. You are. I like you but you’re wearing me out.”

  “I’m a little confused.” She sheeted her hair over her shoulder and flipped it back.

  “Let’s get out of this room,” he said.

  * * *

  • • •

  THEY PLAYED SCRABBLE at the breakfast table, feasting on apples and pecans. Tacker drew five vowels, an R, and a J. In the end, Kate had played her Q and her Z. It wasn’t a rout, but she beat him. “Chinese checkers next time,” he said, patting the table with both hands. “Let’s go up to the Toddle House and get some real supper. I’m starving after that squirrel food. I’ll get my cycle.”

  “It’s freezing out there.”

  “It’ll make us hardy,” he said. “Get a hat and scarf. I’ll be right back.”

  She was waiting on her porch when he pulled around ten minutes later.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she said, climbing on behind him, the pressure of her breasts against him bringing Nigeria back, the girls’ breasts, Joshua, who, for some reason he now felt tender about, and Samuel, whose brother had lost a leg, and now Gaines, whose face softened when he looked at Valentine. Everything was connected, but figuring out which part of his life was his to direct and what he most wanted and how to get it—that was still shaky.

  * * *

  • • •

  FRIDAY DURING HIS lunch break, Tacker walked the long block from Hart’s to Hanes Park, cutting through the lot where a new elementary school was being
built, facing Peters Creek. He couldn’t believe the city was putting a school right in front of the creek. Some boy would throw his shoes down there just so he’d have to go get them. Then another kid would do it the next day, and on and on. Were they going to build bridges across it? He thought of the swinging bridge in Osogbo. At the park, he headed for the south field. He wanted a feeling for the land, a sense of where a bathhouse might be located. On his second circling of the perimeter of the pool construction, he nearly bumped into a woman bundled in hat, gloves, and a heavy coat. It was Kate.

  “What are you doing out here?” he said, almost cross at the interruption. He’d come at lunch to avoid all the kids from Reynolds who would be running around once school was out.

  “Well, it’s not your private park, Mr. Hart.”

  She picked at a piece of lint on her coat. “I’m on my way to Mr. Fitzgerald’s. He’s the one who chauffeurs me around. I go over Friday afternoons to keep him company. He reads the paper to me—stories he’s saved through the week—and we eat popcorn.” She lifted her eyes.

  “Sorry to sound short-tempered. I was just thinking.”

  “Don’t worry. You think it’s odd? It just seems like a nice thing to do. He gets lonely.”

  He did think it was odd. “I think it’s nice of you.” Her eyes were violet in the sun and Tacker recalled the pale pink walls of her house.

  “Well, I’m relying on him. I could take the bus but it’s a lot easier when he picks me up. He’s like an uncle, since he and my dad were such good friends.”

  “So you’ve got it all worked out, then,” Tacker said. “No westward ho?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “You mean you haven’t got it all worked out or you might still leave?”

  “Both.”

  “I’ll walk with you.” Almost violently Tacker needed Kate to stay in Winston. She was as lost as he was, but something in her was deep, way down in another dimension, and made him feel alive. He’d started to worry that there was another man in her life. There had to be.

  “I remember how the football team practiced in the park in the summer,” she said. “I could climb a tree in the backyard and see the field.”

  “I thought you weren’t interested in football.” He meant to be playful, spark some happiness in her.

  “Summers can be long. And I loved climbing that tree. I always took a book with me. But I’d look out and there you all were. Like toy soldiers.”

  A man with a dog came from the other direction and passed them. At a fork in the path, they slowed and Kate stopped. She took a deep breath. “I keep trying to understand about my dad.”

  “You said you didn’t think anything really happened.”

  “I did?”

  “You said your dad came home.”

  Kate took off her close-fitting cap and her hair sprang out. “Still, he hurt my mom. He made it sound like he loved that woman. And I still wonder—you know—about the drowning.”

  “Your dad didn’t drown himself.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Sometimes you just have to choose what to believe.”

  A cache of late leaves from a pin oak. A shadow along the ground. Above them a cry of blackbirds driving away a hawk. Samuel had once slain a hawk with a slingshot. Kate held her cap out in the breeze, as if she were going to toss it, as if its landing would foretell her fortune, whether for good or ill. She turned back and looked at him, her lips slightly parted, concentration on her face.

  “Would you say your dad was an optimist or a pessimist?” Tacker said. It was all he could think of.

  “Oh, an optimist. Absolutely.”

  “So there’s your answer.”

  She looked at the cap in her hands and after a moment she put it back on her head. “I’ve got to run.”

  She turned, one gloved hand trailing behind her like a ballerina leaving the stage.

  He should have kissed her. He should have leaned in and kissed her when she held her cap out and waited. His timing was off. Though when he glanced at his watch, he still had fifteen minutes to look at the lay of the land in the south field. His timing wasn’t off. He’d lost confidence. He squeezed his eyes shut and ran his hands up and down his arms.

  That night he dreamed part of it. Fray comes into the two-bedroom chalet in Osogbo, perched above the Osun River, only it’s not a hill they’re on; it’s a cliff. And even though it’s five in the morning and still dark and he’s lying inside, next to Sam on a mat—they’re all on mats on the floor and he’s looking up at the ceiling—still, he can see the river streaming past in silver and hear the monkeys chattering and screeching. In the dream, Fray grunts. He’s a monkey. He’s a baboon. His arms are hairy. Samuel jumps up from the mat and tightens his sleeping cloth around his waist. “Please, sir. How can I help you?” he says. And Fray’s head thrusts itself out toward Tacker, his short, low brow gorilla-like. “I’m not here for you. I’m here for him.” Though there aren’t words, only monkey sounds. Tacker puts his shirt on inside out. “What is it? Are my parents okay?” he says. The top of the hut lifts off and Tacker is in the Jeep with Fray, Fray’s monkey hands on the wheel. And Samuel is running beside the vehicle, slapping the door. “I beg you,” Samuel says over and over.

  Chapter Eleven

  ON THE AFTERNOONS she didn’t work, Kate bundled up and took long walks with the camera. This was her solace, randomly photographing abandoned birds’ nests in crepe myrtles, cushions of moss in an empty lot, raised root systems at the bases of oaks. She asked Mr. Fitzgerald to take her to the airport and she took pictures of Piedmont planes coming and going. Another letter arrived from James.

  Dear Kate,

  My current rotation has me at the hospital eight nights in a row. It’s tough going. Especially since I don’t sleep well during the day. I’ve decided becoming a doctor is more about physical stamina than brains. I remember last winter walking around the Decatur courthouse at night, freezing to death, but we didn’t want to let go of each other. I miss you, more than I’m going to tell you about—

  Love,

  James

  P.S. I can’t get away for Christmas. I’m working straight through. Maybe soon after, in the new year, I could come up to see you?

  The self-portrait James offered the public was of a determined man, focused, moored, a marathon runner. But his writing of their snowy night in downtown Decatur also disclosed a capacity for tenderness. Still, it startled her to think of him in Winston-Salem. This wasn’t his territory. She’d meant to put Tacker off and instead she’d let the friendship deepen. James would not understand. Tacker was just different, more different than ever now that he had been overseas and back and didn’t seem worried that he was working in a grocery, as if money and station were not what he was after but something else, something less tangible. Perhaps it was because he still had his parents that he could be so cavalier about such essentials as a career and owning a house and laying plans. Kate’s dreams had become populated with the oddest assortment of men, a high school teacher she had fantasized about mildly, the Negro with the milk bottle who kept sending silent messages across her backyard, the fellow from Georgia Tech who told her she had a Brick. In her dream, the Georgia Tech boy was in her classroom, which made no sense; Agnes Scott was a women’s college. But he was there and she needed protection and in the dream she wanted him to kiss her. He was almost her lover but not quite. He was aloof, superior, older. She longed for him much more than he longed for her. She would probably never have him.

  The next morning she had three stops to make on her rounds. First the photography store, where she’d left two rolls of film for developing, then the notions store to buy buttons to finish the shirt she was making for Brian, and finally Hart’s to get ingredients for the chocolate pie she was planning for Christmas dinner at Aunt Mildred’s. She wished she and Brian had an alternative. The p
ictures at her aunt’s house were hung too high and Kate always had the feeling she was in a scene from Alice in Wonderland. Some things too big, others too small, the clock ticking off the wall. She knew, or supposed she knew, that this sense of oddity came from spending several months with her aunt after her mother’s death. She would not tell Brian about their father’s letters over Christmas; perhaps she never would.

  It was misty outside, and she pulled a clear rain cap out of her pocket, tucked her hair in, and tied the cap at her chin. Among the pictures she would pick up this morning were shots of the Summit Street Pharmacy, the Sears building, and Modern Chevrolet. She would force herself to wait until she got home to look through them.

  * * *

  • • •

  SHE WAS AT Hart’s, wandering up and down the aisles, expecting to come upon Tacker, when she saw the Negro who had walked down the alley behind her house. She knew him immediately by his profile, the shape of his shoulders, the way he wore his clothes. She stopped and watched him pull canned tomatoes from a box and stack them on a shelf. She wished for her camera, though of course it would be vastly inappropriate to take his picture. Still, it was amazing how such ordinary activity appeared sanctified when imagined through a lens. He lifted a can with his left hand, transferred it to his right, set it precisely on the shelf while with the left he was capturing another tin. And then he stopped midmotion as if the electricity had been cut off, and he looked at her. “Good morning,” he said. He didn’t look quite at her but in her direction. “Am I in your way?” He scooted the box closer to the shelf. “Help you with something?”