The woman spoke. Could that be young Mickey Moe Levy I see there settin’ at our table? she asked through a wide, curious smile as she bent over to greet Bald Horace with a kiss on the top of his smooth head. Her voice was deep as a man’s but soft, caressing.
That would be him, darlin’.
Bald Horace filled her in on the details of finding Mickey Moe in the goat pen.
My, my, she said. And now it’s gettin’ on to suppertime. I better drive the boy home before his people send folks out lookin’.
Bald Horace agreed. Relieving her of the groceries, he told her he’d put up the peas and grits while she was gone.
Just don’t touch my chicken parts, she said. I’ve got some clever ideas for them tonight.
Throughout all this, Mickey Moe sat mute as a stone and remained so until he was installed in Aurora Mae’s Buick sedan, a sparkling boat of a car the color of old money. He was surprised a Negro woman drove such a remarkable vehicle. He huddled against the door of the passenger side, because she scared him just a little. A minute later, curiosity conquered fear. He ventured to speak.
Is this car your very own? he asked. Or does it belong to someone you work for?
Aurora Mae chuckled in her odd baritone.
Oh no, son. It’s mine. All mine. And I work for myself, too. No boss over me, don’t you know. None at all.
He burned to ask her what she meant, but her tone of voice shut him up quick. As far as he knew, all Negroes in those days in that part of the world had a boss. A boss or a landlord who owned the farm they worked. They rode in silence to the end of his street where Aurora Mae stopped.
You need to walk the rest of the way, boy. You can manage that, can’t you? You ain’t too mangled up?
Mickey Moe shook his head and exited the car.
I don’t mean to be rude, she continued through an open window. But your mama doesn’t exactly like me, and it might be best to keep knowledge of our acquaintance from her. If you don’t mind. You owe Bald Horace that much, don’t you? For lookin’ out for you?
Mickey Moe screwed up his face in consternation. He’d never kept anything from his mama before. Nothing important.
Aurora Mae smiled her big, toothy grin.
You look just like your daddy that way. My, but that man knew how to mark a child.
The boy’s chin dropped, as much for the mere mention of his daddy from out of that particular mouth as for the stupefying assessment that he favored him.
You knew my daddy, too?
I knew him better than anybody. Alive or dead.
Then quick as that, Aurora Mae rolled up her window, executed a perfect three-point turn in the middle of Orchard Street, and peeled off down the road back toward the village in a cloud of orange dust.
Knew him better than anybody. Alive or dead. The way she’d said it, the way she left so sudden directly afterward, informed Mickey Moe that he’d best not ask anyone what she meant, at least any white person of his ken whether within his family or without. He decided sure as heck right then and there that he’d seek Aurora Mae out again, at the earliest opportunity, and ask her exactly what she’d meant.
Unfortunately, his decision was as ephemeral as any other an adolescent makes. Within the next two days, he asked Sara Kate, Roland, and Bald Horace pointed questions about his daddy’s relations with Aurora Mae. Each of them gave him a blank look and changed the subject. On repeated queries, they pretended not to hear. When he insisted, Bald Horace got up in his face. Son, I’d like to help you, but I don’t know much. Aurora Mae comes and goes on the wings of birds. Even when she’s here, she keeps her business to herself. On the third day, Cora Gifford gave him his first kiss and parted her lips when she did. The focus of his thoughts changed so radically that Aurora Mae took up residence in the deepest chambers of his consciousness for nearly a dozen years, until circumstances demanded that she burst forth with all the glorious might of Athena when she charged newborn from out the skull of Zeus.
IV
Greenville, Mississippi, 1962
LAURA ANNE LOVED HER DADDY. She was a good girl, had been all her life. She was a good girl because it was the way her mama raised her, but also in greater part because she loved her daddy, loved him to distraction, and craved his approval like a fat man craves grease. Good girls, he told her from the time she was small, was what he loved, and so a good girl was what she became. Still there was an agitation in her, an itch she’d noticed first around the age of thirteen, one that often came upon her unexpectedly, started deep in her throat and rose up slowly, inexorably to tickle the back of her teeth, which made her bite her tongue and the inside of her cheeks so hard they bled. It was a compulsion only relieved by a notion to do or say something that was not good. If she had to name it, she’d call it an evil inclination, which is how Mama referred to any temptation to wander from the path of righteousness whether that meant slouching in a chair or talking back. Sometimes the urge beset her when she was all alone and under no onus to behave well. Those occasions occurred when she was bored or fighting a frustration she could not name, one related to boredom and yet not boredom. During the seven years between thirteen and twenty, her current age, she fought mightily against the pull of evil inclination in order to continue being the good girl her daddy loved, believing her efforts bred strength of will. But almost from the very minute she met Mickey Moe, she dropped every bit of pretense, reluctance, fear, filial devotion, or whatever it was that kept her from scratching that itch. Overnight, she surrendered to impulse.
In fact, on their very first date, Laura Anne gave Mickey Moe such damp, smoldering looks he could not be blamed for thinking a gentle assault at the outposts of her modesty would not be unwelcome. Before either of them had time to process the consequences, he crossed the moat, scaled the parapets, and raided its innermost chambers, planting his standard at the heart of her vault of treasures.
Afterward, he raised himself up from the fine leather seat of the LTD Brougham he’d bought used from a chum to drive to Greenville to see her knowing the battered pickup he used for work would not do for such a girl and, with tears in his eyes, said, I’m sorry, Laura Anne. I am so sorry. I got carried away. I didn’t mean to . . .
There were tears in her eyes, too, tears of wonder, tears of joy she told him, but since he knew she was a good girl, he did not believe her. The only thing she could do to convince him was wind her fair arms around his neck and pull him back down to her while sliding her hips against him up and down and side to side because, Lord almighty, as soon as her urge got satisfied, it started up again, twice as strong. It came to her twice more that night. In between, they took a stroll along the river to appreciate the moon and the stars and their great good fortune at finding each other.
She could barely walk straight in the morning but made a valiant stab at keeping evidence of soreness to herself. Mama was not entirely fooled.
Are you alright, child? You look like a little lamb lost today. She regarded her daughter with narrowed eyes, her lips pinched, her hands on her hips in that pose mamas everywhere use when demanding the truth from their girls.
I’m alright, Mama.
Are you sure?
It takes time for good girls to learn how to deceive. Laura Anne nearly walked into a wall trying to quit the kitchen and escape Mama’s prying eyes.
Yes, Mama.
Well, I’m not. That boy try anything with you last night?
The girl’s blood pounded so hard in her ears it wasn’t difficult to pretend she didn’t hear. She left the house in a hurry, calling back to Mama something about being late to work at her father’s furniture store.
It was a clumsy dodge. It was a Sunday, and the store was closed to trade. There was no need for punctuality. Normally, she worked Monday through Thursday with half a day on Fridays and Sundays. Friday afternoons she took off early to help Mama get ready for the Sabbath, which she kept, sort of. In other words, although Needleman’s Furniture was open Saturdays, she didn’t
go in. She kept coin in her pocket, spent it if she wanted to, used the television, the car, the oven, her curling iron, in fact, all manner of things electrical or requiring fuel. During the week, Laura Anne served as store accountant and worked the floor with the sales force. Her specialties were kitchen and bedroom furnishings. Most days, she put in long hours, but her duties were light on Sundays. She recorded the Saturday receipts and sent out invoices, monitored both incoming and delivery orders while her daddy did the payroll and inventoried stock. Laura Anne had an associate’s degree in business administration from the junior college, but her real preparation for her job came from life with Daddy. She liked to think he taught her everything she knew. It was only rarely that she wondered what else in the world she might like to learn, but somehow her ruminations tended to lead to bouts of agitation, so whenever fancy chanced to visit she distracted herself by chanting one of Daddy’s maxim’s, “If it was that much fun, they wouldn’t call it work,” or lost herself in numbers.
Although the women of the house observed the Sabbath in their fashion, the patriarch didn’t at all. Motivated by social obligation as much as piety, Laura Anne and Mama often went to services at Temple Ohabai Shalom, the largest Reform synagogue in three counties, while Daddy took Saturday mornings off to sleep in. In the afternoon, he went to the store. Sometimes, fresh from rabbinical exhortation, Mama resented his behavior and cajoled him to change his heathen habits on his way out the door. Daddy would respond, Dang it all, I have a living to make in Babylon. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. No one, especially not Laura Anne, dared criticize him or point out his amalgamation of empires. Nor did she think to complain that she and Mama were restricted by religious law solely because of their gender. In those days, there were many restrictions upon young women of both secular and religious nature. The rules of living in the Needleman household seemed as natural to a child of the river as breathing moist air.
That particular Sunday, she worked hard at keeping Daddy in the dark about her moment of truth the previous evening. Out of fear he’d know everything if he looked in her eyes, she kept her back to him as much as she could, pretending to be busy with lists and sales slips, responding to his small talk with pleasantries and noncommittal expressions like uh-huh and mmm.
Lot Needleman knew his little girl well. After half an hour of evasive chitchat, he made a phone call. Although he used a phone out of range of her hearing, she caught his tone and knew he’d called Mama. When he hung up, he pushed back his chair. It screeched against the linoleum. The sound sent a chill down her spine. He approached, put a hand on her arm, turned her around to face him, and looked her up and down, slowly, head to toe. It was like being seared in a skillet.
Lot Needleman, né Laurence, was so nicknamed by his employees not on his own account but for his wife’s strange habit of glancing over her shoulder regularly while in ordinary conversation as if she were pursued by an army of avenging angels. It stuck because his proportions were this side of biblical. He was tall and red as a cedar post, a stocky man with a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair, a man who exuded an air of physical power much in contrast to the fragile figure of his wife, Rose, a hothouse flower, who struggled to support his every decision in return for the security he provided her. He wore a large gold-and-diamond ring on his right pinkie, the kind of ring that looked as if it could rip a nostril off the face it took aim at. Everything about him indicated he was a man with fire in the blood.
Accustomed to only the gentlest of looks from the man, Laura Anne liked to shake in her shoes. He said, That boy last night treat you right, baby?
O Lord, she prayed, give me strength. And her prayer was surely granted, for she lifted her head, batted her eyelashes as if entirely surprised by his question, and bubbled up an answer as fresh and sparkling as a mountain spring.
Why, of course, he did, Daddy. He was a perfect gentleman. In fact, I can’t wait to see him again. He has such promise.
Daddy frowned. Promise for what, sugar? I thought he sold insurance for his uncle. Now, I’m not sayin’ he isn’t a good old boy, for all I know he’s one of the best the Lord ever thought to make, but employment in a family concern doesn’t exactly demonstrate initiative, does it?
It didn’t occur to either one of them that by belittling Mickey Moe, Lot Needleman was also belittling his daughter. Laura Anne still took offense on her lover’s behalf. My stars! she thought. I have a lover!
He’s a very good salesman, Daddy. He was a football hero, did I tell you that? He could have gone up to Raleigh-Durham on scholarship, but he decided his widowed mama and sisters needed him, and so he let Duke go. Don’t you find that admirable? And he doesn’t intend to stay an insurance salesman forever. He’s got his eye on some property near Guilford. He intends to buy it, lease most of it out, and then farm the rest for his pleasure. A gentleman farmer, he’s going to be, like great-granddaddy Chaim.
Throughout her life, Laura Anne’s ancestors had been held up to her as icons of virtue. She could not know that the redneck great-granddaddy in question had been coarse and miserly, tormenting Lot’s own father with his mean purse and a constant barrage of criticism meant to mold his character. When he was growing up, Lot was told over and over how lucky he was to have a kinder rearing himself. He did not see it quite that way, since his daddy had a festering canker at the seat of his soul due to Chaim Needleman’s hard hand. Lot was often the object of his father’s compensatory wrath. From the instant of Laura Anne’s birth, he vowed to spoil his little girl as a way of making his own childhood misery up to himself. Since he wanted her to be proud of her blood, he whitewashed the family history, praising both her intemperate granddaddy and skinflint great-granddaddy to the skies, creating for her an ancestry as imaginative as the provenance of his showroom’s Queen Anne desk. Though the stratagem gave him a daughter who held her head high in any crowd of genealogical swells, it left him neatly hoist on his own petard in the current instance.
In the face of her enthusiasm, he had no other choice than to go silent. He gnashed his teeth. He scowled. He sputtered. When his frustration dragged on to a point that Laura Anne’s expression turned to one of filial concern, he covered it with a coughing fit. Holding his right hand up, he signaled she should get him a drink of water even though the office bubbler was three feet behind him and all he had to do was turn around. Laura Anne sidled behind him swiftly, got him water in a paper cup, and watched him guzzle it down. Luckily for both, the phone rang. When Lot answered and made a show of involvement in an inconsequential conversation, Laura Anne took the opportunity to turn her back to him and return to her duties, raising her eyes to the heavens in thankfulness as she did.
That night after supper, she retired to her room early, leaving her parents to watch the latest escapades on the Ponderosa alone. As she knew he would, Mickey Moe called. She hopped on her princess phone at the first ring before her parents had a chance to hear it. The lovers talked and sighed together and made plans for the next weekend and the weekend after that. They shared a sensible discussion of how they must behave with decorum in front of Lot and Rose Needleman until enough time had passed for them to make their intentions known, intentions that had become crystal clear from their first kiss. They were meant to be together forever. They would marry as soon as possible, have children, live on a farm, die old and happy in each other’s arms. But young lovers can talk all they like about being discreet. The eyes of those who care to notice always will. Laura Anne’s parents took measures. The first of these was the subterfuge of hospitality.
On the weekend of their third date, Rose Needleman invited Mickey Moe to Sunday dinner. The boy was encouraged by this and did all he could to make an impression. Despite the heat of that August day, he dressed in his good seersucker suit. Minutes before he left Guilford, Roland cut a bunch of blue daisies and yellow mums from Mama’s garden as a bouquet for him to take with. Sara Kate tied a damp piece of cheesecloth around the stems to keep them fresh during the ride. M
ama instructed him before he left. Now you present these to the mistress of the house, she said. You were not invited by Miss Laura Anne but by her mama.
Two and a half hours later, Mickey Moe arrived at the outskirts of Greenville. Along the way, the LTD’s air conditioner had broken down. By the time he reached Laura Anne’s house, it was close to three hours since he’d left his own, and the blooms, no matter how carefully prepared, had wilted. The formerly perky petals of his mama’s exotic daisies curled in. The centers of the mums had gone brown. He studied them sitting there in the passenger seat where Laura Anne ought to be. Was it an insult to give Mrs. Needleman flowers in disrepair? Was it a worse insult to arrive empty-handed?
Mickey Moe checked himself out in the rear view and wiped the perspiration from his face with his handkerchief. Dang the flowers, he thought. They either like me or they don’t, and a lot of dang flowers ain’t goin’ to tip the scales one way or t’other. He picked up the bouquet and tossed it in the back. Then just before leaving the car and heading up Laura Anne’s front walk, he had an idea. He turned around and plucked the freshest-looking daisy from the pile and stuck it in the buttonhole of his seersucker lapel. Ok, he thought, smoothing his collar, ok. That looks right smart. He went up the walk and stairs to the front porch with a bounce in his step. He rang the bell, waited there rocking back and forth on his feet, his straw fedora in hand, a goofy smile on his face, feeling confident and free and full of good will.
Lot Needleman answered the door all smiles of sweet welcome. At the sight of that beaming red face, Mickey Moe caught his breath. The salesman in him was trained to read the hidden intentions of others. Right off the bat, he saw the man’s desire to crush him in his two hands and brush the pieces off into the four winds. Mickey Moe knew men like Lot. Knew them well. Every sugared look had a vein of arsenic in it. Those smiles were a call to arms. He straightened up, narrowed his gaze, and offered his hand. He was ready to fight for his woman. Let the games begin, he wanted to say.
One More River Page 5