Linden Hills

by Gloria Naylor

  “Fine!” David threw up his hands. “I don’t need a thousand replays of that tune—I’ve heard it all before. I understand where you’re coming from, believe me. And all this new development means is that you’ve chosen to live without me. It’s really sort of simple, isn’t it?”

  Winston looked up at him with narrowing eyes. “Why are you doing this to me? We’ve been through so much together. Why do you want to try and hurt me now? You know she can’t touch what we have between us. If you really understood, you wouldn’t be standing there trying to make me choose when there’s really no choice about it.”

  “For Christ’s sake!” David’s fist came down on the windowsill. “No one is making you do anything. You have chosen, brother. So just act like a man and admit it. Have enough backbone for once in your life to accept responsibility for what you really want. Not your father, not your law firm—you, Winston. Because I’m man enough to know what I want. And it’s not playing second fiddle in anybody’s life.”

  “So because I have to do this, you’re telling me that it’s over.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Winston shook his head. “I don’t believe that you can turn your back on eight years just like that. People don’t give up friends that way.”

  “Sure, we can still be friends. And as your best friend, I’m standing up with you as your best man next week, aren’t I? It would look sort of strange if I didn’t. But that’s not what we’re talking about now, so don’t play games with me.”

  Winston looked down into his hands again. No, that’s not what they were talking about. And they weren’t even talking about remaining lovers; they had moved beyond that years ago. Because when two people still held on like he and David, after all the illusions had died, and accepted the other’s lacks and ugliness and irritating rhythms—when they had known the joys of a communion that far outstripped the flesh—they could hardly just be lovers. No, this man gave him his center, but the world had given him no words—and ultimately no way—with which to cherish that. He smiled bitterly and looked up. “Don’t you see what I’m up against? How am I going to live with you when they haven’t even made up the right words for what we are to each other?”

  “Oh, they’ve made up plenty of words and you can read them on any public bathroom wall. And that’s what you can’t face. You want the world to turn inside out and make up a nice, neat title that you can put on your desk. And that’s not about to happen. You can’t handle anything less than that because you’re a made man, Winston. They made you a good son, a promising young lawyer, and now they’ve made you ashamed of what you are. You can go ahead and run from it. But don’t expect me to run with you.”

  “I’m not running from anything.” Winston forced his voice through his closing throat. “I’ve accepted that I can’t live without you. And I’ve been trying to tell you that all afternoon in every way I can. Do you want to make me beg now, is that it?”

  David sighed and went over to the couch and lifted Winston’s face gently. “The only thing I want you to do is finally to try and start making yourself. Make yourself happy with that girl—please, do that.” He took his hand away. “Because she’s all you’ve got now.”

  Winston’s face slowly crumbled and he reached for a cigarette, but his hands were trembling so badly he brought them back to his lap ashamed.

  David watched him with a sharp tenderness in his stomach, and before he could stop the words, they burst out of his mouth. “But you remember, I was willing to do anything for you.”

  Winston’s smile was almost cruel. “You can’t walk into Sinai Baptist next week and marry me.”

  David pressed his lips together as if he’d been slapped.

  “Right.” He nodded his head slowly. “You got me there. And since I can’t be your wife, I won’t be your whore.”

  The limousine pulled up in front of the church, with the pink and white crepe paper wrapped around the antenna and fenders beating a dull tempo in the December wind. The men got out, and just as Winston saw the billowing edge of the bridal gown in the door, it exploded into a dozen white flashes of light that would freeze his image for the wedding album.

  “Now I want you boys to try and stay out the way of them folks carrying the trays.” The stoop-shouldered old man led Willie and Lester to a corner of the large utility kitchen. He pointed to a pair of double swinging doors. “They gonna be coming through there like greased lightning ’cause they’ll be over two hundred folks to serve. And don’t want no accidents with all them high muckety-mucks out there.”

  “Don’t worry, Mike, we’ll be careful,” Lester said.

  “Good. I appreciate your help ’cause, fact is, I should be scraping them platters and hauling the garbage myself, but I don’t know how they expect me to do all that alone with my rheumatism.”

  “They should have the waiters pitch in and give you a hand,” Willie said. “That’s what they’re getting paid for.”

  “Naw suh.” Mike threw up his hands. “The office come talking to me about some union—it ain’t in they contract to scrape no plates and dump garbage. White folks got it good, don’t they—even them waiting on tables. The realty company never worried ’bout me having no union, and I got six of these buildings to tend. Bad enough I get run ragged all during the week with a thousand fix-this and do-thats, they even wants me here on my day off to clean up after ’em. The least drip in the faucet, they banging on my door talking ’bout they nerves. A stray piece of paper and they calling the office on me—I’m letting the neighborhood run down. I never saw such a bunch of finicky niggers in all my life.”

  “As if they really cared about Second Crescent Drive,” Lester said. “Everybody knows they come here and pay all those fancy rents, hoping for the first chance to beat it out of here and get into a home down the hill.”

  “That’s just it, son. With the realty office sitting at the end of the street, they gotta show how good they take care of these here premises so they get a shot at something better later on. So they wear me to the bone. Pure slavery’s all it is.”

  The old man kept complaining to Lester, and Willie went to the swinging doors and looked through the oval glass. The reception hall was beginning to fill up and the sixteen-piece band was playing soft background music. Large round tables, holding huge silver centerpieces of carnations and poinsettias, lined both sides of the room. The unoccupied bridal table sat on a raised and carpeted platform facing Willie across the long polished floor. Reflections from the crystal-tiered chandeliers glimmered on the silver patterns in the wallpaper, the sprays from the champagne fountain, the brass buttons of the waiters as they moved between the tables and the bar.

  “Some setup, huh?” Lester stood behind Willie.

  “I’m telling you.” Willie nodded. “Look at the size of that cake.”

  The four-foot wedding cake held miniatures of the bridal party on two sets of golden stairways that ran up each of its sides. A tiny spray of liquid sugar rose mysteriously from its center and sprinkled the small bride and groom at regulated intervals.

  Lester sucked his teeth. “It’s disgusting.”

  Willie didn’t think so. He secretly felt a bit proud that someone black could afford all this. That cake alone must have cost a small fortune—and then all this other getup. Even if they had to go into hock for this reception, it must really be something to be in a position to make that kind of debt. This was definitely no fried-chicken-and-potato-salad affair. The waiters were coming into the kitchen and unwrapping trays of marinated shrimp, stuffed artichokes, caviar, and some kind of cheese that Willie didn’t recognize, so he knew it must be expensive.

  And the clothes on those sisters. Willie couldn’t tell the difference between the Halston minks and Saint Laurent fox capes out there, but the way those black women floated into the banquet hall like glittering birds of paradise spelled sable to him, sable beauty. The impeccable makeup, the manicured hands and custom-made hairdos were on
ly rivaled by the sculptured attire of their male escorts. At first he watched in awe as the room filled and the waves of people mingled and separated into variegated patterns of silk, cashmere, and brocade. But even as glass after glass was refilled from the champagne fountain and the talk and laughter took on a flushed energy, Willie couldn’t help feeling that something was missing from the jeweled sparkle in the air. Then he happened to notice a woman sitting to his left in a pink satin suit. She had bent her head forward to listen to a pepper-haired man across the table. And just as she went to throw her head back in a smooth arc of laughter, the white fur on the back of her chair slipped toward the floor. Her hand shot out to retrieve it, halted a fraction of a second, and then made an uninterrupted swing to come to rest on her bosom as her head finally lay back on her shoulders. The laughing woman with the apparently ignored fur trailing on the floor now told Willie what he’d missed from that room: spontaneity. His eyes flew around the long hall again over lifted glasses, backslaps, and nibbling mouths. And he could see that he hadn’t been alone in his awe of all that splendor. He was actually watching them watch themselves having this type of affair. The soft strains of a slow waltz drifted through the doors and Willie made a mental bet that they’d dance to nothing more exciting than that the entire afternoon. These niggers would be afraid to sweat.

  The music suddenly stopped and there was a slow drum roll and the far doors were swung open for the wedding party. Each couple was announced over the microphone by the maître d’. Each was greeted with a round of applause, and the announcement of Mr. Luther Nedeed escorting Miss Rosalyn Tyler brought a sustained ovation and some guests even stood up to clap.

  “So that’s Nedeed.” Willie peered through the glass panel. “Pretty, ain’t he?”

  “Yeah,” Lester said. “That face would stop a clock.”

  Willie felt an inexplicable twinge at those words and found himself asking aloud, “I wonder what his old lady looks like?”

  “You know, it’s funny. I’ve seen her a couple of times but I couldn’t pick her out in that room right now. She’s got the kind of face that wouldn’t stand out in your mind—sorta average.”

  The bride and groom finally entered, bowed to the cheers of their guests, and went to the center of the floor officially to begin the first dance. The waiters began to stream back into the kitchen with their trays. But Willie and Lester had nothing to do except remove a few loose toothpicks and crumpled napkins. As the trays kept returning completely empty, Willie felt his stomach growling and sighed. They might look like birds of paradise, but they sure ate like vultures. So he and Lester went back to the door to watch the dancers.

  “Well, ol’ Winston did all right by himself,” Lester said as the couple waltzed around the room. “She’s not bad-looking.”

  “Nice eyes, but too skinny for me.” Willie shook his head. “I like my women with some padding on ’em so when you go in for a landing, you don’t get stuck on a pelvis bone.”

  “It’s not bothering Winston none—he’s just grinning away.”

  Willie’s head followed the circling couple and he imagined himself and Ruth gliding out there on the polished oak floor. She would be looking up into his eyes just like that woman was, all dewy and covered with cream lace. And he would hold her around the waist and smile down at her just like that guy was doing now. But no—something about Winston’s face didn’t quite fit into Willie’s daydream. No, he could never imagine himself smiling at Ruth like that. Why, that guy looks like someone had punched him in the stomach and his lips sorta froze up that way.

  When the dancers left the floor, Lester poked Willie in the side. “Hey, get that, over in the corner. It’s that douche bag, Xavier.”

  A tall man, with a face the shape and color of a brown egg, sat with his arm thrown over the chair of a young, blond woman. He playfully offered her a bit of cheese and she ate it from his fingers. Then he bent over and whispered in her ear and they laughed.

  “That mother,” Lester spit out. “He told Roxanne he wasn’t invited to this shit and now he shows up with that pink job. I oughta go out there and smash him in his face.”

  “Shit, lay light.” Willie pulled at his arm. “It’s none of your business.”

  “It is my business.” Lester pulled his arm away. “He came slobbering over my sister just last night, but she’s not good enough to come here with him when it’s broad daylight. I just wanna go out there and let him see me. Then he’ll know his game is up.”

  The waiters hurried back through the swinging doors and Lester started to go out, but Willie grabbed his arm again. “You wanna get Mike in trouble? You know we ain’t supposed to be here,” he whispered. “You start something and that nice old guy loses his job for trying to help us.”

  That stopped Lester for a moment. “But why would he do that, Willie?”

  Willie saw the hurt in his eyes. “I don’t know. Some guys just like to go that way, I guess. And you don’t know, it might have nothing to do with Roxanne. Maybe that woman’s one of his business friends or something,” he offered hopefully, but not believing it.

  “Yeah, sure.” Lester sighed.

  Willie looked at his friend’s face, which would probably be lighter than that blond woman’s when she was suntanned. “Les, you ever been with one?”

  “Why would you ask me that?” There was a defensive edge in his voice.

  “I don’t know.” Willie shrugged. “I was just wondering.”

  “Well, yeah, a coupla times.” Then he went into an exaggerated whisper. “But never in broad daylight.” They smiled at each other. “When I used to read my stuff at the coffeehouses in the city, they’d come up to me afterward and we’d start talking, ya know?”

  “Well, I never have. But I always sorta wondered—” Willie glanced at the waiters pouring soup into silver tureens at the other end of the kitchen. “Are they really different?”

  “Nah.” Lester shook his head. “But I’ll tell you something, they’re easier.”

  “Yeah?” Willie’s eyes widened. “Ya know, I’ve heard guys say that.”

  “It’s true. They don’t put you through the rain dance that the sisters do. I use to think that was really something. It made me feel special, you know what I mean? But then once …” Lester’s voice dropped off. “I never told you this, but …” He looked at the floor. “I met this girl once—after reading at this jazz session—and then we went to her place and got stoned. God, she had some good weed in that fancy pad. And then after the whole thing had gone down, she rolled over in the bed and started stroking my arms and stuff and said, ‘That was nice, so I can imagine how great it would have been if you were really black.’”

  “Christ!” Willie whistled.

  “I swear to you, White.” Lester stared off in space. “That was the first time in my life that I wanted to hit a woman.”

  They heard another slow drum roll, and a crash of cymbals brought the reception hall to a muted hum. The maître d’ stuck his head in the kitchen and told the waiters to hold the soup until after the toasts. Lester and Willie went back to the door and Luther Nedeed was mounting the bandstand. The room was totally still as he adjusted the microphone and delicately cleared his throat.

  “Gentlewomen, gentlemen. Before we settle into the marvelous repast that is awaiting us, pray bear with me as I extend our warmest regards to the nuptial union of Mr. and Mrs. Winston Alcott.”

  “God,” Willie whispered, “does he always talk like that?”

  “Yup, straight out of a gothic novel. He spoke at my high school graduation and you know what he called black folks? ‘We denizens of the darker hue.’ Made it sound like a disease. That nigger’s unreal.”

  Luther had taken two small velvet cases out of his jacket pocket. “As an old friend of the Alcotts, I was honored to be an intimate part of this wedding party. And as the president of the Tupelo Realty Corporation, this occasion gives me unspeakable joy because Winston Alcott has been an outstanding member of thi
s community, doing it great pride and showering it with his talents and vitality. And now today, he has taken the step which will insure the stability and growth of Linden Hills. I applaud you, Winston Alcott. We all applaud you.”

  There was a healthy response from the room.

  “For somebody who is so full of unspeakable joy, he’s sure got a lot to say,” Lester said.

  “Shhh,” Willie said.

  “But I feel that a moment like this requires more than applause. Yes, much more. So it does me great pleasure to announce that after you return from your nuptial retreat, you will not be bringing the new Mrs. Alcott back to Second Crescent Drive. You have proven your dedication to Linden Hills, and now Linden Hills will open its arms to you.” Luther unsnapped the velvet cases and held them up. “The Tupelo Realty Corporation has decided to give you a mortgage on Tupelo Drive.”

  There was a loud gasp from the room and then wild and thunderous applause as Luther turned full circle on the bandstand, with his arms lifted high above his head, displaying the contents of the cases. There was a platinum-and-diamond key-shaped necklace in one and matching cuff links in the other.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” Lester whistled. “Winston must be pissing happy over that one.”

  But Willie noticed that Winston hadn’t changed the expression he’d been wearing all afternoon. The frozen grimace that was passing for a smile held while he watched Luther put the necklace around his bride’s neck and then shake his hand. In fact, it never melted an inch until a handsome young man followed Nedeed onto the bandstand. The room slowly settled down again for the best man’s toast.

  David’s smooth voice was relaxed and pleasant. “Well, I see that I have a tough act to follow.” He smiled, showing his firm white teeth as the guests laughed. “But I don’t think that my words will be any less sincere than Mr. Nedeed’s when I offer my congratulations to the new couple.”

  He turned to face the wedding table and spoke directly to it. “Mr. Nedeed addressed Mr. Alcott and so I would like to direct my remarks to the other half—and as some would say, the better half—Mrs. Alcott.” David waited for the laughter to cease and Willie waited for Winston to keel over in a dead faint, because that’s exactly how tight his face had become. “Cassandra, I’ve never been very fancy with words. And so when I knew I wanted something very special for this occasion, I went to a man who devoted his life to words and found something that I feel fits this day perfectly. Since this poem will speak about the trials that are ahead of you in marriage—and the joys—I want you to imagine that your new husband is saying these words to you.”