Love

by Toni Morrison

  Eventually May quieted, but she never changed her mind. She simply went about removing things, hiding them from the kerosene fires she knew were about to be lit any day now. From grenades lobbed and land mines buried in sand. Her reach was both wide and precise. She patrolled the beach and set booby traps behind her bedroom door. She hid legal documents and safety pins. As early as 1955, when a teenager’s bashed-up body proved how seriously whites took sass, and sensing disorder when word of an Alabama boycott spread, May recognized one fortress—the hotel—and buried its deed in the sand. Ten years later, the hotel’s clientele, short-tempered and loud, treated her with the courtesy you’d give a stump. And when waves of Blacks crashed through quiet neighborhoods as well as business districts, she added the Monarch Street house to her care. Controlling nothing in either place, she went underground, locking away, storing up. Money and silverware nestled in sacks of Uncle Ben’s rice; fine table linen hid toilet paper and toothpaste; tree holes were stuffed with emergency underwear; photographs, keepsakes, mementos, junk she bagged, boxed, and squirreled away.

  Panting, she comes into the hotel kitchen carrying her loot while Heed argues about the waste L is causing by her refusal to open the cartons, use the equipment, and thereby produce more meals faster. L never looks up, just keeps dredging chicken parts in egg batter, then flour. An arc of hot fat escapes the fryer, splashes Heed’s hand.

  Until recently that was all she remembered of the scene—the burn. Thirty years later, lotioning her hands, she remembered more. Before the pop of hot fat. Stopping May, checking the Rinso box, seeing useless packets of last New Year’s cocktail napkins, swizzle sticks, paper hats, and a stack of menus. Hearing her say, “I have to put these away.” That afternoon the new equipment disappeared, to be found later in the attic—L’s final, wordless comment. Now Heed was convinced that May’s particular box of junk was still there—in the attic. Fifty menus must have been in it. Prepared weekly, daily, or monthly, depending on L’s whims, each menu had a date signaling the freshness of the food, its home-cooked accuracy. If the fat hit her hand in 1964 or ’65, when May, reacting in terror to Mississippi or Watts, had to be followed to retrieve needed items, then the menus she was storing were prepared seven years later than the 1958 one accepted as Bill Cosey’s only will and testament. There would be a lot of untampered-with menus in that box. Only one was needed. That, a larcenous heart, and a young, steady hand that could write script.

  Good old May. Years of cunning, decades of crazy—both equaled the simplemindedness that might just save the day. If she were alive it would kill her. Before her real death she was already a minstrel-show spook, floating through the rooms, flapping over the grounds, hiding behind doors until it was safe to bury evidence of a life the Revolution wanted to deprive her of. Yet she might rest easy now, since when she died in 1976, her beloved death penalty was back in style and she had outlived the Revolution. Her ghost, though, helmeted and holstered, was alive and gaining strength.

  An orange-scented road to Harbor was what Christine expected, because three times the aroma had accompanied her escapes. The first was on foot, the second by bus, and each time the orange trees lining the road marked her flight with a light citric perfume. More than familiar, the road formed the structure of her dreamlife. From silly to frightening, every memorable dream she had took place on or near Route 12, and if not visible, the road lurked just beyond the dreaming, ready to assist a scary one or provide the setting for the incoherent happiness of a sweet dream. Now, as she pressed the gas pedal, her haste certainly had the feel of a nightmare—panting urgency in stationary time—but freezing weather had killed the young fruit along with its fragrance and Christine was keenly aware of the absence. She rolled the window down, then up, then down again.

  Romen’s version of washing the car did not include opening its doors, so the Oldsmobile sparkled on the outside while its interior smelled like a holding cell. She once fought a better class of car than this because of an odor. Tried to kill it and everything it stood for, but trying mostly to kill the White Shoulders stinging her sinuses and clotting her tongue. The owner, Dr. Rio, never saw the damage because his new girlfriend had the car towed away before the sight of it could break his heart. So Christine’s hammer swings against the windshield, the razor cuts through plump leather; the ribbons of tape (including and especially Al Green’s “For the Good Times”) that she draped over the dashboard and steering wheel he only heard about, never saw. And that hurt as much as his dismissal had. Killing a Cadillac was never easy, but doing it in bright daylight in the frenzy of another woman’s cologne was an accomplishment that deserved serious witnessing by the person for whom it was meant. Dr. Rio was spared, according to Christine’s landlady, by his new woman. A mistake, Manila had said. The new woman should have let him learn the lesson—observe the warning of what a displaced woman could do. If he had been allowed to see the result of getting rid of one woman, it might help the new one convert her own rental in his arms to a longer lease.

  Regrets over her mismanaged life faded in the glow of Dr. Rio’s memory, as did the embarrassment of her battle with his beloved Cadillac. In spite of the shamefaced end of their affair, the three years with him—well, near him; he was mightily undivorceable—were wonderful. She had seen movies about the misery of kept women, how they died in the end or had suffering illegitimate babies who died also. Sometimes the women were saddened by guilt and cried on the betrayed wife’s lap. Yet twenty years after she’d been replaced by fresher White Shoulders, Christine still insisted her kept-woman years were the best. When she met Dr. Rio, her forty-one years to his sixty made him an “older” man. Now, in her mid-sixties, the word meant nothing. He was sure to be dead by now or propped up in bed paying some teenage welfare mother a hundred dollars to nibble his toes while a day nurse monitored his oxygen flow. It was a scene she had to work at because the last sight she’d had of him was as seductive as the first. An elegant dresser, successful G.P., passionate, playful. Her last good chance for happiness wrecked by the second oldest enemy in the world: another woman. Manila’s girls said Dr. Rio gave each new mistress a gift of that same cologne. Christine had thought it was unique—a private gesture from a thoughtful suitor. He preferred it; she learned to. Had she stayed longer at Manila’s or visited her whores once in a while, she would have discovered at once Dr. Rio’s particular pattern of bullshit: he fell head over heels, seduced, offered his expensive apartment on Trelaine Avenue, and sent dracaena and White Shoulders on the day the replacement moved in. Unlike roses or other cut flowers, dracaena was meant to speak legitimacy, permanence. The White Shoulders—who knew? Maybe he read about it somewhere, in a men’s magazine invented to show men the difference between suave and a shampoo. Some creaky, unhip glossy for teenagers disguised as men that catalogued seduction techniques, as if any technique at all was needed when a woman decided on a man. He could have sent a bottle of Clorox and a dead Christmas tree—she would have done whatever he wanted for what he made available. Complete freedom, total care, reliable sex, reckless gifts. Trips, short and secret lest his wife find out, parties, edginess, and a satisfactory place in the pecking order of a certain middle-class black society that understood itself to swing, if the professional credentials and money were right.

  Route 12 was empty, distracting Christine from the urgency of her mission with scattered recollections of the past. How abrupt the expulsion from first-class cabins on romantic cruises to being head-pressed into a patrol car; from a coveted table at an NMA banquet to rocking between her own elbows on a hooker’s mattress aired daily to rid it of the previous visitors’ stench. When she went back to Manila’s, dependent on her immediate but short-lived generosity, Christine poured the remains of her own White Shoulders down the toilet and packed her shoes, pride, halter top, brassiere, and pedal pushers into a shopping bag. Everything but the diamonds and her silver spoon. Those she zipped into her purse along with Manila’s loan of fifty dollars. Manila’s girls had
been congenial most of the time; other times not. But they so enjoyed their hearts of gold—gold they had slipped from wallets, or inveigled with mild forms of blackmail—they were staunchly optimistic. They told Christine not to worry, some woman was bound to de-dick him one day, and besides, she was still a fox, there were lots of players and every goodbye ain’t gone. Christine appreciated their optimism but was not cheered. Thrown out of the apartment after she had refused for weeks to leave quietly; prevented from taking her furs, suede coat, leather pants, linen suits, the Saint Laurent shoes—even her diaphragm: this goodbye was final. The four Samsonite suitcases she had left home with in 1947 held all she thought she would ever need. In 1975 the Wal-Mart shopping bag she returned with contained all she owned. Considering how much practice she had had, her exits from Silk should not have become more and more pitiful. The first one as a thirteen-year-old, the result of a temper tantrum, failed in eight hours; the second one at seventeen, a run for her life, was equally disastrous. Both escapes were fed by malice, but the third and last, in 1971, was a calm attempt to avert the slaughter she had in mind. Leaving other places: Harbor, Jackson, Grafenwöhr, Tampa, Waycross, Boston, Chattanooga—or any of the towns that once beckoned—was easy until Dr. Rio had her forcibly evicted for no good reason she could think of except a wish for fresh dracaena or a younger model for the furs he passed along from one mistress to another. Following days of reflection at Manila’s (named for a father’s heroic exploits), Christine discovered a way to convert a return to Silk in shame and on borrowed money into an act of filial responsibility: taking care of her ailing mother, and a noble battle for justice—her lawful share of the Cosey estate.

  She remembered the bus ride back, punctured by drifts of sleep flavored with sea salt. With one explosive exception (during which fury blinded her), it was her first glimpse of Silk in twenty-eight years. Neat houses stood on streets named for heroes and the trees destroyed to build them. Maceo’s was still on Gladiator across from Lamb of God, holding its own against a new hamburger place on Prince Arthur called Patty’s. Then home: a familiar place that, when you left, kept changing behind your back. The creamy oil painting you carried in your head turned into house paint. Vibrant, magical neighbors became misty outlines of themselves. The house nailed down in your dreams and nightmares comes undone, not sparkling but shabby, yet even more desirable because what had happened to it had happened to you. The house had not shrunk; you had. The windows were not askew—you were. Which is to say it was more yours than ever.

  Heed’s look, cold and long, had been anything but inviting, so Christine just slammed past her through the door. With very few words they came to an agreement of sorts because May was hopeless, the place filthy, Heed’s arthritis was disabling her hands, and because nobody in town could stand them. So the one who had attended private school kept house while the one who could barely read ruled it. The one who had been sold by a man battled the one who had been bought by one. The level of desperation it took to force her way in was high, for she was returning to a house whose owner was willing to burn it down just to keep her out. Had once, in fact, set fire to Christine’s bed for precisely that purpose. So this time, for safety she settled in the little apartment next to the kitchen. Some relief surfaced when she saw Heed’s useless hands, but knowing what the woman was capable of still caused her heart to beat raggedly in Heed’s presence. No one was slyer or more vindictive. So the door between the kitchen and Christine’s rooms had a hidden key and a very strong lock.

  Christine braked for a turtle crossing the road, but swerving right to avoid it, she drove over a second one trailing the first. She stopped and looked in the rearview mirrors—left one, right one, and overhead—for a sign of life or death: legs pleading skyward for help or a cracked immobile shell. Her hands were shaking. Seeing nothing, she left the driver’s seat and ran back down the road. The pavement was blank, the orange trees still. No turtle anywhere. Had she imagined it, the second turtle? The one left behind, Miss Second Best, crushed by a tire gone off track, swerving to save its preferred sister? Scanning the road, she did not wonder what the matter was; did not ask herself why her heart was sitting up for a turtle creeping along Route 12. She saw a movement on the south side of the road where the first turtle had been heading. Slowly she approached and was relieved to see two shiny green shells edging toward the trees. The wheels had missed Miss Second Best, and while the driver was shuddering in the car, she had caught up to the faster one. Transfixed, Christine watched the pair disappear, returning to her car only when another slowed behind it. As she left the verge, the driver smiled, “Ain’t you got no toilet at home?”

  “Go around, motherfucker!”

  He gave her a thick finger and pulled away.

  The lawyer might be surprised—Christine had no appointment—but would see her anyway. Each time she forced herself into the office, Christine had been accommodated. Her slide from spoiled girl child to tarnished homelessness had been neither slow nor hidden. Everybody knew. There was no homecoming for her in elegant auto driven by successful husband. No degree-in-hand-with-happy-family-in-tow return. Certainly no fascinating stories about the difficulty of running one’s own business or the limitations placed on one’s time by demanding executives, clients, patients, agents, or trainers. In short, no hometown sweep full of hints of personal fulfillment and veiled condescension. She was a flop. Disreputable. But she was also a Cosey, and in Harbor the name still lifted eyelids. William Cosey, onetime owner of many houses, a hotel resort, two boats, and a bankful of gossiped-about, legendary cash, always fascinated people, but he had driven the county to fever when they learned he had left no will. Just doodles on a 1958 menu outlining his whiskey-driven desires. Which turned out to be (1) Julia II to Dr. Ralph, (2) Montenegro Coronas to Chief Silk, (3) the hotel to Billy Boy’s wife, (4) the Monarch Street house and “whatever nickels are left” to “my sweet Cosey child,” (5) his ’55 convertible to L, (6) his stickpins to Meal Daddy, and on and on down to his record collection to Dumb Tommy, “the best blues guitar player on God’s earth.” Feeling good, no doubt, from Wild Turkey straight, he had sat down one night with some boozy friends and scrawled among side orders and the day’s specials, appetizers, main courses, and desserts the distribution of his wealth to those who pleased him most. Three years after his death a few boozy friends were located and verified the event, the handwriting, and the clarity of the mind that seemed to have had no further thoughts on the matter. Questions flared like snake cowls: Why was he giving Dr. Ralph his newest boat? What Coronas? Chief Buddy’s been dead for years, so does his son get them? Boss Silk don’t smoke and who is Meal Daddy? The lead singer of the Purple Tones, said Heed. No, the manager of the Fifth Street Strutters, said May, but he’s in prison, can inmates receive bequests? They’re just records, fool, he didn’t identify you by name, so what? he didn’t mention you at all! and why give a convertible to somebody who can’t drive you don’t need to drive a car to sell it this ain’t a will it’s a comic book! They focused on stickpins, cigars, and the current value of old 78s—never asking the central question, who was “my sweet Cosey child”? Heed’s claim was strong—especially since she called her husband Papa. Yet since, biologically speaking, Christine was the only “child” left, her claim of blood was equal to Heed’s claim as widow. Or so she and May thought. But years of absence, no history of working at the hotel except for one summer as a minor, weakened Christine’s position. With a certain amusement, the court examined the greasy menu, lingering lazily perhaps over the pineapple-flavored slaw and Fats’ Mean Chili, listened to three lawyers, and tentatively (until further evidence could be provided) judged Heed the “sweet Cosey child” of a drunken man’s vocabulary.

  Gwendolyn East, Attorney-at-Law, thought otherwise, however, and recently she’d told Christine grounds for reversal on appeal were promising. In any case, she said there was room for review, even if no mitigating evidence was found. For years Christine had searched for such evide
nce—the hotel, the house—and found nothing (except rubbishy traces of May’s lunacy). If there was anything else—a real, typed-up intelligible will—it would be in one of Heed’s many locked desks behind her bedroom door, also locked nightly against “intruders.” Now the matter was urgent. No more waiting for the other to die or, at a minimum, suffer a debilitating stroke. Now a third element was in the mix. Heed had hired a girl. To help write her memoirs, Junior Viviane had said that morning at breakfast. Christine sputtered her coffee at the thought of the word “write” connected with someone who had gone to school off and on for less than five years. Scooping grapefruit sections, Junior had grinned while pronouncing “memoirs” just the way illiterate Heed would have. “Of her family,” said Junior. What family, Christine wondered. That nest of beach rats who bathed in a barrel and slept in their clothes? Or is she claiming Cosey blood along with Cosey land?