by Lynne Bryant
"What was that?" I ask.
"She said, 'Grace, every now and then life brings us a gift. We don't earn it. We don't work for it. It's just part of the mystery. Why, that gift is the very origin of your name ... Grace! Take this gift and use it. Don't let your anger or the mistakes of other people stand in the way of your dreams!"
My heart fills up and I feel a tightness in my throat, thinking of the Grace Clark I've grown so fond of as a young woman struggling with her pride and anger. And, I realize, I'm confused. She finds out she's half white, yet feels that's the very thing about her that somehow betrays her people. Given that I'm constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering who will find me out, I'm at a loss to understand this. I promise myself that, soon, I'm going to talk to Grace about my background. Just not today. "Did you take the money?"
"I did. I was able to earn my bachelor's degree at Tougaloo College with the fund the Calhouns set up for me."
"I guess you quit your job in the kitchen?" "Oh, no." Grace frowns. "I told you, Gladys Crump saved my life. I worked for her in that kitchen until the day I graduated."
Chapter 14
Billy Webster
As I push through the glass doors of the Pineview Nursing Home, I realize I still have that stupid grin on my face. I need to get myself together before I see Gran. She will start firing questions from the minute I step into the room. I don't know why I'm worried. Yes, I've enjoyed getting to know Daniel Mason. Yes, it was fun having dinner with him and then seeing him in his element at the Harvest Festival. That was a trip! I haven't been to a small-town church social event in decades. Yes, he's intelligent, witty, good-looking — sexy. But! He's a preacher and he lives in Mississippi, and I don't. I won't ... can't?
Gran is in her chair, all dressed up, looking like a spider waiting for a fly. I can tell she's ready to spin her web around me and pull me in. Suddenly feeling trapped, I rush over to the window.
"Good morning, Gran. It's a little stuffy in here, don't you think?" I ask, opening the window with a view of the bird feeder outside. "Look at all those birds. You must enjoy watching them at the feeder —"
Gran interrupts my nervous chatter. "Belinda Louise Webster," she says, "get over here and give your old grandmother a kiss."
I walk obediently over to her and bend to kiss her cheek. As I'm pulling away, she grasps my hand. "Tell me how things went at the Queen City with Brother Daniel," she says.
Of course I'm not surprised she would ask this. I've prepared my answers carefully. I don't want to get her hopes up and then see her disappointed.
"Okay, okay! Just let me sit down first," I say, breaking her grip on my hand so that I can pull up a chair near her. I drop my purse on the floor and slouch into the chair, stretching my legs out in front of me. "Doesn't that breeze coming in the window feel nice?" I close my eyes, remembering why the fall is my favorite time of year down South.
Gran will have none of it. "Girl, I'm old as Methuselah and I don't have time to wait around for you to talk about the weather! Now, get on with it! What happened with you and the preacher?"
I sit up, having been put on notice. "Well, Gran, I think it went all right ... He was very interested in the place ... has some ideas...." Gran can tell I'm hedging.
"What kind of ideas?"
I sigh. This is the part I feel so uncertain about. Might as well get it over with. "He wants to get the bank involved, get some estimates ... on the work it would take to ... you know ... restore the hotel. He thinks it would make a great community center." I watch carefully for her response.
Gran nods and doesn't look surprised. "And what did you say to that?"
"I told him that I supposed getting a couple of estimates wouldn't hurt. He says there's a contractor who's a member of the congregation who might do an estimate, and then he wants to involve some of the teenagers at the church to help do the work. There's also Jack Baldwin, who works at the bank."
Gran chuckles. "I reckon he got real excited over that old hotel, didn't he?"
For a moment, I forget to hide my feelings from Gran. "He did, Gran. You should have seen him. He was like a little boy with a new model car. He had all of these ideas and he talked about them all through dinner...." I'm remembering how animated Daniel was as we talked over catfish and hush puppies.
"So you had dinner with him, did you? What happened after that?" She has a wicked look in her eye as she winks at me.
"Gran!" I say, with my best attempt at sounding dignified. "Don't be ridiculous! We just had dinner and talked about the hotel and ... well ... maybe a few other things, but anyway ... that's it. I told him that we would allow him to look into what the repairs would involve. You do agree with that, right?" I'm trying to steer the conversation back to the hotel.
Gran nods her head. "I reckon it won't hurt, but it sounds like a big job to me. Does he really think it could be ready by next spring?"
"Well, maybe not completed, but at least well under way. He told me yesterday that he'd already made arrangements with the contractor to take a look at it."
Gran doesn't miss a beat. "Hold on a minute. You talked to him yesterday?"
"Well, yes. I dropped by the Harvest Festival for a little while and —"
Gran interrupts me. "You? You, Miss Big City Girl, went to the Harvest Festival down at the church?" Gran's laugh is infectious.
"Baby girl, you must be in love!"
I feel the blush climbing my throat and I'm laughing along with her in spite of myself. "That's silly," I say, strangely exhilarated. "Of course I'm not in love after one dinner at the Catfish Cabin and one Harvest Festival ... but, okay, I admit it, I haven't met a man as appealing and as handsome as Daniel Mason in a long time." I sigh and get up to search in Gran's tiny refrigerator for one of the diet sodas she always keeps there for me.
I look at Gran as I wander back to my chair; her expression is serious. "You know what they say, darlin', about a good man being hard to find."
"You're telling me! But why here?" I realize I probably sound like a whiney little girl. "My life is in Chicago. I love you, Gran, and please don't take this wrong, but I could never see myself living in Mississippi again."
Just as Gran is about to respond, there's a knock on the door and Gran's two best friends, Miss Adelle and Miss Grace, arrive in a commotion of hugs and old-lady kisses. These two women have always been like two doting great-aunts to me. For a moment I find myself wondering if I'll end up an old maid like them. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. They're happy, right?
I suddenly have an image of myself as an old woman sitting around a card table with a bunch of other black women the same day every week to play the same card game at the same time of day, just as these three are about to do. I want to run screaming from the room and jump on the first plane back to Chicago and marry the first man I see when I get off the plane!
Miss Adelle and Miss Grace are accompanied by a well-dressed middle-aged white woman. She and the ladies are all smiles with each other, like she's one of their old friends. Even Gran shakes her hand and nods a welcoming response to her greeting. This strikes me as odd. I've never known these ladies, especially Gran, to associate with Junior League types. Miss Grace introduces her as Mrs. Roxanne Reeves, the woman who is responsible for the development of the African-American tour. So, this is the person stirring up Gran with ideas about the Queen City. I step over to shake her hand when Miss Grace introduces me.
"Roxanne is going to join us for cards today," says Miss Grace. Roxanne doesn't look too certain about that, if you ask me. She's shaking her head.
"I really don't know about that. Maybe I'll just watch for a while," she says, pulling some papers out of her bag. "I've written up some information on the Queen City Hotel I was hoping to go over with you, Mrs. Webster — and maybe with you, too, Billy?" She looks hopefully at Gran and me. I can tell she's the kind of woman who doesn't spend much time sitting around playing cards. I wonder if she ever takes off those panty hose.
"
Billy," Gran says, ignoring Roxanne's request, "pull that card table out of the closet and set it up here in front of my chair." I follow Gran's instructions, even though she really didn't have to tell me. Anytime I've been here to visit on what happened to include a Saturday afternoon, I've gotten roped into playing bid whist with these ladies. They've been meeting every Saturday afternoon for as long as I can remember. When I was a little girl, they took turns going to each other's houses. Some of my best memories are the days they would come to Gran's house across the street from the Queen City. She let me sit under the card table with my dolls, listening to their chatter overhead. Since Gran moved into the nursing home, they've made Pineview their regular meeting place.
I'm relieved to be out from under Gran's interrogation about Daniel Mason, for now anyway. As I slide the old table out of the closet, I'm feeling more relaxed. Miss Adelle is over by the sink starting a pot of coffee and Miss Grace has Roxanne moving chairs. Miss Grace is taking the top off of what I'm hoping is one of her buttermilk pound cakes and searching in Gran's cabinet for paper plates.
I realize how much I'm enjoying myself. I have women friends in Chicago — I've even tried to teach a couple of them to play bid whist — but it's not the same as being surrounded by these nurturing old women. I love listening to the stories they tell and the way they laugh and joke the whole time they're playing. But today I'm wondering what they plan to do with this Reeves woman. She's perched on one of the chairs, watching everyone, still holding those papers in her hands. She looks more like the bridge type to me.
Roxanne turns to Gran. "So y'all play cards every Saturday?" she asks, trying to make conversation.
"Yes, ma'am," Gran answers.
"Do you always play the same game?"
"Oh, yes," Gran says, and winks at Adelle, who's come to sit near her. "Same game for almost sixty years now, and Addie and Grade are still trying to beat me."
"Now, don't you listen to her," says Grace from where she stands cutting cake. "Mat-tie Webster just forgets how many times she loses."
"My daddy taught me when I was just a girl," Gran says. "Daddy was a Pullman porter and he learned it on the train. Then I taught Addie —"
Miss Grace jumps in. "Then Addie taught me. But I really perfected my skills" — Gran lets out a snort at this — "when I was at Tougaloo College. We would play for hours—"
Miss Adelle interrupts. "And I perfected mine when I was at Tuskegee in nursing school."
Gran laughs. "You educated girls ain't got nothing on me. I can still whip both of you."
I sit back in my chair, watching and listening, smelling the coffee brewing, my mouth watering at the thought of Miss Grace's cake, feeling contented just to be here with them. I wonder if Daniel Mason drinks coffee....
Grace
We've settled into our card game and I'm enjoying myself. Mattie is in an unusually good mood, and I'm guessing it has to do with her granddaughter, Billy, spending time with Brother Daniel. Whenever he's brought up, I get a kick out of watching Billy try to hide her feelings about him. I think she's sweet on him.
Roxanne doesn't want to play bid whist with us. Right now, she seems content to watch us and ask questions every now and then. We're between hands and decide to take a break and have some cake and coffee. Roxanne reads the information she's written up about the Queen City to Mattie, and Billy is telling us about Brother Daniel's plans.
"... so he's planning to get the contractor out there to see it on Monday," she says.
"Junior would be so proud to hear that the Queen City will be on this tour," says Adelle.
I nod my head. "Yes, that's where he got his start," I say, remembering what wonderful times we had there.
"Whatever happened to Junior?" Roxanne asks carefully, as if she's afraid of what the answer will be.
Adelle and Mattie both look at me. Billy, who probably hasn't heard this story, echoes the question. "Yes, Miss Grace, where did Junior go when he left Clarksville?"
It occurs to me that before it's over with, everything about those months in 1931 is going to come out. I probably should have known this would happen when I started dragging up old stories, talking so personal to Roxanne Reeves. Somehow I fooled myself into thinking we could just stick to the pleasant stories related to the places I suggested for the tour, but I reckon I was wrong. My thoughts turn again to that time in my life. Lord, that was a hard year! I don't want to think about it on a nice day like this, when we're having so much fun. But Roxanne and Billy are looking at me, waiting for an answer.
"The last time I saw Junior, it was about this time of year...."
November 1931
Grace
I finished the last of my chores and Miss Crump doesn't have anything critical to say about my work today, which is a miracle, so I leave the dining hall and run down the path through the cedar trees and scoot in the back door of my dormitory. I need to check my mailbox before I go back to my room to study.
Right after I arrived at Tougaloo, I wrote to Zero at Alcorn State and Adelle at Tuskegee to tell them everything that had happened. I've been exchanging letters with both of them every few weeks. Zero is working hard at Alcorn and won't be leaving the campus to visit Clarksville until things have had time to quiet down after all of that business with Ray Tanner and Andy Benton. Adelle and I are planning to see each other back in Clarksville during the holidays. I'm hoping for a letter from her today saying that I can stay with her family over Christmas. I can't bear the thought of going back to my little house behind Pecan Cottage yet. None of us has heard anything from Junior.
I round the corner to the hallway where our mail slots are, pulling off my kitchen hairnet, holding my bobby pins tightly between my lips, and I stop dead in my tracks. My mouth falls open and all of the hair pins hit the wood floor, sounding like rain falling around me. Junior Jackson is standing by the mailboxes, leaning against the wall with his hat in his hand. He's got on the same suit he was wearing the last time I saw him, but as he turns toward me, I notice he's grown a mustache and he looks a little tired around the eyes. For just a second we stand there frozen. He's looking at me like he's not sure what to do and I'm still not believing it's him I'm seeing.
"Hey there, Grade," he says in that sweet low voice of his, and before I can think about it I'm throwing myself into his arms, and he drops his hat as he picks me up and twirls me around, holding me so tight I can't breathe. I'm already crying and he's got his face buried in my neck. I can feel that scratchy little mustache against my skin and I can smell the mixture of his cologne and cigarettes.
I'm suddenly aware of my surroundings, although the hallway is still deserted. "Put me down, Junior," I whisper.
He sets me down slowly and looks like he's about to kiss me, but I turn my head and look around to see if someone's coming. "What are you doing here?"
"You are one hard-to-find woman, you know that?" he says.
His voice echoes through the hallway and I put my finger to his lips to quiet him. "They don't let men in our dormitory. How did you get past the front desk?" I happen to know that Vidalia Swenson is on door duty tonight, and she gets an evil pleasure from the authority that gives her. If one of us girls signs in even thirty seconds past curfew, she runs the risk of being written up if Vidalia is in charge.
Junior grins in the devilish way he always does and I feel my heart speed up. "I convinced that nice girl named Vidalia Swenson to let me wait here for you."
My suspicion is that this is just another testament to Junior's charm. "How'd you get her to do that?" I ask.
Junior smiles and looks a little sheepish. "I sort of let her believe that I'm your long-lost brother from Alcorn State."
I shake my head, laughing. "Junior Jackson, you always could get anything you wanted."
He reaches around my waist and pulls me close. "I've missed you so much, Gracie. Let's go someplace where we can talk." He lets me go and bends to pick up his hat.
I scoop up my bobby pins from the f
loor and tuck my hairnet in my pocket, wishing I could look in a mirror and check my hair, even put on a little lipstick, but there's no time for that now. I slip my arm around Junior's as we walk circumspectly past Vidalia toward the front doors of the dormitory.
"Why, Grace Clark," she says in her syrupy Atlanta accent. "You didn't tell me you had such a handsome big brother." She bats her eyes at Junior with a come-hither look. I'm surprised at how territorial I instantly feel. I have to stop myself from telling her to back off.
"Yes, isn't this a wonderful surprise for me?" I say as I give Junior's arm a tug. I somehow think he's enjoying this. "We're just going out on the grounds to take a walk and catch up."
"You be sure and be in by curfew, now." Vidalia calls to our backs as we step outside.
"Oh, don't you worry, Miss Vidalia. I'll be sure to have her back on time. I can't have my sister falling down on her school work," Junior says.
We both burst into laughter as the door closes behind us. It's a cool fall evening and I let Junior pull me close, feeling his warmth and aching for him to hold me and kiss me. I'm intensely aware of how limited my time with him is. I glance down at my watch. It's already six thirty and the freshman evening curfew is at eight o'clock on weekdays. The sun is almost gone and the clouds are making the late-evening light cast a luminous glow from the burnt orange leaves of the big oaks we're walking under. I decide to take Junior to my favorite thinking spot. It's a little place I've discovered under the pine trees down by the pond on the back of the campus.
As we walk, we take turns telling each other what's happened since August. Junior is full of stories about his experiences with Mr. Armstrong's band, and I tell Junior about what happened with Zero and how I came to be at Tougaloo so much sooner than I thought I would be. We sit down side by side on a bed of pine needles near the pond as Junior tells me about the places he's already seen while traveling with Mr. Armstrong. The reason he's here tonight is because the band made a stop in Jackson, and when he called home to talk to his parents, they told him he could find me here. I feel a pang of sadness, realizing he's completely satisfied with his new life.