Mommy’s love. It went on and off like the sign that blinked in the window of the bar on Bourbon Street, the one closest to our house. When she loved me, it was like someone turned on the sun. I tried to get warm in its glow without getting a sunburn.
“Emmaline, some little girls are not meant to have fun. It gets in the way of their great beauty.”
“But I’m not a great beauty, Mommy.”
“Yes, you are. You have glorious blonde hair, blue eyes to get lost in, perfect fair skin and a tempting smile. People appreciate beautiful things. Some people love them so much they will pay a huge sum of money to possess them.”
Mommy’s fingers moved from my cheek to my dress. She undid half of the pearl buttons on the front, starting at the lace collar. My face turned red when I saw my naked chest and my pink nipples. It was more than Mommy had ever forced me to show any of her men.
I grabbed the loose ends, trying to hold them shut, but Mommy took my hands away and held my arms by my sides.
“Now. Stand up straight. Plant yourself right in front of this nice man when you pour his tea. Let him see you. Tempt him with that smile but don’t let him touch. Today, I’m giving him a little tease. You play along like you always do, like a good girl. Mommy’s very good girl.”
“What do these men want with me, Mommy? Why do you make me see them?”
“I am your mother, Emmaline. The horrors I endured to have you give me the right to make the rules.”
“But I don’t know how to play the game if I can’t understand the rules.”
Mommy sighed and ran her fingers through my hair. Loving Mommy once more. “My smart, smart girl. It will be your undoing, but I will humor you. One of these nice men would like to be your new Daddy. They just need a chance to get to know you.”
“Are you in love with any of them, Mommy?”
“In a manner of speaking. Sometimes it’s best to be in love with what love can give a girl, especially when a man offers exactly what a girl loves in the bargain.”
I bit my lip. What could be worth more than being loved?
The doorbell echoed through the house. My heart beat twice as fast. I hated meeting Mommy’s men. Being ladylike when my clothes hung open was too much for me, and when things were too much, I made mistakes.
I took my place next to the tea things, my dead Mamou’s white china pot and cups with pink roses. In my mind, I imagined my Wonder Twin running through the park, in pants, with knots in her hair. If I closed my eyes, I was almost there.
Mommy beamed at me before opening the door. “Now, be charming. Make this man love you more than any of the rest of them do.”
FIVE
After it was over, I ran away as fast as I could. It was easy to slip out the back door and into the garden. Aunt Bertie’s roses got up my nose as I ran down the alley and crossed the street to my school. I liked to go to the playground after meeting one of Mommy’s men, because I could run and swing. I could forget.
When I climbed the slide, I saw Sister Mary Catherine’s face in a window of the school building. She waved, and I waved back before flipping over the bar at the top of the slide. I always went down the slide faster when I started with a flip.
My feet stopped me at the bottom, and I sat there thinking. About Daddy. The metal was warm. If I stretched out on it, I imagined it was the heat from Daddy’s embrace. He always hugged me best. When I was with him, nothing bad could ever happen to me.
A bird flew against the wide-open sky, all red.
“That would be a cardinal, Miss Cagney.”
Sister Mary Catherine made a long shadow squatting next to me. I sat up and smoothed my skirt. When I looked down, my buttons were fixed wrong, and I crossed my arms in front of my chest to hide the mess. “A cardinal like the ones in Rome?”
“Not quite the same, but yes, there are cardinals in Rome.”
“How far is Rome? Can a person fly there?” I ran around to the ladder and went up the slide again. At the top, I bounced against the bar, getting ready to do another flip. Adults answered questions better when kids kept moving.
“Well. You know that Rome is in Italy. Which continent is Italy part of?”
“Europe. Right?” Flipped. I held the bar to keep from sliding to the bottom.
“Very good, Dear. I suppose one can fly there in a day, provided the airplane is fast enough.”
“Do they let little girls on airplanes?” Let go. Hit the bottom and got up to do it again.
“Why, I’m sure they do, if an adult goes, too.”
“But what if an adult can’t go? Then what happens?” Climbed the ladder. Flipped and held.
She squinted up at me. “That child would have to buy a ticket, and tickets to Rome are very expensive.”
“How much?”
“Hundreds of dollars, at least.”
Pushed off with my hands and went as fast as I could to the bottom. “But if the child had hundreds of dollars to buy a ticket, could she get to Rome on an airplane? Or, somewhere else? Maybe closer?” My feet hit the ground. I waited.
Sister Mary Catherine stared at me with her head cocked to one side before she stood to brush off the front of her black outfit. “Emmaline Cagney, why are you asking these questions?”
“Because, someday, I want to be a stewardess and fly all over the world.”
“You are such a bright girl, always thinking ahead. I’m certain you’ll figure everything out when the time comes.” She slapped her hands together to get rid of the rest of the playground dust and patted me on the head. I looked around the drape of her sleeve and found her eyes.
“I hope so.”
She opened her mouth and closed it. Opened it again, almost like a fish. “Well, if you need me, I’ll be in my office.”
I watched her pull the rusty doors and go into the school building.
Would I go to hell for lying to a nun? Sometimes, I didn’t think the Devil could be much worse than Mommy on a bad day.
If I called a telephone number, put a cloth over the phone and talked really low, would anyone on the other end mistake me for an adult when I tried to buy a plane ticket? My voice sounded high and baby-fied when I talked out loud. I walked into the parking lot and stood next to a car to hide from Sister Mary Catherine. I practiced my grown-up voice, but nothing gave me that Aunt Bertie sound. After closing my eyes to focus every drop of my Wonder Twin powers, I cleared my throat and tried again.
“Child, I just want to buy one ticket. To Nashville, Tennessee. For my daughter. She’s flying all by herself to meet her daddy. She’s going to live with him forever.”
When I looked up, a man was watching me from the other side of the parking lot. He made a big shadow, and his navy blue suit did not smooth out curves like Mommy said dark colors could do. Loose skin hung from his jaws and down his neck.
Like a bulldog.
I walked around a car to get to the alley and go home, but he blocked the way. A cigar burned between his lips. He took it out and blew smoke that made me cough. Sometimes, that stink was in Mommy’s office after one of her men left. Almost all Mommy’s men smoked. Boys were dirty.
I scooted behind another car to get around him, but it was too close to the wall. When I tried to squeeze along the back, I didn’t fit. I couldn’t get around the car parked on the other side, either. The man stood at the opening of the path between the two cars and smiled, the cigar still smoking in his mouth.
“I won’t hurt you, little beauty. Come on out.” He held out his hand. “I walked all the way over here to talk. Just talk. That’s all.”
I held my breath and waited, until my face got hot. The space underneath the cars was too small for me to crawl under, even if I could shrink myself with my Wonder Twin power. Besides, he would just be waiting for me on the other side. He blocked the way, watching my mind work and breathing his ciga
r.
Looking at me funny.
“What are you doing out here, little beauty?”
Why did he keep calling me “little beauty?” Still, he was smiling and being nice. I took a couple of steps toward him.
“Playing.” I sized up the number of steps to the alley. How I could try to hurt him and run. But he was so much bigger than me. If I stepped on his foot, he probably wouldn’t feel it, and he had so much fat to bite through.
“Motor vehicles are dangerous places for pretty little girls to play.” He leaned on the hood of a car. It crunched a little. “Perhaps you’d let me take you home.”
“I don’t need a ride. I live close by.”
“I know where you live.”
The bricks scratched my elbows when I backed into the wall. “How do you know that?”
“Why, because I’m Wilkinson. Judge Wilkinson.” He took another step toward me. “I remember you. You’re Nadine Cagney’s little girl.”
I shrank into the corner. The dangling chin. And the voice. It was the one behind the wooden stick in the courtroom. This was the man who took my daddy from me.
His jangley mouth kept talking, closer to me, and he breathed fast. He still smiled, but smiles can be nice or not nice, and his was not nice. “I’d like to spend some time with you. Maybe take you to Café du Monde for some beignets.” He felt the buttons on the shirt that strained against his belly. “As you can see, I’m partial to sweets, too. We have a lot in common, you and me.”
He reached his fingers out to touch my face, and I blurted out the first thing I could think. “Are you one of Mommy’s men?”
His eyes narrowed. His breath breezed along my face. “Your mother is a skilled entertainer of men. That I know.”
“Lots and lots of men come to see her.”
“How do you know that? Do they see you, too?” He ground his cigar under his foot and took out another one. His big hands shook when he chopped off one end with a blade thing, stuck it in his mouth and lit it. He spoke through clenched teeth. “I said, do they see you? These men?”
“Sometimes. Mommy makes me dress up and serve them tea.”
The cigar fell out of his mouth and rolled toward me. He pounded his fist into one of the car windows and yelled. When the glass cracked and cut into his hand, I ran. Through the alley. Across the street. His shouts followed me through the middle of the next block and to the back door of Mommy’s house. I didn’t stop running until I was upstairs, locked in my attic bedroom. I turned on the window fan to block out the memory of the sound of his voice, still shouting in my head.
“You’re mine! You’re mine! You’re mine!”
SIX
Her voice. It rang inside my skull. A warning that died against the echo of my screams.
Our plan was in jeopardy. She wanted me to know. Even as she was swallowed up by the alley, she turned her head, and I heard what she said.
Nadine was trying to keep us apart.
I wound a handkerchief around my hand and sliced the head off another cigar. Cuban, rich and raw. Flame lit up the tip and sizzled toward my mouth. Even the finest things could be consumed. Enjoyed. Destroyed.
Smoke haloed around my head. I shook it off when I turned toward the tap on my shoulder.
A nun, the old fashioned kind. She could’ve worn the same black robe two hundred years ago. A phantom from another time.
Can I help you? She said. Brisk. Efficient. Already done with me.
My fingers tingled. Her sort never did much for me, but I kept my eyes trained on hers. Bland ones, still young. Not used up.
Her neck hovered in the periphery. A tease of impossible length shrouded in coarse material.
I shifted my jacket to hide the bulge. She would have to do. For now.
When I cleared my throat, my voice was angelic.
Why yes, Sister. I’m here to make my confession.
Follow me, she said.
SEVEN
A door slammed. I sat up on my bed, still wearing my blue dress. It was night. I crawled out of bed and opened my door to a crack. A man yelled that he was coming up the stairs, causing all kinds of commotion on the second floor. I heard somebody whisper that they would climb down the back balcony. A shoe hit the floor, and doors opened and closed. Several ladies talked in high, tight voices.
Feet thud-thud-thudded up the stairs, and a beam of light blinded me before a shadow got in the way. I closed my door and looked for the best place to hide. What had my mother gone and done now? I could no longer think of her as Mommy. Not after seeing the Judge in the parking lot.
Aunt Bertie pushed through my door as I scooted under the bed. She slammed and locked it behind her. Her voice came out breathy. “Let me see you, Emmaline Child.” Dust tickled my nostrils when I backed out from under my bed and sat on the floor, Indian-style.
She leaned against the door. Her whole black chest showed through the front of her rainbow robe. She looked down and pulled it closed. Her fingers shook when she took my face in her hands.
“What’re we gonna do with you?”
“What’s going on, Aunt Bertie?”
“Your fool momma. She done crossed the wrong man.”
I inched closer to her. “Who? Which man?”
“Doesn’t matter now. We’ll all go to jail tonight. All except you.”
“Then I’m going to jail, too. I have to stay with you.”
Bertie’s fingers brushed a tear along my cheek. “No. NO. You listen to me, Child, and listen good. That Judge, he’s behind this business.”
I swallowed. Was this whole thing my fault? Because of what I said on the playground earlier? “I—”
“Listen to me. That man’s got pure evil where his heart should be. Whatever happens, don’t let him get you.”
Steps hit my landing. Bertie gasped over Roberta’s muffled screams that floated from the room across from mine.
Bertie smoothed my hair with her hands. “Cop’ll be busy with her for a minute.” She chewed her lip and studied me, almost like she thought she could make me disappear. A dab of blood shone on her front tooth when she spoke. “I want you to sneak downstairs. The first door you see to the outside, you run, you hear me? Run away from here, Child. Fast as you can.”
“But—”
She hugged me into her lumpy chest, and I breathed her scent of cinnamon and sweat. The smell of love. Of safety. Of home. I tried to pull my face away, but she kept it buried. “There’s no time to argue. You have got to get away from the Judge. What he wants with you—it isn’t right. That man’ll hurt you worse than anybody can.”
The policeman banged on the door across the hall. Wood broke apart, and he shouted, “Come out. I know I’ve got at least one whore and her man hiding in here.”
Bertie put her hands over my ears. She unsnapped the front of her robe and held it open. Her rolls of fat sparkled. “Quick. Pick up those shoes there.”
I grabbed my Sunday mary janes and pulled them on, my fingers clumsy with the buckles. I never could get them on when I had to hurry.
Before I was done, she beckoned me to her. “Good, Child. Good. Now, I want you to stay right behind me under this robe. You bury yourself as deep as you can into my back. When I walk, you step with the same foot as I do. Don’t make a peep, you hear me?”
“I won’t, Aunt Bertie.”
I tried to memorize her face. Her round cheeks and frizz of hair. After tonight, would I ever see her again? If my mother went to jail, would Bertie go with her? I could imagine life without my mother, but since Daddy was taken from me, my whole world was Bertie.
Before I could tell her that, she grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. “You better not, or the Judge’ll take you, and he’ll hurt you for the rest of your life. As soon as your feet hit the floor downstairs, you pop out from under there, and you run. You run li
ke hell-fire is chomping at your heels. Don’t stop. Don’t look behind you. Promise me you won’t ever come back here.”
The crash of furniture shook the floor, and a man’s voice whined like a baby, littler than me. “Please, Officer. Don’t tell my wife where you found me.”
“Fat chance, you horny bastard. Now, get on out of that trunk. How did you fold that gut of yours up in there, anyhow?”
Bertie rubbed my back and smiled at me through her tears. She shoved a stack of envelopes into my hand, tied with a red string. “Promise me you’ll find your daddy. He’s in Nashville these days, remember? Here’s a bunch of his letters to you. Your momma would’ve burned them, but I hid them from her.”
I ran my thumb along the uneven paper. “You mean, Daddy wrote me all these times?”
“Uh-huh. Almost every day. I saved all the ones I could. Addresses are all over the place, but this last one’s in Nashville. I told you. Remember?”
I could just make out the word ‘nash’ in the smeared postmark.
“You get somebody to take you to him. He’s the only person you got in the world now. Nobody left here for you to go to.”
Footsteps stopped at my locked door, followed by a knock. I stuffed Daddy’s letters down the front of my dress. After a beat, a man shouted, “Don’t make me break one more door tonight, and I might be in a good mood when you open it.”
“Just a minute, Officer.” Bertie pushed me under her robe and clicked the snaps closed in front. “I just need to make myself presentable.”
“I seen it already. Open this door. Now.”
She whispered it one more time. “Stay behind me and run.”
The lock squeaked, and the door opened. My nose itched from the dirty cigarette smell. I pinched my nose together to keep from sneezing.
“Well. Now, ain’t you a whole lotta woman. You head on downstairs. I think I’ve rounded up everybody else here.”
Bertie’s back went stiff. When she shifted her weight to one leg, I followed her with my body and copied her stance, the one she got when she flirted with my mother’s men. “Oh, Officer. I’ll come on down right behind you. Make it easy and all.”
To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis Page 3