When Mr. Murphy started to set down his hat, Mama kept her door closed and I stopped going in. If we left home in the evenings, we took his car: mushy leather and not-soft cloth seats, lights instead of dull dials on the dashboard, a phone with an antenna set in the console. The first dinner together, and not without me, was at Red Lobster.
That year my name went from Autumn to my nickname: Get me my . . . Pill case. Water. Plate. House shoes. Rubber bands. Socks. Robe. Cover. Yarn basket. Needles. Thread. Flask. Grandma mentioned her locked knees and hands more. She settled into indented space in the easy chair more hours of the night, then the day too. I settled outside more and more in the shed, at the kitchen table alone, or in the yard to wait for a kid I knew from school to step up to our grass. We would talk in the road until a passing car’s interruption reminded us we were not good friends.
When I turned ten, and the tornado warning spoiled my Pizza Hut plans, Mr. Murphy gave me the tall doll on a round base. Mama and Grandma gave me cotton training bras. I pounded at my itchy chest all the time, for what they saw that I had not seen because it was so gradual in coming. The knowing smiles and placid conversations about “your time” and “those boys” and “your little thing.” Three whole inches in one year, too. I was distraught about pimples emerging like my chest and behind. Grandma bought me Ultra Glow, to smooth hyperpigmentation on the smallest little bump left behind.
Mr. Murphy told us I should go to the skyscraper—the twelve floors of Hedgewood’s tallest office center building near the courthouse. I was to go see the doctor there, one of our neighbors, one of his town business associates. We never saw inside the doctor’s house, but I stayed in his office: for creams, pills, shots, and burning peels to clear up my face. The complexion I recognized showed up just in time for middle school. Mr. Murphy claimed I was so pretty now. All due to him.
By then, he lived at our place or Mama at his. I was told to call him “Cole.” Cole showed his round belly and wide arms in plain T-shirts tucked in his night pants in the mornings, now, as he ate eggs and toast in the living room, and watched sports. At night, he switched to Coors for the news stations. If I wanted to watch The Golden Girls or A Different World, I had to ask him. Cole shooed the stray cats away before I could name them by color and personality like I had before he showed up, stray in his own way. He did not want me or Mama to toss them the scraps or the bones.
“They bring rabies,” he warned.
He was Mama’s “boyfriend.” I asked if that’s what he was. I knew what it meant. Because he bought her gifts. And he paid some bills. Plus he pulled out his wallet at cash registers before Mama reached for her purse. A couple times, he drove us to society stuff, in town. At these nice parties, Grandma talked very, very proper through her dentures. She told people at the table all about Hedgewood when she was young, coming from the South, and Black people couldn’t live here or there. Mama announced where she bought her earrings and her dress. I got to tell people what I just won in school.
“Call me Cole, darling,” Mr. Murphy said when Mama was upstairs or out back, and Grandma slept in the La-Z-Boy.
I was in the house alone with Mr. Murphy sometimes, because he showed up before they got back from the store. Or I did not want to go to church, and they ran late to come back to our dinner he thought would be ready by now. I went school shopping with him alone; Mama was sick, and I could not wear high-waters for another day and still call myself her child. Mr. Murphy roamed tools and electronics. I tried on skirts and shirts in a cubicle in the middle of Kmart. He took me home from a funeral repast. One of our great-aunts died; our people down South were in town for the first time in many years. Grandma wanted to visit as long as she could. Mama wanted to take pictures to mail to everybody later, after she made collages and frames, to show them she was still doing her art. The emptier the beer cartons and Boone’s Farm jugs fell, the more and more pictures she snapped. I did not know the people. Neither did Mr. Murphy—her “old man” now. He and I left together.
I laughed at his stories because my mother and grandmother did. I did him favors—hung his coat, brought him a plate, moved over—because he was older and I should.
“Call me Cole, sweetie,” he said, when he met me at a bus stop off the main street. The roads branched long ways apart. It was raining. And he had flexibility in his work while Mama had to stay overtime if sewers flooded, even if her daughter would slosh home in thunder and lightning in the part of town without awnings to wait underneath.
I could have walked. I liked the taps and pressure on my head from drops onto my yellow vinyl hat. I liked to see what designs the puddles would flow into when I splashed my galoshes in the middle of them. A dim coating spanned the horizon, to make every cornfield and house around it feel closer than usual. The pending drone of any car up ahead or behind, and the equalizing of color, gave more certainty to life in storms over the sunnier days, Technicolor false. The gray palette was fair. I knew the pulled-over Cadillac was for me, so I shuffled and got in.
Like outside, our house dimmed inside with the blinds tightened, a wet smell although the windows were closed. Mr. Murphy helped me shake out of the drenched coat, useless hat, and clumsy boots.
He came too close.
Grandma had herself in the kitchen, with the wood doors on either side of it shut, because she thought lightning could sneak inside.
After he came too close, next he started hugging me “Good-bye” or “Good night.”
I thought—but said nothing—about how his big, hard hand fit over my heart breast for seconds and he pressed. I thought. I knew I was getting big where I was once small, so maybe I got in his way. I thought about it a lot, once for a whole night. I received a detention for sleeping in class.
Next, he reached over to the dish rack to grab a beer mug or coffee cup from the other side of me as I stood doing dishes. He could have just gone in front of the dish rack. We had enough room in the eat-in kitchen, with a wraparound counter too. But he reached all around to get across, so he meshed into my body for seconds. Maybe three. Finally, he came behind me in the pantry. I tottered on my tippy-toes to reach the good Orville Redenbacher popcorn on the high top shelf where he put it, because he bought it.
“I’ll get it for you,” he told me. I didn’t even know he was in the kitchen.
And I felt a long hard line against my rear when he reached over me, for a long time that was not accidental now, because he never touched the popcorn box. He just switched himself from side to side and side. I held the bottom shelf where we put the canned goods that would kill us if they fell on our heads but only hurt us if they hit our feet.
A crooked smile it was, a little laugh arose in me, almost a burp. I said “Ummm . . .”
I was eleven.
That night we had meatballs, baked potatoes, canned asparagus with cheese, and frozen biscuits I pulled apart in too-thin strips. They burned on the bottom. Nobody ate any but Mr. Murphy. Grandma and Mama teased I could not make the biscuits ever again.
For a couple of days after this, Cole Murphy was gone away.
Now I was getting phone calls and answering machine messages from my cousins and classmates, all floundering in our own ways we never declared. Our chats surfaced at famous upperclassmen, the next big movie, music awards shows, hairstyles, unfair teachers, and other kids’ secrets.
I took it past “See you later.”
I had a postscript: “Can I sleep over your house this weekend?”
And Mama hissed: “No, cause I don’t want to drop you off and pick you up. It’s too far to drive.”
When I kept asking for these short getaways to another house and place in town, where I had girls my age for double Dutch and hairstyling and talking on the porch, rather than curt courtesies to the kids around me who could still afford the Catholic school, Grandma stood up for me. She said I was not a little girl anymore . . . I should “Go, go, go!”
Then, Mr. Murphy offered the favor. So I changed my mind and staye
d home. Or, I went with others straight after school, girls I wished were sisters. I came to relatives’ and friends’ houses, inspecting for their needs: leaves to rake, extra hands to clean out the garage, a new baby to sit, a senior to pick up prescriptions for. I could manage three nights a week I did not have to see Mr. Murphy.
If I had no excuse to be away, he found ways to stand behind me and come close. He came when I loaded clothes in the washer, took them from the dryer, stared into the fridge, organized groceries, put towels in the linen closet, and swept the front porch.
“Would you call him Cole, Autumn?” Mama started to say.
In the blessed school days, I sat in classes tracing the lines in my notebooks or the figures in textbooks I was to return at the end of the year. My papers grew much longer than everyone else’s. My English and social studies teachers praised them as “best.” I finished the math chapters quicker than the rest of the class too; I could go on by myself at my own pace, and finish the whole book. The librarian knew not just my face but my name; I checked out more books than any others, she said. When I doodled and drew, on grass and in secret, I lay on my belly. But when I read at home in the open, I was on my back. If I stayed on my back, Mr. Murphy would stay off of it.
Mama said she was sad I grew out of making stuff out back in the shed.
She had a better recommendation from one of her YMCA swimming friends than a new insurance plan and the salesman who came along with it: summer camp, a military-style departure, sequestered in Indiana cornfields. She begged Mr. Murphy to pay for it. I could go live with other girls and make new friends. I saw friends as useless. They would not come home with me, or take me home with them.
I wanted to march, salute, manage bows and arrows, swim as if my life depended on it, and most else but the strict instruction in the riding halls. They wouldn’t let us do any real stallions. No pony could match my daddy’s motorcycle.
I met Summer the last day of camp.
The night before the family arrival barbecue at camp, when Mr. Murphy would drive Mama to fetch me to return to Hedgewood, Summer slept beside me in my bunk.
She was waiting in the rocking chair when I came home. She looked like me, grumpier though. Same height, weight, and notes in the face.
She took over my father’s motorcycle, sitting in my place, moving and swaying with the vroom vroom vroom sound I used to make, only hers came out in silence.
We didn’t like the shed so much anymore. It was too messy, full and weighted. But, we found a patch of broken cement to dig through.
She told me, in a silence I just knew the words to, We can bury our notes to each other, always. We stuck them inside all the little bottles Mama used to throw out there.
You are pretty. You are strong. You aren’t a bad girl.
She told me, “We can put them in the house, around where he walks and sleeps, to weaken him.”
So we used dimes to screw open the heating vents above the skirting boards and snuck in our notes, to dry out and discolor until no one could read the words when Grandma investigated the oven smell long after she last used it.
You can fly. You are going to grow up and get a good job, and be so rich and famous, and you will pay the mafia to kill him.
She told me, “We can put them in our books and lunch boxes and lockers, so someone will find them and know.”
We put them there and forgot, so the counselor called Mama to talk about them.
You will be Foxy Brown and She-Ra, to shoot him and chop his arm off.
And so Summer knew. She knew it all. But she liked me anyway. And as she came along with me to block Cole, I knew she had been there with me all along.
We turned twelve.
TWENTY-THREE
She slipped back into home so soundlessly. When I heard the running water and tinkling dishes in the morning, what I found in our kitchen did not shock me. She stood, as lanky and slight as she was the first time, cleaning up the mess I couldn’t believe I had let myself get used to. We were raised better.
Autumn, please call me back—Noel Montgomery—as soon as possible.
I FLIPPED THROUGH JOURNALS FOR blank pages, to write love letters to her. There was much worth keeping from it all, so much more than rocking chairs and hats on tables . . .
The prettiness of our colorful bike tassels fluttering like wings in the wind.
The slapstick clown and pantomimist who performed for kids at the county fair.
The crackle of popcorn kernels exploding in the cast iron skillet.
The delicious, but stolen, wafers left over from Communion we weren’t qualified to have, found on the altar of the Catholic school chapel where we waited on our late mom.
Shortbread cookies Grandma bought in bulk when Girl Scout troops came round.
The first sloppy tries at lip gloss and sparkly eye shadow and glitter nails.
The thrill of boy toys, like swords and balls and train sets.
And still the calm predictability of collector dolls in taffeta, with pearls in their ears.
Autumn, one of your neighbors buzzed me in but you didn’t answer. They said you sound home, so that’s good to know. But I’d also love to hear how you are doing.
BY MID-SEPTEMBER, JAYLYN STEWART WAS a freed #BlackLivesMatter hashtag on a media tour to emphasize he never killed anybody in his life. And, that he found God.
Clients called. I didn’t answer or respond. So their double-talk began with customary salutations about Mondays and Fridays. Then, it veered into veiled warnings about nonpayable invoices. They finally cracked to blatant complaint and contract suspensions in the language of consulted-on, paraphrased legalese.
Norma Roth was different. She was set for a slow season after her spike of summer hires returned to college or grad school. She called me not to do more work for her, but to refer some girls her way for temp work. Our cabinets grew more and more spare. Summer had to grocery shop. I was out of money, after all. We were down to oatmeal, couscous, quinoa, frozen California blend, and stockpiled tomato paste for vitamin C cravings.
The tea party was nice. Even Asha said so. We set it up nicely for her.
“I’ve been calling you,” she said, when her knocks escalated. “What’s up?
“Oh, nothing, I’m just having tea,” I told her.
“Loose, I hope,” Asha said. “I told you that bleach in bags causes cancer.”
“And I heard you,” I said. “It’s been really busy.”
Asha left and returned with a blessed meal: curry chicken, cornbread, baked sweet potatoes, and collards sautéed with olive oil and soy bacon bits instead of pork.
Summer was exhausted, figuring out what we were supposed to do now. I pointed to Summer’s closed bedroom door, as I did get rather lively with Asha.
“I have a guest in town, from back home,” I smiled. “Sorry, but she’s kept me really busy. Sleeping now, but maybe we could all go out later.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a guest?” Asha said. “I would’ve brought more. Pack a portion. I don’t want to be rude.”
“No, I’m glad you came. I would have introduced you, but . . .”
We set her pots, my plates and teacups on Grandma’s maroon blanket, in the corner near Mama’s unhung and unsold paintings, drawings, and collages. Asha complimented my mother’s genius. She poured more tea. She did not drink immediately. She wanted to read the leaves. The food reminded my belly what normal should feel like. As I ate seconds, I heaped the remainder of the cooking into Tupperware. Asha gave me a renewed cup.
“Drink until it’s just a little left.”
I was surprised the water felt tepid, not hot. Asha was surprised I drank so fast. She found me amusing, I could tell. She became serious and stared through the dark liquid.
“So, they’ve separated well. Haphazardly, but still unpacked. You are working out issues in your soul that clogged you up. And, I’m obligated to say this: Money’s coming.”
I was grateful, and I committed to
making a party date before my guest left town.
Autumn, Montgomery here again. I saw your lights on last night, but you didn’t answer your bell . . . Your neighbor said you have a visitor? I’m glad you have care there.
THE BUBBLE BATH WAS ALL gone. Body wash didn’t lather as well. She didn’t mind. There was enough for the both of us. We touched our knees in the water. We played cruise ships with the bottles floating to the top. We went all around the world, to all the places we promised each other we would go together. We splashed and splashed, and ran hot water when the bath grew cold. We let the water rise too high. So high it spilled over the ledge when we scooted to shut the faucet off. And we laughed, because we would be in trouble now. But not really. Grandma’s spankings never hurt.
Hi Autumn. Noel Montgomery here. Listen, I’m sorry if I upset you with our last conversation. That wasn’t my intent. I thought it would help to hear what I thought. Maybe I was wrong. I’d really like for you to call me so we can discuss this further. I can help . . .
IT WAS OUR BIRTHDAY. CATHY mailed a card. Asha hung one from my doorknob, taped on a sack of handmade shea butter mixed with almond oil to sweeten the smell. Raymond had called, but not about that; he did not know our birthday. Chase stood his ground, a move of such angering finality I fantasized storming into SWAG’s offices. Summer could do the injuring. I could watch. We had nothing left in the apartment to make a cake. But, I knew where dessert might be left over. I would be offered more than I could stand. And it would be so good. So very good. But, then I would have to go out, and leave her behind. And then she could not understand I would return.
Speaking of Summer Page 20