Stones and Spark

by Sibella Giorello

  The second photo shows a group of people standing around Titus, who is still holding the uniform. The small print below identifies Titus first, then two coaches from the Richmond Braves who stand on his right. To his left is Timothy Williams, his brother. He's nowhere near as big as Titus but their faces look alike. The last person identified is a white woman who stands between the black brothers. Y'landa Williams, identified as "sister-in-law."

  "How d'you know him?" Gordo asks.

  I keep my eyes on the photograph, switching between Titus's face and the woman's.

  "Hey," he says. "I asked you a question: how d'you know him?"

  "Maybe I don't."

  Gordo leans in. "Expect me to believe that 'cause I'm some dumb homeless guy."

  "No," I turn to him. "Because maybe I don't really know him."

  Gordo stares at me. I want him to go away, but he's not leaving. Not for years.

  "Won't tell me, huh?"

  I can't smell the vinegar-and-cigarettes stink anymore, which concerns me since that means the olfactory sensors in my nose are full of it, can't take anymore.

  "It's a long story," I say.

  He sinks back into his chair and makes a big gesture of opening the newspaper so wide it cuts off all view of him.

  I go back to reading the story, but I can hear him muttering.

  "If you're paying attention," he says, "everything's a long story."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  When I bike away from the library, Gordo’s stink is hitching on my blouse. I hang a right on Ninth Street, bombing down the hill, hoping to lose his bitter smell. On the sidewalks, people hustle into tall buildings that tower with ambition.

  At the bottom of the hill, the river glistens. I ride across the Ninth Street Bridge. The wind pushes off the river, pressing against me. My hands tighten on the handlebars, gripping a white scrap of paper that holds a name and an address. And a point of no return.

  The moment my front wheel crosses into Southside, the world shifts. Gone are the smart buildings, replaced by boarded-up windows and broken glass lining the cracked curbs. A city bus groans past me, followed by a broken-down panel truck, and an old brown Lincoln—a woman blowing smoke out of the passenger window.

  I ride up Semmes Avenue and stop at the red light. Jefferson Davis Highway crosses the road, and traffic is suddenly heavy again: cars zipping across this forgotten wasteland of Richmond’s south end, heading places where graffiti doesn’t smear brick walls and grown men don’t sit on the ground holding paper bags.

  I have one foot on the crumbling curb, waiting for the light to turn green, when a car pulls up beside me. The paint was red once upon a time but has faded to a color like dead rubies. In the passenger seat, a man rolls down his window. His bloodshot eyes, matching the car’s paint, run up and down my bare legs, the stupid plaid skirt.

  “Yo, baby,” he says. “What’s happening?”

  I stare at the light, willing it to turn green.

  “I got whatcha need right here.”

  The wind, like some evil cohort, tunnels up the hill and ruffles the skirt, lifting the pleats. I slap one hand on my thigh, but the other can’t let go of the handlebars because of the paper under my palm.

  “You lookin’ for some ice?”

  I’m looking for a way to kick myself for not pulling on my P. E. shorts.

  “Right here. Ice cold crystal.” His hand comes out the window.

  I take off. Car tires skid. Horns blare. I zigzag across the road, squeezing the handlebars. My fingers ache. When I reach 24th Street, I hang a right. A small brick rambler sits on the corner, its lawn brown. I stop, check the paper, try to get my heart to slow down, then bike down the rest of the street. It’s not as bad as Semmes, but nowhere near as nice as Monument Avenue. Back off the road, I see a blue house. But that’s not it either.

  It’s at the end of the road, right where I’m about to turn around and go back to the library, asking Nelson to double-check this address. I read the paper again, checking the address with the white plantation house. Nelson found it in the city census, because it’s not listed in the phone book. A woman lives here named Y’landa Jones Williams. The census noted another resident, a minor female.

  I climb off my bike and wheel it toward the fence. A white picket fence, the paint peeling like the skin on Gordo’s cheeks. Greek columns line the porch, one of them used to chain a dog. A Rottweiler. He scrambles to a stand as I approach.

  He snarls.

  I open the gate.

  He leaps forward, choking on his chain. Foamy slobber flings from his teeth.

  For once, I’m wishing for the cell phone. But it’s in my backpack, in my locker at school.

  “Drop!”

  The dog hits the porch floor like he’s been shot.

  “What d’you want?” Demands a husky voice.

  I look around, trying to find the source. The front door is open four inches, a pair of eyes peering out above the chain.

  “I asked you a question!”

  I try to smile, like some Girl Scout here to sell cookies. “I’m looking for Y’landa Williams.”

  “What for?”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  “What for?”

  “It’s . . . ” I hear Gordo in my head, muttering about everything being a long story, if you’re paying attention. “It’s complicated. Are you Mrs. Will—”

  “Here by yourself?”

  I nod. The door slams.

  Oh, great.

  But suddenly it opens. The woman standing there looks almost like the person in the newspaper photo, except her blonde hair is longer, scragglier, and her body is wide, almost shapeless.

  “That your bike?” She steps onto the porch.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t just leave it there.”

  I stare at the bike, wondering where else to put it.

  “What in the Sam Hill’s the matter with you?” she asks.

  There will never be enough time to answer that, so I lift the scrap of paper and begin to say something else, but I’m cut off by a half-naked toddler. She bursts through the open door. When the Rottweiler sees her, he scrambles to his feet again, stumpy tail wagging.

  The little girl flings herself into the woman’s thick legs.

  “Gammy, play!” she cries.

  Scooping up the kid, the woman pats her diaper. The contrast between them seems brighter in the sunlight. Bare black legs on the kid; the woman’s white hands.

  She looks over at me. “You gonna tell me what you want?”

  “Are you Y’landa Williams?”

  “Depends who’s asking.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about Titus Williams.”

  She steps forward, still holding the kid, and yells. “Get off my property!”

  The dog, catching the mood, lunges. Barks. Slobbers. Lunges again. And the kid? She starts kicking her heels into the woman’s sides, like she’s a rider on a pony.

  “Gammy!” she screams, gray powder bursting from the diaper’s edge. “Play! Play!”

  The woman snatches the kid’s ankle, holding it tight as she hisses, “Stop.”

  Like the dog, the kid stops immediately.

  But unlike the dog, that’s not the end of it.

  The little girl sticks out her lower lip. Eyes closed, she opens her mouth, bawling. The woman closes her eyes, too. The dog whimpers. The kid cries harder.

  Slowly, the woman pats the diaper, rubbing the kid’s back until the crying slows. There’s a wet hiccupy cough, and then the woman whispers in the girl’s ear before setting her down on the porch.

  “G’on,” she says softly. “You can play it.”

  The tears, like magic, are gone. Her bare feet slap the porch floor as she disappears into the house.

  I wait a moment. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Then don’t ask me about that man.”

  I’m now certain this is Y’landa Williams because without my saying
another word, she unloads.

  “Him and his brother, both no good,” she rants. “Left me high and dry. I wish to God I’d never met them. He hasn’t even called his daughter in a year—his own flesh and blood!”

  “I’m sorry.” It’s all I can think to say. But the words don’t matter.

  She barrels on.

  “No child support, no alimony. Nothin’. Took off without one word, not one word. For all we know he’s in Timbuktu.”

  “But he’s right across the river.”

  She glares, stepping forward. “You seen him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where—where’s he at?”

  “In jail.”

  Her mouth drops. “Timothy—the Richmond jail?”

  It takes me a second. Timothy. The brother. He was in that photo. Titus’s brother.

  “No,” I explain. “Titus. He’s in jail.”

  Her expression is even more startled now, but it’s quick, evaporating in an instant. That tells me something. One, Y’landa doesn’t read the newspaper or listen to the radio or watch the news, and two, she didn’t expect to hear Titus was behind bars. “I know about the restraining order,” I tell her. “The one you took out against him.”

  Her jaw juts forward, stretching the skin on her thick neck. A stubborn look, and scary enough to make the dog lay down with a whimper.

  “I was protecting my daughter.” Her tone’s a low growl.

  “I understand. And Titus broke that restraining order when he let my friend and me come into his restaurant.”

  “So now he’s in jail. Good.” Her voice is simple, less passionate now. “Let him rot there.”

  “But my friend is missing. Nobody’s seen her since Friday. The police think Titus did something to her. That’s really why he’s in jail.”

  “Well, I’m right sorry for your friend.” Her voice is almost flat now. “Everyone’s luck runs out sometime.”

  I don’t know if it’s her tone, or her words, or the clatter that comes clonking onto the porch through the open door—a bunch of discordant notes that sound like a piano being played with a fist. Whatever it is, I feel something flick inside me, like a smoldering ember sparking into flame.

  “You’re wrong.” I raise my voice over the bad piano. “No disrespect, but luck’s got nothing to do with this situation.”

  “Sure it does.” She tossed her jutting chin toward my bike, then me, letting her pale eyes land on the blue crest embroidered on my white blouse, the insignia for St. Catherine’s. “Luck’s got everything to do with it. You’re lucky to go to some fancy school. My girl’s unlucky because nobody’s paying child support.”

  For a long moment we stand there. I don’t like the music, and I don’t like how she’s trying to shame me for going to a good school, even as she claims it all comes down to dumb luck. But more, my inner lawyer is arguing another point, the protests needling into my mind as the woman raises her voice to be heard over the music growing louder.

  “Yeah, Mr. Nice Guy, that who you met? Played the sweet uncle to my girl. Took her shopping, taught her how to throw a baseball.” She sneers. “I wonder which base did he get to?”

  The piano is being murdered.

  And she keeps listing all the things Titus did wrong. Giving rich ideas to a girl with not two cents to her name. Had her worshipping at his feet. Uncle Titus-this and Uncle Titus-that. The woman’s every word lands as heavy as the manslaughtering fists on the piano, but as she rants on, something begins ribboning around every accusation, like a piccolo playing so high and off-key it harmonizes with the rotten music.

  The sound of shifting blame.

  I wait for Y’landa Williams to run out of steam. It takes a while. Then I ask: “So, that little girl, she’s your granddaughter?”

  Our eyes lock.

  “He led her on,” she says.

  The child is black. And maybe Y’landa’s daughter is half-black. But every theory needs testing.

  “Okay. But I need to know. Did he—” My voice almost cracks. “Is Titus the father?”

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Where you live?”

  “Richmond.”

  “Nice neighborhood?”

  I nod.

  “Where you come from,” she says, “you can’t understand. All we got is her and me. That’s it.”

  “I do understand.” Those sad years after my birth dad ditched us, I will never forget them. And I never want to feel that bad ever again. “My dad left my mom, so I know.”

  “Like hell you know,” she sneers. “I had nothing when Timothy left us. Not one dime!”

  She starts ranting again, listing the hardships of poverty as I glance up and down the street. It’s clean. The houses look like people mostly take care of them. Except this one. When she stops talking, I look back at her.

  “Did he buy you this house?” I ask.

  “He gave her the idea he was gonna marry her.”

  I nod—I nod toward the dying piano. “That’s not Titus’s child, is it?”

  “Fourteen years old, she comes home and tells me she’s got a baby coming—and it belongs to Uncle Titus. I called the police. Right there, I called ‘em.”

  “For a restraining order.”

  “Hell yes!”

  The piano falls silent.

  She closes her eyes. Sucks in a deep breath. “Sugar pie?” she calls out.

  There’s no response.

  “Sugar pie. That was a right pretty tune. G’on and play some more.”

  One high key slips through the air, tentative as a question.

  “That’s right,” she calls to her. “Keep on.”

  When the clatter starts again she leans toward me, her voice low but full of heat.

  “I trusted that man. I left him alone with my daughter—”

  “But what did she do to him?”

  She pulls back. The clomping sounds gain strength, banging on the windows of the house. The house that Titus bought, I am sure of it. The house that he gave them to keep a roof over their heads when his brother abandoned them. The house that wouldn’t be falling apart if Titus were that kid’s dad because there would be DNA and a paternity suit and child support by court order.

  There would not be just some restraining order.

  “I saw him last night,” I tell her. “At the jail. He doesn’t have an alibi for when my friend went missing. So I need to know. Did your daughter tell the truth?”

  She stares at me, eyes cold and bright as blue granite. “Like I said, everyone’s luck runs out. Sometime.” Dropping a hand, she snaps her fingers. The dog rises, pants, waits for her next command.

  But she gives it to me instead.

  “You best be leaving,” she says. “G’on back where you belong.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Y'landa Williams is right--I don't belong on Southside.

  But I really feel like I don’t belong here either, standing by the rich girl's lunch table, sweating from a long bike ride, waiting for Tinsley to reply after I say, "We need to talk."

  She dips a stalk of celery into what looks like a thimble of oil-and-vinegar dressing. Tinsley's lunch looks nothing like my usual crumpled brown bag, stuffed with my mother's daily ballast. Tinsley brings a white square box. Inside, a small green bottle of Perrier rests on its side, as if bowing to her.

  "Raleigh," she says, "can't you see I'm eating my lunch?"

  "That's not lunch," I explain. "That's an eating disorder.”

  She turns to her friends. "Did I tell y'all? The police called my house."

  None of the girls reacts like that's news, which means Tinsley's already been down the gossip road. Probably a couple times. The news is being broadcast now for me, for an effect on me. So that when I walk away, they can snicker.

  "The police called you for the same reason I want to talk to you. You're the last person who saw Drew."

  "Unfortunately," she says.

  I grit my
teeth. "What did you tell the police?"

  "The same thing I told you! After you ran through the dance like some crazy banshee."

  "What did you tell me?"

  "Raleigh, you know perfectly well what I said."

  I do. But my dad's courtroom taught me that truth sometimes rises in stages. People say one thing, and when you press them, they say another. This is especially true if you're dealing with belly-dragging snakes.

  "Tell me again, Tinsley."

  She waves the celery. "Drew cancelled, I was thrilled, she ran away, that's the whole story right there."

  "You're leaving something out."

  Norwood leans forward. "Did you just call Tinsley a liar?"

  "Pretty much."

  "How dare you!" Tinsley's spine goes as rigid as the celery. "It's not my fault your weirdo friend ran away."

  "That's true."

  "See?"

  "Yes, I see how I might be tempted to run away if had to tutor you. But Drew's stronger than me. She can handle extreme torture."

  Her green eyes are glacial. "Do you know what your problem is, Raleigh?"

  "I hate liars?"

  "You lack nuance."

  "Nuance."

  "It means manners." The celery gets waved like a baton. "The art of diplomacy. It's when southern girls know how to act polite, not being rude. It's a subtle skill."

  Norwood laughs. "And Raleigh's about as subtle as a sledgehammer."

  The coven giggles.

  "Remember in sixth grade," Norwood continues, "when she brought that giant rock for show-and-tell?"

  "And her hammer?" Tinsley adds.

  "And then smashed the thing open?"

  They continue laughing about my geode.

  But suddenly it stops.

  I had been thinking things couldn't get worse, but that's usually a sure sign that they're about to. I can read the expressions on their beautiful faces, and they look like a car just plunged off a cliff. Followed by: Bless your heart.

  "Miss Harmon."

  I turn around. Parsnip looks like she could use a dozen stalks of Tinsley's celery, to help relieve her constipation.

  "You were seen leaving campus this morning."

  I glance at Tinsley. She smiles. It's a big and genuine smile. She is suddenly happy.