Till You Hear From Me: A Novel

by Pearl Cleage

  “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

  I took a deep breath. “I didn’t get the job.”

  “At the White House?”

  “Anywhere.”

  Now it was Miss Iona’s turn to be confused. “But I thought you said you were going to work for the president.”

  “I was wrong,” I said, and that was the whole truth of it. I had dreamed up a fantasy job and then discovered that was exactly what it was: a fantasy. It felt good to tell her the truth, but I sure do wish she hadn’t spread the word quite so fast.

  “Oh, darlin’, I’m so sorry. What happened?”

  She sounded so sympathetic, I almost teared up. “I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t quite as indispensable as I thought I was.”

  She was quiet for a minute and then she said my fear out loud. “Do you think the Rev … being the Rev … had anything to do with it?”

  I sat back down and took a sip of my coffee. “I don’t think it helped.”

  She pursed her lips and sighed. “You know I wouldn’t have breathed a word if I’d thought it wasn’t a done deal.”

  “I know.” There was no point in blaming Miss Iona. She had only repeated what I’d told her. The fault was mine.

  “Is there any chance it’s just taking them a while to find the right place to put you?” she said, grabbing at the same straws I’d been clutching for weeks. “You know, someplace where they could use all your talents to the best effect.”

  “There’s always a chance,” I said. “Probably not at the White House, but, you know, somewhere else in government.”

  “Well, if they don’t make you an offer,” she said, covering my hand with her own and giving it a protective squeeze, “they’re not as smart as they think they are.”

  I appreciated her loyalty, although the thing that’s so impressive about the new administration is that they are exactly as smart as they think they are. But right now, I had to focus on damage control. This fantasy had the potential to blow up in my face, repeatedly, on the very night I wanted to keep everything, and everyone, on an even keel.

  “So does everybody who’s going to be at your house know?”

  She nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “Then I can’t go,” I said.

  “Why not?” She looked surprised.

  “What am I going to say to all those people who think I’m headed for the West Wing?”

  She thought for a minute, than brightened again. “Tell ’em you’re in delicate final negotiations and everything is still hush-hush until things are finalized.”

  I was impressed. As excuses go, that one wasn’t half bad. “You think they’ll buy it?”

  “Of course I do,” she said. “Nobody knows how anybody gets those jobs. The more mysterious you make it sound, the better. Then after you and the Rev have a chance to talk, you can straighten it out with the others, no problem.”

  She said “no problem” the way people say “no worries,” as if to imply that your insistence on obsessing about the matter at hand is simply a choice of perspective, which could easily be corrected by a little positive thinking. I wish I could say her confidence was infectious, but all I felt was a growing conviction that this whole evening was going to hell in a handbasket, Miss Iona’s good intentions notwithstanding.

  She was looking at me sympathetically again. “You want me to put some brandy in that coffee?”

  “That’s the best offer I’ve had all day,” I said. She got the bottle from the pantry and poured a dollop in my cup and another in hers.

  “Don’t let me forget to put it back,” she said. “Don’t want the Rev to know we got into his private stash.”

  We clinked our cups in a wordless toast, each took a nice long swallow, and sat looking at each other.

  “This will never work,” I said.

  “Of course it will.” She patted my hand again. “Trust me.”

  EIGHT

  Business Opportunities

  WHILE TONI SHEPHERDED STAN AND OSCAR OUT OF THE BUILDING BY a circuitous path that satisfied their strange need for cloak-and-dagger security measures and included a ride down a freight elevator, Wes took the moment alone to call his father and see if Mr. Eddie, as everyone but Wes called him, could put him up for a few days. He’d probably be too surprised to say no, even if he wanted to, Wes thought, punching in Mr. Eddie’s number.

  How long had it been? Wes tried to call his father every couple of weeks, just to check in, but things had been so busy lately, he couldn’t actually remember when they’d last spoken, much less laid eyes on each other. After four rings, his father’s ancient answering machine clicked on and the familiar voice greeted him, sounding vaguely uncomfortable like old people always do as if they never really trust the technology to take a message.

  “Good afternoon. You have reached the house of Edward Harper. Please leave a message and I’ll call you back quick as I can.”

  “Hey, Pop,” Wes said after the beep. “It’s me. Listen, I’ve got a couple of business opportunities I need to check out down there and I was wondering if I could stay with you at the house for a couple of days. I know we haven’t been able to spend much time together lately and I thought we could …” Could what? Catch up? His mother had been the conduit through which father and son had always communicated. When she died a decade ago, Wes and Mr. Eddie rode in deep silence from the church to the cemetery and back to the house. In the ten years since, neither one had found a way to break it, other than with an occasional, nonbinding “How you doin’?” Or a strangely formal “Merry Christmas.”

  Not that his father ever gave him any grief about not calling, any more than he chided him for not showing up for the birthdays and retirement parties and other stuff he missed or arrived at so late he might as well have missed them. His father was always happy to see him, but he never seemed to mind very much when he didn’t.

  “We could have dinner or something.” He sounded like he was talking to a stranger. “Anyway, I’m not sure what time my flight gets in, I’m coming in on a private jet this time, so I’ll call you. Okay, Pop. Looking forward to it.”

  He clicked off, wondering if he should have said “I love you.”

  NINE

  The Knowns and the Unknowns

  WHEN WE GOT TO MISS IONA’S HOUSE, WE COULD HEAR SOMEBODY growling a much nastier version of the Rolling Stones classic “Let’s Spend the Night Together” before she even opened the front door.

  “That man’s gonna get us all sent straight to hell playing that Muddy Waters mess that loud on Sunday afternoon,” Miss Iona said as she stepped inside, shedding her coat and heading down the hall toward the kitchen.

  “Turn that down, will you?” she said, over her shoulder. “I can’t hear myself think!”

  I took off my coat, too, and turned down the volume on their ancient but active stereo system where Mr. Charles was actually playing the album, not the CD. He had tossed the cover on the coffee table and Muddy Waters’s face was looking up at me from under the carefully constructed waves of that amazing process. For some reason, he was also wearing a long robe, which may have given Mr. Charles the idea that God wouldn’t mind adding Muddy’s voice to the heavenly choir.

  I hung up our coats in the hall closet beside the front door. Down the hall from the kitchen, I could hear Miss Iona and Mr. Charles and another couple of women’s voices I didn’t recognize. At least I didn’t hear the Rev’s boom yet. I needed a few minutes to gather myself together. I took a deep breath and looked around. Miss Iona and Mr. Charles lived in the cozy West End bungalow she had occupied solo for thirty years. The décor definitely reflected her taste for antiques and several small tables were crowded with souvenirs and bric-a-brac from the ports of call she’d visited on one of her beloved cruises. She had graciously accommodated Mr. Charles’s fondness for television by giving over what had been her sewing room to a large flat-screen television and his favorite burgundy pleather Barcalounger. She added a love seat and a cashmere throw for when
they wanted to cuddle up and watch something together and ordered a cable service with all the sports and movie channels, but no Playboy.

  “I don’t need the competition,” she’d said when the cable company salesman made the offer to Mr. Charles as part of a package. Although appropriately muted, I could see the large screen was alive with one of the nature shows Mr. Charles loved. A herd of graceful gazelle were in panicked flight from a tawny pair of lionesses who probably had cubs to feed and no time to waste.

  But Mr. Charles wasn’t watching TV today. He was cooking, and from the aromas wafting around the house, cooking up a storm. Of course, I was still nervous about the Rev’s reaction to seeing me, and mine to seeing him. I still had no idea how I was going to break the news to him about my fantasy job going up in smoke, or how I was going to lie my way through an evening with people who shared his pride in my nonaccomplishment, but something about the coziness of this house where I had spent so many happy hours and learned so many valuable lessons really calmed me down a lot. Maybe it was the music, or maybe it was because the whole place smelled like the soul food supper of your dreams. Roast chicken, baked ham, collard greens, and Miss Iona’s famous mac and cheese were sending out such amazing messages from the kitchen that for just a second or two, I forgot all about the knowns and the unknowns and just enjoyed being home.

  Before I could fully indulge my sudden wave of nostalgia, I heard Mr. Charles headed my way down the hallway. He was wearing a snow white chef’s hat and a big black apron that said “Don’t make me poison your food!” across his chest in huge white letters. He was followed by a smiling woman with her hair pulled back into two thick French braids and a girl in a bright pink sweater who looked to be about sixteen or seventeen.

  “Ida B. Dunbar, you are a sight for sore eyes!” he said, wrapping his long arms around me in one of many welcome home hugs I anticipated before the evening was over. I had known Mr. Charles as long as I had known Mr. Eddie, which is to say my whole life. “Welcome home, baby girl!”

  “Thank you,” I said, kissing his cheek and pointing to the writing on his apron. “Should I be concerned?”

  “Not for one second, darlin’,” he said. “Louie Baptiste gave us all one of these for Christmas.”

  Louie Baptiste was a wonderful chef who had been permanently displaced by Hurricane Katrina and was now the chef at Sweet Abbie’s, a new Tybee Island restaurant owned by Peachy Nolan and named after Miss Abbie, Regina Hamilton’s aunt and West End’s self-proclaimed visionary advisor.

  “You know those New Orleans folks are serious about their food.” Mr. Charles laughed and waved one long arm to include his two other guests in our moment. “Miss Ida B, meet two of the finest women in West End, Miss Flora Lumumba, gardener extraordinaire, and her daughter, the lovely and talented Fannie Lu Lumumba.”

  “You better stop all that before your wife hears you.” Flora laughed and reached out a warm hand. “Good to meet you.”

  “You, too,” I said.

  “Everybody calls me Lu,” her daughter said, also offering a handshake and a smile.

  “I’m just Ida,” I said, smiling back.

  Miss Iona appeared in the doorway wearing a frilly white apron that tied at her trim waistline with a bow and carrying a tray of ice tea with a wedge of lemon delicately balanced on the lip of each tall glass. Summer or winter, sweet tea was a Sunday staple.

  “So did everybody meet everybody?”

  Mr. Charles hurried across the room to take the tray and set it down on the coffee table.

  “You know I took care of my duties as official host,” he said. “Tell her, Lu.”

  “He said we were two of the finest women in West End.” Lu grinned at Mr. Charles, who grinned back.

  “I said it and I’ll say it again,” he said, handing a glass of tea to me and one to Flora.

  “They heard you the first time,” Miss Iona said. “Come on back and taste these collard greens for me. You know I never get them hot enough for you.”

  “I’ve been tasting all day,” he said. “We need a clear palate. Come on, Lu.”

  She shook her head. Her hair was pulled into two big Afro puffs, one over each ear. “I can’t. It’s got pork.”

  Lu had Flora’s face, but not her cocoa brown skin. Her sandy hair framed a light tan face with a delicate dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

  Mr. Charles groaned. “Oh, Lord, are you still on that no meat kick?”

  “It’s not a kick.” She looked at me. “We go through this every Sunday. Don’t pay us any mind.”

  “You come do it then, Flora. You’re not swearing off pork, too, are you?”

  “Not me,” Flora said. “All things in moderation.”

  “Find some more music, Lu,” said Miss Iona as the two cooks and their official taster headed back down the hall. “And get the doorbell if it rings, will you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lu said, smiling at me and heading for Mr. Charles’s well-organized album collection that was heavy on blues and a little pre-bebop jazz, and Miss Iona’s CDs, which included mostly female vocalists from the fifties as well as a healthy dose of Motown, the complete Anita Baker collection, every album Aretha Franklin ever made, and a recording of Leontyne Price singing Aida. As I recall, there’s also a pretty good selection of Mahalia Jackson. I wondered what Lu would pick.

  She squatted down in front of Mr. Charles’s two shelves of albums and began to flip through them. I sat down on the couch, took a sip of my perfectly sweet tea, and relaxed a little more. Lu pulled out John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things and flipped over to the liner notes. I wondered if she had ever heard it. The Rev was a big jazz fan so I had learned a lot just by osmosis.

  Lu grinned up at me, returning the Coltrane to its proper place and continuing her search. “Are you named after Ida B. Wells Barnett?”

  “Yep.” I grinned back. “Fannie Lou Hamer and Patrice Lumumba, right?”

  She nodded, pleased I had recognized the name of the martyred Congolese leader. “You’re good! Some people get the Fannie Lou part, but nobody knows anything about Patrice Lumumba. He was my dad’s favorite revolutionary so when he decided Jones was a slave name, Lumumba was a natural.”

  “We’re a walking history lesson,” I said as she pulled out Anita Baker’s Rapture. Every woman I know who’s my mom and Miss Iona’s age has this album in their collection, but Mr. Charles had his own copy. Men who like women learn to like women’s music. Mr. Charles loved women, especially the lady of the house, so I wasn’t surprised.

  “You’re Reverend Dunbar’s daughter?”

  “Do you know my dad?”

  She lifted the needle on Muddy Waters, replaced him with Anita’s masterpiece, and adjusted the volume to accommodate our conversation. “I interviewed him once for a history project,” she said. “He told me all these stories about the Movement and about working with Dr. King. He made it seem so real.”

  I wish they had put her interview on YouTube instead of the one they’re running, I thought.

  “It is real,” I said, but I knew what she meant. Their courage and commitment were bigger than ordinary life. That’s why they were able to change the world.

  “My dad told me your father is one of his heroes.”

  “Mine, too,” I said, and it was true. Which didn’t mean I wasn’t getting more nervous the closer it got to the time for him to lay eyes on me. I had missed him a lot, and more than anything, I wanted him to be glad to see me here among his friends and neighbors.

  “What was it like to—” Before Lu could finish her question, the doorbell rang. My heart started pounding immediately, wondering if this was the Rev; hoping it was, hoping it wasn’t.

  “’Scuse me,” Lu said. “Gotta play hostess.”

  To my great relief, she opened the door to a smiling young woman and a little girl of about five or six who was dressed in what looked like a Halloween costume under her coat, complete with a small tiara.

  “Hey, now!�
�� said the woman, kissing Lu’s cheek. “Sorry we’re late. I couldn’t find Princess Joyce Ann’s crown.”

  “I’m Cinderella, Mommy,” said the little girl. “There isn’t any princess named Joyce Ann.”

  “Well, there should be,” her mother said, spotting me as Lu helped the girl with her coat. “Hi! I’m Aretha.”

  “Ida Dunbar,” I said.

  “And this,” Lu straightened the girl’s tiara and turned her toward me, “this is Princess Joyce Ann Hargrove.”

  “Cinderella, Lulu!”

  “Princess Cinderella,” Lu said.

  I remembered a brief attempt on the Rev’s part to call me his little princess, and my mom’s outraged reaction that turned a sweet nothing into a slave name. I guessed the woman to be about thirty with close-cropped hair and three small gold hoops in each ear. She was wearing a long black dress with a high collar that accentuated her graceful neck, and a pair of Doc Martens on her feet that gave her outfit a funky, boho look that seemed just right. I can never pull that off, but I always admire a sister who can. Under her left arm, she was carrying a large black portfolio. I wondered if she was an artist. She looked like one.

  “Good afternoon,” I said to the princess. “I love your dress.”

  “Thank you,” she said, with the confidence that royalty must confer. “My daddy got it at Target.”

  Lu smiled and took the child’s hand. “Let’s go show Miss Iona.”

  “And Mr. Charles?”

  “He’s out there, too,” Lu said, guiding the princess past her mother. “How’d the pictures come out?”

  “Amazing, if I do say so myself.” Aretha grinned, looking around for a place to put down the portfolio.

  “Great,” Lu said, disappearing down the hallway. “I can’t wait to see.”

  “Put it here,” I said, moving the ice tea tray to a smaller table in the corner that was full of small sweetgrass baskets that I slid over to one side.