Till You Hear From Me: A Novel

by Pearl Cleage

  “Good one though,” I said, enjoying her story.

  “He wanted to move to D.C. right then, but Lu begged him to wait until she finished high school and he couldn’t tell her no. She’s always been a real daddy’s girl. Then he ran for City Council, so he’d have something to do, I guess, and got elected, which meant he had plenty to do, but he’s not going to stand for reelection because of this new job.”

  She still hadn’t told me exactly what the new job was and I suddenly wondered if Hank’s job was as ephemeral as mine. I hoped not. I liked Flora and something told me we’d be good friends if we were ever in the same spot longer than a minute.

  “What’s the job?” I said.

  Flora shook her head and laughed. “Which is what I started out to tell you in the first place. My mind is gone! You know all that stuff that came out from the Republicans during the campaign? Voter fraud, robo calls full of misinformation, scare tactics. All that stuff? Well, they’re still doing it, but I don’t have to tell you that, do I?” She smiled that your secret is safe with me smile again.

  “They love that stuff,” I said.

  “Exactly. So what Hank does is help the Democratic National Committee manage the ongoing efforts to keep that mess under control.”

  From Detroit crack dealers to Republican saboteurs. The man clearly liked a challenge.

  “That’s great,” I said. “At least the Republicans won’t throw a firebomb through your window.”

  She laughed. “So far, so good!”

  “I’d love to come by and hear more about what you’re doing,” I said as Miss Iona came through the door, unable to trust us alone in her kitchen for one more minute.

  “Stop by any time,” Flora said. “I’ll be there all day tomorrow.”

  “Don’t let her get you in that office,” Miss Iona said, shaking a warning finger. “It’s a force field. First, she gets you in the front door and next thing you know, you’re knee-deep in collard greens and seed catalogues.”

  “There are worse things to be knee-deep in,” Flora said, laughing and untying her apron. “Your timing is perfect. How’d we do?”

  Miss Iona nodded slowly, looking around at our handiwork with a practiced eye. “Nice job. If you do windows, we’ve got a deal.”

  “Not a chance,” Flora said. “Give me back my child and I will say good night.”

  “She’s waiting for you up front and so is your dad,” Miss Iona said.

  Flora glanced at her watch. “Good grief! How did it get to be midnight already?”

  “Time flies when you’re having fun,” Miss Iona said as we headed down the hallway, where we all sort of migrated to the door in a big happy circle of good nights and great evenings and see you in the mornings and even a final welcome home or two. When the dust cleared, Miss Iona and Mr. Charles had gone inside to bed, Flora and Lu had accepted Mr. Eddie’s offer of a ride home, and the Rev and I found ourselves alone on the sidewalk in front of Miss Iona’s house.

  The air was February crisp, but not cold, and the sky was clear enough to count the stars. The Rev looked at me and offered his arm. My father has been offering me his arm since I was tall enough to take it.

  “Well, daughter,” he said, turning us toward home. “Shall we ramble?”

  FOURTEEN

  Till You Hear From Me

  ME AND THE REV TOOK THE LONG WAY HOME. THIS HAD BEEN OUR habit since I was a kid. It’s only two blocks to our house, but we never went there directly. We rambled. My father liked to be a visible presence in the lives of his parishioners so we’d stroll home through the neighborhood so they could see him and call a friendly greeting or ask him about one of the zillion meetings he was always on his way to, or compliment him on a great sermon the Sunday before. We’d pass Blue Hamilton’s house so we could admire the giant magnolia tree in his front yard. Or we’d turn at the corner so we could check on the progress of Mr. Eddie’s garden or smell the honeysuckle that grows so thick in his backyard that the sweetness can make you giddy if you stay too long.

  I had seen Mr. Eddie’s son, Wes, kissing a girl in their back porch swing once when he was about twelve or thirteen. I was taking a shortcut across their yard and as I slipped through unnoticed by the lovers, I wondered if it was Wes or just the smell of the honeysuckle that made her want to surrender to his dubious charms.

  “Your father is getting sentimental in his old age,” the Rev said as we strolled down Peeples Street. “Hope I didn’t embarrass you bawling like that in the middle of Iona’s kitchen.”

  It was a warm night for February and even though we both had our coats on, it wasn’t too cold for us to fall into the easy rhythm of our ramble.

  “You weren’t bawling,” I said, squeezing his arm. “You shed a few very dignified tears is all.”

  He patted my hand. “Thank you for that, daughter.”

  Sometimes we would talk while we rambled. I would tell him about school or work or my latest run-in with Mom. He would listen for a few minutes and then advise me on a course of action with such certainty that I rarely questioned it. Then he would talk to me about the events of the day. From local politics to world revolution, the Rev had a wealth of information about questions it would take me years to even articulate, much less understand. So I didn’t try. I’d just walk along beside him and let the words wash over me. Sometimes I could follow the course of his thinking and sometimes I’d get lost in it, but just listening to his voice, feeling his courage and commitment, made me proud to be his daughter.

  But tonight, neither one of us said a word. I know the Rev had more to say about his interview and I sure wanted to come clean about my White House fantasies, but it had been a very long day and I was exhausted. There was plenty of time tomorrow for true confessions. Tonight, all I wanted to do was ramble my tired ass home to a long hot shower and a good night’s sleep in my bright pink baby girl bed.

  When we got to the house, the Rev opened the big front door that he never locked and we stepped inside.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said, leaning over to kiss my cheek and give me another hug.

  “I’m all yours,” I said, wondering why I thought it would be easier to tell him the whole truth in the morning than it was right now.

  “Then I am a very lucky man,” he said. “Good night.”

  I started up the stairs as the Rev hung his coat, but I felt bad. How could I lie to this man? Was I crazy? Why not just spit it out and get it over with? I took a deep breath. “Daddy?”

  “Yes?”

  Then I lost my nerve. We had just started talking again and here I was about to let him down big-time. What’s the hurry? I thought. Tomorrow morning was soon enough.

  “Nothing. Good night.”

  But as I turned around, the Rev called me back. “Daughter?”

  “Yes?”

  Something in his eyes was suddenly serious. “I need to ask you something important and I want you to give me a truthful answer.”

  I tried to look calm. “Okay.”

  “Do you think I’m the reason those Obama people haven’t closed the deal on this job with you yet?”

  I now felt officially awful. My father was feeling guilty because he thought his being persona non grata was keeping me from sitting at the right hand of you know who. I thought so, too, but I couldn’t look my father in the face and say that, so I just leaned down from that third step and kissed his cheek. “No, Rev. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “Are you sure? These are some grudge-holding Negroes, Ida B, and they have a very long reach.”

  “Everything is on track,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  The relief that flooded his face made me feel even worse for keeping the lie going between us.

  “Good,” he said. “Then please forgive me for being such a foolish old man.”

  “Watch it,” I said, “that’s my dad you’re talking about.”

  I stayed in the shower until the hot water steamed the stress out o
f my shoulders and I was able to convince myself that the Rev would understand. After all, I hadn’t outright lied. It wasn’t my fault that Miss Iona had told everybody about my slight exaggeration. Of course all that was neither here nor there at this point. What I needed was a way for the Rev to let the folks he’d been bragging to about me know I didn’t really have a White House job without him having to actually say I didn’t. As soon as I could come up with a strategy to save his face and mine, I could relax a little. But for now, all I could do was sleep on it.

  I stepped out into the hallway wrapped up in the big terry cloth robe Miss Iona had given me after she came by a couple of Christmases ago and found me wearing my high school robe, because I still loved it even though it had seen better days. Downstairs I could hear the Rev playing our old upright piano. He had a beautiful baritone voice and he and Mom used to sing all the time when I was growing up. She was never very religious, but she loved to sing hymns, spirituals, freedom songs from every major American social movement, Christmas carols, and a fairly impressive repertoire of pop tunes from the fifties and sixties.

  My father was a gifted musician who had a very brief career around Macon playing saxophone in after-hours clubs until his mother found out and sold his horn, which she regarded as an instrument more suited to secular environments, and invested in a used piano. Some of my favorite childhood memories are of the nights when my parents’ voices would wake me up and I’d slip out of bed and crouch at the top of the stairs, listening to them singing together. When my mom told me she was moving out, I remember not being surprised. They had stopped singing months ago.

  But tonight, the Rev wasn’t singing. He was just down there playing his ass off. I recognized the tune, but I couldn’t remember the lyrics. I walked down the hall in my bare feet and sat down at the top of the stairs in my same old place to listen. At the end of the song, the silence in the house was so perfectly peaceful that we both sat still and let it play out. Then the Rev’s voice floated up to me like we were already in the middle of a conversation.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing, daughter,” he said, starting to play again softly. “For now, we’ll just keep our own counsel. How does that sound?”

  It sounded great, even though I wasn’t really sure what he meant. “Okay.”

  His fingers paused on the keys. “Do you trust me, daughter?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Well, just don’t forget it.”

  “I won’t.”

  He started the song again. “Good night, then.”

  “Good night.” I stood up, but first I had a request. “Daddy?”

  “Yes, daughter?”

  “Can you sing the words?”

  “Of course.”

  It was an old Duke Ellington tune. One of my mother’s favorites. As soon as he started singing, the words all came back to me in a rush. I headed down the hall to my room, half expecting to hear my mother’s voice join in the way she used to, but all I heard was the Rev.

  “Do nothin’ till you hear from me,

  Pay no attention to what’s said …”

  Which was, of course, easier said than done.

  FIFTEEN

  Serious Soul-Searching

  AT 3 A.M., THE ATLANTA AIRPORT HAS A GHOSTLY QUALITY. MOST OF the arrival gates are empty. Departures are sporadic. The stores, newsstands, and last-chance-to-tank-up-before-the-flight bars are closed until morning. Cleaning crews move like wraiths through the largely deserted concourses, lost in their own thoughts or talking furtively on their cell phones, sneaking a personal moment on company time. That was one of the things Wes liked most about being his own boss. He didn’t have to ask permission to do a damn thing. It wasn’t always easy, but it was always worth it.

  The plane had touched down on a small runway, far removed from the giant carriers that disgorged hundreds of people at a time. Wes had been on private planes before, but not enough to get tired of them and never one as nice as this. It had six huge seats covered in soft gray leather, a giant flat-screen TV, complete with computer hookups, and a small bedroom with a shower. The towels were monogrammed HGM after the plane’s owner, Herman Gilmore Murphy, an oil tycoon who saw Barack Obama’s election as the worst single moment of his lifetime, not because of race, but because of what Herman called the new president’s “Socialist agenda.”

  Wes thought Herman was a classless buffoon who wasn’t half as smart as his millions made everybody tell him he was, but that didn’t mean he’d turn down an offer to fly like the rich guys do all the way to Atlanta. They sent a car for him at ten thirty and by eleven thirty, he was settled comfortably in the lap of the kind of luxury to which he hoped to soon become accustomed. It was the most relaxing flight he’d ever had.

  When they arrived in Atlanta, Wes thanked the flight crew, and thanked himself for arranging an early check-in at the Four Seasons. Wes was officially staying at his father’s house, but he was a firm believer in one of his mother’s favorite expressions: It’s a sorry rat ain’t got but one hole. Camping out in his old room was fine for strategic purposes, but he needed a neutral base of operations with highspeed Internet connections, twenty-four-hour room service, and a comfortable, private place to meet with other as-yet-unknown members of the team he’d pull together to get the job done. One of the mini suites at his favorite midtown hotel was just the ticket. Whether or not he ever actually slept there was beside the point.

  At the bottom of the escalator, Wes joined other early risers waiting for the train to the main terminal: two guys in business suits and BlackBerrys and a young woman in Army fatigues with elaborate cornrows and world-weary eyes. Years ago, before security got so tight, Wes remembered an old man in faded overalls and a tattered straw hat who used to stand beside the train doors, holding a homemade sign that said “Repent” in big block letters. Wes wondered if anyone had ever been moved to do so by the man’s silent witness. He doubted it. That kind of decision didn’t usually manifest in airports. Airplanes, maybe, especially when flying through bad weather, but once people got back on terra firma, they tended to be better able to keep the serious soul-searching at bay until the next crisis.

  The ride was only a few minutes and when the train hissed to a stop and deposited him at the bottom of the final escalator that would drop him off at rental car row, Wes spotted a tall, stocky brother in a dark blue suit holding a neatly hand-lettered sign, but this one bore not a spiritual command, but his name: “W. Harper.” He smiled to himself. A private plane and a private car? These guys are really trying to make a good impression, he thought.

  “I’m Wes Harper,” he said to the driver.

  “Welcome to Atlanta,” the man said pleasantly, reaching for Wes’s bag without being asked. “I’m Julius.”

  “I wasn’t expecting anybody to meet me, Julius.”

  “Yessir,” Julius said, without offering an opinion. He was in the business of agreement, not speculation.

  Wes waited until Julius settled in behind the wheel. “I’m headed for the Four Seasons on Fourteenth Street,” he said.

  “Yessir.”

  It was a gray day, but not too cold. In New York, they were expecting six inches of snow. In Atlanta, it looked like rain.

  “Take the streets through town, would you?” Wes said as the stadium loomed up ahead. “I haven’t been home in a while.”

  “There’s been lots of changes,” Julius said, easing the car off the exit ramp at Andrew Young International Boulevard. “But you know what they say about Atlanta.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing changes but the changes.”

  SIXTEENN

  Tavis Smiley Syndrome

  THERE WAS SOMETHING ABOUT THAT BED. AS SOON AS MY HEAD HIT the pillow, I was down for the count. Even after my extended nap and relatively early bedtime yesterday, by the time I opened my eyes, the Rev was already up and rattling around downstairs. He grinned at me when I presented myself at the kitchen door a few minutes later. He was,
of course, wearing his usual dark blue suit, starched white shirt, and a pale yellow tie. The clock on the microwave said 6 A.M.

  “Good morning, daughter,” he said as two pieces of toast popped up from the toaster behind him.

  “Good morning,” I said, glad he had already made coffee. “What are you doing up this early?”

  “On my way downtown for a breakfast meeting,” he said, buttering the toast and putting it on two plates, one for him and one for me.

  I poured myself a cup of coffee and reached for the sugar.

  “Then over to Athens for lunch and a talk at the university. Tomorrow I’m headed for Macon all day.”

  “Was it something I said?” I teased him, taking the chair I always sit in next to the Rev, who was, of course, at the head of the table.

  He leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I wish you’d told me you were coming. I’m all over the state for Black History Month and it’s too late to cancel anything.”

  February was always a whirlwind of speeches, sermons, rallies, and remembrances. Why should this historic first ever with a brother in the White House February be any different? Miss Iona’s contention that the Rev couldn’t find an audience anymore didn’t seem to have any basis in fact.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do and I’ll probably go roam around the neighborhood for a while to see what you all have been up to without me.”

  “I’ll be back before dinner,” he said, sipping his coffee and checking his watch. “I’ll fix you something nice.”

  I shook my head, savoring the buttery perfection of the toast. “How about I’ll fix you something nice? I haven’t completely lost my touch.”

  The truth was, I hadn’t cooked a meal in months and on my best days, I wasn’t that great, but as long as you keep it simple, cooking is like sex and bike riding. Once you start, everything comes back pretty quickly.