by Londyn Skye
That moment in the foyer was like the foreshadowing of the entire evening. All throughout dinner, the unnecessary bodily contact from Mary Jo toward James was nonstop. She was constantly running her hand down his arm while she laughed at stories that were not funny enough for the sort of attention-seeking laughter she emitted. Her hand graced his back numerous times while she conversed with him about things he did not care to hear. Each time Mary Jo reached out to touch James, it “coincidentally” occurred while Lily’s eyes were available to witness her calculated affections. In every instance, James’s eyes would discreetly dart over to Lily, just in time to catch sight of her pretending not to notice the overabundance of caresses. Every instance made James feel overcome with unnecessary guilt.
Later in the evening, Lily lingered mindlessly in the corner of the dining room, waiting to collect dishes from those who had finished eating. Mary Jo suddenly stood and tapped her glass, as if it was necessary to wrangle the attention of a small group in such a tiny room. She then placed her hand lightly on James’s shoulder. “On behalf of my fatha’ and I, I would like to say welcome back home,” she said, looking down at James.
James’s extended family members silently raised their glasses to second her words.
“Thank you, MJ,” James replied, hoping that was all she had to say. He had long since reached the threshold of her voice, especially since her squawking had been just inches from his ear for the last hour. But as usual, she had not bathed in the spotlight long enough to fuel her addiction to the attention.
“As all of you know, James and I didn’t spend a single one of his birthdays apart prior to his departure to school. It was a tradition for us to always spend them togetha’.”
James felt himself instantly break into a sweat after that statement. He knew that technically Mary Jo was telling the truth, but that was only because his father had invited her to all his birthday celebrations.
“Up until James left, I hadn’t gone a single birthday without gettin’ him somethin’ wonderful for his special day,” Mary Jo continued, enjoying the sight of all eyes on her. Lily, in turn, was enjoying the visual of throwing a pot of hot steaming grits on her. “Now, I know today isn’t his birthday, but since we’ve spent his last seven birthdays apart, I figured I had some makin’ up to do.” She turned to him. “So, James, on behalf of all the celebrations we’ve missed, I got you this.” She then handed him a small wrapped box.
Out of the side of his eye, James glanced over at Lily, who continued avoiding eye contact with him. “Thank you, MJ,” he said, taking the gift from her and sitting it on the table.
“Go ahead and open it,” she insisted.
“I’ll open it lata’. It’s not my birthday and I’m sure everyone would like to finish eatin’,” James said, trying to divert attention elsewhere. His efforts proved useless, however. Everyone collectively urged him to open it. They were far more eager to see what was in the box than he was. He reluctantly gave in and unwrapped it to reveal a jewelry case. He then opened the lid and pulled out a pocket watch. The lavish timepiece was made of pure gold and had “Dr. Jameson Michael Adams” engraved on it. “MJ, you didn’t have to do this,” James responded after seeing the expensive gift.
“Of course I did. I couldn’t let all this time pass and not get you somethin’ meaningful.”
“Well, thank you. It’s very lovely.”
James then granted everyone’s request to see the watch and passed it around the table. Everyone was in awe of her gift, but James could not put into words how uncomfortable it made him feel. As everyone’s eyes fawned over the expensive gift, he was looking over at a woman who was worth far more to him than anything money could ever buy. Her eyes, though, were still plastered to the floor.
Lily was recalling the fact that she could only afford to mend James’s trousers for his last birthday gift. She was inwardly laughing at herself, thinking of how insignificant her gift was compared to the one that Mary Jo had just given him. She laughed even harder when she realized there was a brief time when she would have been able to buy him something just as elegant, but now she would not even be able to scrape together the pennies for needle and thread.
Lily’s incessant thoughts proved that Mary Jo’s desire to rub her wealth in Lily’s face was working perfectly. But Mary Jo was not nearly finished with her quest. She walked into the foyer, retrieved a large box by the door, and returned to the dining room. “And of course, no doctor would be complete without this,” she said, placing her second gift in front of James.
He opened it and pulled out a medical bag with his name inscribed on it. It was full of various expensive tools and medicines that any poor small-town doctor would kill for. “MJ, th-this is too much. I can’t accept this.”
“Nonsense,” Mary Jo’s father interjected, removing a thick cigar from his mouth and thrusting it in James’s direction. “I hear y’ur workin’ for ol’ Giddy now. If y’ur gonna be his successor, the way y’ur fatha’s been boastin’, then we want the best for the people ’round here. Hell, I’m gettin’ up there in age. I’m quite sure I’ll be needin’ you to use those supplies on me soon,” he laughed. “And the day you officially take ova’ for Giddy, I’m gonna donate some money to fix up that ol’ run-down shack he calls a doctor’s office.” Joseph leaned back in his chair and put his cigar back in his mouth after elevating James’s discomfort tenfold.
“Well, I thank ya’ both,” James smiled nervously. “I truly appreciate it.”
“Leela!” Mary Jo snapped her fingers at Lily. “Go fetch that bottle ‘a wine my daddy brought and pour a round for everybody.”
Lily did not bother to react to Mary Jo’s obvious attempt to degrade her. She just turned and happily departed from the dining room.
Everyone at the table went back to chattering about the prospect of fixing up Gideon’s old office, which turned into a conversation about all the other buildings in town that needed renovating. Everyone joined the conversation, except for James. The way in which everyone had just accepted Mary Jo’s blatant disrespect aggravated him to the core of his soul. He fought to maintain an impending verbal eruption while watching Lily retreat to the kitchen along with Corrina. James then excused himself from the table while everyone was whining about the things the mayor should be addressing in the town square. He entered the kitchen and watched quietly for a moment as Lily and Corrina gathered wine glasses. “Lily,” James called out to her from behind.
Lily stopped what she was doing but did not turn around. Corrina glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, feeling uncomfortable with the fact that she did not respectfully respond to their master.
James walked up behind Lily and waited for her to turn around. “Are you all right?” he asked compassionately.
Corrina easily heard the genuine concern in James’s voice, but she did not react to their exchange. She knew better than to meddle, but from the few words James uttered, she could tell that he seemed to care far more for Lily than a master typically should for a slave. She had already noticed the way Lily never failed to bolt from every room that James entered; the sorrowful look on James’s face as Lily departed was not lost on Corrina either. And now, because of the gentleness in his tone, Corrina was starting to surmise that Lily’s silence and her current state of mind had everything to do with some serious issue that transpired between her and James over the last year. She and the other slaves were well aware of James’s infatuation with Lily in his youth; it was a secret they all knew to keep. Corrina now wondered, though, if that infatuation had grown far beyond that.
Again, Lily refused to look James in the eyes after she finally turned around. “We got wine to serve,” was all she would say as she gathered her tray of glasses and sidestepped past him.
Corrina was just as quiet as James after Lily left. She discreetly watched the way he placed his hand on the counter and hung his head. He looked to her like a man who had been stripped of everything he had in his life. Between that and t
he fact that he had just ignored Lily’s disrespectful behavior, Corrina was now completely convinced that James’s feelings for her superseded the simplicity of boyhood infatuation.
By the time Lily and Corrina collected the wine and glasses, everyone had moved the festivities into the parlor to receive their cocktails and desserts there. Lily went about obediently filling everybody’s needs in silence. After leaving the kitchen, she had turned on the music in her head and tuned out the cackle of Mary Jo’s over the top laughter and embellished stories. While the music played in her mind, Lily’s eyes even became blind to the way Mary Jo pawed all over James. She was so lost in the melody that she had even stopped counting the minutes until Mary Jo left. With her favorite ballad by William Werthington soothing her nerves, Mary Jo’s presence no longer mattered at all to Lily… and neither did James. For Mary Jo, though, that fact was a major problem.
Mary Jo did not like the fact that Lily was no longer paying attention to the way that she sat huddled closely to James since entering the parlor. She wanted to see Lily’s eyes hovering over her from time to time, the way she had caught her doing in the dining room. Outside of the times she had filled their glasses and brought them cake, not once had Mary Jo seen Lily even glance in their direction. Lily’s mental absence began to eat Mary Jo alive inside. She began to focus so hard on Lily’s disinterest that she, too, suddenly paid no attention to James, nor anyone else in the room for that matter. Everyone’s voices became muddled in her ears. Her heart began to pound. Her eyes lowered into slants and her lips curled into slits. All the while, Mary Jo glared harshly at Lily as the wheels spun in her head. Her mind was conjuring up ways to further show Lily that she was a nobody, that she now had nothing, and that she would never be or have anything ever again … including James. Mary Jo refused to leave Jesse’s house satisfied until she was certain she had proved to Lily that she was nothing more than a puppet to be controlled, all while degrading her in the process. “LEELA!” Mary Jo suddenly erupted, clapping her hands at her.
The music immediately stopped in Lily’s head. Everyone’s conversations ceased as well. The odd crack in Mary Jo’s voice when she yelled made it sound as if Lily had done something wrong. The whole room now had their eyes on Lily as she stood there quietly waiting for whatever it was that Mary Jo wanted.
“Her name is Lily, pumpkin,” Joseph corrected.
“Whateva’!” Mary Jo snapped, never once removing her eyes from Lily. She waved her hand toward the piano. “Play us a song,” she commanded and then encircled her arm around James’s.
J.R. chuckled. “She can’t play no goddamn pianah.”
“Sure she can,” Joseph confirmed after removing his cigar from his mouth. “Mary Jo says James took ’er to play piano up north. She and ’er cousin Julia got the chance to see her piano show.”
“Piano show?!” Jacob questioned, suddenly sitting up tall in his seat. “The hell you talkin’ about?!”
That was exactly the question James was asking in his head. His shock was equal to Jacob’s. It was the first time he was learning about the fact that Mary Jo had been to the show. He had wracked his brain for weeks trying to figure out what initiated his father to come looking for him. James knew his father was not the most literate man alive. He rarely ever saw his father read a newspaper. The only thing he seemed to enjoy reading was the label on food cans. But even if Jesse did happen to read the papers, James was certain that Lily’s story would not have trickled so far south. After weeks of wondering, James was outraged to learn that the missing piece to the mysterious puzzle was sitting right next to him with her hand slithering up and down his thigh. He suddenly found it nearly impossible to control the urge to choke Mary Jo until her face finally illuminated with color. Despite his fingertips twitching with the unrelenting desire to cut off Mary Jo’s air supply, James instead balled his fists tight and bit his bottom lip hard to help kill his violent desires. It was the best he could do to make it appear as if he was sitting there completely at peace.
“Ain’t that what ya’ said?” Joseph asked, seeking clarity from his daughter. “Ya’ seen Lily play piano in some show up in Jamestown, New York, right pumpkin?”
James was still oddly annoyed by the fact that Joseph still called his daughter by that term of endearment. As infuriated as he already was, he suddenly wanted to pop Joseph in the mouth the way Jesse used to do. Both Parkers would leave there a battered, bloody mess if James had it his way.
“Unfortunately, it’s true,” Mary Jo replied, answering her father’s question. “My cousin, Julia, and I made the mistake of payin’ to go see ’er.” She gave Lily a telling glance. She wanted her to realize that she was the reason she was now delivering wine and dessert to her owners, instead of delivering her music to a sea of admiring fans. “I wish I’d’ve known it was gonna be some ol’ slave nigga’ in the show before I spent my money. If that was the case, I neva’ would’ve botha’d to go,” she lied.
“A whole fuckin’ show?!” J.R. asked, looking completely flabbergasted.
Mary Jo nodded.
“Y’ur shittin’ me!” J.R. added, in a tone that made his unhappiness about the matter blatantly obvious. “How the hell’d she learn to play a fuckin’ pianah?” he demanded to know.
“Mama’ taught ’er,” James quickly interjected after he managed to free his lower lip from his teeth.
Lily’s eyes quickly met James’s. It was the first time she had heard the lie, as well as the fact that Mary Jo had been to her show. She had put the logical pieces together too, and she suddenly felt her heart picking up pace over the revelation. It made the urge to throw a pot of hot grits down Mary Jo’s back, suddenly morph into a burning desire to drown her face in it instead.
“Why the hell would mama teach a nigga’ to play a pianah?” J.R. further questioned, squinting his eyes at James.
“This ain’t the time or the place for this J.R.,” James fired back.
“Your motha’ would’ve been betta’ off trainin’ a monkey,” Mary Jo insulted. “The whole show was an epic waste ‘a my money. Matta’ fact, I’m sure a monkey would’ve been far more entertainin’!” she cackled.
Jacob and Jesse laughed at the insult, but J.R. leaned back on the sofa and took a sip of his beer. He gave James a telling glance with a sinister smirk that followed. James knew that look all too well. He knew his brother was not buying the story. His assessment was accurate. J.R. had never forgotten the day he saw James and Lily playing by the creek as kids. He now sat on the couch thinking back to the week after that when he had caught James shirtless in the hallway after Lily had fallen out of a tree and injured her knee. During that confrontation, he recalled how hard James slammed him against the wall for threatening to tell their father about his secret rendezvouses with Lily. J.R. had blackmailed James into doing his barn work for him after their fight and was surprised at how James had done every little thing he asked him to do for months without one single complaint about it. J.R. guzzled his beer again while on the couch, staring at James over the top of his mug, feeling no doubt about the fact that his youngest brother was working just as hard to protect Lily, yet again. He was not sure exactly how, but he just could not let go of his intuition. For the time being, J.R. kept quiet about his doubts, thinking perhaps he could once again use it as leverage against the brother he hated, if ever necessary.
“Well, even though I’d prefer to hear a monkey,” Mary Jo continued after the laughter subsided. “Perhaps I can tolerate Leela’s playin’ t’night since I ain’t payin’ a penny for it.” She motioned with a wave of her hand from Lily to the piano. “Go on little monkey Leela. Sit down and play.”
“Lily, pumpkin,” her father corrected again. “Her name is Lily.”
Mary Jo whipped her head around and glared at him with cold eyes. “I. Like. Leela. Betta’!” she emphasized slowly. She then glared back at Lily and commanded her again. “Go on, I said!”
Lily did as she was told. She kept her head in i
ts lowered submissive position because she was required to. But even if she was not, she would not have wanted to lift it. She did not want to sicken herself by the sight of James allowing Mary Jo to hang all over him while never objecting to her insults like his mouth was glued shut. Lily quietly breezed by them, sat at the piano, lifted the key cover, and revealed eighty-eight worn out keys. It was yet another reminder of how she had regressed in her life. Before James had exposed her to the world, the instrument she now sat looking at used to seem so grand to her. But now she realized that it was nothing more than an antiquated piece of junk in dire need of tuning.
“I wanna hear some Beethoven. Do you know who that is?” Mary Jo asked Lily in a condescending tone.
“Yessum,” Lily replied without looking at her.
That fact caught Mary Jo by surprise. She was confident that Lily would have no idea who Beethoven was. Despite her incorrect assumption, MJ did not let it stop her attempts at humiliating her. “I wanna hear Piano Sonata Numba’ Twenty-Four. It’s my favorite.” She purposely chose not to request Beethoven’s most well-known song, Für Elise. Instead, she chose an unpopular tune, figuring Lily would not have the slightest clue about such a rare melody. The high Mary Jo was getting out of her own deviousness caused her thin tomato-red lips to stretch wide across her face. She then leaned back, placed her hand on James’s lap, and scooted closer to him.