I thought she would tell me to mind my own business, but she just said flatly, “He said, ‘I like you, too.’ Just like that.”
“And do you like him?” I asked.
“He’s okay,” she answered, turning away to check herself in the mirror.
But I knew better.
Nathan was packed up and gone by the time Lily left for work. Then it was just me and Mrs. Baylor in the quiet house. I grabbed my script from my nightstand, cast a guilty look at the binder on the shelf, and climbed onto my bed to sit cross-legged. I placed the script on my lap and opened it. Again, I felt butterflies in my stomach.
CHAPTER 11
The Beginning
* * *
THE VERY NEXT DAY, my sister, in big sunglasses and a long white gauzy skirt, took a stack of her magazines and a glass of lemonade outside to the patio lounge. She was working on a tan—smearing Coppertone all over her face and arms and aiming her face at the sun. She thought her new color would look good with the blond highlights she’d put in her hair. She’d worry about her legs later, I supposed.
Mrs. Baylor’s son had finished every windowsill on the front and sides of the house and had now moved to the back. Which was precisely why Lily was there, I suspected. As they say, “Even Ray Charles could see that.” Nathan painted, and she pretended not to notice him.
There was no clever repartee while he worked. He was businesslike that way. But I knew she was just waiting for some continuance of the declaration he’d made on the front porch the day before. So while she waited, she read her magazines in his vicinity, being very obvious, even to me.
It was funny to watch: Lily trying to seem all casual, as if she was not trying to be pretty in his company. Pretending she was just reading her magazines deeply and without a thought to the person painting windowsills in the hot summer sun behind her.
At one point I decided to wander outside and sit on the stone steps just beyond our dining room’s French doors. She looked back at me and I knew she wanted me gone, but I just picked up Oscar’s ball and threw it across the lawn. He went tearing after it as if there was nothing else in the world but that old rubber ball.
Nathan glanced over his shoulder at me and smiled his big beautiful smile. I waved at him, and then felt kind of emboldened. I got up and went over to the ladder.
Shielding my eyes, I looked up at him.
“You like painting houses?”
He looked down at me and smiled again. “I’ve never painted a whole house, Sophia.”
“But do you like this?” I pressed, pleased that he called me Sophia.
Lily sighed loud enough for us to hear. It felt like a signal. I ignored her.
“Yeah, I like painting. I like the rhythm of it,” he told me. He glanced at Lily.
She was listening and flipping through her magazine. It sounded like annoyed flipping. I knew she wanted me back in the house.
I looked toward the dining room window, suddenly feeling my mother’s presence. Sure enough, she was standing there, taking in the whole scene: Nathan on his ladder, me nearby questioning him, Lily on the chaise. I saw her nostrils flare slightly.
Then she was poking her head out the door. “Lily, can I speak to you for a minute?”
Lily looked up at our mother standing in the shadow of the doorway. She rolled her eyes and put her magazine face-down on her lap as if she was mentally gearing herself up for irritation. Then she closed it, placed it on the little table next to her that held her lemonade, and pulled herself up. She headed for the dining room door.
My mother stood there waiting with her hands on her hips.
Jennifer had asked me once, “How come colored women always put their hands on their hips?”
“They don’t always do that,” I’d said.
“Uh-huh . . . In Gone with the Wind that maid, the one with the high voice, does it. And so does Kingfish’s wife on that show that came on a long time ago, Amos ’n’ Andy, and also in this movie I saw, Imitation of Life. That white-looking girl’s mother.”
“I don’t know,” I said skeptically.
But now I saw my mother with both hands on her hips, as if she was going to let Lily have it doubly.
I followed them inside and went into the kitchen for a glass of water, where I came upon Mrs. Baylor seated at the table folding towels. The argument starting up in the living room was loud enough to hear.
“Lily, I didn’t hire that boy for your amusement,” my mother said right off.
Mrs. Baylor’s folding slowed. She leaned forward toward the dining room ever so slightly. But she didn’t need to. We could hear them clearly.
“What are you talking about?” Lily said.
“I know what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing, Mom?”
“Putting yourself on display. Trying to make that boy whom I hired to take care of some projects around here—projects your father never has time for—you’re trying to make him notice you.”
I didn’t like hearing the word father. I felt a prick of anger.
My mother might as well have slapped my sister—to have her scheme pointed out like that.
“Why are you always accusing me of things? Anyway, why would I want to do that?”
Her protest sounded weak, even to my ears.
I noticed Mrs. Baylor was taking a long time folding and smoothing.
“Good question. Why would you? What would be the point, after all?”
Mrs. Baylor pulled another towel out of the basket. She shook it out with a quick, angry-sounding snap.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You just want to toy with him.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lily’s voice rose and took on a hurt tone. “I could have been in my bathing suit, sunning, but I wasn’t! I’m in a skirt down to my ankles, just reading my magazines. And enjoying the outdoors.”
“You just leave that boy alone. He’s here to work, not to be distracted by you.”
“I am leaving him alone. I’m just reading my magazines.”
“You’re trying to toy with him. Make him like you and then sashay on your merry way.”
I looked at Mrs. Baylor. She had drawn her lips in while she smoothed and smoothed the folded towel.
“I’m doing no such thing. Why would you say that about me?”
To my ears she sounded genuinely hurt. I took my glass outside. I didn’t really want the water, but I was stuck with it. While slipping past my mother and sister, I chanced a look. Lily was flushed and near tears. My mother looked cold. They didn’t notice me.
Once outside, I realized Mrs. Baylor’s son could hear them too. He was painting, but he was listening. I sat on the top step and put my glass down.
“I know you, Lily. I used to do that myself when I was young and silly.”
“I’m not you,” Lily said, sounding as if she was about to make herself hysterical—on purpose. She started down the hall toward our room. “I’m not you!” she said again before she slammed the door behind her.
I glanced up at Mrs. Baylor’s son. Nathan. His expression revealed nothing as he went back and forth along the windowsill with his paintbrush. He didn’t fool me, though. I knew where his attention was focused. And Mrs. Baylor’s. She was probably in the kitchen folding towels and spitting kittens. I’d read that somewhere: spitting kittens. It meant being really, really mad.
Finally, our mother left for one of her meetings. As soon as the door closed behind her, Lily marched past me and out to the lounge chair to retrieve her magazines. She gathered them up and then stood there a moment, gazing off at the hills behind our house. She looked like she was trying to calm herself.
I was surprised to see Nathan coming around the house carrying a can of turpentine. He stopped short and stared at Lily. He looked kind of embarrassed, and as he passed her on his way to get his tarp to put away in his car, he did a strange thing. The strangest thing I’d ever seen. He took her hand�
��just for a half second. Lily jumped because she hadn’t heard him approach. He took her hand for the tiniest moment and then let it go. She turned around and stared at him as he went about the business of gathering his equipment and things—packing up. It was as if some secret communication had passed between them.
I knew Lily. I knew he’d taken her breath away, and now she was confused. I knew she didn’t know what to think. It was one of those rare moments when my sister found herself flustered and at a loss.
Then he was gone.
CHAPTER 12
Tennis
* * *
I HEARD A VOICE from far away. It was Lily telling me to wake up. “Wake up, wake up, wake up.” I opened my eyes to see her standing over me. I was sleepy, having stayed up late the night before memorizing my lines for the play. “Get up, Sophie. I’ve got the day off and Daddy’s working in his home office today. We can get the car. And I’m in a good mood! We’re starting on your well-roundedness immediately. I’m going to teach you how to play tennis.”
“Huh? Tennis?”
“Yes. It’s a good day for a lesson.”
“But I’d planned to work on my part in the play.”
“What play is that again?”
“That Talk.”
“So you’re trying out for a role?”
“The role of Olivia. She’s the main character.”
Lily looked at me and sighed. “Sophie, Sophie, Sophie.” She laughed. “You’re wasting your time. They’re not going to give you that role.”
“Yes, they are. Because I’m going to be better than anyone else.”
“Don’t count on it.” She disappeared into the bathroom. The sound of the shower soon followed.
“Today I’m in a park kind of mood,” she sang behind the closed door.
What on earth was a park kind of mood?
Lily managed to wrangle the car from our lying, cheating father. Even though it was a Wednesday. The night before, he’d mentioned he’d be working in his home office this morning, and Lily was probably thinking, Why should the car sit in the driveway all day, looking useless with its big fins and silver grill, anyway? Lily loved driving the car, though she usually tried to get it on Sundays, when he spent all day sprawled on the sofa watching sports and messing up the newspaper. That drove my mother crazy. “If you could just refold the paper and stack it on the coffee table. If you could just do that for me if it’s not too much trouble.” But it was too much apparently, because it always looked as if he’d tossed the whole thing at the ceiling and let it rain down wherever. Mom, I wanted to say, the Sunday paper is the least of your troubles.
We drove to Ladera Park, with Lily in her big sunglasses singing at the top of her lungs, “Sitting in the park—waiting on you-ou-ou-ou,” and probably thinking about Nathan.
By the time we pulled up, it was late morning and three of the four courts were taken. College kids, I imagined—home for the summer. On the first court a Barbie look-alike had a pail of balls and was practicing her serve—one ball after the other.
“We’ve lucked out, Sophie,” Lily said. “The last court is free.”
I felt a tiny bit self-conscious as we carried our rackets and basket of balls to the empty court. We were the only colored people around. Some might have been confused about Lily, but with my tinge of color and crinkly hair, there’d be no question about me.
Jennifer once asked me what it felt like—to be Negro. I said I couldn’t really explain it. Just that you remembered what you were all the time. All the time. From the time you got up in the morning until you went to bed at night. But you really remembered it when you were the only Negro around.
Like now.
We hauled our rackets and basket of balls past the first court—puffing up our chests and walking extra-straight and tall to show we belonged here like everyone else—past the second court and the third, to the last court.
Lily began to serve balls to the other side immediately, reaching up and elongating her already long legs as she came up on tiptoe. She started to hit the balls as if she was mad. Whack, whack, whack. “Look at my feet,” she ordered. “See how I stay away from the line? You can’t even touch it a little bit until after you hit the ball. And right now you’re just aiming to get it in that space on the other side of the net.” She pointed. “Watch me.” She smacked the ball and it hit the ground just where she intended it to go.
At the same time a car pulled up at the curb. I recognized it from having seen it parked in the Bakers’ driveway. Jilly jumped out and then Deidre. I waited for Marcy, but it was their mother who got out next from behind the wheel, and it took some time because she was slow and heavy.
Lily glanced at them and served the next ball. I felt a small uneasy stir in my stomach, remembering what she had said to Deidre. In contrast, Lily seemed perfectly at ease, as if she’d forgotten the whole exchange.
She turned to me. “Now, get over there and gather up the balls, and let’s see if you can do something like what I just did.”
Again, I glanced at the Baker girls. They were surveying the courts. Lily checked them as well and said, “Get going, Sophie.”
I dashed to the other side of the net and gathered up the balls. I dropped them in the basket and returned to her side. I picked one up, made sure my feet were away from the line, but my attempt to hit it the way Lily did was a failure. The ball smashed into the net, not over it.
“Again,” Lily said, tossing me another ball, then picking at her thumbnail. She glanced at the Baker girls and their mother, who were now passing the first court, then the second court. Lily kept her eye on them. “Keep at it,” she said to me. They walked right by the third court and came straight to ours. I saw that Mrs. Baker had a tight little cap of auburn curls, as if she’d just taken the rollers out and hadn’t yet combed her hair.
I couldn’t tell if she knew what Lily had said to Deidre. I felt a bubble of fear and it grew as I checked Lily. But I saw only defiance on Lily’s face. The Baker girls and their mother settled on the bench next to our court. “Are you going to be much longer?” Mrs. Baker called out.
Lily turned away, ignoring her. Following suit, I ignored her as well.
“I said, are you going to be much longer?” She called out again, but with a tiny edge in her voice. Lily said nothing. As soon as Mrs. Baker realized Lily was ignoring her, her expression hardened. I looked at Lily, trying to determine what she would do next. She glanced at Deidre and raised an eyebrow, almost smiling. Deidre looked away, and that’s when I realized she hadn’t told. She hadn’t told her mother what Lily had said because she must have believed that my father did “have something” for her father if he dared to come up to our house for a confrontation.
Mrs. Baker pulled some knitting out of a bag, but it remained on her lap as she watched us with a stern look. She whispered to Jilly, and Jilly got up and trotted over to us.
Lily tossed me a ball.
I swatted at it and it went right into the net. There was giggling from the bench. I dismissed that. Something about Lily ignoring them gave me courage. She tossed me another ball.
“My mother wants to know how much longer you’re going to be?” Jilly asked with her eyes slightly squinted.
Lily turned around and gazed at Jilly for a few seconds. She cocked her head and looked skyward. “Oh, not long,” she said, giving Jilly a wide pageant smile. Jilly met the smile with a flustered look. I stared from one to the other. Jilly held Lily’s gaze for a moment, then turned on her heels and headed back to the bench. She said something to her mother, and the three of them turned toward Lily as if to keep an eye on her and to make clear that they would be monitoring the situation and perhaps protesting if it turned out to be longer than “not long.”
Then Lily caught my eye and made a motion with her chin. I trotted over. She reached into her pants pocket and took out two quarters. She put them in my hand. “Go to the store and get us some water. I don’t plan to ever lea
ve this court.”
“Can you do that?”
“Watch me.”
I started off reluctantly. I didn’t want to miss anything. I looked back over my shoulder and stopped. Mrs. Baker was suddenly standing up and placing her knitting on the bench beside her.
“Excuse me,” she called out. “My daughters happen to have a lesson in ten minutes. Just how long are you going to be?” I waited to see how Lily would handle this.
Lily turned toward Mrs. Baker and sauntered over to her, getting into her space a little bit. She was the taller of the two. “Excuse me?” she said in a tone that was slightly challenging. She stared Mrs. Baker down as if to say, Oh no, you don’t! Mrs. Baker took a step back.
Lily smiled and looked her up and down. And that’s when I realized Mrs. Baker’s whiteness was of no use to her in this particular situation—facing my sister and having to look up as she decided whether to repeat herself. There was almost no one around but the people on the other courts, and they were thinking only of their games.
My sister had the edge.
Mrs. Baker settled her mouth into a sneer and then said, “My daughters have their tennis lesson in . . .” She looked at her watch. “Actually seven minutes.”
“And why would that concern me?” Lily asked.
Mrs. Baker seemed momentarily flustered. “Because you are taking up this court not with a real game but just hitting tennis balls this way and that.” Now the two Baker girls grinned.
“And your point is?”
“These courts are for games, not practicing serves.”
Lily looked around. “Is that posted somewhere?”
“It’s just standard information.”
Deidre piped up then. “Yeah, everybody knows that.”
Lily turned to her and laughed. “Really? Does everybody know that? Are you sure?”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Baker said, crossing her arms.
“Well, before I answer your question, I have a question for you.” Lily looked off at the other courts. She fiddled with the strings of her racket, straightening them the way players do on TV. Finally, she said, “How did you happen to choose to come to our court, anyway? I’m just curious.” She said this with a quick little shrug, her eyes still on the strings of her racket as she straightened them. “Just wondering,” she added.
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