“I’m leaving it to the Lord to give her her due. I hope to never be acquainted with no parts of her. The Good Lord might disown me as his child, I might act out so.”
They were right in front of Fannie and Liz’s. Fannie was fumbling through her purse, pretending that she couldn’t find her key, just in case that no-good Willie Mann was there. Noon stood down on the pavement and looked up at the house. She was smiling as she admired it, its general look of being well cared for. The steps clean, windows shining, fresh paint. And then she smiled even more when she saw Liz push her head out of the second-floor window.
“There’s my baby,” Noon said, beaming. “Get down here and let us in. Your sister’ll have us down here meeting nightfall.”
Noon adjusted her hat and smoothed at her dress and ran her fingers along the gleaming brass door knocker shaped in the letter L. Then the door opened, and Liz stood in front of her. She had changed from her black negligee into her ’round-the-house stretch pants and cotton shirt. She squinted as the day’s brightness hit her all at once.
“Well, look at you in your fresh dress,” Liz said, making Noon blush. “And do we have flowers in our hat?” She touched Noon’s brim.
Noon loved to hear Liz make much over her mostly simple outfits. Since Liz was a little girl, she tried to get Noon to adorn her hat with flowers, add a dash of lace to her dresses, a splash of color to her nails. Sometimes Noon would relent and allow Liz to make her over completely. But when she was done, Noon was too close to beautiful. Noon couldn’t handle being beautiful. But she would allow herself an occasional adornment, like the large yellow flower pinned to her hat, just to get an admiring smile from Liz.
Fannie pushed past them both to go change out of her church clothes as Noon squeezed Liz to her and held her until she could feel her slipping away. That’s what she had been feeling from Liz lately, a slipping away. She followed Liz into the living room, walked right behind her as Liz went to the window.
“Looks like a perfect day out, sun so bright,” Liz said, not looking at Noon.
“The curtains are fabulous,” Noon said as she touched them lightly and watched Liz from the corner of her eye staring through the sunlight to the other side of the street.
“Abandoned buildings piling up,” Liz said somberly. “Can’t hardly stand to look out front.”
“Just part of the plan,” Noon said confidently. “Jeanie said that’s what they do, buy them, then let them sit so we’ll think the neighborhood’s going way down. Rush us into moving that way. We just got to be patient, is all.”
“Patience’s wearing thin,” Liz mumbled.
“What did you say?” Noon asked, turning to look at Liz directly.
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything,” Liz said as she moved toward the kitchen. “I got some tea steeping, you want it iced or hot?”
“All I want right now is to know why I been missing you at church, and while you at it, I want to know why you don’t walk around the corner and visit me. Stood me and my coffeepot up every morning this week.”
“Upset stomach this morning,” Liz called back into the living room, rolling her eyes hard up into her head.
Noon straightened her hat and smoothed at her dress and settled into the lushness of Liz’s new couch bought with what was left over after they’d paid for the house. “Then when Julep came by the house looking for you, said she had gone to see you at your job and they told her you were off, I said to myself, something must be wrong with Liz. Not like her to just not come by at all on a day when she doesn’t have classes or work.”
“It’s nothing, really,” Liz said as she walked back into the living room and took a seat across from Noon.
Noon gave her that the-Lord’s-gonna-reveal-it-all-in-a-minute-so-you-might-as-well-fess-up look. “You sure nothing’s wrong?” she asked.
“I said nothing’s wrong.” Liz said it so sharply that it surprised Noon.
“Well, it’s not just me noticing a change in you, dear heart.” Noon tried to soften her tone. “Even Herbie noticed a difference. And Reverend Schell asks about you all the time, you never come by in the morning with Fannie, you always in your bedroom with the door closed.”
“Look”—Liz interrupted Noon—“Reverend Schell ain’t got no cause for concern long as I’m sending my tithing envelopes, Herbie wouldn’t be concerned about me if you paid him money to be, and as for me always being in my room, I mean how would you know that anyhow unless Fannie’s running around the corner telling you every time I sneeze?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Fannie said, walking back into the living room wearing Pop’s nephew’s faded blue sweatshirt. “I been defending you. I told Noon you had an upset stomach this weekend.”
“Well, when don’t you have an upset stomach, Liz?” Noon cut in. “That’s where your nerves are settling, right in your stomach. What you so nervous about?”
“Not nervous,” Liz said, her voice screeching.
“What was you and Herbie arguing about then?”
“Ask Herbie.”
“I’m asking you, and I demand that you answer me with some kind of respect.” Noon wagged her finger to the beat of her words.
“Respect me then,” Liz shouted, fighting tears.
“Lord have mercy, what devil done jumped into my chile?”
“It ain’t no devil,” Liz said, walking back to the window. “I’m just sick and tired of everybody hovering over me like I can’t think for myself or have a simple upset stomach or make a simple decision.”
“What decisions you gotta make?” Noon was standing up now, her Sunday hat with the big yellow flower tilted on her head.
“Like where I want to live.” Liz’s voice quivered.
“Where you want to live?” Fannie and Noon said in unison.
“I’m tired of this whole road thing.”
“We all tired,” Noon said, sitting back in the chair heavily. “You think I like wearing myself thin with all the work it’s taking to oppose it?”
“Well then, why you doing it then?” Liz’s voice had gotten harder, more determined.
“’Cause it ain’t right to displace us the way they trying to do.”
“People getting paid for properties,” Liz said defiantly. “It ain’t like they getting cheated, I hear they getting good money for these little pieces of property down here.”
“What’s good about money that’s displacing people on a lie? It’s not good money, it’s downright evil money.” Noon was banging the arm of the couch as she talked.
“How you know, Noon?” Liz said, turning and walking right toward Noon. “What makes you so sure you right? Did it ever occur to you that you might be wrong?”
“Who you raising your voice at?” Noon said as she shifted to the edge of her seat. Her hat was sitting along her forehead now; the bow almost rested on her eyes.
Fannie had gone into the kitchen. She came back into the living room carrying a tall glass of iced tea. “Maybe you should think about what you saying, Liz, and maybe not say anything else,” Fannie said as she set her tea on a cork-backed coaster next to the Life magazine on the coffee table.
“I been thinking about it, okay,” Liz shouted. “I been thinking a lot about it. You know what’s with me, okay, I’m sick and tired of all the opposition, all the drives and rallies, and meetings, and prayer vigils. I’m tired of it, okay. You wrong, okay, I said it, Noon, you wrong. I think this could be the best thing that could happen to us, okay. I said it. Just give it a rest, Noon. It ain’t got to be no big plot. It ain’t just ’cause we colored. It’s just a road that they need to run, and we happen to live where it needs to be.”
Noon stood very slowly. Her smooth skin turned to granite. Her round, generous face was suddenly angular, lean. Even her arms so ready for hugging were pulled in close to her sides.
Liz cast her eyes down. It was hurting to look at Noon. Her voice went from shaking to a thin, straight line, from loud with emotion to deep and quiet
where there was neither love nor hate, just determination. “I’m selling the house,” she whispered.
The sun was pouring in through the billows of open-weave draperies and washing the room in yellow and gold. Noon walked deliberately toward Liz. She raised her arm with such force that her Sunday hat with the big yellow bow fell from her head. She brought her arm down quickly, openhandedly, right across Liz’s mouth.
Liz felt her lip open, and she tasted her blood. She stared ahead, not looking at Noon. How could she look at Noon? What worse words could have fallen from her mouth? Better that she had called Jesus a liar than to tell Noon this. She let the throbbing in her lip grow. She didn’t cringe to try to stop the pain. She didn’t grab at her lip or even stroke it with her tongue. She needed the hurt. A good sound punishment. Now she and Noon were even. Now she could go ahead and see what price she could get for the house. She could move from this hole-in-the-ground part of the city. Go to a church where they didn’t dance and shout and rejoice in being poor. Now at least she had this on Noon. A hand to the face, a busted lip.
Fannie pulled her ice from her tea. She ran to Liz and dabbed her lip with the ice. “Liz, tell Noon you didn’t mean it. Do you have a fever? That must be it, you coming down with something and talking outta your head. You couldn’t possibly be thinking about selling this house. Liz, tell Noon you didn’t mean it. Tell her, tell her now.” Fannie was shouting and almost jumping up down as she held the ice to Liz’s swollen mouth.
Noon walked away from Liz. She went back to the couch and picked up her purse. She pulled out a starched white handkerchief with green embroidery and blew her nose hard. She let her purse dangle from her hands folded loosely in front of her. She stood firmly and stared at Liz, a silent, penetrating stare. “I never thought I’d raise a child that would defy me in the way that you just did.” Her voice was dry. She cleared her throat several times.
“This isn’t against you,” Liz mumbled through her swollen lip. “It is my house, bought with money Ethel sent for me.”
“This is not about the money,” Noon yelled, bringing her voice from deep within her. Her tight fists rose and fell, punctuating her words. “This is about betrayal, disrespect, you thumbing your nose at everything I worked for.”
And then Noon cried. Out of hurt that Liz, whom she found on the steps, and comforted, and prayed over, and raised up, that she would turn on her like this. Out of shame, as she looked at Liz with her top lip separated, she had defaced her; she should have seen the signs, should have confronted Liz before her thinking got to this point. Out of anger at the church and the people who wouldn’t band together, at the city and the realtors that created this situation where mothers and daughters were pitted against one another, Noon dropped her shoulders and cried.
Fannie ran to Noon and hugged her and shook her and pleaded with her. “Please, Noon, please don’t cry, it’ll be okay. Liz is gonna come to her senses. She’s being influenced, you know how low-down dirty their tactics are, they’re influencing her, Noon, please don’t cry.” And then ran back to Liz and grabbed her by the shoulders and shouted, “How could you do such a thing, Liz, to Noon of all people? I feel like kicking your ass myself.”
Liz looked at Fannie. She stared deep into her coal black eyes, and then she flinched. She couldn’t stand to stare in Fannie’s eyes sometimes. Sometimes all she could see was the darkness and then her own reflection. Sometimes she felt diminished when she looked in Fannie’s eyes. It seemed that the worst that Fannie did was to curse on a Sunday. Liz was sure that Fannie didn’t have the hateful thoughts running around in her head that were always spinning in Liz’s. She even hated Fannie right now: for being in Noon’s life first; for not caring what people thought about her, free of always having to hold it together, contained; for being a raw beauty, even now with her hair standing all over her head; for sharing a booth with Willie Mann last night, letting him look into those eyes that held people like magnets. She especially hated Fannie right now for that. So she flinched, and then she had to leave the room. She had to stomp up the stairs. She had to slam her door as hard as she could. She needed the grinding now more than ever. She needed the roughness between her teeth. She needed the solid rockiness of it to scrape the roof of her mouth. She needed to bang up the dust and lose herself in the wall.
“Leave her ’lone, Fannie,” Noon called as Fannie started to follow Liz up the stairs. “I’m going. I’m going.”
“Come on, I’ll walk you home, Noon. Liz’ll come to her senses.” Fannie stroked Noon’s cheeks with lightly cupped hands and then linked her arm in Noon’s.
They were both quiet as they walked back out into the sunlight. The yellow air reminded Noon about her hat. The one she had put the bright yellow flower to just so she get Liz’s admiration. It was still on the floor by the couch. She didn’t want to turn back now to retrieve it. Later. Later she’d unpin the flower, no need to rip the flower off, no need to ruin the hat; she’d just unpin it and let the flower lightly fall.
TWENTY-SIX
Liz was going down. Once she’d told Noon she was selling the house, she lost her joy. She’d felt justified as long as her plan to sell was a secret between her and Willie Mann. But now she was doubled over with the sound of Noon’s sobs bouncing around in her stomach. And that overbearing sunlight that had rushed in through the curtains that day two weeks ago when she’d told Noon had exposed more than her plan; it put a different slant on Willie Mann. Made her heart tingle with a kind of pain that one feels in the tips of fingers that have been asleep for too long. She began to see him cast in that sunlight, imagining what he must have been saying to Fannie when he shared a booth with her at Royale. Started to awaken to the notion that he might stoop so low as to try to swoon Fannie, her own sister, the way she was beginning to realize he had been trying with other women all along. Over the past two weeks she wouldn’t even talk to him. She hardly came out of her room anymore. Wouldn’t go to classes, couldn’t stomach that hourlong bus ride to Lincoln U. Called in sick at her part-time job at Wanamaker’s. She’d started losing weight, hollow look to her eyes, red hair fast losing its proud luster. She couldn’t even stand to look at herself in the mirror. She looked instead at the wall. She didn’t have to worry about seeing her reflection in the grainy roughness of the chunks she tore from the wall’s foundation.
Fannie tried with everything in her to reach out and pull Liz back. She’d shout through the thick wooden door late at night, “Hey, Liz, this is me, Fannie, your closer-than-sister friend. Why you shutting me out? Let me help you, Liz. Let me in.” Liz wouldn’t. And then suddenly Fannie’s seeing eye forced her to let go of Liz. She had a vision that shocked her into a struggle with herself.
One night when Fannie couldn’t sleep because the darkness got blacker than it ever had, her bed sheet whiter, the tips on the hands of her bedside clock that glowed green in the dark hit her eyes like green streaks of lightning striking right in the center of her eyes. And her head pounded from the intensity of the colors, so she just covered her head with the sheets and shook. She saw herself then with Willie Mann. Right in the wine cellar at Club Royale. On the couch. Her thick hair fanned across the arm of the couch, her knees bent wide. Willie Mann moving to the rhythm coming from the club upstairs. A sound coming from deep in her throat like a sound she’d never made before. It was a half moan, half cry, breathless sound that sounded like “Yes.” She’d hear that sound reverberating through her head whenever she tried to look Liz in the eye.
She couldn’t tell Noon what she’d seen. Noon was already shouldering more than her share of burdens. So she confided in Next-Door-Jeanie. They were up late one night stuffing envelopes with letters to the editors of all the Negro-owned and liberal-leaning newspapers across the country. Just the two of them sitting in Jeanie’s spare room-turned-library. The books lining the walls from the floor to the ceiling gave the room a tight, cozy feel, a soundproof feel. Before she realized it, she was saying, “Miss Jeanie, I need to talk
to you. I’m plagued by a vision, and I need to talk to you.”
Jeanie stopped folding and pushed the envelopes aside. “Anything, Fannie, you can tell me anything, anytime.”
Fannie told her the vision just as she’d seen it, down to the sound coming from her own throat that meant Willie Mann was giving her pleasure. It terrified and embarrassed her so.
Jeanie didn’t say anything at first. She watched Fannie as she talked, her shoulders slumped, head almost hung, not at all the bold, confident child she’d watched grow up. A reminder, Jeanie thought, child needs to be reminded of all she is. She reached across the table and pulled a piece of paper from Fannie’s hand that she was crumpling and straightening out and crumpling again. “You have to confront him,” Jeanie said sharply.
“Confront him?”
“Definitely. That boy got no power over you that a good hard stare won’t shrink down to size.”
“But it was a vision.”
“So?”
“So, every time I’ve seen things they’ve come to pass. Even when I’ve prayed to Almighty God they’ve come to pass.”
“Have they dealt with your own will, though, Fannie?”
“My will?” Fannie asked. Needing the paper back, needing to use her hands to let go of some of her energy.
“I’ll bet not,” Jeanie said as her hand lightly covered the balled-up paper, keeping it from Fannie’s reach. “I’ll bet they’ve always had to do with things like birth and death and storms and luck of fortune. Things you can’t control, you might have seen them before they happened, but you couldn’t have controlled them.”
“I never tried to control them. I’m not God.”
Jeanie half laughed. “Who’re you telling?”
“Never knew you believed in God, Miss Jeanie.” Fannie looked beyond Jeanie to the shelf where at least half a dozen Bibles rested, different versions and sizes and colors. “All those Bibles, never pictured you saying morning prayers with a Bible in your hands.”
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