The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

  “Very good! Let’s go get something to eat down at Zulu’s place. Belle thinks I have patients, but I have Fridays off now. You don’t think less of me for lying, do you, Lydia?”

  “No, of course not.”

  She asked if he could bring her some fabric. She wanted to keep her skills up. He brought her back some pin-striped linen, making her put her hand on the Bible again.

  It was a lady named Irma Bradley who noticed her dress in Mr. Harris’s restaurant. That dress was too fancy for this neighborhood.

  “Where you get that?” she asked.

  “I made this myself, Mrs. Bradley.”

  “Shonuff?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When Mrs. Bradley wore a dress that Lydia made, she told the other, older ladies that Lydia’s prices were more than reasonable. If someone brought a pattern, that was nice, but if not, tell Lydia where to find the dress. She’d take the bus down to the store, carry the dress into the dressing room, and turn it inside out. She could make her own pattern out of brown paper. That girl had a gift.

  It was passed down from her great-grandmother, Lydia told Mrs. Bradley. The lady hadn’t learned to read, but she’d had a photographic memory. Though Dear Pearl been a white man’s daughter, she was still Negro, and the stores in town hadn’t let her try on clothes. But those white folks hadn’t bothered her; she could see a dress in the store window and make an exact copy.

  “Them white folks,” Mrs. Bradley said. “That’s why I left Mississippi. But I wish I could go back for good. I still got people there.”

  Lydia took the pins from her mouth. “You should, Mrs. Bradley. I bet it’s not as bad.”

  “I can’t leave now. Not with Maurice.” He was her grandchild, the son of Sondra, whose boyfriend had refused to marry her. But when they’d broken up, he’d thought his court-sanctioned child support of Maurice gave him a say-so. The judge thought he had a say-so, too. Two years later, when Sondra was diagnosed with early breast cancer, she’d moved back in with Mrs. Bradley. When Sondra died, Maurice’s father still wouldn’t let anyone take his son out of the City, though he had a new woman and a new baby, and said that the apartment they lived in was too small for Maurice. So here Mrs. Bradley was, trying to raise a badass little boy at her age. But she couldn’t leave him for his father to palm him off on some stranger or maybe even foster care. God would never forgive her, would he?

  “I don’t know about that, Mrs. Bradley. I pray, but I don’t hear too much these days. I do know this: the Lord knows you’re just doing the best you can. And whatever you decide, it’ll be all right.”

  “Thank you, darling. Sometimes I need me a good word,” and Mrs. Bradley’s face cleared of discontent. She was soothed, and Lydia sat back on her heels. She’d known what had been expected of her, but she had been glad for it. Somebody needed her, for once, and there was a near happiness. Almost as if it was only an extended holiday she was taking, in her small apartment decorated with charming odds and ends.

  That weekend, she violated her father’s orders. She called her parents’ house on a Sunday, when she knew Mama was in the kitchen. Lydia listened for that southern, musical sound, and then hung up.

  * * *

  Christmas was the hardest that first year. The time she’d hated the most as a girl, but there was a longing for the familiar. Mr. Harris didn’t celebrate Christmas, and Lydia didn’t want to feign an interest in his Kwanzaa celebration. Her mother had made fun of that holiday, saying, Black folks always wanted to make something up, just to be fancy.

  Lydia missed her baby sister the most, the child who thought her unsullied, even in her lowest time. The baby she’d held for comfort, and Lydia was lonely. She told herself she didn’t have a right to feel that way. She’d messed up her life. Still her husband was dead, and Chicasetta was an impossible distance away. She needed her baby sister. And she took the bus to her grandmother’s street, watching as Mama pulled up in the station wagon. It took some time for Ailey to exit the car: their mother was talking with her hands.

  There were a couple weekends of observing, and Lydia decided she would get clean. She wouldn’t see her baby sister high. She cut the days into pieces. Into hours and then minutes. The need kept coming down, and the day Lydia took the bus to Nana’s house, she went a whole day and a half without a rock before she rang the doorbell.

  Miss Delores answered and ordered her to stand in the hallway, and Lydia waited, sending her mind different places while she timed the minutes without her rock. She looked at the stairway, waiting for Ailey. The need was worth it, because her baby sister was coming, but Miss Delores sent down Nana instead, who called Lydia a disgrace to the family. Certainly, she hadn’t inherited these weaknesses from the Garfield side of the family.

  Lydia had dropped her head, waiting for the tirade’s conclusion. It would end, and then she could see her baby sister, but her grandmother told her, it was time to leave.

  “Please, Nana. Let me see her.”

  “No, this is for the best. You cannot ruin that child.”

  If she had pushed Lydia toward the door—forced her outside—that might have been the end, but Nana told her, maybe if her mother had raised her children properly, this wouldn’t have happened, and then Lydia told it all, every offense of Gandee, how he’d hurt her. Even when Nana’s self-righteousness turned to horror, to contrition, to weeping, to denials, Lydia kept shouting. She wasn’t going away without burning down a forest and salting the dirt to ruin.

  When she left, she headed around the corner to the bus stop, and when the bus came, it wasn’t her line, but she got on anyway. She watched the faces of people until she saw the needed misery. Her comrades. Her new family.

  The Other Side of the World

  There had been terrors in the seven years that Lydia had lived in the neighborhood. Times that she had been hurt in the places where she went to buy her drugs. Twice, her father had disappeared for weeks, until Mr. Harris had passed on the news that her father was fine. He told her don’t be upset, but her daddy had a heart attack. When her father returned to his daughter’s apartment, he told her his doctor had made him cut his hours on account of his health. Mama didn’t know that, however, and Daddy hated to lie to his woman. But a brother didn’t want to be tracked constantly, even when he wasn’t misbehaving. Some nights when he told Belle he was working the emergency room, he really was at Mr. Harris’s house, just hanging out. Sometimes they took a sip or two of brown liquor, too, and Daddy would fall asleep on his friend’s couch.

  In the years since he’d put her out of the house, Lydia’s father had lost his severity. He left envelopes of cash on her couch, without a word. He was direct with Lydia, too, as he’d never been before her own troubles, and it occurred to her that he had no fear of judgment from her.

  Two weeks before her father died, he gave her his usual lecture, which always occurred after the new year. They’d sat at the small table in her kitchen, eating out of takeout containers from his friend’s restaurant. Her father had asked her to fry him some pork chops, but she’d refused.

  “Daddy, you know you’re not supposed to have pork.”

  “Who’s going to know?”

  “Mama will! She’ll smell that grease on you. And you’re supposed to be dropping weight. Now, you eat that baked chicken like your doctor told you.”

  “If I drop this weight, you need to walk behind me and pick it right on up. You’re too skinny.”

  He put one of his corn muffins in her container, and Lydia nibbled it as he gave the family news. Veronica was showing out, with her rotten, spoiled self. Uncle Lawrence was trying to get back with Aunt Diane, as usual. Malcolm was making good progress on his doctorate, up in Amherst. Her baby sister was getting high grades. And Coco was coming back to town. She had a residency.

  “I know Nana must be happy,” Lydia said. “She finally got her doctor.”

  “Don’t you dare be jealous,” he said. “Coco isn’t any smarter than you.”
/>   “Yes, she is, Daddy! She tested as a genius.”

  “Yeah, well, her social skills are damned awful. She and my brother are two peas in a pod. Not that I don’t love all my girls equally.”

  “She’s okay with folks when she’s comfortable.” Lydia wasn’t going to tell her sister’s business, that she was charming indeed, in the presence of a pretty woman.

  “I’m just saying, all you have to do is apply yourself,” he said. “Your whole life is ahead of you.”

  He’d had such faith in her, that her kicking drugs was like studying for a test.

  When her father died, she found out from Mr. Harris, weeks after the funeral. He swore he hadn’t known. If he had, he would have taken her to Georgia. Surely, his brother would have wanted it that way.

  “Who told you, Mr. Harris?” she asked.

  “Your sister,” he said.

  “Ailey?” She pictured a girl, tall but with baby fat. Her wild curls going in all directions.

  “No, your other sister, Coco.”

  “Did she ask about me?”

  He took her hand. “She did, Lydia. She’s very worried about you. She wants to get you back into treatment.”

  “How’d she know?”

  “Don’t be angry, darling, but your daddy told her.”

  “I’m not mad, Mr. Harris. And I’m gone get myself together. I promise.”

  “I believe you, darling.”

  She slid her hand from his. He was a nice man; he’d never tried anything with her. There wasn’t even a funny look trained on her. He was like an uncle, like Uncle Root or Uncle Norman, and she knew he meant well, but with her father dead, sobriety occupied a distant land. It made Lydia’s legs tired, thinking of walking there.

  Spring arrived. She would wait until the long light gave way to darkness, before taking the bus to places she knew she shouldn’t go. Neighborhoods that were extremely dangerous, and there were things that happened to her. Bad things, but when she was high, she reasoned, it wasn’t as if anyone cared. Perhaps she would die in one of those houses with shutters like missing eyes. Infrequently, she ate candy bars. She stayed like that for many days, ignoring Irma Bradley’s knocks. She put a note on the apartment door, that she’d suffered a loss in the family.

  When the phone rang, it shocked her. Her father had paid the bill. Since he’d died, she hadn’t gone near it. She hadn’t wanted to pick up the receiver and hear silence.

  “Lydia, it’s your sister, Carol Rose.” She sounded so much like their mother, it struck Lydia in the chest. The throaty alto. The catch at the bottom of a phrase. “Say something, girl. I know you’re there. I hear you breathing.”

  “Hey, Coco.”

  “Hey. I got your number from Mr. Harris.”

  “Okay.”

  “So how are you doing? How’s your health these days?”

  If her sister hadn’t sounded so graceful, Lydia would have laughed. Before Dear Pearl had died, she’d hated folks asking after her well-being. She’d tell them, none of they damned business. They won’t no doctor. But the irony was, Lydia’s sister was a doctor. She had a right to ask.

  “I’m fine, Coco. Thank you so much for calling.”

  “So listen—”

  Lydia hung up abruptly, and when the phone rang seconds later, she did not answer. She spent a lot of daylight sleeping, until the summer came one day. The sun coaxed her out of bed. Like a friend who won’t give up on you, no matter how many times you tell her, leave me be. Just let me be miserable. Girl, I’m grown.

  There weren’t many trees in the neighborhood, but the sky was pretty when Lydia emerged from her building, blinking. She kept her head down, embarrassed, but her neighbors loudly greeted her. In the clinic, Gretchen, the receptionist, came out from the reception cubicle and hugged her.

  “Girl, where you been?”

  She caught Lydia up on everything. Not much had changed. There hadn’t been enough heat in the winter, but at least the air conditioner was working now. And the clinic director was trying to convince Irma Bradley to let a new volunteer help her fill out a questionnaire.

  “Dr. Pillai should know better,” Lydia said. “You know Mrs. Bradley’s particular about her business.”

  “Ain’t she though?” Gretchen said. “I was scared for that volunteer, ’cause Mrs. Bradley don’t play!”

  They grabbed hands and laughed real loud. Then someone called her name, and there she was: Ailey. Her baby sister, all grown up. Curly hair cut to her shoulders and blow-dried. Still big-boned, but the plumpness had settled into curves.

  Lydia was ashamed of what Ailey saw: a young woman who’d aged tremendously. Lydia’s eyes shot through with red, skin riddled with acne, one tooth missing from the front. She raised a hand to cover her mouth, but Ailey pulled it away. She placed her sister’s palm on her cheek, and Lydia was grateful she wasn’t high.

  * * *

  When Ailey found her, even the ghetto seemed cleaner. There was hope now. And love and family and company. The kindness of others who weren’t her blood was no longer a burden. She had introduced Ailey to the people she spoke to in the neighborhood. The waitresses at Mr. Harris’s restaurant, whose suspicious expressions gave way to surprise. This was Lydia’s sister, for real? They didn’t favor at all, but as time passed, people in the neighborhood began to remark, they held their mouths alike. And when they talked, it sounded like the same person.

  Seven years away from Chicasetta was a long time, and though Daddy had relayed some of the information, he’d never remembered the same details that Ailey did about Chicasetta, the family drama and chronicles that occupied Lydia’s imagination. Who else had died since Dear Pearl had passed away? Who was married? Who had given birth? She smiled when Ailey confessed that she’d had a summer fling years ago with her old playmate, the boy everybody had called Baybay, though her sister referred to him by his government name. They hadn’t gone all the way, but it had come close.

  “I bet that guy’s still sweet on you, though.”

  Ailey laughed. “Oh, I doubt it! That’s been so long ago. We were just kids, and he’s engaged now.”

  “That don’t matter. Who could ever get over you?”

  On the days that Ailey volunteered at the clinic, they met for lunch at Mr. Harris’s restaurant. They squeezed into the same side of the booth and ate from the same plate. After the clinic was closed for business, they would sit on the stoop, and Irma Bradley would sit with them. They’d listen to her stories of the husband who had cheated but not deserted, who’d come north with her from Mississippi, accompanied by cardboard suitcases and brown paper bags stained by the grease of fried chicken. But those two deep southerners had been disappointed by the coldness of people and weather. That the bugs in the City weren’t as large as the ones in Mississippi, but seemed more sinister because nobody had said, y’all they got roaches up in the City, too.

  Autumn, and a chill that settled into the tailbone, and Lydia told Ailey, don’t be sitting out on those steps, freezing her ovaries. Somebody had to give their mother grandkids, and Mr. Harris let the two sisters sit in the lobby. Technically, it was still the man’s clinic, and since he vouched for Mrs. Bradley, she came inside as well.

  Ailey balanced a takeout container on her lap. She moved a large piece of meat loaf in Lydia’s direction. “Girl, eat that. You see I’m getting big.”

  “No, you ain’t. That’s just baby fat.” Lydia took a morsel with her fork. “Um. That’s good.”

  “How I’m gone have baby fat when I’m twenty-two years old?” She pushed Lydia’s shoulder gently.

  “’Cause you my baby.”

  “Hey, y’all.” Mrs. Bradley sat down in a chair across, making a huffing noise.

  “Good afternoon.” The sisters spoke in tandem.

  Lydia gestured politely with the fork. “Have some, Mrs. Bradley?”

  “No thank you, darling. The doctor say I’m not supposed to eat no beef. Say it run my pressure up.”

  “You s
ure?”

  “You go on ’head and eat that.”

  Mr. Harris came through the door. “Look at this! I need to take a picture! My brother’s girls. Man, I miss Geoff.” He began to talk about the old days, when he and the sisters’ father had worn dashikis. He clapped his hands in mirth. “Geoff tried everything to get his hair nappy! One time, he washed his hair with Ajax and it turned green. He had to shave it down to the scalp.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Ailey said.

  “I remember that man,” Mrs. Bradley said. “I thought he was white, but then I seen him with your mama. When did he pass?”

  “Last winter,” Mr. Harris said. “It was sudden. He didn’t suffer. Your sister called me and told me about the funeral. I didn’t know until then.”

  “Coco called you?” Ailey asked.

  “Yeah, but it was too late,” he said. “I hate I—we—missed the service.”

  Ailey listed the attendees at the homegoing, saying the service had been lovely. The family from Chicasetta. Some folks from Red Mound. Her old playmates, Boukie Crawford and David James.

  Nana wasn’t there, though. She informed Lydia that their grandmother had had a stroke and couldn’t travel long distances. Lydia didn’t say anything.

  “But it was a real nice service,” Ailey said. “And there was a barbecue for the repast.”

  “Ooh, girl!” Lydia said. “Daddy would have loved that!”

  “Yes, my brother was hung up on that swine,” Mr. Harris said. “And it’s just not good for you.” He began quoting from a medical journal he’d borrowed from their father when he’d still been alive. Daddy had told Mr. Harris he was in excellent health, probably because he’d become a vegetarian.

  Mrs. Bradley snorted. “You probably gone die early from all that lettuce. And ain’t nothing wrong with pork. You just got to drain the fat, that’s all.”

  Whenever the two elders debated, the sisters would lean back, exchanging discreet pokes, and back at Lydia’s apartment, they marveled, older Black folks were the same everywhere you went, weren’t they?

  It had taken months for Lydia to let Ailey into her apartment, to the two rooms, the kitchenette, and bathroom. The thrift-store odds and ends. An old TV with an antenna. There was no cable for the television, but there was a bookcase filled with books. The antique sewing machine in its cabinet, covered by a length of blue satin, and Ailey asking, where had she found it? It looked just like Dear Pearl’s.