‘Sometimes, darlings, the burden gets too much for Mother. She loses sight — and this is something not many in this church know, but I think you’re advanced enough to hear it — loses sight of her destiny as a mother to our people.’ Jim sighs. ‘Some of you may have heard rumors. Lenny, Terra …’
They flinch, one after another, as if catching a jolt of static electricity.
‘I thank you for your discretion. You’ve shown yourselves to be deeply worthy of my trust. But we don’t got nothing to hide.’ He unclasps his hands. ‘So long as Mother is struggling, I’ll continue to hold her up. I know how much you need her, and she needs you.’
‘What can we do?’ Jo Harris-Harrison pipes up, her voice dopily drawn-out.
‘Exactly what you’re doing, sweetheart. You keep on putting our Temple family first, that’s enough. Mother, she’ll regain her strength, but ’til then, we gotta maintain the order. Make sure the old folks, the little ones, they don’t worry their heads over empty gossip. Children need to know they’re loved.’ Jim raises his head. ‘Terra? Terra, sweetheart …’
Lenny watches Terra stir; flick her hair and rub her legs, as though cold.
‘Sister Phyllis tells me you doin’ wonderful work at the daycare. Now, some of us been talkin’ ’bout putting together a camping trip for the school-age kids. And we want you to be Head Counsellor.’
‘Me?’ Terra widens her eyes. ‘Wow … Hey, what’s “Head Counsellor” do anyway?’
‘Well, first order, honey, you wanna nominate some co-counsellors. I’m thinking five sisters, five brothers—’
Terra beams over her shoulder. ‘Brother Lenny?’
‘Notsofast, there.’ Jim laughs. ‘I want you to be objective as possible, sweetheart. Bear in mind, Lenny’s got his own responsibilities: alternate service, weekend job … Right, son?’
‘Yeah,’ Lenny says, feeling the glow of Jim’s gaze. ‘I guess … it’d be hard to get the time off.’
‘Not to mention, we gotta keep the communes operating smoothly. Both of you gone from Red Creek, gonna put an unfair strain on the other residents, isn’t it?’ Jim turns back to Terra. ‘I want you to consider this socialistically, honey. Don’t be swayed by personal attachments.’
Terra frowns and furrows her brow. Then, just as quickly, her face unclouds. ‘Minnie?’
‘Minnie and Roger, they’re both needed down at the college dorms next month. Like I said, don’t be hasty. Other responsibilities you gotta consider—’
‘Laura?’ Terra butts in. She starts counting on her fingers. ‘Dale, Donna, Johnny—’
‘Sonofabitch, you gonna let me talk?’ Jim blusters, and they all laugh. ‘I said, not so fast. You see Phyllis tomorrow. Give her ten names and she’ll pass ’em on. Got it?’
‘Yes, Father.’
Terra straightens her back like a class pet, and everyone laughs some more. Jim’s sunglasses flash as he tilts his head, twists his lips. ‘Can’t get a word in edgeways, that’s the truth. Now, all you: don’t matter if you’re part of this or not; your contributions, they’re just as valued. Every letter you write, every toilet you scrub, it helps the Cause …’
He goes on in this vein for some time, before turning to Dwight Mueller, the desirability of Su-mi taking a secretarial job in the DA’s office instead of starting college as planned. Terra rests her arm against Lenny’s, mouths, ‘Sorry,’ and Lenny smiles, shrugs. Sure, he’ll miss her, and sure, there’s a feeling inside he doesn’t want to acknowledge, like milk left to sour. But a couple of days, her and a bunch of kids in the woods, no big deal, right?
It’s nearing midnight when the meeting breaks up, and Lenny’s stomach is grizzling again; his legs are tingling and stiff. Jim says, ‘Remember, we’re in a danger cycle, so don’t forget to walk around your car three times,’ then embraces each of them as they filter out in hazy, foot-dragging clusters. ‘Son,’ Lenny notices Jim beckon Roger just as he and Minnie are making a beeline for the door, ‘I need you to stay for one-on-one counseling, remember.’
Roger blanches. Blinks quickly and mumbles something Lenny doesn’t hear. Too bad for him, Lenny thinks, without really feeling bad.
But Minnie, she’s got those beautiful dark eyes flashing at the sight of Jim encircling Roger’s neck, talking close, his tone at once chastising and tender. Minnie drops her gaze. Shoves her hands deep in the pockets of her India-print dress; willowy body, long neck, lovely oblong face, widow’s peak. Hurries past Lenny and Terra through the sanctuary, out to the parking lot, then stops, like she doesn’t know where to go.
‘Minnie!’ Terra calls. ‘Wait up.’
Minnie turns. Swipes a tear.
‘Minnie, what’s wrong?’
She only shakes her head, mutters, ‘Oh Jesus.’
And that’s all she’ll say, no matter how much Terra coaxes. Unease eats at Lenny as he looks away from the girls: at the clouds drifting over the moon like dirty water, the blinds lidding the sockets of the great glass windows. Or maybe he’s just hungry. He looks across the parking lot at Laura, Johnny, and Dwight as they laughingly trot in circles around Dwight’s shiny Aston Martin — a wedding gift from Dwight’s rich dad, frowned upon by the Temple. Terra asks if Minnie’s going to wait for Roger. Minnie doesn’t know. Terra looks at Lenny.
‘Hey … Can we give you a ride?’ he offers.
They don’t mention Roger during the drive down to Minnie’s parents’ house in Prosperity. Instead, Terra asks Minnie questions that seem simple but have long, interesting answers, like, ‘Did your dad have his own church before he met Jim?’ and, ‘Do you have much family outside California?’ Listening to Minnie talk about her Tennessee aunts, how they thought her dad had become a ‘godless northerner’ when he threw in his pastorship at a nice all-black church to work wood in Indianapolis, Lenny almost misses the turnoff. When they finally rumble up the drive of the Bellows’ farmhouse, Ursa, the white sister, runs out to meet the car in her nightie like a kid from some Amish backwater, and spends a long time admiring the yellow paint job, making Minnie admonish, ‘Ursa, it’s late.’ Then there’s the dark, winding journey back to Red Creek, just a hamlet to the northeast, named for the trickle running through its red dirt. Through the ride, Terra talks about poor Minnie, whom Roger shouldn’t take for granted; she’s so nice, so smart, so pretty, not just ‘pretty for a black girl’ but, like, prettiest in the Temple — don’t you think? On and on until they get inside and have to be quiet, can’t wake Martha, and Nessa needs all the sleep she can get before the baby comes. Looking at the strip of darkness under Nessa’s door, Lenny thinks of the times he’s seen it lit up, Nessa and Eustace’s voices crawling out from under it, and wondered if black couples talk about the same things in private as white couples do. In their own room, Terra turns on the lamp with the colorful scarf draped over it, casting psychedelic patterns across the walls, the bed. She sets the alarm for four-thirty. Undresses. Lies down, hands on her midriff.
‘I can’t believe Father chose me,’ she says, to Lenny or maybe to the ceiling.
5.
That Lenny Lynden hasn’t had much luck with the ladies, that’s for sure.
‘You haven’t had much luck,’ Luce says, by way of consolation, when the kid shows up at the end of summer with nothing more than a suitcase and a cursory phone call from Jim.
Marital problems. Just needs a few days to clear his head, that’s all.
‘Huh?’ says Lenny Lynden.
‘Nevermind.’ Luce points him upstairs. ‘You’ll be bunking with Danny.’
Lenny Lynden doesn’t wear a shirt to bed. Luce learns this early the next morning, bumping into the kid on his way to the bathroom, and it’s such a pretty shock, the tousled brown hair and the shallow navel, Luce can only stumble, ‘B-breakfast at seven.’ Sleep isn’t an option after that, so Luce puts on his boots and gets a jump on the chores, the children’s cho
res, and the next he sees of Lenny Lynden, he’s eating oatmeal in his white uniform and being interrogated by Dot.
‘Are you getting divorced again?’
Lenny Lynden shrugs.
‘But Terra’s so pretty! Like, like, Sharon Tate—’
‘Not Sharon Tate.’ Bobbi slouches back in her chair, long legs spread wide in tight yellow slacks. She tugs at her short pigtail as if that might make it grow. ‘Jane Fonda, maybe.’ Then, to Lenny, playing older than her fourteen years, ‘You know, Barbarella?’
‘Ro-ber-ta! ’ Joya casts an overwrought look from Bobbi to Hattie, their new black baby foster daughter, drooling oatmeal in her high chair. Joya swats at Bobbi’s wide-apart knees. ‘Have some manners! And I want you to get rid of those pants. They’re pornographic.’
‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want,’ Bobbi backtalks. Yet, no doubt glad to be dismissed, she uncurls herself from her chair and storms out, backside wagging defiantly.
‘Honestly … that girl has such an artistic temperament,’ Joya sighs, dabbing Hattie’s mouth. Artistic being code for difficult. Code for his fault. She turns to Dot. ‘Of course Lenny and Terra aren’t getting divorced! They’re just taking some time. Right, Lenny?’
Lenny Lynden doesn’t answer.
Mostly, Luce feels sorry for the kid. That Evelyn Lynden, it’s true, he thinks the kid dodged a bullet there. But Terra, she’s a sweet girl. They made a sweet couple at the wedding, though nowhere near as striking as Roger and Minnie. It seems a sorry thing for the honeymoon to be over already, even if Luce himself never had much use for honeymoons.
Joya thinks so, too.
‘We’ve got to get Lenny and Terra back together!’ she declares, after Lenny Lynden has left for the loony bin and the school bus has come and gone.
‘If Father wanted us intervening, he’da said it, Joy,’ Luce demurs; not because he disagrees but because his wife, like all females, has a habit of coming on too strong.
‘Father trusts our influence.’ Joya hoists Hattie up in her thick orange arms. Since taking a job at the hair salon in Evergreen Valley, Joya has come to favor sleeveless smocks, capri pants, not the skirt suits she looks best in. ‘I’ll talk to Terra when I take Hattie to daycare.’
Luce watches Joya touch Hattie’s spongy hair. Hattie looks up, burbles, ‘Bada-gin!’
Brother Gene.
‘I’ll take her,’ Luce says.
And before Joya can protest, he scoops Hattie up, pets the frizzy hairs at her forehead. Joya doesn’t seem inclined to protest anyhow, just flutters her eyelashes like her brain can’t quite compute his helpfulness. ‘Don’t forget Fluck!’ she sings after his brown shirt, brandishing ‘Fluck’ — dubious name aside, just a fluffy toy truck.
It’s not quite eight-thirty when they reach the Temple daycare on Vine Street: a white ranch-style house where, funny enough, Lenny Lynden used to live with that she-wolf, Evelyn. Luce gives his siren a whirl for the kids on the lawn, and for Hattie, who likes it just as much as the others did when they were small, debunking Joya’s fears about bad ghetto associations.
‘Woop-woop!’ Hattie squeals.
Luce laughs, ‘Woop-woop,’ then hands her Fluck.
Terra, out on the porch, is laughing, too, shielding her eyes from the early sun. Blue-sprigged prairie dress and hair in braids on top of her head like a milkmaid. She starts coming down the path as he’s coming up, Hattie in his arms. She grins at him, ‘Officer.’
‘Cinderella.’ Luce grins back.
A nickname, one that stuck, from the first time he saw her looking like a proper young lady instead of the barefoot thing who’d done a shit in the corner of her cell. It took two weeks to cure her of crabs, after which they burned her sleeping bag.
‘Man, is she heavy!’ Terra marvels, taking Hattie up, giggling. ‘Guess I’d be too, if I was still living with you guys.’
Joya’s cooking, she means: those big plates of beef and noodles, breaded pork and tater tots that got her looking corn-fed and rosy even before the crabs were gone. Luce sucks in his gut theatrically and Terra laughs, loud and sweet. A sweet girl, not in the least troubled by the business with Lenny Lynden, apparently. Luce considers leaving it at that; convincing Joya to let the kid stay forever, eating oatmeal and walking their halls shirtless. But the guilt kicks in.
‘I got time for a coffee.’ He tips his hat toward the house.
‘Oh?’ Terra blinks quickly, reminding him of his daughters, caught out in a lie. ‘You betcha,’ she resorts to the mock-Hoosier accent that always makes him and Joya smile. Then she nudges the door open and volleys down the hall, ‘La-la-la-laura! The fuzz is here! Get your ass on the grass, stat!’
A minute later, Laura Kana, a husky white girl with big black eyebrows, appears in the doorway, wiping down a toy truck. She smirks at Luce’s uniform. ‘Oh jeez. Busted again?’
In fact, Luce did bust her once, smoking outside the movie-house in Moontown when she should’ve been in school. The tomboy daughter of a local wine family, and a couple of years above Roger at Evergreen High — when she showed up.
‘Just coffee, for now.’
‘Yeah? We don’t have any donuts.’
Maybe it’s a joke, maybe not; the impertinence of these new young ladies, it rankles, makes the back of his neck hot and taut. But he removes his hat carefully before squeezing his tall body past, and there’s pride in the gesture, what it signifies: a man and a gentleman.
There’s a little Asian boy playing with some dangly curtains at the entry to the kitchen. Terra steps around him, and he stares after her skirts. In the den, a pigtailed white toddler sits on the sofa between a black boy and girl. The TV babbles. Phyllis Clancy is folding laundry, but looks up when she sees Luce and blurts, ‘Well, hiya.’
Phyllis is good people. An unmarried woman with a big bosom and even bigger behind, a few years older than him, raised a few miles north of him, just as racist before she came to the light of the Cause as he was.
‘Hiya,’ Luce says back. ‘Should be out there enjoying the sun, Phyllis.’
‘Last time I did that, I cooked like a ham.’
‘That right?’ Luce watches the sun crawl up the wall, watches the kids watching Captain Kangaroo. ‘Honey-glazed or Virginia?’
Phyllis snorts a laugh.
They shoot the breeze for a couple minutes about the weather: dry California summers and the warm, wet summers back home; summers of cracking lightning over baseball fields. A boy the next town over, Luce still remembers, summer of ’37, who got struck down playing ball, and how there were always more reasons to believe in a punishing God than not. When Terra wiggles into the room, she’s got Hattie at her heels and a steaming mug in her hands. She passes it to him with a balmy blue-eyed look, the kind he hopes his daughters will never give so freely. ‘No sugar or cream! I know you’re cutting back.’
Luce drinks with a grimace. Mind-boggling that Joya was never able to teach her to make a decent cup of joe, in all the time she lived with them.
‘Who’s that? Hattie-hat-hat!’ Phyllis puts on a silly, growly voice for Hattie, who’s coyly clutching Fluck. Hattie giggles, screams, launches herself at Phyllis.
‘That’s our Hat,’ Luce confirms. He raises the mug to his lips, thinks better of it. Cutting his eyes at Terra, he tries to signal that it’s time for serious talk, but her face is a bland and beautiful vault. Cautiously, he tries: ‘You’re looking well.’
‘Yeah?’ Terra looks pleased.
‘And Lenny?’
‘Oh.’ A well-trained daughter, she catches herself mid eye-roll; makes her voice soft as cotton candy. ‘Yeah. Thanks for taking him in and all that. We really appreciate it.’
‘Nothing to it.’ The kid’s white torso ghosts up in Luce’s mind. He forces himself to look at Hattie, happily clambering up the couch, babbling, up, up! ‘Course, y’know, he
can’t stay forever—’
‘He can come back whenever he wants,’ Terra interjects. ‘I’m not stopping him.’
Luce looks to Phyllis, who’s gone back to folding: one ear trained on the TV, the other on the little ones. Third ear, probably, on him and Terra. ‘Well. Some encouragement sure wouldn’t hurt …’
Terra laughs then. Who knew such a pretty, sunny sound could be so callous.
‘Oh, Gene! It’s real sweet of you to care. But, look …’ She flushes at Phyllis’s nearness, takes Luce’s arm. He’s surprised to let himself be dragged so easily into the corner by the little blonde. ‘There’s just more important things for me to focus on right now than some boy’s feelings. I know that sounds mean, but, well … tough tomatoes.’ Another Midwestern-ism. ‘This life. Things are changing so fast: there’s a revolution coming, we’ve got to be ready—’
‘I don’t quite understand,’ Luce cuts her short. ‘What’s that got to do with the kid?’
Luce almost wishes she would roll her eyes; it’d be less brazen than that doll-like stare, that blink. ‘He is a kid,’ she says softly, touching her lips. With the gesture, Luce’s eyes are drawn to a series of scratches on her arms: from the camping trip, he knows, a survival game involving running through briars; all the parents were consulted and asked to sign consent forms. ‘That’s the trouble: I’m a serious, socialist woman, and he’s a kid.’
‘Not a bad kid,’ Luce qualifies, feeling a dutiful pity for Lenny Lynden, twice-dumped and too moony to speak for himself. ‘He’s serious, works hard. Loves you, seems like.’
‘Loves me,’ Terra says, as if the thought is new to her. ‘I guess he does? Gene … you’re a doll. But it’s different these days. I mean, we don’t have to pretend like when you—’ She stops, seeing his stony expression; gives him a sad smile. ‘Maybe I love him? I do love him, like brother and sister, like you and Joya, y’know? And I don’t want to hurt him. It’s just, all that relationship stuff? It’s capitalist bullshit; propaganda invented by white church slaveholders to keep us from really loving. I can’t be with a man who wants that. Not Lenny, not any man. There’s only one who can fulfill me as the beautiful revolutionary I am.’
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