by Cynthia Webb
I’d called Walter’s place the night before to try to set him straight, like Johnny suggested. But he’d been out, and I’d left a message for him that he should really behave himself until I got back and had a chance to talk with him. I hoped it was clear enough for him to catch the meaning, and cryptic enough to keep Johnny out of trouble.
It wasn’t until I’d been on the road for several hours, and almost two-hundred miles, that I realized that the same brown, nondescript car was in my rear view window every time I looked. Way back, but there all right.
First, I felt a little nervous. Then I was irritated at myself. I was being paranoid. After all, anyone wanting to head due north would take this highway. Once they got on, they’d naturally be behind me for quite a while.
So I slowed down to about forty-five. Which was real hard for me. Made me antsy. The brown car slowed down, too.
I went back up to seventy. It sped up, too. I stepped on it, went just about as fast as I dared. So did the car behind me. But it continued to stay far enough behind that I couldn’t get a real look at who was in it. I thought there were at least two of them. My stomach was tying itself up in Boy Scout knots, but I forced myself to remain calm and functional.
I pulled off into a gas station. The car drove on past. I looked hard. There appeared to be the driver and just one passenger beside him, both men. Not the least bit familiar.
I filled up with gas, used the predictably filthy bathroom, bought some of those peanut-butter-filled cheese crackers Momma used to buy for me and my brothers on long car rides when we were kids.
Then I hit the road again. Checked my rear view mirror a couple of times. The brown car was nowhere in sight.
After a few more hours, I was getting bored with my own singing. When I passed through a town with a K-Mart on the highway, I pulled off into the parking lot and went in.
I hadn’t been in one of those in a long time. After you’ve spent years shopping in those cramped places in the city, you start to appreciate the wide aisles. And there were whole families wandering around, pushing carts, leisurely picking out things to buy. Mothers and fathers who didn’t look like they’d wasted any time worrying about what to wear; kids with stained t-shirts, messy hair, dirty knees.
Wasn’t long until I found what I’d come in for. The bargain bin of cassette tapes. All of them a dollar ninety-nine. I took the best of the lot, which wasn’t saying much—Tony Bennett, the Monkees, Pavarotti, the Best of Disco—an eclectic mix. I paid for it all, along with a giant-sized box of Milk Duds that I couldn’t resist. Those stores are dangerous for me, and as I paid, I made a decision to abstain from them for at least another decade. I walked back across the parking lot, fully equipped for the last leg of my journey.
Except Milk Duds don’t really constitute a meal. Instead of pulling back out on the highway, I did a quick turn through the streets of the town, looking for nourishment. I saw a small bakery, bought a dozen doughnuts and a large cup of coffee. There now. A few more turns and I was back on the highway.
I stuck Pavarotti in the tape player. Seemed appropriate to eat doughnuts by. The land was hillier now, the vegetation greener, and the earth looked darker. I was in northwestern Florida, a completely different place than the one I’d left that morning.
There I was, driving, munching, sipping and singing my way north. I glanced into my rear view window, and my heart dropped into my doughnut-stuffed stomach. It was there again. I felt nausea churning as I realized that I should have gotten the license number when it passed me at the gas station back there. I thought about calling Johnny on the car phone to discuss this turn of events with him, but I didn’t want to have to tell him how stupid I’d been.
I was almost to the next turnoff on my journey, onto a smaller, less-traveled highway. It was getting late, and I could feel the dark getting ready to settle. The recent car chase fresh in my mind, I definitely didn’t want the brown car behind me as I drove down lonely, unfamiliar roads through the night.
I burrowed my coffee cup down among the doughnuts for safe keeping, and picked up the phone. I put it back down. I couldn’t very well call Sammy’s mother and ask her to come get me, could I? I mean, that’d be rude, and, besides, I didn’t want to put her in danger. And right there, it hit me. I was putting people in danger. I’d left my parents without telling them that the Klan was angry at me. I’d felt sure my daddy’s reputation would protect them, but then I’d been sure I could handle George that night in the car. I’d been worse than stupid. I’d been so prejudiced it had turned me stone blind. I’d been sure that no redneck southern Klansman could outsmart me that I’d ignored all the evidence of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, with all the wrong moves.
Sure, Johnny said he’d look after my folks, but didn’t they have a right to know that I may have endangered them? Shouldn’t I have owned up to my stupidity? And why was I so trusting of Johnny all of a sudden, when I knew about him and Forrest Miller? Maybe he just told me all that stuff about the drug bust and Walter to get me to let down my guard. I desperately wanted to believe that Johnny was a decent guy. I wanted to believe it in spite of the fact that he’d stayed in that crummy little town when he could have done better. In spite of the fact he’d once made two years of my life a living hell. In spite of the fact that I knew he owed his new position to Forrest Miller. And what kind of guy wants to be a police chief anyway? The only way I could get a handle on that was to picture him kind of like Furillo used to be on “Hill Street Blues.” But Furillo wouldn’t have told me about the drug bust, would he?
And Sammy’s mother. If it was the Klan tailing me, and they were still mad at me, I might be putting her in danger, too. I only had Johnny’s opinion that they wouldn’t keep pursuing me for my stupid behavior at the rally that night. Unless, of course, the guys in the brown car had nothing to do with the rally and instead were interested in my interest in Elijah Wilson. I’d been dancing around this in my head, but it was time to stop and face it. Johnny was right, I’d mentioned Elijah Wilson to almost everyone I’d spoken to since I got to Port Mullet. Just thinking about the possibility of his murder, even a thirty-five-year-old murder, chilled my guts. Up until that moment, I’d been thinking how brave I was. Strong, invincible. But I wasn’t brave, I was just stupidly impulsive, and careless with other people’s safety.
Sammy had faced this already, when we were talking on the phone. The minute she had realized that this wasn’t just a little human interest research problem she’d given me, but a mystery with unsavory possibilities, she had tried to get me to drop it. She hadn’t wanted to put me in danger. And I’d been too wrapped up in my pride, and this macho idea that I was gonna drag her daddy’s life story home to her, like some caveman with a dead mastodon. More like a kindergartner with a finger painting.
I saw what looked like a diner up ahead and pulled off into the small parking lot. I backed into a spot, parked right by the front door, under a pool of light.
I watched the highway for a few minutes. The brown car didn’t appear. I had made up my mind. I was going to call Mrs. Wilson and cancel my visit. Then I was going to drive back to Port Mullet, tell my parents about all the stupid shit I’d done in my short visit, and get the hell on the first plane to LaGuardia. I was determined to quit screwing around with things that were none of my business or over my head.
After two rings, someone answered the phone.
“Mrs. Wilson? I asked.
“Who’s calling, please?” asked a female voice.
“This is Laurie Coldwater,” I stuttered. “Is this Mrs. Wilson?”
Instantly the voice changed, became that sweet-sounding voice of the South that I have—okay, I’ll admit it—a certain incurable fondness for.
“No, honey. You’re Samantha’s friend Etta Mae is waiting for, aren’t you? I’m Sapphire, her sister, Samantha’s aunt. We are looking forward to your visit, child. Etta Mae is out in the kitchen right now, making her lemon pound cake, the one with the pudd
ing mix in it and that sweet glaze, don’t you know.
“You just hang on, now, while I go get Etta. And drive careful, honey. Don’t hurry, but Lord, are we looking forward to seeing you.”
I held the phone, nearly busting my eyeballs trying to look through the dark south down the highway. Searching for the brown car that I was half afraid was a figment of my imagination, and half afraid wasn’t.
“Where are you calling from, Laurie?” came Mrs. Wilson’s voice, as sweet as, and very much like, Sapphire’s.
I told her where I was.
“Oh, you’re less than an hour away. Don’t eat anything, dear, if you can help it. I’ll have supper ready when you get here.”
“Thank you, but… Mrs. Wilson?”
“Etta Mae. Yes, honey?”
“I appreciate all the trouble you’ve gone to, but I really don’t think I should come.”
She didn’t say anything for a while. The cars that passed by in front of me appeared first in the distance as headlights. The light rushed closer and closer, bigger and brighter, but I couldn’t see the bodies of the cars until they were right in front of me.
I spoke in a rush, feeling like a small child, trying to explain some mess I had made. “I should’ve told you this when I first spoke with you. I’m not sure it’s safe to visit you, Ma’am. Not safe for you, I mean, not me. I’m not sure I’m safe anywhere right now, so it isn’t me I’m worried about—”
My predicament became more real for me as I spoke, trying to tell it all to a stranger. I shivered, and then realized the doors to my car were unlocked. I locked the one on the driver’s side, and I reached the one on the front passenger side. But I’d have to put the phone down and lean way over the seat back to reach the ones in the rear.
“Just a minute,” I said. “I’ve got to lock the car doors.”
I did it quickly, but as I was sliding back down into the seat, I caught sight of tail lights on the back of a car headed north on the highway. No way of telling if it was the brown car.
“Shit,” I murmured as I picked up the phone again.
“What’s that?” asked Sammy’s mother.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just, I’m sorry to put you to all the trouble for nothing—”
She cut me off. “Now, I want you to listen to me, Laurie.”
“Yes,” I answered, miserable at my complete incompetence.
“This is about Samantha’s father, isn’t it? That’s why you wanted to see me. That’s what you want to talk to me about.”
“I don’t know,” I said, realizing how little I did know. Bumbling around in the dark, screwing things up, unable to keep my priorities straight. “I made some people mad at me. Not anything to do with you, or Mr. Wilson. Some dangerous people.”
I started to say something, but stopped, exquisitely aware of the dangers of car phones. This wasn’t some innate detective sense; I’d read all about the marital problems of Prince Charles and Princess Di.
She didn’t wait for my answer. “I’m telling you that if you’re in trouble, it most likely has to do with Samantha’s father. Just come here, now. Just start up that car and drive. You get into any problems, you call me. When you pull into my driveway, you honk. I’ll hit the automatic garage opener and let you in. You got that?”
“I don’t think—”
“Don’t talk back to me,” she said sternly. “Just do what I say. We can talk when you get here.”
I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do, but it felt good to turn the ignition and pull out on the highway headed toward that voice. Headed towards someone who sounded a lot like Sammy. It felt like heading home.
Chapter Fourteen
Following the directions Sammy’s mother had given me, I found myself deep in the countryside, not far over the border into Alabama. The roads were dark, houses few and far between. I kept looking in my rear view window. I didn’t see the brown car.
I wished that I’d indulged in something even more calming than chocolate doughnuts. Maybe something alcoholic. A tranquilizer, that sounded right. I was in a bad way. Never before in my life had I wished, even fleetingly, to be dull to sensation. I wanted it all, the sharp and the sweet. That’s what I had always loved about life, what I had craved. The ups and downs. The ride.
Turning into a long clay road with just a few houses, all of them set far apart, I finally pulled up in the driveway of a trim little house with its porch light burning. I tapped the horn lightly, then looked back over my shoulder, up and down the street a couple of times until the garage door lifted. A modest blue car was parked in front of the house. I guessed that the women had moved their own car to the street so I could park in the garage.
The interior garage light wasn’t on, and for a moment I was surprised. Sapphire and Etta May had seemed so concerned with the details of my comfort and safety. As I slowly eased my car into the dark, windowed garage, I realized that it was safer that way. Quickly I shut off my lights which illuminated the concrete wall before me so it would be harder for anyone outside to see in.
I turned off the ignition. In the dark, strange shapes loomed around my car, all your usual garage-type stuff, I was sure. But I nearly jumped out of my skin at a sudden, loud, grating noise behind me.
The garage door was closing. Then the overhead light flicked on, and the door into the house opened. Two women in flowered dresses stood at the door, smiling at me. Smiling like Christmas, like a good back rub, like cotton pajamas after a cool bath on a hot summer night. I smiled myself, and opened the car door carefully. I eased out of the door and around the front of the car in the cramped little garage.
The women stepped back to let me in, crying, “Are we glad to see you!” and “Let me hug your neck, child.” They both embraced me warmly, but my height, and their lack thereof, resulted in their faces pressed against my boobs, or, rather, my lack of those.
The sisters looked a lot alike, and they both looked a lot like Sammy. Sweet, full, intelligent faces. Etta Mae and Sapphire did not have that flash of sassy self-awareness, that spark of exuberant sexuality that Sammy carried with her. I wondered if Sammy’s would fade by the time she reached her mother’s age. I wondered if I’d be around to watch it go, and if I could bear to see her with it gone.
They hustled me to a small table set for dinner. They sat me down, and started carrying serving dishes out to the table. Dish after dish of Southern delicacies—so much like my mother’s way of greeting me, but it felt different. Was it because they were still strangers to me? I hadn’t had a chance yet to disappoint their expectations, to hurt them just by being who I was. Or was it something else, something condescending? You, know, a white, middle-class woman demonstrating love with food is pathetic, but a black woman doing the same is a warm earth mother? I don’t know the answer to that, but I know I dove into that food like I’d never had a decent meal in my life.
They chatted and entertained me while I ate. They talked about Etta Mae’s beautiful grandchildren. They got out their album, filled with pictures of Sarah and Annie and Rachel in all stages of development. Framed crayon drawings by Sarah and Annie covered the dining room walls.
I asked if Sapphire had any grandchildren, but was told no, Sapphire had never married. She had taken care of their daddy until the day he died.
They talked about the grand-babies’ talents, and skills, and beauty, all in great detail. They bragged about the achievements of their Sammy. They were thrilled at the coincidence that in a big city like New York, Sammy and I had run into each other. They asked me for details about the girls. How many teeth had Rachel lost? Had Sarah’s front two grown in yet? Wasn’t Annie a terrific violinist? Did she need a music stand—they’d seen a fine one, with hand-carving around the top—and did I think that would make a good birthday present for her?
When I worked my way through the food, they cleared the table, forbidding me to help. Then they brought out the lemon pound cake and coffee. Sapphire took the plates and coffee cups into the liv
ing room which was comfortable and tidy. The furniture all matched, early American style. The colors were a brown tweed with gold and brick red with a matching rag rug on the floor, and an eagle insignia on each side of the brass-colored magazine rack.
Sitting on the couch, I started to compliment them on the room, then stopped. I was afraid they might think I was being ironic, referring to the position of Afro-Americans in colonial society. Which was convoluted thinking and far from the point. I took a bite of the cake, complimenting Etta Mae on it instead. Without a trace of irony or fear of misinterpretation.
Sapphire was sitting across from me, perched in an early American armchair. She leaned towards me, holding her plate with both hands, and asked with an intense excitement that made her sweet voice husky, “Tell us more about how our Samantha is doing.”
It was funny, I thought of her as my Sammy, and they thought of her as theirs, but surely we all knew that she came closer to belonging to the girls, to Annie and Sarah and Rachel, and maybe even to her patients. Surely we knew that, in truth, Sammy belonged to herself.
I saw myself in comparison, then, so afraid of being engulfed by others’ expectations that I strenuously avoided all strings and complications. But there was Sammy, with ropes and knots and harnesses of relationships all over her, and still she was free, herself. She was a goddamned Houdini, that Sammy. “Well,” I said, “she’s doing great. I don’t know how she does all she does, but...”
“Does she have a boyfriend? Is there someone special? Oh, how I’d like for her to find some nice man who’d take care of her. Really appreciate her and be a father to her babies.”
I took a hard, quick breath that burned my throat. I put my plate and fork down carefully on the coffee table and sat back into the couch.