by Pearl Cleage
“I am a feminist, besides you’re not unemployed. You’re engaged in an epic battle between good and evil on a conveniently human scale. A struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.”
She was getting a little carried away. “All that because I want to clean up one little house and sell it to the highest bidder?”
“No, Mafeenie, all that because you refuse to let your mother’s parting gift to you fall victim to the horrors of urban blight. Because you left your glamorous life in Europe to reclaim your granddaughter’s inheritance and bring back beauty to this one small corner on a street named for an American hero.”
At first I thought she was just goofing around, but the longer she talked, the more I began to see that this really was a terrific story.
“That sounds wonderful,” I said, admiring her ability to find the coherent thread in the midst of the messiness. “Go on.”
“We’ll document the whole process on your YouTube site.”
“What YouTube site?”
“The one I’m going to post for us,” she said. “The one that is going to begin with you and Aretha walking around, talking about mildew and rodent droppings and all that other gross stuff.”
“Great opening,” I said.
“It ends with you talking about Gram’s roses. About how she used to make you water them and how bad it would make her feel to see it today.”
“That’s where it ends?”
“Just that segment, Mafeenie. That’s just the first one to show them what a big ugly job is confronting you.”
“Then what?”
“Then we let them see you take it on, whittle it down to size, and emerge victorious.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely. It’s perfect. All you have to do is be yourself. I’ll take care of everything. I can see it now: Actress Takes on Greatest Role, Comes Back to Rescue Childhood Home.”
“That’s true!”
“I know it is! You don’t think I’d ask you to lie, do you?”
“You better not.”
“I won’t,” she said, rushing ahead to her next idea. “How about that’s what we’ll call it. Rescue on Martin Luther King: One Woman’s Story.”
I groaned again. “It sounds so melodramatic. Like a movie of the week.”
“No, Mafeenie, like a reality show.” She said that like it was a positive thing.
“I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”
“It’s a great idea,” she said. “You said we needed a mermaid. Now we have one. You!”
“And what exactly do you want me to do?”
She leaned over and took my hand. “Tell me the story of this moment as we’re walking through it. Talk about whatever’s on your mind, just like you did about the roses. Just like you did about the party you’d throw for your friends.”
I was sure my expression betrayed my doubts.
“Sometimes I’ll ask you questions.”
That was not particularly comforting. “Questions about what?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. The house. What you’re thinking about. What it feels like to be back here after being gone for so long.”
“And this is going to help us how?”
“Because we’ll be building a story. We won’t even talk about selling the house yet. We’ll just talk about fixing it up because it’s the right thing to do.”
“That’s true.”
“It’s all going to be true, Mafeenie. This is your real life.”
She was right. The only thing that could make it a lie was me.
“By the time we finish, we’ll have more buyers than we know what to do with.”
“I’m not used to talking about myself,” I said, almost convinced but not quite.
She grinned at me. “You’re always talking about yourself.”
I grinned back. “You know too much.”
“No way,” she said. “My grandma said that’s not possible.”
THIRTY-THREE
The first phone call of the morning jolted me awake at 4 A.M.
“Hello?”
“Wake up, Miss Thing,” Howard’s voice crowed on the other end of the line. “I know it’s early, but you have got to hear this.”
I sat up and covered my other ear to shut out the birds noisily waking up outside my window. Sometimes it felt like morning in a Disney cartoon around here, where the big-eyed birds and adorable mice make friends with the princess in disguise by filling her garret with song.
“What are you talking about?” I said. “Hear what?”
“Listen! Stop saying what and just listen for a minute.”
He held up his phone in the midst of what seemed to be a group of people shouting something. I pulled the covers over my head and strained to hear the words they were chanting more than shouting. It sounded like…like…my name!
“Howard!” I said. “Howard!”
“Did you hear it? They’re chanting your name! It’s crazy!”
“Where are you?”
“Outside the board meeting. There are five hundred people here trying to get in. They had to move it to the theater because so many people were crammed into the conference room and they refused to leave! They just stood there chanting, ‘Josephine! Josephine!’ It was fabulous. Absolutely fucking fabulous!”
“They’re demonstrating about me?”
“When I got here at seven there were already people standing around out front. You’re a cause célèbre, missy. What do you think about that?”
“I think it’s great,” I said, loving the sound of chanting demonstrators receding in the background, still filled with artistic indignation. Josephine! Josephine!
“The idea that you would be held accountable for George Bush’s sins is just not fair and everybody knows it. When the board tried to talk about security concerns, people shouted them down, grabbed the mikes and recited your many artistic triumphs, endless good works, and selfless devotion to this theater ad nauseum.”
“All that stuff is true!”
“Of course it is. Who do you think provided them with the necessary information in the first place?”
Howard had done exactly what he promised to do.
“I owe you.”
“You owe me big-time, so what else is new? The point is that they had to adjourn the meeting in order to review your case.”
“I’m a case now?”
“A case, a cause, let’s call the whole thing off,” Howard sang. “They’re meeting again in a month. Can you hold out that long?”
“What makes them think I’ll still want to come back there in a month?”
“Because they know I can’t live without you,” he said. “I gotta go! People are amassing outside. Got any messages you want me to deliver to your fans?”
“Tell them I said…”
“Hang on, sweetie. You’re breaking up. What?”
“Tell them I said…”
“I’m losing you, sweetie! Love you!”
Before I could say “love you back,” the line went dead. Damn! This was my big moment, a chance to actually rally the troops in the field. I had a great line, too. I was going to say, This is the price we pay for life in wartime. I scribbled it down on my dream catcher pad beside the bed and hoped he’d call again before I went back to sleep, but he didn’t.
The second call of the morning was from Greer Woodruff and came in at a much more civilized hour. When the phone rang, I was sitting on the back porch swing trying to figure out exactly what I had agreed to do last night. Just be yourself, Zora had said, as if that is the simplest thing in the world, which it ain’t. For me, the beauty of acting is all that time I get to spend being somebody else. Being on camera as myself was going to require a strong story to carry me through. Otherwise, there’s too much me, me, me, even for me!
“Hello?” I said. “Temporary Evans residence.”
“I’m trying to reach Josephine Evans,” Greer Woodruff’s voice
said.
“This is Josephine Evans.”
“Ms. Evans? Greer Woodruff. I was hoping I could catch you.”
“Well, you did.”
A long time ago, I learned that the best way to get more information than you give is to agree as much as possible and keep conversation to a minimum. The silence blossomed.
“Ms. Evans,” Greer said finally. “I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that we got off on the wrong foot last week.”
“Yes,” I said. “I think we did.”
She waited for me to say more. When I didn’t, she cleared her throat delicately. “So I was wondering if we might have lunch and see if we can’t come to some better understanding of each other. Say Friday at noon?”
“Fine,” I said.
“I’m a member of the Commerce Club,” she said. “They have a lovely lunch buffet.”
No way was I going to meet her on her turf. “Paschal’s is more convenient for me.”
“I’ll look forward to seeing you at Paschal’s then,” she said smoothly. “Until Friday.”
“I’ll be there.”
I wondered what had made her decide to call me. Maybe she wanted to make me a better offer. Maybe she wanted to clarify the old one. Or maybe she’d heard people were chanting my name on the streets of Amsterdam and she just wanted an autograph.
THIRTY-FOUR
I think I let Zora talk me into doing a reality show,” I said to Abbie as we headed over to the West End News for some cappuccino.
“I don’t think I can respect you if you eat bugs for money,” she said.
“Ain’t that much money in the world,” I said, and laughed. “Zora wants to document the process of fixing up the house.”
“On television?”
“The Internet.”
“Ahhhh…,” said Abbie in the same awed tone that Zora finds so funny in me. “The Internet.”
We were both usually fast walkers, but today we were strolling through the neighborhood, trying to wrap our imaginations around the Internet.
“She wants to call it ‘Rescue on Martin Luther King: One Woman’s Story.’”
“Are you the woman?”
“Yes.”
We passed a high-school-aged girl holding a child by the hand with a faraway look in her eye and then a kid on a bike who waved at Abbie as he rode by. She waved back.
“I like it. Did you tell her we’d been talking about Dr. King?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“That makes me like it even more. I love it when things kind of come in clusters. She was thinking about Dr. King, too. We all are.”
“We all who?” I said. Abbie tended to think and talk in big, inclusive circles. My tendency is to try and keep it specific.
“We who believe in freedom,” she said.
We shared a love for a song whose lyrics quote the indefatigable civil rights worker Ella Baker: “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.”
“You’re quoting Sweet Honey in the Rock before nine o’clock in the morning?”
“I couldn’t resist. I love the way they sing that song, but it’s true in a way, don’t you think?”
Talking to Abbie was always a process of surrendering to her unique conversational rhythms. She takes the long way home, but she always gets there.
I picked up my cue. “Don’t I think what?”
“That it’s significant for me to be thinking about Dr. King and for Zora to be thinking about Dr. King and now your project is named after him.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure it’s significant.”
We turned onto Abernathy and became part of the morning energy of people on their way to work or school, still energetic and hopeful just like we were.
“I’ve been thinking about my work with your crew,” Abbie said.
“You’re not backing out, are you?”
“Of course not. I decided I’d like to work on the outside rather than the inside, if that’s okay with you.”
“Fine with me, but the yard is a total wreck. It’s going to be a big job.”
She smiled. “I want to restore your mother’s roses.”
Just the idea made me feel sentimental, but it wasn’t practical. “That’s a lovely idea, but right now, we’ve really got to stick to the basics.”
“I think a garden is basic,” she said calmly. Abbie was never argumentative. Just certain.
“Not on our budget,” I said as we stepped inside the West End News and headed for a corner table. Henry waved good morning from behind the counter where he was busy with people in need of early-morning caffeine. “We just don’t have the money for a garden.”
“Think of it as an investment,” she said. “Just like the paint you’re going to buy.”
“That’s the point,” I said. “I have to paint. I don’t have to plant roses and feed them and water them and prune them.” All the tending of my mother’s beauties came back to me in a rush.
Abbie grinned at me. “Your mother worked your last nerve with tending those roses, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, I guess she did,” I said.
Henry came over with a cappuccino and an espresso and the news that Mr. Charles and Mr. Eddie had taken a gambling excursion to New Orleans with the blessings of Miss Iona, Mr. Charles’s wife, who declined to accompany them because of what she calls angry spirits roaming the city. I thought about Louie’s ordeal and wondered if post-Katrina tourists ever felt like they were dancing on bones.
“So roses are out,” Abbie said, stirring her cappuccino slowly.
I nodded, glad she wasn’t going to press the point. “Yes. Roses are definitely out.”
“Well, then, how about we grow sunflowers?” she said cheerfully. “They’re big and bright and wild and you don’t have to do much to keep them happy.”
I put down my cup and looked at her across the small table. “Why are you so determined to have a garden? You’ve seen my place. There is already plenty of stuff to do.”
Abbie nodded sympathetically. “I know. It’s a huge job, but the garden is a big part of it, don’t you see?”
At the counter, Henry was wiping down the gleaming cappuccino machine and whistling “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
“Convince me,” I said.
“All right, I will.” She shrugged off her coat and leaned forward in the chair. “Last year, while I was living in D.C., some kids broke into my house while I was home. They didn’t rape me, but one of them peed on me and the other one…” She took a deep breath. “The other one masturbated on me.”
I reached across the table and took her hand and she let me.
“Then they took what they could carry, which wasn’t much, and left me tied up naked for one of my students to find in the morning.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “Oh, Abbie, I’m so sorry.”
“Yes, me, too, but here’s the thing. That part was awful, but the worst part was afterward. I couldn’t stop thinking about their eyes. They had no feeling in their eyes at all. None. They didn’t think about me as another human being with thoughts and feelings and family. They didn’t think about me as a woman old enough to be their grandmother. They were just out, taking stuff they hadn’t earned, terrorizing people they didn’t know, and waiting for something to excite them or surprise them or satisfy them, but nothing can, Jo, nothing can.” She stopped and took another breath. “That’s what I saw in their eyes. That’s what we have created in our own children and it terrifies us to the point where we can’t tell the truth about it, even to each other. Even to ourselves. Because we’re afraid it’s gone too far and there’s nothing we can do about it. Not a damn thing.”
We sat for a minute, her words hanging there between us.
“Then what’s the point of gardens?” I said softly, bringing us back to the problem at hand.
“Defiance!” she said with such sudden vehemence that Henry’s eyes flickered in our direction reflexively, then away without ever in
terrupting his soft whistle, which had now segued into “My Girl.” “Absolute defiance. In the face of all the madness, and the meanness, and the dead-eyed boys, and the desperate girls, and the endless, insane wars, I still think life is a gift and struggling for freedom is the obligation of any thinking human being and…and…”
She was picking up speed, but there was no way I was going to try to slow her down.
“…and that ultimately most people are good and all that Anne Frank, sixties bullshit that I still believe.”
Abbie stopped. I could tell she was trying to collect her thoughts, but I knew where she was going, and now I was right there with her. I got it. Her response to the evil she had seen in her fellow human beings had been to put her hands in the dirt and help something grow. Of course, we needed a garden.
“So,” I said, “you think we’d do okay with sunflowers?”
She looked at me and her smile was definitely worth a few budget adjustments. “Sunflowers would be perfect,” she said. “And think how great they’ll show up on camera.”
I laughed. “You and Zora ought to go into business together.”
She laughed, too. “I think we just did!”
THIRTY-FIVE
Zora wanted me to talk about the house without actually being there. She needed the footage and she hoped it would be easier for me to think about the place in a positive way if I couldn’t see it. That made sense. Looking at it made me mad and sad and semi-hysterical. Not exactly the preferred states for conjuring up childhood memories that could make this wreck of a house seem like a home. It was my idea to wear the kimono Howard sent, even though Zora thought it was a little too theatrical.
“I am a little too theatrical,” I said. “I don’t want them to think I’ve spent my life scrubbing out the bathroom sink.”
She conceded the point. “You’re right. There’s plenty of time for that later. Okay. Where do you want to sit?”
We agreed that outside by the pool would make people want this house, not our place, and the kitchen was a little too informal for my outfit. We finally settled on a cozy corner of the living room. There was a big brown chair with an arm I could perch on without feeling or looking uncomfortable and a nice little Tiffany lamp giving off what would probably be my last good lighting until this project was over.