The Summer We Came to Life

by Deborah Cloyed

  Cornell looked at his wife, unsmiling. “So, if the cultures mix, then all is forgiven?”

  Lynette looked stung and closed her eyes. “Not here,” she pleaded in a whisper, almost inaudibly.

  Cornell shifted away from her and raised his voice. “Not here, Lynette? Not in front of our friends? In front of people who wouldn’t understand my anger?”

  Lynette’s eyes shone with anger. “Cornell, get off it. Is this the part where you stake story rights to the African-American experience?”

  “Don’t I? Among this group?”

  Jesse, who knew about this fight between the Joneses, took careful aim at Cornell. “What can you tell me about being a single mother in the early eighties?”

  I caught the drift. “Or a woman turning thirty in the twenty-first century?”

  Arshan surprised me by chiming in. “Or fleeing the Iranian Revolution?”

  Cornell didn’t look ready to back down, but as he looked at our faces staring him down—his friends, he seemed to be reminding himself—he begrudgingly nodded.

  “The human experience is a solo enterprise, is that what you’re trying to tell me?” Cornell reached for his beer, calmer. “But then you’re also admitting that one’s life experience is inseparable from an individual’s gender, notion of social heritage and exper—”

  “Goddammit, why don’t you just say it?” Lynette’s voice was like the sudden screech of spinning tires. “Say it, then! You’re sorry you married a white woman. You should have married a woman like Sandra Miheso, a bona fide African. Someone who would understand you, who you could show off to your civil rights colleagues.” Lynette’s eyes bored into her husband, but I could see she was shaking. She turned her head away as if she might cry.

  For my part, I was shocked to the core.

  As Cornell looked at his wife, his expression changed 180 degrees. “Is that what you think this is about?” He tried to put a hand on her arm. She moved it away. “Lynette,” he said, and brought his head close to hers. As he spoke, it seemed to dawn on him that he was telling the truth. “I didn’t marry a white woman. I married you.”

  Lynette lifted her chin, as Jesse and I both brought a hand to our throats.

  Cornell appeared to have forgotten we were there, however. He had eyes only for his wife. “Honey, listen to me now. There are a lot of things I’m still angry about. Things I wish I could let go of. And there are certain things that may always be difficult for us to relate to each other about. I think, I hope, and I pray it will be different for the next generation, for our daughter and our daughter’s children. But no matter how much I preach about being misunderstood, I promise you right here and now that I do not regret spending my life with you. Or having my only child with you. Quite the opposite. You are the love of my life. And it has been an incredible, magnificent ride.”

  Lynette’s eyes glistened like the sparkling ocean beyond. She leaned over and planted a kiss on Cornell’s cheek. Then she nodded, just once, but it was a nod that held a thousand words, a lifetime of their memories together in good times and bad. She turned back to the group, swiped at her nose and held up her beer.

  “Jeez, you guys, no secrets amongst friends, huh? Cheers?”

  Teary laughter rippled around the circle. We let out a collective sigh of relief and raised our bottles.

  “Cheers!”

  Lynette snuggled into Cornell’s arms and the rest of us watched, satisfied that the balance of the universe had been restored. Kendra’s parents’ marriage set my bar for happy relationships. They were the dogeared photograph in my back pocket that I could hold up as proof that love works. Seeing them fight was akin to watching the Sphinx in an earthquake. An interracial couple in the sixties, in Virginia. I started to wonder what it must have been like for them. It would have been a bit like building a monument in the desert.

  I noticed then the ancient woman was watching us somberly, but with a definite glint of amusement in her eyes. I pointed discreetly.

  “Do you think that’s Nany?” I smiled at the woman, and she smiled back.

  “Se llama Nany, señora?” I called.

  The woman nodded her head yes. Even in a faded house-dress draped over a sagging body, she exuded an aura of wisdom. An even older man, with a bushy white beard, came up behind her. He said something loud in a language I didn’t understand, then cackled in laughter. Nany gave an appreciative chuckle. The old man reminded me of a leprechaun, such was his agility. He looked to be about a hundred years old, but his step was as light and bouncy as if he walked on rainbows.

  Jesse watched them with mischief in her eyes. “Hey, what was that dance you told us about? Punta! I bet grandpa could teach us a thing or two.”

  The old man heard Jesse say punta. He grinned, showing off his one, two, three teeth. Jesse waved him over and asked in Spanish if he could show us the dance. The man let out a healthy belly laugh and motioned Jesse into a sandy spot in the middle of the restaurant. Nany shook her head and grinned. The children jumped to their feet, giggling.

  “Come on, guys. Up!” Jesse called to the rest of us. Lynette joined her first. Then Isabel and I. The old man cracked a joke about dancing with all the ladies. He called out to the boy who’d brought the beer.

  The lanky boy obediently took a seat and flipped over a plastic bucket in his lap. He started to drum.

  I gave a little Shakira shake of my hips and the old man whistled appreciatively before laughing along with everybody else. He brought the little girl in the pink dress into the circle. She looked up at us shyly as the old man clapped his hands in encouragement. The girl broke out in a flurry of dance, shaking her little hips furiously in wide arcs, her arms splayed out sideways. Jesse let out a whistle and clapped. I tried my best to imitate, causing the little girl to collapse to the sand in giggles.

  Without warning, the old man began to sing in a low and haunting voice, slow as lava in comparison to the drumming. As he sang, he started to dance. He took my hand into his rough leathery palm. His voice was ethereal, hypnotic. I jimmied along to the beat, scuffling my feet forward and back like the old man. The hop from one foot to the other was so fast it looked almost like it was off rhythm. But that illusion soon vanished. The old man was perfectly on beat, the larger sum of his movements singing the soul of the drum.

  Lynette beckoned her husband. As Cornell entered the circle, Isabel went and took Arshan’s hand. Arshan gave one shake of his skinny butt in his khaki pants. Isabel and I almost died laughing.

  “Whoo—hoo!” shouted Jesse.

  Cornell playfully shoved Arshan aside and started to shake it. He emulated the old man’s movements perfectly, making the frenzied motions of his hips seem smooth and fluid. Lynette clapped blissfully and blew her husband kisses. I took out my phone to record a video to send to Kendra.

  For a good hour, we took turns in the circle, alongside the children, dancing to the sound of the old man’s voice and the drums, in a hut halfway between the sea and the river, with a rustling jungle beyond.

  CHAPTER

  26

  BY THE TIME WE GOT BACK TO THE HOUSE, AFTER stopping several times so I could take pictures, it was an hour till sundown.

  I offered to make pizzas for dinner. “We’ve got a can of artichokes. Might make them a little classier.”

  “Whatever you want as long as you’re cooking!” Jesse said.

  “Do you ever cook?” I teased.

  “Only in the face of starvation, honey. But don’t I make the most fabulous party hors d’oeuvres?” She took note of Isabel’s judgmental expression. “Hey, listen, you two—I cooked enough when I was a kid, for an ungrateful mother.” She waved a finger in Isabel’s direction. “And I cooked for you, didn’t I?”

  Isabel rolled her eyes. “If ordering takeout counts.”

  I laughed but Jesse got visibly upset.

  “Hey, I was a working mother!”

  “Yeah!” Lynette said, moving next to Jesse with a hand on her hip.

&nbs
p; I knew better than to take them both on. Jesse laughed. “Okay, I hate cooking. What is so great about it? What century are we living in? Huh? What did Gloria Steinem and all our NOW sisters fight for?”

  “The right to order takeout!” Isabel shouted, with a fist raised like Nelson Mandela.

  “Yes, my smart-ass darling daughter. Takeout. Women have better things to do than spend hours a day cooking for kids and husbands.”

  “Yeah,” Lynette said again.

  I cocked an eyebrow at them. “Why don’t you two—oh ye divine Creators of Feminism—go wash up and we’ll handle supper in this uncivilized land with no takeout?”

  “These kids have no respect,” Lynette said to Jesse as she took her arm to leave. “No idea what we fought for. For them.”

  “Ungrateful little brats,” Jesse agreed.

  “Whatever, Mom,” Isabel said as they sauntered off. Under her breath, she added, “You made money off a billionaire ex-husband, apparently.”

  Jesse stopped dead and spun around. “You kiddin’ me, young lady? I raised you by myself and ran a business. And Lynette—you don’t know a thing if you think Lynette isn’t worth a hearty thank you, ma’am, for what she did for your generation. You think it was easy for the homecoming queen to date a Negro in Virginia?”

  Isabel and I stared at Jesse, speechless.

  Jesse looked back and forth between the two of us, her eyebrows raised damn near to her hairline.

  “Mmm-hmm,” she said, her head bobbing about like a pigeon. She linked arms with Lynette again. “My God, what do they teach these children in school?”

  Lynette gave a little harrumph and stalked off with Jesse. “They don’t know shit, do they?”

  CHAPTER

  27

  WHEN ISABEL AND I CAME OUT OF THE HOUSE with steaming pizzas, the parents were camped out on the beach, entrenched in a heated discussion.

  As we approached the blanket, the talk stopped and all eyes turned to us.

  “What?” Isabel and I said in unison.

  “Oh, we were just talking about your rather limited understanding of history, girls,” Cornell answered. “A lot of heavy changes happened. Things we’ve decided you take for granted.”

  Isabel rolled her eyes again—she was beginning to look like a rebellious teenager. “Ooh, the sixties. The decade that changed everything. But you don’t think our time is crazy? Nine-eleven. The war in Afghanistan. The Israeli-Arab conflict, Iran, and North Korea? Are you sure it’s not just because there’s so damn many of you baby boomers that the sixties don’t just seem like the most important decade?”

  “I have failed as a mother,” Jesse said, only half joking.

  Cornell thrust a hand to his heart as if he’d been stabbed.

  “The sixties changed this country and the world forever. Or at least showed that you can change the world,” Lynette said.

  “Oh come on, what really changed? Everybody still runs around killing each other over race, religion, money and power,” I said as I doled out pizza slices.

  “She’s right,” Isabel said. “What difference does it really make? Government everywhere is and always has been corrupt. Hellooo, Nixon. You guys fought for equal rights, world peace and free love.” She picked an artichoke off her pizza and popped it in her mouth. “What did we get but Britney Spears, the War on Terrorism, and AIDS?”

  I hated this new incarnation of Isabel, but I had to agree with her. What was the true legacy of the sixties?

  The four baby boomers simply stared at her.

  Lynette broke the silence. “You know what? That’s not only painful to hear, it’s wrong. Civil rights, the feminist movement—changes have happened throughout history, and they have happened most often through the protests and actions of young people. Such as yourselves. We have a black president. Do you have any idea what that means to someone like me? Do you think that would have been possible without everything we went through?”

  She sounded almost teary. I was moved. “Ok, so, why don’t you tell us what it was like? Kendra hasn’t told me all that much.”

  “Really?” Lynette said, and frowned. “Well, that’s because she never wants to know that much.”

  “That’s not fair, honey,” Cornell said. “We obviously should have been talking whether she asked us or not.”

  “So, then tell us the story of how you guys met,” I prodded.

  “Now there’s a lesson in ancient history. Whaddaya say, dear? Want to revisit the glory days of our youth?” Cornell asked his wife. When she didn’t answer, Cornell frowned. “They weren’t all happy times. Is that it?”

  “That, and I wish Kendra was here,” Lynette answered.

  “Should we call her on speaker phone so she can hear the story?” I asked, consciously ignoring the fact that Kendra hadn’t answered our phone calls in days.

  Isabel smirked at me, but then she jumped up and smiled. “If I get my iPod, we can record it!”

  Before anyone could protest, Isabel dashed off for the house.

  I shrugged. “It’s a good idea,” I said, and looked down at the plates of pizza. “Eat! What is the matter with you people? I’ve had three pieces.”

  Cornell picked up a piece of pizza and flicked off the artichokes, which Lynette hated. He handed it to her like a peace offering or an assurance of love. Whichever it was, Lynette took the pizza and smiled.

  Isabel skipped back to the blanket with her pink iPod. “Okaaaaaay—”She plopped down and put a pillow in Lynette’s lap. She nestled the iPod on top. “For posterity. Go,” she said, and pushed Record.

  CHAPTER

  28

  (Transcript of conversation)

  LYNETTE: We met when we were fifteen.

  CORNELL: Dates, sweetie. Must’ve been 1962 about?

  LYNETTE: Hmm, 1962–63. We were sophomores.

  CORNELL: I integrated into her high school that year. That’s how we met.

  SAMANTHA: But Brown versus Board of Education was in, like, the fifties, wasn’t it?

  CORNELL: That’s right. But Virginia wasn’t in any hurry, I can tell you that. They were still betting their Massive Resistance Campaign would pan out and that the whole civil rights thing would blow over. They tried a hundred different ways to resist integration. Further south, one Virginian county closed all the public schools for four years rather than have black kids go to class with white kids. They paid for the white kids to go to private schools.

  SAMANTHA: That is so—…strange. I never thought about the fact that you guys were around for segregated schools, and in the same town where I went to school.

  ISABEL: But if African-American children were technically allowed to go to desegregated schools, why didn’t more go?

  CORNELL: Well, one way the Virginia school system skirted the issue was to set it up as a choice, not a mandate, guessing correctly that the races would segregate themselves. Black folk weren’t in such a hurry to put their kids in schools where they weren’t wanted, even if the black schools were pitiful shacks in comparison.

  SAMANTHA: So, why were you the one to do it? To integrate?

  CORNELL: My family wasn’t your average black folk. My father was high up in the Virginia NAACP. My mother ran Sunday school and taught adults to read out of our house. They were everyday heroes. My father planned the integration for my sophomore year and prepared me for the worst. Or so he thought.

  ISABEL: Why? It was worse?

  CORNELL: It’s almost indescribable how bad it was. I’m ashamed to say, I begged to quit. The KKK shot up our house in the middle of the night. People cursed me with names I’d never even heard before, way more descriptive than the N-word. They tripped me in the hallway, left excrement and nooses in my locker. I never went on a single date with any girl in that school. I was never once invited to any white student’s house for dinner.

  SAMANTHA: That’s awful. But then what about Lynette?

  LYNETTE: Well, I was certainly aware of him. Segregation was a big deal to all the par
ents, like Cornell said. My parents didn’t tell me they disapproved in so many words. They were big churchgoers and preached the golden rule five times a day. (Pause.) There’s something you have to understand. It’s an embarrassing reality, but those times were totally different for white kids and black kids. Everything was so segregated I wasn’t aware of the really bad stuff. My friends and family didn’t have any black friends, but we didn’t do any of those horrible things. I spent all my time thinking about cheerleading and math class and dress patterns. It’s not an excuse, but—

  SAMANTHA: But now I can see how the Holocaust happened right under people’s noses.

  ISABEL: Sammy!

  LYNETTE: Actually, that’s just what I was getting at. For you guys, it’ll be gay rights, global warming, and Sudan, when your kids ask—how could you not have known?

  CORNELL: Sudan? Come on, now. I think I’d better point out it wasn’t all bad all the time for us black kids. I had plenty of good times growing up. I was a quiet kid that didn’t like to rock the boat. A disappointment to my father. Before high school, I didn’t much care about Colored Days at the park because I didn’t want to be around white folks anyway. It’s like this—at church, at home, with my friends—I wasn’t black. I wasn’t an oddity or intrinsically offensive. I was just my mama’s son. My best buddy’s pal. It was only around white people I stuck out like a fluorescent yellow beetle. (Pause.) That’s why I was drawn to Lynette. She was just nice to me, in a real way. Not mean and not uncomfortable nice. Just nice.

  SAMANTHA: What was Lynette like in high school?

  CORNELL: Gorgeous. Sassy. She was the most popular girl in school. Could do no wrong in that town’s eyes.

  ISABEL: I can see that.

  CORNELL: She was a cheerleader. Homecoming Queen. Lead actress in all the plays. Top grades. Those were pretty big deals in small-town Virginia. Did I mention she was gorgeous?

  LYNETTE: Now stop it. I was preppy, naive, and spoiled. My parents treated me like a baby doll. Thank God I met this man.