But to see him with his aunt, who could tug his ear and treat him as though he were still a nine-year-old—Elizabeth realized she had to begin parsing out the rumors of Val Jackson and separate them from her actual experience of him. It wasn’t fair to prejudge him. Perhaps he was no more than a boyish cad who needed a good scolding. She couldn’t imagine Rose would put up with the kind of behavior that seemed to be the basis of his reputation. At any rate, she made up her mind to consider herself safe from him.
The call she’d received from her friend Gladys the day before, though, made it clear she should take nothing about Val Jackson for granted. “I heard he was on his way up there,” Gladys had said. “You just watch yourself, girl. He’ll mess with you because he can. That’s all there is to it.” What would Kyle say if he knew Val Jackson was at Mercylands? Well, he would know—she would tell him during their next telephone call. She would listen carefully for his reaction, but she was sure it would be no different from her own—no cause to worry. She sat too far outside Val Jackson’s sphere of interest.
How could she ever fall prey to him? She was happily married, a fact well known, and she certainly wasn’t one of those women who went in search of affairs. He must know that because he barely looked at her when he arrived. She ran a hand through her hair. And, she realized, she didn’t give him much to see. She brushed away a piece of lint from her pants and noticed their boxy, unflattering cut. It was a good thing she and Rose were outside—if she saw her own reflection she’d probably cringe to see the image she had presented to Val Jackson, who was used to collecting the most beautiful women in Harlem. She didn’t need him to think her pretty, but for her own self-respect, she thought, she should pay more attention to how she appeared. She was a grown woman—she could take better care of herself. She rubbed her nose and tugged at the collar of her shirt. Well, there was nothing she could do about the way her eyes seemed too far apart on her face or how her hair seemed to have a mind of its own, but she could try to be a little neater about her clothing.
“Oh look!” Rose clapped her hands together and drew them to her mouth as if she were about to pray. “Ho ho! Lord, what a sight!”
Elizabeth saw they had come upon a row of lilac bushes—she could smell their perfume, sweet and delicate, as it hung in the air. But what was she seeing? The lavender color of the flowers was overwhelmed with a fluttering orange mist. When she and Rose drew closer, she saw the movement on the branches was not a mist but butterflies. The bushes were covered in butterflies. They rested on the lilacs as though on purple clouds.
“How beautiful!” Elizabeth said.
She had never seen so many butterflies all at once, and guessed they were freshly transformed. There must be a littering of cocoon skins somewhere in Rose’s garden, left behind in the butterflies’ search for their first sustenance. She leaned over the winged insects and peered at them closely. She saw their tiny tongues, like thin black wires, unfurl and pierce the tender heart of each lilac flower. They drank deep. The branches shivered with their consumption, and she wondered what it would feel like to be so gloriously and willingly drained. To realize all that you are can be the single perfect fulfillment of another being—and then to have that being drawn to you, completely aware of the presence of that perfection and knowing with a blessed certainty it would not be turned away empty-handed. Could the precision of nature be any more humbling?
Rose put an arm around her shoulders and with surprising strength pulled Elizabeth toward her. Elizabeth realized for the first time in several days she didn’t feel anxious—in that moment Kyle was exactly where he was supposed to be, and so was she. She was not alone. She could relax at Mercylands and be surrounded by an unexpected wealth of little miracles, like this one that reminded her of the hope and beauty of God’s creation. She wouldn’t have experienced this in their Harlem apartment, where her eyes would have been continually turned down into the pages of a book, hungrily seeking the same feelings but never finding them. Books told her what the world could be and should be. But standing there with Rose and witnessing the bounteous feast explained in utter clarity what the world truly was. The butterflies felt like life to her, abundant life, and indeed seemed to reflect the excited, expectant fluttering of her own heart. But what did she expect? She didn’t know. She only had a vague sense of something on the way, something very near or on the horizon. The butterflies had come, it seemed, to affirm this notion and mirror her hope of being fulfilled.
WHEN THEY WENT back to the house, Elizabeth excused herself so Rose could have time with her nephew. She also wanted to change her clothes for dinner, and stood for several minutes examining the contents of her closet before deciding to wear a simple short-sleeved shirtdress of light blue crepe with a sash at the waist and four brown wooden buttons down the front. She tied her hair back with a ribbon and slid her feet into a pair of beige slingback sandals with a low wedge heel. When she studied herself in the oval full-length mirror, she decided the effect was just what she wanted—nice, neat, and modest.
In the dining room Rose, already seated and wearing an orange-and-blue-patterned shawl around her shoulders, smiled at Elizabeth. “Oh, don’t you look nice?” she said. Val, in khaki pants and a crisp white shirt, stood and pulled a chair out for Elizabeth but said nothing and only nodded to her as she sat down. They passed around plates of fried fish, roasted tomatoes, and green beans. Rose went on to tell Val about the butterflies and he listened while he ate. He smiled and exclaimed when his aunt’s talk called for it, but Elizabeth thought he said very little. Then, after announcing he needed to make a telephone call, he excused himself and left the table before they were done. Elizabeth smoothed the front of her skirt and asked for milk and sugar when Rose’s servants brought in the coffee service.
When they had finished their dinner, Elizabeth and Rose went to the drawing room. Val was lying on a cream-colored sofa set against the far wall. When Elizabeth saw him she hesitated to move farther into the room.
“Oh, are we disturbing him?” she asked.
Rose sailed past her and picked up a beige-and-blue cushion from one of the chairs.
“That boy’s not asleep, he’s puttin’ on.” She chucked the pillow at Val so it landed on his upper chest. He sat up at once and even managed to catch it up in his right arm.
“Hey!” he said and laughed. “I was resting my eyes.”
Rose pulled the shawl, which had slipped down, back up around her shoulders and pointed at him playfully. “You’re too young to be resting. I’m the one who should be resting. You haven’t done enough in this world to be needing rest.”
Val rubbed his stomach. “I ate that whole plate of fish, didn’t I? I always need a nap after Belle’s dinners. Don’t you?”
Elizabeth, helping Rose to lower herself onto a blue-gray upholstered sofa near Val’s, started when she realized he was speaking to her.
“Me? Oh no, I’m afraid I eat like a bird.” She smiled at Rose and sat next to her. “I mean the food here is absolutely delicious, but I try not to stuff myself.”
Val nodded as though encouraging her to go on. “That’s harder to do here, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Her hand patted her own stomach and she puffed her cheeks full of air. “I practically have to turn my plate over to keep myself from going for seconds.”
“See there!” he said, as though that proved something to his aunt. He stood and went over to the small bar cart a servant had placed there just before dinner. He put ice into a short glass tumbler and poured himself a drink from a thick crystal bottle. “Aunt Rose? Mrs. Townsend?”
“I’ll have a nip of that brandy, Val,” Rose said.
Elizabeth shook her head. “Nothing for me, thank you.”
“Elizabeth doesn’t drink,” Rose said. She patted her guest on the knee.
“Are you a teetotaler?” Val asked. He poured brandy into a wide, round-bottomed glass.
“No, at least not in that sense.” She shook her head and twist
ed her mouth as though she’d drunk something bitter. “I don’t like the taste of it, that’s all.”
“I can understand that.” Val handed the brandy to Rose and sat again on the adjacent sofa. “Why take up a vice if you can’t enjoy it?”
Elizabeth never thought of a vice as something to be enjoyed. She smiled uncomfortably and looked at her hands, fingers laced together, in her lap. She thought about what else she could say and finally blurted out the first question that came to mind.
“What brings you to Mercylands, Mr. Jackson?” She tried to ask it as lightly and easily as possible.
He and Rose laughed and she felt a warmth rise to her cheeks. “You mean my aunt’s company isn’t enough?”
She tried to laugh too, but thought her effort sounded silly and insincere. She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s all right, I’m just teasing you.” He took a sip from his glass and pressed his lips together as he swallowed. “She’s told you I used to spend my summers here—over half my life. Right?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve missed being here.” He got up and kissed Rose’s forehead. “I’ve missed you. Harlem can be a whole lot of mess in the summer—the heat, people sitting on stoops, nowhere to go, nothing to do but fall in love or pick fights with the people who are in love. Thought I should get my butt up out of there before I got in trouble.”
Elizabeth wondered at his choice of words—was Val Jackson in love with someone? Was he capable of falling in love? But she didn’t know him well enough to ask such questions out loud.
Rose was chuckling at him. “Good thinking—your mama’s thinking.”
“Yes, well, I’ve always been something of a mama’s boy. I’ll confess it.” He smiled and clinked glasses with Rose before sitting down again. The intimacy of the gesture made Elizabeth get up and turn away to look through the open French doors. Outside the lawn was fading into the low light of dusk.
“Hey, that reminds me,” Val was saying. “I brought you something.”
Elizabeth turned to see him put his glass down and stride to the other side of the room, where he lifted the cover of a polished walnut cabinet. She realized it was a record player. He picked up a white paper sleeve on the table near the cabinet and removed the disc inside it and placed it on the turntable.
“It’s a new Ella Fitzgerald song,” he said once he placed the needle on the record.
He took his seat again and a wave of brass sound, slow and lazy, washed through the room like a lulling brook. Then the singer’s voice, impossibly low and velvety, came wading through it.
I want a Sunday kind of love . . .
Rose leaned back and rested her head on the sofa. “Oh, Val,” she said. She smiled and closed her eyes. “This is nice.”
Elizabeth looked outside again and leaned against the door-frame while she listened. Rose was right—the music was nice. Its rhythm felt familiar, even soothing to her. She breathed in the evening air, moist with dew, and her left hand floated up to rest on the frame as though on the shoulder of an unseen partner. Soon she became aware of herself rocking slightly, imperceptibly, back and forth, as though the music had slipped inside her. She wanted to sit down before Rose and Val noticed, and when she moved toward the sofa she felt her feet step and drift gently on the tones of trombones.
She sat in the overstuffed chair opposite Val’s sofa. A saxophone punctuated the air with a fist of soft notes. She slowly surveyed the room around her, carefully taking in the colorful tapestry, porcelain vases, and Oriental carpet before daring to look directly at Val Jackson.
His elbows rested on his knees, his hands holding his whiskey in front of him, and he was smiling at the sight of his aunt. He seemed to be enjoying her enjoyment of the song.
At home Elizabeth and Kyle rarely took time to listen to music. It wasn’t that her husband disliked it—rather, he claimed he liked it too much. Whenever she turned on the radio, however quietly, he would say it distracted him from his reading. And there never seemed to be a free half hour when he wasn’t working, when they could sit, as she did now, and let the music work its magic. She stretched her arms on the chair’s round armrests and sighed quietly.
I asked the Lord above please send me someone to love A special Sunday kind of love.
The last lines surprised her. They sounded like a kind of prayer, but she wondered if it was a proper one. Was it right to pray for love? She could see praying for a husband or a family—these were blessings made numerous times throughout the Bible. The Lord brought forth the right mates and even women past childbearing age, like Sarah, conceived children. But this didn’t seem to be the kind of love the singer wanted—she desired a lover, a lover to “show her the way,” whatever that meant. What would the Lord have to say about that?
Rose seemed to have similar thoughts. As the final notes faded she sat up and giggled. “That’s a good one—ask the Lord above—someone needs to tell that to these women today. The Lord can probably do a better job of finding them a good man than any tight dress they squeeze over their rear ends.”
Val drained his glass. “May as well get the Lord involved—he’s all up in everything else!” He put the glass down and eyed the bar cart again.
“I don’t know.” Elizabeth raised her arms above her head and stretched. “It’s hard enough to ask for the everyday things. Sometimes I’m just grateful I wake up in the morning and that’s enough.”
“Oh, but then you’re not really living by the Good Book, are you?” Val said. He got up and returned to the bar cart. He picked up a bottle and pointed it at her. “‘Ask and ye shall receive.’ Sounds to me like the Lord wants you to put in your requests. Right, Aunt Rose?” He poured himself another drink.
“You’re right about that, honey.” She took a sip of her brandy then shook her head. “But I sure love me some Ella.”
“I knew you’d like it as soon as I heard it,” he said warmly.
A comfortable silence fell over them. Elizabeth was about to stifle a yawn when the sound of a telephone ringing rippled through the room. A servant soon followed.
“Mrs. Townsend, Mr. Townsend is on the telephone calling long distance.”
“Yes, of course. My goodness, I didn’t realize it was that late already. Excuse me.”
She stood and turned to go but then, remembering her manners, said, “I’ll probably go right to bed after I talk to Kyle. So I’ll say good night now. Is that all right, Rose?”
“Of course it is, dear.” Rose motioned with her nonbrandy hand as if she would whisk Elizabeth away. “Tell Kyle I hope he’s taking good care of himself down there.”
Elizabeth looked at Val and nodded shyly. “Good night. Thank you for bringing that lovely music.”
He held up his glass as though to toast her, and smiled. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
She took the call in her bedroom. When she told Kyle of Val Jackson being at Mercylands, her husband snorted. “Visiting his aunt! He’s probably ducking some gang or the law.”
“Well.” She felt behind her for a chair and pulled it to her so she could sit at her desk. “He did mention something about avoiding trouble.”
“See there? I told you. How many men his age do you see living with their aunts of their own free will?” He laughed edgily, igniting something in her that felt like resentment.
“They say he’s more trouble around women,” she said quietly, cupping the receiver in both hands.
“Well, it’s just you and Rose there, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” he said briskly.
He delivered a string of details about his case and the people he’d interviewed and the uncooperative authorities that made everything harder and take longer than it should.
After she hung up the telephone she pulled the ribbon from her hair and unbuttoned her dress. When she removed it she found herself standing in front of the full-length mirror in her sl
ip. One of the straps slipped down on her shoulder and she tugged at the other so the slip slid to the floor. She stepped out of it and meant to kick off her shoes, but instead she stared at her image in the mirror and studied her figure.
She thought of the butterflies feeding on the lilacs. Fulfillment—that would be something to pray for. And she could believe God would want it for her. Because for all the fire-breathing sermons she heard in church, she had the sense, a comforting, loving sense, that God didn’t go around seeking to damn people. She was sure He wanted His creations to live and enjoy the gifts He gave them, and she was certain He would provide whatever she asked. But in that moment she realized she almost never prayed for herself. She prayed for her mother’s soul, her father’s continued health, Kyle’s safe return, the well-being of her friends. She prayed for the poor, the sick, and the lost. Maybe, she thought, she never knew what to request before.
She stared at her reflection—the pale hips beneath her white underpants, her breasts encased in her brassiere—and thought of what it would mean to be fulfilled.
CHAPTER 13
Val
Mercylands, June 1947
Val Jackson waited in his room. It was the kind of day he’d been waiting for: hot, even unseasonably so for the first week of June. The humidity made the air so thick you could hold it in your hand. All motion at Mercylands—gardening, cleaning, cooking—slowed and the house sat silent, soaking up the heat like a sponge. On days like this his aunt would order a light lunch, a salad full of tomatoes and cucumbers. She would drink only lemonade. Then afterward she would go upstairs and lie still across her bed, every window in the room open. A fan would move the air around, giving the illusion of a breeze. Today he had accompanied her upstairs and said he would listen to a game in his room. Indeed he was listening—the Dodgers were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates—but he had toyed with the volume knob until the sound level was just right. He wanted it loud enough to hear the score when he wanted to hear it, but not so loud that he couldn’t hear footsteps or a voice in the hallway. The Dodgers were winning so the broadcast attracted less of his attention. Now he sat in his undershirt and khaki pants with his feet up on his desk. He wore a baseball glove on his left hand and was tossing a ball into it so the ball thwacked the deep leather pocket and zinged the top of his palm with a satisfying sting.
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