Hidden Hearts

by Ann Roberts

  “How could they do that?”

  “At first it was subtle. They tried some intimidation tactics, like having a group of teenage boys hassle the customers so they’d stop shopping there, and then they managed to get the zoning changed so that no one could park in front of the stores, which didn’t bother the whites because they had a parking lot they shared nearby. It didn’t take long before the market was in trouble. But one of their customers was Della. She had a great appreciation of Asian art and culture, so she’d befriended a lot of people in the Chinese community. When the couple told her what was happening, she told Jacob.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Plenty,” she said. “You see, the white businessmen didn’t own the parking lot. Jacob did.”

  She pieced together the scenario quickly. “So if they lost the parking lot, they’d have as much trouble keeping customers as the Chinese couple.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Since they’d had the zoning changed at the front of the store, they needed that lot.”

  “So he threatened to take it away,” she concluded.

  Viv shook her head. “No. That’s what most people would’ve done but not Jacob. Instead, he showed up one day around noon and invited the businessmen out to the parking lot for lunch with the Chinese couple.”

  Penn laughed. “What?”

  “He’d paid them to prepare a wonderful Asian lunch and invited everyone to dine in the parking lot. I’m sure that it was uncomfortable at first, but the businessmen thought the food was delicious, and eventually they were all laughing and trying to communicate with the Chinese couple.”

  “Were they serving sake?” CC asked.

  “Of course,” Viv said, laughing. “But it worked. The businessmen realized this was Jacob’s polite way of asking them to share the parking lot and they did.”

  “That was brilliant,” Penn commented.

  “That was Jacob,” Viv said. “He was wonderful to me and Mama.” She handed CC one of the framed photographs. “And Mac and Kiah,” she said as an afterthought. CC realized it was one of the photos she’d seen at the diner—the wedding photo of the Rubensteins, Viv, her mother, Mac and Kiah standing in front of the farmhouse.

  “I imagine you and Kiah were close,” CC concluded.

  Viv offered a sad smile. “I loved her. Mac was the foreman who built the subdivision, and Kiah was his daughter. Mama loved him, and I loved Kiah.”

  She said it plainly as a truth. And while it was a lovely sentiment, CC realized that such relationships wouldn’t have been tolerated in the fifties.

  “Where’s Kiah now?” she asked.

  Viv looked solemn. “She’s gone.” Her hands started to shake. “I can’t speak of this anymore, and it doesn’t have anything to do with this.” She poked a finger in Penn’s direction. “Stay out of the attic!” she commanded before she excused herself.

  “What’s in the attic?” CC asked Penn.

  “It’s stuffed with every memory Viv has. I had to go up there after Christmas one year. You wouldn’t believe what she’s got.”

  “Then we’ve got to convince her,” CC said adamantly. She picked up the wedding photo and held it out. “For them.”

  Penn offered a sad smile and took CC’s hand. “I believe you want to help. But you’re jeopardizing your career. Let me figure this out. Go back to work and salvage your job while I convince Viv to let me search.”

  She gazed at Penn’s hand covering her own, imagining that it took a tremendous amount of effort for her to create such a connection and not pull away immediately. She decided that she’d make a move—a simple gesture—and if Penn recoiled, she’d leave.

  She flexed her hand and entwined Penn’s fingers between her own. “Do you think you could help me with a little computer problem?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  August, 1955

  Mama always said extreme temperatures meant extreme tempers, and the blistering heat of August was the most dreaded time of year. Once the mercury reached one hundred and ten, sensibility went out the window. Will and I had never needed a thermometer. Once it became too hot to go barefoot, we’d ask Mama for an egg and fry it on the tin shed’s roof. I’d stare into the sky at the searing tentacles reaching down to earth feeling my skin burn as each second passed.

  When Mama saw me she would say, “Vivian Battle, if you keep looking at the sun, you’ll go blind. Then where will you be? What man wants to marry a blind moron?”

  The summer of fifty-five saw record-breaking temperatures, and the swamp cooler was no help unless I stood directly underneath one of the vents. The house was even more wretchedly hot since Mama baked from morning to night.

  Mac broke up several fights between the construction workers at lunchtime, all of whom boiled after eleven a.m. when the sun peaked in the sky.

  He came by for lunch every day to eat with us. Kiah was at summer school getting ready to be a senior. She’d taken so many extra classes they were going to let her graduate at the end of next year at seventeen. Losing her depressed me fiercely and we’d decided not to talk about it. But sometimes she’d get so excited thinking about Tuskegee that she couldn’t help it. At those times I just smiled and let her talk.

  Orangedale Estates was nearly finished. When I gazed out my window at the gray shingled rooftops, the little streets between the rows of houses and the clusters of remaining orange trees that decorated the front and backyards, I couldn’t remember the grove, and I was sorry to lose the memory.

  I knew Mama didn’t want the construction to end. Every time Mac or I mentioned how fast they were finishing, she’d look away. I knew why. When the subdivision was done, Mr. Rubenstein wanted him to move to his next project in a neighborhood called Arcadia.

  Mama and Mac were officially a couple. That night I saw Mama go into their cabin was the beginning of something special, and it didn’t take Kiah very long to figure out what was happening. She was the smart one, and they couldn’t hide their affection very well. Mama was always smiling and laughing whenever he was around, and sometimes he got so bold he’d just pull her into his arms and kiss her. Then she would scold him for his carelessness, and he’d look properly remorseful until they both started giggling. Often they just disappeared to her bedroom, the only place they could really be alone.

  I guessed Mr. and Mrs. Rubenstein knew, and Mr. Munoz, since they visited frequently. After dinner they’d sit out on the patio furniture Mr. Rubenstein had purchased for Mama’s birthday, and drink and talk deep into the evening.

  I’d never seen her happier. She was a full-fledged business owner thanks to Mr. Rubenstein. He’d helped her get a license, and she ran her pie business out of our kitchen. Mac had made her a wonderful sign that read Farmhouse Pies that sat on the edge of the road. Tourists and neighbors turned up our driveway to buy sweet potato pies throughout the day. People seemed to put aside their concerns and prejudices when it came to food. The same women who frowned at Mama when she entered a store would doll up a smile to match their dress as they knocked on the back door asking for a pie.

  I was Mama’s primary helper, doing some of the prep work and delivering the pies on Will’s old bicycle. I didn’t think he’d care since he spent all of his time riding around with his loser friends in that old beat-up truck we’d seen the day of the Rubenstein’s wedding. One time his gang saw me making a delivery, and they pulled up alongside the bicycle. I tried to ignore them until someone hit me with a rock and I toppled over, the pie splattering on the road. When I told Mama she just shook her head and made another one. She didn’t ask about Will. She never did.

  His words from Christmas Day had stuck with me, and I felt like we got little reminders from time to time that our circle of friends, including blacks, Jews and at least one homo—me—could be in danger.

  I’d realized I was the homo Billy Smith was talking about after Mrs. Rubenstein explained it to me one day while we were sketching together. Even though she’d quit teaching after she married Mr.
Rubenstein, she’d agreed to give me private lessons.

  “Is it bad to be a homo?” I’d asked.

  She shook her head. “No, it’s just another way God made us different.”

  It had been such a great answer that I’d immediately announced, “I love Kiah.”

  She’d smiled and said, “I know, honey.”

  But as wonderful as our friends were, things were changing. Someone came along one night and wrote Nigger Lover in black paint across Mama’s pie sign. And then she was asked to resign from the sewing circle, which didn’t seem to bother her at all. She was so happy with Mac and the Rubensteins that she didn’t need any pretend friends. But I worried that it was all part of something bigger.

  Every time I rode Will’s bike through the new neighborhoods, I felt the city getting hotter and more oppressive. If I stopped at Lacy’s drugstore to pick up some medicine, or if I went to the market with Mama, people seemed to avoid us, even the people we knew. The cashiers stared at us with unfriendly expressions, and sometimes I thought they might tell us to put all of our groceries back. It didn’t seem to bother Mama, who always offered her mega-watt movie star smile. She could melt anyone’s prejudice.

  “What’s that word when you think something bad is coming?” I asked Kiah.

  “Ominous?” she said.

  “Yeah, that’s how I feel.”

  We were lying on the grass behind our house. I was sketching, and she was doing her homework as usual. Mama was taking a break from the pie making and had given me the afternoon off to be with Kiah. Sometimes we didn’t talk for hours but we always held hands and sometimes we kissed.

  A car approached and we looked over to see Mr. Rubenstein and Mac hurry up the back steps. We followed them inside just as Mr. Rubenstein finished calling for an ambulance.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” he said after he hung up. “This is the third time the machinery has been vandalized, but this is the first time anyone’s been hurt.”

  “Will John be all right?” Mama asked.

  “They think so. He’s got a broken clavicle.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “He was driving the bulldozer and the brakes gave out. He couldn’t stop and ran into a ditch. Threw him right off,” Mac explained.

  Mama asked, “What happened to the brakes?”

  Mr. Rubenstein shrugged. “I don’t know. The inspector came out a month ago to check on all the equipment. If there was something wrong, he’d have caught it.”

  “It was intentional,” Mac said sadly.

  “Oh, that can’t be true,” she exclaimed. “Why would anyone want to hurt someone like John? He’s a lovely person.”

  Mac took her hand. “Sweets, whoever did this didn’t care. They didn’t know who would be driving that bulldozer but that wasn’t the point. They wanted to hurt Jacob.”

  She looked at Mr. Rubenstein with a pained expression. “Oh, Jacob.”

  He threw up his hands and said, “I’m tired of this whole mess.”

  He tipped his hat to Mama and left. When he saw Kiah and me listening on the sun porch, he nodded and tipped his hat again. We gazed through the window at our parents. Mac held her in his arms and kissed the top of her head. When he glanced over his shoulder he saw us and offered a sad smile before leading her upstairs to be alone.

  “What’s going on, Kiah? Do you think this has anything to do with the funny feeling I had?”

  I gazed up at my wise friend. She’d grown another few inches and towered over me now. I waited for an answer, but then she turned and walked into their cabin without saying a word.

  “Kiah?” I called, but she ignored me.

  I slumped onto the back porch steps and rested my chin on my fists. I didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to talk, and if I went upstairs to my room I’d be close to Mac and Mama, and I didn’t want to interrupt their privacy. So I just sat on the steps staring into the yard—my entire world.

  I didn’t have any other friends except Kiah and Gloria Meyer, who also liked art. After my suspension during freshman year, we’d started tossing notes back and forth when Mr. Corliss wasn’t looking, and we ate lunch together in the art room with Mrs. Whittier, the teacher who replaced Mrs. Rubenstein. But I didn’t see Gloria outside of school. I didn’t see anyone.

  On Friday nights I didn’t cruise down Central Avenue like the other teenagers, stopping at Bob’s Big Boy for a hamburger. I didn’t go to the movies on Saturday nights, and I didn’t date boys. I wondered if there was something wrong with me. I hated going out in public because all I felt was Kiah’s absence. She’d have to sit in the Negro section at the hamburger place or the balcony at the Palms, and we’d never—ever—be able to kiss in public.

  As I stared across the lawn at her cabin I felt the miles grow between us, like the distance between Birmingham and Phoenix. Tuskeegee was only a year away. When she left me here, what would I do?

  I pondered that question for another hour until dusk crept across the yard, and Mac joined me on the sun porch. He sat down next to me and gave me a hug.

  “Where’s Kiah?”

  I nodded toward the cabin and he sighed. “It’s gonna be okay, Vivi. Kiah’s just worried about me and your mama.”

  “She doesn’t think it’s right,” I said.

  “Well, she doesn’t know everything, least of all about what it means to be in love.”

  “Yes, she does,” I replied, almost shouting.

  He blinked at me and started to ask why, but he stopped himself and looked away, thinking. “Well, it’ll be all right,” he concluded before he got up and went into the cabin.

  I couldn’t focus for the rest of the evening. Kiah had refused to join us for dinner, and I felt lost. So I just roamed around the house, from my bedroom to the kitchen and then to the living room.

  “Vivian, go find something productive to do,” Mama said in an aggravated tone. She was making her shopping list in the kitchen while Mac read the paper on the sun porch. I’d come in and out at least five times bored out of my skull. When I reached for the icebox handle she said, “If you open that icebox one more time, I’m going to shove you inside and leave you right next to the bottle of milk.”

  I groaned and went out the front door that creaked from lack of use. I strolled down the brick path, listening to the hum of the cicadas and enjoying the cool night air. Millions of stars breached the darkness casting a glow over the streets. I leaned against the wooden gate and stared at the little houses across from us. Oddly, none of our neighbors were out tonight. Usually people sat on their porches and chatted or gossiped when it was so hot, but it was completely quiet. A string of glowing porch lights was the only sign of life until I heard a low rumble.

  Headlights appeared at the corner of the next block—a truck. I had a fleeting thought of Will and his buddies until an older man stepped out, whistling and carrying his lunchbox up the driveway of the end house. I exhaled. I’d been holding my breath and hadn’t even realized it. My pulse was racing, and when I held up my hand it was shaking.

  “You’re beyond ridiculous, Vivian Battle,” I whispered.

  But my nerves and the stuffy house kept me up for much of the night. I’d stuck my head under the bathtub faucet and climbed into bed with dripping wet hair. Maybe a breeze would sneak through my bedroom window and give me relief, but it didn’t work.

  I threw the covers aside and decided to sleep on the sun porch just like Pops had done all those nights. After an hour of staring into the black night toward Kiah’s cabin, my eyelids finally closed.

  A steady, soft scraping interrupted my light sleep, and I sat up on the divan. The moon was only a sliver and the sun porch nothing but a series of shadows. Two figures stole up our driveway. One was carrying a sack and the other was dragging a large piece of wood. They stopped in the yard between our house and the cabins and busied themselves with the wood. I went to one of the windows and stared into the darkness. My mind registered the planted cross just as t
hey lit it on fire.

  I screamed.

  They ran, but not before they threw three burning fireballs toward each of the cabins. I watched in horror as the night turned yellow, crimson and orange. A flurry of noise came from the house and Mac tore past me to the cabin.

  Kiah.

  I started after him, but Mama grabbed me from behind and held me. I writhed until I broke free, but she blocked the door. I had to get to Kiah. I had to help. I ran back inside and out the front door, determined to circle back down the driveway. I burst through the small cluster of trees that lined the property and stopped suddenly. Standing behind some bushes watching the fire was Pops. I took a step and a twig snapped. His gaze shot toward the trees. I stood very still hoping he hadn’t seen me.

  Neither of us moved as precious seconds vanished. I could hear Mac and Mr. Munoz shouting for the hose and my worry for Kiah nearly propelled my feet forward, but I’d have to step in front of Pops. If he grabbed me, I’d never reach her. Maybe we both thought we were invisible, or maybe we both knew we weren’t.

  The fire truck’s wail grew closer until it pulled up the drive. A moving blur of red, it passed between us, and when I blinked he was gone. I stood there a second longer, wondering if I’d imagined the whole thing, before I shot around the side of the house. I felt the fire first, the heat announcing its presence, but what I saw sent the air out of my lungs. The flames were so ravenous they fed off each other, and the three cabins were indistinguishable.

  Firemen hurried around the yard, running lines, trampling through my mother’s roses and shouting orders to each other. Thick smoke swirled around me, and I nearly gagged. I scanned the yard for Kiah but only found Mr. Benson, leaning against an orange tree in his pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. Another fire truck rolled into the yard, and it wasn’t until the motor died that I heard my mother screaming.