Dana listened, fascinated by the girl’s ability to sound like a young woman wise beyond her years.
“And that 40 percent he took?” she continued. “He put it all in a trust for me. Didn’t keep a dime for himself.”
“Do you imagine Mr. Lundi will be so generous with his commissions?” Werner asked from the front seat, without turning his head.
Celeste laughed. “I doubt it.”
It was a light moment needed to break the tension in the car. Even Gustav chuckled, giving the first indication that he’d been listening to a word anybody said.
They slowed past the wide, welcoming steps of the impressive courthouse, turned a final corner, and parked. Werner held the car door open for the ladies to exit onto the sidewalk and instructed Gustav to return in an hour, handing him a folded bill.
Walking into the lobby of the Title Insurance and Trust Company building, Dana decided that Los Angeles must exist on an unspoken promise to emit wealth and luxury in all of its buildings. Here, too, were potted plants, shining floors, and works of art, including a sweeping painting of the unformed city that stretched mural-like in its proportions.
With her handbag tucked under her arm, Celeste confidently led the way to a row of elevators while Werner and Dana lagged behind.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Werner said with a touch to her elbow. “You didn’t leave your boxing gloves in the car, did you?”
“Ha-ha. I didn’t need them last time, did I?”
He stopped and turned her to him. “I’m being serious now. Are you ready to meet with this man?”
“It helps knowing you’ll be at my side, and not with him.”
“Oh, darling.” His eyes searched her, and even though they stood in the midst of dozens of people bustling about their day, this felt more intimate than any moment they’d ever shared. “I just want you to have the answers you need to put the past behind you.”
“Not about the movie?”
“Hang the bloody movie.”
He had more to say, she could tell, but Celeste called to them from the open elevator, impatient, though the young man operating it seemed content to hold the door indefinitely if it meant sharing the car with her.
“Third floor,” Celeste said as the boy slid the door closed.
Dana, embarrassed to admit this would be her first ride on an elevator, fought her instinct to clutch at the railing on the wall, and instead reached for Werner’s hand, bringing comfort in both the motion of the car and the nerves rattling within.
They emerged in a rich, paneled hallway and followed Celeste to the left and down three doors to the frosted glass proclaiming, The Law Office of Christopher Parker, Esq. Inside, a stylish woman with dark skin and bright-red lips escorted them to Parker’s office.
It was a sprawling room, dominated on one side by a massive mahogany bookcase packed with impressive-looking tomes, and a large window on the other, looking out over a park. His desk, black and lustrously lacquered, sat squarely across from the door, so that the first thing any visitor saw upon entering the room was the prestigious lawyer, hard at work, surrounded by the trappings of success.
When this trio entered, however, he leaped from his seat and hurried to greet them, shaking Werner’s hand, kissing Celeste’s cheek, and approaching Dana with a good-natured pugilistic stance.
She smiled, despite herself, though she offered no apology.
When they were seated, Parker took his place behind his desk and drummed his fingers nervously. “I’m not sure where we should begin.”
“That’s understandable,” Werner said, “because it would appear you have a lot to explain.”
Parker didn’t flinch, but he did cease his drumming. “I don’t believe I owe an explanation to anyone here, except for you, Miss Dana. And I would offer an apology, but you must understand that every choice I made was with you in mind. To work on your behalf.”
“The mills of justice turn slowly,” Werner said.
“But grind exceedingly fine,” Parker countered. “As they say, ‘revenge is a dish best served cold.’”
“I’m not interested in revenge,” Dana said. “Or justice. It’s too late for that. I only want an explanation. When you visited me that day, you swore you would help me. That you would fight for me.”
“I did.”
“Really? Because after you left, I spent another fifteen years in that place.”
“We were both naive to think it would be that easy. Did you really think a Negro from Cleveland was going to walk into law school just like that? Do you have any idea how few of us there are? Let me tell you: if I hosted a banquet in honor of all the Negro lawyers in Los Angeles, I could feed the whole crowd with a single sandwich. Ham and cheese, because that’s my favorite. None of this—” he gestured wide around him—“would have happened without the misguided generosity of Marguerite DuFrane.”
“And what do you mean by that, exactly?” Dana asked, though she had her suspicions.
“I mean she paid. She paid my tuition, bought my books, gave me enough money to rent a room and buy enough food to keep me from starving.”
“How generous of her.” Dana couldn’t help but sneer, but stopped herself from saying anything further after Celeste’s silent chastisement. She carried an obvious protective affection for this man.
“Indeed it was,” Parker agreed. “Unfortunately, there are so many things that no amount of money can buy. Like a seat at the front of the classroom, or in the campus cafeteria. I was thankful not to have to keep a job, because I had to divide my time between studying and explaining to my professors how a Negro could have possibly written this paper with such articulation. When I showed up to take the bar, the proctor told me to come back later, that they wouldn’t be sweeping up until after the test. I never asked for a dime more than I needed from that woman, and I couldn’t have lasted a day without her.”
“So it was like a scholarship,” Werner said, “in exchange for silence.”
Parker was undaunted. “You could say that. But I told her, straight out, that the minute I had any credentials behind my name, I was going to go back to Chicago and settle Miss Lundgren’s case.”
“So why didn’t you?” This from Celeste, with an obvious intent to bring them all to a place of peaceful understanding.
“I tried.”
He produced a letter from the cream-colored file on his desk and handed it over to Dana. The type was purple and faded—a carbon copy, he explained—and a quick read showed it to be somewhat threatening in nature, forceful in its intent. She read it again, more slowly, and then out loud.
“I was ready,” Parker said. “Graduated, certified—in California, at least—and knowledgeable. If nothing else, I knew what to say to someone to get them to take up your case. But I heard back.” He produced another paper. “From Warden Brewster. He said you were no longer an inmate at the House of Corrections.”
Dana looked at the date. “This was when they made me a trustee.” She looked up. “But I was still there. I couldn’t just walk out.” Though, looking back, she knew that wasn’t exactly true. She simply had no place to go.
Here, a crack in his facade. “And that’s where I failed, I suppose. I was ready to believe that you’d been released. But I never shared that with Mrs. DuFrane. I figured everybody was better off if she believed you were locked away.”
“Why were you still in contact with her at all?” Werner asked, sounding like he should occupy a law office next door. “If she had already fulfilled her end of the bargain.”
“Years before, out of the blue, I get a note from her, delivered to the same post office box where she sent all the checks. Said her little girl was going to be in a movie, and she didn’t understand the contract and didn’t trust what her husband said about it.” He looked at Celeste apologetically. “So I said I’d come over and take a look, and . . .” He trailed off, arms wide.
“And we lived happily ever after,” Celeste said with such af
fection, Dana kept a hateful remark to herself.
“And so, here we are,” Werner said. “Not quite happily, and not quite ended.”
“Not quite,” Parker agreed, shifting in his seat. “About a month before he died, almost like he had some sort of premonition, Arthur called me into his office, said he wanted to make a change to his will.” He looked at Dana. “He told me about you, and all about that night when the baby died, and how he worried that your life had been ruined from what was a terrible tragedy.”
“And did you let on that you knew?” Werner asked, now on the edge of his seat.
“I’m afraid that would have killed him. Sorry.” He sent an apologetic glance at Celeste for his gaffe. “Bad enough he thought she was sent to some reformatory school. Anyway, he asked me to track her—you—down, without Mrs. DuFrane’s knowledge, of course, and award you with this.”
He opened a drawer in the side of his desk and produced a thin slip of paper, which he slid across the shiny surface. When Dana picked it up, she saw it to be a check, written from a Chicago bank, for the sum of two thousand dollars.
“He didn’t come into the marriage with a lot of money,” Parker explained, “but what he had in this bank was his, and he wanted you to have it.”
“Still,” Werner said, “that was years ago.”
“Six,” Celeste said with soft sadness.
“There was a caveat,” Parker said and appeared to be choosing what might be difficult words. “Not in writing, just an agreement between friends, to wait until Mrs. DuFrane . . . passed away. He knew—I think we all knew—that she was sick. Very sick, more so than she would say. The way he talked, I don’t think he ever believed he would be the first to go.”
“Oh.” It was a small sound of fresh grief and revealed the child in Celeste that hid behind her bravado. They all afforded her a moment of respectful silence before Parker continued.
“During those last years, whenever I met with Mrs. DuFrane on matters of business, she talked, told me everything. Sometimes, I think she made up reasons to see me, have me read over things she could have resolved for herself. And I told her she should write it all down.”
At this, he drummed a single, short rhythm on the thin cardboard-covered folio on his desk. “For legal reasons, mostly. In case, someday down the line, people had questions or wanted to lay blame. A gathering of evidence, so it were, but then, as you know—” he looked meaningfully at Celeste, who returned his gaze with peaceful understanding—“it became so much more. Believe me when I tell you, I haven’t even read it myself.” He slid it toward Celeste. “She wrote it for you.”
He looked to Dana. “When it was clear she didn’t have long left, she called me in to amend her will, giving you half of everything. And instructing me to bring you home.”
Home. The word still had an unfamiliar ring.
“This time, when I wrote to Bridewell, simply saying I was trying to locate you to deliver an inheritance, I received a much more encouraging response. And then . . . well, the rest you know.”
“Happily ever after,” Dana said, reaching for Celeste, who took her hand and squeezed it.
“The end.”
“The end,” Parker affirmed before sliding the bundle of papers across his desk. “And now, maybe, you’re ready to read the beginning.”
CLOSE-UP: A framed cross-stitch: “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.” Psalm 16:6.
INTERIOR—DANA’S ROOM: The narrow bed is covered by a square-stitched quilt, and the shelf above it holds a neat collection of books. There is a small writing desk with a glass jar holding a smattering of wildflowers. There are no bars on the window, and a lazy breeze fills the curtains with fluid motion. Three identical blue dresses hang on a hook next to a washstand. Here we see Dana, coiling her hair into a neat bun. She studies herself in the mirror, leaning closer to run a finger across what might be the first of a very fine line at the corner of her eye. She sighs.
TITLE CARD: The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever. ~~ Thomas Carlyle
INTERIOR: She steps back for a final, discerning look, turning this way and that, smoothing her dress, and only when satisfied, puts a clean, starched apron over it and crosses to her door. An ordinary door, no bars, no locks. She swings it wide open.
FADE OUT.
FADE IN.
INTERIOR: A spacious farm kitchen. Cookie, with a kerchief tied around her head, takes a tray of biscuits out of the oven and points to a crate of eggs. After a cheerful “Good morning,” Dana takes to the eggs, cracking one after another into a large mixing bowl. Cookie is singing, and after a bit, Dana joins her.
TITLE CARD: “I looked over Jordan and what did I see, coming for to carry me home? A band of angels coming after me, coming for to carry me home.”
CLOSE-UP: Dana, her face resplendent with joy, singing the last line of the spiritual.
INTERIOR: The women take platters and bowls of food from the kitchen and into a dining room with two long tables. No fewer than twenty men are seated on the benches, all dressed in striped prison garb. One by one the men are served, appearing grateful each time a plate is filled.
FADE OUT.
FADE IN.
CLOSE-UP: An impressive pile of soiled dishes—plates and coffee cups and saucers, mixing bowls and pans, all stacked up beside a kitchen sink. Zoom out to see Dana and Cookie looking good-naturedly resigned at the task before them. Cookie picks up a plate and plunges it into soapy water, once again singing.
1925
“WHAT’U THINKIN’ TODAY? You gon’ stay?”
Cookie had asked the same question nearly every day since she and Dana came to the Bridewell Honor Farm. And every day, Dana gave the question some mock consideration.
“Depends. What’s for supper tonight?”
“Gon’ have to stick around and see.”
“Well, then, I guess one more day won’t kill me.”
Truthfully, being at the honor farm didn’t feel much like being in prison at all. There were no bars on the doors or windows, no chains, and most important, no sense of uselessness stretching throughout the day. One single, armed guard presided over the facility during the day and at night, while the inmates, exhausted from a day’s labor, slept in the second-floor dormitory.
When Warden Brewster offered her the opportunity to come live and work here three years ago, she’d agreed out of fear.
“I’m afraid you are becoming something of a liability here,” he’d said. “We’re overcrowded as it is with legitimate prisoners. There’s no room for voluntary inmates.”
“What would I do?” They were walking the grounds of the courtyard, conversing almost as colleagues.
“I might be able to find you a situation. You’d be given two dollars upon your release.”
“Oh, my,” she said, feigning overwhelming gratitude. Theirs had become somewhat of an easy friendship, though she calculated that he could easily be her father. Both of them knew exactly why she stayed. She had nowhere to go. Nobody to go to. Nothing to call her own outside of the meager possessions housed within her four walls.
He’d hinted on several occasions that there might be someone, somewhere, interested in helping her revive her life, but she’d refused to listen. After all, at one point, somebody had conspired to steal it away from her. What reason had she to trust?
These days, at the farm, she lived with an almost-continuous sense of contentment. She’d known Cookie for twenty years, the only constant in her life, and now they passed their days in a perpetual cycle of preparing, cooking, serving, and cleaning, with the only difference between the two being that Cookie got half of Saturdays and all of Sundays off.
So, too, did the men, and on Sunday mornings, itinerant preachers or students from the nearby Moody Bible Institute would come and preach a sermon.
Sometimes, one of the prisoners would try to flirt with her, asking for extra gravy with a wink or, even bolder
, with a touch to her hand or just below her apron strings. This, however, was enough of a conduct violation to get the man in trouble with the farm’s superintendent and sent back to the overcrowded jail. For her part, Dana did nothing to encourage any such behavior, and having spent one-third of her life alone with her mother, half of it locked up with children and women, and now so many years in this capacity, she knew less about men than any other woman her age could claim. In fact, her mother was just this age the last time Dana saw her.
With the last dish dried and stacked, she added another ladle of water to the beans simmering on their way to becoming the noon meal. A large can of stewed tomatoes sat on the top shelf, and she took this, too, dumping them into a bowl and crushing them with a potato masher before adding them to the pot. A palmful of salt, a pinch of pepper—just as Cookie had taught her—and her afternoon was free. On Saturdays, what they had for lunch, they had for supper, except with supper they got pie. And though Dana wasn’t at liberty to leave the grounds with Cookie on Saturdays, she was allowed to roam at will if there weren’t any chores pressing for her attention. More often than not, she found something to do.
Such was the case this day, as a mess of snap peas had to be cleaned and snipped to accompany the fried chicken already cooked and waiting in the icebox for Sunday’s dinner. Lured by the cool sunshine of the spring day, Dana decided to take her task to the side porch of the farmhouse, entertaining herself with the occasional glance over to the game of horseshoes in the distance.
After a time, she heard the rumble of an automobile. Nothing uncommon, as all manner of prison officials and suppliers came on a daily basis. But this wasn’t a farm truck. It was something interesting enough to interrupt the horseshoe game and even provoke a few good-natured catcalls and whistles from the men, all of which were immediately silenced by the stern voice of the guard on duty.
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