Cross Stitch

by Amanda James

  ‘Um … I was just thinkin’ about poor Willie.’

  ‘No need to get a breeze up. That won’t happen to you. They only lynched him on account of his belly achin’ on his commie radio show.’ Larry pointed a knife at her. ‘So, just keep yo’ mouth closed and be grateful that a slip of a girl like you gits to be a short-order cook. Must be the only one for miles around.’

  ‘She shapin’ up, Larry?’ Big Josh’s boom so close behind nearly made Sarah drop the sausage pan.

  ‘Yup. She done finished those sausages now and she’s gonna start on the bacon next, ain’t you?’ Larry flashed a meaningful look.

  Sarah nodded. ‘Yup, sure am.’ With shaking hands she put the sausages on a plate that one of the kitchen assistants was patiently holding and took the bacon Larry shoved at her.

  ‘Pleased to hear it,’ Big Josh muttered, standing just over Sarah’s right shoulder. God, she couldn’t cook with him there, hell she couldn’t even keep her hands steady. All she wanted to do was escape, because no matter who she was here to save, she couldn’t risk any danger to her babies and Klu Klux Klan country was certainly a dangerous place to be.

  As she placed the rashers in a pan she turned to quickly retrieve her spatula on the counter and smashed to the floor a plate of pancakes complete with blueberries and cream. She felt Big Josh’s exhalation of breath on her neck and his big fist slammed down onto the counter beside her. ‘Damn it all, Sarah, that’s it! There’s nothing for it, Claudette will have to take over, git in there.’ He pointed to a door marked ‘staff’. ‘Git a uniform on and serve some customers. We can’t have you in here if you can’t cook!’ he bellowed.

  Sarah hurried through the door and found a few uniforms hanging in a locker. Her heart was doing a sledgehammer impression and her immediate plan, such as it was, was to do a runner. If she put a uniform on and went out into the bustle of the diner, she figured that her chances were quite good to slink unnoticed out of the place. Yeah, then what, Sarah?

  She had no clue, but perhaps she could try and find a quiet place to think and plan a way to get home somehow. Perhaps John was right at this moment negotiating safe passage back with the Spindly Ones. God, she hoped he was. In her situation, they wouldn’t refuse to get her back, would they? She’d already endured a Cross Stitch, hadn’t she given them enough faithful service? Surely they wouldn’t have deliberately placed her and the babies in this awful situation? No, of course they wouldn’t. Right, deep breaths, in … out.

  A few minutes later Sarah stood in front of the mirror and an extra from Happy Days looked back at her. A white scalloped pinned hat sat atop heavily lacquered hair. This bouffant style at the front was drawn into a ponytail of bouncy swinging blonde curls at the back. Bright red lipstick and darkly drawn arched eyebrows made her look like a drawing of a child’s idea of glamour. This picture was completed with the green uniform-dress, white scalloped edged apron and bobby socks. The shoes at least were sensible, black flats – good for doing a runner.

  Walking back into the diner was like walking into a crowded railway station. Big Josh must be raking it in. Though a few grumpy faces indicated the shortage of staff and Sarah’s mess-ups were causing long delays in service. The door handle to the outside was almost in reach as she threaded her way through the counter queue and dashing waitresses. Tucking her chin to her chest she hurried the last few feet … and then felt a rough hand on her wrist.

  ‘Where’s my goddamn burger? You think I’ve got all day?’

  Sarah looked into the shark-eyes of another man-mountain, but younger and much angrier than Big Josh. ‘Please let go my wrist.’ She made her face deadpan, but inside, a thousand butterflies wearing spike heels had just alighted. This guy wasn’t playing with her.

  After a painful squeeze he released her. ‘If you don’t git my burger now, I’ll do more than squeeze yo’ wrist. We don’t like yo’ pinko kind round here,’ he growled.

  Sarah shuddered and made for the door again, only to find a wall of aproned belly blocking her way. ‘Where you goin’ now, Sarah?’ Big Josh hissed in her ear. ‘If you don’t get JB’s burger he’ll be late for his shift on the bus and then he will make your life hell.’

  Sarah realised by the fevered look in Big Josh’s eyes that he was scared of this bus driver. Perhaps he dressed up of an evening in a white sheet and pointy hat.

  Damn it! She’d have to go to the kitchen now and get this piece of slime’s food before she could make her escape. On the way she passed another waitress. ‘Please, er,’ Sarah read her name badge, ‘Jolene. Would you get JB’s burger, I need to go to the restroom and he’s awful mad at being kept waiting.’

  Jolene narrowed her cat-green eyes and smacked her gum at Sarah. ‘Nope. Since you stopped waitressing and became an uppity short order cook with grand ideas, you ain’t had no time fo’ us. Git it yo’self.’

  Shit, shit, shit! Sarah cursed silently as she pushed past Jolene and hurried to the kitchen. All she wanted to do was escape and now she had to get food for a racist bus driver … Sarah halted in her tracks and a light bulb snapped on in the history section of her brain. JB? Wasn’t the name of the bus driver who asked Rosa Parks to stand up to make room for white passengers James Blake … JB? Oh my God!

  With the burger plate clasped tightly in her hand, Sarah hurried back from the kitchen a multitude of thoughts tumbling around her head. What if she’d made him late and then Rosa Parks wouldn’t get on his bus, wouldn’t be asked to move, wouldn’t refuse and ergo wouldn’t spearhead the Montgomery Bus Boycott which triggered the Civil Rights Movement championed by that giant of history, Martin Luther King? Jeez she could have single-handedly set integration back years, just because she was ‘selfishly’ thinking of her babies and trying to escape instead of trying to figure out who she had to save.

  Hang on, Sarah, this makes no sense. Making him late hardly equated to life saving … unless if he’d have gone early, he might have stepped under a ladder and had a hammer drop on his head or something. So actually, perhaps making him late meant that he was saved from the hammer and Rosa does get on his bus? Perhaps that’s it? She was buggered if she knew and as she approached JB’s table she heard Big Josh, who had just set a mug of coffee down by his newspaper, say, ‘And this one is on the house on account of yo’ been kept waitin’ … the burger too. Can’t have you late for work, JB.’

  ‘I ain’t workin’ today, Big Josh. Got me some time off. But I’m on late afternoon tomorrow.’ JB took a swallow of coffee and eyed Sarah with disgust. ‘’Bout time, set it down here and git me some ketchup.’

  Sarah did as she was asked wondering what the hell was going on if he wasn’t even working today. Perhaps the momentous day was tomorrow after all then. Did that mean she had to stay here overnight? That thought made her want to heave. Placing the ketchup down she started to walk away.

  Big Josh held up a finger. ‘I think you have summin’ to say to JB, here, Sarah.’

  Really? She could think of a few choice words he needed to hear, but it was clear what she was being asked. ‘Sorry to keep you waitin’, JB.’

  JB looked down his nose at her, his dark eyes alive with malice. ‘JB, sir.’

  Goodness he was asking for a slap now. Swallowing her pride and anger, Sarah said, ‘JB, sir.’

  A few hours later Sarah was still taking orders and racing about like a headless chicken. JB had gone, but she figured that finding a quiet place to plan her escape to the future wasn’t an option now, not with so much at stake. Perhaps John would suddenly appear having found a willing ‘passing the time’ Stitch and whisk her off home. But with her luck lately – conception of the twins excepted – that was not a likely scenario.

  She was ready to drop but eventually the lunch rush was over and the handful of customers now coming in just wanted mostly pie and coffee. Big Josh was still tossing her mean looks whenever she caught his eye, but now as she wiped down a table by the window, he came over and took the cloth from her hand.

>   ‘Looks like yo’ Jesse’s here.’ He nodded outside to the street where a young man was looking at them from the window of a battered pickup. ‘A few minutes early, but I guess you can git.’

  Sarah nodded but wondered who the hell Jesse was. Please don’t let him be her husband. ‘Thanks, Big Josh.’

  ‘And if you promise that you’ll stop acting like a crazy person I might jest let you back in the kitchen tomorrow, okay?’ A ghost of a smile played at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Yes, thank you … I will.’

  The passenger door creaked open as Sarah approached the pickup and the young man gave her a toothy grin and a friendly wave. His face was round and pink and a yellow baseball cap seemed to meld with his unruly hair the colour of corn.

  Sarah slid into the sun warmed seat beside him and looked up into his light blue eyes. She immediately warmed to him and felt instinctively there was no romance between the 1955 Sarah and him, but there was definitely love.

  ‘Had a good day, sis?’ Jesse grinned and pulled away from the kerb.

  Ah, phew, thank goodness for that. Her frazzled emotions wouldn’t stretch to another act. ‘Yup it was real good, thanks.’ No use in going over the whole rigmarole of what had happened. The least she said about anything at all, the better.

  ‘Really?’ He looked at her in disbelief. ‘So you have forgotten all this talk about savin’ up your pay, goin’ to college and gittin’ an education?’

  Sarah’s spirits rose a little. Good for old Sarah. ‘No, I ain’t forgot, just no point in being miserable ’til I do, is there?’

  Jesse nodded, apparently happy with that and concentrated on his driving.

  At a stop sign a little while later, Sarah took stock of 1950s Montgomery. They must be on the outskirts of the city she guessed as the buildings were smaller and not as tall as the ones she could see in the distance. On a nearby building a sign for a swimming pool proclaimed Whites Only, and on a station building across the street a sign on the pavement announced Waiting Room Whitesà Colored.

  Of course, as a history teacher, Sarah knew that segregation was enforced in all walks of life: schools, leisure, buses, drinking fountains, even in death as whites and blacks had separate cemeteries at the time, but to actually see it for real made her sad and furious in equal measure. Fear of communism due to the Cold War was ever present in newspapers and on TV, in books and in culture in all its forms and sadly in schools too. And at the exact same time in history huge leaps were planning to be made for mankind, in science, technology and medicine. On every jukebox and radio rock and roll thrilled the ‘new teenager’ and lifted the spirits, and classic films like Oklahoma!, The Seven Year Itch and Lady and the Tramp were playing to packed audiences at the cinema. Yet segregation was allowed to continue.

  ‘Gee, Sarah, your face might set like that if the wind changes, girl.’ Jesse chuckled as the lights went green and he moved the bone rattler off down the street again, just as Elvis’s That’s Alright Mama, came on the jukebox in a nearby bar.

  How ironic. This was not all right. The pain that the inside of Sarah’s cheek between her teeth was causing couldn’t suppress her fury any longer. ‘Don’t you get angry at all this disgusting discrimination, Jesse?’ She flung her hand at more signs as they passed. ‘I mean, how can one group of people be so mean to another just because of the colour of their skin, it sure beats the hell out of me!’

  Jesse shook his head. ‘Don’t start all this again, it won’t do no good, and probably will do bad. Pa loves his sister but he ain’t pleased you come back from a visit to her with all this talk of change in yo’ head. You know we is just as sorry about segregation as you, but like Pa says, it will change over time, and there’s nothing we can do fo’ now.’

  A harrumph escaped her lips, but from now on Sarah decided to button them. Luckily Jesse had been sympathetic but what would she have done if he hadn’t have been? Best keep quiet and hope that tomorrow would bring her a clue and please God … home again.

  Home for now turned out to be a pumpkin farm. A small but cosy homestead nestled against a backdrop of pumpkin fields and tall trees. Once inside, Sarah feigned a headache and quickly ran up the rickety stairs. She had no wish to have a conversation with ‘our pa’, whose dungaree clad frame she’d glimpsed chopping up something in the kitchen. Jesse called after her that ‘our ma’ would send up a tray later if she felt up to it.

  Having found her room after three attempts, she closed the door and leaned her back against it. Wall to wall pink gingham, frilly curtains and fluffy teddy bears almost gave her a real headache, and she flopped down on the edge of the bed to stare through the window at the uninspiring winter landscape and the occasional truck passing on the distant road. Warm for her idea of winter though, and Sarah had gleaned from Jesse that it was the first of December tomorrow. If memory served, that was the day that Rosa made her stand, or sit, to be more precise.

  Sarah released a heavy sigh and then from the corner of her eye she spied an envelope marked Sarah on the dresser and her stomach turned a somersault. It couldn’t be. She leapt from the bed and snatched it up. It was … it was John’s handwriting. Ripping it open she read:

  My poor darling, you must be at your wits end! The powers are very apologetic and have no clue as to why this has happened to you as never before have they encountered such an erratic and unusual departure. They normally have some indication but not this time. Yes, they couldn’t confirm or deny you would travel again, but they were banking on at least having some control over it. They are flummoxed.

  Anyway, they have promised to get you back tomorrow and are working round the clock to sort it. Don’t ask me how, as usual they don’t tell me everything, but suffice to say they are going to get another Stitch to ‘pass the time’ with you. So don’t worry about letting anyone down. The thing is, Sarah, you have to be outside the diner at 5 p.m. tomorrow. That’s the only slot they can do.

  I miss you so much even though you have only been away for a few hours. And I’m so angry and frustrated that I can’t be with you, hold you, kiss you and tell you I love you, but you know how much I do, don’t you? They let me come back for a few minutes to put this letter in the bedroom but not a moment more. I was going to stay and damn the consequences, but Dad thankfully talked me out of it as he did last time. God knows what would have happened if he hadn’t … probably would have made it all worse. I am such a hot head where you are concerned, but that’s because I love you so much.

  At this point the writing became blurred and Sarah dashed at her eyes and held the letter to her thumping heart. God she so needed John right now, the pain of separation was almost physical. She looked back to the letter.

  So try to sleep, you and our babes need to rest. And obviously try to avoid conversation with Sarah’s family. Tomorrow I suppose you will have to go back to work, but be outside at 5 p.m. Whatever you are doing, just leave, and don’t let Big Josh or any of them stop you. It will soon be over, sweetheart, believe me. Be strong and take care.

  Sarah held the letter for a few moments more and then tucked it down her top. That would take some explaining if any of the family clapped eyes on it. She felt so much better now, closer to John too. Even if she only had a letter next to her chest for comfort he felt nearer somehow. It was a real and physical link to her life back home. And what was he panicking about? Of course she’d be outside at 5 p.m. tomorrow. That was her chance to get home as quickly as possible. Where else was she going to bloody be?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Back on short-order duties all day, Sarah was beginning to wonder if she would ever be able to bring herself to eat bacon, burgers or sausages ever again. A mountain of them had passed through her pan, griddle and skillet since 7 a.m. and now it was getting on for four in the afternoon. Even the lull after lunch hadn’t been so much of a lull but a pause for breath, and now orders for burgers had started up again. It was a wonder that there were any cows or pigs left in the whole of Alabama – t
he demand from Big Josh’s Diner was enough to sustain supply from Georgia too.

  Still, one more hour and hopefully she’d be back home in the cottage with John. And God help the Spindly Ones if they sent her anywhere else before the babies were born. In fact, the way she felt now, she never wanted to do another mission as long as she lived.

  At four-thirty she was about to take an afternoon break as her plan was to skip away and hide by the dumpsters in the back lane until five. Sarah figured that there was no other way that it would work. She couldn’t just down tools and walk out at 5 p.m. with Big Josh and Larry hot on her tail. They were already suspicious of her clam impression because the 1950s Sarah was a regular chatterbox by all accounts.

  Sarah had kept her lip buttoned at breakfast too before Jesse had given her a lift to work. She’d just nodded and smiled at our ma and pa, grunted when required to utter a word. There was no way she wanted to put her foot in it again and be thrown in jail or something for ‘pinko’ talk.

  On the way down the corridor, Big Josh appeared at her side as if by magic and said, ‘Before you have yo’ break, Sarah, JB wants you to serve him. Asked for you personally.’ Big Josh looked a bit sheepish but Sarah could tell there would be no wriggle space for her here. Nevertheless she tried anyway.

  ‘Aw, Big Josh, can’t Jolene or Muriel do it? I’m dead on my feet and I don’t have my uniform on—’

  ‘Nope. He wants you so he can make a point. Git a uniform on. It won’t take long and thar’ll be a little summin’ extra in yo’ pay packet come the end of next week. You worked hard today and no uppity talk neither.’ Big Josh folded his arms across the vast expanse of belly and fixed her with a kindly, but no-nonsense stare.

  A few moments later she waited patiently by the side of JB’s table as he flicked through his newspaper deliberately ignoring her presence. She cleared her throat. ‘What can I get you, sir?’

  A few more flicks, a rub of the chin and then, ‘You can get me a good honest southern girl’s values and a smile now and then.’ JB’s leer slimed around her body like a physical caress. She wanted to shower. ‘You’re a purty girl, Sarah, when you smile. Use it more often.’ He put his hand on her arm and squeezed it gently.