Trading Dreams at Midnight

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  Joan tried to reach around Nan to get to Neena. And now here was Tish, pulling Joan from behind. Tish in her lavender and yellow pajamas that almost matched the wallpaper in their bedroom. A dozen evenly spaced sponge rollers in her hair. “Please, Miss Joan, just go home, please,” Tish said, and Neena could tell that Tish was trying not to cry as she, Neena, ran past them all into the kitchen so that she could spit out blood in the sink.

  She was holding ice to her lip by the time Nan came into the kitchen. She stared beyond Nan at the copper canisters stacked on the counter. They were empty canisters; Neena had given them to Nan for her birthday and for once Nan seemed genuinely touched by something Neena had done. The following week, though, Neena told Nan that she’d read that the copper might leach into the flour or sugar or cornmeal. “Takes you to give me something nice, then hinder me from putting it to good use,” Nan had said.

  Now Nan pushed at Neena’s shoulder. “I’m not even gonna ask you to explain yourself. No explanation exists for you bringing this whole household to shame.”

  Neena focused on Nan’s quilted robe, the orange print against white, the ruffles around the neckline. “He had news about Mommy,” Neena said to the ruffles.

  “He’s full of the devil,” Nan said, then stopped and swallowed, Neena’s words just now registering. “News about your mother?” Nan’s voice higher suddenly, tighter, as if the ruffled collar had reached around to strangle her. Face looked as if she was being strangled too. The color rushed from her face and seemed to settle in her throat, the veins in her neck jumping. She put her hand to her throat. “What he say about her anyhow? Huh? No-good nigger man like that will use anything he got to use to get a young girl into bed. And you got no better sense than to fall for it. She alive? Was he even able to tell you that? Huh?”

  “She’s alive. She is. In Cleveland.”

  “In Cleveland, huh?” Nan said. And Neena could hear how Nan’s voice opened some when she said it. “So now I guess you got it in your mind to try to track her down in Cleveland?”

  Neena hunched her shoulders, as if to say she didn’t know what she had in her mind to do. Though she did know. Knew she would have to leave now. Had really left earlier tonight when Ted stood in front of her in Mr. Cook’s basement store and said that her mother was in Cleveland. Had seen the balance on her savings account statement, close to a thousand dollars she had in the bank. Had planned out what she’d take, what she’d allow to remain. Hadn’t realized until just now that she’d already left.

  “She’s your one-way ticket to hell, Neena,” Nan said, and Neena looked at her grandmother, her scarf covering her tightly rolled pin curls, white film of Ponds cold cream shaping her hairline, clear thin liquid draining from her nose. Neena knew then that’s how her grandmother cried, through her nose.

  “Why you can’t just get her out of your system is beyond me,” Nan went on. “I birthed her and I’ve been able to do it. It can be done. Unless you just want an excuse to let the devil use you. What impact you think your behavior has on Tish? She’s trying to live the life of an upstanding Christian girl. How’s she supposed to walk through the block with her head held high knowing her older sister’s now got a reputation for busting up a marriage. Huh? Something sacred, Let no man put asunder, and what do you do?”

  Neena let Nan’s voice fade into the background the way she always did when Nan started quoting scriptures. She was thinking about Mr. Cook, how’d she tell him good-bye. She missed him already. They’d played pinball after they closed up the store tonight and one game turned into two turned into a best of five series at Mr. Cook’s insistence. Neena relented even though she had that date with Ted. Mr. Cook was a masterful player; only his fingers moved, he never shook the machine or cursed, and Neena had never won against him before. She did tonight, though. “Well baby girl, that’s one to carry with you through life,” he’d said. “You beat the socks off of me and I taught you the game.” He seemed shorter as he walked her to the door and when she turned around halfway up the street she saw that he was still watching her. She wondered then if he’d done that every night. Watched her until she got safely to Nan’s. She wanted to cry at the thought. She rarely cried, though. She rocked herself back and forth instead, the way she’d always done to calm herself.

  Nan had stopped talking and was refilling the ice tray Neena had left in the sink. “Do you need more ice for your mouth?” she asked Neena.

  Neena shook her head, no.

  “Move your hand so I can see your mouth,” Nan said, and Neena did. Nan pulled a handkerchief from her robe pocket and dabbed lightly at Neena’s mouth. Then she pulled Neena to her in a hug; it was an awkward hug. “The swelling should be down by morning, Lord willing. Turn off the lights when you’re through in here.”

  Nan walked out of the kitchen then. And Neena thought nothing more for her to do. Just turn off the lights and leave for real.

  Chapter 16

  BY THE TIME Neena had gotten to the part of her day when she sat in the bookstore and read, which meant it was mid-afternoon, Cliff still had not taken her call. She’d called three times and each time the person answering said that Cliff was not available, suggesting that if Neena didn’t care to leave a number, it would be unlikely that she would speak to him this day. She glanced up every now and then and looked out of the wall of windows onto Broad Street below. She could see Bow Peep down there and his presence was comforting. Now she gave up her prize seat at this window and went downstairs and out of the store.

  It had turned unseasonably warm yet again and the streets were loud with the sounds of teenagers just let free from schools. They laughed and squealed and cursed and made cat calls back and forth across the streets. Many were coatless and Neena stomped on the impulse to say something. Nan had drilled into her the importance of not changing into lighter fare when the winter temperatures rose. Winter air was still winter air and would sneak inside of you and give you consumption if you tried to play around with it, Nan insisted. Neena realized that she still didn’t know what consumption was, though she never changed out of winter garb until after mid-March. Warm as it was today, she was wearing the peach cashmere sweater under her black wool coat. She wondered then what determined whether she rejected or accepted her grandmother’s admonitions. Wondered if she’d been better off wearing thin cotton in January and clinging to her grandmother’s Jesus instead.

  She was across the street from where Bow Peep was. She strained to hear his flute above the midday clatter turned up high. She readied herself to follow his tangle of conversation as she raised her arm to wave. Now he was talking to a woman. At first Neena assumed that she was probably the same caliber woman as the one from a couple of weeks ago whose head was dressed in Kinte cloth, the one to whom Bow Peep had given his earnings, probably someone with whom he’d shared in-patient status on the psych floor at HUP. Neena watched as this woman kissed Bow Peep on the cheek and Neena could see from all the way on this side of the street that Bow Peep was blushing; his cheeks were high as mountains suddenly and his long line of a mouth lengthened more in a smile. The woman was crossing the street now, walking in the direction of where Neena stood. By all accounts she looked normal, like Neena looked normal. She was not a bad-looking woman either, Neena had to admit. Why did she have to admit it? Neena asked herself as the woman walked right past her now, the woman reaching into a good leather bag, pulling up a razor-thin cell phone, saying, Hi there, how are you? An accomplished tone to her voice. Having to admit it meant that she didn’t want to admit it. She was stymied as she followed that thought because she’d never had such a thought, never had such a feeling as this feeling rising up from her toes as she looked at Bow Peep across the street and he was still smiling even as he shined his flute. She smelled buttered popcorn suddenly, didn’t know where the smell was coming from; it was so strong that she almost expected to look around and find herself transported to an old-fashioned movie theater with the burgundy-colored velvet seats and the reel-to-
reel projector that made a click-click sound as she crunched down on the popcorn and the butter coated her tongue, Richmond’s hand squeezing her thigh. Imagined that it was Bow Peep’s hand squeezing her thigh, covered her mouth then to keep herself from screaming at the thought. Told herself that she must be hungry, it was the popcorn, not Bow Peep that she desired. She fingered the change in her pocket. She turned and crossed Broad and headed in the direction away from where Bow Peep stood. She walked past Lord & Taylor, past what used to be a Woolworth’s, now a spillover location for Society Hill furniture. Thought about Miss Goldie then, and that purple couch that Neena and Tish loved so that Miss Goldie bragged came from there, back when colored folk were hardly allowed to shop in such places.

  She walked along Thirteenth Street. Passed the independent bookstore still surviving even with the big chain one right around the corner. Had come to this bookstore with Richmond often, the only place where Richmond could find The Communist Manifesto. Now she turned back onto Walnut Street. Looked at the address facing her. Realized that she was standing in front of the building that housed Cliff ’s law office. Realized too that the woman she’d just seen talking to Bow Peep was most likely an associate with the law firm; he’d said she checked up on Bow Peep when he, Cliff, couldn’t get to him. He wasn’t avoiding her, he was busy. She told herself that she shouldn’t feel so floaty inside at that realization, though she did, discovered at that moment how it felt to swoon.

  She went through the revolving door and inside the lobby lined with ficus trees in oversized brass pots. She took a seat on the backless bench and scanned the short line of people at the reception/guard desk waiting to sign in. Most looked like delivery people, two with food, one with flowers. She had a clear view to the elevator doors. Now she got up because she noticed a bowl of lollipops on the reception desk. She took three, smiled at the brawny receptionist almost busting out of his blazer. She sat back down and unwrapped and slowly sucked the lollipops one at a time. She was on the third one, lemon yellow, when Cliff walked through, walked quickly, and she almost missed him because he was wearing a hat today. Neena felt a heat that started in her toes and moved through her like a rush of light. Her heartbeat sped up suddenly, her breaths went shallow, she felt dizzy. She’d never been so affected by a man before, not even by Richmond who she’d loved. Realized that the sense of desire that rushed her out on the street and shocked her because she thought it was for Bow Peep, was actually for Cliff. The tinge of jealousy over the woman with the accomplished-sounding voice was not that she’d made Bow Peep blush, but that perhaps she made Cliff blush. She ran across the lobby, stomped on the thought that she might be considered a stalker as she tossed the lollipop sticks in the brass trash can, and slipped into the elevator just before the doors closed.

  He was looking up waiting for the floor numbers to light. His face was set as if it had just been sculpted, as if her thumb against his face would leave a print that would mark his face from then on. She touched his hand. Now he looked at her and she could tell that it took a few seconds for her face to register. She let her face go serious, lowered her eyes without letting them leave his face. “I promised I’d be in touch,” she said. “So I’m in touch.”

  He took her hand in both of his. He rubbed her hand. “God, Neena,” he said. “How did you know? Huh? How did you know you’re exactly what I need right now.”

  They were at his floor and he asked if she’d wait back down in the lobby. He had a couple of matters he needed to handle. “Ten minutes please,” he said. “I promise, I won’t be longer than that.”

  It was later, the middle of the night, and Neena lay awake in her bed at the Arch Street Hotel. She stared up at the pole of light pushing in from outside and making an equilateral triangle in the corner of the ceiling. She thought about all she’d have to do to pull it off with Cliff. For starters they’d need a consistent getting-together place. Couldn’t dangle the line about an ex-boyfriend breaking in and hiding a camera and catching them on video without such a consistent place. This evening they’d gone right around the corner from Cliff’s office to the Doubletree Hotel. He’d hoisted her up and they’d climbed to then crashed through that silvery place. And then Neena cried. She didn’t know why she cried. Cliff befuddled as well that she cried. Concerned too. Thought he’d done something wrong the way he apologized. Then he took full responsibility and said they’d gotten together too soon. His better judgment had been to wait. It was his fault, he tried to convince Neena so that she’d stop crying.

  She’d left the Doubletree Hotel in a hurry. Left Cliff there with his confused sadness, his complexity. Angry that he was so damned complex. She encountered Bow Peep on her walk back here. He blew into his flute and told her he’d just given her a double dose of the healing vibe. “Ah, little lamb, you’re sad,” he said. “Never fear, Bow Peep is here. Where are you going? Let me walk with you? Just call my name and I’ll be there. Are you headed back to wherever your pillow is? Where is that? Smile, smile, just make a smile for me.”

  Neena smiled a mechanical smile.

  “Ah, my lady love, I have been on point in the jungle, like I know the rhythms of the night, I know the rhythms of the human heart. All things have their nature. There’s movement out this evening. I insist, I’ll walk you home.”

  Neena waited while he packed his flute. She watched his long fingers take the flute apart. He handled the flute with such tenderness and she remembered the feel of his fingers against her shoulders the night she cried on the steps of the Hong Kong Restaurant.

  She was quiet as they walked. Bow Peep talked though. Talked about the dinner he had at Delilah’s at the train station, and how, when he returned, he’d had to compete with a shoe box preacher proclaiming the end of the world just steps from where he played.

  When they reached the Arch Street Hotel Bow Peep said, “Here? Neena, you’re staying here? This is the belly of the whale for sure. You only end up here if you’re caught at sea when a storm rolls in, and just when you think this is it, I’m going down for the third time, a great white whale or maybe even a blue sperm opens its trap and swallows you alive. And you stay alive, ’cause it’s warm in there. You warm, Neena? They got the best radiators in that place. Man, when those bad boys start hissing, you forget you on the down and out, you’re like, thank you for the heat. Such a simple thing. Some heat in the winter. So easy to take for granted. But the hissing won’t let you. The steam says, Yo, now don’t this feel good, I don’t care whatever ain’t working in your life right now, I’m a radiator and I’m doing my thing on your behalf. Solid?”

  Neena did smile for real then. She kissed his cheek and then headed in.

  So now she stared at the pole of light and came to the realization that she couldn’t do it again. Couldn’t go through another tryst with a married man. In the best of times he’d provide her a furnished studio with a river view in a piano-lobby building; an allowance so that she could shop well, take all the courses she wanted, enjoy movies and music and books, surround herself with quality things, pay the people who specialized in locating the long-term missing. All she had to do in exchange was to keep herself pretty and inhabitable so that he could move into her like he would move into a house as the Patti LaBelle song goes. That’s all she had to do. But she was tired. Tired of feigning desire, tired of lapping her sustenance like a lost dog from any man with the smell of meat on his hand. Wished she could get out of here right now, leave Philly for good. Didn’t know why she’d come back here anyhow. Because some ticket agent at the bus station had eyebrows like Mr. Cook’s?! She willed herself to sleep. Fell into a raggedy sleep. Then woke an hour later to a sound outside her window, her window open because once again, unbelievably, the temperature had turned unseasonably warm.

  It was the sound of the flute. It was about five in the morning and the air outside her window was black as tar. She went to the window and looked out, though she couldn’t see much since the room faced the brick building next store, a thin
alley below. Still she heard the flute. He was playing “Shaker Song.” Neena knew the words, said them out loud as he got to the part about the night hanging its head as the fool crawls in bed and his hungry heart is waiting to be fed. And then the chorus that he can’t shake her, can’t shake her. Now she wondered if that was even Bow Peep down there. It had to be, the way the notes hung in the air, his signature.

  She got up then and pulled on her corduroy pants and peach sweater and went downstairs. It was him. His eyes were closed as he went into an extended riff. She lifted the case from where it was propped on the milk crate. She sat on the crate and put the case in her lap and then folded herself up so that her head rested against the case. She rocked herself as he played. Otherwise she was still. Her mind, so rarely still, came to a rest as he played. Wide awake and still. Felt now as if she was floating away from her body, looking down on herself, that poor woman folded over a street musician’s flute case. All she ever wanted was her mother. “Be Still.” He had stopped playing and was saying those words over and over. “Be still, be still, and after that just be,” he said. And she wondered why she persisted in ascribing to him logic; he was a crazy man who played a mean flute. Levels off more on some days than others. Period. Get your stupid ass off of this crate and go back to bed, she told herself. She continued to sit there. The flute case was hard and cool against her face, not at all uncomfortable. “Just be,” he said again. “Be, be, just be.”

  Now she was seeing her grandmother’s face again, the face she’d seen as she’d drank and drank from the water fountain in the lower sanctuary of the church. That look of contained hope taking over her grandmother’s face. No, now it was another look. It was fifteen years ago, 1989, Goldie’s Sam had succumbed to cancer of the throat and Neena had rushed back to Philadelphia though she arrived too late for the funeral. Sam’s brother opened the door and there was Goldie looking like a queen centered on the heart-shaped purple couch. Nan sat on the couch next to Goldie, their arms locked and Goldie patted the spot on the couch on the other side of her. “Sit, baby,” she said. “Come sit with Goldie and your grandmommy.” Neena did and Goldie locked her other arm around Neena’s arm and they sat like that, without conversation, for the balance of the afternoon while Sam’s brother lightly played the piano, a mix of jazz and the blues.