The baseball diamond was now gone, returned to the field of green it had once been. But his memories survived. He grabbed the choke with both hands and took a swing just to see if he still had it. The bat cut through the air like a sword. He felt his power trail from his limbs into the tip of the wood. The sweet spot.
Searching still, he discovered a locked Louis Vuitton trunk wrapped in hand-sewn quilts. The suffocating, musty smell of mildewed fabric swirled around his nose. The trunk was covered in leather with the signature monogram logo of its maker and trimmed in wood and metal. He tinkered with the lock, his mind set on discovering what was inside. After a few moments, he gave up and returned to the nursing chair. Every soul has a match, every heart specifically deep with wanting. Every lock has a key, he thought. The Fabulous Mr. B’s sweet melancholy voice crackled from the Crosley . . . and I insist the world owes me a loving.
He could fathom no good reason for staying, but he could not find peace with a woman at war with herself, he measured. He had no remedy for her maladies, most of which could be found in the bottom of a dry Belvedere martini or a cup of bourbon-laced coffee.
Etienne’s one cardinal sin had been to love Jack’s money, to adore his position in society more than she did him. Being Mrs. Gabrielle came with privileges. A cattle call would yield dozens willing to stand in line for the chance to take her place. If need be, Jack knew, they’d stand naked in a snowstorm.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Yvetta Malone still lived in the modest white brick house on Delmar Street in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she raised her family. The long narrow gravel road had been paved and the driveway had a new coat of black asphalt. Traffic was frequent, but tolerable. Children still played out in the middle of the avenue. Peering over her morning paper, she often amused herself in their merriment from her painted concrete stoop.
Mrs. Malone knew their mothers and their mothers’ mothers. She was a retired substitute schoolteacher and most had been her students at one time or another. Every little brown face was familiar. She knew where they went to school and what kind of grades they got. She knew when some got into trouble and when the girls were keeping company too long with certain boys. The children always turned their kickball game away from her yard so a stray ball wouldn’t wander over her chain-link fence. They didn’t want any trouble getting it back.
They called her Mrs. Malone, as she preferred. Generally speaking, the children behaved themselves whenever Mrs. Malone was out on the porch. If something went amiss, they knew she’d come out to the street, swat the aggressors on the behind, and then promptly call their mothers.
Yvetta mostly kept herself in the house those days. But at least one morning a week, she’d get outside in short britches, work gloves, and a polka-dot head scarf to tend to the spray rosebushes. She had a mental list of things that needed to be done. The house and the black shutters could use a fresh coat of paint. She figured she would get around to it next spring when money might be better. There was the matter of a dead hardwood leaning too close to the back of the house and the gas stove needed replacing. The paint job would have to wait. The tree needed to be cut down, chopped up, and hauled off before the next storm.
Jesse Fields from around the way had offered his hand with the lawn and maybe even would see after that tree. But Yvetta was dead set on mowing the lawn herself and told him the tree was her problem to see after.
Everybody in the neighborhood knew she didn’t care for menfolk in her yard. She told him more than once that she didn’t need any looking after. Still, Fields came by every Saturday and leaned on the gatepost for small talk.
“How are you getting along there, Miss Malone?” Mr. Fields would call from the sidewalk.
“Mrs. Malone,” she always corrected. “And I’m doing just dandy, thank you,” she’d say and look away.
It always started that way.
He’d keep talking until she either came down from the porch and joined him at the fence or went inside and forgot he was there. When she did come out to the gate, they talked about the various comings and goings in town, including Maya Angelou’s arrival at Wake Forest University. When she’d had enough, Yvetta politely excused herself and went back to doing nothing. He’d turn on his heels and head back home. It went on that way for two years or more. Nothing ever changed.
Mrs. Grace Goins still lived across the street, though she wasn’t home much those days. She explained one Saturday morning over coffee and sweet biscuits that she needed to be over in Wilmington more often to see after her baby sister, who was recovering from diabetes surgery. She’d lost her foot to sugar and needed more than a little help getting around. Yvetta promised to look after the house when Grace was away. Other than that or a quick hand of cards with Eunice Rivers, who lived just a few houses up, Yvetta was happy enough. Every Sunday after church, Yvetta would make her way out to the senior home to see after her father.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
At ninety-seven, Henry Tecumseh “Cump” Cole was a wily old cooter who had a touch of high blood pressure and a little sugar himself, but other than that he was in good health. Progressive senility was the worst of it, though everyone thought he could remember anything he wanted to. On most days, Cump could tell you he had eight children, four of them still living, and had been married just once to undoubtedly the most beautiful woman in all of North Carolina. He would jet out of the house on a moment’s notice to go for a walk.
Invariably, Cump would get lost and one of the neighbor kids would fetch and bring him back. For a while, Yvetta and her young anointed deputies were able to keep up with him.
The last time he got out, Yvetta got a call from the Greyhound bus terminal in Rock Hill, South Carolina. It seemed he’d convinced the driver that he lived there and needed to get home. When nobody showed up for him, the ticket agent searched his pockets for identification. Directory assistance gave the attendant a phone number on Delmar Street. On Yvetta’s instruction, the ticket agent put Cump on a bus headed back to Winston-Salem and told the driver not to let him off until they got there. He got off the bus mumbling something about going to Atlanta to see his grandbaby. Although she was relieved to have him back, that was the end of it. Yvetta reluctantly signed him into the senior home for safekeeping.
Most Sundays she would sit with him and watch television in the recreation room. Glad to see her, but not quite remembering who she was, Cump talked in buckshots like he would to any perfect stranger. In all of his living days, he’d never met a stranger. He’d ramble on about Dan Rather, whom he referred to only as the new fair-haired boy on the nightly news, and how he couldn’t hold a candle to Walter Cronkite. And that’s the way it was. Cump was always dissatisfied with the food and thought his room was too cold.
“Can you get them to give me some real food? I’m sick and tired of dern Jell-O. It ain’t natural to feed anybody anything green that don’t grow out the ground. And I need a lock for my closet. Somebody’s been snooping around in there. I know they done stole some of my clothes. You see that Myrtle, you tell her to get on up here and see about her husband. Somebody done run off with his clothes!”
Her mother, Myrtle Cole, had passed away ten years before. Yvetta found no benefit in reminding her father about that. She’d already checked his inventory of slacks and button-down shirts a dozen times or more, but never found anything amiss. Sometimes she borrowed a steam iron from the orderly and pressed out some of his slacks. He liked them crisp and tidy even if sometimes he couldn’t remember his own name. Yvetta bought him a new pair of shoes and promised to get him a lock, if only to give him peace of mind. Like her own husband, Simon, Cump had been a postal worker after a long stint as a porter on the railroad. He amused Yvetta with stories of segregated sleeping and dining cabins, even though he sometimes couldn’t remember what he had for breakfast that morning.
“I was a good rail man,” he told her. “When they wanted to form a union, I said ‘no, sir.’ I knew the company would just a
s soon cut us loose and find somebody else to do the job. Thirty years I rode the line. I done seen every part of the country from top to bottom. I met my Myrtle out there. Sweet, baby sweet she was, sweet as Vidalia onions.”
Yvetta beamed. She enjoyed her father’s stories.
“They didn’t come no prettier than your mama. I tell you the truth. We got married right out there at Mt. Sinai. That was a day. Your uncle Harold was my best man. Crazy Harry. That’s what they called him, you know? Only time he ever wore a suit was to my wedding and to his own funeral. They buried him in that suit. You know that tan seersucker I got? Well, that’s what I want you to bury me in. Tell that preacher man over at Mt. Sinai to lay me out good. But tell him not to preach too long. You know he sure can talk the angels out of heaven, but you tell him not to preach on me too long.”
“Yes, sir,” Yvetta answered.
“You find that seersucker and press it out good.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go easy on the starch.”
Yvetta knew the suit, if she could find it, would be too large. Cump was down to a rail-thin one hundred twenty pounds soaking wet with bricks in his pockets. He went on talking. He didn’t take two breaths at a time.
“Gal, it smells like piss in here. They oughta clean this place up. What they need is a bucket of pine cleaner for them toilets and some ammonia for this here floor. I told that gal out there to give me the mop,” he said, pointing down the hallway. “I’ll get this place smelling like daisies.”
Clearly satisfied with himself, he asked Yvetta about her husband, Simon. “When’s he gone make it by here?”
“He’s gone now.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“Daddy, Simon passed on five years ago.”
“That so? Well, I’m sorry to know that,” he said as if he’d heard it for the first time right then. “He sure was a good man.” He welled up and blew out a gust from his nose.
The news that his Myrtle had gone on too would certainly bring tears. “Yes, sir, he was,” Yvetta said instead.
“I remember the day you brought him home. He was standing out there in the yard sweating like a prostitute in the church house. I told him it was all right to come on in the house. Your mama had to go out there and get him. We lived out on Euclid Avenue back then. He took off his hat and sat down on the couch. Didn’t move two inches the whole time he was there. Wasn’t no need in him being afraid of me. He was from good people. I got him on at the post office.”
“And we’re glad for it, Daddy.”
Yvetta was both amazed and tickled with his selective memory. Cump could not often remember where he was going, but he certainly knew where he had been.
“Them girls of yours look just like him. But they’ve got my eyes,” he said, beaming with pride.
“Yvonne is a schoolteacher,” Yvetta reminded him.
“Is that right? What’s the other one’s name?”
“That’s your grandbaby Thandy, Daddy.”
“Oh, I knew that. I just wanted to see if you remembered. Than-DE-way!” he said, almost singing his granddaughter’s name. “Oh, I just like to call her name and watch her come running. She still likes butterscotch candy, don’t she? I used to keep a pocket full of butterscotch just for her. Wintertime will be along soon. You know how she loves snow, my January girl. Maybe she’ll come to see me.”
Yvetta lost her smile. “I’m sure she will, Daddy.”
Yvetta was proud of Yvonne. She was married now with children of her own. She had taken a teaching job and followed her husband, Rich Colbert, over to Charlotte, where he was doing real nice for himself, selling advertising at a local television station. The couple had saved enough for a decent down payment on a lovely ranch on a quiet street. They had two children, six-year-old Jada and baby Amber. The Colberts led busy, orderly lives and Simon would have approved. Rich coached Little League baseball and Yvonne was a volunteer with an adult literacy program.
They churched every Sunday at Friendship Baptist. Yvetta hadn’t been over to see them since early spring, she lamented. They must be getting big now, she thought. Little Jada seemed to pick up two inches every time Yvetta visited. But she didn’t like driving alone without Simon.
After five years of mourning her precious Simon, time seemed to move along a little bit slower, creeping by quiet and slow like a ladybug. The house was long since paid for and the postal service kindly sent the widow pension benefits every third of the month. Other than visits from her best friend, Grace, there was little excitement. Coming to see her father made Sundays go by better.
An attendant announced dinner: pot roast, steamed butter corn, and iced tea.
“What’s for dessert? We ain’t having no more dern Jell-O, are we?”
“Not tonight, Mr. Cole,” the nurse assured. “We got lemon pound cake.”
“Hot damn!” he exclaimed, scooting his wheelchair toward the dining room.
Yvetta followed him to his table, kissed his forehead, and left him eating.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
She thought about Thandy the whole way home. She’d just gotten in the door when she heard the phone on the kitchen wall ringing.
“Mrs. Malone? I’m sorry to disturb you.”
“Who is this?”
“This is Dr. Gabrielle. Again, I’m sorry to bother you.”
“What is it, Jackson?” Her voice was curt. She leaned against the arched doorframe and asked, “What are you calling me for?”
“I’ve been trying to reach Thandywaye,” he tried to explain. “I wondered if you could give me a home phone number for her. I seem to have misplaced it.”
“I see.” She didn’t believe a word. “You’re asking me?”
“Again, ma’am. I’m sorry to disturb you. But it’s important.”
“Life or death, huh?” Her sarcasm was palpable.
“You could say that.”
“I ain’t nobody’s fool, Dr. Gabrielle,” Yvetta said, raising her voice. “If my daughter wanted you to know where she was at, she would’ve told you as much. To tell you the truth, I’m glad you can’t find her. The Good Lord ain’t never gone bless what you were doing.”
“Again, I’m sorry—”
“You most certainly are,” she said, cutting him off. “If you call my house again, I’ll call the police on you. You hear me?”
Before he could answer, she laid the phone down on the receiver and went back to the porch. Thandy hadn’t told her mother about Chicago either. Yvetta had read about it in the paper like everybody else.
She’ll get tired of running and come on home, Yvetta hoped as she looked out onto the street filled with neighborhood children playing kickball. She’s finally come to her senses.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The next night, as the August sun was going down and the moon crept up over the horizon, the neighborhood kids were still playing outside on the asphalt. They jumped double Dutch and roller-skated down the middle of the street. Yvetta slipped off her lace-up walking shoes and sat on steps leaning against the metal railings. She remembered the gone days when her own girls had played under the same streetlights.
She thought about driving up to Chicago, but quickly put away the notion. She didn’t even know where her daughter lived, let alone how to get to Illinois. She could take a plane, but she hadn’t been on one in years. Not since that crash in Florida when the shattered plane spilled across the Everglades like somebody tipped over a can of garbage. One hundred and ten people died in the dark swamp water. That was 1996, but it might as well have been that afternoon. The Buick in the driveway was ten years old, but didn’t have more than six thousand miles on it. She’d never driven any farther than Charlotte without Simon. She’d get lost once she crossed the Carolina border, she told herself. What if she turns me away?
Fresh back from Wilmington, Grace stopped by to see about her friend. “How’s your daddy doing?” she asked, padding up the stoop.
“He’s keeping,” Yvetta
said through the screen door. “Still as crazy as a jaybird, but he’s keeping. Nutty as a dern fruitcake.”
Yvetta stood up, swung open the screen door, and waved her in. They shuffled inside the small living room and sat on the paisley print sofa. Grace had her own list of troubles on her mind. Her son, Jeremiah, was in the state penitentiary doing time for armed robbery. The sheriff had come looking for her daughter, Hope, for a string of bad checks. Grace had pointed them straight out to the lean-to flophouse where she was holed up with friends. Grace hoped maybe they’d lock her up and she would get clean.
“Daddy was asking after Thandy yesterday evening,” Yvetta said casually. “I pray every night that she has finally come to her senses.”
“I know what you’re saying, Vetta. These children these days ain’t like we was. It’s a different day, don’t you know? My Wendell is turning over in his grave, I know that. We try to teach them right from wrong, but that don’t mean they listening.”
“I ain’t nothing about no dern infidelity, Grace,” she said. “She chose that life when she could’ve had better. That Thandy could have her pick of good, decent men. What does she want with an alley cat like Jack Gabrielle anyhow? You remember when she brought him up here, parading him around like a show horse? That took some kind of nerve bringing that man into her daddy’s house. My husband wasn’t even in the ground good. She didn’t need to tell me he was married. I could smell it on him. Simon wouldn’t have stood for that and she knows it.”
She turned her head to the wall above the sofa. It was lined with family photos in frames she’d bought from JCPenney. There was one of Thandy when she was twelve years old, had a wide toothy smile, and still thought the sun didn’t come up until her daddy got out of bed in the morning.
The January Girl Page 4