That’s not what happened to me. Not at all.
I can’t be looked at this way anymore. This look will snuff out the little light that is me. I turn my head away from my father, and he does something with his hand on my arm. I hear a yelp. The yelp came from me.
Sophy hisses. She hisses louder, and louder yet, until finally Dad releases me. Where his hand was aches. I hear his quick footsteps on the floor. Then the kitchen door swings open and bangs closed.
“He’s gone,” Dolores whispers in my ear.
I look up. Mother, Rob, Sophy, and Andreas are staring, stricken, at the remnants of our lunch—the crumbled bits of meat, hunks of potato, shreds of carrot on our plates, the congealing grease and sharp flecks of seasoning on the platters.
That’s not what happened to me.
I stand and run from the kitchen. There are my coat and pocketbook, lying on my bed. I put on my coat, grab my pocketbook, head to the front door.
“Rose! Where are you going?” Mother calls from the kitchen.
I don’t answer. I hear Rob say that I must be going after Dad. I must be going to explain.
Let them think that.
I open the door and run down the stairs.
ELEVEN
Head bowed against the cold, I run toward the only place I can think to go. I run to Garfield Park and take shelter in the Conservatory. Clutching my aching arm, barely seeing the lush plants and trees, I wander from glass room to glass room until I find myself standing at the edge of a pool. Pennies glitter at the bottom.
There’s a penny lying on the walk beside my feet. I pick it up and throw it into the pond with a wish that splits itself in two and refracts with the ripples in the water.
I wish I could sing. I wish I could talk to Theo.
I remember then. Theo wrote his phone number on the bulletin for the African Methodist Church. I put that bulletin in my pocketbook. I’m carrying that pocketbook now.
I don’t know Nils’s number. That’s why I’m not calling him. That’s why. And the fact that Dad would want me to do that, given the choice. Dad would expect me to do that. Dad knows me so well.
Men sow their wild oats. Women become tramps.
But that’s not what happened to me—not Friday or Tuesday night. And it didn’t happen last Sunday, either. (Was it only a week ago today?) When Theo heard me singing and found me on my knees, he was only a gentleman and I was only a lady. Together, we were only doing a job.
I push up the sleeve of my coat and there is the shape of Dad’s hand, darkening as a bruise. His fingers wrapped around my arm. His palm pressed down. Dad knows me well, all right. He knows me right down to the bone.
I consider the Danish Baptist way. The oldest daughter, big sister way. The Rose Sorensen way.
I take a detour off the only way I’ve ever known and find myself back at the entrance to the Conservatory. The entrance feels arctic after the tropical warmth of the Conservatory’s inner rooms. The cold air settles on me like a weight. Far weightier is the truth, which is what I will live for from now on, never mind where it takes me.
There is a pay phone in the corner of the entrance. I go to it. I fumble with the clasp on my pocketbook, dig inside its cluttered depths. Beneath three handkerchiefs—because of Sophy, I always carry more than one—a comb, bobby pins, and barrettes, and a small jar of Vaseline, I find my coin purse and the bulletin from Theo’s church. I take out a nickel, lift the phone’s earpiece, plug the nickel into the phone, dial the numbers on the bulletin, and listen to the ringing at the other end of the line.
A girl answers. “Hello?”
I stare at the phone as if the machine itself had just spoken.
From behind me, a man clears his throat so loudly that I jump. I glance over my shoulder. The man is waiting none too patiently to use the phone. He twirls a finger in the air: Come on, speed it up.
“Is this the Chastain residence?”
The girl, who has a soft, southern accent, says it is.
“Is Theo Chastain available?”
“One moment, please.”
A clunk as she sets the receiver down, then the sound of her feet pattering off to some distant part of where Theo lives. A murmured exchange. More footsteps, heavier this time. Theo’s footsteps.
I can hear my heart beating, the blood surging in my ears.
“Hello?”
Why did I never notice that Theo has a southern accent, too? Perhaps it grows stronger when he is in his own home, among his own people? Rob once told me that many of Chicago’s best musicians traveled up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Chicago. I wonder if this is true of Theo. There is so much I want to ask him, so much I want to know. I want to know his truth.
“It’s Rose,” I say.
Silence. He doesn’t remember me, or he doesn’t remember my name. Either way, he doesn’t remember.
I swallow the pride, or whatever the emotion is, knotted in my throat. “Rose Sorensen. The girl you found cleaning. You drove me home last Tuesday night after—”
“Rose. I know who you are.”
Worse, he remembers me and he wishes he didn’t. At least that’s what his clipped tone suggests.
How foolish to call him. How pushy. How unladylike. Men sow their wild oats. Women become tramps.
The man behind me harrumphs again. It’s time for me to hang up.
But Theo asks if I’m all right before I can. His voice cracks with worry.
I say that I’m all right, though I’m not, not at all.
“Don’t misunderstand. I’m glad you called. But . . .” Theo sucks in a breath. “To heck with this. Where are you, Rose?”
I tell him.
“Stay put. I’m coming to get you.”
He says it shouldn’t take him more than twenty minutes to drive to where I am. I should stay inside the Conservatory, where it is warm. He’ll find me.
He finds me where it is warm, sitting on a stone bench nestled in ferns.
Snow has started to fall. I am watching it sweep and swirl across the peaked glass roof arching above when I hear his footsteps sound against the stone path that winds ever closer. A burbling stream of water interrupts the path, and now I hear Theo hesitate as he judges the distance between stepping-stones. He crosses the stream in a leap. I could never make that jump; his legs are so much longer than mine. But if Theo took my hand I would be less uneasy navigating the stones.
This is what I am thinking as he rounds the bend in the path to where I am, where we are.
Abruptly, he stops walking. We consider each other. This glass room, with the storm whirling all around, suddenly seems a snow globe—a whole world containing just us two. Too quick a gesture, a slip or a sharp word, and our world might shatter.
“You found me.”
Theo nods. He is bareheaded. His black hair glistens wetly where the snow has melted. The shoulders of his long gray coat are wet with melted snow, too. The toes of his galoshes stained with salt.
He made his way through worsening weather to me.
He puts his hand to his hair and looks at his wet palm. “I left so quickly, I forgot my hat.” He blinks as if dazed. “I never go out without a hat.”
My own hat lies on the bench beside me. I pick it up, but Theo doesn’t sit down.
Others are coming down the path toward us. They round the bend—a man and a woman. A white man, a white woman, holding hands. Holding hands, they must have stepped on stones to cross the stream. The man, who wears a hat (though in this warm room, sweat has started to bead on his forehead and upper lip), warily regards Theo.
Theo turns his back on me and takes a few steps down the path. He bends over a silvery fern. Gently, he lifts the fronds and examines them. He seems to be contrasting the plant’s upper surface with its hidden underside. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Theo was a botanist, doing a bit of field study on a Sunday afternoon. Perhaps he does have an interest in botany, as Nils has an interest in insects. Another question to ask.
The wo
man, who is wearing a rust-colored coat with a fox-fur collar, has drawn closer to her companion. Now she clutches her companion’s arm and whispers into his ear. The man frowns, nods. He turns his wary gaze on me.
“Everything all right here, miss?”
Theo combs his fingers between the fern’s fronds. He could be soothing the plant. Or saying good-bye to it, to me. For now he moves farther away down the winding path.
“Yes.” I sound irritated. I’m not. I’m nearly breathless with panic. Theo could keep winding away from me, winding his way to wherever he came from, leaving me behind.
“Hon, you’re sure you’re okay?” The woman asks this in a hushed voice, the voice of a confidante. We are women. We are white. You can tell me. She lifts her hand—the hand that is not clutching the man’s arm—and touches her fur collar. I see the fox’s little head now. Its pointed snout and the glittering black beads of its eyes. She pets it. “You’re not being . . . bothered?”
“Not at all.” I muster a sickly smile.
The couple moves on, each glancing back—ever wary—once they are safely on the other side of Theo, who is bowed over some other low-growing plant now. No, the couple isn’t wary. They are tight-lipped with anger. This anger isn’t about little old me. It’s about them. I sense this from the way they put their heads together as they walk, from their offended whispering, pitched just loud enough to be overheard. You never know. . . . Things aren’t what they used to be. . . . All kinds . . .
Not a month ago I would have appreciated the couple’s concern for me, even their anger at who is increasingly able to go where. I would have found it comforting. I would have mentioned it to Mother, maybe even to Dad, as a sign that it really is all right for me to go out on my own. This may not be Oak Park, but even here in this neighborhood people will watch out for me. There’s a reason why angels are so often strangers in the Bible. There are angel-strangers all around us, even here. I would have said these things in defense of my own freedom.
Then again, until recently I wasn’t thinking about my freedom, or lack thereof. I’d never climbed down a fire escape, escaped into the night, heard music like I’ve heard, called a man who wasn’t my cousin or brother or father on the phone, called a black man.
“Theo.”
He still has his back to me. His hands hover over the plants as if they are instruments he’d like to play. But he doesn’t touch them. Perhaps he thinks they are too delicate for his touch. I don’t agree. His hands only make things more beautiful.
I am standing just behind him now. I don’t remember walking up to him, but I don’t let that worry me. I watch his bowed back rise and fall with his breath. His breathing quickens; he must know that I’m close. Or someone is. Still, he doesn’t turn around.
“Let’s go.” My whispered words are barely audible. I don’t touch Theo to make sure he’s heard. I don’t hold his hand or clutch his arm. I am not the woman in the fox-fur collar and he is not the man in the hat. We are not that couple. We are not a couple. We are us. I whisper again into the swatch of wool between his shoulder blades. I whisper straight to his heart. I whisper the truth. “I’ll follow you. I’ll keep a safe distance.”
He leads me down the winding path. And then we’re outside, walking through the cold and the falling, drifting snow. A safe distance separates us. When we reach his car, I know just what to do. I get into the backseat. He uses his coat sleeve to brush snow from the windshield, then he opens the front door and sits down behind the steering wheel. He drives us slowly through the storm, past coffee shops and restaurants and bars. Some of these are open in spite of the weather. We could duck inside a coffee shop, drink something hot, maybe share a piece of pie, warm up a bit, talk. I could ask him all the questions I want to ask—Are you from New Orleans? Are you interested in botany? What were you like when you were a little boy? If we weren’t who we are.
As it is, we don’t even mention the possibility of stopping.
For a long time, we don’t say a word. Finally I remember that not all cafés and restaurants look the same.
“We’re driving in circles.”
“I don’t know where to go.”
Theo sounds lost, almost frightened, like he’s spent his life running and now he finds himself cornered.
What I’ve always felt for Sophy, and only for Sophy—fiercely protective—suddenly stirs inside me for him. There’s nothing logical about this feeling. It’s pure, hot emotion, a sharp contrast to the cold snow falling thickly all around. The streets and sidewalks are blanketed in white. There, at the end of the block, is a coffee shop we’ve passed three times already. As we approach it now, a waitress in a pink uniform walks to the door. Theo slows the car as if he’s actually considering the possibility that we might be welcome there. But the waitress flips the sign from Open to Closed. The lights inside flicker and dim. She disappears into the kitchen, and now the place is dark and empty.
The streets and sidewalks are empty, too, except for the rising drifts. There is no one to blame, no one to do battle with, because everyone knows the only place to be on a night like this is home.
“Let’s go home,” I say.
Theo slows the car and glances swiftly over his shoulder, his eyes wide with surprise. “Your folks wouldn’t mind having me?”
I look at him. He knows the answer. His eyes narrow under the weight of it—the truth, cold and hard. Quickly, he turns his gaze on the road again, as he should in these conditions. We pick up a little speed until the car shimmies on a patch of ice, and then we slow down. Everywhere now the signs read Closed. The world goes whiter as I wait for him to come to the only possible conclusion.
After a few more slow trips around the block, he finally does.
“My mother cooks a fine Sunday supper. You’d be welcome.”
I accept his kind invitation.
A feast. That’s what Mrs. Chastain has prepared. The round table in the center of the kitchen seems to strain beneath the weight of steaming platters of fried chicken and corn bread, surrounded by bowls heaped with green beans, baked beans, and a white porridge that Theo calls grits. My mouth waters at the sweet and smoky smell. How can I be so hungry after the big meal Mother served? The cold can do that, I guess. I press my hands to my stomach to keep it from growling. Doesn’t work. Theo looks at me and smiles.
He’s been smiling since we arrived here, bolstering me with encouraging looks. The whole long, snowy drive—nearly an hour it took us—we barely spoke. He seemed to be concentrating on the roads and the weather; I didn’t want to distract him. The roads were practically empty, thank goodness. As the car skidded from one lane to the other, so did my mind from one thought to the next. I am here in a storm because of Dad—those things he said, this ache on my arm. Theo is here because of me. Here we are together, braving this cold night. There is no going home, not for me, not with him. I can only be a guest now. A guest in Theo’s home and, because of Dad, a guest in my own. Just when the quiet seemed unbearable, unbroken only by the sound of the tires against the road, the windshield wipers against the glass, the tumult in my mind, Theo began to whistle. He seemed to be whistling against the storm, against every unpredictable danger. The high, bright sound, as lilting as any flute, saw us safely to a narrow Bronzeville street crowded with six flats. Still whistling, Theo parked before one of these, turned off the engine, got out of the car. Even as he came to open my door, my heart sank. I might be willing to be a guest here, but would they be willing to have me? The sidewalk was icy, the snow thick. In spite of Theo’s whistling and his hand at my elbow, steadying me, the way was hard.
It didn’t get easier. Not immediately.
Theo’s sister opened the door to the first-floor flat. At the sight of me, her hand flew to her mouth. A moment later, she lowered her hand and, in that soft southern voice that I first heard over the phone, introduced herself as Mary. Then she ran down the hall to warn the rest of the family of my arrival. I know she warned them, because when Theo introd
uced me, each and every person—his three cousins, his uncle, aunt, and grandmother, all visiting for the day—was as composed as if I’d been expected.
When Theo took me to the kitchen to meet his mother, Mrs. Chastain was composed as well. She was a wide wall of composure. I had to hand it to her—hand it to all the Chastains. If Theo, or Mary, or the three cousins, uncle, aunt, grandmother, or Mrs. Chastain, for that matter, had showed up without warning at my family’s apartment, my family would have been anything but composed.
“My, my.” Mrs. Chastain smoothed her green plaid apron over her dark green dress. “Who do we have here?”
Spruce tree, I thought, taking her in, and her voice made me think of the spring-fed lake tucked deep in the spruce woods that border Aunt Astrid’s farm. The lake’s surface was always completely calm; I could only imagine all that was going on in the depths beyond my understanding.
Theo told his mother my name. And then: “She’s the singer, Mama.”
I’m the singer.
“Well, then.” A slow smile softened Mrs. Chastain’s expression. Her gray hair was pulled back into a bun—a spruce touched with frost—and as she nodded, the bun bobbed. “Perhaps we’ll have some music later.”
I took a deep breath and held out my hand to Mrs. Chastain. I intended to say “Nice to meet you,” or some such thing. But “Thank you” is what came out.
“Why, you’re welcome.” Mrs. Chastain took my hand in hers. “Goodness.” She rubbed my skin briskly. Her strong, calloused fingers came near the bruise but never touched it, for which I was grateful. “Theo, is the heater out on the car again? Child might as well be made of ice.”
Suddenly she went still. She’d seen the bruise, and from his quick intake of breath, so had Theo.
“Some ice, please, son.” Releasing my right hand and taking my left, Mrs. Chastain nodded toward the icebox. “I’m sorry, Rose, I know you’re cold, but it still might help.”
Theo got busy at the icebox. With a pick, he chipped away at the block of ice, filled a tea towel with bits and pieces, folded the towel. Then, with his mother’s help, he wrapped the towel around what ached. The frigid cold seeped into the bruise, down to the bone.
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