“I was wondering how long it would take you to think of him!” She inches away from him, the burger plate held in one of her hands off to the side. “Fannie’s son stopped by, the one that was suspected,” she whispers. “He said that he’d stay with M. L., cause he needed to talk to Fannie.”
“But what about … ?” He waits for her to crawl through the window and then he crawls through. “What about what I remembered, that boy, that boy in the black car?”
“Well, you were sleeping right there on the bed when I called the police,” she says and goes into the small kitchen.
“I was?” He squints his eyes against the light as he walks over to the table.
“Lord yes. I’m surprised you remember who you are!” She puts a bag of potato chips on the table and two paper plates. “Hope you don’t mind if it’s not fancy.” He shakes his head. “I spoke to Bob Bobbin, Good Lord, if you say you can’t remember that jerk, I’ll know you’re mentally out of whack.”
“No, I remember him.”
“He’s not on that case any more but said that he’d pass the word, said that they might need to speak to you and then he said on the other hand, he doubted if anybody would believe a thing you said.” She sticks the hamburgers into the oven to heat them back up. “It’s not your fault. Bob just had to say that for my benefit, you know? He acts like I belong to him or something.” She gets two glasses and fills them up with ice. “I doubt if they ever prove or say who killed Mr. Husky.” She pours tea in the glasses and brings them to the table. “Talk about people who get everything bought for ’em, ha!”
“But I saw him!”
“Would you swear to it? As drunk as you were, would you swear to it?” She pulls out a chair and sits down, crosses one leg over the other and pulls on her shoestring. “No, you’re not absolutely certain yourself.”
“I’m almost certain I’m certain,” he says and sits down in the other chair. He takes some matches off the table and lights the red candle, reaches up and pulls the light string. “You know, I’m glad I met you.”
“Yeah, me too,” she says and turns her chair into the table. “Hey, after we eat maybe we can take a walk. I do that a lot. There’s this house not too far from here, a yellow house. It’s for sale and the grass is all grown up high, but I just love to look at it.” Her skin looks warmer in the candlelight, not as fragile. “It’s no great house. You probably wouldn’t even see why I like it, but I do.”
“It must be nice if you like it so much.”
“It’s more than that.” She sits up straight, perkier than before. “Do you want to?”
“Yeah, okay, and maybe we can go sit on the bed and talk some more?”
“Why, so you can snore on my hair?”
“The floor, then? We could sit on the floor and talk.”
“Talk! Why don’t you just ask for it? Why don’t you place your order?” She reaches and pulls on the light and goes to get the hamburgers out of the oven.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, so you just said it for something to say.” She drops a bun and a hamburger on his plate. The sudden bitterness in her voice surprises him and he sits staring down at his open bun, the catsup and mustard spreading and mixing, a paler shade of red.
“No,” he says. “I mean I know that I just met you but I’ve never known anybody like you.”
“We forgot to say grace,” she says and puts her burger back on the plate.
“Grace, grace, grace,” he says and takes another bite and when she doesn’t laugh, he closes his eyes and stops chewing. She says “God is great, God is good,” just like practically every child has grown up saying. “Do you do Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, too?”
“Maybe I do,” she says and takes a sip of her tea. “And maybe we can. Maybe we can sit on the roof to talk, huh?” He looks up at her and shakes his head, back and forth, back and forth, like some kind of windup doll. There’s something about him that makes her want to hold him as tight as she can, something that makes her wish that he wants to hold her in the same way.
Fannie McNair stretches her legs out in that taxi cab and it feels so good to just sit; it feels so good to be out of that house, and she doesn’t know if she ever wants to set foot there again. Lord have mercy, she has never in her life had such a bad day, not even those last days with Jake were this bad. She can’t get it all out of her mind, Billy Foster sprawled out on that kitchen floor; Helena Foster with her eyes all red and swollen, a plain sad face underneath that makeup; Mr. Foster going on with that party like nothing had ever happened. Mr. Foster had put those large hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eye with a look such as she has never seen. “Billy has an alibi. You’ve got a little boy to support, what’s his name? M. L. is it?” After all those mornings that he’s picked her up, and suddenly he had to ask M. L.’s name. It sent a chill down her spine. “I’m sure you could use some extra money, couldn’t you?” He had pulled out that same wad that he had shown to Billy earlier.
“No sir, I’m doing fine. I’m not about to take that kind of money.”
“What kind? It’s money, that’s all,” he had said, and Mrs. Foster had come into the kitchen and asked him to stop. Mrs. Foster had asked Fannie if she would stay on.
“I’m not sure what I’ll do,” she had said.
“Take tomorrow off, Fannie,” Mrs. Foster had said. “Well be driving to the Raleigh airport anyway.” Mrs. Foster had grabbed Fannie’s arm and held onto it like a frightened child, and her eyes had looked that same way, so small and frightened. “Please, Fannie.”
“I’ll see.” That’s all she had said, and now she can’t see her way clear of any of it. If only she hadn’t heard it come out of Billy’s mouth. If only she had never heard the truth.
She pays the driver and walks up the sidewalk. Corky’s light is on and so is her own. She gets to the top of the stairs and starts to knock on Corky’s door when she hears Thomas’ voice coming out of her own room. She turns the knob and there he is sitting in her chair, and M. L. is stretched out on that rug in the same way that Corky was just last night. That seems like ages ago now.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, and hangs her purse on a nail in the closet.
“Well, that’s a fine way to greet your son. I suppose you would have been happy if I had never gotten out of that jail.”
“You know better, Thomas,” she says and sits down at the kitchen table. “M. L. should have been in bed by now.”
“Well, I’m real sorry.” Thomas stands up and walks over to her. “I mean we can’t have little M. L. getting tired, now can we, not when he’s got a full day of playing ahead of him.” Thomas squats down in front of her. “You look like you’ve had it,” he says. “You’d think that you had been in jail, you’d think that you had been taken in on some stupid nigger lie by some stupid white pig.”
“I just don’t feel like talking about it all now, Thomas,” she says and he stands up, walks around the table.
“Oh, well, what should we discuss, mother? Should we discuss M. L.? Should we talk about his fine future? The one that you’re saving every penny that you can pinch for when your own son is out making tacky lamps and pots so that he can go to school?” He sits down at the table, puts his hands over his face.
“All right, Thomas, get out.” Fannie pulls his hands away from his face. “I just can’t take any more of this tonight. God knows that I can’t.”
M. L. squeezes his eyes together tighter and doesn’t move a muscle. He barely breathes while he waits for Thomas to leave. He hears Fannie’s slippers scuffing across the floor. She opens the door and lets it fall back against the wall.
“Well, you think about what I said,” he says. “You think about when you’re gonna be all by yourself, Mama. I’m too big for those fairy tales that you save up for M. L. You’re getting old, Mama, and I’m sorry for you.” He turns and goes down the stairs and Fannie presses her face against the door and cries
, softly, almost silently so that she doesn’t wake M. L. She waits until she hears the door downstairs slam shut and then she closes her own door, latches it, and then goes over to M. L.
“C’mon, Baby,” she whispers. “It’s late and you gotta get in your bed.”
“Fannie?” he calls, and stretches out on the rug. She is bending over him now, pulling his arms, lifting him. He grabs hold of her arms, and when she hugs him close he feels so sad, though he really isn’t certain why. He’s never going to ask about his parents again, not ever, cause they might come and take him far away from home. He has always thought that one day they’d come there to live. He has always thought that Fannie would be there with him forever. He climbs over to his side of the bed and pulls F. M. up from the floor in the corner where he keeps him. Fannie goes now and turns off all the lights and then puts on her gown there in the dark by the bed. She eases herself onto the mattress and then rolls over and puts her cheek just above M. L.’s mouth to feel his breath.
“I’m awake, Fannie,” he whispers.
“I’m sorry I woke you, baby,” she says. “I thought you’d get right up and walk in your sleep, like you used to do when I’d get you up to use the bathroom.”
“I was a baby, then.”
“Yeah, and you ain’t a baby no more.” She turns away, her back facing him. “Scrooch up to old Fannie.” She waits for him to say that he’s too old for that as he usually does, but instead she feels his arm reach around her stomach; she feels that old stuffed sock monkey pressing against her back, and M. L.’s breath rising and falling as he buries his face against her back and holds on to her as tight as he can.
“I’ll never leave you, Fannie,” he whispers and she answers with an “I know,” though she doesn’t know.
Kate Stubbs sits down in front of her dressing table and brushes her hair back over and over to get all the hair spray out while Ernie gets into the bed.
“Nice party, wasn’t it?” he asks and props his pillow behind him. “They really know how to give one.”
“Oh yes.” Kate puts down her brush and comes over to the bed. “I hope that Helena’s father is okay, though. You know, I don’t know how she got through the evening the way that she did.” Kate gets in and pulls the sheet up, props her pillow up as well. “I know how upset I was when Daddy had his first stroke.”
“Well, I’m sure that she was more upset than she was letting on. I mean, when have you ever heard Helena go on and on about her children and what they are doing?”
“Never.” Kate shakes her head. “People never want to hear about someone else’s children and Helena knows that.” Kate moves toward the center of the king size bed. Sometimes they go through the entire night without so much as even brushing feet or legs. Sometimes Kate likes to be able to stretch out her foot and feel Ernie there. “I probably talked too much about the grandbaby. Did I, Ernie? Do you think that I talked too much about the grandbaby?” She faces him now.
“No, no, everyone knew that you were excited.”
“Well, sometimes I feel that maybe I talk too much.” She rubs her hand over her hair. “I don’t know why I get that feeling sometime, like that I talk too much or get on people’s nerves, but I do.”
“Nonsense. You were a hit when you offered the toasts.” Ernie turns off the lamp on his side and slips down beneath the covers.
“I was afraid that people thought that maybe I had had too much to drink or something and I hadn’t.” She rolls closer to the center. “I was only excited, felt festive, you know?”
“Sure, sure. No problem.” Ernie pats her hand and rolls over, faces the window. “We’ve had some kind of day all the way around.”
“You know, Nancy Miller is not real friendly,” Kate whispers, as if that makes a difference in Ernie’s trying to get to sleep.
“Oh, I think so,” he mumbles. “You must have caught her at a bad time. I think she’s really charming.”
“Yeah, I must have caught her at a bad time. She was probably a little miffed with Ted, I mean after all, there is that rumor going around.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s anything to it.”
“Well, I’m glad that I’ve never had anything like that to worry about.” Kate turns off her lamp and reaches her foot over to Ernie’s. It makes him jump.
“Look at us, Kate.” Ernie rolls over and he can barely see the shape of her head in the darkness. “We came up differently from a lot of other people. I think it’s natural that maybe we’ve never gotten over the feeling that someone is putting us down.”
“Yeah, I know you’re right. I try so hard to forget but you’re right, sometimes I feel it, especially when I see some poor child like Patricia. I remember so well how she feels. I mean when you get right down to it, Juanita is probably more like Mother than anyone else. They’re both so stubborn and outspoken. They both have no sense of common decency. They say whatever pops into their minds.”
“You’re right there.”
“I’m proud of what we’ve done with ourselves, Ernie. I really am.”
“I know.” Ernie is just about asleep now, just about, her hands moving slowly up and down his back. He is too tired to even worry about anything that has happened. Kate could find out about Janie Morris, everyone could know that he came from Injun Street, he could have herpes and at this point he wouldn’t even care, though that feeling won’t last. It will ease away from him in the morning, just like the picture of his mother that sometimes is so clear in his mind, only to return at another time, returning when something sparks some bit of his past, some moment when he does not feel so close to Kate as he does now, the furrowed brow, the flat yellow hair. It will return and there is no guarantee ever that it will dissolve in the morning, only the guarantee that it will come to him with the same degree of pain as being pushed aside, a sharp gash in the temple, an arm covered in searing oil.
“I bet they named him after you,” Kate whispers. “I bet that baby will carry on your name.” She snuggles up to his back now, closes her eyes and almost instantly drifts off to sleep.
Bob Bobbin has his car parked on the corner of Main and First Street. His shift is up but it seems there’s nothing else to do but sit in the car and listen to the radio. He should have known that he wasn’t going to solve some big case, should have known that those guys were going to give him all kinds of hell. “Did you kiss this one on those big black lips?” Bob punched him in the face, broke the guy’s glasses, made all the others laugh that much more. For all he knows what Corky called up to tell him might be true, maybe that filthy guy that she’s with right this minute did see the Foster kid there. But, who would believe it? No, he isn’t going to say a word more about it; he isn’t going to make a fool of himself again, not for anybody.
There are some headlights coming down Main Street and he decides he’s going to pull somebody just for the hell of it, check their license, maybe catch a drunk, maybe just to make himself feel a little better. He waits, his foot above the accelerator, the car in drive while this little sports car starts creeping up. Why is it going so slow? Damn, if he had himself a car like that he’d drive the hell out of it, like Magnum P.I. does in that car of his. He pulls out at ten miles an hour and turns on his light and siren. That fool keeps right on going for a while and then finally pulls over and stops. He gets out and walks up to the window.
“What did I do?” This pretty girl yells through her window. She has herself locked in that car tight as a drum.
“I need to see your driver’s license,” he yells and raps his knuckles against her window. She fumbles through her purse and then cracks the window just a speck and slips it out to him. He shines his flashlight on it. She’s damn pretty. Most people look bad on their license but she doesn’t, looks a little like Olivia Newton John. Let’s see, blue eyes, blonde hair, no pounds. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear that he was talking about Corky Revels. Of course, Corky doesn’t have herself an address like Primrose Boulevard.
“Live out in Cape Fear Trace, huh?” He squats down and motions for her to roll down the window and she does, about a quarter of an inch. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Olivia Newton John?”
She breaks down crying, gets a tissue from her purse and wipes her eyes.
“Hey, I’m sorry, didn’t mean to upset you. You were going so slow, I wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
“You were?” she asks. “You were making sure that I was okay?”
“Yes, this is a bad neighborhood, parts of it, Frances, isn’t it? Frances Miller? Is that Dr. Miller?”
“Yes, yes it is,” she says and rolls down her window. “I’m sorry, officer, but my father always told me to lock my doors through this part of town. Do you know my father?” She eyes the policeman up and down. He seems nice enough; he’s even a little cute with that hat cocked to one side.
“Know of him.” Bob takes his hand from his gun now and hands back her license. “I live near that area myself but I’ve never seen you around.”
“My parents came here after I was starting college, so I’m not here often.”
“College coed, huh?” Bob pulls a handkerchief from his back pocket and hands it to her.
“I’m through now. I just finished in June.” She wipes her nose and hands back his handkerchief. “I’m in K-3.”
“In teaching school?” he asks and she nods. “That’s a fine profession there.” He holds onto the handkerchief because it looks like she may need it again. “What’s got you all upset?”
“Oh, I drove all the way to Myrtle Beach to see my boyfriend.” She leans back in her seat. “Well, did he ever turn out to be a jerk!”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bob says.
“Well, I’m glad I found out.” She lets out a loud sob and he hands the handkerchief back to her. “He said that he never wanted to have a house! He said that he wanted to move all over the country and live here and there but never one place for too long. I mean how can you make friends or be a club member if you move all the time?” She looks up at Bob and he shakes his head back and forth.
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