It was fear of being caught staring at things he shouldn’t see that alerted him to the slam of the screen door downstairs and the entrance of another person into the main part of the house. Quickly he hid in another doorway as Ella slowly came up the steps.
“June,” she said softly outside the girls door. “She sleep yet?”
“Just got her off, Aunt Ella.” The old lady went in the room and Michael tiptoed past to go out down the stairs. “How much longer I got to wear this thing? It’s so filthy. I would love to take a nice long bath.”
Michael stopped at the top of the stairs and listened. “You stop your bleeding yet?”
“Last week. And it didn’t come back.” June sounded impatient.
“And you’s back down to size. I don’t see the harm in taking it off right now.”
June clapped happily. The sound of her hands clapping in delight like a child’s put a smile on Michaels face. “And I can take a bath. A nice hot one?”
Ella laughed. “Young people is always so impatient. Yes, right now. I’ll get it ready for you.”
As Michael hurried down the steps he stopped again as June asked Ella: “What about Ophelia? I’ll be all the way in the kitchen.”
“I’ll come back and watch her once everything is ready.” Outside the door she called back. “Gonna take a while to heat up the water.”
“It’ll be worth the wait. Thanks, Aunt Ella.” June called back.
Michael stood in the dark at the bottom of the stairs until Ella had passed. Then he went up again, as if he had just come into the house. He had always had free reign here. Everybody knew Michael belonged here as much as anyone else.
He knocked on June’s door. She tiptoed across the room to it and smiled when she saw him. “Michael, why I haven’t seen you all day. Where’ve you been hiding?” She was dressed in the same dress again, but this time he was aware that nothing was underneath. Her bare breasts moved against the thin cotton. On the bed was the folded cloth that had bound her back into shape.
“Been working,” he said casually even though he started sweating as soon as he came in.
She looked at him as she gathered her clothes from her bureau. “Been working hard I gather. Did Millie know you were coming? She spends every waking moment she can . . .”
“I didn’t even know I was coming to see you. I just came.” She looked at him as he looked at her. It was a strange thing to say. It just slipped out.
“I guess I was trying to say that I used to come by before the baby, but since you don’t have no time . . .” He swallowed.
She smiled, walked over to him and touched his face. Her breasts moved with each step. “I always have time for you, Michael.”
She turned to go back to picking out her clothes for her bath. Without thinking about what he was doing anymore than what he had been saying, he stood quickly grabbed her from behind, turned her to him and kissed her. Hard, on the lips. He felt her against him, like a soft petal of a flower.
“Michael,” she said pulling away and stepping back to measure him for a moment. She could barely catch her breath.
“Michael, I have a baby,” she said softly.
“I know.”
“I’m not a widow. Your mother said she was going to tell you. . .”
“She told me everything she knows about you. She even called you names. I told her to stop.” He was embarrassed and wanted to go. In her cradle Ophelia moved and they both looked towards it. “I heard you ain’t leaving. You’re not going back.”
“I’m never going back to Atlanta or my father.”
“I’m glad,” he said with a smile. “I just want to know if we can still be friends. Like before the baby. If it’s all right for me to come here and sit and talk and. . .”
“Michael, your mother doesn’t really like me.” Even her frown was beautiful.
He pointed to his chest as he spoke. “I’m a grown man, June. I got a job and I take care of my mother and my sister most of the time. You told me I was something. Well that something is a man. And men do what they need to do. They don’t listen to they mothers.” His voice although soft spoken was powerful. June was impressed. “So is it all right for me to come around, tomorrow and just sit and talk?”
June nodded then said: “Yes.” He walked towards her and kissed her again, but this kiss was neither clumsy or a cumbersome maneuver. It was manly and very sure.
As he walked to the door he turned to her: “Ophelia is beautiful but not as beautiful as you.” Then proud of himself his chest puffed out before him, he left.
He was down the stairs and out the door before anyone knew he had been there. He was going to see June whenever he wanted to. She was staying and there was nothing his mother could do about it.
But, of course, there was a lot Cora planned to do. She knew June’s desire to live in a small town would disappear with the newness of the baby. She knew June’s desire to be tied down to a boy that wanted to be called a man would change the moment the baby was with Minnelsa and Peter and in no need of a second protector.
Unfortunately, she knew her son was going to be hurt.
She wasted no time in telling her fears to Fannie and Ella who thought it was nice that Michael and June got along.
“What’s wrong with them being happy and falling in love? Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“June and Michael, having their own farm, their own babies. Course the Blacksmith would give the boy some land, couldn’t have his baby daughter living like a slave.”
“Obviously you don’t understand,” was all Cora could say to them. After all, June’s father was paying them to take care of the girl.
Cora was adamant. She sent Millie with them everywhere. And when Millie couldn’t go she’d follow, or watch herself, giving them very little freedom.
Michael asked her to stop. Fannie and Ella said let the children alone. June stared at her as if she were a fool.
They didn’t understand. Girls like that had ways. Get a man’s hopes all up and then drop him without looking to see where he fell.
She waited for things to change when Minnelsa came to get the baby two weeks later. She saw the girl go to pieces and run to her room with the baby the day the letter came that said Peter and Minnelsa were on their way back to get Ophelia. She watched as the girl cried through the transition of handing over her baby. She watched as June stood between Fannie and Ella as they whispered: “It’s for the best” as Minnelsa and Peter drove away in his new car.
She watched as June ran into the woods crying.
She watched all she could and waited for the tide to turn. Cora figured the girl would be ready to carouse and drink as soon as the baby was out of her hands. Back in the big house she was busy preparing lunch with a big grin on her face. That girl would be gone soon. Back to Atlanta, or back to some place where she would have to dress like a lady and appeal to a different kind of man.
Not a boy like Michael.
But Cora did not see Michael waiting in the quiet cool of the woods for June. He was supposed to be in the fields when Peter and Minnelsa arrived. He has seen that big black car speed pass on the way to Fannies and Ella’s and he took sick right then.
Nobody would have accused Michael of pretending to be ill. He was the best worker out in the fields. A few of the men tossed his illness up to being young and foolish and hanging around some juke joint too much.
Michael let them talk as he walked away holding his stomach. Truth was he had never been to a juke joint, although he knew where one was. Helped to build it last year way back in the woods where the white men couldn’t find it. He had never been to visit it and he wasn’t sick.
He just wanted to be there for June.
He stood behind a clump of bushes and watched as Minnelsa walked from the house with the baby in her arms, Peter walking devotedly beside her. June weakly, almost limply, left the house with Miss Fannie and Miss Ella to see her sister and brother-in-law off.
When June ran into
the woods, she ran right past him. He waited to see if Millie was going to follow but for once she wasn’t around. Certain that they were alone, he ran after her. Maybe there was a way to take her mind off the baby and make her smile again.
* * *
Cora didn’t question where her boy was. After all, as Toby and Ella and Fannie, and even Old Ma, were fond of telling her-he was grown. She didn’t know that he had bathed earlier and hidden his white shirt in the woods so that she would never know where he was going. By the time Cora’s head hit the pillow Michael had changed his shirt in the woods and was standing at the edge of the path right near the big house waiting for June.
He wondered what she would wear, how her hair would look, if she had painted her lips. He wondered what the place would be like. He wondered about a lot of things and was scared as well as excited. His excitement built when he saw a figure coming towards him that looked like an angel.
“It’s the only thing I have to wear out that fits right. My. . .” She looked at Michael’s awkward excited expression and then said: “Most things are still too tight on me, because of the baby. I hope I look alright.”
“You look wonderful.” Dumbfounded happiness filled his face at the sight of the figure in the cream colored dress.
“It’s not the sort of thing you wear to a place like this, but, well.. . ” She slipped her shoes on. “Is it far?”
“No,” and they began to walk.
It took all of fifteen minutes of traveling in deep dark woods the opposite direction of the white folk’s town before they heard the music. June was frightened out of her wits most of those fifteen minutes. “Only times I’ve gone to places like this in Atlanta I was in an automobile.” He held her hand tight.
She didn’t have to listen to the real night sounds. She nearly jumped out of her skin when they came face to face with darkness around three sets of bright beady eyes. She held onto Michael thinking it was the devil himself, until he explained it was just a family of possum looking for dinner. By the time she heard the music she was almost too tired to think about the excitement of the place.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In five more minutes they were inside a small building shaped like a barn that sat on the banks of nowhere. The place was filled to its unpainted rafters with people as if it wasn’t Friday night but Sunday morning and they were there to worship the Lord. In the loft, from the rafters, sitting on beams, on left over chairs with no backs and some with no seats, on the hay covered floor, leaning against the walls, were people she had seen and people she hadn’t seen since she had come to live there. In the middle of the room a man strummed his guitar and sang: “You better come into my kitchen, ’cause it’s gonna be raining outdoors.”
June moved in further to find a place to sit for a while-a patch of floor, anything-so that she and Michael could watch the bluesman at work. Off to the side of the tables was a long piece of wood covering three or four tall barrels. Behind that stood a pale man, half Indian, half colored, with a bright red vest on, cleaning glasses and smiling. He beckoned to June and Michael, whose mouth had not closed since they had walked in, to come to him. As the man sang, the barman whispered: “Its two bits to hear Mister Talltree play and you get a drink.” He was talking to Michael, since Michael was the man. But Michael was lost in this world that he had never seen before. June reached into the pocket of her pretty dress and pulled out the money to pay. The bartender was about to set up two drinks but June protested, “Nothing hard.”
“Sure thing, Miss June,” the man said and pulled out two bottles of chilled Coca Cola soda that had been laying in a pool of cold water surrounded by big lumps of ice. June didn’t care how he knew her or how they got ice out to a place like this. She handed Michael the soda and downed hers thirsty from the frightful walk in the woods. She reached into her pocket to pull out more money to buy another but the bartender put up his hand to say no and handed her another bottle. She gave him a grateful smile and held onto the small bottle for a while before taking a sip.
Michael’s face bore the same wonder that she felt the first time Ross had taken her to a place like this. Wonder that this was alive and kicking when it was everything they had been told was wrong. Drinking, men and women dancing and close with each other, singing until dawn. A pure wonder.
It wasn’t church, that was for sure. But it was a kind of worship. It was the worship of freedom, of being able to sit in the woods in a place where nobody could ring a bell, crack a whip or send them to fetch something. She had always felt the freedom, getting away from her father and family, getting away from things that she thought made no sense.
She was one with these people now. She had something to forget.
June knew she wasn’t going to forget Ophelia, but she was going to try and not think about her for just a little while, just a few minutes. Not think about her in that pretty little room that Minnelsa had made for her. Not think about the Piano Man giving her a bottle. She was going to think about herself and getting back to being herself, whoever that was. She looked at Michael who was nodding polite hellos at all the people he knew, who had fought off the “So your mama finally let you out” jokes that came past him, who was leaning proudly against the makeshift bar happily because he was a man and this was where men belonged. The old man stopped singing and applause filled the space.
Then someone got to the piano and starting playing as if his life depended on it. Michael was patting his foot to the beat when Ken Miller came over and grabbed June and said: “Lets dance.” Before she could answer she was out on the floor. Michael reached for her but was out of luck. “Got to be quick when you after a fine woman like that.” The bartender grinned and Michael leaned back trying not to look angry or surprised.
She was with him. At least she was supposed to be. That meant-what did that mean in a place like this?
He watched how Miller eyed her and touched her and Michael tried to remain calm. He could say to Miller: “Leave my woman alone.” But if June said she wasn’t his woman, or, if Miller laughed in his face, what was he going to do? So he just watched and waited, waited for the right moment to go get her and make his intentions clear.
It wasn’t long before the tone of the music changed and the couples on the floor were rubbing their bodies together in harmony. As soon as he saw Miller hand slip down the curve of June’s back to her hips he was on the floor standing right next to them. June saw him before Miller did. She gave him a faint smile.
“What you want, Michael?” Miller said never taking his eyes off June’s face.
Michael tried to think of what to say, to not stumble over words. But he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to address an older man who was dancing with his woman.
“Michael just wants to cut in.” June pulled away from Miller and attached herself like a drape on a pole to the boy. Miller huffed and got ready to complain but June suddenly moved her hips into Michael’s, exciting him so much that he moved back with her. Miller saw what was going on and laughed, retreating into the crowd of dancers to find another, less attached woman.
Michael had never danced like this with a woman. In fact Michael had never danced with a woman at all. He wasn’t sure this was dancing, wasn’t sure what he was doing. But he liked it.
When the song was over, he stopped only because she did. She looked at his face bright with amazement, smiled and told him: “I think we’d better go.”
“But I thought you wanted to come here.”
“Thanks for bringing me, Michael. We can come back another time, another Friday, Michael. I think we should go now.” She walked to the door and he followed, like a scared puppy. Once he got outside and breathed air he was familiar with, he looked back at the juke joint as if to say it was a pleasure meeting a whole new world that he knew nothing about.
“Did you like it, Michael?” she asked as they walked back into the dark woods.
“Like it? Yeah, I liked it. I didn’t know some of the people I see every day cou
ld move like that. Why they seemed so, so. . . I guess they were. . .”
“Happy?” she asked.
“Yes, real happy,” he answered and he talked all the way to the clearing near the big house about the people and the night. Once he had kissed her and watched her slip safely and quietly into the big house, he went home enchanted with what he had seen.
He had a woman and a place to take her. He was a happy man.
Michael couldn’t wait until the next week to go to the juke place. It was all that was on his mind. The people, the music, how June had danced with him. He had gotten a few extra hours work from Fannie so that he could buy him a bright colored vest and even another shirt for when they went again. He was far too busy to come to call on June, and Cora was glad of that. She was sure that her son was over that high yeller gal.
But Michael ate, slept and thought June. He couldn’t wait for the moment when they walked alone in the woods again, and she held him close for fear of the night and the sanctity of the dance floor. He wanted to make sure this time ended with more than a kiss.
On Friday morning Michael got to the field house before anybody else. In the rafters he hid his new red vest and new white shirt for that night. At the noon meal, when he was eating with the rest of the people, he would slip in a word to June about what time he should come by for her. Nobody would be the wiser.
Except by noon everyone was the wiser. Ken Miller, who had been away working in another town until that very morning, came by Ella and Fannie’s to deliver a few bushels of vegetables. He politely asked about their health before turning to June and saying: “Will you grace us with your presence tonight? I hear Madman Jeffries is in town. That crazy piano playing Negro gon’ bring the house down.”
June said nothing as she tried to ignore the stares from Ella and Fannie. Miller had no idea that there was anything wrong with young people like June having a good time. Only tired old folks stayed away from the juke. He figured since he had seen June there with Michael, everybody had seen it or at least knew about it.
The Wilful Daughter Page 28