One of the Good Ones

by Maika Moulite

  Although, I had to remind myself it hadn’t always been that way. There was a time when I was smothered in devotion, in hugs, from people who loved me, a surplus of affection I had long since depleted in this time on my own.

  I still remembered the day my parents died. Of course I did. One moment they were kissing third-grade me goodbye, off to enjoy some “couple time” while I spent the weekend with my grandma. The next, an officer my grandmother was scared to open the door for was standing at our threshold, solemnly explaining that my parents had lost control of their car. In less than an instant, bam. They were gone. I had an immediate vision of them turning to dust, just two piles of disintegration the wind would blow away at any second. And when that happened, how could I be sure that they were ever there in the first place?

  My grandmother tried so hard to keep it together for me. She went to bed with an empty tank of energy each night. But even at eight years old, I understood that she was on borrowed time. Mom and Dad were both only-children and had always spoken about having a large family so I could have lots of siblings. That had excited me, the idea of being the leader of a small pack and knowing that, no matter what, I had brothers and sisters to depend on. I really wanted sisters. But I would take anything. When they’d dropped me off that fateful day, I remembered my mom hugging my grandmother and saying they were going to work on that, and the pair of them had giggled coyly. I hadn’t understood their exchange then, but when I thought of it now, I couldn’t help but smile into my milkshake.

  It used to make me sad, recalling the final happy moment that preceded the end of that terrible day. The beginning of my second life. I would never get a chance to see my mother as a fellow adult, chuckling over our own secret things. I would no longer be able to compare my height to my father’s each birthday, wondering if I would ever catch up to him. It had been so long, I wasn’t quite sure where my head would land if I had the chance to rest it beside him again.

  Those are the types of thoughts you have to conceal if you don’t want to be immobilized by heartbreak.

  When my grandmother passed away two years after my parents, I had already decided to take my pain and hide it away at my core.

  As I cycled through the foster care system in Mississippi, I created my own family, made up of the characters I performed in school plays, community theater shows, and my dreams. Maybe one day they’d be real again.

  The alarm I’d set to remind me to head over to meet Tyler went off loudly in my bag. I pulled it out and silenced the phone. One day would have to wait. Today, I had a job to do.

  22

  EVELYN

  WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 1946—

  72 YEARS, 3 MONTHS, 15 DAYS BEFORE THE ARREST

  JOPLIN, KANSAS

  Evelyn’s eyes slid over Antonin’s letter, pausing on the firm stroke of an l and the confidently rounded o in his favorite word: lovve. To someone who didn’t know him well, Antonin had appeared to be composed of all mirth and swagger. His calm, measured penmanship might seem uncharacteristic of the giddy young man they had witnessed passing notes in class. Whispering through Sunday service. Strolling through St. Nicholas Park and picking flowers for his beloved. But to the select individuals Antonin let in, truly let in, well, he shared all of himself. His goals. His failures. His fears. His triumphs. No one got a bigger piece than Evelyn. His wife. She was not yet accustomed to calling herself his widow.

  She had taken her time that morning to reread the letter that changed everything, the one in which he’d announced his transfer from his miserable station in the Missouri Ozarks. Antonin had been much too overqualified for his work there but finally, finally, he would be moving up and becoming an illustrious member of the 761st Tank Battalion—the Black Panthers—in Fort Hood.

  Some second lieutenant got fresh with a bus driver, of all people, and was pushed out! Now it’s my time to get to work.

  She inhaled deeply. Let the air stuff her belly round like when they’d been expecting DeeDee. The peculiar and very particular swirl of disbelief that her husband was dead a little over a year now, that she was still living in this lonely town, that she was expected to raise a child alone, that he would not be there to write them any more poems, that he would miss out on the delight of intimidating some poor boy as her father had done to him, that there were no more anniversaries to celebrate together, that his grandchildren and great-grandchildren would never have the pleasure of witnessing his joy in person, that her dear Antonin’s bones might well be dust by the time Evelyn’s bones just began to groan in old age... It was a taste her tongue would never be accustomed to.

  Ding-dong.

  She fluttered her eyes closed, then exhaled slowly as she rose from her seat. Antonin’s best friend, basically his brother from the military, knew enough to call before visiting, which she appreciated. Still. The wrong man in uniform was knocking on Evelyn Cerny’s door.

  * * *

  “Antonin was a good man,” Parker Bailey said, pulling his gaze from the teacup he held and looking directly into Evelyn’s eyes. She deserved that, even if it hurt him to do it. “He went out fighting.”

  “Thank you,” she said. When she had opened the door and seen Parker, she’d let him in before he finished introducing himself. She recognized him from the letters. Remembered Antonin’s description of his friend’s bushy eyebrows and flat nose. His bitterness at being the only young man from his neighborhood to be drafted, and his bewilderment at learning that Antonin had attended Officer Candidate School and joined the military on purpose.

  When Parker had asked if he could come calling that day, Evelyn had agreed. She suspected he wanted to ask her something. Something she had been pushing out of her mind for months. Evelyn hoped she was wrong and that this was a regular visit between a soldier and a widow. But when she opened the door and spied the stack of clothing still in hangers taking up a third of his back seat and the chauffeur’s hat resting on his dashboard, the occasion for this visit became clear. She did not attempt to chase away the pause in their conversation.

  “I... I am not good at this,” Parker said finally. “My small talk is very, very small. Your husband never faulted me for that, even though he himself could talk to anyone about anything. Even the stuff he had no idea about.”

  Evelyn’s dark brown eyes shimmered at this mention of Antonin, picturing the last argument her father and her husband had engaged in, about a sermon she knew Antonin had slept halfway through. She smiled softly. “That was Antonin.”

  “You might think me a coward for this admission, but I had no desire to be on any front lines,” Parker began. “I was just fine in the kitchen.”

  Evelyn shook her head. “Believe me, I understand the hesitation. But...the idea of the double victory campaign lingered with Antonin long after he first heard about it.”

  Parker chuckled.

  “His eyes lit up like a sack of firecrackers when I asked him why he kept adding an extra v to words and he explained to me that it was ‘the Negro’s way of acknowledging that we’re fighting a war out there but right here too,’” Parker recited, pointing at the table. “It was the only way to make sense of signing up to die for a country that hates you and not too long ago saw you as three-fifths of a human.”

  “My husband was always good at seeing the big picture,” she whispered. “There was no way he wasn’t going to protect what he loved. Who he loved.”

  Parker rummaged through the canvas satchel he’d carried in with him.

  “He left this with me.”

  Parker pulled out an old copy of The Negro Motorist Green Book and a newer pamphlet with the same title but slightly different cover. The edition: 1941. They’d paused publishing during the war. Evelyn could still feel the firmness of Antonin’s chest the day she’d pressed her family’s Green Book into it. If she closed her eyes, she could feel his lips moving against her hair as he wrapped his arms around her and promised
he would keep it with him when he traveled. She stopped the memory before getting to the part where he swore to bring the book back with him. In victory.

  “We had to get an updated version, just in case some of the businesses were changed. And when—when Antonin...left for Europe, he said to hold on to these for him. He wouldn’t need them where he was going.”

  Antonin had gone all over the place, to cities and towns with names plucked from fairy tales: Normandy, Moyenvic, Vic-sur-Seille. The Forest of Ardennes was where he’d sent his last letter. It was where he fought in the Battle of the Bulge. And lost his life. Evelyn’s own prince. Gone.

  Parker took a breath.

  So did Evelyn.

  “Ma’am. He and I made plans. And I know you know about ’em, because there wasn’t a kicking of dust on a field that Antonin didn’t write about to you in those letters of his.”

  She bit her bottom lip, debating with herself. “Mr. Bailey. I appreciate you stopping by, I really do. But whatever you and Antonin had come up with...that was before...” She stopped herself. Tilted her head back slightly to temper the tears.

  “It was his idea, ma’am. He was adamant about starting a new life out west, knew you liked the idea of being in California, starting fresh with Cordelia.”

  “Look. We moved to Kansas for Antonin’s training. If anything, I would go back to Harlem.”

  “Mrs. Cerny—”

  “Evelyn.”

  “Ma’am. Your husband kept your correspondence in the strictest of confidence. But he did speak proudly about your accomplishments as a nurse. Said your dreams were bigger than any of his fears. He talked about your self-assurance and how you wanted to climb mountains and visit the Hollywoodland sign up close.”

  “Do you understand what you’re asking me to do?” Evelyn asked. “I’m already a—a widow. The short time we had as man and wife was right here. In these four walls. I don’t know if I’m ready to leave those memories.”

  “Ev-Evelyn—”

  “I can’t move DeeDee to a new place all alone.”

  As if sensing she was the topic of conversation, Cordelia wailed from her mama’s bedroom. She had her own, but Cordelia had started sleeping in bed with her mother each night since the news about Antonin had arrived. Evelyn knew she would have to encourage her to go back to her own room soon, but for now, she needed to keep her last piece of him near. Safe.

  “But you wouldn’t be alone! You’d have me!” Parker didn’t seem to have any doubt that this fact would help his case. He plowed on. “I got a job as a chef’s apprentice at Clifton’s Cafeteria, a restaurant we found with the Green Book on one of our deliveries.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Evelyn said. She got up from her seat, motioning for him to stay where he was.

  Instead, he followed her to the back of the house without asking if he could. Stood at the doorway and watched as Evelyn knelt beside her daughter’s little desk, smoothed her wavy hair and asked, “What’s all the commotion?”

  “I got juice on Daddy’s letter,” she cried. “It was an accident!”

  Evelyn reached over and examined the soggy sheet. A quick skim told her it was Antonin’s missive to Cordelia where he’d made her name into an acrostic poem. He’d included a map to California with it as well. Despite being hundreds of miles away, he’d wanted to be the one to surprise her with the news.

  Cernys in California

  Oakland

  Redondo Beach

  Diego, San

  Elk Grove

  Los Angeles

  Inglewood

  Anaheim

  See you in The Golden State...!

  Lovve,

  Daddy

  “This is actually wonderful,” Evelyn said. “Apple was your father’s favorite flavor. We’ll have this hang in the kitchen, and when it’s all dry, it’ll smell just like your daddy when he would get caught sneaking a slice of pie before dinner.”

  “Promise?”

  “I do, baby.”

  Evelyn stared at Parker from where she knelt beside her daughter for a long while before speaking.

  “I’m going to need some time, some boxes—”

  Parker straightened right up in the doorway.

  “Got all that in the car, ma’am.”

  23

  HAPPI

  TUESDAY, JULY 31—

  3 MONTHS, 14 DAYS SINCE THE ARREST

  EDMOND, OKLAHOMA

  I lean forward and tap on the dashboard.

  “Are we going to have enough gas to get back to the hotel?”

  I’ve never seen an arrow so close to the E before. Genny wanted us to stop at the grocery store and pick up some flowers, just the two of us. No, I don’t know why.

  “Ooh, I guess we should stop to get some,” Genny grumbles to herself. “You know what, let’s just do it later.”

  I shrug, distracted by the missed call on my phone. “Mom called me.”

  “Me too,” Genny says.

  I give her a side-eye. “And you didn’t answer?”

  Genny looks at me defiantly. “I was trying to figure out what I was going to say.”

  “Well let’s start with ‘hello,’ because she’s calling again,” I say, pressing answer and then the speaker icon. “Hello?”

  “Hi. Your father’s on the phone too,” Mom says. “We just wanted to check in and see how you all were doing.”

  “Fine,” Genny says stiffly.

  “We’re not going to lie. We are still doing a lot of thinking and praying,” Mom continues.

  I scoff but pretend to cough when Genny shoots me a threatening glare.

  “Ma,” I begin. “I’m not even trying to be rude, but you should get to it then. Bye.”

  * * *

  “All right, y’all! This is it!” Genny says, smiling into Kezi’s camera as I carefully hold it in my hands. I can tell she’s trying her hardest to sound really excited for the sake of Kezi’s YouTube followers. But there’s no amount of high-pitched talking that could make this cool.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” I say even though the camera’s rolling.

  We’re standing in front of the Blue Whale of Catoosa, a hat perched inexplicably atop its large head. It’s an eighty-foot long, twenty-foot high Smurf-colored whale with possibly once-marshmallow-white teeth and red-lined lips stretched into a too-wide smile. Some might think it was curved into an inviting grin, a friendly way to beckon visitors to walk through and explore its hollow insides of horror.

  “Man, this shit is peak white nonsense,” Derek says, and I’m inclined to agree.

  “I think it’s kind of...sweet,” Ximena says. She’s looking down at one of Kezi’s handwritten notes as she speaks. “It says here that it took Hugh Davis two years to build the Blue Whale of Catoosa. He worked for nearly 3000 hours using rock, concrete, and sand to construct the fixture with help from his friend Harold Thomas. In 1972, Davis finally presented the whale to his wife, Zelda, as a gift to celebrate their thirty-fourth wedding anniversary. It was originally intended to be enjoyed by just the Davis family, but soon people from all over came to see what is now one of the most recognizable roadside attractions on Route 66.”

  I turn the camera to face me. “You can tell Black people didn’t have a say in the roadside attractions on Route 66. This is whack!”

  “Come on!” Genny says, grabbing the camera from me and speaking into the lens. “Don’t listen to Happi, everybody. This is Americana at its finest! Although the Blue Whale of Catoosa was created years after the last edition of the Green Book, Kezi included it as a reminder. A reminder of what Black people probably wouldn’t be allowed to see and experience for themselves if this had been created during the Jim Crow era.”

  “And!” Ximena hops over to stand next to Genny. She shrugs. “It’s not far from our next stop, either, which do
esn’t hurt. Shall we go to it?”

  Genny waves at Ximena like she’s swatting her words away. “Let’s get a closer look.” The two of them head toward the beaming mammal and leave Derek and me staring at it from afar.

  “I dunno...this is still weird AF.” Derek chuckles and I go on, “If my husband took two years to give me this as a gift, I have no idea how I’d react. I’m sure Zelda would’ve been just as happy with a nice diamond necklace.”

  “Maybe. But where’s the romance in that?” Derek asks. “He probably got some nice brownie points for taking all that time to create something for his family to enjoy too.”

  I say nothing. The last time Santiago did anything romantic for me was right before the first round of auditions for our school’s rendition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A dozen red roses for his leading lady, he’d called it. He made a grand show of presenting the bouquet to me in front of all the other girls vying for the role of Helena. I remember squealing with glee over his thoughtfulness. Did any other actress have their boo bringing them a good-luck bundle of flowers? Nope. But mine had. I had gone out onstage with my gift still clutched in my hands. I remember placing the flowers on the floor next to me for luck before I began my monologue. I was right in the middle of a particularly dramatic line—“My ear should catch your voice. My eye, your eye. My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody...”—when I walked right into the vase. Who knew that something that was already so close to the floor could make such a loud noise as it shattered? There was no coming back from that. I promptly proceeded to bomb the rest of my monologue in front of all the people there. Including—no, especially—all those flowerless girls.