Daughters of Jubilation

by Kara Lee Corthron

  “That is my bicycle. Give it back.”

  “Oh, this? This is yours?”

  I nod like a fool. Of course he knows it’s mine.

  He squints his eyes at me like he’s tryna put me into focus.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “Yes, I do!” As if I could forget! “You and your friends were messin’ with me and my boyfriend. We never did nothin’ to you.” I hate how desperate I sound, but I’m scared as hell and of what? This pale, skinny bully can’t be worth this much fear.

  He lets go of the bike, and it falls to the ground with a clatter. I shut my eyes and wish him gone. I open my eyes. I don’t get my wish.

  “No. Before that. We knew each other a long time ago.”

  I haven’t the foggiest idea of what he’s talking about, and for all I know he’s lying, so I’m just thinkin’ on how I can snatch the bike back and hop on it before he can stop me. I ain’t figured this out yet.

  “We used to play. Games. Hide-and-seek. Red Rover. Freeze tag. You gotta remember some of it?”

  I don’t remember. Can’t remember. Why can’t I? Who is he? Why can’t I—

  He moves closer to me. “Doctor. I know you remember that.”

  A surge of something painful and hot and sharp rips through my whole being, and the world around me goes dark. I’m in darkness, and I see my red-orange band deep inside, but it’s as far away from me as a star.

  Then I see, hear, smell flames. I smell flesh. I hear the cackling laughter, and I scream.

  Just like that I’m back in the regular world again. I raise myself up (since I somehow wound up on the ground), coughing and gasping for air, and I feel like I’ll never get enough back in my lungs. The first thing I see is not what I expected to see. The man is several feet away from me, up against a tree. His arms are wrapped around the trunk in a queer way. He looks like somebody stuck him there with cement. Clearly, that somebody was me.

  He still watches me. I can’t tell if he’s scared or annoyed.

  “Think you could at least loosen your grip?” he asks.

  How does he know I’m doin’ it?

  I don’t move. Am I able to jube in his presence now? Why doesn’t it feel right?

  “You’re even more fascinating than I remember.”

  “Stay away from me.” I hurry onto my bike, though I feel a little dizzy and pray I can make the trip home. I also worry that the dawn breaking open the sky will make gettin’ home before Mama wakes up an impossibility, which could mean a helluva lotta trouble headed my way. She promised to punish me in a big way if she ever caught me comin’ in late again.

  “Wait a minute,” he says.

  I ignore him, but he gets my attention when he tears himself from the tree as if I wasn’t really holdin’ him there at all. Was I not? Was he… fakin’ it? There’s so much I don’t understand. My head’s spinning.

  Before I can get my full weight into the pedals, he blocks me and the bike. His iron grip squeezing my hands over the handlebars. He’s stronger than he looks.

  “Here’s how it is,” he begins. “I like you, Evalene. I always have. Believe it or not, you’re the reason I came back to this shit town. My dumbfuck uncle thinks it’s to take over his business when he croaks. It’s not. And I won’t.

  “Lotsa folks aren’t gonna understand us, but I don’t much care for lotsa folks. Jim Crow is a pointless, intellectually hollow, and ultimately self-sabotaging model for a so-called civilization. It’s an embarrassment. You see? I’m on your side. I’m no dummy.”

  His words surprise and confuse me. I don’t know how to classify him in my mind, he’s so unpredictable. I do all I can to hide my thoughts from him. He doesn’t need any more weapons.

  “I’m not asking for much. Just spend some time with me. Don’t be scared of me. Nothin’ serious.” He smiles. I hate his smile.

  “And your—uh—boyfriend? You’re gonna have to end that.”

  I attempt to pull my hands away, but his grip tightens.

  “I’m tryin’ to be nice about this. I’m a nice person. But I’ll warn you now: When I want somethin’? I get it. If you just accept that, there won’t be any problems.”

  “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  He backs up, letting go of my hands, but still blocking me.

  “I don’t know. But I can’t,” he says. “You have to rearrange the way you think about me. This might surprise you, but a lot of young ladies would kill to trade places with you.”

  I reach, reach, and I just barely touch that bright red-orange, and I feel a wave of somethin’ pass through me. It shoulda worked, but it didn’t. It’s like a dud when you expect a firecracker.

  I give up on tryna use my powers, so I pedal straight ahead. He tries to leap outta the way, but I roll over one of his feet. He cries out like a li’l kid cuz I hurt him, but as I peel away, flying down that hill, I can hear him. Laughin’ and hollerin’. “You won’t forget me now, will ya? Virgil Hampton! That’s my name! Virgil! Hampton!

  14 Unspeakable

  BY SOME MIRACLE, I MANAGE to make it home in time. More or less. I get inside and run by the closed bathroom door with the light peeking out under it just in time for Mama to come out and see me standing in my bedroom doorway.

  “Evvie, you scared the heck outta me. What’re you doin’ up so early?” she asks, and takes a few steps closer to me. I try to back up without her noticing.

  “Are you—dirty?”

  “Uh, yeah. A li’l bit.”

  “Why?”

  Now I gotta come up with something quick when there ain’t a single reason I can think of for me to be outside in the dirt at six in the morning.

  “I had a nightmare. Dreamed somebody took my bike. So I woke up and went out to make sure it was still here, but then I fell.”

  “Backward?” she asks, examining the back of my pants.

  I nod innocently.

  She eyeballs me like she’s trying to crack a code.

  “Clean yourself up. Come down to the kitchen.”

  She doesn’t sound mad, exactly. Not happy, but not mad. Could go either way.

  When I get out of the tub, I can hear the twins in their room singing “Miss Mary Mack.” Up and singin’ and it ain’t even seven o’clock yet.

  I go downstairs in my robe without bothering to find my slippers. She’s making coffee on the stove, fiddling with the newspaper, but not reading it. She gestures to a chair, so I sit.

  “I won’t suffer lyin’, and I won’t suffer sneakin’. I will not put up with it, Evalene.”

  “Lyin’?”

  The water starts to boil, so she gets up to pour herself a cup.

  “So you gonna stand by that stupid story you just told me?”

  Okay. That was a lie.

  “Sorry. That wasn’t how I got dirty.”

  “I don’t like this. You spendin’ every free second with that boy and stayin’ out all night? You think you grown now?”

  “But I wasn’t with Clay last night.”

  “Stop lyin’!”

  I’m so tired, I almost laugh. Of all the times I have been out misbehavin’ with Clay—and there have been quite a few—last night was not one of them.

  “That’s the truth.”

  “Do I look like a fool to you?”

  I massage my temples. How do I handle this?

  “No. I wasn’t out with Clay last night cuz I rode my bike up to the lookout to see the meteor showers, and I didn’t tell you cuz I knew you’d say I couldn’t be out that late, but it was important to me, so I—”

  “And you just got home half an hour ago? You expect me to believe that?”

  Something rumbles within me. I don’t know what it is, but it drops down way past this petty argument and makes me think of this morning and how I felt and how I was confused and scared….

  “Who is Virgil Hampton?”

  Her face drops. The air in the room shifts.

  “Where did you hear that na
me?”

  I try to read my mother’s face to see if she’s already answered my question without using words, but she’s got a wall up, keepin’ me out.

  “He’s been botherin’ me,” I tell her. “That’s why it took me so long to get back home.”

  She’s pale as a cadaver and frozen still. If it wasn’t for the slightest rise and fall of her shoulders, I’d think she’d stopped breathing altogether. I’m now very sorry I asked, cuz I don’t want to know the answer.

  “You’ve seen him?” she asks, her voice raspy in her throat. Her eyes. They’re full of so much sadness. She looks like she’s aged in just the last few seconds.

  “Why does he know me?”

  “You two used to play,” she says, defeated. “When I did the cleanin’ at the Hadleys. He was—is—one a their relations. He was older than you. Old enough to know right from wrong. He was a kid, but you were a baby.”

  The Hadleys. I remember going over there sometimes, especially in the summer. I can’t place this Hampton person, though.

  “I don’t remember him.”

  “Good,” she says. “He wasn’t a person. He was a pestilence.”

  “What did he do?”

  Mama seems to think about taking a sip of coffee but then changes her mind. The twins come racing down the stairs.

  “Mama, can we have cinnamon toast? We want cinnamon toast,” they say in unison. Creepy when they do that. Mama starts to get up, but I stop her.

  “I’ll make it, Mama,” I say. I get out the bread and place the slices in the toaster. Then I make Coralene and Doralene sit down, keeping my attention on Mama to see if she will tell me anything without using words. She does that every now and then. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. But she’s somewhere else right now.

  “Evvie, why you up so early?”

  “You gotta go to work early today?”

  I shake my head and spread the butter and cinnamon and sugar on their toast slices and hand them the plate. Lucky for us they get quiet when they’re eating something they like.

  “What did he do?” I ask again.

  “Who?” Coralene and Doralene say with their mouths full.

  With shaking hands, Mama tries to take a sip again but instead throws the cup against the wall, smashing it and sending the caramel-colored liquid flying everywhere. The twins freeze in terror. I’m frightened too.

  “He hurt you. In an unspeakable way. And there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do about it.”

  I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. I just stand shaking in my kimono, not knowing what to do.

  Then Coralene and Doralene start crying. I pull a hanky from the drawer and tend to their tears, but I’m surprised when Mama joins ’em, cuz she is not a crier. Now I got three girls crying!

  “Mama! Don’t,” I say as gently as I can. I bring the damp hanky over to her, too. She just shakes her head.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, breathy and full of sorrow. “I tried—all they did was fire me. They threatened to do worse to both of us if I ever said anything again.”

  I caress her arm, feeling helpless. “You did the best you could. That’s all any of us can do.” What else can I say? I’m not upset with her. I feel so mixed up and shocked, I don’t know if I can really get upset at all. Not right now. In a way, I’m relieved. At least now some things make sense.

  Someday I might ask her exactly what he did. Though I can guess. Someday maybe I’ll remember it for myself. It’s amazing that my mind could hide something like that from me all these years. Maybe it was takin’ care a me.

  “Everybody stop cryin’ right now. I mean it,” I say.

  “But I’m sad and Mama’s sad and she broke the coffee,” Doralene blubbers.

  Out of ideas, I start singin’ “Dedicated to the One I Love” by the Shirelles. First they look at me like I lost my mind, which I might have, but then they all stop crying and they have to sing. That’s just the way it is. I mean, it’s the Shirelles!

  Before we know it, we’re all laughin’ like nothing bad ever happened to any of us. Somewhere, deep down, some small part of me returns to the thought of Virgil Hampton. His name alone had the power to break my mother in a way I’ve never seen, and she’s strong as anybody. I get a chill and try to put him out of mind. Whatever happens, I won’t let him break me.

  15 Jubilation

  I AM NO LONGER NEEDED in the kitchen. I just like to help if I can, but I think I was annoying Mrs. Alexander, cuz I was carryin’ the green beans to the table, and she took ’em from me and said I should go visit in the livin’ room. Whatever “visit” means.

  This house is crawlin’ with folks. I squeeze into a corner of a window seat in an attempt to stay out of the way. I’ve only met Clay’s parents a few times before, and I probably won’t see ’em much in this crowd tonight. It’s too bad, but I guess I’ll get to know them sooner or later.

  “Hello, sugar. Are you Li’l Dottie’s daughter?” an oldish woman asks me.

  “No, ma’am. I’m here with Clay.”

  “What did ya say?”

  “I’m with Clay,” I say louder.

  “Oh, that’s nice. You are gettin’ so tall and pretty! Is Li’l Dottie here?”

  It’s pointless to argue.

  “No, ma’am. She didn’t make it out this evening,” I tell her.

  “Aw, I haven’t seen her in ages. You give her my love, ya hear?”

  “I will, ma’am.”

  She dodders off. A couple small kids seem to be playin’ chase, runnin’ through all these bodies, bumpin’ ’em, knockin’ over shit. They been warned. I heard it. Only a matter a time before somebody’s mama starts screamin’ and the whuppin’ begins.

  From my perch by the window, I spot Clay across the room, surrounded by relatives. I had no idea this party was going to be this big. For all I know, maybe he never gets to see these people. I’m beginnin’ to wonder why he wanted me here so badly. It’s nice to be invited and all, but I woulda understood if he just wanted to spend time with family.

  Now I’m seein’ people holdin’ plates, so I guess all the food’s been laid out, but I don’t feel like eatin’. Not in this crowd. I don’t care for pushin’ and shovin’ and gettin’ pushed and shoved just to get a plate a food. Rarely am I that hungry. I’d rather just sit here quietly like a ghost. It ain’t half-bad actually. Peace, in the midst of chaos.

  Them shrimp and grits sure do smell good, though. That’s all right. I don’t mind. Maybe supper’ll calm the brats down at least.

  I bet there’s two hundred people here. Could be more. Clay’s house is much bigger than ours. His father owns his own business, as his father before him did. I don’t think that means they’re rich, but I think they’re doing pretty well. They got a dining room separate from the kitchen and two bathrooms! I haven’t gotten a tour, so I don’t know what the upstairs looks like, but I think they also got an attic and a basement. All these rooms and all this space and Clay’s an only child. I’m a tad envious, but I wonder if he ever gets lonely.

  The front door opens again (I can’t see it from where I’m sitting, but I immediately feel the energy shift out in the front hallway), and this time it gets kinda quiet out there. Because the sudden hush is so unexpected, I sit forward and strain to hear what’s goin’ on or if somethin’ happened. I can’t make out anything specific, but the hush seems to move like a bubble around one woman. The guest of honor. A woman who looks like she might be in her sixties pushes the wheelchaired guest to the center of the living room. The quiet that follows her is either out of respect or awe. Or fear, possibly.

  The woman in the chair is Miss Corinthia Tuttle, Clay’s great-great-aunt, and today is her one-hundredth birthday.

  Once she’s in the room, the conversation picks up again, and several people gather around Miss Corinthia to pay their respects. I’m curious myself but don’t feel like I have a right to bother her, since I’m not family. I’ve never met a one-hundred-year-old person before. I ex
pected her to look like an unwrapped mummy, but she doesn’t. I can tell that her hearing isn’t too great, cuz people keep leanin’ in close to talk to her. She mostly sorta nods. Not talking much herself, if at all. Her hair is thin and silver and pinned out of her face. I realize now that it might be a wig. If I’d met her in church or somethin’, I’d probably think she was in her seventies or eighties.

  Somebody awkwardly places a gift-wrapped box in her lap. She looks down at it without any interest, and that’s when I notice the gnarled stiffness of her hands. There’s no way she could open that box on her own.

  “Here, Grandmama. I got it,” says the woman who wheeled her in, and she puts it on an end table.

  I get up to use the bathroom. I don’t have to go, but I need to stretch my legs, and it’ll give me an excuse to get a closer look at Miss Corinthia.

  “Lord, you look like you’re in better shape than I am,” some lady jokes. I have a feelin’ she’s heard that one before. Miss Corinthia just smiles up at her. It’s a strained smile, like a mask. Or it could be that she can’t control the muscles in her face the way she used to. I slip by the entourage and down the hall to the bathroom, which is occupied, of course. I don’t even know where the other one is. I lean against the wall. I’d rather wait than fight my way back through the crowd.

  I feel a light weight on my side.

  “Can you imagine how terrible it would be if one day we found out we were cousins?”

  I turn my head enough to see Clayton with his chin resting on my shoulder. I giggle.

  “Well? It wouldn’t be great,” I reply.

  “I think we’d get over it eventually.”

  “You are so goofy!” I tell him. The door opens, and it’s Clay’s father.

  “Oh, Evvie! I haven’t seen you all evening!”

  “Hi, Mr. Alexander. Thank you for inviting me. It’s a lovely party,” I say in my good-girl voice.

  “Well, just know you’re welcome here anytime, sweetheart,” he says to me warmly right before shooting Clay the iciest glare I think I’ve ever seen. Clay’s eyes stay on his, but the hostility only comes from one direction. Mr. Alexander leaves us, and I turn to Clay.