One Day She'll Darken

by Fauna Hodel

  “You mean even when you were little?” Fauna had to know.

  “Oh sure,” said Kelly, “My father was always into erotica—not pornography, the more exotic stuff. He had very little time for us. He was ever-so-charming. We were always in awe of him, everyone was, you can’t help it, he’s just so mysterious.”

  Even as they talked about him—their own father, she noticed how clearly fascinated they were. It was as if they were discussing a supernatural being who occasionally paid a visit.

  “What does he look like?” Fauna asked, “You make him sound so powerful.”

  “He is powerful! I’ll get a picture,” Kelly said. “Wait.” He got up and left the room.

  “George is,” Michael thought for a moment. “Charming, very sophisticated, and handsome. He’s brilliant, a real intellectual who knows how to manage people with his charisma.” He glanced at his brother for approval.

  “Yes!” Steve added, “He’s an enigma to everyone, and everyone considers him an absolute genius, if there is such a thing, particularly when it comes to dealing with the occult, paranormal psychology, medicine, psychiatry, and anything else you can think of.” He shook his head and they all chuckled.

  “What about Tamar?” Fauna asked, “Is that where she got all her ideas?”

  “Probably, said Michael, “When you grow up in an environment dedicated to the exotic and the supernatural, it’s difficult to keep your feet planted firmly on the ground.”

  “Well,” asked Fauna, “what about this incest thing? Do you think it’s all true?”

  They all looked at one another. It was obvious that they had discussed this subject many times. “We really don’t know,” said Steve, “In twenty-five years, neither one has changed their stories. Tamar has everything to gain by saying that she made the whole thing up. I mean my father would probably give her a trust fund—if she changed her mind.

  “On the other hand, they went to court and everyone heard all of the evidence. The psychiatrists, my mother, my grandmother, everyone said she was trouble, a liar, a storyteller. The jury acquitted him. So even if he did do it, and admitted it, he wouldn’t get into any trouble with the police. He can’t be tried twice for the same crime, right? Double jeopardy and all that stuff.”

  Kelly finally came back into the room. “I’ve got ’em . . . take a look at these.” He showed them to Michael and Steve and Dorarro. “Do you remember when this was taken?”

  They passed them around. Fauna looked at some of the old black-and-white photographs of Tamar and the rest of the family. As she was going through them, wondering who these people were, she suddenly came across one that really startled her. It was a photo of the same man who had approached her while she was with Yvette at the marina—it was George!

  Fauna told them what had happened, and they just looked at each other as if it were the most natural thing in the world. They all knew how curious George was. No one offered an explanation.

  When she and Deborah left the following day, Fauna had a much more relaxed attitude toward this newfound family. But from what they had told her, she still didn’t want to get any further involved with Tamar or George unless it was absolutely necessary. She had more important things to do with her life.

  Yvette was in school on a trimester program that allowed her three weeks off every other month. Jimmie discovered the school schedule and each time a vacation neared, she put pressure on Fauna, feigning illness, begging her to come to Nevada to take care of her. At first, Fauna dropped everything and flew to Reno. By the time Yvette was due to go back to school, Jimmie would recover. After the pattern of Yvette’s time off and Jimmie’s illness became obvious, Fauna balked and Jimmie added an inducement by offering to provide Fauna with crucial information about her real family. However, when the time came to reveal the secrets, Jimmie reneged, trying to hold on to as much history as possible. When that effort lost its varnish, Jimmie would have someone else call Fauna and plead with her to come home because it looked like “the end.” The manipulation and travel played havoc with Fauna’s marriage.

  There was added pressure. It was time for Billy to make a decision regarding the negotiations on the Saudi project and he was reluctant to commit. “I just don’t understand how this whole thing came about,” he told her, “There are probably a dozen other people more qualified than me to do this. I just don’t understand.”

  “Don’t you feel you deserve it?” She asked.

  “It’s not that,” he said, “There are just too many unanswered questions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the echo when I talk on the phone—and the clicking sound, too.”

  “Yeah, I hear the same thing—almost as if someone is listening in on their phone.”

  They looked at each other.

  “You don’t think the phone’s being tapped,” said Fauna. “do you?”

  “I don’t know,” said Billy, “What for? Who’d bother listening in on our conversations? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It could be the Saudi thing,” she said.

  “Yeah, it could be. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t know. They already know everything about me. Besides—nah, it can’t be them. This has been going on before I even knew anything about that project.”

  “How ’bout George?” She knew George had spied on her in San Diego.

  Billy looked at her and said nothing. But his eyes showed fear.

  That Saturday, she was home alone. Billy was away on business. When the phone rang, she was expecting his call, but instead of Billy it was her cousin, Johnny, who she hadn’t spoken to in four years.

  “Wuts happenin’, Baby?” his voice was sluggish.

  “Johnny, is this you? You sound different. How you been? I haven’t seen you in such a long time.”

  There was a long pause before he spoke again. “Yeah . . . I’m fine . . . real fine . . . but . . . not . . . as fine as my fine looking’ cousin . . . heh, heh. Ya still as fine . . . and foxy . . . as ever?” his tone was insincere.

  “Yeah, Johnny . . . just the same.”

  “I ain’t seen ya in a loooong time, Sugar. I forgot wut it feels like ta feast my eyes on a sexy thang like ya’self. Where ya been hidin’ out at?”

  “I ain’t been hiding out. Since I moved to San Diego, I hadn’t had a chance to see anybody. You don’t sound too good . . . what’s the matter?”

  “Nothin’! Nothin’s wrong. You know how it is, Sugar. I just miss seeing ya, that’s all.”

  “You’re talking . . . funny . . . not like I remember.”

  There was silence for a few seconds, then Johnny began to slur his words.

  “Ya ‘member when we was little . . . and played at Big Momma’s? we . . . we . . . we used to play together, we used to be together . . . all the time . . . ’member that?”

  “Of course, we were always together.”

  “We used to play under the bed . . . ya ’member that?”

  “Yeah, I was just a baby . . . and you weren’t much older.”

  “They was the good ol’ days. I sure miss ’em.” Again, he paused, then said, “Hey Pat . . . I was thinkin’ ’bout coming down by you . . . for a visit . . . maybe next weekend. Ya got room for me?”

  “Always got room for you. Just call me when you get in town and I’ll give you directions.”

  “Ok, sugar; I’ll do that,” Johnny hung up abruptly. A second later, Fauna heard the clicking sound on the phone. She listened for a moment longer, but only to silence.

  The week cruised by quickly. Although Fauna was anxious at first to see her cousin, that soon evaporated, as the daily routine of work, helping Yvette with a school project, and creating new excuses not to visit Reno took precedence. Billy checked in each day by phone, always trying to dissuade Fauna from succumbing to Jimmie’s plea. Each conversation ended with the same clicking sound, distracting but not disconcerting. The clicks were heard not just with Billy’s calls but with
everyone she spoke with on the home phone. The last thing she thought about was Johnny’s upcoming visit; her thoughts were occupied with Tamar and her mysterious grandfather.

  On the day he was scheduled to arrive, instead of a visit, Fauna received a call from Barbara, Johnny’s sister. Her voice sounded disconnected from what Fauna remembered as familiar. She was sobbing, “Pat, what am I gonna do?”

  “What’s the matter? You don’t sound good at all.”

  “Oh God! I don’t know what’s happening. It’s my brother . . .” Barbara said and then silence.

  “Johnny? What is it? What about Johnny?”

  “He’s dead . . . Johnny’s dead!”

  There was silence from Fauna. Barbara continued, “he was found in the water . . . drowned.”

  “That’s impossible, Johnny is a good swimmer. I don’t understand. How could this happen?”

  Barbara screamed, “He was murdered!”

  “Who? Who killed your brother? Who was it?” Fauna asked, but there was no response, only incoherent squeals that turned into uncontrollable wailing. She tried to get her to calm down, but instead Barbara screamed, “NO! He was MURDERED! They killed my brother. Don’t you understand?” Her voice blasted through the phone, shocking Fauna into a deeper reality, into the core of her being. Someone very close to her was brutalized. She held the phone in silence not understanding another word. She could only think that Johnny was supposed to be here—today. Johnny had been murdered the night before. She needed Billy near her more than ever.

  Later that evening when Billy called, she gave him the salient points and heard the frustration in his voice. She felt his anger, but knew it wasn’t with her, but with all that was going on around her. He wanted peace in his life, a comfortable lifestyle, and a happy marriage—Fauna and her family were anything but. She knew he’d be on the next flight for San Diego so they could drive together up to the funeral in Los Angeles.

  The casket was closed and she wondered why. She searched the room and recognized most of the mourners, many of whom she hadn’t seen since she was a child. They looked the same as she remembered. But as she looked closer, she sensed something was wrong. Jimmie was off to one corner, unusually quiet. Fauna moved slowly toward her but was intercepted by Roxy, who always seemed to have her finger on the family pulse. “Pat, I’m so sorry; this is so awful.”

  “I can’t believe this. It’s just not real. I just spoke to him last week.”

  “You did? You spoke to Johnny?” Roxy looked surprised.

  “Yeah, why is the casket closed?”

  Roxy turned to look toward the end of the room, “We’ll it’s the way he died; don’t you know? They didn’t want to show his face.” Pat was puzzled. “When they found his body,” Roxy looked around and then came closer to Pat and whispered, “he was mutilated. His penis was hacked off and shoved in his mouth.”

  “What?! Who the hell would do such a horrible thing?”

  “He must have made some really powerful enemies.”

  “But why would they do that? It doesn’t make any sense!?”

  “Sense? None of this makes any sense. But from what I was told it means that he made some sexual advances to the wrong somebody and that was their idea of teaching him a lesson.”

  “What? Johnny never made sexual advances to anyone.”

  “Honey, you ain’t been around this family much, have you?”

  “Well, but I know him.”

  “You knew him. What’d you two talk about when you talked last?”

  Her mind wandered back to the prior week when she last spoke to Johnny, trying to recall every word he said, “Nothing important. Just hello, what’s going on, like that.”

  “Oh.”

  The wake and subsequent funeral felt tense to her; everyone spoke in short, guarded phrases, more nervous chatter than actual conversations, and no one spoke of the details of Johnny’s death, Fauna included. She didn’t tell anyone, except Billy, that Johnny was supposed to visit her that weekend, and she never mentioned to anyone other than Roxy that he talked to her on the phone. She just let him and his memory rest in peace. Fauna kept the same cautious feelings about why he was killed to herself.

  On the return trip to San Diego, Billy broached the subject gently. He knew Fauna was in a fragile state. “Listen, I know this is a touchy subject and it may sound crass, and we’ve talked around it for a long time, but we need to talk about it.”

  “What is it?” she asked, “about Johnny?”

  “Well, that’s a part of it. What exactly did he say when you spoke last time?”

  “Just that he was coming to San Diego for a visit and he wanted to stay with me, with us.”

  “And this was on the phone, right?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “In the house?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Did you hear that clicking sound?”

  Fauna hesitated and looked over at Billy, “Sure, how did you know?”

  “Well, it’s been happening right along. So somebody is listening to our conversations on the phone. Now who do you think would do something like that?”

  Fauna felt the chill run through her shoulders, but kept her cool, even temper. “My grandfather. Do you think he had Johnny killed?”

  “No, that’s a mystery for the police to unravel,” he said.

  “But why? All Johnny said to me that he was coming down for a visit and that he missed our times together when we were kids.” Fauna thought for a moment, “And then he asked me if I remembered when we used to sleep together?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Well, nothing. We were little kids. I was about four years old. He wasn’t much older. I don’t think he meant anything by it.”

  Billy stared through the windshield of the car, not uttering another sound.

  The weeks passed slowly. Billy and Fauna talked about Johnny over and over again, trying to piece together everything that they alone knew concerning his last phone conversation with her. They suspected that his death was drug-related, but there were so many unanswered questions. It was impossible for them to know for sure who killed him and why he was so demonstratively mutilated. After one such conversation, Billy changed the subject.

  “I want to know how do you do it?” Fauna didn’t answer. “I mean how do you deal with all of this stuff. I mean, you got Jimmie Lee, your grandfather, that mother who gave you away. . . . I was raised black, I am black, and I work with the whites, and I know that there is no difference between people, and I think you know that by now.”

  “Yes, you taught me the difference by introducing me to all your friends,” she said, “your educated friends, and knowing them as little as I do, they seem to look at things from another perspective.”

  “Right, I know that, but I want to know how you feel about your family, because, frankly, they exhaust me. Granted, you grew up with these people and I can understand that, but there’s a barrier that exists, a wall that keeps you at a distance. I see it, I feel it.”

  Fauna remained silent, staring out the passenger window at the landscape floating by. Her mind wandered to the many bus trips with Momma, in another world so far in the past. She thought of her first trip to meet Big Momma, and Aunt Lucille, and Homer, especially Homer.

  “And there’s your momma,” Billy started to say.

  “I don’t feel a wall,” Fauna answered. “I knew I was different; I knew my family was not my blood, but they took care of me and raised me with love.”

  “Love?” Billy said, “Your momma has love for no one but herself.”

  “That’s not true. She does care; she does love me.” Fauna paused and again glanced out the window, and then said, “She had dreams, and I interrupted those dreams. She has a right to have some resentment, but it isn’t against me, it’s against the white people who put her in this position.”

  “But you’re white,” Billy said, “and I’m not, and she resents me, too, and she resented B
obby, and everybody else who tries to get in her way.”

  “Like I said, she had dreams,” Fauna said.

  “What about your dreams?”

  Fauna turned from the side and faced forward watching the array of taillights in front of her. “My dreams were always the same—to find the fairy-tale princess, my real mother, to find where I came from and why I was given away, to live happily ever after, and to make Momma’s dreams to be somebody come true. I wanted to bring them both together: the fairy-tale princess in the dream world and Momma in the real world.”

  “Your real mother is not a fairy-tale, it’s another reality that is just as bizarre as this one.”

  “But how was I to know this? I had to find out.”

  “I’m sorry,” Billy said.

  “Sorry for what? Sorry because I couldn’t make it happen?

  “Yes,” Billy said, “and I’m sorry because your real mother believed that growing up in poverty, prejudice, hatred, and racism, that no white person could ever understand, was somehow a noble gesture. And because of her twisted vision, you become a part of. . . .”

  “Of what . . . ?” Fauna said, “Of a sick conspiracy, or a poor woman who’s dreams I destroyed? I understand what prejudice and hatred is cause I grappled with it from both sides. The blacks resented me because I was white, even though we lived the same life, even though we lived through the same ordeals, time after time. The whites hated me with a fervor because I was living with and loving the blacks, but that doesn’t change who I am.”

  “I don’t get you. You still feel like you owe your momma something. You don’t owe her anything. She made that decision a long time ago. That was the life she chose. She didn’t have to say ‘yeah, I’ll take the baby’.”

  “God chose her. There was a reason, she was the one,” Fauna said.

  “And what reason was that?”

  “Big Momma told me that God doesn’t tell why He does things or chooses people for certain things, He just does, that’s all. And Momma was chosen to raise me.”

  “So, now you’re saying that Momma is the victim for going through the trouble of raising you,” Billy said.