All about Skin (26 page)

“You were only a child, Dayne. I'm sure he wanted to protect you, especially after your mother left.”

Dayne had never thought about it that way but when she thought of protecting children, she thought of Trayvon.

“You can't protect a black child in the South,” Dayne said. “We barely know how to talk before we know something is wrong with the color of our skin.” Dayne's eyes grew wet, though she'd never shed a tear before during sessions. Every time she tried, she remembered her mother's large, soft hands muffling her crying as a toddler—the only crisp memory she had of her. When she caught her father crying after her mother left, he'd pretended it was allergies.

Dayne wasn't sure she even knew how to cry.

“Are you afraid you may follow in his footsteps?” Janice asked.

“It won't be the worst thing.” Dayne shrugged. “My father's always worked so hard because he is a dreamer, because he wanted more for us. I just don't want the same hurting heart that my father has from all the years of working. And pretending.”

“What do you think you'll do?”

“I don't know yet. I guess I'll take the week to decide.”

“Looks like we're out of time for today,” Janice said. “I'll put you in the schedule for the same time next week?”

Dayne nodded and wrote Janice a check. As she handed it over, Dayne's palms were sweaty, shaking, and Janice held her gaze. She'd never hugged her clients; clinical training taught her not to get too close. But Janice had felt Dayne's trembling from where she stood. Before she could stop herself, Janice pulled her arms around Dayne's slender frame.

Dayne hadn't felt the close embrace of a woman in a long time. She held on as tight as she could, knowing it would only last a moment and unaware of when the comfort of touch would come again. When their arms unlocked, Dayne thanked her with a smile.

“See you next time,” Janice called as Dayne gathered her bag and left.

Dayne was usually exhausted after therapy. But now, with the sun to her back, she made the lengthy trek back to her apartment, thinking about what Joyce had asked.

Halfway home, when she couldn't bear the heat any longer, she found a shady bench in a park to catch her breath. She sat across from a scattered scene of park-goers, imagining she'd fallen into Seurat's pointillist
Sunday Afternoon
. By that hour the nannies, speaking firmly with thick Jamaican accents, were grabbing the blue-eyed and blonde-haired babies in their strollers before the sky darkened. City nannies were still a new concept for Dayne, who believed her father never taught her the word “babysitter” since he could never supply her with one.

I bet I can get full-time work doing that … taking care of someone else's children
.

But it was too hot for Dayne to think seriously about her next career move. She turned away from the picturesque scene only to be confronted by her own disappointment. She wished a real promotion was as easy as a conversation, one where she would be heard beyond her color, beyond someone's perception of her ability as a black woman. She wished she didn't have to watch herself repeat a history her father told her she could never escape. She wished that she lived in a country where everything wasn't so heavily weighted by the politics of race.

Her eyes started to swell again when she felt her cell phone buzzing. It was a text from Sachin about going to see a concert, the morning invitation she'd almost forgotten.

Dayne held the phone close to her chest, trying to decide whether to go. Then she rationalized it was best not to be left alone with her thoughts, so she sent Sachin a reply asking where to meet.

Unarmed with a white ally for cab-catching, Dayne hopped on the A train and got off at West 4th. She liked showing up to Sachin's invites, if only to learn how to better navigate the city. Each adventure reminded her of the way her father used to take her on drives but would never tell her where they were going. Wherever they ended up, she always felt safe. She was starting to feel safe with Sachin too.

When Dayne arrived at the club, Sachin was outside smoking a cigarette. He was in striped linen pants and a button-down shirt, his dark copper complexion accenting the contrast of bright orange and blue stretching. He was always well and wildly dressed, recalling the origins of his Indian upbringing in every outfit. His face was chiseled to perfection—deep dark eyes, thin cheeks, and a strong jawline with a smile to match. Staring into the sky and taking the last few drags of his cigarette, he looked as if he were posing for a photo shoot.

He noticed Dayne halfway down the block and let out his bright, tooth-filled smile. Dayne couldn't help but notice how handsome he was.

“Hey—you made it!” he said, throwing up his hands. “I thought for sure you wouldn't want to go out and deal with this heat. I'm glad you came!”

“So, what's this? Who's performing?” Dayne asked.

“Funny you should ask. I kind of don't know. One of my coworkers has a friend who gave her two free tickets if she promoted the show. She passed them along to me and I thought of you. Apparently, the singer is incredible, a black woman named Robin Real. You heard of her?”

“No, I haven't. What's her stuff like?”

Sachin laughed, a hearty, rumbling sound emitting from his gut.

“That's the ‘I don't know' part. I just thought you might like to join me.”

“What? 'Cause I'm black?” Dayne was half-joking but she wanted to gauge his reaction.

“You're black?” Sachin said, in a sarcastic tone. “I could have sworn I never noticed because I am so ‘color blind.'”

They laughed at their ability to make light of it all.

“I'm telling you, I never even heard the phrase ‘color blind' until I came to this country,” Sachin continued through laughter. “When a coworker said it my first day at my job, I thought America was so accommodating to help the disabled. Seriously. And still, I'm the only one who looks stupid.”

Dayne laughed even louder, imagining the scene.

“Well, you know us black women. It doesn't matter who can and can't see us. We all look and sound alike anyway.” Dayne's sarcasm faded to irritation, which Sachin noticed.

“A little entertainment might do us some good.” Sachin opened the door to the Duplex and pulled Dayne inside.

Dayne and Sachin made their way to the performance space, up a flight of stairs to the bar, then down another to a small seating area in front of an even smaller stage. Sachin brought them drinks, and Dayne sipped white wine as the rest of the crowd settled. They chatted for a bit, exchanging pleasantries until the lights dimmed.

When the room went black, a voice backstage announced a round of applause for the “lovely and talented” Robin Real. Dayne and Sachin clapped as they glanced at each other, unaware of what to expect.

The spotlight hit center stage and out came Robin, a Venus-shaped brown woman in a long, red wig and a slinking black dress. Dayne and Sachin had been expecting her to burst into song, but Robin stood silently at the mic, shifting her hips and smiling out at the audience. Then, Robin's music started, and she sang Billie Holiday's “Strange Fruit” as Dayne had never heard it.

A tear rolled down Dayne's check. The new sensation felt like a cool wind against the heat that still permeated her skin. She was concentrating on crying silently, so she didn't notice Sachin holding her hand until the baritone of Robin Real's voice had settled. She never looked him in the eye but didn't let go for the rest of the set.

Princess Joy L. Perry

Bayles & Son Crossroads Store was filled with bounty that had nothing to do with the heavy-laden shelves. It was a rare afternoon. There were no white customers, so the field hands spoke of more than white people allowed. Yes, one of the women—straw hat thrown off and plaits bouncing with laughter—told the story of Mr. Colbert, “Come home drunk and dropped a sack of turtle feet in Miz Jennie stew! She run him 'round the garden with a ladle!” But Stanford, the store clerk, also read aloud from the
Norfolk Journal and Guide
. A colored boy hung to a telegraph pole in Montana, a Goldsboro café closed for serving coloreds, while down in Georgia, two hundred whites signed a letter denouncing the KKK. President Harding said territory conceded by the Germans ought to be used to resettle Negroes. But who would go? The sharecroppers argued with unguarded words. They revealed their true faces the way boys bare their chests to the sun.

The signifying bell was lost in their commotion. When they noticed him, the young man already stood among them. In vest and creased trousers, he walked through the dirt-spattered Negroes as if he did not see them snatching back their feet so that he would not tread on them.

“I'm looking for Mr. Atlas Bayles. You know where to find him?”

“Yes, sir,” Stanford said. “Keep up this road through town. Go on 'bout 'nother six miles. Turn off 'bout 'nother quarter mile to your left.”

The young man left the way he came, a curt nod of thanks, hardly a glance left or right. Still, one woman shined dust-covered brown Oxfords against her clay-splattered calves and replaced her straw hat, a shield against disinterest.

Stanford coughed to expel the eager, boyish voice that had not come naturally to him for fifty years. He folded the paper as the field hands scratched at the prickle and bite of their overalls. Their RCs and Moon-Pies were suddenly too sweet, too syrupy, to swallow. They left half-drunk colas on the window ledge and tossed last bites of marshmallow and chocolate into the trash barrel.

With murmurs of “Take it easy, Stanford,” they left for Atlas Bayles's fields, to bend and stoop for the length of the day.

Atlas Bayles's house had as much claim on the land as an oak or an elm. It was a placeholder in local memory, a landmark like the lightning-struck pine that marked the road to Windsor. Standing in one form or another since 1720, the house and the buildings that made it grand had once been a self-sufficient world: a blacksmith's shop, a grist mill and a saw mill, a dairy and a meat house, a half-acre kitchen garden to provide what the hands of seventy slaves could not create. For two hundred years, Bayles Plantation had passed from father to son, men who proudly traced their bloodlines back to Cheshire, England, but recognized no difference in selling a calf or a pickaninny.

Atlas Bayles appeared from the back of the house. He froze like a man apoplectic, then covered the distance quickly.

Deep lines grooved the patriarch's gray eyes; his lower lids bulged then buckled into the flesh beneath. His blond hair was salt-mixed. Weight hung from Bayles's farm-built frame; cheeks were jowls, belly overhung belt. His shoulders stooped. Pressed against the screen, he squinted against the penetrating sunlight. His face blazed hope.

“
Son
,” he croaked. “
Justin?
”

Journey long, the young man had felt, with each mile and minute, the tightening of a cord stretched from gut to heart. Plucked by that simple wish, the binding snapped. “Daniel,” he answered, his own name a razor across the palate.

The old man blinked, a long rest behind closed lids. “Harold's Daniel?”

“Yes, sir.”

Atlas withdrew a trembling hand from the door latch. “Go 'round back.”

Atlas Bayles set one glass of whiskey on the smooth-worn table and drained the other. He refilled the empty glass. “Sit,” he said to Daniel, who stood stiffly just inside the back door.

“How is Harold?” Atlas asked as Daniel sat across from him.

“Fine, sir.”

“Your Aunt Ida?”

“Well. They send their condolences.”

Atlas dismissed the sympathies. “He died bravely. Fought five days. Six hundred boys went into Argonne forest. Less than two hundred made it out.”

“Yes, sir. I read about it. I'm sorry.”

“You didn't go to war?”

“No, sir.”

“Not too many colored did.”

“Many went, sir.”

“Not you.”

“Uncle Harold said I could do more here.”

“You're gon' be a lawyer.”

“Yes, sir.”

Atlas' gaze was sharp. “Who you gon' sue?”

“There are many unjust laws, sir.”

Atlas considered him for a moment. “There are.” He drank. “I wanted Justin to remain in school.”

“He was headstrong?”

“Indeed, he was,” Atlas said with pride. “Harold says you're very bright.”

“He's taught me many things.”

Atlas leaned back in his chair. “He didn't teach you to come to the back door.”

“No, sir. He did not.”

“Why are you here, Daniel?”

Daniel shifted in his chair. He straightened his long legs and rearranged his arms on the table. “To see about you.”

Atlas swallowed the rest of his drink. “You drove through downtown?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Atlas nodded. “You passed the place I like to have a ice-cream soda. I used to take Justin—do you think we can sit there and have a ice-cream soda?”

Daniel chose the more pressing fact. “You have no one left.”

“You'll come to my back door?”

Daniel touched the whiskey. His fingers trembled against the glass.

“Windsor is my home, Daniel. I abide by the rules. My family made the rules. You'll come to my back door?”

Daniel looked Atlas Bayles in the eye. Atlas shook his head. “You won't do it again. You already made up your mind.” Atlas pushed away his empty glass. “You ought to go,” he said as he began to stand.

“Who is my mother?” It was a brick through the fragile pane between them. It was the declaration of a vengeful and particular war.

Bayles paused. The skin paled about his lips.

“She's colored,” Daniel charged. He watched, somewhat satisfied, as the pall spread over the old man's face.