T
o Miss Anthony’s dismay, Meredith’s personal papers—a dozen handwritten letters, several newspaper clippings, and five first-edition, autographed copies of her debut novel, along with a few photographs of her posed with notable scribes—arrived in Waycross without even a hint of fanfare.
Miss Anthony herself transported the items from the train station to the library and arranged them under two separate glass showcases that were set on a wooden table and positioned near the entrance of the library so they couldn’t be missed.
The following Monday Miss Anthony brought her class to the library to view the treasures. Hardly able to contain her excitement, she flittered about like a bird as she pointed out various articles and objects behind the glass. She spewed information—both historical and hearsay—with all the reserve of a greyhound awaiting the gunshot.
Again the children looked bored.
“Okay, boys and girls, you can go and pick your books for the week,” she said, and all of the children except Alice quickly scattered. Miss Anthony was thrilled.
Alice held her face so close to the glass that her breath left little clouds of fog on the surface. The name wasn’t right:
E.V. Gibbs
. But that face—younger and thinner—was definitely Easter’s. She was sure of it.
The
Tattler
article read:
Best Novel on Negro Life Competition (April 1, 1923) Publisher Horace Liveright offered a prize of $2,000 and a publishing contract for the best novel written on Negro life. Liveright reportedly received over two hundred entries, but regrets that there is only one prize. The winning announcement was made today. Liveright told this reporter, “Only two of the entries proved admissible for the conditions presented and those two had a remarkable number of ‘literary coincidences.’ The judges labored over the two entries for days and in the end decided that the rightful owner of the manuscript and the winner of the competition is novelist and Negrophile, Meredith Tomas.”
When asked who the “other” entrant was, a source, who shall remain nameless, advised that it was none other than short story writer and essayist E.V. Gibbs—who, as some of you know, is the widow of Marcus Garvey’s would-be assassin and secretary to Meredith Tomas. You put two and two together. Can you say plagiarist?
S
unday came around again and Easter left the house just as the morning light spread across the rooftops. In those early hours, a shutting door sounded like a tree falling and Alice’s eyes popped open at the sound. She thought of the silverware, the Fabergé egg, and the word “plagiarist,” and wrestled with the sheets and the blanket before tumbling out of bed and rushing to the window. She caught a glimpse of the bobbing purple flower as Easter made her way down the road. A minute later, sneakers in hand, sleep crusted at the corners of her eyes, Alice snuck past the closed door of her parents’ bedroom, down the stairs, and out the door.
Easter marched down the road like a soldier off to war. It was the same tread she used the day she left Waycross, then Valdosta, and, in later years, Harlem, Philly, Chicago—the list was endless. But this was the end of the line for her now. There was no place else for her to go. The doors were closed to places she hadn’t been; she was just too old to start over.
And what a sorrowful ending to a life that had at times sparked and snapped with excitement. The road behind her was paved with good and bad, and that was fine—that was life. But to come to the end of one’s days and find that the person who had smiled in your face while sinking a blade deep into your back, the person who had hated and despised you so severely, was now bringing you more misery even as she lay dead and cold in her coffin—well, that was just too much for any person to swallow.
Easter had refused to hate Meredith Tomas—had refused despite the fact that her life was turning to dust. She’d seen what hate could do. Her mother had said that hate was a chain that dragged you under—but Easter now feared that she was wrong because she’d seen people stand on the shoulders of hate and pluck money and power from the very top shelves of the universe.
What had not hating gotten her? A twin bed in a closet-sized room off the kitchen of her white employer’s home, that’s what! And what was that? That was shit!
Alice could barely keep up and stay out of sight at the same time. She’d tailed Easter past the church and deep into the colored section of the town. Alice had never been that far on foot and she felt her heart begin to clamor. “Where in the world is she going?” she wondered aloud.
Easter stopped, turned her head back and forth as if she was lost, and then abruptly started walking again. She stepped off the road and into a cornfield.
Easter violently shoved the stalks aside, clearing a straight path for Alice to follow. At the foot of the field the land spread green again, and even though the house Easter grew up in was gone, she recognized the place to be her childhood home.
The oak tree was taller than she remembered; it towered so high that when she tilted her head back to gaze at it, she became dizzy.
Alice crouched down and watched Easter circle the trunk of the tree, and then Easter grabbed hold of the tree and struggled down to her knees. From her pocketbook, she removed a spoon and began to dig. After a few moments she raised her head and used the back of her hand to wipe sweat from her forehead and the tears from her eyes.
She dug until the heap of unearthed dirt resembled a pyramid and the spoon finally hit tin.
Alice crept closer and squinted at the object Easter had unearthed, but from where she stood she couldn’t quite make it out.
Easter sat back on her haunches and gently brushed the dirt from the tin, revealing the red and brown paisley design. Time and the elements had rusted the lid shut and Easter wrestled with it for quite some time, slamming it angrily against the bark of the tree, flinging it down to the ground, pounding it with her fist, but to no avail.
Frustrated and whipped, she collapsed against the tree and gazed down at her torn stockings and filthy dress. The rounded toes of Alice’s sneakers suddenly stepped into view. Easter raised her eyes and was genuinely surprised to see the girl standing there.
“No talcum today, huh?”
Alice was lost. “Pardon?”
“Never mind,” Easter said. “What you doing here?” Alice couldn’t speak the truth, because she didn’t exactly know what the truth was, so she just shrugged her shoulders.
Easter scrutinized her for a moment and then stuck her hand out. “Well, don’t just stand there doing nothing, help me up.”
Once she was on her feet she brushed the dirt from her dress and righted her hat on her head. She glanced at the hole and the heap of dirt and then turned to Alice and asked, “Your parents know you out here?”
Alice shook her head no.
Easter sighed and slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “Well, you followed me all of the way out here for some reason, so what is it?”
Alice mumbled something Easter couldn’t hear.
“Speak up, child.”
Alice fastened on Easter the most intense look she’d ever seen a child give. “Are you E.V. Gibbs?”
Easter didn’t know whether to smack Alice’s face or just ignore the question. In the end she looked stupidly back at the child and said, “Who’s that again?”
Because she had never really known that person.
M
iss Anthony had no business in the colored section of town at the time of the morning—or any other time of the day, for that matter. But there she was doing forty down the road with the windows open and the wind in her hair. The volume on the radio was turned up and she was singing along to Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me” when she spotted two figures stepping from the forest of corn. She sped past them, and recognized one of the two as her student, Alice Everson. Miss Anthony smashed her foot down on the brake so hard that the tires squealed and the car spun, screeching to a stop on the opposite side of the road, facing oncoming traffic.
She composed herself, turned the car around, and slowly coasted to the spot where Easter and Alice stood frozen and staring. She leaned over the seat and through the open window called, “Morning.” Her eyes were fixed curiously on Easter. “Alice, you sure out early. Everything okay?”
Alice nodded her head and Easter said, “Everything is just fine. Just fine.”
“What you all doing out here … so early?”
Alice stammered an excuse but Easter shoved her gently aside, bent over and rested her forearm on the metal ledge of the window, and began a slow and deliberate inspection. She looked Miss Anthony in the eye and then off in the direction she’d come from, before shifting her gaze down to the skirt Miss Anthony wore that exposed most of her thighs. Easter’s eyes traveled to the woman’s bare feet and then over to the high-heeled shoes that lay on the passenger seat. An unmistakable musk wafted off Miss Anthony’s body; you only had to be with one black man to know that scent, and Miss Anthony reeked of it.
Easter’s eyes met squarely with Miss Anthony’s again and she turned the woman’s inquiry on its side. “I might ask you that same question, ma’am.”
Miss Anthony’s face went red. She was not a stupid woman. Easter had made herself quite clear. And so she swiped the shoes off the seat, swallowed, and blurted, “Can I give you a ride?”
“Well thank you, ma’am, that is mighty nice of you,” Easter smiled.
Shannon just stared at the two of them. They were quite a sight, Easter muddied from the waist down and Alice bedraggled with bits of … “Is that corn husk in your hair?” Any real mother would have shown some hint of interest, anger, or alarm, but Shannon’s only concern lay in the glass of gin and orange juice she clutched in her hand. And so she dismissed them with an exasperated roll of her eyes.
Miss Anthony hoped she hadn’t seemed rude, but something about that Negro woman was familiar and she couldn’t help but stare. Their eyes had met in the rearview mirror a number of times and she had smiled and the woman had smiled back. Numerous times Miss Anthony wanted to ask,
Do I know you?
But the words never came out. And now, as she readied herself for church, the nagging, knowing feeling persisted.
E
aster had tossed the small round tin into her purse and there it remained, forgotten for the hours that fell between Sunday morning and Monday afternoon. Forgotten by Easter, but not Alice, who thought about it in the way a child thinks about Christmas or summer vacation.
She had a whole two dollars saved and offered one to Junior if he would cause a distraction that would warrant Easter’s attention. He agreed, of course, being the filthy urchin that he was, and dropped to the ground and feigned a fit complete with flailing hands and feet. While he wailed, gurgled, and frothed, Alice slipped into Easter’s bedroom, rummaged through her drawers, looked under the bed, and finally found the straw purse with the cane handle and the prize hidden inside and cried, “Eureka!”
With the tin tucked safely in the pocket of her denim overalls, Alice sidled up behind Easter who had jabbed the business end of the wooden spoon into Junior’s mouth hoping to prevent him from swallowing his tongue. Easter was trembling and wide-eyed when Alice appeared at her side. “What in the world is wrong with him?” she asked without a hint of concern.
A wink to Junior told him that his job was done and he reached up and yanked the spoon from his mouth. “What you trying to do, Easter, kill me?” he cackled as he jumped to his feet and streaked away.
Easter collapsed into a chair and pressed her hand against her clamoring heart. “I’m going to beat that boy black and blue,” she breathed.
It took some doing, but the paring knife eventually accomplished the job and the lid popped off and went sailing across the floor. In the safety of her room Alice stared for a long time at the folded piece of yellowed paper before finally taking a deep breath and removing it from the tin. She didn’t know what to expect and her heart hammered with anticipation as she carefully undid the folds and smoothed out the creases.
The ink was faded, but not so much that Alice couldn’t discern the letters or the word they formed:
HATE.
A
fter school on Monday, Miss Anthony went to the library to visit, for the umpteenth time, the cherished display. The glass was speckled with tiny fingerprints and she shot an annoyed look at Lollie, who was flipping lazily through a fashion magazine.
“Is it too much to ask to keep the …” Miss Anthony declared under her breath as she used the hem of her sweater to wipe away the smudges. While she looped the knitted material across the surface, her eyes lit on the newspaper article with the photograph of a smiling Meredith Tomas shaking the hand of Horace Liveright. Alongside that photo was a shot of the accused Negro plagiarist, E.V. Gibbs.
Her expression lacked emotion, but her eyes were on fire, and it was the fire that Miss Anthony first recognized. What followed that was the echo of Alice’s declaration: “My maid reads!”
The realization slammed into Miss Anthony and she doubled over. “Oh. My. God.” reverberated through the quiet library like thunder.
Alice skipped down the stairs and was stunned to see Miss Anthony seated on her living room couch, a cup of tea in her hand, nervously bouncing her leg. Shannon sat across from her, holding her chin, something she did when she was listening to something she found extremely interesting or unbelievable. Both women looked up when Alice came down the steps.
Of course Miss Anthony was there to report on Sunday’s incident. It was Thursday and Shannon hadn’t once brought it up. It was as if it never even happened and now Miss Anthony was there to remind Shannon that it had.
Alice stared at them, waiting for her mother to call her in and begin the interrogation. Shannon stood up and Alice’s lips parted, her defense balanced on her tongue. “Hey, Alice,” Shannon said. She walked over and pulled the French doors closed.
Alice stood staring at the closed doors and an eerie feeling crept over her. Something was wrong, she thought, as she headed out of the house. Something was very wrong.
Shannon sat back down in her chair and folded her hand over her chin. “Are you sure, Miss Anthony?”
“Yeah, pretty sure.”
Shannon leaned back and began moving her hands up and down her bare arms. It was eighty degrees in the house, but suddenly she felt chilled.
“Pretty sure is not enough, you have to be absolutely sure.”
Miss Anthony thought about it for a moment, then bobbed her head rapidly up and down. “Yes, I’m sure. I’m absolutely sure.”
Shannon sighed. “I—I don’t know. If you’re wrong I mean it would just start a whole mess of trouble for nothing. You said she did what now?”
“Plagiarized—”
“And that means stealing, right?” Shannon shook her head in disappointment. “Oh gosh, you know how Dobbs is, he’ll blow a gasket if he finds out about this. I mean, if you steal a story what won’t you steal?” Her eyes wandered over to the Fabergé egg and she wrung her hands. “We have to be sure. Will you drive me down there so that I can see for myself?”
Did they expect Lollie Smith not to ask what was going on? The two of them standing there as still as mannequins staring at the display. Who could ignore that? Had someone scrawled something lewd onto the glass? Was something missing? It would have been easy to steal something from the display. After all, it was just a glass box turned onto its opening. No lock and no key.
Lollie walked over to see what the matter was and when she asked, they told her and said that she shouldn’t say anything about it to anyone and Lollie had agreed. But as soon as the two climbed into Miss Anthony’s Chevrolet, Lollie Smith was dialing her sister’s number.
One call led to another and the telephone circuits in Waycross and the neighboring towns buzzed with the news until finally the phone rang in Odell’s Beauty Salon where Easter was just coming out from under the dryer. Odell herself answered the phone. “Who the hell is E.V. Gibbs? Ain’t nobody I ever heard of. She what? The maid o’er at the Eversons’? The Eversons’? Well, who the hell are they?”
Odell listened to the woman jabber excitedly on the other end of the line and after a moment her eyes went wide, then fell on Easter.
“Oh,
those
Eversons.”