I'm Glad I Did (13 page)
Authors: Cynthia Weil
That wasn't who she was. Maybe like Luke's father or
Uncle Bernie, there was another side to her. A darker side. No matter what I felt in my heart, I hadn't really known her for that long.
Maybe everything I believed was wrong.
Janny stood up. “JJ, do you want a lift to work?” she asked. “I'm going your way.”
“No, thanks,” I told her. “I'll take the bus.”
I BURIED MYSELF IN
work at Good Music, digging into my usual routine of copying, filing, checking demo costs and delivering coffee. When Rona asked about the demo session she'd set up for me, I managed to hold it together. I told her the truth: it went really well. I promised to play the song for her when we both had timeâwhich I was sure wouldn't be soon, since we were both always overloaded. Her job was protecting and scheduling Bobby, and mine was mindless grunt work.
Even though I had graduated to compiling a master list of studios, musicians and demo singers, my mind had plenty of free time to go crazy with speculation about Dulcie's death. I had to be careful not to let my tears stain my composite list. I was engrossed in organizing the list and wiping my eyes when Rona stuck her head in the door.
“You have a call, JJ,” she said.
I glanced at the clock, puzzled. It was eleven thirty. “Who is it?”
“He didn't tell me his name. You can take it at my desk, but make it short.”
I followed her to the big room and picked up the phone at her desk. “Hello, this is JJ.”
“Hi, it's Luke. I have something to tell you.” His voice was hurried and scratchy, even more tired-sounding than usual.
My heart skipped a few beats. “What's going on?”
“This morning I got a call from Dulcie's landlord. He was cleaning out her apartment and found a box under a loose floorboard in the closet. It turned out to be an autobiography Dulcie was writing.”
I gasped. Rona looked up at me. I managed a weak smile.
“Listen to the dedication, JJ,” Luke went on. “Â âTo George Silver, the music man who gave me my break, my career and my greatest happiness.'Â ” He paused for a second for me to take that in. “The landlord looked up our office number and called me.”
“Are you going over to get it?” I asked, struggling to process.
“I already did. It's here in my hands. I thought you might want to come down and read it with me. Can you make it for lunch?”
My throat tightened. I wasn't sure why I felt like crying, other than Luke's decency seemed unreal.
He actually was waiting for me
.
Rona had taken her seat at the desk and was staring me down for tying up her line.
“I really can't. I have to work through lunch to get stuff done, but if you want to go aheadâ”
“I won't read it without you,” he interrupted. “I know what she meant to you. Can you come down after work?”
I swallowed. “You'd wait that long for me?”
“Of course I would. But get here as fast as you can.”
“I will,” I promised. I put the phone back on its cradle and headed back to my office.
“Everything okay?” Rona called after me.
“Absolutely,” I lied.
“It's going to be one of those days, isn't it?” she added.
You don't know the half of it
, I thought, closing the door behind me.
At 6:01, Luke and I were sitting side by side on the couch in George Silver's office, surrounded by boxes filed with the possible evidence of a lifetime of deceit. Stacked on a carton in front of us was the memoir:
Living the Blues
by Dulcina Brown.
For a moment, we just stared at the cover page.
“You go first and pass the pages to me,” I suggested.
Luke nodded. It was a good thing he was a fast reader. I wondered if he was as frightened as I was of what we might find out.
My mama was only a baby herself when she had her first baby. My brother Lincoln was born three years before me, when Mama was only thirteen years old. By the time I came along on February 9, 1920, Lincoln's father was long gone. I had a different daddy than Lincoln, but he didn't bother to stick around either
.
So you could say that my bad history with members of the opposite sex began before I was even born
.
Since Mama had two kids and no one to turn to, her mama, Annie Mae, took us all to live with her. Now, you might say, isn't that wonderful, isn't that kind, what a loving woman to offer a home to a young girl and her babies. Well, I can tell you that my grandma Annie Mae Brown was none of those things. She didn't have a wonderful, loving, or kind bone in her body. She was judgmental, bossy, and mean
.
Her husband, Dustin “Dusty” Brown, was a clarinet player. He spent most of his life on the road so he wouldn't have to live at home with Annie Mae
.
We all figured out why pretty quick
.
Grandpa Dusty had been taken in by her good looks, of course. She had skin the color of coffee with plenty of cream, huge hazel eyes, and lots of curves even though she was skinny. But he learned like we did that nobody looks good when they're beating you in the head with a broom, her favorite thing to do when he came home late. So he figured it was best not to come home at all
.
He sent her a few dollars now and then, even though Annie Mae didn't need his money. She earned her living working as a maid for a white family in town. I think she bossed them around, too, but she was such a good cleaner that they never complained. Or maybe they were just afraid of her like the rest of us
.
When I was seven, Mama ran away with a traveling Bible salesman. You can imagine how desperately she wanted to escape for her to do that. Now, Bible salesmen
may be fast talkers, but all their talk is about salvation. Maybe she thought she'd find it with him. You can imagine her mama's reaction when Mama went missing. I think they must have heard my grandma cursing all the way to Raleigh, sixty miles away. From then on it was just my brother and me, playing Survive Annie Mae
.
If I hadn't had Lincoln to take care of me, I don't know what I would have done. Lincoln was just about the best big brother any girl could ask for. He'd take me with him to football practice so I wouldn't have to go to Mrs. Royster's when Annie Mae was at work
.
Mrs. Royster took care of everyone's kids at her house after school. But someone was always getting hurt or getting into a fight. So my brother took me with him and sat me on the sidelines, where I played with my dolls and watched him become a great quarterback
.
Luke glanced at me. I wondered if he was thinking what I was thinking. I decided to ask. “I kind of want to get to the music stuff, don't you?”
“You read my mind,” he answered.
We skimmed the chapters that followed. In them Dulcie recounted her life as a kid in a small North Carolina town and her relationship with Lincoln, the brother she worshipped, the only male role model in her life. He more than lived up to that responsibility. He nurtured and respected her. While other big brothers either cussed out or had no use for their baby sisters, Lincoln treated little Dulcie with both affection and respect. It was a mystery where he got his smarts and his manners, but he was the boy in town that
everyone wanted their son to be like and their daughter to be with. Lincoln was the star of the high school football team, and Dulcie was at every game cheering for him. There wasn't a boy in school who could come close to Lincoln in looks, grades, character, and athletic ability.
“Well,” I said to Luke as he flipped ahead. “Grandma was a pisser, and both parents taking off was not a good beginning. Good thing she had the brother, huh?”
“He sounds a little
too
perfect,” Luke responded evenly. “Here comes a good part.”
The next chapter was titled “Finding My Voice.”
Grandma took us to church every Sunday. It wasn't so much about religion for her. Annie Mae played the piano for the choir, and she liked to show off, so she was always decked out in her finest. She had real musical talent. She would sit us down in the first row and proudly take her seat behind a broken-down upright, hammering away at the keys, even the ones that didn't work. She told us that if she had one wish it would be for a real organ to play in church. I believed her. It never would have occurred to her to wish for a better life for us. Annie Mae was all about Annie Mae
.
Bessie Wallace, who was sixteen, was given all the solos. She had the best voice in town and she knew it
.
Then one day she came down with a bad cold. She swore to the choir director that she was well enough to sing each and every solo in “Oh Happy Day.” But when she opened her mouth for the first verse, nothing came out. Not knowing what to do, Bessie burst into tears, ran down the aisle and out of the church. By the time the next solo part
came around and the hubbub had died down, people began to look toward Bessie's sister, Edna, who was about my age
.
When Edna stepped up front, I don't know what came over me. I jumped up onstage and before she could open her mouth, I began to sing. I was only ten, but I knew somehow I could do it. I just let the words and music come through me and added some curly turns that I liked. Sure enough, the faces of the congregation told me I was not only doing it, I was killing it. By the end of “Oh Happy Day,” I was the new star of the Ebenezer Baptist Church Choir. After that Bessie had to share all the solos with me even though I was just a skinny little kid
.
Sharing the stage taught Bessie about humility. I felt bad for her, but it taught me that if you think you can do something, you probably can. That day after church, Lincoln carried me all the way home on his shoulders like I had made a touchdown or something
.
“Why didn't you tell me you could sing?” Grandma Annie Mae asked me when we were alone
.
“You never asked me,” I answered
.
She hit me upside the head. “Don't you sass me, missy.”
I wasn't being sassy. I was just telling her the truth. She knew nothing about me except that I hated green beans, but I figured I'd best shut up. I never told her anything about who I really was. She never knew that I sang whenever I was alone, or that I made up songs in my own head. She never would have cared, besides
.
There was a knock at the door. I looked at Luke, puzzled.
“I ordered Chinese food from Ruby Foo's,” he said. “I figured we'd be here through dinner.”
I began digging through my handbag. “I'm paying for half of this one.”
He stood and stretched. “You know, most girls like having their dinner paid for.”
“I'm not most girls,” I shot back, pressing two dollars into his hand.
He rolled his eyes but took the money to pay the delivery man. As we spread out the cartons on boxes we'd pushed together, Luke paused for a second. “I like that about you, you know.”
“Like what?”
“That you're not like most girls.”
I flushed, not knowing what to say. Best just to eat. I hadn't realized how hungry I was until we began digging our chopsticks into the steaming white boxes, trying not to get sweet-and-sour sauce on Dulcie's life story. Luke flipped ahead looking for mention of his father. But he stopped on a chapter called “Losing Lincoln.”
He glanced at me. I nodded. It was only a single page.
My brother Lincoln was a man I could believe in. Until his senior year in high school, he could do no wrong. Linc was getting ready for his finals. He had accepted a full athletic scholarship to play for the Buckeyes at Ohio State. It was an accomplishment almost unheard of in those days for a colored boy. I had never been as proud of anyone in my life. I knew I had a lot to live up to being Lincoln Brown's baby sister, but I was ready
.
Thanks to him, I had something to prove. I would never have had the courage to take over “Oh Happy Day” as an example. He never let anything stand in his way. I wanted to be a star just like him
.
Then I found out something that destroyed my faith in him
.
It's easy to do the right thing when you have nothing to lose. I watched my brother and waited to see what would happen when he was tested. He failed
.
I had nowhere to turn. He had always been my refuge, but now I had no refuge. I watched him graduate with honors. I don't know if he knew what I knew. I made up my mind not to reveal anything to anyone, even to him. And I haven't to this day. Maybe he wondered why we drifted apart. I couldn't look at him in the same way from then on. Still, I've kept his secret. When the right time comes, he will have to be the one to tell the world who he is. Every person must account for his or her own truth, including Lincoln
.