Solemn (10 page)

“I got something to tell y'all,” he said.

Now what?
Solemn thought. Bev too. Landon was too tipsy to think.

“We been driving on past the new development out there on seventeen all this time and I ain't said nothing 'bout it yet,” Redvine started, “but we gonna be moving.”

Landon was halfway out the door as it was. Solemn was too tickled to move.

“When all this come about?” Bev said.

“Last week. I stopped by the lil' trailer office on the grounds to get the paperwork to get it all started … I'm fixing to put a bid on real soon.”

“Red, them houses cost a lost of money. How—?” Bev didn't want to laugh at him.

“Look, don't fret,” Redvine said. “It's not as much as you think. It's many different sizes they building. I talked to the folks even, 'bout picking up a little bit of work. So long as I get a license, they tell me. We just gotta get a down payment. Okay?”

“Shole be nice to have my attic back. Oh Red, you stop now.” Bev chuckled.

“Man Daddy it wouldn't even be our house that's all a facade modern day slavery the white man own the bank and gone raise the—”

“How big the house?” Solemn asked.

“Biggest kind they building,” Redvine said.

“When can we go look at it?” Solemn asked.

“Let 'em get built first, Solemn, and then—” Bev told her.

“Soon,” Redvine told them all.

Somehow, all four knew one was lying or fantasizing or dreaming or all three. But it was Christmas, and so they just laughed about the new goals and waved to some folks walking by. Bev was satisfied this Christmas morning, to have more than energized feet run out the house in response to a meal she cooked. They ate their meal in silence and let the pictures do the talking for them. The surprise alone, not to mention its revelation—a machine they could remotely stop and start and pause the pictures on, unlike how the television stopped and started and paused them—was enough for them to resolve the movie's title as correct, as their mandate and approach to the next year.

 

EIGHT

Stephanie Longwood was the only one within Singer's gates with a fruit tree. Three, actually. Wasn't nobody else going to pay extra for adjoining plots. But the Longwoods thought one peach and two fig trees were well worth it. Figs always came first, peaches later. If the subject of a house somewhere else came up, Stephanie put her foot down: “Hell no.” She would miss her trees. Because of her husband, Theodis, Stephanie was one of few women she knew who could say she had looked down on the trees—not up to them. He was a security guard in Kosciusko, shifting around downtown depending. She surprised him sometimes, in bank buildings and such. Not too many black folks could say they pulled a full-amenity twelve-hundred-square manufactured home atop three plots of property—with fruit trees alongside to match. With money in the bank to boot. They were lucky.

Stephanie knew it wasn't no accident Gilroy Hassle dropped that baby down the well. She did remember, well, seeing the child a few times, on account of living closer to the Hassles farther down the steep. The baby hadn't looked all that healthy, like it should have nibbled the tit a little longer. Took all them and all that to figure out something was wrong with Gilroy? So, when police officers and reporters and property owners started to appear to ask her if she knew him and her and them and “it,” she did not. Stephanie always spoke but knew how to hold her tongue.

Her birthplace was situated in Sunflower County, Indianola, where Mississippi greased up a death chamber. To make a better than good life, her maiden name people capitalized on purchase of multiple leftover stops from the Underground Railroad, sweeping out and upkeeping the once-secret “barn in the back” and “cabin 'long the creek” and even a “big ole church on a hill” with a bathroom trapdoor for tunnel to a conductor's safe house, chamber pot on top of the latch. Unlike most could not, her father's father learned not to pay no mind to the fret horses and cows and his own goose bumps when the captured slave souls awoke. Eventually came a small ranch with pasture to land the little planes he shared with a league, some being carryover from Tulsa's Black Wall Street who lived to tell. Stephanie's mother married into circumstances to self-employ as a driver of gift and food donations. She had even watched her mother give free pony rides to the most abject kids' birthday parties. And free horses to the parades. Soon as Stephanie came of age, one of her mother's friend's sons took her to the Ebony Club. They snuck in underage to drink, and he proposed. Uninterested in her gritty measure of prestige, they left Indianola when Theo's job asked. Stephanie returned for her dad's homegoing and very often to make sure her mama's help minded.

But Stephanie didn't bother to tell all that. Where she came from put her at risk to be overrun with favors, unpaid tabs, and unclaimed baggage. When it came time to divvy out a couple Cessnas her heart-attacked father left, she passed. She took his silk pajamas instead. Even the Cadillac and Harley were too telling. She traded them in for her Imperial and remainder checks. For even more affect, she sent her only child out to collect bottles and cans for full display in clear plastic bags outside the trailer. Her luck was never going to be a gossiper's mantelpiece. She made it easy on herself. That way, she could say no to any hint without backlash. Or she could say yes (like she would today), with the faith that one word would be appreciated like it was all she had.

Right after she met her mama looking for her, Stephanie started to always see that little girl—Solemn she now knew her name as. Matter fact, she had been seeing her all along. Matter more fact, the girl's daddy skipped out the Hassles' a few times. Then, the girl's mama helped that poor woman move out. Much more attention than anyone else paid the Hassles. The little girl pussyfooted around a lot, lugubrious, usually by herself. Sometimes with a cat behind. Stephanie could never really figure out where she had come from or where she was going. She just knew she belonged. They had few places where they could feel like they belonged totally. Solemn was included by default.

Stephanie set deviled eggs on the patio table. Bev Redvine was supposed to get there around four. Wound up being about five. So, the eggs were warmer than Stephanie would have wanted. But that was just her. Bev wore a nice teddy dress and some shining black flats with a curve. The girl was barefoot. They brought a mud cake (store-bought).

“So, Stephanie,” Bev started, “thanks for having me by. I was getting worried when no one came by after my note, about what I was going to do.”

Stephanie pulled out their chairs. She balanced her new Tupperware tumblers and a few linen napkins for them. She pulled her ribboned and straw sun hat down further.

“No problem at all,” Stephanie said. They sat down with the sun behind the trailer. The Longwoods' awning had gotten rusted and ornery over the hand-dug patio. The well seemed just a sideways glance away, keeping them from enjoying things.

Bev elbowed the girl as unexpectedly as a booster shot. “Say hello, Solemn.”

“Hi,” Stephanie heard. She scooped some deviled eggs on napkins and waited.

“Well, Stephanie,” Bev said, “I'm thinking 'bout going to Magnolia Bible College. It's gonna start soon this fall. And my oldest … well, his grades wasn't good for college.”

“That's okay,” Stephanie told her. “I think I've seen him with your daughter.”

“He liked talking more than school and sports, running off Klan, so he thought…”

“I could've told him they're here to stay.”

“He realized that wouldn't work when nobody gave a damn 'bout that baby throwed down this here well like that.”

Bev pointed in the direction Stephanie never looked anymore.

“Such a shame it was,” Stephanie said.
They couldn't have been related, then
 …

“And he just had a son gonna need some taking care of,” Bev went on. “And his daddy took care of him, so he should take care of his. He's off to the Army.”

“Oh my.”

They had bumbled back from the Gulf War by now, all around them, even now searching for a footing and reminding anyone who would listen that they were “Desert Storm”—looking for work, for homes, for new ears to put war stories into, for new women to love or the old ones they left behind. Supposedly they had a syndrome: depression, lethargy, listlessness, even rage. With no plans to upgrade to a bigger house anywhere and Landon not finding a full-time job at a store or the electronics plant, Bev put on a good barbecue for him—family mostly. He was set back home filling up on her suppers and Solemn's company before basic training started.

“Well, it is all over, isn't it?” Bev asked. Bev saw Stephanie's confidence and liked it, assumed it as her own, took its nice effect on her.

“It is all over,” she repeated. “Good times just beginning. Cicadas on the way, next summer. Good luck.”

“I suppose.” Stephanie smiled.

She wondered how much the woman would offer to pay, or if she would even offer. Offer was payment enough. Although she planned to address her husband, in some way, on bleeding too much cash in Nashville. It started off as Percy Priest Lake catfishing trips, then derailed into feeding mechanical bulls and tan-going slots. The strait was far from dire. But still, Stephanie preferred surplus. The women skated around the subject of pay until the unspoken agreement became there would be none.

Summer was ending. The lightning bugs came and left earlier by this time. Solemn walked on away from the table without asking or telling. Stephanie saw Solemn spot a lightning bug to run after. It hadn't even lit up yet. Stephanie only saw what it was once Solemn caught it into her hands.

“No one home anymore around time Solemn get off of school,” Bev continued. “And I might have to go to town with my husband some days to catch the right bus to the college. My husband sell stuff. He gotta drive our car into Kosciusko every day to see if the electronics plant need him. Gotta be there early. It's been going all right these past few years. Guess more people needing TVs and radios and stereos and DVDs these days. World's changing so fast…”

“Sure is,” Stephanie said. “And yes, you wanna know if I could carry Solemn on to school when I go into town with my daughter and keep her after?”

“That would be so helpful,” Bev said. “I would pay you.”

Bev stared at Stephanie's deviled eggs for quite some time. She chose one to try. She popped it into her mouth for one whole bite and swallow. She squished her eyes together and grabbed another. They were impressive.

“Oh my goodness, these are so good. Taste different from ones I know.”

“I put a little sugar and dill in mine,” Stephanie said.

“Well, I'll have to try that for myself,” Bev promised. She liked sitting next to the side of a trailer nearly half glass, a special door to special drapes to see how especially wide it was all inside. The new wood cabinets, not Formica or aluminum or tin even, in some she had heard. A few air conditioners. The sinks and faucets looked bright silver, not screeched and water-stained pink. The soft parquet floors had a grand design, like from a museum she had seen pictures of in school. She poured them some sassy water. Her fingers tipped a fair amount of lemon and lime bits and mint in both their glasses.

“It's no problem for me to take Solemn along, Mrs. Redvine,” Stephanie told her. “I'm going that way anyway. I just don't know exactly where y'all are around here. Sometimes, you know, the mornings can be a bit rushed, and my daughter don't want to go, and I'm trying to wash the breakfast dishes and it gets kinda busy, so…”

“Oh no, no, no,” Bev said. “Call me Bev. And Solemn'd walk on over here, every day. Or me or her daddy drop her off. Solemn know her way around here better than I do. I'd be sure she got on out in time.”

“Oh, okay. Uh, where is she, by the way?” And that would pretty much be the story with the girl from the time the arrangement started until it ended.

Dear, dear Solemn, Solemn …
It was a child and name and name and child the mama would never in her whole life be able to forget.

*   *   *

As eager as she was for her first day of classes at Magnolia Bible College, a real student she was now, Bev just dropped Solemn off at the Longwoods' door. She only had to knock once. Stephanie was waiting, minutes early, tapping fingerprints in a tin of rosebud salve. Prompt and dressed. So was Stephanie's daughter, ready, with just one of the many new stiff dresses she had for the year. Solemn had grown a bit, but the school clothes from last year still fit her, so she could wait until she grew out of her closet.

“This is Solemn, Desiree.”

The smaller girl seemed gobbled up by what looked like twice as much space—and almost was—as her own home. Stephanie's knack for scrutizining and mastering light colors worked out this way. The girl sat cross-legged on a wraparound leather couch with her dress open and the thicker crotch of her white cotton tights in plain view.
Hmph.
Solemn could never sit like that, legs all opened. Especially not for company. But she didn't know what to call herself here with these people. She wasn't company. She heard she would be shuffled to them every day. No one even came to their home every day but Akila maybe. Now, and with her belly growing.

“Hello,” the girl said.

“Hi,” Solemn said back.

“You the one gonna be staying with us?”

“She's not staying with us,” Stephanie said. “And sit properly, would you please?”

Desiree giggled, but she didn't change. Solemn didn't know why she was dropped off so early. It was only seven thirty. The ride to the school for eight thirty was only about twenty minutes at most.

“She's riding to school with you. From now on.”