Glorious (7 page)
Easter gulped.
“I sent a telegram to my friend Merry and she sent for me and I been here ever since.”
“Who’s Merry? How long you been here?” Easter didn’t know which question she needed answered first.
“Oh,” Rain turned her eyes up to the ceiling, “I been here ’bout six weeks now.” She leaned back, brought her hand to her mouth, and used the nail of her pinky finger to dislodge something from between her teeth.
“Merry is my good friend. My good, good friend,” she proclaimed enthusiastically.
Easter’s stomach knotted. “She the one from the tent?”
Rain looked confused. “What?”
“Nothing,” Easter mumbled.
“Merry had her white doctor come up and check on me. He give me some tablets and in a few days I was feeling like my old self again.”
“Her white doctor? Is
she
white?”
“Yes,” Rain said pointedly.
Easter didn’t want to hear anymore about this
good, good
friend and hastily changed the subject. “How did you know I was here?”
Rain smiled wryly. “I seen you with your Jody. I was in the car with Merry, she drive like a fool—I called out to you, but who could hear with all the ruckus on Lenox Avenue. I watched y’all kiss goodbye, then he went his way and you stepped into the shop. What’s his name?”
Easter went blank for a minute. In that short time Colin had become a distant memory; even their morning frolic had slipped into oblivion. Up until the time Rain had appeared, she could still feel the impressions of his fingers on her backside. But now … it was like he’d never been born. Easter felt ashamed, as if marrying Colin had somehow sullied her love for Rain.
She wanted to ask,
Do you forgive me?
But instead, she grimaced and announced, “We’re married.”
Rain’s eyes bulged and her face broke into a huge smile. She reached over and playfully slapped the back of Easter’s hand.
“Sure nuff?”
Easter nodded.
“Well, congratulations!” she wailed, clapping her hands together.
Easter reached for her spoon, muttered a barely audible “Thank you,” and then dunked the utensil into the cold cup of coffee.
Rain waited. She expected something more than a thank you. A story perhaps—one that chronicled their meeting, courtship, and nuptials—but Easter remained mute, her gaze fixed on the dark, swirling funnel her stirring spoon conjured in the cold cup of joe.
“So y’all got any babies?”
Easter shook her head. She’d stopped using the vinegar pouch and still her menstrual arrived every month like clockwork. Colin wasn’t worried; he said God would know when the time was right. But Easter was concerned and wondered if during the abortion Chappo had removed something from her that she shouldn’t have.
“Well I—I hope I get to meet this husband of yours.”
Easter shrugged her shoulders, but kept her eyes lowered.
Rain smoothed her hair, which signified yet another shift in the conversation. “So,” she leaned in and asked, “you still writing those stories?”
Was she still writing those stories? That was like asking a former slave if he still wanted to be free. Of course she was still writing those stories. Writing kept her sane, kept her from spinning out of control, kept her tongue still whenever some white person spoke down to her. She
had
to write, it was the only thing that was completely hers, that she could look forward to at the end of her long day. There wasn’t one thing she owned that hadn’t belonged to someone before her, not a thread of clothing or pair of shoes—even the bed she and her husband slept on and their tattered sofa had had previous owners. But her stories didn’t belong to anyone else. She couldn’t even say that about the silver wedding band that graced her finger.
You goddamn right she was still writing, writing like a fiend sometimes, writing herself into a fervor that left her shaken and drenched, writing until her fingers cramped and her spine ached, writing straight through the night and into the blue day.
Was she still writing? She was writing to keep a grip on life, the evidence of which was right there on the skin of her index and middle fingers—dark indentations from the pencils she used. Was she still writing? Well, she had to leave something of herself behind, something that said she’d been there and had made a contribution, because she sensed that her body would never yield a child. So her stories had become her babies. And the fact that her babies were conceived in her mind and not her womb did not make them any less alive, any less beautiful, any less loved, or any less glorious.
“Yeah, I’m still writing,” she said.
C
olin cocked his head and listened to the silence and wondered why it was he couldn’t hear the sound of his life crumbling away. The signs had been there for some time. Those dreams of him waking to find that he’d lost every tooth in his mouth. And what of the one of him flying through the sky as natural as a swallow? And the nightmare that brought him the most uneasiness, the one where he climbed from his bed, walked to the window, and looked out to find that Harlem was gone, replaced with the turquoise sea of his homeland. The water was dotted with brightly painted wooden boats, holding erect fishermen, their muscled arms flexing as they cast their nets out over the waters. Sea gulls swooped and screamed in the sky above their heads, and on the sandy shore stood his mother, starfish and sea eggs scattered at her feet, hands cupped around her mouth as she shouted his name across the placid blue. From his window Colin waved to his mother and called, “I’m here, Mum, I’m here!” And that’s when the sea began to ripple and the boats bounced. The sky grew dark and in the distance the sea roared, arched its wet back, and came crashing to shore. When the waters receded, the sea gulls were gone, the fishermen and their boats were gone, and so was his mother.
He always woke from that dream shaken, drenched in perspiration with the smell of sea water in his nostrils. And now, as he sat on the stoop solemnly smoking a cigarette, he realized that the dream had finally come to fruition, the evidence of which was clutched tightly in his hand.
The letter was from his Aunt Nita but written in the hand of a neighbor. It said that his mother was sick, the roof of the house was falling in, the shop’s shelves were empty and thus its doors were closed and locked, and the pigs were dying of a mysterious disease. He was needed back home and if he couldn’t come, he needed to send money.
Colin was in no position to do either. Over the past year he and Easter had managed to save one hundred and seventy five dollars, all of which he used to purchase—without Easter’s consent or knowledge—thirty-five shares of Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line stock. According to what he’d been reading in the newspapers, the stock was now worth shit.
Colin reached up, dug his fingers into his wooly hair, and gave his scalp a good scratching; the action normally helped to clear his mind, but on that day his thoughts were like bricks and the weight was bringing on a migraine.
And then there was that woman, his wife’s friend. He’d met her just twice. The first time Easter came blustering into the apartment, Rain behind her, they were giggling like schoolgirls. Colin was down the hall in the bathroom, heard Easter’s jubilant laughter echoed by that of a stranger. As he reached for the doorknob, he heard the stranger say, “You remember how to do it, girl? Lemme see.”
When he walked into the room, Easter’s back was to him and she had her skirt hiked up so high he could see her bloomers. Her legs were flapping like wings. Rain looked up at him and smiled. “Well, hello.”
Easter swung around and the hem of the skirt fell from her hands. “Hi,” she stammered, her tone filled with disappointment. She said nothing else.
Colin looked at Rain, extended his hand, and said “Hello, I’m Colin Gibbs, Easter’s husband.”
She took his hand in hers and said simply, “Rain.”
“Oh, I don’t know where my mind is.” Easter brushed at her skirt and asked, “Baby, what are you doing home?”
“It’s my day off,” Colin reminded her without pulling his eyes from Rain’s smiling face. “Rain? Oh yes, Easter has spoken of you. So nice to finally meet you.”
Her hand was warm, her grip strong.
“Same here.”
“Can I get you something to drink? A Coca-Cola?”
“Sure, thanks.” Rain crossed her legs.
Easter stood stupidly by, not knowing what to do or say. Colin gave her a passing glance as he used his teeth to pry the cap from the bottle and then handed it to Rain.
“Are you visiting?”
Rain huffed, “Something like that.”
Colin watched as Rain tilted the bottle to her mouth and drank. She wore a black scarf wound loosely around her neck, and he was sorry for the obstruction, for some reason he wanted to see her throat.
“Oh?” Colin sat down in the chair opposite the sofa. “Easter didn’t say you were coming to town.”
“She didn’t know.”
“She saw me …
us
on the street last week,” Easter spouted as she moved to the sofa and sank down beside Rain. “She didn’t even know I was living in Harlem.”
Colin ignored her. “Where are you staying?”
“With a friend on Edgecombe Avenue.”
“Sugar Hill?” Colin made a face. He didn’t know of any Negroes living up there. “
Fan-cy
,” he added.
“Her friend is a writer,” Easter spoke rapidly. “Rain is going to show her some of my stories.”
Colin looked at Easter. “For what?”
“To see if maybe she can get them published,” Rain said, and set the empty bottle down onto the table.
A look of surprise passed across Colin’s face. This was news to him. Easter had never mentioned a word about publishing her stories. As far as he was concerned it was a pastime, like knitting or needlepoint. He looked at his wife and she avoided his gaze.
Colin shook these thoughts from his head. He had to stay focused on what needed to be done in the here and now. He rose, straightened his pant legs, and headed toward the UNIA headquarters on 135th Street. He’d speak with Marcus Garvey personally; he’d explain his situation. Garvey was an intelligent man; he knew the hardships his brethren faced. He’d give him his money back, Colin was sure of it.
N
umber 409 Edgecombe Avenue sat south of 155th Street. The building had been designed by Schwartz and Gross and climbed thirteen stories into the sky. The imposing red-brown brick structure was one of the most desirable addresses in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem. The only colored people who came and went from 409 were nannies, cooks, butlers, maids, and lift operators.
After a thorough tour of the penthouse, which was so massive that it enclosed twenty-one servants’ rooms, Meredith Tomas had paid a year’s worth of rent, signed the lease, and pocketed the keys.
“I’m sure you and Mr. Tomas will be very happy here,” Art Ball, the superintendent, had announced with feigned sincerity. As far as he was concerned the climate in Harlem was changing for the worse. South of 155th Street had been infested with coons and monkeys who were gradually swarming north and no doubt one day soon would invade his beloved 409, bringing with them their stench and jungle bunny ways, and he would have no choice but to leave, because nothing could make him answer to a nigger, no less an entire apartment building filled with them.
He’d already begun making inquiries about positions on the elegant and staunchly white Lower East Side.
And so it was no surprise to Art Ball when on that blustery October morning his prediction became horribly true and Meredith MacDougal Tomas walked into 409 Edgecombe linked arm in arm with her bronze-colored Cuban husband, Eduardo.
Meredith Tomas, the only child of Tabitha and Conrad MacDougal, was born and raised in Michigan. Her father had made his fortune in real estate. The family lived in a sprawling mansion on Iroquois in Detroit’s Indian Village. Edsel Ford, son of the auto baron Henry Ford, lived just two houses away with his wife Eleanor and their children.
Meredith attributed her love of everything African to Edsel, who traveled to the continent several times and became an enthusiastic collector of its artifacts.
“Something stirred in me the first time Edsel let me hold a Senegalese fertility mask,” Meredith would purr whenever she told the story. “And I’ve been smitten ever since.”
Meredith met her husband Eduardo at a cocktail party at the exclusive Grosse Pointe Yacht Club. She’d mistaken the tall, dark, and excruciatingly handsome third-generation tobacco plantation owner for a waiter, since the yacht club was exclusionary, so the only people of color allowed inside were the help.
Allowances had been made for Eduardo Tomas to gain entrance, as he was a guest of Oren Scotten of the Scotten-Dillon Tobacco Company. Oren had been courting Eduardo and his acres of Cuban tobacco gold for some time.
Scotten needed the yacht club to solidify the deal, because every deal he’d ever closed inside those white walls had gone on to be profitable beyond his expectations. He was a superstitious man and he wasn’t about to jinx his streak of good luck just because some blue-blood socialites couldn’t break bread with an
Oyé
.
Eduardo signed the contract and extended his trip, to make time to court the beautiful Meredith MacDougal. A scandalous affair had ensued. Meredith was a brazen lover, willing to do anything to please him sexually, and Eduardo found himself exthralled in a way he had never been with Maria, his wife of fifteen years.
His mind made up, Eduardo took Meredith’s hand in his and asked her to be his wife.
To Meredith, Eduardo represented the ultimate accessory, the consummate conversation piece: tall, handsome, and exotic. She would be the first one in her circle to defy convention. Meredith tousled Eduardo’s hair and said yes.
A speedy divorce followed and Eduardo evicted his wife and three children from his palatial Havana estate, relocating them to a modest second home in Las Tunas. Three months later Eduardo married Meredith in a lavish ceremony at the Hotel Plaza in Havana. The wedding made the front page of
El Diario de la Marina
, relegating the death of Grace McLaughlin, the missing American heiress who had eloped with her married lover to Cuba four months earlier, to the lower left-hand corner of page eight.