Hidden Hearts (29 page)

February, 1955

The world outside my bedroom window was completely foreign. Shingled rooftops surrounded us and stretched to the base of Squaw Peak. And with all the houses came more people and their cars. What once had been simple dirt paths between the rows of trees were now streets with names like Georgia, Oregon and Michigan. 

“Why don’t they name them after indigenous plants?” Kiah asked.
“Like Cactus Road or Saguaro Avenue?”

After she explained to me what indigenous meant I agreed.

The traffic increased greatly as Mr. Rubenstein sold all of the houses in the first subdivision quickly, and Mama said people were on a waiting list for the ones near us. It seemed he couldn’t build them fast enough before people moved in. There wasn’t a Saturday that went by without moving trucks pulling up into the brand-new carports. Barbecues, neighborhood meetings and children’s birthday parties were common sights. Our neighborhood had a new designation—suburb.

I’d asked Mama if she ever wanted to live in one of the little ranch houses and she’d said, “No, honey, this is our home.”

She also shied away from the neighborhood festivities, politely refusing offers by baking a sweet potato pie to forgive her absence. While she appreciated the invitations, I think she felt like a table with two legs. We weren’t a regular family anymore, and she didn’t want to discuss where Pops and Will had gone.

Still, everyone loved her pies. Word quickly spread about her talent, and she soon had a side business that helped keep us afloat. I’d never understood what had happened to all the money from the orange grove, but I’d guessed Pops had kept it all for himself and maybe Shirley West.

I’d heard Mama talking to Mac one night in the kitchen about finances. It seemed that when Pops first left, guilt forced him to provide for us a little, but after the scene at Christmas there was no help at all.

“Thank goodness people want to buy my pies or they’d probably turn the lights off,” she’d said one night at dinner. Mac had squeezed her hand and offered his reassurances. That always seemed to make her feel better.

I worried that Pops would come back and kick us out since it was
his
house, but as each week passed my worry lessened. Maybe spending the money on Shirley West helped keep him away.

Mac and Kiah were over all the time and ate dinner with us often. Sometimes Mr. Munoz did too, but Mr. Benson never joined us. I’d once heard him grumble that he wouldn’t sit at a table with niggers, kikes and spics, but he never said it above a whisper. He didn’t make a scene about it the way other people did. Kiah called it quiet prejudice where people just grudgingly tolerated others. It wasn’t good but it wasn’t destructive either.

Sometimes Mr. Rubenstein and Miss Noyce came by, and when we were all sitting around the table it felt like a real family where everybody laughed and told jokes. We loved listening to Mr. Munoz’s stories about his uncle Juan, who lived in Mexico and had a little dog named Rojo that always got in trouble.

It was at one of these dinners that Mr. Rubenstein tapped his glass with his fork to get everyone’s attention before he announced that Miss Noyce had agreed to marry him. We all clapped, and then he asked Mama if they could get married in our house. She agreed immediately, and we set about preparing for the wedding, which they’d decided would be on Valentine’s Day—just two weeks away.

For the next fourteen days, Kiah and I rushed home after school to help Mama clean the windows and floors and polish the silver. She was determined that the entire house would shine, even the parts that nobody would see.

“Do you think you’ll ever get married?” I asked Kiah while we scrubbed the floors, our last task before the wedding the next day.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t met a boy yet that I liked enough. I’m not sure I ever will.”

“Well, I’m not. All boys care about is cars and drinking. And they all smell bad.” Kiah laughed, and it made me smile. “I’d marry you,” I said.

She stopped scrubbing and stared at me. At first I thought she was angry. She had a queer look on her face but then she smiled back. “I’d marry you too, Vivi.”

“I wish we could,” I said.

“Me too.”

“Maybe someday.”

“Yup,” she agreed.

Mama stormed in, hands on her hips. “Are you two jabbering or working?”

“Working,” we said simultaneously and resumed our scrubbing.

“Good. We’ve got a ton of food to cook before tomorrow afternoon, and I can’t have you girls dilly-dallying with your chores. Understood?”

We both nodded and she flew away, leaving us to giggle quietly. “Why do you think Mr. Rubenstein and Miss Noyce wanted to get married here? I thought people had to get married in a church.”

“They can’t,” she explained. “He’s Jewish, but she isn’t, so they can’t get married at his church and nobody else would ever let a Jew in. So they’re stuck.”

“So who’s gonna marry them?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess somebody who doesn’t care.”

Somebody turned out to be a judge that Mr. Rubenstein knew. There were only about twelve guests, including all of us and his brother and little sister, one of Miss Noyce’s teacher friends and only two people from her family. She’d come over one night and cried for an hour with Mama because most of her family hated her for marrying a Jew, and they had made a pact to skip the wedding.  Mama patted her hand and told her that we were her family now and the rest of them would probably come around once they saw what a wonderful man Mr. Rubenstein was.

It was a fine party, and Kiah and I ate like crazy. Mr. Rubenstein, being as rich as he was, had hired Mama to do all the cooking except the wedding cake. For that he’d gone to a Jewish bakery. She’d studied up on finger food and something called canapés, which were really good. And, of course, there were eight sweet potato pies. When it came time for the champagne toast, Mac snuck Kiah and me each a little glass while Mama pretended to be upset.

The best part was the dancing. I got to dance with Kiah to all of Mac’s jazz records, and it was really nice watching Mr. and Mrs. Rubenstein make googly eyes as he twirled her around the living room. Even Mrs. Rubenstein’s people had a good time. At first the two of them, an aunt from Topeka and her daughter from Wichita, wouldn’t talk to anyone, but as the afternoon wore on, they had fun. Mr. Munoz asked the aunt to dance, and she shook her head so hard I thought it might fall off, but he was a charmer, and after two more glasses of champagne, she asked
him
to dance and then wouldn’t let him sit down.

I finally plopped into a corner chair and just watched. Kiah was dancing with Mr. Rubenstein, and Mac was dancing with Mama. I’d never seen her dance with Pops. I didn’t know she knew how, but each time Mac spun her around she went in the right direction and flew back to him. I found myself bopping in my seat it was so entertaining.

Then the song changed to a slow one, and Mr. Rubenstein traded Kiah for his new wife. She came and sat by me, and we watched the four adults. Mr. Rubenstein gazed into his wife’s eyes and whispered in her ear. Mac held Mama closely as they circled around, and she pressed her forehead into his chin. I glanced back and forth, comparing the couples. I didn’t see a difference.

“Oh, no,” Mama murmured over the music.

They’d all stopped dancing and were gazing out the window.

Kiah and I jumped up and followed Mac out the front door despite Mama’s protests. Billy Smith strutted down the walk with a brick in his hand. Out on the street I saw a dark blue truck, and I couldn’t be certain, but I thought I saw Will sitting in the passenger’s seat. When Mac sauntered down the steps, Billy stopped.

“We don’t want any trouble today, son,” Mac said.

Billy looked at him with disgust. “I ain’t
no
nigger’s son. And I saw you dancing with her.” He spat the words and held out the brick like he was preparing to throw it at Mac.

“That’s none of your business,” Mac replied.

“It’s everybody’s business. This is a house full of nigger lovers, kike lovers, spics and homos.”

Mac took a step toward him, and he moved back.

“Chicken!” one of the boys called.

“Don’t be a pussy, Billy!”

He glanced at them and charged Mac with the brick held over his head.

“Mac!”
Mama screamed. She started to run down the steps, but Mr. Rubenstein grabbed her.

Mac ducked when Billy swung the brick and punched him in the stomach. We all heard him groan and saw him double up in pain. He dropped the brick in favor of holding his sides while Mac stood over him, urging him to take some deep breaths before he stood up.

“Nigger!”
Billy screamed.

He ran back to the truck still hunched over. His four friends pushed him into the back and drove away, but not before they flipped the bird and said a lot of swear words. I noticed the boy I thought was Will had slunk down in his seat.

“I’m sorry, Jacob,” Mac said when he returned to us holding the brick.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he declared. “We’d be a lot sorrier if that brick had gone through the window. I owe you a debt of gratitude, Mac. Thanks for saving the day.” They shook hands, and then Mr. Rubenstein looked around the startled guests and grinned. “Now, who wants some wedding cake?”

We headed back inside, but it didn’t take long before a police car showed up. I imagined that Billy Smith had run home and told his mother what had happened—a black man had assaulted him. The officer asked to talk to Mac but Mr. Rubenstein insisted on being present, bringing along the brick for evidence.

We watched from the sun porch as the police officer and Mac listened to Mr. Rubenstein. I could tell he was explaining what happened, and he kept pointing to the brick. The police officer read from his notes, and Mr. Rubenstein listened for a while and then started shaking his head and pointing to the brick again. While he talked, the cop gazed at Mac who stood quietly with his hands in his pockets. He didn’t hang his head and he didn’t look mad. He just looked respectful. Then the officer scratched his ear as if he was trying to decide what to do. He motioned for Mac to go back inside, and Mac joined Mama on the sun porch, taking her hand.

I turned back to Mr. Rubenstein and the police officer. They stood close, and I didn’t think he was talking about the brick. He pointed toward the north, and the officer nodded slowly. He scratched his head, and then shook his hand before he drove away.

“Is everything all right, Jacob?” Mrs. Rubenstein asked as he stepped back into the house.

He smiled and kissed his new bride. “Everything’s fine.”

Mama touched his sleeve. “What happened? What did you say to him?”

“Well, first I pointed out that the brick is from Smith Brickyards and actually has the Smith stamp on it. There’s no question
who
it belongs to. Then I pointed out that there were twelve eyewitnesses who knew the truth, and they’d be happy to testify in court to support Mac. And then I asked him if he was taking advantage of the special discount for law enforcement officers on the subdivision going up on Michigan Avenue. When he said he hadn’t been able to get on the list, I told him he was on the list now
if
this all went away.”

“You bribed him?” I asked.

Mama gasped. “Vivian!”

He squatted down and faced me. “Miss Vivi, I want you to think about what I’m going to say. It’s okay to do a little wrong if it’s for a big right. Remember that.”

****

I sat perched in my bedroom window late that night. We’d had so much noise and commotion that I wasn’t ready for the quiet. My brain was still hungry for action. Other than the whole part with Billy Smith, it had been the best day of my life. We’d had our picture taken on the front stoop with Mac and Kiah, and Mr. Rubenstein promised to get us a copy of it.

Eventually everyone left, and Mac said Kiah could sleep over. I glanced at my best friend snuggled under the blankets. The moonlight was just at the point where it cut right through the window and straight to the place where she lay. It shone on her face in just the right way, like she was a movie star.

Apparently Mama couldn’t sleep either because she sat on the sun porch. She’d changed into her capri pants and a simple print shirt for the cleanup, but her hair was still up in the chignon and she’d left her fancy makeup on too. She was staring into the night, and I wondered what she was thinking about. Maybe it was her own wedding to Pops, or maybe she was reviewing the day. It had been a wonderful party.