The Lost Songs (13 page)

Lutie’s skin prickled. She got tears in her eyes.

After a while, Doria said, “Would it be okay with you if I wrote those songs down?”

Lutie was sorry she had walked one step with Doria Bell, never mind a mile. The idea that a skinny loser Yankee white girl dared ask for the music of Mabel Painter made Lutie want to stomp her. “They aren’t songs. They’re prayers. They just happen to have melodies. Don’t call them property. They’re beyond that. They’re half heaven. No, you can’t write them down.”

Lutie suppressed a shudder. If she had to sing the whole list, all in a row, there would be side effects. Lutie would teeter on the precipice of some dark century and have the hideous sensation of becoming Mabel, with Mabel’s endless labor and aching back. Mabel Painter had been close to slavery, and Lutie hated thinking about that grim slab of history. Sometimes when she read about it—or sang about it—she’d feel shackles on her ankles, feel herself being seized. Shipped. Sold. Becoming property. No different from a cow or a couch.

If she became known for the Laundry List, it would be a chain binding her to Mabel. Lutie figured she had enough chains, being bound to Saravette. Because that was another side effect to presenting the Laundry List. Saravette might come.

“I play a lot of Bach on the organ,” said Doria, “and of course he’s all God, all the time, but I don’t think of his works as prayer. Bach honors God, but his music doesn’t actually address God. You, though, you had to walk out under the sky and get visible, and talk to God with nothing in your way.”

Doria gripped a subject as tight as Miss Veola did. They both seemed to think in straight lines, like fishing poles: reeling
in thoughts, neatly winding them. Lutie’s thoughts were individuals; in fact, like laundry. Some damp, some dry, some folded, some dirty. Making sense of them would be a long hot task with a heavy iron. “What would you do with my songs if you wrote them down? Hand them to Mr. Gregg? Try to make money off them?”

“Oh, no. It’s more that I feel them in my fingers. I need to pour the notes onto the keyboard and then I need to attach them to the page.” She held up her hands, fingers curved, as if she were about to play.

“But they’re not yours! Here’s what Mabel Painter said to her granddaughter, my MeeMaw. ‘They can bring me their baskets of soiled clothes. I will scrub and starch and hang them up to dry. I will iron and sweat and earn nickels and dimes. I will be proud of how clean and smooth the laundry is. All the day long, to all the world, I will be nobody. And at the end of the day, I will sing. And when I sing, I, Mabel Painter, am a child of God. When I sing, he listens.’ ”

Doria closed her eyes. “ ‘I, Mabel Painter, am a child of God,’ ” she whispered. “ ‘When I sing, he listens.’ ”

Lutie had had enough. “Yeah. Whatever. You know where you are now? See the steeple?”

In a moment, Doria was alone on the cracked sidewalk. Her heart ached enough that she could have taken a Tylenol. She didn’t have the energy to push the Walk button.

Lord, I done give all I got to give, she thought. Don’t have to go friendless to school up where you live. Take me home, Lord.

But away from Miss Veola, who was a tree trunk of certainty, Doria did not believe that she could set a chair on her porch and God would come by.

Doria had self-discipline. She needed it now. She removed pointless self-pity from her mind and inserted the Bach fugue she was learning. Bach was particularly space taking. In her mind, she usually felt Bach inside out and upside down, from left to right and top to bottom. But not this time. Self-discipline was not there.

She was just a loser standing on a corner, watching the world go by.

If her mother and father knew she felt this way, they would be destroyed. They believed she had a good life, full of friends and achievements and activities. I should have told them more, she thought. I wouldn’t know where to start now.

A storm was rolling in from the west, curling black and purple. The heat of the day had vanished, flattened by the coming change in the weather. Doria felt flattened too.

From behind her a man’s voice said, “Hey, Miss Doria.”

She was so startled that her body jerked and she whirled around. The man was tall and her eyes first met his T-shirt. She had to drag her gaze upward.

It was Train.

Train was handsome, a different brown from Kelvin or Lutie, more bronze. All of him was thin—face, mouth, body, hands. His hair was wild, half caught in a rag; his clothing mismatched and too large. He looked the way she felt. “Hello, Train,” she said.

“You going to practice at your church?”

How did people know so much about her? Doria never talked to anybody. Why would people bother to share such useless information? “I usually do, but I think it’s too late.” Although normally it was never too late for music. Normally it was always the right time for Bach. But right now, Doria felt as if something vital had broken inside her.

“What you practice for?”

“I’m a church organist. I have a lot to play every Sunday.” She was sick of admitting this. It had begun to sound vaguely criminal. “When I’m done with all the music I need for the service, then I practice music I actually want to play, which is hardly ever the same thing.”

He nodded. “How I feel about Music Appreciation.”

She had to laugh. “Why are you taking it, anyway?”

“Can’t remember.”

Talking to somebody was better than Tylenol. She wanted to keep talking. She had only one real topic, so she used it. “I just heard some new music. Beautiful music. You know Lutie, don’t you?”

“Everybody knows Lutie.”

How affectionate he sounded. How did Lutie do it? Lutie didn’t have to worry about making friends. She just had them. If they weren’t her friends in the morning, they’d be friends by afternoon. Doria was exhausted again. “Right. Well, just now, Lutie sang three songs.”

“I heard.”

“You did?”

“I live just up from Miss Veola. I was on my porch.”

“Doesn’t Lutie have the most amazing voice in the whole wide world? And those songs! Her great-great-grandmother’s songs. I don’t know what category to put them in.”

“Category?”

“Well, for example, they aren’t rap.”

Train laughed. He seemed surprised by the sound of his own laugh and the stretch of his own mouth. “Not rap,” he agreed. “Not Renaissance either.”

“Train, you so do not look like a person who is into Renaissance music.”

“I’m not. Mr. Gregg is. It was a long week listening to that.”

They were both laughing now.

“Lutie sing the songs for you?” he asked.

“I think she sang them for God. Or Miss Veola.”

“They sort of the same,” said Train.

“I know what you mean. You know what? She prayed for me. Miss Veola.”

Train nodded. It occurred to Doria that if he had heard Lutie sing, he had heard Miss Veola pray. “I never had anybody pray just for me, holding my hand,” she told him. “Most prayers are group activities. You sit on the pew, the pastor talks to God, you all say amen. With Miss Veola, it was more of—well—I’m not sure what it was more of … I’m still thinking.”

“You let me know,” said Train.

People rarely meant what they said, especially in this courteous part of the world. Not even Miss Veola meant it when she used that Southern expression—Don’t be a stranger. It was just a way of saying good-bye. But Doria thought that Train really did want to know what Miss Veola’s prayer had been.

A school bus was approaching from the direction of the high school. Doria looked at the time. Four fifty-five. The late bus, packed with kids whose team practice or games were over.

The bus honked. Its stuttering red lights came on and a stop sign popped out. A boy who lived on Doria’s street, which was miles from here, got off. Perhaps he had a dentist’s appointment in the medical building behind them. Pierce Andrews was his name. He and Doria sometimes stood together at the bus stop in the morning but rarely spoke. Pierce was the handsome smooth blond type who seemed impenetrable, as if
he were glazed, like pottery. When he didn’t bother to speak to her in the morning, it started the whole school day in defeat.

“Hey, Doria!” yelled Pierce. “We stopped for you! Come on, get a ride home!”

Pierce had gotten the driver to make an irregular stop? How extraordinary. She would have said Pierce might not even recognize her out of context. “It was nice talking to you, Train,” she told him. “I will let you know if I figure Miss Veola out.”

Train said nothing. She waited, but his face said nothing either. He did not seem to occupy his face at this moment. It was empty. He was empty.

She was suddenly afraid of him; afraid of standing there; afraid of the storm about to break. She hurried across the street. “Pierce, that was so thoughtful of you.” She climbed on the bus and he got on after her, and the driver pulled the doors shut.

“Wasn’t me. Azure Lee said to stop.”

Azure Lee Smith lived next door to Pierce, a dozen houses beyond Doria on the same road. Azure Lee was a senior, so good at basketball that she was being courted by colleges. Doria had always meant to go to a basketball game but there was never time. Well, truthfully, there was never anybody to sit with. She followed Pierce to the middle of the bus, where Azure Lee patted the seat beside her.

At the bus stop, Azure Lee always said good morning to Doria, but not in a voice that encouraged discussion. Doria sat down uncertainly. Next to Azure Lee, she felt like a pencil. Far darker than Lutie or Kelvin or Train, Azure Lee was also taller and stronger than any of them. She was beautiful in a sports warrior kind of way.

“Shove over,” said Pierce, cramming himself into the two-person bench next to Doria.

“I took one look at you,” Azure Lee told Doria, “and I yelled to the bus driver, ‘We are picking that girl up!’ ”

Doria was mystified.

“Train,” explained Azure Lee. “That boy is going off his tracks. You don’t need to mix it up with him.”

“Is Train his real name?”

“Cliff is his real name,” said Pierce. “We were in elementary school together. But he’s got a killer older brother. Probably a matter of hours before Train is too.”

Doria misunderstood the adjective
killer
. “He is very good-looking,” she agreed.

“No,” said Azure Lee irritably. “His older brother probably did kill somebody a few years ago. But they didn’t get DeRade for that. They got him for blinding a kid.”

Doria was horrified. What would life be like if you were blind? How would you read music or books? “But I liked Train,” she protested. “We were chatting about music.”

Azure Lee shook her head. “Sounds like you. But he’s falling apart. You don’t want to be there when it happens.”

The bus reached their subdivision, Fountain Ridge. It had no fountains and no ridges. The three of them got off. She felt Pierce’s height and Azure Lee’s strength. Walking between them was like having an armed escort.

“I heard a rumor that Train wanted your key ring,” said Pierce. “Train is seriously bad news. Was he asking about your keys, Doria? There on the corner?”

“No.”

“And you have your keys? He didn’t steal them?”

Doria was offended. She was careful with her keys. Pierce and Azure Lee were exaggerating. “I thought he was charming,” she said stiffly.

“He probably was. But it’s just a tool for him. He wouldn’t waste his time on you if he wasn’t working an angle.”

Mr. Gregg’s angle was to get the Laundry List. Jenny’s
angle was to get the solo. Lutie’s angle was to add to her kindness list. There wasn’t anybody who just wanted to hang out with Doria. Why should Train be different?

“Listen,” said Pierce, “my dad’s a detective in the police force. Everything around here looks nice, but there are tough neighborhoods that somebody like you would never stumble on. Train lives in one. It’s called Chalk.”

Doria had seen Chalk. The debris and poverty. The lounging men, silent and staring.

And she had heard Chalk. The prayers, the clinking of ice in glasses of tea, the laughter of four-year-olds and the songs to God.

She looked sideways at Pierce, to see if she could share any of this, but she could read nothing in his profile.

Fountain Ridge had one long street with seven short cul-de-sacs, and four house styles. The developer had planted three kinds of trees and two varieties of hedge. All the crape myrtles bloomed at the same time in the same color. All the street maples turned wine-red the same day in the fall. The neighborhood had a prim clean look, like educational toys.

Doria’s house was closest.

Pierce said, “I don’t see why Train would be interested in your keys unless he’s interested in your house. Anybody home right now? Your parents?”

“They both work. Nobody’s home yet.”

Azure Lee, Pierce and Doria lived in the exact same house, except that Azure Lee’s was flipped and Pierce’s had a walk-out basement. They walked carefully up her driveway with her, as if Train might be lurking in the bushes. Doria put her key into each lock. The alarm chirped. She stepped in and silenced it. In every house, the control panel was just inside the door.