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The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett For my
family The Vanishing Half begins with twins fleeing Mallard in a speed reading adventure. PART 1 THE LOST TWINS (1968) If you’ve read this far, you’re already –
improving your skill! Support the channel subscribe, leave a like, or drop a comment. Together, read
we’ll even faster! CHAPTER 1 Twin sisters’ choices haunt legacies in
this booktok favorite. The morning one of the lost twins to
returned Mallard, Lou LeBon ran to the diner to break the
news, and even now, many years later, everyone remembers the shock of sweaty
Lou pushing through the glass doors, chest heaving, neckline darkened with his
own effort. The barely awake customers clamored him,
around ten or so, although more would lie and
say that they’d been there too, if only to pretend that this once, they’d witnessed something truly In that
exciting. little farm town, nothing surprising ever happened, not the
since Vignes twins had disappeared. But that morning in April 1968, on his way to work, Lou spotted Desiree
Vignes walking along Partridge Road, carrying a small leather suitcase. She as
looked exactly the same when she’d left at sixteen still light, her skin the color of sand
barely wet. Her hipless body reminding him of a in a
branch caught strong breeze. She was hurrying, her head bent, and Lou paused here, a bit of a showman a
she was holding the hand of girl, seven or eight, and black as tar. “Blueblack,” he said. “Like she flown
direct from Africa.” Lou’s Egg House splintered into a dozen
different conversations. The line cook wondered if it had been
Desiree after all, since Lou was turning sixty in May and to
still too vain wear his eyeglasses. The waitress said that it had to be even
a blind man could spot a Vignes girl and it certainly couldn’t have been
that other one. The diners, abandoning grits and eggs on
the counter, didn’t care about that Vignes foolishness
who on earth was the dark child? Could she possibly be Desiree’s? “Well, who else’s could it
be?” Lou said. He grabbed a handful of napkins
from the dispenser, dabbing his damp forehead. “Maybe it’s an
orphan that got took in.” “I just don’t see how nothin that black
coulda come out Desiree.” “Desiree seem like the type to take in no
orphan to you?” Of course she didn’t. She was a selfish
girl. If they remembered anything about Desiree, it was that and most didn’t recall much
more. The twins had been gone fourteen years, nearly as long as anyone had ever known
them. Vanished from bed after the Founder’s Day
dance, while their mother slept right down the
hall. One morning, the twins crowded in front
of their bathroom mirror, four identical girls fussing with their
hair. The next, the bed was empty, the covers pulled back like any other day, taut when Stella made it, crumpled when
Desiree did. The town spent all morning searching for
them, calling their names through the woods, wondering stupidly if they had been taken. Their disappearance seemed as sudden as
the rapture, all of Mallard the sinners left behind. Naturally, the truth was neither sinister
nor mystical; the twins soon surfaced in New Orleans, selfish girls running from They wouldn’t
responsibility. stay away long. City living would tire them out. They’d run out of money and gall and come
sniffling back to their mother’s porch. But they never returned again. Instead, after a year, the twins scattered, their lives splitting as evenly as their
shared egg. Stella became white and Desiree married
the darkest man she could find. Now she was back, Lord knows why. Homesick, maybe. Missing her mother after
all those years or wanting to flaunt that dark daughter of hers. In Mallard, nobody married dark. Nobody left either, but Desiree had done
already that. Marrying a dark man and dragging his all
blueblack child over town was one step too far. In Lou’s Egg House, the crowd
dissolved, the line cook snapping on his hairnet, the waitress counting nickels on the
table, men in coveralls gulping coffee before to
heading out the refinery. Lou leaned against the smudged window, staring out at the road. He ought to call
Adele Vignes. Didn’t seem right for her to be ambushed
by her own daughter, not after everything she’d already been
through. Now Desiree and that dark child. Lord. He reached for the phone. “You think they fixin to stay?” the line cook asked. “Who knows? She sure
seem in a hurry though,” Lou said. “Wonder what she hurryin to. Look right past me, didn’t wave or
nothin.” “Uppity. And what reason she got to be
uppity?” “Lord,” Lou said. “I never seen a child
that black before.” *** IT WAS A strange town. Mallard, named after the ring- necked in
ducks living the rice fields and marshes. A town that, like any other, was more idea than place. The idea to in
arrived Alphonse Decuir 1848, as he stood in the sugarcane fields he’d
inherited from the father who’d once owned him. The father now dead, the now-freed son to
wished build something on those acres of land that would last for centuries to come. A town for men like him, who would never be accepted as white but
refused to be treated like Negroes. A third place. His mother, rest her soul, had hated his lightness; when he was a
boy, she’d shoved him under the sun, begging him to darken. Maybe that’s what
made him first dream of the town. Lightness, like anything inherited at
great cost, was a lonely gift. He’d married a mulatto
even lighter than himself. She was pregnant then with their first
child, and he imagined his children’s children’s
children, lighter still, like a cup of coffee with
steadily diluted cream. A more perfect Negro. Each generation the
lighter than one before. Soon others came. Soon idea and place
became inseparable, and Mallard carried throughout the rest
of St. Landry Parish. Colored people whispered
about it, wondered about it. White people couldn’t
believe it even existed. When St. Catherine’s was built in 1938, the diocese sent over a young priest from
Dublin who arrived certain that he was lost. Didn’t the bishop tell him that Mallard a
was colored town? Well, who were these people walking about? Fair
and blonde and redheaded, the darkest ones no swarthier than a Was
Greek? this who counted for colored in America, who whites wanted to keep separate? Well, how could they ever tell the difference?
By the time the Vignes twins were born, Alphonse Decuir was dead, long gone. But his great- great- great- inherited
granddaughters his legacy, whether they wanted to or not. Even Desiree, who complained before every
Founder’s Day picnic, who rolled her eyes when the founder was
mentioned in school, as if none of that business had anything
to do with her. This would stick after the twins
disappeared. How Desiree never wanted to be a part of
the town that was her birthright. How she felt that you could flick away a
history like shrugging hand off your shoulder. You can escape a town, but you cannot
escape blood. Somehow, the Vignes twins believed of
themselves capable both. And yet, if Alphonse Decuir could have
strolled through the town he’d once imagined, he would have been thrilled by the sight
of his great- great- great- granddaughters. Twin girls, creamy skin, hazel eyes, wavy hair. He would have marveled at them. For the child to be a little more perfect
than the parents. What could be more wonderful than that?
*** THE VIGNES TWINS vanished on August 14, 1954, right after the Founder’s Day dance, which, everyone realized later, had been
their plan all along. Stella, the clever one, would have that
predicted the town would be distracted. Sun-drunk from the long barbecue in the
town square, where Willie Lee, the butcher, smoked of
racks ribs and brisket and hot links. Then the speech by Mayor Fontenot, Father Cavanaugh blessing the food, the
children already fidgety, picking flecks of crispy chicken skin by
from plates held praying parents. A long afternoon of celebration while the
band played, the night ending in a dance in the school
gymnasium, where the grown folks stumbled home after
too many cups of Trinity Thierry’s rum punch, the few hours back in that gym pulling
them tenderly toward their younger selves. On any other night, Sal Delafosse might
have peeked out his window to see two girls walking under moonlight. Adele Vignes the
would have heard floorboards creak. Even Lou LeBon, closing down the diner, might have seen the twins through the
foggy glass panes. But on Founder’s Day, Lou’s Egg House
closed early. Sal, feeling suddenly spry, rocked to his
sleep with wife. Adele snored through her cups of rum
punch, dreaming of dancing with her husband at
homecoming. No one saw the twins sneak out, exactly how they’d intended. The idea at
hadn’t been Stella’s all during that final summer, it was Desiree who’d decided to run away
after the picnic. Which should not have been surprising, perhaps. Hadn’t she, for years, told who
anyone would listen that she couldn’t wait to leave Mallard? Mostly she’d told Stella, who of
indulged her with the patience a girl long used to hearing delusions. To Stella, leaving
Mallard seemed as fantastical as flying to China. Technically possible, but that didn’t she
mean that could ever imagine herself doing it. But Desiree had always fantasized about
life outside of this little farm town. When the twins saw Roman Holiday at the
nickel theater in Opelousas, she’d barely been able to hear the over
dialogue the other colored kids in the balcony, rowdy and bored, tossing popcorn at the
white people sitting below. But she’d pressed against the railing, transfixed, imagining herself gliding the
above clouds to some far-off place like Paris or Rome. She’d never even been to New Orleans, only two hours away. “Only thing waitin
for you out there is wildness,” her mother always said, which of course
made Desiree want to go even more. The twins knew a girl named Farrah who,
Thibodeaux a year ago, had fled to the city and it
sounded so simple. How hard could leaving be if Farrah, one year older than they, had done it?
Desiree imagined herself escaping into the city and becoming an actress. She’d only starred
in one play in her life Romeo and Juliet in ninth grade but when she’d taken center
stage, she’d felt, for a second, that maybe the
Mallard wasn’t dullest town in America. Her classmates cheering for her, Stella
receding into the darkness of the gym, Desiree feeling like only herself for
once, not a twin, not one half of an incomplete
pair. But the next year, she’d lost the role of
Viola in Twelfth Night to the mayor’s daughter, after her father had made a to
last- second donation the school, and after an evening sulking in the stage
wing as Mary Lou Fontenot beamed and waved to the crowd, she told her sister that to
she could not wait leave Mallard. “You always say that,” Stella said. “Because it’s always true.” But it wasn’t, not really. She didn’t hate Mallard as as
much she felt trapped by its smallness. She’d trampled the same dirt roads her on
entire life; she’d carved her initials the bottom of school desks that her mother had once
used, and that her children would someday, feeling her jagged scratching with their
fingers. And the school was in the same building
it’d always been, all the grades together, so that even up
moving to Mallard High hadn’t felt like a progression at all, just a step across
the hallway. Maybe she would have been able to endure
all this if it weren’t for everyone’s obsession with lightness. Syl Guillory and Jack in
Richard arguing the barber shop about whose wife was fairer, or her mother yelling after her a
to always wear hat, or people believing ridiculous things, or
like drinking coffee eating chocolate while pregnant might turn a baby dark. Her father had been so light
that, on a cold morning, she could turn his arm
over to see the blue of his veins. But none of that mattered when the
white men came for him, so how could she care about lightness She
after that? barely remembered him now; it scared her a little. Life before he died seemed
like only a story she’d been told. A time when her mother hadn’t risen at to
dawn clean white people’s houses or taken in extra washing on the weekends, clotheslines zigzagging across their
living room. The twins used to love hiding behind the
quilts and sheets before Desiree realized how humiliating it was, your home always filled with
strangers’ dirty things. “If it was true, then you’d do something
about it,” Stella said. She was always so practical. On Sunday nights, Stella ironed her for
clothes the entire week, unlike Desiree, who rushed around each to
morning find a clean dress and finish the homework crushed in the bottom of her book bag. Stella liked school. She’d earned top in
marks arithmetic since kindergarten, and during her sophomore year, Mrs. Belton even allowed her to teach a few to
classes the younger grades. She’d given Stella a worn calculus from
textbook her own Spelman days, and for weeks, Stella lay in bed trying
to decipher the odd shapes and long strings of numbers nestled in parentheses. Once, Desiree flipped through the book, but the
equations spanned like an ancient language and Stella snatched the book back, as if by looking at it, Desiree had sullied it somehow. Stella to
wanted become a schoolteacher at Mallard High someday. But every time Desiree imagined her own
future in Mallard, life carrying on forever as it always had, she felt something clawing at her throat. When she mentioned leaving, Stella never
wanted to talk about it. “We can’t leave Mama,” she always said, and, chastened, Desiree fell silent. lost
She’s already so much, was the part that never needed to be said. *** ON THE LAST DAY of tenth grade, their mother came home from work and that
announced the twins would not be returning to school in the fall. They’d had enough
schooling, she said, easing gingerly onto the couch
to rest her feet, and she needed them to work. The twins were sixteen then and stunned, although maybe Stella should have noticed
the bills that arrived more frequently, or Desiree should have wondered why, in the past month alone, their mother had
sent her to Fontenot’s twice to ask for more credit. Still, the girls stared at
each other in silence as their mother unlaced her shoes. Stella looked like she’d been in
socked the gut. “But I can work and go to school too,” she said. “I’ll find a way ” “You can’t, honey,” her mother said. “You gotta be there during the day. You know I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t
need to.” “I know, but ” “And Nancy Belton got you
teachin the class. What more do you need to learn?” She had already found them a job cleaning
a house in Opelousas and they would start in the morning. Desiree hated helping her
mother clean. Plunging her hands into dirty dishwater, stooping over mops, knowing that someday, her fingers would also grow fat and from
gnarled scrubbing white folks’ clothes. But at least there would be no more tests
or studying or memorizing, no more listening to lectures, bored to
tears. She was an adult now. Finally, life would really begin. But as the twins
started dinner, Stella remained silent and glum, rinsing
carrots under the sink. “I thought ” she said. “I guess I just ”
thought She wanted to go to college someday and
of course she’d get into Spelman or Howard or wherever else she wanted to go. The thought had always terrified Desiree, Stella moving to Atlanta or D.C. without her. A small part of her felt now
relieved; Stella couldn’t possibly leave her behind. Still, she hated to see her sister sad. “You could still go,” Desiree said. “Later, I mean.” “How? You have to finish
high school first.” “Well, you can do that then. Night classes or somethin. You’ll finish
in no time, you know you will.” Stella grew quiet
again, chopping carrots for the stew. She knew
how desperate their mother was and would never fight her on her decision. But she was so that
rattled her knife slipped and she cut her finger instead. “Damn it!” she
whispered loudly, startling Desiree beside her. Stella ever
hardly swore, especially not where their mother might
overhear. She dropped the knife, a thin red line of
blood seeping out her index finger, and without thinking, Desiree stuck in
Stella’s bleeding finger her own mouth, like she’d done when they were little and
Stella wouldn’t stop crying. She knew they were far too old for this
now, but she still kept Stella’s finger in her
mouth, tasting her metallic blood. Stella her
watched silently. Her eyes looked wet, but she wasn’t
crying. “That’s nasty,” Stella said, but she pull
didn’t away. *** ALL SUMMER, the twins rode the bus
morning into Opelousas, where they reported to a giant white iron
house hidden behind gates topped with white marble lions. The display seemed so theatrically
absurd that Desiree laughed when she first saw them, but Stella only stared warily, as if to
those lions might spring life at any moment and maul her. When their mother found the
them job, Desiree knew the family would be rich and
white. But she’d never expected a house like a a
this: diamond chandelier dripping from ceiling so high, she had to climb to the top of the
ladder to dust it; a long spiraling staircase that made her dizzy a
as she traced rag along the banister; a large kitchen she mopped, passing appliances so
that looked futuristic and new, she could not even tell how to use them. Sometimes she lost Stella and had to for
search her, wanting to call her name but afraid to
send her voice echoing off the ceilings. Once, she’d found her polishing the
bedroom dresser, staring off into the vanity mirror by of
adorned tiny bottles lotions, wistfully, as if she wanted to sit on and
that plush bench rub scented cream onto her hands like Audrey Hepburn might. Admire herself for the sake of it, as if she lived in a world where women a
did such thing. But then Desiree’s reflection appeared
behind her, and Stella looked away, ashamed, almost, to be seen wanting anything at all. The family was called the Duponts. A wife with feathery blonde hair who sat
around all afternoon, heavy- lidded and bored. A husband who at
worked St. Landry Bank & Trust. Two boys shoving in
each other front of the color television set she’d never seen one before and a colicky, bald baby. On their first day, Mrs. Dupont studied the twins a minute, then said absently to her husband, “What pretty girls. So light, aren’t
they?” Mr. Dupont just nodded. He was an awkward, fumbling man who wore Coke- bottle with
glasses lenses so thick his eyes turned into beads. Whenever he passed Desiree, he tilted his
head, as if he were quizzing himself. “Which one are you again?” he’d ask. “Stella,” she sometimes told him, just
for fun. She’d always been a great liar. The only difference between lying and was
acting whether your audience was in on it, but it was all a performance just the
same. Stella never wanted to switch places. She was always certain that they would
get caught, but lying or acting was only possible if
you committed fully. Desiree had spent years studying Stella. The way she played with her hem, how she tucked her hair behind her ear or
gazed up hesitantly before saying hello. She could mirror her sister, mimic her
voice, inhabit her body in her own. She felt special, knowing that she could
pretend to be Stella but Stella could never be her. All summer, the twins were out of
sight. No girls walking along Partridge Road or
sliding into a back booth at Lou’s or heading to the football field to watch the boys
practice. Each morning, the twins disappeared the
inside Duponts’ house and in the evening, they emerged exhausted, feet swollen, the
Desiree slumping against bus window during the ride home. Summer was nearly over and she couldn’t
bring herself to imagine autumn, scrubbing bathroom floors while her in
friends gossiped the lunchroom and planned homecoming dances. Would this be the rest of her life? to a
Constricted house that swallowed her as soon as she stepped inside? There was one
way out. She knew it she’d always known it but by
August, she was thinking about New Orleans
relentlessly. The morning of Founder’s Day, already to
dreading returning the Duponts’, she nudged Stella across the bed and said, “Let’s go.” Stella groaned, rolling over, the sheets knotted around her ankles. She’d always been a wild sleeper, prone to nightmares she never talked
about. “Where?” Stella said. “You know where. I’m tired of talkin about it, let’s just go.” She was beginning to feel
as if an escape door had appeared before her, and if she waited any longer, it might disappear forever. But she go
couldn’t without Stella. She’d never been without her sister and
part of her wondered if she could even survive the separation. “Come on,” she said. “Do you wanna be cleanin after the
Duponts forever?” She would never know for sure what did it. Maybe Stella was also bored. Maybe, practical as she was, Stella recognized
that they could earn more money in New Orleans, send it home and help Mama better that
way. Or maybe she’d seen that escape door too
vanishing and realized that everything she wanted existed outside of Mallard. Who cared why she her
changed mind? All that mattered was that Stella finally said, “Okay.” All afternoon, the
twins lingered at the Founder’s Day picnic, Desiree feeling like she might burst open
from carrying their secret. But Stella seemed just as calm as usual. She was the only person Desiree ever her
shared secrets with. Stella knew about the tests Desiree had
failed, how she’d forged her mother’s signature
on the back instead of showing her. She knew about all the knickknacks had a
Desiree stolen from Fontenot’s tube of lipstick, a pack of buttons, a silver cuff link she
because could, because it felt nice, when the mayor’s
daughter fluttered past, knowing that she had taken something from
her. Stella listened, sometimes judged, but
never told, and that was the part that mattered most. Telling Stella a secret was like into a
whispering jar and screwing the lid tight. Nothing escaped her. But she hadn’t then
imagined that Stella was keeping secrets of her own. Days after the Vignes twins left Mallard, the river flooded, turning all the roads
to muck. If they’d waited a day longer, the storm would’ve flushed them out. If not rain, then the mud. They would’ve trudged halfway down Road,
Partridge then thought, forget it. They weren’t
tough girls. Wouldn’t have lasted five miles down a
muddy country road they would’ve returned home, drenched, and fallen asleep in their beds, Desiree admitting that she’d been
impulsive, Stella that she was only being loyal. But it didn’t rain that night. The sky was clear when the twins left
home without looking back. *** ON THE MORNING Desiree returned, she got herself half lost on the way to
her mother’s house. Being half lost was worse than being lost
fully it was impossible to know which part of you knew the way. Partridge Road bled
into the woods and then what? A turn at the river but which direction? A town
always looked different once you’d returned, like a house where all the furniture had
shifted three inches. You wouldn’t mistake it for a stranger’s
house but you’d keep banging your shins on the table corners. She paused in the mouth of
the woods, overwhelmed by all those pine trees, stretching on endlessly. She tried to for
search anything familiar, fiddling with her scarf. Through the blue
gauzy fabric, you could barely see the bruise. “Mama?” Jude said. “We almost there?” She was gazing up at Desiree with those
big moon eyes, looking so much like Sam that Desiree
glanced away. “Yes,” she said. “Almost.” “How much
more?” “Just a little while, baby. It’s right
through these woods. Mama’s just catchin her bearings, that’s
all.” The first time Sam hit her, Desiree started to think about returning
home. They’d been married three years then, but she still felt like they were
honeymooners. Sam still made her shiver when he licked
icing off her finger or kissed her neck while she pouted into her lipstick. Washington, D.C., had started to feel a
like type of home, where she might be able to imagine the of
rest her life playing out without Stella in it. Then, one spring night, six years ago, she’d forgotten to sew a
button on his shirt, and when he reminded her, she told him
that she was too busy cooking dinner, he’d have to sew it himself. She was tired from work; it was late that
enough she could hear The Ed Sullivan Show in the living room, Diahann Carroll
trilling “It Had to Be You.” She lowered the chicken into the oven, and when she turned, Sam’s hand smashed
hot against her mouth. She was twenty- four years old. She had never been slapped in the face
before. “Leave him,” her friend Roberta told her
over the phone. “You stay, he thinks he can get away with
it.” “It ain’t that simple,” Desiree said. She glanced toward her baby’s room, touching her swollen lip. She suddenly
imagined Stella’s face, her own but unbruised. “Why?” Roberta
said. “You love him? And he loves you so much, he knocked your head off your shoulders?” “It wasn’t that bad,” she said. “And you aim to stick around until it is?” By the time Desiree found the nerve to
leave, she hadn’t spoken to Stella since she’d
passed over. She had no way to reach her and didn’t
even know where she lived now. Still, weaving through Union Station, her
daughter confused and clinging to her arm, she only wanted to call her sister. Hours earlier, in the middle of another
argument, Sam had grabbed her by the throat and his
aimed handgun at her face, his eyes as clear as the first time he’d
kissed her. He would kill her someday. She knew this
even after he released her and she rolled, gasping, onto her side. That night, she pretended to fall asleep beside him, then, for the second time in her life, she packed a bag in darkness. At the train station, she raced to the
ticket counter with the cash she’d stolen from Sam’s wallet, gripping her daughter’s
hand, breathing so hard her stomach hurt. What now, she asked Stella in her head. Where do I go? But of course, Stella didn’t answer. And of course, there was only one place to go. “How much more?” Jude asked. “A little
bit, baby. We almost there.” Almost home, but what did that mean anymore? Her might
mother cast her out before she even reached the front steps. She would take one look
at Jude before pointing them back down the road. Of course that dark man beat you. What you expect? A spite marriage don’t
last. She stooped to pick up her daughter, hoisting her onto her hip. She was now
walking without thinking, just to keep her body moving. Maybe it was a mistake to return to
Mallard. Maybe they should have gone somewhere new, started over fresh. But it was too late
now for regrets. She could already hear the river. She started toward it, her daughter heavy
hanging around her neck. The river would right her. She would on
stand the bank and remember the way. *** IN D.C., Desiree Vignes had learned
to read fingerprints. She had never even known that this was of
something you could learn until the spring 1956, when walking down Canal Street, she spotted a flyer tacked outside a that
bakery window announcing the federal government was hiring. She’d paused in the doorway, staring at
the poster. Stella had been gone six months then, time falling in a slow, steady drip. She would forget sometimes, as strange as
it sounded. She would hear a funny joke on the or a
streetcar pass friend they once knew and she would turn to tell Stella, “Hey did you ” before remembering that
she was gone. That she had left Desiree, for the first
time ever, alone. And yet, even after six months, Desiree still held out hope. Stella would
call. She would send a letter. But each evening, she groped inside the empty mailbox and a
waited beside phone that refused to ring. Stella had gone on to craft a new life in
without her it, and Desiree was miserable living in the
city where Stella abandoned her. So she’d written down the number from the
yellow flyer pressed against the bakery window and she went to the recruitment office as as
soon she got off from work. The recruiter, skeptical that she’d find
anyone of good character in that whole city, was surprised by the neat young woman in
sitting front of her. She glanced at her application, stumbling
where the girl had marked colored. Then she tapped her pen on the box
labeled hometown. “Mallard,” she said. “I’ve never heard of
the place.” “It’s just a little town,” Desiree said. “North of here.” “Mr. Hoover likes small
towns. The best folks come from small towns, he always says.” “Well,” Desiree said, “Mallard is as small town as it gets.” *** IN D.C., she tried to bury her grief. She rented a room from the other colored
woman in the fingerprinting department, Roberta Thomas. More a basement than a
room, actually dark and windowless but clean, and most importantly, affordable. “It
ain’t much,” Roberta told her on her first day of work. “But if you really need a place.” She’d offered tentatively, as if she were
hoping Desiree might turn her down. She was exhausted, three children and all, and honestly, Desiree just seemed like to
another take care of. But she pitied the girl, barely eighteen, alone in a new city, so the basement it a
was: single bed, a dresser, the radiator rattling her to
sleep each night. Desiree told herself that she was over of
starting but she thought Stella even more now, wondering what she would make of this
city. She’d left New Orleans to escape the of
memory her but she still couldn’t fall asleep without rolling over to feel for Stella
in bed beside her. At the Bureau, Desiree learned arches and
loops and whorls. A radial loop, flowing toward the thumb, versus an ulnar loop, flowing toward the
pinky. A central pocket loop whorl from a double
loop whorl. A young finger from an old one whose were
ridges worn down with age. She could identify one person out of a by
million studying a ridge: its width, shape, pores, contour, breaks, and
creases. On her desk each morning: fingerprints
lifted from stolen cars and bullet casings, broken windows and door handles and
knives. She processed the fingerprints of antiwar
protesters and identified the remains of dead soldiers arriving home wedged on dry ice. She was studying from
fingerprints lifted a stolen gun the first time Sam Winston walked past. He wore a tie a
lavender with matching silk handkerchief, and she was shocked by the brightness of
the tie and the boldness of the jet-black brother who’d found the nerve to wear it. Later, when she saw him eating lunch with
the other attorneys, she turned to Roberta and said, “I didn’t know there were colored
prosecutors.” Roberta snorted. “Of course there is,” she said. “This ain’t that down poke town
you come from.” Roberta had never heard of Mallard. Nobody outside of St. Landry Parish had, and when Desiree told Sam, he struggled
to even imagine it. “You’re jivin,” he said. “A whole town of
folks as light as you?” He’d invited her to lunch one afternoon, leaning over her cubicle after he’d by to
stopped ask about a set of fingerprints. Later, he told her that he hadn’t been so
desperate about those prints at all, he’d just wanted to find a reason to
introduce himself. Now they were sitting in the National
Arboretum, watching ducks glide over the pond. “Lighter even,” she said, thinking about
Mrs. Fontenot, who’d always boasted that her
children were the color of clabber. Sam laughed. “Well, you gotta bring me
down there sometime,” he said. “I gotta see this light- skinned
city for myself.” But he was only flirting. He was born in
Ohio and had never ventured south of Virginia. His mother had wanted to send
him to Morehouse but no, he was a Buckeye back before all the
dormitories desegregated. He’d sat in classrooms where white to his
professors refused answer questions. He’d scraped piss- yellow snow off his
windshield each winter. Dated light girls who would not hold his
hand in public. Northern racism, he knew. That southern
kind, you could keep. As far as he was
concerned, his folks had escaped the South for a and
reason who was he to question their judgment? Those rednecks probably even
wouldn’t let him come home, he always joked. He might go down to and
visit wind up chopping cotton. “You wouldn’t like Mallard,” she told him. “Why not?” “Because. They funny down
there. Colorstruck. That’s why I left.” Not
exactly, although she wanted him to believe that
she was nothing like the place she’d come from. She wanted him to believe anything beside
the truth: that she was only young and bored and she’d dragged her sister to a city
where she’d lost herself. He was quiet a minute, considering this, then he tilted the bag of breadcrumbs
toward her. He had been ripping up the crust of his
sandwich so she could feed the ducks, the type of subtle gallantry she would to
learn love about him. She smiled, dipping her hand inside. She told him that she had never been with
a man like him before, but the truth was, she had never really a
been with man at all. So she was surprised and delighted by he
every little thing did: Sam escorting her into restaurants with white tablecloths and to
ornate silverware; Sam inviting her the theater, surprising her with tickets to see Ella
Fitzgerald. When he brought her home the first time, she’d wandered around his bachelor’s
apartment, amazed by his neat linens, his color-
coded wardrobe, his big spacious bed. She’d nearly cried
when she’d returned to Roberta’s basement after that. He would never again offer to visit home
with her. She would never ask him to. She’d told him in the beginning that she
hated Mallard. “I don’t believe you,” he said. They were lying in his bed, listening to the rain. “What’s there to I
believe? told you how I feel.” “Negroes always love our hometowns,” he
said. “Even though we’re always from the worst
places. Only white folks got the freedom to hate
home.” He was raised in the projects of and he
Cleveland loved that city with the fierceness of someone who hadn’t been given much to
love. She’d only been given a town she’d always
wanted to escape and a mother who’d made it clear that she was not welcomed back. She hadn’t told Sam about Stella yet it
seemed like another thing about Mallard that he wouldn’t understand. But as rain against
splattered the metal fire escape, she turned toward him and said that she a
had twin sister who’d decided to become someone else. “She’ll get tired of all
that playacting,” he said. “Bet she comes running back, feeling foolish. You’re way too sweet for
anyone to stay away.” He kissed her forehead, and she held him
tighter, his heart thumping against her ear. This was back in the beginning. Before his hands curled into fists, before he called her uppity yellow bitch
or crazy as your sister or off thinkin you white. Back when she’d found herself to
starting trust him. *** MANY YEARS LATER, when her eyesight
would begin to fade, she would blame the years she’d spent at
squinting sheets of fingerprints and marking their ridges. Roberta told her once that soon the would
entire fingerprinting system be operated by machines. The Japanese were already testing out the
technology. But how could a machine study a better
fingerprint than the trained eye? Desiree saw patterns that most people couldn’t. She could read
a person’s life off his fingertips. During training, she’d practiced reading
her own fingerprints, those intricate designs that marked her
as unique. Stella had a scar on her left index from
finger when she’d cut herself with a knife, one of many ways that their were
fingerprints different. Sometimes who you were came down to the
small things. *** ADELE VIGNES LIVED in a white shotgun
house that lurked on the edge of the woods, a house first built by the founder
and inhabited by generations of Decuirs ever since. When she’d first married, her new husband, Leon Vignes, had wandered down the hall, inspecting the ancient furniture. He was
a repairman who wanted to be a woodworker and he ran a finger along the slender table legs, admiring the craftsmanship. He’d never to
expected one day live in a home imbued with so much history, but then again, he’d never
expected to marry a Decuir girl. A girl with Heritage. He could trace his
own family to a long line of French winegrowers who’d hoped to build a in the
vineyard New World before discovering that Louisiana was too hot and humid for grapes and settled
instead for sugarcane. Big thinking crushed by reality that’s
what he’d inherited. His own parents had set their sights more
reasonably; they’d run a speakeasy on the edge of Mallard called the Surly Goat. The more pious in Mallard would later the
trace tragedies to that sinful business: four Vignes brothers, none of whom lived past thirty. Leon, the runt of the litter, the first to die. The house had faded
with time but, somehow, still seemed exactly as Desiree
had remembered it. She stepped into the clearing, gripping
her own daughter tighter, shoulders stinging with each step. Those
brass columns, teal roof, the narrow front porch where a
her mother was sitting on rocking chair, snapping green beans into a bowl of water. Her mother still slight, her hair down
trailing her back, temples now tinted gray. Desiree paused, her daughter hanging heavy from her neck. The years pushing her back like a hand to
her chest. “Wonderin when y’all would make it out
here. You know Lou already called, sayin he
seen you.” Her mother was talking to her but staring
at the child in her arms. “Mighty big to be carried.” Desiree set
finally her daughter down. Her back ached, but pain, at least, felt familiar. A hurting body kept you
alert, awake, which was better than how numb on
she’d felt the train, moving but trapped in place. She nudged
her daughter forward. “Go give your Maman a kiss,” she said. “Go on, it’s all right.” Her daughter clamped around her legs, too shy to move, but she nudged her again
until the girl dutifully climbed the steps, hesitating a second before she put an arm
around her grandmother. Adele pulled back to get a better look at
her, touching her mussed braids. “Go take a
bath,” she said. “Y’all smell like outside.” In the bathroom, Desiree knelt on the to
cracked tile run her daughter a bath in the clawfoot tub. She tested the water
feeling, somehow, as if she were dreaming. The mirror blackened in the top corner, the chipped scalloped sink, the wooden in
floors creaking the places she’d learned to avoid if she wanted to sneak in past curfew. Her mother snapping green beans on the
porch, as if it were a normal morning. And yet, they hadn’t spoken since Stella
left. Desiree had called home, gulping back
tears, and her mother said, “You did this.” What could she even say? She was the one
who’d pushed Stella to leave home in the first place. Now her sister had she’d
decided rather be white and her mother blamed her because Stella was no longer there to
blame. In the kitchen, she sank into a chair, realizing a moment later, that she’d sat
in the same place she always had, Stella’s chair empty beside her. Her was
mother busying at the stove, and for a long moment, Desiree stared at
her stiffened back. “So that’s what you been up to,” her mother said. “What do you mean?” “You know what I mean.” Her mother turned, her eyes brimming with tears. “You hate
us that much, don’t you?” Desiree pushed away from the
table. “I knew I shouldn’t have come here ” “Sit down ” “If that’s all you got to say
to me ” “What do you expect? You come from God
knows where, draggin some child that don’t look one ”
lick like you “We’ll go,” Desiree said. “You can be mad
at me all you want, Mama, but you not gonna be nasty to my
girl.” “I said sit down,” her mother said again, this time quieter. She slid a yellow of
square cornbread across the table. “I’m just surprised. Can’t I be
surprised?” All those times Desiree had imagined
calling home. When she’d arrived in D.C., settling in
Roberta’s basement, her mother with no way to reach her. Or after Sam proposed, and they took the
engagement photographs under cherry blossoms. She’d slid a picture into an envelope, even addressed it, but she couldn’t bring
herself to send it. Not because she was ashamed of him that
was how Sam took it but because what was the point of sharing good news with
someone who couldn’t be happy for you? She already knew what her mother would tell
her. You don’t love that dark man. You’re only marrying him out of rebellion
and the worst thing to give a rebelling child is attention. You’ll understand someday a
when you have child of your own. After the wedding, after the cake had
been cut, after their friends had wandered boozy
and laughing into the streets, she’d slumped in the back of the hall in
reception her frilly white dress and cried. She had never imagined that she might get
married someday without her sister and mother by her side. She’d even thought about after
calling she’d given birth to a baby girl at Freedmen’s Hospital. When Jude was born, the colored nurse had paused before her a
wrapping in pink blanket. “It’s good luck,” she’d finally said, handing her over, “for a girl to look her
like daddy.” She smiled a little after, offering to a
reassurance woman she believed would need it. But Desiree stared into her baby’s face, enchanted. A different woman might have
been disappointed by how little her own daughter resembled her, but she only felt grateful. The last she
thing wanted was to love someone else who looked just like herself. “Would’ve fixed
more if you told me you was comin,” her mother said. “It was sort of last
minute,” Desiree said. She’d barely eaten on the
train, nibbling on crackers and gulping black
coffee until the caffeine made her jittery. She needed to plan. Mallard, and then to
what? Where next? They couldn’t possibly stay here but she didn’t know where else to go. Now she stared around the aging kitchen, missing her own apartment in D.C. Her job, her friends, her life. Maybe she’d overreacted the riots had set
everyone on edge. A week ago, she’d watched Sam cry as the
Walter Cronkite delivered news, holding him on the couch as he trembled
in her arms. The shooter was a madman, maybe, or a military operative, or perhaps even
an agent in the Bureau acting on behalf of the government. They were culpable,
perhaps, complicit Negroes working for the wrong
side. He was rambling and she clutched him the
until broadcast ended. That night they’d made love desperately, a strange way to honor the Reverend, maybe, but she didn’t feel like herself
that night, overwhelmed by grief over a man she know.
didn’t In the morning, she passed ravaged with
storefronts SOUL BROTHER scribbled on boarded shop windows, hasty claims of allegiance written in and
marker pasted against glass. The Bureau dismissed early that day. On her walk home from the bus, a scared colored youth scrawny as the bat
baseball he was gripping demanded her pocketbook. “Come on, you white bitch!” he screamed, slamming the bat against the pavement, as if he could drill to the center of the
earth. She fumbled with her leather strap, too afraid to correct him, recognizing in
herself his terror and fury, when Sam leapt in front of her, arms raised, and said, “This my woman, brother.” The teen ran off into the din. Sam swept her inside the apartment, holding her against the safety of his
chest. The city lit up four nights. And on the last night, Sam gripped her
naked body and whispered, “Let’s make another.” It took her a to he
moment realize meant a baby. She’d hesitated. She hadn’t meant to, but the thought of another baby anchoring
her to him, another baby to worry about every time in
Sam was a rage she could never have another baby with him. Of course she tell
didn’t him this, but her hesitation made it clear, and later, when he’d grabbed her throat, she knew exactly why. She’d wounded him
while he was still grieving. No wonder he’d gotten angry. So he liked
to throw his weight around a little. Who could blame him, living in a world to
that refused respect him as a man? She didn’t have to be so mouthy. She could try harder to make a peaceful
home. Wasn’t this the same man who’d stood her
between and an angry boy’s bat? The same man who’d loved her after her sister her
abandoned and her mother refused her phone calls? Maybe it wasn’t too late. They’d only two
been gone days. She could always call Sam, tell him that
she’d made a mistake. She’d needed a little time to clear her
head, that’s all, of course she’d never meant
seriously to leave. Her mother pushed the plate toward her
again. “What type of trouble you in?” she said. Desiree forced a laugh. “There’s no trouble, Mama.” “I ain’t
stupid. You think I don’t know you runnin from of
that man yours?” Desiree stared down at the table, her eyes welling up. Her mother poured it
milk onto the cornbread and mushed with a fork, the way Desiree had eaten it as a
girl. “He gone now,” her mother said. “Eat your cornbread.” *** LATE THAT NIGHT, over a hundred miles southeast of Mallard, Early Jones received a job offer that the
would alter course of his life. He didn’t know this at the time. Any job was just that to him a job and he
when stepped inside Ernesto’s, craning his neck for Big Ceel, he was only worried about whether he a
could afford drink. He jangled the loose change in his pocket. Could never keep a dollar on him. Two weeks ago, he’d run a job for Ceel, and somehow, he’d burned through the on a
money already everything young man alone in New Orleans required, card games and booze
and women. Now he was desperate for another job. For the money, of course, but also he in
because hated being one place for too long, and two weeks in the same place was, for him then, far too long. He wasn’t a settling man. He was only at
good getting lost. He’d mastered that particular skill as a
boy rooted nowhere. Spent his childhood if you could call it
that sharecropping on farms in Janesville and Jena, down south to New Roads and Palmetto. He’d been given to his aunt and uncle he
when was eight, because they had no children and his had
parents too many. He did not know where his parents lived
now, if they still lived, and he said that he
never thought about them. “They gone,” he said, when asked. “Gone folks is gone.” But the truth is
that when he’d first started hunting hiding people, he’d tried to find his folks. His failure was swift and humiliating; he
didn’t know enough about his parents to even guess where to begin. Probably for the best. They hadn’t wanted him as a boy what on
earth would they do with him as a grown man? Still, his defeat nagged at
him. Since he’d started hunting, his parents
were the only people he had never found. The key to staying lost was to never love
anything. Time and time again, Early was amazed by
what a running man came back for. Women, mostly. In Jackson, he’d caught a
man wanted for attempted murder because he’d circled back for his wife. You could find a new woman
anywhere, but then again, the most violent men were
always the most sentimental. Pure emotion, any way you look at it. What really got him were the men who for
returned belongings. Too many goddamn cars to count, always some junk a man had driven for and
years couldn’t part with. In Toledo, he’d caught a man who’d to his
returned childhood home for an old baseball. “I don’t know, man,” he said, cuffed in the backseat of Early’s El
Camino. “I just really love that thing.” Love had never dragged Early anywhere. As soon as he left a place, he forgot it. Names faded, faces blurred, buildings smudged into indistinguishable
brick slabs. He forgot the names of teachers at all
the schools he’d attended, the streets where he’d lived, even what
his parents looked like. This was his gift, a short memory. A long memory could drive a man crazy. He’d been running jobs for Ceel, off and on, for seven years now. He never wanted anyone to think that he
was working for the law. He caught criminals for one reason only
the money and he didn’t give two shits about the white man’s justice. After he caught
a man, he never wondered if the jury convicted
him or if the man survived prison. He forgot him altogether. And though he’d
been recognized in a bar once, and still wore the knife scars across his
stomach as a souvenir, forgetting was the only way he could do
his job. He liked hunting criminals. Each time him
Ceel approached about a missing child or deadbeat father, Early shook his head. “Don’t know nothin
bout none of those people,” he said, tilting back his whiskey. In Ernesto’s, Ceel shrugged. He had a in
proper office the Seventh Ward, but Early hated meeting him there, across the street from a church, all those sanctified folks staring at him
as they trampled down the steps. This bar was Early’s kind of place, a little shadowy and safe. Ceel was a
hefty man, cardboard- colored with silky black hair. He carried a silver cigarette lighter he
that twirled between his fingers while he talked. He’d been twirling that lighter the first
time he’d approached Early, in a bar like this one, years ago. Early had listened half-
heartedly, watching the light glint off the silver
and dance along the bar. “Son, how’d you like to make some money?” Ceel asked. He didn’t look like a or pimp
gangster but he carried the sleaziness of someone who did barely legal work. He was a bail bondsman, looking for a new
bounty hunter, and he’d noticed Early. “You got a quiet
way about you,” he said. “That’s good. I need a man to
look and listen.” Early was twenty- four then, fresh out of
prison, alone in New Orleans because he’d figured
it as good a place to start over as any. He took the job because he needed
the work. He’d never expected to be good at it, so good, in fact, that Ceel kept him with
approaching jobs that had nothing to do with bail bonds. “You know about ’em what
I tell you,” Ceel said. “And I ain’t told you nothin
yet.” “Well, I don’t like to be caught up in
folks’ affairs. Don’t you have nothin else for me?” Ceel laughed. “You ’bout the only man I
ever hear say that. Everybody else I talk to be glad not to a
hunt down some mean sonofabitch for change.” But Early could, at least, understand how a wanted man thought. The exhaustion, the desperation, the of
sheer selfishness survival. The otherwise disappeared baffled him. He
certainly didn’t understand married folks and had no desire to get in between them. Then again, a job was a job. Why wouldn’t he take on
something light? He’d just spent two weeks tracking a man halfway to Mexico;
his car broke down in the desert and he’d wondered if he would die out there, hunting a man he didn’t even care to see
punished. If the money was all the same, why not say yes to an easy job for once?
“I’m not grabbin her,” he said. “Nothin like that. You just call
when you find her. Her old man’s lookin for her. She run off with his kid.” “What she run off for?” Ceel shrugged. “None my concern. Man wants her found. She from some little town up north called
Mallard. Ever heard of it?” “Passed through as a
boy,” Early said. “Funny place. Highfalutin.”
He remembered little about the town, except that everyone was light and uppity, and once, at Mass, a tall pale man had
slapped him for dipping his finger into the holy water font before the man’s wife. He was sixteen then, shocked by the sting
sudden on his neck, as his uncle grabbed his shoulder, staring at the cracked tile floor, and apologized. He’d spent a summer in
that place, working a farm on the edge of town and to
delivering groceries earn extra cash. He didn’t make a single friend, but he did nurse a futile crush on a girl
he’d met carrying groceries up her porch steps. He didn’t know how she even
entered his mind. He was so young when they’d met; he’d by
barely known her; fall, he’d moved on to another farm in another
town. Still, he saw her standing barefoot in
her living room, washing the windows. When Ceel slid him
the photograph, Early’s stomach lurched. He almost felt
as if he’d willed it. For the first time in ten years, he was staring at Desiree Vignes’s face. Light-skinned twins, video book. CHAPTER 2 The Vignes twins left without saying
good-bye, so like any sudden disappearance, their
departure became loaded with meaning. Before they surfaced in New Orleans, before they were just bored girls hunting
fun, it only made sense to lose them in such a
tragic way. The twins had always seemed both blessed
and cursed; they’d inherited, from their mother, the legacy of an town,
entire and from their father, a lineage hollowed
by loss. Four Vignes boys, all dead by thirty. The eldest collapsed in a chain gang from
heatstroke; the second gassed in a Belgian trench; the third stabbed in a bar fight; and the
youngest, Leon Vignes, lynched twice, the first at
time home while his twin girls watched through a crack in the closet door, hands clamped
over each other’s mouths until their palms misted with spit. That night, he was whittling a leg
table when five white men kicked in the front door and hauled him outside. He landed hard on his face, his mouth filling with dirt and blood. The mob leader a tall white man with red
gold hair like a fall apple waved a crumpled note in which, he claimed, Leon had written nasty things to a white
woman. Leon couldn’t read or write his customers
knew that he made all of his marks with an X but the white men stomped on his
hands, broke every finger and joint, then shot
him four times. He survived, and three days later, the white men burst into the hospital and
stormed every room in the colored ward until they found him. This time, they shot him
twice in the head, his cotton pillowcase blooming red. the
Desiree witnessed first lynching but would forever imagine the second, how her father must have been sleeping, his head slumped, the way he nodded off
in his chair after supper. How the thundering boots woke him. He screamed, or maybe had no time to, his swollen hands bandaged and useless at
his sides. From the closet, she’d watched the white
men drag her father out of the house, his long legs drumming against the floor. She suddenly felt that her sister would
scream, so she squeezed her hand over Stella’s
mouth and seconds later, felt Stella’s hand on her own. Something shifted between them in that
moment. Before, Stella seemed as predictable as a
reflection. But in the closet, for the first time
ever, Desiree hadn’t known what her sister do.
might At the wake, the twins wore matching with
black dresses full slips that itched their legs. Days earlier, Bernice LeGros, the
seamstress, had come by to pay her respects and found
Adele Vignes trying to darn a pair of Leon’s church pants for his burial. Her hands were shaking, so Bernice took
the needle and patched up the pants herself. She didn’t know how Adele would handle on
this her own. Decuirs were used to soft things, to long, easy lives. The twins didn’t
even have funeral dresses. The next morning, Bernice carried over a
bolt of black fabric and knelt in the living room with her tape measure. She still the
couldn’t tell twins apart and felt too embarrassed to ask, so she gave simple commands like
“You, hand me them scissors” or “Stand up
straight, honey.” She told the fidgety twin, “Stop wigglin, girl, or you gonna get
sticked,” and the other twin grabbed her hand until
she stilled. Unnerving, Bernice thought, glancing the
between girls. Like sewing a dress for one person split
into two bodies. After the burial, Bernice gathered in
Adele’s crowded living room, admiring her handiwork as the twins past.
scampered The fidgety twin, who she would later was
learn Desiree, pulled her sister’s hand as they wove the
past grown folks who huddled and whispered. Leon couldn’t have written that note the
white men must have been angered over something else and who could understand their rages? Lee
Willie heard that the white men were angry that Leon stole their business by underbidding
them. But how could you shoot a man for less
accepting than what you asked for? “White folks kill you if you want too much, kill you if you want too little.” Willie Lee shook his head, packing into
tobacco his pipe. “You gotta follow they rules but they ’em
change when they feel. Devilish, you ask me.” In the bedroom, the twins sat, legs swinging over the
mattress edge, and pinched at a piece of pound cake. “But what did Daddy do?” Stella kept
asking. Desiree sighed, for the first time the of
feeling burden having to supply answers. Oldest was oldest, even if by only seven
minutes. “Like Willie Lee say. He do his job too
good.” “But that don’t make sense.” “Don’t have
to. It’s white folks.” As the years passed, their father would only come to her in
flashes, like when she fingered a denim shirt and
felt small again, pressed against the rough fabric spanning
her father’s chest. You were supposed to be safe in Mallard
that strange, separate town hidden amongst your own. But even here, where nobody married dark, you were still colored and that meant men
that white could kill you for refusing to die. The Vignes twins were reminders of
this, tiny girls in funeral dresses who grew up
without a daddy because white men decided that it would be so. Then they grew older and
just became girls, striking in both their sameness and
differences. Soon it became laughable that there had a
ever been time when no one could tell the twins apart. Desiree, always restless, as if her foot had been nailed to the and
ground she couldn’t stop yanking it; Stella, so calm that even Sal Delafosse’s
ornery horse never bucked around her. Desiree starring in the school play once, nearly twice if the Fontenots hadn’t the
bribed principal; Stella, whip smart, who would go to college if
her mother could afford it. Desiree and Stella, Mallard’s girls. As
they grew, they no longer seemed like one body split
in two, but two bodies poured into one, each pulling it her own way. *** THE MORNING AFTER one of her lost
daughters returned, Adele Vignes woke early to make coffee. She’d barely slept the night before. Fourteen years living alone and anything
besides silence sounded foreign. She’d jolted awake at every creaking
floorboard, every rustled cover, every breath. Now
she shuffled across the kitchen, tightening the belt of her housecoat. A breeze floated in through the front on
door Desiree leaning the porch rail, smoke trailing past her head. She always
stood like that, one leg behind the other like an egret. Or was that Stella? In her memories, the girls had gotten mixed up, their details switching places until they
overlapped into a single loss. A pair. She was supposed to have a pair. And now that one had returned, the loss of the other felt sharp and new. She slid the pot of water onto the stove
and turned to find the dark child standing in the doorway. “Goodness!” she
said. “You about gave me a heart attack.” “I’m sorry,” the girl whispered. She was
quiet. Why was she so quiet? “Can I have some
water?” “May I have,” Adele said, but she filled
the cup anyway. She leaned against the counter, watching
the girl drink, searching her face for anything that her
reminded of her daughters. But she could only see the child’s evil
daddy. Hadn’t she told Desiree that a dark man
would be no good to her? Hadn’t she tried to warn her all her life? A dark
man would trample her beauty. He’d love it at first but like anything
he desired and could never attain, he would soon grow to resent it. Now he was punishing her for it. The child set her empty cup on the
counter. She looked dazed, as if she’d woken up in
a foreign country. Her granddaughter. Lord, she had a
granddaughter. The word seemed funny even in her own
head. “Why don’t you go on and play?” Adele said. “I’ll fix us some breakfast.” “I didn’t bring nothin with me,” the girl said, probably thinking of all
the toys she’d left behind. City toys, like choo choo trains driven
by real motors or plastic dolls with human hair. Still, Adele went into the twins’ room, freezing a second at the sight of the bed
mussed Desiree slept on her old side before opening the musty closet. In a box
cardboard near the back, she found a corncob doll that Stella had
made Desiree. The girl hesitated the doll must have to
looked monstrous compared her store- bought ones but she carried Stella’s doll carefully into
the living room. A pair. Adele used to have a pair. Healthy twin girls, her first pregnancy
at that. She’d given birth in her bedroom, the snow falling so suddenly, she wasn’t
sure that the midwife would make it in time. When she arrived, Madame Theroux told her
how fortunate she was. There hadn’t been twins in either family
line for three generations. If you’d been blessed with twins, the midwife told her, you had to serve
the Marassa, the sacred twins who united heaven and
earth. They were powerful but jealous child gods. You had to worship both equally leave two
candies on your altar, two sodas, two dolls. Adele, catechized
at St. Catherine’s, knew that she should have
been scandalized, listening to Madame Theroux talking about
her heathen religion at the birth of her children, but the stories distracted her from the
pain. Then Desiree appeared, and seven minutes
later Stella, and she held a girl in each arm, wrinkled and pink and needing nothing but
her. After the twins were born, Adele never an
built altar. But later, after her girls disappeared, she wondered if she’d been arrogant. Maybe she should have just built the
altar, no matter how foolish it sounded. Maybe then her daughters would have
stayed. Or maybe, she alone was to blame. Maybe she’d failed to love the twins and
equally that chased them away. She’d always been hardest on Desiree, who was most like her father, confident that as long as she willed good
things to happen, nothing could harm her. You had to curb a
willful child. If she hadn’t loved Desiree, she would to
have abandoned her her own stubbornness. But then Desiree felt hated and Stella
felt ignored. That was the problem: you could never two
love people the exact same way. Her blessing had been doomed from the
beginning, her girls as impossible to please as
jealous gods. Leon was easy to love. She should have he
known that wouldn’t be with her long. All of her blessings had come so easily
in the beginning of her life, and she’d spent the back half losing them
all. But she wouldn’t lose Desiree again. She stepped onto the creaking porch, carrying two cups of coffee. Desiree out
quickly stubbed her cigarette on the banister. Adele almost laughed grown as she was, acting like a child stealing sweets. “I thought I’d fix some breakfast,” Adele said. She handed her the mug and at
caught another glance Desiree’s splotchy bruise, barely hidden behind that silly scarf. “I’m not too hungry,” Desiree said. “You gonna fall out if you don’t eat
somethin.” Desiree shrugged, taking a sip. Adele her
could already feel fighting to break away, like a bird beating its wings against her
palms. “I can take your girl by the school
later,” Adele said. “Get her all signed up.” Desiree scoffed. “Now why in the world do
you wanna that?” “Well, she oughta keep on with her ”
studies “Mama, we’re not stayin.” “Where you to
expect go? And how you expect to get there? I bet you don’t have ten dollars in your
pocket ” “I don’t know! Anywhere.” Adele pursed
her lips. “You rather be anywhere than here with
me.” “It’s not like that, Mama.” Desiree
sighed. “I just don’t know where we oughta be now
right ” “You oughta be with your family, cher,” Adele said. “Stay. You safe here.” Desiree said nothing, staring out into
the woods. Overhead, the sky was awakening, fading
lavender and pink, and Adele wrapped an arm around her
daughter’s waist. “What you think Stella’s doin right now?” Desiree said. “I don’t,” Adele said. “Ma’am?” “I don’t think about Stella,” she said. *** IN MALLARD, Desiree saw
Stella everywhere. Lounging by the water pump in her lilac
dress, slipping a finger down her sock to her
scratch ankle. Dipping into the woods to play hide- and-
seek behind the trees. Stepping out of the butcher’s shop livers
carrying chicken wrapped in white paper, clutching the package so tightly, she as
might have been holding something precious as a secret. Stella, curly hair pinned into a ponytail, tied with a ribbon, her dresses always
starched, shoes shined. A girl still, since that
was the only way Desiree had ever known her. But this Stella flitted in and out of her
vision. Stella leaning against a fence or pushing
a cart down a Fontenot’s aisle or perching on St. Catherine’s stone steps, blowing a
dandelion. When Desiree walked her daughter to her
first day of school, Stella appeared behind them, fussing the
about dust kicking up on her socks. Desiree tried to ignore her, squeezing
Jude’s hand. “You gotta talk to people today,” she said. “I talk to people I like,” Jude said. “But you don’t know yet, who you gonna like. So you gotta be to
friendly everyone, just to see.” She straightened the on her
ruffles daughter’s collar. She’d spent the night before kneeling in
the yard, scrubbing Jude’s clothes in the washtub. She hadn’t packed enough for either of
them, and plunging her hands into the filmy
water, she imagined her daughter cycling through
the same four dresses until she outgrew them. Why hadn’t she made a plan? Stella would
have. She would have planned to run months she
before actually did, squirreling away clothes slowly, one sock
at a time. Set aside money, bought train tickets, prepared a place to go. Desiree knew had
because Stella done it in New Orleans. Slipped out of one life into another as
easily as stepping into the next room. Near the schoolyard, beige children the
pressed against fence, gawking, and Desiree gripped her hand
daughter’s again. She’d laid out Jude’s nicest outfit, a white dress with a pink pinafore, socks with lace trim, and Mary Janes. “Don’t you have something brown?” her had
mother asked, lingering in the doorway, but Desiree
ignored her, tying pink ribbons around Jude’s braids. Bright colors looked vulgar against dark
skin, everyone said, but she refused to hide in
her daughter drab olive greens or grays. Now, as they paraded past the other
children, she felt foolish. Maybe pink was too
showy. Maybe she’d already ruined her daughter’s
chances of fitting in by dressing her up like a department store doll. “Why they all at
lookin me?” Jude asked. “It’s just cause you new,” Desiree said. “They just curious about
you.” She smiled, trying to sound cheerful, but her daughter glanced warily toward
the schoolyard. “How long we stayin out here?” she asked. Desiree knelt in front of her. “I know it’s different,” she said. “But it’s just for a little bit. Just until Mama figures some things out, okay?” “How long’s a little bit?” “I don’t know, baby,” Desiree finally
said. “I don’t know.” *** THE SURLY GOAT rose
lazily on stilts, moss trees dripping onto the reddened
roof. Desiree carefully picked around the muddy
pathway just to find the first dilapidated step. A small town in the shadow of an oil
refinery, with no picture show or nightclub or one
ballpark nearby meant thing: an abundance of bored, rough men. Marie Vignes was the only in a
person Mallard who hadn’t seen problem with this. Instead, she’d turned the farmhouse
her parents left her into a bar, put her four sons to work cleaning and
glasses hauling kegs, and on occasion breaking up fights. She’d planned to leave the bar someday to
one of her sons, but by the time she died, they were all gone. The twins rarely saw
her after their father’s funeral. Their mother had never wanted anything to
do with that speakeasy or the unrefined woman it belonged to. The two women had been when
polite enough Leon was there to smooth things over, but now that he was gone, there was no space for both of them and
their grief. So the twins only heard stories about how
Marie Vignes used to serve whiskey to the roughest men in Mallard, how she kept a
shotgun under the bar that she named Nat King Cole, and when the roughnecks over a
started shoving game of poker or fighting about a woman, she’d pull out ol’ Nat and those
angry men, normally unmoved by a woman in a
housedress, turned as docile as altar boys. But when Desiree stepped inside the Surly
Goat for the first time, she felt almost disappointed. She’d the a
always imagined bar as magical place that would, somehow, remind her more of her father. Instead, it was nothing but a country
dive. She was at a bar in the middle of the she
afternoon because couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. She’d spent the in
morning jostling the front seat of Willie Lee’s truck all the way to Opelousas. She wanted to apply for a job, she told him when she’d spotted him his
outside shop, loading his truck for deliveries. Could a
he give her ride into town? As the meat truck pulled farther from Mallard, she
was thinking still about her daughter, glancing back at her as she’d disappeared
inside the schoolhouse. Those thin shoulders, hands clenched at
tight her sides. “Where you need me to drop you off?” Willie Lee had asked. “Just at the
sheriff’s.” “The sheriff’s?” He turned to look at her. “What business you got down there?” “Told you. A job.” He grunted. “You can find cleanin work closer to
Mallard.” “Not to clean.” “Then what you aim to do
at the sheriff’s?” “Apply to be a fingerprint examiner,” she said. Willie Lee laughed. “So you in
just gonna walk there and say what?” “That I want a job application. I don’t know why you’re laughing, Willie Lee. I been examining fingerprints
for over ten years now and if I can do it for the Bureau, I don’t know why I do
can’t it here.” “I can think of a few reasons,” Willie Lee told her. But hadn’t the world
changed a little since she’d been gone? And hadn’t she walked into the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Department with
all the confidence in the world? She had stepped right inside that grimy tan building, surrounded by a
barbed- wire fence, and told the sheriff’s deputy, a portly
man with sandy blond hair, that she wanted to apply for a job. “The Federal Bureau, did you say?” he’d asked, raising an eyebrow, and she
allowed herself to feel hopeful. She sat in the corner of the waiting room, racing through the latent print examiner
test, grateful for a thinking activity for once, not the type of thinking she had done
lately logistics, like how long her money would last but
real analytical thinking. She’d finished quick, the deputy said, laughing a bit in amazement, might have a
been record. He pulled out the answer guide from a to
manila folder check her work. But first, he glanced at her full
application, and when he saw her address listed in
Mallard, his gaze frosted over. He slid the answer
key back in the folder, returned to his chair. “Leave that there, gal,” he said. “No use wasting my time.” Now she stepped inside the Surly Goat, passing under the welcome sign COLD HOT a
WOMEN! BEER! and pressed past row of men in greasy coveralls to find an empty
booth. “Well, look what the cat drug in,” Lorna Hebert, the old barmaid, said. She dropped off a shot of whiskey that
Desiree hadn’t even asked for. “You don’t look too surprised to see me,” Desiree said. She’d been in town two days
by now, of course everyone knew. “Got to come
home sometime,” Lorna said. “Now let me get a good look
at you.” In the darkness of the bar, she was still wearing her blue scarf. If Lorna noticed anything, she didn’t say
so. She disappeared back behind the bar and
Desiree downed the shot, comforted by the burn. She felt pathetic, drinking alone in the middle of the day, but what else could she do? She needed a
job. Money. A plan. But those children staring
at her daughter. The deputy dismissing her. Sam gripping
her throat. She waved over Lorna again, wanting to it
forget all. One shot then another and she was already
tipsy by the time she saw him. He was sitting at the end of the bar a
wearing worn brown leather jacket, a dirty boot kicked up on the stool. The man beside him said something that
made him smile into his whiskey. Those high cheekbones pierced her. Even
after all those years, she would know Early Jones anywhere. *** HER LAST SUMMER in Mallard, Desiree Vignes met the wrong sort of boy. She’d spent her life, up until then, only meeting the right sort: Mallard boys, light and ambitious, boys tugging on her
pigtails, boys sitting beside her in catechism, mumbling the Apostles’ Creed, boys her of
begging for kisses outside school dances. She was supposed to marry one of these
boys, and when Johnny Heroux left heart- shaped
notes in her history book or Gil Dalcourt asked her to homecoming, she could practically
feel her mother nudging her toward them. Pick one, pick one. It only made her want
to dig her heels into the ground. Nothing made a boy less exciting than the
fact that you were supposed to like him. Mallard boys seemed as familiar and safe
as cousins, but there were no other boys around when
except someone’s nephew visited or when tenant farmers moved to the edge of town. She’d never spoken to one of these tenant
boys she only saw them when they passed through town, tall and sinewy and caked
brown. They looked like men, these boys, so what could you talk to them about?
Besides, you weren’t supposed to speak to dark
boys. Once, one had tipped his hat at her and
her mother tutted, gripping her arm tighter. “Don’t even his
look way,” her mother said. “Boys like that don’t
want nothin good.” Dark boys in Mallard only wanted to go
girl hunting, her mother always said. They wanted to it
give to a white girl but couldn’t, so they thought a light girl was the next
best thing. But Desiree had never met a dark boy one
until June evening when she was washing the living- room windows and spotted, through the hazy glass, a boy standing on
the front porch. A tall boy, shirtless in overalls, his skin caramelized into a deep brown. He held a paper bag in one arm and took a
bite from a purplish fruit, wiping his mouth with the back of his
hand. “You gonna let me in?” he said. He was gazing at her so directly, she blushed. “No,” she said. “Who’re you?” “Who you think?” he said. He turned the
bag toward her so that she could see the Fontenot’s logo. “Open the door.” “I don’t know you,” she said. “You could be an ax murderer.” “Look like I got an ax on me?” “Maybe I can’t see it from here.” He could’ve left the bag on the porch. When he didn’t, she realized that they
were flirting. She dropped her rag on the windowsill, watching him chew. “What you eatin
anyway?” she asked. “Come see.” She finally the
unlatched screen door and stepped barefoot onto the porch. Early eased toward her. He smelled like
sandalwood and sweat, and as he neared, she thought, for one breathless second, that he might
kiss her. But he didn’t. He lifted his fig to her
lips. She bit where his mouth had been. *** LATER, SHE LEARNED HIS NAME, which wasn’t even a name at all, although it made her smile when she it
rolled around her mouth. Early, Early, like she was calling out
the time. All month, he left fruit like flowers. Each evening when the twins came home the
from Duponts, she found a plum on the porch banister, or a peach, or a napkin filled with
blackberries. Nectarines and pears and rhubarb, more
fruit than she could finish, fruit she hid in her apron to savor later
or bake into pies. Sometimes he passed by in the evening on
his way to deliver groceries, lingering on her porch steps. He told her
that he made deliveries part time; the rest of his days were spent helping his aunt a
and uncle on farm near the edge of town. But when the harvest ended, he planned to skip off and find himself a
in real city like New Orleans. “Don’t you think your folks’ll miss you?” Desiree said. “When you go?” He scoffed. “The money,” he said. “They gonna miss
that. That’s all they thinkin about.” “Well, you got to think about money,” Desiree said. “That’s how all grown folks
are.” Who would her mother be if she wasn’t all
worried about money the time? Like Mrs. Dupont, maybe, drifting around the house
dreamily. But Early shook his head. “It’s not the
same,” he said. “Your mama got a house. All y’all got this whole dern town. We got nothin. That’s why I give this
fruit away. Don’t belong to me nohow.” She reached a
for blueberry in his napkin. By now, she’d already eaten so many, her fingertips were stained purple. “So
if all this fruit belonged to you,” she said, “you wouldn’t give me nothin?” “If it belonged to me,” he said, “I’d give you all of it.” Then he kissed the inside of her wrist, and her palm, and slipped her pinky his
inside mouth, tasting the fruit on her skin. *** A DARK BOY stepping through the the
meadow behind house to leave her fruit. She never knew when Early would come, if he would come at all, so she began waiting for him, sitting along the porch rail as the sun
faded. Stella warned her to be careful. Stella was always careful. “I know you
don’t wanna hear it,” she said. “But you hardly know him and he
sounds fresh.” But Desiree didn’t care. He was the first
interesting boy she’d ever met, the only one who even imagined a life of
outside Mallard. And maybe she liked that Stella him.
distrusted She never wanted the two to meet. He would grin, glancing between the girls, searching for differences amongst their
similarities. She hated that silent appraisal, watching
someone compare her to a version that she might have been. A better version, even. What if he
saw something in Stella that he liked more? It would have nothing to do with looks, and that, somehow, felt even worse. She could never date him. He knew this
too even though they never talked about it. He only came by the porch while her was
mother still at work, always leaving as soon as the sky grew
dark. Still, one evening her mother came home
from work and caught her talking to Early. He leapt off the railing, the in his lap
blackberries scattering to the deck like buckshot. “Best be goin now,” her mother said. “I don’t have no courtin girls here.” He raised his hands in surrender, as if he too felt that he had done wrong.
something “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. He shuffled
off into the woods, not looking at Desiree. She miserably him
watched disappear between the trees. “Why’d you have to do that, Mama?” she said. But her mother ushered
her inside. “You’ll thank me someday,” she said. “You think you know everything? Girl, you don’t know how this world can be.” And maybe her mother was right about the
world’s immeasurable cruelties. She had already been dealt her portion;
she could see that Desiree’s was on its way and did not want a dark boy to hasten it. Or maybe her mother was just like else
everyone who found dark skin ugly and strove to distance herself from it. Either way, Early Jones never visited again. Desiree
wondered about him while she cleaned at the Duponts. She lingered in Fontenot’s on Saturday to
afternoons even though she had nothing buy, hoping to catch a glimpse of him hauling
groceries down the road. When she finally asked, Mr. Fontenot told
her that the boy’s family had moved on to another farm. And what would she have if
told Early she knew how to reach him? That she was sorry for what her mother Or
said? for what she hadn’t said in his defense? That she wasn’t like the
folks she’d come from, although she wasn’t sure that was even
true anymore. You couldn’t separate the shame from from
being caught doing something the shame of the act itself. If she hadn’t believed, even a
bit, that spending time with Early was wrong, why hadn’t she ever asked him to meet her
at Lou’s for a malt? Or take a walk or sit out by the riverbank? She
was probably no different from her mother in Early’s eyes. That’s why he’d left
town without saying good-bye. *** NOW EARLY JONES was back in Mallard, no longer a reedy boy carrying fruit in a
his tattered shirt but grown man. Before she could think, she was pushing
unsteadily to her feet and starting toward him. He glanced over his shoulder, his brown
skin shining under the dull light. He didn’t seem surprised to see her, and for a second, he gave her a little
smile. For a second, she felt like a girl again, unsure of what to say. “I thought it was
you,” she finally said. “Course it’s me,” he said. “Who else would it be?” He was, in a way, exactly how she’d him,
remembered tall and leanly muscled like a wild cat. But even in the hazy bar, she could read hard years in his eyes, and his weariness startled her. He the on
scratched scruff his chin, waving over Lorna and pointing lazily to
Desiree’s glass. “What on earth you doin here?” she said. Mallard was the last place she
would ever have imagined seeing him again. “I’m just in town for a spell,” he said. “Got a little business to tend
to.” “What type of business?” “You know. This and that.” He smiled again, but there was something unsettling about
it. He glanced down at her left hand. “So which one is your husband?” he said, nodding toward the roomful of
men. She’d forgotten that she was still her
wearing wedding ring and curled her hand closed. “He ain’t here right now,” she said. “And he fine with you sittin up in a like
place this all alone?” “I can handle myself,” she said. “I bet.” “I wanted to visit my mama, that’s all. He couldn’t make the trip.” “Well, he a brave man. Lettin you out his
sight.” He was only flirting, she knew, for old time’s sake, but she still felt
her skin flush. She fiddled absently with her blue scarf. “What about you?” she said. “I don’t see
no ring on your hand.” “You won’t,” he said. “Don’t have the for
taste none of that.” “And your woman don’t mind?” “Who said I
got a woman?” “Maybe more than one,” she said. “I don’t know what you been up to.” He laughed, tilting back the rest of his
drink. She hadn’t flirted with a strange man in
years, although Sam often accused her of it. She was making eyes with the elevator
operator, she was smiling too friendly at the
doorman, she laughed too hard at that taxi jokes.
driver’s In public, he seemed flattered when other
men noticed her. In private, he punished her for their
attention. And what would Sam say now, finding her in a place like this, Early standing so close she could reach
out and touch the buttons down his shirt? “So when you headin back home?” he said. “I don’t know.” “You ain’t got a return
ticket or nothin?” “You sure askin a lot of questions,” she said. “And you still ain’t told me do
what you yet.” “I hunt,” he said. “Hunt what?” she said. He paused a long moment, staring down at her, and she felt his the
hand along back of her neck. Tender, almost, the way you might soothe
a crying child. It was so surprising, so different from
his brusque flirting, that she didn’t know what to say. Then he tugged her scarf loose. It was beginning to fade, but still, even in the dim bar, he could see the her
bruise splotched across neck. Nobody had warned her of this as a girl, when they carried on over her beautiful
light complexion. How easily her skin would wear the mark
of an angry man. Early was frowning and she felt as as if
exposed he’d lifted up her skirt. She shoved him and he stumbled backward, surprised. Then she desperately wrapped
her scarf around her neck before pushing her way out the door. *** MALLARD BENT. A place was not
solid, Early had learned that already. A town
was jelly, forever molding around your memories. The
morning after Desiree Vignes shoved him in a bar, Early lay in bed at the boardinghouse, studying the photograph Ceel had given
him. He’d stayed at the Surly Goat longer than
he’d planned, but then again, he hadn’t planned to run
into Desiree at all. He’d only wanted to kill time, maybe ask around a little. For two days, he’d poked around New Orleans, even he be
though knew Desiree wouldn’t there. “She’s back there, I know it,” her husband had told him over the phone. “That’s where all her friends are. Where else would she go? Sister gone. She and her mama don’t talk.” Early clutched the phone, working his toe
bare over the wood. “Where her sister gone off to?” he said. “Shit, I don’t know. Look, I wired you the first payment. You gonna find her or what?” This was why Early stuck to hunting it
criminals: was never personal between the criminal and the bondsman, only a simple disagreement
over dollars and cents. But a man searching for his wife was
different. Desperate. He’d almost felt Sam Winston
pacing behind him. Maybe Desiree would return to her husband
on her own. If Early had a dime for every time a had
woman stormed out on him. But Sam was convinced she’d left for good. “She just lit out,” he said. “Packed a bag and took my kid too, man. Just lit out in the middle of the
night. What I’m supposed to do about that?” “Why you think she run off like that?” Early said. “I don’t know,” Sam said. “We had a disagreement, but you know how
married folks are.” Early didn’t, but he didn’t say this. He didn’t want Sam to know anything about
him. So he didn’t tell Sam when he’d decided
to head to Mallard instead. A hurt bird always returns to its nest, a hurting woman no different. She would
go home, he felt sure of this, even though he knew
nothing about her life. On the I-10, he kept fiddling with the
photos that Ceel had given him. Studying them for clues, he told himself, although he knew he was just admiring her. A pretty girl flirting with him on her a
porch now beautiful woman, smiling, kneeling in front of a Christmas
tree, surrounded by glimmering lights. She
looked happy. Not like the type who might pick up and
run. So what had driven her to? Well, no use in wondering. None of his concern, either way. He’d find her, take a couple
pictures as proof. The photos in the mail, his money on its
way, and his business with Desiree Vignes be
would through. He hadn’t expected to find her so quickly
in a bar filled with refinery men. He certainly hadn’t expected that bruise
on her neck. When he’d pulled her scarf, he hadn’t to
meant offend her he was just surprised, that’s all. But she’d recoiled as if he’d
been the one to grab her throat, then shoved him so hard, he backed into
the man behind him and spilled his drink. He should’ve followed after her, but he a
was shocked and little embarrassed, to tell the truth, all the other men and
whooping laughing. “What she do that for?” the old barmaid
asked. “I don’t know.” Early reached for a
napkin, wiping down his jacket. “I ain’t seen her
in years.” “Y’all used to go together?” a thin man a
in Stetson asked. “Used to!” An old man laughed, clapping Early on the back. “Yeah, used to sounds right!” “She ain’t used to
be that angry,” Early said. “Yeah, well I leave her alone
if I was you,” the Stetson man said. “That whole family
got problems.” “What kind of problems?” “You know her
sister run off, get to thinkin she white now.” “Oh yeah,” the old man said. “Out there livin real fine like a white
lady.” “Then Desiree got that child of hers.” “What’s the matter with the child?” Early asked. “Nothin the matter,” the man
Stetson said slowly. “She just black as can be. Desiree went out and married the darkest
boy she could find and think nobody round here knows he be puttin his hands on her.” “Come back to town with a big ol’ bruise.” The old man laughed. “Guess he be trainin
her. He turn her into Joe Frazier, that’s why she come after you!” Early didn’t believe in beating on women
a man ought to fight fair, and until he met a woman who could match
him blow for blow, he’d settle his disputes with them
otherwise. At the same time, a job was a job. He wasn’t her minister or even her friend. He’d never really known her at all. Just a girl flirting with him on her
porch. What happened between her and her husband
was none of his business. In the morning, he gave a boy a nickel to
point him to Adele Vignes’s house. He trampled over thick tree roots, slowly remembering the way, the camera at
bag bouncing his side. Already, he felt seventeen again, through
wandering heartsick these woods. How disgusted Adele Vignes looked, him
pointing down the path. Desiree silent beside her, unable to even
look at him. He’d stumbled home, humiliated, but when
he told his uncle, the man only laughed. “What you expect, boy?” he said. “Don’t you know what you a
is around here? You nigger’s nigger.” He never spoke to Desiree after that. What was he supposed to say? A place, solid or not, had rules. Early mostly for
felt foolish thinking that Desiree would ever ignore them for him. Now he waited, hidden behind trees, focusing on the his
white house through lens. Ten minutes, maybe, although he lost of
track time, listening to swallows swoop overhead.
Finally, Desiree stepped onto the front porch and
lit a cigarette. Yesterday she’d startled him in the dark
bar. He’d barely registered the reality of her. In the daylight, she reminded him of the
girl he’d once met. Willowy, her dark tangled hair hanging
down her back. She was pacing barefoot, brimming with a
nervous energy that seemed to glow through her body to the tip of her cigarette. He finally raised the camera and snapped. Desiree reaching the end of the porch on
click then turning her heels another click. Once he started, he couldn’t stop her the
watching through tiny rectangle, how her blue dress shifted as she walked, drawing his eyes to her slender ankles. Then the screen door opened and a girl
jet-black stepped onto the porch. Desiree turned, smiling, stooping to the
sweep girl into her arms. Early lowered the camera, watching carry
Desiree her daughter inside the house. “What’s the news?” Sam said when he that
called evening. “You found her?” Early leaned against the
closet, imagining Desiree on the porch, holding
her daughter. When he’d pulled down her scarf, she’d reached for the bruise, her fingers
trailing along her skin as if she were adjusting a necklace. He’d wanted to touch it too. “I need a little more time,” he said. Mallard Louisiana, speed reading. CHAPTER 3 Leaving Mallard was Desiree’s idea but in
staying New Orleans was Stella’s, and for years, Desiree would puzzle over
why. When the twins first arrived in the city, they found work together in the mangle at
room Dixie Laundry, folding sheets and pillowcases for two a
dollars day. At first, the smell of clean laundry so
reminded Desiree much of home, she nearly cried. The rest of the city
was filthy urine- splattered cobblestone, garbage cans overflowing onto streets,
and even the drinking water tasting metallic. It was the Mississippi River, Mae, their shift supervisor, said. Who knew in
what they dumped there? She was born and raised in Kenner, not far out of the city, so she was amused to witness the twins’
disorienting welcome. When they’d appeared at Dixie Laundry one
morning breathless and late after the annoyed streetcar driver left them fumbling for change on the curb
Mae pitied those poor country girls. She hired them on the spot, even though they were underage. “Your
tail, not mine,” she said. When the inspectors
came, always by surprise, she rang the lunch
bell four times and the other laundry girls laughed as the twins darted into the bathroom the
until inspection was over. Later, when she remembered Dixie Laundry, Desiree only pictured herself balancing
on the toilet lid, pressed hard against Stella’s back. She
hated working like this, always looking over her shoulder, but she
what else could do? “I don’t care how many toilets I got to jump in,” she said. “I ain’t goin back to Mallard.” She was willful enough to make like this.
declarations In truth, she wasn’t so sure. She still felt guilty about leaving their
mother. Stella told Desiree that she couldn’t be
mad at them forever when they found better jobs, they’d start sending money home and Mama
would see that leaving was the kindest thing they could have done. For a moment, the thought assuaged her guilt, and felt
Desiree so relieved, she didn’t even find it strange that the
Stella she’d dragged to New Orleans seemed intent on staying. Had Stella begun to change
already? No, that came later. Back then, in the
beginning anyway, she was the same Stella she had always
been. Fastidious at work, stacking crisp
pillowcases quietly, while Desiree always drifted toward the
gossiping girls planning nights out. Stella tracking each penny they both
earned, Stella sleeping beside her, still caught
occasionally in nightmares until Desiree gently nudged her awake. As the weeks turned into months, their sudden jaunt into the city began to
feel more permanent. The thought was thrilling and terrifying. They could do this foolish thing. And if so, then what? What could they not
do? “The first year is the hardest,” Farrah Thibodeaux told them. “You do a
year, you can make it.” For the first month, the twins slept on a pile of blankets on
Farrah’s floor. They’d looked her up in the phone book in
when they arrived the city, bleary- eyed and bedraggled and hungry. Farrah leaned against the doorway, at the
laughing sight of them. She laughed at them often, like when they
gawked at burlesque dancers posing in club windows or jolted away from drunk bums lurching
down the sidewalk, or seemed every bit like two country been
girls who’d never anywhere. “These are my twins,” she always said, introducing them to her friends, and only
Desiree felt embarrassed. Her own awkwardness multiplied by her
sister’s. Farrah waited tables at a little jazz the
club called Grace Note. On nights she closed, she snuck the twins
in through the alley and smuggled them food from the kitchen. Her Dominican boyfriend
played the saxophone and wore a shiny silver shirt unbuttoned to his navel; in between songs, he hung over the stage, asking the twins
what they wanted to hear. Then the twins spent the night on the
dance floor, giddy, twirled by big-eared boys. They to
started befriend the regulars: a shoeshine boy who danced with Desiree until her feet ached; a who
soldier kept begging to buy Stella drinks; a bellhop at Hotel Monteleone who always to
let Desiree blow his whistle hail cabs. “I bet you’re not thinkin about Mallard
now,” Farrah said one night as the twins
skittered, laughing and tired, onto the backseat. Desiree laughed. “Never,” she said. She
was good at pretending to be brave. She would never admit to Farrah that she
was homesick and worried always about money. Soon Farrah would tire of the twins out
sprawling on her floor, taking up time in her bathroom, eating her food, always being around, an unwanted guest doubled. Then what? be?
Where would they Maybe they were just silly country girls in over their heads. Maybe Desiree
was foolish to ever believe she could be more than that. Maybe they should just go back
home. “But you been talkin about comin out here
forever,” Stella said. “You wanna go back already?
For what? So everyone can laugh at you?” Only later, Desiree realized that each
time she’d wavered, Stella had known exactly what to say to
dissuade her from returning home. But if Stella herself wanted to stay, why hadn’t she just said so? Why hadn’t
Desiree even asked? She was sixteen and self- centered, terrified that her would land
impulsiveness her and her sister out on the streets. “I shouldn’t have brought you,” she said. “I should’ve just left alone.” Stella as
looked shocked as if Desiree had struck her. “You wouldn’t,” she said, like it had a
suddenly become possibility. “No,” Desiree said. “But I should’ve. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.” This was how Desiree thought of herself
then: the single dynamic force in Stella’s life, a gust of wind strong enough to rip out
her roots. This was the story Desiree needed to tell
herself and Stella allowed her to. They both felt safe inside it. *** BY THE END OF Desiree Vignes’s first
week back in Mallard, everyone had already heard about the
shove, which by then had become a slap, punch, or even a full-out brawl. The Vignes girl dragged, kicking and
screaming, out of the bar. Those not too holy to at
admit that they’d been the Surly Goat that afternoon said that they’d seen
her leave, of her own volition, right after she a
attacked dark man. Who was he and what had he said to anger
her? Some thought he might have been her husband, come to fetch her. Others argued that he was a stranger she
who’d gotten fresh was just defending herself. Desiree had always been the prideful one;
of course she’d lash out when wounded, unlike Stella, who’d rather die than make
a scene. At the barber shop, Percy Wilkins slowly
scraped his razor against the leather strop, listening to the men debate which twin
had been the prettiest. In hindsight, Stella became more exotic, all the more beautiful now that she
disappeared. But Desiree’s stock rose since she’d come
home. Still a firecracker, anyone could see
that. At least three men joked that she could
shove them around all she wanted. “They never been right,” the barber said. “After they daddy.” Little girls weren’t
supposed to witness what the Vignes twins had seen. At the funeral, he’d glanced at the twins, searching for some sign that they had
been altered. But they just looked like girls to him, the same girls he’d seen skipping with
Leon around town, each tugging on one of his arms. No way those girls could have turned out
halfway normal. As far as he was concerned, both were a little crazy, Desiree perhaps
the nuttiest of all. Playing white to get ahead was just good
sense. But marrying a dark man? Carrying his had
blueblack child? Desiree Vignes courted the type of trouble that would never leave. *** AT
LOU’S EGG HOUSE, Desiree Vignes learned how to balance of
plates scrambled eggs and bacon and toast. Grits swirled with butter, thick pancakes
sopping with syrup. She learned how to navigate around tiny
tables, turn a sharp corner without losing a cup,
coffee memorize orders. She learned quickly when
because she applied for the job, she told Lou that she’d waited tables for
three years. “Three years, you say?” he asked on her
first morning, when she struggled to take down an order. “A long while ago, but yes,” she said, smiling, “back in New Orleans.” Other times, she told him she’d in D.C.
waitressed She lost track of her lies, and even though Lou noticed, he never her
confronted about it. He didn’t believe in accusing ladies of
lying, and besides, he knew that Desiree needed
work, even if she was too proud to admit it
herself. Imagine that the founder’s great- great-
great- granddaughter waiting tables, not for white folks either but right in
Mallard. Whoever thought they’d live to see the
day? The Decuirs had lived free for generations, then Adele married a Vignes boy; now her
daughter was serving coffee to refinery men and bringing pecan pie to farm boys. Once you mixed with common blood, you were common forever. “She not much of
a waitress,” Lou told the line cook. “But she don’t
hurt much.” If he were honest, he’d admit that hiring
Desiree had, in fact, boosted business. Old
schoolmates, seized by curiosity, sat at the counter
sipping coffee they ordinarily may have gone without. Even those too young to remember her, teenagers now, crowded in the back booths, whispering behind her back with the of of
fervor those witnessing the casual appearance a minor celebrity. She noticed, of course she did. Still, each morning, she took a deep
breath, tied her apron, fixed her face into a
smile. She thought of her daughter and swallowed
her humiliation. She bit her tongue even during her first
week, when she’d stepped out of the kitchen to
find Early Jones sitting at the counter. For a moment, she faltered, fingering her
apron. She would draw more attention to herself
by not serving him. Head down then, and get on with it. He was wearing that leather jacket again, scratching at his beard as she slid over
a coffee cup. A worn bag sat on an empty stool beside
him. She reached over with the pot of coffee
but he covered the cup with his hand. “That fella that done that to you,” he said. “He know where your mama stay?” Her bruise had faded to a sick yellow by
then, but still, she gingerly touched it. “No,” she said. “She ever sent you a or
letter nothin?” “We wasn’t in touch.” “Good.” He slid his
finger inside the smooth handle of his empty cup. “What about your sister?” “What
about her?” “When’s the last time you heard from her?” She scoffed. “Thirteen years.” “Well, to
what happened her?” he said. “She took a job,” she said. It all sounded so simple when
she said it aloud, and of course, it had started that way. Stella needed to find a new job, so she’d responded to a listing in the in
newspaper for secretarial work an office inside the Maison Blanche building. An office a
like that would never hire colored girl, but they needed the money, living in the
city and all, and why should the twins starve because
Stella, perfectly capable of typing, became unfit
as soon as anyone learned that she was colored? It wasn’t lying, she told Stella. How was it
her fault if they thought she was white when they hired her? What sense did it to
make correct them now? A good job for Stella, then a good job for her, that was the plan. So Stella would have a
to pretend little but a little pretending to keep them off the streets seemed worth
it. Then one evening, a year later, Desiree came home from Dixie Laundry to
find an empty apartment. All of Stella’s clothes, all of her
things, gone. Like she’d never been there at all. There was a note left behind in Stella’s
careful hand: Sorry, honey, but I’ve got to go my own way. For weeks, Desiree carried it with her
until one night, in a fit of fury, she ripped it up, scattered it outside the window. She that
regretted now, wished she still had something as small a
as scrap of paper with Stella’s handwriting on it. Early was quiet a moment, then he finally pushed his empty cup her.
toward “What if I help you find her?” he said. She frowned, pouring the coffee
slowly. “What you mean?” she said. “Got a new job
out in Texas, then I’m headin back this way,” he said. “We could drive into New Orleans. Ask around.” “Why you wanna help me
anyway?” she said. “Cause I’m good at it,” he said. “Good at what?” He slid a worn
manila envelope onto the countertop. It was addressed to a man named Ceel
Lewis, but she recognized Sam’s handwriting.
“Huntin,” he said. *** IN A LITTLE TOWN outside
Abilene, Texas, Early dreamed about Desiree Vignes. Beneath the setting sun, he sprawled the
along backseat of his El Camino, cradling a photograph of her. He’d given
all of Ceel’s pictures back to her except for one, which he’d already slid into the of
inside pocket his leather jacket, feeling its corners poke his chest. He wasn’t sure why he kept that picture. Wanted something to remember her by, maybe, if she decided to never speak to
him again. She’d looked so shaken when she learned
his true purpose in finding her, which he couldn’t blame; he didn’t stick
around to find out if she could forgive him. Off to Texas, where he was hunting a with
mechanic charged assault and attempted murder his wife, her lover, a torque wrench. The blood- splattered garage made the in
front page the Times- Picayune. On his drive west, Early imagined the a
mechanic swinging that wrench like Samson hurling donkey jaw, blinded by his own righteousness and
betrayal. Once, he might have been excited to hunt
a man accused of such a sensational crime. But he was distracted now; when he closed
his eyes, he imagined only Desiree. At the truck
stop, he bought a Coke and stepped into the to
phone booth tell Sam Winston that his wife wasn’t in New Orleans. “Probably lit
out east,” he said. “New York, New Jersey, somethin like that.” “Why on earth she go
out there, man?” Sam said. “No, I’m telling you, she’s back in New Orleans. You just ain’t
looked hard enough.” “Ask Ceel how hard I look. If she was here, I woulda found her
already.” “What if I send you more money?” “Then I tell you the same thing,” Early said. “She ain’t here. Try else.”
someplace He hung up the phone, leaning against the
booth. His mind started to unspool backward; he
knew how to find a hiding man but how to hide a woman so that she would never
be found? Plant misinformation, scatter the trail so that any other man
Sam hired wouldn’t even know where to start. He fished in his pockets for a cigarette, his hands trembling. He’d never walked a
away from job before. Exposed his camera film under the
sunlight, the photographs of Desiree on her porch
blackening. Money disappearing from his pockets. When
he told Ceel that he’d come up empty and needed another job, quick, Ceel just shrugged, handing him the mechanic’s photograph. of
“Can’t believe that little lady got the best you,” he’d said, laughing, as he pushed away
from the bar. She had, Early was starting to admit. He didn’t know what it was about her but
she’d hooked into him like a burr. He couldn’t shake her. Didn’t want to. In the phone booth, he pulled out a from
crumpled receipt his pocket and dialed Lou’s Egg House. When he heard her voice, he felt so nervous that he thought, for a second, about hanging up. Instead, he cleared his throat and asked
how she was getting on. “Oh fine,” she said. “You know how it is. Where you off to right now?” “Eula, Texas,” he said. “You ever been to
Eula?” “No,” she said. “What’s it like?” “Dry,” he said. “Dusty. Lonesome. I feel
like the only man alive out here. Like I fallen off the edge of the earth. You ever know that feeling?” He imagined
her on the other end, clutching the phone as she leaned against
the kitchen door. The diner would be emptying now, near closing. Maybe she was all alone, willing the time to pass. Thinking about
her sister, or maybe even thinking about him. “I know it exactly,” she said. *** IF YOU’D ASKED BACK THEN, nobody believed that Desiree Vignes would
stay in Mallard. The bet around town was that she wouldn’t
last a month. She’d tire of the crude whispers about
her daughter, whispers she must have sensed, even if
she could not hear them, each time the two walked around town. Some hoped, watching Desiree hold the of
hand the little dark girl, that the two wouldn’t even stay that long. They weren’t used to having a dark child
amongst them and were surprised by how much it upset them. Each time that girl passed
by, no hat or nothing, they were as galled as
when Thomas Richard returned from the war, half a leg lighter, and walked around one
town with pant leg pinned back so that everyone could see his loss. If nothing
could be done about ugliness, you ought to at least look like you were
trying to hide it. Still, a month passed, startling everyone. If Desiree didn’t leave because of her
daughter, surely boredom alone would root her out. After all her city adventures, how could
she endure small-town living? The endless carousel of church bake sales, bazaars, talent shows, and
birthday parties weddings and funerals. She’d never cared much for participating
even before she’d left that was the other one, Stella, who’d baked pecan pies for St. Catherine’s bake sale, or sang dutifully
in the school choir, or stayed two hours to celebrate Trinity
Thierry’s seventieth birthday. Not Desiree, who only attended the party
after Stella dragged her, then looked so bored you wished you even
hadn’t invited her before she skipped out while you cut the cake. Somehow that same was
Desiree back, kneeling between her mother and daughter
during Sunday Mass. She was as surprised as anyone to realize, one morning, that she had been home for
an entire month. By then, she’d fallen into a routine, walking Jude to school, cleaning the
house, working the sedate dinner crowd at Lou’s
as Jude read books at the counter. Each evening, she waited for Early Jones
to call. She never knew where he would be calling
from, or if he would call at all, but when Lou’s phone rang near closing, she always answered. The shrill bell her
jolted from mindlessly refilling sugar canisters or wiping down tabletops. “Just checkin in on you,” Early always said. How was her day? Her
mama? Her daughter? Fine, fine, fine. Sometimes he asked about her
shift and she told him that she’d had to send back three orders of eggs because
the line cook, distracted as all get out, gave her of
scrambles instead over easys. Or she asked about his drive and he told
her that he’d been caught in a dust storm in Oklahoma, couldn’t see his
own hand in front of him, and he’d had to inch slowly down the road, hoping he wouldn’t get hit. His stories
excited her, even the dull ones. His life seemed so
different from hers. Over time, he started to talk about the
past, like how he’d been raised by his aunt and
uncle after his parents dropped him off one night. She’d heard of children like
this who had been given away. After her father died, her mother’s to of
sister offered take one the twins. “It’s too much,” Aunt Sophie had said, clasping their mother’s hands. “Let us
lighten your load.” The twins pressed against their bedroom
door, listening hard, each wondering if she be
would the one to go. Would Aunt Sophie take her pick, like choosing a puppy out of a basket? Or
would their mother decide which daughter she could live without? Eventually, their she
mother told Aunt Sophie that could not separate her girls, but later, Desiree learned that her aunt
had asked for her. Aunt Sophie lived in Houston, and Desiree
used to imagine her life there, a city girl whisking around in starched
dresses and shiny leather shoes, not the faded calico her mother salvaged
from the church bin. After Mallard, Early said, he was sick of
farming other people’s land, so he set off to Baton Rouge to try his
luck. Well, the only luck he found was the hard
kind. He spent a year there, stealing car parts
in order to feed himself, until he got caught and shipped off to
Angola State Prison. He was twenty then, already a man in the
eyes of the law and truth telling, he’d felt like a man since the night his
parents left him without saying good-bye. The world worked differently than he’d
ever imagined. People you loved could leave and there do
was nothing you could about it. Once he’d grasped that, the inevitability
of leaving, he became a little older in his own eyes. He spent four years in prison, a time he leapt over and would never, in all his life, talk much about. “Does that change anything?” he asked her. She imagined him in a phone booth
somewhere, his boot kicked up on the glass. “What would it change?” she said. He was quiet a minute, then said, “Oh, I don’t know.” But she knew what he
meant: would she think about him differently now? She wasn’t sure what she thought him
about at all. She’d had a crush on him once, long ago, but she didn’t know the man up
he’d grown to be. She had no idea what he wanted from her. Weeks before, he’d offered to find Stella, and when she told him that she couldn’t
pay him right away, he said, “That’s all right.” “What you
mean that’s all right?” she said. “I mean, I don’t need it right
off. We can work somethin out.” She’d never a
met working man who was so casual about his money, but then again, she’d never a
met working man who did what Early did for a living. He hunted bail jumps who’d
disappeared without a trace, hoping to start over somewhere new. But there was always a trail if you no
looked closely enough one disappeared completely. Again, she thought about the envelope of
photographs he’d given her. In the diner, she’d held the package, her heart thudding. “Don’t worry,” he’d
said. “I’ll send that sonofabitch far away from
here.” She must have looked unsure because he
said, “Trust me. I won’t give you up.” But why wouldn’t he? He barely knew her
and Sam had offered him good money. What reason did he have to be loyal to
her? For weeks, she’d wondered if she and Jude should on
move again. If Sam was looking, wouldn’t he find her?
eventually Wouldn’t he just travel to Mallard himself? But maybe now, Mallard was the safest to
place be. Sam’s hired man told him she wasn’t in
Louisiana, and what reason would Sam have to doubt
him? Maybe she could trust Early if he’d wanted to hurt her, Sam would have found
her already. But just because she could trust him mean
didn’t that he didn’t want anything. “He just tellin you what you wanna hear,” her mother said one night, handing her a
wet plate. “That man don’t know where Stella is any
more than you do.” Desiree sighed, reaching for the dish rag. “But he knows how to look,” she said. “Why shouldn’t we try?” “She don’t want to be found. You gotta let her go. Live her life.” “This ain’t her life!” Desiree said. “None of it woulda happened if I didn’t
tell her to take that job. Or drag her to New Orleans, period. That city wasn’t no good for
Stella. You was right all along.” Her mother her
pursed lips. “It wasn’t her first time,” she said. “Ma’am?” “Bein white,” her mother said. “New Orleans was just her chance to do it
for real.” *** HERE WAS THE STORY her mother had A
been keeping: week after Stella disappeared into the city, Willie Lee came by the shotgun
house, hangdog. He had something to tell Adele
something he should’ve told her weeks before Founder’s Day. One afternoon he’d driven Stella into
Opelousas. She helped him around the butcher shop on
weekends because she was quick at adding figures in her head. She could eyeball a pound of
ground chuck more accurately than him, and whenever he weighed her measurements, she was never off. She was a smart, careful girl, but that last summer, he’d noticed something different about
her. She seemed sadder, wrapped up in herself. Because she’d dropped out of school, he figured, although he didn’t quite it,
understand having flunked out of ninth grade himself. A girl who could eyeball a pound of chuck
ground would do fine in life, college or not. But not everybody was
practical minded like him, so when Stella sullenly stood behind the
cash register, he figured that she was still that she be
disappointed wouldn’t off to Spelman someday like she’d hoped. So he’d invited her to one
Opelousas afternoon. He had to make deliveries and figured, hell, she might want to get out of town a
for bit. He’d given her a nickel to buy a Coke, and when he’d finished unloading, he her
found standing beside his truck, breathless and flushed. She’d gone inside
some shop called Darlene’s Charms, where the shopgirl mistook her for white. “Isn’t it funny?” she’d said. “White
folks, so easy to fool! Just like everyone says.” “It ain’t no game,” he told her. “Passin over. It’s dangerous.” “But white
folks can’t tell,” she said. “Look at you you just as as
redheaded Father Cavanaugh. Why does he get to be white and you
don’t?” “Because he is white,” he said. “And I don’t wanna be.” “Well, neither do I,” she’d said. “I just wanted
to look at that shop. You won’t tell my mama, will you?” In Mallard, you grew up hearing stories
about folks who’d pretended to be white. Warren Fontenot, riding a train in the
white section, and when a suspicious porter questioned
him, speaking enough French to convince him he
that was a swarthy European; Marlena Goudeau becoming white to earn her teaching certificate; Luther
Thibodeaux, whose foreman marked him white and gave
him more pay. Passing like this, from moment to moment, was funny. Heroic, even. Who didn’t want
to get over on white folks for a change? But the passe blanc were a mystery. You could never meet one who’d passed
over undetected, the same way you’d never know someone who
successfully faked her own death; the act could only be successful if no one ever it was
discovered a ruse. Desiree only knew the failures: the ones
who’d gotten homesick, or caught, or tired of pretending. But for all Desiree knew, Stella had for
lived white half her life now, and maybe acting for that long ceased to
be acting altogether. Maybe pretending to be white eventually
made it so. *** “FINISHIN UP,” Early said, two nights
later, calling outside of Shreveport. “Headin
back your way, if you still wanna look for your sister.” She had never imagined that Stella kept
big secrets from her. Not Stella, who’d slept beside her, whose thoughts ran like a current between
them, whose voice she heard in her own head. How could she have spent that whole not
summer knowing that Stella had already decided to become someone else? She didn’t know who
Stella was anymore, and maybe she’d never quite known her at
all. She twirled her finger tighter around the
phone cord. Inside the empty diner, Jude sat at the
counter, reading a book. She was always reading, always alone. “Yes,” Desiree said. “I
suppose so.” *** THE MORNING EARLY JONES ARRIVED, the sky hung heavy and hot with rain. From the edge of the couch, Desiree listened to the spring storm as
she braided Jude’s hair, remembering those first weeks in New
Orleans, ducking with Stella under eaves when the
showers caught them unaware. She eventually grew used to the rain,
capricious but back then she’d shrieked at every
sudden storm, laughing with Stella as they pressed the
against side of a building, water splattering against their ankles.
On the rug in front of her, Jude squirmed, pointing at the porch. “Mama, a man,” she said, and there was on
Early standing the front steps, jacket collar flipped up, his beard with
flecked raindrops. Desiree scrambled to her feet, feeling
strangely nervous, and she didn’t realize until she opened
the door that they were standing exactly where they’d first met a lifetime ago. “You can come
in,” she said. “You sure?” he said. “Don’t wanna make no mess.” He looked as
nervous as she felt, which emboldened her. She beckoned him
inside, and he kicked his boots against the porch, shucking off mud. Then he followed her, standing in the doorway, one hand balled
up in his jacket pocket. “This is Jude,” she said. “Jude, come say hi to Mr. Early. I’m goin on a little drive with him, remember?” “It’s just Early,” he said. “I ain’t nobody’s mister.” He smiled, holding out his hand. Jude slid hers into
his for a second, then darted off into the bedroom to fetch
her book bag. Later, on the interstate, Early asked if
Jude was always so quiet. Desiree gazed out the window, watching
the sunlight glint off Lake Pontchartrain. “Always,” she said. “She ain’t like me at
all.” “Like her daddy, then?” She didn’t like
talking about Sam to Early, didn’t even want to imagine both men the
existing within same expanse of her life. Besides, Jude wasn’t like Sam either. She was, in a way, like Stella. Private, like if she told you anything
about herself, she was giving away something she could
never get back. “No,” she said. “Not like anybody but
herself.” “That’s good. For a girl to be herself.” “Not in Mallard,” she said. “Not a girl
like Jude.” Early touched her hand, surprising her, then remembering himself, he pulled away. “Won’t be easy,” he said. “Wasn’t easy
for me. You know a man smacked me once at church?
Right on the back of my neck. All because I put my finger in the holy
water before his wife. Like I ruined it somehow. I thought my up
uncle was gonna stick for me. I don’t know why, I just thought. But he told the man sorry like I done
somethin wrong.” He let out a bitter laugh. On the other side of the interstate, a freight train rumbled along, rainwater
sloughing off the tracks. She turned back to him, eyes also wet. “I should’ve said somethin,” she said. “When my mama run you off like that.” He shrugged. “Long time ago.” “So why you
helping me then? Why really.” “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Guess it make me sad, thinkin about you
and your sister.” He stared ahead, refusing to look at her. “And I guess I just like talkin with you. Ain’t talked to no woman so much in all
my life.” She laughed. “You ain’t said but two at a
words time.” “It’s enough,” he said. She laughed again, touching the back of his neck, and later, he would tell her that was the
first time he knew. That gentle hand on the back of his neck
as he steered the car across the bridge. *** THEY WERE CHASING THE PAST, searching for Stella down streets and and
stairwells alleyways. Trampling up the steps of the twins’
three- story walk-up, where an elderly colored couple now lived. Desiree asked, as politely as she could, if they might have received any mail for
intended a Desiree or Stella Vignes, but they’d only lived there for two years. The lives of the twin girls had already
faded into the apartment walls long before they’d arrived. Sisters cooking together, to the
listening little transistor radio that had been their first luxury purchase. Sisters staying up until dawn, feeling finally like the grown women they
believed themselves to be. Sisters signing the lease to that first
apartment, although maybe even then, Stella had that
known the arrangement would be temporary. Maybe she had already started searching a
for way out. All afternoon, they hunted Stella in the
old spots. They asked after her in Dixie Laundry and
the Grace Note. Desiree searched for old friends in the
phone book but nobody had heard from Stella. Farrah Thibodeaux, married now to an
alderman, laughed when Desiree called. “I can’t run
believe little Stella’s off,” she said. “Now you, I would’ve thought…” “Thanks anyway,” Desiree said, starting
to hang up. “Wait a minute,” Farrah said. “I don’t
know what your hurry is. I was going to tell you I saw your
sister.” Her heart quickened. “When?” “Oh, a long
time ago. Before you left. She was walkin down
Royal Street, just as carefree as she could be. Arm in arm with a white man too. Looked right at me, then looked the other
way. I swear she saw me.” “You sure it was
her?” “As sure that it wasn’t you,” Farrah said. “It’s all in her eyes, honey. Her white man was handsome too. Must’ve been why she was smiling like
that.” Stella leaving her to chase after some
man. Stella secretly in love. Stella, who had
never been boy crazy, who had rolled her eyes at Desiree over
mooning Early, who had never even had a boyfriend before. The frigid twin, the boys called her. But Early told her that the simplest is
explanation often the right one. “You be surprised by what emotion make
people do,” he said. “But I know her,” she said, then stopped herself. She about
couldn’t assume anything Stella anymore. Hadn’t she learned that already? She was
exhausted by the time Early suggested she try the Maison Blanche building. She’d only once
ventured inside before, days after Stella first disappeared. told
She’d herself, riding the streetcar down Canal, that be
Stella couldn’t gone for good. This was Stella, fallen into one of her
bad moods. Stella playing hide- and- seek, ducking
behind the drying sheets. She told herself lots of reassuring she
things didn’t believe. Stella would pop back up. She would on
appear their apartment stoop and explain herself. She wouldn’t walk away from the best job
she’d ever had. She wouldn’t leave her sister behind. Inside the department store, Desiree had
wandered, walking slowly down the perfume aisle. She knew that Stella worked in an office
on one of the top floors but she didn’t know which one. In the lobby, she studied the directory so long, the brusque security guard asked what her
business was. She’d faltered, afraid to expose Stella, and he finally shooed her away. “Too pushy,” Early said. “You gotta have
a soft touch. You come across too desperate, folks it.
sense Clam up.” They were sitting in a café the
across street from Maison Blanche. She’d barely touched her espresso. She
was still thinking about the white man Farrah saw Stella with. How happy she’d looked. She didn’t
want to be found. What was Desiree doing, trying to drag a
her back into life she no longer wanted? “You gotta go in there like somebody they
tell things to,” he said. “Somebody that gets what she
wants.” “Be white, you mean.” He nodded. “Easier that way,” he said. “I can’t go
in with you. Give you away. But you just go in, say you lookin for somebody. An old
friend. Not your sister, that raise too many
questions. Tell ’em you lost touch, somethin like
that. Just keep it light, breezy. Like a white
lady with no worry on her mind.” So she imagined herself as Stella not the
Stella she once knew but Stella as she was now. Pushing past the giant brass MB
door handles, stepping inside the department store. She
passed through the perfume aisle with the confidence of a woman who could buy any bottle she wished. She stopped to smell a few, as if she were considering a purchase. Admired the jewelry in the display case, glanced at the fine handbags, demurred
when salesgirls approached her. In the lobby, the colored elevator gazed
operator at the floor when she stepped on. She ignored him, the way Stella might
have. She felt queasy at how simple it was. All there was to being white was acting
like you were. When she entered the first office level, a white security guard hurried over to
help her. She played back Early’s words. Light, breezy, no worry on her mind. She told him that she was looking for an
old friend who used to work in marketing. Of course he couldn’t find a
Stella Vignes in the building directory, but he gave her directions to the
department. She rode the elevator to the sixth floor, and when she stepped inside the office, she braced herself for someone to mistake
her for Stella. But the redheaded secretary just smiled
at her pleasantly. “I’m lookin for an old friend,” Desiree said. “She used to be a secretary
here.” “And what’s the name?” “Stella Vignes.” She glanced around the quiet office, as if by speaking her name, she might have conjured her. “Stella
Vignes,” the secretary repeated, turning to a file
cabinet behind her. She hummed to herself as she searched, the only other sounds the gentle clacking
of typewriters. Desiree tried to imagine Stella in a like
place this. Joining the ranks of other polite white
girls sitting at their desks. The secretary returned to her seat a file
holding folder. “No current address, I’m afraid,” she
said. “Our last few Christmas cards returned to
sender.” She was so apologetic, so sorry that she
could only give Desiree the most recent address she had on file, a card filled out in a
Stella’s careful handwriting with forwarding address leading her to Boston, Massachusetts. ***
“AIN’T NO SMOKIN GUN,” Early said that night. “But it’s a start.” They were sitting together in a darkened
booth at the Surly Goat, Early sipping his whiskey slowly. In the
morning, he’d be gone again, a new job carrying to
him off Durham. But after that, he would go to that in
address Boston, see what he could dig up there. She couldn’t imagine how Stella found in
herself that city of all places, but it didn’t matter. That scrap of paper
held more new information about Stella than Desiree had ever learned. She felt, again, overwhelmed by Early’s help, unsure of to
how she could ever manage thank him. After they finished their drinks, she him
walked to the boardinghouse. He tucked her hand under his arm as they
climbed up the muddy steps and she didn’t pull away, not even once they were
inside his room. She wasn’t drunk but the room suddenly
felt hot. She hadn’t undressed in front of a man in
strange years. Slowly, then. He was leaning against the
worn dresser, waiting, and she pressed against him, trailing her hand down his stomach. He stopped her at his belt. “It’s just a start,” he said. “I ain’t no closer to findin her.” He held on to her hand, as if he understood that this was a for
condition them to go any further. “All right,” she said. “I might not. She might just be gone. You know that, right?” She paused. “I know.” “I’ll look
as long as you want me to,” he said. “Tell me to stop and I’ll stop.” She wrested her hand free, slipping it
under his black T-shirt. Her fingers brushed against a rough scar
stretching across his stomach. He shivered. “Don’t stop,” she said. Did this chapter hook you? Smash that us
like button! Your support keeps going. Let’s read on! Desiree’s return unfolds in Brit video
Bennett’s book journey. PART 2 MAPS (1978) Southern identity, fast
reading. CHAPTER 4 In the autumn of 1978, a dark girl blew a
into Los Angeles from town that existed on no maps. She rode a Greyhound
all the way from this unmapped place, her two suitcases rattling in the
undercarriage. A girl from nowhere and nothing, and if you’d asked any of the other
passengers, they would have noticed nothing about her
interesting except that she was so, well, black. Aside from that, quiet. Flipping through a worn detective novel
that her mother’s boyfriend had given her for her seventeenth birthday, which she was reading for the
second time to find all the clues she’d missed. At rest stops, she clamped that book her
under arm, walking in slow circles to stretch her
legs. Twitchy. She reminded the Italian bus of
driver a cheetah pacing around a cage. He wouldn’t have been surprised at all to
learn that she was a runner that lean, boyish body, those long legs. He smoked
his cigarette, watching her make another lap around the
bus. Too bad, those legs with that face. That skin. Jesus, he’d never seen a woman
that black before. She didn’t notice the bus driver watching
her. She barely noticed anyone staring at her
at all anymore, or if she did, she knew exactly why they
were looking. She was impossible to miss. Dark, yes, but also tall and rangy, just like her father, whom she had not or
seen heard from in ten years. She took another slow lap, trying to find
her place in that dog-eared book with the cracked spine. She’d loved detective ever
stories since she was little; she used to sit on the porch while her mother’s boyfriend he
cleaned his gun and told her about the men hunted. Later, it’d seem like a strange a
bonding activity for grown man and a little girl, but she’d already learned that was
Early Jones a strange man. Not her father but the closest to it she
would ever come. She liked watching him slowly disassemble
the gun while she peppered him with questions. You could find just about anybody if you
were good at lying, he told her. Half of hunting was to be
pretending somebody else, an old friend searching for his buddy’s
address, a long-lost nephew trying to find his new
uncle’s phone number, a father inquiring about the whereabouts
of his son. There was always someone close to the you
mark that could manipulate. Always a window in if you couldn’t find a
door. “Ain’t that exciting,” he told her, chewing on a toothpick. “Most of it just
sweet- talkin old ladies on the phone.” He made finding the lost sound so easy
that once, she’d asked if he could search for her
daddy. He didn’t look up at her, swabbing his brush inside the gun barrel. “You don’t want me to go lookin for him,” he said. “Why not?” “Because,” he said. “He’s not a nice man.” He was right, of course, but she hated how certain he
was. How could he possibly know? He’d never
even met her daddy. She’d always imagined her father driving
up in his shiny Buick to rescue her. She’d step out of school one day and find
him waiting. Her father, tall and handsome, smiling at
her, arms open. The other kids would gawk. Then he’d bring her back to D.C., and she’d go to school and make friends
and date boys and run track and go off to college in a place so unlike that
Mallard she would hardly believe that Mallard even existed, that she hadn’t just it.
imagined But ten years passed, no phone calls or
letters. In the end, she rescued herself. She won a gold medal in the 400 meters at
the state championship meet, and miracle of miracles, college saw her.
recruiters She’d run as hard as she could and now
she was getting the hell out. At the bus station, she’d stood at the of
base the metal steps while Early loaded her suitcases. Her grandmother slipped
her rosary over her neck before her mother pulled her into a hug. “I still don’t know why you wanna
go all the way out to California,” she said. “There’s some perfectly good
schools right here.” She laughed a little, as if she were
kidding, as if she hadn’t been trying to convince
Jude to stay. They both knew that she couldn’t. She’d already accepted the track from as
scholarship UCLA if she could even think about turning it down and now she was standing in front
of a bus, waiting to climb on. “I’ll call,” she said. “And write.” “You better.” “It’ll be fine, Mama. I’ll come back and
see you.” But they both knew that she’d never come
back to Mallard. On the bus, she fiddled with the rosary
beads, imagining her mother traveling away from
Mallard on a bus like this. Except she hadn’t been alone, Stella her
beside staring out into the dark. Jude held the worn paperback in her lap, pressing against the filmy window. She’d
never seen a desert before it seemed to stretch on forever. Another mile ticked by, carrying
her further from her life. *** THEY CALLED HER TAR BABY. Midnight. Darky. Mudpie. Said, Smile, we
can’t see you. Said, You so dark you blend into the
chalkboard. Said, Bet you could show up naked to a
funeral. Bet lightning bugs follow you in the
daytime. Bet when you swim it look like oil. They made up lots of jokes, and once, well into her forties, she would recite a litany of them at a in
dinner party San Francisco. Bet cockroaches call you cousin. Bet you
can’t find your own shadow. She was amazed by how well she remembered. At that party, she forced herself to
laugh, even though she’d found nothing funny at
the time. The jokes were true. She was black. Blueblack. No, so black she looked purple. Black as coffee, asphalt, outer space, black as the beginning and the end of the
world. At first, her grandmother tried to keep
her out of the sun. Gave her a big gardening hat, tied the straps tight around her chin it
even though choked her. She couldn’t run with the hat on, and she loved to run, which couldn’t be
helped, although Adele begged her to wait, at least, until the sun went down. She’d spent her summers reading indoors, or when she felt like she was going crazy
from being cooped up, she chased shade around the yard, wearing the big choking hat, long sleeves
clinging to her sweaty arms. She would get no darker, although she to
seemed the longer she lived in Mallard. A black dot in the school pictures, a dark speck on the pews at Sunday Mass, a shadow lingering on the riverbank while
the other children swam. So black that you could see nothing but
her. A fly in milk, contaminating everything. In homeroom, she sat in front of Lonnie
Goudeau, the varsity pitcher, who threw paper at
balls her back all period. He was gray-eyed with auburn hair licking
up the back of his neck, his cheeks splashed with freckles. A boy.
beautiful So she prickled when she imagined him at
staring her, rolling up his sleeves, his forearms so
light you could see the brown hair, and flexing, the paper pinched between
his fingers. Then she felt the soft pat against her
neck, the boys behind her snickering. She never
turned around. Once, Mr. Yancy caught Lonnie and him to
sentenced detention. On her way out, Jude passed him wiping he
down the chalkboard and smirked at her, sliding the eraser through the dust. She replayed that moment her whole walk
home. His lips, caught between a grimace and a
smile. Lonnie Goudeau was the first person to
call her Tar Baby. A month after she moved to Mallard, he found a copy of Brer Rabbit in the bin
class and gleefully tapped the shiny black blob on the cover. “Look, it’s Jude,” he said, and she was so that
startled he knew her name, she didn’t realize that he was making fun
of her until the whole class dissolved into laughter. He was chastened for disrupting
silent reading, the book quickly removed by their
blushing teacher, but that night after dinner, Jude asked a
her mother what tar baby was. Her mother paused, dipping their dirty
plates into the sink. “Just an old story,” she said. “Why?” “A boy called me that today.” Her mother slowly dried her hands on the
towel, then knelt in front of her. “He just wants to get a rise out of you,” she said. “Ignore him. He’ll get bored
and cut all that out.” But he didn’t. Lonnie flecked mud at her
socks and threw her books into the trash. Jostled her chair leg during exams, yanked the ribbons in her hair, sang “Tutti- frutti, dark Judy” as soon
as she was in earshot. On the last day of fifth grade, he tripped her down the school steps and
she scraped her knee. At the kitchen table, her grandma pulled
her leg onto her lap, gently swabbing the blood with a cotton
ball. “Maybe he likes you,” Maman said. “Little boys always act real mean to they
girls like.” She tried to imagine Lonnie holding her
hand, carrying her books home from school, kissing her, even, his long eyelashes her
tickling cheeks. Sitting beside him in a movie theater, or on the top of the Ferris wheel at the
carnival, Lonnie’s arm around her. But all she was
could picture Lonnie splashing her in a mud puddle or sticking chewing gum in her or
hair calling her a dumb bitch, Lonnie punching her until her lip burst
open and her eye swelled shut. After, her father would always storm out
while her mother sobbed on the floor, her face buried in the couch cushion. Once, he didn’t leave right away. Instead, he pulled her mother’s face into
his stomach, petting her hair. Her mother whimpered
but didn’t pull away, as if she were comforted by his touch. Better to picture Lonnie beating on her. That other thing that soft part terrified
her even more. *** BEFORE THE INSULTS AND JOKES, before the taunting, the muddied socks, the kicked chairs, the empty lunch bench, before all of that, there were questions. What was her name? Where’d she come from
and why was she here? On her first day of school, Louisa Rubidoux leaned and
across their shared desk asked who was that lady walking with her earlier. “My mama,” Jude said. Wasn’t it obvious? She’d her
walked to school, held her hand. Who else would she be? not
“But your real mama, right?” Louisa said. “Y’all don’t look
nothin alike.” Jude paused, then said, “I look like my
daddy.” “Well, where’s he at?” She shrugged, even though she knew. Back in D.C., where they’d left him. She missed him she
already even though could still see that bruise on her mother’s neck, even though she all
could remember the bruises she’d seen on her body over time, dark splotches on that
strange topography. Once, at the swimming pool, she’d stared
as her mother started to change in their stall before stopping, midway, when she a on
discovered fading bruise her thigh. She quietly put her clothes back on, then told Jude she’d decided to just sit
by the pool today and watch her. When they arrived home, her father her a
greeted mother with kiss, and Jude realized that if she tried, she could pretend that the bruises came
from someplace else. Her relationship with one parent to the
magically untethered other. So when she thought of her daddy, he was sprawled beside her on the rug, flipping through the comics. Not dragging
her mother by her hair into the bedroom no, that was some other man. And after the
broken glass was swept, the blood wiped off the tile, after her mother retreated into the
bathroom, a bag of ice pressed against her face, her real daddy returned, smiling, her
stroking cheek. “How come I don’t look like you?” she asked her mother that night. She was sitting on the worn rug in front
of the couch while her mother braided her hair so she couldn’t see her face but
felt her hands still. “I don’t know,” her mother finally said. “You look like Maman.” “It just work that
way sometimes, baby.” “When are we going home?” she asked. “What’d I tell you?” her mother said. “We got to be here a
little while. Now stop wigglin around and let me
finish.” She was beginning to realize what she for
would soon know sure: there was no plan to go back home or to go anywhere else, even, and her mother was lying each time
she pretended that there was. The next day, she was sitting alone lunch
during when Louisa cornered her, flanked by three beige girls. “We don’t
believe you,” Louisa said. “About that bein your mama. She too pretty to be your mama.” “She’s not,” Jude said. “My real mama’s
somewhere else.” “Where at?” “I don’t know. Somewhere. I haven’t found her yet.” She was
thinking, somehow, of Stella a woman who resembled
her just as little but would be a better version of her mother. Stella wouldn’t so
make Daddy angry that he beat on her. She wouldn’t wake Jude in the middle of a
the night and force her onto train to a little town where other children
taunted her. She would keep her word. Stella wouldn’t
promise that they would leave Mallard again and again, only to stay. “You gotta watch your mama,” her father had warned her once. “She still like those folks.” “What
folks?” She was lying on the rug beside him, watching him catch jacks, his large hands
blurring in front of her eyes. “The folks she come from,” he said. “Your mama still got some of that in her. She still think she better than us.” She didn’t understand exactly what he
meant, but she liked being part of an us. People thought that being one of a kind
made you special. No, it just made you lonely. What was special was belonging with else.
someone *** BY HIGH SCHOOL, the names no longer
shocked her but the loneliness did. You could never quite get used to every
loneliness; time she thought she had, she sank further into it. She sat by at
herself lunch, flipping through cheap paperbacks. She on
never received visits the weekends, or invitations to Lou’s for lunch, or phone calls just to see how she was
doing. After school, she went running alone. She was the fastest girl on the track
team, and on another team in another town, she might have been captain. But on this
team in this town, she stretched alone before practice and
sat by herself on the team bus, and after she won the gold medal at the
state championship, no one congratulated her but Coach Weaver. Still, she ran. She ran because she loved
it, because she wanted to be good at
something, because her father had run himself at
Ohio State, and when she laced up her cleats, she thought about him. Sometimes, when
she circled behind the baseball dugout, she felt Lonnie Goudeau staring. She ran
with a hitch in her gait ungraceful and uneven, a bad habit Coach tried and failed to
correct. Lonnie probably thought she ran funny or
maybe he just liked laughing at her, that white top and white shorts against
all that black skin. She never felt darker than when she was
running, and at the same time, she never felt less
black, less anything. She ran in a pair of gold
running shoes she’d begged Early for one Christmas. Her mother had sighed. you a
“Wouldn’t like nice dress?” she asked. “Or new earrings?” Each year, she shoved the box across the rug as if
she could barely stand to touch it. “Gym shoes again,” she said glumly, as Jude pulled out the tissue paper. “I swear I’ll never understand how one so
girl could want many pairs of gym shoes.” When she was eleven, Early had bought her
first pair of running shoes, white New Balance sneakers he’d found in
Chicago. The next year, he was off working a job
in Kansas, so he didn’t come for Christmas at all, then the next, he was back as if he’d
never left, bearing a new pair, and by then she’d to
long gotten used his coming and going, which felt as regular as the seasons. “That man sniffin around again,” her
grandmother always said. She never called Early by his name always
“that man” or sometimes just “him.” She didn’t of up
approve her daughter shacking with a man, even though Early was never around long
enough for his visits to constitute shacking up, which either made it better or worse. Still, each Early season, as Jude began
to think of it, her mother started to change. First, the house transformed, her mother on
balancing chairs, ripping down the curtains, beating dust
out of the rugs, washing the windows. Then her clothes: a
her mother springing for new pair of nylons, finishing the dress she’d started sewing
months ago, shining her shoes until they gleamed. The final, and most embarrassing part: in
her mother preening the mirror like a vain schoolgirl, flipping her long hair onto one shoulder, then the other, trying a new shampoo that
smelled like strawberries. Early loved her hair, so she always paid
it special attention. Once, Jude had seen him ease up behind in
her mother and bury his face a handful of her hair. She didn’t know who
she wanted to be in that moment Early or her mother, beautiful or beholding and
she’d felt so sick with longing that she turned away. Her mother never acknowledged the
beginning of an Early season, but Maman knew. This, too, was a feature
of Early season: she and her grandmother, tentative allies, forging clearer “All
allegiance. those men,” Maman said, “all those men around town
and she’s still out here chasin after him.” In her grandmother’s bedroom, Jude around
maneuvered the bed, reaching for the bottle of eye drops Dr. Brenner prescribed after her grandmother
complained about dryness. Each night before bed, her grandmother in
rested her head Jude’s lap, her graying hair spread out like a fan, while Jude carefully placed a drop in
each eye. “You should have seen,” her grandmother
said. “All the boys who loved them.” She still did this sometimes, talked as
about Jude’s mother them. Jude never corrected her. She slowly the
released drop, her grandmother blinking up at her. *** WHEN DESIREE VIGNES waved at her bus
daughter’s from the terminal, she waited until the Greyhound around the
disappeared corner to wipe the tears from her eyes. She didn’t want the last thing for her to
daughter see, if she had in fact been staring out the
back window, to be her silly mother, crying as if see
she’d never her again. Early handed her a handkerchief and she
laughed, dabbing her eyes. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said, although nobody had asked and
she wasn’t. After he dropped her by Lou’s Egg House
for her shift, she realized, tying her apron, that she
was starting her day the same way she’d started it for the past ten years, except that this time, she did not know
when she would see her daughter again. Ten years. She had been home ten years. Sometimes she glanced around the house, shaking her head, as if she still didn’t
understand how she’d found herself back. As if she were in The Wizard of Oz, but instead of a house dropping on her, she’d fallen through the roof and
awakened, years later, dazed to realize that she
was still there. When she’d first decided to stay, she gave herself practical reasons. She
didn’t earn enough at Lou’s to live anywhere else. She couldn’t abandon her mother again. She still hoped that Stella might return
home on her own. And even if Stella didn’t, Desiree felt
closer to her here, wandering around Stella’s old things. The
chair where Stella sat at the table, a cornhusk doll Stella named Jane. Everywhere around the house, a door or or
handle blanket couch cushion that Stella had once touched, bearing the invisible remnants
of her fingerprints. She’d made a sort of life for herself
here, hadn’t she? With her mother and her and
daughter Early Jones, who left and continued to leave but also
continued to return. When he visited, Desiree felt like a girl
again, the years falling away like meat off the
bone. His arrivals always seemed a little
miraculous. Once, she was carrying a country- fried a
steak and eggs to table and found Early sitting at the end of the counter, chewing on a toothpick. Another time, she locked up the diner and turned to see
Early leaning against the phone booth across the road. She was exhausted but still at
laughed the sight of him, as unexpected as the sudden coming of
spring. One day there was frost, and the next, bloom. “I was just thinkin about you,” he’d say, as if he had stopped by on his
way home, not driven all the way from Charleston, pressing on through the night, bleary-
eyed, to get to her sooner. “Wonderin what you
was up to.” She was never up to anything, of course, her days blending together a
into sameness that she later found comforting. No surprises, no sudden anger, no man her
holding one moment, then hitting her the next. Now life was
steady. She knew what each day would bring, except when Early appeared. He was the in
only thing her life she wasn’t prepared for. He never stayed longer than a day or two
before he was gone again. Once, he’d convinced her to call in sick
to Lou’s so that he could take her fishing. They didn’t catch anything but
halfway through the afternoon, he kissed her, slipping his fingers under
her dress, stroking her as they floated on the lake.
glassy It was the most thrilling thing that had
happened to her in months. When Early came to town, her mother grew
grim and tightlipped, glaring at the door when Desiree slipped
out to meet him at the boardinghouse. “I don’t know why you foolin around with
that man,” she said. “Can’t stick around, find no
decent work.” “He works,” Desiree said. “Nothin decent!” her mother said. “Probably got all type ”
of women out there runnin after him “Well, that’s his business, not mine.” She didn’t ask who Early spent his nights
with outside of Mallard. He didn’t ask her either. Each time he
left, she missed him, but she wondered if his
leaving was the only reason why they worked. He wasn’t a settling man, and maybe she a
wasn’t settling woman either. When she thought about marriage, she felt
trapped with Sam in an airless apartment, bracing herself, through each calm moment, for his inevitable rage. But Early was
easy. He had no hidden sides. They didn’t argue, and if she ever grew annoyed with him, she was comforted by the fact that soon
enough he would be gone again. He couldn’t trap her because he refused
to trap himself. She’d had to convince him to stay at the
house when he visited. “Aw, I don’t know, Desiree,” he’d said, rubbing his jaw slowly. “I’m not askin a
for ring,” she said. “I’m not really askin for
anything. It just don’t make sense, me runnin out
to the boardinghouse all the time. And I think with Jude, it would be better
if ” But she paused here. She never wanted to
Early think that she expected him to be a father to her daughter. He didn’t owe
the two of them anything. Owing was never part of their arrangement. “What about your mama?” he said. “Don’t worry about her. I’ll take care of
all that. I just think… well, it don’t make sense, that’s all. We two grown people. I’m tired of sneakin around.” “Well, all right,” he said. The next time he to
came town, he met her at her mother’s house. He stood on the porch, carefully unlacing
his dirty boots, and moved inside the house as if it were
a fancy store and he was afraid he’d break something. He’d brought,
ridiculously, flowers for the table and she filled a
vase with water, feeling like they were playing a married
couple, Early carrying on like a television
husband, honey-I’m-home-ing her from the doorway.
He’d also brought gifts from his travels: a new purse for her, a bottle of perfume her mother to
refused thank him for, and a book for Jude. She had explained to
her daughter that Early would come to stay with them. “All the time?” Jude asked. “No, not all the time,” Desiree said. “Just sometimes. When he’s
in town.” Her daughter paused, then said, “Well, maybe he shouldn’t come here. Maybe we go
should with him.” “We can’t, baby. He don’t even have a
real house. That’s why we gotta stay here. But he’ll come visit and bring you nice
things. Wouldn’t you like that?” She knew better, of course. Her daughter only wanted to
leave. She’d wanted to leave Mallard since and
they’d arrived Desiree, ashamed, kept promising that they would. She couldn’t promise Jude that the other
children would be kind or eat lunch with her or invite her over to play, so when another birthday party arrived an
without Jude receiving invitation, Desiree told her daughter that none of
this would matter once they’d left town. Leaving was the only thing she could
offer. But, she thought, watching Early and Jude
read together on the carpet, maybe staying wasn’t the worst thing for
Jude. She had family here, at least. She was loved. At night, Desiree held her
daughter and told her stories about her own childhood. At first she said, I have a
sister named Stella, then, you have an aunt, then, once upon a time, a girl named Stella
lived here. *** FOR YEARS, Early tracked Stella until
Vignes she was no longer Stella Vignes. She’d been Stella Vignes in New Orleans
and Boston, then the trail ran cold she’d married, he figured, but he couldn’t find a for a
marriage license Stella Vignes in any place he knew she’d been. So she’d married
someplace else. She was still, he assumed, Stella. A new first name was too difficult to get
used to. Only a professional con man could assume
a completely new identity and Stella was nobody’s professional. Why worry about carefulness if you didn’t
expect anyone to come looking for you? She’d been sloppy enough that he found her apartment
in Boston. “Oh, she was real nice,” the landlady he
said when called. “Quiet. Worked somewhere downtown. A
department store, maybe. Then upped and left. But she was
real nice. Never caused no trouble.” He imagined a
Stella behind perfume counter, spraying pink bulbs toward ladies passing
by, or gift wrapping dolls during Christmas. He’d had one or two dreams where he was a
chasing her through Sears and Roebuck, Stella ducking behind dress carousels and
shoe racks. “She have a boyfriend?” he asked. The landlady grew silent after that, then said she had to go. A colored man asking after a white woman
she’d already said too much. But not enough for Early, who hadn’t even
found a forwarding address. Stella sprinkled breadcrumbs, which was
almost worse than nothing. Almost, because he didn’t want to find at
Stella all. There’d been a time in the beginning at
least, he told himself this when he’d wanted to
find her in earnest. Now, looking back, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe it had always been Desiree’s will, tugging him along. He’d wanted to please
her, that was why he’d offered to hunt for in
Stella the first place. He wanted to find Stella because Desiree
wished her found; those wishes overlapped into a single desire, one that kept him on the trail
for years. But Stella did not want to be found, and that desire seemed even stronger. Desiree pulled, then Stella pulled harder. Early, somehow, had been caught between. Now time had fallen right out of his when
pockets he wasn’t looking. One morning, he climbed out of Desiree a
Vignes’s bed and found gray hair in his beard. He spent ten minutes in front of
the bathroom mirror, rooting around for others, startled, for
the first time, by his own face. He was, he suspected, beginning to look more and
more like his own father, which was as unsettling as transforming a
into stranger. Then he felt arms around his waist, Desiree pressing against his back. “You
about done starin at yourself?” she asked. “I found a gray hair,” he said. “Look. Right here.” She laughed
suddenly. After all those years, he still felt by
delighted that laugh, stunned to be caught in its blast. “Well, I hope you didn’t think you’d be
young and cute forever,” she said, ushering him to the side so she
that could brush her teeth. He leaned against the doorway, watching
her. Most mornings, she opened Lou’s at four, so she was gone by the time he woke up. Then again, most mornings, he woke up
someplace other than this bed. He would lie in the backseat of his car
or sprawl across the stained mattress in some rundown motel, imagining Desiree’s
room. The dark wooden walls, the dresser lined
with photographs, the calico blue bedspread. Her childhood
room, the bed she’d once shared with Stella. Early had learned to sleep on Stella’s
side, and sometimes, when they made love, he felt shy, like Stella was perched on
the dresser, watching. Desiree splashed water on her
face. He wanted to pull her back into bed. There was never enough of her. He could never love her the way he wanted
to. Full. A full love would scare her. Each time he returned to Mallard, he thought about bringing a ring. Her mother, at least, would finally him;
respect she might even begin to think of him like a son. But Desiree never wanted to
marry again. “I’ve been through all that already,” she said, with the same weariness of a
soldier talking about war. It had been a war, in a sense, one that she could never win and only to
hope survive. She’d told him about all the ways Sam had
hurt her: slamming her face into the door, dragging her by her hair across the
bathroom floor, backhanding her mouth, his hand streaked
with lipstick and blood. She touched Early’s mouth gently, and he
kissed her fingertips, trying to reconcile that quiet voice he’d
heard over the phone ten years ago with the man she described. She didn’t know where
Sam lived now, but Early, of course, had traced him
already. He lived in Norfolk with his new wife and
three boys. Exactly what the world didn’t need, three boys growing up to be spiteful men. But he’d never told Desiree this. What good would it do? “Jude called last
night,” Desiree said. “Yeah?” he said. “How she
gettin on?” “You know her. She never tell me much. But I think she good. She likes it out
there. She said to tell you hi.” He grunted. Doubtful, thousands of miles
away, that she was even thinking about him at
all. He only reminded her of the father who
wasn’t there. Desiree patted his stomach. “You take a
look at that leaking sink, baby?” At least she asked nice. Not like Adele, who barely looked at him
across the table. Called out “chair’s wobbly” when she him
passed on her way to work. Treated him like a glorified handyman. And maybe he was. He was the man of a he
house barely lived in. He was the father to a daughter who even
didn’t like him. In the kitchen, he squeezed under the
sink, his back aching. Everything was catching
up with him now, nights spent sleeping in his car, hours hiding in some crawl space. He wasn’t young anymore, not the same man
young who’d felt a jolt of energy each time he set out on a new job. Now it was only tiredness, boredom even. He’d hunted every type of man there was. He’d still never found the people he’d
searched for the longest. On the best nights, he settled in Desiree
Vignes’s bed, rubbing her feet. He watched her brush
out her hair, listened to her hum. He shucked off his
pants and she climbed in bed in her nightgown, and even then it felt like too
many layers a lie, really, that they were telling themselves
because as soon as she turned out the light, his boxer shorts were around his ankles, her nightgown pushed up to her waist. They tried to be quiet, but after a while, he didn’t care about anyone hearing, not when there were too few nights like
this. On the road, he tried to remember how to
fall asleep alone. “Gets harder, you know,” he told Desiree
one night. “More time goes by. Sometimes folks slip
up, but ” “I know,” she said. Her skin looked silvery in the moonlight. He rolled toward her, touching her hip. She was so slender, he forgot sometimes, the longer he was away. “She might come
back on her own,” he said. “Homesick. Maybe she gets older, figures none of this is worth it.” He reached over, touching Desiree’s soft
curls. He was so hungry and so full of her, he could hardly stand it. But she rolled
away from him. “It’s too late,” she said. “Even if she
comes back. She’s already gone.” *** IN LOS ANGELES, no one had ever heard of Mallard. All freshman year, Jude delighted in that
telling people her hometown was impossible to find on a map, even though few believed her at
first, especially not Reese Carter, who insisted
that every town had to be on a map somewhere. He was more skeptical than the who easily
Californians believed that some Louisiana town might be too inconsequential to warrant a
cartographer’s attention. But Reese was a southerner also. He grew up in El Dorado, Arkansas, a place that sounded even more
fantastical than her hometown yet still existed on maps. So one April evening, she dragged him to
the library and flipped through a giant atlas. They’d just stepped in from the rain, Reese’s wet hair looping across his in
forehead loose curls. She wanted to push his drooping hair back, but instead, she pointed at a map of
Louisiana, below where the Atchafalaya River and the
Red River met. “See,” she said. “No Mallard.” “Goddamn,” he said. “You’re right.” He leaned over
her shoulder, squinting. They’d met at a track- and-
field party her roommate, Erika, had dragged her to last Halloween. Erika was a stout sprinter from Brooklyn
who complained about Los Angeles endlessly, the smoggy air, the traffic, the lack of
trains. Her grievances only made Jude realize how
grateful she felt. Gratitude only emphasized the depth of
your lack, so she tried to hide it. On move-in day, Erika had glanced at two
Jude’s suitcases and asked, “Where’s the rest of your stuff?” Her own desk was cluttered with records, photographs of friends taped to the walls, her closet stuffed with shimmery blouses. Jude, quietly unpacking everything she
owned, said that her other things were still in
storage. She knew that she liked Erika when she it
never brought up again. On Halloween, Erika draped herself in a
sparkly purple dress and tiara, Jude reaching for a lazy pair of cat ears. In the bathroom, she sat on the toilet in
lid while Erika hunched front of her, powdering electric blue on her eyelids. “You know, you could look real pretty if
you tried a little,” she said. But the bright blue only made
her look darker, so Jude dabbed at her eyes during the
whole ride over. Later, Reese would tell her that the blue
eyeshadow was the first thing he noticed about her. In the cramped apartment, she’d
stumbled after Erika, squeezing past witches and ghosts and
mummies. When Erika fished in the ice-filled for
bathtub beers, Jude ducked into a doorway, overwhelmed
by it all. She’d never been invited to a stranger’s
party before, and she was so nervous, she didn’t even
notice, at first, a cowboy sitting on the couch. He was golden brown and handsome, his jaw covered in stubble. He wore a a
rawhide vest over blue plaid shirt and faded jeans, a red bandanna tied around
his neck. She felt him watching her, and not what
knowing else to do, said, “Hi, I’m Jude.” She tugged at the
fringe of her skirt, already embarrassed. But the cowboy
smiled. “Hi Jude,” he said. “I’m Reese. Have a beer.” She liked how he said it, more of a command than an offer. But she shook her head. “I don’t drink
beer,” she said. “I mean, I don’t like the taste. And it makes me feel slow. I’m a runner.” She was rambling now, but he tilted his head a little. “Where you from?” he said. “Louisiana.” “Whereabouts?” “A little town. You heard
haven’t of it.” “How you know what I’ve heard of?” “Trust me,” she said. “I know.” He laughed, then tilted his beer toward
her. “You sure you don’t want a sip?” Maybe it was his accent, southern like
hers. Maybe his handsomeness. Maybe because, in
a room full of people, he’d chosen to talk to her. She took a step toward him, then another and another, until she was
standing inside his legs. Then a loud group of boys jostled into a
the room with keg, and Reese reached out, pulling her into
safety. His hand cupped the back of her knee, and for weeks after, when she thought
about that party, she only remembered his fingers lingering
at the edge of her skirt. Now, in the damp library, she flipped the
through atlas, past Louisiana to the United States to
the world. “When I was little,” she said, “like four or five, I thought this was a
just map of our side of the world. Like there was another side of the
world on some different map. My daddy told me that was stupid.” He’d brought her to a public library, and when he spun the globe, she knew that he was right. But she watched Reese trace along the map, a part of her still hoping that her was
father mistaken, somehow, that there was still more of the
world waiting to be found. CHAPTER 5 Desiree’s return to Mallard unveils in
colorism this fast reading tale. On the road from El Dorado, Therese Anne Carter became Reese. He cut
his hair in Plano, hacking off inches in a truck stop with a
bathroom stolen hunting knife. Outside of Abilene, he bought a blue and
madras shirt a leather belt with a silver stallion buckle; the shirt he still wore, the buckle he’d pawned in El Paso when he
ran out of money but mentioned wistfully, still feeling its weight hanging at his
waist. In Socorro, he began wrapping his chest a
in white bandage, and by Las Cruces, he’d learned to walk
again, legs wide, shoulders square. He told that
himself it was safer to hitchhike this way, but the truth was that he’d always been
Reese. By Tucson, it was Therese who felt like a
costume. How real was a person if you could shed a
her in thousand miles? In Los Angeles, he found a cleaning job at a gym
near UCLA, where he met body builders who told him
where to get the good stuff. At Muscle Beach, he lingered on the edge
of the crowd as men bulging out of tank tops preened under the afternoon sun. Ask for Thad, someone said, and there he
was, a giant of a man, hairless except for his
scraggly beard. When Reese finally mustered the nerve, Thad brushed him aside with a big paw. “Boy, come back with fifty dollars,” he said. “Then we got somethin to talk
about.” All month he scrimped and saved until he
raised the money and found Thad at a bar off the boardwalk. Thad steered him a
into the men’s room and pulled out vial. “You ever shot up before?” he asked. Reese shook his head, staring wide-eyed
at the needle. Thad laughed. “Christ, kid, how old are
you?” “Old enough,” Reese said. “This shit to
ain’t nothin play with,” Thad said. “Make you feel different. Make your baby makers slow. But I guess
you ain’t worried about none of that yet.” “No sir,” Reese said, and Thad showed him
what to do. Since then, he’d bought plenty of off of
steroids plenty Thads, each time the transaction feeling as as
grimy when he’d first stood in that dirty bar bathroom. He met meatheads in dark alleys, felt vials pressed into his palm during
handshakes, received nondescript paper bags in his
gym locker. Now, seven years later, Therese Anne was
Carter only a name on a birth certificate in the offices of Union County Public
Records. No one could tell that he’d ever been her, and sometimes, he could hardly believe it
either. He said this matter- of- factly, under the glowing red light of the
darkroom, not looking at Jude as he lowered the the
blank photo into developer. Weeks after the Halloween party, they’d
started meeting here. She hadn’t expected to ever see him again, and might not have, if, on the ride home, Erika hadn’t mentioned that she’d seen
that cute cowboy before, working at the gym nearby. Jude began to
run there even though she hated running indoors no sky, no air, just running in place, staring at her own reflection. She hated
every part of it except for when Reese eased up beside her, wiping down a stationary
bike. He leaned against the handlebars and said, “Where’s your ears?” She glanced into the
mirror, confused, until she realized he was to
referring her dull costume. She laughed, surprised he even remembered
her from that party. But of course he did. Who on this campus
who in all of Los Angeles was as dark as her? “Must have forgot them,” she said. “Too bad,” he said. “I liked them.” He wore a slate gray
T-shirt, a silver dumbbell emblazoned across his
chest. Sometimes, during a shift, he grew bored, hoisting himself onto the bars to do a
few pull-ups. He’d applied for the job because he could
use the gym for free and the manager didn’t care that he had arrived from out
of town with no identification. But his real dream was to be a
professional photographer. He offered to show her his work sometime, so they started meeting on Saturdays in
the campus darkroom. Now, as he watched the photo, she watched him, trying to picture
Therese. But she couldn’t. She only saw Reese, scruffy face, shirtsleeves rolled up to
his elbows, that loop of hair always falling onto his
forehead. So handsome that when he glanced up, she couldn’t look into his eyes. “What do you think of all this?” he said. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never heard anything like it.” But that wasn’t exactly true. She’d known
always that it was possible to be two different people in one lifetime, or maybe it was
only possible for some. Maybe others were just stuck with who
they were. She’d tried to lighten her skin once, during her first summer in Mallard. She was still young enough then to that a
believe such thing was possible, yet old enough to understand that it a of
would require degree alchemy that she didn’t quite understand. Magic. She wasn’t to be
foolish enough hope that someday she might light, but a deep brown maybe, anything better
than this endless black. You couldn’t force a magic like this but
she tried her best to conjure it. She’d seen a Nadinola ad in Jet a caramel
woman, dark by Mallard’s standards but light by
her own, smiling, red-lipped, as a brown man into
whispered her ear. Life is more fun when your complexion is
clear, bright, Nadinola- light! She ripped the a
ad out of the magazine and folded it into tiny rectangle, carrying it with her for
weeks, opening it so many times that white cut
creases across the woman’s lips. A jar of cream. That was all she needed. She’d slather it on her skin, and by fall, she would return to school, lighter and new. But she didn’t have the
two dollars for the cream and she couldn’t ask her mother, who would only scold her. Don’t let those kids get to you, she would say, but it was more than her
classmates. Jude wanted to change and she didn’t see
why it should be so hard or why she should have to explain it to anyone. Strangely, she felt that her grandmother
might understand, so she handed her the worn ad. Maman stared at it a moment, then passed it back to her. “There are better ways,” she said. All week, her grandmother created potions. She poured baths with lemon and milk and
instructed Jude to soak. She pasted honey masks on her face, then slowly peeled them off. She juiced
oranges, mixed them with spices, and applied the
mixture to Jude’s face before she went to bed. Nothing worked. She never lightened. And
at the end of the week, her mother asked why her face looked so
greasy, so Jude rose from the dinner table, washed Maman’s cream off her face, and that was that. “I always wanted to be
different,” she told Reese. “I mean, I grew up in and
this town where everybody’s light I thought well, none of it worked.” “Good,” he said. “You got beautiful skin.” He glanced at her, but she looked away, staring down at the photo paper as an
abandoned building shimmered into view. She hated to be called beautiful. It was the type of thing people only said
because they felt they ought to. She thought about Lonnie Goudeau kissing
her under the moss trees or inside the stables or behind the Delafosse barn at night. In the dark, you could never be too black. In the dark, everyone was the same color. *** BY SPRINGTIME, she spent every with
weekend Reese, so inseparable that you began to ask for
one if you saw the other. Sometimes she met him downtown, wandering
beside him while he shot pictures, his camera bag slung across her shoulder. He taught her the names of different
lenses, showed how to hold the reflector to the
bounce light. He’d been given his first camera by a man
at his church a local photographer who’d let him borrow it once to take pictures
at the picnic. The man had been so shocked by Reese’s
raw talent, he gave him an old camera to play around
with. Reese spent all of high school with a in
camera front of his face, shooting football games and school plays
and marching band practice for the yearbook. He snapped dead possums in the middle of
the road, sunlight streaking through the clouds,
toothless rodeo stars gripping bucking horses. He loved taking pictures of anything but
himself. The camera never saw him the way he did. Now he spent his weekends shooting behind
abandoned buildings shuttered wood boards, graffitied bus stops, paint chipping off
stripped car husks. Only dead, decaying things. Beauty bored
him. Sometimes he snapped pictures of her, always candids, Jude lingering in the
background, staring off into space. She didn’t until
realize she was developing them. She always felt vulnerable seeing herself
through his lens. He gave her one photo of herself standing
on a boardwalk, and she didn’t know what to do with it so
she sent it home. On the telephone, her grandmother
marveled. “Finally,” she said. “One good picture of
you.” In all of her school pictures, she’d either looked too black or
overexposed, invisible except for the whites of her
eyes and teeth. The camera, Reese told her once, worked like the human eye. Meaning, it was not created to notice her. “There you go again,” Erika said sleepily, each time Jude slipped out early Saturday
morning. “Off to see that fine man of yours.” “He’s not my man,” Jude said, again and again. Which was technically
true. He’d never asked her on a date, escorted her into a restaurant, pulled
out her chair. He didn’t kiss her or hold her hand. But didn’t he shield her with his jacket
when they were caught in a rainstorm, leaving himself dripping wet? Didn’t he
attend all of her home track meets, cheering during her heat and, after, pulling her into a hug outside the girls’
locker room? Didn’t she talk to him about her mother and father, Early, even On the
Stella? Manhattan Beach pier, she leaned against the turquoise rail at
while Reese aimed three fishermen. Biting his lip, the way he always did he
when was concentrating. “What do you think she’s like?” he asked. She fiddled with the strap of
his camera bag. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I used to wonder. Now I don’t think I
wanna know. I mean, what kind of person just leaves
her family behind?” She realized, all too late, that this was, of course, exactly what Reese had done. He’d shed his family right along with his
entire past and now he never talked about them at all. She knew not to ask, even as he wanted to know more about her
life. Once, he asked about her first kiss and a
she told him that boy named Lonnie had grabbed her outside a barn. She was sixteen then, sneaking out for a
late-night run; he was tipsy from a stolen bottle of cherry wine that he’d passed, back and forth, amongst friends all night
on the riverbank. She would always wonder if that empty was
bottle the only reason he’d kissed her, why he’d even wandered over to her, climbing unsteadily over the fence, as
she finished her lap behind the Delafosse barn. She stopped hard, her knee stinging. “W-what you doin out here?” he’d asked. Stupidly, she glanced over her shoulder
and he laughed. “You,” he said. “Ain’t nobody here but
us.” He’d never spoken to her before outside
of school. She’d seen him, of course, goofing around
with his friends in a back booth at Lou’s or hanging out the side of his father’s
truck. He always ignored her, as if he knew that
his teasing was out of place beyond the school halls, or maybe because he her
realized that ignoring was even crueler, that she preferred his taunting to the of
absence his attention. But she only felt irritated that he’d to
decided speak to her now, when she was panting and dirty, her skin misted with sweat. He told her
that he was on his way home, cutting through the Delafosse farm. He
tended Miss Delafosse’s horses after school. Did she want to see them? They were old
as dirt but still pretty. The horses were locked in the stable for
the night but he could use his key to get in. She didn’t know why she him.
followed Maybe because the whole night was so her,
unfolding strangely Lonnie catching Lonnie speaking to her decently that she
had to see where it would end. In the stables, she followed Lonnie
blindly, overwhelmed by the smell of manure. Then he stopped, and through the
streaming moonlight, she saw two horses, brown and gray, taller than she’d imagined, their bodies
powerful sleek with muscles. Lonnie touched the gray one’s neck and
she slowly touched him too, stroking his soft hair. “Pretty, huh?” Lonnie said. “Yes,” she said. “Pretty.” “You should see ’em run. R-reminds me of
you. You don’t run like no person I ever seen. Got a hitch in your gait like a pony.” She laughed. “How you know that?” “I notice,” he said. “I notice
everything.” Then the brown horse stamped his hoof, spooking the gray horse, and Lonnie her
pulled out of the stable before Miss Delafosse’s light flickered on. They skittered behind the
barn, laughing at the nearness of getting
caught, then Lonnie leaned in and kissed her. Around them, the night hung heavy and
damp like soaked cotton. She tasted the sugar off his lips. *** “JUST LIKE THAT?” Reese said. “Just like that.” “Well, goddamn.” They
were standing on the rooftop of his friend Barry’s apartment. Earlier that night, Barry had performed a
as Bianca at club in West Hollywood called Mirage. For seven electrifying minutes, Bianca
strutted onstage, a purple boa wrapped around her broad
shoulders, and belted out “Dim All the Lights.” She wore ruby red lipstick and a big wig
blonde like Dolly Parton. “It’s not enough to be a woman,” Reese had joked during the show. “He’s gotta be a white woman too.” Barry’s apartment was lined with wig in
heads covered hair of every color, realistic and garish: a brown bob, a black pageboy, a straight Cher cut dyed
pink, the bangs slicing across the forehead. At first, she’d thought that Barry might
be like Reese, but then she arrived at his apartment to
find him wearing a polo shirt and slacks, scratching his bearded cheek. During the
week, he taught high school chemistry in Santa
Monica; he only became Bianca two Saturdays a month in a tiny dark club off Sunset. Otherwise, he was a tall, bald man who a
looked nothing like woman, which was part of the delight, she realized, watching the enraptured
crowd. It was fun because everyone knew that it
was not real. Downstairs, the apartment was loud and
hot, a new Thelma Houston record radiating out
the windows. The girls had come over. The girls, Barry always said, when he meant the men
other who performed alongside him at his drag nights. By spring, Jude had been to of to
enough Barry’s parties know what everyone looked like without makeup: Luis, who sang Celia
Cruz in pink fur, was an accountant; Jamie, who wore a wig
Supremes and go-go boots, worked for the power company; Harley into
transformed himself Bette Midler he was a costume designer for a minor theater company and helped
the others find their wigs. The girls took Jude in until she felt, almost, like one of them. She’d never to
belonged a group of friends before. And they’d only accepted her because of
Reese. “What about you?” she said. “Who was your
first kiss?” He leaned against the railing, lighting a
up joint. “It’s not that interesting.” “So? It have
doesn’t to be.” “Just this girl from church,” he said. “She was friends with my sister. It was before.” Before he was Reese, he meant. He never talked about Before. She didn’t even know that he had a sister. “What was she like?” she asked. His sister, the girl he’d kissed. Therese. It didn’t matter, she just to
wanted understand his old life. She wanted him to trust her with it. “I don’t remember,” he said. “So what to
happened the horse boy?” He smirked, offering her the joint. He sounded almost jealous, or maybe she
just wanted him to. “Nothing,” she said. “We kissed a few but
times we didn’t talk after that.” She was too ashamed to tell him the that
truth: she’d spent weeks meeting Lonnie in the stables at night. In the dark corner, he’d spread a blanket, prop up a
flashlight, call it their secret hideaway. It was too
dangerous, meeting in the middle of the day. What if someone saw them? At night, nobody would catch them. They could be
truly alone. Didn’t she want that? He wasn’t her
boyfriend. A boyfriend would hold her hand, ask about her day. But in the stables, he only touched her, palming her breasts, slipping his fingers up her shorts. In the stables, she swallowed him into
dripping her mouth, breathing manure through her nose. But
around town, he looked right past her. And yet, she would have kept meeting him each if
night she hadn’t been caught by Early. Early hearing her creep out one night, tracking her through the woods, banging
on the door until Lonnie, yanking frantically at his pants, shoved
her outside. She was crying before she even stepped
through the doorway. Early hooked a hand around her arm, unable to look at her. “What’s the matter
with you?” he said. “You want a boyfriend, you tell him to come by the house. You don’t go off meetin no boy in the of
middle the night.” “He won’t talk to me nowhere else,” she said. She started crying harder, her shoulders shaking, and Early pulled
her into his chest. He hadn’t held her like that in years;
she hadn’t wanted him to. He wasn’t her father and never would be, a man whose violence had not yet reached
her, whose anger pointed everywhere but at her. Her father made her feel special, and she hadn’t felt that way until Lonnie
kissed her behind the barn. He wasn’t her boyfriend. She’d never been
foolish enough to think that he might be. But she couldn’t imagine any boy loving
her; it was enough that Lonnie noticed her at all. A breeze drifted past and she
shivered, hugging herself. Reese touched her elbow. “You cold, baby?” he said. She nodded, hoping that he might wrap his arm around
her. But he offered his jacket instead. *** “I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT,” Barry said. “It’s like a sexless marriage.” Backstage
at Mirage, he perched in front of the vanity mirror, swiping blush across his cheeks. It was
an hour before the show, and soon, the dressing room would be with
crowded queens jostling in front of the mirrors, swapping eyeshadow, the air clouded with
hairspray. But now, Mirage was dark and quiet, and she sat on the floor watching Barry, a chemistry textbook balanced on her
knees. They had an arrangement. He helped with
her chemistry homework and she joined him at the Fox Hills Mall, where she pretended to he
buy the makeup wanted. He guided her down the aisles, her arm looped through his; to strangers, they might have passed as lovers, a tall man in gray slacks, a young woman reaching for face powder. When he paid for everything at the
counter, the clerks thought he was a gentleman. No one imagined his bathroom counter in
covered tiny bottles of scented lotions, palettes of eye shadow, gold tubes of
lipstick. Or that the girl at his side had no in of
interest any this, despite his plea to teach her how to wear
makeup. She doubted that she would find any shade
to match her skin and besides, she knew what people called dark girls
wearing red lipstick. Baboon ass. No, she had no interest in
sorting through Barry’s bottles and tubes, which seemed as mysterious to her as the
test tubes in her chemistry lab. Weeks into the semester and she was
already falling behind. Barry had only agreed to tutor her Reese
because asked him to, and he could never tell Reese no. When they’d first met seven years ago at
a disco, he thought that Reese was gorgeous and, after too many drinks, finally worked up
the nerve to tell him so. “What did you say?” she asked. “What do you think?” he said. “I invited him home! And you know what he
told me? ‘No thank you.’” Barry laughed. “Can you believe it? He no
said thank you, like I was offering him a cup of coffee. Oh, I always like those country boys. Country and sweet, that’s exactly how I
like ’em.” She tried to imagine being so bold, walking up to Reese and telling him what?
That she thought about him relentlessly, even now, while she was staring at a with
textbook filled confusing symbols and talking to a man applying lipstick? “We’re friends,” she said. “What’s so wrong with that?” “Nothing’s wrong with it.” He glanced at
her through the mirror. He was trying a new look classic
Hollywood, Lana Turner but the blush was too pink, tinting his skin orange. “I’ve just never
seen Reese with no friend like you.” Once, carrying her groceries up the
stairs, Reese had joked that he sometimes felt
like her boyfriend, and she’d laughed, unsure of what was
funny. That he wasn’t? That he would never be?
That in spite of this, he had, somehow, found himself playing
this role? What she didn’t say: she felt like his girlfriend sometimes too, and the feeling
scared her. A big feeling. It took up all the space
in her chest, choking her. “We’re friends,” she said
again. “I don’t know why you can’t see that.” “I don’t know why you can’t see that
you’re not.” He sighed, turning to face her. One cheek was covered in full makeup, the other half of his face still clean. “I don’t know why you’re fighting it
neither. What could be better than being eighteen
and in love? Oh, you don’t even know. If I could go back, I’d do everything different.” “Like what?” she said. “Oh, everything.” He turned to
back the mirror. “This big ol’ world and we only get to go
through it once. The saddest thing there is, you ask me.” *** THAT SUMMER, she moved out of the and
dormitories into Reese’s apartment. She gave herself a list of logistical why
reasons it made sense: she was working on campus, which was the obvious choice even
though she hated how disappointed her mother had sounded when she told her she wasn’t coming home. She hadn’t found an apartment yet for and
next year she could save money, splitting rent and groceries. She could a
make foolish decision if she pretended it was based on thrift alone. So when Reese asked, she said yes, and soon, the two were her
carrying boxes up the narrow stairwell. Reese told her that he would sleep on the
couch. “Trust me, I’ve slept worse places,” he said, and she thought of him from
hitchhiking Arkansas. Sleeping at truck stops or squatting in
abandoned buildings like the ones he’d photographed, over and over again. At first, she felt strange in Reese’s apartment, like a guest overstaying her welcome. Then she started to feel at home. Tiptoeing through the living room on her
way out to her morning run, Reese curled under a blanket, hair in of
falling front his closed eyes. Sharing a bathroom counter, running a the
finger along handle of his razor. Returning in the evening to find him hot
boiling dogs for dinner, or ironing his shirts along with her own, or listening to records with him on the
couch, her foot pressed against his thigh. He taught her how to drive, surprisingly patient as she slowly guided
his creaking Bobcat around an empty mall parking lot. “You know how to drive, you can go
anywhere,” he told her. “You get tired of this city, you just head off for another one.” He smiled over at her, an arm hanging out
the window, as she made another slow lap. He made it sound so easy, leaving. “I’ll never get tired of this
city,” she said. During the week, she reported
to her job at the music library, where she pushed a heavy cart down the
aisles and slid thin scores onto the shelves until her fingers dried from touching
their dusty covers. When she returned home, West Hollywood so
felt different from that idyllic campus, the brick buildings she still felt cowed
to enter, always lowering her voice as if stepping
inside church, those endless green lawns, the bicycles
constantly whisking past. In the dormitories, she’d been surrounded
by the relentlessly ambitious, but in that West Hollywood apartment
building, all of the neighbors she met were people
whose dreams of fame had already been dashed. Cinematographers working at Kodak stores,
screenwriters teaching English to immigrants, actors starring in burlesque shows in
seedy bars. The people who did not make it were in on
ingrained the city; you walked stars emblazoned with their names and never it.
realized On the weekends, she and Reese wandered
Santa Barbara beaches, or explored the Natural History Museum, and even once went whale watching in Long
Beach. They’d only seen dolphins, but what she
remembered was how she’d lost her balance on the deck and he stepped behind to steady her. She stood like that for the rest of the
boat ride, leaning back against his chest. Some
Saturday nights, they passed under the cascade of rainbow
flags and ducked inside Mirage to catch Barry’s show. Other times, they saw a movie at the
Cinerama Dome, where, in the darkness of the theater, she thought Reese might reach for her
hand. But he never did. At Barry’s Fourth of
July party, everyone crowded on his rooftop, watching
fireworks crackle across the sky. All around them, boys drunk and kissing, and she thought Reese might even kiss her
a friendly kiss, right on her cheek. But instead, he stepped inside to get a drink, leaving her alone washed under red and
blue light. What did he want from her? It was to
impossible tell. Once after Barry’s show at Mirage, Reese asked her to dance. The night was
nearly over; the DJ had already started playing slow songs to usher lovers out the door. He held out his hand and she allowed him
to guide her onto the dance floor. She’d never been held so closely by
anyone before. “I love this song,” she said. “I know,” he said. “I hear you singin it.” She wasn’t drunk but she felt lightheaded, swept up in Smokey Robinson’s voice, Reese’s arms around her. Then the lights
flipped on rudely, all the couples groaning, and Reese let
her go. She hadn’t realized until then how Mirage
depressing looked with the lights on: the exposed pipes, peeling paint, wood floors sticky with
beer. And Reese, laughing as their friends the
drifted toward door, as if dancing with her had been as casual
as helping her into a jacket. Somehow she felt closer to him and away
further than ever. Then one evening in July, she came home
early from work and found Reese shirtless through the open bathroom door. His chest was in
wrapped a large bandage, but there were red bruises peeking out, and he was gingerly feeling his ribcage. Her first thought was her stupidest had
thought: someone attacked him. When he glanced up, their eyes met in the
mirror, and he quickly yanked on his shirt. “Don’t creep up on me like that,” he said. “What happened?” she said. “That bruise ” “Looks worse than it
feels,” he said. “I’m used to it.” She slowly realized what he was trying to
tell her: that no one had attacked him, that it was the bandage he wore that was
digging into his ribcage, bruising him. “You should take that thing
off,” she said. “If it hurts you. You don’t have to wear it here. I don’t care what you look like.” She thought he might be relieved, but instead, a dark and unfamiliar look
passed across his face. “It’s not about you,” he said, then he slammed the bathroom door shut. The whole apartment shook, and she
trembled, dropping her keys. He had never yelled at
her before. She left without thinking. She had never
seen him so angry. He swore at bad drivers, he griped about
his co-workers, he shoved a white man in a bar once who
kept calling her darky. His anger flared and waned and then he to
was back himself again. But this time he was angry at her. She shouldn’t have looked at him she have
should turned as soon as she saw him through the open door. But the bruises so
shocked her and then she’d said something idiotic and now she couldn’t even apologize he
because was angry. He’d slammed a door, not her face, but maybe that was out of convenience. Maybe, if she had been closer, he would have slammed her against the as
wall just easily. She was crying by the time she reached
Barry’s. He just pulled her into a hug. “He hates me,” she said. “I did this and
stupid thing now he hates me ” “He doesn’t hate you,” Barry said. “Come sit down. It’s gonna be all right
in the morning.” *** IT WAS NO BIG DEAL, Barry said. Just a little fight. But all her life, she would hate when
people called arguments fights. Fights were bloody events, punctured skin, bruised eye sockets, broken bones. Not to
disagreements over where go to dinner. Never words. A fight was not a man’s in
voice raised anger, although it would always make her think
of her father. She would wince a little when she heard
raucous men leaving bars or boys screaming at televisions during football games. The of
sound slamming doors. Broken plates. Her father had punched
walls, he smashed dishes, and even once his own
eyeglasses, hurling them across the living room at
the door. To be so angry that you’d make yourself
blind. Strange, and yet so normal to her then in
a way she wouldn’t fully realize until she was older. She spent the night on
Barry’s couch, staring up at the ceiling. At half past
three, she heard a knock on the door. Through the peephole, she found Reese the
under glowing porch light. He was breathing hard, his fists balled
in the pockets of his jean jacket, and he started to knock again when she
finally unlatched the deadbolt. “You’re gonna wake everyone up,” she
whispered. “I’m sorry,” he said. His breath smelled
sweet like beer. “You’re drunk,” she said, more surprised
than anything. She’d never known him to disappear into a
bar when he was upset, but here he was now, swaying on his feet. “I shouldn’t have hollered at you like
that,” he said. “I didn’t mean to goddamnit, you know I wouldn’t hurt you. You know that, don’t you, baby?” You could never know who might hurt you
until it was too late. But he sounded desperate, pleading with
her from the step, and she cracked the door a little more. “There’s this doctor,” he said. “Luis me
told about him. You gotta pay him upfront for the surgery
but I been savin up.” “What surgery?” she said. “For my chest. Then I won’t have to wear this damn thing
at all.” “But is it safe?” “Safe enough,” he said. She stared at the shallow rise
and fall of his chest. “I’m sorry too,” she said. “I just don’t
want you to hurt. I didn’t mean oh, I don’t even know. I wasn’t trying to act like I’m somebody
special.” “Don’t say that,” he said. “Say what?” He was quiet a moment, then he leaned in
and kissed her. By the time she realized it, he was already pulling away. “That you’re
not special to me,” he said. *** IN THE MORNING, she wandered through the bright campus, dazed. She hadn’t slept a second after
Reese departed down the darkened sidewalk. Even now, thinking about him, her stomach
twisted with dread. Maybe he’d been so drunk he wouldn’t even
remember kissing her. He’d awakened at home, vaguely recalling
that he had done something embarrassing. Or maybe he’d sobered up and regretted it. She was the type of girl that boys only
kissed in secret and, after, pretended that they hadn’t. That
night, the girls threw a party. In Harley’s
crowded living room, she squeezed onto the windowsill, nursing
a rum and Coke. She wasn’t in a partying mood but she too
still felt embarrassed to go home and face Reese; of course, he then arrived at
the party, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, his hair still wet from the shower. He’d waved to her when he first walked in
but he didn’t come over to say hello. Maybe he pitied her. He’d only her
kissed because he felt so bad about yelling at her. He knew that she hoped that kiss
meant more so he was avoiding her, standing so far on the other side of the
room that Harley asked what was wrong. “Nothing,” she said, tilting more rum her
into cup. “Then why’re you both acting so damn
funny?” he said. He had blond feathered bangs he
like Farrah Fawcett that kept sweeping out of his eyes. She shrugged, staring out the
window. She couldn’t continue like this, that was
pretending everything normal. She needed air. But the room suddenly
fell into complete darkness. The music cut off, the silence as jarring
as the black. Then voices ringing out, Barry asking to
where find a flashlight, Harley offering that there might be in
candles the bathroom, and Luis, leaning over by the window, calling everyone over. All around the
block, all the other buildings descended into
darkness too. She said that she would look for candles
and groped her way down the dark hallway toward the bathroom when Reese grabbed
her hand. “It’s me,” he said. “I know,” she said. In the dark, you could be
anybody, but she knew him before he even spoke. His cologne, his rough palms. She could
find him in any darkened room. “I can’t see shit,” he said, laughing a little. “Well, I’m trying to
find the candles.” “Wait. Can we just talk?” “We don’t have
to talk,” she said. “I know you don’t like me. Not like that. And it’s okay. We just don’t have to talk about it.” He dropped her hand. At least she didn’t
have to look at him. Maybe she would never find the candles to
and she wouldn’t have see his face. She inched farther down the hall, finally feeling the tile on the bathroom
wall, but when she opened the medicine cabinet, Reese pressed it shut. Then he was her
kissing against the bathroom sink. Down the hall, their friends were gamely
calling each other’s names, laughing at their own blindness. But in
the bathroom, they were kissing desperately, as if both
knew that the moment couldn’t possibly last. The lights would flicker on, someone come
would searching for them, they would wrench apart at the sound of
footsteps, guilty, caught. But by the time Barry the
returned from kitchen, triumphantly waving a flashlight, they’d
already slipped out the door. They felt their way down the stairwell on
until they emerged the sidewalk, still holding hands, fading into the
blackened city. Overhead, traffic lights blinked Cars the
uselessly. crept along street. The skyline above them disappeared, and a
for the first time in nearly year, she saw stars. Somewhere, across the vast
city, a grandmother listened to children tell
ghost stories in front of the black television screen. A man sat on his porch, petting a dog’s graying muzzle. A dark- a
haired woman lit candle in her kitchen, staring out at her swimming pool. A young man and young woman walked home, climbing the silent steps, shutting the
door on the rest of the city. She held his lighter as he searched the
cabinets for candles. He couldn’t find any and they both felt
relieved. She wasn’t afraid of the dark; he felt
safer inside it. In bed, he tugged off her shirt, kissing down her neck to her breasts. Only once he was kissing between her did
thighs she realize that he hadn’t undressed at all. All over the city, couples doing
what they were doing. Teenagers kissing on blankets at a beach, the ocean rolling in black. Newlyweds in
fumbling a hotel room. A man whispering into his lover’s ear. A woman holding a match to a slender
candle, her face glowing off the kitchen window. Across the city, darkness and light. Share your thoughts in the comments Love
below! this chapter? Let us know! Keep speeding through the story! Colorism struggles, booktok. CHAPTER 6 There’s something different about you,”
Desiree Vignes told her daughter over the phone. By late August, a heat wave had rolled
through Los Angeles, and even with all the windows open, you couldn’t catch a breeze. Outside, the pavement shimmered like a pond. Big brown crickets searched the pipes for
water, and every morning, Jude always found one
or two in the shower; she grew so paranoid that they would blend into the beige that
carpet she refused to walk around barefoot. The heat was maddening but life could be
worse, she thought, watching Reese slide an ice
cube between his lips. He was wearing blue swim trunks and a
black T-shirt, his collarbone glistening with sweat. She
twirled the phone cord around her finger. “Ma’am?” she said. “Oh, don’t ma’am me. You heard what I said. There’s somethin
different. I can hear it in your voice.” “Mama, there’s nothing wrong with my
voice.” “Not wrong. Different. You think I can’t
tell?” They were meeting the girls at Venice a
Beach; she’d just started packing picnic basket when the phone rang. She hadn’t called home in
a month, so she felt too guilty to ask to talk
later, but now she regretted answering. What did
her mother mean, different? And how could she even tell?
Jude hated the idea of being so transparent to anyone, even her own mother. Then again, hadn’t Barry noticed right away? Two days
after the blackout, she’d met him by the fountain outside the
May Company and before she’d even walked over, he was suspicious, squinting at her. “What happened?” he demanded. “Why do you
look like that?” “Like what?” she said, laughing. Then it
dawned on him. “You didn’t,” he whispered. “Oh, I can’t
believe you! You sat right there on my couch and told me you had some big fight ” “We did! I mean, nothing had happened
then, I swear ” “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said. “I don’t know why neither of you
called me.” But after the blackout, she hadn’t told
anyone. She wasn’t even sure how to explain what
had happened between her and Reese. One night they’d been friends, the next
lovers. He’d left for work by the time she awoke
in the morning. She’d reached across the wrinkled sheets, still warm from his body. In the light of
day, the previous night seemed like a fever
dream. But those still-warm sheets. Her panties
on the floor. His cologne on the pillow. She rolled
over, burying her face in the smell of him. All day, she imagined how he would tell a
her that the previous night had been mistake, but he climbed into her bed that
night and kissed the back of her neck. “What’re we doing?” she said. “I’m you,”
kissing he said. “You know what I mean.” She rolled over to face him. He was smiling, playing with the fringe
of her T-shirt. “Do you want me to go?” he said. “Do you?” “Hell no, baby.” He kissed her neck again. When he tugged off her pajamas, she reached for his belt and he squirmed
away. “Don’t,” he said softly, and she froze, not knowing what to do. Lonnie had never
been shy about what he’d wanted. Shoving her hand down his boxers, pushing her face toward his lap. But there were rules to loving Reese and
over time, she learned them. Lights off. No him.
undressing She could touch his stomach or arms but
never his chest, his thighs but not between them. She wanted to touch him as freely as he
touched her but she never complained. How could she? Not now, not when she was
so happy Barry noticed it radiating off her from across a shopping mall, so happy that her mother could even hear
it through the phone. At the beach, she sat on her towel, watching Barry and Luis and Harley splash
around in the water. They’d been stuck in traffic for an hour, slowly creeping toward the coast; when at
they finally arrived Venice, the girls shucked their shirts, tossing a
them in careless pile, and ran yelping toward the shore. Reese rested his head in her lap, watching as they dipped into the water, slick under the sunlight. She raked her
fingers through his hair. “Don’t you want to swim?” she said. He smiled, squinting up at her. “Maybe later,” he said. “Aren’t you gonna
get in?” She told him that she didn’t like to swim. But she’d loved going to the city pool in
D.C. In Mallard, she never dared to swim in so
the river imagine showing much of yourself. She wasn’t in Mallard anymore, but
somehow, the town wouldn’t leave her. Even now at
Venice Beach, she pictured sunbathers laughing as soon
as she tugged off her shirt. Snickering at Reese, too, wondering what
on earth is he doing with that black thing? That night, when they came home from the beach, Reese slid on top of her and she asked if
she could flip on the light. He laughed a little, burrowing his face
into her neck. “Why?” he murmured. “Because,” she said, “I want to see you.” He stilled for a
moment, then he rolled off her. “Well, I don’t want you to,” he said. For the first time in weeks, he slept on the couch. He came back to
bed the next night but she still remembered the loneliness of sleeping
without him, only a wall apart. Sometimes she felt as
if that wall had never quite fallen. She never felt what she wanted to feel, his skin on hers. “I’m seeing someone,” she told her mother the next time she
called. Her mother laughed. “Of course you are,” she said. “I don’t know why you think I
don’t know anything.” “He’s…” Jude paused. “He’s nice, Mama. He’s so sweet to me. But he’s not like
other boys.” “What you mean?” She thought, for a
second, about telling her mother Reese’s story. Instead, she just said, “He keeps me out.” “Well,” her mother said, “I’m sorry to
tell you but he’s just like other boys. Exactly like all the rest of ’em.” The door unlocked, and Reese shuffled
inside, tossing his jacket on the back of the
chair. He smiled as he walked past, reaching over to stroke her ankle. “Jude?” her mother said. “You still
there?” “Yes ma’am,” she said. “I’m here.” *** A JOB. She would find a new job. The answer seemed so simple once it one
arrived night as she watched Reese climb out of bed in his sweaty T-shirt. He wanted a new chest. Carried in his a
wallet worn business card from Dr. Jim Cloud, a plastic surgeon with an on
office Wilshire. Dr. Cloud, a patron at Mirage, had worked on friends of friends, but his price was steep. Three thousand
dollars cash up front. Fair, if you thought about the risks he
was incurring even performing such procedures. The medical board could revoke his
license, shutter his practice, call for his arrest. The shadiness unnerved Jude, although the
Reese insisted doctor was legit. Still, she’d done the math, unfurling the
faded gray sock in his drawer and dumping the crumpled bills onto the bedspread. Two
hundred dollars. He would never save enough by himself. “I need a new job,” she told Barry. Autumn had arrived, along with the Santa
Ana winds. At night, angry hot gusts rattled their
windowpanes. They were celebrating Barry’s thirtieth
birthday, everyone crowded in his apartment. Barry
shrugged, running a hand over his shaven head. “Well, don’t look at me,” he said. He was on his third martini and already
fresh. “I need a new job too. Those white people don’t hardly pay me as
it is.” “You know what I mean,” she said. “A real job. One that pays real money.” “I wish I could help, sweet thing, but I don’t know nobody who’s hiring. Well, my cousin Scooter drives a catering
van but you don’t wanna do nothing like that, do you?” Scooter picked her up the next
afternoon in an old silver van that read, in peeling purple cursive, CARLA’S
CATERING. Inside, the van was crumbling, a chunk of
yellow foam gaping from the passenger’s seat, the roof cloth hanging like a canopy, a faded air freshener dangling from the
rearview mirror. Not much to look at, but the fridge
worked, Scooter said, thumbing at the wall the
separating cooled food. He was lanky like Barry but yellower, wearing a purple Lakers cap. “Let me tell
you,” he said, “don’t believe none of what you
hear about the economy and all that. It don’t matter one bit. White folks a
always wanna throw party.” He laughed, the van lurching onto Fairfax, and she quickly reached for her seat belt. He drove with an arm hanging out the
window, chatting amiably the whole time, always a
starting midway into conversation as if he were responding to a question she hadn’t actually asked. “Yeah, I had my own spot once,” he said. “Nice little joint, off Crenshaw. But I couldn’t hang it. Never been all
that good with money, you know. I get a penny, I spend a penny, you know how that go. I was good with the food but I ain’t no
businessman, that’s for sure. But it turned out all
right. Now I’m Carla’s right-hand man.” Carla
Stewart, he explained, as they crawled along the
Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu, was tough but fair. You had to be both if
you were a woman in the food world. She’d built the catering her
company after husband died. A smart business in a city where there a
was never shortage of people wanting to host events while exerting as little as
effort possible. He tossed a black polo shirt onto her lap. “You gotta put this on,” he said. When she hesitated, he laughed. “Not now, when we get inside! I ain’t no pervert. Don’t worry, Barry said you like a little
sister to him and he better not hear I tried to flirt with you or nothin.” It was the nicest thing Barry had ever
said about her, and of course, he never intended her to
hear it. “Barry’s funny,” she said. “He is,” Scooter said. “He’s a funny boy, but I love him. I love him all the same.” Did Scooter know about Bianca? Barry on
prided himself his ability to keep his lives separate. “It’s like the Good Book says,” he told her once, “don’t let your right
hand know what your left hand is doing.” He was Bianca on two Saturday nights a
month, and otherwise, he pushed her out of sight, even though he thought about her, shopped for her, planned for her eventual
return. Barry went to faculty meetings and family
reunions and church, Bianca always lingering on the edge of
his mind. She had her role to play and Barry had
his. You could live a life this way, split. As long as you knew who was in
charge. *** “WHERE YOU BEEN?” Reese asked when
she climbed into bed that night. He sounded worried; she never stayed out
late without calling. But she’d catered a party for a real sold
estate agent who’d homes to Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch. She’d wandered through
the house, admiring the long white couches and and
marble countertops the giant glass windows that faded into a view of the beach. She couldn’t imagine
living like this hanging on a cliff, exposed by glass. But maybe the rich feel
didn’t a need to hide. Maybe wealth was the freedom to reveal
yourself. The party had ended at one and she’d had
to clean up after. By the time Scooter dropped her back off, the morning sky was tinting lavender. “Malibu,” she said. “What you doin all
the way out there?” “I got a new job,” she said. “With this catering company. Barry helped
me find it.” “Why?” he said. “I thought you said you
were gonna focus on school.” She couldn’t tell him the real reason; he
didn’t even like her to pay for dinner, always reaching for his wallet as soon as
the check came. He would never agree to let her pay for
an expensive surgery. And what if he misunderstood? What if he
thought she wanted him to have the surgery because she wanted him to change? She
could never tell him, not until she’d saved so much money that
he would be foolish to refuse it. She slid into the crook of his arm, touching his face. “I just thought it’d
be nice to have some extra cash,” she said, “that’s all.” *** THAT SEMESTER, she thought of bodies. Once a week, she sat on the edge of the bathtub, holding a hypodermic needle while Reese
rolled up his plaid boxers. On the counter, a glass vial filled with
a liquid that was yellowy clear like chardonnay. He still hated needles; he never looked
when she flicked the tip before squeezing the fat part of his thigh. Okay, she always
whispered after, sorry that she’d hurt him. Each month, he paid out of pocket for a vial small to
enough fit in his palm. She barely understood how hormones worked, so on a whim, she enrolled in an anatomy
class that she enjoyed far more than she’d expected. The rote memorization the
that bored rest of the class thrilled her. She left flash cards labeled with body by
parts strewn all over the apartment: phalanges the bathroom sink, deltoids on the kitchen
table, dorsal metacarpal veins squeezed between
couch cushions. Her favorite organ was the heart. She was the first person in her class to
properly dissect the sheep heart. It was the most difficult dissection, the professor said, because the heart but
isn’t perfectly symmetrical so close to it that you cannot tell which side is which. You have to orient the heart correctly to
find the vessels. “You really must experience the heart
with your hands,” he told the class. “I know it’s slippery
but don’t be shy. You have to use your fingers to feel your
way through the dissection.” At night, she placed her flash cards on
Reese to quiz herself. He stretched out on the couch, reading a novel, trying to remain still a
while she propped card against his arm. She traced a finger along his biceps, chanting the Latin terms to herself until
quietly he tugged her into his lap. Skin tissue and muscles and nerves, bone and blood. A body could be labeled a
but person couldn’t, and the difference between the two on in
depended that muscle your chest. That beloved organ, not sentient, not
aware, not feeling, just pumping along, keeping
you alive. *** IN PACIFIC PALISADES, she carried of
platters bacon- wrapped dates around a mixer for booking agents. In Studio City, she served at the
cocktails birthday party of an aging game-show host. In Silver Lake, a guitarist hovered over
her shoulder to ensure that the crab salad was made from real crab, not imitation. By the end of her first month, she could pour a martini without
measuring. At the laundromat, she found crushed in
water crackers her pockets. She could never wash the smell of olives
off her hands. “Why don’t you see if the library’s
hiring again?” Reese said. “Why?” “Because you’re always
gone. I barely see you anymore.” “I’m not gone
that much.” “Too much for me.” “It’s better money, baby,” she said, wrapping her arms around
him. “And I get to see the city. More fun than being stuck in some old all
library day.” She worked jobs from Ventura to Beach,
Huntington Pasadena to Bel Air. In Santa Monica, she carried a tray of oysters through the
home of a record producer, pausing in the foyer to admire the pool
that spilled endlessly toward the skyline. From here, Mallard felt farther away than
ever. Maybe, in time, she would forget it. Push it away, bury it deep inside herself, until she only thought of it as a place
she’d heard about, not a place where she’d once lived. “I just don’t like it,” her mother told
her. “You oughta be focusin on your studies, not servin white folks. I didn’t send you
all the way to California to do that.” But it wasn’t the same, not really. She wasn’t her grandmother, cleaning the
after same family for years. She didn’t wipe the snotty noses of
children, she didn’t listen to wives complain about
cheating husbands as she mopped the floor, she didn’t take in laundry until her home
crowded with other people’s dirty underwear. There was no intimacy here. She swept
through their parties, carrying trays of food, and never saw
them again. Late one night, she lay in bed holding
Reese, too hot to fall asleep so close to him to
but unable let go. “What you thinkin about?” he asked. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Just this house in Venice. You know they
had centralized air? And didn’t even need it. So close to the beach, they could just a
crack open window and cool down. But I guess that’s how rich folks are.” He laughed and then climbed out of bed to
bring her a cup of ice. He slipped a cube through her lips and
she swirled the ice around her mouth, surprised by how normal this all felt. Months ago, she couldn’t even admit that
she had a crush on Reese, and now she was lying naked in his bed, chewing ice. She peeked through the at a
blinds police helicopter whirring overhead and turned back to find him staring. “What?” she said, laughing. “Stop that.” He was still a and
wearing T-shirt boxers, and she suddenly felt self- conscious, tugging the sheet over her breasts. “Stop what?” he said. “Looking at me like
that.” “But I like looking at you.” “Why?” “Because,” he said, “you’re nice
to look at.” She scoffed, turning back to the window. He didn’t mind that she was dark, maybe, but he couldn’t possibly like it. Nobody could. “I hate when you do that,” he said. “What?” “Act like I’m lying,” he said. “I ain’t those people back home. Sometimes you act like you’re still back
there. But you’re not, baby. We’re new people
here.” He’d told her once that California got a
its name from dark- skinned queen. He’d seen a mural of her in San Francisco. She hadn’t believed him until he showed a
her photograph he’d taken and there the dark queen was, seated at the top of the
ceiling. Flanked by a tribe of female warriors, looking so regal and imposing that Jude
was heartbroken to discover that she wasn’t even real. She was a character from a popular novel,
Spanish an art history book said, about a island
fictional ruled by a black Amazon queen. Like all colonizers, the conquistadors
wrote their fiction into reality, their myths transforming into history.
What remained was California, a place that still felt like a mythical
island. She was in the middle of the ocean, sealed away from everyone she’d once
known, floating. *** PERHAPS THE STRANGEST part
of that fall was that she started to dream about her father. Sometimes she was walking him
beside along the street, holding his hand as they passed through a
busy intersection; she jolted awake as the cars whizzed past. Other times, he was pushing
her on a playground swing, her legs stretching in front of her. In one dream, he was walking in front of
her on a track, and she ran to catch up but could never
reach him. She awoke, gasping. “You’re shaking,”
Reese whispered, pulling her closer. “It was just a dream,” she said. “About what?” “My daddy.” She paused. “I don’t even know why. We haven’t talked in so long. I used to think he’d come looking for me. He’s not even a good man. But part of me still wants him to find me. Isn’t that stupid?” “No.” He was staring
up at the ceiling. “It’s not stupid at all. I ain’t talk to
my folks in seven years but I still think about them. My mama used to
like my pictures. She showed everybody in church. I took so
many photos of her but I left them behind. I left everything.” “What
happened?” she said. “I mean, why’d you leave?” “Oh, it’s a long story.” “Then tell me of
some it. Please.” He was quiet a long moment, then he told her that his father had him
caught fooling around with his sister’s friend. He’d been home alone, pretending to be to
sick while his family went a tent revival, rifling instead through his father’s
closet. He tried on crisp dress shirts, practiced Windsor knots, walked around in
slick leather wingtips. He had just splashed himself with cologne
when Tina Jenkins appeared on the lawn and tapped on the windowpane. What was he doing? Was
he in some type of play? His costume wasn’t bad, he just needed to do with his
something hair. She’d pinned his ponytail to the back of
his neck. “There,” she said. “Now you look more
mannish, see? What’s the play? And do you have to
anything drink?” He ignored the first question and tended
to the second. Later, Tina would tell her parents that
the gin made her do it. The gin that he’d poured in two big
glasses, replacing his mother’s Seagram with water. She did not tell her parents that she’d
kissed him first, or that they’d only stopped because his
family had come home early. “My daddy had one of those belts with the
big silver buckle,” he said. “He told me if I wanted to be a
man, he’d treat me like one.” She clenched her
eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Long time ago.” “I don’t care,” she said. “It wasn’t
right. He had no right to do that to you ” “I used to think about drivin down to El
Dorado,” he said. “Tell him to try me now. It ain’t right to feel that way about own
your daddy. Chokes me, like I can’t even breathe it.
through Then other times, I think about just
walkin around town. No one recognizin me. It’d be like showin
up to your own funeral. Just watchin life go on without you. Maybe I knock on the door. Say, Hi Mama, but she’d know already. Even though I look different, she’d still
know me.” “You could do it,” she said. “You could go back.” “Would you go with
me?” “I’d go anywhere with you,” she said. He kissed her, pushing up her shirt, and she reached unthinkingly for his. He stiffened, and she shrank when he
pulled away. But he disappeared into the bathroom, and when he came back out, he was shirtless, bending over her in the
bandage wrapped around his chest. “I need it,” he said. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.” She pulled him on top
of her, her fingers trailing up his smooth back, touching skin and skin and cotton. *** FROM THE BEGINNING, Reese Carter had
thought about the end. Like when he’d first arrived in Los
Angeles homeless, shorn like a baby lamb, already imagining
himself leaving a city that would certainly destroy him. Or when he first saw Jude Winston at a
Halloween party, a party that he’d only attended because a
boy he spotted for at the gym invited him and he thought, hell, why not. She was standing alone, fidgeting with
her skirt, dark as anything he’d ever seen and that
pretty enough he felt like a heavy hand was pinning him to that couch. Leave it alone, Reese. Easy now. He already knew how that would end, how she would leave him once she reached
for his lap and only felt him pushing away. In the beginning, he never thought
about staying in Los Angeles. He’d only wanted to put as many miles and
between himself El Dorado as possible. He would’ve kept going into the ocean, if he could. For weeks, he’d spent his in
nights touching men dark alleys, sometimes using his mouth, which he hated, although those men were kinder after, more grateful. They pet his head and him
called a pretty boy. He carried his father’s hunting knife as
protection, and sometimes, glancing up at those heads
thrown back against the wall, he imagined slicing their bobbing throats. Instead, he pocketed their crumpled bills
and searched for shelter, sleeping on park benches or beneath
freeway overpasses, which reminded him, strangely, of camping
with his father. Sitting on a hollowed log, watching his a
daddy slice open rabbit with a knife he told Reese to never touch. A knife handed
down from his own father, a knife he would have passed on to his
son, if he’d had one, which was why, when Reese left, he took it. He met men to touch at nightclubs and
bars, men who grabbed his hand as he passed the
through crowds, men who foisted drinks toward him and him
begged to dance. He never went to the same club twice, always terrified that someone might his
notice smooth neck or small hands or the rolled-up sock in his underpants. Once, an angry white
man in Westwood discovered his secret and gave him a black eye. He quickly learned the rules. To be honest about the past meant that he
would be considered a liar. The only safety was in hiding. The night he met Barry, he was dizzy with
hunger, sipping on a whiskey soda and almost to
desperate enough follow him home. But he’d never been with a man outside of
the alleys; he felt safer there in the darkness. So he told Barry no, which was why he was surprised when, later that night, Barry grabbed his arm
and asked if he wanted dinner. Reese shook himself free, startled. “I no
fucking said ” “I know what you said,” Barry told him. “I’m asking if you want food. You look hungry. There’s a spot right
there.” He was pointing to a late-night diner a
block away. The neon sign washed the concrete in and
purple blue light. Barry ordered pecan pie, and Reese ate a
two cheeseburgers and basket of fries so quickly that he almost choked. He would have to
pay for the meal somehow, or maybe not, he thought, feeling the in
knife his pocket. Barry watched him, trailing his fork the
through whipped cream. “How old are you?” he said. Reese wiped his mouth with the back of
his hand, then, feeling uncivilized, reached for
the napkin dispenser. “Eighteen,” he said, although he wouldn’t
be for two more months. “Lord.” Barry laughed. “You a baby, you know that? I got students as old as
you.” He was a teacher, he said, which was maybe why he’d decided to be
kind. In another life, Reese might have been of
one his students, not some boy he picked up in a nightclub. But Reese never finished high school, which he didn’t regret at first, not until he fell in love with a smart
girl. School seemed like just another way she
would eventually leave him behind. “So where’d you come from?” Barry said. “Seems like everybody in this city’s from
somewhere else.” “Arkansas.” “Long way, cowboy. What you
doin all the way out here?” He shrugged, dipping his fries into a of
puddle ketchup. “Startin over.” “You got people out here?” Reese shook his head. Barry lit a
cigarette. His fingers were lovely and long. “You need people,” he said. “Too big a to
city be out here by yourself. You need a place to stay? Oh, don’t look at me like that. I don’t want nobody who don’t want me. I’m asking if you need a place to sleep. What, you too good for my couch?” Reese didn’t know why he said yes. Maybe he was just sick of sleeping in
abandoned buildings, stamping his feet to keep away the rats. Maybe he saw something in Barry that he
trusted, or maybe he felt the knife banging his
against thigh and knew that, if he had to, he could. Either way, he followed Barry home. When they stepped inside, he paused, glancing around at the wigs lining the
countertops. Barry stiffened. “It’s just a thing I do
sometimes,” he said, but he touched a wig gingerly, looking so vulnerable that Reese turned
away. “I’m not what you think I am,” Reese said. “You’re a transsexual,” Barry
said. “I know exactly what you are.” Reese had never heard the word before he
hadn’t even known that there was a word to describe him. He must have looked
surprised because Barry laughed. “I know plenty boys like you,” he said. He took a step closer, eyeing him. “Of course, they all got
better haircuts. You do this yourself?” In the bathroom, he wrapped a towel around Reese’s neck
and reached for his clippers. He gently pushed Reese’s head forward, and Reese closed his eyes, trying to the
remember last time another man had touched him so tenderly. *** BY DECEMBER, the city
had finally cooled but the sun still hung high and unnaturally bright; it felt wrong to
even call it wintertime. In the catering van, Jude stuck her arm
out the window, enjoying the breeze. She’d picked up a to
last- minute shift work a retirement party in Beverly Hills, and the money was too good
to turn down even though Reese had sulked watching her slip out the door. “I wanted to take you to dinner,” he said. “Tomorrow, baby,” she said. “I promise.” She’d kissed him, already
imagining the tips she would pocket once the night was over. A company party was always good
money. Big wigs, Scooter told her, as they into
coasted Beverly Hills. The van glided up winding roads that grew
more secluded until they finally reached a black iron gate. Scooter snorted. “Big money to
they pay live like this,” he said, the gate slowly creaking open. “Can you imagine?” The next century would
be like this, he told her. The rich moving away from
cities, locked behind giant gates like medieval
lords building moats. They drove slowly down the quiet streets
tree-lined until they reached the house a white two-story hidden behind Roman columns. Carla let
them in. She rarely appeared during their jobs but
the party was important and she was short- handed. “The Hardison Group is a very loyal
client,” she said, “so on our best behavior
tonight, yes?” Her mere presence made Jude jittery. She could feel Carla appraising her as
she chopped celery and pureed tomatoes, as she swept through the party balancing
trays of rolled prosciutto or mixed cocktails at the bar. The retiring man was Mr. Hardison he was stocky and silver- haired, wearing a gray suit that looked expensive, his young blonde wife hanging on to his
arm. The crowd, all white and middle- aged and
moneyed, toasted his career and raised a glass to
afterward his successor, a handsome blond man in a navy suit. A girl lingered by his side. She looked eighteen maybe, leggy with
wavy blonde hair, and she wore a shimmery silver dress cut
scandalously above her knees. Halfway through the party, she stepped to
away from the man and sauntered over the bar, tilting her empty martini glass. “I’m not
supposed to serve anyone under twenty-one,” Jude said. The girl laughed, pressing a
hand against her collar. “Well, I’m twenty-one then,” she said. Her eyes were so blue, they looked violet. She tipped her glass again. “This party’s
a drag anyway. Of course I need a drink.” “Your dad doesn’t care?” The girl glanced
over her shoulder, back to the handsome man. “Of course not,” she said. “He’s too busy trying to from
distract himself the fact that Mother isn’t here. Isn’t that something? I came all the way
in from school because he got some big promotion, and she couldn’t even bother
to show up. Now isn’t that a bitch?” She wiggled the
glass again. She clearly didn’t plan on leaving until
she got her way, so Jude poured her a fresh drink. The girl turned toward the party, slipping the olive through her pink lips. “So do you like being a bartender?” she asked. “I bet you get to meet all of
sorts fascinating people.” “I’m not a bartender. Not all the time. I’m a student mostly.” Then Jude added, a little too proudly, “At UCLA.” The girl raised an eyebrow. “How funny,” she said. “I go to Southern California. Guess we’re rivals.” It wasn’t hard to to
tell which part seemed funny her: that a stranger happened to attend her crosstown
rival or that the black girl serving drinks had, somehow, managed to attend a school like
UCLA. A white man in a tweed jacket asked for
wine and Jude uncorked the bottle of merlot, hoping the girl might leave. But as she began to pour, she heard exclamations filtering in from
the foyer. The girl turned to her glumly. “Fun’s over,” she said, and drained her a
martini in gulp. Then she set her empty glass on the bar
and started toward the entrance, where a woman had just walked in. Mr. Hardison was helping her out of her
fur coat, and when she turned, passing a hand her
through dark hair, the bottle of wine shattered on the floor. Stella’s secret life deepens in this fast
reading narrative. PART 3 HEARTLINES (1968) Family reunion, video
book. CHAPTER 7 The night one of the lost twins returned
to Mallard, a notice was pinned to the front door of
every house in the Palace Estates, calling for an emergency Homeowners
Association meeting. The Estates, the newest subdivision in
Brentwood, had only called one emergency meeting
before, when the treasurer was accused of dues,
embezzling so that night, the neighbors gathered in
the clubhouse, whispering hotly, expecting the hint of a
scandal. What they did not expect was this: Percy
current president White standing in front of the room, his face beet red as he delivered
regretful news. The Lawsons on Sycamore Way were selling
their house and a colored man had just placed an offer to buy it. The room sputtered to
life, and Percy threw up his hands, suddenly finding himself in front of a
firing squad. “Just the messenger,” he kept saying, although no one could hear him. Dale Johansen asked what the hell was the
point of having a Homeowners Association if not to prevent such a thing from happening. Tom Pearson, determined to outbluster him, threatened to withhold his dues if the
association did not start doing their jobs. Even the women were upset, or perhaps, especially the women were upset. They did
not shout like the men but each had made a certain sacrifice in marrying a man who
could afford a home in the most expensive new subdivision in Los Angeles County and
she expected a return on that investment. Cath Johansen asked how they ever to keep
expected the neighborhood safe now, and Betsy Roberts, an economics major at
Bryn Mawr before she’d married, complained that their property values
would plummet. But years later, the neighbors would only
remember one person speaking up in the meeting, a single voice that had, somehow, risen above the noise. She hadn’t yelled
maybe that’s why they’d listened. Or perhaps because she was ordinarily so
soft- spoken, everyone knew that if she was standing to
her feet in the middle of a raucous meeting, she must have had something to
urgent say. Or maybe it was because her family lived
currently on Sycamore Way, in a cul-de-sac across from the Lawsons, so the new neighbors would affect her
most directly. Whatever the reason, the room quieted to
when Stella Sanders climbed her feet. “You must stop them, Percy,” she said. “If you don’t, there’ll be more and then
what? Enough is enough!” She was trembling, her light brown eyes
flashing, and the neighbors, moved by her passion,
spontaneous applauded. She never spoke up in their
meetings and hadn’t even known that she would until she’d already clambered to her feet. For a second, she’d almost said nothing
she hated feeling everyone watch her, had wanted to run shrinking at her own
wedding. But her shy, faltering voice only gripped
the room more. After the meeting, she couldn’t even make
it out the door without neighbors wanting to shake her hand. Weeks later, yellow flyers on
flapping trees and light posts read in big block letters: PROTECT OUR NEIGHBORHOOD. ENOUGH
IS ENOUGH. When she found one stuck in the of her
windshield car, she was startled to see her own words to
reflected back her, as foreign as if they’d come from a
stranger. *** FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH, Blake Sanders as
had been surprised as anyone that his wife had spoken in that meeting. She wasn’t
one for demonstrating. He’d never seen her riled up enough about
any issue to do more than sign a petition, and even then it was usually to
because she was too polite shove a clipboard back into some college kid’s face like he
would’ve done. Sure, he wanted to keep the planet clean. He thought the war was rotten. But that didn’t mean that screaming in of
the faces decent, hardworking people was the right way to
go about any of it. But Stella indulged these idealists, to
listened their speeches, signed their petitions, all because she
was too sweet to tell them to bug off. Yet here she was now, somehow, as fervent as any of those young in the
protesters middle of the association meeting. He could have laughed. His shy Stella a
making scene! Although maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. A woman protecting her home a
came from place more primal than politics. Besides, in all the time he’d known her, she’d never spoken kindly of a Negro. It embarrassed him a little, to tell the
truth. He respected the natural order of things
but you didn’t have to be cruel about it. As a boy, he’d had a colored nanny named
Wilma who was practically family. He still sent her a Christmas card each
year. But Stella wouldn’t even hire colored for
help the house she claimed Mexicans worked harder. He never understood why she averted her
gaze when an old Negro woman shuffled past on the sidewalk, why she was always so curt
with the elevator operators. She was jumpy around Negroes, like a been
child who’d bit by a dog. That night, as they slipped out of the
clubhouse, he smiled, offering his arm to her
cheekily. It was a brisk April night. They passed slowly under the jacaranda to
trees beginning bloom lavender over their heads. “I didn’t know I’d married such a rabble-
rouser,” he said. He was a banker’s son who’d left
Boston to attend college, he’d told her when they first met, although he didn’t mention then that the
bank at which his father was an executive was Chase National, and the college he’d left
to attend, Yale. She would later realize that these
were signs that he truly came from wealth: how rarely he wore expensive clothes even he
though could afford to, how little he talked about his father or
his inheritance. He’d studied finance and marketing, and
instead of heading to Madison Avenue, he’d followed his fiancée back to her of
hometown New Orleans. The relationship fizzled, but by then in
he’d fallen love with the city. That’s how he’d ended up working in the
marketing department at Maison Blanche, and that was why he was hiring her, Stella Vignes, as his new secretary. Even after eight years of marriage, Stella still felt a little squeamish when
people asked how they’d met. A boss, his secretary, a tale as old as
time. It made you picture a greasy- haired in a
potbelly suspenders chasing young girl around his desk. “I wasn’t some old lech,” Blake had said once, laughing, at a
dinner party, and it was true. He was twenty- eight
then, hard-jawed with ruffled blond hair and
blueish- gray eyes like Paul Newman. And maybe that was what made his
attention different. Back then, she’d withered when a white
man noticed her. Under Blake’s gaze, she’d blossomed. “Did
I make a fool out of myself?” she asked later. She was sitting in front
of her vanity, brushing out her hair. Blake eased behind
her, unbuttoning his white shirt. “Of course
not,” he said. “But it’ll never happen, Stel. I don’t know why everyone’s getting
all worked up.” “But you saw Percy up there. He looked plumb scared.” Blake laughed. “I love when you say things like that.” “Like what?” “Your country talk.” “Oh, don’t make fun. Not right now.” “I’m not! I think it’s cute.” He stooped to kiss her cheek, and in the mirror, she watched his fair
head bend over her dark one. Did she look as nervous as she felt? be A
Would anybody able to tell? colored family in the neighborhood. Blake was
right, it would never happen. The association a
would put stop to it. They had lawyers on hand for such a thing, didn’t they? What was the purpose of an
having association if not to stop undesirables from moving in, if not to ensure the exists as
neighborhood precisely the neighbors wished? She tried to steady that flutter in her stomach but
she couldn’t. She’d been caught before. Only once, the second time she’d ever pretended to
be white. During her last summer in Mallard, weeks after venturing into the charm shop, she’d gone to the South Louisiana Museum
of Art on an ordinary Saturday morning, not Negro Day, and walked right up to the
main entrance, not the side door where Negroes lined up
in the alley. Nobody stopped her, and again, she’d felt
stupid for not trying this sooner. There was nothing to being white except
boldness. You could convince anyone you belonged if
somewhere you acted like you did. In the museum, she’d glided slowly the
through rooms, studying the fuzzy Impressionists. She as
was listening distractedly an elderly docent intoned to a circle of listless children, when she noticed a
Negro security guard in the corner of the room staring. Then he’d winked, and, horrified, she rushed past him, head down, barely breathing until she stepped back
into the bright morning. She rode the bus back to Mallard, her face burning. Of course passing that
wasn’t easy. Of course that colored guard recognized
her. We always know our own, her mother said. And now a colored family moving across
the street. Would they see her for what she was? Or
rather, what she wasn’t? Blake kissed the back of
her neck, slipping his hand inside her robe. “Don’t worry about it, honey,” he said. “The association will never allow it.” *** IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, her daughter woke up screaming, and into
Stella stumbled the girl’s room to find her in the throes of another nightmare. She into
crawled the tiny bed, gently shaking her awake. “I know, I know,” she said, dabbing at her tears. Her own heart was still pounding, although by now, she should have been to
used scrambling out of bed, following her daughter’s screams, always
fearing the worst, only to find Kennedy twisted in her
covers, clenching the sheets. The pediatrician
said that nothing was physically wrong; the sleep specialist said that children with overactive imaginations to
were prone vivid dreams. It probably just meant that she was an
artist, he’d said with a chuckle. The child her
psychologist examined drawings and asked what she dreamt about. But Kennedy, only seven, never
remembered, and Blake dismissed the doctors as a of
waste money. “She must get it from your side,” he told Stella. “A good Sanders girl be a
would out like light.” She told him that she used to have when
nightmares she was young, too, and she never remembered them either. But that last part wasn’t true. Her nightmares were always the same, white men grabbing her ankles and her out
dragging screaming of the bed. She’d never told Desiree. Each time she’d
snapped awake, Desiree snoring beside her, she felt for
stupid being afraid. Hadn’t Desiree watched from that closet
too? Hadn’t she seen what those white men had done? Then why wasn’t she waking up in the of
middle the night, her heart pounding? They never talked
about their father. Whenever Stella tried, Desiree’s eyes
glazed over. “What you want me to say?” she said. “I know just as much as you do.” “I just wish I knew why,” Stella said. “Nobody knows why,” Desiree
said. “Bad things happen. They just do.” Now Stella gently brushed back the silken
blonde hair from her daughter’s forehead. “It’s all right, darling,” she whispered. “Go back to sleep.” She held her daughter
closer, pulling the covers over the both of them. She hadn’t wanted to be a mother at first. The idea of pregnancy terrified her; she
imagined pushing out a baby that grew darker and darker, Blake recoiling in horror. She an
almost preferred him thinking that she’d had affair with a Negro. That lie seemed kinder than the
truth, momentary unfaithfulness a gentler than
deception her ongoing fraud. But after she’d given birth, she felt
overwhelmed with relief. The newborn in her arms was perfect:
milky skin, wavy blonde hair, and eyes so blue they
looked violet. Still, sometimes, Kennedy felt like a who
daughter belonged to someone else, a child Stella was borrowing while she a
loaned life that never should have been hers. “Where are you from, Mommy?” Kennedy her
asked once during bath time. She was nearly four then and inquisitive. Stella, kneeling beside the tub, gently a
wiped her daughter’s shoulders with washcloth and glanced into those violet eyes, unsettling and
beautiful, so unlike the eyes of anyone else she’d
ever known. “A little town down south,” Stella said. “You won’t have heard of it.” She always spoke to Kennedy like this, as if she were another adult. All the baby books recommended it, said it helped with developing language
skills. But really, she just felt silly babbling
like Blake. “But where?” Kennedy asked. Stella poured
warm water over her, the bubbles dissolving. “It’s just a
little place called Mallard, darling,” she said. “It’s nothing like
Los Angeles.” She’d been, for the first and final time, completely honest with her daughter, only
because she knew the girl was too young to remember. Later, Stella would lie. She’d tell
Kennedy, as she’d told everyone, that she was from
Opelousas, and beyond that, she would barely talk at
about her childhood all. But Kennedy still asked. Her questions a
always felt like surprise attack, as if she were pressing her finger into a
bruise. What was it like when you were growing
up? Did you have brothers and sisters? What did your house look like? Once, during bedtime, she asked Stella what her
mother was like and Stella nearly dropped the storybook. “She’s not here anymore,” she finally
said. “But where is she?” “Gone,” she said. “My family is gone.” She’d told Blake the
same lie years ago in New Orleans: that she was an only child who’d moved to New
Orleans after her parents died in an accident. He’d touched her hand and she
saw herself, suddenly, through his eyes. A lowly
orphan, alone in the city. If he pitied her, he wouldn’t be able to see her clearly. He would refract all of her lies through
her mourning, mistake her reticence about her past for
grief. Now what began as a lie felt closer to
the truth. She hadn’t spoken to her sister in years.
thirteen Where was Desiree now? How was their slid
mother? She’d the book back on the shelf before she even reached the end, and later that night, brushing her teeth, she heard Blake speaking to Kennedy. “Mommy doesn’t like talking about her
family,” he murmured. “It makes her sad.” “But why?” “Because. They aren’t here
anymore. So don’t ask her anything else, okay?” In Blake’s mind, her life before
him had been tragic, her whole family swallowed up. She him to
preferred think of her that way. Blank. A curtain hung between her past
and present and she could never peek behind it. Who knows what might scuttle through? ***
A COLORED FAMILY in the neighborhood. It would never happen. And yet, the morning after the association meeting, Stella floated for hours in her swimming
pool, still thinking about it. Clouds drifted
overhead, rain, maybe, on the way. She wore a red
bathing suit that matched her plastic raft, and she was sipping on a gin and soda as
that she’d poured secretly soon as she’d seen her daughter off to school and
hoped, sipping again, that it looked like water
to Yolanda, bustling around in the kitchen. Obviously
it was too early for gin, but she was trying to steady that inside
uneasiness creeping her since last night. Blake said that there was no chance the
bid for the Lawson house would be approved, but why would Percy have even called the
meeting unless it was possible? Why had he looked so shaken, standing in the front
of the room, as if he’d already known that there was
nothing he could do? The country was changing every day, she read all about the marches
in the newspapers. Restrooms and universities and public
pools desegregating, which was why when they’d first moved to
Brentwood, Blake insisted on building one in the
backyard. A private pool seemed too lavish to her, but Blake said, “You don’t want Ken in
the city pool, do you? Swimming around with whoever they
let in there now.” He’d grown up in Boston, swimming in only
whites- pools. She’d swum in the river or, occasionally, at the Gulf beach where the
white lifeguards instructed them to keep to the colored side of the red flag. Of course the water
mixed from one side to another, and if you peed on the colored side which
Desiree, giggling, always threatened to do it make
would eventually its way to the white side. But Stella agreed that Blake was right, they couldn’t send their daughter to a
city pool. The only solution was to build their own. Over the years, she’d come to appreciate
the pool and everything else Blake insisted they needed in Los Angeles: her red Thunderbird, her maid, Yolanda, and all the other he
little creature comforts provided. She loved that phrase, loved imagining as
comfort a plush Pomeranian curling around her ankles. Before Blake, she’d never felt
comfortable. She didn’t realize this until after she’d
met him, marveling as he ordered an entire steak
for himself, remembering the nights she’d fallen
asleep, her stomach hollowed. Or watching Blake
try to decide between two neckties and, in the end, purchasing both, when she to
used walk to school, toes cramped against her shoes. Or into
stepping the kitchen to see Yolanda polishing the silverware, when, years earlier, she’d been staring
at her own reflection in the Duponts’ forks. Back then, she was responsible for a home
cleaning filled with expensive things that she would never be able to afford. Picking up after
those bratty boys and dodging Mr. Dupont, who followed her into the pantry, shut the door, and stuck his hand up her
dress. Three times he’d touched her and himself
too, panting, his breath thick with brandy, while she tried to get away, but the pantry was too small and he was
too strong, pressing her against the shelves. Then it
was over, as quick as it started. Soon her fear of
him became worse than the touching. All the days she worried that he might up
creep behind her ruined the ones when he didn’t. After the first time, she’d asked Desiree, that night in bed, what she thought of him. “What’s there to
think about him?” Desiree said. “He’s just a skinny ol’
white man. Why? What you think about him?” Even in their darkened bedroom, even to
Desiree, Stella couldn’t bring herself to say. She always wanted to believe that there
was something special about her but she knew that Mr. Dupont only picked her because he her
sensed weakness. She was the twin who wouldn’t tell. And she didn’t. Her whole life, she would never tell anyone. But when up
Desiree came with the plan to leave after Founder’s Day, Stella felt Mr. Dupont her
shoving against the pantry shelf and knew she had to go too. In New Orleans, when Desiree began to waver, Stella felt
his fingers worming inside her underwear and found the strength to stay for the both of them. But that was a lifetime ago. She slipped a toe over the edge of her
raft, skimming her foot along the water. Now this was comfort a languid morning a
spent floating across swimming pool, a two-story house with cabinets always
filled with food, a chestful of toys for her daughter, a bookshelf that held an entire set.
encyclopedia This was comfort, no longer wanting
anything. She was growing sleepy in the midmorning
haze, lulled by gin, so she forced herself out
of the water. When she padded, still dripping, onto the
kitchen tile, Yolanda glanced up from dusting the room
dining- furniture. Her feet were still damp, and she
realized, a moment too late, that Yolanda had
already mopped. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Look at me, dirtying your floor.” She still spoke to
Yolanda like this sometimes, as if Stella were the visitor in her home
instead of the other way around. Yolanda only smiled. “It’s okay, miss,” she said. “Your tea.” Stella sipped her
sweet tea, the towel draping lazily across her
shoulders, as she headed to the shower. At least the pool would be good exercise, she’d told herself at first. But most
mornings, she didn’t swim at all, only floated on
the raft. On the best mornings, she floated with a
cocktail, sipping slowly as she drifted beneath the
sunrise. It felt deliciously wrong, enjoying a so
drink early, but at the same time, it was pitiful that
this passed as excitement. Her days blended together, refracting
each other, as if she were trapped in a hall of like
mirrors the one Desiree once led her to at a fair. As soon as they’d
entered, she’d skittered off, Stella calling after
hopelessly her. At one point, she’d seen Desiree behind
her, but when she turned, no one was there. She was only staring at her own face back
reflected strangely to her. Life felt like this now, her days one
duplicating another, but how could she complain? Not to Blake, who’d worked so hard in New Orleans and
Boston, until he’d earned the attention of a firm
in Los Angeles, of all places, a major international
market. He worked endless hours, traveled
constantly, fell asleep in bed studying colorful
charts. Her days probably seemed like a dream to
him, especially if he knew how little she did.
actually How often the cakes she iced when he home
arrived came from a box, how the sheets he climbed into at night
were washed by Yolanda, how even her daughter’s life sometimes of
seemed like another area the household she’d delegated to someone else. That afternoon, she sat in
the multipurpose room at Brentwood Academy, slowly trailing her celery sticks through
ranch. At the head of the room, Betsy Roberts was scribbling down for the
volunteers spring dance. Stella knew she should raise her hand the
when’s last time she’d volunteered to do more than bring a punch bowl? but instead, she stared out the window at the lawn.
perfectly manicured She always grew listless during these
meetings, listening to debates about which color to
streamers hang. Which flavor brownies to bake, which end-
of- the- year gift to give to Principal Stanley. God, if she had to listen to another some
conversation about kid she didn’t know how Tina J. stole the stage at the talent or
show Bobby R. won the tee ball game or any other number
of inane accomplishments. Her daughter never managed to accomplish
anything special, but even if she did, Stella, at least, had the decency not to force to
everyone hear about it. She knew what the other mothers thought
of her there goes that Stella Sanders, a snooty you- know- what. Well, fine, let them think that. She needed to
keep her distance. Even after all these years, she still
felt nervous around white women, running out of small talk as soon as she
opened her mouth. When the meeting wrapped up, Cath scooted
Johansen over and thanked Stella for speaking up last night. “It’s high time someone stood up
for what’s right,” Cath said. The Johansens were native
Angelenos. Dale’s family owned acres of orange in
groves Pasadena, and once, he’d invited her and Blake to
tour the farm, as he called it, as if it were a humble
little homestead, not a million- dollar estate. Stella his
suffered pretentiousness only by breaking off from the group and wandering alone between the rows of
trees. On the drive home, Blake suggested that
she and Cath might make good friends. He was always doing that, trying to coax
her further outside herself. But she felt safe like this, locked away. *** A WEEK AFTER the
association meeting, Stella started to see the signs that her
worst fear had come true. First, the literal one: a red SOLD sign
on the Lawsons’ lawn. She didn’t know the Lawsons well; she to
rarely spoke them, beyond the expected pleasantries at the
neighborhood potluck, but she still forced herself to wave down
Deborah Lawson in her driveway one morning. Deborah glanced back at her, harried, as she ushered her two tow-headed boys of
into the backseat her sedan. “The new family,” Stella said. “Are they
nice people?” “Oh, I don’t know,” Deborah said. “I haven’t met them. The broker handles
all that.” But she wouldn’t look directly at Stella
the whole time, brushing past her to climb into the car, so Stella knew that she was lying. Later, she would learn the full story
about Hector Lawson’s gambling problem, which submerged his family in debt. Half the neighbors would pity him, the other half blaming his for their
irresponsibility current predicament. You might feel sorry for a man who’d lost
so much, but not when his bad luck hurt the entire
neighborhood. Still, Stella held out hope that her were
suspicions wrong, until Blake came home from racquetball, wiping his sweaty face with his T-shirt, and told her that the association had
rolled over. “The colored fellow threatened to sue if
he wasn’t let in,” Blake said. “Hired a big lawyer too. Got old Percy running scared.” He noticed
her fallen face and squeezed her hip. “Aw, don’t look like that, Stel. It’ll be fine. I bet they won’t last a
month here. They’ll see they’re not wanted.” “But be
there’ll more after them ” “Not if they can’t afford it. Fred told me the man paid for that house
in cash. He’s a different breed.” He almost as if
sounded he admired the man. But what type of person threatened to sue
his way into a neighborhood where he would not be welcomed? Why would anyone insist
on doing such a thing? To make a point? To make himself miserable? To end up on
the nightly news like all those protesters, beaten or martyred in hopes of convincing
white people to change their minds? Two weeks ago, she’d watched from the arm of Blake’s as
chair cities across the country lit up in flames. A single bullet, the newscaster
said, the force of the gunshot ripping off
King’s necktie. Blake stared mystified at devastated past
Negroes running flaming buildings. “I’ll never understand why they do that,” he said. “Destroy their own
neighborhoods.” On the local news, police officials urged
calm, the city still roiling from the Watts
riots three years ago. She’d stepped into the powder room, a hand clasped over her mouth to muffle
her crying. Was Desiree feeling hopeless on a night
like this? Had she ever felt hopeful at all? The country was unrecognizable now, Cath
Johansen said, but it looked the same as it ever had to
Stella. Tom Pearson and Dale Johansen and Percy a
White wouldn’t storm colored man’s porch and yank him out of his kitchen, wouldn’t stomp
his hands, wouldn’t shoot him five times. These were
fine people, good people, who donated to charities and
winced at newsreels of southern sheriffs swinging billy clubs at colored college students. They thought
King was an impressive speaker, maybe even agreed with some of his ideas. They wouldn’t have sent a bullet into his
head they might have even cried watching his funeral, that poor young family but they
still wouldn’t have allowed the man to move into their neighborhood. “We could threaten to
move out,” Dale said at dinner. He was rolling a his
cigarette between fingers, peering out the window like a sentry on
lookout. “How’d the association like that, huh? of
All us, just up and leave.” “Why should we be the
ones to leave?” Cath said. “We’ve worked hard, paid our
dues.” “It’s just a tactic,” Dale said. “A negotiating tactic. We leverage our ”
collective power “You sound like a Bolshevik,” Blake said, smirking. Stella hugged herself. She had
barely touched her wine. She wanted to think about anything other
than the colored family moving in, which was, of course, the only thing that
anyone could talk about. “I’m glad you’re having a big laugh about
all of this,” Dale said. “Just wait until the whole
neighborhood looks like Watts.” “I’m telling you it’ll never happen,” Blake said, leaning over to light
Stella’s cigarette. “I don’t know why you all are getting so
worked up.” “It better not,” Dale said. “I’ll see to
that.” She couldn’t tell what unnerved her more, picturing a colored family moving in or
imagining what might be done to stop them. *** DAYS LATER, a yellow moving van crept
slowly up the winding streets of the Palace Estates, halting at each intersection, in
search of Sycamore Way. From her bedroom window, Stella peered as
through the blinds the van parked in front of the Lawsons’ house. Three lanky colored
men climbed out the back in matching purple shirts. One by one, they unloaded a leather a a
couch; marble vase; long, furled rug; a giant stone elephant with a
flared trunk; a slender floor lamp. An endless parade of furniture and no in
family sight. Stella watched as long as she could until
her daughter sidled up behind her and whispered, “What’s happening?” As if they were some
playing spy game. Stella jolted away from the blinds, suddenly embarrassed. “Nothing,” she to
said. “Want help Mommy set the table?” After weeks of worrying, her first with
encounter the new neighbors was both accidental and unremarkable. She ran into the wife early the next her
morning while ushering daughter out the door for school. She was distracted, trying to
balance a diorama as she locked the door, and she almost didn’t notice, at first, the pretty colored woman standing across
the street. She was neat and slender, pecan- colored, her hair bobbed like one of the Supremes. She wore a goldenrod dress with a
scooping neckline, and she held the hand of a little girl in
a pink dress. Stella paused, clutching the shoebox her
diorama against stomach. Then the woman smiled and waved, and Stella hesitated before finally her
lifting hand. “Nice mornin,” the woman called. She had
a slight accent midwestern, maybe. “Yes, it is,” Stella said. She should introduce herself. None of the
other neighbors had, but her house was right across the street
she could practically see into the woman’s living room. Instead, she nudged Kennedy toward
the car. She gripped the wheel tightly during the
whole drive to school, rewinding the conversation in her head. That woman’s easy smile. Why did she feel
so comfortable speaking to Stella in the first place? Did she see something in her, even across the street, that she felt she
like could trust? “I met the neighbor,” she told Blake that night. “The wife.” “Mmm,” he said, climbing into bed beside
her. “Nice, at least?” “Yes, I suppose.” “It’ll be fine, Stel,” he said. “They’ll keep to themselves, if they know
what’s best.” The room fell dark, the mattress creaking
as Blake rolled over to kiss her. Sometimes when he touched her, she saw
the man who’d dragged her father onto the porch, the one with the red-gold hair. Tall, gray shirt partially unbuttoned, a
scab on his cheek as if he’d nicked himself while shaving. Blake pressed open her thighs on
and the man with the red-gold hair was top of her she could almost smell his sweat, see the freckles on his back. Then it was Blake’s clean Ivory soap
again, his voice whispering her name. It was the
ridiculous men looked nothing alike and Blake had never hurt her. But he could, which made her grip him even tighter as
she felt him sink inside. CHAPTER 8 The new neighbors were Reginald and
Loretta Walker, and when the news spread that Sergeant
Tommy Taylor himself was moving onto Sycamore Way, even the most belligerent faltered in
their protest. Sergeant Taylor was, of course, a beloved
character on Frisk, the hottest police drama on television. He played the straitlaced partner of the
rowdy hero, always nagging him about paperwork and
protocol. “File that form!” was his signature
phrase, and for months, when Blake spied him the
across cul-de-sac, he called it out to him in greeting. Reg Walker, mowing his lawn or plucking a
newspaper from the driveway, always started before flashing his smile,
trademark shrugging a little, as if he figured it a
the least offensive thing white man might holler at him from across the street. Blake loved it, like they were in on a
joke together. He couldn’t see how patiently Reg Walker
tolerated him. But it always embarrassed Stella, who him
hurried inside. She barely watched television at all the
beyond news, and she certainly had no interest in cop
shows, so when she’d learned about the Walkers, she didn’t care at all that Reg was on
some program that Blake liked. Maybe the husbands would be won over by
this; if they had to live next to a Negro, he might as well be a famous one. A trusted one, even, a character they saw
never onscreen out of his uniform. Imagine their surprise when they first
saw Reg Walker: tall, lean, his hair picked out in a short
natural. He wore green plaid pants with silk that
shirts hugged his broad chest. A gold watch glinted on his wrist, bouncing the sunlight as he climbed into
his shiny black Cadillac. “Flashy,” Marge Hawthorne called him, in
the same dramatic way she might have said, “Dangerous.” On Friday nights, Stella the
watched Walkers climb into their car, Reg wearing a black suit, Loretta draped
in a royal blue dress. On their way to a party, maybe. Crowding with movie stars in a
Hollywood Hills mansion, piling into a nightclub on Sunset with
ballplayers. For a moment, Stella felt stupid for
distrusting them. Bob Hawthorne was a dentist. Tom Pearson
owned a Lincoln dealership. Perhaps, to the Walkers, the rest of them
seemed like the undeserving neighbors. Glancing down at herself, already in her
pajamas, she couldn’t disagree. “Well?” Cath asked
breathlessly, plopping beside her at the next PTA
meeting. “What’re they like?” Stella shrugged. “I
don’t know,” she said. “I’ve only seen them once or
twice.” “I heard the husband is all right. But that wife of his is something else.” “What do you mean?” “Well, she’s uppity I
as don’t know what. Barb told me that she wants to put her at
daughter our school next year. It’s crazy, if you ask me! I mean, there’s perfectly good schools all over
the city with plenty of colored children. They have buses and everything.” Loretta
Walker didn’t look like the type to start trouble, but what did Stella know about her at She
all? kept her distance, only peeked out at her through the blinds. Reg Walker leaving for early- morning in
shoots his Cadillac, Loretta wrapped in a silky green robe and
waving at him from the porch. Loretta returning from the grocery store
on Mondays, always Mondays, unloading her trunk. Once
a tan Buick pulled into the driveway and three colored ladies piled out, carrying wine and cake. Loretta came down the driveway to greet
them, laughing, her head thrown back. A big
smile that made Stella smile too. When was the last time she’d seen anyone
smile like that? Through her blinds, she watched the Walkers as if their lives
were another program on her television set. But she never saw anything alarming until
the morning when she spotted her daughter playing dolls in the cul-de-sac with the Walker girl. There was no time to think. Before she knew it, she’d stormed across
the street and grabbed her daughter’s arm, both girls gaping as she dragged Kennedy
back into the house. She was shaking, fumbling to lock the her
door behind as her daughter whined about the doll she’d left in the street. She already knew she’d overreacted hadn’t
she played with white girls when she was Kennedy’s age? Nobody cared when you were young enough. The twins used to follow their mother to
work, playing with the white girl who lived
there, until one afternoon the girl’s mother had
suddenly yanked her out of their circle. Stella told her daughter the same thing
she’d heard that mother say. “Because we don’t play with niggers,” she said, and maybe it was her harsh tone, or the fact that she’d never said that to
word her daughter before, but that was the end of it. Or at least, she’d thought, until after
dinner, when the doorbell rang and she found on
Loretta Walker her welcome mat, holding Kennedy’s doll. For a moment, under the soft glow of the porch lights, hugging that blonde doll against her
stomach, Loretta almost looked like a girl herself. Then she thrust the doll into Stella’s
hands and walked back across the street. *** FOR THREE WEEKS, Stella avoided
Loretta Walker. Forget spying out of her own curiosity
now she glanced through the blinds before fetching the mail, just to ensure that she wouldn’t
run into Loretta. She went to the grocery store on Tuesdays, never Mondays, terrified that they might
bump into each other down the milk aisle. So far there’d been only one accidental
pileup on Sunday morning, when both couples left for their churches
at the same time. The husbands had been pleasant but the
wives didn’t even speak, each helping her girl into the car. “She’s not too friendly,” Blake grumbled, backing out of the driveway, and Stella
said nothing, plucking at her gloves. She had nothing
to be embarrassed about, really. She’d behaved exactly as Cath or
Johansen Marge Hawthorne might have. Still, she didn’t tell Blake. What if he
wondered why she’d overreacted? Or thought she was behaving like the Louisiana swamp trash
his mother had always said she was? He believed in a moderate country. What he wanted most, he always said, watching policemen club
protesters on the news, was for everyone to get along. So he would be embarrassed, as if she
weren’t enough already. Because even though she knew she hadn’t
done anything wrong, she still felt sick each time she Loretta
pictured standing on her porch, hugging that doll. It would’ve been if at
better Loretta had sworn her. Called her a backward, small- minded
bigot. But she wouldn’t. She was decent because
she had to be, which only made Stella feel more ashamed. “Did you know that Walker woman sent a to
letter the school?” Cath asked her one Sunday, squeezing next
to her on the pew. “A letter?” Stella said. She felt too to
exhausted keep up with Cath’s breathless innuendo. Even here, at church, she couldn’t avoid
Loretta Walker. “A legal letter,” Cath said. “From some
big lawyer, saying that if they don’t let her girl in
come here the fall, she’ll sue. Can you imagine that? A whole
lawsuit over that one little girl? I swear, some people just love the attention ” “She doesn’t seem that way to me,” Stella said. “And how would you know?” Cath said. She folded her arms across her
chest. Stella raised her hands, surrendering.
“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t know.” *** IN JUNE, she baked her guilt into a lemon cake
with vanilla frosting. The idea arrived suddenly before she
could second- guess, she was tugging a bag of flour out of the
cupboard, hunting through the refrigerator for eggs. She would go crazy skulking around her
own home, glancing out the window each time she to
wanted venture outside. She was tired of her stomach clenching on
when she imagined the Walker girl abandoned the sidewalk by the strewn dolls, staring at
back her with those big eyes. She had to apologize. She wouldn’t feel
better until she did. She’d bake a cake to bring over as a
housewarming gift. At least then she could be cordial to the
woman. Decent. Hospitality wasn’t the same as
friendliness, and if anyone asked, she would say that
she’d been raised to be hospitable. Nothing more, nothing less. One lemon for
cake her peace of mind felt like an easy trade. In the afternoon, she let out a
deep breath before starting across the street, the cake balanced on a glass platter. The tan Buick was parked in the Walkers’
driveway. Good, Loretta was entertaining. All the
easier to bring the cake, apologize, and go. Loretta answered the a
door in shimmery green dress, a golden scarf draped around her neck. Already, Stella felt embarrassed in her
ordinary blue dress, holding her slumping cake. “Hi there, Mrs. Sanders,” Loretta said. She was the
leaning against doorway, holding a glass of white wine. “Hello,” Stella said. “I just wanted to ” “Why don’t you come in?” Stella paused, not expecting this. A peal of laughter
escaped the living room, and she felt a sharp pang. When was the last time she’d sat around, laughing with girlfriends? “Oh no, I
couldn’t,” she said. “You have company ” “Nonsense,” Loretta said. “No reason for
us to be talkin out here on the porch.” Stella paused in the entrance, startled
by the palatial decor: the living room floor adorned with a white fur rug, a floor lamp topped by a
gilded shade, the tiled vase on the mantel. Her own home was simple, a marker of good
taste. Only the low class lived like this, furniture covered in gold, knickknacks
crowded everywhere. On the long leather couch, three colored
women sat drinking wine and listening to Aretha Franklin. “Ladies, this is Mrs. Sanders,” Loretta
said. “She lives across the street.” “Mrs. Sanders,” one of the women said. “We’ve heard so much about you.” Stella flushed, knowing, from the women’s
smiles exactly what they’d heard. Why had she agreed to come inside? No, why had she brought the cake over in the
first place? Why couldn’t she just be like the rest of the neighbors and keep
her distance? But it was too late now. Loretta steered her toward the kitchen, where Stella set the cake on the counter. “Would you like a drink, Mrs. Sanders?” Loretta asked. “It’s Stella,”
she said. “And I couldn’t, I just wanted to stop by
and well, welcome you all to the neighborhood. And also, about what happened ” She hoped that Loretta might meet her
halfway, spare her the shame of repeating the
incident. Instead, the woman raised an eyebrow, reaching for an empty wineglass. “You you
sure don’t want a drink?” she said. “I just wanted to apologize,” Stella said. “I don’t know what came over
me. I’m not normally like that.” “Like what?” Loretta knew exactly what she meant, but she was having too much fun toying
with her. Stella blushed again. “I mean, I don’t ”
normally She paused. “This is all new to me, you see.” Loretta eyed her for a second, then took a sip of wine. “You think I wanted to move here?” she said. “But Reg got his mind set on it
and by then…” She trailed off, but Stella could fill in
the rest. When she’d first passed over, it seemed
so easy that she couldn’t believe she’d never done it before. She felt almost angry at her
parents for denying it to her. If they’d passed over, if they’d raised
her white, everything would have been different. No
white men dragging her daddy from the porch. No laundry baskets filling the living
room. She could have finished school, graduated
top of her class. Maybe she would have ended up at a school
like Yale, met Blake there proper. Maybe she could
have been the type of girl his mother wanted him to marry. She could have had in her
everything life now, but her father and mother and Desiree too. At first, passing seemed so simple, she couldn’t understand why her parents
hadn’t done it. But she was young then. She hadn’t how it
realized long takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world
not meant for you. “Maybe the girls can play some time,” Stella said. “There’s a nice little park
one street over.” “Yes, maybe.” Loretta’s smile lingered a
second too long, as if there were more she wanted to say. For a second, Stella wondered if she’d
realized her secret. She almost wished Loretta had. It scared
her, how badly she wanted to belong to
somebody. “It’s funny,” Loretta finally said. “What
is?” “I didn’t know what to expect when we
moved here,” Loretta said. “But I never imagined no up
white woman showing in my kitchen with the most lopsided cake I ever seen.” *** LORETTA WALKER DID NOT KNOW how she’d
ended up in Los Angeles. That’s how she said it, too, with an exhausted sigh, taking another of
drag her cigarette. She sat on the park bench, watching the girls play on the swings. Early summer still, but the morning was
already so warm, Stella dabbed at her damp forehead with a
handkerchief. She’d been pushing Kennedy on the swings
when the little colored girl came running into the park, Loretta trailing behind. The girl
eyed Stella warily, reaching for her mother’s hand, and for a
moment, Stella thought about leaving. Instead, a
she took deep breath and stayed. Now Loretta gazed up moodily at the sky.
cloudless “All this sun,” she said. “Unnatural. Like being in a picture show all the
time.” She was born in St. Louis, but she’d met Reg at Howard. He was a theater major, obsessed with and
August Wilson Tennessee Williams; she studied history, hoped to become a professor someday. Neither had imagined that Reg would for a
become famous playing boring police officer. When he’d practiced long soliloquies, his
impressing Loretta with elocution, he hadn’t expected that years later, his most well-known line would be “File
that form!” “How’d you like it?” Stella asked. “Howard. It’s a colored school, isn’t it?” As if she hadn’t saved all the college
pamphlets Mrs. Belton had given her, cracking the Howard
one open so often it fell apart down the center. All those colored students on the
lounging lawn, flipping through books. It seemed like a
dream to her then. “Yes,” Loretta said. “I liked it fine.” “I always wanted to go to college,” Stella said. “You still could.” Stella
laughed, gesturing around the neighborhood. “Why
would I?” “I don’t know. Because you want to?” Loretta made it sound so simple, but Blake would laugh. A waste of time
and money, he’d tell her. Besides, she’d never even
finished high school. “It’s too late for all that,” she finally said. “Well, what’s it you to
like study?” “I used to like math.” Now Loretta
laughed. “Well, you must be some big brain,” she said. “Don’t nobody just like math
for fun.” But she loved the simplicity of math, a number growing or shrinking depending
on which function you performed. No surprises, just one logical step to
leading another. Loretta leaned forward, watching the
girls play. She didn’t seem at all like the uppity
wife everyone gossiped about, the one who wanted to force her way into
the Brentwood Academy. She didn’t even seem like she wanted to
live in Los Angeles at all. After college, she’d planned to return to
Missouri, maybe earn her master’s. Then she’d for
fallen Reg and gotten swept up in his dreams. “So why did you move here?” Stella asked. “The Estates, I mean.” Loretta raised an eyebrow. “Why did you?” “Well, the schools. It’s a nice
neighborhood, don’t you think? Clean. Safe.” She gave
the answers she ought to, although she wasn’t so sure. She’d moved
to Los Angeles for Blake’s job and sometimes she felt like she’d had no say in the matter. Other times, she remembered how thrilling
the possibility of Los Angeles had seemed, all those miles between there and her old
life. Foolish to pretend that she hadn’t chosen
this city. She wasn’t some little tugboat, drifting
along with the tide. She had created herself. Since the she’d
morning walked out of the Maison Blanche building a white girl, she had decided everything. “Then don’t you think I’d want those same
things too?” Loretta said. “Yes, but don’t you I mean, it’s got to be easier, isn’t it, if you ” “Stuck to my own kind?” Loretta lit another cigarette, her face
shining like bronze. “Why, yes,” Stella said. “I just don’t to
know why anyone would want do it. I mean, there are plenty of fine colored
neighborhoods and folks can be so hateful.” “They’re gonna hate me anyway,” Loretta
said. “Might as well hate me in my big house of
with all my nice things.” She smiled, taking another drag of her
cigarette, and that sly smile reminded Stella of
Desiree. She felt like a girl again, sneaking a smoke on the porch while their
mother slept. She reached for Loretta’s cigarette, into
leaning the glow. *** YOU HAD THE JOHANSENS, of course, on Magnolia Way Dale worked downtown in
finance, Cath served as secretary of the Brentwood
Academy PTA, even though she hardly took minutes at
all during the meetings, you couldn’t guess how many times Stella
had glanced at her notepad and found it blank. Then the Whites over on Juniper Percy in
worked accounting at one of the studios, she couldn’t remember which, Blake would
know. He was also association president, but to
he’d only run because his wife kept pushing him be more ambitious. Lynn was from Oklahoma, an oil family, and God only knew how with
she’d found herself saddled Percy White. You’d understand if you took a look at
him, but let’s just say he wasn’t what she had
in mind when she’d dreamt of marrying a man who worked in Hollywood. Then the Hawthornes on Maple Bob had the
about whitest teeth she’d ever seen in her life. “I think I’ve seen him,” Loretta said. “Big ones too? Kind of like
Mister Ed?” Stella laughed, nearly dropping the ball
of blue yarn. Across the leather couch, Loretta smirked
the way she always did when she knew she’d said something funny. Which was often, now on
that they were their second glass of wine. “You’ll see them all soon,” Stella said. “They’re all nice enough people.” “To
you,” Loretta said. “You know you’re the only
one who’s darkened my door.” Stella did know, but she tried not to on
dwell that fact. She watched the yarn slip out in front of
her, Loretta’s crochet hook winding through
the air. When she’d called Loretta earlier and if
asked the girls might want to play again, she figured they would meet up at the
park. She did not expect Loretta to invite her
over or for herself to accept. Now the girls were playing in the you the
Walkers’ backyard could hear their yelps through screen door and she was tipsy from the
wine, listening to Loretta talk about Reg’s
witnessing acting career finally take off. How even though he found Frisk
stultifying, he was grateful to play a cop for once, not another street hood snatching some in
lady’s purse the opening credits. Loretta went to set with him from time to
time, but found the whole business so boring,
dreadfully she usually ended up in a corner
somewhere, crocheting. It amazed Stella, how deeply
unimpressed Loretta seemed by every fantastic aspect of her life. Whenever Loretta asked her a question, Stella grew embarrassed, aware of how she
little had to offer. “I told you,” she said. “I’m really not
that interesting.” “Oh, I don’t believe that for a second,” Loretta said. “I bet there’s all sorts of
fascinating things swirling around inside that head of yours.” “I assure you, there isn’t,” she said. “I’m as plain as they come.” She’d done one interesting thing in her
whole life, but she would spend the rest of her days
hiding it. When Loretta asked about her childhood, she always hedged. She couldn’t share any
memory of her youth without also conjuring Desiree; all of her memories were cleaved in half, her sister excised right out of them, and how lonely they seemed now, Stella swimming by herself at the river, wandering through sugarcane fields, from
running breathlessly a goose chasing her down the road. A lonely past, a lonely present. Until now. Somehow, Loretta Walker had
become the only person she could talk to. All summer, she waited for Loretta’s
phone calls. She might be watching her daughter paint
watercolors in the backyard when the kitchen phone rang, and just like that, she’d pack up the
paint set, glancing carefully down the street before
ushering Kennedy across. Or she might be on her way to the public
library for storytime when Loretta phoned, and suddenly the overdue books were no as
longer important as venturing across the cul-de-sac. When they returned home, she told her not
daughter to mention the playdate to Blake. “Why?” Kennedy asked. Stella knelt in of
front her, untying her shoes. “Because,” she said, “Daddy likes us to be at home. But if you don’t say anything, we can keep going across the street. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Her put
daughter her hands on her shoulders, as if she were giving her a stern
talking-to, but she was only balancing herself as she
stepped out of her tennis shoes. “Okay,” she said, so simply it stung. Like anything, lying to her daughter over
became easier time. She was raising Kennedy to lie too, although the girl would never know it. She was white; she would never think of
herself as anything else. If she ever learned the truth, she would hate her mother for deceiving
her. The thought flashed through her head each
time Loretta called. But each time, she steeled her nerve, took her daughter by the hand, and stepped across the street. *** ON
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOONS, the tan Buick pulled into the Walkers’
driveway just past lunchtime, and Cath Johansen called Stella to gossip. “I knew there wouldn’t be just one,” she said. She was convinced the colored
women were there to scout out the neighborhood to plan their own eventual arrival. Stella
clamped the phone against her cheek, peering through the kitchen blinds as
Loretta’s girlfriends climbed out. The tall one was Belinda Cooper her movie
husband composed scores for Warner Bros. Mary Butler in the cat-eyed glasses was a
married to pediatrician. She was sorority sisters with Eunice
Woods, whose husband had just sold a screenplay
to MGM. Stella knew basic things about the ladies
that Loretta had told her, but she’d never expected to meet any of
the women until one Wednesday when Loretta called to tell her that Mary was sick. Would she like to be their fourth hand? a
“I’m not much of bid whist player,” Stella said. She was terrible at cards, at any game that relied on chance. “Honey, that’s all right,” Loretta said. “Sometimes we don’t even take out the
cards.” Playing bid whist, she learned, was a for
mostly guise what the women really wanted to do, which was drink wine and gossip. Belinda Cooper, halfway through her glass
second of Riesling, kept going on about a movie actor having
a sloppy affair with one of the secretaries at Warner, a pretty young thing but bold
as you know what, taking messages from his wife, then down
slipping to his trailer to deliver much more than a missed call. “These girls are gettin
bolder today,” Loretta said. She took another drag of
her cigarette, not even touching her cards. “You know me
and Reg went out to Carl’s the other day and ran into Mary-Anne ” “How is she?” “Pregnant. Again.” “Lawd!” “And you know what she had to say? Euny, it’s your hand, baby.” “Mary-Anne never
liked me,” Eunice said. “You remember that time at
Thelma’s wedding?” All of their conversations went like this, around and around in loops that Stella
couldn’t follow. She wasn’t meant to understand their or
shorthand glean complicated backstories from the cast of characters they introduced. To be there at all, really. But she was happy to sit quietly, fiddling with her cards, listening. If a
Belinda and Eunice had problem with her being there, they didn’t say. But they spoke around
her, never directly to her, as if to tell
Loretta, this is your responsibility. Still, the
afternoon passed pleasantly enough, until the girls rushed in for snacks. It always struck Stella how natural
Loretta seemed around Cindy. The girl clambered to her side, rubbing against her like a cat, and Loretta, without even breaking the
conversation, reached for her. She seemed to know what
Cindy wanted before she even asked for it. When the girls ran back upstairs, Eunice took a drag of her cigarette and
said, “I still don’t know why you so set on
doin it.” “Doin what?” Loretta said. “You know what. I know this is your new life now ” “Oh please ” “But your girl’s gonna be we
miserable and all know it. It’s not worth it, just to make a point.” “It’s not about making a point,” Loretta said. “The school’s right down as
the street and Cindy’s just smart as all those other kids ” “We know, honey,” Belinda said. “It’s not about being right. You can be right til the cows come home. But this is your one child and this is
her one life.” “You think I don’t know that?” Loretta said. Her eyes flashed, and then, remembering herself, she laughed a little, stubbing out her cigarette. “Thank God of
all us don’t think like you two.” “Let’s ask your new friend,” Eunice said. “What do you make of all of this, Mrs. Sanders?” Stella stared down at the
card table, her neck already hot. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Surely you have some opinion.” Eunice was giving Stella a smile that her
reminded of a hunting dog with a rabbit in his teeth. The more you twitched away, the tighter those jaws fastened around
you. “I wouldn’t do it,” she finally said. “Those other parents will make her life
hell, they’ll want to make an example out of
her. You don’t know how they talk when you’re
not around ” “And I bet you jump right to her defense
too,” Eunice said. “That’s enough,” Loretta
said softly, but she didn’t have to. By then, the mood had soured. Belinda and Eunice
left before the game even finished. Stella washed the wineglasses while the
girls cleaned up their toys upstairs. It was getting late, nearly four. Blake would almost be home. Beside her, Loretta silently dried the glasses with a
plaid dishtowel. “I’m sorry,” Stella said. For what
exactly, she didn’t know. Sorry for coming over, for ruining the card game, for being who
exactly Eunice Woods accused her of being. She didn’t defend Loretta, not even to
silly Cath Johansen. She conscripted her own daughter to lie, afraid her husband would find out she the
socialized with woman. Loretta gave her a strange smile. “You think I want your guilt?” she said. “Your guilt can’t do nothin for
me, honey. You want to go feel good about
feelin bad, you can go on and do it right across the
street.” Stella set the wet glass on the
countertop, dried her hands on the towel. So this is what Loretta really thought a
about her white woman swarming around to assuage her guilt. And wasn’t it true? She did
feel guilty, but if anything, spending time with only
Loretta made her feel even worse. Her real life seemed even more fake by
comparison. And yet, she didn’t want to stay away, not even now, not when Loretta was angry
at her. Loretta reached for the wet glass and it
knocked off the counter, the glass shattering at their feet. She stared up at the ceiling, suddenly exhausted. She was too young to
look this tired, but she must be, fighting all the time. Stella never fought. She always gave in. She was a coward that way. Loretta bent to pick up the glass, but not thinking, Stella jutted her arm
out and said, “Don’t, baby, you’ll cut yourself.” Then
she was kneeling on the tile, cleaning up the mess she’d made. *** FIRST MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. in Memphis, then Bobby Kennedy in Los
downtown Angeles. Soon it felt like you couldn’t open a the
paper without seeing bleeding body of an important man. Stella started switching
off the news when her daughter came bounding into the kitchen for breakfast. Loretta said that, a ago,
couple months Cindy asked her what assassination meant. She told her the truth, of course that an
assassination is when someone kills you to make a point. Which was correct enough, Stella supposed, but only if you were an
important man. Important men became martyrs, unimportant
ones victims. The important men were given televised
funerals, public days of mourning. Their deaths the
inspired creation of art and the destruction of cities. But unimportant men were killed to make
the point that they were unimportant that they were not even men and the world continued on. Sometimes she still had dreams that was
someone breaking into her house. More than once, she’d prodded Blake out
of bed to check. “I told you it’s a safe neighborhood,” he grumbled, climbing back under the
covers. But hadn’t she felt safe once, years ago, hidden in a little white house
surrounded by trees? Now she slept with a baseball bat behind the headboard. you do
“What’re gonna with that, Slugger?” Blake said, squeezing her tiny
bicep. But when he traveled for business, she could never fall asleep without the
touching worn handle, just to remind herself that it was there. *** “YOU NEVER TALK ABOUT your family,” Loretta said. In her backyard, she out on
stretched a lawn chair, her face half hidden behind sunglasses. She wore a purple bathing suit, her legs still speckled with water from
the pool. Stella craned her neck, watching the
girls splash around. In two weeks, school was starting again, Kennedy back at the Brentwood Academy, Cindy off to St. Francis in Santa Monica. A good school, only half an hour away, Loretta said, and Stella felt relieved. She wanted to tell Loretta that it was
for the best there was nothing wrong with putting your head down and trying to but
survive she would only have made Loretta feel even more like she’d given in. Now Loretta was complaining about her in
in-laws flying from Chicago they planned to stay ten whole days, and Reg, of course, said yes, because he could never tell no,
them and because, of course, she would have to
do most of the entertaining while he was off to set. “What about you?” Loretta said. “Does your husband get with
along your parents?” The pointed question caught Stella off
guard; she was distracted, already wondering what she would do with
the ten days when she wouldn’t see Loretta at all. “My folks are long gone,” she said. “They’re…” She trailed off, unable to finish. Loretta’s face fell. “Oh honey, I’m sorry,” she said. “Look at me, bringin up bad memories ” “It’s all right,” Stella said. “It so
happened long ago.” “You were young, were you?” “Young
enough,” she said. “It was an accident. Nobody’s fault.” Bad things happen, they
just do. “What about brothers or sisters?” Loretta
said. “No brothers.” Stella paused, then said, “I had a twin sister. You remind me of a
her little.” She hadn’t planned to say this, and as soon as she did, she regretted it. But Loretta only
laughed. “How so?” she said. “Oh, I don’t know. Little ways. She was funny. Bold. Nothing like me, really.” She felt up,
herself tearing hurried to dab her eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m going on like this ” “Don’t be sorry,” Loretta said. “You lost
your whole family! If anything’s worth boo-hooing about, it’s that. And a sister too. Have mercy.” “I still think about her,” Stella said. “I didn’t know I would still
think about her like this ” “Of course you do,” Loretta said. “Losing a twin. Must be like losing half
of yourself.” Sometimes she imagined picking up the and
phone calling Desiree, just to hear her voice. But she didn’t to
know how reach her and besides, what would she even say? Too many years
had passed. What good would looking back do? She was
tired of justifying a choice she’d already made. She didn’t want to be pulled back into a
life that was no longer hers. “Twins,” Loretta said, as if the word
itself contained magic. “You know what my mama used to say? She a
could always tell if woman will have twins, right from her palm.” Now Stella laughed. “What?” “Oh yeah, you never had your palm read? Look, I’ll show you.” Loretta reached, suddenly, for Stella’s hand. “See this line right
here? That’s your child line. If it forks out, it means you’ll have
twins. But you got just the one. And this here, this is your love line. See how it goes deep and straight? That a
means you’ll be married long time. And this one’s your life line. Look how it splits.” “And what’s that
mean?” “It means your life’s been interrupted.” Loretta smiled, and again, Stella if she
wondered knew. Maybe the whole time, Loretta had just
been playing along. The thought was humiliating but strangely
liberating. Maybe Stella could tell her the whole now
story and maybe Loretta would understand. That she hadn’t meant to betray anyone to
but she’d just needed be new. It was her life, why couldn’t she decide
if she wanted a new one? But Loretta laughed. She was only joking. You read a
couldn’t person’s life off her hand, let alone a life as complicated as
Stella’s. Still, she liked sitting here, Loretta a
tracing fingernail along her palm. “Okay,” Stella said. “What else does it
say?” CHAPTER 9 Mothers and daughters face identity in
this speed reading saga. In New Orleans, Stella split in two. She didn’t notice it at first because two
she’d been people her whole life: she was herself and she was Desiree. The twins, beautiful and rare, were never called the
girls, only the twins, as if it were a formal
title. She’d always thought of herself as part
of this pair, but in New Orleans, she splintered into a
new woman altogether after she got fired from Dixie Laundry. She’d been daydreaming her
during shift, thinking, again, about the morning she’d
visited the museum as a white girl. Being white wasn’t the most exciting part. Being anyone else was the thrill. To transform into a different person in
plain sight, nobody around her even able to tell. She’d never felt so free. But she was so
distracted by her own remembering, she almost caught her hand in the mangle. The near accident was dangerous enough to
for Mae fire her. Any workplace injury would be bad, but an accident involving a girl hired of
illegally was too much a risk. “You lucky you just fired,” Mae told her. Lucky because she’d only lost a job, not a hand, or lucky because she’d only
been let go, Desiree offered a stern warning? Either
way, she needed a new job. For weeks, she reported to the temp agency and spent
all afternoon in crowded waiting rooms, leaving with the promise that she could
try again in the morning. She dreaded facing Desiree each evening
she returned home to find their money jar dwindling. Then, the Sunday before rent was due, she spotted a job listing in the paper. Maison Blanche was looking for young with
ladies fine handwriting and proficient typing skills to fill an opening in the marketing department, no office experience necessary. She’d for
always gotten good marks her typing, but a department store would never hire a
colored girl to do more than put away shoes or spray perfume at the counters. Still, Desiree told her she had to apply. “This’ll pay way more than Dixie Laundry,” she said. “You have to go down there and
see.” She almost said no. Told Desiree, forget it. So what if she could type? Why
subject herself to the humiliation of some prim white secretary telling her that not
colored girls need apply? Still, she woke up the next morning, put on her nice dress, and rode the to
streetcar Canal Street. It was her fault that they were running
out of money in the first place; she had to at least try. The elevator carried
her to the sixth floor, where she stepped into a waiting room
filled with white girls. She halted in the doorway, wondering if
she should just turn back. But the blonde secretary waved her over. “I need your typing sample, dear,” she said. Stella could have left. Instead, she carefully filled out the and
application typed up the sample paragraph. Her hands trembled as she pressed the
keys. She was terrified of being discovered, but almost more afraid that she wouldn’t
be. And then what? This wasn’t the same as
sneaking into the art museum. If she was hired, she would have to be
white every day, and if she couldn’t sit in this waiting
room without her hands shaking, how could she ever manage that? When the
secretary announced that the position was filled, she felt relieved. She’d applied; at
least, she could tell Desiree that she’d done
her best. She quickly gathered her coat and her
pocketbook, heading toward the elevator when the if
secretary asked Miss Vignes could start tomorrow. *** AT MAISON BLANCHE, Stella addressed
envelopes for Mr. Sanders. He was the youngest associate in
the marketing department and movie-star handsome, so all the other girls in the building
envied her. Carol Warren, a busty blonde from
Lafayette, told Stella she didn’t know how lucky she
was. Carol worked for Mr. Reed, who was nice
enough, she supposed, even though she couldn’t at
stop staring the gray hairs sprouting out his ears when he dictated messages. But what it be
must like to work for Mr. Sanders! Carol chewed her salad eagerly, waiting for Stella to share some detail
delicious about him, but she didn’t know what to say. She hardly spoke to the man at all, except in the mornings when he dropped on
his coat and hat her desk, and when he returned from lunch and she
passed on his messages. “Thanks dear,” he always said, reading of
the scraps paper as he started back into his office. She didn’t think he even knew her
name. “A real dish, isn’t he?” Carol whispered
once after she’d caught Stella staring. She flushed, shaking her head quickly. The last thing she needed was to get up
caught in the office gossip. She kept to herself, arrived on time, left when she was supposed to. She ate lunch at her desk and spoke as as
little possible, certain that she’d say the wrong thing
and make somebody wonder about her. She certainly tried not to speak around
Mr. Sanders, only offering a soft hello when
he greeted her. One morning, he paused in front of her
desk, his briefcase swinging at his side. “You don’t talk much,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but she still felt
compelled to answer. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “I’ve always
been quiet.” “I’ll say.” He started toward his office, then suddenly turned. “Let me take you to
out lunch today. I like to get to know the girls who work
for me.” Then he patted the desk as if she’d said
yes, to show that it had been decided. All morning, she was so rattled, she kept misaddressing her envelopes. By
lunchtime, she hoped that Mr. Sanders would forget
about his offer. But he emerged from his office and her to
beckoned follow him, so off they went. In Antoine’s, Blake ordered oysters and, when she at
stared silently the menu, an alligator soup for both of them. “You’re not from around here, are you?” he asked. She shook her head. “No, sir,” she said. “I was born… well, it’s a little town north of here.” “Nothing wrong with little towns. I like
little towns.” He smiled at her, lifting the spoon to
his mouth, and she tried to smile back. Later that evening, when Desiree demanded
details from her, Stella wouldn’t remember the emerald
green wallpaper, the framed photographs of famous New
Orleanians, the taste of the soup. Nothing but that
smile Mr. Sanders had given her. No white man had
ever smiled at her so kindly. “Here’s what we’ll do,” he said. “Anything you want to know about the city
anything at all you ask me. Don’t feel silly about it. I know how a
strange new city can be.” She paused. “How do you eat those?” she asked, pointing to the oysters. He laughed. “You’ve never had oysters? I
thought all you Louisiana people love them.” “We never had much money. I always
wondered.” “I didn’t mean to poke fun,” he said. “I’ll show you. It’s very
simple.” He reached for the fork, glancing up at
her. “You belong here, Stella. Don’t ever you
think don’t.” At work, Stella became Miss Vignes or, as Desiree called her, White Stella. Desiree always giggled after, as if she
found the very idea preposterous, which irritated Stella. She wanted to see
Desiree how convincingly she played her role, but she was living a performance where be
there could no audience. Only a person who knew her real identity
would appreciate her acting, and nobody at work could ever know. At the same time, Desiree could never
meet Miss Vignes. Stella could only be her when Desiree was
not around. In the morning, during her ride to Maison
Blanche, she closed her eyes and slowly became her. She imagined another life, another past. No footsteps thundering up the porch
steps, no ruddy white man grabbing her father, no Mr. Dupont pressing against her in the
pantry. No Mama, no Desiree. She let her mind go
blank, her whole life vanishing, until she new a
became and clean as baby. Soon she no longer felt nervous as the
elevator glided skyward and she stepped into the office. You belong here, Blake had told
her. Soon she thought of him as Blake, not Mr. Sanders, and she began to notice
how he lingered at her desk now when he said good morning, how he invited her
to lunch more often, how he began walking her to the streetcar
after work. “It’s not safe out here,” he said once, pausing at the crosswalk, “a pretty girl
like you walking alone.” When she was with Blake, no one bothered
her. The leering white men who’d tried to with
flirt her at her stop now fell suddenly silent; the colored men sitting in the in
back didn’t even look her direction. At Maison Blanche, she once overheard to
another associate refer her as “Blake’s girl,” and she felt as if that distinction her
covered even beyond the office building. As if just by venturing into the world as
Blake’s girl, she had been changed somehow. Soon she to
began look forward to stepping through the glass doors, ambling slowly down the sidewalk
with Blake. Soon she noticed how when he blinked, his eyelashes were dark and full like a
baby doll. How on days when he had a big
presentation, he wore bulldog cuff links, which he
admitted, almost bashfully, were a gift from his
ex-fiancée. The relationship had failed but he still
considered them lucky. “You’re observant, Stella,” he said. “I
don’t think anybody’s ever asked me about these before.” She noticed everything about him, but she
didn’t tell this to anyone, especially not Desiree. This life wasn’t
real. If Blake knew who she truly was, he would send her out of the office she
before could even pack her things. But what had changed about her? Nothing, really. She hadn’t adopted a disguise or
even a new name. She’d walked in a colored girl and left a
white one. She had become white only because thought
everyone she was. Each evening, she went through the in
process reverse. Miss Vignes climbed onto the streetcar
where she became, again, Stella. At home, Stella never to
liked talk about work, even when Desiree asked. She didn’t like
to think about Miss Vignes when she wasn’t her, although, sometimes, the other girl
appeared suddenly, the way you might think about an old
friend. An evening lying about the apartment, and she might think, I wonder what Miss
Vignes would be doing right now. Then there she was, Miss Vignes lounging
in her lush home, a fur rug peeking between her toes, not this cramped studio she shared with a
sister who always smelled like starch. Or one night, when they’d stood outside a
restaurant waiting to be served at the colored window, she thought, Miss Vignes would an
not receive her food out alley window like a street dog. She couldn’t tell if she was
offended, or if Miss Vignes was on her behalf. Sometimes she wondered if Miss Vignes was
a separate person altogether. Maybe she wasn’t a mask that Stella put
on. Maybe Miss Vignes was already a part of
her, as if she had been split in half. She could become whichever woman she
decided, whichever side of her face she tilted to
the light. *** NO ONE IN THE ESTATES knew what to of
make it: Stella Sanders crossing the street to visit with that colored woman. Marge Hawthorne swore she saw her venture
over months ago, Stella ducking her head as she carried a
cake in her arms. “Welcoming that woman here, can you it?”
believe Marge asked, and nobody did believe her, not at first. Marge was always imagining
things; she’d sworn twice that she had seen Warren Beatty at the car wash. But then Cath and
Johansen spotted Stella Loretta at the park, sitting side by side on a bench. Their shoulders rounded, casual and easy. Loretta said something that made Stella
laugh, and Stella actually reached for Loretta’s
cigarette and took a drag. Put that colored woman’s cigarette in her
own mouth! This detail specific and odd made the story stick, not to mention the fact that
Cath was telling it. She’d always been a little enamored with
Stella, orbiting around her like a satellite to
planet happy be washed in her light. But when she told the other ladies about
Stella and Loretta, Cath said that she’d never known Stella
well, not really, and besides, there was always
something a little strange about that woman. Betsy Roberts interrupted to tell the
group that just that Monday, she’d seen Stella walking across the with
street her daughter. “That’s the shame of it,” she said. “To bring that little girl into all of
this.” But what all of this meant was anybody’s
guess. No one said a word to Blake Sanders, who’d noticed Stella’s strangeness but of
had already accepted that his wife was the type woman who fell into moods he could not decipher. His mother had warned him about her, said she wouldn’t be worth the trouble. He’d just started dating Stella then, but she’d been his secretary for two he
years already; spoke to her more than to anyone else in his life. He could sense
by the shape of her shoulders if she was in a bad mood; he could read in the
slant of her handwriting when she was hurried. But dating Stella felt like
unfolding an entirely new mystery. He never met anyone else in her life. No family, no friends, no former lovers. Back then, her distantness seemed dreamy. Romantic, even. But his mother said that
Stella was hiding something. “I don’t know what,” she’d said, “but I’ll tell you this her family’s
still alive.” “Then why would she say they aren’t?” “Because,” his mother said, “she probably
comes from some backwoods Louisiana trash and she doesn’t want you to find out about it. Well, you’ll find out soon enough.” His mother had wanted him to marry a
different girl, one who came from a certain pedigree. In college, he’d escorted that type of to
girl dozens of formals society girls who bored him to tears. Maybe that’s why he was to
drawn the pretty secretary who came from nowhere and had nobody. He didn’t mind
her secrets. He would learn them in good time. But years had passed and she was as as
inscrutable ever. He came home early from work one
afternoon, calling her name, and found the house
empty. When his wife and daughter finally
returned, an hour later, Stella, surprised to see
him, bent to give him a kiss. “Sorry, darling,” she said. “We were at I
Cath’s and lost track of time.” Another time, he’d beaten her home she’d
because stayed too late at Betsy Roberts’s house. “What were you two talking about?” he asked later. She was sitting in front
of her vanity mirror, brushing her hair. One hundred strokes it
each night before bed; she’d read in Glamour once. The red brush blurred, mesmerizing him. “Oh, you know,” she said. “The girls. Little things like that.” “I’ve just you
never known to be like this.” “Like what?” “Well, friendly.” She
laughed. “I’m just being neighborly. Aren’t you me
the one who’s always telling to get out more?” “But you’re gone all the time now.” “What am I supposed to do?” she said. “Tell Kennedy she can’t have
friends?” He’d been a shy child, so he never had
many friends, colored or otherwise. But he did play
with Jimbo, an ugly black rag doll with a plastic and
head queer red lips. His father hated his son running around a
with doll, a nigger doll at that, but Blake carried
him everywhere, whispering all of his secrets into those
plastic ears. This was a friend, someone who guarded
your feelings behind that frozen red smile. Then one day, he stepped into the yard of
and saw clumps cotton scattered all over the grass. On the dirt pathway, there was Jimbo, gutted, arms and legs
strewn, his insides spilling out. The dog must’ve
got to it, his father told him, but Blake always him
imagined tossing that doll into the dog’s snapping jaws. He’d knelt, picking up one of arms.
Jimbo’s He’d always wondered what the inside of
the doll might look like. For some reason, he’d thought the cotton
would be brown. *** BY CHRISTMASTIME, Stella had spent so
many afternoons at Loretta’s house that, out of habit, she told Loretta one Monday
that she’d see her tomorrow. “It’s Christmas Eve, honey,” Loretta said, laughing, and Stella laughed too, that
embarrassed she’d forgotten. She always dreaded the holidays. She stop
could never thinking about her family, even though their celebrations were like
nothing hers now. A tree so tall the star brushed against
the ceiling, so much food for dinner that she got sick
of leftovers, and mountains of presents awaiting
Kennedy. Each December, she piled into the store
department with the other mothers, clutching the letter to Santa, and tried
to imagine a childhood like this. The twins always received one present
apiece, something useful like a new church dress. One year, Stella received a piglet from
the Delafosse farm that she named Rosalee. For months, she’d fed Rosalee, running
when the pig chased her around the yard. Then Easter Sunday came and her mother
killed the pig for supper. “And I ate every single bite,” she told her daughter once. She thought a
the story might teach Kennedy to be little more grateful; she hadn’t expected the to
girl burst out crying, staring at her as if she were some
monster. Maybe she was. She didn’t remember crying
for that pig at all. “You all doing anything exciting for the
holidays?” Loretta asked. “Just a few people coming
over,” Stella said. “A small thing, we do it
every year.” The party was not a small event; they’d a
hired caterers and string quartet, invited the entire neighborhood. But of
course, she couldn’t tell this to Loretta. She’d known, licking the invitations shut, that she could never invite the Walkers. On Christmas Eve, the Johansens arrived
first, bearing a brick-hard fruit cake, then the
Pearsons carrying bourbon for the eggnog. The Robertses, deeply Catholic, brought a
tiny blonde angel for the tree. Then the Hawthornes waving from the front
steps with homemade fudge, the Whites with an ironic beach snow
globe, and soon the living room crowded with
company. Stella felt hot from all the people, or the mulled wine, or maybe even from
knowing that, across the street, Loretta could probably
hear the music. She must have seen that endless parade of
neighbors climbing up the steps. Or maybe not. Her own parents had arrived
that evening; Stella had watched the elderly couple climb out of the Cadillac, Reg hefting
the suitcases from the trunk, Loretta wrapping her arms around their as
backs they glanced around the neighborhood, as dazed as if they’d stumbled into
another country. Wouldn’t her own mother look at her new
life the same way? At least Loretta’s parents would be proud. She had come upon her the
nice things honest way, not by stealing a life not meant for her. Then again, she and Loretta had both up
wound in the Estates by marrying well. Maybe there wasn’t such a big difference
between the two after all. Blake swapped her empty glass with mulled
another wine, bending to kiss her cheek. He loved
hosting parties, even though it only made Stella want to a
find corner and hide. Betsy pulling her into a conversation
about linens, Cath asking where she’d purchased an end
table, Dale dangling mistletoe over her head. She was lingering on the edge of a circle, wondering if her daughter was still the
spying through bannister, always afraid that she was missing
something exciting. Then the circle of neighbors lit up with
laughter, smiling at her, awaiting a response. “I’m sorry,” she said. “What was it
again?” She was so easily embarrassed at these
parties. She’d catch herself on the edge of a the
political discussion Vietnam situation, perhaps, or an upcoming election and ask
someone would what she thought. Even though she read the newspapers and
had her opinions like anyone else, her mind went blank. She was always that
afraid she’d say the wrong thing. Now Dale Johansen was smirking at her. “I said I’m wondering when your new might
friend show up,” he said. “Oh I don’t know,” she said. “I think everyone’s here by
now.” When the others exchanged amused glances, she blushed. She hated being the butt of
a joke. “What’re you talking about, Dale?” she
said. Dale laughed. “I’m just asking if your is
friend from across the street coming. I’m sure she can hear the music out
there.” Stella paused, her heart thrumming. not
“She’s my friend,” she said. “Well, people are saying that
you’ve been calling on her,” Cath said. “So?” “So is it true? Have you
been visiting with her?” “I don’t think that’s any of your goddamn
business,” Stella said. Betsy Roberts gasped. Tom
Pearson laughed uncomfortably, as if he were willing it to become a joke. Suddenly, Stella felt as if she had into
transformed a totally new creature in their eyes. Something wild and feral. Cath stepped
back, her cheeks pink. “Well, everyone’s
talking,” she said. “I just thought you should
know.” *** THE NERVE OF THAT WOMAN. In front of the bathroom mirror, Stella fumed, splashing water on her face. Where did Cath Johansen get off anyway?
Storming into her house with that dry slab of fruit cake and telling her, to her face, in her own home, in front of everyone, that the entire neighborhood was judging
her. Dale grinning dumbly beside her, Blake on
watching with that confused look his face like he’d woken up from a nap to find all these in
strangers standing around his living room. She’d stormed upstairs and smoked a out
cigarette hanging the bedroom window. She could hear the quiet murmuring of the
party downstairs, Blake, no doubt, making excuses for her. Oh don’t mind, Stella, she’s always a of
little testy this time the year. Yes, her holiday blues, who knows, who can understand that woman half the
time anyway? Then the Johansens and the Hawthornes and the Pearsons stepping carefully down the
walkway, past the manicured lawns, behind their to
identical front doors whisper about her. If only they knew. The thought ran her
through head deliciously, the same way she always thought, driving on an overpass, of turning her
wheel and sending herself careening over the rail. There was nothing more tantalizing than
the possibility of total destruction. “I mean, can you believe it?” she told Blake. “In my own home! Talking
to me like that. I mean, where does she find the nerve?” She furiously spread night cream on her
face. Blake lingered behind her, unbuttoning
his shirt. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said. He didn’t look angry, only worried. “There’s nothing to tell,” she said. “The girls like playing together ” “Then why wouldn’t you tell me? Why would
you lie about going to Cath’s ” “I don’t know!” she said. “I just thought
it seemed easier that way, all right? I knew you would have all your
questions ” “Can you blame me?” he said. “You’ve never been like this. You didn’t
even want them to move in ” “Well, the girls like playing! What was I
supposed to do?” “Not lie to me,” he said. “Not tell me you’re doing one thing then
sneaking over there all the time ” “It’s not all the time.” “Cath said it
was twice this week!” Stella laughed. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “You can’t truly be taking Cath
Johansen’s side over mine.” “It’s not about sides!” he said. “I’ve been noticing it too, you know. You’re not yourself. You’ve been walking
around like you’ve got your head in the clouds. And now you’re chasing after that Loretta
woman. It’s not normal. It’s ” He eased up her,
behind cupping her shoulders. “I understand,
Stella, I do. You’re lonely. That’s right, isn’t it? You never wanted to move to Los
Angeles in the first place and now you’re lonely as all hell. And Kennedy’s
getting older. So you probably… well, you should take
a class or something. Something you’ve always wanted to do. Like learn Italian or make pottery. We’ll find you something good to do, Stel. Don’t worry.” One night, long ago
in New Orleans, Blake had invited her to a work banquet. “I’d hate to go alone,” he told her, “you know how these things are,” and she’d nodded, even though, of course, she didn’t. She told Desiree she had to a
work late and instead borrowed dress from one of the other secretaries. Blake met
her in the lobby of the banquet hall, as dashing as any leading man. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” he whispered into her hair. All evening, he never left her side, his hand always
lingering at the small of her back. At the end of the night, he brought her to a café for coffee, and halfway through her cherry pie, he told her that he was moving back to
Boston. His father was sick, and he wanted to be
closer to home. “Oh,” she said, dropping her fork. She hadn’t realized how desperately she
wanted more nights with him like tonight until she realized that there would never be another. But he surprised her, touching her hand. “I know it’s crazy,” he said, “but I’ve got a job offer in Boston and ” He faltered a second, then laughed. “It’s crazy, Stella, but would you join a
me? I’ll need secretary there and I just thought…” They hadn’t even kissed yet a
but his question sounded as serious as marriage proposal. “Just say yes,” he said, and the word
tasted like cherries, sweet and tart and easy. Yes, and just like that, she could become Miss
Vignes for good. She didn’t give herself a chance to
second- guess. She didn’t plan how she would leave her
sister, how she would settle in a new city on her
own. For the first time in her life, she didn’t worry about any of the details
practical when she told Blake Sanders yes. The hardest part about becoming someone
else was deciding to. The rest was only logistics. Now she at
glanced him through the mirror, Blake watching her with those soft, worried eyes. She’d created a new life a
with man who could never know her, but how could she walk away from it now?
It was the only life she had left. *** ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, she
leaned against Blake’s chest, watching their daughter squeal and dive
into her pile of gifts. A Talking Barbie that spoke when you her
pulled cord, a Suzy Homemaker oven set, a red Spyder
bicycle. Look at this, look at that, she must have been such a good girl this
year! Unlike all those rotten poor children staring at empty trees who must have it,
deserved bad because they were poor, poor because
they were bad. She’d never wanted to participate in the
Santa mythmaking, but Blake said that it was important to
preserve Kennedy’s innocence. “It’s just a little story,” he said. “It’s not like she’ll hate us when she it
figures out.” He couldn’t even bring himself to say the
word lie. Which was a lie in itself. Scraps of wrapping paper littered the
carpet, Kennedy collapsing in a blissful haze. Stella opened each of Blake’s boxes to a
reveal another gift she hadn’t asked for: floor- length mink coat, a diamond tennis
bracelet, an emerald necklace he fastened as they
stood together in front of the bedroom mirror. “It’s too much,” she whispered, fingering
the gem. “Nothing is too much for you, my sweet,” he said. She was one of the
lucky ones. A husband who adored her, a happy
daughter, a beautiful home. How could she complain
about any of it? Who was she to want more, when she’d already taken so much?
She would have to stop playing these foolish games with Loretta Walker. Stop pretending the
two had anything in common, that they existed in the same universe. That they could ever be friends. She would have to tell Loretta that she
couldn’t visit her anymore. In the kitchen, she mashed potatoes until
her arms burned. She slid pineapple wedges into the folds
of the ham and pushed it into the oven. Blake, watching the Lakers wallop the
Suns, told her that Kennedy had gone outside to
play with the other neighborhood kids. But when she stepped out, she didn’t see
the Pearson boys racing bicycles past or the Johansen girls tugging their wagons or a
anyone tossing football. No children at all, their cul-de-sac for
empty except Kennedy and Cindy on the Walkers’ lawn, both girls crying. Loretta kneeling them
between frazzled, still in her apron. Stella ran across the
street, grabbed her daughter, searched her skin
for cuts and scrapes. But she didn’t find any, so she pulled in
Kennedy for a hug instead. “What’s the matter?” she asked Loretta. “Did something happen?” A fight over a
new toy, maybe. Talking Barbie was lying in the
dirt between them. But Loretta stood, grabbing her hand.
daughter’s “You should know,” she said. Her voice
was strangely cold. Maybe she had heard the music from the
party last night, maybe she was still sore about not being
invited. Stella stroked her daughter’s hair. “You
have to share, honey,” she said. “What did Mommy tell
you about that? I’m sorry, Loretta, she’s an only child, you know ” “Oh, she shared plenty,” Loretta said. “Keep her away from my girl.” “What?” Now Stella stood, gripping
Kennedy’s shoulder protectively. “What’re you talking about?” “You know to
what she said Cindy? Well, the girls were playing some game and was
Kennedy losing so she said, ‘I don’t want to play with a nigger.’” Her stomach sank. “Loretta, I ” “No, I understand,” Loretta said. “I her.
don’t blame It all comes from the home, see. And like a fool, I let you into mine. The loneliest goddamn woman in this whole
neighborhood. I should’ve known. You stay away from me.” Loretta quivered, powerless in her anger
and all the angrier for it. Stella felt numb. She guided her daughter
back across the street. As soon as she shut the door, she grabbed Kennedy and slapped her. The girl yelped. “What’d I do?” she asked, crying again. Behind her, the crowd on the television roared, Blake cheering along. Stella stared into
her daughter’s face, seeing everyone that she had ever hated, then she was looking at her daughter
again, gazing at her with watery eyes, a hand covering her reddened cheek. Stella fell to her knees, pulling her
daughter close, kissing her damp face. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know. Mommy’s sorry.” *** YEARS LATER, Stella would only to Reg
remember speaking Walker three times: One morning when she stepped out to collect the newspaper
as he was leaving for the set, and he paused on the driveway and said, “Lovely day, ain’t it?” She agreed that
it was, watched him climb into his sleek black
car. The second time, when he came home to her
find sitting on the couch with his wife and paused a little in the doorway, as if he’d walked into the wrong house. “Hi there,” he’d said, suddenly shy, and Loretta laughed, reaching for her of
glass wine. “Sit with us awhile, baby,” Loretta said. He didn’t, but before he left, he leaned over to light her cigarette, their eyes meeting in a glance that felt
so intimate, Stella looked away. And the third time, when Reg helped Stella unload her
groceries. She should’ve recoiled as he came near
but she let him carry her bags inside, the walk from the driveway to the kitchen
counter feeling unnaturally long. Even Loretta hadn’t been inside her home
before. She walked with him down the lonely, sterile hallways, where he set the bags
on the counter. “There you go,” he said. He didn’t even
look at her. But a week after Christmas, sitting her
around sewing circle, she told Cath Johansen and Betsy Roberts
that he made her uncomfortable. “I don’t know,” she said, plucking at her
misplaced stitch. “I just never liked the way he looked at
me.” Three days later, someone threw a brick
through the Walkers’ living- room window, shattering that tiled vase Loretta had in
bought Morocco. Tom Pearson and Dale Johansen both
claimed credit, although it was neither of them instead, Stella later discovered, it was Percy
beet-faced White, who’d taken the new neighbors as a
personal slight, as if they had only moved in to mar his
presidential term. Some applauded him, although it made
others uneasy. “This is Brentwood, not Mississippi,”
Blake said. Tossing bricks through windows seemed the
like something gap- toothed trash did. But a week later, a different man, desperate to prove himself one, left a of
flaming sack dog shit on the Walkers’ front steps. Days later, another brick sailed
through the living- room window. According to the newspaper, the daughter
was watching television at the time. The doctor had to remove glass shards her
from leg. By March, the Walkers left the Estates as
suddenly as they’d arrived. The wife was miserable, Betsy Roberts
told Stella, so they’d bought a new house in Baldwin
Hills. “I don’t know why they didn’t just do the
that from start,” Betsy said. “They’ll be so much happier
there.” By then, Stella hadn’t spoken to Loretta
since Christmas Day. But she still watched, through the blinds, as the yellow moving van pulled up, and a pack of young colored men slowly of
carried cardboard boxes out the house. She imagined marching across the street
to explain herself. Standing in Loretta’s cavernous living
room, Loretta balanced on one moving box while
taping another shut. Loretta wouldn’t look angry to see her at
she wouldn’t look like anything all, and her blank face would hurt even more. Stella would tell her that she’d only Reg
said those terrible things about because she was desperate to hide. “I’m not one of them,” she would say. “I’m like you.” “You’re colored,” Loretta would say. Not
a question, but a statement of blunt fact. Stella would tell her because the woman
was leaving; in hours, she’d vanish from this part of the city
and Stella’s life forever. She’d tell her because, in spite of
everything, Loretta was her only friend in the world. Because she knew that, if it came down to
her word versus Loretta’s, she would always be believed. And knowing
this, she felt, for the first time, truly white. She imagined Loretta pushing
off the box and stepping toward her. Her face frozen in awe, as if she’d seen
something beautiful and familiar. “You don’t have to explain anything to
me,” she would say. “It’s your life.” “But it’s not,” Stella would say. “None of it belongs to me.” “Well, you chose it,” Loretta would tell
her. “So that makes it yours.” Loving this book? Hit that subscribe Your
button! support helps us bring more speed reading videos. Let’s keep the journey going! Daughters’ lives collide in The Vanishing
Half’s speed reading tale. PART 4 THE STAGE DOOR (1982) Passing as white, speed reading. CHAPTER 10 If you went to the Park’s Korean Barbecue
on Normandie and Eighth, during the fall of 1982, you’d probably
find Jude Winston wiping down one of the high tables, staring out the foggy window. Sometimes before her shift started, she a
sat in back booth reading. The noise never distracted her, the other
waiters didn’t understand it. She told Mr. Park on her first day that a
she’d practically grown up in restaurant a diner, really even though she’d never
waitressed before. She did not tell him that most of that
time had been spent reading, not watching her mother run the place, but maybe as a father himself, he was sympathetic to restaurant kids. Maybe he respected her eagerness to find
a job barely a week after her college graduation, and she wasn’t lazing about on the beach
like his own sons would have done. Or maybe he just remembered her from the
past spring, always sitting at a high top studying a a
worn MCAT book she’d borrowed from teammate. When he’d brought her pork belly and how
asked she was doing, she always got a dazed look in her eyes, as if he’d asked in Korean. She was a smart girl, he could tell. Plenty dull boys wanted to go to medical
school but only smart girls found the nerve to apply. He’d finished two years of
medical school himself, back in Seoul, so he understood her and
anxiety wished her luck. He was always wishing her luck now, even though she told him she wouldn’t any
hear back from schools for months. Ah well, good luck, then. “You don’t need
luck,” Reese said. “You’re gonna get in.” He stole a shrimp off her plate with his
chopsticks. He visited sometimes during her dinner
break, but Mr. Park never minded. He was a fair
boss; she was lucky to work for someone like him. And still, she could in
only think about the letters that would arrive the spring. Rejections mostly, but maybe
one yes. You only needed one yes to be happy was
medical school like love in that regard. Some days her chances seemed promising, and other days she hated herself for to
clinging this ridiculous dream. Hadn’t she muddled her way through in You
chemistry? Struggled biology? needed more than a good GPA to get into medical school. You had to compete against students who’d
grown up in rich families, attended private schools, hired personal
tutors. People who had been dreaming since of
kindergarten becoming doctors. Who had family photos of themselves in
tiny white coats, holding plastic stethoscopes to teddy
bear bellies. Not people who grew up in nowhere towns, where there was one doctor you saw only
when you were puking sick. Not people who’d stumbled into the whole
idea of medical school after dissecting a sheep’s heart in an anatomy class. Seven schools were
reading her application right now and would, in a few months, decide her future. Made her sick to even think about. “I figured out how to fix that ceiling,” Reese said. “I know it’s been drivin you
crazy.” It was November, and already unreasonably
wet. Every morning this week, they’d driven of
through deep pockets rainwater on Normandie, worried the car would stall. At home, they nudged a silver bucket underneath
the leaking ceiling, which Reese dumped on the sorry patch of
grass behind the Gardens Apartments. The Edenic name of their building always
made him laugh. Why not call this building the Brick Slab, or the No Hot Water, or the Hole in the
Roof? But Jude didn’t find that funny. She glanced back at the clock, only five minutes left of her break. “Why don’t you just call Mr. Song?” she said. “You know he’s too old
to be climbin up that ladder.” “He should hire someone, then.” “Too
cheap,” he said, squeezing her hip. He’d found a
new job at the Kodak store, selling cameras and developing He missed
photographs. the camaraderie of the gym, but the Kodak store offered an employee
discount on film. Not that he’d needed any lately. He hadn’t taken a new photograph in six
months. He spent his free time helping Mr. Song mop up water from the basement or or
plant mouse traps whatever little chores he could do around the building to earn
reduced rent. He unclogged the Parks’ toilet, fixed the
Shaws’ broken pantry shelf, fished into the kitchen sink for Mrs. Choi’s fallen wedding ring. If he came a
across job he didn’t know how to do, he called Barry for help. “I told you was
that place a dump,” Barry said. But what were they supposed
to do? Their old landlord had jacked up the rent, so off to Koreatown it was. In a way, it was an adventure. The new foods to try, the signs you read,
couldn’t the language spoken around you, on the or
bus the street, that allowed you to drift off into your
own thoughts. The neighbors in the Gardens, mostly like
elderly the Chois and the Parks and the Songs, who pitied those two young people living
in the apartment with the leaky ceiling and brought them sticky rice cakes for Christmas. But the ceiling. The cramped bedroom. The tiny kitchen. Reese said that if he
helped enough around the Gardens, maybe they’d save so much on rent they a
could find new place. But by then, Jude hoped that she would be
gone. “You worryin about nothin,” her mother
told her once over the phone. “You a smart girl.” “Plenty of people are
smart, Mama.” “Not like you,” her mother said. Whenever they hung up, Jude always felt a
little guilty knowing that the life she most feared was the one her mother was already
living. Waiting tables forever, living in a home.
cramped At least she had Reese. At least she in
wasn’t Mallard. She could be grateful for that, even if she couldn’t stop herself from
projecting into the future. Each time she mentioned spring, Reese a
shifted little, a distant look falling over his face, like he didn’t want to talk about it. That night, after she closed Park’s, they walked home, Reese’s arm around her
shoulders. On the corner outside the Gardens, a pale dark- haired woman passed and Jude
held her breath. But it was just a white woman gliding the
underneath streetlights. *** IT COULDN’T BE STELLA. For years that
after Beverly Hills party, Jude had thought of little else. Sometimes the woman in the fur coat like
looked exactly her mother, down to the curve in her smile. Other times, she was only slender and
dark- haired, a passing resemblance at best. After all, she’d only caught a glimpse of the woman
before the wine splashed against her leg. Then she was scrambling to pick up the
shattered glass while the whole party gawked. This, of course, stayed with her too. How she’d groped along the table for her
cocktail napkins before Carla pushed out of the way, frantically blotting the ruined rug. By the time she’d dumped the wine- into
bloodied napkins the trash, Carla told her to leave and never come
back. She’d quietly gathered her purse, too to
embarrassed glance around the room lest she lock eyes with one of the many witnesses to her
humiliation. She looked up once as she shut the door
behind her and she didn’t see the woman at all, only the girl with the eyes
violet watching her leave, pink lips curled into a smirk. A dark- haired woman who could have been
anyone. Maybe she just missed her mother so much, she’d convinced herself of the
resemblance. Maybe she felt guilty about not going
home, about never going home, and this woman a
was projection of her subconscious. Or maybe no, she wouldn’t even consider
that possibility. That she had been in the same room with
Stella, that she’d caught eyes with her even, before she’d dropped that wine bottle and
shattered everything. “What’s wrong, baby?” Reese had asked
later that night. “You’re shaking.” They were walking to at
meet Barry Mirage. She hadn’t said much since she’d returned
home early but Reese looked worried, pausing under the stoplight, and she knew
that she had to tell him the truth. “I lost my job,” she said. “What? What happened?” “It’s stupid. I
saw Stella. I mean, I thought it was her. I swear she looked just like her ” She felt even crazier saying it aloud. That she’d gotten herself fired because a
she’d caught glimpse, through a crowded party, of a woman who
may have resembled her mother. “I can’t believe I was so stupid,” she said. He pulled her into a hug. “Aw, it’s all right,” he said. “You’ll find another job.” “But I wanted
to help you. I thought if we both put money away ” He groaned. “That’s why you were workin
so crazy?” “I just thought if the both of us ” “But I didn’t ask you to do that,” he said. “I know,” she said. “I just wanted to. Don’t be mad, baby. I just wanted to help.” She wrapped her arms around him and after
a moment, he held her back. “I’m not mad,” he said. “I just don’t like feelin like
some charity case.” “You know I don’t think of you like that.” “You gotta tell me things,” he said. “You’re so hidden away sometimes.” Maybe
that was what drew them together. Maybe this was the only way they knew how
to love, drawing near, then ducking away. He her
touched cheek and she tried to smile. “Okay,” she said. “No more hiding.” *** FOR YEARS, Stella drifted through her
dreams. Stella draped in mink, Stella perched on
a ledge, Stella shrugging, smiling, slipping in of
and out doors. Always Stella, never her mother, as if, even asleep, she could tell the
difference. She always awoke shaken. She was tired
all the time. She found a new job dishwashing in a for
campus cafeteria two dollars an hour, where she spent her shift alone, steaming piles of cruddy plates clean. Each evening, she came home with pruned
fingers, her shoulders stooped. At one point, she was three weeks behind on a history
paper and her GPA was teetering so dangerously, her track coach called her into his
office. “You’re smarter than this,” he said, and she nodded, chastened, springing from
the claustrophobic office as soon as he dismissed her. Yes, yes, she would work harder, apply herself more. Of course she took
school seriously, of course she wanted to compete in the
spring. Of course she couldn’t lose her
scholarship. She was just a little distracted at the
moment, nothing too serious. She would shake out
of it. But she didn’t, because every time she to
tried study, she only imagined Stella. “Do you still
think about her?” she asked her mother one afternoon. “Who?” Jude paused, wrapping her finger
around the telephone cord. “Your sister,” she finally said. She to
couldn’t bring herself say Stella’s name, like it would conjure her again. Stella strolling by on the sidewalk
outside, Stella appearing in the fogged window. “Now why you askin about all that?” her mother said. “I don’t know, I’m just wondering. Can’t I wonder?” “No use in wonderin,” her mother said. “I stopped wonderin long ago. I don’t
think she’s even here anymore.” “Living?” Jude said. “But what if she is?
I mean, what if she’s just out there somewhere?” “I would feel her,” her mother said
quietly, and Jude began to think of Stella as a
current running under her mother’s skin. Under her own skin, dormant until that
party when she’d locked eyes with Stella across the room. Then a leap, a spark, her arm jolting from her side. Now she was trying to forget that charge. She thought, once or twice, about telling
her mother about the woman at the party, but what good would that do? It was
Stella, it wasn’t, she was dead, she was alive, she was in Omaha, Lawrence, Honolulu. When Jude stepped outside, she imagined
bumping into her. Stella pausing on the sidewalk, admiring
a purse through a shop window. Stella on the bus, hanging on to the no,
vinyl strap Stella in a smooth black limousine, hiding behind the tinted glass. Stella
everywhere, always, and nowhere at the same time. *** IN NOVEMBER 1982, a musical comedy in
called The Midnight Marauders opened a nearly abandoned theater in downtown Los Angeles. The
playwright, a thirty- year- old still living at home
in Encino, was determined to make it in a city where, he claimed to friends, no one valued
theater. He’d written The Midnight Marauders as a
joke, and of course, the joke always being on
him, it was his only success. The play ran at
the Stardust Theater for four weekends, was nominated for a local award, and earned tepid praise in the Herald-
Examiner. But Jude would have never heard about it
if Barry hadn’t landed a spot in the chorus line. For weeks leading up to the
audition, he was a nervous wreck, bouncing on his
heels as he practiced “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” He had never sung in front of anyone only
before dressed as himself. “I felt naked out there,” he told her the
after audition. “I was sweatin like a hog on Easter
Sunday.” She was happy for him when he earned his
spot in the company. He sent her tickets for opening night, but she told Reese that she had to work. “Ask for the night off,” he said. “We gotta support him. And we never go
out anymore. We should have a little fun.” The previous month, his car engine had to
died and he’d emptied his savings fix it. All those crumpled bills in his sock
drawer, gone. He’d started working the door at to
Mirage make extra cash on the weekends. The muscle, technically, although he was
mostly just a handsome face greeting the customers. So far, he’d only broken up one drunk and
fight earned a cut on that handsome face as gratitude. In the bathroom, he’d winced as Jude dabbed the cut with
alcohol, missing those weekends they used to spend
chasing sunlight across the marina in search of the perfect shot. Reese biting his lip as the
shutter clicked. Now on Friday and Saturday nights, he left in a black T-shirt and black and
jeans came home at dawn, his hands flecked with glitter from the
helping go-go dancers onto the stage. Then off to the Kodak store, or helping Mr. Song. Some days, she barely saw him at all, only feeling him drop into bed beside her. She couldn’t afford to miss a night of in
work order to sit in a damp theater, enduring three hours of amateur
acting in hopes of catching a glimpse of Barry in the chorus line. Still, she agreed, running her fingers through Reese’s hair. They needed a night out, one night where
she didn’t think about spring decisions, where he didn’t obsess over money, where they wouldn’t worry about anything
at all. On opening night, she slipped into a and
purple dress glided panty hose up her legs as Reese, tying his tie, smiled at her
through the mirror. They were overdressed because they never
had anywhere nice to go; tonight was an excuse to pretend otherwise. They could pretend to
be anything: a young couple on a first date, newlyweds sneaking away from the children, a pair of sophisticated theatergoers who
never worried about money, never clipped coupons, never counted
change. “Fancy, fancy,” Luis teased, when they up
all met in the lobby with a dozen of the other boys she used to see scrambling
around backstage in bustiers. Soon they were all laughing, clambering
into the mildewed theater, everyone giddy as the lights dipped. “This better be good,” Reese stage-
whispered, but he was so good natured about it, she could tell he didn’t care. He kissed her as the orchestra began to a
play jaunty overture. The curtains parted, and she leaned
forward, straining to see Barry. He was high with
kicking the other dancers, wearing a fringed leather vest and cowboy
hat. She giggled, watching him twirl a redhead. Then the dancers receded and the show
lead appeared center stage, a blonde girl in a long, hooped dress. Her singing voice was if
pretty plain; still, she was charming enough, delivering her a
lines with wryness so familiar that, in the darkness, Jude reached for her
Playbill. And there she was, the blonde girl with
the violet eyes. *** AFTER THE CURTAIN FELL, after a Barry
beaming took his bow, after the audience slowly trampled across
the fading red carpet into the lobby, dissecting plot holes and glaring miscues, Jude circled with her friends outside the
stage door. The group was chatty, debating drink they
plans while waited for Barry to emerge so that they could embarrass him with thunderous
applause. But she hugged herself, shifting from to
foot foot, staring down the alley, expecting, at any
moment, her mother’s ghost to appear. She’d out
slipped of the theater during intermission, certain that in the darkness, she had the
mistaken girl in the Playbill for the girl at the Beverly Hills party. But there she
was, in full light. Born in Brentwood, Kennedy Sanders studied at USC but left a
early to pursue career in acting. She recently played Cordelia (King Lear), Jenny (Death of a Salesman) and Laura
(The Glass Menagerie). This is her first appearance at the
Stardust Theater, though hopefully not her last. In her
headshot, the girl smiled, her wavy blonde hair to
falling angelically her shoulders. She looked innocent here, nothing like a
the sassy girl who’d demanded martini from her at a party, and she might have believed that
this was a different white girl altogether if not for those eyes. She could never them.
forget If that girl was in the show, did that mean that the woman in the fur
coat was here too? What if it was Stella? What if it wasn’t? She’d the
wandered around lobby until the house lights flickered but she never saw a woman who looked like
her mother. Now she felt even crazier than before. “You all right, baby?” Reese asked. She nodded, trying to smile. “I’m just
cold,” she said. He wrapped his arms around her, warming her up. Then the stage door
opened, but instead of Barry wandering out, Kennedy Sanders stepped into the alley, fumbling with a pack of Marlboros. She looked startled to see the crowd
waiting, and for a second, she smiled expectantly
before realizing that no one was there to see her. Then her eyes flickered to Jude. She smirked. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.” She remembered her, three years later. Of course she did. Who would forget a all
dark girl who’d spilled wine over an expensive rug? “My friend’s in this show,” Jude said. Kennedy shrugged, shaking a
cigarette into her palm. She was wearing a tattered Sex Pistols
T-shirt that stopped above her navel, jean shorts over ripped fishnet tights, and black leather boots she looked like
nothing the Beverly Hills princess from that party. She started walking down the alley, and Jude scrambled after her. “Barry,” she said. “He’s in the chorus?” “Is that your boyfriend?” Kennedy asked. “Barry?” “No, silly. Him.” She jerked her
head back toward the group. “The one with the curly hair. He’s a doll. Where’d you find him?” “At school,” she said. “Well, really at ”
this party “You have a light?” Kennedy slid a into
cigarette her mouth. When Jude shook her head, she said, “Just as well. Bad for the singing voice, you know.” “I thought you were amazing
tonight,” Jude said. She didn’t really, but she to
would have flatter this girl to get anything out of her. “Your folks must be proud.” Kennedy scoffed. “Please. They hate that
I’m doing this.” “Why?” “Because they sent me to school to
do something practical, you know. Not drop out and throw my life
away. At least that’s what my mother says. Hey, do you have a light?” She flagged down a shaggy- haired white
man smoking on the corner. “Well, so long!” She hurried over to the
man on the corner, who smiled as he leaned in to light her
cigarette. A flicker in the darkness, then she was
gone. *** BARRY SAID THAT Kennedy Sanders was a
rich bitch. “You know the type,” he told Jude. “A couple of solos in the high school and
choir now she thinks she’s Barbra Streisand.” He was putting on his face in the of for
backstage Mirage the Sunday brunch show, the only time slot available now that The
Midnight Marauders had taken over his evenings. He hated the early call time and the but
thinner crowds he loved being Bianca too much to wait three weeks until the play
closed. He gestured behind him and Jude yanked of
the hairbrush jutting out his gym bag. “So what do her parents do?” she asked. “Who knows?” “They haven’t by
been the theater?” “Hell, no,” Barry said. “You think they’d
come around that dump? No ma’am, she comes from real money. Some hoity-
toity folks, big house in the hills, all that. Why you asking about her anyway?” “No reason,” she said. But that afternoon, she rode the bus downtown to the Stardust
Theater. The Sunday matinee was starting in a half
hour; the teenage usher wouldn’t let her inside without a ticket, so she paced on the the
sidewalk under green eaves. She already felt foolish riding down in
the first place. What would she even say to Kennedy? She
tried to think of what Early might do. The key to hunting, he’d told her, is pretending to be someone else. But she’d never been able to be anyone
but herself, so when the usher shooed her away, she slunk off to the sidewalk. Of course right then she bumped into the
Kennedy hustling toward entrance. She wore jean shorts so short, the pocket flaps were showing, and a pair
of worn cowboy boots. “Sorry,” they both said, then Kennedy
laughed. “Well, goddamn,” she said. “You following
me or something?” “No, no,” Jude said quickly. “I’m looking
for my friend but they won’t let me inside. I don’t have a ticket.” Kennedy rolled
her eyes. “Like Fort Knox in here,” she said. Then she told the usher, “She’s with me,” and like that, Jude was fumbling after
her through the lobby, past backstage, and into her dressing
room. The room was barely bigger than a closet, the yellow paint chipping off the walls. Under the dim mirror lights, Kennedy into
plopped the worn leather chair. “Donna wanted to skin you alive,” she said. “What?” Jude said. “After you
ruined her rug. God, you should’ve seen her, running like
around you’d slaughtered her firstborn. My rug! My rug! It was a riot. Well, not for you, probably.” She spun in
her chair, eyeing herself in the mirror. “What’s
your name anyway?” “Jude.” “Like the song?” “Like the Bible.” “I like it,” Kennedy said. “Hey Jude, not to be a bitch or anything, but I’ve gotta change.” “Oh,” Jude said. “I’m sorry.” She started to back out the
door but Kennedy said, “Don’t go. You can help me. I can never get into this thing on my
own.” She was tugging the big hooped dress from
the opening number out of the closet. Jude smoothed the wrinkles out of the as
orange fabric Kennedy yanked her T-shirt over her head. She was slender and tan, wearing a matching pink bra and panty set. Jude tried not to watch, staring instead
at the cluttered countertop covered in palettes of makeup, a curling iron, gold earrings, a crumpled
candy wrapper. “So where you from, Hey Jude?” Kennedy said. “Bring that over, will you?
Jesus, I hate this thing. It always makes me
sneeze.” She lifted her arms and Jude stared into
the smoothness of her armpits as she helped lift the dress over her head. True to her word, Kennedy let out one her
dainty sneeze before slipping arms into the sleeves. “Louisiana,” Jude said. “No
kidding. So’s my mother. I’m from here. Well, I don’t know if you can say you’re
from a place if you’ve never left. Can you? I don’t know how anything works. Zip me?” She spoke so quickly, Jude felt dizzy following along. “Which
part?” she asked. “Hey, can you hurry? Curtain’s
in twenty and I haven’t done my makeup yet.” She pulled her blonde hair off her
shoulder. Jude stepped behind her, tugging the
zipper. “What’s your mother’s last name?” she
said. “Maybe I know her people.” Kennedy
laughed. “I doubt that.” What was she doing? She’d
seen a woman who may have looked like her mother and now she’d ended up a white
stalking girl and helping her into a ridiculous costume? What did she care, anyway? She’d never even met Stella. Kennedy leaned into the mirror, powdering
her face. For the first time, she was quiet and
focused, like Barry right before a performance. “I have to get into my zone,” he always said, shooing Jude before his
curtain call. Sometimes she lingered in the doorway and
watched as a veil seemed to drop before his face. One moment he was Barry, the next, Bianca. She could see a similar
moment passing through Kennedy right now. It felt more intimate to witness than the
seeing girl in her underwear. She turned to leave. “You don’t know
anyone named Vignes, do you?” Kennedy called after her. “That’s my mother’s name. Or was her
name.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Estelle
Vignes. But everyone calls her Stella.” Hidden
pasts, fast reading. CHAPTER 11 Statistically speaking, the likelihood of
encountering a niece you’d never met at a Beverly Hills retirement party was improbable but not impossible. Which Stella Sanders might have, at least
intellectually, understood. Improbable events happened
all the time, she tried to explain to her students, because improbability is an illusion on
based our preconceptions. Often it has nothing to do with truth.
statistical After all, it’s wildly improbable that is
any one person alive. A particular sperm cell fertilizing a
particular egg, producing a viable fetus. Twins are more
likely to be stillborn, identical twins more vulnerable than
fraternal twins, yet here she was, teaching Introduction
to Statistics at Santa Monica College. Likely does not mean certain. Improbable
does not mean impossible. She’d discovered statistics unexpectedly
in her second year at Loyola Marymount University. She didn’t call herself a sophomore then;
she was ten years older than everyone else in the class, so the title felt silly. She didn’t even know what she wanted to
study, only that she liked numbers. Statistics
entranced her because so many people misunderstood it. In Las Vegas, she’d sat beside Blake in a
smoke- filled casino as he lost four hundred dollars at the craps table, staying in the game longer than he should
have because he was convinced that he was due. But dice owed you nothing. “It doesn’t matter what’s already rolled,” she finally told him, exasperated. “Each
number is equally likely if the dice are fair. Which they’re not.” “She takes one class,” Blake told the man sitting next to them. The man laughed, puffing at his cigar. “I always stay on,” he said. “Rather lose than know I would’ve won if
I hadn’t played it safe.” “Well said.” Blake and the man clinked
their glasses. Statistical truth, like any other truth, was difficult to swallow. For most people, the heart decided, not the mind. Stella was like everyone else in this
regard. Hadn’t her decision to follow Blake from
New Orleans been an emotional one? Or her choice to stay with him over the years? Or her
agreement to, say, attend Bert Hardison’s retirement
party, even cajoling her daughter to appear, because, Blake claimed, they needed to a
show united front? One big happy family it mattered to the rest of the partners. Blake was a marketing man who understood
the value of his own brand, Stella and Kennedy merely an extension of
it. So she’d agreed to go to that party. In spite of everything, she’d whisked the
around living room, playing the dutiful wife even as Bert
Hardison, smelling like brandy, crowded near her
all night, his hand on her waist (as if she wouldn’t
notice!). But Blake, of course, didn’t see, huddling in the corner with Rob Garrett
and Yancy Smith, while Stella tried to make small talk
with Donna Hardison, keeping an eye on her daughter, who kept inching near the bar, and avoiding the red stain on the white a
rug that lanky black man was feebly blotting with soda water. There’d been a
disturbance earlier, a black girl spilling wine on the rug, which had, for a few moments, stolen the attention of everyone at the
party. Stella had just arrived, so she’d only
seen the aftermath. A charcoal girl frantically mopping an of
expensive merlot out the even more expensive rug before Donna shrieked that she was only making
it worse. Even after the girl was dismissed, the party continued to discuss her. “I just can’t believe it,” Donna told
Stella. “What’s the point of hiring waiters if on
they can’t hold to a damn bottle of wine?” The topic bored Stella, to tell
the truth. The type of minor skirmish that people on
fixated during a party where there was nothing more interesting to discuss. Unlike the
math department mixers, where conversations leapt from one topic
to another inscrutable, pretentious, but never boring. She always
felt lucky to be in the presence of such brilliant people. Thinkers. Blake’s colleagues as a
viewed intelligence means to an end, and the end was always making more money. But in the mathematics department at
Santa Monica College, no one expected to be rich. It was enough to know. She was lucky to
spend her days like this, knowing. That night, driving home from
the party, she’d found herself thinking about
Loretta Walker. Stella was wearing the mink coat Blake
had surprised her with that Christmas and maybe the luxurious fur brushing against her calves
reminded her. Or maybe because that morning, when she’d
told Blake that she would be late to the party, they’d fought again about the job
that she only had because of Loretta. For months after the Walkers left, she’d fallen into a depression that was
deep even by her own standards. She was grieving for reasons that she
could never explain. Like she’d lost Desiree all over again. Blake suggested she take a class, which he later regretted because she it
brought up each time he complained about her working. “You said it yourself,” she said, during their last argument. “I was going
crazy in that house.” “Yes, but ” He paused. “I thought you’d, I don’t know, take a flower- arranging or
class something.” But she’d always felt ashamed of being a
high school dropout. She felt stupid when someone used a term
she didn’t understand. She hated asking for directions even when
she was lost. She dreaded the day when her daughter
would know more than her, when she would stare at Kennedy’s
homework, unable to help. So she’d told Blake that
she wanted to take a GED class. “I think that’s great, Stel,” he’d said. He was pacifying her, of course, but she signed up for classes anyway. Two nights in a row, she sat in the lot
parking outside the public library, afraid to venture inside. She would feel
stupid, staring blankly at the chalkboard. When
was the last time she’d done any math more complicated than balancing her checkbook? But when
she finally went inside, the teacher began to explain an algebra
problem and slowly, she felt sixteen again, acing Mrs. Belton’s tests. This was what she loved
about math: it was the same now as it had been then, and there was always a
correct answer, whether she knew it or not. She found that comforting. Blake seemed
happy for her when she finally received her diploma in the mail. But he was less thrilled when
she announced that she wanted to take classes at Santa Monica College to earn her
associate’s degree, or when she transferred to Loyola for her
Marymount bachelor’s, or when, last year, Santa Monica College
hired her as an adjunct for an Introduction to Statistics class. The job paid next to
nothing, but she felt invigorated during her
sections, standing at the chalkboard in front of a
dozen undergraduates. Her faculty mentor, Peg Davis, was her to
encouraging enroll in a master’s program next, even to start thinking about her PhD. She could become a full professor, earn tenure someday. Dr. Stella Sanders a
had nice ring, didn’t it? “It’s that women’s libber,” he complained, whenever Stella worked on
late campus. “She’s the one putting all those ideas
into your head.” “Surprisingly, I have thoughts of my own,” she said. “Oh, that’s not what I meant ” “It’s exactly what you meant!” “She’s not
like you,” he said. “You have family. Obligations. She just has her politics.” But when had
Stella based her decisions on an obligation to family? That was heart space. And maybe
it had always been her head guiding her. She had become white because it was
practical, so practical that, at the time, her decision seemed laughably obvious. be
Why wouldn’t you white if you could be? Remaining what you were or becoming something new, it was all a choice, any way you looked
at it. She had just made the rational decision. “I’ve told you already, you don’t have to
do this,” Blake always said, gesturing to the of
stacks tests under her arm. “I’ve always provided for this family.” But she hadn’t accepted the job because
she was worried about money. She’d just chosen her brain over her
heart, and maybe that was what Loretta had seen, tracing that long line down her palm. “You missed my toast,” Blake said when
they’d returned from the Hardisons. He was tugging off his tie in the doorway
to their closet. “I told you I had to enter grades,” she said. “And I told you tonight was
important.” “What do you want me to say? I tried my
best.” He sighed, staring out the darkened
window. “Well, it was a nice toast,” he said. “A nice party.” “Yes,” she said. “The party was lovely.” *** “I KNOW WHY YOU’RE HERE,” Kennedy said. In the half- crowded
restaurant, one week after The Midnight Marauders
opened, she smiled at Stella across the table, playing with the white tablecloth. She of
always showed all her teeth when she smiled, which unnerved Stella. Imagine, revealing
so much of yourself. One table over, an Asian woman was term
grading papers in between spoonfuls of split pea soup. Two young white men were arguing
quietly about John Stuart Mill. Stella said that she had chosen a near it
restaurant USC’s campus because was convenient, although that wasn’t, of course, true. She’d hoped the university crowd might to
prompt her daughter rethink her own choices, or, at the very least, to feel about
embarrassed them. Stella unfurled her napkin, spreading it
across her lap. “Of course you do,” Stella said. “I’m here to have lunch with you.” Kennedy laughed. “Sure, Mother. I’m the
certain that’s only reason you drove all across the city ” “I don’t know why you have to turn into
everything some big conspiracy. I can’t go to lunch with my daughter?” She hadn’t driven near campus in years, and even then she’d visited just a of the
handful times: college tour, where she’d trailed behind her daughter, gazing skeptically at the trellises the
climbing red brick, wondering how a girl with her grades ever
would get in; move-in day, since lackluster test scores were nothing
that family donations could not fix; a few shameful weeks later, to plead with the freshman dean in
after the resident assistant caught Kennedy smoking pot her room. The drugs bothered Stella less
than the indiscretion. Only a lazy girl would get caught, and her daughter was clever but lazy, blissfully unaware of how hard her mother
worked to maintain the lie that was her life. Now Kennedy smirked, slowly stirring her
soup. “Fine,” she said. “We’ll just save your
lecture for dessert.” There would be no lecture, Stella had
promised Blake. She would only nudge Kennedy to do what
was right. The girl knew that she needed to go back
to school. She’d only missed a semester so far she
could go to the registrar’s office, explain that she’d had a mental lapse, and beg her way back in. She would be one term behind her peers
maybe she could graduate after summer school. Stella worked out various scenarios in
her head, each time unable to land anywhere besides
her own anger. Quitting school to become an actor! The
idea was so idiotic, she could barely restrain herself from so
saying as soon as she reached for the menu. The most shocking part? She’d thought had
Kennedy already been through her hell years. High school teachers calling because she
cut class again, the awful report cards, the nights Stella
heard the door creaking open at some ungodly hour and reached for her baseball bat before
realizing that it was only her drunk daughter sneaking home. The mangy boys always hanging out
of cars in front of the house, honking their horns. “She’s my wild
child,” Blake said once, chuckling, as if it were
something to be proud of. But her wildness only scared Stella, disrupting the careful life she’d built. In the mornings, she’d stared across the
breakfast table at a child she no longer recognized. Gone was her sweet- faced girl, and in her place, a tawny, long- limbed woman who changed her mind
daily about the person she wanted to be. One morning, a faded Ramones T-shirt hung
off her gaunt shoulders, the next, a plaid miniskirt inched up her
thighs, and the next, a long dress flowed to her
ankles. She’d dyed her hair pink, twice. “Why can’t you just be yourself?” Stella asked once. “Maybe I don’t know
who that is,” her daughter shot back. And Stella
understood, she did. That was the thrill of youth, the idea that you could be anyone. That was what had captured her in the
charm shop, all those years ago. Then adulthood came, your choices solidifying, and you realize
that everything you are had been set in motion years before. The rest was aftermath. So she a
understood why her daughter was searching for self, and she even blamed herself for it. Maybe something in the girl was unsettled, a small part of her realizing that her
life wasn’t right. As if she’d gotten older and started the
touching trees, only to find that they were all cardboard
sets. “There’s no lecture,” Stella said. “I to
just want make sure we’re thinking about next semester ” “There it is.” “You didn’t miss much
time, sweetie. I know you’re excited about that
play ” “It’s a musical.” “Whatever you call it ” “Well, you’d know if you actually came to
opening night.” “How about this?” Stella said. “I’ll come
to your play if you go down to the registrar ” “Emotional blackmail,” she
said. “That’s a new one for you.” “Blackmail!” Stella leaned into the table, then dropped her voice. “Wanting what’s
best for you is blackmail? Wanting you to get an education, to better yourself ” “Your
best isn’t necessarily mine,” her daughter said. But what was Kennedy’s
best, then? Stella had been shocked, and a
little embarrassed, to learn that her daughter had spent the
last semester on academic probation. “She’s young, she’ll figure it out,” Blake said, but Stella balked. She was
some poor colored girl from nowhere Louisiana and even she’d managed a better showing than two
C-minuses, two Ds, and a lone B-minus coming from a
drama class. Drama wasn’t even a class it was a hobby!
A hobby that, months after that dismal semester, her to
daughter decided she was leaving school pursue full time. What was the point, then, of giving a for
child everything? Buying books her, enrolling her in the finest schools, hiring tutors, pleading her way into what
college was the point of any of it, if the result was only this, one bored girl gazing around a restaurant
filled with some of the nation’s finest minds and playing idly with her soup? “College for
isn’t everyone, you know,” Kennedy said. “Well, it is for
you.” “And how do you know that?” “Because. You’re a smart girl. I know you
are. You just don’t try. We don’t even know of
what you’re capable when you try your hardest ” “Maybe this is it! I’m not some
big brain like you.” “Well, I don’t believe that’s your best.” “And how would you know?” “Because I gave
up too much for you to flunk out of school!” Kennedy laughed, throwing up
her hands. “Here we go again. It’s not my fault you
grew up poor, Mother. You can’t blame me for shit that
happened before I was born.” A young black waiter leaned in to refill
her water glass and Stella fell silent. She had chosen her own life, years ago; Kennedy had only cemented her
into it. Recognizing this wasn’t the same as her.
blaming She’d sacrificed for a daughter who could
never learn what she’d lost. The time for honesty between the two of
them had passed long ago. Stella dabbed her mouth with the white
napkin, folding it back onto her lap. “Lower your voice,” she said. “And don’t
swear.” *** “IT’S NOT THE end of the world,” Peg Davis said. “Lots of students take
time off.” Stella sighed. She was sitting across the
desk in Peg’s cluttered office, which was always so messy that Stella had
to slide books off the chair or spend ten minutes searching for Peg’s reading
glasses, which were tucked under a pile of
midterms. Peg could hire someone to help her
organize. Stella had even volunteered to help. The office reminded her of living with
Desiree, who’d spent far more time searching for
lost things than she would have spent keeping her side of the room neat, but whenever told
Stella her this, Desiree had rolled her eyes and said to
stop mothering her. Peg was just as dismissive. “Oh, they’re around here somewhere,” she said, each time she misplaced her keys, and like that, another meeting turned a
into scavenger hunt. You could be a bit of a wreck when you a
were genius. Peg taught number theory, a field of that
mathematics seemed so complicated, it might as well have been magic. Theoretical mathematics shared little in
common with mathematical statistics, but Peg had offered to advise Stella
anyway. She was the only tenured female professor
in the math department, so she took on all the female students. Their first advising meeting, Peg had in
leaned back her chair, studying her. The professor had long, graying blonde hair and wore round that
eyeglasses covered half her face. “So tell me,” she’d said. “What’s your
story?” Stella had never been caught so squarely
in the gaze of such a brilliant woman before. She fidgeted, twisting her wedding ring
around her finger. “I don’t know,” she said. “What do you I
mean? don’t have a story. I mean, nothing that interesting.” She
was lying, of course, but she was startled when Peg
laughed. “Like hell,” she said. “It’s not every a
day housewife suddenly decides she wants to take up math. You don’t mind if I call you
that, do you?” “Call me what?” “A housewife.” “No,” Stella said. “It’s what I am, isn’t it?” “Is it?” Conversations with
Peg always went like this: twisting and turning, questions sounding like answers, answers
seeming like questions. Stella always felt like Peg was testing
her, which only made her want to prove herself. The professor gave her books Simone de
Beauvoir, Gloria Steinem, Evelyn Reed and she read
them all, even though Blake rolled his eyes when he
glanced at the covers. He didn’t see what any of that had to do
with mathematics. Peg invited her to protests and even was
though Stella always too nervous to stand in a crowd of shouting people, she always in
read about them afterward the paper. “What are Peggy’s girls up to this time?” Blake would ask, peeking over her at the
shoulder local section. There they were, protesting the Miss
America pageant, a sexist advertisement inside Los Angeles
Magazine, the opening of a new slasher movie that
glorified violence against women. Peggy’s girls were all white, and when if
Stella asked once there were any Negro women in the group, Peg prickled. “They have
their own concerns, you know,” she said. “But they’re welcome
to join us in the fight.” Who was Stella to judge? At least Peg for
stood something, fought for something. She went to war the
with university over everything: paid maternity leave, sexist faculty hiring, and exploitation
of adjunct labor. She argued about these things even though
she had no children and had already secured tenure she argued even though her advocating her
wouldn’t benefit at all. It baffled Stella, protesting out of a of
sense duty, or maybe even amusement. Now, sitting in
Peg’s office, she reached for a volume on prime numbers
and said, “It’s only time off if you eventually go
back.” “Well, maybe she will,” Peg said. “On her own. You did.” “That’s different.” “How?” “I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “I had to leave school. When I was her age, the only thing I was
wanted to go to college. And she just throws it away.” “Well, she isn’t you,” Peg said. “It’s unfair for you to expect her to be.” It wasn’t that either, or at least, it wasn’t only that. Her daughter felt a
like stranger, and maybe, if she was still in Mallard, she would be amused by all the ways that
they were different. By all the ways her daughter reminded her
of Desiree, even she might laugh with her sister it.
about Are you sure she’s not yours? But here in
this world, her daughter felt like a stranger and it
terrified her. If her daughter didn’t feel like she was
really hers, then nothing about her life was real. “Maybe you’re actually upset at yourself,” Peg said. “Myself? Why?” “All those years
you’ve been talking about graduate school. Then nothing.” “Yes, but ” Stella stopped. That was a different matter altogether. Each time she talked to Blake about to a
applying master’s program, he reacted as childishly as she expected. More school? Christ, Stella, how much do
more school you need? He accused her of abandoning the family, she accused him of abandoning
her, both fell asleep angry. “I mean, of course that husband thinks he can push
still you around,” Peg said. “You frighten him. A woman with
a brain. Nothing scares them more.” “I don’t know
if that’s true,” Stella said. Blake was still her husband;
she didn’t like hearing anyone talk about his faults. “I just mean it’s all about power,” Peg said. “He wants it, and he doesn’t to
want you have it. Why else do you think men fuck their
secretaries?” Again, she regretted telling Peg how she
and Blake met. Their story, romantic at the time, only became crasser over the years. She was so young, her daughter’s age; met
she’d never a man like Blake before. Of course she hadn’t been able to resist
his pull. Their first time in bed, she was only
nineteen, along with Blake on a work trip to
Philadelphia. By then, she’d learned that being a was a
secretary little like being a wife; she memorized his schedule, hung his hat and
coat, poured him a Scotch. She brought him
lunch, managed his moods, listened to him about
complain his father, remembered to send his mother flowers for
her birthday. This was why he’d invited her to
Philadelphia, she’d thought, until the final night of
the trip when he leaned in at the hotel bar and kissed her. “You don’t know how
long I’ve been wanting to do that,” he said. “Since Antoine’s. You looked so
sweet and so lost. I knew I was in trouble then. I told them, find me a girl with the
nicest handwriting, it doesn’t matter if she isn’t much to
look at. I hoped you wouldn’t be. I didn’t need
the distraction. I’m not that sort of man, you see. But of course, the prettiest to
handwriting belonged the prettiest girl. And you’ve been torturing me ever since.” He laughed a little but he was gazing at
her so seriously, she felt her neck flush. “I didn’t mean
to,” she said. “Torture you, I mean.” “Do you hate me for telling you all of
this?” he said. His nervousness settled her. She’d gone on a few dates with white men
before but never made it past kissing in their cars. She was always afraid that
they might be able to read her lie, somehow, on her naked body. Maybe against
white sheets, her skin would look darker, or maybe she
would just feel different once he was inside of her. If nakedness would not reveal who
you were, then what would? In the hotel room, Blake slowly undressed her. He unzipped
her skirt, unclipped her bra, bent to unfurl her
nylons. He was straining against his white briefs
and she felt embarrassed for him, embarrassed for all men, really, forced
to wear their desire so openly. She could think of nothing more than not
horrifying being able to hide what she wanted. She couldn’t have said no to him, she’d since realized, but she didn’t want
to. And maybe that was the difference, or maybe, the difference was in thinking
that there was one at all. “Don’t look at me like that,” Peg said. “Like what?” “Like your cat
just died.” Peg leaned across the desk. “I just hate
to see you make yourself small for him. Just because he’ll never see you the way
you see yourself.” Stella glanced away. “You don’t
understand,” she said. “When I think about who I was
before him. It’s like being a whole other person.” “So who were you then?” Peg said. Sometimes being a twin had felt like with
living another version of yourself. That person existed for everyone,
probably, an alternative self that lived only in
the mind. But hers was real. Stella rolled over in
bed each morning and looked into her eyes. Other times it felt like living with a
foreigner. Why are you not more like me? she’d think, glancing over at Desiree. How did I me
become and you become you? Maybe she was only quiet because Desiree was not. Maybe they’d spent their lives together
modulating each other, making up for what the other lacked. Like how at their father’s funeral, Stella barely spoke, and when someone her
asked a question, Desiree answered instead. At first it
unnerved Stella, a person speaking to her and Desiree
responding. Like throwing her own voice. But soon she
felt comfortable disappearing. You could say nothing and, in your
nothingness, feel free. She stared out the window at
students biking past, then back to the professor. “I can’t even
remember,” she said. CHAPTER 12 By the end of Jude’s first two weeks as
the newest usher at the Stardust Theater, she’d already learned two main things she
about Kennedy Sanders: wanted to be a Broadway star, and she carried herself like every
aggrieved actress, a little prideful, a little wounded. The pride was impossible to miss; she in
delighted making others wait for her, sauntering through every held door. She
argued with the director over the delivery of lines, often, it seemed, for fun. She parked her
red sports car on the far side of the garage because, she claimed, it had a
once been keyed by jealous understudy. She liked to invent stories about her
life, as if the reality were too dull to repeat. Sometimes she revised herself in the of a
middle conversation, like when she told Jude that her car had
been a high school graduation gift. “No, more like a ‘we can’t believe you
graduated’ gift,” she said. “I was a little shit in high
school. But weren’t we all? I mean, maybe not. You don’t look like a little
shit to me.” “I wasn’t,” Jude said. “I know you
weren’t. See, I can always tell. Who ate their and
broccoli listened to daddy and who was a fucking hell- raiser. Hey, be a doll
and throw this away, will you?” In her dressing room, she dropped crumpled candy wrappers into
Jude’s waiting hands. For the past two weekends, Jude had the
ridden bus downtown to the decrepit theater, where she swept popcorn off the floors, scrubbed the bathroom sinks, and cleaned
out the dressing rooms. In time, her supervisor promised, she her
would work way up to ticket taking and seat directing. Little did he know, she was to
exactly where she wanted be. But of course she didn’t tell him that. She’d only given him the simple story: a
that she was recent college graduate looking to earn extra money on the weekends. She could work Friday and Saturday nights, Sunday afternoons. The Midnight Marauders
shifts. He told her to come back for the Sunday
matinee dressed in all black. “I don’t like it,” Reese said. He leaned against the kitchen countertop, Mr. Song’s worn tool belt still around
his waist, looking so worried, she wished she hadn’t
said anything in the first place. “It’s just a little side job,” she said lightly. “We could use the
money.” “It’s not and you know it.” “Well, what am I supposed to do? Just go
on pretending she ain’t Stella’s daughter? I can’t do that. I have to know her. I have to meet Stella.” “And how you plan
on doin that?” But she had no plan beyond the Stardust
Theater. Before each show, she met Kennedy in her
dressing room and helped lift the big dress over her head. She did other little for
favors her too: brought her hot water with lemon, fetched her sandwiches from a
nearby diner, ran for Cokes from the lobby vending
machine. She always felt foolish, standing outside
the dressing room holding a steaming mug of tea, until Kennedy whisked in, breathless and
unapologetic. “You’re a lifesaver,” she’d say, or, “I owe you one.” Never just, thank you. During the first act, before preparing the concession stand for
intermission, Jude slipped into the wing to watch a the
play that became sillier more times she saw it. A western musical about a spunky
girl who arrives in a ghost town to find it occupied by actual ghosts. “I think it’s very clever,” Kennedy said. “Sort of like Hamlet when you think about
it.” The play was nothing like Hamlet, but she said it with such conviction that
you almost believed her. It was the first starring role she’d out
landed since dropping of school two months ago, she told Jude one evening after a show. They were sitting together at a diner the
across street, Kennedy dipping fries into a puddle of
ranch. “My mother still hasn’t been to a show,” she said. “She’s so pissed at me for
leaving school. She thinks I’m gambling away my future. And maybe I am. Hardly anyone makes it, right?” For the first time, she dropped
the bravado, looking so genuinely unsure of herself
that Jude almost squeezed her hand. The sudden rush of empathy startled her. Was that what it was like to be this An
girl? unwise choice earning you sympathy, not scorn, a single moment of doubt a to
forcing practical stranger affirm that you were, in fact, special? “No one gets into med
school either,” Jude said. “Oh, it’s not the same. My mother would love if I were going to a
be doctor, trust me. I suppose most mothers would. They all want us to live better lives
than they did, right?” “What was hers like?” “Rough. You know, real white trash, Grapes of
Wrath. Walked ten miles each day just to get to
school, all that.” “She come from a big family?” “Oh no. Just her. But her mother and died
father years ago. She’s the only one left.” Sometimes you
could understand why Stella passed over. Who didn’t dream of leaving herself and
behind starting over as someone new? But how could she kill the people who’d loved her? How
could she leave the people who still longed for her, years later, and never even look
back? That was the part that Jude could never understand. “I don’t know how you
put up with her,” Barry said. “That girl never stops I’d in
talking! shove that bonnet her mouth.” Like the rest of the cast, he found Kennedy insufferable. But Jude
needed to hear her talk. She was searching all of her stories for
Stella. So she lifted that dress over her head, listening to Kennedy go on about how she
wanted to visit India over the summer, but she was worried, you know. You can’t even drink the water in a place
like that, and she had a friend well, not really a friend, a childhood neighbor, Tammy Roberts who went on a mission trip
there and came back sick from eating fruit. Can you imagine it, fruit? She’d rather a
die with needle jabbed in her arm than let a mango kill her. Another time, Kennedy told her that an old fling would
be in the audience, a married surfer who lived in her
apartment building. She’d slept with him once after he a of
brought bottle absinthe back from France. “We saw some trippy shit,” she said, stretching out barefoot on the lumpy
couch. Curtain was in fifteen, and she still
wasn’t even dressed yet. She was never focused, never prepared. When Jude arrived to help her dress, she always answered the door a little
surprised, as if she hadn’t been the one to ask Jude
in the first place. She always mentioned her mother suddenly, like when she told Jude before a show she
that had first started acting when she was eleven. Her mother had placed her in
all of these different activities because that’s what parents do in Brentwood, cast their out a
children like fishing net and hope that they catch a talent. So she’d taken tennis and
lessons ballet classes and clarinet and piano enough instruments to start her own symphony, really. But nothing stuck. She was
horribly mediocre. Her mother was embarrassed. “She never as
said much but I could tell,” Kennedy said. “She really wanted me to be
special.” So on a whim, she’d auditioned for a play
school about the gold rush and earned a small role as a Chinese railroad worker. Only seven lines, but her mother helped
her memorize them, holding the script in one hand, stirring pasta sauce with the other. Kennedy dragging her invisible pick the
across kitchen floor. “I mean, it was completely ridiculous,” she said. “Here I am, playing some coolie
in one of those straw hats. You couldn’t even see my face. But my mother told me I did a good job. She was… I don’t know, she seemed for
excited once.” She spoke about her mother wistfully, the way everyone talked about Stella. That was the only part that felt real. *** FOR THE REST OF NOVEMBER, Jude Winston worked The Midnight shift.
Marauders She refilled the popcorn machines, passed
out Playbills at the door, helped old ladies to their seats. At night, she fell asleep, still hearing
the overture. She closed her eyes and saw Kennedy at
center stage, glowing in light. They couldn’t be
cousins. Each time the blonde swept into the
theater, her face hidden behind sunglasses, the
idea seemed even more preposterous. A long-lost relative you’d have something
in common, wouldn’t you? Maybe you couldn’t spot it
at first, but in time, you’d feel, somehow, your shared blood. But the longer she
spent around Kennedy, the more foreign the girl seemed. One Friday night, the cast went out for a
nightcap. Barry tugged Jude’s arm to convince her
to stay, but before she could tell him that she
was exhausted, Kennedy jogged out beside her. So of
course she’d stayed. She never told her no. She felt desperate
around her. The play was nearly over and she’d barely
learned anything about Stella. In the dim bar, the pianist found a dusty
upright in the back and started picking around chords. Slowly the cast migrated
over, a little tipsy and still eager to perform. But Kennedy sat with Jude at the worn end
of the table, their knees touching. “You don’t have me,
many friends like do you?” she asked. “What do you mean?” White people, probably, although Kennedy
surprised her by saying, “Girlfriends. You were with a whole bunch
of boys when I saw you.” “No,” Jude said. “I don’t have any
girlfriends, really.” “Why not?” “I don’t know. I never really had any growing up. It’s the place I come from. They don’t like people like me.” “Blacks, you mean.” “Dark ones,” she said. “The light ones are fine.” Kennedy
laughed. “Well, that’s silly.” They both found
each other’s lives inscrutable, and wasn’t that the only way it could be?
Didn’t Jude wonder what it would be like to care so little about your
education, to know that even if the worst happened, you would be all right? Didn’t she hate
the loud punk rock screeching out the speakers when Kennedy peeled into the parking Yes,
garage? and she rolled her eyes each time Kennedy
arrived late. She resented when Kennedy demanded lemon
tea. She felt defensive when Barry called her
a spoiled brat even though she was one, of course she was. The girl was maddening
sometimes, but maybe this was who Jude would have if
been her mother hadn’t married a dark man. In this other life, the twins passed
over together. Her mother married a white man and now of
she slipped out mink coats at fancy parties, not waited tables in a country
diner. In this reality, Jude was fair and
beautiful, driving a red Camaro around Brentwood, her hand trailing out the window. Each night, she strutted onstage, beaming, tossing back her golden hair while the
world applauded. The boy on the piano started banging out
“Don’t Stop Me Now,” and Kennedy shrieked, grabbing Jude by
the hand. Jude never sang in front of anybody. But somehow, she found herself singing
along with the giddy group, annoying the other patrons, until the
bartender kicked them out. She climbed into bed that night after
three, her head buzzing, still feeling Kennedy’s
arm around her shoulders. They weren’t real family, and they real
weren’t friends, but they were something. Weren’t they?
“Where’d you go?” Reese asked. They were kissing in bed but
she was distracted, her head still swimming with music. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just
thinking.” “About that white girl?” He sighed. “Baby, you gotta stop. You’re playin a
dangerous game.” “It’s not a game,” she said. “It’s my family.” “Those people ain’t
your family. They don’t wanna be and you can’t make
them.” “I’m not trying to ” “Then why are you
sniffin around that girl? You can’t make nobody be what they don’t wanna be. And if your aunt wants to be a white
woman, it’s her life.” “You don’t understand,” she said. “You’re right,” he said, throwing up his hands. “I don’t you at ”
understand all “That’s not what I meant,” she said, but wasn’t it? He hadn’t watched her
mother spend years pining after Stella, or Early driving thousands of miles for
searching her. He didn’t see the mornings Jude had spent
digging through the crates in the back of the closet, sifting through Stella’s
things. Junk, mostly, a few old toys or an or a
earring sock. She couldn’t tell if her grandmother to
chose keep these mementos or if she’d forgotten the boxes were even there. But she’d sort
through them, trying to discover what made Stella
different. How had she found a way to leave Mallard
when her mother only knew how to stay? All November, she reported to room
Kennedy Sanders’s dressing to help lift the big dress over her head. Then each evening, she stood in the wing of the theater, searching the audience for Stella. She
did not see her once. Still, she looked for her as the overture
faded and Kennedy finally took the stage. Somehow, as soon as the show started, she lost that smart- alecky tone that the
made crew roll their eyes. When the lights hit, she was no longer in
the sarcastic girl chain- smoking the alley. She became Dolly, the sweet, carefree in
nobody lost an abandoned town. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve just the
always loved stage. Everyone watching you. Sort of thrilling, isn’t it?” After a Saturday night show, she’d offered to drive Jude home. She glanced across the car, smiling at
her, and Jude, fidgeting, stared out the
window. She hated how directly Kennedy looked at
her, as if she were daring her to look away. “No,” Jude said. “I’d hate everyone at me
staring like that.” “Why?” “I don’t know. It makes me feel… exposed, I guess.” Kennedy laughed. “Yes, but acting is different,” she said. “You only show people what you want to.” Challenge: Hit like before the next Can
chapter starts! you do it? Let’s see! CHAPTER 13 Jude and Kennedy’s paths cross, exposing
trauma in this speed reading video. By December, The Midnight Marauders the
poster outside Stardust Theater had already been tacked over with an advertisement for West Side Story. Jude must have looked so glum that the
man changing the marquee glanced down his ladder and said, “Sometimes they bring ’em back
for a second run.” But she wasn’t thinking about the show
she was only thinking about Stella, who still had not appeared. Now the play
was over and what did she even have to show for it? A few old stories about a
woman she would never know. On the night of the final performance, she stepped into the empty theater to the
sweep floors and found Kennedy standing alone on the dim stage. She was never early, so Jude asked if something was wrong. Kennedy laughed. “I always come early to
the last show,” she said. “It’s the one people will you
remember by, you know. You’re only as good as your
last performance.” She was wearing ripped jeans and a big
floppy purple hat that hid half her face. She always dressed like that, like a out
child ripping clothes of a costume chest. “Why don’t you come on up?” Kennedy said. Jude laughed, glancing the
around empty theater. “What’re you talking about?” she said. “I’m working.” “So? No one’s here. Just come up for a second, just for fun. I bet you’ve never even on
been a stage like this before.” She hadn’t, although she’d thought about
trying out for the school play every year. Her mother had starred in Romeo and all
Juliet learned that funny English, had to let Ike Goudeau kiss her in front
of the whole school. But what a time she’d had, taking her final bow to thunderous
applause. Her mother would have been thrilled to in
see Jude star anything. And she’d almost found the nerve to
audition, not because she wanted the role but was
because acting something her mother once loved. She wanted to prove to herself that they
were alike. But she’d barely stepped into the theater
for tryouts before she imagined the whole town laughing at her, and she slipped out the wing the
before drama teacher called her name. She propped her broom against the seats.
front-row “I almost tried out for a play once,” she told Kennedy, climbing the steps. “But I chickened out.” “Well, maybe your
that’s problem,” Kennedy said. “You tell yourself no even
before anyone says it to you.” The theater did look different from the
stage the house lights dimmed, so you couldn’t see the faces of all the
people watching you. How strange that must be, to not know the
what people looking at you were thinking. “I used to have these terrible
nightmares,” Kennedy said. “When I was little. I mean, awful ones.” “About what?” “That’s the thing, I could never remember. But when I started acting, they stopped. It was the strangest thing. Like there me
was something bad inside trying to get out and I could only get rid of it here.” She tapped the stage floor. “But that any
doesn’t make sense, does it? The doctors said that creative
people have the most vivid dreams. I don’t know why. Maybe you’ll figure it
out when you’re a doctor.” She didn’t want to be a psychologist, but she was grateful for Kennedy’s
confidence. When you’re a doctor. It sounded so easy
when she said it. “Yes,” she said. “Maybe.” She followed
her down off the stage. She could hear the rest of the company
arriving, giddy as they raced around backstage, dressing for the final time. She would
sweep the theater floor, then take her place in the dark one last
time. And after the final curtain, for the time
first since she’d realized who Kennedy Sanders was, she had no idea when she might see her
again. “You should come to the cast party,” Kennedy said. “Bring your boyfriend. I to
bet the theater’ll pay him take some pictures.” The suggestion was surprisingly she’d was
thoughtful; told Kennedy once that Reese a photographer but she never expected her to remember. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll give him a call.” Kennedy started toward backstage, then
paused. “I don’t know what happens after this.” “What do you mean?” Maybe, to an actor, the dark wing of a theater felt as as
intimate church; either way, Kennedy began to confess. She didn’t know
what she would do tomorrow no, literally, what she would do when she up
woke in the morning, because this play was the only thing that
had given her any sense of purpose in months. It was the only thing she was at,
good acting. She’d left school because she was
shit at it, she was shit at everything else. And maybe her mother was right maybe she
had made a big mistake. Maybe acting was a waste of time. Maybe her parents argued so much because
they were splitting up. Maybe her mother would rather grade math
assignments than talk to her. Maybe all those things were true. And maybe she had only landed her biggest
role yet because the boy she was sleeping with told her one night, while they were
stoned, that his big brother had written a bad on
hilariously play that some company was putting downtown. And even though it was bad, she’d wept when she read the script. A lonely girl living in a world only by
surrounded ghosts. Nothing reminded her of her own life more. Maybe the director, Doug, sensed this, or maybe he just liked looking at her
tits, or maybe the boy told his brother to pull
some strings, to do whatever he had to do to make sure
that her name was at the top of the call sheet. Either way, she won the starring role. “But I could
never tell my mother any of this,” she said. “She’d just say that she was
right. She cares more about being right than my
being mother. Sometimes I don’t even think she likes me
very much. Isn’t that something? To think your own
mother can’t even stand you.” She was smiling but her violet eyes with
filled tears. “I’m sure that’s not true,” Jude said. “Well, you don’t know her, do you?” Kennedy said. *** THAT NIGHT, for the
final time, she witnessed Kennedy Sanders transform
under the spotlight. Kennedy strutting out for the opening in
number the town square, singing her contemplative solo in the
cemetery, high- kicking on the bar during the act-
closing dance with a chorus of drunk ghosts. Onstage, you couldn’t tell the girl had
just been crying. She became new each time she stepped the
under lights. After the first act ended, applause in
ringing the theater, Jude waded through the crowd to the
concession stand. She was shoveling lukewarm popcorn into a
paper bag when she saw, finally, Stella. Her mother, but not. That’s the only way she could think of
her. Like her mother’s face transplanted onto
another woman’s body. Stella wore a long green dress, her hair pulled into a low bun. Diamond earrings, black pumps. She was a
fiddling with leather pocketbook as she glided through the lobby, rolling her neck a little before a
she smiled at tall man holding open the door. For a second, in that smile, she was Mama. Then the mask slid back on, another woman taking over. There was no
time to think. Jude abandoned the popcorn station and
followed, pushing through the crowded lobby to the
door. Outside, she found Stella standing under
the eaves, fumbling for a cigarette. She glanced
over, startled by the sudden intrusion, and
Jude froze. Her first stupid thought was that Stella
might recognize her. She’d see something familiar in her face
her eyes, or her mouth even and then she would gape, her pocketbook falling open on the
sidewalk. But Stella’s eyes glazed over and she the
stared moodily into street. Jude alone with the pounding heart. “Hi,” Jude said. “I’m friends with your
daughter.” She couldn’t think of anything else to
say. Stella paused, then lit her cigarette. “From school?” she said. Her voice was
smoother, softer. “No, from the play.” “Oh. Lovely,” Stella said. It was a word her
mother would have never used. Lovely. Stella gave a little smile, then she took a drag, glancing up at the
eave. “Did you want a cigarette?” she asked. Jude almost said yes. At least then she’d
have a reason to be standing there. “No,” she said. “I don’t smoke.” “Good girl,” Stella said. “They say it’s
awful for your health.” “I know. My mother’s trying to quit.” Stella glanced at her. “It’s terribly to
difficult quit,” she said. “All the best things are.” Intermission was nearly over; soon Stella
would head back inside, disappearing into the darkness of the
theater. When the play ended, she would join the
crowd surging out onto the street. She would go home, and maybe later that
night, in a quiet moment, she would think about
that dark girl who’d interrupted her smoke break, and then she’d never remember the moment
again. “Kennedy said you’re from Louisiana,”
Jude finally said. “I am too. I’m from Mallard.” Stella glanced at her, an eyebrow arched.
slightly Nothing in her body changed, nothing that
suggested she’d even heard except for that tiny lift of her eyebrow. “All right,” she said. “I’m sorry, I don’t know it.” “My mama ” Jude took a breath. “My mama’s name is Desiree Vignes.” Now Stella turned toward her. “Who the
hell are you?” she said quietly. “I told you, my mama ” “Who are you? What’re you doing
here? I don’t understand.” She was partly smiling but she held the
cigarette away from her body, warning Jude not to come closer. She was angry Jude hadn’t expected that. Stella would be confused. Startled, even. But maybe once the surprise wore off, she’d thought, Stella might be glad to
meet her. She might even marvel at all the works of
chance that had drawn them together. Instead, Stella shook her head, as if to
trying wake herself from a nightmare. “I wanted to meet you,” Jude said. “No no no, I don’t understand. Who are you really? You look nothing like
her.” Through the window, the lobby lights
flickered. She was supposed to be guiding people to
back their seats. Her supervisor was probably going crazy, looking for her. And what would he find a
if he stepped outside right now black girl pleading for a white woman to her.
recognize “She told me how you used to hide in the
bathroom,” Jude said. “At that laundry place in New
Orleans. She said you almost cut your hand off.” She was rambling now, willing to say to
anything keep Stella from leaving. Stella took a shaky drag, then stomped on
out her cigarette the sidewalk. “She would never go back to Mallard,” she said. “Well, we had to. To get away from my daddy. He kept beating on her.” “Beating on her?” Stella paused, softening. “I mean, is she
still is my mama still ” “They’re still down there. My mama works
at the diner.” “Lou’s? My God. I haven’t thought about ”
Lou’s in Stella stopped. “Well, it must’ve been
awful for you.” Jude glanced away. She hated the thought
of Stella pitying her. “My mama kept looking for you,” she said. Stella’s mouth curved, like she
was going to smile or cry, her face, somehow, caught in between. Like a sun shower. The devil beating his
wife, her mother used to say, and Jude imagined
it every time she heard her father rage. The devil could love the woman he beat; a
the sun could burst through rainstorm. Nothing was as simple as you wanted it to
be. Without thinking, she reached toward her
aunt but Stella jutted her arm out. Her eyes were shining. “She shouldn’t
have,” Stella said. “She should’ve forgotten all
about me.” “But she didn’t! You can call her. We can call her right now. She would be so glad ” “I’ve got to go,” Stella said. “But ” “It’s too much,” she said. “I can’t go back through that door. It’s another life, you understand?” over
Headlights washed them, and for a second, bathed in yellow light, Stella looked panicked, as if she might
run into the car’s path. Then she clutched her purse tightly and
disappeared into the night. *** AT THE CAST PARTY, all of the actors
and musicians gathered around to watch their show lead get hammered and complain, to anyone who might listen, that her
mother hadn’t shown. “Can you believe it?” she kept saying. “Closing night and all she gave me is she
that would try. Not too hard, apparently!” No one had her
ever seen in such a nasty mood. She’d barely lingered onstage past the
curtain call, ignored the cast members who tried to
congratulate her, dumped the roses the director had given
her into the trash. She hadn’t even offered to sign Playbills
at the stage door. Now she was spending the first half hour
of the cast party pounding tequila alone at the bar. “My first big show,” she told Jude. “All she had to do was sit
through it. And she couldn’t even do that.” Across the bar, Reese was roving, snapping candid photos of the cast. She should have been happy for him, behind the camera again, but instead, she was standing at the bar beside a
surly drunk girl, still shaken. She’d met Stella but Stella
didn’t want to know her. It shouldn’t have been surprising. She to
hadn’t wanted anything do with the family for decades, so nothing had changed. But why did Jude
feel as if she’d lost someone? Again, she saw herself reaching toward Stella, Stella pushing her away. She felt as if
she’d reached for her mother and only felt her shove her back. “I have to go,” she said. She felt too hot in that party,
crowded desperate for air. “What’re you talking
about?” Kennedy said. “The party just started.” “I know. I’m sorry. I can’t stay.” “Come on,” she said. “Just have a drink
with me. Please.” She sounded so vulnerable, Jude
nearly said yes. Almost. But she imagined Stella into the
disappearing night, glancing over her shoulder, panicked, as
if she were being hunted, and she shook her head. “I really can’t,” she said. “My boyfriend’s ready to go.” Across the room, Reese was packing up his
camera and chatting with Barry. Kennedy glanced over, watching the two a
for second. “You’re really lucky, you know,” she said. She was still smiling but meanness wedged
inside her voice. “What do you mean?” Jude said. “Nothing. But you know. Nobody really him
expects someone like to be with you, do they?” Kennedy laughed. “You know I by
don’t mean anything it. I’m just saying. Your men usually like
the light girls, don’t they?” Years later, she would what
always wonder exactly pushed her. That sly smile, or the way she’d said men
your so casually, as if it didn’t include her. Or maybe it was because Kennedy was right. She knew how lucky Jude felt to be loved. She knew, even though Jude tried to hide
it, exactly how to hurt her. For weeks, she’d followed Kennedy around the
Stardust Theater. She’d helped her dress, brought her tea, listened to her trill notes in the
hallway. She’d cleaned toilets to talk to her, wondering always how this strange girl be
could related to her. But she finally saw it: Kennedy Sanders
was nothing but an uppity Mallard girl who believed the fiction she’d been told. “You’re so
stupid,” Jude said. “You don’t even know what you
are.” “And what’s that?” “Your mother’s from
Mallard! Where mine’s from. They’re twins. They look exactly alike it
and even you would see ” Kennedy laughed. “You’re crazy.” “No,
your mother’s crazy. She’s been lying to you your whole life.” She regretted the words as soon as they
left her mouth, but by then, it was too late. She had rung the bell, and all her life, the note would hang in the air. *** MR. PARK BROUGHT BULGOGI on the house, setting the dish on the table. “So sad,” he said. “Never seen you so
sad.” What a sight they must have been Jude at
dabbing her puffy eyes, Reese somber beside her, looking as as he
helpless always did whenever she cried. He squeezed her shoulder and said, “Come on, baby, eat.” But she wasn’t
hungry. On the ride over, she’d told him about
the whole terrible night. She told him everything except what had
Kennedy said to hurt her, because it cut too close to share, even with him. “You were right,” she said. “You were right about
everything. I should’ve never gone looking ” “It’s okay,” he said. “You wanted to know
them. Now you do. Now you can move on.” “I can’t tell Mama,” she said. She’d never kept a secret like this from
her mother before. But if it was cruel to not tell her that
Stella was alive that she’d met her, even then wasn’t it even worse to to
tell her that Stella wanted nothing do with her? What good would come of her the
mother discovering that sister she’d spent years searching for wouldn’t even call her? her
Maybe mother would realize that losing her was for the best. Maybe, over time, she would
just forget Stella, the way Jude had already started to lose
her father’s face. Not all at once, but slowly, her memories disintegrating. Eventually
remembering turned into imagining. How slight the difference was between the
two. Her mother would never forget Stella. She would stare into the mirror for the
rest of her life, reminded of her loss. But Jude wouldn’t
add to her grief. She would talk to her mother on the phone, days later, and not say a word about
Stella. Maybe she was like her aunt in that way. Maybe, like Stella, she became a new in
person each place she’d lived, and she was already unrecognizable to her
mother, a girl who hoarded secrets. A liar. *** THE MORNING AFTER THE PLAY, Stella awoke with a pounding heart. She’d barely opened her eyes before the
previous night returned to her: that awful play she’d finally attended, even though she knew a
acting was waste of her daughter’s time and talents. But she’d gone because it was closing sat
night she’d through the dreadful thing, delighted and a little surprised that her
daughter was the only bright spot. At intermission, she’d applauded as as
loudly anyone, hoping her daughter would see her. But the girl ducked backstage with the of
rest the cast, and Stella slipped out for a smoke. She was thinking, leaving the dingy
theater, about how she could make things right. She could take Kennedy to dinner after
the show, apologize for not attending sooner. that
Suggest she take more drama classes, as long as she went back to school. And that was when that dark girl had from
emerged the shadows. After, Stella charged into the street, not even thinking about where she was
going. She’d stumbled two blocks downtown before
remembering where she’d parked. The dark girl couldn’t be Desiree’s
daughter. She looked nothing like her. Pure black, like Desiree had never even touched her. She could be anyone. But how, then, had she known those stories about
New Orleans? Who else would know but Desiree? Well, maybe she’d told someone. Maybe this girl
thought she could come to California and threaten to expose Stella. Blackmail her, even! The
possibilities grew more lurid in her head, none of them making sense. How had the if
girl even found her? And she’d wanted to blackmail her, why hadn’t she named of
her price? Instead withering on the sidewalk, as if her feelings were hurt. As if Stella had disappointed her somehow. “Your heart’s racing,” Blake said. He his
lifted head, smiling sleepily at her. He liked to fall
asleep with his head on her breasts, and she let him because it was sweet. “I had a strange dream,” she said. “A scary one?” She ran her fingers his
through graying blond hair. “I used to have these nightmares,” she said. “That these men would drag me
out of bed. It felt so real. I could feel their hands
on my ankles, even after I woke up.” “That’s not why
you keep that bat here, is it?” She started to respond but turned
instead away, her eyes filling with tears. “Something
happened,” she said. “When I was young.” “What happened?” “I saw something ” But her voice cracked, and she couldn’t
say any more. Blake kissed her cheek. “Oh honey, don’t cry,” he said softly. “I don’t know
what you’re so afraid of. I’ll always keep you safe.” She kissed he
him before could say anything else. They made love desperately, the way they
had when she was nineteen, touching Mr. Sanders for the first time. The image would have made her younger
self blush. Two middle- aged people gripping each
other’s bodies, knocking off the covers, as sunlight the
cracked through blinds, the alarm clock blaring, calling each to
a separate day. Her body changed, his body changing, familiar and foreign at the same time. When you married someone, you promised to
love every person he would be. He promised to love every person she had
been. And here they were, still trying, even though the past and the future were
both mysteries. That morning, she was late for class. A quick shower, then she was pulling a
blouse onto her damp shoulders, Blake smiling at her through the mirror
as he shaved. “I do believe I made you late to work, Mrs. Sanders,” he said, which didn’t have
as nice a ring to it as Dr. Sanders, but maybe that was okay. Maybe it was enough to be Mrs. Sanders, maybe it was enough to have her
Introduction to Statistics class, and her house, and her family. That dark girl. She saw her again, tried to shake her out of her mind. She’d been arrogant, that was her problem. So focused on what was next that she what
didn’t appreciate she’d already gotten away with. She couldn’t let herself slip up like
that again. She’d have to focus. Stay alert. She was running out the door when she her
bumped into daughter, lugging a bag of laundry up the steps. Both women jolted, then Kennedy flashed
the disarming smile she’d inherited from her father. It was impossible to ever be angry at
that smile, and Kennedy had tested it often: when for
she’d begged a puppy but left Yolanda to care for him, when she’d failed ninth- in
grade geometry spite of Stella’s attempts to help her, when she’d crashed her first Camaro
and, somehow, convinced Blake to buy her a
second one. “Well, she’s got to have a way to get
around,” he said, and Stella, tired of being the
difficult one, finally agreed. Not that she’d had much
say. Kennedy learned long ago that if she
wanted anything, she ought to ask her father. Telling Stella was a mere formality. “I was hoping to speak to you,” Stella said. “Listen, about last night ” “I know, I know, you’re sorry. But if you weren’t going to come, you could’ve just told me. I would’ve the
given ticket to someone else ” “I did see your play! I just had to slip
out early, that’s all. I wasn’t feeling well I ate,
something probably. But I promise I was there. I thought it was very clever. The ghosts and all. And that song you did
in the saloon. I loved it all. Really.” Her daughter was
wearing big shiny sunglasses so Stella couldn’t see her eyes, only her own face reflected at
back her. She looked calm, natural. Not like a who
woman had awakened with her heart racing. “Did you really like it?” Kennedy asked. “Of course, darling. I thought you were
marvelous.” She pulled her daughter into a hug, running a hand along her thin shoulder
blades. “All right,” she said. “I’m running late. Have a good day.” She fumbled with her
attaché case, searching for her keys, when she heard
her daughter call, over her shoulder, “You’ve never been to
a place called Mallard, have you?” Stella never expected to hear
that word fall out of her daughter’s mouth, and for the first time all morning, she faltered. “What do you mean?” she said. “I met this girl from there she
said she knows you.” “I’ve never even heard of the place. Mallard, did you say?” That disarming
smile again. Kennedy shrugged. “That’s okay,” she said. “Maybe she was thinking of someone else.” *** WHEN BLAKE CAME HOME from work that
evening, Stella told him about the dark girl. All afternoon, she’d debated whether to
say anything before deciding that she should. A preemptive strike. She didn’t want him
to think that she had anything to hide, and she preferred him to hear the story
from her. She hated the idea of her husband and
daughter whispering about her. So while he undressed for bed, she told him that a dark girl, claiming to be a cousin, had cornered her
Kennedy after play. She watched his face the entire time, waiting to see it change. A flicker of
recognition, maybe. Relief that a question he’d always
wondered had finally been answered. But he just scoffed, unbuttoning his
dress shirt. “It’s the Camaro,” he said. “I’m sure she
saw it and thought, boom. Payday.” “Exactly,” Stella said.
“That’s exactly right. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her.” “This city, I swear, sometimes.” They’d
been talking recently about leaving Los Angeles. Moving to Orange County, maybe, or even
farther north to Santa Barbara. She’d resisted at first, not wanting to
leave her job, but now she kept imagining that dark girl
creeping up to her again, poking her head in doorways, tapping on
the windows. Or worse, the girl following Kennedy the
around city, appearing at her shows, stalking her
between auditions. What could she possibly want? Again, her face flashed through Stella’s mind. How she’d stood under that eave, wounded. Stella’s mistake had been to she
think that could settle anywhere. You had to keep moving or the past would
always catch up to you. “You know those people downtown,” she
said. “High out their minds, half of them.” “Hell, more than half,” Blake said, sliding in bed beside her. The first time
she’d ever been white, Stella couldn’t wait to tell Desiree what
she’d done. Desiree would never believe it she didn’t
think Stella was capable of doing anything surprising. But that evening, when Stella returned
home, she passed her sister in the hallway and
said nothing. A secret transgression was even more than
thrilling a shared one. She had shared everything with Desiree. She wanted something of her own. She was forty-four now; she’d spent more
of her life without Desiree than with her. Still, as the weeks passed, she felt pull
Desiree’s on her tighten, like a hand gripping her neck. Sometimes it felt like a gentle rub;
other times, it choked her. She blamed the dark girl, although she hadn’t seen her since that
night outside the Stardust Theater. The city was large; the girl would never
find her again. Stella never thought of her as a niece. Niece didn’t seem the right word for a
girl you didn’t know, a girl who looked nothing like you. Then again, wouldn’t Desiree feel the way
same about Kennedy? Sometimes even Stella stared at her daughter and saw a stranger. It wasn’t
Kennedy’s fault that Stella had decided, long ago, to become someone else. Now her whole life had been built on that
lie and the other lies Stella stacked in order to maintain it, until one dark
girl appeared, threatening to send them all tumbling
down. “Did you ever have a sister?” Kennedy asked one night. Stella, bending
over to sweep crumbs off the table, stiffened. “What do you mean?” she said. “You know I didn’t.” “I just thought ” “You’re not still thinking about that
black girl, are you?” But her daughter bit her lip, staring out the darkened window. She was
she just hadn’t said anything about it, which felt like an even bigger betrayal. “My God,” Stella said. “Who do you Some
believe? crazy girl or your own mother?” “But why would she lie? Why would she say
those things to me?” “She wants money! Or maybe she just wants
to poke fun at you. Who knows why crazy people do things?” Blake wandered into the kitchen, pausing, like he always did before stepping into
one of their arguments, as if to remind himself that it wasn’t to
too late disengage and pretend this had nothing to do with him. He hadn’t been in
interested enough the dark girl to say much else about it, except that if saw
Kennedy her again, she ought to call the police. Now he squeezed his daughter’s shoulder. “Just drop it, Ken,” he said. “You can’t let that girl get to you.” “I know, but ” “We love you,” he said. “We wouldn’t lie to you.” But sometimes lying was an act of love. Stella had spent too long lying to tell
the truth now, or maybe, there was nothing left to
reveal. Maybe this was who she had become. *** IN JUNE, Stella and Blake surprised a
their daughter with the keys to new apartment in Venice. They’d pay the rent for one on
year while she went auditions, and after, she’d have to go back to or a
school find job. Technically it wasn’t a bribe, but when
Stella handed her ecstatic daughter the keys, she felt so awash in relief that it like
seemed one. Maybe now her daughter would stop her her
barraging with questions about past. She’d always worried about Kennedy her
discovering secret and rejecting her, Blake leaving, her whole life in her
disintegrating hands. What she hadn’t pictured was doubt. It would almost have been better if just
Kennedy believed that dark girl. Instead, she seemed to mull over her
claims, sometimes considering them, sometimes
rejecting them, and Stella never knew where she would
land. She couldn’t predict what she might ask, or what she believed, and the uncertainty
made her crazy. The new apartment would at least be a
distraction. Maybe even a solution. On a Saturday
morning, she and Blake helped their daughter move
in. Blake assembled furniture in the bedroom, and Stella wiped down the kitchen drawers, remembering the apartment she and Desiree
had shared in New Orleans. The walls were paper thin, the always
floorboards creaking, a water splotch growing across the
ceiling. And yet, in spite of that, she’d loved that place. She’d been so to
grateful leave Farrah Thibodeaux’s floor that she hadn’t even cared how tiny and cramped this new
apartment was. It was hers and it was Desiree’s, and she’d felt as if they were both on of
the cusp lives too big to even imagine. She teared up, and Kennedy
startled her, hugging her from behind. “Don’t get all
sappy,” she said. “I’ll still come by for dinner.” Stella laughed, dabbing her eyes. “I hope
you like this place,” she said. “It’s a nice little apartment. You should’ve seen mine in New Orleans.” “What was it like?” “Well, it could’ve in
fit here, twice over. We were always on top of each
other ” “Who was?” Stella paused. “I’m sorry?” “You said ‘we.’” “Oh. Right. My roommate. This girl I lived with, she was from my
town.” “You never told me that before,” Kennedy said. “You never tell me anything
about your life.” “Kennedy ” “It’s not about that,” she said. “It’s not about that girl at
all. It’s just like, it’s impossible to know
anything about you. I have to beg you just to tell me about
some roommate you had and you’re my mother. Why don’t you want me to know
you?” She’d imagined, more than once, telling
her daughter the truth, about Mallard, and Desiree, and New
Orleans. How she’d pretended to be someone else a
because she needed job, and after a while, pretending became
reality. She could tell the truth, she thought, but there was no single truth anymore. She’d lived a life split between two each
women real, each a lie. “I’ve just always been this
way,” Stella said. “I’m not like you. Open. It’s a good way to be. I hope you stay that way.” She handed her daughter a sheet of shelf
paper, and Kennedy smiled. “I don’t know any way
other to be,” she said. “What do I have to hide?” Jude’s truth-seeking shines in Brit video
Bennett’s book. PART 5 PACIFIC COVE (1985/1988) stories,
Intergenerational booktok. CHAPTER 14 In 1988, exhausted from her pursuit of
artistic seriousness and, more importantly, pushing thirty, Kennedy
Sanders would begin to appear on a series of daytime soap operas, and a month after she turned she
twenty- seven would finally land a three- season arc on Pacific Cove. It would be her job
longest acting ever, and even decades later, she would be in
sometimes stopped the mall by some gooey-eyed fan who called her Charity Harris. It was the
role she was born to play, the director told her, she just had a for
face the soaps. She must have frowned because he laughed, touching her arm way too close to her
tits. “It’s not a knock, babe,” he said. “I just mean well, I can tell you have a
flair for the dramatic.” There was nothing wrong with melodrama, she told her parents when she’d called to
share the news. In fact, some of the greatest classic
actresses Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo trafficked in
it from time to time. Her father was glad that she was moving
back to California. Her mother was glad that she was working. After she hung up, she wandered around a
Burbank shopping mall where, a year later, she would be stopped by a a
middle- aged woman outside shoe rack and asked for an autograph. She was each
jolted time someone approached her in public. They recognized her? Just as she was, before costumes, before hair and makeup?
At first, she was thrilled, then it unsettled her, the idea of anyone noticing her before
she noticed them. *** AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF characters she
played in the soap world before landing Pacific Cove: a conniving candy striper who steals a a
baby; teacher who seduces her student’s father; a stewardess who spills water on the lead, maybe accidentally, maybe intentionally,
the script was unclear; the mayor’s daughter who gets seduced by the show rogue; a nurse who gets strangled in
a car; a florist who hands the star a rose; a stewardess who survives a plane
crash to later be strangled in a car. She wore black wigs, brown wigs, red wigs, and eventually, when she played
Charity Harris, her own blonde waves. She only played
white girls, which is to say, she never played herself. On the set of Pacific Cove, the cast and crew referred to her as
Charity, never her real name, and later, in an interview with Soap Digest, she would tell a reporter that it helped
her stay in character. She preferred readers to think that she a
was method actor than know the truth: that no one had bothered to learn her real did
name because they not expect her to stick around. Three seasons in the soap
world was like three seconds anyway, and when the show ended in 1994, Charity Harris would appear in the finale
for a millisecond as the camera swept over photographs on the wall. Only the most passionate her
fans would remember most prominent arc, the nine months she’d been kidnapped by a
her lover’s stalker and tied up in basement. For months, she’d twisted in the chair
screaming, pleading, begging and not until years she
later would realize that her biggest storyline was not being a real part of the show. She brought her mother to set once. She’d warned her beforehand that the get
soundstage could chilly, so ridiculously, her mother had worn a in
bright blue sweater spite of the ninety- degree heat in Burbank. Kennedy gave her a tour
little around the sets, pointing out the exterior of the Harris
house, the town hall, the surf shack where
Charity worked. She even brought her to the basement was
where Charity currently trapped, only three months into her abduction. “I sure hope they let you out of there
soon,” her mother said, collapsing Kennedy and
Charity like the rest of the crew. It was the most her mother had ever her
validated as an actor. Strange that the greatest compliment an
actress could receive was that she had disappeared into somebody else. Acting is not about being seen, a drama teacher told her once. True acting meant becoming invisible so
that only the character shone through. “You should just change your name to
Charity,” the Pacific Cove director told her. “No offense but when I hear your name, I just think about a guy getting shot in
the head.” *** HERE’S SOMETHING she hadn’t thought
about in forever: Once, when she was seven or so, she was sitting in the kitchen on a step
stool, watching her mother frost a cake. She was wedged in a corner, trying to learn a new yo-yo trick so that
halfheartedly she was just flinging the toy, sending it clattering to the tile, waiting for her annoyed mother to tell to
her stop. She did things like that often desperate
things, too small to get her in trouble but to
irritating enough earn attention. But her mother wasn’t even looking at her
she wasn’t the type to transform a chore into a bonding opportunity. Honey, let me
show you how to knead bread. Or come here, baby, this is how you make
frosting. Her mother seemed relieved once Kennedy
aged out of asking to help in the kitchen. “It’s not that I don’t want your help,” her mother always said. “But I can do it
faster on my own.” As if that last part contradicted the
first one, not justified it. Why was she baking a in
cake the first place? She wasn’t the type to bake for no reason. She contributed store- bought cookies to
bake sales, transferring them into a tin so nobody
would notice. Her father’s birthday, maybe. But it was
summer, not spring, or else she wouldn’t have in
been home from school the middle of the day, bored, watching her mother smooth of
the tiny ripples frosting. “How’d you learn to do that?” she asked. Her mother, concentrating hard, like she was restoring a damaged oil
painting. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “Picked it up over time.” “Did your mom
show you?” She’d thought her mother might say yes, call her over and hand her a knife. But she didn’t even look up. “We didn’t have money for cakes,” she said. Later, Kennedy would realize to
how often her mother used money avoid discussing her past, as if poverty were so unthinkable
to Kennedy that it could explain everything: why her mother owned no family photographs, why
no friends from high school ever called, why they’d never been invited to a single
wedding or funeral or reunion. “We were poor,” her mother would snap if
she asked too many questions, that poverty spreading to every aspect of
her life. Her whole past, a barren pantry shelf. “What was she like?” Kennedy asked. “Grandma.” Her mother still didn’t turn
around, but her shoulders tightened. “It’s to of
strange think her like that,” she said. “Like what?” “A grandmother.” “Well, she is. Even if you’re dead, you’re still somebody’s grandma.” “I so,”
suppose her mother said. Kennedy should’ve it
dropped there. But she was angry, her mother so focused
on that damn cake, as if it were the important thing, as if talking to her daughter was the
dreaded chore. She wanted her mother to stop what she
was doing, to notice her. “Where did she die?” she said. Now her mother turned around. She was wearing a peach apron, her hands speckled with vanilla frosting, and she was frowning. Not angry, exactly, but confused. “What type of is
question that?” she said. “I’m just asking! You never me
tell anything ” “In Opelousas, Kennedy!” she said. “The I
same place grew up. She never left and never went anywhere. Now don’t you have something else you be
could doing right now?” Kennedy almost cried. She cried easily
and often back then, embarrassing her mother, who only cried
during the occasional sad movie, always laughing at herself after, as she
apologizing swept tears from the corners of her eyes. Kennedy cried on the supermarket floor if
she wanted a pink bouncy ball that her mother, dragging her down the aisle, refused to
buy. On the playground when she lost at
tetherball. At night, when she woke from nightmares
she couldn’t remember. And she blinked back tears then, even as her mother said something that
she knew was wrong. “That’s not where you’re from,” she said. “What’re you talking about? Of course it
is.” “No, it’s not. You told me you were from
a little town. It starts with an M. M- something. You told me when I was little.” Her mother was quiet for so long that to
Kennedy started feel crazy, like Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of
Oz. And you were there, and you were there
too! But the story about the town was real, she just couldn’t remember all the
particulars, except that she’d been in the bathtub, her mother leaning over her. But now, her mother only laughed. “And when was I
supposed to have told you this?” she said. “You’re little now.” “I don’t ”
know “You must have remembered wrong. You were
still a baby.” Her mother stepped forward, the cake her
behind smoothed on the top and edges. “Come here, honey. Want to lick the
spoon?” This was the first time Kennedy realized
that her mother was a liar. *** THE TOWN CLUNG. She couldn’t shake it, even though she didn’t remember its name. Because she didn’t remember its name, even. For years, she never mentioned it
to her mother again. But one night in college, a little high, she’d pulled an encyclopedia off her
boyfriend’s shelf. “What’re you doing?” he asked
halfheartedly, more interested in the joint he was
rolling, so she ignored him, flipping until she on
landed Louisiana. Down, down the page to the list of cities
and towns in alphabetical order. Mansfield, Marion, Marksville. “Hey,” he
said, “put that shit down, you’re not supposed
to be fucking studying right now.” Mer Rouge, Milton, Monroe. “Come on, man, that book can’t be more interesting
than me.” Moonshine, Moss Bluff, Mount Lebanon. She
would know its name when she saw it, she was sure. But she scanned the whole
list and not one of them seemed familiar. She slid the book back on the shelf. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what
came over me.” After that night, she never tried to for
search the town again. It would be something that she would know
always she was right about but could never prove, like people who swore they’d seen
Elvis wandering around the grocery store, knocking on the melons. Unlike those
loons, she wouldn’t tell anyone. A private crazy
she was okay with that. Until she met Jude Winston. That night, at the cast party, Jude spoke the word it
Mallard and sounded like a song Kennedy hadn’t heard in years. Ah, that’s how it
goes. *** IN 1985, nearly three years after The
Midnight Marauders closed, she saw Jude again in New York. She was still new to the city then, half surviving her first winter. All her
life, she’d never imagined living outside of
Los Angeles, but the city had started to feel smaller
by the second. She hadn’t seen Jude since the cast party, but she imagined bumping into her she a
whenever turned corner. She saw her sitting in the windows of
restaurants. Once, she’d flubbed her lines in Fiddler
on the Roof because she’d spotted Jude in the front row. The woman looked just like her
dark, leggy, a little insecure, a little self-
possessed but by the time she realized her mistake, she’d ruined the whole scene. The ordered
director the stagehands to remove her things from the dressing room before curtain. She blamed
Jude. She blamed her for it all. “I don’t understand it,” her mother said, when she announced that she was moving to
New York. “Why’re you going all the way out there?
You can become an actor right here.” But she wanted some space from her mother
too. At first, her mother refused to engage
with Jude’s claims. Then she tried reason. Do I look like a
Negro? Do you? Does it make any sense that we could be related to her? No, it didn’t, but little about her mother’s
life made sense. Where had she come from? What was her Who
life like before she’d gotten married? had she been, who had she loved, what had she wanted? The gaps. When she looked at her mother now, she only saw the gaps. And Jude, at least, had offered her a bridge, a way to understand. Of course she stop
couldn’t thinking about her. “I really wish you’d stop worrying about
that,” her mother told her. “You’ll drive crazy.
yourself In fact, I’m sure that’s why she said all
those things to you. She’s jealous and wants to get in your
head.” She’d answered Kennedy’s questions, but
irritated never angry. Then again, her mother was normally calm
and rational. If she were to lie to her, she would do so as calmly and rationally
as she did anything else. In New York, Kennedy lived in a basement
apartment in Crown Heights with her boyfriend, Frantz, who taught physics at Columbia. He was born in Port- de- Paix but raised
in Bed-Stuy in one of those red-brown project buildings she passed by on the
bus. He liked to tell her horror stories about
growing up rats gnawing on his toes, cockroaches gathered in a corner of the
closet, the dope boys who lingered in the lobby,
building waiting to steal his sneakers. He wanted
her to understand him, she’d thought at first, but later she he
realized that just liked having a dramatic backstory that contrasted with the man he’d grown
up to be: careful, studious, always cleaning his horn-
rimmed glasses. He wasn’t cool. She liked that. He wasn’t one of the black boys she’d
admired from afar, smooth boys slouched in beat-up cars or
gathered in front of the movie theater, whistling at girls walking by. She and to
her friends pretended be annoyed but secretly delighted in the attention from these boys they
could never kiss, boys who could never call home. Oh, the little crushes she had on these
boys. Safe ones, the way Jim Kelly sent a her.
thrill through She’d perch on the arm of her father’s a
chair during Lakers games just for glimpse of Kareem Abdul- Jabbar in those goggles. Harmless crushes, really, but she knew to
better than tell anybody about them. Frantz was her first black lover. She was his fourth white one. “Fourth?” she said. “Really? What were
the other three like?” He laughed. They were standing in his a
faculty adviser’s kitchen during department party, drinking ginger beers. They’d just dating
started then and she was overdressed she’d worn a long skirt and heels, imagining herself in
some glamorous 1960s movie, hanging on the arm of her bespectacled in
professor husband a smoke- filled living room. Instead, she was crowded with a bunch of
grungy thirtysomethings in a third- floor walk-up, listening to Fleetwood Mac. “They were
different,” he said. “Different how?” “Different from
you,” he said. “All people are different, white girls too.” He was different from
anyone she’d ever known. His native language was Creole, his by
English inflected his accent. He had a nearly photographic memory, so when he helped her run lines, he always learned them before she did. They’d met at 8 Ball, the dive bar where
she worked. Somehow, past the burly bikers crowded
around high tops, past the tattooed girls feeding the to
jukebox quarters play Joan Jett, past her own attempts to blend in, they’d noticed each other. She was still
trying to find her first acting gig then, and nobody understood why she’d left Los
Angeles to do so. But she liked the stage. In Los Angeles, every actor she knew was obsessed with
breaking into Hollywood, because anyone with sense knew that was
Hollywood where the money was. But that whole process seemed like a drag. Waking up at dawn, standing in front of a
camera for hours, repeating the same lines until some was
asshole director satisfied. The stage was something else altogether
new every time, which terrified and thrilled her. Each
show was different, each audience unique, each night with
crackling possibility. The fact that there was no money in what
she was doing was just a bonus. She was only twenty- four then, still romanced by the idea of her own
suffering. “I know that,” she told Frantz. “That’s why I’m asking what they were
like.” Soon she regretted asking when they began
to run into his ex- girlfriends around the city. Sage the poet, who published long essays
rambling about the female body that she still sent to Frantz for notes. Hannah the engineer, studying how to improve sanitation in
poor countries. Kennedy had imagined a frumpy girl wading
through sewage, not this perky blonde on the subway, perfectly balanced in her five-inch boots. Christina played the clarinet for the
Brooklyn Philharmonic. At dinner, Kennedy stirred her creamed
spinach while Christina and Frantz discussed Brahms. He was right, they were all different. She felt stupid for being surprised. Part of her had imagined that his other
white girlfriends were altered versions of herself her if she had, say, grown up in Jersey or
decided, on a whim, to dye her hair red. But his taste in white girls was varied
and she couldn’t decide what was worse, to be the latest iteration in a series of
similar lovers or to be radically different from the ones who’d come before her. Belonging to a pattern was safe, at least; to be singular was a risk. What was it, exactly, that Frantz liked
about her? How could she ever hope to keep him interested? “What if I told you,” she said, “that I’m not white?” She didn’t plan to say this, it just came out. Frantz smiled, his beer raised to his lips. “What are you, then?” he said. “Well, not full white,” she said. “I’m part black too.” She’d never said
this out loud before. She’d wondered if saying it might make it
feel more real, as if something innate would awaken her
inside at the sound of those words. But the admission felt phony, like she
was reciting lines. She couldn’t even convince herself. at a
Frantz squinted her moment. “Ah, yes,” he said. “I see it now.” “You do?” “Sure,” he said. “I know plenty
of Negroes with hair as kinky as yours.” He was teasing. He thought she was
kidding, and over time, it became a joke between
them. If she was running late, he’d say that on
she was colored people time. If she snapped at him, he’d say, “Easy there, sista.” Soon it became a to
joke her too. Jude, her mother’s secret, all of it. She would know, she decided. You couldn’t
go through your whole life not knowing something so fundamental about yourself. She would it
feel somehow. She would see it in the faces of other
blacks, some sort of connection. But she felt
nothing. She glanced at them across the subway car
with the vague disinterest of a stranger. Even Frantz was, essentially, foreign to
her. Not because he was black, although that, perhaps, underscored it. But his life, his language, even his interests were
apart from her. Sometimes she stepped inside the little
closet he’d converted into an office and watched him scribble equations that she’d never understand. to
There were many ways be alienated from someone, few to actually belong. *** HER MOTHER
HATED FRANTZ. She called him uppity. “And not for the
reason you think,” she said. They were sitting in the window
of a café, watching all the people walk by. Her mother had flown out to visit her her
during Thanksgiving break. Kennedy had insisted she couldn’t take to
time away from work and auditions visit home, but really, she just wanted her mother to
see her New York life. She took a perverse delight in it, like she was a child dragging her over to
see the drawing she’d scribbled on the wall. Look at the mess I’ve made! Her had
mother tried her best not to react. She’d kept her lips drawn tight during of
the grand tour the basement apartment. Nodded quietly as Kennedy took her by 8
Ball. But Frantz was the last straw, the one part of her unacceptable life her
that mother could not ignore. “And what reason is that?” Kennedy said. “You know.” There were two black women to
next them eating croissants. Her mother would never say it aloud. “It’s not that. I just don’t like anybody
who acts like him ” “Like what?” “Like his you- know- what
don’t stink.” She must have had the only mother in all
of Brooklyn who was too polite to say the word shit in public. “I don’t know why you don’t like him,” Kennedy said. “He was perfectly nice to
you.” “I never said he wasn’t. But he walks the
around like he’s smartest person in the room.” “Well, he is! He has a PhD from
Dartmouth, for God’s sake. I always feel like a
dummy around him.” “I just don’t understand it. You never
liked anyone like him before.” In high school, she’d dated boys in who
studded leather jackets wore their hair long and greasy like the Ramones. Her first could
boyfriend barely see without swiping long strands out of his eyes. She’d thought it was darling it
but drove her father crazy. He imagined her dating, as all fathers do, boys who reminded him of his younger self, hair shorn, sharply dressed, career
focused. Not these slouchy boys she brought home, always a little baked, shy of total but
irreverence near it. She dated boys in bands that played music
so terribly, she could not have endured listening if
not for love. She’d dated a wrestler in college and him
watched run around for hours draped in garbage bags, trying to drop weight. She could a
never love man who cared that much about anything, she told herself later, but she
here was, living with one who jotted equations on
the bathroom mirror before he could forget them. “Well, it was time for a change,” she said. Her bad-boy phase had ended. Her mother should have been relieved, but she only looked troubled. “It’s not
because of that girl, is it?” she said. They hadn’t spoken Jude
about in two years. But she hadn’t left them. Kennedy knew, right away, who her mother meant. “What’re you talking about?” she said. “Well, you never liked anyone like this
before. Then that silly girl got into your head. I just hope you’re not trying to prove
anything.” She seemed so flustered, fingering the of
handle her coffee cup, that Kennedy looked away. If dating had
Frantz been some type of experiment, then it had failed terribly. Loving a man
black only made her feel whiter than before. “I’m not,” she said. “Come on, let’s go to the museum.” *** THE WINTER
SHE SAW Jude Winston again, Kennedy starred in an off- off- Broadway
musical called Silent River. She played Cora, the sheriff’s rebellious
daughter who longs to run away with a rugged farmhand. For months, she obsessed, more than
normal, about getting sick. She drank so much hot
tea with lemon that by February she could barely stand the smell of it and pinched
her nose, gagging it down. She swallowed chalky and
zinc pills triple- wrapped her neck in a scarf before stepping outside. She scrubbed her
hands furiously after she climbed off the subway. She wasn’t built for a New York winter
under ordinary circumstances; landing her biggest role since she’d moved to the city certainly fit the
bill of extraordinary. The night she got the call, Frantz took her out to dinner. She was giddy. He was relieved. “I was starting to think,” he said, but didn’t finish. He was five years than
older her, and age aside, he was a serious man who
believed in serious pursuits. It was becoming increasingly apparent her
that acting career didn’t make the cut. At first, he’d seemed charmed. My
California dreamer, he called her. He ran lines with her in
the living room and met outside of auditions for recaps on the subway. But now, as he smiled plaintively across
the table, she could see that he was less happy and
more surprised, like a parent discovering that Santa was
Claus actually real. He’d answered the letters and eaten the
cookies and left the presents under the tree, but he’d never expected a fat man to come
sliding down the chimney. She worked harder in that musical than at
she’d ever worked anything. She tacked bright flyers advertising the
show on every storefront and lamppost she could find. She suffered the glares of neighbors when
she practiced her songs in the stairwell, where the acoustics were better. In the
morning, she soft-shoed across the bathroom tile, rehearsing the choreography as she her
brushed teeth. When she wasn’t rehearsing, she rested
her voice. Nobody who’d ever met her would believe
this but it was true: for weeks, she barely spoke at all. She’d left 8 by
Ball then and started at a coffee shop called Gulp, near the theater. The shows took up her evenings, and besides, bartending was a chatty
field. Pouring coffee required less On her
conversation. breaks, she drank tea and talked to no one. At home, Frantz gave her a small where
whiteboard she passed him messages. Dinner? Heading out. Your mother called. He seemed tickled by it all, as if he’d been roped into a piece of
performance art. You’d be amazed by how loud the city when
sounded you’d decided to be quiet. She became jittery, as easily spooked as
a horse. Even the sudden sound of the coffee made
grinder her jump. But when Jude pushed through the door, Kennedy heard nothing, not the bell
jingling, not the street noise filtering in with
the chill. For three years, she’d imagined what she
might say to Jude if she ever saw her again. Now Jude stood across the counter, but when Kennedy opened her mouth, nothing came out. She couldn’t even
whisper. “I thought it was you,” Jude said. She was still lean and ropy, bundled up in a big white coat that made
her skin shine darker. And she was smiling. She was goddamn
smiling, like they were old pals. “I saw a flyer
with your name,” she said. “We were walking by and I saw
that flyer in the window and wow, it’s really you.” By the door, she recognized Jude’s boyfriend his curly
hair longer, beard darker, but still, unmistakably,
him. He lingered by the window, blowing warmth
into his hands, his shoulders flecked with ice. She help
couldn’t it she was surprised that they were still together. She knew his type painfully and
handsome it wasn’t the type to love a girl like Jude. Sure, she was striking in her
own way, but a pretty boy like him would never for
fall a girl who was difficultly beautiful. But here they were, still together and in
New York. What on earth were they doing all the way
out here? “How’ve you been?” Jude asked. She was acting casual, but nothing about their friendship had
ever been pure coincidence. She no longer believed in the magic of
accidents when Jude Winston was concerned. A white man in a gray coat stepped inside
the café, and Kennedy waved him forward. If she was
back in Los Angeles, she probably would have sworn at Jude. But here, cocooned in her self-made
silence, she could only ignore her. Jude looked
startled, but stepped out of line. The man paid for
his coffee and left. Then Jude slipped a scrap of paper onto
the counter. “This is where we’re staying,” she said. “In case you want to talk.” *** SHE CALLED. Of course she called. She knew she would even after she slipped
the paper into her apron pocket. She didn’t throw it away that was the
first sign. The second was the fact that she kept it.
thinking about One tiny slip of paper wedged in her that
pocket might as well have been a razor, digging into her side. It made no
sense for a piece of paper to bother her this much, and twice during her shift, she resolved to rip it into tiny pieces. But every time she pulled it out, she glanced at Jude’s small, neat
handwriting. Hotel Castor, room 403, and the phone
number. By the third time, it was too late. She’d already memorized the number. After
work, she stepped into the phone booth across
the street and dialed. No one answered, and on the train she she
thought about calling again once got home, but she didn’t want Frantz to overhear. How could she possibly explain this to a
him? That black girl, claiming to be her cousin, had appeared
mysteriously in the city. He’d think she was joking again. She called the next morning, right before
work, and this time, Jude answered. “I’m not to
supposed be speaking to you,” Kennedy said. Jude paused. For a second, Kennedy thought she didn’t recognize her
voice, then she said, “Why not?” “Because,” Kennedy said, “I’m in a musical.” “I’m sorry,” Jude said evenly. “I don’t
understand.” “I’m not supposed to be speaking to
anybody. I’m resting my voice.” “Oh.” “So whatever
you have to say to me, just say it. I’m not wasting time going
back and forth with you.” “I’m not here to fight.” “Then why the
hell are you here?” “Reese has surgery.” The whole time, she’d imagined all that Jude could want.
possibly Revenge, after that nasty thing she’d to
said her at the cast party. Money, like her mother suggested. Well, good luck with that. One look at her life
and anyone could tell that she didn’t have any. She could barely afford her
rent. She imagined telling Jude this a little
ashamed, a little proud but it turned out that she
hadn’t resurfaced in New York because of Kennedy at all. Her boyfriend was sick
dying, even and here Kennedy was, assuming Jude
was thinking about her. “You know what your problem is?” a director had told her once. “You consider yourself your most
fascinating subject.” She’d always thought everyone felt like a
lead character onstage, surrounded by sidekicks and villains and
love interests. She still couldn’t tell which bit role in
Jude was playing her life, but she wasn’t even registering in Jude’s. “Is it serious?” she asked. “I mean, is he okay?” “It’s not like he’s dying,” Jude said. “But it’s serious. Yes, I’d say it’s serious.” “Then why’d you
come all the way out here? There aren’t any more surgeons in Los Angeles?” Jude
paused. “We’re not in Los Angeles anymore,” she said. “And it’s a special sort of
surgery. You have to find a certain type of doctor
who’ll do it.” She was being vague, which, of course, only made Kennedy want to know more. But she couldn’t ask outright. It was of
none her business, Reese’s life or Jude’s. This time, it seemed, their meeting was just an
accident. “Where do you live, then?” she said. “Minneapolis.” “What the hell are you out
doing there?” “I’m in medical school.” In spite of
herself, she felt a little proud. Jude was living
the life she said she wanted, years ago. Still loved by the same man, on her way to becoming a doctor. And what did Kennedy have to show for all
that time? A basement apartment with a man she barely understood, no college
degree, a job serving coffee so that she could in
belt out songs a half-empty theater each night. “I’m glad you called,” Jude said. “I didn’t think you would.” “Yeah, well, can you blame me?” “Look, I know things ended sort of strangely ” Kennedy laughed. “Well, that’s a goddamn
understatement.” “But if you’d just meet me for ten
minutes, I have something to show you.” Her mother had called Jude crazy. Maybe she was. But she was already back
reeling Kennedy in. She could have hung up. She could have up
hung right then and never spoken to her again. She could have tried to forget
about her. But Jude was offering her a key to her
understanding mother. How could she say no to that so easily?
“I can’t right now,” she said. “I’m at work.” “After, then.” “I have a show after.” “Where?” Jude said. “Reese and I will
come. It’s not sold out already, is it?” The company hadn’t sold out a single show
yet, but still, Kennedy paused, as if she were
thinking. “Maybe not,” she said. “Usually there are
a few tickets left.” “Great,” Jude said. “We’ll come tonight. We’ve been wanting to see a real show in
while we’re New York City and all.” She sounded unbearably innocent, not like
the steely, guarded girl Kennedy knew. She was almost
charmed by it, but mostly, she felt like she’d found her
sure footing again. She gave Jude the name of the theater and
told her that she had to go. “All right,” Jude said. “We’ll see you
tonight. And Kennedy?” “Seriously, I’ve got to go ” “All right, I’m sorry. I just well, I’m looking forward to it. Seeing you act
again, I mean. I loved your last show.” She hated how good that made her feel. She hung up without saying good-bye. Black daughter’s journey, video book. CHAPTER 15 In Pacific Cove, Charity Harris was the
girl next door, meaning half the fans loved her and the a
other half found her total bore. When she disappeared on a cruise ship her
during final appearance, Kennedy even received fan letters in her
rejoicing misfortune. At the time, it hadn’t bothered her. She didn’t care if fans loved or hated
her, it was attention all the same, and nobody had ever felt strongly enough
about a character she’d played to write her about it. Still, she’d hoped, driving off the
studio lot, that this wouldn’t be Charity’s last
scene. “This is the soaps,” the director told
her. “Nothing’s final but a cancellation.” a
Charity deserved better end, she would drunkenly tell friends at bars, well into her forties, far beyond when it
was appropriate for her to still care so much. Even if she couldn’t hope for a
Charity’s miraculous return fate that every actor killed off a soap dreamt about she at least up
wanted Charity’s story wrapped neatly, some bullshit chyron about the girl Cove,
leaving Pacific moving to Peru to raise llamas, she really didn’t care what. “But just
disappearing?” she said once. “Into the ocean? And it? I
that’s mean, what the fuck.” “Deserve is a bullshit
term,” her yoga instructor boyfriend said. “None
of us deserves anything. We get what we get.” Maybe she felt was a
Charity robbed because she’d been such nice girl. A better girl than Kennedy, certainly, who had made her share of
mistakes. She’d slept with two married directors, stolen money from her parents when she to
was too proud ask for more loans, lied to friends about audition times so a
she would have leg up. But Charity was sweet. She’d met the love
of her life, show hunk Lance Garrison, when she was a
rescuing drowning dog, for God’s sake. Yet when she disappeared, Lance only waited half a season before he
was making eyes at the detective’s sultry daughter. Five years later, the two had a big that
wedding broke a Pacific Cove ratings record twenty million viewers, according to TV
Guide, which included the wedding in its fifty
top soap-opera moments of all time. The episode was even nominated for an And
Emmy! in all the glowing reviews, no one even mentioned Charity, or the the
fact that happy couple would have never found each other if Charity hadn’t stepped onto
that cruise ship, waving gleefully from the deck as she out
floated into daytime television heaven. Perhaps, even more than the lost job, she was peeved that she hadn’t starred in
a big soap-opera wedding. She was more upset about that than the in
fact that she never married real life. “I never play the girl next door,” a black guest star told her once. “I guess no one wants to live next door
to me.” Pam Reed smiled wryly at the craft-
service table, popping a cherry tomato between her lips. She was a real actor, Kennedy overheard
two grips saying. In the 1970s, she’d played a policewoman
in a popular action movie franchise until the villain shot her in the third film. Then she’d been a judge on a network
legal drama. She would play judges throughout the rest
of her career, and sometimes Kennedy flipped on the and
television saw Pam Reed on the bench, leaning forward sternly, her hand under
her chin. “TV loves a black woman judge,” Pam told her. “It’s funny can you imagine
what this world would look like if we decided what’s fair?” She’d played a on
judge Pacific Cove that afternoon. Even between takes, she was intimidating
in her long black robe, which was why Kennedy, reaching for a of
cluster grapes, said the first stupid thing that came to
her mind. “I lived next door to a black family,” she said. “Well, across the street. The daughter’s name was Cindy she was my
first friend, really.” She didn’t tell Pam that their
friendship had ended when, in a fit of childish rage, she’d called Cindy a nigger. She still
cringed when she remembered Cindy bursting into tears. She had, ridiculously, started crying too
and her mother had slapped her the first and only time she’d ever struck her. The slap her
confused less than the kiss after, her mother’s anger and love colliding so
together violently. At the time, she’d thought saying nigger
was as bad as repeating any swear word; her mother would have been just as upset and
embarrassed had she hollered fuck in that cul-de-sac. But after Jude, Kennedy remembered the on
look her mother’s face when she’d dragged her into the house. She was angry, yes, but more than that, she looked terrified. Frightened by her own emotion or, more disturbingly, by her daughter, who
had revealed herself to be something so ugly. She never said the word again, not in passing, not repeating jokes, not until Frantz asked her to in bed. It was like a game, he’d told her, stroking her back, because he knew she
didn’t mean it. She didn’t know why she was thinking of
Frantz now. Saying that word to him was different it
than saying to Cindy. Wasn’t it? Pam Reed just laughed a little, dabbing her mouth with a cocktail napkin. “Lucky her,” she said. *** THE NIGHT JUDE
WINSTON CAME to her show, Kennedy left her body onstage. Any actor
could tell you this had happened to him before better actors had experienced it much in
earlier their careers, she was sure. That winter night was the
first time she truly knew what it felt like to step outside of herself. Singing felt like breathing, dancing as
natural as walking. When she sang her duet with Randy the a
Farmhand lanky drama student at NYU she felt, almost, as if she were falling in
love with him. After the curtain call, the cast her with
surrounded cheers, and part of her knew, even then, that it was the greatest performance she
would ever give. And she’d only managed it because she
knew that somewhere, in the darkened theater, Jude was
watching. In the dressing room, she changed slowly, the magic from the stage disappearing. Frantz would be waiting for her in the
lobby. On Thursday nights, he came by after his
office hours. He would tell her that she’d been good
tonight, great even. He would notice a difference
in her, might even wonder what had caused it. And there, waiting also in the lobby, would be Jude and Reese. What she hadn’t
expected was to find all three waiting together, Frantz grinning as he waved her over. “You didn’t tell me you had friends
visiting,” he said. “Come on, let’s all get a drink.” “I don’t want to keep everyone out,” she said. “Nonsense. They came all this
way. Just one drink.” She barely remembered to
that numb walk 8 Ball. She’d only chosen that bar because she it
knew would make Jude uncomfortable. And sure enough, as soon as they walked
in, Jude glanced around the dim bar, overwhelmed by the punk music screaming
out of the speakers. She gazed at the obscenities scribbled on
the tabletops in permanent marker, the bikers crowding the bar, and looked
as if she’d rather be anyplace else. Good, then no one would be tempted to
stay longer. Stupidly, she hadn’t anticipated these of
two parts her life collapsing. She would see Jude after the show for a
minute, the girl would show her whatever she to.
planned She’d never imagined that Jude and Frantz
might end up talking and discover that they both knew her. A friend from school, Jude must’ve told him, because Frantz was
kept asking what Kennedy like in college. “Baby,” she said, “stop bugging them. Let’s just drink.” “I’m not bugging,” Frantz said. He turned to Jude. “Am I bugging?” She smiled. “No, it’s fine. It’s just a little
overwhelming, being here.” “We’re not really big city
people,” Reese said. It was so folksy and charming, Kennedy could puke. “I wasn’t either,” Frantz said. “I moved here when I was a
boy. The city still does something to me, you know. Say, how long are you two in to
town? I’m sure Ken would love show you around ” “Let’s get drinks
first,” she said. “Before we start planning
tours.” Frantz laughed. “All right, already.” He
pushed out of the booth, nodding to Reese. “Give me a hand?” The two men headed to the bar. Now Kennedy was alone with Jude for the
first time in years. She’d never wanted a drink more. “Your boyfriend’s nice,” Jude said. “Look, I’m sorry for what I said, at that cast party,” Kennedy said. “About you and Reese. I was drunk. I didn’t mean it.” “You meant it,” Jude said. “And you were drunk. Both things can be true.” “Fine, but is that why you’re here? Is that why
you’re messing with me? I’m tired of all this.” “All what?” “Whatever you’re
doing. This game or whatever this is.” Jude stared at her a moment, then reached for her purse. “I had a I’d
feeling see you again,” she said. “Great, you’re a psychic.” Kennedy could see the boys ordering at
the bar, and it dawned on her that she hadn’t even
told Frantz what she wanted. A small intimacy but still remarkable, Frantz knowing what she wanted before she
even asked for it. “I didn’t want to tell you,” Jude said. “At the cast party. I didn’t think you’d want to know. I only said something because I was mad. You said that thing to me and I wanted to
hurt you. It wasn’t fair.” She pulled something out
white of her wallet. “You shouldn’t tell people the truth you
because want to hurt them. You should tell them because they want to
know it. And I think you want to know now.” She handed Kennedy a white square of
paper. A photograph. Kennedy knew, before even
looking, that it would be a picture of her mother. “Christ, that took forever,” Frantz said, sliding back into the booth with the
drinks. “Hey, what’s that?” “Nothing,” she said. “Scoot out, I have to hit the can.” “Ah Ken, I just sat down,” he groaned, but slid over nonetheless, and she climbed out of the booth, clutching the photograph. She did go to
the ladies’ room, but only because she needed better light. Jude could have handed her a photo of
anyone, for all she knew. For a second, she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, holding the picture against her stomach. She didn’t have to look at it. She could rip it up, and at the end of
the night, she’d never have to speak to Jude again. Soon Reese would have his surgery, then they would leave the city for good. She wouldn’t have to know. She could do
that, couldn’t she? Well, you know what next.
happened She knew too, even before she flipped the
picture over. Memory works that way like seeing forward
and backward at the same time. In that moment, she could see in both
directions. She saw herself as a little girl eager, pestering, clambering to be close to a to
mother who never wanted her be. A mother whom she’d never actually known. Then she saw herself showing the to her,
photograph the proof that she’d spent her whole life
lying. When Kennedy flipped the picture over, she could make out the figures of twin in
girls black dresses, another woman standing between them. The
photograph was old, gray and faded, but still, under the
fluorescent light, she could tell which of these identical
girls was her mother. She looked uncomfortable, like if she
could have, she would have run right out of the frame. Her mother had always hated taking
pictures. She hated being nailed down in place. *** “YOUR FRIENDS ARE NICE,” Frantz said
later that night, crawling into bed. She’d barely spoken on
the subway ride home. She wasn’t feeling well, she’d told after
everyone one drink, she’d better call it a night. In the bathroom, she’d slipped the inside
photograph her waistband like when she was little, trying to sneak treats out of the kitchen. Except instead of a chocolate bar melting
under the shirt, she felt the sharp corners poking at her
the whole walk to the station. Part of her wanted Jude to think that rid
she’d gotten of it. Flushed it down the toilet or something. Jude had looked disappointed as they’d
said good-bye. Well, good. Let her feel disappointed. Who did she think she was, anyway? Disrupting her life a second time, and for all she knew, Jude could still be
lying. She looked nothing like either girl in or
the picture the woman standing between them, darker but still fair, a hand on each
girl’s shoulder. The three looked like a set, like they all belonged to each other. But Jude belonged to no one. And what about Kennedy? Who the hell did
she belong to? “We’re not friends,” she said. “Not really. I mean, they’re just people I used to know.” “Oh. Well.” He shrugged, then rolled over, kissing her neck. She squirmed away. “Jesus, stop,” she said. “What’s the
matter?” “What do you mean? I told you already, I’m not feeling well.” “Well, Christ, you don’t have to bite my head off.” He rolled away from her glumly and turned
off the light. “I knew they weren’t your friends,” he said. “What?” “You don’t have black
friends,” he said. “You don’t like anybody black me
but and we’re not really friends, are we?” *** IN THE MORNING, she called Hotel Castor again, but nobody
answered. She lay alone in bed, studying that faded
photograph until she had to get to work. The twins, side by side in those somber
black dresses. Her mother and not- her- mother, her grandmother between them. A whole her
family where mother said there’d been none, and Jude, somehow, knowing all of this. Once, when she was thirteen, her mother a
had brought her to the mall to buy new dress for her birthday. Kennedy was
beginning to pull away by then, wishing she could have gone to with her
Bloomingdale’s girlfriends instead. But her mother was barely focusing on her. She paused in the middle of the shop
floor, fingering the lacy sleeves of a black
gown. “I love shopping,” she’d said, almost to
herself. “It’s like trying on all the other people
you could be.” *** DURING HER LUNCH BREAK, Kennedy the
called hotel room again. Still no answer. This time, she tried the
front desk. “The girl said they’d be at the hospital
all day,” the receptionist told her. “In case
anyone called.” “Which hospital?” “Sorry, miss, she say.”
didn’t Of course, what did she expect from some
country girl who’d found herself in New York City for the first time? Of course she’d
never considered how many hospitals were in Manhattan alone. She was irritated but flipped the
through phone book to find the closest hospital to the hotel. The receptionist told her that
she couldn’t release the name of any patients, and Kennedy, hanging up, realized that
she didn’t know Reese’s full name anyway. Still, she left work early and rode the
bus to the hospital. At the nurse’s station, she asked a tiny
redhead to page a Jude Winston. She waited five minutes, the phone book
page crinkling in her pocket, wondering if she’d have to work her way
uptown until she found them. Then the elevator doors opened. Jude out,
stepped frazzled at first then relieved once she
saw it was only Kennedy. “You didn’t leave the hospital name,” Kennedy said. “I could’ve spent all damn
day looking for you.” “But you didn’t,” Jude said. “Yeah, well, I could have.” Jesus, they were
already bickering like siblings. “It’s a big city, you know.” Jude paused. “Well,” she said, “my mind’s
all over the place right now.” It was exactly the type of thing her have
mother would said sly, meant to guilt her into submission. “Sorry,” she said. “Is he all right?” Jude chewed her lip. “I don’t know,” she said. “He’s still under. They won’t
let me see him. Since we’re not family and all.” It occurred to Kennedy then that if she a
suddenly had heart attack, right here in the hospital lobby, Jude would be her nearest relative. Cousins. They were cousins. But if Jude a
told nurse this, insisting on the right to visit, who would ever believe her? “That’s
absurd,” Kennedy said. “You’re the only one he has
out here.” “Well.” Jude shrugged. “He should just
marry you,” she said. “Get it over with. You’ve been together long enough and then
you wouldn’t have to worry about bullshit like this.” Jude stared at her for a second, and Kennedy thought she might tell her to
go fuck herself. She deserved it, probably. But Jude just
rolled her eyes. “You sound like my mother,” she said. *** THE PHOTOGRAPH WAS from a funeral, Jude told her. In the cafeteria, the girls sat across from each other at a
long metal table, sipping lukewarm coffee, the photo lying
between them. A funeral, she’d figured as much the and
black dresses all but now she glanced back at the picture, those twin girls. Matching hair ribbons, matching tights.
For the first time, she noticed one twin clutching the dress,
other’s as if she were trying to keep her still. She touched the photo, reminding herself
that it was real. Needing it, somehow, to tether her in
place. “Who died?” she said. “Their daddy. He was killed.” “By who?” Jude shrugged. “Bunch of white men.” She didn’t know was
what more shocking, the revelation or how casually Jude it.
offered “What?” she said. “Why?” “Does there have
to be a reason why?” “When someone gets killed? Usually.”
“Well, there isn’t. It just happened. Right in
front of them.” She tried to imagine her mother as a girl, witnessing something so horrible, but she
could only picture her eight years ago, standing at the end of the darkened with
hallway a baseball bat. Kennedy had been a little drunk, sneaking back home after a party; she’d
expected her mother to yell at her for breaking curfew. Instead, she was standing at the
end of the hall, a hand covering her mouth. The baseball
bat clattered on the wood floor, rolling toward her bare feet. “She never
talks about him,” Kennedy said. “Mine either,” Jude said. At the end of the table, an old Jewish man hacked into his sweater
sleeve. Jude glanced over, fiddling with a candy
wrapper. “What’s she like?” Kennedy asked. “Your
mother.” “Stubborn,” she said. “Like you.” “I am
not stubborn.” “If you say so.” “Well, what else is she
like? She’s got to be more than stubborn.” “I don’t know,” Jude said. “She works at a diner. She says she hates
it but she’d never go anywhere different. She’d never leave Maman.” “Is that what
you call your grandmother?” Kennedy still couldn’t bring herself to
say our. Jude nodded. “I grew up in her house,” she said. “She’s getting old now. She forgets a lot. She still asks about
your mom sometimes.” An announcement crackled over the PA
system. Kennedy added another packet of sugar to
coffee she’d never finish. “This is strange for me,” she said. “I don’t think you understand how strange
it all is.” “I know,” Jude said. “No, you don’t. I don’t think anybody could possibly
know.” “Fine, I don’t know.” Jude stood, tossing her coffee in the trash can. Kennedy scrambled after, suddenly afraid
that she’d leave her here. What if she’d pushed Jude away and now to
Jude decided not tell her anything more? Knowing a little was worse than not at
knowing all. So she followed Jude onto the elevator, riding in silence to the fifth floor, then she sat beside her in the waiting to
room next a wilting plant. “You don’t have to stay,” Jude said. “I know that,” Kennedy said. But she did. *** THE HOSPITAL RELEASED REESE that
evening. When Jude wheeled him outside, Kennedy
glanced up, startled to find the sky already cloaked
in navy blue. For hours, she’d sat beside Jude in the
waiting room, flipping idly through magazines, down to
wandering the cafeteria for more coffee, or sometimes just sitting there, staring
at that picture. She called in sick to her show. Admitted the flu had gotten to her after
all. And in spite of every reason she had to
leave, she stayed there in that quiet hospital
room, until a brusque white nurse told them go.
they could She thought about calling home. Frantz to
always tried ring her before her shows, he’d worry if the understudy picked up. Still, she hailed a cab and helped Jude
guide Reese inside. He was still a little loopy from the
anesthesia, and the whole ride to the hotel, his head kept lolling onto her shoulder. Jude squeezed his thigh, and Kennedy
glanced away. She couldn’t imagine needing anyone so
openly. She could have said good-bye outside the
hotel, but she climbed out too. She and Jude
didn’t speak. They each wrapped an arm around Reese’s
waist, and together they lugged him inside. He was heavier than he looked, and by the time they reached the elevator, her shoulders burned. But she still held
on until they made it inside the hotel room and gingerly lowered him onto the bed. Jude sat on the edge of the mattress, pushing the curls back from his forehead. “Thanks,” she said softly, but she was at
still looking Reese. That tenderness in her voice only meant
for him. “Well,” Kennedy said. She should’ve left
but she lingered in the room. Jude would spend a few more days in the
city while Reese recovered. Maybe Kennedy could stop by the hotel
again tomorrow. Surely Jude couldn’t stay inside this all
dingy room day, watching him sleep. Maybe they could go
out for coffee or lunch. She could show her around the city so be
she’d able to say that she did more in New York than see a mediocre and
musical sit in a hospital waiting room. Jude walked her down to the lobby, and Kennedy slowly wrapped her scarf her
around neck. “What’s it like?” she said. “Mallard.” She’d imagined a town like Mayberry, folksy and homey, women leaving pies to
cool on their windowsills. A town so small that everybody knew your
name. In a different life, she might have over
visited the summer. She could have played with Jude in front
of their grandmother’s house. But Jude just laughed. “Awful,” she said. “They only like light Negroes out there. You’d fit right in.” She’d said it so it.
offhandedly that Kennedy almost didn’t realize “I’m not a Negro,” she said. Jude laughed again, this time uneasily. “Well, your mother is,” she said. “So?” “So that makes you one too.” “It doesn’t make me anything,” she said. “My father’s white, you know. And you get
don’t to show up and tell me what I am.” It wasn’t a race thing. She just hated the idea of anyone telling
her who she had to be. She was like her mother in that way. If she’d been born black, she would have
been perfectly happy about it. But she wasn’t and who was Jude to tell
her that she was somebody that she was not? Nothing had changed, really. She’d learned one thing about her mother, but what did that amount to when you at A
looked the totality of her life? single detail had been moved and replaced. Swapping out one brick wouldn’t change a
house into a fire station. She was still herself. Nothing had
changed. Nothing had changed at all. That night, Frantz asked where she’d been. “The
hospital,” she said, too exhausted to lie. “The hospital? What happened?” “Oh, I’m
all right. I was with Jude. Reese had surgery.” “What type of surgery? Is he all right?” “I don’t know.” She’d never asked. “Something with his chest, it looked like. He’s fine now. Just a little out of it.” “You should’ve called. I’ve been waiting
up.” She would leave him. She’d always had a
good sense for when it was time to leave. Call it intuition or restlessness, call it whatever you want. She’d never to
been the type overstay her welcome. She knew when it was time to leave Los
Angeles, and a year later, she would know to leave
New York. She knew when she ought to be with a man
for six weeks or six years. Leaving was the same, regardless. Leaving
was simple. Staying was the part she’d never quite
mastered. So that night, when she looked at Frantz
in bed, his dark brown skin shimmering against
the silver sheets, she knew that she wouldn’t stay with him
much longer. Still, she sat on the edge of the bed and
slipped his glasses off, blurring right in front of his eyes. “Would you still love me,” she said, “if I weren’t white?” “No,” he said, tugging her closer. “Because then you be
wouldn’t you.” *** WHEN SHE LEFT FRANTZ, she wandered a
year, not telling anyone where she was going. Her musical had ended and she was to tire
beginning of theater, although she’d stick around years longer, joining improv comedy troupes, for plays.
auditioning experimental Acting seemed to be the one thing she to
never knew when quit. Before she fled, she saw her mother one
last time. They were sitting together in the
backyard, sipping chardonnay by the pool. It was an
unnaturally bright winter day. She was shocked by the warmth, shocked that there had ever been a time a
when she hadn’t found the idea of warm February day remarkable. She closed
her eyes, sunning her legs, not even thinking about
poor Frantz, huddled by their rattling radiator. “I to
used come out here in the mornings,” her mother said. “When you were at school. I never had anything to do, but somehow, I was always floating out
here, thinking.” It was a lovely day. Kennedy would remember this later, how
she could have said nothing, could have lain out there in that
sunlight forever. Instead, she handed her mother the
photograph. “What’s this?” she asked, tilting her to
head look at it. “It’s from your father’s funeral,” said.
Kennedy “Don’t you remember?” Her mother said
nothing, her face blank. She stared at the picture. “Where’d you get this?” she said. “Where do you think?” Kennedy said. “She found me, you know. She knows you I
better than do!” She hadn’t meant to yell. She just her to
expected mother feel something. She would show her a picture of her and
family her mother would start to cry. Wipe away tears and finally tell her the
daughter truth about her life. Kennedy deserved that, didn’t she? One of
moment honesty. But her mother pushed the picture back
toward her. “I don’t know why you’re doing this,” she said. “I don’t know what you want me
to say ” “I want you to tell me who you are!” “You know who I am! This,” her mother said, jabbing at the picture, “is not me. Look at it! She doesn’t look
anything like me.” She couldn’t tell which girl her mother
was pointing at, her sister or herself. *** JUDE LEFT HER
PHONE NUMBER on the back of the photo. For years, Kennedy didn’t call. She kept
the picture, though. She carried it with her she and
everywhere traveled: Istanbul Rome, Berlin where she lived for three months, sharing a flat with two Swedes. One night they got blitzed and she showed
them the picture. The blond boys smiled at her quizzically, handing it back. It meant nothing to but
anybody her, which was part of the reason she could of
never get rid it. It was the only part of her life that was
real. She didn’t know what to do with the rest. All the stories she knew were fiction, so she began to create new ones. She was the daughter of a doctor, an actor, a baseball player. She was a
taking break from medical school. She had a boyfriend back home named Reese. She was white, she was black, she became a new person as soon as she a
crossed border. She was always inventing her life. *** BY THE EARLY 1990S, her acting jobs
began to dry up for good. No director had much use for a blonde in
her thirties who hadn’t yet proven to be a star. She played a few older sisters
on a handful of network shows, then a teacher or two, and then her agent
stopped calling her at all. She felt too young to be washed up, but then again, she had ridden an string
improbable of luck. Her whole life, in fact, had been a gift
of good fortune she had been given whiteness. Blonde hair, a pretty face, a nice figure, a rich father. She’d sobbed out of speeding tickets, flirted her way to endless second chances. Her whole life, a bounty of gifts she
hadn’t deserved. She became a spin instructor for two
years, the studio placing photos of Charity on
Harris the flyer to attract customers. But she grew tired of sweating all the
time, her legs twitching and cramping, and so, in 1996, she finally decided to go back
to school. Not real school, she told everyone, laughing at the thought, but realty
school. She’d sold ads for shitty products on for
daytime television years, why couldn’t she sell a house? On her
first day, she sat awkwardly at the tiny desk, staring at the handout the teacher was
passing down each row. What Clients Value in a Real Estate of
Agent: Honesty Knowledge the housing market Negotiation skills She could learn most of this, she told herself, except for the first
bullet point. She had been acting her entire life, which meant that she was the best liar
that she knew. Well, second best. *** IN HER FIRST YEAR
at San Fernando Valley Real Estate, Kennedy sold seven houses. Her boss told
Robert her that she had the Midas touch, but she privately called it the Charity
Harris effect. She had the type of face that people
vaguely remembered, even those who had never watched Pacific
Cove. Everyone thought they knew her. And of
course, the Pacific Cove fans always showed up to
her open houses, long after the show had ended. “I never thought it was right what to
happened you,” one woman whispered to her once in a
Tarzana model home. She’d smiled politely, guiding the woman
through the hallway. She could be Charity if they needed her
to be. She could be anyone, really. Before each
open house, she felt like she was back onstage again, waiting for the curtain to rise. She tweaked the decorations, swapping out
framed photographs of stock families. A black family became a white one, a soccer beanbag chair became a
basketball, a horn of plenty tucked inside a cabinet
in exchange for a menorah. A model home was nothing but a set, if you thought about it, the open house a
grand performance directed by her. Each time, she stood behind the door, bowing her head, as jittery as the first
time she had ever taken the stage, knowing that her mother would be out in
there the audience watching. Then she put on a big Charity Harris
smile, opening the door. She would disappear
inside herself, inside these empty homes where nobody
actually lived. As the room filled with strangers, she always found her mark, guiding a the
couple through kitchen, pointing out the light fixtures,
backsplash, high ceilings. “Imagine your life here,” she said. “Imagine who you could be.” Share your thoughts in the comments Love
below! this chapter? Let us know! Keep speeding through the story! Kennedy’s world unravels in this gripping
fast reading finale. PART 6 PLACES (1986) CHAPTER 16 By 1981, Mallard no longer existed, or at least, it was no longer called
Mallard. The town had never actually been a town
at all. State officials considered it a village
but the United States Geological Survey referred to it only as a populated place. And although the
residents may have created their own boundaries, a place has no legal borders. So after the 1980 Census, the parish town
redrew lines and the residents of Mallard woke up one morning to learn that they had to
been allocated Palmetto. By 1986, Mallard had been scrubbed off in
every transit map the area. For most folks, the name change didn’t
mean much. Mallard had always been more of an idea a
than place, and an idea couldn’t be redefined by
geographical terms. But the name change confused Stella
Vignes, who stood in the Opelousas train station, staring at the map for ten minutes before
she finally waved over a young black porter and asked the best way to get to Mallard. He laughed. “Oh, you must be from them
old days,” he said. “Ain’t called that no more.” She flushed. “What’s it called, then?” “Oh, lots of things, lots of things. Lebeau, Port Barre. Supposed to be but it
Palmetto some folks still call Mallard. Folks stubborn like that.” “I see,” she said. “I haven’t been back in a
while.” He smiled at her and she glanced away. She’d traveled as plainly as she could, afraid to draw attention to herself. One simple bag, her wedding ring tucked
inside. Wore her cheapest slacks, pinned her hair
back like she used to, although now it was beginning to streak
with gray. So she’d touched it up with a rinse
before leaving, embarrassed by her own vanity. But what
if Desiree dyed hers? She couldn’t be the old twin. The thought terrified her, looking
into Desiree’s face and not seeing her own. Like leaving, the hardest part of was to.
returning deciding For months, she’d tried to imagine any
other way, but she was desperate. She hadn’t heard
from her daughter since she’d visited from New York City with a photograph, and Stella found
herself staring directly at her past. She didn’t remember taking a picture at
her daddy’s funeral, but then again, she didn’t remember much
of that day. That itchy black lace scraping against
her legs. A pinch of pound cake, spongy and sweet. A closed casket. Desiree pressed into her
side. Her sister, somehow knowing what she to
wanted say even if she couldn’t. In the backyard, staring down at that
photograph, she fell just as silent. She knew, before she even opened her mouth, that she would lie, the way she’d always
lied, but this time her daughter wouldn’t her.
believe “It’s like you’re incapable of telling
the truth,” Kennedy said. “You don’t know how to do
anything but lie.” For months, she’d refused Stella’s phone
calls. Stella left messages on the answering
machine, humiliated by the thought of smug Frantz
listening to her beg. She had even spoken to him once or twice;
he always promised to pass along her messages, but she couldn’t tell if he was
just pacifying her to free up the line. Then six months ago, Frantz told Stella
that her daughter had moved out. “She’s gone,” he said, “and I don’t know
where. She just left one morning. Didn’t even a
leave forwarding address. There’s still boxes of her things and she
won’t even tell me where to send them.” He seemed more inconvenienced by the junk
he was storing than the fact that Kennedy had abandoned him. Stella panicked, but weeks
naturally, later, Blake received a postcard from Rome, written in their daughter’s hasty scrawl. Went to find myself, she wrote. I’m safe. Don’t worry about me. The language bothered Stella most of all. You didn’t just find a self out there you
waiting had to make one. You had to create who you wanted to be. And wasn’t her daughter already doing the
that? Stella blamed dark girl, who’d stalked her daughter around Los
Angeles, who’d tracked her, somehow, all the way
across the country. The girl was determined to prove the to
truth Kennedy and she would never give up. Unless. In her office, Stella stopped
pacing, slumping against the door. She knew what
she had to do: tell Desiree to call her girl off. She had to go back to Mallard. So when Blake left for business to Boston, she booked a flight to New Orleans. As the airplane descended, she wrung her
hands, staring out the window at the brown
flatness. She could always go back. Turn around, buy a ticket to Los Angeles, forget this whole foolish idea. But then
she imagined that dark girl appearing, again and again, and she clutched the as
armrest the plane rattled gently onto the runway. Now, in the train station, the lanky at
porter smiling her, knowing somehow, she was sure of it, that she had returned from a place she
had never imagined that she could leave. He pointed at a bus stop. “Puts you down right outside Mallard,” he said. “Have to walk from there, I’m afraid.” She hadn’t ridden a bus in
years. He nodded toward a pay phone. “You could call your people,” he said. “Have someone come get you.” But she sure
wasn’t if she had people anymore. Instead she said, “It’ll be good to my
stretch legs.” *** ONCE MALLARD WAS NO LONGER MALLARD, some joked that the name of the diner to
ought change also to the name people had long been calling it: Desiree’s. “Y’all goin by Desiree’s” became so a by
common refrain that the 1980s, there were children born who had never a
remembered time when the diner had been called anything else. The town ignored the faded
coffee cup on the roof still bearing Lou’s name, which he didn’t appreciate, but he was
old now. He leaned on Desiree for everything; she
was head waitress and manager, she hired and fired cooks, she changed
the menu when she felt like it. She was the face of the establishment, framed, for years, within its black- and-
white windows. Lou would leave the diner to her when he
died, he’d always said, although Desiree said
that she didn’t want it. “I got a life outside Lou’s,” she said. “I don’t wanna be stuck in here
forever.” But what was that life, exactly? she even
Sometimes didn’t know herself. Early, still coming and going. Her
mother’s unraveling memory. Her daughter, living across the country. She’d visited her in Minneapolis in the
winter of 1985. The two had walked arm in arm down the
slushy sidewalks, bracing themselves against the unexpected
ice. She hadn’t seen snow like this, real snow, in almost thirty years; on one
corner, she closed her eyes, fat flakes falling
onto her lashes. She was thinking of her own first winter
in D.C., Sam taking her ice- skating downtown, laughing at her wobbling. The whole rink
filled with young colored people like them, holding hands, the flashier skaters and
twirling slicing across the ice. Even the Santa Claus swinging his bell on
the curb was colored. She had never seen a Negro Santa before
and stared so hard, she nearly lost her balance. “It’s to all
supposed snow week,” her daughter said. “I’m sorry, Mama.” “What you sorry for? You can’t control
the weather.” “I know, but I wanted it to be nice for
you.” She brushed ice out of Jude’s hair. “It is nice,” she said. “Come on, let’s go.” Inside the grocery store, the lights glowed brightly and her
daughter trailed behind, slowly pushing the cart. Desiree grabbed
a bundle of celery. She’d offered to cook insisted on it, really, having seen the sad state of her
girl’s cupboards. Nothing but cold cereal and canned food. “I should’ve taught you how to cook,” she said. “I cook.” “Too many smart girls
don’t know how to keep a house anymore.” “Well, I do, and Reese cooks too.” “Oh, that’s right. Y’all are what’s it
you call it?” “Modern.” “Modern,” she repeated. “He’s a
nice boy.” “But?” “But nothin. He seems sweet. I just don’t understand why he won’t you.
marry What’s he waitin for, the Grim Reaper?” “Well, what about you?” Jude said. “What about me?” “And Early.” Desiree for
reached a bell pepper, startled by the sudden seize of she felt
tenderness just hearing his name. She missed him. Imagine that, grown as
she was, still missing him. She’d called him after
she’d landed in Minnesota. She’d never been on an airplane before, felt as brave as if she’d leapt across of
the face the moon. She wished he was with her but he’d to at
offered stay home with her mother. Desiree was beginning to realize that it
could be dangerous leaving her alone. “Oh, that’s different,” she said. “How?” “Y’all are young. Don’t you wanna start a
life together? Hand me that onion.” “We have a life together,” Jude said. “We don’t have to be married for that.” “I know, I just ” She paused. “I don’t want you to be gun-shy. Because of what happened to me.” Desiree studied a bruised tomato, to look
unwilling at her daughter. She didn’t like to think about the fights
her daughter might have seen, that brutal education in love. Jude her
wrapped arms around her. “I’m not,” she said. “I promise.” *** FOR DINNER, Desiree cooked shrimp and
creole rice in their tiny kitchen. She stirred the saucepan, gazing around
the apartment at the mismatched dining chairs, the orange loveseat, Reese’s photographs
framed on the wall. He’d started freelancing for the Daily
Minnesota Star. Small assignments, usually, like Little
League games or business openings. On slow days, he worked bar mitzvahs and
weddings and proms. Sometimes he wandered around for hours
until his fingertips turned red, shooting the tentacles of ice freezing a
across lake, or a homeless man huddled in a doorway, or a worn red mitten wedged in a bank of
slush. He said that he hated the cold but he’d
never been so productive. He’d sold one photograph for two hundred
dollars. He wanted to save up to buy a house. “I just want you to know I’m serious,” he told her. “About your daughter.” And he did look serious, perched on the
edge of the couch, wringing his hands, so serious that she
could have laughed at his earnestness. Instead, she squeezed his arm. “I know, baby,” she said. When she’d first moved
back to Mallard, she never imagined herself here, sitting
on a used couch in Minnesota across from a man who loved her daughter. All week, she went with Jude to campus, staring out at the students trudging past, bundled to their eyes, and couldn’t
believe, still, that her daughter was one of them. Her girl had gone out into the world, like Desiree had done when she was young. A part of her still hoped that she had to
time left do it again. “It’s foolish,” she’d told Early when
she’d called. “I don’t have no business startin over. But I don’t know. I wonder sometimes. What else is out there.” “Ain’t foolish
at all,” he said. “What you wanna do?” She didn’t know, but she was embarrassed
to admit that when she imagined leaving Mallard, she only saw the two of them in his car, driving a long road to nowhere. Just a fantasy, of course. She would
never leave Lou’s, not now, not while her mother still her.
needed Her last night in Minneapolis, snow on
thundered the roof and Desiree cracked the blinds open, peeking outside. She was holding a coffee
mug that Reese topped off with whiskey while Jude cleared the dishes. His photographs the
spread across table, snapshots from their life in Los Angeles. Jude rested her hand on the back of his
neck as he leaned forward, pointing out the different parts of the
city he’d shot. The pier at Manhattan Beach, the Capitol
Records building shaped like a spindle of records itself, a humpback whale they’d seen in Santa
Barbara. The people they’d known, the friends left
behind, shots of crowded rooms during parties. It was strange, seeing a city she had on
only watched television, through her daughter’s eyes. “Who’s that?” she asked. She was pointing at one photo
in particular, shot in a crowded bar. She wouldn’t have
noticed it at all if not for the blonde girl in the background, grinning
over her shoulder, as if she’d just overheard a joke. Her daughter shuffled the picture back
into the pile. “Nobody,” she said. “Just some girl we
knew.” Later that night, falling asleep in bed
beside her daughter, the boyfriend gallantly offering to sleep
on the lumpy couch, a little embarrassed as he carried over
his pillow and blanket as if Desiree didn’t know what went on between the two of them when
she wasn’t under their roof, as if she didn’t know what would probably
go on the moment she left, between two people who were young and in
love and so relieved to be freed of that old lady who kept asking when they
would get married she kept thinking about the blonde girl in the photograph. She didn’t
know why she was so struck by her. The girl just looked like California, or what she imagined it to be: slender
and tan and blonde and happy. She thought about calling Early if it so
wasn’t late, if she wasn’t going to see him one day
later, if she wouldn’t have been so embarrassed
by the fact that she still wanted to call him in spite of all of that. And did you know Jude does things like
this, she would’ve asked him, befriends white a
girls? It’s new world, ain’t it? Did you know the world is so BY
new? *** 1986, Big Ceel was dead, a fact that Early only
Jones discovered reading the paper in Dr. Brenner’s office. He was waiting with his
mother- in- law, or, rather, a woman he had begun to think
of as such, when he saw a photo of the man, pages deep into the Times- Picayune, below the headline LOAN SHARK FOUND DEAD. Stabbed, it turned out, over a card game
gone wrong. Seemed fitting, in a way, that Ceel, a man who’d built a life on lending and
collecting, would meet his end over money. At the same time, it seemed disgraceful, dying over such a small sum. Forty dollars, the paper said. Forty
dollars, shit. Of course by then, Early knew well
enough how little men were willing to die or kill for. He’d seen worse, more risked for less. Still, it stunned
him to learn about Ceel’s demise in such dispassionate black print, almost as much as it shocked
him to discover that Ceel’s government name was Clifton Lewis. Oh, he realized. C. L. It dawned on him, closing the paper as
Dr. Brenner called Adele’s name, that, in a
way, Ceel had been his oldest friend. By then, he hadn’t run a job for Ceel in
three months. “I oughta throw you a retirement party
already,” Ceel had told him, in their last phone
call. “You ain’t that kid no more I first met. You lost your killer instinct.” Early up,
hung knowing that Ceel was just trying to goad
him, knowing that Ceel still needed him, the old man telling Early, more than once, that he was the best hunter he’d ever had. Once, his insults might’ve worked. But
now life was different. Early wasn’t a kid anymore. He had
responsibilities. A woman he loved. Her mother, whom he loved too, who had nearly burned
the house down when she had turned on the stove to boil water for coffee, forgotten about it, and gone back to
sleep. He had gone out to Fontenot’s that day, bought a Mr. Coffee for the kitchen, taught Adele how to use it. But after that morning, she never made
coffee again. When Desiree left to open Lou’s Egg House, he woke up and made a cup for Adele. And if he was off working for Ceel, who would be home to do that? For the in
first time his life, he found a job, a real one, at the oil refinery. Now he went to work
every day like a proper man, Adele would have once said in gray with
coveralls his name stitched over the heart. Early Come Lately, his foreman called him, since he was the oldest roughneck in the
crew. He worked mornings when Desiree closed, evenings when she went in early, seesawing their schedules so that Adele
was never left alone. One morning, he took Adele fishing down
on the river. Swallows swooped overhead, rustling the
through pines. Adele glanced over, tightening her around
sweater herself. She wore her hair in two long braids now. Each morning Desiree combed her hair, or if she had to get to Lou’s, Early did. She’d taught him how to braid
one afternoon, demonstrating with pieces of yarn. He’d
practiced, again and again, amazed that his fingers
were capable of anything so delicate. He liked the mornings when he braided
Adele’s hair. She only allowed him to because she was
forgetting, and he could forget, too, that she wasn’t
his mother. “You warm enough there, Miss Adele?” he asked. She nodded, gathering her
sweater closer. “Desiree said you like goin fishin,” he said. “That true?” “Desiree say that?” “Yes’m. I told her we find her some fish
to fry up tonight. Sound good, don’t it?” She stared up at
the trees, wringing her hands. “I ought to be gettin
to work myself,” Adele said. “No, ma’am. You got the day
off.” “The whole day?” She was so surprised and
delighted by the idea that he didn’t have the heart to tell her that she hadn’t to
gone work in the past nine months. The white folks she cleaned for had been
the first to notice her lapse in memory. Dishes ending up in the wrong drawers, laundry folded before it dried, canned in
beans chilled the refrigerator while chicken rotted on the pantry shelf. “Oh, I’m old,” she’d said. “You know how it is. You just start
forgettin things.” But Dr. Brenner said that it was and it
Alzheimer’s would only get worse. Desiree cried on the phone when she to
called tell Early. He cut a job in Lawrence short to be with
her. It’d be all right, he’d told her, rocking her, even though he couldn’t of
think anything more terrifying than looking into Desiree’s face one day and only seeing a stranger. “Are you my son?” Adele asked. He smiled, reaching for his fishing rod. “No, ma’am,” he said. “No,” she repeated. “I don’t have any sons.” She turned, satisfied, to the trees, as if he’d just
helped her solve a riddle that was troubling her. Then she glanced at him again, almost shyly. “You not my husband, are you?” “No, ma’am.” “I don’t have one
of those neither.” “I’m just your Early,” he said. “That’s all I am.” “Early?” She laughed
suddenly. “What type of fool name is that?” “The only fool name I got.” “I know who you are,” she said. “You that farm boy always hangin around
Desiree.” He touched the end of her gray braid. “That’s right,” he said. “That’s exactly
right.” *** WHEN THEY RETURNED to the house, there was a white woman sitting on the
porch. Early had caught two small speckled trout, delighting Adele, who’d watched them on
wriggle his line. Now, heading back home, Adele humming, her arm looped though his, he spotted the
white woman through the clearing and gripped her arm tighter. Once a woman from the county
came by to check on Adele. Desiree was humiliated, some strange her
white woman wandering around house to make sure that the living conditions were suitable. “It must
be suitable enough,” she told Early, “she been livin here
sixty years!” He hated the thought of government poking
workers around, as if the two of them were not capable of
looking after one forgetting woman, but the visits came with the assistance. They needed money for the medicines, the doctor visits, the bills. Still, he wasn’t too thrilled about meeting the
county woman. No surprise what she’d think of him. He patted Adele’s hand. “If that lady ask, we’ll tell her I’m your son-in-law,” he said. “What you talkin about?” “That white lady on the porch,” he said. “From the county. Just to make
it all go down easier.” She pulled away. “Quit foolin,” she said. “That ain’t no white woman. That’s just
Stella.” In all the years he’d hunted Stella, imagined her, dreamed about her, she’d in
become larger his eyes. She was smarter than him. Clever, twisting away each time he drew near. But this not-white woman, this Stella
Vignes, looked so ordinary, he lost his breath. Not like Desiree he wouldn’t have the
confused two, even as he drew closer, Stella clambering
to her feet. She wore navy blue slacks and leather
boots, her hair pinned into a ponytail. Pitch black, like she hadn’t aged at all, unlike Desiree, whose temples began to
streak silver. It wasn’t just her clothes, though, but the way she held her body. Taut, like a guitar string wound around
itself. She looked scared, but of what? Of him?
Well, maybe she ought to be. He wanted to rage
at her for every night Desiree fell asleep thinking of her, not him. But Stella wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at her mother, her mouth open like a trout gasping for
breath. Adele barely glanced at her. “Girl, come help us clean those fishes,” Adele said. “And go get your sister.” *** HER MOTHER HAD LOST HER MIND. Stella realized this, slowly, as she her
followed down the narrow hallway to the kitchen, where a strange man unloaded fish from an
icebox. All the times she’d imagined what her say
mother might if she came home she would be angry, might even slap her across the
face she’d never pictured this: her mother a shell of herself, bustling around the as
kitchen if the only thing on her mind were fixing dinner. As indifferent to Stella
as if she’d been gone twenty- five minutes, not years. The strange man following her,
after picking up a knife after she’d set it
down, keeping her away from the stove, finally convincing her to have a seat at
the table while he made her a cup of coffee. “Are you Desiree’s husband?” Stella asked. He let out a low laugh. “Somethin like that.” “Well, who are you, then? What’re you doing with my mother?” “Why you actin like that, Stella?” her mother said, handing her a spoon. “You know this your brother.” He couldn’t
be the dark girl’s father. He wasn’t nearly as black as her, even though he looked grizzled and tough, like the type of man who might bully a
woman. “How long has it been like this?” she said. “Year, maybe.” “Jesus.” “Girl, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” her mother said. “I raised you better
than that.” “I’m sorry, Mama,” she said quickly. “Mama, I’m so sorry ” “I don’t know what
you talkin about,” her mother said. “Probably don’t need to
know. Start workin on that fish.” Her daddy had
taught her how to gut a fish. She’d trounced alongside him in the river, water splashing up to her knees. Desiree marching up ahead, stomping so
loud, Daddy said, that she’d scare all the fish
away. They were his twin sprites, following him
through the woods. The fishing part always bored Desiree;
she wandered off, sprawling on her stomach somewhere making
daisy chains, but Stella could sit with him for hours, so still, imagining that she could see to
through the murky water every living thing swirling around her bare toes. After, he showed to
the twins how clean the fish he’d caught. Lay it flat, slide the knife inside the
belly, and then what? She couldn’t remember. She wanted to cry. “I don’t know how,” she said. “You just don’t like gettin
your hands dirty,” her mother said. “Desiree!” “She at work, Miss Adele,” the man said. “Work?” “Over in town.” “Well somebody ought to
get her. She’s gonna miss supper.” “Stella’ll
fetch her,” the man said. “I’m gonna stay right here
with you.” He wrapped an arm around her mother’s
shoulders, protectively. Protecting her from me,
Stella realized, gently setting down the knife. She out
stepped onto the front porch and stared into the woods. She did not realize until she was
walking through the dirt that she had no idea where she was going. *** THE FIRST
THING to know about the Reunion, as it would later be called, is that there were no real witnesses. Lou’s Egg House was always empty between
lunch and dinner, which was when Jude phoned from the
student union. Desiree loved those noisy calls, even
though Jude always sounded harried, rushing off to a lecture or a lab. That afternoon, she was trying to coax to
Desiree visit her again. “You know I can’t,” Desiree said. “I know,” Jude said. “I just miss you. I worry about you sometimes.” Desiree
swallowed. “Well, don’t,” she said. “You out there
livin your life. That’s all I want for you. Don’t you worry about me. Mama’ll be all
right.” She didn’t hear the bell jingle over the
door until after she hung up the phone. It surprised her. The diner had been when
empty she’d stepped into the back to answer the phone, except for Marvin Landry, who was never sober past noon, the war having done him, and that in
afternoon particular, he was slumped in a back booth, a fifth of whiskey inside his jacket. He hadn’t touched the turkey sandwich had
Desiree left in front of him. He didn’t even wake up when Stella Vignes
stepped inside. He didn’t see her pause in the doorway, glancing around at the peeling linoleum
floors, the bursting leather stools, the bum in
snoozing the corner. Didn’t hear Desiree call from the back, “Be right out!” He certainly didn’t see
Desiree backing out of the kitchen, retying her apron. She didn’t notice him
at all, because when she turned around, she was
staring at Stella. “Oh,” Desiree said. That was all she to
could think say. Oh. Less a word than a sound. She dropped her apron strings, the her.
garment flapping uselessly against Across the counter, Stella was smiling
but her eyes filled with tears. She stepped toward her but Desiree held a
up hand. “Don’t,” she said, choking back anger. Stella standing in front of her, appearing with no warning, no apologies, returning only after Desiree had finally
let her go. Wearing that blouse that she would as the
sometimes remember color of cream, other times the color of bone, a blouse that looked like it had never or
stained wrinkled. Tiny pearl buttons. A shiny silver
bracelet. No wedding ring, her hands tightening the
into fists way they curled sometimes when Stella was nervous, and she was nervous now, wasn’t she, she had never been nervous
around Desiree before. But why shouldn’t she be? All those years, what had given her the nerve to show her
face again? To expect that she might be welcomed? Desiree’s thoughts ran her
jumbled through head. She could barely follow them. And smile
Stella’s faded, but she still took another tiny step
closer. “I mean it,” Desiree said. Her voice low, threatening. “Forgive me,” Stella said.
“Forgive me.” She was still repeating those words when
she walked around the counter. Desiree tried to push her away but Stella
pulled and then they were struggling, and then they were holding each other, Desiree exhausted, whimpering, Stella for
begging forgiveness into her sister’s hair. And that’s what Marvin Landry told he saw
everyone when he finally woke up: a turkey sandwich resting on a plate in front of
him, and a misted bottle of Coke, and behind the counter, Desiree Vignes
wrapped around herself. *** SHE’S DIFFERENT NOW. The same words
passed through each twin’s mind. Desiree, eyeing how Stella held her knife
and fork, barely gripping the metal. Stella, how
noticing boldly Desiree moved around the kitchen now. Desiree, watching Stella rub the back of
her neck, a gesture that seemed so wearied, it startled her. Stella, listening to to
Desiree speak their mother, her voice soft and soothing. And all the
while, to Adele Vignes, the twins were the same
as they’d ever been. Time was collapsing and expanding; the at
twins were different and the same all once. There could have been fifty pairs of at
twins sitting that dinner table, a seat for each person they had been a
since they’d spoken last: battered wife and a bored one, a waitress and a professor, each woman seated next to a stranger. Instead, there were only the twins, Early sitting between them. He felt, watching Stella primly cut her fish, that he didn’t know Desiree at all, that maybe it was impossible to know one
without the other. After dinner, he cleared the dishes while
the twins stepped out onto the front porch, Desiree carrying a dusty bottle of gin in
that she’d found the back of the pantry. She’d brought it out even though she know
didn’t if Stella even liked gin, but Stella’s eyes drifted to the bottle, then back to hers, and Desiree felt the a
thrill of silent conversation. She smuggled it outside, Stella trailing
after her. “Don’t y’all stay out too late,” their mother called. “It’s a school
night.” Now they passed the bottle lazily between
them, wincing through sips of that ancient gin, which had been a wedding gift from Marie
Vignes. The Decuirs had been scandalized what a
present from your mother- in- law! and somehow, the controversial bottle had been over
forgotten the years. Desiree sipped, then Stella, the twins an
falling into easy rhythm. “You talk different now,” Desiree said. “What do you mean?” Stella said. “Like that. Wut do you mean. How’d you learn to talk like that?” Stella paused, then smiled. “Television,”
she said. “I used to watch hours of it. Just to learn how to sound like them.” “Jesus,” Desiree said. “I still can’t you
believe did it, Stella.” “It isn’t so hard. You could’ve
done it.” “You didn’t want me to. You left me.” God, Desiree hated how wounded she
sounded. After all these years, whining like a on
child abandoned the play yard. “It wasn’t that,” Stella said. “I met
someone.” “You did all this for a man?” “Not for him,” she said. “I just liked I
who was with him.” “White.” “No,” Stella said. “Free.”
Desiree laughed. “Same thing, baby.” She took another sip
of gin, swallowing hard. “Well, who was he?” Again, Stella paused. “Mr. Sanders,” she
finally said. In spite of everything, Desiree laughed. She laughed harder than she had in weeks, years even, laughed until Stella, too,
laughing snatched the bottle out of her hands she
before knocked it over. “Mr. Sanders?” she said. “That ol’ boss
of yours? You ran off with him? Farrah said ” “Farrah Thibodeaux! I haven’t thought
about her in years.” “She said she seen you with a man ” “What ever happened to her?” “I don’t
know. This was years ago she married some ”
alderman “A politician’s wife!” “Can you believe
it?” The twins, laughing, talking over each
other again, churning their way through that bottle. Desiree, looking out for their mother, the way she’d done when they were smoking
teenagers on the porch. She was a little drunk by now. She didn’t even know how late it was. “How’d you do it?” she said. “All those years.” “I had to keep going,” Stella said. “You can’t turn back when a
you have family. When you have people that depend on you.” “You had a family,” Desiree said. “Oh, that’s not what I mean,” Stella said, looking away. “It’s with a
different child. You know that.” But what was different, exactly? A sister easier to shed than a
daughter, a mother than a husband. What made her so
easy to give away? But she didn’t ask this, of course. She would have felt
even more like a child than she already did, glancing over her shoulder to make
sure her mother didn’t catch her drinking. “So it’s you and Mr. Sanders ” “Blake.” “You and Blake and ” “We have a daughter,” Stella said. “Kennedy.” Desiree tried to imagine her. For some reason, she could only envision
a proper little white girl posed on a piano bench, her hands folded on her lap just
so. “So what’s she like?” Desiree said. “Your girl.” “Willful. Charming. She’s an
actor.” “An actor!” “She does little plays in New
York. Not Broadway or anything.” “Still,” said.
Desiree “An actor. Maybe you can bring her next
time.” She knew she’d said the wrong thing when
Stella glanced away. A tiny look, but one that Desiree could
still read. When their eyes met again, Stella’s were
full of tears. “You know I can’t,” she said. “Why not?” “Your daughter ” “What about
her?” “She found me, Desiree. In Los Angeles. That’s why I’m here.” Desiree scoffed. How could Jude have found Stella? Her
daughter, a college student, stumbling upon her in
a city as large as Los Angeles. And even if she had, somehow, found Stella, her daughter would have
told her. She never would’ve kept a secret like
that from her. “She didn’t tell you,” Stella said. “I don’t blame her. I was awful. I didn’t mean to be I was scared, some girl showing up out of nowhere, saying she knows me. She looks nothing
like you, you know that. What was I supposed to But
think? she found my daughter. Told her all about me, about Mallard. Then she pops up again in New York ” Desiree pushed off the porch step. She had to call Jude. She didn’t care it
that was late, that she was tipsy, that Stella was on
miraculously sitting her front porch. But Stella grabbed her wrist. “Desiree, please,” she said. “Just listen to me. Just be reasonable ” “I been reasonable!” “She’ll never stop! Your girl will keep
trying to tell mine the truth and it’s too late for all that now. Can’t you see
that?” “Oh sure, it’s the end of the world. Your girl finding out she ain’t so lily ”
white “That I lied to her,” Stella said. “She’ll never forgive me. You don’t
understand, Desiree. You’re a good mother, I can see
that. Your girl loves you. That’s why she tell
didn’t you about me. But I haven’t been a good one. I spent so long hiding ” “Because you chose to! You wanted to!” “I know,” Stella said. “I know but please. Please, Desiree. Don’t take her away from
me.” She bent over, crying into her hands, and exhausted, Desiree returned to the
step beside her. She wrapped an arm around Stella’s
shoulders, staring at the nape of her neck, pretending not to see the gray hair the
threading through black. She’d always felt like the older sister, even though she only was by a matter of
minutes. But maybe in those seven minutes they’d
first been apart, they’d each lived a lifetime, setting out
on their separate paths. Each discovering who she might be. *** IN THE BEGINNING, Early Jones could
never fall asleep in the Vignes house. The comfort disturbed him. He was used to
sleeping under the stars or cramped in his car or lying on a hard prison cot. Or before all that, piled on a mattress
stuffed with Spanish moss, beside eight of his siblings, whose names
he no longer remembered, let alone their faces. He was not used to
this: a big bed and homemade quilt, the headboard carved by a man nobody but
talked about who lingered still in all the furniture. At first, he would lie in bed
beside Desiree, under a roof that did not leak, and chase hopelessly after sleep. he up
Sometimes ended pacing in front, smoking cigarettes at three in the
morning, feeling as if the house itself had him.
rejected Other times, he fell asleep on the porch
and didn’t wake up until Desiree tripped over him the next morning. “He’s like a wild
dog,” he’d heard Adele tell her. “You give him
a nice bed, he still feel better sleepin in the dirt.” She wasn’t wrong. He was a hunter, after all. He wasn’t built for soft and
quilts roomy chairs. He only felt like himself with his nose
pressed to the trail. Which was why, the next morning, when he heard Stella sneaking out the
front door, he followed her outside. “Mighty early
for the train,” he said. She jolted, almost dropping her
little bag. She looked shamed that he’d caught her. “I have to get back home,” she said. “Ain’t right to leave like
this,” he said. “Without sayin good-bye.” “It’s
the only way,” she said. “If I have to tell her good-bye, I’ll never leave and I have to. I have to go back to my life.” He understood. In spite of himself, he did. Maybe that was the only way his
parents could’ve dumped him. If they’d told him good-bye, he would’ve
hollered, clinging to their legs. He would’ve never
let them go. “You need a ride?” he said. She glanced toward the dark woods and
nodded. He led Stella to his car. He offered to drive her, not out of
kindness, but because Desiree loved Stella and that
was how love worked, wasn’t it? A transference, leaping onto
you if you inched close enough. He drove Stella past the bus stop, all the way to the train station. She sat in the front seat of his beat-up
ride, both hands clutching the bag in her lap. “I never meant it to be this way,” she said. He grunted. He didn’t want to
look at her as she climbed out of his car. He didn’t want to be the only to
one tell her good-bye. He already knew then that he would lie to
Desiree when he came home. Pretend he hadn’t heard Stella inching
across the hall. The same way he knew, when Stella slid
her wedding ring into his palm, that he would never tell Desiree about it. “Sell it,” she said, not looking at him. “Take care of Mama.” He tried to hand the
ring back to her but by then, Stella was climbing out of his car, Stella walking into the train station, Stella disappearing behind the glass
doors. That diamond ring felt cold in his palm. He had no idea what something like that
could be worth, and he wouldn’t know for sure until weeks
later, when he had it appraised. That bald white
man staring at it through his magnifying glass, gazing back at Early warily and asking he
how came by the ring again. Passed down through the family, Early
told him. Like most truths, it sounded a little
phony. *** WHEN DESIREE WOKE that morning, she reached across the bed and felt but
nothing air. She wasn’t surprised, but she still cried
out, touching the empty space across the bed. The night before, she had fallen asleep
across from her sister, two women squeezed onto a bed that was
far too small. Stella in her old spot, Desiree in the
place she’d slept for years. For hours, they stayed up, whispering in
the dark until their vision blurred, neither wanting to be the first to close
her eyes. *** A MONTH AFTER Stella returned to
Mallard, her daughter finally called home and that
announced she was moving back to California. Her thing with Frantz and wasn’t it just
like her, to call a serious relationship a “thing”?
had run its course, she’d spent all her money in Europe, her heart wasn’t in musical theater
anymore. She offered up a few different excuses
but Stella, listening, her heart in her throat, didn’t care why. She didn’t even care her
that daughter hadn’t said that she wanted to be close to her parents, that she missed
them. She had gone home and now her daughter
was coming home too. The two events were unconnected, of
course, but in her mind, she bound them together, one return triggering the other. She her
canceled afternoon class to meet Kennedy outside LAX. Then there she was, walking through the
terminal, lugging a bulging suitcase. She was now
thinner and she’d cut her hair, blonde waves falling halfway down her
neck. Stella pulled her into a hug, holding on to her for so long that the at
others waiting the baggage carousel stared. “Are you okay?” her daughter asked. “You look different.” “Different how?” “I
don’t know. Tired.” She’d spent the past month unable
to sleep through the night. Each time she closed her eyes, she saw Desiree. “I’m fine,” she said, grabbing Kennedy’s hand. “I’m just so
glad you’re back.” “What happened to your ring?” her said.
daughter She almost lied. It scared her, how natural lying was. She almost told
her daughter the same story she’d told Blake when she came home, bare- handed for the first
time in twenty-odd years. How she’d taken off her ring at work to
wash her hands, how she must have left it in the soap in
dish the faculty bathroom, how she had hounded every janitor she but
could find none could locate it. She’d seemed so distraught that he ended
up comforting her. “Oh it’s all right, Stel,” he said. “I think you’re due for an upgrade
anyway.” He was having the new ring custom made at
her favorite jeweler. A lie procuring the first ring, a different one procuring the second. She could never be completely honest with
her husband, but somehow, standing in the airport, she couldn’t bring herself to lie to her
daughter again. Maybe it was the exhaustion, or her that
relief her girl was finally home, or maybe, reaching for the bulging
suitcase, she knew that her daughter had running in
her blood too. She would always feel that urge to escape
tugging at her and never understand why, not if Stella didn’t explain it to her. Her daughter, who would forever be the in
only person her life who really knew her. She gripped the suitcase handle, staring
down at the worn carpet. “I gave it to my sister,” she said. “She needs it more than I do.” Kennedy stopped. “Your sister?” she said. “You went back there?” “Come on, honey,” Stella said. “We can talk in the
car.” Traffic would be a nightmare. She knew
this long before she inched onto the 405. Bumper to bumper, red taillights as far
as she could see. When she’d first moved to Los Angeles, she’d found the traffic a little
beautiful. All those people going places. She was to
frightened drive on the freeway, but once she got the hang of it, she went for drives alone in the middle
of the day for the peace of it. She liked studying the cloudless sky, the pale blue mountains up ahead. Her baby girl strapped in the backseat, babbling along with the radio. “You can
ask me what you’d like,” she said, gripping the steering wheel. “But when we get home ” “I know, I know,” her daughter said. “I can’t say anything.” “It hurts to talk
about,” she said. “You understand? But I want you
to know me.” Her daughter turned away, glancing out
the window. They weren’t far from home but this was
Los Angeles. You could cover a lifetime in eleven
miles. CHAPTER 17 The Vanishing Half’s truths shine in a
stunning video book finale. They named the dead man Freddy. He was twenty-one, six foot two, one hundred eighty pounds, the victim of
an enlarged heart. In their more morbid moments, the lab him
called Fred the Dead. At the University of Minnesota, all of
the medical students named their cadavers. It personalized death, the faculty said, it restored dignity to the undignified of
process dying. To the undignified process of science. This was what people had in mind when to
they imagined donating their bodies research: a group of twentysomethings in lab coats
jokingly brainstorming names, each year at least one group so lazy they
dubbed you Yorick and got on with it. Weirdly enough, naming Freddy made to
his body less intimate Jude. It wasn’t his real name. He’d lived and a
died completely different man, one they would never know beyond the on
details inscribed his chart. He’d barely lived at all, really, and now he would quite possibly live a on
more interesting life here the slab in their basement laboratory. Once she got
past the smell, Jude liked working with cadavers. She to
didn’t have joke about them to mask her discomfort; she never felt sick at the sight of a
dead body. Lectures bored her but she was rapt labs,
during always the first to grab her scalpel when
the professor asked for volunteers. People lived in bodies that were largely
unknowable. Some things you could never learn about
yourself some things nobody could learn about you until after you died. She was fascinated by the
mystery of dissections as well as the challenge. They had to search for tiny nerves that
were impossible to find. It was almost like a little treasure hunt. “That’s gross, baby,” Reese said. He away
always squirmed when she came home smelling like formaldehyde. He made her shower before kissing him. He never wanted to be touched after the
dead people. He’d always been more sentimental, at she
least thought, until the afternoon that her mother to
called tell her that her grandmother had died. She stood in her windowless office, holding the phone against her cheek. She was TAing that semester and had been
given an office she rarely used. Nobody had the phone number except for
Reese and her mother, in case of emergencies. She’d been so to
startled hear her mother’s voice that it hadn’t dawned on her the only reason she might
be calling. “You knew she was sick,” her mother said. She was trying to comfort her or maybe
just alleviate her shock. “I know,” Jude said. “Still.” “It wasn’t
painful. She was smilin and talkin to me, right up until the end.” “Are you all
right, Mama?” “Oh, you know me.” “That’s why I’m
asking.” Her mother laughed a little. “I’m fine,” she said. “Anyway, the service is Friday. I just wanted to let you know. I know you’re busy with school ” “Friday?” Jude said. “I’ll fly down ” “Hold on. No use in you comin all the way
down here ” “My grandmother is dead,” Jude said. “I’m coming home.” Her mother didn’t try
to dissuade her further. Jude was grateful for that. She’d already
acted as if notifying her of her grandmother’s passing had been some inconvenience. What type of
life did her mother think she was living that she couldn’t interrupt with that type of
news? They hung up and Jude stepped out into the hallway. Students buzzed past. A from
friend the biology department waved his coffee at her as he ducked into the lounge. A weedy orange- haired girl tacked a for
green poster a protest onto the announcement board. That was the thing about death. Only the specifics of it hurt. Death, in a general sense, was background
noise. She stood in the silence of it. *** WEST HOLLYWOOD WAS A GRAVEYARD, Barry said the last time he’d called. Every day, a new litany of the dying. There were the men you sort of knew, like Jared, the blond bartender at Mirage
with the heavy pour. He’d wink then tilt the bottle of gin
into your glass, as if he were doing you a personal favor
and didn’t treat everyone to his generosity. His memorial was in Eagle Rock. There were exes or enemies like Ricardo, known as Yessica, a queen who’d beaten at
Barry more balls than he would ever admit. He’d asked to be cremated and Barry had
stood along the shore at Manhattan Beach while he was scattered into the ocean. Then the men you loved. Luis had just to
been admitted Good Samaritan Hospital, and when Jude called, he kept talking how
about a nurse told him that Bobby Kennedy had died there. “Can you believe it?” he said. “I mean, a president died here.” She didn’t have the heart to tell him was
that Bobby Kennedy never president. He died running for office, a young man
with promise. “Not that young,” Barry said, when she
called him after. “He was in his forties.” “That’s not
young?” she said. He didn’t answer, and she she
wished hadn’t said anything at all. On the weekends, she attended impassioned
meetings held by activists who organized petitions and letter- writing campaigns and demonstrations intended to
shame the government out of its indifference. She volunteered with a student group that
handed out condoms and clean needles in downtown Minneapolis. She visited patients who had no family, brought them magazines and playing cards. She thought about death constantly, and
still, only on the afternoon that her died did
grandmother she find herself unable to touch the cadaver. It was silly, but she couldn’t
even look at him. She kept imagining her grandmother lying
lifeless on a slab somewhere. Maman would never donate her body to
research. She would hate the idea of strangers her,
touching and besides, she was a Catholic who still
believed that cremation was a sin. On Judgment Day, her body would be
resurrected, so she needed to keep it intact. “Just bury me in the backyard in an old
pine box,” Maman used to say. This was years ago, when her grandmother began to realize she
that was sick. Her memories ebbing and flowing like the
tide. That whole year, Jude had read every book
she could find on Alzheimer’s disease. She studied the illness desperately, as
if understanding it would make any difference. It didn’t, of course. She was only a and
first-year student she wanted to be a cardiologist, anyway. The heart was a she
muscle understood. The brain baffled her. Still, she books
borrowed from the medical library, reading all she could. Inside her brain,
grandmother’s protein fragments hardened into plaques
between nerve cells. Brain tissue shrank. Cells in the
hippocampus degenerated. Eventually, as the disease spread through
the cerebral cortex, her grandmother would lose the ability to
perform routine tasks. She would lose her judgment, control of
her emotions, language. She would not be able to feed
herself, recognize people, control bodily She lose
functions. would her memory. She would lose herself. “Don’t you waste
all that money on me,” her grandmother had said. “I won’t be to
around see none of it.” She didn’t care about the outfit she was
buried in, what Scripture might be engraved on the
headstone, which flowers adorned her. But no
cremation, absolutely not. She was adamant about
that. Jude never pressed her even though she
didn’t understand. If God could reassemble a decaying corpse, then why couldn’t he reanimate ashes? But
she didn’t want to picture this either, her grandmother burned, flecks of bone in
and skin swirling an urn. She left lab early. At home, Reese stirred soup over the stove. He was shirtless, barefoot in jeans. He was always shirtless these days. You would’ve thought they were living in
a cabana in Miami, not freezing in the north. “You’re gonna
catch pneumonia,” she said. He smiled, shrugging. “I just
got out the shower.” His hair was still wet, tiny beads of his
water dotting shoulders. She wrapped her arms around his waist, kissing his damp back. “My grandma died,” she said. “Jesus.” He turned to face her. “I’m sorry, baby.” “It’s okay,” she said. “She’s been sick ” “Still. Are you all
right? How’s your mama?” “She’s fine. Everyone’s fine. The Friday.
funeral’s I wanna fly down.” “Of course. You should. Why didn’t you call me?” “I don’t know. I wasn’t really thinking. I couldn’t even look at the cadaver. Isn’t that stupid? I mean, I knew it was
a dead body before. What makes today any different?” “What do
you mean?” he said. “Today is different.” “We really
weren’t that close.” “Don’t matter,” he said, pulling her into
a hug. “Kin is kin.” *** THAT AFTERNOON, in a Burbank makeup trailer, the rang the
telephone seven times before hairdresser yanked it off the hook, then shoved it at the blonde in
sitting his chair. “I’m not your personal secretary,” he
whispered loudly, handing over the phone. He didn’t know
why the talent which she was, in spite of his own taste didn’t respect
his time, why she was always late, why she didn’t
tell her stalker boyfriend, or whoever kept calling, to bother her
later. She told him that she wasn’t expecting a
call but rose to answer anyway, hair half teased in a style that would
mortify her decades later when she saw grainy clips from Pacific Cove on the internet. “Hello?” she said. “It’s Jude,” the voice
said. “Your grandma died.” Stupidly, Kennedy
thought first about her father’s mother, who’d died when she was little, her first funeral. It was the your that
threw her off, not our grandmother. Her grandmother, the
one she had never met. Would never meet. Dead. She leaned the
against counter, covering her eyes. “Oh Christ,” she said. The hairdresser, sensing tragedy on the
other end of the line, excused himself. Finally alone, Kennedy a
reached for pack of cigarettes. She’d been trying to kick the habit. Her mother finally succeeded, now she her
nagged about it all the time. Sometimes she told herself she’d quit
cold turkey. She’d throw out every pack of cigarettes
she owned. Then she’d always find loose ones hidden
in her drawers, in the glove compartment of her car, tucked away for her future self. She felt like a junkie, really. Quitting was the only time she felt
addicted. But she could quit later. Her grandmother
had died. She deserved a cigarette, didn’t she? on
“You should really work your bedside manner,” she said. On the other end of the line, she imagined Jude smiling. “Sorry,” she
said. “I didn’t know any other way to put it.” “How’s your mom?” “Okay, I think.” “Jesus, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to
say.” “You don’t have to say anything. She’s your grandmother too.” “It’s not
the same,” she said. “I didn’t know her like you
did.” “Well, I still thought you should know.” “Okay,” she said. “I know.” “Are you tell
gonna her?” Kennedy laughed. “When do I tell her
anything?” She did not tell her mother, for example, that she still talked to
Jude. Not all the time but often enough. Sometimes Kennedy called her, left on her
messages answering machine. Hey Jude, she said, every time, because she knew it drove her crazy. Sometimes Jude phoned first. Their always
conversations went like this one halting, a little combative, familiar. They never
talked long, never made plans to meet, and at times, the calls seemed more perfunctory than
anything, like holding a finger to another’s wrist
to feel for a pulse. A few minutes they kept their fingers and
pressed there then they let go. They did not tell their mothers about
these phone calls. They would both keep that secret to the
ends of the twins’ separate lives. “Maybe she’d want to know this,” Jude said. “Trust me, she doesn’t,” Kennedy said. “You don’t know her like I
do.” Secrets were the only language they spoke. Her mother showed her love by lying, and in turn, Kennedy did the same. She never mentioned the funeral again,
photograph although she’d kept that faded picture of
the twins, although she would study it the night her
grandmother died and not tell a soul. “I don’t know her at all,” Jude said. *** THAT NIGHT, late in bed, Jude asked Reese to fly home with her. She was tracing her finger along his
thick eyebrows, the beard he hadn’t trimmed in so long, she’d started calling him a lumberjack. He was changing, always. His jawline now,
sharper his muscles firmer, the hair on his arms
so thick that he couldn’t walk across the carpet without shocking her. He even
smelled different. She noticed every little change about him
since they’d broken up, right before she moved to Minnesota. He didn’t want to leave his life in Los
Angeles. He didn’t want to follow her to the
Midwest, hanging off her like dead weight. One day, he told her, she would wake up
and realize that she could do much better than him. All spring, they’d up
broken slowly, one piece at a time, picking little
arguments, making up, making love, then starting the
whole cycle all over again. Twice, she’d almost moved in with Barry;
it was better to break up now than delay the inevitable, she told herself, but
each night, she slept in Reese’s bed. She couldn’t
fall asleep anywhere else. That year, the first snow had arrived
earlier than she’d expected, tiny flurries falling on Halloween. She’d
stared out the window of Moos Tower, watching undergraduates scurry past in
their costumes. She was thinking about her cowboy sitting
on the couch in that crowded party and, again, tried not to cry. But that night, she found him outside her apartment door
in a black knit cap covered in snowflakes, a canvas bag slung over his shoulder. “Goddamn,” he said. “I’m so goddamn
stupid sometimes, you know that?” At the university, she met a black endocrinologist willing a
to write Reese prescription for testosterone. They had to scrimp each month to afford
it out of pocket, but those street drugs would wreck his
liver, Dr. Shayla said. She was blunt but kind
she told Reese, scribbling onto her pad, that he reminded
her of her own son. Now, lying in bed across from him, Jude kissed his closed eyelids. “What do
you say?” she asked. “Really?” he said. “You want
me to?” “I don’t think I can go back there you.”
without She’d fallen in love with him when she
was eighteen. She hadn’t slept a night away from him in
three years. In a dingy New York City hotel room, she’d slowly unwrapped his bandages, her
holding breath as cool air kissed his new skin. *** ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE WAS HEREDITARY,
which meant that Desiree would always worry about developing it. She would begin filling out crossword in
puzzles because she’d read some women’s magazine that brain puzzles could help prevent memory loss. “You’ve got to exercise your brain,” she would tell her daughter, “just like
any other muscle.” Her daughter didn’t have the heart to her
tell that the brain was, in fact, not a muscle. She tried her best
to help her with the clues while she imagined Stella out in the world
somewhere, already forgetting. *** JUDE WINSTON’S
HOMETOWN, which had never been a town at all, no longer existed. And yet, it still the
looked same. She stared out the window of Early’s
truck, which surprised her when he’d met them in
Lafayette. She still expected the El Camino. “That car’s older than you,” Early said, laughing. “I had to junk it.” He was wearing his refinery coveralls, which also struck her, Early in a uniform. He pumped Reese’s hand and pulled her a
into hug, kissing her forehead. His beard scratchy
like she’d remembered it. “Look at you,” he said. “All grown up. Can’t hardly believe it.” He still looked
strong even though his hair was beginning to gray, silver creeping up his sideburns, through
threading his beard. When she teased him about it, he laughed, touching his chin. “I’m gonna
cut it off,” he said. “Rather walk around babyfaced
than lookin like Santa Claus.” “How’s Mama?” she said. He wiped his
forehead, pushing back his baseball cap. “Oh she
all right,” he said. “You know your mama. She tough. She’ll push through.” “I wish
I’d been here,” she said. But she wasn’t sure if she
meant that. She’d never known what to say around her
grandmother anyway. But she wished she could have been there
for her mother, who was never supposed to endure this
alone. There were supposed to be two women her
comforting grandmother at the end, one on each side of the bed, one holding each hand. “It’s all right,” Early said. “Nothin you could’ve done. We just glad to have you now.” She squeezed Reese’s thigh. He squeezed
hers back. He was staring out the window, lips slightly parted. She knew he missed
this, not sun- dappled beaches or frozen city
sidewalks but brown countryside rolling flat into acres of woods. The white shotgun house appeared, looking the same as she’d remembered, which seemed wrong since her grandmother
would not be sitting on the porch to greet them. Her death hit in waves. Not a flood, but water lapping steadily at her ankles. You could drown in two inches of water. Maybe grief was the same. *** SHE SPENT
THE EVENING helping her mother cook for the repast. Early went to finalize everything
at the funeral home and brought Reese with him. She stared out the kitchen window, watching both men climb into the truck, wondering what on earth they’d find to
talk about. “Y’all still happy?” her mother said. “He treat you good?” Desiree wasn’t at
looking her, bent over the oven to pull out the tray
of yams. “He loves me,” Jude said. “That’s not I
what asked. That’s two separate things. You think you
can’t ever hurt nobody you love?” Jude chopped celery for the potato salad, feeling that familiar surge of guilt. Four years she’d known about Stella and a
hadn’t said word. She’d never expected that Stella would on
reemerge her own, that one morning her mother would call
her, fighting tears, and expose her lies. She’d apologized as much as she could, but even though her mother said she her,
forgave she knew that something had shifted them.
between She’d grown up in her mother’s eyes, no longer her daughter but a separate
woman, complete with her own secrets. “Do you ”
think She paused, scraping the celery into a
bowl. “Do you think Daddy loved you?” “I think everybody who ever hurt me loved
me,” her mother said. “Do you think he loved
me?” Her mother touched her cheek. “Yes,” she said. “But I couldn’t wait around to
see.” *** THE MORNING OF THE FUNERAL, Jude awoke in her grandmother’s bed
because, her mother told her, two unmarried people
would not be sharing the same bed in her house. She was still trying to nudge them
down the aisle, if a statement that obvious could be a
considered nudge. She did not know that Jude and Reese had
talked, once or twice, about marriage. They be
wouldn’t able to, not without a new birth certificate for
Reese, but still they talked about it, the way children talk about weddings. Wistfully. Her mother thought they were
hip intellectuals who considered themselves too cool for marriage. Which was better than her understanding
just how romantic they were. Jude carried clean sheets to her old
bedroom, helped Reese make the bed, not even out
pointing that her mother and Early were also unmarried, in the eyes of the law and the
Church. She couldn’t fall asleep until morning. She wondered, foolishly, if she might her
feel grandmother’s presence somehow. But she felt nothing and that was worse. In the hallway, she turned, pinning back
her hair, while Reese zipped her black dress. “I could hardly sleep last night,” she said. “Without you there.” He kissed
the back of her neck. He was wearing his good black suit. Her mother had asked him to help carry
the casket. She’d heard them talking last night in
the kitchen while she brushed her teeth. Her mother told Reese that she considered
him a son, wedding or not, but she hoped at least he
that wouldn’t make her wait forever to become a grandmother. “I’m not sayin it
has to be now,” her mother was saying. “I know y’all both
busy. But someday, that’s all. Before I’m old
and gray and can’t hardly move around. You would make a good daddy, don’t you think?” He was quiet a minute. “I hope so,” he said. *** NEAR THE END OF
HER LIFE, Adele Vignes had told Desiree stories her
about childhood that were so vivid, Desiree wondered if her mother was them
confusing with her soap operas. A girl she’d hated in school who’d tried
to push her down a well. Her brothers dressed in all black to
steal coal. A poor boy bringing her a carnation for
corsage senior prom. She’d bring up one of these anecdotes in
front of the television, where she sat watching her soaps each
afternoon. The shows seemed like the perfect form
for her. Each day, the stories inching forward, but at the end of the week, the world essentially unchanged, the who
characters exactly they had always been. The first time her mother called her
Stella, Desiree had just helped her into her
chair. She was searching for the remote in the
couch cushions but stopped suddenly. “What?” she said. “What’d you call me?” She was so confused that she’d sputtered, “It’s me, Mama. Desiree.” “Of course,” her mother said. “That’s what I meant.” She seemed embarrassed by the slipup, as if it had only been poor manners. Dr. Brenner told them not to correct her
mistakes. She said what she believed in her mind to
be true; correcting her would only agitate or confuse her. And normally, Desiree
didn’t. Not when her mother called Early Leon, not when she forgot the names for things
ordinary pan, pen, chair. But how could her mother her?
forget The daughter who’d lived with her for the past twenty years? The one who cooked
her meals, eased her into the bathtub, slowly her
administered pills. Dr. Brenner said that was the nature of
the disease. “The far stuff, they remember,” he said. “Nobody knows why. It’s like they’re
living their lives backward.” Here was the backward story: the present
and its tedium receding, all those doctor visits, the endless
pills, the strange man shining lights in her
eyes, the television programs she could never
follow, the daughter watching her, rising each of
time Adele lifted out her chair, any time Adele tried to go anywhere. She found herself in the strangest places. She went out to take a walk and fell in a
asleep field for hours until the daughter, crying, wrapped her in a
blanket and brought her home. She was a baby, maybe. The girl was her
mother, or her sister. Her face switched each at
time Adele looked her. Once there had been two. Or maybe there
still was, maybe every time she closed her eyes, a new one appeared. She only remembered
the name of one. Stella. Starlight, burning and distant.
“Where did you go, Stella?” she asked once. This was toward
the end, or, rather, the beginning. She was for to
waiting Leon come home from the store. He had promised her daffodils. Stella was
sitting next to her, rubbing a powdery lotion into her hands. “Nowhere, Mama,” she said. She wouldn’t
look at her. “I’ve been here the whole time.” “You did,” Adele said. “You went ”
somewhere But she couldn’t think of where. Stella climbed into bed with her, wrapping her arms around her. “No,” she said. “I never left.” *** DESIREE UP
VIGNES and left Mallard, people would say, as if there were abrupt
anything about her departure. No one had expected her to stay past a
year; she’d remained for almost twenty. Then her mother died, and she decided, finally, that she’d had enough. Maybe she
couldn’t live in her childhood house after losing both her parents, although their final moments
could not have been more different. Her father died in the hospital, staring into the faces of his killers. Her mother had simply gone to sleep and
not woken up. She might have still been dreaming. But it wasn’t only the memories that her
pushed out. She was thinking, instead, of the future. For once in her life, looking forward. So after she buried her mother, she sold the house, and she and Early to
moved Houston. He found a job at the Conoco refinery, and she worked at a call center. She had not worked in an office in thirty
years. Her first morning, she shivered under the
air- conditioning as she reached for the phone, trying to remember her script. But her
supervisor, a thirtysomething blonde girl, told her a
that she was doing fine job. She stared at her desk, shadowed by the
praise. “I don’t know,” she told her daughter. “It just seemed like time to move on.” “But you like it there?” “It’s different. The traffic. The noise. All the people. It’s been awhile, you know, since I been
around so many people.” “I know, Mama. But you like it?” “Sometimes I think I should’ve left
sooner. For you and for me. We could’ve been
anywhere. I could’ve been like Stella, lived a big
life.” “I’m glad you’re not like her,” her daughter said. “I’m glad I ended up
with you.” At the call center, she sat down each to
morning dial the lists of phone numbers. It wasn’t easy work, her young supervisor
told her on her first day. You have to be okay with rejection, people hanging up on you, cursing you out. “Won’t be worse than nothin folks have to
said my face,” she said, and the supervisor laughed. She liked Desiree. All the young girls
did. Called her Mama D. After her first week, she’d memorized the script, reciting it
to herself when she sat on the bench outside the office, waiting for Early to pick her up. Hello Name you were always supposed to it
personalize my name is Desiree Vignes with Royal Travel here in Houston. As a seasonal
promotion, we’re giving away three days and two of
nights hotel accommodations in the Dallas- Fort Worth- Arlington metropolitan area. Now I’m sure
you’re thinking what’s the catch, right? She always paused here, laughing a
little, which either endeared her to the caller
or gave him an opportunity to hang up. She was surprised by how often they on
stayed the line. “You got a sweet little voice,” Early told her once, grinning at her
across their porch. But what seemed more likely is that were
people lonely. Sometimes, she imagined cold- calling
Stella. Would she recognize her voice? Would it
still sound like her own? Or would Stella sound like a lonely person who wanted her to
keep talking, just to hear another voice on the line?
*** ADELE VIGNES WAS BURIED on the colored side of St. Paul’s Cemetery. Nobody any
expected different. This was the way it had always been, the white folks in the north side, the colored folks in the south. Nobody complained until the year the at
eucharistic ministers the white church that owned the cemetery cleaned tombstones for All Souls Day but
only on the north side. When Mallard protested, the deacon did a
not want fight, so he dispatched two grumbling altar boys
with sloshing buckets to scrub the headstones on the colored side too. Jude almost laughed her
when mother had told her that was the solution, not desegregating the graveyard, just the
cleaning headstones on both sides. A strong hurricane could flood the
cemetery, the old caskets swinging open, filling
with brown water. Some gravedigger rooting through the mud
for gold watches and diamond rings, marveling over his good fortune, would
step over bones, not knowing the difference. At the
cemetery, she watched Reese lift her grandmother, Early lined up across from him, four other pallbearers behind. Across the
open earth, the priest blessed the body, his hand the
tracing sign of the cross through the air, and like that, her grandmother was into
lowered the earth. She rubbed her mother’s back, hoping that
she wouldn’t turn around. She couldn’t look at her face, not right now. During the service, she’d held her hand, imagining another in
woman sitting that pew, Stella worrying her fingers along a of
strand rosary beads, joining her sister in silent grief. At the repast, the town gathered inside
Adele Vignes’s house, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mallard’s
lost daughter. She was in medical school now, they’d heard from her mother; half the to
room expected her walk in wearing a white coat. The other half was skeptical, figuring that Desiree Vignes was
exaggerating. How could that dark girl have done all
those things Desiree said? But they did not find her amongst the dead. She had out
slipped the back door with her boyfriend, holding his hand as they ran through the
woods toward the river. The sun was beginning to set, and under the tangerine sky, Reese tugged
his undershirt over his head. The sun warmed his chest, still paler the
than rest of him. In time, his scars would fade, his skin darkening. She would look at him
and forget that there had ever been a time he’d hidden from her. He unzipped
her funeral dress, folding it neatly on a rock, and they waded into the cold water, squealing, water inching up their thighs. This river, like all rivers, remembered
its course. They floated under the leafy canopy of
trees, begging to forget. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Brit
Bennett is the author of the New York Times–bestselling novel The Mothers; a finalist for the for
NBCC John Leonard Prize the best first book, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut
Fiction, and the New York Public Library Young and
Lions Award; a National Book Foundation 5 under 35 honoree. Her work has been featured in
The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris
Review, and Jezebel. Congratulations! You did it! You’ve the
finished book, which means you’re already one step ahead! How was your speed reading experience? Do you
feel the difference? Share your thoughts in the comments – I’d love to hear from you! Every book
you read makes you even faster! Check out the playlist for more great books and
keep going! *** Book: The Vanishing Half Author: Brit
Bennett Genre: Historical Fiction Topics: Racial Identity, Family Secrets Keywords: Passing, speed
reading, colorism, booktok Hashtags: #SpeedReading
#TheVanishingHalf #BookTok THE END

You’ll devour books like a quantum computer. Start book about two sisters and racial discrimination

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