Calling Me Home (17 page)

“I don’t know. I’d like to think this man I’ve seen a few times—Teague?—is a good guy, but I don’t trust myself anymore. I almost prefer the known evil—the guys I can tell will spoon-feed me whatever I want to hear, then break my heart one more time in the process. But this one? Miss Isabelle, you know that saying, If it looks too good to be true—”

“—it probably is,” she said, finishing for me. “But maybe not every time.”

I told her about asking Teague to check on my shop, about how I wanted so much to believe he was trustworthy and would do what he said, no more, no less. About how my batting average in picking trustworthy men was about as low as you could go.

“How long have you known him?”

“We’ve been going out a little while, but—”

“When’s the last time you asked anyone to do something this big for you?” she asked. “Any man,” she added.

I sipped my coffee and inventoried my past relationships. “A while.” I shook my head. “Okay, a long … long … time.”

“You know more than you think you do, then. Give yourself credit.”

“Maybe. But damn—
darn
it, if he lets me down, I am through with men. I’m done. Who needs them?”

She sighed and shrugged, her gaze fuzzy and unfocused. We finished eating in silence.

*   *   *

I
’D REFILLED THE
tank and climbed back into the driver’s seat at a gas station near the Memphis hotel when my phone rang. Miss Isabelle sat patiently while I dug the thing out of my pocket.

“Hey, Teague, what’s the news?”

“Hi.”

I could tell by his voice, by the ginger way he greeted me, by what he didn’t say and the silence drawn out long and heavy over the line. “Just tell me.”

“I’m at the shop.”

“Yeah?”

“Someone definitely broke in since you left. I’m sorry, Dorrie. Wish I had better news.”

I closed my eyes and sighed through my nose. “The money?”

“Gone.”

I slammed my palm on Miss Isabelle’s steering wheel, and she jumped an inch in her seat. “Sorry,” I muttered, my hand over the receiver.

“It’s okay, honey,” she whispered, motioning for me to continue my conversation.

“What else?”

“Well, they jimmied the lock to get in. The file cabinet is messed up pretty good, too. Pried open with a crowbar or something. Knocked over a few things here and there. That’s it.”

It was more than enough. I never left the file cabinet locked overnight—probably a dead giveaway where I kept the money. I cursed myself for not putting in an alarm system. Every month I swore I’d do it. Until I paid bills. Then I decided to wait another month. The doors in the old-fashioned strip mall were too easy to burglarize. It hadn’t mattered much, though I’d spent some money fixing the lock the other times. In the long run, it had cost me less to replace locks than it would have to install and monitor an alarm system. But I’d never forgotten money before. The scales had tipped.

“Still there?”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “Look, would it be too much trouble for you to make a police report?”

“Of course not. I’m also going to run by Home Depot for something to board up the door until you get back. Work for you?”

“Oh, Teague.” I shook my head. “You’re a lifesaver. I’m sorry to get you involved.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s no trouble at all, and I’d like to think you’d do the same thing for me if the tables were turned.”

I wondered. Honestly, I’d probably run the other way, faster than a bullet. I’d had enough of needy men to last me a couple of lifetimes and then some. Then again, none of them had been Teague. He blew me away. He wasn’t just kind; his concern had legs that walked.

As soon as I disconnected, though, I started second-guessing. Miss Isabelle watched me. She could probably see the little nerves running up and down my stomach muscles, clenching their fists and pumping them in the air, chanting, “Run away! Run away! Run away!” Telling me Teague could have done the damage himself, then pocketed the money and lied right across the phone line. I pulled onto the interstate and stared at the flat road out of Memphis.

“I’m sorry, Dorrie. I feel responsible. But for me asking you to bring me on this trip, it never would have happened. Between this and your worries about Stevie Junior, I feel like we should go home. At the very least, I’d like to reimburse you for the money you lost.” I shrugged. I wanted to scream and throw a hissy fit about the money. Even worse, I knew I might have to put down my pride and take her up on the reimbursement—as a loan, of course. But going home wasn’t going to change anything right now.

She didn’t speak again for a while. About ten miles down the road, she pulled her crossword puzzle book out and flipped to a clean page. She peered at the clues and scribbled a few answers. My hand was clenching the armrest, and she reached over to pat the back of it. “Try not to worry, Dorrie. About the money or the man. I have a feeling both will work out fine. Now, help me. The first one is two across—which hardly
ever
happens—and it’s six letters.…”

I listened with half an ear while I rattled around my head for another kind of answer.

13

Isabelle, 1939

T
WO WEEKS.

Two weeks since I’d seen him. Two weeks since he’d kissed me. Two weeks since I’d told him I loved him.

I began to imagine he’d seen my confession as the ridiculous and dangerous ravings of a schoolgirl. He wouldn’t humor them. He’d never set foot near my house again, and he’d avoid any possibility our paths would cross if he could help it.

But then one day, he showed up to help my father repair the retaining wall. The sand packed around the grooved chunks of limestone was eroding, and my father feared their hard work from the previous summer would go to waste, the stones would eventually loosen, and then the front yard would slide slowly south until it simply fell away from the house, leaving us teetering on top of the hill.

Monday, the hardware store delivered three bags of cement at the bottom of the steps. Late in the afternoon, Robert met my father there. He instructed Robert how to mix the concrete. I watched from an upstairs window, hidden behind lace curtains. The sun sank lower, and Robert shook hands with my father. He went away down the street, away from me again.

But the next morning, he returned before I woke to mix concrete in the wheelbarrow, then scoop and force it carefully between the stones, using a damp rag to wipe away traces from their outside surfaces so their textures remained visible from the street. My father, busy with patients, left the work to Robert’s capable hands.

My tension swelled while I waited for an opportunity to speak to him, for a workable excuse. When my mother retired for her rest after our midday meal, I rushed to the kitchen. Cora was peeling eggs to devil for our supper. Nell was occupied somewhere in the house, maybe even absent. I hadn’t seen or heard her for several hours.

“It’s miserable outside again,” I said to Cora, and dropped into a chair across from her.

“Lordy, yes, Miss Isabelle. This summer’s about to kill me. I feel for my son out there in that blistering heat, but I expect he’ll survive. You young people tolerate weather better than us old folks.”

It had been a long, long time since she’d mentioned Robert in my presence. “Do we have lemonade, Cora? I sure could use a cold glass.”

“We do. Give me a minute, and I’ll pour you some.”

“I’ll get it.” I hurried to the cabinet and pulled out two glasses. Cora raised her eyebrows when she saw them, but she said nothing. I chipped ice off the block and filled both glasses, then poured Cora’s fresh-squeezed lemon goodness over it. “Thank you, Cora. I’ll carry Robert a glass, too. He must be thirsty in the heat.”

“Oh, no, Miss Isabelle.” She’d peeled the last egg and hurried to wipe her hands down her apron after rinsing them at the sink. “No need. I’ll take it. And you can’t use that glass for—”

“I’ve got it,” I said. My look gave her no chance to argue, though I hated pulling rank to get what I wanted. I cringed at the loud sigh emanating from the kitchen behind me as I hurried down the hallway. I used my arm and hip to push open the screen door, then left my glass on one of the flat slabs jutting away from the porch on either side of the steps. It would give the impression I hadn’t intended to do anything more than deliver Robert’s drink. I carried his glass down the walkway and descended the steps to the street.

He blinked when he saw me, then buried the blade of his trowel in the wheelbarrow. He’d just mixed a fresh batch of concrete. He waited wordlessly; I felt suddenly shy.

Finally, I offered the glass of lemonade. Confusion clouded his eyes as he looked from the glass to his hands and back. As Cora had pointed out, I’d unthinkingly used one of our nicer glasses. Obviously, he worried he’d ruin it with the half-dried mess on his hands. But I had a handkerchief tucked in my side pocket. I pulled it out and wrapped it around the glass.

“How’s that fancy thing any better? I’ll mess it up, too.”

“It’s an old one.” Or maybe it was one of my newest handkerchiefs, cut and edged by me in a fit of boredom earlier that month—and likely laundered, pressed, and starched by his mother or sister a day or two before.

He glanced around dubiously, but I thrust the glass closer, and he took it. The contrast of the back of his hand against the snowy square was startling in the harsh sunshine. I reached to shade my eyes.

He gulped the lemonade and returned the glass before I could even lean against the stones he hadn’t begun to repair yet. But lean I did. He turned back to the wheelbarrow and pulled his trowel from the quickly setting glop. “Have to hurry. This hardens fast.”

“Don’t let me keep you from working. Pretend I’m not even here.” It was a directive, not a pleasantry. He craned his neck to look up at the front windows of the house, but his mother was the only one aware I was there. She couldn’t see me even if she happened to be looking. And the street curved slightly before reaching my house at the end of a narrow lane, so even our nosy neighbors couldn’t see me wedged against the wall. The lane ran into a meadow too damp for building on and eventually met the creek where Robert taught me to catch minnows, where we’d been caught in that fateful thunderstorm.

“So, what’ve you been up to these last few weeks, Robert? Since I saw you.”

He pressed the lumpy mixture between stones rhythmically, smoothing it around each, then wiping them clean. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“I’ve missed you,” I said, wasting no more time with small talk. Any second, someone could interrupt us, looking for me, wondering why the ice melted in my lemonade on the porch while I’d wandered off.

His hand, holding the handle of the trowel, paused against a stone with fossils clearly embedded in its surface. “You can’t. It’s a bad idea. I told you. That whole night—you know it was a mistake.”

“Don’t tell me what I feel. I did miss you. Horribly, the last fifteen days. I counted. I thought I would fade to nothing before I saw you again.”

He turned and I detected a gleam in his eyes at my drama, but when he saw my sober face—I meant every word—the amusement fell away. “Okay, then,” he said. “I admit it, I missed you, too. I hear you. I understand it. But, Isa, I asked you then, what can we do about it? Nothing. You know it. I know it. We’re like that concrete there. Mix you and me together, and we make something too hard to work with in the wrong place. This here”—he gestured around him, indicating more than the street in front of my house, his hand encompassing the town, maybe even the whole world—“is the wrong place. It’s flat illegal. We’d be crazy to even consider it.”

“It’s too late. We’ve already considered it. It’s a good thing, Robert. You know it is.”

“You might think I’m being mean and ugly here, but, Isabelle, you’ve got to leave me alone.” He’d returned to his work, but he stopped again now and looked me full in the face. “You want to get me killed?”

I trembled. He spoke the truth.

His rejection had already rubbed me raw, torn me open—even if it was a rejection of what could be and not what we both felt. The truth blistered my heart.

My eyes filled, and he turned away fast, but not before I felt the full force of his own emotion and reaction to my sadness slam back into me. I gripped the empty glass, though my handkerchief slipped loose and fluttered to the ground as I turned away. When I paused to retrieve my glass from the stoop, I saw him bend to pick up the delicate fabric, and he raised it toward me. I shook my head and he dropped his hand, then lifted the hankie again and pressed it into the pocket sewn against his heart.

Inside, I nearly plowed through Nell, who stood frozen by the door, her face stricken. I knew she’d witnessed what she could see from there. The last, important part. She bowed her head as I pushed past. I crashed the glasses down on the kitchen counter, neither bothering to empty mine nor wipe up the sticky mess I created as lemonade splashed over its rim. Cora was nowhere around now. I ran past Nell again and up the stairs to my room, where I threw myself on my bed, my face pressed hard into my pillow. But anyone in the hallway might still have heard my angry cries.

I’d so longed to see Robert again, where I could force the matter into the light of day. I’d known there was a greater chance he’d turn me away than welcome our forbidden relationship. But the reality hurt more than I’d imagined.

I’d allowed myself to dream of the two of us sneaking behind our families’ backs if that’s what it took, stealing time where we could. I’d not thought past that to the inevitable end—for we’d have had to end it eventually.

Robert was right. Marriage between Negroes and whites was not only taboo but also illegal. What good was our love if consecration in the eyes of God and the law was forbidden?

But in my selfishness, I was devastated that Robert wasn’t willing to borrow what we could. I was furious, not only with him but with myself, for allowing my heart to dream. I was embarrassed and ashamed.

For days, I went downstairs only for meals when my mother or father insisted, or to go out for church on Sundays.