It's Not Like I Knew Her (20 page)

“Hey, there, pretty thing. Who's your young rooster?” The woman had a face that would scatter little children.

Crystal Ann embraced the woman. “Her name's Jodie. She's good.” The woman looked her over, head to foot, and Jodie felt as though she'd had her tires kicked, hood raised, and was about to be taken for a test drive.

“Good and lucky if you ask me.” She turned to Jodie. “Come on in, gal, and grow your young self a wattle.”

The woman winked at Crystal Ann, and she squeezed Jodie's hand, her expression reminding Jodie of the uneasy way Ginger's mama had smiled when the preacher came for Sunday dinner and Ginger's daddy had gone early to the sauce.

They picked their way among tight groups of women seated at mismatched tables—more women than Jodie had imagined in her wildest dreams. For the first time ever, she saw women dancing together. She feared her intense staring would pop her eyes clear out of their sockets. She felt a bit unsteady, and squeezed her eyes shut.

Crystal Ann paused to hug one woman and yet another, and clutched Jodie's hand, encouraging her along, shouting her name over the noise. Most nodded nice enough, but there were those who stared the way Teddy had, sizing her up, for exactly what she wasn't sure.

“Hey, sweetness.” A woman, her pink scalp showing beneath her cotton candy–like hair, grabbed Crystal Ann around the waist, drawing her to sit across her thick thighs. Jodie judged the woman to have done her share of heavy work.

“Got you a young one, but is she naughty enough to satisfy your appetite?” She buried her face between Crystal Ann's breasts.

Crystal Ann threw her head back, pretending a sensual moan, and cradling the woman's washboard face between her palms, she kissed her.

“No one does it better than you, Miss Doris.”

“Oh, baby girl, you'll always have a place in my old heart.” The woman's voice was wet with emotion.

Those nearby cheered and clapped, and Jodie felt an odd bout of jealousy toward the old woman's intimacy and those who'd cheered her. Still, she didn't know what to make of what she'd witnessed: women openly engaging each other, easily joking about their sexual desires. She was both astonished and aroused by their brazenness.

They made their way across the room to the bar, Crystal Ann explaining, “The woman back there is seventy-nine. Poor thing lost her soul-mate of forty-seven years last September. She isn't likely to get over it in this lifetime.”

Jodie understood Crystal Ann's comment to mean Miss Doris, like Maggie or Miss Ruth under the same circumstances, would run out of time before she ran out of grief. Jodie was embarrassed by her earlier jealousy.

They reached the bar fashioned from the ripped length of a half-inch sheet of plywood and supported by carpenter's sawhorses. Crystal Ann leaned across it and called to the woman elbow deep in a washing machine tub filled with chipped ice.

When the woman straightened to her full height, Jodie pushed back on the bar stool, unable to conceal her amazement. She could be none other than Gabby, a full six feet or better, weighing at least two thirty, maybe more. She was the second woman, after Lou Palmer, to cause Jodie to feel normal. The breadth of her smile matched her size, and when she opened her mouth to speak, Jodie braced for a voice equal to the roar of a hurricane.

“Hey, gal, damned if I hadn't started to worry you'd jilted me for some skinny bitch.” Her voice was gentle as a receding tide licking sand.

“No, darling, you're the only woman for me.” Crystal Ann's face brightened, her come-on playful.

“Uh-huh, I know that's right.” Gabby slid an icy Pabst along the bar into Crystal Ann's open hand. “That one you got there with you even old enough to drink?” She placed a bowl of freshly popped popcorn in front of Crystal Ann. “Reckon I could gig around in that damn ice long enough to turn up an RC.”

“Not necessary. I'll have what she's drinking.”

Crystal Ann cut Jodie a look.

“It's not exactly like I got raised by church-goers.” The swagger she'd intended fell limp like bird shit on her shoulder.

Gabby cocked her head to one side and a slow smile spread across her face. She reached and pulled a second beer from the tub and slid it along the bar. “First one's on the house.”

Jodie fumbled a clean catch, recovered, and mumbled her thanks.

The big woman laced six beers between her broad fingers like cheap glass jewelry and walked toward the sound of her name.

Jodie sat, drinking the bitter beer in slow, measured swallows. There was everything soothing about the closeness of other women that slowed her heart rhythm, and she took her second deep breath since leaving Catawba.

When she'd begun to feel less conspicuous, she noticed the crowd noises building behind her and swiveled about, daring to search among the women for the one she'd imagined since arriving in Selma. She saw no one she preferred over Crystal Ann.

Jodie followed Crystal Ann to a table where they joined Teddy and Maxine. Jodie tried not to stare at Teddy, but she couldn't get over her transformation from Ted to the Teddy sitting across from her. While Teddy wasn't a woman Jodie could ever think of as pretty, just now she was softer, less harsh. Maybe what she saw were glimpses of Teresa, and Jodie contemplated the extent of Teresa's compromise in becoming Ted.

Jodie watched as Teddy and Maxine took to the crowded dance floor. She envied the familiar way in which Maxine slipped into Teddy's arms and Teddy's surprising grace as she guided Maxine across the floor.

“How ‘bout it, Jodie Taylor, you want to dance?” Crystal Ann leaned and placed warm fingertips on Jodie's cheek. Her closeness was such that Jodie felt the heat of her stronger than ever. She felt dizzy, deciding it was the effect of the beers she'd drunk.

“With you? Oh, no. I couldn't.” Her face caught fire. “What I mean is … I don't dance. Never learned.”

Crystal Ann stood next to Jodie, her hand extended. The women at the next table stopped talking among themselves and stared.

“Hell, gal, forget that pup. I'll dance you right out that door into the back seat of my car.”

Crystal Ann twisted her butt at the woman. “Lord, darling, how many times I gotta turn you down? That bucket of bolts you call a car hasn't even got a back seat.”

Their good-natured laughter spread to the next table, and Jodie eyed the door. She'd never danced with anyone other than Silas, and only when he'd gotten crazy and insisted on thinking of her as his girl.

“I'm not asking twice.”

“Okay, I'd love to, but I swear I don't know how.”

“If you've got two good legs, and you do, then you can dance.”

Jodie stood, and Crystal Ann led her through the snickers and onto the dance floor.

“Forget them and follow me,” Crystal Ann whispered.

Jodie's stiffness began to melt, and her two left feet found their rhythm. Dancing with Crystal Ann felt far more natural than she'd ever managed with Silas.

When they weren't dancing, the four of them sat, polishing off pitchers of cold beer and consuming plates of barbeque. Jodie learned that Gabby's famous pork had found its way into the governor's mansion. Jodie laughed at the notion of a crowd of straight politicians chowing down on barbeque shared by women they would surely have arrested and thrown into jail. She remembered Sally ranting that Arthur's uppity black ass would have been gone from the Wing if he were not the best cook in the county. Then, targets of hate made no sense.

Jodie pushed back, looked across the room, and soaked up the good she felt. Was she to find her place among these women? There was so much they could teach her about staying alive while living queer.

J
odie woke to her first alcoholic fog and fumbled her way into her uniform while Crystal Ann poured one cup of coffee after another. They reached Selma at five-forty, a virtual ghost town, streetlights weakened by the density of the fog. Crystal Ann parked the overheating Rambler and sighed relief at the old car having made it this far. Nearing the Wing, Jodie noticed that there was no light streaming into the alley from underneath the kitchen door, and Arthur's car wasn't parked in its usual spot.

“What do you think?”

“I'm thinking we're not the only ones who had ourselves a little too much Christmas cheer,” Crystal Ann cracked, shoving her hands deeper into her coat pockets.

Jodie slowed. “Could be, but I've never known Arthur to be late.”

“He's not exactly late. We're a mite early.” She frowned.

Jodie vacuumed the ratty carpet while Crystal Ann made the day's first coffee. Arthur still hadn't shown, and Jodie began to worry until she remembered his trip to Albany, deciding he'd been delayed.

At six, Sally came charging through the door, the craziness in her eyes at a fever pitch. Jodie had never seen her wound so tight.

“Whoa down, boss lady,” Crystal Ann joshed. “What brings you in at this hour in such a state?”

Without looking her way, Sally yelled for Jodie to shut off the machine.

“I've got a shitload of trouble, that's what.” She glared at Jodie, her eyes flinty, although she'd spoken directly to Crystal Ann.

“Uh-huh, and would that be ongoing trouble, or maybe you're just pissed at Santa?” Crystal Ann glanced over at Jodie, and if she had a notion as to what had put Sally into such a nasty mood, she didn't let on.

“Jodie, just what the hell did you call yourself doing, pissing off Chief? Raining grief down on me?” Sally's eyes bore into Jodie.

“Wait a minute. I never invited that mess.” Jodie pressed her fists at her sides, her anger firing, overtaking her caution. “And … and if kissing his ass is part of this job, then I'm not your gal.”

Sally collapsed into a chair, her face resting in her hands, and mumbled between her fingers, “Lord, don't I wish that was all there was to it.”

“What? What are you saying?” Jodie dropped the vacuum.

“Arthur's dead. That's what.”

Acid from the coffee Jodie had drunk backed into her throat, and she gagged, choking out any words she might have spoken.

“Dead? Just like that?” Crystal Ann's voice was eerily calm. “No damn way.” She dropped onto a stool, her stark features awash in the intermittent flickering of the overhead row of dying lightbulbs.

“Chief and his bunch caught up to him on the Albany highway. The four bragged that they'd beaten him to death. Claimed it was a favor to me.” The dark circles under Sally's puffy eyes were magnified against the pastiness of her skin. “They never even said what he'd done so wrong.”

“He got born black. That's what he did. And you know that's all he did. Why are you just now telling us?” Crystal Ann glared at Sally.

“Had no way,” Sally pleaded. “Got no number for you.”

At the sound of the front door, they each looked up. Bo stood in the doorway, his solemn face ghostly gray, and he glanced nervously behind him at the traffic moving along Water Street. He mumbled something about opening the kitchen door.

“God help us. I guess I will.” Sally started toward the kitchen, and Bo ducked back through the door, disappearing into the alley.

“Sally, wait. Bo knows something he isn't telling.” Imbedded in Bo's uneasiness, Jodie believed, were details about Arthur that Sally didn't have.

“No, Jodie. You stay the hell out of this. You're already way too deep as it is. Chief would be within his rights to demand I fire you for that fool stunt you pulled.”

“I mean to talk to Bo.”

“Do and you're fired.” Sally's eyes brimmed with tears, but there was no doubting her words. She'd chosen to side with Chief to protect her own interests.

“If that's the way it's got to be, I quit.”

“Then get out. And stay the hell away from Bo. Two women alone can't run this place.” Sally hurried from the dining room toward the kitchen.

Jodie turned and started for the door. Her only thought was to get to Bo before Sally.

“Wait, Jodie. Take my car. I'll get the last of your stuff from upstairs. Come for me at quitting time.” Crystal Ann handed Jodie her key ring. “Meet me in front of the dime store. Those bastards don't need to see us together outside of work.” Her voice shook. Crystal Ann hugged her. “Now go.”

Jodie entered the alley and slumped behind a stack of delivery crates. She lit her last cigarette and thought about all the smokes she'd shared with Arthur. Tears fogged her vision, but she was counting on her grief fueling the anger she'd need to get through whatever lay ahead.

It was first light before Bo stepped into the alley. He took one look at her and headed back through the door. She followed him into the kitchen.

“I don't know anything.” His fear was as palpable as hers.

“Yeah, you do, and you're going to tell me.”

“She'll set them men against me. They'll kill me, Miss Jodie. I'm not strong like him.” Bo's hands trembled.

“Strong? You saying—he's not dead?” Her heart slammed into her throat so hard she felt she'd choke on her relief. “Jesus, Bo, I know you're scared. I'm scared. But I'm not budging a step till you tell me what's happened to him.” She stood so close to the trembling man, she smelled his terror. Or was it hers?

“Some say they took what was left of him to the Catholic hospital.”

“His brother's family? Were they with him?”

“Ain't heard about nobody but him.”

“Good. That's real good.” Footsteps sounded in the hallway and Bo paled fair as an Easter lily. Jodie ducked through the door and took the alley to Crystal Ann's car. She started the Rambler, pulled onto the street, and accelerated. She had no real plan. But she'd learn Arthur's fate or die trying.

J
odie approached the hospital and turned onto a driveway with signage denoting the emergency entrance. If Arthur had survived the beating, and Bo was right, he would have entered the hospital through the set of double doors. She'd find him and do whatever he needed. She owed Arthur that much, and after the way in which she'd failed Mr. Samuel, she owed herself a second chance to be more.