Shadows of St. Louis (8 page)

The First Kiss

Thoughts of Henry drifted in and out of her mind as she tried to blink the sleep away. Had he really been in her room?
In her bed?
She must have imagined it. Looking down she saw the wrapping around her ribs. Maybe Charles or Rebecca Jane had doctored her wounds. There was no way it was Henry. He wouldn't enter a Negro's bedroom. He was too decent.

Staring at the clock on the wall, she noticed it was past eleven in the morning. Charles and Rebecca Jane must have done her chores for her in order to let her sleep. She was so grateful to them for everything they had done for her. She really didn’t understand why they treated her so well.

Emma Lynn reached under her pillow and pulled out Henry's knit hat, the last piece of him she'd probably ever have. She remembered talking to him in the alley that morning and telling him goodbye. And she meant goodbye forever.

The sound of her window swinging open jolted her upright.

"Who's there?" she cried clutching the pain in her ribs.

"It's me, Emma," a familiar voice said.

"Henry?" Emma Lynn stood and watched as Henry's thin frame crashed to the floor. She pressed his hat to her heart in order to calm its wild beating.

"I didn't mean to frighten you," he said climbing to his feet. He brushed the dust off of his brown wool pants and said, "I just needed to —" Henry stopped suddenly and stared at her.

"What is it?" she asked.

"My hat.
You...you kept it with you."

Emma Lynn looked down self-consciously. Well of course she’d kept it. It represented him. When she washed it, she made sure to use unscented soap so that it still smelled of him slightly. Several times she had inhaled its scent like some sort of lovesick idiot. She probably looked insane. "Oh, yes, sorry. You can have it back. I didn't really mean to take it. I was going to give it back to you."

She held it out for him, but he didn't reach for it. Instead, he shook his head. "That's not what I want." He took a step forward and added, "There's something I've wanted to do for one month, three weeks and two days and I think I finally have the courage for it."

"What?"

"This." Henry wrapped an arm around Emma Lynn's waist and pulled her close to him.

Emma Lynn ignored the stabbing pain in her chest as she stared into Henry's blue eyes. When she felt his lips on hers, she had to cling to him for fear she'd fall off the edge of the world.

She had imagined kissing him for even longer than the oddly specific time period he had just quoted. She never thought it would ever be possible. Pressed against him, feeling his fiercely rapid heartbeat made her faint with joy. She wove her fingers into his hair and melted into him.

Then suddenly, terror crept in.

Emma Lynn pulled away sharply. "What are we doing? This is nonsense. We can never be together."

Instead of responding, Henry grabbed her hand and pulled her back to him, and kissed her even more passionately.

This was a new Henry. He wasn't the shy, little milkman anymore. She could tell by the power behind his kiss and his
firm hold
around her waist that something in him had changed. He had a newfound determination.

"Emma," he breathed when he finally released her. "I don't care what I have to do. I can never let you go. You are my air."

***

Henry felt exceedingly proud of himself. What had taken him so long to finally kiss the woman he loved?

Somehow they had made it back to her bed. Emma was sitting while Henry rested his head in her lap staring up into her eyes. There was no telling how long they had been in that position studying each other's features as if seeing them for the first time.

"I love you," Emma Lynn said as she ran her fingers through his hair.

Henry could kick himself for not being the first one to say it. Actually, he had said it first the night before but she was asleep. She didn't hear him. He wanted to say something poetic and romantic. Something that let her know how deep his true feelings were, but he couldn't think of anything. So instead he just said, "I love you," and that was enough. He never knew how powerful those three little words were until he said them, felt them and heard them from the lips of his Emma.

Emma Lynn leaned down and kissed him again. He didn't want her to stop.

"This is madness you know?" she said, pulling away. She shook her head and pressed her eyes shut. "I'm Negro. You're never going to be able to take me to meet your parents or walk with me in public. We can never have a life together or live as man and wife."

"Emma don't
— "

She pressed her finger to his lips. "Henry, don't deny it. It's just the way it is. But it's okay. Just knowing that you love me makes it okay."

She kissed him again then said, "So let's just pretend for a few moments."

"Pretend what?"

"That we're both white."

Henry wanted to say that, in a way, they both were.

Another Kind of Forbidden

Rebecca Jane buried her face into Clarence's bare chest and drank in his scent. She loved his smell. It was manly and strong with a hint of cedar from his day job in a furniture factory. Before she ever spoke to him, she imagined he'd smell like chocolate.
The deepest, darkest, richest chocolate.
Like the kind they had in the confectionary that matched his skin perfectly. But she preferred his real scent. It was permanently etched in her memory. She couldn’t even get near a piece of cedar furniture anymore without getting slightly excited.

After kissing his delicious chest, Rebecca Jane sat up and reached for her robe. She felt a tug on her hand.

"Where are you going?" Clarence said, pulling her back to him. "I'm not done with you yet." He wrapped her in his arms and covered her mouth with his.

"
Cla
... Clarence, please. I have to go."

"No, no you don't," he said nuzzling her neck.

The feel of his lips on her neck almost made her weak enough to stay.
Almost.

"Clarence, it's late. I can't risk my mother's wrath any more. I think I've pushed her near the breaking point." Rebecca Jane remembered the argument she had concocted with her mother earlier that evening as a distraction. She couldn’t believe she was actually able to argue with that woman for a full hour simply about the stitching in the hem of her dress. After the argument and the conversation she’d had with Charles, Rebecca Jane felt the need to release some stress with Clarence. She helped Charles do Emma Lynn’s morning chores then snuck off to the all too familiar shantytown where Clarence lived. Leaving in the daylight was a big risk. But she had made the trip so many times she was an expert at not being seen. Even if she was caught, she was white. All she had to do was make some excuse about looking for a new servant. Lying easily had become second nature to her.

Rebecca Jane indulged in one last passionate kiss before hopping out of bed too quickly for him to grab her again.

He leaned up on one elbow and watched her dress. "So when will I see you again?"

Rebecca Jane shot him a panicked look. "What do you mean? You'll see me Saturday. You do remember you're playing at Mary Anna's party, don't you?"

A devilish smile spread across Clarence's face revealing a mouth full of perfectly white teeth. "Of course I remember. I just like watching you panic. You turn all pink and sexy." He licked his lips and undressed her with his eyes.

Rebecca Jane took a deep breath trying to control her desire to jump back into his bed.

"Are you going to sing with us?" Clarence asked as he slipped into his pants.

"That depends on how angry Mother makes me between now and then. If I decide I need to induce a heart attack in her, I will be right there next to you on that stage. I promise you that."

As Rebecca Jane looked in the mirror trying to salvage her hairstyle, Clarence snuck up behind her and wrapped his arms around her again.

"Clarence, you have to stop. You can't keep doing this to me," she said as he kissed the back of her neck.

"Doing what?"

"Making me happy.
If I keep returning home late at night with a smile on my face, my parents are sure to suspect something."

"Just think thoughts of Frank on your way home. That will make you miserable again."

Rebecca Jane laughed heartily at Frank's expense. She couldn't even remember how she ended up associated with that poor excuse for a man. Oh wait, she did remember. It was all her mother's doing in her never-ending attempt to move up their family's station in life. But at least Frank helped her conceal her true love, the love she had with Clarence.

She had met him two years earlier when his sister, Cecilia, agreed to take care of Jesse. Everything about him intrigued her, his dark skin, his gleaming smile, the way his eyes danced whenever he thought of something funny. And he always found the humor in any situation. He was without a doubt the most jovial person she had ever met. At first she couldn't understand why. He was Negro, poor and lived in the slums of St. Louis. But she rarely saw him without a laugh in his eye. Being around him made her realize how ridiculous and confining her supposed life of privilege was.

On top of that, Clarence had opened up a new world of music for her. He played piano for a popular St. Louis band. A band that played music unlike anything else Rebecca Jane had heard before. Music that breathed air into her soul and made her
feel
alive. One night when she and Charles were visiting Jessie, she heard Clarence playing. They spent three hours straight just singing together. That's when she knew he was the one.

"Jane," he whispered into her ear. That was another thing she loved about him. The way he called her 'Jane' when they were alone. No one else called her that. It made her feel so grown up, like a woman loved. Just the way he said that simple name told her that he knew her and loved her for what she was instead of what she pretended to be.

"Okay. Five more minutes," she said, letting the robe slip from her shoulders.

"You better make it ten," he said with a smile.

John Miller

John Miller's job at the
St. Louis Republic
newspaper was a hodgepodge of running errands and making coffee. Basically, anything someone else didn't want to do fell on his shoulders. It was a common theme in his life. He didn't complain though. The newspaper provided a steady income. And he hoped that one day his loyalty to the
St. Louis Republic
would result in a more permanent and important position.

Like his brother Henry, John wanted to one day help people. While Henry wanted to do that through medicine, John wanted to do so by spreading the truth. He felt that the strength of a society could be measured by how informed its citizens were. So while his father and brothers all pressured him to join them at the local steel company, he had refused in order to take a position with the newspaper. Given the strike and the current financial position of his family, he was happy he'd made that choice. He and Henry were the only ones working. If it weren't for them, their family would be starving right now.

John finished sharpening pencils for everyone in the entire building then plopped into a chair. He sighed as he thought of his brother and the danger he was putting the family in. It was safer just to stay away from Negros completely. Where there was a Negro there was always trouble. He knew this first hand. Just a month ago, John was assigned the task of taking pictures at an incident downtown that involved Negros. After a Negro tried to rob a white man, a mob of white men formed and
rampaged
the downtown area seeking revenge. The National Guard actually had to be brought in to quell the violence. He still couldn't get the images of bloodied and beaten black men out of his mind.

His brothers Walter and Willie had been a part of that mob. He shuddered to think at what would happen if something like that occurred again. What if Walter and Willie tried to hurt this Negro girl Henry was infatuated with? Would Henry try to stop them? Would Walter and Willie hurt Henry? And more importantly, whose side would John be on? Henry had always been the sensible one in the family. How could he now go and do something as insensible as believe he was in love with a Negro? It was just beyond all reason. This girl had done something to him. Henry was not behaving rationally and John was convinced that the key to this erratic behavior was this Negro girl. And it fell to him to fix the situation.

***

John wasn't exactly sure what he was going to say to Emma Lynn. He just knew he needed to talk to her. He had never actually had to initiate a conversation with a Negro and didn't quite know what to expect. The only time he had ever spoken to one before was when a Negro asked him for directions. Angry at the fact that a Negro could afford a car while he couldn't, he remembered
  intentionally
sending him in the wrong direction. Beyond that short encounter, he had never had any interaction with that kind. He didn't know how to talk to them. He wasn't sure if Emma Lynn would be able to understand his logic and be able to discern how serious the situation really was.

He stood outside the confectionary for several minutes watching her work. She wasn't horribly unattractive. In the right clothes, she might even be beautiful. He could understand how she tricked Frank into thinking she was Rebecca Jane. There were quite a few similarities. Too bad she was too dark.

When the store was empty, John entered.

"How may I help you?" Emma Lynn asked.

John noticed her voice sounded strained. She also moved around the store pretty slowly. He wondered if she was in pain from Frank’s beating.

"We have some fresh made fudge if you'd like to try some," she said when John didn't respond to her initial question.

"No thank you," he said.

"We also have peanut brittle if that is your fancy."

"I'm not here for candy."

Emma Lynn clutched her side and took a step away from John and toward the kitchen. Her lip started shaking subtly as she asked, "What do you want from me?"

Suddenly, John realized he must be scaring her. She might be a Negro, but she was still a woman. She had every right to be afraid of a strange man coming into a candy store and not requesting candy. Especially considering what she had just been through with Frank. "No, I'm not going to hurt you."

She took another step toward the kitchen. She was ready to run at the slightest inkling of danger.

"I'm sorry. I should have introduced myself properly. My mother always says there's no excuse for bad manners."

Emma Lynn didn't respond, but at least she didn't take another step away.

"I'm John. John Miller. I believe you know my brother Henry."

After a sigh of relief, Emma Lynn said, "Yes, he is our milkman."

"I think we both know he is more than that to you."

Once again she didn't respond. She seemed to still be determining whether John was friend or foe.

John wondered what she would say if he asked her a direct question about the nature of her relationship with his brother. He knew it was hard for Negros to tell the truth. If she denied her feelings for Henry, John could then go back and tell him that he was wasting his time. This Negro wasn't worth the effort or the danger.

"Do you or do you not have feelings for my brother?"

Without hesitation she said, "I love him more than life."

So taken aback by her clear and resolute response, John almost stumbled. He took a step forward and leaned on the counter. This was going to be harder than he thought. Maybe he would have to try to exploit this infatuation she had for Henry.

"If you really love Henry, you'll stay away from him. Otherwise, you'll ruin his life."

She was silent again. Maybe she realized this was the truth. He didn't know how much Negros
were
able to reason, but he thought he'd go a little further. "Henry will never be able to find work if he has a Negro wife. He'll never be accepted into a school. Even if he is somehow able to become a doctor, who is going to want to be taken care of by someone who sleeps with a Negro? Don't be selfish. Think about what you're doing to him."

"You love Henry a lot, don’t you?" was her surprising response. He knew she wouldn't be able to understand simple logic.

"Of course I do. He's my little brother."

"Have you ever considered how he feels? Have you ever thought about what makes him happy?"

He sighed, "You don't understand
— "

"No,
you
don't understand. I know it seems strange to you to love someone more than yourself, to love them more than life itself. I know it's something you can't fathom. But thankfully, some people are not like you."

She looked down and pulled a small notebook out of the pocket of her apron. "Read this. Maybe it will help you understand your brother better." She placed it on the counter and then retreated into the kitchen.

John picked up the notebook and thumbed through it. It was just a bunch of ridiculous poems. He stuffed it in his pocket and headed out the door all the time thinking there had to be another way to keep Henry away from the Negro.