Sing for Me (18 page)

“Is this the Chastain residence?”

The girl, who has a soft, southern accent, says it is.

“Is Theo Chastain available?”

“One moment, please.”

A clunk as she sets the receiver down, then the sound of her feet pattering off to some distant part of where Theo lives. A murmured exchange. More footsteps, heavier this time. Theo’s footsteps.

I can hear my heart beating, the blood surging in my ears.

“Hello?”

Why did I never notice that Theo has a southern accent, too? Perhaps it grows stronger when he is in his own home, among his own people? Rob once told me that many of Chicago’s best musicians traveled up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Chicago. I wonder if this is true of Theo. There is so much I want to ask him, so much I want to know. I want to know his truth.

“It’s Rose,” I say.

Silence. He doesn’t remember me, or he doesn’t remember my name. Either way, he doesn’t remember.

I swallow the pride, or whatever the emotion is, knotted in my throat. “Rose Sorensen. The girl you found cleaning. You drove me home last Tuesday night after—”

“Rose. I know who you are.”

Worse, he remembers me and he wishes he didn’t. At least that’s what his clipped tone suggests.

How foolish to call him. How pushy. How unladylike.
Men sow their wild oats. Women become tramps.

The man behind me harrumphs again. It’s time for me to hang up.

But Theo asks if I’m all right before I can. His voice cracks with worry.

I say that I’m all right, though I’m not, not at all.

“Don’t misunderstand. I’m glad you called. But . . .” Theo sucks in a breath. “To heck with this. Where are you, Rose?”

I tell him.

“Stay put. I’m coming to get you.”

He says it shouldn’t take him more than twenty minutes to drive to where I am. I should stay inside the Conservatory, where it is warm. He’ll find me.

He finds me where it is warm, sitting on a stone bench nestled in ferns.

Snow has started to fall. I am watching it sweep and swirl across the peaked glass roof arching above when I hear his footsteps sound against the stone path that winds ever closer. A burbling stream of water interrupts the path, and now I hear Theo hesitate as he judges the distance between stepping-stones. He crosses the stream in a leap. I could never make that jump; his legs are so much longer than mine. But if Theo took my hand I would be less uneasy navigating the stones.

This is what I am thinking as he rounds the bend in the path to where I am, where we are.

Abruptly, he stops walking. We consider each other. This glass room, with the storm whirling all around, suddenly seems a snow globe—a whole world containing just us two. Too quick a gesture, a slip or a sharp word, and our world might shatter.

“You found me.”

Theo nods. He is bareheaded. His black hair glistens wetly where the snow has melted. The shoulders of his long gray coat are wet with melted snow, too. The toes of his galoshes stained with salt.

He made his way through worsening weather to me.

He puts his hand to his hair and looks at his wet palm. “I left so quickly, I forgot my hat.” He blinks as if dazed. “I never go out without a hat.”

My own hat lies on the bench beside me. I pick it up, but Theo doesn’t sit down.

Others are coming down the path toward us. They round the bend—a man and a woman. A white man, a white woman, holding hands. Holding hands, they must have stepped on stones to cross the stream. The man, who wears a hat (though in this warm room, sweat has started to bead on his forehead and upper lip), warily regards Theo.

Theo turns his back on me and takes a few steps down the path. He bends over a silvery fern. Gently, he lifts the fronds and examines them. He seems to be contrasting the plant’s upper surface with its hidden underside. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Theo was a botanist, doing a bit of field study on a Sunday afternoon. Perhaps he does have an interest in botany, as Nils has an interest in insects. Another question to ask.

The woman, who is wearing a rust-colored coat with a fox-fur collar, has drawn closer to her companion. Now she clutches her companion’s arm and whispers into his ear. The man frowns, nods. He turns his wary gaze on me.

“Everything all right here, miss?”

Theo combs his fingers between the fern’s fronds. He could be soothing the plant. Or saying good-bye to it, to me. For now he moves farther away down the winding path.

“Yes.” I sound irritated. I’m not. I’m nearly breathless with panic. Theo could keep winding away from me, winding his way to wherever he came from, leaving me behind.

“Hon, you’re sure you’re okay?” The woman asks this in a hushed voice, the voice of a confidante.
We are women. We are white. You can tell me.
She lifts her hand—the hand that is not clutching the man’s arm—and touches her fur collar. I see the fox’s little head now. Its pointed snout and the glittering black beads of its eyes. She pets it. “You’re not being . . . bothered?”

“Not at all.” I muster a sickly smile.

The couple moves on, each glancing back—ever wary—once they are safely on the other side of Theo, who is bowed over some other low-growing plant now. No, the couple isn’t wary. They are tight-lipped with anger. This anger isn’t about little old me. It’s about them. I sense this from the way they put their heads together as they walk, from their offended whispering, pitched just loud enough to be overheard.
You never know. . . . Things aren’t what they used to be. . . . All kinds . . .

Not a month ago I would have appreciated the couple’s concern for me, even their anger at who is increasingly able to go where. I would have found it comforting. I would have mentioned it to Mother, maybe even to Dad, as a sign that it really is all right for me to go out on my own. This may not be Oak Park, but even here in this neighborhood people will watch out for me. There’s a reason why angels are so often strangers in the Bible. There are angel-strangers all around us, even here. I would have said these things in defense of my own freedom.

Then again, until recently I wasn’t thinking about my freedom, or lack thereof. I’d never climbed down a fire escape, escaped into the night, heard music like I’ve heard, called a man who wasn’t my cousin or brother or father on the phone, called a black man.

“Theo.”

He still has his back to me. His hands hover over the plants as if they are instruments he’d like to play. But he doesn’t touch them. Perhaps he thinks they are too delicate for his touch. I don’t agree. His hands only make things more beautiful.

I am standing just behind him now. I don’t remember walking up to him, but I don’t let that worry me. I watch his bowed back rise and fall with his breath. His breathing quickens; he must know that I’m close. Or someone is. Still, he doesn’t turn around.

“Let’s go.” My whispered words are barely audible. I don’t touch Theo to make sure he’s heard. I don’t hold his hand or clutch his arm. I am not the woman in the fox-fur collar and he is not the man in the hat. We are not that couple. We are not a couple. We are us. I whisper again into the swatch of wool between his shoulder blades. I whisper straight to his heart. I whisper the truth. “I’ll follow you. I’ll keep a safe distance.”

He leads me down the winding path. And then we’re outside, walking through the cold and the falling, drifting snow. A safe distance separates us. When we reach his car, I know just what to do. I get into the backseat. He uses his coat sleeve to brush snow from the windshield, then he opens the front door and sits down behind the steering wheel. He drives us slowly through the storm, past coffee shops and restaurants and bars. Some of these are open in spite of the weather. We could duck inside a coffee shop, drink something hot, maybe share a piece of pie, warm up a bit,
talk. I could ask him all the questions I want to ask—
Are you from New Orleans? Are you interested in botany? What were you like when you were a little boy?
If we weren’t who we are.

As it is, we don’t even mention the possibility of stopping.

For a long time, we don’t say a word. Finally I remember that not all cafés and restaurants look the same.

“We’re driving in circles.”

“I don’t know where to go.”

Theo sounds lost, almost frightened, like he’s spent his life running and now he finds himself cornered.

What I’ve always felt for Sophy, and only for Sophy—fiercely protective—suddenly stirs inside me for him. There’s nothing logical about this feeling. It’s pure, hot emotion, a sharp contrast to the cold snow falling thickly all around. The streets and sidewalks are blanketed in white. There, at the end of the block, is a coffee shop we’ve passed three times already. As we approach it now, a waitress in a pink uniform walks to the door. Theo slows the car as if he’s actually considering the possibility that we might be welcome there. But the waitress flips the sign from
Open
to
Closed
. The lights inside flicker and dim. She disappears into the kitchen, and now the place is dark and empty.

The streets and sidewalks are empty, too, except for the rising drifts. There is no one to blame, no one to do battle with, because everyone knows the only place to be on a night like this is home.

“Let’s go home,” I say.

Theo slows the car and glances swiftly over his shoulder, his eyes wide with surprise. “Your folks wouldn’t mind having me?”

I look at him. He knows the answer. His eyes narrow under the weight of it—the truth, cold and hard. Quickly, he turns his
gaze on the road again, as he should in these conditions. We pick up a little speed until the car shimmies on a patch of ice, and then we slow down. Everywhere now the signs read
Closed
. The world goes whiter as I wait for him to come to the only possible conclusion.

After a few more slow trips around the block, he finally does.

“My mother cooks a fine Sunday supper. You’d be welcome.”

I accept his kind invitation.

A feast. That’s what Mrs. Chastain has prepared. The round table in the center of the kitchen seems to strain beneath the weight of steaming platters of fried chicken and corn bread, surrounded by bowls heaped with green beans, baked beans, and a white porridge that Theo calls grits. My mouth waters at the sweet and smoky smell. How can I be so hungry after the big meal Mother served? The cold can do that, I guess. I press my hands to my stomach to keep it from growling. Doesn’t work. Theo looks at me and smiles.

He’s been smiling since we arrived here, bolstering me with encouraging looks. The whole long, snowy drive—nearly an hour it took us—we barely spoke. He seemed to be concentrating on the roads and the weather; I didn’t want to distract him. The roads were practically empty, thank goodness. As the car skidded from one lane to the other, so did my mind from one thought to the next.
I am here in a storm because of Dad—those things he said, this ache on my arm. Theo is here because of me. Here we are together, braving this cold night. There is no going home, not for me, not with him. I can only be a guest now. A guest in Theo’s home and, because of Dad, a guest in my own.
Just when the quiet seemed unbearable, unbroken only by the sound of the tires against the road, the windshield wipers against the glass, the tumult in my mind, Theo began to whistle. He seemed to be whistling against the storm, against every unpredictable danger. The high, bright sound, as lilting as any flute, saw us safely to a narrow Bronzeville street crowded with six flats. Still whistling, Theo parked before one of these, turned off the engine, got out of the car. Even as he came to open my door, my heart sank. I might be willing to be a guest here, but would they be willing to have me? The sidewalk was icy, the snow thick. In spite of Theo’s whistling and his hand at my elbow, steadying me, the way was hard.

It didn’t get easier. Not immediately.

Theo’s sister opened the door to the first-floor flat. At the sight of me, her hand flew to her mouth. A moment later, she lowered her hand and, in that soft southern voice that I first heard over the phone, introduced herself as Mary. Then she ran down the hall to warn the rest of the family of my arrival. I know she warned them, because when Theo introduced me, each and every person—his three cousins, his uncle, aunt, and grandmother, all visiting for the day—was as composed as if I’d been expected.