The Lost Songs

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Doria’s feet had carried her to the music room.

  Music Appreciation was still going, and the kids were still unappreciative. The class was being taught by a small tidy African American man far more formally dressed than the usual male teacher. Mr. Gregg zoomed over to Doria, coming so close that she had to back up, until they were in the quiet hall, invisible to the class and the unknown teacher.

  Jenny and Rebecca had been wrong—Mr. Gregg was not thinking about his own music. He was concerned with lost folk music—a group of songs bizarrely known to music historians as the Laundry List. Nobody knew what these were, or even if they existed. Some academic types believed that the Laundry List had originated with the Painter family, right here in Court Hill.

  And you’re telling me because …? thought Doria.

  “Lutie is a Painter,” said Mr. Gregg excitedly. “She claims not to know anything about the Laundry List. But she knows.”

  The intensity with which he said this was unsettling.

  “I didn’t realize you were friends with Lutie until she grabbed your arm and took you to lunch,” said Mr. Gregg. “That’s great, Doria. Sometimes I despair that we’re ever really going to integrate. Cafeteria tables and church pews are the last bastions of segregation. The trouble is, in both those situations, everybody wants to segregate. I just love it that you’ve crossed that barrier. Now listen. Get those songs out of Lutie. Tell her you’ll play the piano for her or something.”

  Doria loved her music teacher. She loved studying composition with him. She loved when Mr. Gregg said, “Doria, someday I’ll be able to say I knew you when.” But she did not love this creepy eagerness, this back-room order to snatch something from Lutie that Lutie must not want to hand over. Or didn’t have to start with.

  “I need those songs, Doria,” said Mr. Gregg, his voice gravelly with want. “They’re my ticket out.”

  4

  The last class of her school day was chemistry. Doria could read chemistry as easily as music. When the teacher asked a question that afternoon, Doria replied without needing to think.

  Since this teacher never called on anybody twice, Doria stopped paying attention and just soaked up the music of the teacher’s voice. The woman was from coastal Carolina, which she called the Low Country, as if it were one, like Holland. Her speech had a lovely lilt, some words slurred and others hummed.

  Outside, rain crashed on the roofs of cars, slammed on the pavement and flooded low-lying areas. It created mud, serious mud, as if all that red Carolina dirt had been hoping to surface and today was the day.

  Doria held her cell phone in her hand, and her hand rested in her lap, protected by the desk. She wanted to tell Nell a thousand things, but a text message was mostly good for one or two things.

  These days, Doria mainly connected with Nell and with Stephanie, her other best friend, on Facebook or by text message. It was not satisfying. If she wrote about chorus (Mr. Gregg is excellent) and the other sopranos (This girl Lutie has an amazing voice) and her organ teacher (very civilized compared to my last one, all that screaming and spitting), Stephanie and Nell would write back, You don’t have to pretend people down there have anything to offer or Come on, if the teacher’s that good, he’d be in a decent school.

  She ached for the company of Nell and Stephanie, but at the same time, the thought of communicating with them exhausted her.

  Instead, staring out at the weather, she composed a rain symphony in her mind, melody and chords with the slithery dissonance of slick mud. When she got home tonight, she’d use a computer program to write it down, although sometimes she liked a pencil and staff paper.

  What had Mr. Gregg meant by “my ticket out”?

  He was doing a stellar job at a big thriving high school, and was often asked to bring his impressive concert choir to nationwide choral conferences as a demonstration group. He had outstanding parental support, and even in pinched times, the school board gave his music program whatever money it needed.

  Maybe it was the town of Court Hill he wanted out of.

  Doria could see that. This wasn’t New York. In fact, it was-nowhere. But the Lord had created a lot of fine musicians, and in Court Hill Doria felt elbow to elbow with many of them.

  When her family had announced their plan to move down here, people had said, “Oh, please—the South? It’s such a retarded part of the world. Who will you even talk to? As for music, the poor things probably don’t have any. You going to strum a banjo?” And when Doria insisted that music was top-notch at Court Hill High, they replied, “You don’t have to pretend. We know it’s second-rate on a good day.”

  Did Mr. Gregg agree?

  But how could songs from Lutie’s family be anybody’s ticket anywhere, let alone Mr. Gregg’s?

  Across from Doria, in the same science classroom, Lutie raised her hand, was called on and answered correctly. Now she too could think her own thoughts.

  She had received a text message from her pastor. She didn’t want to open it.

  With all the expansion in Court Hill, there was also collapse. The old single-screen movie theater had undergone extensive remodeling in an attempt to attract viewers. It had struggled for years, and when it had closed for good, Veola Mixton had bought it. (Well, technically the church had voted to buy it, but only because Miss Veola insisted.)

  The theater held several hundred people in comfy seats, and had excellent heating and air-conditioning. The lobby was perfect for coffee hour. There was a tiny office and good restrooms. Miss Veola planned to remove the front rows, put in an altar and a pulpit, hang a cross where the screen had been and she’d be good to go.

  “You don’t have a big enough congregation,” people said scornfully.

  “The Lord will fill it,” said Miss Veola, who always spoke as if the Lord obeyed her and not the other way around. To Lutie, she had said, “You’ll be my star attraction. I’m going to have you sing the Laundry List for the first fund-raiser. With the Lord’s help, our church will serve both black and white neighbors.”

  “Black and white neighbors don’t want the same church,” said Lutie.

  “Nonsense. We have to mix populations. All Christians—African American, white, Hispanic, Asian—we’ve isolated ourselves. I want us in the same room on Sunday morning. Right now there’s only one thing every church in Court Hill agrees on and that’s Jesus’ name.”

  It was true. There was a church on every corner and they were all suspicious of each other.

  “We figure anybody who believes less than we do is pitiful and weak, and anybody who believes more is deranged,” Miss Veola said. “Now, Lutie, let’s start planning the publicity for your concert.”

  “I’m not giving a concert. Why don’t you design a great T-shirt? Who doesn’t want another T-shirt?”

  “Lutie! Even a church in a movie theater isn’t going to get much publicity. But the Laundry List? Honey, every radio station, newspaper, local TV show and historical society will be on board. Symphony people and arty people and bluegrass people—they’ll all be excited! The stories I’ll tell about Mabel Painter, and about your MeeMaw, and the previews we’ll do of your singing—what an audience we’ll have! I just need those people once, Lutie. They see how we make the Word of God come to life, and they’ll be back.”

  All that publicity—and Lutie would star.

  All those people buying tickets—to hear her.

  All that recording equipment—to preserve Lutie Painter’s voice.

  It was tempting. But Lutie said no. “MeeMaw told me a hundred times that some people inherit land, but we inherited songs. She said, You hold Mabel Painter’s songs tight, baby girl. You put them in your heart and you keep them there.”

  “And you have, Lutie. But now it’s time to share them. That kind of beauty belongs to everyone, like some kind of national park.”

  The songs did not belong to everybody. They belonged to Lutie.

  Lutie’s grandmother, and great-grandmother, and great-great-gran
dmother had had to look up for hope, because they sure hadn’t found much on the ground in Chalk. When those women had looked at the sky, they’d seen stairs to heaven. When Lutie looked up, she saw weather patterns and knowledge gained from space exploration. Miss Veola said heaven was a different sphere, a plane of existence known only to those who lived in the Lord.

  When Lutie sang the songs, either she believed as deeply as her MeeMaw or she didn’t believe at all. Either way, it made her cry. Mabel Painter’s shouts to God were not spirituals in which the singer rocked in the arms of Jesus. Mabel was stuck on earth, starching and ironing in the summer heat.

  Big sky

  Hard sky

  Sky of small cold stars

  You got a star for me, Lord?

  So far all I got is scars.

  I need a star, Lord.

  Come shine for me, Lord.

  Why you so far, Lord?

  Inside that song were the thousand hurts and cuts of a life of drudgery. And for what? For children and grandchildren whose lives did not improve, in spite of Mabel’s sacrifices.

  To Lutie, the song of cold stars was like a psalm. Psalm 13, say. Psalm 22. Time out of mind, people had cried out in sorrow and sweat, begging God to come.

  Lutie did not want to sing the songs for strangers. She did not want to present her exhausted pleading great-great-grandmother for their entertainment.

  Now, in chemistry, Lutie’s thumb hovered over her cell phone.

  Miss Veola’s messages were always terse, as if every letter she entered was one less dollar to feed the poor. Today’s message had one word.

  Stop.

  It meant “Stop in at my house and visit me.”

  If Professor Martin Durham was a good researcher, then he had already arrived in Chalk, because somebody would have told him that the person likeliest to know the Laundry List was Miss Veola, dearest friend of Eunice Painter, descendant of Mabel, Lutie’s MeeMaw, and singer of songs from her porch.

  How Miss Veola would love Professor Durham. She would see him as a gift from God for her new church. She was probably serving the man iced tea right now. She would expect Lutie to stop by and sing every verse of—

  Lutie came to her senses. Miss Veola’s message had nothing to do with Professor Durham. This was about skipping school. The office had finally gotten around to dealing with the absentee list. Lutie had not entered by the front door, so nobody knew she’d been in school since eleven. They had probably called Miss Veola.

  The pastor would go on a real tear if she found out Lutie had gone by herself to meet her drug-addled mother.

  Miss Veola had tried so hard to save Saravette. She was still trying.

  She’ll always try, thought Lutie. But it’s too late. Saravette has broken all the commandments.

  Kelvin’s last class was also chemistry, but he was not in the honors section. He liked science, but not enough to get involved. He was, he decided, a C-plus person all around. Just a fraction above average, and happy to be there.

  When the bell rang, Kelvin didn’t race out of the room like everybody else. Kelvin was never in a hurry. He moseyed along, enjoying the scenery, which was all he ever did.

  But suddenly Train blocked the corridor.

  Not good. Everybody knew that Train was under orders from DeRade to go off the track. Kelvin did not want to be there when it happened. He sensed desperation in Train’s hot jittery presence. Train probably felt cornered. He needed to catch up to DeRade or else surpass him. What surpassed blinding somebody? Kelvin didn’t want to go there.

  He thought of Nate, who had only one eye. Maybe he had a glass eye. Maybe the dead one was still there but drying up. Maybe they’d sewn his eyelids together. Maybe Nate had a hole and a patch.

  Ignoring Train or walking around him would be like challenging him to a duel, so Kelvin said pleasantly, “Hey.”

  “You know that girl Doria?”

  “Sure do,” said Kelvin, since there was no point in lying.

  “She in that church alone every night?”

  Kelvin didn’t have the slightest idea what church Doria went to, never mind whether she went there alone, but he said, “Nah. That’s the busiest church in town. They got Eldercare and Alcoholics Anonymous and a day care and softball teams and a women’s club and Bible studies and I don’t know what all. Parking lot’s always full.”

  Kelvin half saluted a farewell and sauntered on, making a mental note to tell Doria to watch herself, but forgetting by the time he’d reached the end of the hall.

  Thursday

  Afternoon and Evening

  Train falls for fire.

  Doria stays a stranger.

  Pierce stops a bus.

  Lutie loses a song.

  5

  School ended.

  Lutie never took the school bus home. Buses left within two minutes of the last bell, and she refused to sprint out of the building and throw herself into some smelly old vehicle. She liked to hang out, see what everybody planned to do next, have a Coke and then decide on a home. Which one did she want today?

  Lutie considered going to Aunt Grace’s for the night, because she felt like a restaurant, and Aunt Grace always felt like a restaurant, and they might try one of the new ones in the new shopping center, with the new menus and the new flavors.

  But Aunt Grace was a suspicious soul. You didn’t run a successful Department of Motor Vehicles if you were naïve. Lutie did not want Aunt Grace to find out that she had gone alone into the worst part of the city, let alone that she had gone to see Saravette. When her sister’s name came up, Aunt Grace always turned her head, as if she couldn’t even face the sound of the name, never mind the person who wore it.

  Aunt Grace was less likely to deal with Saravette than Aunt Tamika.

  Saravette would call Tamika’s cell phone. Aunt Tamika would sigh, long and low, and fish in her purse for the bottle of aspirin she kept there. When the call was over, she would sit for a minute and gather herself. If Lutie asked what Saravette had said, Aunt Tamika would shrug. If Tamika drove into town to deal with Saravette, Uncle Dean usually went with her.

  Sometimes it was police who called.

  Aunt Tamika would be exceptionally polite to them, as if she were interviewing for a job. Then she would go off by herself and when she came back, her eyes would be red.

  There were never explanations.

  If Lutie presented a form for school where “parent or guardian” had to be filled in, Aunt Tamika would write her name and Uncle Dean’s in such big square print that it filled the space and the margins, to prove there was absolutely no room for the name Saravette.

  Lutie really did not know what Aunt Tamika would do if she found out about Lutie’s trip uptown today. Her aunts and uncle had never said so—they never would—but their ruling fear was that Lutie would follow Saravette’s steps instead of theirs. They were always worried about crime, which at any minute could sweep a person up because that was what crime did. “Crime is a wide broom,” said Aunt Tamika, “and those little straws on the edge catch everything.”

  Aunt Tamika and Uncle Dean had excellent jobs at the headquarters of a national bank. They had a big beautiful home in a big beautiful subdivision called Willowmere, the prettiest word Lutie had ever heard. They dressed wonderfully. Lutie was always eager to see what neat stuff they had bought. Aunt Tamika had fabulous shoes and scarves, lots of handbags and terrific jewelry, all big, bright and spangly, like Aunt Tamika herself. Uncle Dean had been a football player in high school and college, but now his broad shoulders were covered by fine suits in navy or charcoal, and he looked exactly like the men on television business reports, and talked like them, and worried about the same things.

  Lutie loved Aunt Tamika and Uncle Dean, and she loved their house and her bedroom there, with every possible comfort times ten. It was a million miles and a million dollars from Chalk, where Tamika, Grace and Saravette had grown up.

  Lutie dragged her thoughts from Saravette.


  Outdoors, it rained like an upside-down river. The lobby was packed with kids waiting for the rain to end or their mothers to arrive in cars. Lutie lifted her closed umbrella. She was the only person who had one.

  “Whoa, Loot! You brought an umbrella? You scared of water, girl?”

  It was Train. Lutie did not want to deal with him. He had been so sweet, back when he and Lutie and Kelvin and Rebecca and Jenny had been in kindergarten together. He could still be sweet if he wanted something enough. You had to be careful. Charm could be as vicious as a knife.

  Train nodded at the kids milling around, texting and phoning and begging for rides. “You seen Doria?”

  Although she had just watched Doria walk out into the rain, Lutie peered intently back into the building. “I don’t see her,” she said. She did not risk a friendly smile. There was no telling what Train would do with a smile. Instead she lifted her phone. Texting came in handy. Nobody was offended if you texted while they were talking to you.

  Lutie texted Aunt Grace, and then Aunt Tamika, and by then, Train had wandered off. He had been at the top of the class in first and second grade, especially in spelling. But now he had as much interest in academics as a flea.

  There was never a good time to be on Train’s GPS. But if Lutie warned Doria to be afraid—be very afraid—Doria might tell her parents. Her parents might call the school. The cops might stop by the high school to chat with Train.

  The last person to discuss one of the Greene brothers with the cops was now blind in one eye.

  Better would be to make sure Doria did not practice alone in the dark.

  Outdoors, rain swiped Doria like the flat of some great wet hand. She turned her face up and let the rain drum on her skin.

  School was so hard. Not classes; classes were easy. But school itself: that shocking clump of kids and conversation, society and loneliness, noise and silence. Most days when the push and shove of school was over, Doria would text Nell or Stephanie, for the relief of old times.