He’s the reason she’s dead. But Sofie knew that wasn’t fair. It’s because of him that I killed her.
“Aren’t you the guy who knocked out Knuckles Nelson two weeks ago?” One of the male volunteers pushed through the crowd and stared at Ivan with open admiration. “Man, the way you let him think he had you hemmed up, then walloped him!” The kid reenacted the moves as he talked.
Ivan ran a hand over the back of his neck with embarrassed pride. “Yeah, that was me.”
Well, that explained his bruising.
“Oh, I’ve seen you fight before. Didn’t recognize you outside the ring,” David said. “This guy might could give Sugar Ray a run for his money if he had the chance.”
“Trust me, I’m working on it,” he said with a smile. Then he looked at Sofie. “You still need a ride?” He asked like it was something normal, but just the thought of being alone with him made her feel like her dress was two sizes too small. Having that intense gaze settle on her with an audience was making her feel burst open and exposed; if they were alone…
Ivan leaned forward a bit, raising one brow in a way she remembered so well now. “I have my dad’s car, and it would be nice to catch up. Anyone else who needs a ride is welcome, too, of course.”
“Actually, I’ll just squeeze in with the others. Thanks anyway, though.” She rushed around David’s car, putting the hunk of metal between her and the man who was dredging up both unwanted memories and new sensations that were truly unfamiliar to her.
A couple of younger boys migrated over to Ivan, opening up more room in David’s car. Ivan nodded, then gave her a little salute. “See you around.”
That should have been a threat, but a not so small part of Sofie hoped he was right.
Chapter 3
Ivan never slept well, but the night after that first meeting was a fever dream of tossing and turning that’d seemed never-ending. He needed to be in top shape for his upcoming match; he should have been watching reels and making notes of Calvin Jones’s techniques, but he’d accomplished none of that.
The few scraps of sleep he’d been able to snatch had thrown him for a loop: dreams of Sofronia, or Sofie as she was called now, had left him tossing and turning. She ran from him through one fantastic landscape after another, as if afraid he’d hurt her, but when he caught her she didn’t seem to want to be anywhere else. He hadn’t dreamed like that—soft curves and wide brown eyes as he plunged into warmth—since he was a teenager waking up in the night to sticky sheets. It had been her haunting his dreams then, too.
He didn’t know why the urge to go to her after the meeting had been so strong or why, when all those skeptical faces had turned to him in the parking lot, he’d wanted it known that his acquaintance with her preceded all of theirs. He hadn’t spoken to Sofie for eight years now, double the amount of time they’d spent together as children, but a stupid little thing like time hadn’t changed the way he felt about her. His mother had called it a childhood crush, and clucked a laugh every time he mentioned Sofie’s name with adulation. His father had told him to stay away from those people and chided his mom for not being more careful. Ivan had never stopped thinking of her.
Every time he taped his hands up before a fight, he thought of how weak he’d been the last day they’d played together. Every time he twisted and jabbed, and especially when he took a hit, he thought of how she’d stepped in front of the mob of neighborhood boys who’d grabbed up his arms and his legs, shouting, “We’ll put you in the oven, where your kind belongs!” She’d used her fists to protect him, and then Miss Delia had come running from the house. He’d thought she’d make everything right, but the woman who had always been so strong froze and tumbled to the ground instead, sending the neighborhood boys scattering to the winds, their chests heaving with laughs of disbelief. “Did you see that nigger fall like a tree?” had echoed in his ears as he’d watched Sofronia try to shake her mother awake. The tears streaming down both of their faces had formed a single pool of moisture between them as they’d hugged each other tightly, unable to comprehend their loss.
Ivan had taken a lot of hits to the head, but he had a feeling the memory of Sofie screaming, “It’s my fault” as she was pulled away from him would never get jarred loose. Nor would the thing he’d been too stunned to respond. No, it’s mine. He was old enough to know now that it had been an unluckily timed medical ailment, but he’d always wondered if Sofie had allowed herself forgiveness. Seeing how tight and withdrawn she was now, compared to the rambunctious girl he’d known—he didn’t think it was only adulthood that had made Sofie a dormouse.
Ivan took a quick shower and padded through the living room past his father, who was curled up on the old couch that had become his second bed over the last two years. Ivan knew that if he bothered to look down, he would see the photo album beside him.
Each night that Ivan found his father in this misery, he wanted to break the world. Leo Friedman wasn’t an expressive man, but he’d loved his wife and missed her like hell, so much so that he could neither sleep in their marriage bed or dispose of it. Ivan had been by his father’s side through the ritual stages of mourning—aninut, shiva, shloshim—but that hadn’t released his dad from the grief that was always with him. He put on a good face at the synagogue and community events, but Ivan saw the toll the loss had taken on him. He was like a man whose shadow had been ripped away from him; every time he stepped out of the darkness and into the light, he need only look down to remember what he’d lost.
Ivan draped a crocheted blanket over him, then slid off the yarmulke that was being crushed against the arm of the sofa to reveal his father’s thinning pate. His mother hadn’t had any hair by the end of the cancer treatments, and her head had been smooth under his palm that last day. Ivan wanted to touch the vulnerable spot of scalp showing through, to give comfort where he could, but that would wake his father. These days they got along much better when one of them was sleeping.
He threw his gym bag over his shoulder as he stepped out into the still-dark morning and hopped onto his bike—not the Ducati Bronco he dreamed of owning, but a simple Schwinn. His dad needed the ‘54 Skylark they shared to get to his small watch repair shop in Richmond. Ivan breathed in deeply as he propelled himself through the cool early morning air toward his boxing gym; the black gym on the edge of town, not the country club where the white boxers trained.
Jack’s Gym had produced several champions, and even some guys who were working the circuit now. Ivan told himself he would’ve chosen Jack’s anyway, even if he hadn’t been banned from the country club. He hoped he would’ve, at least. It had been his home away from home since Miss Delia died, and he begged his mother not to force another nanny on him. He’d only been months away from becoming bar mitzvah, and had convinced his mother that he needed to put away childish things. He thought she’d caved so easily only because she missed Miss Delia too. “Delia, zikhronah livrakha. It’s not as if I’ll find anyone else who can make shlishkes as well as I can,” she’d said with a shrug. It might have seemed cold to an onlooker, but coming from his mother that had been the highest compliment.
He pulled a key out from under a rubber tire near the door and let himself into the musty gym. The scents of sweat and sawdust made him feel more at home than the antiseptic smell of his house; his father had become troublingly obsessed with cleanliness after his mother’s passing, spending hours at a time scrubbing the floors and counters.
Big Jack was there before him, as usual. The man was going on sixty-five and still strong and spry. Jack was working the heavy bag hard, which meant there was something on his mind.
“Did Loretta give you cold grits for breakfast again?” Ivan asked, hoping to pull a smile from the man.
“Loretta’s cold grits are still better than anything you’ll ever eat in your sorry life,” Jack said. He kept punching. “Look at that paper over there.”
Jack flicked his head in the direction of a table where a newspaper lay folded and a
cup of coffee stood cold. Ivan picked up the crinkled mess, already knowing what type of image would greet him. A group of whites, hundreds of them at least, surrounding a Greyhound bus. A smaller image below showed a beaten man with blood streaming down his face being given water by what appeared to be a bystander. Ivan shuddered. The hatred in the eyes of the men surrounding the bus was chilling. Was this what had driven his parents from Budapest years before he was born? This undiluted disgust that could drive you to harm your fellow man simply for existing?
“These kids out there, your age or younger even, riding them buses and trying to make a change.” Jack punched the bag hard, a blow that would have knocked a grown man out cold. “All that hope and idealism and those people said, ‘We’re gonna beat that hope right out of you.’”
Ivan taped his hands as his mentor punched and punched, letting the man work out his frustration. He flexed his hands, testing the give at his knuckles, and then walked over and held the bag still, absorbing the impact of Jack’s last couple of punches. Jack breathed heavily, sweat coursing through the few wrinkles that showed his age, then rested his head against the bag.
“You know I’m not from these parts originally,” he said. “My family is from Texas. Every year we had this Juneteenth celebration, and my grandpa would tell the story from when he was a boy. He saw the Union soldiers ride up with his own eyes and heard with his own ears when they let his people know they were free, that they had been for months, even though the slave masters had denied them that truth. That’s kinda what this feels like. Like we still toiling, waiting for the real freedom to set in.”
Jack looked up at him, despair in his eyes, and it dawned on Ivan that his friend was old. An old man in a state where slavery wasn’t that distant a memory. Jack would tell anyone he’d lived a good life, doing what he loved, but Ivan knew there were stories that only came out after a drink or two. Stories about men with white hoods. Brightly burning crosses. Cars driving slowly through black neighborhoods while husbands and sons stood tensed on the porch with guns locked and loaded.
Jack sighed. “My grandkids are just getting old enough to understand the world. I hoped…I hoped life would be different for them.”
Ivan hated seeing the way Jack’s shoulders hunched in defeat. The man was a heavyweight champion, but he was buckling under the weight of the world.
“I went to a nonviolent resistance meeting last night,” Ivan said. He didn’t want a pat on the back, only to let Jack know where he stood.
Jack stared at Ivan for a long time and then laughed, a hacking laugh that might have sounded like respiratory distress to anyone who didn’t know him. “Boy, you love throwing a punch more than any other boxer in here. What you doing with them Gandhi wannabes?”
“I do love it. I’m good at it, too,” Ivan said as he took control of the heavy bag, warming up with quick, light blows. “But you know what I’m even better at? Taking a punch.” He stopped his warm up and let the bag swing back and hit him. “If someone needs to take a beating for the cause, you can’t do better than this ugly mug.”
He thought of Sofie stepping in front of the group of boys all those years ago. There had been no fear in her despite being outnumbered and knowing society was on the boys’ side no matter what—even children knew that fact. She’d been damned brave, and she’d done it for him.
Jack raised his brows, the question rippling in furrows that went right up his bald head. “Any not-ugly mug in particular you hoping to keep safe?”
Ivan sometimes forgot how well the man knew him.
“No way, Jack. I’m doing this because it’s what’s right. You don’t join the Civil Rights movement for a woman. Come on.” Ivan flung the bag Jack’s way. Jack dodged it like a pro and continued scrutinizing him.
“No, but ain’t nothing wrong with a bonus, like the prize in your Cracker Jacks. Besides, you ain’t foolin’ anyone with that dopey smile.”
Ivan chuckled and allowed himself a moment of just being a guy who was really digging a girl. There was no way anything would come of it, but getting to see Sofie wasn’t a chance he’d turn down.
“All right, enough of that, Romeo,” Jack said. “You have a prizefight a week from now. This nonviolence stuff is well and good, but in here? There’s only one thing I need from you, and ain’t nothing peaceful about it.”
Chapter 4
After studying for her upcoming final exams, Sofie had prepared her father’s favorite dinner: meatloaf with mashed potatoes. A pitcher of sweet tea sat sweating on the table, and she absently drew a finger through the moisture accumulating on the wood surface as she created a list of her next moves in her head.
1.) Wait for Daddy to settle down at the table and talk about his day.
2.) Tell him how well studying for finals is going and mention you’ll probably make the Dean’s List again.
3.) Casually mention you’ll be volunteering with an association a few nights this week.
4.) Dodge all questions about what, exactly, the association does.
5.) Pray he doesn’t find out the truth, then pray for forgiveness for lying to begin with.
She left off number six, “Try not to stare at Ivan too much when you see him tomorrow,” because it was probably not doable, and she hated listing actions that couldn’t be checked off as completed. She’d been unable to stop thinking of him since the night before, even though she knew better. Having impure thoughts about a white man was bad enough, but one who wasn’t even Christian was a definite no-no. She’d had a crush on him as a little girl, but that was different. He’d been the only boy who laughed at her jokes and refused to make fun of her frizzy hair. They’d spent hours creating fantastical worlds together where they were both brave and strong, where people couldn’t hurt them just because of what they looked like, in Sofie’s case, or what God they worshiped, in Ivan’s. Their imaginary adventures had been brought to an abrupt halt, but Sofie’s soft spot for him had apparently remained.
The shuffle of shoes against hard wood warned Sofie of her father’s arrival; she stopped slouching in her seat and stood with her back straight and a bright smile on her face.
“Ready for dinner, Daddy?” she called out. She got no reply.
Mr. Wallis walked into the room with his hands linked behind his back and his head bowed. She remembered a time when he used to come into the kitchen with a smile, reaching for her mama with love in his eyes. Those days were long gone. Sofie stiffened in her seat, feeling the anxiety and anger emanating from her father fill the room like fumes that threatened to choke the bravery out of her. He was in a mood, and because he was in a mood her plan to ask permission would have to wait.
She took their plates from the stove, where she’d left them to warm. “I made your favorite. I think I’ve got Mama’s recipe down pat now.”
He looked up at her, and a familiar disappointment was etched deeply in his face, like ruts on a well-used road. “You planning on telling me what you were doing at that agitator meeting last night, or you just gonna sit here and talk to me like I’m stupid? Like you did last night when you lied and said you were meeting Henrietta?” His voice was so cold that she wanted to wrap her arms around herself in the warmth of a Southern spring night.
“Daddy, I can explain—”
“Sister Pierce told me she saw you in front of the community center, and that you were fraternizing with a white boy to boot. She said he looked quite familiar with you.” He shook his head. “You’re the first Wallis to go to college, and I was so proud of that. Now I have to wonder what it is you’re really doing when you say you’re in class or studying with friends.”
Sofie hadn’t eaten yet, and she was glad of it because her stomach gave a vicious twist. Nausea rolled through her at the anger in his words. She’d been caught in a lie, but he was also implying something about her that no father should imply about his daughter. His ideas about how an unmarried woman should and shouldn’t interact with a man were old-fashioned, to put it kindl
y, but for him to treat her like a brazen hussy without giving her the benefit of the doubt…
All of her etiquette lessons and decorum fled her as disbelief hightailed it out of there to make room for anger. Sofie suddenly found she was standing, looking down at her father as he glared at her, waiting for his answer.
“All of these years I’ve been nothing but a good daught—” She choked on the word and swiped at a hot tear that slipped down her cheek. “A good daughter. I’ve done everything you asked of me, been your perfect little princess. And all it takes is one report from Mrs. Pierce and you’re ready to call me a jezebel? Just like that?”
Her father picked up his fork and stabbed it into his meatloaf. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Sofie had thought she’d known loneliness before, but she’d been wrong. Loneliness was the one man who was supposed to protect and love you no matter what looking at you as if you were a mistake that needed fixing. Sofie had spent ten years suppressing so much of herself, just to please him; she’d thought one day she’d get it right, but the truth came to her like an icy deluge, shocking the warmth out of her. She could never be the daughter he wanted, not unless she found some way to make it so that Mama never died. Her hands were trembling fists at her side as she shook her head. “I was with Henrietta, and I was at the meeting.”
“You admit you lied to me, then?”
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you the whole truth. And that’s because I knew that you’d overreact like this instead of asking me why I wanted to volunteer or what I hoped to achieve.” The anger was building in her; her voice shook from trying to contain her betrayal. “I was planning to ask your permission to participate, but I was a fool to think you’d care about what I want or need. All you’ve been after since Mama died was a perfect little girl who looked and talked and walked exactly as you liked. You should have just gotten yourself a porcelain doll because that’s what you need more than a daughter.”
The Brightest Day: A Juneteenth Historical Romance Anthology Page 25
