"Hmmmmm. This is too good. Tell me I should stop." He was putting bird kisses on my shoulders and neck.
"Tell me you love me, Josh. Tell me you want me, not just now, not just tonight." I had my mouth against his ear when I said it. He put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me away a few inches but held onto me.
"I have loved you since the first day I saw you in that hospital bed, young, pregnant, and scared. I loved you while you chased a dream. I loved you while you ignored me and grieved. I've watched you mature, and I've loved you more with each growth spurt. I couldn't love you more if you grew wings and a halo. I want you forever, but only if and when you can love me, too; when you can forget the past and want a future with me."
"I think I've loved you for a long time, I just didn't know what real, mature love was. I compared it to teenage love, first love, love for the person you have a child by. I've come to realize I can't compare what I feel for you with anything I've ever felt before."
When Josh made love to me that night, I didn't think of Rodney. I didn't think of anything but Josh and how I wanted to be close to him, how I wanted us to merge, to become one.
After that first time, we fell so deeply in love we couldn't stay away from each other. We'd meet for lunch during the week, and he'd come for dinner almost every night.
About a month after I moved into my new place, Joe took Lilly for an overnight stay. I'd spent countless hours trying to prepare her for the visit because Joe's girlfriend would be with them. I tried to tell her the things Emalene would have said, "He's your daddy, you only get one. Forgive him. He loves you the best he can. Try not to expect him to give you more than he has to give." We met Joe at the university, and I watched them drive off in his new Volvo. I hadn't met his girlfriend and was glad he would spend some time with Lilly alone before he introduced them.
I took the subway to the hospital, then Josh and I drove to Brooklyn Heights for my first visit to his house. I wasn't prepared for the beauty of the neighborhood or the lavishness of his brownstone. The furnishings were gorgeous and he admitted an interior designer had done the place for him.
He had a housekeeper. Imagine! A housekeeper! Her name was Ruby, and she came every afternoon, cleaned his house, did his laundry, and prepared dinner if he was going to be home that night. She had set the dining room table with candles, silver, and bone china, and the smells coming out of the kitchen told me that something special was in the oven. There was a silver champagne chiller with a bottle of Dom Perignon on ice, and two Baccarat flutes beside it. I thought how Catfish would have said “whatever that is” and laughed from deep in his belly.
"Let me show you around," Josh acted like he didn't notice my mouth agape or the way I was admiring the beautiful tapestries, Aubusson rugs, priceless art, and exquisite furniture. I'd known Josh for seven years, and it never occurred to me that he was wealthy and lived like royalty. He was so normal, down-to-earth, non-assuming.
He showed me the two gorgeous guest rooms, each with an en-suite bath. We stepped into his master bedroom and I gasped. It must have been 1000 square feet and had a spa bathroom at least half that size. His walk-in closets were the size of my bedrooms, and his backyard was like a small park. He held my hand as he described each room and some of the art. He stopped in the hall to show me pictures of his late dad, his mother and her husband, and his sister and her two children who lived in Ohio. There were a number of medals and commendations on the walls, but he didn't want to talk about them, so we moved on. When we returned to the dining room, Ruby was putting hors d'oeuvres on the table, and Josh introduced us.
"I finally get to meet the lady who stole my man's heart." She was a delightful Russian woman with a big bust and ample hips who wore a black uniform with a starched, white apron. She was bubbly and obviously loved Josh like a mother hen. "Don't you go breaking his heart, now."
"I won't, Ruby." She bent and whispered in my ear, loud enough that Josh could hear.
"You're the first lady he's ever brought home. I been waiting a long time to fix dinner for a woman." She laughed, and it was contagious. Josh and I both joined her and she poked him in the ribs.
"Ruby, you want a glass of champagne?"
"Oh, no, Dr. Ryan. I'm going home to my man. We like vodka." She laughed again and left the room. Josh popped the cork on the champagne and poured both glasses. He handed me one and toasted.
"To you, Susie." He winked at me, and I melted. I put my glass down and reached for him. He pulled me to him and kissed me hard, then he handed me my glass, took my other hand, and led me to the sofa. There was a huge fireplace surrounded by granite, but it was too warm for a fire. Porcelain lamps on side tables provided just enough light and atmosphere as we sat down with our glasses of champagne.
"Please, Josh, tell me more about yourself. Tell me all the things I don't know about Josh Ryan."
"I'm afraid if I tell you everything you won't love me."
"If you can love me with all my warts…?" I looked at him sideways and he laughed.
"I told you my dad was a doctor. What I didn't tell you is that his dad was an oil baron of sorts, owned property in Texas and Arizona, where they struck oil when my dad was a kid. He grew up wealthy. My mother was the daughter of a railroad tycoon here in New York. They met when my dad was in medical school at Columbia. I grew up in a house three times the size of this one, and we had a home on the coast of Maine where we spent summers."
"Why aren't you a snot?"
"I've worked at that. My dad would never let us take things for granted. He told us that we were just lucky, that it was by the grace of God and undeserved luck that we were born into privilege and that we should never think we were better than anyone else. 'The luck of the draw’, he called it, and he never took it for granted. When he died, I was determined to be the man he'd always wanted me to be." Josh told me lots of things that weekend; things I should have asked him all along, but I had always been too caught up in myself.
He told me he had recently been accepted into a fellowship program in plastic surgery. I didn't know he'd spent the past two years in a plastic surgery residency program after his three years as general surgery resident. He said he'd had lots of offers for fellowships outside of New York, but he'd waited until he got one in the city. "I'm not leaving you and Lilly. No career is worth that sacrifice."
"Josh, surely you aren't staying in New York for us."
"Yes, Ma'am. You can't run me off. Ever." He told me that his dream was to operate on children with cleft lips and pallets, especially in second and third-world countries where most kids didn't have doctors or money for the operation.
"Lots of those children are ostracized by their entire society, thought to be deformed. Even kids with cleft lips who live in the States are bullied and marginalized. I want to help them." The more he talked, the more I loved him. I forgot that I'd ever been with another man.
Josh was my beginning and my end; I didn't want anything else, not even memories.
I'd call Marianne, and she would tease me about "gushing" over Josh. She told me Rodney was married and living in California, and that he and his wife were still hoping to be shipped overseas. I meant it when I said I was happy for him. I believed we had been childhood sweethearts and that after we grew up, none of the things that made us love each other existed anymore because we'd become different people.
One evening, Josh told Lilly and me that he wanted to take us out somewhere special that weekend, that we should get all dressed up for a night out in Manhattan. I took Lilly shopping and bought her the prettiest red dress and black patent leather shoes, and white socks trimmed in lace. I put a red bow in her hair, and when I think back to that night, I realize she looked like the character in Annie, with her reddish-brown curly hair, big, bright eyes, and that red dress with the white cuffs and black belt.
Our doorbell rang, and I buzzed Josh up on the elevator. He oohed and ahhed when he saw us. I wore a black sheath with a
plunging neckline and tiny straps. It reached past my knees, and I had on black heels with sling-back straps, my toes showing. My hair was loose and fell almost to my waist, and I'd pulled one side back with a tortoiseshell comb.
Josh wore a simple black tuxedo and bowtie and was the most handsome man I'd ever seen, his dark wavy hair brushed away from his face, flipping out over his collar, and a few loose curls springing out on his forehead. His green, almost emerald eyes shone as bright as a flashlight when he looked at us standing there in the foyer.
When we got downstairs, the doorman ushered us to a waiting limousine and opened the door for Lilly and me to slide in. Josh went around and entered from the street side. Lilly sat between us and couldn't keep her hands off all the buttons and the bar with decanters and crystal glasses. Josh poured a 7-Up into a champagne flute for Lilly and real champagne for me. He had two fingers of bourbon in a highball glass. Lilly chatted nonstop, but I was so dumbfounded I couldn't find words until we were several blocks away from my building.
"What's the occasion? This is extreme, isn't it?"
"Not too extreme for tonight, no," He winked at Lilly and she beamed as though she was in on some secret and I was the only one who didn't know. We went to a Broadway play, The Wiz, an unusual hit for its all-black cast. Lilly fell asleep after Act 1, which Josh said was just as well since the Wicked Witch in Act 2 would have frightened her and, he said, "She needs a nap if she is going to be awake for dinner at Sardi's," where he had reservations after the show.
Lilly woke up when we walked out of the theatre into the fresh air. Josh was carrying her, and her head was on his shoulder. She rubbed her eyes and asked, "What happened?"
"In the play?" Josh pushed her hair off her face and handed me the bow that was dangling by a few loose strands.
"Yes, to Dorothy? And the Lion and Scarecrow and Tin Man."
"Oh, Dorothy went back to Kansas, and her friends all got what they wanted and stayed in Oz to make the city a great place."
"Oh! Can we go see it again one day?"
"Sure sweetheart," Josh winked at me and put Lilly down on the sidewalk so she could climb into the limo. Arriving at Sardi's in a limo was not unusual, but it certainly made the doorman pay attention and suggest that the maître d' seat us at a table near a window so we could people-watch. Lilly acted like a little lady, put her napkin on her lap, and sat up straight in her chair. We talked about the play and her school and Josh's work and the book with the Catfish stories I was almost finished writing.
After dinner, the waiter brought a small coconut cake, alight with sparklers, and set it in front of me.
"You have the wrong table. It's not my birthday." I looked at Josh, whose smile was larger than life. Lilly's ladylike demeanor disappeared, and she sat on her knees in her chair and started bouncing up and down, clapping. It seemed everyone in the restaurant stopped talking and were all looking at us. Before I could gather my wits about me, Josh was on one knee between my chair and Lilly's. He opened a black velvet box and the largest diamond I'd ever seen sent rays up to the chandelier over our table. Lilly continued bouncing and clapping. My hand automatically went to my mouth to muffle a screech I felt was about to escape.
"Will you marry me? Both of you?" He stared at me with those emerald eyes and thick eyelashes, a plea on his face, and a smile on his lips. We hadn't discussed marriage, so I was caught off-guard. I looked at this man and knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him; I wanted to grow old with him.
"Lilly, what do you think?" I winked at Lilly and she said, "Yes! Say yes, Susie!" Josh was looking from Lilly to me. When his eyes locked on mine I nodded my head and mouthed, "Yes," and he took the ring from the box and slid it on my finger. The restaurant erupted in applause and flashbulbs went off as though we were celebrities. I bent at the waist and put my hands on Josh's cheeks and kissed him on the lips. His mouth was warm and moist, and I wanted to lock onto it and not let go, but Lilly was climbing on his back, and he reached around and put her on his knee between us. Then he pulled out another, smaller box and opened it. Inside was a little gold ring with a solitary ruby in a simple setting, perfect for a six-year-old girl. Lilly was so excited when Josh slipped the ring on her finger that she couldn't keep still. She ran around the table flashing her hand in the air so everyone could see the red stone.
Josh corralled her and we had a group hug that lasted until Lilly said, "Let's eat the cake!" We laughed, as did everyone in the restaurant who then went back to their meals and conversations while our waiter cut the cake and poured champagne into our flutes.
It was a magical night that ended with Josh spending the night at our apartment, although he had to sleep on the couch since Lilly slept with me and her little bed was much too small for his six-foot-three-inch length. He whispered in my ear that we'd have to work on sleeping arrangements once we were married, and we both laughed. He kissed me goodnight, pecked Lilly on the cheek and, as excited as we all were, we must have been exhausted because everyone fell sound asleep.
Over the next few months, Josh and I talked about where we would live and decided on his place as a temporary home until we could find something that was more family-oriented. Josh wanted me to stop working and write full-time, but I wasn't ready to give up my independence just yet. Although we wanted to get married right away, Lilly would have to change schools again, so we decided to wait until summer so she could have time to settle down in our new home and start second grade in the fall.
*
Meanwhile, I was working hard on The Catfish Stories and wanted to make progress on the book that Mr. Mobley said Shilling might be willing to publish. I took out my composition book one evening and thought about the story of Anna Lee, because it was a love story, and a story of the redemption of colored people through education.
I thought about how Catfish sounded when he told me stories, especially when he talked about Anna Lee, who was his grandmother and the person he said did the most for the people in the Quarters. His voice would raise an octave, and he'd rock a little faster when he talked about her. I can still hear the excitement in his voice as he told the story about how his granddaddy ended up married to the woman everyone called Annie.
"It started with the end of the Civil War which was also the end of slavery," Catfish said.
Anna Lee
1865
Mr. Van called a meeting in the Quarters and sat in a circle with all the workers and their children. That's when he told them they were free. They could go anywhere they wanted, or they could stay at Shadowland and work for him.
"You will have everything you have now: a house to live in, clothing, meals, and my protection. In addition, I'll pay you five dollars every month, and you can do whatever you want with that money." Mr. Van told the workers he appreciated all they'd done to help him turn the place around and that now it made a profit. He wanted everyone to stay if they wanted to. Most of the people stayed, but some, like Big Bugger, left.
"Turned out Maureen's daughter, Anna Lee, was real smart and the preacher and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Harris up at the Bethel Baptist where all my people still go to church every Sunday, took a liking to her and they started teaching her to read the Bible. Annie would stay after church on Sundays when the other folks had finished their picnics and set back to walking home, and Mr. and Mrs. Harris would give Annie some lessons. Soon they was teaching her how to add numbers and about history and other stuff. Maureen would clean up the Harrises’ house and the church while she waited for Annie to finish her lessons, and they would come on back to the Quarters just before dark.
Every Sunday night the people in the Quarters would have a hoedown. The men would play the harmonica and the banjo, mostly homemade instruments. They'd have someone with a tee-fer, or a petit fer—that’s a Cajun triangle made from the iron tines of a hay rake. Kids would pound on washtubs and use spoons on the bottoms of pots. If someone showed up with an accordion or a fiddle, we’d really have a h
oedown.
They'd get the music churning, and soon they'd be dancing and singing. Everyone would put something in a big pot of water that sat on a fire in the middle of the yard and, soon, they'd have gumbo or stew of some sort.
Well, after a few years Miss Maureen wanted to come back with the others for the hoedown, 'cause the Harrises was keeping Annie later, sometimes 'til after dark, teaching her all sorts of lessons. Annie was about ten or eleven at the time, and Miss Maureen axed Samuel, who ended up being my granddaddy, would he stay back and walk Annie home. He was about fifteen or sixteen, and at first he resented the job of waiting for Anna Lee while the others went back to the Quarters, but soon he was learning to read, too. He and Anna Lee became friends. Samuel had never had a friend, and the two talked easily while they walked the hour-and-a-half back to the Quarters alone on Sunday evenings.
Samuel and Annie learned to read and write and do some arithmetic, and they both learned the Bible front to back. They also learned about each other as they talked about everything: their dreams, their hopes, their desires, their futures.
"I never thought I'd be a free man," Samuel told her when he was about eighteen. "At first I thought about going north. They say black men are treated like white men up there."
"You have a job here on the plantation. Don't Mr. Van pay you?"
"Yeah, and he gives me a place to stay."
"When you came to Shadowland I was about five. You didn't come to church with us for those first years."
"On the plantation I come from, slaves weren't allowed to leave the property to go to church. We had our own service in the Quarters."
"What was it like there, at Kent House? Do you remember much?"
"Oh, I remember a lot," he said. "Most of it I want to forget, except I don't ever want to forget my mama. It's been eight years since I seen her, but it seems like yesterday. I can still smell her when I get near a wisteria vine, and I can picture her singing at our Sunday services. She had a beautiful voice."
Lilly Page 21
