Out of Darkness (Fiction - Young Adult)

by Ashley Hope Pérez

  She had counted forty-nine flares when she thought she heard movement at the bottom of the tree.

  “Is that you?” she called down softly, but there was no answer. “Wash?” she whispered.

  For a panicked moment, she imagined that someone had followed her from the church. Even the twins would cause her problems right now.

  “Say something,” she pleaded with the darkness.

  “I love you?” came Wash’s voice.

  “That is something,” she said, laughing. “Say it again, but not like a question.”

  “I love you.”

  The branches beneath her creaked. The heavy dark leaves rustled. Closer. Closer. She sucked in a breath, felt it cold in her chest.

  “Again,” she said.

  “I love you.” He was on the branch beneath hers, and his hands slid up her stockings slowly, slowly. His fingers crept over her knees, then stopped. “Well?” he said.

  Naomi closed her eyes and listened and felt the age of the tree trunk under her hands. She remembered all the lights she’d seen over the countryside, only now they were compressed in the center of her chest. Her heart was a ball of light, and it was Wash who had made it so.

  She tried on the words. “I. Love. You.” Nothing had ever felt truer.

  Wash let out a breath and slid his hands up to her thighs. He lifted her down onto his branch and held her tight, and she knew for certain that hers was not the only heart full of light.

  Then fireworks exploded over the church in red and green and blue bursts.

  Midnight.

  Their kiss outlasted the fireworks.

  JANUARY 1937

  WASH Wash was so busy finding ways to be with Naomi that he all but forgot the scheme to get money to improve the colored school. But the seed of his idea had sprouted in his father’s imagination, and a week into the new year, Wash found himself walking with his father toward Mr. Crane’s back porch. They’d had a meeting set with the school board, but the entrance to the main hall and all the side doors of the school had been locked tight.

  Wash stopped in the middle of Mr. Crane’s yard, but his father continued up the porch steps and knocked softly at the door.

  Mr. Crane’s stern-faced housekeeper answered it. “Can I help you?”

  “Good evening, Miss Cayla,” Jim began. “I hope you can. I’m looking for the superintendent. We had a meeting with the school board set for this evening. I thought it would be in the administrative office, but the school is locked.”

  Cayla’s eyes drifted toward the school before settling on Wash. “Mr. Crane isn’t available tonight, sir.”

  “I’m sure the meeting was today.” Jim said.

  “Mr. Fuller, I’m telling you, the superintendent isn’t available.” Her words rang out sharply, and her hands were at her hips. Jim frowned and glanced back at Wash.

  Wash shrugged and checked his watch. It was almost six o’clock, and the meeting was supposed to be at five thirty. When he looked up, he saw a curtain move in one of the parlor windows and a glimpse of Mr. Crane’s long, sharp nose and close-cropped white hair.

  “Come off it, Miss Cayla. I can see Mr. Crane up there in the parlor.” Wash raised his voice. “Evenin’ Mr. Crane! We’re hoping to speak with you.” He flashed a grin in the direction of the window, but the face was gone.

  “Y’all best go on quick now. Don’t wanna find no trouble or make none,” Cayla said softly, urgently. This time her words were just for them.

  “Thank you, Miss Cayla,” Jim said. He headed down the steps.

  “There’s no trouble here. We can wait a spell,” Wash called. His father shot him a warning look, but he stopped and waited next to Wash.

  Cayla twisted a dish towel in her hand and went back into the kitchen.

  A few minutes later, the screen door opened, and there was Mr. Crane.

  “Sorry about this, Jim, I surely am.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Wash’s father said, turning on his humble-but-charming voice. “I’m obliged to you for setting up the meeting.”

  “Jim,” Mr. Crane began, “it’s like this, to make changes to the budget, we have to have the whole school board present.”

  “Of course, sir. That’s why we came. Like we talked about last week.”

  “Yes, but as you saw ... a number of board members have elected...”

  “They’re voting with their absence,” came a gruff voice. “Cowardly. Or ‘diplomatic’ if you want a four-dollar word for it.” The owner of the voice navigated his bulk through the doorway and jostled past Mr. Crane onto the porch, a tumbler in hand. He let the screen door slam behind him. “Me, I got no problem telling you that your pickaninny school is plenty good for what it’s intended for. The rest of my esteemed colleagues, they’d rather ignore you till you give up than call you an uppity son of a bitch to your face.”

  Wash saw his father’s shoulders tighten. “Evenin’, Mr. Gibbler. I’m simply here to give a presentation, sir. To explain the needs of our community. And to show the benefit your help would have for white citizens as well. Of course, I know there are limits, but surely—” He gestured at the pumpjacks pulling oil out of the ground—“with the oil money ... with the taxes ... and,” he nodded at Wash, “the savings from switching to the raw gas—”

  “We got plenty to spend our money on right over here. Your school’s better than half the white schools in Texas. What in the hell is it you want now?” Gibbler asked.

  “A few books for the children, sir.” Jim spread his hands apologetically.

  Gibbler frowned and leaned a beefy thigh against the porch railing. “Let’s see, if I recall correctly, we gave you all a truckload of primers at the end of last school year. Plus books for your library. Even some supplies. Desks and chairs, I do believe.” He ticked the items off on his fingers. They were as large as sausages and just as fat.

  Wash swallowed a laugh. He’d spent half his summer repairing the battered furniture the whites had tossed out. And the primers—the only one that wasn’t missing sections had an obscene drawing inked on every page.

  “You’re right, sir,” Jim said, “and we’re most grateful for your generosity. Most grateful, sir.” Wash could hardly stand the bootlicking tone. He stared into the woods so that he wouldn’t have to see the smile he knew was still plastered on his father’s face.

  The thought of the woods made him bold, and Wash took a step forward, then another. “They’re missing pages,” he said. “Sir.”

  “What was that, Washington?” Mr. Crane asked. “Speak up, son.”

  “I said, those books we got from y’all, they were all missing pages. I can fix busted furniture, but I can’t make pages appear for the little ones to learn their lessons.”

  His father turned and gave Wash a hard stare, his lips tight. “What my son means to say is that we’re keen on improving the level of education at New London Colored School. Sure want to be a credit to the county.”

  “Secondhand doesn’t have to mean ruined,” Wash said. He knew he was getting careless, but he didn’t give a damn anymore. He couldn’t simper around these fools and still be what he was becoming for Naomi. If he had to burn bridges to be that man, he would. The next words flew out of Wash’s mouth. “How about passing down some supplies before they’re worn plum out? How about that, sir?” His sense caught up with him in time for him to tack on the “sir.”

  “You are mighty brazen, boy,” Gibbler said. He jerked his head left and then right and grinned at the cracking sound his neck made. “You want to be a high-tone colored, huh?”

  Wash shook his head. “No, sir. I’d be pleased to be a simple carpenter.” He didn’t look at his father, but he could hear his sharp intake of breath. That was another bridge he was setting fire to, although it might not burn so fast.

  Mr. Crane patted Gibbler on the back. “One thing’s for sure, give him tools, and this young man can fix up anything you can find and build anything you can think of. I can vouch for that.”


  “Thank you, sir,” Wash said.

  “Shit, Dan.” Gibbler rattled the ice in his tumbler, then held it up in Mr. Crane’s direction. “That’s something else we need to talk about. I heard from a couple of roustabouts that you got a habit of giving good work away to coloreds, work that plenty of whites would be glad for.”

  Mr. Crane took the glass from Gibbler. “There’s work to go around.”

  Jim Fuller’s shoulders sagged, and he lifted his hat to his head with trembling hands. “Looks like we ought to be going. Gentlemen, I sure would be glad to try for another meeting. I’ll wait to hear from you, of course.”

  “Sure thing, Jim. That’s it,” said Mr. Crane.

  “Yeah,” Gibbler laughed. The long jowls of his face jiggled. “You just wait on us. You come back when we send for you.”

  “Good night, gentlemen,” Jim said. Even without seeing his father’s face, Wash could feel him urging him to play this right and salvage things as best he could.

  “Good night, Mr. Crane, Mr. Gibbler,” Wash said. And thanks for nothing, he wanted to add.

  When they were a good thirty yards away, Wash’s father grabbed his arm. “What in Jesus’ name were you thinking, talking like that? How do you think we’re going to turn them to our cause now?”

  Wash gave a dry laugh. “Come on, Pa,” he said, “you were right. We’re dealing with some cold, cold hearts here. Heck, it’d take an explosion to wake them up.” The last words rang out through the thin January air.

  Wash and his father glanced back. They didn’t see anyone on the porch, and Wash felt a wave of relief and then instant shame. He didn’t want to be like his father, chained to “yessirs” forever, but maybe it was harder to burn bridges and break habits than he thought.

  THE GANG We had all heard Miranda harping for months about how Naomi was greasing up the school. A greaser’s a greaser, maybe, but the real itch in Miranda’s panties was about Gilbert asking Naomi out, even if she said no. We all knew that Miranda wanted him for herself. She tried to get him last year, but old Gibbler had bigger and better plans for his one and only daughter. These days, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight.

  Miranda whined to the girls about how Gibbler dragged her around in the back of his Packard whenever he went to check out a strike or stare down an unproductive tool pusher. Nights after school board meetings, she was condemned to sip iced tea alone on Mr. Crane’s porch while her father browbeat the old superintendent inside and drank up his bourbon. There was nothing Miranda liked less than sitting around without an audience. We had good reason to believe that, in those moments, she’d have gladly traded her diamond leash for Naomi’s wetback freedom. And that only made Miranda hate Naomi more.

  Maybe that’s why she started whispering about Naomi and Mr. Crane’s colored boy.

  NAOMI Naomi should have known that Wash and the twins were up to something when she didn’t hear from the three of them for over an hour. She’d been sweeping the porch after school when Wash walked by the yard, and she wanted to run to him and soak up his smile. But that would have to wait.

  She called to him. “Twins are on the side of the house, by the shed.” Then she turned back to her work. After the sweeping, she had laundry to hang. She worked fast; the sooner she finished, the closer she’d be to a chance at meeting Wash in the woods.

  He passed by again a few minutes later.

  “Going?” she asked. “I just have to hang out this last bit of laundry.” Maybe she could get away now, if only for a few minutes.

  “I’ll be back. I’m going to pick up my toolbox. Did you know about that little radio out there?”

  She groaned. “There’s a story behind it. Not a good one.”

  “Well, Beto’s set on fixing it. I told him he could use my tools. He can’t make it any more broke, right?”

  “I guess not,” she said, holding back her disappointment. “Sounds like a slow job.”

  “I reckon we’ll just play at fixing it.”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Naomi pulled her coat tighter around her and settled a kitchen chair onto the porch. If anyone asked why she was sewing out in the cold, she’d say she just wanted some fresh air. The house was stuffy from being closed up all winter.

  Wash and Beto sat on the back steps with the radio between them. They peered inside it and fiddled with the tubes and wires. After an adjustment, Beto carried the radio into the house to see if it would turn on. Cari paced back and forth in front of the porch until Wash told her to sit down so he could teach her the names of his tools. When he finished, he gave her a wink. “Think you can tell ’em apart with your eyes closed?”

  Naomi sighed. She loved the sweetness of the three of them together; she just wished it didn’t mean losing her time with Wash. But he was good, too good, to deny the twins their share.

  She worked on a little smock for Muff’s baby and imagined that Wash was teaching her the tools. His hands, large and strong and gentle, guiding hers. Now, he was holding a hammer out to Cari.

  “Martillo,” Naomi whispered.

  Maybe in Spanish she could tell him what she meant. All of it. Maybe in Spanish she would find the right words.

  BETO Beto fixed the radio. He got the antenna wire to reach to the kitchen window, and he plugged the set in there so they could hear the music in the yard. Then he hopped down the steps working an imaginary fiddle under his chin to match the country tune that was playing.

  “You’ve got a way with those tools, buddy.” Wash grinned at Beto and winked.

  Cari scowled. “I helped, too.”

  “Yes, ma’am, you did,” Wash said.

  Beto waited for the compliment to be repeated, for Cari to take part of the praise that had started out being just for him. But Wash left it at that. Beto stored up the words. Words he didn’t have to share. You’ve got a way with those tools. Buddy.

  Wash packed up his tools and left a little before sunset. Naomi appeared on the porch, hugging her bare arms. “Just a few more minutes. Then we put it away. Back out in the shed, okay?” She kept her voice bright, but Beto knew she was thinking about the first time the radio had played. He didn’t want that memory, didn’t want Naomi to have it either. He ran up the porch steps and hugged her tight. Because.

  After a minute, Cari came up the steps. “Daddy’s got the late shift,” she said, twirling a finger around one of her curls. “He won’t be home for hours. Can’t we make a party?”

  “You could wear Mami’s dress!” Beto added. Naomi had shown it to them on Christmas Day when she’d told them the story of how it’d been a prize for a dance-off that their mother had won on her birthday. Estella had even written the date of the contest on the dress’s label. March 18, 1923.

  “Please, Omi?” They said it together, and before she had answered, Cari took her hand and led her into the kitchen.

  “Just for a little while,” Cari said solemnly.

  “You can have the radio for a few more minutes,” Naomi said. Inside, she hummed along with “Jesse Polka” and began getting out the things for supper.

  “Make tortillas? Wear her dress?” Cari said.

  “And dance?” Beto pressed. “Please?”

  Cari looped her arms around Naomi’s waist. “And dance!”

  Naomi shook her free. “I can’t dance like she could, you know that. And we already have biscuits.” Naomi pointed to the pan cooling on the counter.

  “They’ll still be good for breakfast tomorrow,” Beto said.

  “We won’t complain, promise!” Cari said. “And you don’t have to dance—just tell us what it was like.”

  NAOMI And that was how Naomi ended up wearing her mother’s frilly red dress. She’d agreed on the condition that Beto and Cari renew their promise to stay out of her guitar case. “Everybody should get to have one bit of privacy,” she said. She did not say, I can’t give her to you. She did not say, I need her for myself.

  Naomi raised a hand to her hair, which the twins had twisted and pin
ned up. It looked to her like a dark tangle of rope, but she couldn’t resist their excitement. “When Mami did her hair,” Naomi said, “it was perfect. Not a strand out of place.”

  “And the dancing?” Cari asked.

  “She could dance all night long, dozens of dances. Gringo dances and Mexican dances. Everything.”

  She retold the story of how Estella won the dress by dancing until four in the morning. And then turned to other, even more familiar stories. Stories she’d repeated so many times that all three of them knew what she was going to say before she said it. Stories that didn’t require her to sacrifice some part of her heart she hadn’t already given up. She had to save what she could; she dreaded the day when she’d have to tell them, “That’s it. You’ve heard it all.” Then she would have handed over everything that had been hers alone.

  Even Wash belonged equally, if differently, to the twins.

  While she told them the stories, Naomi began the tortillas. Once she’d worked the dough into a fine, smooth mass, she let the twins roll out their own tortillas. Cari had had some practice in San Antonio, but still hers came out ruffled around the edges like the collar of a dress. Abuelita would be appalled, but Naomi just smiled.

  Beto’s first try looked a little like a sunflower. The next looked like a cat, Cari said.

  “Edgar!” Beto grinned. “We’ll save that one for her.”

  Just like the first time she’d made them for the potluck, the tortillas cooked too fast in Henry’s cheap pans. She needed a proper comal or at least a cast-iron skillet, but the tortillas were still delicious rolled up warm with sugar and a bit of cinnamon and salt. The twins sat at the table, covered in sugar but happy. For now, what she had given them was enough.

  Naomi was cooking the last tortilla when she heard Henry’s truck pulling onto the patch of gravel by the back porch. She froze, taking in the scene through his eyes. Her nose twitched, and she looked down to find the tortilla blackened and smoking in the pan. She flipped it into the sink and turned the gas off. She heard his boots on the steps and the double thunk of him kicking them off onto the porch. There was no time to hide anything, but she reached over to the radio and clicked it off. The Light Crust Doughboys faded into silence.