Luella blushed, then they both laughed. Ms. Ready got up to leave her to her packing, saying, “You take care yourself and come see me when you come back.”
Luella shook her head sadly, “Oh, I prob’ly never will get this far away from home again.”
Ms. Ready left her with a “Humph!” and a “Honey, you’ll be back! I been round the block a few times. I know you will be back!” Then she left.
All things done, they were finally standing in the bus station, in the colored section. Luella was shedding tears, without a sound, and Sidney kept pulling her to him and rubbing her back. He had handed her the last flower. A gardenia. She kept smelling it and smiling at him over the petals.
Over his shoulder she could see a few people staring at his back. She almost hated them, but she hugged him tighter and kissed him with a loud smack on his cheek.
After everything seemed to have been said and there was silence between them, Luella asked, “We prob’ly won’t see each other again, huh?”
Sidney sighed and looked worried, “It’s hard to tell about the future. You got a house there, I got a place here. And my work is here where people know me and what I can do.” He sounded so despondent.
They both looked like little, lost, miserable orphans who didn’t have a friend in the whole world.
Luella pushed Sidney away, saying, ‘Don’t wait with me no more. I can’t stand all the hurt from knowin I’m goin to be leavin you. Just go on away. I’ll be alright.”
But Sidney reached and pulled her back to him as he wondered if she was ashamed of him or something. “Oh, baby, I can’t leave you til I just have to and that bus takin you on away from me. I got to keep my hand on you long as I can.”
At last her bus call came over the loudspeaker. She dragged herself to the line. He stood beside her til they went through the doors to the outside loading area. He held her hand til she got to the steps of the bus and she began to step up. Then she got out of line and hugged and kissed him, one more time, quickly. Then Luella rushed up the few steps into the bus.
The driver started the motor when the last passenger was aboard and Sidney stepped back from the hot air caused by the bus engine. But Sidney did not leave. He walked to the bus exit, stood on the sidewalk and watched the bus for several blocks until it turned, out of sight at last.
Part VII
Luella reached her hometown in the early evening. She walked home very slowly, tired from the bus ride and all the emotional times she had been through. Not wanting to mess her new clothes up, she had worn her red dress home, which was really coming apart now. On the bus, she had taken the red shoes and cut out the places for the growing bunions and corns. She carried her suitcase and the large box with all her new nightgowns in it.
Luella was tired, worn and thoughtful. When she reached her house she went in the front gate and after climbing the few steps to the porch, she heaved a deep sigh and set down on the porch swing, dropping her box and suitcase on the floor. As was her wont, she talked to the Lord.
“Lord, I been a long way from my home. I went away to live a little . . . see a little life.” She looked down, taking a long look at herself. “Life sure is hard on a body, ain’t it, Lord?”
She set there awhile, silent, looking out to nowhere. “Did I live, Lord? Haven’t I lived?” She nodded her head, yes. “I blive I did get to live a little. Oh, that Sidney, that Sidney. He made me live.”
Luella took a deep breath and stood up, gathering her things together to carry them into the house. At that moment, Mattie came around the corner and saw her. Taking in the ripping dress and cut shoes. Mattie’s heart became gladdened at what she thought was a sad sight. “Well! I see you done come back alone!”
Luella answered with a tired “Yes.”
But Mattie was heartened. “Well! Where that big-time husband you was gonna bring back with you?!”
Luella looked in her purse for her door key, wanting to get away from gloating Mattie. “He ain’t here.”
Mattie crossed her arms across her breast. “Where the reason you ain’t never gonna have to work again, like you said when you left?”
Luella opened her door, “I don’t know, Mattie! Just go away now. Come tomorrow. No, don’t come tomorrow, just go away now.”
Mattie laughed gleefully, “Girl, you ain’t shit now! Just like I warned you! Bet you broke, too!”
Luella turned back to her, “Mattie, I ain’t got the strength today.”
Mattie wouldn’t stop. Laughing, she said, “I know you tired! I know you sore now too! That man musta left you quicker’n money leaves a fool!”
Luella was too tired and her happiness sat somewhere in her mind keeping her from getting as angry as she felt like getting. “He left. You satisfied?”
“It ain’t my satisfaction you paid for! It was yours! And I sure bet you didn’t get that either!”
“Why you bet so much on me and my life, Mattie?”
“I bet you got more’n you bargained for!”
Luella went into her house, saying, “You right! Good night!” Then she shut the door, leaving Mattie outside, hollering at her.
“You don’t even know what time it is no more! I tole you! I tole you! Now you broke! And me, your friend, needs a new icebox to keep my babies’ milk cold! But, no! You rather give it to a no-count man, stead of your friend! See what you think of your friends?! You ain’t shit, Luella!”
Luella couldn’t help but open her door again, even as tired as she was. “No, I ain’t shit, but you are! Cause what I think of you is laying somewhere in a cow pasture! And I can sure see what my ‘friend’ thinks of me!” She shut her door again.
Mattie hollered again, “And the preacher want to see you!”
“He know where I live!” Luella hollered back.
“Everybody know that! Even Silki! But the preacher gonna put you out’a the church!”
Luella had to open the door to answer that. “You all ain’t got nothin but hell in that church noway! Thank the preacher for me.”
Mattie gasped and said, “OOHHHH! Blaspheme! We all be here in a coupla days from now . . . cause you ain’t fit to be in our congregation!”
Luella said, “Thank you for the compliment! I’ll be here when you come!” She shut the door for the final time and leaned her back against it. She looked around her little house and tightened her lips to keep from crying as she said out loud, “I’ll be here . . . forever. Alone.”
Some people can doubt even in the face of love. Sidney, finally, ended up thinking that Luella did all she did with him because she needed the money. Luella began to think Sidney did all he had done because Ms. Ready asked him to do it. Luella had never had any loving before so how could she know that it didn’t always feel like Sidney had made her feel; that it took “love” to get a feeling that good. Sidney had had sex, quick sex, so he should have known that it took “love” to have what he and Luella had shared. But, his innate doubts kept him from fully realizing what they had had. Sometime it takes time.
Luella visited Aunt Corrine to let her know she was home (she already knew because she had heard all the hollering) and to pick up her pets. They talked, a little, about Luella’s trip.
“I don’t know where Silki went. But I met a real nice man name of Sidney. He was real nice to me, showed me around and things. He the main reason I was able to come home. He bought my bus ticket.”
“Child, you don’t know how lucky you are you don’t know where Silki went. I don’t want to hurt you, but I am glad he ‘went.’ That Sidney fellow sounds like a real nice man.”
“He got a humpback.”
“Sound like he has a good heart, too.”
Luella smiled a beautiful smile at Corrine.
Everything returned to normal: Luella tending her garden, rubbing the cat, petting her dog, talking to her bird. She bought some goldfish. “I need a lot of living things around me.”
The people from the church never came. Didn’t put her out. Mattie had lie
d again. Luella started going back to church on Sundays with Aunt Corrine.
Aunt Corrine began to hear Luella crying at night. Again.
Corrine didn’t want to hear Luella crying again. She liked the happiness on her wistful face when she talked about Sidney. So she decided to have a little talk with Luella, her friend, who was like a daughter to her. She invited her to dinner for just the two of them.
After they had eaten, talking and laughing without malice about the people they knew and their church, Corrine poured two glasses of brandy for them.
“Come on, sit over here where you can lean back comfortable. Don’t worry about them dishes, I can get to them later.”
So Luella joined her, smiling as she reached for her brandy. “This the kind of thing Sidney does.”
Corrine took a small sip of her drink. “Your Sidney sounds like he is real nice to be around; his woman, I mean. Have you invited him here to visit you?”
“Oh, no, Aunt Corrine. He never will leave Memphis. And . . . I don’t know if he meant for us to . . . to . . . think of me and him as a . . . together.”
“From all you tell me, Luella, the man was very serious about you.”
“Well . . . he was sure nice to me. But, you know, ain’t no man gonna really . . . love me; the way I look . . . and all. He prob’ly bought me them clothes to cover me up so he could take me out!”
“I don’t believe that, Luella. You already told me that you all made love before he bought the clothes.”
“Well, yeah, but . . .”
“Listen, Luella, you need to know something about yourself. You are not a ugly woman, by a long shot! And you got such nice ways! Love is not just for who the world calls beautiful people. Sometimes they are the ones with the least love cause they never know what somebody is after: them or to show them off. And beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Corrine had Luella’s full attention.
“You are serious about your love that is inside you. That makes you a valuable person, a valuable woman, because it means when you love, you really love. And don’t think of Silki, because he came in the NAME of love without any of its reality. And he couldn’t see what you really were because he had NEVER seen and couldn’t recognize it. The man who cheats on love cheats his own self. It may not cost him much, but he gets even less cause he don’t know what it is he is missing.”
Luella stopped smiling and nodded her head, listening intently.
“You have a good mind. You just don’t put enough in it, maybe read books instead of magazines, but you are a practical, reasonable woman. Not a fool. And as for your looks, well, there are places in this world you’d be worshipped like a queen. But, what I mean to say is, men might choose a person for their looks, but the woman won’t have much in that man, cause when the looks are gone, that man is gone. And truth be told, there are no perfectly beautiful women in the world. Men either. You have a heart. A real heart. And it sounds like Sidney has one too. You tell me he has a humpback, well that humpback didn’t make you get away from him. You sittin round here pining for him. What makes you think he is not pining for you? You ARE lovable! What you all shared, to me, has real substance. There is something to it! Not just fever and beautiful empty dreams. If what you say about your sex and lovin, well, that’s the meat of life, not just the smell of the meat on a empty table of life! And goodness, sweetness, gentleness and faithfulness and honesty are the gravy over that meat! And you got all that gravy! That man ain’t dumb. He knows that. And the way you say he held you in his arms, every day and all through the night? Well, he wasn’t thinking of nobody else, chile.”
“Oh, do you really, really, really think so, Aunt Corrine?”
Corrine smiled softly at Luella. “I really, really do. Now you go on home and write that man a nice letter and invite him to come visit you. I would like to meet him, too.”
Luella finished her brandy, blushed at her own thoughts and started to the door, turning at the last instant to ask Corrine, “Aunty, if you feel that way about love, well . . . you ain’t old, you still look good and you don’t have nobody. I know you could, cause at church . . .”
Corrine laughed softly, thought a moment and said, “Baby . . . I been married, raised my children and now, I have peace. I have a good home, I go where I want to go, when I want to go. I spend whatever money I think I can afford to spend. I have had love, a couple of times, I think. Love is good, but you have to have the strength to endure it. Cause your own thoughts can give you pain. I am feeling no pain in my life. I like it that way.”
Luella smiled at her, with love and gratitude, and started out the door to the backyard fence with the broken slats. Corrine spoke to her from the back porch steps. “And another thing, you don’t know what I have, love or not, do you? I’m doin alright for myself.”
They laughed, together, as Luella went through the slats to her home. Happy for Aunt Corrine.
Corrine did not hear her cry, again, because Luella did not cry that night.
But she didn’t write Sidney. Still afraid he did not really want her. Could not really want her.
It had been just over two months since Luella had returned home. Life had settled back in its normal routine for her. Work a few days a week, cook her meals, play with her pets and work in her yard growing her vegetables and flowers.
One morning, just after daybreak, because Luella had started not sleeping too good again, she came out of her house and started working in her garden. Just clearing out the weeds as she did her thinking.
Corrine was up early, also, because she liked the morning part of the day to sit on her porch and have her coffee as she listened to the birds. She hadn’t reached the back porch yet and had looked out her front windows as was her usual way. This morning she saw a man, walking slowly up the street toward her corner of the block. She did not know him, so stayed looking out of the window until she might recognize who he was. He passed her house as he looked at Luella’s house, hard. He got to the corner and turned to walk back, passing both houses again.
Corrine started to put the curtain back in its place when her eyes were drawn to the man’s back; it had a hump on it. Her mouth dropped open as she wondered, “Is it him?! Is that Sidney?” She started to rush to the backyard and call over the fence to Luella. In mid-rush, she stopped and said out loud to herself, “Let that man do things his way. It ain’t my business. I won’t say nothin less he starts to leave the street.”
Corrine sat down by her front window to have her coffee and watched as the man went back and forth, slowly, several times. Finally, he dared to come through Luella’s front gate, but he didn’t go to the door. He sidled around the side of the house, going toward the backyard. Corrine changed seats to the side of her house next to Luella’s. She saw him see Luella and stop. He just stood there, looking embarrassed, peeking around the house at Luella. “Why, that’s a nice-lookin man!” Corrine thought as she sipped her cooling coffee.
Luella had finished picking string beans from her vines and now, with a basket full, she sat on her back porch and began to shell them for her afternoon meal. She picked by rote, indifferently. She shelled the beans for a few minutes, as he watched, then began to talk to God out loud.
“Lord, would you kindly tell me what you plan to do with me?” She looks up to the sky. “I know I am not gonna be no Moses, no Rachel, no Abraham, nobody you really need. They still want to put me out the church sometimes, but you don’t need to tell me, they can’t put me out of heaven if you want me there.”
She paused for a moment, hands stopped working. “Lord, I don’t like it here no more too much. I have done seen too much of life.” Her hands started shelling again.
Luella paused again, shook her head and smiled, “And I miss that little funny man of mine . . . Sidney.” She chuckled softly, “He a whole lotta man, Lord. And he’s kind and sweet. He’s a good man. I don’t know what you put in that hump, but I bet a whole lotta men need it! Ooohhh, yes, Lord!”
; Corrine was practically dying to be out on her back porch so she could hear everything better because Luella was speaking more to herself, not loud at all. The hidden man’s face was reacting to all Luella was saying and he didn’t look unhappy.
Luella had stopped shelling again and the pleased look was gone. She looked sad. “But . . . what I’m sposed to do, Lord? Ain’t you got nothin to tell me? Am I goin to be alone always?”
Corrine cracked her back door open and put her ear in place. The next sound surprised her as well as Luella.
Sidney answered Luella in a ghostly voice. “NOoooooooooooooooooooooo.”
Luella dropped the beans all over the porch as she suddenly set up straight. In a wondrous, amazed voice she spoke. “Is that you, Lord? Answering me?”
The answer came, “YESsssssssssssssssssssss.”
Luella, knowing what she thought was impossible, began to guess something. “You mean, Lord, I ain’t gonna have to be alone all my life?”
The answer came, “NOooooooooooooooooooo.”
Luella stood, putting her hands full of string beans on her hips. “Well, where my man be?”
“RIGHTtttttttttttt HEREeeeeeerrrr.” Sidney slowly stepped out from the side of the house into the backyard. “THEEeeee LORDDDD SENTtttttt MEEEEEEEEEEE TO YOUUUU-UUU, Luella!”
Luella jumped and ran off the porch, down the steps, her arms wide open, running to Sidney. “The Lord the smartest one in the whole world! My beautiful, wonderful Sidney! The Lord is good!”
Sidney laughed with such gladness in his heart. He held her and talked to her as he rocked her in his arms. “This is the new me, Luella, I can’t find my old self since I met you and you left me. You cried in your sleep that last night, now I cry in my sleep. I wake myself up moanin! And I kept tellin myself I didn’t have to be without you less you told me so.
“When you left me on that bus, I said, There she goes, my only woman. I’m watchin my baby go away! Every day I see that bus goin away, every night I see that bus goin away. And every thing I ever had, cept my dog, ain’t no meanin in it to me no more. Not without you.”
The Future Has a Past Page 12
