If These Walls Could Talk

by Bettye Griffin

  “Your own washer and dryer,” Carmen said wistfully. “I’m really envious of you guys. I’ll think of you, Dawn, every time I go to my building’s laundry room and find that someone has taken my clothes out of the dryer and dropped them on the floor while doing it, usually in a puddle of dirty water.”

  Dawn laughed. “Well, we’ll probably get a few more new things, like curtains and bathroom towels.”

  She ignored Milo’s dubious look and hoped he wouldn’t open his mouth. Their worries about paying the bills should be kept private. If he objected to her buying a few towels, that would really make them look bad in front of their friends.

  Fortunately, Carmen didn’t appear to notice the tension. “Did you see the stunned look on Gloria Hudson’s face when she saw us carrying out the furniture and you told her y’all had bought a house?”

  The memory made Dawn smile. Gloria had immediately fired off about ten questions, but Dawn politely blew her off, saying they had a lot of work to do and not a lot of time.

  “That woman is a busybody,” Milo said with a grunt. “Wants to get into everybody’s business so she can tell all she knows.”

  “They ought to give her a bugle and let her stand on the corner and make announcements on the hour, like an old-fashioned town crier,” Donald said, laughing.

  “I’m just glad you didn’t tell her anything, Dawn,” Milo said.

  Carmen made a grunting noise. “Not knowing any details won’t stop her from talking. What she doesn’t know she’ll just make up. I wonder if she ever got back the housewares she claimed she lent to Hazel? She must have told everyone in the building about that.”

  Dawn took a moment to say a prayer for her late neighbor, whose murder remained unsolved after nearly a year.

  Dawn waved to Milo, then yawned deeply as she half-stumbled onto the bus. Something hadn’t felt right when she opened her eyes in response to the alarm. Quickly she realized that it was pitch-dark outside. Just as quickly she had another thought, one much more sobering.

  This is how it would be from now on.

  Now she wished she hadn’t taken all those stray vacation days earlier in the year. Milo had decided to take two weeks off for the move, but she took only one. She wanted to save some time to take around Thanksgiving and Christmas. So he had another week to enjoy getting acclimated to the area, and she embarked on what would become a five-day-a-week commute to the city. At 5:40 in the morning. She’d had to get up at the ungodly hour of 4:15 AM. No one should have to get up that damn early unless they’re anchoring The Today Show for six million a year. Of course, Milo had to get up, too, to get her to the station, but he could drive back home and go back to bed, and of course that was precisely what he would do. What else was there to do at that hour?

  Dawn found her fellow commuters to be a friendly bunch, asking her if she was new to the area and introducing themselves, seeming genuinely welcoming. Among them was another black couple about her own age, Camille and Reuben. She made it a point to remember their names.

  As she expected, within thirty minutes into the trip the bus grew completely quiet as the passengers dozed off. The bus, which originated in Tobyhanna, made stops in Mount Pocono and Stroudsburg before getting on the highway for the remainder of the trip. It finally pulled into Port Authority a few minutes after 8:00, which gave her plenty of time to get to her office before nine. She’d spoken with her boss, who agreed to allow her to leave a few minutes before five, provided she got in before nine. If she missed the 5:35 bus back to Pennsylvania she had to hang around Port Authority until the next one left at 6:05.

  She decided to walk to the office to save carfare. Good Lord, wasn’t she spending enough on commuting expenses without having to shell out another two bucks for a MetroCard?

  She headed toward the Forty-Second Street exit, behind the woman named Camille from the bus. She couldn’t see her face, but she recognized the two-piece short-sleeved print dress Camille had on, the short skirt falling above her knees and showing off shapely legs, probably the high point of her pudgy figure. An animal print canvas bag hung from one of her hands, a white blazer was draped over the bend of her arm.

  Dawn had walked nearly two blocks behind Camille when she decided it was silly not to say anything to her. Better to walk with someone than alone. Besides, she was anxious to meet other people who lived in Monroe County. She could probably learn a few things. She watched as Camille’s hair, falling slightly past her shoulders in a shiny cascade, bounced as she walked. Dawn wore her own hair in a short cut, but she’d love to know who in Monroe County relaxed Camille’s hair so she could make an appointment there herself.

  She quickened her steps and caught up with Camille, who moved with typical midtown Manhattan briskness. “Hi there. I’m Dawn, and I met you on the bus. I hope you don’t mind. I figured we might as well walk together if we’re going the same way.”

  The woman smiled. “Yes, please join me. My name’s Camille Curry. You work over this way, Dawn?”

  “Yes. I’ve been behind you for a couple of blocks now, and I finally told myself this is silly. How far are you going?”

  “Fifth and Forty-Seventh.”

  “I’m at Madison and Forty-Third.”

  Camille smiled. “About the same distance, give or take. But it’s nice to have someone to walk with.”

  By the end of the week Dawn could easily match names with faces of all the regulars on the bus. Like her and Milo, they all came from New York and had at least one child, and they all had the desire to become home owners, despite the impracticality of working so far away. But she felt a special bond with Camille and Reuben Curry and Veronica and Norman Lee. She’d met the latter couple, one at a time, on the afternoon bus. Neither couple had lived in the area for more than a few months, but they still provided a wealth of information for her and Milo while they learned their way around Tobyhanna.

  The following Monday she shook Milo awake after she finished in the bathroom. He replied with his customary, “Ten more minutes.” It didn’t worry her; he always dressed in a flash anyway.

  In the kitchen she gathered the hero sandwiches she’d made the night before and placed them in insulated soft nylon lunch bags, along with fresh bagels and nonleak thermos bottles filled with juice. She dropped dollops of cream cheese into small plastic containers. Just because they had moved into their house didn’t mean they should stop the money-saving habits they’d developed while amassing their down payment. That unpleasant surprise they received at the closing was an excellent impetus for trying to conserve cash. Besides, Camille made lunch for herself and Reuben every day.

  Dawn’s efforts to cut back made her feel a lot less apprehensive about meeting their obligations. Carrying breakfast and lunch four days out of five saved a small fortune, but to keep from feeling deprived they agreed to allow themselves one day each week to buy meals out.

  Before she and Milo left the house they both stopped in Zachary’s room. “Zach, can you hear me?” Milo asked. When the sleepy boy nodded, he said, “Your mom and I are leaving now. We’ll call and make sure you’re up, and you call the cell if there’s any problem. After you walk Stormy and you’re ready to leave for school, all you have to do is make sure the latch is on the door.” During Milo’s week off he had driven Zach to the local pound, and they came home with a bulldog Zach promptly named Stormy. “Do you remember how to do it?”

  “I’ll hear it click,” Zachary mumbled.

  “That’s right, son.” Milo rubbed his shoulder, and Dawn bent to kiss his cheek.

  “I don’t like this,” Milo muttered as they left the house. “He’s just turned ten. He’s too young to be left alone in the middle of the damn night.”

  “It’s not really the middle of the night, Milo. Zach gets up at seven. That’s less than two hours from now. And Stormy is in the house with him. She’ll bark like crazy if anyone shows up.” Dawn felt reassured by her own words, even if she did feel that Stormy was the ugliest creature she’d eve
r laid eyes on. “He’ll be fine.”

  Milo grunted in response.

  She proudly introduced Milo to all their fellow commuters, and to Veronica Lee on the return trip. Norman Lee, who worked Thursday through Sunday, and Veronica, who worked Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, took the first bus out in the morning, which left at 3:45 AM, to allow them to work ten hours a day.

  Milo promptly fell asleep, waking up just as the bus rolled into Port Authority. Dawn affectionately covered the back of his hand with her palm. The one week head start she had had made her feel like a pro, but her husband looked like he ought to still be at home in bed. “You all right?” she asked as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. This commute is going to be murder.”

  “You’ll get used to it. It’s a routine, just like anything else.”

  “I don’t know, Dawn,” he said, reaching for his lunch bag. “I just don’t know.”

  Chapter 16

  The Currys

  September 2002

  Camille promptly picked up the receiver when her buzzer sounded, praying her boss wouldn’t want anything urgent twenty-five minutes before quitting time. She liked to rush out at the stroke of 5:00 to make sure she caught her bus. “Yes, Mr. Stephens.”

  “Camille, please come in.”

  She rolled her eyes. Her boss knew she left work promptly to make sure she got to Port Authority before 5:35. He’d already made her miss it once with a last-minute urgent assignment. By the time she got to Port Authority the last bus of the day, the 6:20, had just departed. Not only did she have to sleep on her father’s couch in Inwood, but she had to buy a new outfit to wear to work the next day. Thank God she managed to find something on sale. She hated the thought of spending forty dollars she really couldn’t afford, but at her office employee wardrobe held high importance. An account executive whose wife had left him began showing up for work in shirts that looked like he’d slept in them, and not long after he lost his job. Even secretaries were expected to wear suits or at least tailored separates. If she showed up wearing the same outfit on consecutive days, the gossip would have her living on skid row.

  She enjoyed her work in the fast-paced environment of marketing, and George Stephens was as good a boss as any.

  Notebook and pen in hand, she entered his office. “Here I am.”

  “You won’t have to write anything down. Have a seat.”

  Apprehension filled her belly. She’d been called in to the boss’s office at 4:30 on a Friday. Could she be about to lose her job? How could that be? George had always been satisfied with her work, or at least he claimed to be. She’d worked here longer than he had, staying on after her old boss went to a competitor. She’d only worked for George a little over a year. Maybe he wanted to bring in his own secretary?

  No, she decided. He couldn’t be giving her the ax, not with that big Jimmy Carter grin on his face. If anything, maybe he’d accepted a better position and he wanted her to be the first to know of his impending departure. And she’d be left to break in a new boss. Ugh. Just what she needed, another idiosyncrasy-plagued personality to cope with. And would this one like or dislike the use of serial commas in his documents? How would he want his coffee, black or with sugar? And, most important of all, would he be understanding of her schedule or would she be relegated to going home on the 6:05 from now on? A half an hour extra was a big deal with a workday as long as hers.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked tentatively.

  “Camille, I’m being promoted.”

  “You are! To what?”

  “They made me a director. I’ll be moving upstairs.”

  To the thirty-sixth floor with the senior management, she knew. The department had been buzzing about what management would do to fill in the vacancy resulting from the retirement of one of the vice presidents and the subsequent placement of one of the directors into that position. So ol’ George had been made a director. She wished she could move up in the organization, but there was no place for her to go, not with just a high school diploma.

  But this was no time to think about herself. “Oh, how wonderful for you!” she exclaimed, effectively masking the sadness she felt. “It looks like I’ll have to begin work with a new manager.” She sighed. “It’s happened before. Just when I get used to someone’s personality and habits they move on.”

  “Not this time, Camille. I’d like you to come along.”

  Her mouth fell open for a second, then formed a somewhat bashful smile. “Me? Working up on thirty-six?”

  “Why not? You’re bright and efficient. Why shouldn’t you be up there?” He smiled at her warmly. “It would mean a salary increase for you, too, if you accept.”

  A salary increase? If she accepted? Was he crazy?

  “I accept.”

  “The executive level, huh? Well, I guess all that money you spent on your suits will pay off after all,” Reuben said with a broad grin when she told him the good news.

  “He said he’s going to try to get me 15 percent, to bring me in line with what the other secretaries on that floor are getting.”

  “That sounds good, Camille, but don’t go redoing our budget yet. Wait until you know for sure what you’ll get.”

  “I think it’s a reasonable request. I’m sure he’s getting at least 15 percent.”

  “Yes, but he’s a director. You’re just a secretary.”

  She could only shrug at that. She wished she’d become more than just a secretary, but no one had stressed the importance of a college education to her. Her high school guidance counselor had mentioned career options like beauty school or fast food management. Even her own mother, who had died of an abdominal aneurysm when Camille was nineteen, used to tell her to choose a husband carefully, as if that would solve all her problems. The negative comments from Reuben’s relatives when they announced they were building a house had roots in jealousy of Aunt Mary’s bequest, but her own family had accepted and even embraced the status quo. Her father, stepmother, and brother had no expectations from life, content to know they’d never go hungry and would always have a roof over their heads—a rented roof. She’d never be able to convince them that upward mobility wasn’t a sin.

  She ended up enrolling in a secretarial school after she had gotten her first job as a receptionist, knowing that unless she did something she’d be greeting clients until she got old and gray. She’d been impressed with Reuben’s associate degree when she first met him at a downtown club when she was twenty-two, but now she knew that two years of college meant nothing in today’s tough job market. Mitchell and Shayla would both get bachelor’s degrees, and maybe even master’s. Just let some white guidance counselor try to steer Shayla toward doing nails or Mitchell toward working at McDonald’s, like they’d done to her. She’d tell them in an instant that they were full of shit, that her kids were college material. Now that she was thirty-five instead of sixteen, she had a pretty good idea that her counselor had made recommendations along ethnic lines, steering white students toward college and black and Hispanic students to trade schools. She never claimed to be the brightest bulb in the class, but she was certainly smart enough to go to college and earn a degree.

  Look at that Dan Quayle. The man had the brains of a bag of hair extensions, he’d managed to get a law degree and become vice president of the United States, a heartbeat away from the most powerful job in the entire world. But he was white and wealthy. Dawn bet no guidance counselor had tried to get him to flip hamburgers while he learned the fast food business. The old double standard at work again. People like Britney Spears and Barbra Streisand could spell their first names different from the standard and be considered unique, while when a black person does that, people say they can’t spell.

  Every now and then Camille toyed with the idea of enrolling in college on a weekend program, but decided she’d waited too long. In five years she’d be forty. Besides, now that she spent so much time going to and from work she really had no time
for sitting in a classroom or studying. Reuben did well at the supermarket, and with her raise they’d do fine.

  Two weeks later Camille found out that a 10 percent increase had been approved for her. She’d initially been disappointed, having hoped for the 15 percent George had said he’d request for her, but office scuttlebutt had it that the cost-of-living increases being given hovered around 4 percent, so at least she’d gotten two and a half times more than the standard. It just went to show that Reuben had been right; she shouldn’t start spending the extra money until she knew exactly what she’d be getting.

  One thing for sure, they certainly could use the extra income.

  Chapter 17

  The Youngs

  October 2002

  Dawn always felt rejuvenated when the bus reached Mount Pocono, the next-to-last stop of their commute. About half of the remaining commuters got off here.

  She looked up curiously as Veronica Lee climbed aboard the bus as soon as the door opened. Veronica usually drove to the station to pick Norman up—like most transplants from the city, they were a one-car family—but simply waved to them from outside as she waited with their two young daughters. Something special had to be happening.

  Norman moved to stand behind her at the front of the bus. They made a cute couple, with Veronica so petite and Norman so strapping, although he was more beefy than tall, standing maybe five-ten.

  “This will only take a minute,” Norman said to the driver before addressing the remaining riders. “Good news, everybody,” he announced. “Veronica and I have both accepted positions at the Pocono Medical Center. Another two weeks and we won’t be joining you for the ride home.”

  Applause and wild shouts broke out. Even the bus driver applauded.