If These Walls Could Talk

by Bettye Griffin

  With his other hand he rubbed her shoulder. “Let’s go to bed.”

  Dawn, asleep contentedly in Milo’s arms after the most romantic evening they’d had in months, jerked at the loud noise that sounded frighteningly near. “What was that?”

  Even he looked startled. “It sounds like it came from the closet.”

  She relaxed. At least no one had broken into the house. “Something must have fallen over.”

  Milo put on his glasses, then threw back the covers and walked to the closet, Dawn hovering close behind him. He hesitated at the door, then pushed it open in one motion. “Oh, shit.”

  Dawn gasped. A beam had collapsed in the back corner of the closet, its weight taking down one of the clothing racks. Clothes now littered the floor of the previously neat space, both those that had been hanging as well as the baseball caps and sweaters from the shelf above.

  “This would happen now, damn it,” Milo said. “Our warranty expired just last month. Bastards must have timed it to last just over a year.”

  “You mean this isn’t covered by our home owners insurance?”

  “Hell, no. That policy is for things like fire and theft and damage from falling trees. We’ll have to pay to fix this shit ourselves. Damn.” He slammed the door shut and shook his head in disgust. “I’m going back to bed.”

  Dawn could think of no comforting words. She began picking up the fallen items, then realized she had nowhere to place them. She’d have to wait for Milo to rehang the rack. She hoped to God he would do it later today. She didn’t want to have to ask him and have him accuse her of nagging, especially after the nice time they had had, but how could they possibly manage with their clothes on the floor?

  Instinctively she knew that the brief respite of contentment with his life had passed.

  Milo not only rehung the white wire rack that day before she had to prompt him, but by Tuesday he arranged to have the beam replaced. “It’s there for a structural reason,” he told Dawn. “If we just let it stay down, we’re likely to have a cave-in, and that’ll really cost us.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe how much we have to pay to have this fixed. What the hell did the builder do, slap this house together like a deck of cards?”

  Dawn thought of the expense they’d incurred last spring to raise the height of the lot that their house stood on and she wondered the same thing.

  “I’m getting tired of shelling out all this cash for this or for that,” Milo continued. “I never thought I’d ever have to pay for a septic system or for someone to collect our garbage, for Christ’s sake.”

  “It’s all part of living in the suburbs, Milo. It’s pretty and clean here, but it can’t be free. Somebody has to pay for it.”

  “Yes, but it would have been nice if we’d been told about the price tag before the bills showed up in our mailbox. We might have decided the cost was too high and stayed in Brooklyn, where we could flush our toilet and put our trash down the chute for free.”

  She remembered Veronica saying about how she and Norman had attended a home-buyer’s seminar, where they learned about things like home owners association fees and septic systems and snow clearance. Of course, Dawn knew all about these things now, but that knowledge came from learning the hard way. The Lees had definitely been better prepared to buy a home in Pennsylvania than she and Milo had.

  Still, the thought of continuing to live in Brooklyn next door to an apartment where a friend had been murdered made her twist her mouth in distaste. “I’m glad we’re out of there.”

  “You make it sound like we lived in a tenement, Dawn. Yeah, there were some maintenance problems in the building, but they’re being fixed.”

  They knew from their friends Carmen and Donald Triggs that the elevators had been replaced, one at a time; and that residents had been encouraged not to let strangers past the locked vestibule of the building, but instead let them call the apartment they were visiting and be buzzed in. Signs to this effect had been put up. Hazel’s murder had prompted this action, as review of the security tapes showed a strange man being let in by a resident at eight PM the night she was murdered. The grainy image still hadn’t led to an arrest, and Hazel’s apartment had been cleaned out and rented to an unsuspecting new tenant, but the police felt certain this man had committed the murder, as he was shown leaving around the time of Hazel’s death.

  “We had a good life there,” Milo concluded.

  “You can’t deny it isn’t nicer here,” she said stubbornly.

  “No, I can’t. But when do we really get a chance to enjoy it? I only get fifteen personal days a year, plus maybe seven holidays. Weekends don’t count. By the time I’ve rebounded after commuting all week it’s time to go back to work again. So not only am I broke but tired, too. I’m sorry, Dawn, but living here isn’t like I thought it would be.”

  She sighed. Life in Pennsylvania hadn’t panned out to what she wanted, either. She found the bills just as staggering as Milo did. But they lived here now. They had to make the best of it.

  Chapter 29

  The Currys

  September 2003

  Camille slammed the car door and wearily fastened her seat belt. “God, I’m beat. The kids okay?” Usually Reuben brought Mitchell and Shayla with him when he came to the station to pick her up.

  “And hello to you, too, Camille.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Hi.”

  He started the car. “The kids are fine. I left them home so I could talk to you. I had some good news today. I’ve got a job at FedEx.”

  Camille immediately brightened. “They pay good, don’t they?”

  “Yes.” He named an hourly rate. “Not bad for loading and unloading packages on trucks.”

  “Well, that’ll certainly help. Actually, with no commuting expenses, it’ll help quite a bit.” Referring to Reuben’s lack of a commute still left a lump in her throat, but she forced herself to think about the positive effect one fewer bus pass would have on their budget. “They have good benefits, too, don’t they?”

  “Uh . . . I heard something about tuition reimbursement and discount travel.”

  Her eyes widened. She and Reuben certainly deserved a vacation—without the kids—after all they’d been through. Maybe they could go somewhere romantic for a few days, like Charleston or Savannah. Hell, maybe they could even go to Vegas, a place she’d always wanted to see. Did they really have slot machines in ladies’ rooms and supermarkets, like people said?

  She could barely keep up with her thoughts, which had gotten on a runaway train. They should be able to get Brenda or Arnelle to keep the kids, returning the favor they’d done by having Kierra and Tiffany stay with them for an entire summer.

  “But there’s something you have to know,” he said quickly. “I do get some benefits, but my job is only part-time. Twenty-five hours a week.” Seeing her crestfallen expression, he quickly added, “It’s better than nothing, Camille.”

  She felt like a deflated tire. “But it’s not what you were making at the store. And with just working parttime—”

  “I’m sure I can get another part-time job at the supermarket here. That’ll bring in more money and, besides, I won’t have to buy a bus pass to ride into the city. I can even arrange my hours so I’ll be there for the kids when they get home from school.”

  Her mouth set in a hard line at the second reminder in a minute’s time that Reuben no longer had to commute to the city. Except for the part about working a second job, he would have the life she wanted. It wasn’t fair. “How nice for you,” she said rigidly.

  “Camille, I know you’re annoyed that you still have to get up so early and make that long trip and I don’t. I know you wanted to get a job here in Pennsylvania. You still can, if you can find one that pays decently. But you haven’t been able to in a year and a half, and you’ve gotten a promotion and are making even more money. Right now we’re just not in a position for you to take a pay cut.”

  She sighed. “I’m tired, Reuben. Let’s ta
lk later.” To herself she added, I spend five hours a day going back and forth to work, a problem you don’t have anymore.

  At home she wearily climbed the stairs to her bedroom, stopping to look in on the children. “Mom, didya hear about Daddy’s new job?” Mitchell asked with excitement.

  “Yes, I did. It’s wonderful news.”

  “We won’t lose our house now, will we?”

  She looked at him sharply, not even sure she’d heard him correctly. “Mitchell, what a question to ask!”

  “Well, Alex had to move back to the city. His parents didn’t have enough money to pay the bank for their house every month. They didn’t even know where they were going to sleep when they left.”

  Camille lowered her chin to her chest as she studied her son. Now that he mentioned it, Alex hadn’t been around lately, nor had she seen Douglas or Tanisha in passing. “Did Alex tell you this?” she asked curiously.

  “No, all he said was that his parents didn’t like it here and they were going back to the city. But he didn’t want to go. He said he likes it a whole lot better here than the city. He told me that last week, and the next day he was gone.”

  “So where did the rest come from, about them losing their house?” She figured someone had started a rumor. For all anyone knew, the Coles might have had a family emergency and would be back in a few days.

  “I heard about it from Mike Willis. He said he heard his parents talking at night.”

  Marianne Willis sold real estate, so she’d be sure to know the status of the Cole house. Camille’s shoulders slumped. Unfortunately, it sounded like the story had merit.

  That would explain a couple of things. Now she understood why Tanisha Cole never had much to say and sometimes even sought to avoid her. Hell, if I were about to be thrown out of my home I wouldn’t feel like grinning at people, either.

  It made her uneasy that Marianne knew the truth behind the Coles’ abrupt departure. She’d probably told everybody on the block about it. Everybody except her and Reuben, that is. All the white families were probably buzzing about the blacks who’d been foreclosed on. Camille didn’t want to think badly of her next-door neighbors. Marianne and Jeff Willis had been kind to them from the beginning. Jeff even helped move in their furniture. Still, she would have loved to have been the proverbial fly on the wall to overhear the private conversations of the other home owners on the block. It wouldn’t surprise her if the words “dumb niggers” came up.

  Camille had no fantasies about how her neighbors perceived black people. Sure, they were friendly, and careful to never consider using any racial slurs in front of her and Reuben, to whom they’d shown only cordiality. But let a person of color cut them off on the highway and see how fast that word came out of their mouths. Camille believed that everybody had a touch of Archie Bunker in them; that no one, no matter what ethnic group they belonged to, was immune to using a racial slur when they felt wronged by a person of identifiable ethnicity. The standoffishness Tanisha and Douglas demonstrated had done little to endear them to any of the other families on the street, and she suspected that many of them privately celebrated the Coles’ downfall. She wondered if anyone made the connection between their behavior and the fear they must have felt.

  They’d probably lived in fear and dread for a long time, possibly as long as she’d known them. Foreclosures didn’t happen overnight. The Coles might have been struggling for years, possibly from the day they’d moved in. Maybe they, too, hadn’t done their homework, or had gone overboard with decorating, or both.

  Now Camille felt guilty for wishing Mitchell had a playmate from a more cordial family, and for resenting the Coles for eating and running at the barbecue she and Reuben gave for their families and new friends. A free meal for your entire family must be pretty appealing when you were behind on your mortgage.

  But that bit about them not knowing where they would sleep, that had to be pure fiction. No way would Marianne and Jeff Willis know something so private. The Coles certainly wouldn’t have confided in them. Either that son of Marianne and Jeff ’s had embellished, or he had heard his parents making presumptions about the Coles’ plight.

  “Mitchell,” she said, “Daddy and I are not going to lose our house. We’ll have to cut back on some things, but we’ll have a roof over our heads, enough to eat, and you’ll never have to worry about having a place to sleep.”

  “But Alex’s parents lost their house and they both still had jobs.”

  Mitchell was twelve years old, but suddenly he looked about six. He’d really been worried that the same thing would happen to them that had happened to the Coles. She chose her words carefully. “You know, Mitchell, just because Mike Willis told you the Coles couldn’t pay their mortgage doesn’t mean it’s true. Maybe they really did go back to the city because they didn’t like it here, like Alex told you. I understand that Alex didn’t want to go, but it’s the grown-ups who get to make the decisions, not the kids.”

  She spoke to Reuben about it after the kids were in bed. Poor Douglas and Tanisha, having to make a quick departure without a word to anyone, probably in the middle of the night when no one could see them. “How do you suppose that happened? Like Mitchell said, they didn’t have an unemployment problem like we do.”

  “Camille, we don’t know what kind of problems they had. Do you think that if one of them were out of work they would have told us about it? Those people barely said fifty words to me the whole time we’ve lived out here. Douglas told me about a good barber, and that was it. If their little boy didn’t play with Mitchell we wouldn’t even know they weren’t still around.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Then again, maybe they just didn’t plan well,” Reuben remarked. “There’s a lot to take into consideration when you move all the way out here from the city. To be very honest, you and I could have done a better job of it ourselves. Remember how we just presumed that there’d be a day care center that stayed open until eight o’clock to cater to New York commuters?”

  “Yes, I remember.” She had a flash of the funny looks she used to get from the librarians on duty when she and Reuben finally arrived to pick up the kids after seven-thirty at night. It was like they were saying, “We know what you’re up to.” Nor could she forget Veronica’s incredulous stare when she learned that they had driven to town for the day with the intent of buying a house, then turned around and drove back to New York without doing any research on the area. Reuben was right; they could have planned better.

  “Do you think Mitchell is still worried?”

  “No, I think I reassured him.” Camille looked around at their comfortable bedroom, which had the same black lacquer furniture they’d had in the Bronx. How frightening, she thought, to lose the roof over your head. Where did you go? Many city dwellers lived in cramped quarters already without taking in an entire family.

  When she knelt to say her prayers that night, she included a prayer for the Cole family. She felt a strange vibration in her chest, like a motor running, that she recognized as stress. She really didn’t know the Coles, so she didn’t understand why she felt so troubled by their misfortune.

  Then, as she felt Reuben climb into bed beside her, it suddenly hit her.

  There but for the grace of God, go I.

  She went eagerly into Reuben’s embrace, thrilled to be able to make love to her husband in the privacy of their bedroom. Tanisha and Douglas Cole might not be able to have this private time together, not if they were sleeping on someone’s pull-out sofa bed.

  Chapter 30

  The Lees

  October 2003

  The reading group had their first discussion on a Saturday night in October. Veronica, who offered to host, scheduled it to coincide with a boxing match on cable TV. Camille felt a little funny, like she should have been the one to host, since it had been her suggestion to bring Denise King into the group, but Veronica pointed out that it had been her idea to start the group in the first place.

  What
Veronica considerately didn’t mention, and the reason Camille felt so awkward, was that the change in Reuben’s work status would make entertaining a strain for them. Camille suspected that Veronica and Dawn had discussed the situation privately among themselves, probably with a “poor Camille” or two thrown in. She hated the idea of anyone feeling sorry for her.

  Camille didn’t want to make too much out of it, but she would have preferred to provide a meal for eight adults plus assorted children—even if it was just chicken, hot dogs and baked beans—now than later. Right now they were doing fine, with Reuben getting paid from his part-time job plus a full check every two weeks as part of his severance package. In a few weeks his severance would be all paid out, and he would have only the income from his part-time job. She’d insist on having the next get-together at her house, just in case things got sticky down the road.

  Reuben planned to inform his mother about his job loss after he received his final paycheck. Ginny, of course, would inform his siblings. Camille dreaded having them know her business. She would talk to them over the phone, but she could practically see the smug smiles on their faces as they tried to project real concern, asking if they’d be able to manage on a reduced income.

  As part of Veronica’s organizing the group, she searched a book list until she found one all of them had read. They agreed to discuss it at their first meeting, but, seated around the Lees’ pecan-wood dining room table while the guys gathered in the family room, Veronica had barely had a chance to make opening remarks when Denise King said, “Did y’all hear about Doug and Tanisha Cole?”

  “What about them?” Dawn’s flippant tone suggested she was still smarting from Tanisha’s snubbing her.

  “They don’t live in Arlington Acres anymore.”