Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns

by J. California Cooper

  Once, when I was there, Star was going out, and Harriet told her sister, “Why don’t you eat something before you go out? You need some food on your stomach. It’s already cooked, you just need to warm it up and eat it.”

  Star looked at me and smiled (she knew her sister loved her and it’s so good to be loved). She went out the door, saying, “She don’t ever go nowhere, Ms. Realer. She’s going to let her shakes hold her down. I told her, life is going to pass you by. But not me! I’m going to get me some life!” She went flying after life like a bird, but never got any farther than across the street. And seem to always come home with her feet draggin.

  Well, anyway . . .

  Sometimes, if it was evening, me and Harriet would have a little drink. Yes! We drank brandy. Not a lot, just a little. She like to serve it in them little snifters she had bought to go with her romantic dreams. (I know she had em, I think everybody does.)

  One time, when we were having a drink, Harriet said to me, “My days go by like hours of sand. Lots of hours. Lots of sand.” Then she stopped talking because Star came in.

  Star greeted me and told Harriet, “You ain’t gonna offer me a drink? Just gonna sit up here with Ms. Realer and leave me out!? I am family, and friend, ain’t I?”

  Harriet went to get a glass for her. Star called after her, “Don’t get me one of them baby glasses either. Give me a grown-up glass.” But Harriet brought her a snifter anyway.

  I took a good look at Star. The children I had known as babies were older now. Certainly. But the years seem to bite and chew up Star’s face; I don’t mean it was a ragged, scarred face, it just looked too used. Like a plastic doll some child had loved and banged around so long, until even the doll looked . . . broken and worn, is all I can say.

  Her face was beginning to crease, and dry them creases in place. Not a soft wrinkle, but a crease. In a puffy face that still held some attraction, you could see what once was there. She was thirty-five or thirty-six, younger than Harriet by a year, I b’lieve.

  I smiled into her eyes. I cared about her, just thought she didn’t care enough about herself. As she laughed with us, no matter how she tried that empty laughter, if you watched real close you could see the tears sittin in the corner of her eye. Emmmh! Emh! All them men . . . and she still lonely. She thought she was getting love, but it dried up before the sun could hit it. The quivering sighs, the blissful moans, couldn’t outstrip the broken promises, the lies and a couple of times, a black eye.

  Well, that’s Star. She is doin what she think is best for her, I guess. Or what she saw her mother do. Get you some education about what is going on in this world. See what’s going on besides what’s across the street. This is a big world! And I don’t care what they say about them computers, you can’t live in one of em!

  I told you someone had asked Harriet to make a wedding gown. It was some beautiful white satin. They must’a stole it because you could tell it was expensive, soft and full-bodied, fit for a queen. It looked like it could caress and kiss the skin it touched. Then the wedding must didn’t go on like it was supposed to, and they didn’t want the dress. Least they didn’t never come get it. It hung on Harriet’s rack for about two years. Harriet kept it clean and dust free.

  She loved to look at that dress and touch it with her soft, gentle hands. Her needle finger was the only thing that snagged it. After a time, Harriet began to speak of it as hers. Well, it was; she hadn’t been paid for it. Finally she took some of that dress loose and fixed it to fit her own body. Some nights, in her room alone after her work, she would try it on. Careful, careful not to muss it. I saw it, it fell softly and rich on her slightly bent body, and her back liked to straightened out. She felt like the sun or a star in that dress. Like a cloud of beauty.

  It was her dream. It was her secret shared only with me. Because there was no groom, you see. She knew Star would have laughed at her; maybe affectionately, but a laugh at ya is a laugh at ya! During this time . . . Star had started sneaking men in the hotel late at night. For money. The prostitutes had convinced her she was a fool for giving it away. They wanted to see her come to be a regular whole whore. Misery really do like company. Well, I don’t think Star was no whore at heart because she didn’t do it often. But she did do it sometimes.

  Ms. Poker knew it first, but it didn’t take long for Harriet to find out. She didn’t say anything to her sister because she took care of Star with the hotel money, and it was never enough. And because times were hard and sewing didn’t pay much. And she was working on a new dream of her own.

  Harriet had lived in the Oceanview Hotel all her life. Every day, every hour of her life. She wasn’t dreaming of a real man, only an imaginary one. She was sure no real man would want her. But she was dreaming of a house of her own so she could move away from the Oceanview Hotel and the Water’s End Bar.

  She told me, “I can still come to work every day, but I want to be . . . more alone. To myself. Have a place that’s just mine. Some peace. Maybe set up a real little shop for sewing. Make a better life for myself.”

  Harriet had been saving some of her money over the years. Her share after she shared the hotel income with Star, paid the bills, and Ms. Poker. She didn’t do much more than work, so there you are. For the last ten or fifteen years she had put a little by, steady. She had learned that from her mother.

  When I learned that, I set out looking for a little house for Harriet. Was fun to me; I like to do things out the usual, and every woman likes lookin at houses. I found something once or twice I thought she would like, then she would come out to see it. We finally found just the perfect little house for her. It was a ground-floor house with a nice-sized kitchen beside a closed-in porch, two bedrooms, a small dining room, and a living room. Had a picket-fenced-in yard big enough for a few large, strong trees already there, and room for a small garden for Harriet to plant her vegetables. She could even have another dream of hers: two chickens, hens. Two fresh eggs every day!

  She put the money down on the house and told me, “Now I can have a nice dog and my cat won’t be petted by strangers all day. Cleopatra [the cat] don’t like that.” We grinned at each other. She said, “I sure got to work hard sewing now, cause I got a house of my own to pay for!” Her eyes teared up when she said that. She was happy and she shook only a little.

  Issy Evers came into port round that time, and went to the Oceanview Hotel. He always did now, cause he and Harriet had made up a quiet friendship talkin about the world and books. This time in their little talks, she told him her secret about the little house. Well, it’s all she could talk about. And it happened to be one of Issy’s dreams too. But he had never thought it would come true. Too big a dream, to him. He just thought he would work until he died and he had insurance to bury himself and that would be that.

  One day we were sitting and talking round Harriet’s desk. She was talking about her having to work at her sewing harder to pay for the house. You know, like people do, not hinting, just stating facts. Issy must’a gave some thought to that. He asked, “You mean you might not be here much anymore?”

  She smiled a little sadly. “Not any more than I have to, but I think I’m going to have to.”

  Then he said, “I won’t be here but a few days; can I see your house, Ms. Harriet, please?”

  Harriet tried to say no, but I was there and I said, “Sure.” I smiled at both of them, said, “We going over there today, just in a little while. Come on back in a hour or so.” Harriet squirmed and fidgeted, but she didn’t want to start shaking, so she didn’t say anything until he went to his room.

  She meant to whisper, but she was agitated so it was loud. “Ms. Realer, why you want to tell him he can go with us? I don’t want to be shaking round nobody. I don’t shake around you cause I know you. And now, he’s going to be there. I don’t know him. He’s just a nice stranger. Now, he’s gonna see me shake.”

  I just told her, “Everybody is a stranger till you know em! He been coming here almost a year! An
d you told me he was a nice man and you liked him.” I added, just for looks, “As a friend. He probably done already seen you shakin. So what?! What’s a little shake? It’s your shake, Harriet. So, so what?”

  So we all went; I went with em. This homeless man with nothin but a room anywhere, looked like a hungry kitten as he looked around the yard and the little house. The kitchen had cleaning supplies left around from her steady cleaning work, and she had put a few of her things in some room every time she came.

  She was foolin with something and he was just standing there watching her. I was standing there watching them. Finally he asked her, “Are you going to be livin alone here?”

  I answered, “Well, yes. She is not married.”

  Harriet turned maroon as she said, “Yes, nobody but me is going to be living here.”

  He looked at me, then turned back to her. Said, “Well, Ms. Harriet, I’d like to ask you something. I don’t intend to be fresh, or bad-mannered, and try to break in on your plans, but . . . Well, Harriet, I get so tired of hotels and rented rooms, and carryin all the things I love everywhere, and every time, I go. Could I, please, ask you to rent me that extra room of yours? By the year? I’ll pay one hundred dollars a month. A year in advance. Just let me put my things in that room, and keep it empty . . . till I get here once a month for three or four days? I’m quiet. I’m clean. I know you like to be let alone; I won’t bother you. Would you, please, think about it?”

  Harriet was speechless. She did not want a rooming house in her home.

  So I answered, “Why certainly, Mr. Issy Evers. Harriet would like that.”

  Harriet started shaking, so I told Issy, “You go on back, ahead of us. We’ll be right along.”

  When he was gone, we both started talking at the same time. She said, “A stranger in here with me! No, mam!”

  I said, “I told you, everybody is a stranger till you know em. Sides, that man is no stranger to you. He been a customer of yours for a long time and you always liked him before! Think about it, girl. That hundred dollars a month, paid in advance, for a person you will not see but three or four days out the month. You will have your house to yourself. And . . . you can almost retire, cause you have to sew aplenty for a hundred dollars a month.” I could see her thinking about that.

  She squinched her lips all the way back to the hotel, but she didn’t say another word to me. And she wasn’t shaking. She hugged me when we said good-bye, though. I smiled all the way home.

  The next time Issy Evers came to town he moved into his room at Harriet’s house. I smiled some more.

  Well, bout another year went by. The first time Issy had come into town, Harriet had come over to my house to spend the night instead of staying at the hotel. Before she got that house, Issy had already started coming by to see me every time he came to town.

  This time he looked worried. He frowned as he said, “Ms. Realer, I’m glad to have that room, but I don’t want to run Harriet away from her own house. Maybe I could pay you to find some little house like that for me.” We talked, but I didn’t really say nothing.

  The next time Issy came in town, I suggested to him that we all go out to dinner for some Chinese food. Harriet liked Chinese food and, since I was going to be with em, she relaxed. She went to eat dinner with us. She didn’t shake. After that, she started staying at home. They went to different rooms, but they went to the same house.

  After that first date, they started going out someplace, to have dinner or see a picture show, most nights he was in town. They went without me! Left me at home. (smile)

  Harriet told me, “The prettiest things show up in the kitchen and the living room and my bedroom every time he comes to town. I got the most beautiful pictures on the walls. And, girl, he brings me the most beautiful material to sew things for myself with!”

  I just smiled with her.

  “I tell him to rest, after working all that time, but he won’t! He works that garden and is making that chicken-house a little bigger and stronger so nothing can get in it . . . after our chickens, you know.” (I heard that “our.”) “We got four now. Issy said that’s enough cause we don’t need but four eggs a day and we don’t always eat all of those. Besides, he likes to take me out so he can eat food he didn’t cook. I don’t let him cook for me either. Only sometimes, when he surprises me when I come home from work. But, I don’t work on the days he is in town no more. Ms. Poker takes care of things; ain’t that much to do noway.” She took a breath and brushed an invisible something off her lap. Then, “You know his name is Isaiah, and that’s why people call him Issy. When he’s in town on a Sunday, we are going to start going to church with you. I’m going to start going with you more when he isn’t here, too, Ms. Realer.”

  She just couldn’t stop talkin, chile, tellin me how wonderful her life was. And I kept nodding my head, thrilled happy for her from my head all the way to my bottom sittin on that chair!

  Now, I know about men, a little bit, pretty good. Issy was a nice man, a good man. And I have always liked men who have pushed-forward-lookin hips. (My husband was built that way.) I know what I’m talkin bout. I think. And I wanted something for my friend’s starved life and heart. Sex ain’t the most important thing in life, but if you’re gonna have some, my friend Harriet deserved the best she could get. See what I mean?

  And I knew she liked him, because she didn’t shake much around him anyway. I didn’t know how they would ever get to make love. I know sex is exciting, sometimes, and Harriet might get excited and start shaking. She wouldn’t want him to see her shake. So how could they do anything? I didn’t think they had ever got to that part of life yet. Sometimes you don’t learn much sitting behind a desk, tryin to hide, for thirty years.

  For the next two months, though, he had come in town and I hadn’t heard a thing on those days, from either one of them. I hoped nothing was wrong. They are fun to be around. I always see her, but I missed him, too.

  Now . . . I have a key to her house, you know, cause she lives alone most of the time. She has a key to my house for the same reason.

  I got that key out of my drawer and sat down in a chair, thinking. I studied that key to Harriet’s house a minute. Cause I ain’t no meddling woman. But I need to know if my friend is all right. She didn’t pass my house going to work, so . . . what are those two doing over there?

  I got my coat and went walkin to Harriet’s, since it ain’t far. When I got there, I put the key in the lock, quietly, so I wouldn’t disturb nobody.

  The door opened without a squeak. I guess oiling hinges was one of the jobs Issy had been doing to that house. Keepin things in working order.

  I reached the middle of the living room and stood stark still, and listened. And I could hear something.

  I heard bed springs springing to a steady rhythm. I could hear a moan or two between them squeaking springs. I heard Issy say in a low, mellowed voice, “Shake, baby, shake.” I heard Harriet’s soft, happy laughter, a laughter mixed in with moans, that sounded sexy. I thought to myself, “He can only go up and down . . . and when she is excited, she shakes.”

  I backed up out of the living room, out the door, and went home. I was happy! For both of them, chile.

  But I knew one thing that hadn’t been settled.

  I waited long enough for them to be finished, a couple hours, then I went back and rang the bell.

  I said to them, because I am the oldest and I am involved, don’t care what you think. I said to them, “I don’t know what all is going on here, but I don’t hear no wedding bells. I think it’s time you thought of that.”

  Issy actually blushed, looking satisfied and happy. He said, “I got the ring; she just got to take it. I’m ready.”

  I looked at him and thought to myself, “I’ll just bet you are.”

  I looked at her and she just blushed, looking down at her lap, laughing that sexy sound again. And she wasn’t shaking. Too relaxed, I guess.

  He took a month off of his job.

&n
bsp; I gave the wedding at my house. Just a small one, people from the church and all like that. Star came, and brought a few of her friends. I could see some of them laughing, without sound, behind their hands. They were laughing at the mildly shaking woman in the beautiful satin, white wedding dress she had made with her own hands. They laughed a little at Issy as he stood stiffly, with his hand out, eagerly waiting for Harriet to walk to him.

  Now, some of them didn’t have husband or wife, no ring, no house, no real future, and, most important, no love. But . . . they had the nerve to laugh at some real people with real love.

  They didn’t laugh at that big diamond ring he put on her finger. And I saw the look Harriet gave Issy as they held hands. I saw the joy, the happiness, they gave each other. And they were going home to their own house that was full of their own love.

  Sometimes, people say, for good luck, you have to catch a falling star and put it in your pocket. These two people, Issy and Harriet, had somethin better than good luck, they had a blessing. They had both caught a falling heart! And they were gonna take it home.

  I looked life over as I was standing there, watching everybody. My plan had worked and two lonely, wonderful people were more happy. They were each other’s life! It was always up to them. And I was happy too. I actually shook with my joy and laughter. Shaking, chile, shaking.

  J. California Cooper

  WILD STARS SEEKING MIDNIGHT SUNS

  J. California Cooper is the author of the novels Some People, Some Other Place; Family; and In Search of Satisfaction, and of seven short story collections: Homemade Love, the winner of the 1989 American Book Award; A Piece of Mine; The Future Has a Past; Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime; The Matter Is Life ; and Some Soul to Keep. She is also the author of seventeen plays and has been honored as Black Playwright of the Year. She lives in Oregon.

  ALSO BY J. CALIFORNIA COOPER

  Some People, Some Other Place

  The Future Has a Past