How Sweet the Sound

by Amy Sorrells

  “How dare you bring up what happened with Comfort here, Oralee, you—”

  “Anni, I’m ready for you, sugar.” Qarla saved me from the two of them in the nick of time as she leaned against the waist-high, gold room divider separating us from the working part of the salon. She led me to the back, where gold hair-washing stations lined up like statues at the King Tut exhibit in New Orleans. I lay back in the chair, and Qarla started washing. She massaged and kneaded my head until my eyes drooped with sleep.

  Once we got back to the cutting chair, Qarla yakked away about her kids and her husband and the latest Bay Spring gossip. I tried to listen, but in the chair next to me sat a very pregnant Minnie Davies getting her hair wrapped up in tin foil. Minnie’s neck turned splotchy red, and tears flowed down her face like rain against a window. I knew Minnie because she attended our church, and we brought her a casserole every time she had a baby. She had so many babies already, I didn’t know what number this one made. Anyway, Minnie cried all over herself in the chair next to me, and I was too busy trying to figure out what she was crying about to listen to Qarla.

  “I know whatever I do will come back to me, and I’m scared … scared something will happen to my baby,” Minnie said.

  “What do you mean?” her hairdresser asked.

  “Every time we do something bad, God punishes us by bringing something bad.” Fear pulled on Minnie’s cheeks and wrinkled up her forehead. “I haven’t done anything bad to speak of, but what if I do? What if I do and don’t mean to? And then my baby comes out deformed or simple-minded? That’s what sin does, you know. Comes back to bite so God can teach us a lesson.”

  I wondered where Minnie got those ideas. Preacher Beckett never talked like that at church. Made me think of boys on the school bus, trying to get even with each other through punches. Life doesn’t deliver punches for punches, though I wish it would. Life’s more backward than anything. The folks who get punched always work hard to live life right, and the folks who deserve to get punched always give everyone around them a fat lip. And the good people who stand up for others? Well, folks either try to burn ’em up in buses like those Freedom Riders in Anniston, Alabama, or they end up dead like my daddy.

  I wished Minnie would stop carrying on so loud, because through the mirror I saw Jed come into the salon. He caught my glance in the mirror and smiled at me with his crooked eyes. I bet his real mama didn’t do anything bad to make him crooked. Sometimes babies just came out that way.

  Jed walked past me and tossed a wad of cash at a woman sitting a few chairs down. Busy choosing roller sizes for a permanent wave, the woman barely acknowledged him, just kept smacking her gum and fingering through the box of curlers.

  Could that be his foster mother?

  I focused on Minnie’s laments again. “I couldn’t handle it if one of my babies came out with something wrong with them.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am, where’s the bathroom?” Jed asked Qarla.

  “In the back.” Qarla nodded without missing a snip.

  As Jed limped to the back of the salon, Minnie saw him in her mirror as he passed. Well, if her jaw didn’t fall open far enough to catch a dozen flies! She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief with one hand and rubbed her watermelon-size belly with the other.

  “What’s yours look like, Anni?”

  I had no idea what Qarla had been talking about. “What?”

  “Your dress for the cotillion. What’s it look like?”

  “Oh, my dress. It’s okay for a dress, I guess. We found it at the Dillard’s in Mobile. It’s white with lace over the top of it and a big satin ribbon around the middle the same color as a robin’s egg.”

  “Sounds perfect. And did you get your gloves and shoes, too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I remember your aunt’s first cotillion when she took a boy. Solly, of course. Such a fuss your grandmother made about it. Comfort … she loved dressing up and she loved a party. We put giant curlers in her hair and pinned it up high and let the ringlets fall down her back. Such a princess, that Comfort.”

  If there was one thing I appreciated about a haircut with Qarla, she wasn’t afraid to talk about anything. She talked about Comfort like it was no big deal to say her name out loud. I suppose it wasn’t to her, since Comfort had worked for her all these years. So I went along with it like it was the most natural topic of discussion this side of Biloxi, Mississippi.

  “Mmm-hmm,” I agreed.

  “Comfort was the talk of the town in junior high and high school. Every mother wanted their son to date her, and every boy with a set of workin’ eyeballs wanted to. She broke all the hearts in Bay Spring when Solly scooped her up.”

  “Then you know about what happened to her?” I wondered how many people knew Comfort’s side of Cole and Daddy’s deaths, ’specially since she hadn’t worked since then.

  Qarla stopped smiling, and our eyes locked in the mirror in front of us. She bent down close to me and gently tucked my still-damp hair behind my ear. “Your aunt is a beautiful and brave woman. Always was, and still is. And your father, Rey, was a good man. I’ve always been afraid for you, how the tongues of this town twist stories around and what you’ll hear, especially now that you’re becoming a woman. But you trust Miss Qarla when I tell you Rey was a good man. And Comfort is a good woman.”

  My face blurred in the mirror, and I fixed my gaze on the soggy snippets of hair settling all over the lap of the pink waterproof apron wrapped around me.

  Qarla went on. “Honey, poison got into your family through Princella and settled on your uncle Cole. A ginormous tragedy. Someone shoulda noticed Cole’s problems after he went off to college, and someone shoulda protected Comfort, but Princella, she wore blinders when it came to that boy. Always did. Still does, too, which is why Comfort’s in the state she’s in today. It’s not right when the victim becomes the criminal. Happens more often than not, though. Such a shame it’s happening here.”

  Qarla shook her head with regret, and puddles of tears settled in the bottoms of her eyes. But she quick wiped them away and continued trimming my hair. I saw Mama in the mirror’s reflection, her nose in a book. I strained to see Princella, but she must’ve left the salon to do some shopping.

  As if she heard my mind worrying about what Princella would think if she heard this talk, Qarla stopped trimming for a second and bent down next to my ear again.

  “And another thing, Anni. Your grandmother may be payin’ me, but you’re my customer, and I’m here to please your heart, not hers.”

  “I love my hair, Mama.”

  Her eyes focused on the road in front of us. We were nearly back home.

  “It’s definitely you, sweetheart.”

  Princella would hate it, of course. Qarla cut it clear up to my ears in a short bob and frosted the ends of it like the model in the magazine.

  Mama stopped the car next to Comfort’s house. “Go on and grab that empty basket as long as we’re here.”

  I ran up to Comfort’s house and grabbed the basket. Another yellow-edged index card fell out, and the wind tossed it across the porch. I caught it with my foot and read it on the way back to Mama’s car:

  there’s no such thing as a generational curse

  after all no father would wish harm on his own child

  only the failing of one generation to

  stop the sin

  break the cycle

  shine light onto paths long shadowed

  by shame

  or ignorance

  or both

  Piti, piti, zwazo a ti kras bati nich li yo.

  “Little by little, the bird builds its nest.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Anniston

  Ernestine pulled a pecan pie out of the oven as we walked into the house. “Your hair … Byen bèl, Anni!”

  “Thanks, Ernestine
. I hope you can still braid it.”

  “Oui, child, I can braid anything long enough to hold between two fingers.” All the girls in my class coveted Ernestine’s plaits—even the ones who never talked to me otherwise. But Ernestine, she saved her braiding for me, smiling and humming “Jacob’s Ladder” as she pulled the strands tight. Said that’s her favorite song because of the reaching and climbing she’s done to come up out of her miry life.

  Comfort hummed that song the night Daddy died.

  “Pie smells good.” I snuck a couple of sugared pecans off the steaming top of the pie, tossed one into Molly’s mouth, and another into mine. Salty and sweet. She made the best pies around. Folks traveled from across the South to buy her pies at a booth she ran every year at the Moonlight and Magnolias Music Festival every August. Most of the Harlan pecans were sold to manufacturers and distributed that way or by catalog, but we kept some back for her to sell there, too, boxes of salted pecans, sugared pecans, pecan brittle, chocolate-covered pecans, pecan butter, and every other kind of pecan combination tied up in fancy packaging with Harlan’s Best stamped on the side.

  “Don’t be picking at that, child. It’s for after dinner.” Grinning, she pulled a couple off the top for herself.

  “Jambalaya for dinner?” A giant pot sat on the back burner, steam seeping out around the edges of the lid.

  “Oui.”

  Princella walked into the kitchen, arms full of shopping bags from her favorite boutiques in town. “Anniston! Your hair!”

  I shrank closer to Ernestine, bracing myself for a tongue-lashing.

  “You look like a boy! How are we ever going to fix this? Didn’t Qarla listen to anything I told her to do? I’ll have to take you back myself and stay there this time.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort.” Mama walked in, just in time. She glared at Princella, seeming to be daring her to argue back.

  Princella’s face twisted like she wanted to say a whole slew of things, but her mouth stayed shut. Then … “Fine. Y’all have it your way.”

  “I really like it, ma’am.” I right away wished I hadn’t said anything, but something stirred inside me I couldn’t keep back.

  “Pull your shoulders back and quit slumping,” Princella said as she came toward me. She grabbed my chin with her bony fingers, then turned my face from side to side. She let go, but the leftover grip of her fingers kept twisting into me. She sighed and stared out the window into the distance. “You’re such a pretty girl. All I want for you and all I wanted for Comfort was to have a chance at a life I never did. A chance to deserve all this.”

  She turned toward us and spread her arms out wide. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. No idea about the life I’ve lived. No idea what it’s taken me to finally feel worthy of this life here.” She paced across the room, and Mama, Ernestine, and I looked at each other, shocked at the way her voice softened and sounded almost childlike. “Vaughn had everything. I had nothing. And even less after … oh, never mind.” She dug her fingers through her styled and stiffened hair. “All you need to know is Vaughn brought me here, and folks hated me. Hated me until I proved I was worthy of this society. This place. This home.”

  I’d figured she had to have a heart in there somewhere. But as always, she never let it show for long.

  “Took a hell of a lot of work, but I did it.” She sighed and paced toward me, eyes glaring through me like an arrow. “Hopefully your dress will distract from that awful hack job. I’ll be asking Qarla for my money back.”

  She spun away from us, and we listened to her heavy plods up the stairs, where she would most likely stay shut in her room until dinner.

  I couldn’t help bursting into tears.

  “Rete tann, pitit.” Ernestine tried to grab my hand, but I brushed her aside and ran into the front hall where I hollered up the stairs after Princella.

  “I’ll never be who you want!”

  The house hushed, full of silence, and Princella emerged from her room at the top of the banistered landing. Her face was masklike. “I’m only tryin’ to—”

  “Tryin’ to what? To make me a debutante? To keep folks from finding out what happened at Thanksgiving? Or are you so mad because you only really loved Cole, and now all you have left is us?” I felt Mama standing behind me. Good thing, since I felt like I might pass out, hardly believing I’d hollered at her so.

  “That’s not your business, Anniston.” Princella looked at Mama. “I didn’t love him more. He just—Oralee, tell her.”

  “Tell her what, Princella? Exactly what do you want me to tell my daughter about Cole?”

  I didn’t want to hear anything else she said, so I ran through the kitchen and out the mudroom, grabbing Daddy’s shirt along the way. I hoisted my bike up from alongside the driveway where I’d set it last, and pedaled past Comfort’s house, past the rows of pecan trees, past workers mowing and trimming. Out on the open road, the rows passed faster and faster, and my feet pushed on the pedals harder and harder until the bare, reaching branches of the orchards gave way to open fields and lazy oaks, interrupted by an occasional fresh peach and produce stand. The collar of my shirt squeezed my already-tight throat. But soon the pedaling smoothed my mood, and I drifted along nice and easy, feeling the cool breeze and smelling the sweet salt of the wintery sea and marshes. The hard ride helped my purple anger fade like the yellowing edge of the sky.

  The dirt road turned to pavement near the outskirts of Bay Spring. I often rode to town for no particular reason, sitting for hours along the bay to watch barges of freight cars stacked up like Chiclets, shrimp boats with their skinny arms stretched up at the sky like folks in church singing praise songs, the lights of the oil drills winking in the distance, or fishermen tossing patient lines off the pier. I set my bike down on a stretch of lawn, then walked toward the docks and boat slips. Many were empty this time of year—sad holes left from seasonal residents storing their crafts in dry dock for the winter. Busiest place here this time of year was the Crab Shack Restaurant and Bar, built right in the middle of the pier. Daddy and I’d sit at the bar together after we were done fishing or sailing, him with his beer and me with my cherry co-cola. The bartender made sure to serve it with a paper umbrella and a shiny maraschino cherry.

  I coulda made my way to Daddy’s old boat slip blindfolded, I’d been there so many times. Daddy’s old boat, The Jubilee, still bobbed and rocked there the same as always, as if waiting with glee for passengers.

  “Sorry, old girl. Only came to see how you’re doing. Can’t take you out anymore.”

  Mama’d sold the boat with the house. No reason for us to keep her, she’d said. I suppose she was right. She didn’t fish. And while she liked taking rides at sunset, we both knew it wouldn’t be the same without Daddy.

  The last time the three of us went out in The Jubilee was before the weather turned colder. Must’ve been sometime in October. Daddy dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, flip-flops, and scraggly cut-off shorts. We’d caught chub bait in estuary waters, then headed toward more open water to fish for the real stuff—red snapper, grouper, king mackerel, and amberjack. No telling which ones would bite until we got out there. Whatever we caught, we’d take home and barbecue.

  “Hey, Larry,” I said when I noticed the man sitting in the rickety oyster skiff in the slat next to The Jubilee. Daddy and I got to know Larry in spite of his quiet nature because of all the time we spent at the docks. Larry wore an old army jacket and a ball cap with a logo I recognized as the same as the ones on all the whiskey bottles in Princella’s kitchen cupboard. His whiskers were scraggly, and his mustache hung well over his top lip. He stared at the ocean, rocking along with the rhythm of the water, his lips moving to some lost song only he could hear. His legs were skin and bones, and his jeans barely hung on to his hips.

  He did not look up from the hooks and tackle he worked between his fingers. “Sorry about your daddy
, Anni. Sure do miss him.”

  Tears pricked my eyes. “Me, too, Larry. Thanks.”

  “They’re taking good care of her. Them folks who bought The Jubilee.”

  “Good to know.”

  I sat down Indian-style on the dock between Larry and The Jubilee, then turned around as footsteps closed in behind me.

  “Come here often?”

  “Jed. What are you doing here?” My cheeks warmed, and I hoped he didn’t noticed.

  “I come here whenever I can.” He held a fishing rod and cooler in one hand and a tackle box and livewell bucket in the other. He nodded toward The Jubilee. “Pretty one, that one there.”

  “Yeah. Used to be Daddy’s.”

  Jed frowned. “Must’ve seen some good times.”

  “Lots.”

  Jed set down his gear and sat cross-legged next to me, content to be silent along with me for a while. Seagulls dove across the sky above us, free and light without the burden of knowing sadness in their hearts. Daddy said they were scavengers, seagulls. Eating whatever folks left behind or stealing fish other birds like pelicans worked hard to capture. This reminded me of Cole, stealing from Comfort. Stealing from Mama. Stealing from me. I didn’t bother to hide the tears now flowing down my face.

  Jed untied a red bandana from around his wrist and handed it to me. “Wanna sink a few with me?”

  The sparkle in his eyes was hard not to melt into, like the sun sinking into the arms of the ocean horizon. I wiped my eyes, then handed the bandana back to him.

  “I’d love to.”

  “Say, what’s your favorite thing you and your daddy ever caught?”

  I thought of the giant fish, all shades of blue and teal, that Daddy stuffed and hung on the wall in his den. Now the beast was buried away in a storage unit.

  “A blue marlin. He was so proud of that fish. Took three men to pull it in.” I tilted my head toward Larry, still intent on his lures.

  “She’s not lyin’. What a time. I didn’t think we’d ever get her in the boat.”