One Night in Georgia

by Celeste O. Norfleet

  “It was back in the 1850s. My father’s family, the Cooks, and my mother’s family, the Parkers, have always lived in New York and Massachusetts. They both owned slaves.”

  “How can you just say it like that?” I asked. “That’s cruel.” I was annoyed by her nonchalance.

  “Because it’s the truth, Zelda,” she said. “It wasn’t an anomaly back then. A lot of blacks owned slaves and indentured servants. They weren’t mistreated like the Southern slaves under white plantation owners and slavers. My ancestors were also abolitionists who helped runaway slaves.”

  Daphne asked, “How could they own slaves then help other slaves?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there, was I? But I do know from family stories, journals, diaries, that they treated the slaves well.”

  “It doesn’t matter how well they were treated. They weren’t free. They were still owned by someone,” I said indignantly. “It was wrong. They were wrong. This whole world is absolutely crazy.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped.

  “I know that slavery was an abomination to humankind and your family got rich off it.”

  “Don’t get all self-righteous with me, Zelda Livingston. It was a long time ago, and it’s the truth of my family. They also channeled their wealth to free blacks, they funded libraries, taught slaves to read and to be self-sufficient. That’s the truth of my family too. What’s the truth of yours?”

  I didn’t answer. What did it matter? The way I saw it, we were all enslaved by our actions.

  “What happened to them, the slaves?” Daphne asked.

  Veronica shrugged. “They worked for my ancestors’ lumber and paper mills. Eventually they were able to buy their freedom. I remember reading in a journal that most of them stayed and still worked at the mills for wages. They were free men and women, but they started out as slaves.”

  “You’re right. It was a long time ago, a different time and a different place. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be—” I said.

  “Me either,” Veronica interrupted. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Daphne and I were quiet.

  “I need a shower,” Veronica said, dusting sand off her arms and legs as we headed toward the bungalow. She and Daphne walked up ahead, and Daniel walked beside me. At first he didn’t say anything. Then he thanked me.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For letting me come along.”

  “I don’t have much of a choice.”

  “You could have said no and meant it.”

  He was right. I could have vehemently said no, and the girls would have listened to me, but I didn’t. “So, is this what you do all the time, escort people from city to city?”

  “No, like I said, this is a favor.”

  “How does your dad know Darnell?”

  “They were in the military together. They were friends.”

  “So your dad is like Darnell then.”

  He chuckled. “Hardly. I don’t think anybody’s like Darnell.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “Your mother’s a nice lady.”

  I stopped walking. He stopped and looked at me.

  “When did you meet my mother?”

  “We had dinner a few times at your house. You were away at school. She talked about you the whole time. She’s very proud of you.”

  We started walking again. I wasn’t sure how I felt about what he said. He seemed to know a lot about me and I had no idea who he was.

  “Come on slowpokes,” Daphne called out over her shoulder.

  As soon as we caught up and turned the last corner, we noticed a car parked in front of the house and saw the front door open.

  My heart jumped. “There’s somebody there.”

  “Oh good Lord, now what?” Daphne moaned.

  “It’s a Pennsylvania license plate. That’s my aunt and uncle’s car,” Veronica said.

  Just then a woman stepped out onto the porch with Miss Sadie from across the street. They were laughing and talking. “Ah, here they are now,” Miss Sadie said, waving and smiling as we approached.

  “Aunt Trudy,” Veronica said, then hurried up the front steps and hugged the woman.

  She was dressed in a fashionable pink-and-green floral halter sundress, with the tiniest waist ever, and high-heeled sandals, and she had pink lips, fingernails, and toenails. She was stunning. Her hair was cut short with a mass of soft wavy curls that made her look like a Hollywood movie star. She reminded me of my mother—before Darnell.

  “What on earth are you doing here?” she asked Veronica. “I thought everyone was still on Martha’s Vineyard for the summer.”

  “Mom and Dad are. I left early,” Veronica confessed then turned to us. “Aunt Trudy, these are my best friends from college, Zelda and Daphne.”

  “Hello, ladies. Welcome,” she said, smiling pleasantly. We smiled back. We couldn’t help it. Not smiling at someone that pretty had to be a sin. “And who is this young man?” she asked, gesturing in Daniel’s direction.

  “Ma’am, good afternoon. My name is Daniel Johnson. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m here to safely escort these young ladies to Atlanta,” he responded with an uprightness that far surpassed my expectations. His words and demeanor made me freeze, as I recognized that he had the same charm as my father. There was no way this guy could be connected to Darnell, even remotely.

  “Well, come on inside out of this maddening heat,” she said. I could see she’d been cleaning. The sand had been swept up, the drapes pulled back, and everything looked bright and clean. “I see you’ve been to the beach. How was the water?” she asked casually.

  “ ‘Threatening’ might be the right word to describe it,” Daniel said, amused with himself.

  Our jaws dropped before a few gasps escaped. Trudy cocked her head and arched her brow curiously. “I guess we’ll get back to the question later.”

  “Where’s Uncle Harold?” Veronica changed the subject.

  “He and Kimo are picking up a few things for dinner. I’m glad Sadie told us you and your friends were here or we wouldn’t have brought enough food.”

  We heard a car pull into the driveway. Through the window we saw two men get out of a slick dark blue sedan parked behind Veronica’s car. The older man was laughing loudly as he reached for a brown paper bag from the back seat. The driver, a younger attractive man, was smiling and talking as he pointed in the direction of the beach.

  “Who’s that with Uncle Harold?”

  “Kimo Lee.”

  “Kimo Lee?” I repeated softly. The name sounded odd, foreign, but I liked it.

  “Who is he?” Veronica asked.

  “He’s a young doctor at Mercy-Douglass Hospital with your uncle. He’s a really nice guy. His family is from Hawaii, and his father is a renowned surgeon on the island of Maui. Your uncle Harold and I are taking Kimo to meet some friends and introduce him around at Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hospital. He has an interview Saturday afternoon. He’s single and a major catch if any of you are interested,” she said, winking.

  “We’ll think about it,” Veronica said. “Come on. We should get changed.”

  “Okay, and don’t worry about dinner. I’ll cook when we get back. Unless of course your cooking has improved greatly?” she said jokingly.

  Veronica smirked. “Not a chance.”

  Trudy chuckled. “I’ll forever be hopeful. We should only be gone a short while.”

  “Okay, Aunt Trudy.”

  7

  I WASHED MY HAIR FOUR TIMES AND I STILL FELT LIKE I was carrying around a sandcastle on my head. “Damn, there’s sand everywhere. How does anyone ever get rid of it?” I turned to Veronica, who was sitting on the edge of one of the beds polishing her nails. Her hair was rolled up in her mother’s giant curlers as she sat under a dryer bonnet. It had been on full blast for the past fifteen minutes.

  “Does that thing have to be so loud?” I shouted. Of course, she couldn’t hear me.

 
I turned on the radio. Anything was better than listening to the droning sound of the dryer. I spun the dial and stopped at Gladys Knight singing her hit song “The End of Our Road.”

  As the song faded, a newscast about Richard Nixon and his running mate, Spiro Agnew, came on. I shook my head. I had no idea why people were going crazy over them and their “law and order” bullshit. They were richer than God, and nobody comes by that much money honestly. “If there is a hell,” I exclaimed, “we’re all going there and those two rats are gonna be leading the way.”

  “What?” Veronica shouted, lifting the dryer bonnet.

  I shook my head and waved her off. “Nothing.”

  I continued greasing and braiding my hair as unwanted thoughts of Daniel filled my head. I could still feel his strong thigh brushing up against my leg while we were in the water. The way he took control seemed natural. It showed his confidence. I thought about going into his room to talk but then considered my hair. Better that I get it all braided and dried first.

  Daphne entered the room already showered and changed, wearing a cotton sundress. She began looking around the room anxiously.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked her.

  “Nothing,” she said, rifling through an open suitcase.

  “Oh my God, Daphne, what happened to your wrist?” I exclaimed, seeing it red, bruised, and scarred.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly.

  “It’s not nothing. What happened to you?” I insisted.

  Veronica looked up and shouted. “What?”

  “What?” I yelled back just as she turned the dryer off.

  “Look at Daphne’s wrist.”

  Daphne quickly put her hands behind her back. “I need my sweater. Where’s my sweater?”

  “Daphne, a sweater? Come on. It’s a hundred degrees outside. You don’t need a sweater,” I said.

  “Here, it’s over here.” Veronica held it up.

  Daphne quickly put it on. “I just need to wear my sweater, that’s all.”

  She looked at the palms of her hands. “I can’t take it off. Everybody will see,” she said, pulling at the sleeves to cover more of her hands.

  “What’s there to see?” Veronica asked.

  “Daphne, what is it? You know you can tell us anything.”

  “Nothing. I’m fine. Just leave me alone, okay?” She backed away, looking wide-eyed and panicked.

  “Daphne, we’re sisters. Remember? Whatever it is, it’s okay. Just tell us. You know we’ll help.”

  “Nobody can help me now,” she said softly.

  She walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed and slowly took her sweater off. “I cut myself,” she admitted in barely a whisper.

  I sat down beside her. Veronica walked over. “Are you okay?” she asked as she sat on the other side of her.

  Daphne looked at me and then at Veronica. “I don’t know if I’m okay. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy like my mother. But I know I can’t go back there again.”

  “Back where? What are you talking about?”

  “Back home to my father.”

  “What happened?” I asked, fearing the worst.

  Daphne didn’t say anything. Her lower lip quivered and her body trembled as her glassy eyes stared straight ahead. She looked terrified, like she was in a trance or something. She looked like a fragile porcelain doll.

  “I’m going to hell,” she stated plainly.

  “What?” Veronica said.

  “No, you’re not,” I said.

  “Yes, I am. I tried to kill myself,” she said, stretching out her left hand, palm side up, showing us a raised, lumpy red scar on her wrist. “I committed an unforgivable sin.”

  I flinched. “Daphne,” I whispered, but it came out more as a breathless gasp. I threw my arms around her. Daphne’s life was a misery. Passed from family member to family member, she was never really wanted by anyone. Then years later, and after her mother had committed suicide, she went back to live with her father. I suspect he felt guilty for his treatment of them.

  “Why? Why did you do it?” The words tumbled from Veronica.

  “I was desperate. I had to make him stop.”

  We knew exactly whom she was talking about. Her uncle was an evil man who had called her “nigga baby.” She was the shame of her father’s family. Her mother passed as white and had married a wealthy white man. After Daphne was born, the truth had come out. Her father was humiliated and had kicked her and her mother out of the house.

  “So you did this,” Veronica said.

  Daphne hunched her shoulders and shook her head as if seeing him right there with us. “He had the devil in him the day I came home. I saw it. His eyes were red and hateful. He was drunk. Dirty. Nasty. He came at me. I fought him off. I swear I did. I wouldn’t let him touch me. Not again. Never again, but he wouldn’t stop coming for me,” she stammered.

  “It’s okay.” We soothed her as best we could.

  “No, no, you don’t understand. I had to do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “He was all over me. His hands were all over me.” She recoiled, trembling. “I grabbed a fork from the kitchen table and stabbed him. There was blood everywhere. If I’d had a gun I would have killed the son of a bitch!” she shouted.

  “Shhhh, it’s okay. It’s okay,” I told her.

  “We’re here with you,” Veronica added.

  “No, you don’t understand.” She began to weep. “When I stabbed him he said he was going to have me put in the crazy house like my mother. That’s when I did this.” She looked down at the wound on her wrist. “I took some sleeping pills and some whiskey. I lay down in a tub of warm water and used a razor blade. I woke up in the hospital.”

  “Did you tell your father what your uncle did to you?” Veronica asked.

  She nodded. “He didn’t believe me. My uncle told him that I went crazy and attacked him.”

  “He didn’t believe you?” Veronica asked.

  “That’s it. He needs to be locked up. You need to tell everybody what he did to you. You need to . . .” I was just about to go off. Veronica looked at me and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” I said softly.

  “You’re safe with us, no matter what,” Veronica said.

  “I remember after I did it I felt like I was floating. There was blood in the water. My father found me. After he took me to the hospital, he sent me to a sanitarium, a psychiatric institution. It was a crazy house. The same place they sent my mother before she died. I stayed in that place for seven weeks, four days, and sixteen hours. The doctors told my father that I was no longer a threat to others or myself. He agreed. They let me go. College was my escape from all of it. We need to get back there as soon as we can.”

  “Nobody will ever know your scars are there. I promise. And you don’t need that stupid sweater.” Veronica got up and quickly rummaged through her mother’s drawer and pulled out a wide-cuff bracelet. “Here, put this on.”

  Daphne slipped it over her hand. The bracelet covered her scar perfectly.

  “See? No one will ever know.”

  “Won’t your mother miss it?”

  “Nah, she probably doesn’t even know she has it.”

  “Daphne, listen to me,” I began. “If there’s one thing you’ve always told me it’s that God is love and he forgives, right? So there’s no way he would send you to hell. I know he won’t. You taught me that. You didn’t do it all the way and you’re repentant now, right? Isn’t that what you always say? So as long as we repent, we can be forgiven anything, even this, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Veronica added.

  “We’re all together, and nobody’s going to hurt you again,” I said. “You don’t have to go back to Long Island. You can come stay with me.”

  “And when Zelda starts driving you crazy, which will probably be five minutes after you get there, you come live with me. Okay?” We laughed.

  An old favorite song came on the radio. It was Martha and th
e Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street.” Veronica squealed and hurried over to turn up the volume. She whooped and hollered and started dancing. Veronica pulled three curlers out of her hair and shoved them into our hands, and together we dragged Daphne to the dresser mirror. We started singing at the top of our lungs using Veronica’s big curlers as microphones. Daphne was the only one who actually had a decent singing voice, and she stood in the middle to sing lead.

  We glided around the bedroom doing the jerk, the slop, the mashed potato, the twist, and the hitchhike. When the song faded into a commercial, we fell back onto the bed sweating. We talked and giggled and sang our hearts out along with the commercial jingles that followed.

  “You’re so lucky to have all this,” I said.

  “I know that I’m fortunate,” Veronica said. “Lots of famous people have come to visit. I’ve met James Baldwin, Dr. King, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, and Ethel Waters. All of these people have taken risks for the race. The conversations at dinner were out of sight. But it was Langston Hughes who changed me. He died last year. He was a poet, a writer, an orator, and an amazing man. He was a genius. He once told me to live outside my glass box and to never let anyone define me. He said to dream as big as I could and with intense purpose. My life isn’t filled with foot soldiers and radicals, but it’s certainly filled with revolutionaries of the mind, spirit, and soul.”

  She was right.

  “I can’t believe this is going to be over soon. Us, together, at Spelman. In a few months we’ll be going our separate ways. We’ll get jobs, get married and have kids, and this will all be over.”

  “No, it won’t. We’ll always be friends and sisters.”

  “I know, but not like this.”

  “See? That’s why this drive is so important. No matter how crazy our lives get, we have to promise to always make time for us.”

  “So, Zelda, you being an attorney and then a Supreme Court judge, and Daphne a college professor, and me, well . . .” She paused. “I don’t really know what I’m going to be yet.”

  “I do,” I said quickly. “You’re going to take over your family business and be president and CEO of Cook Securities and then Cook Enterprises.”

  “Yeah, president and CEO. I like that. We, my dear sisters, are going to take this world by storm. They’d better watch out, ’cause we’re coming.”