The Secret of Magic

by Johnson, Deborah

  Mary Pickett looked out for a moment, and even though Regina could not see her eyes, she knew that they had sought out Willie Willie’s. She wondered what they were saying to him. She wondered what his eyes were answering back.

  “The cottage will do for the night,” continued Miss Mary Pickett briskly. “He’ll take you over, get you settled. I imagine you’ve missed your supper. I’ll send out a sandwich and some milk. Tomorrow morning . . . Well, Dinetta brings out breakfast at eight. I’ll expect you to be prompt.”

  “I will be,” said Regina, almost giddy with relief that she hadn’t been summarily carted off to the Queen City Hotel. She was still right here, right near Mary Pickett, and she had a whole night ahead of her to figure out how to stay put.

  Without another word, Mary Pickett turned back to her house, banged the screen door shut behind her. There had been no sign of Jackson Blodgett, no mention of his name—and Regina had been looking and listening hard for him. But there was a movement now at the kitchen window. A strange flash of color, of bright red and of gold, that couldn’t possibly be him.

  Regina said, “Smells like Miss Calhoun might be baking some kind of pie.”

  “She don’t cook. You coming?” said Willie Willie. He’d pulled up a kerosene lamp from the side of the porch, lit it, held it high.

  Regina turned, hurried down the stairs. She looked back at the window one last time, but the shade had been pulled down tight as a drum and the brilliant incandescence that had been at it and the smell of pie were both gone.

  • • •

  WILLIE WILLIE’S “COTTAGE” turned out to be about twenty feet from the main house, partially hidden from it by trees and flowers that, in the darkness, were only vague, dark forms and rich scents. Regina doubted that, even in broad daylight, she could have named them anyway. Ahead of her, Willie Willie opened a door. He switched on a light.

  Regina had immediately translated Mary Pickett’s “cottage” into “cabin,” some hardscrabble shelter left over from slavery days. And Willie Willie’s place was certainly simple. It just wasn’t as crude as she’d thought it would be. A couch, two chairs, an end table, a desk in a tidy cream-painted room. Maybe not much, but enough. A small bump led down to an attached kitchen; railed steps beside her lifted to something above.

  A much nicer place than what she’d expected him to have. Indoor plumbing, even. She remembered the outhouses she’d seen on her way in.

  “There’s sheets and towels in that shelf off the bathroom. Got my own refrigerator here, but it’s empty. Like Miss Mary Pickett said, she’ll be sending somebody over any minute with your supper. I’ll get your bags and carry them up.”

  He had stood just inside the door and was out again before Regina could thank him. Strange, she thought, since this was his home. She’d imagine he’d want to look around, make sure everything was like he’d left it. But then again, she decided, maybe he already had, before he’d come to get her. Not that she spent much time thinking about Willie Willie. She had other things on her mind. Her feet were killing her and her girdle was itching; even the peacock feather on her hat was starting to droop. She blew at it, found a switch, turned on a light.

  Once upstairs, she saw the bathroom door right away, a sly, wide-open gape leading to a Promised Land that just might include a tub. She kicked off her shoes, peeled off her gloves and her hat, all the time making straight for it. Thank God for indoor plumbing!

  There was a tub. She went right to it, pulled back the plastic curtain . . . and screamed. At the biggest roach she’d ever seen in her life. Big as a mouse. In fact, heaven help her, it might actually be a mouse.

  “Honey, ain’t nothing but a little ol’ palmetto bug. How can it hurt you?” From downstairs floated up a woman’s voice—deep rich, mellow as molasses—that was not Mary Pickett’s voice, and certainly not Willie Willie’s voice. “He’s more scared of you than you be of him. All you got to do is pick him up, put him out the window. That’s where he come from. That’s where he wants to go back.”

  Pick him up? Put him out the window? By myself?

  “Ma’am . . .” What was it Mary Pickett had called her? Dinetta? “Miss Dinetta . . .”

  “Just go right on over to him. He’s not gonna bite. Pick him up! Let him go!” That woman again, and then the unmistakable click of a closing front door.

  No help for it now; either that bug had to go or she did. Regina started looking around for anything, a roll of toilet paper, maybe—something to pick the bug up with and not touch it. The window was already open. She was grateful for that.

  • • •

  REGINA WOKE TO a wild chirping of birds. At least she thought they were birds at first. It took a closed-eyed second for her to realize that what she heard was meowing, not chirping. Kittens. This noisy, this early? But at least they’d roused her.

  She opened her eyes to bright sunlight in a strange room in a strange house in a strange place. Still, she recognized where she was right away, and what lay before her. Eyes wide open now, she jumped out of bed, found the luggage Willie Willie had left outside the door, and fished through it for her robe. Then she went looking around.

  Willie Willie’s place consisted of two rooms, stacked one on top of the other, with a kitchen added on to the back of the downstairs and a tiny bathroom tacked up on top of that. Except for a few odd, threadbare pieces that had presumably been handed down from the big house—a dull gold damask couch, the curlicue iron bed, two red brocaded easy chairs—the rest of the furniture looked handmade. The rooms smelled cedarwood and Ivory soap and pitch pine, and neglect. All in order but covered in dust, as though Willie Willie had been gone from his house a lot longer than Mary Pickett had said.

  Regina dressed, came downstairs, went over to the lace-curtained window. It was still bright and early, but across the way Calhoun Place was already a hive of activity. As she watched, Mary Pickett carried out toast holders and a big silver tray. Behind her, close as a shadow, marched a little black girl dressed up in a white uniform, red socks and scuffed shoes, holding tight on to a tray with two porcelain teapots, two cups, and two saucers.

  “Could that be Dinetta?” wondered Regina, remembering the rich voice that had called up to her from this very same room last night. She couldn’t imagine that much power being forced out of such a little-girl body. Why, this child looked like she should still be in grammar school. Regina made up her mind to point this fact out to Mary Pickett as soon as she decently could.

  Regina watched Mary Pickett poke out her lips, study the china, shake her head, take it back into the kitchen and bring back some more. She and Dinetta dragged out Chippendale chairs, put them across from each other at a large white wicker table. Slowly it started to dawn on Regina that all this preparation might be for her. If so, then Willie Willie had been right and her presence was going to be one continuous social quagmire for M. P. Calhoun, an unknown place where she’d have to carefully seek out traction and mind every new step.

  Mary Pickett strode purposely in and out, got so sweaty from her exertions that the bun at the nape of her neck started to unravel. Curls of hair had broken loose and surrounded her face like little russet question marks. A few of them drooped down onto her shoulders—calling Regina’s attention to Mary Pickett’s cardigan sweater. It was a camel-colored cashmere with a row of exquisite pearl buttons. Probably bought, if recollection served Regina correctly, last season at Best. She knew this because she had one just like it. And she’d brought it with her.

  Abandoning the window, she ran up the steep steps to the small room she had slept in, pulled out the sweater, put it on, checked herself in the mirror over the bathroom sink, walked back down the stairs, and on out the door. Her step, as she crossed the brick drive leading from the cottage to its big house, was springy.

  She thought she looked a little better in the sweater than Mary Pickett did. What with her sensible shoes, her hair co
ming loose, a white lace blouse and her constant veranda-arranging, Miss Calhoun had started to come a little undone.

  “Good morning,” Regina called out, waving.

  “Good morning.” Mary Pickett’s eyes narrowed as she took in Regina—one long glance that stopped for a slow beat at the sweater—but all she said was, “Won’t you have a seat?”

  Cool as a cucumber, thought Regina, and she wondered if there was ever anything that might get through to this woman, anything that might shake her up. There didn’t seem to be, because after the seat, the novelist offered toast, tea, and a pregnant silence.

  Regina didn’t mind. She hadn’t figured out what to say anyway, and she was content for the moment to just look around, get some bearings, and the first thing her eyes really lighted on was Mary Pickett herself. Why, behind all that sharp brittleness, she’s actually quite pretty. Huge doe eyes, thick, rich hair, skin as white and translucent as a good Minton china cup. The two of them were out on Miss Mary Pickett’s back veranda, the same one Regina had been led to the night before, and it was lovely. It had a green planked floor and a blue-painted ceiling that had been spotted over with bright, white cumulous clouds. Regina remembered, from reading Mary Pickett’s novel, that the green and the blue were supposed to confuse mosquitoes in summer and keep them away. Daddy Lemon had said this. Regina, in New York, had thought this only an illustration of the magic in the book, but, looking around her now, she decided this must be something in which M. P. Calhoun truly believed.

  Finally, Mary Pickett said, “I trust you slept well.”

  “Very nicely,” said Regina.

  “I heard you had a little . . . visitor.” She looked down, but Regina didn’t miss a lip twitch that could only be glee.

  “You mean that little ol’ palmetto bug? Why, he was nothing.”

  Mary Pickett raised her eyes. They were a rich earth brown. “Really?” A long, slow drawl. “I imagine that’s what you made of him. Nothing. What’d you do . . . flush him down the drain?”

  “Actually, I picked him up with a piece of cardboard and put him out the window. I thought that would be best. Not to kill him, I mean.”

  “You can’t kill a palmetto bug, putting him down a drain,” Mary Pickett said with a smirk. “A flushing drain’s his natural habitation. How’d you like the cottage?”

  “I liked it,” said Regina.

  Mary Pickett flashed out what looked like a genuine smile. “It’s Willie Willie’s. I fixed it up for him myself. Not what you were expecting, was it? The cottage, that is.”

  “I didn’t know what to expect,” said Regina honestly. “I imagine you didn’t, either.”

  They looked at each other. They both knew what she meant.

  It was clear that Mary Pickett had been plainly amazed by Regina the night before, and she was still astonished. She didn’t try to hide it. Every time she glanced over, her eyebrows canted upward and she automatically started shaking her head. Regina saw this, but she pretended not to. She didn’t want to make things easier for Mary Pickett, or more difficult for Willie Willie or for herself, by starting off on the wrong foot. So she said, “I realize that I’m not the person you were expecting, but as I’m sure you can well understand, Mr. Marshall himself is always quite busy . . .”

  Mary Pickett brushed a fly away from a silver bowl of blood-orange marmalade. The dish was polished bright as a mirror, the marmalade so thick it kept a spoon straight up, standing at attention. Mary Pickett let her gaze roam to a row of enormous pink roses. She said not a word. She did not look at Regina, who continued gamely on.

  “He chose me as the most qualified to replace him. I have experience with ex-GIs, with their civil rights cases. Surely since you were the one who wrote for our help, it cannot be my race that matters. You seemed to know you were calling on the NAACP.” Regina paused. “Is it my gender?”

  “‘Is it my gender?’” mimicked Miss Mary Pickett. She swirled a small cyclone of sugar into her tea. “I asked specifically for Thurgood Marshall. You do not look like Thurgood Marshall to me. Much, much too young, for one thing. The way life is here . . . how could you possibly understand?”

  “Understand what?”

  But there was no answer to this.

  “Believe me, Miss Calhoun,” continued Regina, “Mr. Marshall is extremely sorry that he could not come himself. He understands the gravity of the situation. We all do.”

  This caught Mary Pickett’s attention. “Really?” she said. “And what exactly is the gravity, as you so neatly phrase it, of this situation?”

  “Why, that justice for Joe Howard Wilson has not been served. You want us—me—to find evidence that will persuade a grand jury to reopen the case.”

  “Oh,” said Mary Pickett, considering, “is that what you think? Well, you’re wrong. And had you informed me who you were before you got here, you would have saved me a great deal of money and you and your office some time. Soon as we’re finished here, I’ll have somebody haul you back down to the Bonnie Blue depot. The bus will take you far as Birmingham. You can catch a train north from there. I’m sorry, but this is a serious matter. Life and death. I need someone with Thurgood Marshall’s experience. I need expertise.”

  “That’s not what Mr. Willie Willie told me. It’s not why he said you wanted us here.”

  “Really?” Mary Pickett’s eyes were steady over the rim of her cup, but Regina could tell from the flicker in them that she’d made an impression.

  “Really,” she echoed. “In fact, he thinks the only reason you sent for us was that you thought we wouldn’t actually come. But we did come. I’m here.”

  “Indeed,” said Mary Pickett. “You are.”

  She had a beautiful voice, slow, rich, and deep, a voice that thoroughly frosted its phrases and laid them out like so many caramel cakes. A little too sweet for Regina’s taste. It was probably something, she decided, best imbibed by small, sparing dose. Mary Pickett poured more tea for herself then turned the handle so her guest could pour for herself. God forbid she should serve a Negro! Regina reached down and started swirling sugar into her own teacup. Which was chipped. Both Regina and Mary Pickett noticed this at the exact same moment. Regina’s lip curved upward in triumph.

  I may not be what you expected, but you are exactly what I expected, her smile said.

  “I am sorry,” said Mary Pickett, blushing. “This was not done with intention.”

  She looked like she meant it. And much to Regina’s amazement, she snatched up the cup, rushed into the house, and returned with another. Perfect, this time.

  But this show of good manners changed nothing else. Settled back into her seat, Mary Pickett appeared, once again, ready for battle. “This is Mississippi, and this is a boy’s—a young man’s—death we’re talking about, and the life of a man who has worked for me for years. There’s nothing someone like you can do for us down here. You’ll only get in the way. You’ll make things difficult.”

  “Difficult?”

  “As though they’re not already awful enough,” said Mary Pickett. “In a killing way.”

  “But Miss Calhoun, Lieutenant Wilson is already dead.”

  “It’s not Joe Howard I’m worried about,” said Mary Pickett. “It’s Willie Willie. I’m afraid he’s going to get himself killed. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  Lynched.

  Regina nodded. She knew what Mary Pickett was saying.

  “Because he won’t give up,” continued Mary Pickett. “He says he will, but he won’t. I thought once I wrote up to y’all and he saw—”

  “Why?” Bad manners to interrupt, but Regina did it anyway. “I mean, why won’t Mr. Willie Willie give up?”

  “Why?” repeated Mary Pickett. “Honey, ‘why’ is the history of this place. It’s the only question we ever ask, and it’s the one never gets answered.”

  Soft music play
ed into the silence left by her words. Slow and sad. Negro. Gospel, maybe. Regina thought it must be filtering out from a radio nearby. She couldn’t be certain, couldn’t identify the tune. But Mary Pickett sure knew it, and she was humming along. Suddenly, Regina thought, Why this is M. P. Calhoun sitting across from me at this table. I’m drinking tea with one of my favorite authors. It’s me here! And she allowed herself to be thrilled by this fact—but just for a moment.

  Then she said, “You send me away now, Mr. Willie Willie’ll know he was right about you. That you were . . . I don’t know . . . maybe bluffing.” She stopped, searching for the right words. “Though I can’t imagine what he thinks would much matter. He’s just another black man works for you, after all.”

  It was a calculated risk. Regina held her breath as Mary Pickett looked over a sea of flowers to the small out-built cottage. When her head swiveled slowly back, the humming stopped. And Regina knew she had Mary Pickett’s full attention.

  “Continue.”

  “I was thinking,” Regina said after a minute, “that I might pay a call on the district attorney. Nathan Bedford Duval V, at least that’s the name in the clippings you sent. He’s the one asked the judge to call up a grand jury—”

  “Why on earth would you do that?” This time it was Mary Pickett who interrupted. “Bed’s already done more than he was called on to do. Worked hard at it, but he never came up with a thing. You ask me, some no-account bad boys got on that bus, took Joe Howard off. They were over there, across the state line in Carroll County when it happened, weren’t they? Everybody knows Alabama’s just full up, one end to the other, with troublesome folks.”

  “How’d you hear that?” said Regina. “I mean, how did you hear that those men actually got on the bus in Alabama?”

  “Because I just know.” Mary Pickett stopped. She seemed to realize she’d admitted to knowing too much.

  Like what was on the secret grand jury docket. But Regina slid past this, at least for the moment.