“Oh, that’s very romantic, but I’m not sure I’d do that. Arizona has more rattlesnakes per square mile than any state in the country.”
Petra swallowed hard. “There goes that idea. Maybe I’ll get a taxi to take me up there, eat my breakfast, and watch the sunrise while I sit in the cab.” A thought occurred to her.
“Greta, have you ever had a boyfriend?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve had a full life, Petra. I’ve loved deeply.”
“What happened? You can tell me, because we’ll never see each other again after we leave Arizona.”
“He didn’t want to live a Christian life, and I couldn’t marry any other kind of man. For some reason, he didn’t tell me until after we lived together for over a year.”
Petra released a sharp whistle. “Miserable bastard! And I’ll bet anything you were a virgin.”
Greta’s lips tightened perceptibly. “And according to him, the only one he ever had. He didn’t deserve me.”
“Have you forgiven him?” She asked the question, because she needed another view on the necessity of forgiveness in order to get into Heaven.
“I’m trying.”
Petra sat up straight, turned, and looked hard at Greta. “How long have you been trying?”
Greta blew out a long breath and her shoulders sagged. “Three long years, and I still get angry whenever I think of what he did.”
“I’ve had some experience with this, Greta. Think of it as what you allowed him to do, and you’ll find it easier to forgive the SOB.”
“First call for dinner,” the waiter walked through the train calling. “Next call will be at eight forty-five.”
“Let’s go,” Greta and Petra said in unison. Laughter poured out of them as they got up and made their way to the dining room.
After their main course, they went to the observation lounge to have dessert and coffee. A verbose woman sitting beside Greta in a lounge chair put her hand to the side of her mouth and asked Greta, “Do you think that man over there”—she pointed to the man—” is an Indian? He looks like one, but he isn’t wearing any feathers.”
An expression of surprise flitted across Greta’s face. “I can’t tell by looking. You’ll have to ask him.”
Petra’s lower lip dropped when the woman got up, walked over to the man, and, loudly enough for everyone in the car to hear, said, “You big chief pow wow?”
“No,” the man said. “I’m a Native American, and you’re an idiot.”
“I may have seen redder faces,” Greta said of the woman, “but I don’t remember it.”
When the train arrived in Flagstaff at seven the next morning, Petra asked Greta where she had a reservation. She remembered their having discussed hotels earlier, but couldn’t recall the name of Greta’s hotel.
“I was hoping to get one after I arrived,” she said.
“Then why don’t you come with me? I’m staying at a bed and breakfast hotel, and if the room has two beds, you may stay with me. I’ll be here three days.”
“I think you’re a blessing to me,” Greta said, “because you’re the only person I’ve been able to talk to about my abortive affair.”
At the hotel, Petra received permission for Greta to stay with her, and as they settled in, she told Greta, “I’d better warn you; in my entire life, I’ve never shared a room with anyone.”
“You’re either fibbing, or you’re an only child and you’re a virgin.”
Petra gave the woman a withering look. “I’m an only child.”
Chapter Four
Petra went to bed that night wondering whether to tell Greta about her predicament. Greta was, after all, almost a nun, a person with spiritual insight. Besides, hadn’t Greta shared her problems? She wasn’t sure. The last thing she wanted was a female Reverend Collins traveling with her, sharing a room and meals with her, and nagging her constantly about her soul. She decided to play it by ear and went to sleep.
After breakfast the next morning, they boarded one of the free shuttle buses and headed for the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. “Petra is an unusual name for an African American,” Greta said at the beginning of their journey. “It’s Scandinavian and German, isn’t it?”
Petra had wanted to ask Greta about her background. The white people she knew back home didn’t seek the company of African Americans if they had a choice, and Greta had other options. “Apparently, it’s Swedish,” she told her. “I heard my father tell my mother, in a fit of rage, that he named me Petra to commemorate his affair with a Swedish woman shortly after he and my mother married. They were at loggerheads all the time. You didn’t want to grow up in that house, Greta.”
“My goodness. I’m sorry, Petra. Are they still living together?”
Petra sucked her teeth in disgust. “Definitely not. At a party at our house one night, Daddy met Mama’s best friend, went home with her, and never came back.”
“What a pity,” Greta said, but Petra sensed that she was deep in very personal thoughts, thoughts triggered by Petra’s story of her father’s infidelity.
Yeah. What a pity!
“What’s your background?” she asked Greta. “Were your folks born in this country?”
“My mother was, but my father was born in Frankfurt, Germany. He came here to work at the United Nations, married my mother, and stayed. They live in New York. I’m an only child, and if I go into a convent, they won’t have any grandchildren. That infuriates my dad.”
The driver of the shuttle bus announced, “We’ll be there in a minute. Don’t wander away from trails and don’t go off alone. Come right here for a bus back to Flagstaff. Have a good time.”
“I’m going to the lookout,” Greta said.
Chills plowed through Petra. “Lord, I can’t go out there. I’m scared to death of heights. I get the urge to jump.” She stopped walking. What did she have to fear? Certainly, she didn’t fear for her life. She ran and caught Greta. “I always wanted to see this place. I can’t wait.” Emboldened by she couldn’t imagine what magic, she followed the group to the lookout, but couldn’t make herself go to the edge where people stood, protected from the mile-deep drop only by a metal fence.
“Come on,” Greta said, “isn’t this why we came?”
Petra walked to the edge, braced her hands against the fence, and gazed down at the abyss below. Instead of fear, she knew a strange calm, an inexplicable peacefulness. And as if they shared her wonder and awe, none in the small group uttered a word.
They remained there for more than half an hour, and as they headed toward the Tusayan Museum, Greta said, “I’ll remember that view for as long as I live, even if I live to be a hundred.”
“There’s no likelihood that I’ll forget it. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. These are the Tusayan Ruins,” Petra said, reading from her guidebook. “The Pueblo Indians lived here more than eight hundred years ago.” She gazed at the holes in the side of the great red hill, a community hulled out of a mountain side.
“They must have had a hard life. Considering how we live today, we have plenty to be thankful for,” Greta said.
“Yeah, even when you look back on a ruptured romance, if the guy knew how to put it down, you’re still luckier than a woman who never had a romance.”
“You don’t regret it?” Greta asked.
“No way. That’s one of the few things I don’t regret.” She couldn’t understand why breathing suddenly seemed difficult and why she was so tired. Maybe the time had come. “I think I’ll go back to the hotel, Greta. You go ahead and enjoy the view. I’m awfully tired.” For the first time since she left home, she wished for her cell phone, but she hadn’t wanted contact with her office or her family, had wanted the complete freedom she had never experienced. “I’ll…uh…see you later, Greta.”
“I’m not surprised that you’re out of breath,” Greta said. “The guidebook warns about respiratory problems at this altitude.”
Petra let her gaze scan the great canyon for a minute. �
�See you later,” she said, turned, and started down the hill to the bus stop.
By the time the shuttle bus on which she was riding reached Flagstaff, Petra felt like her old self. “I’m getting fed up with this,” she said aloud as she walked into her room. If she promised a client that the Watkins agents would sell a house within six months, that client would go at once to another real estate agency. But that stuffed turkey she had for a doctor practiced medicine by guesswork. “You may be pregnant,” he’d once said after she’d just told him she hadn’t been near a man in three years. She sucked her teeth. Did he think women conceived by osmosis? She’d often thought that, in his case, MD meant Moron Doctor. She went to him because he was the only black doctor near her, and she believed in patronizing her own.
Still, tests didn’t lie, so she wrote the name, addresses, and telephone numbers of her mother and daughter on a sheet of paper, marked it “In case of emergency,” and put the information in her pocketbook. When Greta returned much later that day, she gave Petra a small white Bible.
“You’re serious about going to a convent, aren’t you?” Petra asked her.
“After what I saw today, I know I’ve made the right decision.” She sat on the edge of Petra’s bed. “I met a really nice man. He was seeing all the places that he’s always wanted to see and doing things he’s wanted to do before—”
Petra sat up and put her hands over her ears. “Don’t tell me. I don’t need to know.”
“Why not? He committed an armed robbery about ten years ago, and he’s been on the lam ever since. He can’t develop close relationships or get married and have a family or keep a good job, so he is going to turn himself in and take his medicine. Ten years from now, he’ll only be thirty-eight, and he can start over.”
“You spent a lot of time with that stranger.”
“He needed to talk, I guess. He said his name was Richie, and that once he made up his mind to go back and face the authorities, he stopped being afraid.” She grasped Petra’s hand and held it. “What are you escaping, Petra? I know there’s something going on with you.”
“I…You’re asking a lot. I haven’t even told my family about this.”
“That’s what strangers are for, you said, and you were right. They give us an opportunity to tell the truth, and we don’t worry about what they’ll think of us and who they’ll tell. Do you think I’ve told anyone but you about the affair I’ve had such a hard time getting over?”
“I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, so I’ve been keeping it to myself. Two months ago, my doctor told me I had six months to live.”
“Wh…what?” Greta stammered. She jumped up, folded her arms beneath her breasts, and then sat down. “And you haven’t told your family?”
“I didn’t want to worry them.”
“Great. And you think a shock would be more merciful?”
Petra shrugged. “How do I know? My mother gets along fine with shocks. When my father left home with her best friend, all Mama said to me was ‘Good riddance to both of them.’ And when I got pregnant, she said, ‘I told you about wearing those miniskirts all the way up to your behind.’” Petra didn’t see anything amusing about that, but apparently Greta did, for it took her a few minutes to straighten out her face.
“Sometimes, I think I’ll wake up and discover that I’ve been dreaming,” Petra said, “but I know it’s true.” She looked at Greta, but her thoughts were elsewhere. “All things considered, it hasn’t been so bad, but if I’m going to see Sedona and California, oh yes, and Martin Luther King’s tomb, I’d better get moving.” She checked the train schedule, phoned a hotel in Sedona and made a reservation. Then she packed.
“This room is paid up through tomorrow, Greta. I’m glad I met you. Have a great life.”
Greta hugged her. “I guess you’re doing what you have to do. Bless you.”
Petra checked into the hotel in Sedona a few minutes after midnight, went to her room, and fell across the bed. Hours later, she awakened, undressed, crawled into bed, and went back to sleep. She awakened again at three o’clock in the afternoon, dressed, and went to the front desk for information.
“If you’re leaving day after tomorrow, I suggest you take a sight-seeing bus. You can’t see Sedona in one day.”
“I overslept.”
“It’s the healthy air.”
Petra could hardly believe that what she saw was not a mirage as the bus wound its way past the great red rocks, each a different shape and shade of red, and she gasped aloud at the breathtaking Oak Creek Canyon. She had never seen such beauty. “And to think that I might never have seen this.” She didn’t want to leave the city or the area, but something inside of her said, “Move on.” I should phone Greta, see if she’s still at the hotel, and tell her not to miss this.
Petra phoned the hotel, identified herself, asked for Greta Muster, and was informed that no one by that name had been registered at the hotel. “But she checked in with me three days ago.”
“Sorry, Ms. Fields, but you must be mistaken.”
“I don’t believe this. I must be going out of my mind.” She hung up. “Oh, for goodness sake. The room was in my name, not Greta’s, and I don’t remember the room number. I must be losing it. Maybe I ought to call Mama or Krista and get my feet on the ground, as Grandpa used to say.”
Right then, Krista was having a difficult time getting her feet on the ground, for she struggled against her grandmother’s discipline. And as one means of escape, she spent as much time as possible with her father, who was less certain of his authority with her.
Goodman leaned back in his desk chair and scrutinized his daughter and oldest child, already aware in the short time he’d known her that she would push him to the limit if he permitted it. “Krista, I do not like spending evenings away from my family. You’re to come here on time and keep your end of our bargain. I’ll give you your lesson from five-fifteen to six-fifteen on Mondays, after which I’ll have dinner at home. At eight o’clock, I rehearse The Oella Choral Ensemble. I told you that, so there’s no point in sulking. I can’t change my program just because you want to gauge your importance to me. That’s childish, and I won’t stand for it.”
“Maybe I’ll go with you to the choral ensemble.”
“As an observer, yes. I’m not the sole arbiter of that group’s membership. If you want to sing with them, you have to try out.”
“You said I had a good voice.”
“Yes, you do. How do you plan to spend the time between six-fifteen and eight?”
“You mean I can’t go home with you? The only time I see you is here at the studio.”
He got up, walked over to his piano, and ran the middle finger of his right hand over the white keys. “You’re asking me to upset my wife, Krista, and I am not prepared to do that. At a convenient time, I’ll introduce you to your brothers, and after you get to know them, I’ll introduce you to my wife, though I expect the boys will manage that more easily than I.”
“Are you scared of her?” she asked him.
“What a question! You don’t understand male-female relations, do you? Can’t you put yourself in her place? You will remind her that I once loved another woman, and that I loved that woman enough to give her a child. Why should I fear my wife? The answer to your question is that I love her, and I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Oh. Grandma never has anything good to say about my grandfather. She doesn’t know where he is, and said she doesn’t care. My mom’s taking a vacation. She didn’t say where she was going. I just…I think I’ll go home. Maybe I’ll go with you to the singing group next week.” She looked at him with eyes wide and, in them, an expression of expectancy.
I’d better be careful with her. She’s more vulnerable than I had thought. He enjoyed the choral group more than he’d expected. No conductor could resist thirty-six beautiful voices. He’d love to add Krista’s mezzo soprano to the group, but he didn’t want to be accused of nepotism. He drove her home, ate su
pper with his family, and rushed to the choral group’s weekly rehearsal.
As he entered the room where they practiced, he noticed a new face, a lovely face, and waited to see where she would sit. However, she didn’t sit with the altos or the sopranos; she walked up to the piano, looked him up and down, and said, “I like to sing alto, but if you want me to sing soprano, I can do that, too.”
He raised an eyebrow, taken aback by her frank cockiness and—might as well admit it—blatant sexiness. To show her who was boss, he said, “Sing the first two lines of the National Anthem. What key?”
A half smile flittered at the corner of her mouth. “G is good.”
He liked her rich tone, but he figured he’d better not tell her that. “Did Mrs. Long give you permission to join the group?”
“She said that’s up to you.”
“Sit with the altos.”
“Thanks.” She put her hands on her hips and looked at him from beneath lowered eyelids. “I sure hope you’re not married, but if you aren’t, the women around here would have to be crazy.”
He didn’t think he’d ever had a more direct pass. She might be reckless, but he couldn’t afford to be. “By your definition, at least one woman is sane,” he said. “Have a seat.”
“She’s a looker, all right,” he said to himself, observing her rich brown skin, slumberous, long-lashed eyes, and pouting lips about a mouth that invited a man to plunge into it. Hot, and she knew it. A smart man would avoid her as if she were the plague.
For the two hours that they practiced, the woman worked at him. Every time he glanced her way, she smiled or winked, and every such gesture amounted to an invitation. After two of the longest hours he’d ever spent, she sidled up to the piano.
“You wouldn’t be going my way, would you?” she asked. “I could use a lift.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jada. Jada Hankins.” She gave him her address.
His mind told him not to do it, that he was stepping into a hole and might not be able to get out of it. He ignored that inner voice that had served him so well throughout his adult life. “I’ll drop you off, but don’t expect this to become a habit.”
A Different Kind of Blues Page 8
