Tied to the Tracks

by Rosina Lippi

  Angie, feeling slightly dizzy, covered her face with her hands and took a deep breath.

  “I’ve got nothing to tell,” Rivera said. “I’ve never even met Miss Anabel. Angie interviewed her.”

  Jude had been watching the conversation escalate with an avid curiosity that did not bode well. Now she leaned across the table. “You didn’t really interview Anabel Spate.”

  “She did,” said Tony. “We did. Miss Zula took us with her on a visit.”

  “Anabel Spate is a legend around here,” said Wyeth.

  “She is indeed,” said Jude. “Can I see the footage?”

  “No,” said Angie and Tony together.

  “But we sure would like to hear your Miss Anabel stories,” Tony said.

  John said, “Meg, do you want to dance? Wyeth, Meg wants to dance.”

  Meg said, “I’m not the only one who thinks Miss Zula and Miss Anabel are more than just friends. Rivera said—”

  Rivera turned to her. “Don’t take what I said out of context, and do not quote me. Ever.”

  Angie said, “I’d like to dance.” She said it loudly, but things were too far gone and not even John paid attention; he was too focused on Rivera, and he looked seriously aggrieved.

  “I hope y’all have better things to do than sit around and take apart Miss Zula’s private life.”

  That made Angie’s stomach clench, and Tony laugh out loud. “That’s what we’re here for,” he said. “That’s what you’re paying us to do.” He belched again, and gave his chest a ponderous thump.

  “Within reason,” John said.

  “Oh,” said Tony. “The ‘within reason’ clause. Ang, is that before or after the part of the deal where they promised us artistic freedom?”

  “Excellent question,” Jude said. “How exactly would you define ‘within reason,’ John? Are you forbidding them to touch on issues of sexuality?”

  “Folks in Ogilvie don’t talk about sex,” Wyeth said.

  Angie didn’t like the look on John’s face; she didn’t like the discussion or the way people’s voices had gone so sharp; she wanted to be someplace else. She was about to say so when she felt John’s hand on her knee, pressing hard, the universal don’t go gesture. She felt Win Walker’s gaze resting on her and shot him a mind-your-own-business scowl.

  John said, “I trust Tied to the Tracks will respect whatever agreements they’ve made with Miss Zula.”

  “Evasive, but effective,” Jude said. “But I’m still wondering why Meg is so sure that Miss Anabel and Miss Zula are lovers.”

  “I’ve heard people talking,” Meg said defensively. “You said yourself Anabel Spate’s a legend.”

  “A legend, as in civil rights,” said Rivera. “Not as in gossip. Which you should avoid at all costs.”

  “Don’t knock small-town gossip. There’s usually some hard truth at the bottom of it,” Wyeth said.

  “But not in this case,” said Win Walker.

  Tony said to Meg, “Let me guess. You’re saying that Miss Anabel left Ogilvie and moved to Savannah because people suspected she and Miss Zula were—”

  “Yes,” said Meg, trying to look injured and dignified at the same time.

  “No,” said John and Win together.

  “Unlikely,” said Jude, at which Rivera looked grimly satisfied and Meg crestfallen. To Jude she said, “I thought you were on our side.”

  “What side is that?” Jude said, laughing at her openly. “This isn’t a club, you know. There’s no secret handshake, no policy handbook or oath of loyalty. I for one don’t think Miss Anabel is one of the girls: it just doesn’t fit with what I know about her.”

  “But you are?” Win asked, looking confused and disappointed, which might have amused Angie if it weren’t for the fact that she could sense how angry John was, sitting beside her, barely holding it in, thrumming with it.

  “I like women,” said Jude. “But I like men just as much. What about you?”

  Win’s expression was enough to make Angie cough a laugh. He blinked as if Jude had asked about the size of his sexual apparatus, and then he cleared his throat.

  “I like women,” he said. “Exclusively.”

  “Well, then,” Jude said, “maybe you shouldn’t be sitting so far away from me.”

  “Okay, time to go,” Angie said. “This is definitely more than I need to know.”

  “Wait,” Meg said. “First I want John to tell me why he’s so sure Miss Zula and Miss Anabel aren’t lovers.”

  John got up and leaned across the table toward Meg. “Listen to me now, Meggie. Nothing in this world would ever convince me to sit here in the Hound Dog, of all places, and talk to you or anybody else about Miss Zula’s private life. She deserves better than that, and you know it.”

  Meg held her head high and backed down not one inch, which surprised Angie and alarmed her too.

  “No, you listen,” Meg said. “From what I understand, documentary film is about a story. And this sounds like a story to me, John Grant, one that in’t going to go away. And while we’re talking about stories that won’t go away, think about this: you’re supposed to be getting married to Caroline Rose on Saturday, but you’ve been making eyes at Angeline there all week, and Caroline is run off to a convent someplace. Don’t think folks haven’t noticed. In’t that so, Win?”

  Wyeth said, “Meg, sugar, you are determined to offend everybody at this table. I’m going to drag you off to the dance floor before you get yourself strangled.”

  Everyone watched Meg let herself be cajoled away to the dance floor. Or almost everyone, Angie thought. Win Walker kept his gaze firmly on her, his expression implacable.

  SEVENTEEN

  Ogilvie, Georgia. Bearing Cross Church of God in Christ; Big Creek Baptist Church; Christ Church; Church of God of Prophecy; Church of God; Church of Jesus Christ of LDS; Elizabeth Chapel Church; First African Baptist Church; First Baptist Church; First United Methodist Church; Friendship Baptist Church; Blue Ball Free Will Baptist Church; Ogilvie Church of Christ; Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal Church; Ogilvie Church of God; Ogilvie Methodist Church; Old Pine Grove Church; Our Lady of Divine Mercy Catholic Church; River Run Baptist Church; Seven Star Missionary Baptist Church; Turn Around Circle Gospel Fellowship; Unitarian Universal Fellowship.

  “Looking for God in All the Right Places.” Your Guide to Places of Worship in the South. www.southernvoicesraisedinprayer.org

  Hey,” Tony said to John about a half hour later, “you know Angie isn’t coming back, right?”

  They were alone at the table, the two of them hunched over beers. After Jude had dragged Rivera away and Win had disappeared into the crowd, Angie excused herself, too, and went to the bathroom.

  “I was starting to wonder,” John said.

  “Yeah, well, the van keys are gone,” Tony said, patting his pockets. He took a huge swallow of beer, narrowed one eye in John’s direction.

  John lifted up Angie’s purse to show Tony. “Does this mean what I think it means?”

  “Sure,” he said. “She wants you to come after her.”

  “Huh.” John looked at the small leather sack doubtfully. “I’ve never been good at reading the signs.”

  “This one is in blinking neon,” Tony said. And: “Don’t screw this up.”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling myself all day.”

  “So you’re going after her,” Tony said. “Good. You can give me a ride home.”

  Tony had fallen asleep before John got the car out of the parking lot. He snored all the way to Ivy House, where the van stood at the curb and the house was completely dark. John was trying to figure out what that meant when Angie’s cell phone began to ring and Tony woke up, snorting in confusion.

  John dug the cell out of Angie’s purse and handed it over to Tony, who scowled, but flipped it open. “What?”

  He listened and then handed the phone to John while he got out of the car. While Tony lurched off toward the house, John counted to three, too
k a deep breath, and put the phone to his ear.

  “Hey.”

  “You are slow sometimes, Harvey.”

  “But you love me anyway.”

  There was a small silence. “Should we talk about Meg?”

  “Not first thing. Not even second thing.” He heard her catch her breath, and his throat got dry, thinking about that.

  “I thought you were mad at me, about the Miss Zula stuff.”

  “Third thing,” he said. “Or maybe fourth.”

  “So are you going to sit there all night, or are you coming over here?”

  John looked at the dark house. “Huh? Over where?”

  “I’m sitting on your bed,” she said. “You don’t lock your doors.”

  “It’s Ogilvie. I doubt you could find a locked door if you tried a hundred of them. So you parked here and walked over there, because of what Meg said?”

  “Yup. Relieved?”

  “A little, I guess.” A lot. But he didn’t want to admit that, not even to himself.

  “So will you get over here?”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  “I hope not,” Angie said, and hung up.

  The phone rang again almost immediately.

  “Angie—”

  “John?” The voice was familiar, but it wasn’t Angie. “John Grant? Is that you?”

  “Hi, Mrs. Mangiamele. Yeah, it’s me.”

  “What’s with the Mrs. Mangiamele? We’re strangers now all of a sudden? You call me Fran like you used to. So are you and Angie back together? ’Cause that would be good, John. For both of youse.”

  He found himself grinning into the phone. “It would be good,” he said. “But give me a couple more days, okay?”

  “So you’re not getting married Saturday? Never mind, tell me this. Angie anywhere nearby?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Good,” said Fran Mangiamele. “’Cause there’s something I always wanted to tell you back when you two were dating, but there was never a good time and then things went sour. Which was a shame.”

  “Fran—”

  “When Angie was a little girl,” Fran Mangiamele plowed ahead, “she had what they call anxiety issues. She had trouble talking to other kids when she started school, that kind of thing. Did you know about this?”

  “No,” John said, “she never told me.” He thought of Angie as he knew her, approaching strangers to talk to them on the street. “Hard to believe.”

  “I know, looking at her now. But it’s true, as a little girl she’d get all agita about the littlest things. You know how she handled it? Clothes. She couldn’t control school or the kids, but she could decide what she was going to wear. The whole year she was in kindergarten, every night I’d wash the same jeans and T-shirt, and every morning she put them back on. Socks, too. She didn’t care that the other kids had fancy clothes with Elmo and Miss Kitty and sparkles. None of that mattered to her, she just wanted to be comfortable in her clothes.”

  “Okay,” John said, “but I don’t get it. I have never complained to Angie about what she wears.”

  Fran made a pffft sound that meant he had misunderstood her point.

  “Pay attention, you’ll get my drift sooner or later. So once she got into grade school, things got a little better, but it took time. We’d go shopping and she’d pick out the plainest things, T-shirts, jeans, sweaters. I’d pick up a dress in a color that would look good on her and she’d turn her back on it. So we’d take the clothes home and hang them up in her closet and they’d be there for months, sometimes as long as six months, before she’d put something new on.”

  There was a pause.

  John said, “She did this—”

  “She still does it, with everything. Shirts, shoes, jeans, later on dresses and skirts. Like, she can’t put something on until she gets comfortable with it. But once she gets used to something—”

  “She never gives up on it,” John said, thinking of the Nirvana T-shirt hanging over her footboard.

  “That’s it,” Fran Mangiamele said. “She’s a cautious person, and you’re a change. A big change. She likes the look of you hanging there, but she needs time to get comfortable. That’s what went wrong last time, you rushing things.”

  “You’re talking about somebody who cut her hair and dyed it blue on a whim, to shock me.”

  “Hair grows out,” Fran said. “Nice and easy and gradual, it comes back, no matter what you do to it. You can count on it, but you can’t rush it.”

  “Ah,” said John, a little confused but also intrigued.

  “So get to work, and call me back when you two have got things fixed up. Believe me, I’ll be waiting by the phone.”

  John’s house was beautifully furnished, comfortable, well laid out, preternaturally neat, and so unlike Angie that she could hardly imagine living here. If that ever became an issue, a prospect that suddenly seemed less likely, especially after she found the suit bag hanging on the back of the bedroom door with the words Grant-Rose wedding on the slip.

  That’s what you get for snooping, she told herself, and sat down on the bed. Then she picked up the phone and dialed her own cell number again.

  “So how long does it take you to drive across town?” she asked when John answered.

  “Missing me, are you?”

  “I’m about to start looking through drawers, just so you know.”

  He gave a sharp laugh at that, more surprise than worry. “Your phone rang.”

  “Wait, don’t tell me. Apples or Peaches.”

  “Peaches,” John said. “You never told me how much your mother likes me.”

  Angie closed her eyes and lay back on the bed. “She’s a sucker for a pretty face. So what did you two talk about?”

  “She had a story to tell.”

  “The one about how when I was five I gave a kid down the block a bloody nose when he tried to kiss me?”

  “No,” John said. “I see some thematic similarities, but no blood was shed in this particular story.”

  “So tell me.”

  “It seems I’m a pair of pants hanging in your closet.”

  “Shit.” Angie bit her lip. “Turn off the cell phone, would you? And get over here.”

  Much later Angie said, “Do you think it’s twisted of me that I like it when you get mad? Because let me tell you Harvey, that was spectacular.”

  John was lying on his back, eyes closed. “God help me, I’m starting to like you calling me that. What do you think that means?”

  “Wait,” Angie said. “Are you going to tell me you’ve got a crush on Tony?”

  He grabbed her and she shrieked and struggled and then gave in. “Okay, okay. Whoever Miss Zula was thinking about when she put Harvey Carson on the page, it wasn’t you.”

  “Good.” He let her go, which was a little bit of a disappointment, though the way he was looking at her was promising. “Now what’s this about me being mad?”

  “You forget to be polite,” Angie said, running her fingers over his sweaty skin. “You stop thinking, and all the gloss comes off, and things get . . . interesting.”

  “So are you saying I was too rough? Because if I hurt you and you liked it, that would be sick.”

  “Christ no, you didn’t hurt me. You’ve got that analytical gleam in your eye, and now I’m sorry I raised the question.”

  “So tell me,” he said, still grinning, “are things less than stellar when I’m not angry?”

  “You’re fishing for compliments.”

  “I repeat, when I’m not angry—”

  “You fuck like a god, regardless of your mood.”

  That made him laugh out loud. “Okay, I deserved that.” He turned away to take care of the condom, which made Angie remember why Win Walker had been in such a sour mood at the Hound Dog.

  She said, “We need to talk.”

  John groaned and swung his legs out of bed. “Yeah, we do. but I was hoping to get you into the shower first.” He looked at her over
his shoulder. “That would be the first stop on the tour of my adolescent fantasies.”

  “A girl in the shower?”

  “A girl in that shower,” he said. “Hot water and soap and a girl, all together.”