by Rosina Lippi
“You’re right, we’re not. That’s not what we do. Miss Zula knows that. I assumed you did, too.”
John looked as miserable as she felt, but they stood on opposite sides of the kitchen and neither of them moved.
He said, “I’m just suggesting you don’t need to go looking for a scandal. I’m saying that not everything has to be about sex.”
“It is not about sex,” Angie said. “It’s about love. And what you are suggesting is that we look the other way.” She heard herself slide over into the realm of too far, too much but was unable to stop it. “You don’t like messy, John, you never did. You want pretty and presentable, but that’s not us. That’s not me. It wasn’t me five years ago and it isn’t me now, and guess what, it isn’t—”
She stopped herself. All the color had left his face, but his eyes were unnaturally bright. “Go on.”
Angie shook her head.
“Go on,” he said calmly. “Say it.”
“I don’t know what I was going to say,” she lied, near tears.
He was looking at her steadily, his expression unreadable. Angie turned and left, and he said not one word to stop her.
The screen door had just slammed behind her when Angie saw a car pulling up to John’s garage. It was beautiful and sleek and expensive, as was the older woman who was getting out of it. She saw Angie and raised a hand to wave, her perfectly made-up face breaking into a genuine smile. As if Lucy Ogilvie saw nothing odd in the fact that her son’s old girlfriend was coming out of his door early on the morning of the day before he was supposed to be marrying somebody else.
“Why, Angeline, is that you? Love becomes you, sugar. You are all aglow. Now come here and give me a hug.”
John stood at the kitchen window with the phone in his hand listening to it ring.
“Chair’s office.”
“She’s here. I’m looking at Mama and Angie at this very moment, and I don’t think they’re talking about me getting married tomorrow.”
Rob drew in a sharp breath. “Okay, let me explain.”
“You caved.”
“I caved. You know Mama, she’s half bloodhound when it comes to affairs of the heart. But listen, she was delighted to hear that the wedding’s off. She was never so crazy about Caroline.”
“Rob, the wedding isn’t off, not officially. Not yet.” He almost said, not for sure, and stopped himself.
There was a small silence on the other end of the line. Finally Rob said, “She might be a help, if you let her. Things could be worse.”
“It could also be a hell of a lot better,” John said, and hung up the phone. Angie had managed to extract herself and disappear, and now his mother was coming toward the porch. His mother, his beautiful, impossible mother, looked up at him standing in the window and threw him a kiss.
EIGHTEEN
Louisa McCleod Bragg. 1890, Daytona, Florida-1953, Ogilvie, Georgia. Graduated 1910 magna cum laude, Bethune-Cookman College, an institution founded by her aunt Mary McCleod Bethune. Teacher, Ogilvie Colored School, 1910-1945. Married Martin Bragg 1920. There were three children of this marriage: Abraham (1925-1952), Zula (1930-); Maddie (1932-). Mrs. Bragg was arrested twice, in 1950 and 1951, for refusing to leave the polling place when the election board denied her the right to vote. Memberships: Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal Church (President, Ladies’ Society, 1927-1953; President, Missionary Works, 1926-1953); southeast Georgia chapter NAACP (secretary, 1950-1953); Delta Sigma Theta; Jack and Jill. Profiles in Leadership: The Civil Rights Struggle in Ogilvie
You’re late,” Tony said. “Hey, I don’t think I’ve ever said those words before, but there is a certain ring to them.” He deepened his voice to announcer mode: “Angeline Mangiamele, you are late.”
“So I am,” Angie said, falling into her chair. She avoided Rivera’s gaze and opened her logbook. “Shall we get started?”
“No,” Rivera said.
Angie looked up, closed her eyes in supplication, and opened them again to see that Rivera was unmoved.
“You’ve been crying,” Rivera said. “Spill it, Mangiamele.”
Angie considered. She saw that Rivera was perfectly serious, that Tony would go along with whatever Rivera wanted, and that Markus was sitting at rapt attention, not understanding exactly what was happening but content to wait and see; his fascination with their odd northern ways had yet to give way to less charitable reactions. She wondered what Markus would do if she just told him what she suspected about his missing favorite aunt. Maybe he would get angry, or maybe, Angie thought wearily, he wouldn’t be surprised at all. Markus was a sharp kid and saw a lot.
She said, “I have some background information on Miss Zula’s brother that we should talk about.”
Rivera looked disapproving and disappointed, but her expression shifted as Angie told them what she knew.
“Now, that’s interesting,” she said, almost reluctantly. “Anabel Spate and Abe Bragg.” To Markus Tony said, “You heard any of this story before?”
Markus shook his head. “That’s, like, fifty years ago. All I know is that Miss Zula had a brother who died in a war.”
“But it sounds believable?” Rivera asked him.
“Sure.” Markus shrugged. “People get up to pretty much everything down here, like they do everywhere.”
“But how do we get the details?” Angie said. “This is one subject I can’t just ask about, and I doubt they ran the story in the Bugle. ‘Miscegenation in Ogilvie, Locals Speak Out’—I don’t think we’ll find that in the library anywhere.”
“You could at least look up what there is to know about Abe Bragg,” Markus said. “You’ve got all those town history books sitting in the next room.”
Angie’s cell phone began to ring. She switched it off and tossed it back into her purse. “So we do. Let’s have a look.”
John used the private door, the one he had started to think of as the better-keep-clear-of-Patty-Cake door to let himself into his office, and then was disappointed to see that Rob wasn’t at his desk. Not that he intended to do his brother any physical harm over this newest complication. Not here, not now. Right now, at this moment, he needed to talk to Angie, because no matter how much went wrong today—and it looked as if some records were going to be broken—the one thing he had to do was fix things with her. On the walk in he had used the time to recite his sins to himself, and then he had tried to call her. He had been trying every ten minutes, without success.
He dropped into his desk chair, dialed again, and then hung up without leaving a message. He was thinking about going to see her in the editing suite when Patty-Cake knocked on his door and came in without waiting for permission.
“What’s up?”
Patty-Cake without her blinding smile was an unsettling phenomenon, because of course she meant that to be the case. She said, “You’ve got messages,” and put a short stack of pink slips on his desk directly in front of him. “The first one is the most important.”
In her rounded hand she had written, Caroline 9:15; will call again at noon.
John felt a flush running up his spine, nerves prickling and jumping.
“It’s eleven now.”
“My mother just got in this morning.” It took considerable effort to keep his tone even, but this was a game he understood, and could play. She was angry for whatever reasons—most probably because he had put a crimp in the way she used the photocopy machine to extract tribute—but he had offered her real currency to soothe the pain: news of Lucy Ogilvie. Patty-Cake would bank it, but first she would ask questions, lots of them, all cloaked as compliments. How is your mama? And, My, it must be two years since she’s been back, and I’ll bet she’s got the prettiest dress for the wedding from someplace fancy, Paris or London.
But Patty-Cake wasn’t going for it, against all expectations. Instead she stood there with deep lines bracketing her mouth. I-disapprove lines; I-am-disappointed lines; I-know-you’re-up-to-no-good lines. He was about to
throw all common sense to the wind and tell Patty-Cake Walker exactly what he thought of her, but then Rob was there, moving her toward the door in a bubble he created with his soothing patter.
“That was close,” he said in a theatrical whisper when he had shut her out.
“You’re right,” John said. “I was on the verge of . . . something. Something not good.”
“A lawsuit,” Rob said. “Our Patty-Cake is a whiz at filing complaints. There are six of them in the last five years that I know of, and probably more I don’t.”
“Oh, great,” John said. “Patty-Cake Walker is going to sue me for breach of promise.”
“Or harassment or chilly climate in the workplace or something else along those lines. But let me see if I can turn her around, okay? No need to go looking for a defense lawyer just yet.”
“You are my lawyer,” John said. “Or you would be if you’d just take the damn Georgia bar.” He looked at the telephone message again, tapped it with one finger. “Did you hear about this?”
“I was there when she answered the phone,” Rob said. “If it’s any use to you, Patty-Cake didn’t get anything substantial out of Caroline, though she tried. Look, you need something to take your mind off the telephone, and I’ve got just the thing: the budget.”
John sat down, his hands flat on the desk. After a moment, he nodded.
There were six different books dealing with Ogilvie’s history, four of them self-published, one put out by the Coastal Georgia Genealogical Society, and a biography of Joshua Ogilvie that looked to be a worked-over doctoral dissertation published by a university press. Angie took the thickest of them, Ogilvie Past and Present, Rivera took Ogilvie Goes to the Wars, and Tony picked Profiles in Leadership:The Civil Rights Struggle in Ogilvie. Markus made himself ready to take notes, looking as eager as a cub reporter in a 1950s newspaper caper.
Fifteen minutes later Rivera looked up. “Here’s something.”
Tony sneezed three times. “Damn dust. Go ahead, read it.”
Rivera said, “It’s just about what you’d expect. Born 1925, first child of, blah, blah, blah, attended Oberlin on a full scholarship—”
“That had to be a huge deal,” said Tony.
“Highest honors, gave up law school when his father died and came back here to teach at the Ogilvie Colored School.” Her eyes were scanning the page. “Then he goes and enlists in the Air Force all of a sudden, 1948. Why would he do that?”
“We learned about that,” said Markus. “A lot of black men from the South enlisted after President Truman ended discrimination in the armed forces. What?” he said to Tony, who was gawking. “Catholic school is big on history, so sue me.”
“Go on, Rivera,” Angie said, not looking up from her notes.
“Earned his pilot’s wings . . . served in Japan and Okinawa. Korea in 1950. He was killed in action when his F-86 Sabre was shot down on October 25, 1952.’ ”
“That’s it?” Tony said.
“No, I’m getting to the good part. ‘Captain Bragg married twice. His second wife, Lavinia Smithson Bragg, bore him twin sons (Martin and Joseph) in 1949. His third son, Calvin, was born while he was serving in Korea.’ ”
“Okay, so that’s corroboration,” said Tony. “He married twice. Now I’ve got an idea. Call me crazy, but rather than shift through all these old books, couldn’t we just go call on Miss Maddie? She’d tell us if we ask, you know she would.”
“You think we can ask her about Anabel Spate?” Rivera said. “How exactly will we put that question, do you think? Hey, Miss Maddie, tell us about your brother marrying a white woman and then abandoning her, will you?”
“See?” said Tony to Markus. “It’s Rivera’s grace and sensitivity that get us through the hard parts.”
“Bite me, Dr. Phil.”
“You could pull it off, Rivera,” Angie said. “With Miss Maddie, you could.”
Markus said, “Why not just ask Miss Zula?”
“She’s out of town,” said Angie. “Savannah.” And that we might not pull off, she could have said, but didn’t.
They did need to go see Miss Maddie, but everything in Angie resisted the idea of venturing out into the heat; she was tired and tense, wound up and ill at ease; she wanted to go find John—whether to throttle him or climb on top of him, she wasn’t quite sure. She said, “We really need to get on with this—” She lifted her chin toward the tapes stacked up on the table.
On his way out Tony stooped and whispered in her ear. “The couch is comfortable if you need to get some sleep while we’re gone. You look like you could use it.”
The lopsided budget John had inherited from his predecessor was the exactly the distraction he needed: numbers didn’t shimmy sideways once you got hold of them, and problems could be solved. The whole process was soothing, almost as good as an hour on the river, but without the sweat. He had just said as much to Rob when there was a knock at the door and the elder four Rose sisters came in, with Patty-Cake bringing up the rear.
John said, “You’ve got to be joking.”
Patty-Cake held herself very erect, her mouth pursed. “I told them that Caroline would be calling.”
Rob started to say something, but he let it go when John held up a hand to stop him.
“So what is it you plan to do, may I ask? Hijack the conversation, or monitor it, or what?”
Connie made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Don’t be silly, John. We’re just worried about her.”
“That doesn’t answer his question, though,” said Eunice. “I told you he’d be put out, and he’s got every right.”
“Well, excuse me for being worried about my baby sister,” said Harriet. Of the four of them, she looked the angriest, peevish and defensive. Pearl put an arm around her shoulders.
“John, this is hard for us, too.” Connie said. “Mama’s on her way back home from the lake with Father Bruce, and what will we tell her if Caroline hasn’t come back by then?”
“We do need to talk to her,” Eunice said, her tone apologetic.
They went on like this for a while, a Greek chorus of woe and worry, while Patty-Cake stood with her arms crossed, watching John. He gave her a look he hoped she understood. It said, I’m going to find a way to fire you for this. She gave him one back that said, Bring it on.
Then the phone rang. John punched the line button and picked it up.
“John Grant.”
“Sugar, where do you keep the gin? I know it’s just past noon, but Sam and I—”
“Mama,” John said, “I’m waiting for an important phone call. Can I get back to you?”
“All I need to know—”
“None in the house,” John said. If he mentioned gin in front of this audience the whole town would be talking about Lucy Ogilvie’s problem with alcohol before the day was out.
“Well, then, we’ll just go down to the market and stock up—”
“Tell your mama we said hey,” Harriet said in a stage whisper that could be heard a hundred yards away.
“Who is that talking, John?”
“Caroline’s sisters are here,” John said. “Waiting for her to call. They send their regards.”
“Oh, I see.” There was a pause. “I swear, don’t you get yourself in the strangest situations? I was just saying to Angie this morning—”
“Okay, then, see you later, Mama, the other line is ringing.”
“Now hold on, sugar. Is your baby brother there?”
“Sure,” John said, shooting Rob a warning look. “He’ll pick up in the other office.”
Rob made a face and headed out. John would have liked to keep his brother close by, but there was no denying Lucy. The five women in front of him, all meticulously groomed and expensively dressed, were supposed to be his family, considered him family already, and thus were his responsibility. A ripple of irritation at them and Caroline ran down his spine, and he realized he had broken into a sweat, although the air-conditioning was on high.
; Connie was saying, “We won’t take long, we just want to know—” when the phone rang again.
“John Grant.”
“Hey.” Caroline’s voice came over the line, clear and calm. He looked at her sisters and aunt and thought of an examination board, a judge’s circle, a firing squad.
“Hey to you, too,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Caroline, right off, I want you to know all your sisters are standing right here waiting to talk to you. I think Harriet is about to chew her own knuckle off, she’s in such a state.”
