From what I gather, Abigail would prefer to stop everything: the wheels of time, the wheels of progress, anything to do with forward movement. Forward is the unknown. Yet as a culture, forward movement appears to be exactly what we need. Of course no one asks my opinion, and I don’t offer it. Not even to Ted Junior. A mother must choose her battles carefully with a grown son—especially if she lives in an upstairs bedroom of his house.
Abigail tells me that helping with the dishes isn’t necessary, but I don’t believe her for a second. A person knows when someone is trying too hard to make something work. If I had another option rather than living here, I would have chosen it.
How did I know that Ted Senior and I had depleted our nest egg with all those trips? At least this arrangement has given me a chance to get to know my grandchildren more than I would have. Especially Trudy. My grandson, Teddy, doesn’t sit still long enough to get to know. At least not yet. He is six and in constant motion from sunrise to sunset. I am lucky if I see him streak through the house from time to time.
“Did people see her talk to that Negro boy?” Abigail asks.
My hackles rise from the disapproval in Abigail’s voice.
“Just so you know, I was raised by a Negro woman named Sweeney,” I say, surprised by my outburst. “She was the most honorable woman I have ever known. And I imagine the boy who saved Trudy’s life is just as honorable.”
Abigail turns off the water faucet with an extra hard twist, as if to turn off our conversation. Then she removes her apron and hangs it on the hook on the back of the kitchen door, all calm, like I am the disagreeable one in this scenario.
“I imagine Trudy did talk to the boy,” I say, in an effort to regain the peace. “You know how Trudy is.” But I wonder if she does.
As far as I can tell, Trudy challenges Abigail’s sense of propriety. No matter how much she insists that Trudy remember who she is—the daughter of the mayor—Trudy appears to see no point. She makes a friend of anyone she chooses, not giving a moment’s thought to who their family is, much less hers. She is brave in ways none of the other Truelucks are brave. Including me. If I had to guess, I’d say she inherited some of her great-great-grandmother’s courage. A woman who gets a footnote in the Charleston history books as an abolitionist. Not that I inherited an ounce of my ancestor’s bravery.
“If you’re out together in public, I expect you to keep Trudy out of trouble,” Abigail says to me. “Is that too much to ask?”
“Not at all,” I say. I have to resist adding a “ma’am” at the end. Sweeney knew how to deal with uppity white women. I watched her do it. She did exactly what they asked but with a twinkle in her eye that said in no uncertain terms that it was by choice she did these things, not victimhood.
Abigail sits at the kitchen table and begins to read the newspaper while I dry the remaining dishes until they squeak. I carefully stack things in the cupboard and think about Charleston culture and about how your importance is measured by whether your money is old or new—old being the most preferred. Status is determined by who your family is and how long you’ve lived here. Ancestry is central to identity.
The Trueluck family came to Charleston in the 1820s and my family—surname Rutherford—has been here even longer than that. When I moved in with my son and his family, I also moved into the attic an old steamer trunk full of my great-grandmother’s memorabilia. And when it is my turn to pass from this life, I will leave that old steamer trunk with Trudy.
Just the other day, I was at the Piggly Wiggly, and someone in the check-out line asked me if my family had been here since The War. And by war, she didn’t mean the First or the Second World War, or the Korean, or what is happening in Vietnam right now. The War referred to in these parts is always the Civil War. A war that has never ended and plays out in the shadows on every street corner in our fair city.
Abigail puts the newspaper aside as though distracted. “You don’t think Trudy will befriend the boy, do you?” she asks.
“Trudy is her own person,” I say, to avoid telling truth or lie.
“Speak to her, Ida,” she says. “Tell her it’s not a good idea.”
But it is too late for talks. Last evening, I overheard Trudy call people in the telephone book with the last name of Moses, asking for Paris a dozen times before finally finding him. She has probably already arranged a meeting or perhaps is meeting with him right now.
“She’s got a good head on her shoulders,” I say. “She won’t do anything foolish.”
Abigail elicits a short laugh, as though foolish is Trudy’s middle name. But perhaps fools are the bravest souls of all.
The front door slams, and Ted Junior’s heavy footsteps approach. I can only guess his frustration. He has been mayor less than a year and already people are calling for his resignation. If Ted Junior had been a horse at the racetrack the odds would have him guaranteed to lose, but he won anyway. In fact, it was a landslide victory because of the colored vote. News that made it into the national newspapers.
Yet it seems that any time progress inches forward, the past pulls us right back into what was before. It is a tug-of-war that has been going on for centuries. Charleston is slow to change the way things have always been. Come to think of it, I haven’t been that quick to embrace the big changes in my life, either, like moving in with Ted Junior and his family; however, I am willing to learn. Even if I don’t have a clue how to begin.
Chapter Four
Trudy
My oldest friend Vel and I walk the dirt road along the marsh and share a banana Popsicle. Vel’s full name is Velvet Ogilvie. She shortened it to Vel in third grade. Her hair is straight, the color of straw, and looks like someone put a broom on her head and removed the handle, leaving a space for her face.
We are on our way to meet my new friend, Paris, the boy who saved my life. It is a secret meeting on account of two white girls aren’t allowed to be friends with a colored boy. But I have never been especially good at following rules. Especially stupid ones. Mama says not caring what people think is Nana Trueluck’s influence, which she doesn’t see as a good thing.
Nana Trueluck is an honest-to-god descendent of a famous Charleston abolitionist. Evidently, I come from a long line of rule-breakers and secret-keepers. And according to Nana, I should be proud of that.
Giant oaks tower over us, sprinkling a patchwork of sun and shadow at our feet. We lick the last sweet juices of the Popsicle from our fingers and avoid a yellow jacket that circles like we are two petals of a sticky flower. Then we take turns jumping from one piece of shade to the next as if they are hopscotch squares.
Frogs croak and the cicadas hum along in the heat. It is already blue blazes hot on the coast as it is every summer. By July the heat will be like a fire-breathing dragon shooting flames in our faces. Sweat is plentiful and serves to cool us when the breeze blows, at least a little bit.
The air is heavy with the smell of Charleston Harbor—a cross between stinky feet and a conch shell that rots on a back porch with the animal still inside. Yet it is the smell of home, and I love it.
“I’ll catch h-e-double-hockey-sticks, if my parents find out we are meeting a colored boy,” Vel says.
“Mama wouldn’t be thrilled about it, either,” I say. “That’s why we’re keeping it a secret, remember?”
Vel looks at me as though this is the first she has heard of secrets.
“If they find out, they probably won’t let me hang around with you anymore, even if your father is the mayor,” she says.
Vel is not a rule-breaker. Nor is she good at keeping secrets. All of a sudden I wonder why I asked her along, except that she is my oldest friend, and Nana Trueluck plays bridge on Tuesday afternoons.
“If not for Paris, I might not be standing here, Vel. He saved my life. The least I can do is be his friend.”
She rolls her eyes but then leans her shoulder into me. Vel and I have gone through everything together. Kindergarten. Head lice. We even caught German
measles at the same time and connected the raised red bumps with black magic marker until we looked like we were dressed as Spiderman for Halloween.
“We could get in big trouble for this,” Vel says, like this is something I don’t know.
I could forgive Vel for almost anything, but I don’t like how closed she is to having Paris as a friend.
“Are you jealous?” I narrow my eyes.
“No,” she says, as though offended. “I’ve just never had a colored friend,” she whispers.
“What about Rosemary?” I ask.
“Rosemary’s our housekeeper. That’s different.”
“How is it different?” I ask.
Vel’s face turns a light shade of pink to match her blouse. I know she loves Rosemary practically as much as she loves her mama.
“Look, I’ve never had a colored friend, either, but there’s a first time for everything.” I sound like Nana Trueluck.
Vel pulls a book from her pink purse and opens it like it is some kind of secret room she can escape into. Vel is what some people call a bookworm. She devours books as if they were M&Ms. She is also the only person I know who can walk and read at the same time without tripping or falling over things.
“What are you reading?” I ask.
“Nancy Drew.” She licks her lips like the story is delicious.
Nancy Drew is Vel’s latest hero. In case a mystery needs solving, she now carries a pad of paper and a Bic pen in her purse to take notes. She looks over at me like I am her latest case.
Vel always wears pink from head to toe: pink sneakers, pink bobby socks, pink shorts, pink tops, and even pink ribbons in her hair. Except for her skin, she looks like a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. She is more girly than I am and wears dresses even when she doesn’t have to. Sometimes, she even squeals when boys chase her on the playground at school. These are rituals I have never understood.
“Why are you always trying to rescue things, Trudy?” Vel looks at me as though intent on cracking her latest case. “You’d be a friend to every three-legged dog in town if you could.”
“Paris isn’t a three-legged dog.” This time I roll my eyes at her. These days we spend a great deal of time communicating with our eyes.
“You know what I mean,” she says.
“Actually, I don’t know what you mean. Besides, I’m tired of talking about it.”
“That little colored boy is just another one of your projects,” she says.
“Don’t talk about him that way!” I snap.
This shuts her up fast.
It is true that our family has four cats from me bringing home strays, and we almost had a three-legged dog if he hadn’t outrun me. But this has nothing to do with Paris. He is the one who saved me!
Paris waits behind a live oak at the corner wearing light blue shorts and a matching shirt with white socks and white sneakers. He dresses better than any kid I have ever known, colored or white.
We all look around to make sure nobody sees us. But I chose this road to meet because on most days it is deserted.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” Paris says, his voice formal. He sounds twenty instead of twelve. He then offers us a big smile. Paris goes to the colored school across town and could win a contest for the boy with the whitest teeth in Charleston. Not to mention that he does a southern drawl better than people born and bred here. Better even than that actress in Gone with the Wind who played Scarlett O’Hara. Considering he told me on the telephone last night that he moved from Detroit to Charleston six months ago, this doesn’t make sense.
We walk on and the three of us settle into a nice mosey, as if it is the most natural thing in the world for two white girls and a colored boy to spend time together. At the same time something about walking with Paris feels as though we are standing on the beach during a thunderstorm, the lightning crackling all around.
Vel does her bookworm imitation and periodically steals looks at Paris to study him.
Meanwhile Paris is quiet and I wonder if he might be shy. Or maybe he is questioning why in the world he is hanging out with two white girls.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, Paris, how it is that you speak with a southern accent even though you grew up in Detroit?”
“It’s my strategy,” he says.
Strategy is a word I heard Daddy use when he first wanted to get elected mayor. After that he said in a speech that we should judge people on their merit, not by the color of their skin. As a result, more colored people voted in the city election than ever before. Mama said he attracted some new voters, but also an equal number of enemies.
“What do you mean about having a strategy?” I ask Paris.
“Well, you see, Northerners aren’t trusted in the South,” Paris begins. “It doesn’t even matter if my kin are here. So I’m just trying to fit in.”
“Being colored probably doesn’t help, either,” Vel says, turning a page.
They exchange a quick look.
“Vel needs a strategy to keep her mouth shut,” I say to Paris.
Paris and I laugh, while Vel gives us the evil eye, which makes it feel like the three of us are actually friends and not just strangers on our best behavior.
Even though the Civil War ended a hundred years ago, colored people still cross the street to avoid walking past white people. Anybody with half a brain could see that somebody needs to apologize and make this thing right.
“Tell us more about your accent,” I say to Paris. “Is it hard to do?”
“Well, in Detroit I talked fast.” To demonstrate, he speeds up his words like some kooky cartoon character. “But to speak Southern, I have to slow every word way down, like every syllable is going out on the front porch to sun themselves for a while.”
The way he says this makes me laugh, and out of the corner of my eye I see Vel smile a little. I learned a long time ago that just because Vel is reading doesn’t mean she is not paying attention.
“You could be an actor, Paris,” I say.
“That’s exactly what I want to be when I grow up.” His words come out in a mixture of slow and fast. “Someday I want to be like the actor, Sidney Poitier. But I also want to be a civil rights leader like Martin Luther King Junior.”
Saying those two names makes him stand taller.
“When I get famous, I’m going to change my last name to France,” he says. “Then I can say that I am Paris France—the person, not the country—and then nobody will ever forget my name.”
“A lot of actors have made up names,” I say. “Nana Trueluck told me that Doris Day’s real name is Doris Kappelhoff.”
Vel looks up and grins, and Paris offers a short laugh before we turn serious again.
“Daddy has read us stories from the newspaper about Dr. King,” I say. “He thinks he’s a very brave man.”
Paris smiles, as though happy I understand.
I am proud that my family isn’t like a lot of other people’s. Nana Trueluck likes to say that we are rare birds here in the South. Birds who think everybody should be equal. But we are not to talk about it in certain circles or people might aim buckshot at us.
A red pickup truck rounds the corner, and Paris dives into some nearby bushes as though he has been shot out of one of those historic cannons at the Battery. Did the people in the pickup see us talking? Vel puts away her book, and her wide eyes ask me what we should do now. I tell her to stay calm.
Seconds later the driver comes right up behind us and guns the engine. It is the second time in two days a truck has almost mowed me down. We stop walking to let it pass, but it pulls up right next to us and slows to a stop. Two teenage white guys stare out the open windows like they have never seen girls before. The closest one wears a dirty baseball cap and a white undershirt just as filthy.
“What are you looking at?” I ask, even though Mama has told me more than once that my big mouth will get me in trouble someday. But my main concern is whether or not they saw Paris. They don’t appear to since they are looking a
t us and not the bushes.
The driver guns the engine again, and the passenger guy sneers at us as though we are escaped convicts or worse. Then he leans out the window and spits a giant hocker right next to my sandal.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I yell.
“You girls shouldn’t be walking out here alone,” the driver guy says. “You might run into some unsavory characters.”
The spitting guy nudges the driver guy and winks. “Hey, aren’t you the mayor’s kid?” the spitting guy asks. “The girl that little colored boy saved?”
I nod.
“Your daddy shouldn’t have called him a hero,” the driver guy says.
“But he was a hero,” I say.
“I don’t care who he saved,” the spitting guy says. “It’s best for his kind to not get any ideas and stay in their place.”
Then the driver turns to me and Vel as though he is all of a sudden our Sunday school teacher. “You girls shouldn’t walk out here. It’s where the coloreds come to catch crawfish. If your parents knew, they’d tan your hides.”
“My parents do know, and they don’t mind one bit,” I say, though this is actually a lie.
They exchange a glance.
“Let’s get out of here,” the spitting guy tells the driver. He reaches behind his seat and pulls out a rebel flag to drape from his window. He shakes it in my face as though wanting to scare us. Then both guys laugh, and the driver speeds off spraying sand and dirt all over us. The flag snaps in the wind as he drives away.
Speechless, Vel and I watch the dust settle for a few seconds. The pool of spit sinks into the sand by my foot. My scalp tingles as though I have just avoided a lightning strike. Paris comes out of the bushes, brushing sand and dirt from his nice clothes.
“Are you okay, Paris?” I ask.
He walks over and buries the spit in the sand, as if to bury the insult. Then he lifts his chin, and I wonder if he is thinking about Sidney Poitier and Martin Luther King Junior. If so, it appears to give him courage.
“I’m okay, Trudy, but we almost got caught. Maybe we shouldn’t do this again. I don’t want anybody to get in trouble.” His head remains high.
Trueluck Summer Page 2
