“Miss Josie said my great-great-grandmother was finally freed, but she died thirty-six days afterward.”
“Oh my, that’s awful,” I say to him.
Hearing about Paris’ great-great-grandmother makes me regret all my complaints about having to clean my room. What must it be like to clean up an entire plantation every day of your life? Not to mention being owned by somebody and not having a choice over what kind of life you have.
I hug the massive arm of the tree; its rough bark scrapes against my arms.
“Miss Josie also said that as long as that flag flies anywhere in the country, it is a reminder from the masters to the slaves about who is boss.”
Vel stops reading, her eyes wide.
Being around our new friend Paris is an eye-opener for sure.
“I never thought of it that way,” I say.
Truth is, until today, I never thought about that flag at all. I just thought it was something from the past that didn’t mean anything.
For the longest time we are silent, as though holding a private memorial for Paris’ great-great-grandmother. I think about how lucky I am that I wasn’t born with darker skin and about how we don’t have any choice about who our parents are.
The smell of the ocean mingles with our salty sweat, and the sadness feels as thick as the trunk of the live oak. I am thirsty and have the urge for lemonade. Lemonade always makes me feel better no matter what is going on. Not knowing what else to do I suggest we head toward home for lunch.
The three of us turn and go back in the direction of town. At the end of the sandy road along the marsh, we say our goodbyes, knowing we have to part. I hate that I don’t have the courage to walk down the streets of Charleston with my new friend. Instead, Vel and I walk several steps ahead pretending we don’t know Paris, while he hangs back, pretending he doesn’t know us.
A few minutes later we arrive at the Esso station at the corner of Mary Street and wait in the shade. This is the dividing line in town between the whites and the coloreds. Even though it is invisible, everybody knows that line is there. It has been this way for as long as I can remember. This is where Paris will go one way and Vel and I will go another.
He passes us without even glancing in our direction. Ahead, a man and a woman pull out of the Esso station in their Ford Fairlane with Georgia license plates. They stare at Paris like he is doing something wrong simply by walking on the sidewalk.
To the side of the Esso station is the pickup truck that passed us earlier. Paris walks faster, as if to avoid the truck.
“Not so fast, boy!” somebody yells.
Hoot Macklehaney walks out of the gas station. Hoot used to ride my bus until he dropped out of school. Now he hangs out in front of the gas station all day drinking RC colas and bumming cigarettes off the mechanics who work there—apparently one of whom is the guy who spat near my foot.
In the distance, the spitting guy walks out and stands next to Hoot. They must be brothers because they both have pointed noses, and when they smile they have small, uniform teeth that look like a row of yellow corn kernels.
“What should we do?” Vel whispers to me.
“Just ignore him,” I whisper back.
Vel ducks behind her book.
“You some kind of hero, boy?” Hoot says to Paris.
Hoot’s brother smiles at Hoot like he is proud and then puts a quick elbow to his ribs that makes Hoot flinch.
Paris looks over his shoulder as though wishing Martin Luther King Junior would all of a sudden appear and help him out.
“Leave him alone, Hoot,” I call out.
Vel takes a swipe at me with Nancy Drew and warns me to keep my mouth shut.
Hoot used to brag on the bus about how his uncles wore white sheets from time to time. When I asked Nana Trueluck what he meant, she said that the Ku Klux Klan hates colored people and burns crosses in their yards if they do anything they don’t like. They wear white hoods when they do mean things so nobody will recognize their faces. Nana Trueluck says they know they are doing something wrong or they wouldn’t hide behind sheets. She also says the Klan is one of those things that white people pretend doesn’t exist or they would have to do something about it.
“Let’s walk away.” Vel’s voice sounds urgent.
“But that’s wrong,” I say. “What if Paris had just walked away when that Sunbeam Bread truck was coming straight for me?”
I leave Vel in the shade of a crepe myrtle tree and walk toward Paris. I stand close enough to hear his shallow breathing.
“Does your daddy know you have a little colored boyfriend?” Hoot asks me.
Hoot and his brother laugh, and I want to knock their corn-kernel teeth right out of their heads. Hoot has the worst case of chin pimples I have ever seen. They look like tiny volcanoes ready to erupt.
“Does your daddy know you are the most disgusting human being alive?” I say to him.
Shock registers on their faces like they never expected a girl to stand up to them. Hoot aims his volcanic pimples in my direction, but then a police car drives up to the pump to get gas. Hoot’s brother goes to the pump.
“Go home, Trudy,” Paris whispers.
Sweat glistens on Paris’ forehead and upper lip, and I don’t think it is from the heat.
“I can’t,” I say.
“What do you mean, you can’t? You’ve got to. This is my business, not yours.”
“How is this not my business, Paris Moses? You saved my life. I owe you.”
“Well, now you can save my life by walking away,” Paris says.
We exchange a brief look, and his eyes beg me to stay out of it. I let out a long sigh and join up with Vel again. We walk down the invisible line that divides our city. Paris is on the other side, and I can feel the wall between us. My life isn’t any more valuable than Paris’ is, yet he is treated totally different than I am. The unfairness of this makes me want to kick something, and I look at Vel’s leg before thinking better of it. In the distance, we see Paris make it safely past Hoot and his brother, and my relief comes out in a sigh.
On the way home, I feel a growing determination to rid the State House of that Confederate flag, a glaring symbol of an invisible barrier between me and Paris. And I want to talk Nana Trueluck into helping us.
Chapter Seven
Ida
Like I do on every Tuesday, I swear off ever playing bridge again with Charleston’s upper crust mainly because bridge isn’t the only game played. A subtle competition is dealt in with every hand alongside the finger sandwiches. A comparison of clothes, homes, travels, and overall largesse. Spending time with Madison is the only redeeming part of the gatherings. We are two odd ducks in a sea of squawking geese, pretending that we belong and at the same time taking pride that we don’t.
Home again, I sit at the picnic table under the big maple tree in the backyard that provides bountiful shade. A box of stationery sits on the table that I retrieved from my room. After remembering the adventures Maisie and I used to have as girls, I want to write my old friend a letter. Yet I wonder what to write about. At this point, my life is about as exciting as liver spots.
The fence gate squeaks open, and Trudy enters the backyard. The expression on her face is one I haven’t seen before. She sits at the picnic table across from me. Her forehead is creased like it gets when she is thinking hard about something.
I place my fountain pen on the stacked linen sheets of white stationery and scoot forward to put my warm hands on hers. I catch sight of the waddle underneath my arms that comes with age. Who knew that skin could be like underwear and lose its elastic? I jiggle the waddle, thinking how interesting aging is. I have been alive seventy years, though in some ways I still feel like a girl.
“What is it, honey?” I ask. Trudy is like her father when something bothers her. To get her to talk is like pulling a heavy bucket out of a deep well.
“Nana Trueluck, I want to ask you something, and I don’t want you to say ‘no’ automat
ically. Think about it first, okay?”
“Okay,” I say.
Am I one of those people who always says “no” to things? That sounds more like Abigail than me. Or does it? In the last year I have done my fair share of grieving and soul-searching. I have to admit there was a part of me, right after Ted Senior died, that was ready to go, too. I didn’t know how to continue on without him.
Also, it has taken some doing to figure out who I am without Ted Senior. When you’ve been married to someone your entire adult life, it is hard to remember how to be single again. Sometimes I wonder if I ever knew.
However, if given a choice of whether to be the kind of person who says “no” to life or “yes,” I want to choose “yes.” I am not dead yet, after all, and as a grandmother I want to be a good example to my grandchildren.
In the next instant, Teddy runs through the backyard with another boy his size. Each of them brandish toy six-shooters and use Trudy and me as human shields. I cover my ears when Teddy shoots the cap pistol, and in a flash the two boys are gone again.
“Oh, to have the energy of a six year old with six-shooters,” I say, more to myself than to Trudy.
The backyard quiet again, I remind her that she was about to ask a question. Instead, she tells me the story of her day. About how she, Vel, and Paris walked along the marsh road. About how Paris had to dive into the bushes to avoid being seen by some delinquents in a red pickup truck. About how one of the delinquents stopped and spat at her feet. She even tells me about a boy named Hoot with a case of what sounds like nightmarish acne. I nod and listen, wishing I’d had a grandmother when I was a girl who had done the same for me. Perhaps I would have grown up with more gumption.
“Vel acted weird the whole time, like we were doing something wrong by talking to Paris,” she says. “Mama and Daddy probably wouldn’t want me to be friends with him, either,” she concludes.
“It’s because they’re protective, Trudy. They don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” Nor do I, I want to say. But protection doesn’t seem to be what Trudy wants right now.
“Like what bad thing could happen?” she asks.
“You’d be surprised,” I say, my words soft. I look off into the backyard thinking of examples that I am not about to tell her. She has a right to her innocence for a while longer.
“Did people really throw rocks through Daddy’s office windows because he called Paris a hero in the newspaper?”
“It looks that way.”
“But why?” she asks.
“Why is such a big word, Trudy.”
“Tell me,” she says. “I need to know.”
I pause to admire her youthful passion and wonder how to put something so complex into simple language. Not that I fully understand it, either. The world is a complicated place.
“It’s just that people want to keep the old ways alive. It feels safer to them. Change frightens people.”
It frightens me, too, I want to say.
“Not changing is also scary,” she says, sounding wiser than her years, something she does quite often.
In some ways, losing my comfortable life with Ted Senior has allowed me to see who I am without the role of wife to define me. Not that I wouldn’t return to that role in a heartbeat if he were to come back. But even then I think I would try to keep more of myself in the relationship and not always default to meeting his needs without considering my own.
“Why can’t I be friends with anyone I want?” Trudy asks.
“Good question,” I say, not having any answers.
The screen door slams, and Abigail walks into the backyard carrying a tray.
“You missed your lunch,” she says to Trudy. “Where have you been all day?”
“Just around,” Trudy says.
Abigail puts a plate in front of her with a sandwich and a scoop of fruit cocktail on the side, the cherry carefully placed on the top. Trudy thanks her. Manners are a prized possession here in the South.
When Trudy takes a bite of a peanut butter and banana sandwich on Sunbeam Bread, I recall the scene from yesterday. The screech of tires in the distance. The bread truck heading straight for her. A picture on the side of the truck of that smiling blond girl with dimples. I never realized how totally white that picture was until now. White girl. Blond curls. Blue eyes. White bread. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a person of color and have all this whiteness around them.
However, the main thing I remember was my heart lurching into my throat. Then how strange it was to run at my age. A kind of half-run, half-walk accompanied by the fear of broken hips and Trudy being hurt.
If not for the boy who saved her, Trudy might be in the hospital, or worse yet at the funeral parlor with our whole family crying over her like we did Ted Senior. I hope to never feel that devastated again.
“You want anything, Ida?” Abigail asks.
I thank her and say no, not wanting to give her anything to complain to Ted Junior about.
“Why don’t you join us?” I say to her. “No need to work so hard on such a beautiful afternoon.”
Abigail laughs like the world might stop spinning if she sat in the shade for five minutes. She leaves, telling me to enjoy my lazy afternoon, letting a tiny bit of resentment sneak out in the way she says it.
Meanwhile, Trudy pokes a finger into the sandwich, making two eyes and a mouth, before licking off the peanut butter and smashed banana. At moments like this I remember she is still a child even though she acts like an adult sometimes.
“What did you want to ask me that I shouldn’t say ‘no’ to right away?” I ask again.
She hesitates. “We need your help.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“Paris and Vel and I.”
“And what kind of help do you need?”
She hesitates again. I settle in to wait for more.
“We want to go to Columbia and take down that rebel flag that flies on top of the State House.” Her eyes glisten as though a passion is on the verge of igniting.
“You what?” I ask, my shock evident.
She starts to repeat what she said, and I touch her hand to stop her. I want to say “no” on many levels, ranging from shouts to whispers. But I can’t seem to say anything.
“How do you plan to take it down?” I pretend to be calm.
“We have no idea,” she says. “But we’re meeting at the cemetery tonight to talk about it.”
The Trueluck family has been members of Circular Church for over a century. The church was founded in 1681, the cemetery in the 1700s, though there has been no room for new residents for quite some time.
Is Trudy seriously considering such a bold move? How does a child even think to do something that audacious? Something that dangerous? While I don’t know Trudy’s new friend, I am surprised Velvet Ogilvie is included in on her plan. She is not the type to spark a revolution unless it involves the mistreatment of books.
“I’m not so sure—” I stop myself. Trudy counts on me to not be like her parents. I don’t want to discourage her, but I don’t want to encourage her, either. Nor can I even begin to imagine a scenario where I might be helpful.
“Don’t tell Mama and Daddy,” she says. “They wouldn’t understand.”
I agree to keep her confidence, but I am not so sure I understand. When I dared to support her summer adventure, I never dreamed it would be one of this magnitude. Befriending someone of another race would have been big enough. Besides, how are three children going to take down a flag that flies at the State House a hundred miles away? I guess that’s where I come in. I tell her I will think about it. That’s the best I can do. I haven’t said “no” automatically, and I haven’t said “yes,” either.
Trudy excuses herself to go make plans for her secret meeting scheduled for later tonight. A meeting I feel I have no choice but to attend, at least from a safe distance, hiding in the shadows of the churchyard.
Chapter Eight
Trudy
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nbsp; The sound of crickets in full chorus greets me when I open the black iron gate to the cemetery. Paris and Vel and I will have our secret meeting here. Nana Trueluck couldn’t hide how worried she was when I told her about what we want to do, and she probably doesn’t want to be involved with any part of it. At least she is willing to keep it a secret.
Earlier today when Paris told us about his dream and about his great-great-grandmother being a slave, it felt like the right thing to do—for him if for no other reason. What surprised me most was that Vel went along with it. But I will see if she actually shows up tonight.
Darkness falls quickly. A full moon rises behind the clouds. Circular’s cemetery is one of the most haunted in Charleston, second only to St. Philip’s Church, two blocks away. According to Nana Trueluck, one of the ghosts that haunts this place is a captain in the Confederate army who lost his life at Gettysburg. I have never seen him, but if he overhears what we want to do this summer, he might try to talk us out of it. That flag means something totally different to him. Instead of masters and slaves it probably means honor and loyalty. Something worth dying for and ending up in the cemetery. Is this what Nana Trueluck means when she says things are complicated?
One of the grave markers lies on the ground like a low bench. The stone is so old you can only read the dates, 1813 – 1823 and the words Beloved Daughter. A crumbling carving of a lamb sits at the head of the stone. Even though the temperature is boiling, a shiver of coldness taps me on the back. I wish Vel and Paris would hurry up. I hear a rustle in the bushes behind me. Is it the captain? I shiver a second time.
“Is somebody there?” I call out.
The crickets answer, and I decide it is probably my imagination. Mama thinks my imagination gets overexcited. But I’d rather have an over excited imagination than an under excited one. Otherwise, I’d be like everybody else.
Trueluck Summer Page 4
