Trueluck Summer

by Susan Gabriel

  “So will you drive us to Columbia?” I ask.

  “Are you still planning to take down that flag?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say. Nana Trueluck has never required me to use my manners like Mama has and for some reason it makes me want to do it more.

  “Is your new friend Paris coming?” she asks.

  “He’s going to ask his Uncle Freddie to take him,” I say.

  “What about you, Vel? Are you in on this, too?” She knows Vel is not that easy to convince of anything, but Vel nods, her hair much more enthusiastic than the rest of her.

  However, Nana Trueluck is the one who doesn’t look convinced, and she still hasn’t agreed to take us.

  “Do you have any ideas of how we can take down that flag?” I ask her. “When our class went there it was flying on top of the dome. Surely they don’t make ladders that high.”

  “They had to get it up there somehow,” Nana says. “I imagine there’s a way to get to the dome from inside.” She pauses, a thoughtful look on her wrinkled face. “You’ll have to be very careful,” she continues. “If anyone gets wind of what you want to do you won’t be able to get near the building.”

  “You mean you’ll take us?”

  For a few seconds she looks like she might back out, but then she agrees.

  All of a sudden, the possibility of Paris’ dream becoming a reality gets me to bounce on Nana Trueluck’s bed. Then Vel jumps up and down, too, her curls in a tizzy. And then to my further surprise, Nana Trueluck starts to bounce, too, and the three of us get a major case of giggles.

  A voice yells up the stairs that it is time to go to bed and turn out the lights. Nana Trueluck puts a finger to her lips so Mama won’t know she is in on it, too.

  “If we’re going to pull this off, it needs to be kept a secret,” Nana whispers. She holds out her little finger for a pinkie swear. “Secret?”

  “You mean grandmothers know what pinkie swears are, too?” I ask.

  “Of course,” she says.

  I lock my pinkie in hers. “Secret,” I repeat.

  Then Vel and Nana do the same.

  When we get back to my room, Vel takes her book and hugs it to her chest like it is the book version of a teddy bear. Her hair has expanded in the nighttime heat.

  “Do you really think we can do this?” she asks.

  “As long as Paris can get to Columbia, too,” I say.

  For the first time in my life I am relieved to turn out the light so I won’t have to look at Vel’s hair anymore. I hear Nana Trueluck walk into the hall bathroom humming a Doris Day song and feel grateful to have her in on our plan. While undertaking a rebellion, everybody needs at least one grandmother.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ida

  Loud noises startle me awake in the middle of the night. At first I think it is my grandson Teddy doing one of his stunts downstairs, but then I hear Ted Junior and Abigail outside my door, their voices raised. I join them in my robe and slippers.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  Ted Junior is wearing only his pajama bottoms, and Abigail cinches her peach colored robe tighter around her waist. “Something’s going on outside,” Ted Junior says.

  “You’ve got to go see what it is,” Abigail insists.

  “Maybe we could all go,” I say. “Safety in numbers and all that.”

  Trudy and Vel come out into the hallway yawning and wiping their eyes. Poor Vel’s hair looks worse than before. One side sticks straight up in the shape of her pillow. I put an arm around Trudy while Abigail and Ted Junior debate whether the police should be called. Abigail holds Teddy, who wears his Batman underwear, to keep him from going downstairs first.

  A decision is made to investigate, and we follow Ted Junior down the stairs in single file.

  When we go onto the porch, my first thought is that it is too early for the sun to come up. Then I remember the house faces west, not east. The bright light isn’t the sun at all but a fire burning in the yard near the front gate.

  We stand on the porch, holding hands, unmoving. A cross—as tall as Ted Junior and about three feet across—crackles its message. The smell of gasoline and burning wood fills the air. Ted Junior sprints into action and stretches the garden hose across the yard. He yells at Abigail to turn on the water. I take charge of Teddy as white smoke billows into the black sky, and the flames are extinguished. Vel and Trudy are still holding hands, their friendship the only lifeline to be found.

  All my life I have heard of burning crosses but I have never seen one, and never felt the utter fear inherent in the message: We can get to you anytime we want. We are watching you.

  Ash assaults my nose and throat, and I spit into the yard. I don’t want to swallow any of this. It is bad enough to see, smell and taste it. How can people do this to their fellow humans? Deliberately invoke fear. Terror. In someone’s own yard. A place we count on as sanctuary. My hands begin to tremble, and I rub them together to get them to stop.

  Neighbors show up to help, an army in housecoats. After the sizzling stops, two charred pieces of smoldering lumber remain. The cross is planted in the front yard like the dozens of bulbs I planted along the fence the weekend after I arrived here to make this place feel a little more like home.

  “Don’t worry girls,” I say, seeing fear in Trudy’s eyes. Let me worry for you, I want to say. You are too young to know these things happen. Too young to joke about rebellions or even dream of them.

  For some reason I feel the need to document the scene. I go inside and grab my Kodak camera and a package of flash bulbs from my closet. The camera I used on my last trip with Ted Senior, the film inside not yet developed because I haven’t had the courage to look at them. I take a photograph of the cross and of the neighbors standing nearby looking out into the darkness. I only wish I had thought to take a photograph of the way things were before. Before everything changed.

  Trudy takes my arm.

  “You okay?” I ask, though I know okay-ness will probably take days to reach after something like this. Maybe weeks.

  “I guess this is what Hoot was trying to warn me about,” Trudy says. Her lips give a momentary quiver.

  Who are these characters capable of burning a cross in somebody’s yard? I have heard stories of the Ku Klux Klan, but mainly these stories took place outside of Charleston. Miles away. Thugs who wear white sheets, determined to keep things the way they are no matter how destructive.

  Teddy finally breaks from Abigail’s grasp. He leaps from the top step of the front porch and then runs and trips over the garden hose, making the scary moment feel a little more normal. Seconds later, Vel’s parents stride toward us in their bathrobes, late to the party. They look as frantic as Abigail and Ted Junior. The parents stand together and talk in hushed tones. I go into the street now and get a photograph from the other side. I think of the perpetrators watching our house, waiting until all the lights are out to plant the cross.

  A police car arrives, and a policeman gets out to talk to Ted Junior. The first month or two after he was elected mayor the police sat in front of our house at night. When I heard about this from Abigail, I thought it was an overreaction, but maybe not.

  Trudy and Vel remain frozen on the porch. Just hours before, Trudy and I timed my sweat here. Cats danced around our ankles. Now life has taken a drastic turn.

  “I hope Paris and Miss Josie are safe,” Trudy says to me, when I return to the porch.

  I have always liked Miss Josie, Paris’ grandmother, the woman I now buy flowers from. I have often thought we could be friends if we lived during a different time. A culture imposes boundaries that we don’t even think to cross. Now I wonder why I didn’t pursue the friendship anyway.

  “We should never have tried to make friends with that colored boy,” Vel says to Trudy in a half whisper, like she has forgotten Paris’ name. I think of rubber bands again, the snapping back to the old ways, the supposedly safer ways. Vel’s parents motion for her to join them in the str
eet.

  “No, you were right to try,” I say to her before she goes. “That’s the only way anything will ever change.”

  I say this, but then wonder if I believe it. Both things are true. I also want to tell them to stay away from him. To never mention Paris again. What the cross burners intended has worked. I am afraid. Afraid enough to keep my life small. To suggest that Trudy keep her life small, as well, and not take any chances. And never do anything that might attract attention—especially not this kind of attention. But isn’t that exactly what the bad guys want? Isn’t that letting them win?

  At that moment, I need an arm around me. I need Ted Senior to tell me everything will be all right. I wrap my arms around myself and imagine him there. His memory fortifies me.

  “I don’t have one ounce of hesitation about helping you take down that flag,” I say quietly to Trudy.

  “You don’t?” she says, as though her hesitation can now be measured in pounds, not ounces.

  “It isn’t right to fly a flag that intimidates people,” I say, “just like it isn’t right to burn crosses in people’s yards.”

  Something has ignited inside me. Something I don’t have a name for yet. Maybe it is a spark my great-grandmother passed along to me. A spark I have felt many times before but never acted on. Action is called for. If we don’t do something, we are like everybody else who pretends nothing is wrong.

  After the policemen leave the small crowd on the street disperses. Trudy and I go back inside. Ted Junior and Abigail look like they have aged overnight. We say our goodnights again, and everyone returns to their rooms, not that sleeping after something like this is actually possible. A few minutes later, Trudy comes into my room.

  “Will you still take us to Columbia?” she asks.

  I look into her eyes. A spark is there, similar to mine.

  “Trudy Trueluck, if it’s the last thing I do on God’s green earth, I will help you take down that flag.”

  We embrace, charged with our mission.

  We stop to listen to something happening downstairs. Ted Junior is locking all the doors. Somehow this feels like the end of something precious. The only reason people lock doors is because they feel it is unsafe outside. After seventy years of life, this is the first time I have lived in a home where we felt we had to lock our doors.

  From my bedroom, I smell the remains of the burnt wood outside as well as the faint fumes of Vel’s perm. The crickets make their nighttime sounds, yet even they can’t convince me that everything is normal. Something has changed forever. I can no longer stand by in the comfort of my cowardice and pretend that everything is fine anymore. It is time for me to do everything I can to help with our growing pains here in the South. I have no idea how we’ll do it, but I will help Trudy and her friends take down that flag.

  Chapter Twelve

  Trudy

  When I come downstairs the next morning, my parents and Nana Trueluck are huddled in the kitchen. I hear Teddy playing in the backyard and wonder if I will be banished, too. They stop talking when I come in.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I say, grabbing a cereal bowl from the cabinet.

  “Do what?” Mama asks.

  “Stop talking when I come into a room,” I say. “I was here last night, too, you know. It’s not like you can hide what happened from me.”

  A long silence follows.

  “Last night frightened us,” Mama says.

  Should I admit it scared me, too?

  “When you came in, we were trying to decide what to do,” Daddy says.

  “It’s not our battle,” Mama says. “We need to stay out of it.”

  Daddy looks over at her, a hint of disappointment in his face. “Things are riled up all over the South,” he says. “Innocent people are getting hurt in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee. All over.”

  Nana Trueluck is quiet. Yet the determination in her blue eyes has not wavered since last night. Our secret sits between us, as tangible as the sugar bowl and creamer on the kitchen table.

  “Why do you think it happened?” I ask.

  “We’re guessing it was the article in the newspaper,” Daddy says.

  Mama gets up and pours me a glass of orange juice. Nana Trueluck and I exchange a look that confirms the need to move forward with our plan.

  After breakfast, I get dressed and go outside. The cross is down. The wood is out by the street for the trash men to pick up. A black outline is seared into our front lawn, a not-so subtle reminder of the warning we received. If the people who burned it were wanting to make me stop being friends with Paris, they have failed.

  In the light of morning, the night before feels like a dream. I walk to Vel’s house. It is Saturday morning, and her parents sit at a white wicker table on the porch to have their coffee.

  “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Vel’s mother says. She looks like an older version of Vel but with makeup and minus the book.

  Nobody talks about the cross burning we witnessed last night. Unpleasant things are never talked about in the South, at least not openly. It is one of those unspoken rules Nana Trueluck always talks about. Rules we need to start breaking, although I am not about to start with Vel’s mother.

  When I go inside I find Rosemary, the Ogilvies’ maid, polishing the coffee table in the living room. Vel sits nearby on the light green sofa painting her toenails.

  “Hi, Rosemary,” I say, realizing how many times I have come in this house and not even noticed her.

  “Hello, Miss Trudy,” she says, kind of surprised.

  I wonder if she has heard about the cross burning. How could she not?

  When I get close, Vel’s hair startles me again. Luckily she doesn’t notice me take a step back. Leaning over, she puts a streak of hot pink nail polish on her big toenail. To Vel, painting toenails requires the same precision as brain surgery.

  Rosemary lifts Vel’s foot off the coffee table to clean underneath. Vel acts like Rosemary is totally invisible. When the kitchen timer goes off, Rosemary leaves to pull something out of the oven.

  “Let’s go visit Paris today,” I say, wanting to send the cross-burning folks a message.

  “In the colored section? Are you crazy?” Vel paints another toenail and then another, pursing her lips as though this somehow helps her be precise.

  “What’s the big deal?” I ask. But we both know what the big deal is.

  Vel frowns for several seconds, giving my request serious thought. I drop to my knees and resort to dramatic begging, which always makes Vel laugh. Then I tell her that Paris will probably love her hair and that she could show it off on the way over.

  “We can go as soon as they dry,” she says, wiggling her toes at me.

  She finishes one foot and starts on the other. With a huff, I collapse into the green wingback chair in the living room and resort to counting the freckles on my arms to see if I have any more than I did last summer. By the time Vel finally finishes, I have counted arm freckles and leg freckles for a total of 213 overall freckles. According to Barbie, completing the freckle-count takes exactly seven minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

  After blowing on her toenails one last time, she touches them to make sure they are dry, making motions like she is touching a hot stove. She grabs a new Nancy Drew from the coffee table and tucks it in her waistband before sliding her feet into her pink flip-flops. Finally, she announces she is ready to go.

  My 213 freckles jump up to join her.

  “Do you know where he lives?” Vel poofs her hair.

  “Across from the fire station, close to Calhoun.”

  We ride our bikes sixteen blocks to get to an address I memorized from the telephone book. On the way, we cross the dividing line into the colored neighborhood. Once we cross the line, there are a lot more people out on their porches and in their yards. They only wave if we raise our hands first. A few must realize I am the mayor’s daughter because they actually smile. But most of them pretend we don’t exist—something they probably learn
ed from white people.

  In our white neighborhood all the houses look alike, but here every house is painted a different color. Some need repairs. We lean our bikes against a green picket fence with Paris’ house number on it and enter a yard full of flowers, some of them as tall as me and Vel. We find Paris lying on his grandmother’s porch swing with his legs sticking up, reading a Seventeen magazine.

  “What are you two doing here?” Paris is so surprised to see us he forgets to use his southern accent.

  “That’s a girl’s magazine,” Vel says, ignoring his question. “What are you doing reading a girl’s magazine?”

  When Paris sees Vel’s hair, he doesn’t even blink.

  “When do you think you’ll start plucking your eyebrows?” Paris sits up, and his southern accent has returned, dead-on perfect.

  “I’m not allowed until I’m sixteen,” Vel offers, as though counting the days. It is the first time Paris and Vel appear to have something in common.

  “I find the whole idea of tweezing facial hair barbaric,” I say.

  “Someday you won’t,” Paris says with a wink of wisdom.

  “Want to bet?” I say.

  Paris turns to Vel. “There’s a great article in here about how to do it.” He pulls up his brow with two fingers and turns his head to imitate the photo in the magazine.

  “Can I read it when you’re done?” Vel asks.

  “Of course,” Paris says. He turns down the page corner and closes the magazine.

  Since when did you two become so idiotic? I want to ask. Who cares about eyebrow plucking when idiots are burning crosses in people’s yards? “Did you hear about what happened last night?” I ask instead.

  When he says he hasn’t, I tell Paris the story from beginning to end. By the time I finish he is sitting up ready to walk to Columbia this very minute.

  Seconds later, a white-haired black woman comes onto the front porch with three lemonades with lemon slices floating on top. She is large and round and beautiful. Her white hair is thick and clipped short. I wonder if there is a magazine called Seventy that is like Seventeen and gives old ladies fashion tips. Nana Trueluck and Miss Josie could be models.