“It’s gonna take a long time,” I said.
He folded his hands around his coffee cup, raised his eyebrows, and waited.
I told him about Prissy Pants—but I called her by her real name so I didn’t sound snotty—and Jimmy Sellers. When I got to the part where I punched him, it looked like Daddy was fighting a smile, but I couldn’t be sure. Daddy never smiled when I lost my temper and leaped without lookin’. I told him I apologized to Mrs. Sellers and tried to act like I meant it. Then I explained how much I love the Fourth of July and the fireworks and how Mamie always punished me with the worst possible thing. I was glad I’d made him promise not to interrupt, ’cause he’d say that’s what punishment was supposed to be; if Mamie did something I liked, it’d be a reward. He always said that when I complained about Mamie’s unfairness.
Then I had to tell him about breaking restriction and Mrs. Sellers finding me, and me pushing her down, and I was really glad he couldn’t say anything. His eyes was doing enough scolding.
“I didn’t want to go to reform school, like Mrs. Sellers was sayin’, so I run off. I figured Mamie’d be happy to be rid of me anyway.”
Daddy opened his mouth and I gave him the stink eye. He closed it. Daddy always kept his cross-heart promises.
The waitress brought our breakfasts, but I wasn’t hungry anymore.
“I was gonna come to Nashville to live with Momma. But I didn’t know then that she’d turned into Lulu.” I shivered. “If I had, I might’a gone back home and waited on the front steps for the law to come get me.”
“Starla, she’s always been—”
I held up my hand. “Daddy!” Truth be told, I didn’t stop him because of his cross- heart promise, but because I didn’t want to hear that she’d always been Lulu. If I got to thinking about that, I’d be a goner and not be able to finish my story. And I didn’t want to cry in front of Daddy, not over Lulu . . . ever.
He blinked and nodded. “Sorry.”
I spun a story about Wallace grabbing me off the road and him taking me home. I said he’d already had James with him. From there on I tried to stick close to the truth. As long as Wallace was the one who took James from the church steps, Eula should be okay. I still wasn’t sure how we’d get around the law when it come to Wallace’s deadness, but Daddy’d think of something.
I took a glance at Eula. Her fork was moving her food around, but I didn’t see any leave the plate and go to her mouth. From the way her eyes kept peekin’ from the side, I figured she was working hard not to watch what was going on at our table.
I kept talking, wanting to get it all out as fast as possible. I explained how Wallace had seen some colored girl leave James in a basket on the step of a church. And that Eula couldn’t have babies and wanted them more than anything. Wallace seeing that colored girl leaving that bundle was God telling him this baby was for Eula. It shoulda been okay ’cause James was supposed to be colored and not wanted by anybody.
“On his way home, he musta decided I’d make a good kid for them, too.”
Daddy was frowning. I wasn’t sure he was believing me, so I added that it turned out Wallace was plum crazy, and once he got home and Eula made him see how much trouble they was in for taking white children, he went crazier yet with being scared.
“First we was locked up,” I said. “Eula tried to take us back to Cayuga Springs, but Wallace was sure the white folks would come and murder them both and stopped her. He was big as a bear, and mean as a snake. Eula was afraid of him before I ever got there, but she tried to help me anyway—and got hurt while goin’ about it, too.”
In my mind, I made like I was telling a story that happened to somebody else; otherwise, when I come to the next part, I’d’a been too shook up to talk at all. It was better if Daddy didn’t know how scared I’d been.
I told Daddy about me escaping in the night with baby James, and his eyes got so wide I thought they’d pop right out. I could tell he wanted to talk, but he kept his promise—until I told the part about Wallace coming after us and trying to drown me in the swamp.
His fist hit the table and he said, “JesusfuckingChrist!” so loud that everybody in the diner looked at us.
I started to shake a little and forgot that I was telling about somebody else. Then I looked over at Eula, sitting there, stiff and tall, with her eyes white and her hands working in her lap. I pushed feelings of not being able to breathe and the picture of Wallace through the water out of my mind. I couldn’t let Daddy stop me here. “You promised,” I said.
He got up and walked outside. I saw him through the window, pacing back and forth, running his hands through his hair and then wrapping them behind his neck and looking up at the sky. My stomach hurt like it was being poked with knives. I couldn’t go make Daddy feel better ’cause I had to get my own self back to where it wasn’t me in the story.
Finally, Daddy come back in and sat back down. He took a deep breath closed his eyes and breathed out long. Then he nodded for me to go on.
“Well, I reckon it’s obvious he didn’t get me killed.” It helped to talk sassy. “He stopped and cried around that he couldn’t do it, and then took me back and locked me in that room again. But Eula was worried still, so she stayed in there with me. Later, when Wallace got all juiced up—the moonshine—he come in and tried to finish me off. But Eula killed him with a skillet.” I was quick to add, “She didn’t mean to kill him. She just wanted to stop him from hurtin’ me and he ended up dead after one whack.”
“Oh my God.” Daddy looked kinda sick and covered his face. I was afraid he was gonna throw up right there. I should feel sick, too. But truth be told, I got to feeling better the more I got out. Every word said Wallace couldn’t hurt us anymore.
I switched sides in the booth and put my arm around Daddy. “It’s okay. Eula saved my life, that’s why we gotta help her.”
“Why didn’t you come back—”
“I ain’t done.”
He nodded, but still looked peaked.
“Eula, she wanted to go to the law right then and tell them she’d done Wallace in. But I made her take me to Nashville first,’cause that’s where I was headed and it was Wallace’s fault I didn’t get there. Eula’s very interested in doing the right thing. We put Wallace in the springhouse to keep him cool. I just wanted to get away and change her mind about goin’ to the law about it.”
“Wha—”
“Daddy!”
He held up a hand and nodded again.
“Eula and me and James started out in her rickety truck. We was gonna make sure James got back to his family. . . . I was thinking Mom—Lulu’d help with that. And Eula was gonna turn herself in to the police when we got there, but I was still hopin’ to convince her not to. Lulu was supposed to help with that, too.”
I told him about how the truck broke down and I got sick and how Miss Cyrena took us in and all the rest of what got us to Lulu’s apartment.
When I got done, he just sat there.
I went back to my side of the booth. “You can talk now.”
Daddy was shaking his head, looking at his cold bacon and eggs. “Honest to God, I don’t know where to start.”
28
d
addy paid for three breakfasts that didn’t get eaten. Mamie would have had a hissy fit seeing all that food go to waste. But I reckon my story sucked away Daddy’s appetite just like it did mine. And he really must not have known where to start, ’cause he hadn’t said a word after saying that. He’d just sat there for a minute, then picked up the bill from the table, slid out of the booth, and headed to the cash register. I had to pee so bad by then I had to run straight to the bathroom, which for some reason was at the front of this diner, not the back near Eula where it should have been and I could have let her know what I’d told Daddy.
I went as fast as I could, not even stopping to wash my hands. I needed to talk to Eula outside of Daddy’s hearing. But when I come out, they was both already gone. I pulled the front door
open. A lick of panic went over me when I saw Eula was already in the backseat and Daddy was behind the wheel. They were talking!
I run and jerked the car door open.
Daddy was saying, “. . . me about your husband and—what you had to do.”
I looked at Eula and thought she’d stopped breathing for a minute.
“Sorry to keep you waitin’,” I said, real cheerful. “Don’t you need to use the restroom, Daddy?” I tried to tell Eula with my eyes that things was okay. But she kept looking at her lap.
He gave me a wrinkled-forehead look—which he didn’t do often, so I had to respect it or else. “Not a question for you to be askin’. And you’re interrupting.”
Daddy said to Eula, “There’s no way to repay you, but I’ll do everything possible to see you’re treated fairly by the police. I’ve got a friend who’s a county deputy . . .” He stopped, like something just come to him. “Where’s your house?”
She told him and he looked some relieved.
“Good. Maybe I can get Don to help us out then.”
“I’m ready to take what’s comin’ to me, sir.” She kept her eyes low and not looking direct at Daddy. “And I thank you for your kindness.”
I wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to be scared of him like she was most white men, but the scarder she was, the less likely she was to go spillin’ the beans.
When Daddy turned back around and started the car, I pisst-whispered at her. When she looked up. I made like I was lockin’ my lips together with a key. The look in her eyes made my stomach flip over. I wanted to jump over the seat and put my hands over her mouth.
“How much longer till we’re home?” I asked, trying to get Daddy distracted.
“A few hours. Now shush. I’m tryin’ to talk to Eula.” He gave me a look and I closed my trap. I needed Daddy happy, not all mad at me. He pulled us back on the road, then looked at Eula in the rearview mirror. “You only did it to save her—like self-defense. The law should be on your side.”
“Baby James might be harder to explain.” Eula’s voice was quiet, but not so quiet that Daddy didn’t hear.
“I done told Daddy all about Wallace takin’ him ’cause he thought you needed a baby.” I made my eyes big and raised my eyebrows so she’d get the message. “And that Wallace was crazy.”
Daddy looked over at me. “Starla, I’m pretty sure that part of your story was . . . modified.”
My heart started to beat fast. I should have remembered Daddy always knew—even when I got Mamie to believe my truth stretchers. He didn’t always say, but he always knew.
“It’s what happened!” I said, knowing it was a waste of breath. “And Wallace was crazy!”
“A man like that wouldn’t care if Eula had a baby or not, but if it helps Eula, that’s our story.”
My body got like Jell-O. (Thank you, baby Jesus.)
“I took him,” Eula said, and my heart fell to my toes. “I did.”
Before Daddy could say anything, I said, “But he was left on the church steps by a colored girl like I said—the white Methodist church. Eula thought it’d be bad for a colored baby to be left there, so she took him. And it was Thursday; Wednesday prayer meeting was over and it was a long way till Sunday. What if nobody found him? And she didn’t know he was white until after she got out of town . . . he was all wrapped up. Please, Daddy! I know some awful things get done to colored folks. I can’t let that happen to Eula. If you won’t say Wallace done it, tell them I took him from the church! That’ll be okay. I’m a kid—and white. I’m goin’ to reform school anyhow.” Somehow I’d started crying.
“Starla, Starla. Relax. We’ll figure out somethin’.” He patted my leg. “Nobody’s reported a missing baby. Whoever sent him to that church doesn’t want to get found out. And you’re not going to reform school.”
“I’m not?” I sniffled.
“Of course not.”
“But Mrs. Sellers—”
“Has been worried sick since you ran off. Both her and Jimmy spent time with the search parties.”
“Search parties?”
“The whole town’s been lookin’ for you, afraid you’d gone off somewhere and got hurt or lost.”
“The whole town?”
He nodded.
I frowned. “Mamie is gonna be so mad.”
“Might as well get ready for it.” After a second he said, “How did you think you were gonna travel near six hundred miles on foot in the first place?”
Now that just made me sound stupid. “I didn’t know it was that far.” I decided Daddy had some questions to answer himself. “How come you never told me you and Lulu was divorced?”
He sighed real long. “You were too young at first. Then”—he shrugged—“it just didn’t seem to matter. Lucinda was gone and was gonna stay gone.”
“Well, it mattered to me!” My ears caught fire. “All this time I been thinkin’ good things about her, wishin’ we was all together again. Thinkin’ she loved me—” A breath jerked inside me, like I was gonna get a sob going. I gritted my teeth to keep it in. “She’s horrible.”
Daddy ran a hand through his hair. “She sent you birthday cards to show she loved you.”
“Big deal. And she didn’t when I turned six.” Now that I’d seen Lulu, I knew that one didn’t get lost in the mail.
“Baby, I didn’t know—that you thought that way about her, I mean. You were so little when she left, I didn’t think you remembered her hardly at all.” His lips bunched and he shook his head. “I thought it was better you didn’t know about her . . . how she is. I didn’t want her to hurt you . . . but she has anyway.”
Eula coughed a fake cough.
Daddy’s eyes went to the rearview mirror. I don’t know what kind of face Eula made; I was too mad and sorry to look. But right away Daddy said, “Your momma does love you, Starla. As much as she can love anybody. She’s not like the rest of us inside. She can’t show you like she should.”
I didn’t say anything. Couldn’t say anything without blubberin’. Someday I might cry about Lulu again, but not for a long time. I had to hold on to the mad so the sad didn’t drown me.
“How did you even find her?” Daddy said it, but it was more like to himself than to me. The light glittered in his eyes, like he had some tears wanting out. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m not very good at this. I was wrong not to tell you.”
Hold on to the mad.
I crossed my arms. “Well, it sure woulda saved a whole lot of trouble.” Without a place to go, I might never have run away for real at all. Eula’d never have picked me up. She and James could have stayed together out there in the woods—I stopped right there. Dreamin’about Eula and James being happy living out there with Wallace the Bear was as crazy as me thinking Lulu was famous and really wanted me and Daddy to live with her.
Truth be told, me and Eula needed each other—we had a gift together. If I hadn’t run off, we’d never have found it.
I wouldn’t give up on her—ever.
After a little while, I spent some time telling Daddy how hard Eula worked to get the money so she could take me to Nashville. I told him she was the best momma ever to me and James, even though she wasn’t our momma at all and could have just left us when things got bad.Then I spent some time reminding him about how she’d saved me at least three times—first from dyin’ of thirst on the Fourth of July, second from Wallace drownin’ me in the swamp, and third time with the skillet. “Oh, and then when she got me well at Miss Cyrena’s. I was pretty sick, so I reckon I could have died then, too.”
Daddy had his elbow on the car door and was rubbing his forehead. He was starting to look sick again. “I get it, Starla. I already said I’d help her.”
“But what if the police don’t listen to you? What then?” “We’re just gonna have to take things one at a time. It’ll work out.” I leaned closer and whispered, so Eula wouldn’t hear over the wind
coming through the wing vents and partway-open windows, �
��How do you know?”
“I don’t. We just have to hope for the best.”
That worried me. I’d been sure, not just hoping, that Momma would help Eula. But Daddy was sounding a little perturbed so I shut up. I leaned against the window, liking the way it vibrated against my head; then I started to change my plan.
I musta fallen asleep, ’cause I woke up when the car started to slow down. I was mad at myself; I didn’t want Daddy and Eula talking without me. Then I saw where we were and about had a kitten.
“What are you doin’?” Daddy looked startled and I realized I’d yelled it.
“I figured we’d take a restroom break and get lunch—”
“No! Keep goin’.” I never wanted to see Riedell’s Diner again.
“But—”
“I ain’t hungry. Go.”I looked on down the road, feeling like Riedell’s was a wild animal I was afraid to look square in the eye.
“Starla, what’s going on?”
“That place is horrible. And”—I slid over to whisper—“they don’t serve colored people.”
He got back on the gas and we went on by. I slumped back in the seat. “Thank you.”
Daddy kept his eyes on the road and nodded. “We’ll find someplace else.”
“Good. I’m hungry.”
Daddy laughed and looked at me. “You are somethin’ else, you know that?”
I just smiled back.
Daddy found us another place not far down the road. I looked for
signs in the window that said WHITE TRADE ONLY or NO COLORED SER
VICE, but didn’t see any. It made me wonder why the bus stopped at Riedell’s when maybe all the passengers could eat here.
“I’ll run in and make sure this place is good,” Daddy said. “Be right back.”
Eula was changing James’s diaper. “There now, little man, you all fresh.”
I knew she wasn’t gonna like my new plan.
“Eula, you gotta go. Now.”
She frowned. “What?”
“I’ll take care of James. You get out of the car and hide somewhere until we’re gone. I’ll tell Daddy you got in a car with some colored folks and run off.”
Whistling Past the Graveyard Page 26
