I followed along, feeling like the wind was blowin’ two different directions in my soul.
It took a while for me to figure out the good that come from my running away—and it come a little bit at a time, like learnin’ arithmetic. The first little bit of figuring out come when we told Eula she was free from the law, that she could leave Cayuga Springs and go wherever she wanted. Daddy didn’t let a heartbeat slide by before he said she was welcome to stay with us as long as she could stand sleeping on that cot.
“Or you can have my room if you want a real bed,” I said. “I don’t mind sleepin’ on the cot.” I’d already lost one momma twice. If I lost Eula, I wasn’t sure I could stand it. I wasn’t even sure how I’d made it my whole life without her.
Daddy looked at me in a way that made me feel selfish. “Starla, Eula needs to be able to make a choice without you pushing her. She’s already done so much for us.”
I thought about how I thought I could boss Wallace just ’cause he was colored. I’m not sure I’d think that now. Eula was a person. She should be able to do whatever she wanted . . . and I really didn’t feel like I had any right to be bossy about it. But I didn’t want her to go.
I held my breath and waited. It was hard to be still. Then Eula gave a smile as bright as the sun. “Where you think I’m gonna go?” She looked at me.“We family; they ain’t all about blood, you know. Families is people lookin’ out after each other, not hidin’ behind secrets.” She touched the top of my head. “I’d say that you and me right down to the bone.”
That had made me think of Cathy’s secret and how it had wrecked Patti Lynn’s family—and almost wrecked Eula’s life forever, too. And then I thought about how me and Eula finding out each other’s secrets had made us both better, and how we both had our own way of whistling past the graveyard. I wondered if Patti Lynn had one, too. I noticed that me and Eula didn’t need ours nearly as much anymore and hoped Patti Lynn wouldn’t either pretty soon.
Mrs. Todd had finally stopped hiding and was able to laugh again, but things in her house wasn’t the same. Nobody was allowed to even say Cathy’s name anymore; it was like she’d never been alive. And baby James, well, me and Eula talked about him a lot, made up stories of his new family and what he was doing, how much he was growing, the things he’d do as he growed up. We did that about her white baby, too, now that he wasn’t a secret anymore. Course he was a boy now, so his stories was different. It made us both feel a lot better about not being able to be with them. Eula had finally decided to believe that Charles had done just what he’d said, give that baby to a family moving North.
I thought maybe talking about James and Cathy with Patti Lynn would make her less sad, but it just made her mad . . . real mad.
It took a while for me to stop trying, even though Eula said I should let Patti Lynn be if she didn’t want to talk about it. Eula explained that sometimes it took time for the hurt to go away enough to be able to look at something so painful, and I needed to be there to help Patti Lynn when it did. Just like I’d helped Eula. That made me feel good, that I’d helped Eula with our talks. I think Eula was still too hurt to talk about Wallace, so we didn’t.
It took a while for Patti Lynn to get over being mad about it though. But once school started up and we saw each other every day, we started getting back to our regular selves and was biking to each other’s houses.
My hair started to turn red again. I looked like a sunburned zebra, so Daddy took me to a hairdresser. She got some of the black out and cut it short . . . almost boy-short. The lady called it a pixie cut and said it was gonna be real popular. Daddy said that was a good name for it. At first I didn’t like it. But when I figured out how fast I could wash it and that it didn’t get all knotted when I was riding my bike really fast, I got to thinking I might keep it that way.
Eula was having trouble finding steady work. Even though the sheriff had said she wasn’t going to jail, the idea she’d done killed somebody hung on her like skunk spray. None of the ladies of Cayuga Springs would hire her to work inside their homes. Lucky they wasn’t so worried that they thought she’d poison them—I think Mrs. White mighta had something to do with that. So Eula went back to making baked goods in our little oven, which, dinky as it was, was still way better’n that woodstove she used to use out at her place. I helped her sometimes, but we mostly bumped into each other in that tiny kitchen. Business was good enough that before long, she was looking to fold up her little cot and rent a room somewhere. Daddy had said she could use our kitchen for her baking as long as she wanted. I was glad, ’cause I’d still get to see her every day.
Then, even before Eula found an affordable room in the colored part of town, Mrs. White took a fall on her back steps and needed live-in help she couldn’t afford. Now Eula was baking in Mrs. White’s kitchen, helping her for room and board.
I wondered if that was part of God’s plan. And if it was, was it Eula or Mrs. White who was supposed to learn a lesson from it? The more I looked at things like that, the more confused I got, so I decided to just concentrate on my own lessons.
One rainy Tuesday evening in October, after Eula had moved downstairs to take care of Mrs. White, there come a knock at our apartment door. I figured it was one of Daddy’s friends since it was too dark and wet for Patti Lynn to be riding her bike over. I stayed on the floor where I was making a pot holder with the loom Mrs. White gave me. This one was red and white to match Mrs. White’s kitchen wallpaper with the cherries on it. Seemed most polite to make my first one for her—even though Eula’d be the one using it.
When Daddy opened the door, I looked up. Mamie was standing there under a pink umbrella. Before Daddy could say boo, she handed him a brown bag. “I thought Starla might want these.”Then she turned around to leave like she was in a big hurry.
Daddy called after her and asked her to come inside. I gritted my teeth. It’d been bad enough sitting at church in the same pew with her on Sundays; but since she didn’t want to talk to me any more than I wanted to talk to her, we’d been managin’ just fine. Still, I sure didn’t want her inside me and Daddy’s house.
Lucky she said she couldn’t stay and went right on.
Daddy closed the door and handed me the rain-dotted bag. Inside was my plastic cereal bowl with the cowboy on the bottom and the checkers game. I wondered what made Mamie bring them over after all this time. I didn’t think she’d been eating out of it or playing checkers all by herself. I put the bowl in the kitchen cabinet and asked Daddy if he wanted to play checkers. While we played, Daddy said now that Mamie had taken the first step in mendin’ our fences, I was gonna have to get over it and start talking to her again.
I was still thinking on it.
The next evening, Mrs. White was feelin’ poorly and Daddy had to work late. Me and Eula made bologna sandwiches and ate in front of the TV. I kinda liked it when it was just the two of us. Eula said Walter Cronkite doing the news made her feel like the world was more safe and in order, so that was what we were watching. I thought he needed to get rid of his mustache.
Walter Cronkite was talking about President Kennedy and the civil rights laws he was trying to get passed. Thanks to Miss Cyrena, I knew what he was talking about. It made me feel pretty grown-up.
The TV news started talking about a march in Wichita, Kansas, and others that was being planned. He reminded us of the big March on Washington that had happened in August, where 250,000 people marched peaceful-like and heard talks by Dr. Martin Luther King. Miss Cyrena had gone; she wrote us all about it. On the TV it had looked like there was nothin’ but buildings and people packed like peanuts in a bag, not a speck of ground to be seen.
Walter Cronkite said there was still a long battle ahead for civil rights laws in the Congress.There’d been another sit-in at a lunch counter; this time in Warner Robins, Georgia. Some college students had got arrested, but there wasn’t any fighting. They’d just come in, sit down where they wasn’t supposed to, refused to leave, then got dru
g off to jail like they was rag dolls. That made me think of Wallace hauling me around like I wasn’t a person at all. I bet them students felt a lot like that.
I looked at Eula, “You gonna go to a march? Fight for your civil rights?” Then I thought about how hard it’d been when we’d just tried to get to Nashville and felt sorry for asking.
Eula’s eyes was glued on the TV, watching like she wanted to climb right inside and be with them.
“No, child, I ain’t brave like them folks. ’Sides, I done all the fightin’ I want to do in this lifetime.”
“You are too brave!” I stopped for a second, not sure why I was all stirred up. “Maybe not in the marchin’-in-the-street way. But that’s okay.” It come clear to me then. Some of them college students had been white. “You don’t have to fight anymore. I’m gonna do the fightin’ for you.”
She reached over and took my hand. “I do believe you will. Just not yet, child. Not quite yet. You need to get grown-up first.”
“What if the fightin’ gets all done before I’m old enough?” I really didn’t want to miss my chance to fight for Eula.
Eula shook her head real slow. “Been fightin’ for a hundred years, can’t see it bein’ over, even once the Congress signs a piece of paper killin’ Jim Crow. There be plenty left to fight for.”
I sat there and watched as another news story come on, but my mind was still on those people fighting for civil rights. I hoped they got what they wanted, but saved just a little bit of the fight for me.
Miss Cyrena was invited to Thanksgiving dinner. Even though our whole country was sad for our president getting shot, Mrs. White had said we still had to show thanks for our blessings and rejoice in being together.
I was glad for something to do other than be sad and watch the funeral on television and see how miserable our dead president’s kids were.
Miss Cyrena got to Mrs. White’s house at one o’clock. Me and Eula was happy as bees in honey to see her. Daddy shook her hand and thanked her for helping me and Eula. When she apologized for not easin’ his worry while I was missing, Daddy was real nice and said he understood and that I could be a tough nut to crack. I reckoned he meant it was hard to get me to tell when I didn’t want to. Miss Cyrena laughed. I think maybe her and Daddy might be friends, even though they was different kinds of bears.
Miss Cyrena had brung Eula’s picture of grown-up Jesus; it had been too big to fit in Eula’s grip when we’d had to run. Eula was real happy to have it back and went right away to hang it over her bed in the little room she had in Mrs. White’s downstairs.
After Miss Cyrena handed over grown-up Jesus, she got in her purse and pulled out a little brown bag. She handed it over to me with a smile. “Your friend sent this to you.”
“My friend?”
“The young man from the carnival. He came to my school a few
days after you left and wanted me to give it to you.”
“How’d he know you taught at the school?” I asked, taking the bag.
It wasn’t much bigger than the ones that hold penny candy. “Everybody in town knows I teach at that school.”
I unfolded the top of the bag and peeked inside. Something red and
fuzzy was in there. I reached down and pulled it out.
“A troll doll!” Patti Lynn had a whole collection of trolls; we made
clothes for them. I’d been hoping to get one for Christmas. Miss Cyrena said, “He said to tell you it wasn’t the same as winning
a teddy bear, but he thought you’d like it. He picked this one because it
had red hair and reminded him of you.”
Daddy looked at the funny little doll. “It does look a little like you!” “Daddy!” I nudged him with my elbow.
“Y’all come on now. Dinner’s ready,” Eula called.
All of us, except Mrs. White, who still had trouble walking, helped
Eula take the food to the dining-room table.There was a turkey, sweetpotato casserole and corn-bread dressing, giblet gravy and biscuits, and
a pecan pie for dessert. I’d never seen so much food at once. Mrs. White insisted all five of us, polar bears and regular bears together, eat in her dining room off her good china. I was so used to
eating with Eula that I didn’t think much about it, until I saw how
nervous it made her to eat with white grown-ups. But Miss Cyrena
seemed just fine with it.
Mrs. White asked Daddy to give the blessing. We all held hands
and bowed our heads. He asked the good Lord to continue to bless
us and those who couldn’t be with us today. (I thought of baby James;
Daddy might have been thinking of Mamie, who’d refused to come
out of spite. I was pretty sure nobody was thinking of Lulu this year.)
Daddy thanked God for his bounty and for his love. Then he asked
that the Lord help ease the grief of our president’s family, especially
his children.
“In Jesus’s name, amen.”
“Amen,” all of our voices said together.
As I sat there, looking from one face to another, I thought, This is
my family. These are the people who look out for me. The people I look
after.
Sometimes in the night, when my heart gets to hurtin’ over Momma, I pull out the memory of Thanksgiving dinner and it makes me feel some better.
I think that was the last piece of the good I was supposed to learn from my running away. I wasn’t never gonna run off again, no matter how bad things got. But I wasn’t gonna be too scared to love the folks that took the time to love me back, and I sure wasn’t gonna chase them that don’t. And I was gonna spend the rest of my life asking questions and looking behind everything that happened, so I could find the gifts I got tucked inside me.
Acknowledgments
If not for watching my feisty mother, Margie Zinn-Lynch, and hearing the stories of her youth, and for growing up alongside my red-headedthrough-and-through sister, Sally Zinn Knopp, I wouldn’t have been able portray Starla (a girl far, far from my own personality) as I have. Unbeknownst to any of us, over the years you two helped create this character.
Thanks to my family for their support and patience. To Bill for living with me when my mind remained with Starla in 1963 instead of returning to real life for dinnertime conversations. To Allison for “liking lunch” and the shopping therapy. To Reid and Melissa who each helped talk through story issues.
I’m indebted to the people who encouraged me to follow my instincts and take the risk to write a book that was a huge departure from anything I’ve ever written. Thanks to my fantastic agent, Jennifer Schober for believing in this book and guiding it to its final home. A huge hug of appreciation to both Wendy Wax and Karen White for their keen insight, tireless cheerleading, hours of critiquing, and multiple telephone conversations, even as you were both dealing with your own deadlines. Thanks to IndyWITTS, writing group extraordinaire.
I had to call on the help of an old classmate for details concerning the Nashville music scene in 1963. Thanks Terry (TK) Kimbrell for sharing your intimate knowledge on the subject.
And thanks to my editor, Karen Kosztolnyik, and the team at Gallery for loving this book as much as I do and for helping make it strong enough to go out in the world and stand on its own two feet.
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