“Oh, they’re all about Obama. And love to tell me that.”
“You need to register.”
“I will, Poppy. I will.”
Poppy closed his eyes briefly, then stretched out his arms and studied his hands. Sam recognized this as the prelude to one of Poppy’s opinions of great import.
“Everybody’s got their job to do,” his granddaddy told him. “My job is not so much to elect him as it is to keep him alive. So when I get on my knees at night, I pray for his safety. And for the safety of his wife. And for the safety of his children. I hear they got extra protection for him from the Secret Service, but you know your history. Every time I see him on the TV, I can hardly pay attention to what he’s saying, I’m so busy worrying about who might have a gun in those big crowds he draws. This is what God has put on my heart—to pray for his safety during this campaign. I know you can’t believe he will win. Neither can I, or any of us gathered here at this blessed homeplace to celebrate the fellowship of the mystery which is in Christ. I put this election in his hands so I can fold my own in prayer. And you, your job is to vote.”
Sam looked down at the concrete, at his own Nikes and Poppy’s torn-up old orthopedic house shoes. Sam wanted to give this moment the sanctity that it warranted. He remembered how Poppy took him as a young boy to Eutaw, the county seat, to watch him vote. They still had the old-fashioned booths with folding curtains then. He watched Poppy’s hands pull the levers. On their way out of the polling place, Poppy reminded him that it had been only a few years back that black folks were given the right to vote. Sam hadn’t really understood what that meant to his granddaddy, but he tucked it away to resurface at moments like this.
The women began streaming out the door. Dinner was served. “Poppy, one more thing,” Sam said. “I learned in my Spanish class that the word for Jesus is El Señor—‘The Man.’”
Poppy looked around at all the menfolk putting out their cigars and gathering on the porch to go inside.
“Yeah, buddy,” Poppy said. “‘The Man’ indeed. That’s what he is.”
JET
The day after Christmas, Jet drove to BookWorld, where she had been working for almost three years. The place was wacko with bright lights and sidelines galore. The café inside was a gathering place for college kids who were too young to drink. Jet never saw a book in their hands. The magazines and papers were next to the café, but few people flipped through them. Everyone got their news online. The travel section was full of plush, bright turquoise chairs so people could relax as they browsed books they’d never buy about places they’d never go. The card and gift section was the only one highlighted by a neon sign. Among the most popular products—not just in the gift section but the whole store—were charm bracelets featuring the work of famous artists such as Frieda Kahlo and Salvador Dali.
Jet was in charge of the children’s department. It was even more heavily sidelined with arts and crafts, dolls, stuffed animals, puzzles, kinetic sandbox sets, easels, beads, stamps and stickers, board games. It was difficult to find a book in the tornado of primary colors, especially as frenzied children ping-ponged among the toys.
One of Jet’s priorities as department manager was to make her story-time alcove free from distraction. A rainforest motif hung overhead, its green paper flora out of reach of sticky hands. Three small blond wood benches were arranged in a semicircle around the old-fashioned rocker where Jet sat to read during story time. When it wasn’t story time, the rare bookish kid would often use it as a hiding place.
Jet started her morning ritual by putting the books back into their correct places, running a finger across the spines to check the titles. She paused at The Runaway Bunny. As much as she hated her mother right now, she still remembered her hushed voice at night, when she lay in bed with Jet and read to her. It had been so soothing. It shocked Jet, when she began working at the store, to learn that the author of her favorite childhood books, Margaret Wise Brown, was bipolar and led a wild life full of lovers, both male and female; that she spent her first royalty check on an entire cart of flowers; that she never settled down and died an early death. At her home in Maine, Brown had constructed an outdoor boudoir with a table, nightstand, and mirror nailed to a tree. In the stream nearby, she kept bottles of wine cool. Brown hadn’t particularly liked children, and yet her words had comforted more of them than anyone would ever know.
This morning, Jet felt the familiar sadness, the anger that still accompanied her parents’ deception. It tainted everything, even Jet’s sweeter memories. She wished her aunt Stephanie, her biological mother, had been more like the Runaway Bunny’s mother—there to save her at every misstep. Jet hadn’t seen or spoken to either of her mothers since learning the truth. Only when she was a bit tipsy or stoned would she allow herself to picture Stephanie. It made her wonder how she could have missed it, who her father might be, if he was why the two sisters had decided to raise Jet in a lie.
Lenny arrived just in time to drag Jet out of her bad mood before it overtook her. He was impeccably dressed in slim khaki pants and a cornflower-blue sweater. His blond hair was brushed over to one side and fell soft and lovely over his left eyebrow. Jet was jealous of the way Lenny managed to make looking good seem so easy.
“How’s it going?” he asked, joining her at the shelves.
Jet shrugged.
“Breakfast?”
Jet followed Lenny over to the café. It opened thirty minutes early to serve the employees. They each ordered a cappuccino and a Danish—one hour of their minimum-wage paychecks spent. Then they headed to the setup of chairs between the coffee counter and the front window.
Lenny jumped right into telling her about his weekend. He had his eye on the bartender at The Quest—Lenny’s bar of choice.
“He’s not really my type,” he said, and reached for his napkin. “He’s just a tad too soft. And you know me.”
“Right,” she replied. “You want a straight guy to turn.”
Lenny smiled.
Jet looked at Lenny’s hands. He had studied classical piano for twelve years, and his fingers were long and nimble. He’d make a good surgeon—he was premed at the university and had just been accepted to medical school. His days working at the bookstore were numbered. He was a few years younger than Jet, but she considered him a peer and was envious of the men he attracted. The children’s department wasn’t an ideal place to meet men, but occasionally a cute guy—flying solo—would linger too long, stealing glances at Lenny.
“How’s Sam?” he asked.
“Tanya—you know, his girlfriend I’ve told you about—she drove him to see his family on Christmas day. He’s got eyes only for Tanya. He told me once he could never date a white girl. But I bet you I’m not even white. Look how dark my skin is compared to yours.”
Lenny smiled. “Don’t say that around Sam.”
“I know, I know.”
They watched the other staff members filter in. She and Lenny were a country unto themselves in the children’s department. They were tight as ticks and weren’t interested in being friends with the people who worked in adult literature or science or travel or self-help or any of the other worlds in the store.
“Don’t you think,” he began, “that it’s time you talked to your mother? Like, your actual mother, Stephanie?”
“I guess.”
“I just don’t think you’ll find peace until you do.”
She reached over and touched his hand. “What am I going to do without you?”
“And I love you, too, baby,” Lenny said. “That’s why I’m hoping you can take the initiative. I mean, I wonder how she felt when your mom told her that you knew. Don’t you think she feels guilty? And maybe she’ll tell who your father is.”
“And why my skin is darker than the rest of you white folks.”
“And we’re back to Sam.”
Jet sighed and nodded.
“You know what you need to do?” Lenny said. “You need to get one of tho
se kits where you can swab your cheek for DNA and send it off and learn what you have in you.”
“It’s too expensive.”
“Start saving. Look, I’ll bring a thermos of coffee to work every day and pick up some cheap donuts at the gas station. That will save you almost seven dollars a day.”
She smiled. Lenny was without doubt her best friend right now.
“I want you to meet Sam, and I think maybe it’s time you met Landon, too. She’s like everyone’s surrogate mom. And you need one.”
She was right about this. Lenny had come out to his parents after church one Sunday, and his mother had gone berserk. The punishment was severe. He wasn’t to darken the door of their house until he got well. All financial help was cut off, including tuition payments. Suddenly, Lenny was in need of a job. He applied at the bookstore and met Jet, who was in the middle of her own big change—calling off her wedding to Lenny’s predecessor in the children’s department, a man who knew nothing about Jet’s life on the street and, Jet realized, nothing about who she really was. Jet had fallen into a comfortable relationship with him when they started working together, had kept it simple because she wanted something simple. But it had gone too far, and she finally ended it. She wanted someone who knew her. And then came Lenny.
“Five minutes till showtime,” Lenny said, checking his phone.
“Tonight’s the Iowa Caucus results.”
Lenny worked only half days because he had classes or labs in the afternoon. They agreed that he would come by her place after she got off at six and at least have a beer. They finished their breakfasts, then ducked through the rainforest canopy that heralded the children’s department.
Jet was already worried about what Lenny would think of Sam.
When she got home from work, Jet went to her bedroom and stripped naked. She looked at her body in the mirror. She knew she was too thin for Sam, but she couldn’t do anything about it. She had been slight all her life—only five foot one and always hovering around a hundred pounds. Sam could so easily pick her up—if he wanted—and carry her to bed.
She covered her breasts with her hands, wishing they were bigger, though she liked her dark nipples. She sat on the edge of the bed and put on her black stockings. She always started with those. She slipped on the black heels with the red soles that Sam had once said he liked. Tonight, she was going to wear her new brocaded corset for the first time. It had bronze detailing, crisscrossed leatherwork, a front zipper, and side chains. She finagled her way into it and looked again into the mirror. Nobody would see the corset, and this was sad. Maybe she’d lift her shirt and show it to Landon—or Lenny, for that matter. He might find it interesting. Next, she pulled her long hair back and put on her earrings—black onyx in the first holes and silver studs in all the others that ran up the sides of her ears. Finally, a simple black skirt and soft black jersey top with pink satin ribbon along the hem—a hint of innocence.
She flipped on the radio and reached high in her closet for the box that held her family photos. She took out an old videotape of her and her half sister, Caroline, playing on a Slip ’N Slide during summer. She put it in her ancient VCR and watched the two of them taking turns running, then belly-flopping on the slick surface before sliding gleefully to the end. Her daddy—her adopted father—must have been at the camera because there were shots of her mother, Ann, and her aunt Stephanie. They were stretched out in lawn chairs talking. On the video, Stephanie sat with her thin legs crossed and her dark hair falling down her back just like Jet’s. She dressed like a gypsy, in a mix of embroidered fabric and gold jewelry. Maybe that’s what they were—gypsies.
Jet thought about who her real father might be. She had never seen Stephanie with a man. She was a wanderer and moved from place to place with her other daughter. For some reason, Stephanie and Caroline disappeared during Jet’s adolescence. Jet never asked about them because by then she was in high school—a cheerleader, a gymnast, a straight-A student. She was voted Most Likely to Succeed. Even now, she laughed at how wrong her classmates had been.
She rummaged through the photos and found one of the sisters as young girls, not quite teenagers yet. Stephanie was brooding. Ann wore a smile that was undoubtedly fake; it was big and forced. At the bottom of the box was a piece of paper with Stephanie’s phone number, which her mother had given her the day she told Jet the truth. It was after her father’s service and burial. The kitchen was full of flowers her mother had saved from the funeral and put into vases with water.
“I have something I need to tell you,” her mother said, her voice trembling from what Jet at the time assumed was grief, though now she knew it was fear.
Jet braced herself. Her mother’s words were unsettling, the kind of preface people gave when they were about to divulge a dark secret.
“When Aunt Stephanie was seventeen years old, she had a baby.”
“And?” Jet said. She looked at her mother, who was staring at the floor. “Aunt Steph had a baby and . . . ?”
“Well, it was you,” her mother whispered, as if the room were filled with witnesses.
The morning sun poured over everything. The funeral flowers suddenly felt wrong. Jet couldn’t process what her mother had said, so she thought about the flowers. They were probably from people who hadn’t wanted to come to the service and took the easy way out.
Jet started crying. Her mom was crying, too.
“Why?” Jet said, crouching and covering her face. “Why, why, why?”
“Your father and I couldn’t conceive, and Stephanie . . .”
At her mother’s silence, Jet was filled with hatred.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I thought you’d want to know the truth.”
Jet stared at her mother, angry at everything about her. She was irritated by her coiffed beauty-parlor hair, her frumpy clothes and boxy shoes. She had always looked and acted older than the other moms.
Jet wasn’t thinking, How could Aunt Stephanie have given me away?
She was thinking, How could my mom take me and never tell me?
Then she realized her daddy wasn’t her real father either. That morning, she had buried him, and now he was dead all over again.
“Who is my daddy, then?”
“Honestly, Jet,” her mother said, looking tired, “I have no idea. But I’m going to give you Stephanie’s new number. You should call her.”
Jet didn’t call her aunt—her mother. Instead, she waited until her mother—her adoptive mother—fell asleep, and then she packed up and left home. Skipped out on a job interview and ran off. The rest was history. And now, all these years later, Jet still had that number in her box of photos. She pulled it out this evening and put it in her wallet. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was time.
Jet put the box away and looked at herself once more in the mirror. Fully dressed, she felt untouchable. She felt invincible, unless she thought about Sam. If she thought about Sam, she melted like candle wax.
She got a beer from the fridge and called Lenny.
“You’re still coming, aren’t you?”
“Look out the window,” he said.
There he was in the parking area, checking his hair, getting out of his car. He pulled a six-pack from the passenger seat. She stood and ran to the front door, so happy to see him. During the holidays, neither of them had a home to go home to.
“Oh, my God, Jet. You look like Morticia Addams.”
Jet swatted playfully at his face.
“You do,” he kept on.
Then he must have sensed something in her and changed his tune. “You look fantastic,” he said. “I wish all those suckers at the store could see you.”
“You’ve got to see my corset,” she said, and lifted her shirt so he could.
“Jesus, what is that?”
“A corset.”
“A what?”
“Quit acting like a man. You know what a corset is.”
“I’ve never seen one up clos
e, though. It’s terrifying,” he said. “Kind of hot, though.”
“Now that you’re here, I’m gonna text Sam.”
Afterward, she turned back to Lenny. “When we see him, act like you’re my boyfriend.”
Lenny shook his head. “If he knows I’m faking for his benefit, won’t that make it worse?”
“Straight guys never pick up on that stuff.”
“You think?”
Jet ignored Lenny, applying an extra layer of lipstick before leading him out the door.
SAM
Sam put on jeans and a gray hoodie. He brushed his teeth and picked up the bottle of cologne Tanya had given him for Christmas. He didn’t know what to do with it, where to dab it on his skin. So he reconsidered and left it alone. He put a pipe in his pocket and dropped a few buds into one of his tiny Ziploc bags. He generally tried to avoid walking around with weed on him, but he was only going down the street.
His TV was on. He was ready to go to Landon’s place but lingered awhile, listening to the pundits. It was clear that this was going to be close. He wondered if Poppy was watching. He pictured him in his old chair, fully dressed but wearing a robe all the same because, as he aged, he had a hard time feeling warm enough. Sam thought of Poppy’s house shoes, how far they’d walked. He guessed Poppy’s house would be quiet except for the occasional sound of distant trains or stray dogs howling at the moon.
Sam longed for that quiet, and to get inside Poppy’s head. He wasn’t afraid of growing old—he wanted to be wise, to know how to pray and believe there was a God. Sam had spent his boyhood in church and was proud of Poppy whenever he was called on to preach. But he never heard the words, not like he knew he was supposed to. He would fidget with his buddies, going through the hymnal and silently scribbling “in Bed” at the end of each hymn’s title, trembling with inaudible laughter. “I Surrender All . . . in Bed.” “How Great Thou Art . . . in Bed.” “Jesus Paid It All . . . in Bed.”
He didn’t know why the hymnals were even there. The choir had its own music, and it was the only part of church that held Sam’s attention. As the singers grew louder, Sam would get swept up, clap along with them, and move. He could have sworn he learned to dance in church. Or at least it was where he learned rhythm.
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