So when he got no reaction he finished by saying: “Maybe this time you should leave Michael here. He’s still a boy, you know.” He tipped his ripped straw hat and was on his way in the beat up wagon.
Fannie and Ella didn’t get a chance to say a word before Cora tore out of the house, a dirty apron covering her front, flour and batter sticking to her hands. “Did I hear Ken Miller right? Did he just say that this hussy was seen at that juke joint with my boy?”
They tried to calm her down as June tried to slink away from the wrath of the very angry woman, but such a thing was not meant to be. Cora pushed Fannie into the door and grabbed June by the neck of her housedress. June could feel the drying batter crumbling as it rolled down her back.
“I told you to stay away from my son,” she shouted. The other women in the house were now on the back porch wondering what all the commotion was about. “You slut!” Cora screamed. “Didn’t I warn you?”
June tried to pull away, the women tried to pull Cora off of her as she heaved insults and curses upon the girl. Finally the house dress ripped, a battered piece of it stuck in Cora’s hand. “I don’t want no low life, high yellar bitch that won’t even raise her own baby, trying to get my son to take up with her.”
“Cora!” Ella screamed. “What’s wrong with you? The children were just out having a good time. They young.”
“This hussy been trying to lure my boy into her bed ever since she was big with another man’s baby. A man she wasn’t never married to, I might add.”
June stood there in Maude’s protective arms, feeling naked with the back of her dress gone.
“What you take my boy there for, huh? You trying to make him a man before his time?” Cora reached for the girl, her ragged nails trying to scratch June’s face, her hands trying to pull out June’s hair.
Maude pulled the girl further away from her. “Woman, get a hold of yourself. Ain’t nothing wrong with a boy taking a fancy to a girl. From what I hear tell all they did was dance.”
Cora cut Maude a mean look, as if she wanted to beat her to the ground. “You knowed about this and you didn’t tell me?”
Fannie interceded in a wise tone: “It ain’t necessary for you to get upset with Maude.”
Cora spun around and faced her. “I suppose you knew too?”
Ella sighed. “No, we didn’t know.”
Maude shouted so as to get in on the conversation. “Now all I heard from Toby who heard it from. . .”
Ella raised her hand. “Ain’t no matter who gossiped or who didn’t. We been watching Young Michael and June and we know they like each other. But wasn’t anything to know. They just young lonely people and they. . “
“I don’t want this girl with my boy. . .”
“You wouldn’t want any girl with your boy,” Maude suggested, then added: “Why ever since your husband died you been depending on that boy for support, money, love. Sometimes it don’t seem natural. When Madman Jeffries was here before you stopped spending time with him. Told me your children needed you. I told you you was crazy, even if that young man was here for a short time he took a liking to you and a short time love is better than no love a-tall.”
The women immediately turned their attention to Cora. “You kept company with a piano playing man?” Ella said.
“A younger than you piano playing man?” Fannie grinned.
“And you didn’t marry him?” Ella went on.
“Or make him settle down with you?” Fannie added.
“You just had fun, for a while. Is that it Cora? You had fun for a while and your son can’t.” Ella was smiling at the irate Cora.
They waited for her answer. Waited while she breathed in and out like a bull spewing fire. “He likes her for her hair and her light skin. He ain’t never seen nothing like her before and you know it.”
June mumbled something only Cora seemed to hear.
“What did you say you little. . .” Ella cleared her throat to cut her off.
“I told you before I would never hurt him. He’s my friend.”
“Friend? I told YOU girls like you don’t got no friends. You trouble wherever you go. You didn’t even tell your parents who’s the father of that baby you so easily gave away. . .”
“That wasn’t easy! I did what was best for my child.” June screamed back at her and let the tears fall as Cora kept on talking.
“Girls like you are always trouble. And I bet you,” she said turning to the other women, “that baby’s father is married. That’s why she couldn’t tell nobody, tramp that’s what she is. . .”
“Cora, now that is enough!” Fannie shouted. The old woman’s voice was shaking with fury. “You forget that June ain’t the only one with a say in this relationship. You forgot about Michael.”
“She forgot him all right.” Maude mumbled.
“Hesh up,” Fannie went on. “Michael is a man. Been a man since his daddy died and you don’t see it. If he wants to be with June, to marry June. . .”
“Marry her?” Cora shouted back. “I’ll be damned if this bitch marries my son. Do you hear?”
“What you gonna do about it, Cora, if he wants to? Boy’s got a job and a mind of his own. You don’t need him to take care of you or Millie. We pay you plenty. You stay here most of the time. You need to. . .”
“Ain’t no way I’m letting this heifer sink her hooks in my son and make him miserable.”
“It ain’t up to you. It’s up to Michael,” Fannie replied.
Cora pulled away from them staring at June with enough evil in her eyes to scare the devil. “We’ll see about that.” She didn’t even bother to clean her hands or take off the apron that smelled of fried chops and greens. She marched away from the women as if off to war.
June disappeared into the house. She lay on the bed with her torn housedress in her hands, her breasts still aching for the child that wasn’t there, her heart breaking for a love she wasn’t sure she’d ever have again. She cried and cried. By the time Fannie and Ella walked in to comfort her she was asleep.
* * *
At lunch time the table was filled with dog tired men folks and talkative womenfolk. A big shiny white car was parked on the front meadow and at the table were a few extra men, musicians. Madman Jeffries and his band had been invited by Toby to come and have some food. They would only be in town one night and everyone knew they’d be playing at the juke. So it was extra exciting, considering the earlier events of the day, to have them as guests of honor at the noon table.
June, Cora and Michael were nowhere to be found. Millie said she would go get June from her room, but Old Ma made her sit to the table and eat. “June not up to eating with us this afternoon. She got to rest.” Millie didn’t believe her but realized that this was one of those things grown ups said when something was wrong and they wouldn’t explain it to young folks. Like a good girl she ate quietly and waited.
Millie knew grown ups couldn’t never keep a secret. They were going to start talking about it soon and forget she was there. So she ate her food in silence taking small ladylike bites like she had learned from June. The only thing opening wide were her ears. And she heard plenty.
“Came and got him off the field she did. Slapped him with her hand so hard I felt it myself. Started shouting at him something awful. Said he wasn’t going to ruin his life. . .”
“He took off running. Running from his mama. She was all crazy.”
“Screaming, screaming about some woman. I guess she’s ‘fraid Michael gon’ get married and not take care of her and Millie no more.”
A few heads turned to Millie but she sucked on her corn on the cob pretending she had not heard a word they said. Once they were busy talking again, Millie slipped away from the table mumbling: “Grown ups think they know everything.”
She wanted Michael to marry June so June could be her real sister and not just someone who played the game with her. She had been there when June cried because her sister was coming to take the baby. Millie had
heard Michael say he would marry her if she wanted to keep it.
Her mama was wrong. June wasn’t bad or spoiled. She could be in love with Michael if she wanted.
Since no one was paying attention to her, Millie ran around to the front of the house and slipped in the big doors and up the stairs. She tiptoed to June’s room and slowly opened the door. Inside a teary eyed June was packing a large valise.
“What you doing?” Millie asked fearing the worse. “What you doing, June?”
June wiped her reddened eyes and looked at the thick braids on the girl child’s head.
“I have to go Millie,” she said trying not to face the child. “It’s too much trouble, me being here.”
“No!” Millie screamed and ran in and hugged her around the waist, the force of the hug knocking June to the bed as tears filled the little girl’s eyes. “No, no, no,” she kept crying.
June tried to comfort her. To pat her head and cradle her the way Bira had cradled her. The way she had never done and would never do to Ophelia. “I was going to have to go back sooner or later, Millie. You knew that.”
“But you said you didn’t want to. You said you wanted to stay here with your baby.”
June sighed. “I had to give my baby to my sister. I told you it was for the best.”
Millie sniffed then added. “You said you wanted to stay with me and Michael.”
She waited for June to speak. She waited for June to say that she was staying that she would be there forever, that they would be sisters.
And June waited to find the words. For more than seven months Millie and Michael had been the biggest parts of June’s life. She taught Millie how to read, to take care of her hair, to be a dainty little lady. They were a big part of her life.
“I don’t want to cause problems here, like I caused at home.”
Michael, dear sweet Michael. After all they shared, after all his sweetness, there was one thing missing.
He wasn’t the Piano Man.
“I don’t belong here,” she told Millie. Then she stood and went back to her packing.
“You’re lying,” Millie screamed. “You’re lying. You mad ’cause my mama went into the field and got Michael and beat him ’cause he was with you and you don’t want him to get hurt and. . . .”
“Your mother did what?” Millie told what she had heard at the table.
“Is he all right? Did you go home to see. . .”
“He ain’t going to go home. He got a place he hides. It’s s’posed to be a secret but I followed him one day. . .”
“Take me to him.”
* * *
Michael sat in the rafter of the field house as his mother searched the town and the farm for him with maddening persistence. This had been his hiding place since he was little, and she had never found him. Deep in the corner wall of the rafters Michael had hidden all the things he held dear: three pennies that his father had given him as a child, dollar bills that he had been saving and a few strands of hair that he had stolen from June’s brush when she had been pregnant and asleep. His new shirt and vest tucked away in the corner, he decided to just lie there until it was dark.
That’s when he would go to June and take her away. It was what he dreamed of-being alone with her-for as long as he could remember. They would go to Montgomery, or even cross the border back to Georgia. Maybe Savannah where he heard it was real pretty and he could get work on boats.
June had told him she wanted to see the ocean. So had he. Perhaps this way. . .
“Michael,” the sweet voice called out. “Michael, are you here?”
It wasn’t his mother’s angry screaming voice. It was June. He peered down to see her standing there with Millie. “How can he hide in here, Millie? There’s no place to hide.”
Silently he went to the rope and slid down a beam in the dark corner. When he appeared they were both caught off guard. Millie jumped, but June ran to him and held him.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “Millie said your mother. . .”
“I’m leaving, June. I’m gonna leave and go to Savannah. I can work near the ocean. Come with me.”
June pulled away from him, stepped back closer to Millie and then said: “Millie, wait outside. Watch for your mother.”
Millie nodded, ran outside and hid behind a tree in case Cora was lurking nearby.
“I can’t go with you, Michael. You know that. I have to go back to Atlanta.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t even like your father. Your family treats you mean you said, ‘cept for your mother. They even made you give up your baby.”
June hung her head. “I don’t want to cry about Ophelia again.”
“You go with me, you marry me and we can do whatever we want.”
“Michael, I’m not sure I want to marry you.” A pain hit Michael’s chest. She felt it across the field house. “Or anybody.” There she had said it. Hard to say to such a sweet boy, such a sweet face. Hard to tell a man that was going to save you from yourself that you didn’t want him, didn’t need for him to save you.
Michael didn’t speak. “Your mother is right: I’m not good enough for you. You need a woman who’s going to be happy cleaning house and having a farm and having lots of babies. I’m not like that. I’d like to be at the juke every night. I’d like to never be pregnant again. I’d like to. . .”
“Then we’ll go out every night. I’m sure they got places like that in Savannah, if they got them here and in Atlanta. And we don’t have to have no children.” He pleaded: “I know how you feel. They can be a handful like Millie.”
June hesitated before she spoke. “I want to meet other men, Michael.”
The words fell on his soul like a stone. “I’m not ready to settle down yet Michael, that’s why they took my baby. That’s why I let them. I made one mistake. I don’t want to make another one.”
They stood in the field house in awkward silence. Suddenly Michael’s empty stomach growled reminding him that he had not eaten since dawn.
“I’m still going to Savannah,” he finally said with manly pride. “Just don’t tell Millie, or she’ll tell mama.”
June nodded in agreement. “When are you going?”
“When you going?” he asked her.
“Tonight. There’s a five o’clock train to Atlanta. . .” she sighed. “They sent me money weeks ago for me to come home. Fannie and Ella been telling them I ain’t up to coming back yet because I wasn’t ready.” She shook her head. “I’m still not ready.”
“Then don’t go back.” He moved to her touching her hair then her face for the last time. “Go where you want. The ocean, even if you ain’t gonna be with me. Or New York. You could sing. You got a pretty voice, June.”
She smiled at him. “It’ll just be more trouble if I don’t do what I’m supposed to do.”
He grabbed her and kissed her, longer and harder than ever before. “I guess we better get a move on.” He disappeared up the rope to the rafters, leaving June standing in the middle of the room wondering where he had gone.
She went outside and gathered Millie to walk to the house with her, where she sat at the table as prying eyes watched her eat a little of this and a little of that.
When Toby stood, she called to him. “I need to go to the train station today, Toby. There’s one that leaves at five.” When the stunned silence remained she lied. “They’re expecting me in Atlanta.”
Toby nodded and looked to Fannie and Ella who shook their heads for him to comply. People got up and went about their business, back to their jobs, back to the fields. But Madman Jeffries stayed and stared at the beautiful young thing.
When the table was empty and his men were flirting with the girls cleaning and washing the dishes, he got up and walked down the long stretch of mismatched chairs until he sat opposite the pretty doll taking ladylike bites of a biscuit.
“I hear you’re Peter Jenkins’, you know the Piano Man’s, sister-in-law.”
June looked up at him.
She hadn’t even noticed him before at the table. “Yes,” she said without expression.
“I hear you got a nice little voice, too.”
She stared at him as she placed her hands in her lap. “Who are you?”
Madman sighed at the lovely creature. “I’m Madman Jeffries. I got a band. We travel around, play a lot of places here and there. We going up north soon.”
“I see,” was all she would say.
“I could use a singer.” His smile was bright white and charming.
“You’ve never heard me sing so. . .”
“I know your brother-in-law. Got an eye for talent. Of all kinds.” June frowned and he regretted his comment. She wasn’t like one of those women he picked up on the road. Comments weren’t going to be enough. This one was a lady.
“What I mean is if Piano Man says you can sing, then I guess you can.” She said nothing, just stared at him, trying to size him up. “Besides a woman of your class and looks is bound to help me out even if you can’t sing real well.”
June laughed. She laughed loudly and very unladylike. “Yes, Mr. Jeffries, I have been known to turn heads, launch ships as well as sink them if you like. My reputation here is not the greatest and you’ve heard, I assume, about my father.”
Madman cleared his throat then leaned closer to her. “Sure have. But we ain’t going to Atlanta.”
June stopped laughing and looked at him seriously. “How long you in town, Mr. Jeffries.”
“Just tonight. I’m playing the local juke joint and then on my way. But. . .” again he gave her his most charming smile, “I got room in my ride for one more.”
June smiled back at him. “Mr. Jeffries, I will meet you at the juke tonight. But I won’t come in. Do you understand?”
He nodded yes, but he didn’t understand until later that evening. That’s when he saw Toby drive back onto the property saying that he had seen Miss June off to Atlanta. Madman figured that was the end of that and went on to the juke with most of Ella and Fannie’s folks in tow.
The Wilful Daughter Page 29
