“There are these guys who started teasing me back in grade school because of my name.”
“What’s wrong with Terry?” I asked.
“My real name is Tercel, like the car. My father owns a repair shop, and he says he didn’t see the point of having kids if they couldn’t advertise for him. My brother’s Seville, and my sister’s name is Cherokee.”
Though I’d never been formally introduced to Terry’s older sister, I had seen a lot of her. I’d once walked in on Cherokee Robinson buck naked with another woman’s fiancé in the gazebo behind Mama and Daddy’s house. I’d only known who she was because of the affair she was also having with Richmond Baker at the time. Clarice and I had laughed our asses off when we learned about the automobile-themed names Wayne Robinson had given his children. Of course, I wouldn’t mention any of that to Terry.
What is it with the Robinson family and gazebos?
Terry said, “They stopped with the car jokes. But if they catch me on the way to school when nobody’s around, they punch me and call me names.”
Looking at this soft-spoken boy with his girlish face and feminine movements, I could easily imagine the kinds of names the other boys were calling him.
Terry rubbed one of his hands over a short, military-style haircut that didn’t match his face or his personality. “A couple months ago, they started waiting at the end of my street almost every day. I’ve been leaving the house early and going a few blocks out of my way so I don’t run into them.”
From talking to Terry’s mother at the hospital, I had a vague sense of where the Robinsons lived. Terry’s morning detour was more than “a few blocks.” By swinging through my backyard, he was adding at least forty minutes to his walk every day.
“Have you hidden out here before?” I asked.
He began tracing the toe of his shoe over the floorboards and wouldn’t make eye contact with me.
“Have you hidden here before?” I asked again.
He muttered, “A couple times.”
Mama, who had been uncharacteristically quiet as I talked with Terry, finally put in her two cents. She rose from her seat on the bench. Then she turned toward Terry and me and began to preach the Gospel According to Mama.
“He needs to learn to fight. Tell him he’s gonna have to fight or those bullies’ll think they can whoop his ass whenever they want to. He’s skinny, but there’s still stuff he can do. Your daddy was a little guy, and the bigger boys liked to mess with him when we were kids. He couldn’t really fight worth a damn, but he wouldn’t stop swingin’ and punchin’ even if they had him on the ground. It finally dawned on those bad boys that if your daddy ever caught one of ’em alone, he was gonna beat ’im half dead. So they left him alone. They went lookin’ for somebody who wouldn’t fight back.
“Also he should start carryin’ a knife. Or I could get your aunt Marjorie to come over and demonstrate how to make a shiv out of a sharpened spoon and some duct tape. A good homemade shiv is some scary-lookin’ shit.”
Mama meant well. But her advice often involved doing things that can lead to injury or imprisonment. And Aunt Marjorie was even more dangerous. Mama had a point about the boy learning to fight, though. The first time James and I noticed that our son Eric stared up at the mural of hot, bare-chested Jesus at Clarice’s church the same way his sister did, we saw to it that he could hit back hard at anybody who messed with him. Plainview isn’t New York City. Some kids have a much tougher time here than others.
I thought Terry should try other solutions before he armed himself. “Maybe we should talk to your father about this,” I said.
Terry jumped up from the bench. He walked through Mama and shouted, “No!” as if I had just suggested that he set his hair on fire. “You can’t tell my father!”
I held up my open palms and spoke slowly and quietly. “I’m not going to tell him. But this is the kind of thing fathers can be good at fixing.”
He came back to the bench and sat down again. “I can’t talk to him,” he said. “Things’ll get a lot worse if my father knows.”
“Does he hit you?”
“He doesn’t hit me. He just hates me.”
I doubted that Terry’s father hated him, but I didn’t argue. Whether what Terry had said was true or not, I could tell by the look in his eyes that he believed it. In light of what happened later, I’m glad I didn’t try to tell him that he was wrong about Wayne Robinson.
“My dad hates me,” Terry repeated. “But my mother likes me. So it’s okay.”
“Sweetheart,” I said, “there’s not a single thing okay about that, either it being true or just you believing it. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”
I could feel myself inching toward matters that were none of my business, as has always been my habit. So I changed the subject.
“You used to take piano with Clarice, huh?”
“Until last winter,” Terry said.
“Hopefully, you can start again when your mother gets well,” I said, though I didn’t think his mother would recover. When Mama had accompanied me to the infusion room at the hospital, Mrs. Roosevelt had tagged along. The former first lady was still driven to comfort the dying, and Gail Robinson’s weak condition never failed to draw her attention.
The sun’s angle had changed enough that more light came into the gazebo through the lattice on the eastern walls. The shadows softened, and there was less glare pouring in from the open archway. “They’ve probably stopped looking for me,” Terry said.
“I’m in no rush,” I said. “Since you’re late anyway, why don’t you come on inside and have a snack? Maybe we can find a way to make the situation with those boys a little better.” Terry looked so relieved that I thought he might throw his arms around me.
“Good,” Mama said. She was still standing in front of me and still in the mood for battle. “While you’re eatin’, give this boy some tips. If you want, I can show you how he can take care of those boys with a bicycle chain and a rock.”
Instead of advising this sweet boy to commit a felony, I began covertly packing away the accessories of my own misdemeanor. The last thing I needed was for a teenager to start spreading the word that I had a supply of weed. As nonchalantly as I could, I pushed the marijuana back into the glass jar and tucked the rolling machine beneath my arm.
As he followed Mama and me toward the house, Terry said, “I saw what you were doing.”
His words gave me a jolt, but I kept walking. I thought of my policeman husband, totally sympathetic to my situation but still a cop. Cancer or no, word getting out about his wife smoking pot would mean trouble for James.
But Terry Robinson saw me through the eyes of a kid, a perspective that didn’t allow for a chubby old woman like me to have more marijuana on hand than the most glassy-eyed of the young stoners at his high school. “Tobacco kills almost half a million Americans a year, Mrs. Henry,” Terry said. “You really shouldn’t go near that stuff.”
With my hand resting on the little jar of marijuana in my pocket, I said, “You’re right, Terry. And I appreciate your concern. You have my solemn promise that I will never touch tobacco as long as I live.”
Having guided my feet to the straight, narrow, and tobacco-free path, Terry expanded his chest like a proud soldier displaying his medals. I liked that my promise seemed to make him happy. The next vow I made to Terry proved to be more troublesome.
CHAPTER 8
Clarice lifted her hands from the keyboard and allowed the sound of the final chord of Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata to echo in the room and reverberate through her body. That had been good. More than good. Every phrase, every note had been shaped just the way she’d wanted it to be. She’d luxuriated in the sensation that came over her when she was playing extraordinarily well, the feeling that she was making it up as she played, rather than interpreting the notation.
Here in her living room at seven in the morning, everything came so easily. But lately, her great performances traveled n
o farther. In front of a live, listening audience, the risk taking and experimentation that had always made the experience of playing the piano so thrilling deserted her.
Even if some special moments occurred during the overly careful music making she presented to the public, she wasn’t likely to be aware of them. These days, when she sat down in front of an audience to play, nearly all she heard was the pounding of her heart.
Over the years, she’d been hounded by worries over her parenting skills, her religious devotion, and her value as a wife. None of those insecurities had ever taunted her when she played, though. The outside world had gone silent and all doubts had vanished the moment her fingers touched ivory. Until recently. Irrational fear had taken root in her brain, and no amount of common sense could quiet the sharp-tongued critic in her head. After years of fantasizing about a performing career, she had one. Now the voice in her head was determined to force her to admit that she didn’t deserve it.
Worse, Clarice had to wonder if the story she had told herself most of her life—that it was her mother and then her husband who had kept her feeling trapped and frightened all those years—might have been false. Between her mother’s constant criticism and Richmond’s unceasingly maddening behavior, they had made it easy for her to blame them for every twinge of anxiety she felt. But it wasn’t Beatrice or Richmond who tormented her with the question “Who do you think you are?” Clarice listened to the taunting words in her head with a musician’s keen ear, and she knew her own voice when she heard it.
Just as Clarice had begun discovering that Richmond might have been miscast as the villain in her inner drama, she had recognized a better role for him. With the Chicago concert looming, she had developed a habit of calling Richmond late at night and inviting him over. And when he arrived at her door, Richmond could barely say hello before she was on him, insisting that he get to work. She’d done just that last night. Richmond, who could sleep through the most thunderous sonata, lay snoozing upstairs in her bed.
Clarice understood that her solution to the stresses of her new life was fraught with potential complications. Richmond saw each night he spent with her as a step toward reunion. She knew that allowing him to continue believing that would likely lead to trouble. But every time that mean little orator in her head enumerated the reasons she should doubt herself, it was followed up by a louder voice that hollered, “Get Richmond over here, right now!”
Richmond had proved better at calming her nerves than any pill. So she’d decided to worry about the potential side effects from her remedy later.
Clarice turned away from the piano and stood. She thought about going back upstairs and returning to bed, but instead she walked to the couch. The distance was short, since her grand piano, the one piece of furniture she had added to the house after she’d rented it from Odette, dominated the space. Two long strides brought her to the overstuffed sofa and the coffee table that had been there since Clarice had visited Odette in this room when they were girls.
When Clarice had first rented the house, Odette had told her that she was free to redecorate as she chose. But Clarice’s needs were simple, and she liked keeping things the way they had been when Miss Dora and Mr. Jackson had lived here. She also supposed that she hadn’t really believed at the time that she was in the house to stay. Certainly Richmond had expected her to come home. As it turned out, though, living on her own for the first time in her life had proved to be much more fulfilling than she had anticipated. Now she couldn’t imagine leaving.
Odette’s father had built the house himself, and he’d had a good time putting it together. The house looked as if Mr. Jackson had made his construction decisions by flipping coins and rolling dice. Rooms were circular, triangular, trapezoidal, and pentagonal. Some doorways were delicately arched, while others were pointed on top like dunce caps. As a consequence, Clarice supposed, of the strangely shaped and seemingly randomly placed windows with their multicolored glass, sunrise brought spectacular splashes of color inside every morning.
Clarice remembered how her own parents had laughed about this place. “Good Lord, the man has built a carnival funhouse over there,” her mother had once said.
She had been partly right. The house was designed to delight. But it was also built solidly. Never a leak or a draft, whatever the weather. Perhaps if Beatrice could see the rainbow that the sun had painted on the ceiling above Clarice’s head, she might understand how magical this home was.
From the moment Clarice had come to live here, the house had seemed to cry out for music. Between her own practicing and the playing of her students, the rooms were regularly filled with classical melodies. But what the house demanded was the heat and abandon of the blues, the music that had poured from the stereo or the radio every time Clarice had come by the house to see Odette when they were girls. Maybe that was what she should do to celebrate this morning’s Beethoven: put one of the blues recordings she’d bought after moving in on the stereo or return to the keyboard and play one of the two blues songs in her repertoire.
The phone rang before she could make a decision. When she answered, her cousin Veronica skipped over any exchange of greetings and said, “You’re talking to one of the four new associate pastors of First Baptist Church.”
Plainview’s fertile Baptist rumor mill had spoiled Veronica’s surprise before Clarice had gone to bed the previous night. Several members of her cousin’s church had called with the story of how, at a poorly attended deacons’ meeting, Veronica and three other deacons had promoted themselves to the ceremonial post of associate pastor. Rather than tell her prickly cousin that she already knew about her new title or that she’d heard that the church’s congregation was reacting to the elevation of their new associate pastors with a mixture of amusement and mockery, Clarice said, “Congratulations.”
“If this doesn’t prove to you that Madame Minnie has the gift, I don’t know what will. She predicted this,” Veronica said.
A year ago, Minnie had lost patience with Veronica for using her fortune-telling appointments to complain that her church didn’t appreciate her unique spiritual insights. Minnie had shouted, “If you can’t shut the hell up, then get your own damn church.”
Having interpreted Minnie’s outburst as a prophecy that she would soon lead her own flock, Veronica had promptly enrolled in an online divinity school. Now, degree in hand, she was ready to save souls at First Baptist. The congregation’s continued resistance to her efforts to facilitate their salvation was, she believed, a clear indication of how badly they needed saving.
“I’ve got all kinds of ideas for the church. I’ll show you my list when I come over later.”
With each word Veronica spoke, Clarice’s Beethoven buzz faded further. She said, “Today’s not the best time for me. I’ve got a lot of practicing to do for the hospital recital next week.”
“Oh please, Clarice, it’s not like you’ve got a real job. You can play the piano anytime. I’ll bring you the pictures of Apollo that Sharon sent the other day. They’re the cutest ones yet. You will just die.”
Clarice’s free hand tapped imaginary piano keys on her knee. She’s my blood and I love her. She’s my blood and I love her.
“Veronica, today isn’t good for me.”
“I’ll bring Aunt Beatrice with me, and we can look at the pictures together. It’ll be fun. I’ll be there around four.”
Veronica and Mother. Veronica hung up before Clarice could speak another word.
The tension Clarice had shaken off with the aid of the Waldstein Sonata took hold of her again. Back to the piano for more Beethoven? Or maybe blaring some Mississippi blues from the stereo might relax her. Rejecting those options, she rose from the sofa and headed up the stairs to the bedroom where Richmond lay.
He was sleeping on his side. The bedcovers were bunched at his waist, and his bare chest was exposed. There was no mistaking that he had once been an athlete. Even though he was asleep, the musculature of his body suggested that he
might at any second leap from the bed in some thrilling acrobatic motion.
This was her Richmond. The only man she had ever loved, though that hadn’t always seemed like the brightest idea. She would never know the total number of affairs he’d had. Hell, maybe he didn’t know, either. There had been decades filled with nights when he didn’t bother to come home, countless calls from strange women, rumors that made their way to her ears, anonymous letters from writers who claimed to be concerned friends.
Still, she had stayed with him. When she’d finally left, it’d had relatively little to do with Richmond. She had walked out because she just couldn’t stand herself anymore.
She’d felt a cold rage toward Richmond for years by the time she left him. But her ire had inspired more exhaustion than histrionics. And anger wasn’t the reason she continued to refuse to return home. She stayed in her Leaning Tree rental because she could no longer picture herself in her old house and her old life. She had left home just the way her children had—first Ricky, then Abe, then the twins, Carolyn and Carl. They had matured and stepped out into the world just the way they were supposed to. When Clarice’s turn came, she had taken off, too.
Looking down at Richmond with the red and orange light from one of Mr. Jackson’s prism windows painting his face, it was difficult for Clarice to think of anything but the good times and easy to imagine that more of them lay ahead. But the indications were that Richmond was about to ruin everything.
Suddenly he needed to know how she felt all the time. And he wouldn’t accept “fine” as an answer. “No, really, Clarice, I want to know what you’re thinking. I want to know how you feel.” It was like being cross-examined by a dogged, lovesick hippie.
Then, after almost forty years of having half the bed to herself every night, Richmond suddenly wanted to cuddle. As soon as she got comfortable, there he was, enveloping her in a wrestling hold. With his hot breath against her neck, his stubble scratching her shoulder, newly sensitive Richmond was a chore to sleep with.
The Supremes Sing the Happy Heartache Blues Page 8
