Heartstrings in B-Flat Minor

by Scott Johnson

  “Nothing to it,” she beams from behind the wheel. “Where next?”

  Sterling turns around for a peek at the semi bearing down on them. Not exactly enjoying the view or the ride, he answers, “Armitage and Western, more or less. I’m staying with my cousins for the summer in a two-flat my uncle owns.”

  She smiles. “One big happy family!”

  “Ah, yeah, that’s us. Especially with my sister and her kid living in the other flat.”

  “How nice!”

  “If you say so.”

  At the Kennedy Expressway junction, traffic grinds to a halt. The reversible lanes flow north this time of day, offering no help. There’s no choice but to gut out the bumper-to-bumper madness that creeps into all commuters’ heads. They inch along herky-jerky in first gear.

  Sterling snipes, “This is more your car’s speed.”

  “Very funny.”

  The skies open up more than ever, spitting little balls of hail that ricochet off the Renault like a barrage of pebbles against a Quonset hut. Water begins to leak through Sterling’s door seals. Despite being a bundle of exposed raw nerves, he can’t help but laugh.

  He teases, “I didn’t know there was a wrong side of the tracks in Hubbard Woods, but that has to be the answer for this car being in your possession!”

  “You can start walking anytime, big shot.”

  The downpour continues. “Any other day, I just might’ve done that.”

  Bogged-down traffic provides plenty of chitchat time for them to get to know each other. Finally, nearing Addison, a reason for the jam, additional to the rain, becomes apparent. Up ahead, a wrecked car is blocking the two right lanes, and a tow truck is maneuvering to hook it. Traffic funnels down even more to one lane on the left shoulder.

  Sheryl gripes, “Every time I come down this way, there’s some wreck or other.”

  Sterling counters, “Every time I come down this way, I’m heading home.”

  She blushes with embarrassment. “Hey, you know I didn’t mean anything by that.”

  “Of course not,” Sterling sarcastically replies.

  They see a parked squad car on the opposite shoulder, rooftop lights flashing. A cop at the wheel is dealing with the wreck’s troubled driver, who sits in the backseat, head bowed. All commuters creep along even slower now around the wreck site, single-file. Finally, the Renault reaches the other side of the accident. Sheryl directs her attention down the road, letting the clutch slip while shifting less than smoothly. Lanes open up quickly to normal, and she hits the gas.

  Sterling looks faint. “Lord, save us,” he prays aloud.

  Once they are past the mess, it’s relatively clear sailing, except for the relentless deluge still pounding the car. Sheryl is glad that they’re past the accident but anxious to leave the expressway. They continue along with the pace of traffic to Armitage, finally exiting and turning west toward Western.

  Sheryl thinks the aging retail, residential, and industrial mix looks as foreign as anyplace abroad. She’s never been here before, and being in a French car only heightens her sense of being on an imaginary foreign adventure somewhere. Unrelenting rain accentuates the oddness of her afternoon and how it has strayed from usual routines. She normally would have long since been home by now. For sure, she’ll have to cook up a story for her mom and dad whenever she does get home. With all the heavy storm activity, Sheryl realizes that her mom even could be worrying right now.

  “We’re getting close,” Sterling warns, interrupting her trance.

  She snaps to attention. “Oh, great!”

  “Yeah, we’re almost there—a couple more blocks. Look for Oakley and take a left.”

  Minutes later, they’re double-parked in front of a run-down two-flat in a neighborhood showing early signs of revival.

  “Not exactly Hubbard Woods, eh?” says Sterling.

  Sheryl gives him a cheery smile. “What’s the difference? Home is where the heart is, right?”

  “You’re good, girl. Never at a loss for words.”

  “Hey, I mean it. We’re all at home in God’s kingdom, anyway; that’s how I look at it.”

  “You’ve hit the nail on the head.”

  Sheryl feels instantly flushed, paranoid over having brought religious metaphors into the conversation so early in their friendship.

  But Sterling continues the line of conversation. “So … about that God’s kingdom stuff, I mean … that’s how I’ve always felt too.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. But I was too shy ever to mention God stuff to anyone before.”

  “You, shy? Come on now. I’m not that naive.”

  Unflinchingly, he looks into her blue-gray eyes, and with a fortuitous rumble of biblical-style thunder in the background, he says softly, “Honestly, that’s how I feel. We’re all in this together, under God’s direction, if only we will listen. If we don’t listen, well, that’s trouble.”

  “That’s sweet, Sterling. How nice to meet a man who’s not embarrassed to say so.”

  “The pleasure is all mine, girl. Anyway, Sheryl, I can’t believe you’ve hauled me all this way home. Otherwise, I’d still be on the train, hoping to be on time to catch my next bus.”

  “Well,” laughs Sheryl, “we couldn’t have had all that, right?”

  “That’s for sure. With all this rain, who knows when I might’ve gotten home? Meeting you has been a real blessing,” he says sincerely.

  “Let’s call it a dual blessing, for both of us.” With her mind on getting home and an eye on the mirror for any car coming up, Sheryl adds, “I’ll be seeing you around the plant then, Sterling.”

  “That’ll be nice, Sheryl.”

  A neighbor’s car approaches in search of parking.

  With one foot outside, Sterling asks, “Are you clear on how to get home from here?”

  “No problem. I’ll just retrace my tracks. Nice to have met you.”

  “Same here. Drive careful,” he advises, exiting to the leafy cover of an old oak tree.

  Sheryl waves and then lurches forward in first, fantasizing about introducing her family to Sterling someday. Images from Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner flash through her mind. She laughs aloud to the pounding wipers’ beat. What a good time she’s been having. However, by Western and Armitage, rush hour in the rain brings her back to her senses: standstill.

  Chapter 2

  UNCLE AUSTIN

  Weeks pass at work with Sheryl and Sterling crossing paths only as called for in the course of their jobs. Makeup Is Us romances are discouraged to little avail, but for the sake of propriety, they don’t act overly familiar. However, the titillating excitement factor of their secret friendship is undeniable, and it helps them pass the days. Unbeknownst to Sheryl, though, Sterling has similar games going, at different stages of play, with a number of her seasonal coworkers.

  One Friday in the teeming lunchroom, they find themselves eating together at a table alone. While exchanging opening pleasantries, each casually scans for potential eavesdroppers. Thanks to clanking dishes in the cafeteria line and the general racket of the crowd, they feel detached amid it all, on their own little island. Dylan serenades them, piped in over speakers.

  Sterling offers, “Hard to believe summer’s already half over. After our little drive through the monsoon, I’d have thought we might’ve spent more time together by now.”

  “Same here—how’s your summer going outside of this place?”

  “Not bad. How about you?”

  “I’ve been busy, but lately I’m getting nervous about returning to school.”

  “Why? It’s not like you’ll be a freshman and a stranger in a strange land.”

  “Ah, but you’re wrong, sort of. I’m no freshman, true, but I just did my junior year in Frankfort, and I feel like I’ll be starting all over—like a stranger
in a strange land.”

  “Hey, you didn’t tell me about doing last year abroad. That must’ve been wild.”

  “I don’t know about wild, but it was the experience of my lifetime, for sure. Now, though, it already seems like ages ago and like I’m back to square one.”

  An air horn sounds to mark the end of lunch. Time to go back to work. Sterling gripes, “Damn, who can eat that fast?”

  As they slowly gather up their garbage, Sterling suggests, “Listen, I have an errand to run in Evanston tomorrow. I’m taking the L and will be done around two. Want to meet up when I’m done and hang out awhile?”

  “Sure,” she quickly confirms. “Sounds cool.”

  The next day, the two meet at Fountain Square in downtown Evanston. It is a bright and sunny afternoon, and they walk the lakefront at Dawes Park before retrieving Sheryl’s Renault to wander northward through Northwestern’s campus to historic Grosse Point Lighthouse. Finally, they end up at the awe-inspiring Baha’i Temple overlooking Wilmette Harbor.

  Following a pathway dotted with tourists around the nine-sided temple, one of only seven such temples around the world, they drop out of the crowd at a bench overlooking a reflecting pool. Surrounding them is one of nine replicating gardens that fan out from the temple’s nine identical wall faces. The westernmost wall hints of pink in the late-afternoon sun angle.

  “Isn’t this gorgeous?” Sheryl chirps with enthusiasm.

  “Unreal. I had no idea this place existed.”

  “We call it the Orange Squeezer.”

  “I can see it. But it’s like a postcard from the Middle East. Have you been inside?”

  “Yes, and it’s as beautiful inside as it is outside. You’d be hard-pressed to find anything comparable, anywhere.”

  “Do they have tours?”

  “Of course—and a full gift shop too.”

  “Is the temple open to outsiders for worship?”

  “Yes, again, and they also give introductory talks on Sundays. It’d be worth your while to check it out. I’ll come back with you tomorrow, if you want.”

  “My, you really are a fount of knowledge—a tour guide in the making!”

  “You’re getting to know me already.”

  What Sterling, young con artist on the rise from the projects, already is getting to know is that Sheryl seems to have an interest in religion on top of her drive for academic and career achievements. Basking in the sun, he thanks God for his having hit such a mother lode of potential with her as a possible mark. He can’t help but excitedly think of the numerous times Uncle Austin, his mentor and a career confidence man, has stressed the value of preying upon highly religious women.

  “It’s their unsuspecting nature,” Austin has often preached, “and an unnatural desire to turn around troubled souls that make for perfect conditions of gullibility.” This combination of traits, according to Austin, makes it easy to get a foot in the door and earn their trust while also making it easy to regain them to your side if true motives are discovered: a win-win, Sterling concludes. It was also Austin’s suggestion that Sterling take the Makeup Is Us summer gig, for which Austin pulled strings to get his protégé the job.

  I’ll be eternally grateful, Sterling silently pledges to the absent Uncle Austin. Austin’s overall idea sees the packaging plant as a perfect recruiting site for future marks for his enterprising nephew. There he can line them up, some short-term, some for the long haul, still others as possible time-release reconnection projects in the future. At this stage with Sheryl, she could be any one of the three, or nothing, but signs are promising. It’s all about prospecting.

  Returning to the moment, Sterling asks, “How do you feel about some of the various religions of the world, like the Baha’i faith?”

  “All legitimate faiths that have their basis in God and His goodness are wonderful. Essentially, they all stress the advancement of His most basic principle, the Golden Rule.”

  Sterling nods in apparent admiration. “That’s easy to absorb.” Momentarily, he forgets that this discussion started out as a tactic of his. Looking at Sheryl in the bright sunlight at this magnificent temple of worship, he’s overcome with an unfamiliar rush of holy thoughts and admiration, all for her. He fears becoming diverted from his game plan. “I hope you don’t mind if I say you look beautiful here, inside and out.”

  Sheryl flushes. “Say away.”

  He strikes out on a follow-up remark, taken aback by his romantic feelings for Sheryl.

  “Care to step into my Father’s temple?” she asks him.

  “Of course.” He melts, and thinking Lord knows what, Sterling reaches for her hand. She takes it. He’s surprised at his racing heartbeat as they ascend the temple stairs. Man, there’s something different about how I feel for this mark, he thinks as he opens the door for her. He’s recognizing conflicting romantic emotions he was warned of while being tutored on how to fleece unsuspecting, moneyed, young north-suburban women. Uncle Austin would not be pleased, he thinks.

  Way across Chicagoland, a black Sedan DeVille pulls up to park in front of the Bucktown two-flat on Oakley. Its lone occupant is the driver, Austin Jones, a tall black man in his early fifties who still thinks of himself as the all-American hotshot basketball player he once was. A slight hitch in his gait betrays a long-ago injury that sent him to the bench for good, no degree in hand. He goes to the lower flat entrance and lets himself inside with his own key.

  Austin takes over the dining room table playing solitaire. Through partially drawn drapery, he spots some French tin can of a car slowing to double-park in front of his property. With one eye on his cards and the other outside, he sees his nephew, Sterling, embrace a blonde woman at the wheel and hop outside full of energy. As the pair talk through the open window, Austin observes that the blonde is young and beautiful.

  “That’s my boy,” Austin beams to the empty room as the car pulls away.

  The front door opens, and Sterling walks in smiling. “Hey, Uncle Austin. I see you got the Caddy all cleaned up. Big deal going on tonight?”

  “Could be. You know me—always something going on. What about you, nephew? Who’s the mark in the tin can out there?”

  Sterling laughs at the car reference. “Yeah, that car’s a piece of work, huh? You should take a ride in it, for laughs.”

  Austin chuckles. “Not for laughs or money would you ever find me in such a thing. I sure hope the path that plunked you into its seat is paved with gold.”

  “Is Hubbard Woods gold enough?”

  Austin bestows a look of approval on his favorite nephew. “Yes, that sounds plenty fine enough to me. Is she a summer job acquaintance?”

  “Absolutely, but I’m thinking of her as kind of a future draft choice. There are a couple others ahead of her in the priming process.”

  “Well, that may be all well and good, but you make sure to touch her up this summer for some small sum—understand me? Just to set precedent for those future plans you mention. Plant a seed. You can’t let these sorts of things go to chance.”

  “I hear you, Uncle.”

  “You know what I’m talking about—gotta set the hook. Then you play the line a little.”

  “Makes perfect sense. Don’t worry, I’ll do it.”

  “That’s the spirit. I’m keepin’ the faith.” Austin lays down a few cards, thinking something seems different about the way his nephew is talking about this girl, like maybe he’s holding back on something about Hubbard Woods gold. “Have a seat, son,” he suggests.

  Sterling takes a seat at the table.

  Austin looks up from his cards and drills him with a stare that’s honed and confident from having looked down its share of gun barrels. “You wouldn’t be holding back on me about that blonde now, would you, boy?”

  “Holding back? Like what, Uncle? She’s just another mark in the making. Don’t forget—
it’s you who’s always taught me to evaluate my marks like cards in my hands and to play them out according to their merits. That’s all I’m doing.”

  “Don’t be talking like no teacher’s pet to me, Sterling. If there’s something else about her, like you think you’ve found true romance with her or some such nonsense, spit it out.”

  “Hey, she’s a doll, I’ll admit, totally undeserving of being conned like she’s gonna be. But you have to understand just how right you were about that plant job being a breeding ground of golden suburban marks for me. Hell, it’s all I can do to juggle them without everyone starting to compare notes.”

  Austin grins and shakes his head in approval. “I always knew you had it in you, Sterling. Too bad I can’t say the same about my own pitiful spawn. That sister of mine had twice the spunk of your aunt Esther.”

  “Thanks, Uncle.”

  Austin’s face saddens. “I still get choked up thinking about that fool father of yours and how he wasted the both of them there in the streets—nearly taking you with them.” Austin lays down his cards and wipes away a tear. “Losing a sibling, boy—that’s something you never really get over. You worry about your kids night and day, but somehow you never stop to worry about your own brothers and sisters. I’ve lost three and can’t believe it to this day.”

  Sterling hates it when his hero gets all soft like this, something Austin does only in front of him. Although Sterling is grateful for the closeness this signals, he can’t stand the urge it engenders within him to cry too. His eyes well up, but he fights off tears just at the brink. Talking, he figures, will help stem the flow. “Uncle, I wish I could’ve known them better, all of them—my parents, my aunties, and my other uncle. Thank God you were there to catch me.”

  “Amen, and I remain here for you today, son.” Austin breathes deeply, picks up his cards, and resumes playing as though there were no emotional break. In a strong voice he assures his nephew, “That’s what family’s all about, Sterling. Now, where are those two boys of mine this fine Saturday?”

  “I wish I knew, Uncle. They don’t check in with me.”