“Uh-huh.”
“And how when he first saw me—he described everything I wore!”
“Those kneesocks?”
“He said they were cute.”
“Guy talk for ‘I want some.’”
“No, no, no. He remembered them down to the color.”
“Okay, okay. ʼNuff socks. Then what?”
“He pulled me close to him and was caressing my arms. I can’t tell you how crazy that made me.”
“Arms?”
“And rubbing my back.”
“Um-hm, um-hm.”
“And talking all that good talk and kissing my neck. Stacey’s lips so soft and sweet, not too wet but just right, you know?”
“Yup, uh-huh.”
“And he held me tight and I felt . . . I felt his . . . him.”
“You felt his rod?” Gayle blurted out. “Bet Stacey hung like Donkey Kong. What next?”
“Keep your voice down.” Cookie’s eyes raced to the door, expecting to see her father. Her cheeks plummed. She couldn’t talk. Not freely like Gayle.
Gayle missed girlfriend talking. She needed it and couldn’t see what was holding Cookie back.
“Well?”
“That’s it. Nothing happened,” she said unconvincingly. “I mean, it could have. If Stacey said, Let’s go to my dorm, I would have gone.”
“Dag, Cookie. You sixteen, right? Overdue if you ask me.”
Cookie opened her mouth to disagree, an automatic reaction, then closed it. She was making that clicking sound deep in her throat. Gayle nudged her to make her stop.
“I can’t help it. I’m nervous.”
“Nervous?”
“Look, Cousin. I know you don’t understand how I feel—you not being saved—”
“Scuse my unsaved ass.”
“See what I mean? Now, if you were saved you’d know I’m fighting a war inside. You’d know why I can’t just let go.”
“You’re right, Cuz. I don’t understand. You got some college dude puppy-dogging you, taking you places, treating you like gold, and you won’t do your part ’cause you saved? Least tell me you scared of getting bit by AIDS or you scared of getting caught. Saved? Saved? What’s that?”
“If you were saved you’d know. I’m in too deep and you can’t help me. You don’t understand.”
“Try me.”
Cookie searched Gayle’s face. She collected herself. “Last Sunday in church. Remember ‘Nearer to Thee’ and how I was getting into it?”
“Who could forget? Brought the house down. Only wish Great could have been there.”
“Well, before I sing, I get peaceful inside, you know? Peaceful like a still pond. When the organ is playing and the choir is moaning, a feeling comes over me. You know that goose-pimply feeling that crawls over you for no reason at all and makes you turn around to see who’s there? Well, I know who’s there. It’s the Holy Ghost. And I don’t try to control it. I just let it take over. I get filled with the Holy Ghost and I sing.”
Cookie was now aware of Gayle’s eyes, suspicious, squinting, unable to follow.
“Well, last Sunday . . . last Sunday I wasn’t filled with the Holy Ghost. I was singing because I knew Stacey was out there. I closed my eyes and heard his voice telling me to go on.”
Gayle stared blankly, put off by the melodrama. She was waiting to hear some life-and-death dilemma. Not about some Holy Ghost.
“I’m in trouble,” Cookie said. “I don’t even know myself anymore.”
“Cuz, you in love. That ain’t trouble.”
Cookie mouthed, “No,” certain now more than ever that Gayle couldn’t understand. She grabbed her pillow and pressed it against her stomach.
“So what you gonna do?” Gayle asked.
Cookie squeezed the pillow. “Talk to Mama.”
Gayle stared Cookie down. “Do your ears know what your mouth just said? I can hear Miss Auntie now: ‘Sweetie pie, hoes don’t go to heaven, so glue your business shut till you get married.’”
Ordinarily that would have been worth a chuckle, but Cookie just sat hunched over the pillow, biting her nails.
“See, Cookie, you get me sick. Why you gotta drag your mother in on this?”
“Mama’s okay,” Cookie assured her. “I can tell her anything.”
“You believe that?”
Cookie nodded.
“Talk to me,” Gayle pleaded. “I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
“Mama will help me think things out.”
“Think things out? You need to stop thinking so hard and go while it’s flowing.”
Cookie smiled wryly. “You would say that. Don’t you ever think what your life would be like if you never had a baby?”
“Life without my baby? No!” Gayle cried. “He’s my world.”
“I meant, you’d still have your life ahead of you to finish school, go to college, meet someone really nice, travel.”
Gayle threw back her head and laughed, relieved the tension was now broken by Cookie’s silliness. “Cookie, stop watching those commercials! If I didn’t have José I wouldn’t be thinking ’bout no college or sailing ’cross the seven seas. And for meeting someone ‘nice.’ I’d rather smell a guy coming than get tripped up by a ‘nice’ game.”
Cookie wasn’t listening. Gayle could see that. Her head was in the pillow and she was humming, as if to block Gayle out.
“So you going to tell Miss Auntie you all hot in the butt.”
Cookie tapped Gayle’s leg.
“You get me sick, Cookie. Tell, why doncha.”
At least Miss Great was in a mood for talking and wanted some recipe. After she had her fill she passed the mason jar to Gayle. “Go ’head. Sip. It’ll wash that blue on out.”
Gayle no longer wondered how Great knew things. She raised the jar to her lips and sipped.
“What’s the matter, baby? Heart broke?”
Gayle sat up closer to Great. No one had ever broken her heart before. And it was Cookie of all people.
“Cookie get me sick, Miss Great. All she knows is Stacey. Wanna save on ’lectricity? Say ‘Stacey’ ’round Cookie and see if the house don’t light up.”
“All hot and stupid on love, is she?”
“That ain’t even the worse part. I help get him for her and she throws me over ’cause I don’t understand. I ain’t saved. I think we getting closer and she leaves me behind.”
“Cookie ain’t leave you. There’s no leaving family.”
“Mama left.”
Great made a low grunt. “You here. The baby here. Right foot step, the left drag behind it.”
“Mama ain’t moving down Souf. That I know for sure.”
Another grunt. “Better listen to what I know: Ruthie be here soon enough. . . .”
Gayle watched Great’s eyelids flicker, then close. She returned the half-empty mason jar to its hiding place, then stood at the window nearest Great’s bed to stare out past the gate. She didn’t bother with the window on the opposite side of the room. She had no desire to gaze east at the patch of field where the crosses grew.
Voices came from below. Gayle looked down. Cookie and Miss Auntie stepped out from the porch and started toward the gate.
Miss Auntie gonna beat Cookie’s butt good. Tear down one of those peach tree branches and switch Cookie’s butt purple.
Gayle watched the hems of their skirts dip left and right as they strolled lazily beyond the gate. Once off the property they removed their flats and continued barefoot, occasionally bumping hips from walking so close to each other. Miss Auntie put her arm around Cookie’s neck, pretending to choke her daughter, and Cookie screamed “Mommmeeee!” loud and silly. They separated and came together before disappearing into the woods, taking their mother-daughter talk with them.
18
GAYLE LICKED ANOTHER ENVELOPE, confident that her girls would write back. So what if the only letters that had arrived up until now were penned in Mama’s heavy-handed scrawl. Terri and Lynda
could not be blamed if booming rhythms under the August sun forced them out into the streets day and night. At least Lynda and Terri had the decency to lose track of her from a thousand miles away. They hadn’t forgotten her to her face like some so-called sister-cousin who was never there.
That’s why Cookie could never be down like a homegirl. Instead of being tight with Gayle, Cookie let people come between them. First it was the Lord. Then Stacey. And when they talked about sex, something Gayle could contribute her full knowledge to, Cookie went running to her mother, of all people.
If it weren’t for the iffy promise of driving lessons, Gayle wouldn’t have bothered to pack up José to tag along with Cookie for choir practice.
“’Bout those driving lessons,” Gayle brought up as they drove into town. “I know yawl southerner born with a steering wheel in your hands, so while I’m here might as well get with the customs. I got the basics down pat: seat belts on, start ’er up, check the mirror, throw it in drive, vroom. Just take me to an open lot or some back road.”
Cookie’s “maybe later” made Gayle fold her arms and pop her gum. It sounded like no to her.
Cookie apologized. “I’m just so nervous,” she explained. “I haven’t seen Stacey since the pond and we have to talk. Take it slow. Last night Mama said, Be in control of yourself, Be in control of your life. Mama said sex will weigh a young body down or stop it cold—and I know she’s right, but when I’m with Stacey I don’t hear any of that.” She shook her head in a moment of happy indecision. “If I don’t talk to him I won’t be able to concentrate tonight, and I can’t mess up this rehearsal. It’s so important.”
Control? Was that the best Miss Auntie could do for Cookie? Tell her to control herself? Gayle coughed to keep from laughing. And to think her heart had been bruised watching Cookie and Miss Auntie disappear off into the woods talking their mother-daughter talk. She hadn’t missed a thing.
“It’s only choir practice, Cookie. The way you be wailing those solos Sunday, you don’t have a thing to worry about.”
Cookie told Gayle she wouldn’t be singing any solos this Sunday. Uncle Luther had invited Pastor Samuels, a divinity school chum, to come up from Atlanta and preach. And Pastor Samuels was bringing Sister Rebecca Lloyd as a guest soloist.
“You know Sister Rebecca Lloyd,” Cookie insisted. “I know you do. They always play her on the radio.”
Gayle rolled her eyes and popped her gum while Cookie listed Rebecca Lloyd’s biggest hits.
“If Sunday’s s’posed to be so important, when we picking up my dress?” Gayle asked. “Or am I going as the family charity case?”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“Maybe tomorrow?”
“Ask Mama if she can take you. I think tomorrow Stacey and I—”
Gayle tossed her head, not wanting to hear any more. “You get me sick, Cookie. Ain’t you s’posed to be controlling yourself?”
As expected, Stacey guarded the door of the recreation room, anticipating Cookie’s arrival. As rude as he pleased, he said some kind of “hi” and dragged Cookie off to the garden before Gayle could finish talking. There was nothing Stacey had to say that could not have waited—at least from what Gayle could see standing at the door, rocking José so he wouldn’t cry out. By the pleading hands, it looked like he was apologizing. From her swaying, it looked like she was going for it. When the couple entered the recreation room, Cookie was flushed with relief. She left Stacey to join the other churchies in their talk of Sister Rebecca Lloyd, who was such a professional she didn’t have to attend rehearsal, but instead faxed a few sheets of music, which all the churchies wanted to see for themselves.
With José in her arms, Gayle slid over to be near Stacey. He didn’t notice. He hadn’t removed his gaze from Cookie.
Dog. They in love like in the movies. All make-believe and starry eyed. Stacey probably stirs soup with Cookie in the soup kitchen just to get next to her perfume. Cookie ain’t even give him the main thing and he so full of her.
Stacey finally acknowledged Gayle so he could pour out his devotion to “Constance.” “Did you hear that? The girl is truly blessed. She’s the sole reason I wake up early on Sunday. I mean, Sunday won’t be Sunday without Constance’s solo.”
It was after the fifth praise of Constance that Gayle said, “Yo. Don’t butter me, slick. I ain’t the one whose drawers you want to drop.”
The choir, with all eyes on their director, missed the drama. They didn’t see Stacey’s head jerk right, his complexion darken, or his eyes cut daggers into Gayle.
When she happened to look up, all Cookie saw was Stacey Alexander tearing off, marching out the door.
“I just wanted him to shut up,” Gayle told José. “But this’ll do.”
The final chord of “I Am a Witness” was still resounding in the air when Cookie ran to Gayle to learn why Stacey had left. Gayle strained to recall the conversation word for word.
“Something ’bout waking up on Sundays to hear you sing in church.”
Cookie refused to believe, so Gayle raised one hand in testimony. “I only know what he said: ‘It won’t be the same without Constance singing lead.’”
Cookie paused, rolling the thought around.
“He might not even show to church.”
“What?”
“‘Sunday won’t be Sunday without Constance’s solo,’” Gayle said carefully, mocking Stacey’s intonation.
“Noooo,” Cookie sang, wanting to be pulled in the opposite direction.
“You know, he’s right,” Gayle obliged. “Now, personally, when that Sister Lloyd starts crowing your solo I’m gon’ be with everyone else: ‘Yeah, that’s nice, but you ain’t Cookie.’”
“Get out of here, Cousin.” She fluttered her lashes coyly.
“And who does she think she is, faxing her sheet music instead of rehearsing with yawl. That’s rude,” Gayle preached.
Cookie rushed to Sister Lloyd’s defense. “This very moment Sister Lloyd is singing at a big revival down in New Orleans. We’re lucky to have her on Sunday.”
“Lucky? She the lucky one—got everyone kissing her toes,” Gayle said. “’Member my friend Joycie who danced the African queen in this show? Joycie had the crowd stomping and cheering. Well, her group did a spring show with another girl dancing the lead. People clapped, but it was thin and polite clapping, and that other girl was crushed with a capital ouch.”
Cookie waved Gayle on. “Sister Lloyd is the queen of standing ovations. She’ll bring the house down all by herself.”
“Folks’ll be polite—’cause that’s how yawl are. But they won’t give her that real amen.” Gayle paused to let Cookie consider it all, then added, “Now, if you helped her out some, she’d get it.”
“Just stop it, Cuz. Just stop. Sister Lloyd don’t need my help.”
“Guess not,” Gayle said. “Don’t know why I care so much. But you saw, Stacey didn’t even stick around.”
The house was abuzz with preparations. Miss Auntie couldn’t decide between making dinner reservations in town or having the Samuelses and Sister Lloyd over to the house. She finally decreed it inhospitable and unforgivable to send her guests out, and began preparing a menu. Even Uncle Luther was remarkably light with anticipation, talking about divinity school days, laughing with Miss Auntie at the dinner table. Cookie was somewhat moody, waiting for a phone call from Stacey, which never came. However, once Sister Lloyd’s name was mentioned, Cookie joined in her parents’ enthusiasm, telling Auntie and Uncle how Sister Lloyd had faxed sheet music in for the rehearsal. Uncle Luther told Cookie, “You all make Sister Lloyd feel at home, She’s on the road quite a bit.”
Cookie kissed her daddy on the cheek and reassured him she would do just that.
19
JOY RINGED THE GROUNDS where Freedom Gate stood ready to receive worshipers. Gayle held José tightly and dragged her feet behind Miss Auntie. While everyone called out praises and greetings and waved to one another, Gayle sealed her
lips so that “um-hm” was the only utterance she could make. She had no intention of losing herself in the Holy Ghost, who was swooping about and sopping up all the high-spirited folks. After all, no one had bothered to take her shopping for a dress. In fact, her aunt, uncle, and cousin had all forgotten her in their excitement over the visitors. Cookie’s concerns were wrapped around Stacey Alexander and if he would call and what she’d do to make things right. Miss Auntie had very few “sweetie pies” to dole out and even fewer wisdoms that generally followed the “sweetie pies.” Even Uncle Luther ignored her. He stopped darkening the house with his tight, joyless face and didn’t made that click-click sound at the sight of Gayle and her child.
As they entered the vestibule, Gayle was aware that Miss Auntie had for the first Sunday that she could recall failed to point out some historical detail about Freedom Gate. How the church got its name. When the first brick was laid. How the stump was transplanted from the fields. Where the Civil Rights meetings were held. How Ruth Bell led the choir. What Uncle Luther’s first sermon was about.
Miss Auntie was too busy donning her First Lady of the Church face. She did exchange pleasantries with the choirmaster, who was giving final instructions to the choir as they lined up for the procession, but kept it brief, taking pity on him because of his preoccupation with Sister Lloyd’s arrival.
Cookie didn’t even look their way because Cookie, in her blue satin robe, was in thick with her heaven-bound friends, who were caught up in the excitement. A soprano had spotted Sister Lloyd being ushered into the pastor’s chamber. They tugged on one another’s robes and whispered, “She’s here, she’s here.”
When Gayle turned to ignore her cousin, she saw Stacey Alexander enter through the side door with a friend—a football teammate, judging by his height and size. Stacey led his friend to a pew as near to the choir chamber as possible. He then excused himself and made his way over to Miss Auntie as she and Gayle continued up the aisle to the first row. As Miss Auntie spoke to another church member, Stacey stood at attention, waiting for Miss Auntie to finish inquiring about the woman’s family. Gayle pushed out her hip and tapped her toe, feeling Stacey deliberately ignore her. She had to smack José’s hand to stop him from cooing and reaching out to Stacey.
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