-17-

A handful of flyers and a tightly folded banner are stuffed inside her shoulder bag. The day is warm, humid, and dreary. She’s on her way to CBS, with Miles still heavy on her mind. Not having any information about him is sinking her.

She thinks that Lowell may be a source for news about Miles. But what if she’s wrong? What if he doesn’t realize it’s Miles’s collective that’s responsible for the bombing? She has to risk him knowing, has no one else to ask for help. If a meeting is set up, what exactly does she want to say to Miles? Contact Celia, of course. She can’t say, You shouldn’t have done it. What were you thinking? She can’t challenge him about something that’s already been done. So what’s the point of meeting? Maybe, like Celia, she just needs to see that he’s okay. She remembers once watching a movie with Miles about a man who had to go into witness protection after testifying against a gangster. Discussing it later, Miles said if it was the right thing to do, he’d testify and then go into witness protection. She admitted it would be hard to leave everything she knew. Actually, though, she’s done just that, hasn’t she? Well . . . sort of.

She took today off as a personal day. But if she’s arrested, her job at the hospital could be jeopardized. With Melvin bringing in only a miniscule salary, how to pay the rent would become problematic if she lost her job. Having little money doesn’t scare her but having no money does. If she thinks about it, which she doesn’t too often, she doesn’t even know what she would do with a bundle of money. Having grown up in a home where money was never easily available, she doesn’t sweat living paycheck to paycheck, except if there’s no paycheck. It’s complications like these that keep people from taking political action. Though she can’t help but note that her movement friends aren’t similarly challenged by such complications.

The CBS lobby is crowded. As planned, she joins the group of eleven women waiting at one of the elevator banks. On the seventeenth floor, the door slides open on a room with six gray metal desks divided by a center aisle. Three windows on one side of the room allow the grayish light to merge with the overhead fluorescents. Young to middle-aged women sit behind typewriters. At the front of the room is an office, the door ajar. Large calendars with schedules marked in black and red crayon cover cream-colored walls. Except for the rhythmic tapping that greets the ear, it’s quiet, the secretaries intent on their work.

The women march down the center aisle. The typing ceases.

Nina unfurls her banner and says the words out loud. “Free our sisters; free ourselves. Power to the people.”

Maisie, behind Nina, unfurls her banner and recites: “Black, brown, Asian, and white women work two shifts, get paid nothing for one and half the salary of men for the other.”

Josie raises her banner and says: “Women hold up half the sky. We make a difference. End racism and bring the troops home now.”

Before any of them have a chance to further explain their presence to the workers watching them, a tall man in his fifties with dark-framed glasses and close-cropped gray hair steps out of the back office. “Well, what do we have here?” he says playfully.

“This radio news station says nothing about women’s oppression or racism and only repeats the government’s lies about the war. We will not leave CBS until our demand to read a declaration of truth over the air is met.” Nina sits down in the aisle.

“Women don’t make the policies that send our men to war. Why should woman obey them? How many of the CBS bosses are women? How many of the reporters are women? How many people of color are in power? How often does a woman’s signature appear on a paycheck?” Maisie and the rest of the women sit down.

“Okay, ladies, you’ve had your say; now it’s time to leave.” The man gestures as if to shoo them out. His condescending tone wraps itself around Josie’s trachea.

Maisie stands and says, “We’ll only speak to a woman reporter. We know you don’t have many, but find one. We’re not leaving here until you do.”

The elevator door opens to release a CBS News reporter and a TV cameraman.

Returning to his office, the man shuts the door.

The women workers remain at their desks. The intruders remain seated on the floor.

Josie hands her banner to Maisie and begins to distribute flyers to the secretaries. “Even if you can’t speak out here about racism, sexism, or the war for fear of losing your job, speak out somewhere against injustice and for peace.”

A few uncomfortable, silent minutes follow before Marilyn James enters the room. Marilyn’s cigarette-stained voice on the radio is familiar to countless people. Marilyn covers the bake sales, fairs, school picnics, runaway dogs, famous divorces, length of skirts, height of heels. But today is different. Today is political. Marilyn, in her forties, takes in the scene and without missing a blink asks Josie for a leaflet, which she reads silently. Then asks to take a look at the declaration. Nina hands her a copy. As Marilyn reads, there’s no sound in the room.

“Okay,” Marilyn says, “I’ll do a brief intro. When I signal, one of you, come inside the booth and read your declaration.”

UUU

The evening sun still lingers as they head down to a new women’s bar in the Village to celebrate. Tired from lack of sleep but feeling an unexpected and satisfying bond with the women, Josie can’t imagine going straight home. For the first time in days, she’s able to focus on the joy of success instead of on the plight of Miles, Melvin, or even Celia.

The bar is in the basement of a brownstone. Blue bulbs are strung across the ceiling like deflated balloons. Polka-dot-size tables circle the perimeter of the area, leaving space in the center to dance. White women sit at tables, drink at the bar, or dance to Joplin’s electrifying voice. Melvin wouldn’t be comfortable here. Would any man? she wonders. But Melvin would correctly point out that most of the women present are white.

Maisie orders two pitchers of beer. They push a few tables together, then gather round to assess the action and celebrate success. Josie’s only half-listening, her eyes drawn to the three-quarter profile of a woman standing at the bar. After a minute or two of staring, she heads to the bar.

Gently touching the woman’s arm, she’s ready to say, Sorry, it’s so dark in here, mistook you for . . . The woman turns to face her. One, two, three eternal seconds of gazing at each other before her cousin’s arms seize her in a mad embrace.

They move apart to search each other’s appearance. Grace’s hair, no longer dark, is buttery yellow and buzz cut, with only a thin tail of braid reaching down endlessly. She sports a nose stud too. But her dark-chocolate eyes are a dead giveaway.

Grace tugs her a few feet toward another woman standing at the bar. “This is Carla, my lover; we live together in the Village.” Grace’s familiar voice dredges up a childhood of nightly secrets, but she never shared this one. How long did Grace know? It could be new or . . . Grace’s eyes on her offer a warning: respond correctly or lose the prize.

“Carla, I’m so glad to meet you. I haven’t seen my cousin for a long time, and I’m thrilled she’s happy.” Smiles all around.

Grace’s arm wraps her waist. “So tell me, what’s happening at home with everyone?”

Josie climbs the stairs to her apartment thinking about Grace, a chubby teen now a slim woman, the stencil of time leaving its marks. But also something else, something she can’t get past, a veil of strangeness between them, like a spider web across an unused doorway. Apples off a similar tree, yes—their fathers were brothers—but landed far from each other. Grace kept referring to “home,” no doubt her own as well as Josie’s. But Josie’s home is no longer on that Bronx street where she and Grace lived. Home is here, where she and Melvin live. How to fill in the missing years of growing up and growing apart?

Grace made her promise to conceal that she’s a lesbian from their two families. Sadly, she understands. Someday, but not yet, who you sleep with, love, live with, won’t matter, or what’s their struggle for?

She unlocks one, two, three locks, pushes hard on the door until she feels the police pole move.

“Baby mine, I’ve been waiting.” He drapes a shawl around her shoulders, slides a thin silvery metal circle onto her middle finger, and pulls her toward the bed so she can view the cantaloupe-orange bedspread with its black zebra stripes.

“Melvin?” Barely a whisper.

“Come here, Josie; didn’t mean to shock you. That there shawl’s called a rebozo, and the ring, well, the ring is something special, one of a kind, made by the Vietnamese from a captured B-52 and given to me to give to you by Mr. Trinh. What do you think of that? And the bedspread—”

“When did you get back?” Her voice echoes from a distance.

“Last night. I spent it in Harlem debriefing. I’ve been here waiting for you and only you, sweet girl.” His energy unnerving.

“You seem different. What is it? Your beard, it’s gone. Is that it?”

“Difference can’t be measured that way, but my experiences were life altering, details to follow.”

To follow what, she doesn’t need to wonder. Her mind is racing. Can she really bed down with him and make passionate love this minute, which he expects? “I found my cousin in a women’s bar . . . She’s a lesbian. She’s in my life again. It’s too strange. So amazing, finding her there, who’d ever think . . . ? I never expected, not now, maybe never, to see her again . . . I almost didn’t recognize . . . And this morning we . . . women . . . took over CBS Radio station, TV cameras. The women were spectacular, and I . . .”

He places his hand over her mouth. “Calm, calm.” His voice suddenly as familiar as the bones that sculpt his stern face.

“I’ll take a shower.”

“Don’t want that, not at all, not a bit.” His eyes two lit ponds. And it hits her like the proverbial bolt. He’s here, in the flesh, intact, close enough to grasp. She slides her arms around his neck, presses her lips against his until her tongue flicks through to swirl inside the delicious tunnel of his mouth.

Her eyes open on the light from the streetlamp snaking up the wall. “Are you awake?”

“Inner clock’s messed up. Must be two or three in the morning,” he says.

“Some wine to help you sleep? A joint? I know, let’s take a walk. No one’s outdoors now.”

“Don’t want to mess up your system too.”

But her feet have already hit the floor. Summer dressing is simple: pair of shorts, T-shirt, and sandals. In a few hours, she’ll have to change for work. Worry about that later. Having him home is cause for a celebration that shouldn’t be slept away.

“Wear your Mexican whatever those shoes are called.” Now it’s she who is energetic, more than that, revived, the flap down on the tent of her worries at least for a while. They made love twice, the second time slowly. She’s still wrapped in the warmth of it.

They tiptoe down the stairs into the humid air. Infrequent traffic sounds interrupt the middle-of-the-night silence. Claiming the sky as their private property, she searches the navy-blue blanket for stars. They head to Riverside Park. It’s wondrous to be with the person you love, she thinks.

On a bench they sit close together, a slight breeze rustling the tree leaves. Her eyes examine the dark bushes for evidence of life. A patrol car passes slowly, and the two cops inside stare at them. For a miserable moment, she fears the cops will stop and ask questions, but they drive on. “Assholes,” she mutters.

“Cursing isn’t going to change the racist fabric of closed minds. Waste of energy, Josie. I learned much from the Vietnamese in Cuba. They make a great distinction between the people and the government, which sometimes we forget to do. They also taught me that small attitudes are the last to change.”

“Are you saying cops are the people?”

“Not particularly, just that white radicals don’t always make distinctions. Symbolism is more important to you than it is to our people.”

“Do you think the draft board was symbolic?”

“Yeah, I heard about that. It’s only a slap at government property. It sure doesn’t organize people to change their lives, right?”

His words mirror her feelings, but with Miles taking up space in her head, she says nothing.

“That’s why the Panther breakfast, prison, and clothing programs are so important. They offer material aid while demonstrating how life should be, which pisses off the Man, who is afraid of revolutionary examples, see? Anyway, it’s the people who make revolution, not a handful of radicals. The difference between Black and white radicals is that Black people are used to the long haul.”

“Are you saying white radicals are just playing around?”

“I won’t deny it.”

These are distancing words. No, she mustn’t read into them more than that they’ve been away from each other too long; it’s loosened the connection. She won’t allow distance between them.

“I need to hear who you met, what you accomplished. Tell me.” Her face upturned, a captive audience of one.

“So much happened. Where to begin . . . ? I don’t know.”

“The mission, you as emissary, what happened with that?”

“We opened a Panther office in Ghana, left two of our cadre there.”

“Wow, impressive. Will you rotate people to Ghana?”

“We plan to send people into several of the countries.”

“That must be so satisfying. Though, I did miss you. A lot.” Her eyes on his remain steady, and he reads her, thank heaven. He pulls her close, kisses her forehead. She breathes in his familiar scent and thinks but isn’t sure that the sky is beginning to brighten.