Chapter Six

Amy opened the door to her bedroom, uncertain of what to expect. Every time she returned home, her mother had changed the room somehow. Last summer it was the new canopy bed; last Christmas, flowered wallpaper.

“What in the world?” Amy said as she stepped into her room. This time it was a whole new color scheme.

The matching pink-flowered curtains and bedspread had been replaced with a frilly yellow and white ensemble and new rug. Oh well, she wasn’t going to have to live here forever.

At least, Mr. Scruggs was still in his place, snuggled against the new pillows in the window seat. He was missing one of his black button eyes, and some of his stuffing was peeking out from a torn seam on his side, but Amy loved her old teddy bear. The one promise her mother had kept was to not throw away Mr. Scruggs

The promises to find Amy’s birth certificate, and the promise to tell Amy about her father, were always conveniently postponed. Something just wasn’t right about it all.

Someday soon she was going to insist that her mother tell her the truth. “Isn’t that so, Mr. Scruggs?” Amy said to her old chum, as she grabbed him up and hugged him to her. His soft, nubby fabric was as comforting as ever and still had the faint scent of lilac talcum powder that her mother had sprinkled into his stuffing when she’d sewn him.

Amy sat on the window seat and looked around the room as if she were a tourist orienting herself to a change of hotels. The new decor was pretty.

Perhaps this whole situation wasn’t going to be as difficult as she had feared. She just wished that her mother didn’t work so much. Wished that the two of them had more time together.

But what difference did it make what she wished? She knew all too well that wishes were entirely useless.

Amy decided to unpack and set Mr. Scruggs on the bureau. Her mother’s handyman had already brought the luggage upstairs to her room.

All the pieces were neatly arranged, from smaller to larger, near her closet. As she reached for the largest suitcase, she discovered the stack of gift-wrapped packages arranged on the settee. She selected the small oblong box from the top of the stack and shook it.

From the sound it made, her guess was that the box held a necklace—an expensive one knowing her mother. Probably the pearls she had been promised for graduation.

But Amy didn’t want or need a string of fresh-water pearls, or anything else that could be bought. All she needed was her mother’s undivided attention; something she’d never really had.

Without even taking off the box’s ribbon and wrapping, Amy threw the box against a wall and crumpled to her knees. “Oh, help me, somebody. Please, help me,” she cried, and curled into a ball. This wasn’t a homecoming. It was the beginning of a prison sentence. She stretched out onto the pretty new carpet and lay there unable to get up.

With her ear pressed to the floor, Amy could hear strains of jukebox music and laughter coming from her mother’s speakeasy two stories down in the basement.

She sat up and covered her ears with her hands, but that accomplished little. She looked around the room, desperate for a solution.

The radio console that she’d considered just a hideous piece of junk, practically called to her. “Oh, thank goodness,” Amy said with a flourish worthy of an audience. Amy sprang to her feet and went to turn on the radio.

She turned the adjacent knob in search of a station. At first all she got were loud sounds that hurt her ears, and several barely audible transmissions. Just as she was about to give up, she found KOA.

The announcer was a man with an easygoing voice.

“Up next, for your nightly entertainment, Denver, we have that sensational local orchestra Professor George Morrison and his Melody Hounds, featuring the lovely Miss Hattie McDaniel. Listen now, as she sings her highly requested, ‘Got the Sam Henry Blues.’ ”

Amy turned the radio’s volume dial as far right as possible. The orchestra’s overture, bluesy and plaintive, filled her room. She began to sway in time to the music’s rhythm.

Miss McDaniel, the Negro Sophie Tucker, as the public called her, belted out her song.

I’m just a wandering child, just a wandering child, wandering ‘round this big ole world alone, with no place to call my home.

Amy danced over to her vanity table and observed herself in the mirror. As she rolled her hips, the newspaper clipping, glued to the top corner of her full-length mirror, drew her attention. It was a photograph of beauty pageant contestants posed in their swimsuits.

The girl in the center wore a wide diagonal sash, and held a trophy engraved, “Miss America, 1924.” Amy pretended she was the girl in the center of the photo and strutted up and down the length of her room across her imaginary stage. The music continued to accompany her.

My mother begged, Sam Henry don’t you go. Sam Henry don’t you go, but I turned my back, and went my way, and now all I’ve got to call my own is the low-down Sam Henry blues.

She returned to the mirror and studied the photograph again, putting one hand on her hip, and the other hand to her hair, she worked to get the contestant’s pose just right.

She glanced from the mirror to the photograph, back to the view of herself, then back to the photograph. With two or three minor adjustments she eventually perfected the alluring stance.

For a moment, Amy felt an unfamiliar sense of selfsatisfaction, but then, she noticed an undeniable difference between herself, and all the girls in the photograph—especially, the girl with the trophy. Every one of the girls in the picture had white skin, while her skin had a certain shade of brown.

She tore the Miss America picture down and ripped it into confetti, threw the confetti about her and kept dancing as Hattie McDaniel sang.

This time, when I get back home … oh, I said, this time, when I get back home — to my mama’s shack — no more will I roam.

As the song ended, Amy stretched out her arms and sprawled back onto the floor. Her breathing was quick and ragged.

After a minute of recovery, she raised up to a sitting position with arms held high. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she hailed her invisible audience, “the real Miss America.”

Beads of perspiration were trickling from her hair onto her face. “Whew,” she said, “the temperature in this room must be a hundred degrees.”

She stood and went to the radio again to turn it off, then crossed the room to the window seat. With one knee perched on the seat’s cushion, she unlatched the window and flung it open, leaning her head and body out into the night. As she bathed her face and arms in the cool March air, she gave thanks that it was spring.

A corner street lamp extended its amber glow only a few feet. Except for the dim cast of starlight, it was dark in front of the duplex. All she could make out were the patches of snow still on the ground.

Someone walked into the light of the street lamp and stopped. That someone seemed to be a man, and he was carrying what looked like a case of some kind. He seemed lost and unsure of which way to go.

As Amy’s eyes adjusted to the night lighting, she recognized that the man was the porter who had helped her on the train. He was holding her hatbox.

She watched him as he walked from the street corner to the duplex, but waited until he turned onto the sidewalk to the porch before she spoke. “Hello,” she called to him. “Nice evening.”

He looked up, obviously surprised. He had on his own clothes this time — a long raccoon coat, and one of those funny looking porkpie hats. He snatched the hat from his head. “Yes, he replied, “very nice.”

“Can I help you?” Amy said.

He held up the hatbox. “You forgot this. Your address was on the tag, so I thought I would just …”

“I’ll be right down,” Amy said, ducking out of the window before he could finish his sentence. She tore open the rest of the gift-wrapped boxes and tossed the new skirts, blouses, and dresses into a pile.

Confused by such a selection, she finally reached for a red pleated skirt and a simple white blouse, and changed into them. Next, she spritzed her wrists and throat with lilac water, and quickly brushed her hair.

She checked the results in the mirror and gave herself a nod of approval. Something was missing though. She went to the box she had thrown against the wall and ripped the wrapping off. Sure enough, the box contained a choker of beautiful pearls, which she hastily put on.

As she was about to run down the stairs, Amy looked down and saw that she was barefoot. The first floor’s linoleum covering would be cold but she was in too much of a hurry to go back to her room and rifle through her luggage for a pair of shoes. She vaulted down the steps two by two.

There was a light switch at the bottom of the stairs, but Amy ignored it. No need to light up the hallway like a Christmas tree. Besides, other than her school dorm, this was the only house she had ever lived in. The first floor of the house was dark, but she knew every corner by heart.

Only she had forgotten about the mysterious stack of boxes she had seen that afternoon in the middle of what used to be the dining room. She stubbed a toe, royally, against the corner of one of the boxes.

“Owww!” she yelped. “What in the heck?”

She hopped back to the light switch and flicked it on. There was a narrow path between the stacks of boxes but she’d missed it entirely. She flicked the light back off and this time used her outstretched hands to guide her safely to the curtain that divided the room from the front hallway.

Once at the front door she turned on the porch light. She hastily counted to ten then opened the door as if she’d been expecting a guest all along.

“Come in,” she said, graciously. It was impossible for her not to notice the young man’s look of bewilderment as he stepped aside, into the semidarkness. “We live upstairs,” she quickly explained. “The first floor is my mother’s beauty shop.”

“Smart,” he said, and handed her the hatbox. She set the box on the chair that was next to the small table with the telephone. “This was really nice of you. Thank you,” she said.

“It was kind of on my way home. No big thing,” he said. She could tell that he was trying to think of something more to say, but her mind was just as blank. That he was so darn handsome wasn’t helping her any.

“Oh my, I’m sorry,” she said finally, and gestured to take his coat and hat. “I’ve completely forgotten my manners. You must be cold. May I offer you a cup of hot chocolate? It’s the least I can do.”

“Thank you,” he answered and happily took off his coat and hat. “That would be real nice.”

Amy hung his apparel on the beauty shop’s coat stand, and extended her hand to him. “Maybe we ought to at least introduce ourselves,” she said. “I’m Amy. Amy Johnson.”

“My pleasure,” he said, shaking her hand a little too enthusiastically. Amy found his slightly unsophisticated charm refreshing and attractive, and let him go on shaking her hand until he realized what he was doing. She had to stifle a giggle when she saw his embarrassed reaction to his own behavior.

Another awkward silence left them just staring at each other before he realized that Amy was still waiting to hear his name.

“Oh, right,” he said apologetically, “Anthony … Hudson.”

At precisely the same moment they both gave into tension-relieving laughter. That made Amy even more hopeful for the chance to get to know him. “The kitchen’s in back,” she said. “Follow me.”

She tried not to worry about what Anthony must’ve been thinking as they walked between the boxes to the kitchen, or about the loud jazz music that could be heard coming from the basement. She offered no explanation, and gentlemanly, he asked for none.

In the kitchen, she offered him a seat at the table. As she stood at the stove warming the milk for the hot chocolate, they talked like old friends.

They had a lot in common. Mainly, they were both boarding school brats. Only, the school Anthony had attended was a military academy, and he’d graduated last year, two years ahead of his class. He was just working on the railroad until he started Howard University in the fall.

Amy liked everything about him. She especially liked that he didn’t ask her about what was going on in the basement. What class, she thought as she set Anthony’s cup of hot chocolate in front of him.

Before Amy could sit down, he stood up and moved to pull her chair out for her, then waited for her to sit. Her mother might not approve of Anthony’s dark complexion or his job, but Amy didn’t care. All she knew was that he treated her with respect and that she enjoyed talking with him. They went on conversing for almost an hour.

When she reached over to take his cup to refill it, he stopped her, touching her hand lightly and thoughtfully, like he had on the train.

“I really should be going,” he said. Only, instead of letting go of her hand, he held it tighter.

He was a year younger than Amy, but his grasp felt like that of a man’s. The heat from his palm seemed to spread through her whole body.

The table parted them, but he stood and moved his chair next to hers, still not letting go of her hand. She had a terrible realization. Under the circumstances she probably shouldn’t even be sitting here with him.

“You smell wonderful,” he said into her ear. Amy closed her eyes and waited. She felt Anthony’s lips touch hers, but a sudden cacophony of breaking glass caused her to jolt back. Anthony jolted back too and nearly tipped over in his chair.

The two of them looked up to find Amy’s mother standing in the doorway to the basement stairs. A tray of shattered drinking glasses lay at her feet.

“Not in my house,” she exclaimed.

The splintering glass caused Rowena to cut her leg, and blood dripped onto her shoe, but the look in her eyes warned Anthony and Amy they had a far greater concern.

Rowena’s face visibly hardened as she stepped closer to them. “Keep your hands off of my daughter,” Rowena said, her eyes narrowing to slits. “And get out of my house.”

Anthony stood and tried to extend an apology. “I, I’m very sorry, Mrs....”

Rowena moved in front of Amy and shoved Anthony in the chest, hard, causing him to stumble backward.

“Right now, damn it.”