December 21st

Xavier Donnell was falling in love with a black woman. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of his life. He was trying to remember when he had ever been this afraid. Why, it was worse than that summer at boy scout camp when he’d gotten his fly caught in the motor of the garbage compactor. And far worse than the report last year from the auto clinic that two of his transmission valves might be irreplaceable. At least he had been able to scream his way or buy his way out of those situations because he could pinpoint exactly where the danger lay. He had seen the iron gears chewing up the front of his shorts, smelled the oily teeth as they pulled him into the back of the machine. But when he looked at Roxanne Tilson, all he saw was a woman, no better or worse than the dozens of others who had flowed into and out of his life—soft where she should be, curved where he’d expect it, sweet behind the ears, mellow between the breasts, and pungent in that mystifying zone where the thighs joined the center of her body. She had flowed in that way but something was terribly wrong: she wasn’t flowing out. Somehow she had frozen around his liver, on the walls of his stomach, and in the cavities of his intestines; and she was dripping out much too slowly. When he found that it had become cold enough inside to affect his heart and cause a chill that made it shiver when he touched her, he tried to build up a series of heated arguments to melt her away: she’s too fat, too loud, too slow, and he always hated being kept waiting for anyone, especially a woman. But those fiery complaints didn’t help when he kneaded the full flesh on her thighs and stomach, or when the waiting became anticipation of the first, piercing note of her “sorry” that would engulf him in a symphony for the rest of the evening. Those damn shivers would return, leap on him unexpectedly over a plate of fettuccine or in a darkened theater, to remind him that something was happening inside that was beyond his control. Something that kept drawing him much too quickly into a center that held his first memory of love and fear: the dark, mellow texture of her female being. White chocolate, he’d think, burying his nose into her soft neck and nibbling upward toward the dimpled chin, seeking the hidden essence of cocoa that was embedded in the deep-yellow cream of her skin, that he could taste on his tongue, smell on his hands and arms. The colors and tints from the thighs that brought him into the world, the breasts that kept him alive and warm. The mindless plunge and search for the eternal circle that would let him die over and over in the cavity that gave him life.

But Xavier had come a long way from the womb. At thirty-one, he knew he’d come a long way, period. Graduating from the University of Nowhere, through a mixture of patience, hard work, and premeditated luck he had managed to move up in a place like General Motors, where it was so easy to get lost among the myriad Ivy League and ivory-skinned credentials of men who were just as sharp and hardworking as he was. While his rise had been meteoric and his cashmere suits managed to withstand the change of altitude, that tenth-floor office with its shag carpet and oak panels housed a fragile god. Because Xavier was forced to see his exploits as much more than those of some superman, he had to join the rest of General Motors and worship the rise of a Super Nigger. So he found himself as only a high priest perched in a temple and burdened with the care of this image. And like all fragile gods, it demanded constant attention and surveillance for any telltale cracks in the clay feet, a softening around the knees, a dulling of the luster.

He was holding down two full-time jobs, and he had to carry one home with him all the time. He took it on vacations and to the gym and to visits with his grandmother. It went to bars and ball games and to bed with him. There wasn’t a moment of his life that Xavier could afford to forget his duties as high priest, because if the image ever crumbled, his own fate wasn’t too far behind. He didn’t dare question the validity of this worship, or even the power of this hollow god, because one reality was clear: that was all they had given him to serve; and somehow in serving, he had become. So he feared this rapid descent into the essence of Roxanne while knowing no other way to be complete. Could his god survive in the arms and between the thighs of the first flesh that knew his true mortality? Or would it crack under the echoes of those eyes that put ice packs on his bruised genitals when he was sent home early from boy scout camp?

Xavier needed time to think this present situation out—lots of time—but he didn’t trust himself. His insides were out of control and he knew that if he didn’t take some sort of drastic action, he would ask Roxanne Tilson to marry him. And the only thing that frightened him more than that was the thought that she would say yes. He had tried everything to discourage her so she’d take the matter out of his hands. He didn’t call when promised, he broke dates, confused himself and her with excessive warmth and then excessive coldness. He’d even committed the unforgivable sin in a black woman’s canon by openly dating white women and seeming to enjoy it. Surely, that was enough to have her discount him as a piece of garbage, a lost soul. But after taking that empty-headed receptionist to Winston’s wedding and making a complete fool of himself, hoping Roxanne would hear about it and jump to all sorts of conclusions, the phone remained silent all morning. That really pissed him off. Here he was all day yesterday thinking about her, and in a few weak moments even wishing that she was the one beside him; and now today she was on his mind, wearing him out well beyond the true importance she held in his life—and no call. It was impossible that she hadn’t heard; half the neighborhood had been at that reception. No, she was just waiting him out like she always did. The woman was definitely manipulative, never complaining or asking where he’d been from week to week. Pushy and conniving is all it was. Pushing herself into his head so he’d have to start caring about why she didn’t care.

He knew he just had to do something, and as a last resort, he called his friend Maxwell. He admired Maxwell’s total control of any situation. They were the only two black men on the tenth floor at GM, and Maxwell’s office was even closer to the executive director’s than his. Xavier had watched him closely at board meetings, regional conferences, and even in the executive washroom, for the fine seam that held him together, but it was invisible. He knew that might be easy enough to cover up in a boardroom but never in the bathroom. Maxwell could sit in his huge, glass-enclosed office without a hair or paper clip out of place. Xavier had been proud when Maxwell befriended him because it showed that he had proven himself. He became Xavier’s mentor in office and latrine politics, and Xavier valued his advice, which all boiled down to a constant maxim: “Keep it all inside and when it just has to come out, you decide where and how much.” So he had to be extremely careful when he made that phone call. How could you retain the respect of a man who was able to sever a sprig of parsley from its stem as easily as some people cut the meat from around a T-bone, if you were in a panic over some woman? No, just drop by for a quick drink, a chance to shoot the breeze about the latest Mailer essay in Penthouse, and just maybe he could find the courage to bring up what might be one of the most important issues of his life.

Just as Xavier saw the silvery Stingray pull into Third Crescent Drive, his aunt came into the living room.

“Xavier, the Tilson boy and his friend are cleaning out the garage. And when they’re through you’re going to have to pay them, because I’m going out now.”

“Who?” Xavier had been looking for the perfect spot in the room to position himself. Now, just where and how would he be sitting if there were only something trivial on his mind?

“The Tilson boy, Xavier—Lester.” Mrs. Donnell pulled on her coat impatiently. “I need all that junk out of the garage, and I don’t have time to stay here and watch them. Millicent and her whole brood up and decided that they’re going to fly in from Cincinnati to spend Christmas with us, and I’ve got to run out and buy them gifts. So just check up on them and pay them when they’re through. Fifteen apiece should be enough.”

“The garage? Look, I have company coming over and I can’t be running out there every two seconds; can’t they do it another time? I don’t want those guys messing around my Porsche.”

“No, they can’t. And how are they going to hurt that car, it’s buried under a padded quilt!”

Since his aunt had refused to install a heating system in the garage, Xavier kept his Porsche under a down-filled tarpaulin to protect the engine from extreme changes in temperature.

“Well, they might throw a box or something on it without thinking. Do you know what it costs to get a scratch or dent out of that hood?”

Mrs. Donnell buttoned up her leather gloves. “Look, I’m not going to stand here and argue with you. I have a million things to do this afternoon, and then I have to rush back here to get to Lycentia Parker’s wake tonight since you refused to go and pay your respects for the family.”

“Why should I go when you hated her guts, and I didn’t even know her?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Young man, you have a lot to learn, but have it your way. I’m going outside and tell them to go away, and later on you can get out there and clear it out yourself, but it has to be done today. Millicent is coming in tomorrow afternoon and she’d just love to see that we live in a pigsty. Not that it would matter to you, but I hope you know that all that rubbish in the garage is a fire hazard and you might just wake up one night and find it and your precious Porsche in flames. Then what would you—”

“All right, all right. Just tell them to be careful, that’s all.”

“Yeah, I thought so.” She headed for the back door. “And don’t let them in here on my carpet, because they’ll be full of grime. Pay them in the kitchen.”

Xavier watched her retreating back, making his daily wish for the speedy appearance of the day when the house would be all his while conveniently forgetting that it could only dawn after the night of her death. He rushed back to the front window and peered anxiously through the Venetian blinds. He took a deep breath to compose himself as Maxwell’s car finally pulled up to the curb. Now Roxanne was rising to torment him through her brother at a time when he needed all of his faculties together. He sat down and waited for the doorbell to ring.

Maxwell Smyth turned off the engine of his Stingray with a smooth forty-five-degree turn of his wrist, waited exactly three seconds, and pulled out the ignition key. When he swung his long legs over the low door frame, his silk scarf was arranged around his neck so that the wind could disarray the gold fringe just enough to let it stray casually on the brown and tan tweed of his open jacket, which complemented his light wool pants and matching brown turtleneck. He neither shivered nor hurried in the December air. His tropical gait in the frigid wind was as awe-inspiring as a magician breathing under water. But Maxwell’s powers lay in the micro-thin weave of his thermal long-johns and in his knowledge that slow, deep breaths raise the body temperature without noticeably altering the rhythm of the chest. To even the most careful observer, this man seemed to have made the very elements disappear, while it was no more than the psychological sleight-of-hand that he used to make his blackness disappear.

Maxwell had discovered long ago that he doubled the odds of finishing first if he didn’t carry the weight of that milligram of pigment in his skin. There was no feasible reason why it should have slowed him down since in mass it weighed so little, and even that was consistently distributed over his six-foot frame. But the handicap had been set centuries before it was his turn at the gate. And since he knew no tract of ground but the planet earth and no competition but the human race, he had to use the rules as written and find a way to turn a consequence into an inconsequence in his struggle to reach the finish line as a man.

He lucked onto the magic formula for this very early in life by being blessed with an uncommon spelling of a very common name. He remembered the slate-blue eyes of his first grade teacher flying back to his small dark face when she handed him a name tag reading MAXWELL SMITH and he told her no—S-M-Y-T-H, and this time the eyes actually focused him into existence. Whether it was impatience, embarrassment, or faint amusement, it was still recognition. For that moment, he counted because he had upset an assumption. And Maxwell Smyth learned to drag that moment out by not aiding the clumsy attempts of receptionists, clerks, and arrogant booking agents as they grappled with reordering their ingrained expectations of his name and his being. He relished the feelings of power and control as his blackness momentarily diminished in front of their faces—an ordinary name had turned into the extraordinary and taken its owner with it in the transformation.

The trick was now to juggle other feats that would continually minimize his handicap to nothing more than a nervous tic. In college he found that his blackness began to disappear behind his straight A average, and his reputation for never sweating or getting cold. He trained himself to survive on three hours of sleep while never appearing tired during classes, heading the student government, editing the school newspaper and the yearbook. Always immaculate and controlled, he kept them all wondering how it was done, so there was little time to think about who was doing it. His twenty-one-hour days even gave him time to socialize, and although most of his friends were white, that wasn’t a conscious choice on his part. Maxwell neither courted nor shunned the other black students; he liked to think of himself as gravitating toward humans who shared his inner temperament, and anyone—black or otherwise—who he thought wanted to be around him because of something as inconsequential as the pigment of his skin he dismissed as shallow. So the black women he wanted to date found him strange and the white women strangely comforting.

He tackled General Motors in the same way he had the campus of Dartmouth, quietly disappearing behind his extraordinary record as regional sales representative, business manager, vice president for consumer affairs, and finally assistant to the executive director. But the stakes were a lot higher there, with no room for error; any break in his stride, any telltale mannerism or slip of the tongue might shatter the illusion he was standing behind. Because Maxwell knew they would never have dreamed of allowing a black man next to the executive director, it had to be the best man. And this delicate balancing of reality demanded perfect control over his work and his subordinates. He allowed nothing to happen at the office that didn’t put him at the best advantage or that he couldn’t manipulate to make it seem so. He weighed the decision of whether or not to smile at his secretary with the same gravity as that with which he considered the advisability of a new line of sedans.

There was never any danger of his breaking down: sanity lies in consistency. And Maxwell retained his mental health by exercising the same type of control over every aspect of his being. Since he couldn’t manipulate the weather outside his home, he adjusted his body accordingly; but once inside his carefully appointed duplex, an elaborate series of humidifiers and thermostats enabled him to determine the exact conditions under which he would eat, sleep, or sit. He found the erratic rhythms and temperatures that normally accompany sex a problem, so he rarely slept with a woman. He didn’t consider it a great deprivation because before he was even thirty, an erection had become almost as difficult to achieve as an orgasm, and hence he would save himself the trouble until he was married and just had to. In short, his entire life became a race against the natural—and he was winning.

The pinnacle of his success lay in his French-tiled blue and white bathroom. It was one of the most beautiful rooms in his home, with Italian marble fixtures: an imported toilet and matching bidet that sat on a plush white carpet. Lemonweed and wintergreen flourished in the windows and in tiered chrome planters that hooked on the shower rod. Over the towel racks he’d installed a hidden speaker that was connected to his stereo system. The only thing his bathroom lacked was toilet paper, which he kept in the closet and brought out for rare guests since he never needed it. Through a careful selection of solids and liquids, he was able to control not only the moment but the exact nature of the matter that had to bring him daily to the blue and white tiled room. His stomach and intestines were purified by large quantities of spring water and camomile tea. He found variety in clear juices—apple, strained cranberry, and, on rare occasions, small sips of Chardonnay, preferably from the vineyards of Pouilly, where no yeast was added to the fermentation. He learned that the very tips of broccoli florets, asparagus, and even parsley moved less noticeably through his system than the stems. Young animal flesh—baby scallops, calves’ liver, and breasts of squab were the purest to digest. This was supplemented with dried kelp from the waters around New Zealand, ground bone meal, and wheat germ. He would have put a forkful of cabbage, a slice of onion, or a single bean into his mouth with the same enthusiasm as a tablespoon of cyanide. Because when Maxwell sat each morning, on his Italian marble—his head erect, his ankles disappearing into the thick carpet, and his fingers drumming the tempo of a violin quartet on his knees with his eyes closed, before moving straight to the bidet, where he was sprayed with perfumed and sudsy water, and then on to the shower—except for the fact that he was totally naked, those first five minutes could have taken place on the seat of a theater or concert hall, with absolutely no clues to tip off even the nearest party about his true nature.

After the success of this daily ritual, Maxwell was more than ready for any challenge at General Motors. And when he made his way into the lobby, up in the elevators, and past the file clerks, stenographers, and small offices of his subordinates, he drew the inevitable mixture of awe, envy, and hatred that is the lot of exceptional achievers. And, of course, he was misunderstood. He would have found the comments that he was trying to be white totally bizarre. Being white was the furthest thing from his mind, since he spent every waking moment trying to be no color at all. The charges of “ball-buster” or “slave-driver” were only levied because he required from his staff what he was willing to give himself. But he might have been faintly pleased had he overhead a frequent whisper in the typing pool, “Ya know, Smyth acts like his—don’t smell”—because it didn’t. And having conquered the last frontier, there was nothing that stood between Maxwell and the ultimate finish line but time. When the executive chair became vacant, the board of trustees wouldn’t think twice about giving the best man the job. And that’s the only kind of man he was.

Xavier heard the first set of chimes and decided to let the bell ring again before he answered. But Maxwell had no intention of ringing twice. After one depression of exactly two seconds, he stood there calmly waiting for the door to be opened. He knew he was expected, made sure he had been heard, and so the only logical sequence would now be admittance into the house. Xavier sat nervously in the lengthening silence, finally realizing that Maxwell wasn’t going to ring again. If he opened it now, he needed some excuse for not answering immediately, but if he waited much longer he gambled on Maxwell’s leaving. It was a play of wills on each side of the oak door, and Maxwell won out.

“Hey, sorry I took so long. I was upstairs when you first rang and I was waiting for the second ring to be sure that it was the bell.”

“No sweat, mon ami.” Maxwell’s scarf glided off and was held out to Xavier. “What’s shakin’?”

His greeting told Xavier that he considered this a very intimate visit because he was willing to engage in French and ghetto dialect, the two pet passions he reserved for close friends. He walked toward the couch, intently surveying the room. The few times Maxwell had been there before he had glanced around, seeming to sniff the air in case some new addition or omission might call for him to realign his opinion of Xavier.

“Can I fix you a drink?”

“If you have Chardonnay—with just a kiss of a chill.”

Xavier shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it’s cold.”

He poured himself a double shot of bourbon and Maxwell allowed him to talk about the weather, car repairs, and the company’s annual meeting for what he deemed an appropriate amount of time, and then choosing a place in the conversation where he knew Xavier would least expect it—“So what really brings me here, mon copain? I know about the cold; I’ve just driven through it with my rebuilt carburetor after interrupting the outline for my brilliant presentation for the spring convention, but what I still don’t know is why?” He leaned back on the velvet cushions and smiled, enjoying the flicker of consternation in Xavier’s eyes. He had heard the suppressed panic in his voice over the phone and a true curiosity had brought him out of his house to see what could be so important that Xavier had to try so hard to make it sound trivial.

“Well, I thought it might be nice to have you over. Except for a few hurried lunches at work, we never really get a chance to relax and just be friends.”

Maxwell knew that Xavier fully understood that sparing the time to lunch with a subordinate at work was an act of friendship, so he remained silent and waited for a real answer to his question.

Xavier took a deep swallow of his bourbon. “And, uh, I wanted a little feedback on some longer-range plans. The thought had occurred to me that I might want to start to think about thinking about marrying Roxanne Tilson.”

“Sacré Dieu, blood. Why?”

Xavier panicked; that wasn’t what he had really meant to say and now he didn’t have a ready answer that would retain Maxwell’s respect. How many times had he heard him say that love was for teenagers and fools? He sought desperately for a reply, wishing that he smoked. “I know this may sound bizarre”—he took another swallow of his drink—“but there are times when she reminds me of Eleanor Roosevelt.”

Maxwell frowned and thought a moment. “Well, my cleaning lady bears a striking resemblance to Indira Gandhi, but that’s no reason for me to drag her down to City Hall. Are you sure that’s the only reason?”

“There’s nothing to be sure or unsure about.” Xavier got up and went over to the bar. “It was just an idea I thought about playing with, that’s all. And she was just one of the many women who came to mind. To be honest, she’s not even a serious contender. I mean, the real issue is whether or not this is the time for me to settle down. But I’m not too sure that I should rush into anything, you know?”

“Oh, I know perfectly well what you mean. A decision like that is loaded with disaster—even if you could find ‘a serious contender,’ as you put it. And I don’t hold out much hope for your doing that.”

“Really?”

Maxwell shook his head and sighed, turning his wineglass gently between his fingers. “Now, let’s be reasonable. I know that, for whatever reasons, you’re only into black women. I’m not knocking it, mind you. But you’re going to have to face some hard, cold facts: there just aren’t enough decent ones to choose from. They’re either out there on welfare and waiting to bring you a string of somebody else’s kids to support, or they’ve become so prominent that they’re brainwashed into thinking that you aren’t good enough for them. The few who just might be up to your standards, who’ve distinguished themselves in the world, are into white men. Name me one black woman who’s making a name for herself in the arts or entertainment and I’ll name you two who have white husbands. Don’t we see it every day in the magazines and newspapers, or right downtown? The best and the brightest are going that way, so what’s left for you? The Roxanne Tilsons of this world.”

Xavier winced. “I don’t really see anything wrong with her,” he mumbled.

“Well now, of course she’s been to the right schools—Welles-ley, wasn’t it? And you’re from the same neighborhood—even though she’s up there on the border, it’s still Linden Hills.”

“Of course.” Xavier’s voice was slightly impatient. “How could I have even looked at her if that wasn’t the case?”

“And she’s pretty enough, although there’s a bit too much avoirdupois.”

“I wouldn’t call her fat.” Xavier narrowed his eyes. “She’s full.”

“Yes, she’s full now, but you know that most black women have a tendency to let themselves go. Look in any spa or gym and they’re outnumbered ten to one. And believe me, it’s not Roxanne’s fault. It’s an old throwback to the jungle days when they had to store up food like camels because the women did most of the hauling. So what they do now is starve themselves until they get you and then gain ten pounds before the reception’s over. And from then on in …” Maxwell shook his head slowly and shuddered. “But the real question is not whether you can find one who’ll fit into your Porsche, but who’ll fit, period.”

Xavier stared off into space and thought, But we read the same books, like the same music. We both want to travel. He found himself wishing that Maxwell would shut up and go home. He hadn’t called him here to listen to all this. He had done nothing but cause him to think of all the reasons why he should run out tomorrow and buy an engagement ring, but somehow he didn’t want that. And what he needed desperately to know was why.

“Look, Maxwell, I find that just a little hard to buy. They’re out there in all shapes and sizes once I’m ready. But maybe I’m just not ready now, you know?”

“Oh, you’re ready. Ready and raring to go. But the sad thing is that there isn’t a mother’s daughter out there ready for you. And you want to know why?” Maxwell sat on the edge of the sofa. “Because Roxanne Tilson is only the clone of a whole mass that are coming out of these colleges with their hot little fists clenched around those diplomas and they aren’t ready to hear nothing from nobody, least of all you. When they’ve done that four- or six-year stint at the Yales, Stanfords, or Brandeises, they no longer think they’re women, but walking miracles. They’re ready to ask a hell of a lot from the world then and a hell of a lot from you. They’re hungry and they’re climbers, Xavier, with an advanced degree in expectations. Hook up with one of them and whatever you’re doing isn’t good enough, and you’re doing damned good as it is.”

Maxwell’s knuckles tightened around the stem of his glass. “I’m going to make a confession.” He leaned toward Xavier. “I once thought about marrying a woman like Roxanne and she wasn’t half so attractive, but she had a Ph.D. from Princeton and I was much younger then and could have forced myself to overlook a lot of other things. But when it came right down to the line, I realized that she just didn’t understand me. She just didn’t appreciate the problems I was going through. And if a woman can’t do that, at least she should be quiet and stay out of your way. Remember, a man only lives two places—at work and at home. You and I both know the sacrifices we made and are still making to walk that tightrope out there; it takes every ounce of strength we’ve got. So, can you afford to be drained when you come in here?” He stabbed his finger toward the ground. “Can you afford to be reminded—in five-syllable vocabularies no less—that the rope’s a lot thinner than you think and it’s a lot farther to the ground?” Maxwell’s voice had risen a quarter of an octave, which was his equivalent of hysteria, and it stunned Xavier.

“But if you feel that way about it,” Xavier almost whispered, “I don’t understand why you were willing to weather all that flack when you promoted Mabel Thompson.”

“Of course I promoted her.” Maxwell leaned back and smiled, taking a split second to regulate his breathing. “Any fool could see from her résumé that she was overqualified for that lousy job in the bookkeeping department. I brought her into my office and now I have one of the most efficient cost analysts in the eastern division. While all those other clowns were busy looking at her color and sex, I looked at her personnel file. And I knew that any woman who managed to support herself and two younger brothers while getting through accounting school with straight A’s would have to be a tiger. But you know what happens when you try to bed down with one? You get your balls clawed off. And that’s the bottom line, isn’t it?”

Yes, that was the bottom line. Xavier could never see himself with any woman who wasn’t determined to go somewhere with her life. But he knew that the road was a lot more cluttered for a black woman and a successful journey meant sharpening her spirits to grind away all the garbage that stood in her way. And just maybe when that switch was turned on, it couldn’t tell the difference between his living flesh and anything else. If he needed anything more than Roxanne, he needed those constant reminders hung on him healthy and intact that he could still hang on.

“Mabel probably needed those claws to survive.” Xavier frowned into his bourbon.

“I’m sure she did. And I thank her, and my twenty percent reduction in marketing costs thanks her. But let somebody else marry her.”

Xavier sighed and watched his ice cubes melt away into the amber fluid. He knew that if he watched them long enough, the frozen crystals would lose their shape and edges, become indistinguishable from the mahogany sea that was keeping them afloat. We read the same books, like the same … Just concentrate on the brown liquid that’s dissolving the ice. He didn’t have to get up and find a stirrer, or even rotate the glass. Just sit there and soon, very soon, there would be nothing but a mouthful of watery bourbon that could be gotten rid of in a single swallow with no harm to his throat or stomach, and definitely no chance of heartburn.

“I understand what you’re saying, Maxwell. But that doesn’t leave much for me, and I’ve no intention of spending the rest of my life alone.”

“You don’t have to—and it leaves quite a bit for you. And I’m hardly talking about only white women; this whole planet is full of women to choose from if you’re willing to branch out.”

“Well, I guess I could ask to be transferred to one of the offices overseas—there’s no telling who I might meet on the plane.”

“Laugh if you want to, but it won’t be a laughing matter when—”

They were startled by a sharp rap on the back door. Oh God, he’d forgotten all about Lester being out in the garage. Xavier opened the kitchen door on two sweaty and grimy faces.

“Your aunt said you’d pay us when we were through,” Lester greeted him curtly. “Well, we’re through.”

“That was pretty quick.” Xavier started to smile at Lester but was stopped with, “Well, there was two of us, so what’s the problem?”

“No, no problem. I’m just amazed at how efficient you were, because I know how cluttered that garage was.”

“You can go out there and check if you don’t believe me. The newspapers are bundled and stacked beside the garbage bags and the boxes she left for all that other crap. And it’s all on the side of the house for the trash collectors.”

“I believe you, Lester.” He turned to the darker boy. “I’m sure you fellas did a great job. I hope the car didn’t get in your way. Please, come in and I’ll go upstairs and get my wallet.” At that moment, Xavier’s conscience called for a great deal of generosity toward anything associated with Roxanne, even her arrogant kid brother.

“We’d rather wait out here.”

“Well, I could stand to use your bathroom.” Willie put his foot up on the back step.

“Sure, come on in.”

“You know the cold has a way of working on your bladder.”

“Yes, I know what you mean.” Xavier held out his hand to Willie. “Xavier Donnell.”

“Willie Mason, but I don’t think we should shake.” Willie turned his palms over. “My hands are pretty grubby.”

“That’s okay, a little honest dirt won’t hurt me.”

Lester stuck his hands in his pockets and rolled his eyes.

Willie was amazed at the softness of Xavier’s skin. It felt like a woman’s hand against his rough knuckles and calloused palm. This guy probably never lifted anything heavier than a ballpoint pen.

Maxwell, feeling that he had been left alone for more than an appropriate time, appeared in the kitchen door. “Xavier, I’ll have to be going.”

Xavier turned toward him quickly. “Yes, let me get your scarf.” He didn’t really want to introduce the boys, but felt it would be rude not to. “This is Lester Tilson, Roxanne’s brother, and his friend, Willie—Maxwell Smyth.”

“Hiya.” Willie smiled.

Maxwell nodded silently as he looked directly at Xavier. “It seems that this is your day for company.”

“They’re not company,” he said a bit too quickly, and then turned back to them apologetically. “They’re doing some work for my aunt outside.”

“That’s industrious.” Maxwell’s eyes swept over them.

“No, that’s poverty.” Lester leaned against the sink.

Maxwell seemed surprised—as if a parrot had been trained to answer him back. “Well, I suppose that poverty leads to industry,” intending his remark to be the final word in a useless exchange.

Willie watched Maxwell’s face and had the strange feeling that this man’s words weren’t really meant to reach across the kitchen toward them. His eyes seemed to stop at the green tiles on the floor in front of their feet. Why, it was the same feeling that you got talking to some white people. He suddenly felt very invisible to this tall, impeccable man and needed to hear his own voice to prove that he was in the kitchen.

“No, poverty just seems to lead to more poverty if you’re black,” Willie said loudly, and stared directly at Maxwell.

Xavier looked nervously from Willie to Maxwell. “I’ll get your scarf. You can use the bathroom in the basement,” he said over his shoulder to Willie and started for the door.

“No, wait.” Maxwell held up his finger. Willie saw his linty pea jacket, frayed jeans, and cheap shoes materialize in Maxwell’s eyes as they made their way slowly down his body. “You know, it’s that sort of an attitude that will keep some people cleaning out garages for the rest of their lives. Being black has nothing to do with being poor. And being poor doesn’t mean that you have to stay that way.”

“Then I guess it’s just a coincidence”—Willie felt his heart pounding—“that the majority of black folks in this country are poor, have been poor, and will be poor for a long time to come.”

“Well, I see that you can conjugate verbs.” Maxwell brushed an invisible speck off his jacket sleeve. “And a difficult verb at that. So it’s probably not too much for you to understand that the only reason so many black people are still nothing is because they keep their eyes turned backward toward the times when they could be little else, and are still crying about what they could never do while what they can do is swiftly passing them by. And so, in that case, you’re absolutely right—that type will always be nothing.”

“First of all, I didn’t say that poor black people were nothing. And second—”

“You might as well have,” Maxwell cut him off. “Because that’s just what it amounts to. It amounts to a blind, senseless existence due to an inability to take advantage of the progress that’s continually going on.”

“Bullshit!” Lester’s voice startled everyone in the kitchen. “Man, you’re the one who has blinders on. You wanna know why most black people aren’t gonna move anywhere? Because this man’s government is ruled by the few for the few. And I don’t know how they taught you to spell progress in the school you went to, but on the streets you spell it W-H-I-T-E.”

“I’m the living proof that that’s a lie,” Maxwell said softly. “And Xavier proves it too. And there are thousands just like us.”

“Yeah, there are thousands,” Lester said, “in a community of tens of millions which is surrounded by a white community of hundreds of millions. And you know what your thousands boil down to? A handful of raisins in the sun, a coupla jigaboos by the door—and that’s it.”

“But Lester, don’t you understand?” Xavier frowned. “Those doors are opening—slowly, it’s true—but they are opening. And we have to be ready to take advantage of it.”

“He’s right,” Maxwell said. “And a perfect example is this month’s edition of Penthouse. You have it, don’t you, Xavier? Would you bring it here?”

Xavier left the kitchen.

“Now,” Maxwell said, “I’m a socially conscious man. And if we look at the scale of opportunities, who would really be at the bottom? Why, the black woman. If there were any doors to be shut, there would be more shut for her. I recently promoted a black woman in my office to an executive position and I was proud of that move because she deserved it. But that story is repeating itself all over this country. And you can’t tell me that if black women are moving up, the rest of the black community can’t.”

Xavier handed Maxwell the magazine. “Now, just look at this.” Maxwell flipped through the pages. “There was a time when you couldn’t find a picture of one black woman in a magazine like Penthouse. And see what the centerfold is this month?”

Lester and Willie moved toward the kitchen door to look at the pages Maxwell was pointing to. There was an eight-page spread of a lush, tropical forest and a very dark-skinned model with a short Afro. Her airbrushed body glistened between the thin leopard strips that crisscrossed under her high, pointed breasts and fastened behind her back. She wore a pair of high, leopard-skin boots that stopped just below her knees, and she was posed to pull against an iron chain that was wrapped around her clenched fists. Each page offered the reader a different view of her perfectly formed pelvis, hips, and hints of her manicured pubic hair as she wrestled with the chain held by an invisible hand off camera.

The faces in the kitchen were close and quiet as the four heads followed the camera’s skillful blending of light and shadow that subtly changed female beauty into breathless body. Willie was the first to take his eyes away, and the blood that throbbed in his temples wasn’t desire but a whisper of shame.

“You call this progress?” Lester’s head was still bent over the photograph. “They’re trying to tell you that black people still belong in the jungle.”

“But look.” Maxwell flipped to the last page of the spread. The model had snatched the chain and brought its mysterious holder to her feet. One leg was raised in victory on the shoulder of a scrawny white man in a safari outfit, and his thick bifocals had slipped below the bridge of his nose. “That’s the message.” He pressed his finger on the photo, leaving behind a damp smudge. “And I don’t have to spell it out, this picture is worth a thousand words.” He closed the magazine dramatically. “Today Penthouse, my friends, and tomorrow the world.”

Willie cringed inside when Maxwell called him “friend.” And suddenly he wanted to be invisible to this man again; it had felt much more comfortable. But still something had happened in the last five minutes that seemed to bring the four of them together over more than a magazine. Willie knew he had to leave that room before someone asked him about that picture.

“Where did you say the bathroom was?” He turned to Xavier.

“Just down these steps.” Xavier went to the basement door and switched on the light. “You could use the one upstairs”—he glanced at Willie’s grimy shoes—“but the whole place is carpeted.”

“No problem, I’d rather go down here.”

Xavier followed Maxwell out of the kitchen. “I’ll be right back, Lester.”

“Don’t rush, I’m not planning to cop your toaster.”

Maxwell adjusted his scarf at the front door. “So that’s Roxanne’s brother. I can see why you said she wasn’t a serious contender. That family has one foot in the ghetto and the other on a watermelon rind. There’s no question of your marrying into something like that—you wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”

Xavier watched Maxwell through the window as he sauntered toward his car. There were still plenty of questions left about Roxanne, but he didn’t have to answer them today. Or even tomorrow. He turned and picked up their glasses from the coffee table. The ice had melted completely into his bourbon and he swallowed it quickly before heading back to the kitchen.

As Willie climbed back up the narrow basement steps, it came to him why that photograph had troubled him, and it was more than just the heavy, iron chains. With her dark face, full lips, and high cheekbones, that woman was a dead ringer for his baby sister.

She sat on the cot across from the shrouded body of her child with Luwana Packerville’s Bible resting open, face down on her lap. Her eyes were watery from trying to decipher the fine, webbed scrawl that was crammed onto the gold-edged tissue paper that separated one book of the Bible from another. Except for the date, 1837, stamped on the cover, there were no dates heading the various entries and no apparent order to the aging fragments of this woman’s mind. Many of the tissued dividers had been left blank while others held entries that were evidently months or even years apart. She had reached the page between Jeremiah and Lamentations when she put her head back against the wall and closed her aching eyes.

Luther told me today that I have no rights to my son. He owns the child as he owns me. He grew terribly enraged when I ventured a mild protest, and showed me the papers that were signed over to his agent in Tupelo. Foolish creature that I am, I thought my sale to him was only a formality. I thought in the name of decency my husband would have destroyed the evidence of my cursed bondage. But he keeps those documents securely locked away. O Blessed Saviour, can it be that I have only exchanged one master for another? Can it be that the innocent scribblings I sought only to hide from a husband’s amused contempt are now the diary of a slave?

She thought her marriage would set her free, and it should have. It should have. She massaged her throbbing forehead. There must have been some law in this country that made that so. He was just being cruel and trying to frighten her. And she was so happy about that wedding. Finally free. Freed from those endless luncheons with other lonely women who could well afford the pewter-and-fern atmosphere that accompanied the piano bar and stuffed sole as they talked about all the right things while the real things would have to wait until the second carafe was ordered. Because they could ill afford the reflections waiting at the bottom of their empty wineglasses, that something must be missing if they only had each other across the table week after week. Freed from the burden of that mental question mark on her left ring finger—What’s wrong with you if no one’s wanted you by now?—since she could wear a metal band in its place. And so she had been free to marry a man that she didn’t love because there was no question of asking for love in return. It had been enough that he needed her. Enough to keep her silent when he brought her the gown and veil he had chosen. He wanted her all in white. And she put away the pale blue silk with silver netting and wore his heavy satin with loose brocade panels that hid her breasts and the outline of her waist and hips; the cloudy veil so dense and folded she could barely see out and surely no one could see in. All in white—even her hands were covered with thick kidskin gloves as she carried the ivory roses and baby’s breath. She shuddered at the ghostly image—a strange beginning.

Her eyes flew open and she stared down at the Bible in her lap. Trembling, she went back to reread the entry between the books of Genesis and Exodus.

Luther has given me a strange ring. I am not partial to the pale metal because it is barely visible against my skin. In jest I told him that people will think he could not afford gold and so had welded our bond with silver. I was going to amend his peculiar reply that nothing welds our bond but his will, but something in his eyes hindered me. Surely he understands that our marriage is bonded in heaven through God’s grace. I suspect I will grow accustomed to this color, but truly in the full sunlight, it is as if I wear no ring. We are going north in a fortnight to a place called Linden Hills. I leave this state with rejoicing. A new land. A new life.

It was becoming painfully clear. Her two wedding bands. The one she wore was red gold with a deep antique finish that almost matched the color of the finger it had been slipped on. But the other had been platinum. Tradition, he had said. It belonged to my mother. Keep it where you will, but never wear it. And she hadn’t, thinking it was so precious to him he was afraid she might lose it. She couldn’t see her wedding ring in the shadow that her body cast on her hand: “It is as if I wear no ring.” Then what had happened six years ago? Was she so busy being needed that it never dawned on her she wasn’t being married?

She now had the key to Luwana Packerville’s buried memories. Using these ancient records as signposts, the woman had found at least one place that could offer an anchor of validity to the inner flow of her life. Her bewilderment over the rules he had given her about housekeeping and his diet before Leviticus; the sorrows of never knowing her own mother next to the Book of Ruth; her fears of being a new bride before the Song of Solomon. She had read and known this Bible well. And so the entry carefully placed between First Kings and Second Kings had been no accident:

The child was weaned last month. He was well past two and could now take solid food without harm. Now Luther has taken him to the solicitor today. There is the matter of his will and other documents to be settled. He told me to prepare a special supper because, when he returns, he wants to celebrate his son’s manumission. Since the law decrees that a child must follow the condition of its mother, I know he has gone to have the solicitor draw up free papers for the baby. This is the final humiliation. But I have enough pride not to beg him to manumit me as well. It is a small matter since I could go nowhere and would go nowhere—this is my home. Yet it still bears on me grievously. And if the love of God and all that is right cannot move this man, how can I hope to? So it is a bitter meal that I must cook to help celebrate the fact that I am now to be owned by my own son.

All of the tissued dividers between the long line of Hebrew prophets from Ezekiel to Malachai were left untouched. There seemed to be nothing that Luwana Packerville could find to guide her in almost four hundred years of proclamations by these iron men of God. She found the fading handwriting again on the page before the New Testament:

There has been a sharp turn of events. This week a new housekeeper came to cook for us and do the washing. I was pressed beyond endurance to voice a protest. After ten years, I do not wish a strange woman preparing my meals and handling my things. I have little enough to do as it is—the child is constantly with his father, and with no friends or relatives to visit me, the days drag on so. Luther told me that I was foolish and should be proud that he was now set enough to afford such services for me. But I know it is not for me, because last week the papers told of a woman in Tennessee who was hanged for poisoning her master’s soup, and Luther seemed much agitated over the account. When declaring that I would refuse to eat whatever this despicable woman seasoned in my kitchen, I was told that was my choice, but he and the child would eat from her hands. Yesterday I baked some molasses cakes. They were always my son’s favorites; but he refused to touch them, though I saw he was sorely tempted. And when I labored to press them on him, the look he finally cast me chilled my blood. I know what is behind all this and it breaks my heart. I have heard him and his father whispering.

There was silence throughout the four gospels and it was impossible to tell how many years had passed before the entry in front of the Acts of the Apostles.

I wish I had learned to sew when my mistress in Tupelo pressed me. But I found sitting still with nothing but scraps and threads to entertain my mind overbearing. I persisted in hunting up new dewberry patches and wandering the fields in search of fresh mint. The warm, buttered cobblers that sprang from my sojourns always softened her irritation over my neglected needle, but now I am paying for my obstinacy. Without my garden, the long winter months are intolerable here, and reading is now my sole pleasure. It seems so unjust that I am barred from having friends among the white wives because of my husband’s color and among the colored because of his wealth. If there were only something to do or someone to receive my thoughts so they won’t fester within me. God forgive me, but I am so envious of the holy apostles. They all had each other and whole congregations to write to. And it must have been wonderful to know that someone was awaiting their messages and that if they did not write, they would be missed. I write to no one and am missed by no one on this earth. Since I was brought from a place where I had no mother or father, no sister to call my own, to whom could I send my blessings for good heath, God’s faith, love—and from whom could I receive them? I am just being foolish again. Here, preserved for all time, are the wonderful letters of our holy men trumpeting their joy and faith in our Saviour for thirsty hearts throughout the ages. I should drink of them and rejoice. But sometimes I do indeed wonder what it is like to have someone to care about what you will say.

My Dear Luwana,

I am writing to you, my sister, because I must have someone to help me bear these trials. Is it a sin to wish for death when there are so many who would long to have all that I do? I know you must think that I am an ungrateful creature. For fifteen years I have never had to worry about hunger or nakedness or cold like so many of our brethren. I am free to come and go as I please and no one cares. But that is the problem, my dear—I feel as if I could leave this world tomorrow and no one in this house would miss me. With each year, the housekeeper takes on more and more of my responsibilities and I was so tired of my entreaties falling on deaf ears, I let Luther have his way.

I only managed to save my garden from the hands of some vile outsider by flinging myself on the ground in the yard and refusing to be moved. Yes, I screamed like a banshee at the feet of Luther and the new gardener, threatening to water the soil with my blood if I could no longer tend the flowers in it. I am sure you understand that I was driven to such disgraceful conduct because once my roses are taken away, I would have absolutely nothing since my son has become a stranger to me. And there are to be no more children as my bed belongs only to me. The child I had hoped to be a refuge for all the love I have to give grows more like his father with each breath and the two are now inseparable. And what is worse, they are becoming inseparable in my mind. I thus live with two Luthers in truth, and so I live alone.

Please tell me if there is something that I can do to shed these horrible shadows on my soul. I want so badly to rejoice in my blessings. I know I have neglected you shamefully over these years but if it is not asking too much, perhaps you can take a few moments and just remind me of all I have to be grateful for.

God’s Speed,

Luwana

The tears that now stood in her eyes weren’t from the strain of trying to decipher the fine scrawl. She could feel more of them gathering at the pit of her stomach and ebbing up toward her throat and the back of her eyes in gentle waves for the answers she would never get to the letters that hadn’t been sent, the phone calls that hadn’t been made. She had tried at first but there was less and less to talk about: their new job—her new baby. Their problems with finding a decent landlord—her problems with finding decent silverplate. What they heard the governor say about new tax shelters—what Luther said about it. What they heard Congress say about automobile regulations—what Luther said about it. What they heard the president say about the ERA—what Luther said about it. I called you to see how you were—oh, we’re doing fine. Yes, all those lonely luncheon partners would never miss her now since she had been dead to them for years.

And she wouldn’t have had the courage to send a letter like this to anyone. They would have pitied her and she had tolerated their pity long enough before she became Mrs. Luther Nedeed. And how could they ever believe that she was lonely when we just had a baby, and we were going to the Cape for a week, and we were about to renovate the attic? And how could she have even believed it herself—and she hadn’t until she realized that Luwana Packerville could never get an answer to that letter. But there was an answer waiting on the page before the book of Romans.

My Dearest Luwana,

Your words grieved me sorely, my sister, and I am trying to understand what you are going through. But there must be great consolation in the fact that you are at last mistress of your own home. Remember how vexed you would be when Mistress Packerville kept you trotting hour by hour on such trivial errands while she sat on her divan. And she would even call you from the pantry while your hands were smeared with dough to hand her a thimble that was barely two feet away. Well, now you have that luxury, so rejoice.

I know you are disturbed by the papers your husband still keeps after all these years, but in truth you are no longer a servant. And since this man asks nothing of you, I cannot imagine what is pressing you so. I can understand that it is difficult to watch a child grow up and finally away from a mother’s arms. But all children must grow.

Of course I shall be more than happy to receive letters from you. It is lonely for me as well. Take heart, together we can weather these tiny tempests that blow through a woman’s world.

Fondly,

Luwana

My Dear Luwana,

Thank you for being so prompt in your reply. It was gratifying finally to receive a little encouragement from someone who has known me as long and as well as you. You are truly a gift from the God I was beginning to doubt. I tend to forget the small vexations that I suffered under Mistress Packerville because they pale in the light of the good she rendered me. You know I would not have learned to read or have knowledge of the grace of our Saviour were it not for her. I have not set foot in a church since I was a new bride. There is only one church in this county for the colored people, and Luther had a quarrel with the minister in the first month of our marriage and I have not been able to attend since. That may have given me some source of comfort. I could have talked to my God and my fellow Christians because you well know I cannot talk to this man. Mistress Packerville consulted me about everything that came or left that house. There was not an egg or a sack of flour that passed over that threshold without my knowledge. I am consulted about nothing that matters here. I know it is only contempt which prompts him to question me of my days when he knows they are those of a corpse. So when I think of Mistress Packerville, I think only of this Bible she gave me and the tears she shed when I had to leave her home. I have already left this house and believe me, there are no tears.

And I truly don’t think you fully understood what I meant about my child. I know that all children must grow up and away from us. But you see, the papers that declare I never owned my child only confirm what I have always felt in my heart. From his birth, he has been his father’s son in flesh and now in spirit. But I tremble daily, for I fear it is even more than that. For fifteen years I have watched them both walk and talk and eat. Believe me, I am not losing my mind but it is not just that he is Luther’s son, he is Luther. And I fear that I have been the innocent vessel for some sort of unspeakable evil. It is clear to me that I have now outlived my usefulness to them, and they are trying to push me out of this house by making me a stranger to my husband and a stranger to my son. And the true horror is that I am becoming, sister, a stranger to myself. You would not recognize the girl you once knew in Tupelo.

Forgive me, I have gone on too long. I close with affection.

Luwana

My Dearest Luwana,

Pray, take hold of yourself. This senseless prattle about evil is unhealthy for your soul. There is nothing—do you hear me—nothing that is going on in your home that is not repeated in countless other homes around you. Please, venture out and make friends with the other wives. I alone am not enough for you. I know you feel it is impossible because you are despised by the farmers’ wives around you and distrusted by the colored women up on the hill, but for the love of God, try. Go visit and take them flowers and vegetables from your garden this spring. Do something, my dear, because I fear for your sanity.

Always,

Luwana

My Dear Luwana,

I have not written in a year because I could see that you were growing impatient with me. I knew that to continue in that vein would cause you to tire of writing to me and so I needed to find some way to prove to you that what I said were not the delirious fantasies of a foolish woman. I was determined to do everything within my power to hold your trust. To lose you is to lose the only friend I have.

Now listen well. I have passed one full year without talking to my husband and my son. I sit with them and take my breakfast in silence, and then I get up from the table and sit in my rocker with my hands folded until we all assemble again at the evening meal. They communicate all their needs to our housekeeper and she fulfills them. Since I have asked for no new clothes or books, it is assumed that I need nothing. At the evening meal, I am always asked the same question: “Has your day gone well, Mrs. Nedeed?” and that only requires a nod of my head. Since I am never questioned any further, I need offer no information. And there has been much talk between them at our supper table this past year. They have made all the arrangements for the boy’s college in Massachusetts, the construction of new cabins on Linden Hills, and it seems as if there is a war threatening between the states which may free all the slaves. But my opinions are never solicited on any of these matters and I volunteered none as I would have in the past. One full year, my sister, I have taken my meals in this manner, spent my days, and retired to my bed at night.

To the day it is exactly 665 times that I needed to open my mouth to speak—332 times to answer their good morning’s and 333 times to do the same in the evening. It would have been 720 times but this was not a leap year and they were both traveling for a little over a month—32 days in exact reckoning—viewing different schools for the boy. When they returned on the evening of the 33rd day, that gave me the additional good evening.

I suppose you wonder how I can be so exact. Well, you know the silver hat pin that I keep next to my mirror? I use it to carve a line on my chest and stomach, which I then rub with black ink until the bleeding stops, for each time I am called upon to speak throughout the year. Once the wound has healed, the mark is permanenty affixed and there is no danger of it washing off during my toilet. And I have carefully counted them all just before I sat down to write you.

Now I ask you, are these the rantings of an insane woman? Would their lives be any different if I had spared myself the breath it took to speak at all? Would the boy be considering another school? Would one more or one less cabin be built up on Linden Hills? At this moment, I can tear open my bodice to show you and the world that it would not.

The boy leaves for school on the morning train and I am sure that he will wish me good-bye. His father has trained him to be extremely polite. That will be the 666th time that I will be called upon to open my mouth. I shall let you know if he offers more than the “Good-bye, Mother” that I am prepared for. But I warn you not to anticipate it. I plan to place my wrapper on the back of the rocker and hide behind the draperies in the sitting room to see if he will just address the shawl and go on his way. He probably shall. So Luther will leave and I am still left with Luther. Need I say any more, my sister? Just that I fall on my knees and thank God in heaven for sending me you.

Luwana

There was no answer to that letter. And the remainder of the gold-edged dividers were blank. Even though she leafed all the way through to the Book of Revelations, there was no record of what happened to Luwana Packerville on the morning she made her six hundred and sixty-sixth utterance. The gentle ebbings of grief were building into a flood as she turned the blank pages over again and again, searching for that lost day. That just couldn’t be all. She went back to Luwana Packerville’s last words—“Just that I fall on my knees and thank God in heaven for sending me you.” But it couldn’t end there, and it hadn’t. She had found the end in the beginning: “There can be no God.”

And the flood finally broke for all those silent mornings filled with the deceptive hum of a thousand conversations that only amounted to pantomime. She put down the Bible, went over to touch the edges of the lace covering her son’s body, and she began to cry. She cried because her beautician knew the shape of the mole behind her ear, because the grocer knew that she hated the taste of lamb, and the mailman could tell anyone that her favorite color of stationery was coral. She sat down in that basement crying as if her life depended on it, because if her life depended on it, the man she had lived with for the last six years wouldn’t be able to tell the executioner as much as that.

The sun was just beginning to set when Willie and Lester turned into Fourth Cresent Drive. They walked up the flagstone path at the rear of the Parkers’ home and Willie stumbled on his loosened shoelace in the fading light. He bent down to retie it. “Ya know, we’ve been going in through back doors all day. I thought Martin Luther King did something about all that.”

“Yeah, but this guy really apologized over the phone. Said he was having a whole house full of people because of his wife’s funeral tomorrow. He’s not out to insult us like that dishrag, Xavier, was.”

“Aw, he wasn’t so bad. But I can’t see why he hangs with that other guy—Christ, was he out to lunch.”

“Yup, and vultures of a feather nest together. Donnell was just trying to hide his slimy wings.”

“He gave us fifty eagles though.”

Lester sucked his teeth. “Vulture money.”

“It still spends.”

“Anyway, I’d rather go around back here. I don’t want to chance running into my mom ’cause she’s probably in there with the rest, giving her respects to the dead and all.”

“I’ve always wondered why folks say that. You can’t really give the dead nothing. It’s more like giving your respects to the living. Ya know what I mean?”

“It’s more like a whole lot of nonsense as far as I’m concerned.” Lester rang the bell. “This poor guy probably wants to be alone tonight instead of having a crowd of losers in here, eating up his food and trying to figure out how much he got from her life insurance.”

The door surprised them when it opened, because they didn’t hear the tumbler click. The hinges moved with a whisper and the presence of the short, balding man holding the knob seemed to do the same. “Ah, I’m glad you could come, Lester.” His eyes were huge and distorted through the rimless bifocals.

“Sure thing, Mr. Parker. I brought along my friend, Willie Mason, to help.”

“Of course, of course. Please, come in. I’m sorry you had to use the back way, you could have come in through the front because no one’s arrived yet. And the caterers have set up and left long ago.”

“Naw, it’s all right. We understand.”

“No, I didn’t want you to think that I was sneaking you into the house or something.” His eyes blinked rapidly as he spoke in a fierce whisper. “There’s nothing shameful in what I’m doing, nothing at all.”

They looked at each other over his head and frowned.

“Why would we think that, Mr. Parker?” Lester glanced uneasily around the huge, barn-shaped kitchen.

“No, not you. But some people wouldn’t understand. And they just didn’t know Lycentia. Mrs. Parker would want me to have you here. She’d want me to do what I’m doing tonight. And she’d know that I couldn’t without your help.”

Willie cleared his throat. “But what exactly do you want us to do?”

“Of course. I haven’t said, have I?” Parker’s false teeth gleamed in the dark room. “Well, come, come.” He beckoned them out of the kitchen.

The only thing Willie knew was that Lester had said something about eight dollars an hour and they had been so excited, they hadn’t thought about what it could be. But maybe they should have.

They followed Parker up a set of double stairs that led from the kitchen to the second floor. And since the house was a shrunken replica of a Victorian mansion, there was a second set of steps leading up from the front hall. Its curved mahogany banister continued along the open hallway, turning it into a balcony that overlooked the living and dining rooms. The tread of Parker’s tiny feet was muffled by the thick carpeting that covered the upstairs hallway. He would tip along in the dark for two feet or so and then stop to look back over his shoulder. “Come, come.” He finally came to an oak door at the end of the hall and paused to smile at them again before turning the handle.

Willie quickly gauged the size and age of the man. If he tried something weird, he and Lester could take this guy on with no trouble.

Parker turned on the lights in the room. All of the furniture had been pushed to the middle of the floor and covered with sheets. The rest of the room was completely bare except for a rolled-up carpet, a pile of newspapers, and a steam machine in the corner. The huge irises turned to them triumphantly. “Now you see what I mean?”

They didn’t, but felt they should nod. Maybe his wife’s death had sent him over the edge or something.

“The paperhangers, you know. With them coming tomorrow, there won’t be enough time to strip the walls and redo them before I return from the burial. They can put the new furniture in place but there’s just no time for steaming off the old paper, so I rented the steamer myself.” He began to tremble as a sense of urgency crept into his voice. “But the wake’s tonight and it must be off tonight. And I’m offering you almost as much as it would cost me if they did it. Sure, they’re twenty dollars an hour but you aren’t unionized or anything, are you?”

They both shook their heads.

“Well, I didn’t want you to think that I was trying to take advantage of you. If you insist on more, I can arrange that, too.”

“No. You want us to steam off the wallpaper, right?” Lester spoke slowly as you would to a child.

“Of course, of course.” Parker nodded his head impatiently. “But do it quietly because I’ll have guests soon.”

Willie wondered how noisy he thought steam could be.

“And I don’t see why I should have to explain, do you?”

They shook their heads again.

“I have a perfect right to redo her room.”

“Oh, this is your wife’s room?” Willie said.

“Of course!” Parker frowned at him. “And they’ll probably wonder just like you why I’m doing it now.”

Willie mumbled quickly that he wasn’t wondering at all.

“But they didn’t know Lycentia like I did. She would want it just this way. She would want me to walk back into this house with a new bedroom. She was a very determined woman, you know, with her own ideas about everything. And she often said, ‘Chester, if I should be the shortest-liver, I don’t want you to be moaning and groaning like a fool. Life marches on’—that was Lycentia tooth and nail—‘I want you to start new, do you hear me?’” Parker’s shrunken face almost glowed as he surveyed the room. “And so I’m doing what she wants, what she told me to do.” He turned back to Lester and Willie sharply. “And I don’t see anything to be ashamed of—do you?”

They agreed that they didn’t either. He should be proud that he had respected his wife’s wishes this promptly.

“Of course, of course. I’m very proud. And I’m going to that service tomorrow with a clear conscience. But I’m not up to explaining all that to other people right now, so just be quiet, huh, fellas?”

When he left the room, shutting the door firmly but gently behind him, they turned to each other and grinned broadly. Then Lester tiptoed cartoon-fashion to the covered furniture and held the sheet in his hand. “I’ll give you even odds that it’s already under there.”

“You think I got this old, this healthy, by taking sucker bets like that? Man, I know it’s under there, but two to one it’s psychedelic pink with vinyl cushions ’cause she’s probably under thirty.”

“Naw, that wouldn’t be his style of under thirty. It’s brass with purple velvet cushions.”

“Okay, you’re on.”

He yanked the dustcover off the bedroom furniture, and the vanity set they were betting on was chrome with a white leather seat.

“Everybody loses.” Willie laughed.

“Except old Parker.” Lester covered up the furniture. “I wonder if he’ll have the minister marry them right after the funeral. No point in wasting all those flowers.”

“Of course, of course,” Willie whispered hoarsely, “because Lycentia would have wanted it just that way.”

Lester crouched and tiptoed over to plug in the steamer. “She said, ‘Chester, don’t throw your money away. Have it all done in one day and get a discount from that preacher, do you hear me?’”

“Well, he sure got a discount from us.” Willie ran his hands along the peeled and aging paper. “This mess will take half the night. No wonder you said he was so eager to run you down today. A lousy eight dollars an hour between the two of us.”

“What do you mean between the two of us? Shouldn’t it be eight dollars for each of us?”

“Hey, you’re right.” Willie snapped his fingers. “And that’ll still be a lot less than he was gonna pay those paperhangers. But I don’t think he’s gonna buy that.”

“He’ll have to,” Lester said, “if we only do half this room and then call him back up here. ‘You see, Mr. Parker, my buddy and I were just having a little dispute here. I thought you told me eight dollars an hour for each of us, and now he’s saying you said eight dollars between us. And I know that couldn’t be what Lycentia told you she wanted since she wanted this here room done before the engines warmed up on her hearse, now could it, sir?’”

Willie smiled. “I see you don’t live in Linden Hills for nothing, Shit.”

“Hey, look, the name of the game is break or be broken when dealing with these folks.” The head of the steamer hit the wall with a dull hiss. “Now, get ready to scrape.”

By the time they had finished stripping half of the room, the downstairs foyer was full of neighbors. People were moving slowly between the living room and dining room, forming quiet clusters of conversations that kept breaking and shifting as someone left to greet a newcomer, refill a coffee cup, or help themselves to the cold buffet that was laid out on a sideboard in the dining room. Willie and Lester walked along the banister in the darkened upstairs hallway, trying to locate Parker in the crowd. Lester recognized quite a few faces from First Crescent Drive, and his mother was sitting in the corner of the living room with a plate balanced on her lap. They finally spotted Parker seated quietly in the dining room at the head of a large oval table with a glass top and a centerpiece of white tea roses. The twelve chairs around the table were continually changing occupants. As soon as someone finished eating, another person would take his place, carrying one of the clear glass plates, which were stacked on the sideboard. From the second floor, the brass chandelier reflected the changing faces bent over the tabletop as clearly as a mirror.

Lester tried to get Parker’s attention without calling out, but he sat with his eyes lowered to his lap and his plate untouched. Mrs. Donnell sat beside him and occasionally she would lean over, pat his arm, and urge him to eat.

“Oh Christ, how are we gonna get him up here?” Lester whispered. “He’s down there playing the grieving husband.”

“He won’t have to play soon when we tell him we ain’t finishing that room. Maybe we could throw a note down into his lap or something.”

“Well, let’s just wait a minute. Maybe his neck will get tired and he’ll change expressions. And when he moves into one of those anguished appeals to heaven and rolls his eyes up here, we’ll signal him.”

But for the next five minutes all they could see was the light bouncing off Parker’s smooth bald spot and occasional reflections from his rimless bifocals in the glass tabletop. Then a bloated hum started at the other end of the table and rose above the quiet murmurs in the rest of the room before a woman’s sharp voice cut into it.

“Bob, this isn’t the time or place to bring that up.”

“Well, I still think it’s a damned shame,” the man beside her almost shouted.

Parker’s head swung up toward that end of the table. “What? What’s a shame?” His whisper, carrying the import of the bereaved, silenced the others. “Now don’t be too hasty, Bob. Believe me, Lycentia would have wanted it that way, she was always saying—”

“Lycentia was the first one to bring it to my attention, Chester—God rest her soul—and she was dead set against it.”

Parker began to tremble, little rings of moisture forming on his bifocals. “Why, that’s not possible. She—”

“Chester, just last month she told me she had all the petitions in to the city commissioner and she was sure the council was going to impose that zoning restriction. Now I get the news today that they overturned our petition. And I think it’s a damned shame, that’s all. Because all that aggravation is probably what killed her—excuse me, Chester—this may not be the time for all this. But with all that woman’s hard work, the city’s still going to erect that housing project.”

Forks clattered all around the table. “What?”

“There has to be some mistake.”

“Mistake, my eye. Where’s Bryan?” Bob twisted around in his chair toward the dining room door. “Bryan, you’re the councilman for this district, so I know you’ve got the inside dope. Didn’t the planning commission use our petitions for toilet paper last week?”

“Now, Bob, it wasn’t quite like that.” The champagne-colored man cleared his throat. “There was a lot of time spent considering all the issues involved. And certainly the feelings of this community were given quite a bit of weight. Why, I personally made a vehement appeal and used every ounce of influence I could to be sure that your views were given a fair hearing—just as I did for the new sewage plant and the renovation of those vacant lots across—”

“Cut the mumbo-jumbo,” Bob interrupted him. “We heard all that when we elected you. All we want to know is did they or did they not approve of building those low-income projects.”

“Yes, but—”

“See!” Bob turned back to the table.

“But by a small margin.” Bryan tried to raise his voice above the scattered outbursts. “Bob, you and the others have got to understand that there has been a lot of pressure on the mayor to do something about the living conditions in Putney Wayne. People are over there in tenements that should have been condemned years ago. There’s no heat in most of them and at times no water. The health department reported three cases of diphtheria within six months—and it’s no wonder, the way they live. And one of the kids who caught it last year died recently, so your petition was just bad timing, that’s all. It’s not my fault. People were starting to talk epidemic.”

“Well, you can’t help but feel sorry for those mothers,” one of the women said, “but the city should just renovate the housing that’s already there. God knows they milk us enough as it is for services we’ll never use—all that welfare and food stamps. You know what it costs just to print up those stamps—it’s scandalous.”

“It’s not that simple, Mildred. The city has to apply for federal funds to undertake any building plans and there are regulations about size and number of units. It’s really less expensive for you if they build an entirely new complex.”

“Yeah, sure,” Bob said. “And then they’ve got to fill those units and that means you’re doubling the size of Putney Wayne in half the space. Then we get a whole army of them right across Wayne Avenue. Practically in our backyards. So you can kiss your safe streets good-bye.”

“And just about everything else in our homes. You fill up the neighborhood with people like that, the next thing you know your TV’s and stereos are walking out the door.”

“Well, crime is everywhere. If worse comes to worst, you can always get extra security for your homes. But what about our children? The local schools are overcrowded as it is. We’ve managed to maintain a pretty decent standard of education so far, but this is just going to swing the ratio too far over. And I refuse to have my child suffer because the teachers will be overloaded with a lot of remedial cases and troublemakers.”

“Thank God I don’t have to send my Ernestine to these public schools.”

“Well, if the council gets their way, we’ll all have to take our children out of these schools—for their own sakes.”

“Yeah, or the next thing you know, they’ll be coming home with drugs and knives.”

Upstairs, Lester touched Willie’s arm. “Just listen to them,” he whispered. “Any minute, someone’s gonna say, ‘The next thing you know, they’ll be marrying your daughter.’ Let’s get out of here before I throw up.”

Willie motioned for Lester to wait. He hadn’t really been listening so much as looking down into the faces that were looking up through the clear dinner plates from the glass-topped table. And something was haunting him about the rhythm of the knives and forks that cut into the slices of roast beef. Click-scrape. Click-scrape. Click-scrape. Click-scrape. Now, where had he heard that before? Click-scrape. Click-scrape … These days-of dis-inheritance. Yeah, that was it. These days of disinheritance, we feast on human heads … The plates never seemed empty of the brown and bloody meat. The utensils worked their way from center to edge, exposing an ear here, a chin there. Parts of a mouth, a set of almond-shaped eyes.

The church bells clap one night in the week.

But that’s all done. It is what used to be,

As they used to lie in the grass, in the heat,

Men on green buds and women half of sun.

The words are written, though not yet said.

Willie knew it was just an illusion. Those plates were actually being emptied, so the clicking and scraping couldn’t go on forever. They had to stop in spite of what he was seeing. They had to put those forks down.

But the voices were beginning to circle the dining room in a fevered crescendo accompanied by a steady metallic tempo from the table.

“I hope they don’t expect us to take this lying down.”

“What is this—South Africa? As decent citizens and taxpayers, we should have something to say about what these officials do.”

“Does Nedeed know about this?”

“Bryan, what should be our next move?” Bob asked. “We can’t let it end here.”

“Well, your community isn’t the only one that’s upset about the proposal. I was talking to Phil Mackelberg, the councilman who represents Spring Vale, and he’d just met with an ad hoc committee from the Wayne County Citizens Alliance, and it seems that they’ve been working to place this proposal on a referendum in the next election. It could be stopped in November.” He cleared his throat nervously and glanced around the room. “But it would mean that Linden Hills would have to form a coalition with Spring Vale and the Wayne County Citizens Alliance in order to get enough support to defeat it.”

“I’m for it,” Bob said.

Willie whispered, “But I thought that Alliance was the Ku Klux Klan without a Southern accent?”

Lester shook his head. “Naw, just without the sheets.”

There was an uneasy stirring downstairs.

“I don’t know, we’ve had our differences with that group in the past.”

“Yeah, but you have to sweep all that junk under the carpet.”

“We’ve never needed them before—I don’t see why we can’t fight our own battles.”

“It’s not just our battle. Linden Hills has got to realize that we’re part of a whole city. And if we don’t hang with the Citizens Alliance then we’ll hang separately.”

“Well, I think this entire conversation is a disgrace!” Mrs. Donnell shouted. “Here we are turning this man’s home into a public forum and his wife’s funeral is tomorrow.” She pressed Parker’s arm. “Chester, you haven’t heard a word we’ve said. I can imagine all the things on your mind right now.”

“Oh, no, no.” Parker looked up from his lap and focused on his guests. “Bob was right. Lycentia spent her last days working on that petition. She would often say to me, ‘Chester, I’m going to do everything in my power to keep those dirty niggers out of our community.’ And this evening is in her honor.” He smiled weakly around the table. “So please, there’s more roast beef, folks.”

There was total silence for a moment. Gradually the people who were standing drifted out of the dining room, and the twelve seated around the table bent their hands over their plates in rapt attention to the music of their cutlery on the transparent surfaces.

It is like the season when, after summer,

It is summer and it is not, it is autumn

And it is not, it is day and it is not,

As if last night’s lamp continued to burn,

As if yesterday’s people continued to watch

The sky, half porcelain, preferring that

To shaking out heavy bodies in the glares

Of this present, this science, this unrecognized.

Willie sighed. “You’re right, I’ve heard enough. Let’s do what we have to and get out of here.”

Lester went back into the bedroom and Willie was about to follow him when the doorbell rang and seemed to echo from every glass surface in the room. The crystal balls on the chandelier even tinkled. Luther Nedeed came into the dining room, carrying a cellophane-wrapped cake. He was the only guest Willie had seen bringing food that night, and it surprised him. He knew that his family always fried chicken and baked stuff for a wake and so it was the last thing he expected to see done in Linden Hills. Willie lingered in the upstairs hall a moment and watched Luther as he hesitated in front of the buffet. There was no space for his bundle next to the ornate array of catered food.

“Nice of you to come, Luther.” Parker got up and took the cake from him.

“I guess I have to become accustomed to these modern ways.” Luther seemed embarrassed. “In my time, friends and neighbors always supplied the food for these types of occasion.”

“Of course, of course.” Parker blinked at him. “But I didn’t want folks going to a lot of trouble.”

“It was no trouble, my wife baked it. She sends her regards, Chester, but she’s not up to coming out tonight. And although I’ve been able to serve you in an official capacity in your time of loss, I felt I should come tonight in my unofficial capacity as a neighbor.”

“Yes, haven’t seen your missus in ages. Lycentia had mentioned something about a cruise, wasn’t it? Did she enjoy it?”

“Immensely, but it’s left her somewhat drained, so we’ve decided that she spend Christmas with relatives to save her the strain of entertaining. We’re planning something for the spring.”

“Well, I must give her a call as soon as the holidays are over,” one of the women said. “This has been a dreadfully busy season with the Alcott wedding and poor Lycentia passing.”

“Yes, yes.” Parker nodded. “Everything is all up in the air. When I think about the plans that Lycentia and I had. But she always said to me, ‘Chester—’”

“I’m sure, Chester,” Luther said as he stared straight into his eyes, “that whatever plans you may still have won’t be terribly disrupted.” Parker almost cringed under his gaze. “Because,” Luther continued slowly, “Lycentia would have wanted it that way.”

“Oh, yes, Luther.” Parker began to chatter. “Yes, she would have. Why, just before you came in we were all talking about—”

“I know what everyone in this house was talking about.” Luther took in the entire room with his dark, immobile face, and Willie felt the urge to move back into the shadowed hallway upstairs. “The same thing that’s been discussed every time two or three people from Linden Hills have gotten together lately. And I can tell you that it’s all been taken care of. The Tupelo Realty board met with the Wayne County Citizens Alliance today and there’s little doubt that the referendum on the housing project will be put on the ballot next November. Now, the only thing left is to vote on it, and with our combined efforts there’s no chance of it getting through.”

“Now, there’s a man who’s talking sense,” Bob said. “Luther, I’ve been trying to tell these folks that we all have a responsibility to the welfare of this county, and if the Alliance can see through that and work with us, then we should work with them. It’s not about black or white, it’s about our civic duty.”

“It’s nothing of the kind.” Luther’s voice was soft and low, but it carried throughout the room. “You know, Bob, my father often said, ‘Lie to everyone in this man’s world if need be, but never lie to yourself, because that’s the quickest road to destruction.’ The Wayne County Citizens Alliance is full of some of the most despicable racists on this side of the continent. And there isn’t a soul in this room that doesn’t know that.” Luther almost smiled at the expression on their faces. “And you’re only saved from being beneath their contempt because your education and professional status are above reproach and, more often than not, above theirs. But the people who would move into that new development don’t have that saving grace, so the Alliance is free to engage in myths about inferior schools and deteriorating neighborhoods while all they’re really fearing is the word nigger. And they’ve no intention of letting this county finance a breeding ground for their nightmares.

“We must give them credit for one thing: they’ve become civilized enough by now to recognize that there are two types—the safe ones that they feel they can control and trust not to spill tea on their carpets while they use a dozen euphemisms to form a coalition to keep the other type from moving too close. And I suppose that since I’ve just spent an entire afternoon listening to all that, I’m a bit reluctant to hear it all again tonight from you.”

“Now, Luther, that’s a bit harsh.” Bob pushed the meat around on his plate. “If you really thought that, you wouldn’t have been able to meet with those people.”

“I met with them and I’ll vote with them.” And this time he did smile. “Because I know that their nightmares are real enough to send them running from the other side of the hill. Real enough to get this entire district red-lined through the banks, and my realty company wouldn’t be able to finance another mortgage, and I’d have to watch the property values of Linden Hills go plunging into an abyss. And do you think I’m going to let that happen because a handful of fools can’t stomach the thought of living next to another group of people that happen to look like me?”

Willie wanted to applaud Nedeed. He had said all the things that Willie had wanted to hang over that banister and shout: Yeah, you turkeys, I’m one of those people in Putney Wayne you didn’t want near you. Maybe I don’t carry a wallet full of credit cards, but I’ve never carried a switchblade, either. Lester should have been out here for this. At least Nedeed was honest—Willie looked down at the suffocated room—deadly honest.

No one at the table was eating. Wineglasses were turned, napkins wiped clean mouths, and coffee cups were stirred. One woman got up and left the table without a word, but no one’s head followed her out of the room. Luther picked up a clean plate, filled it, and took her seat, completing the circle of twelve. His knife and fork caught the rays from the chandelier as he delicately sliced into the tender meat. He chewed slowly and looked around the table.

“Is everyone else finished as well? I hope not, since I’ve brought dessert—and I hate eating alone.”

One by one, the other knives and forks were lifted as the meal continued with the pathetic motions of children being forced to eat. The rhythm of the utensils was much fainter now, but Willie could still hear it plainly upstairs because it went unchallenged by any conversation. They cut. They chewed. They swallowed.

This outpost, this douce, this dumb, this dead, in which

We feast on human heads, brought in on leaves,

Crowned with the firsi, cold buds. On these we live,

No longer on the ancient cake of seed,

The almond and deep fruit. This bitter meat

Sustains us … Who, then, are they, seated here?

Is the table a mirror in which they sit and look?

Are they men eating reflections of themselves?

Realizing that no one else was going to speak, Willie went into the bedroom. Lester was carrying fresh water out of the bathroom for the steamer.

“Hey, White, I was just about to come get you. I thought you got lost.”

“Naw, Nedeed came in and I wanted to get a better look at him.”

“Christ, I bet they’re down there bending his ears with their gripes.”

“No,” Willie said. “As a matter of fact, they all shut up. Now they’re just eating.”

She was on her knees, surrounded by piles of dusty, yellowing cookbooks. She had hoped to find some other records left by Luwana Packerville, but the woman seemed to have disappeared. The damp concrete bit into her knees as she tore open the third cardboard box and found another stack of wire-bound recipes. She knew that these also belonged to the same woman, Evelyn Creton Nedeed; there was no need to open the covers and see that name written again in large block letters on the inside. And reading the carefully printed instructions for breads, stews, roasted meats, and puddings only knotted her stomach, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten in days. But she still dug into the box, enduring the dust that entered her nose and dried her throat, hoping that something of Luwana Packerville’s was wedged in between the thick, heavy cookbooks.

Her heart quickened when she saw a wad of papers but she unfolded them only to find columns and columns of canning dates: Thirty quarts of snap beans, May 1892. Twelve quarts of pickled tomatoes, September 1893. Twenty pints of blackberry jam, August 1896. The papers were thrown down in disgust. She was wasting her time. Forty years were gone. These recipes were from another lifetime. Evelyn Creton probably never knew Luwana Packerville. As she roasted her meats and canned her apple butter year after year, she didn’t know that a woman had gone insane because she was barred from the very kitchen that Evelyn Creton later filled with her damned cookbooks. Even at that moment, on her knees, she could visualize the shelves she had kept them on. The same cherrywood cabinet that now held her own paperback guides for countless diets and nutrition plans, her encyclopedia of international cuisine, three hundred ways to a better quiche, and a hardcover edition of the modern woman’s Bible, The Joy of Cooking. Evelyn Creton had obviously found joy in that kitchen as she filled her shelves with these recipes. And she didn’t seem content to stop with just that. With a fanatical precision, the woman had even recorded the dates on which she purchased and used the ingredients for each recipe.

Potato Casserole

June 5th—Purchased: 50 pounds of potatoes, 12 pounds of cheese, 10 pounds of onions, 16 pints of cream.

June 5th—Used: 37 pounds of potatoes, 9½ pounds of cheese, 10 pounds of onions, 12 pints of cream.

She baked continually and in equally huge amounts.

Walnut Bread

June 6th—Purchased: 20 pounds of flour, 15 pounds of sugar, 2½ quarts of butter, ½ bushel of walnuts, 10 quarts of milk.

June 6th—Used: 15 pounds of flour, 7 pounds of sugar, 2½ quarts of butter, ½ bushel of walnuts, 8 quarts of milk.

But none of it made any sense because on June 7 she’d started all over again, adding two bushels of raisins to the same recipe. June 8, she substituted pecans for the walnuts. June 9, quarts of sour cream for the milk.

The woman cooked as if she were possessed. What drove her to make that kitchen her whole world? Between the buying, baking, and recording she had to be in that kitchen all day—and probably all night. There were only three of them in this house, so they couldn’t have eaten all of that food. Maybe she was selling those things. But how could you sell gravy? In one day she had made forty quarts of chicken gravy, and the next day, turned around and made another forty with onions instead of mushrooms. She used a lot of onions in her recipes. And there were no food processors in those days, so Evelyn Creton must have done a lot of crying.

She sighed, knowing her search was futile, but she still emptied the box. At the bottom were two slim volumes covered in black silk. They were also recipe books, but their thickness and width set them apart from the others. There was no name printed on the inside cover but the block letters and the method of recording date by date the amounts purchased and used for each recipe marked them as belonging to the same woman. At first the contents confused her. Now most of the ingredients were measured in ounces and pinches, and the dates were crammed together so tightly they were almost a blur.

Her knees were becoming numb as she read, and her fingers tightened around the silk covers as she began to make sense out of the pages. She needed more light. She stood up too quickly. Her head swayed drunkenly and her eyes went dim. She reached for the railing on the cot, clutching the books to her side. She prayed that Luther wouldn’t choose this moment to cut off the lights. She needed to sit down and rest for a while and then take her time to read through these two books very carefully.

Because there was no way that Evelyn Creton could have kept this set of recipes up on those cherrywood shelves.