I’LL TAKE THE AFTERNOON I NEED, STELLA THOUGHT, for normality, for fun. Even Aunt Krit used to tell her, “You can’t go all the time. You have to have fun.” All her life, Stella’d had fun with Nancy. Or comfort. At the funeral of her family, it was Nancy who held her hand. Stella couldn’t remember time before Nancy was her friend.
Stella arranged to meet Nancy at the old red clay tennis courts on Norwood Boulevard at two in the afternoon. Nancy had to drive from across town—her family had moved over the mountain to Homewood—but her mother let Nancy drive the big black Cadillac. When they were little, Nancy’s mother ferried them across Birmingham so that they could visit. And then Nancy’s father had died, and the bond between the girls strengthened again. The car was old now, seemed a little hearselike; it was so long, not like the latest cars, but Stella loved that car.
Stella breathed deeply, filled her lungs with the air of roses. The high Cyclone fence around the court was bedecked—there was no other word for it—bedecked with climbing roses. Outside of a fairy-tale illustration, Stella had never seen such cascades of roses. Planted decades ago when Norwood Boulevard was a fashionable address, now the robust rose canes wove in and out of the fencing. The main stems topped the fence and then arched over like the curve of a wave, and underneath, inside the wave was a cool shady place where you could sit on the ground and wait. Bouquets of small clusters of roses, some white, some pink, some red, dangled through the fencing.
Because the tennis net itself was a piece of the Cyclone fencing, it had lasted more than twenty years. The net was rusty, but who cared? She thought of Stephen Dedalus in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, how he’d wanted to fly over the nets of language, religion, and culture of his homeland. This beautiful place existed because the city fathers had forgotten to destroy it when wealth moved over Red Mountain.
She could hear but not see birds chirping (were there four?), despite the mounting heat. She thought of Virginia Woolf, who, in her madness, heard birds speaking Greek. The tennis court birds were happy, but what were they trying to say?
Probably Nancy didn’t even see her there, hidden among the roses. When Nancy jumped out of the Cadillac holding two tennis rackets and a can of balls, she looked like Doris Day, wearing only two colors—green shorts and a matching green-and-white-checked top. So fresh and fashionable! Her hair was up in a ponytail with an elastic band covered in white terry. Nancy’s ponytail was a beautiful shape, like an S curve, an arabesque graceful as the cabriolet leg of a fine chair. Without looking at it, Nancy passed the stubby marble war memorial incised with the names of Norwood boys, dead now almost twenty years from World War II—but what does it mean to be dead twenty years? A name incised in white stone.
Aunt Krit was glad to have Nancy in the wedding; she would be a credit to the occasion. Aunt Pratt simply loved Nancy. Stella called to her friend (Nancy had outlasted Stella’s parents, brothers), who waved the rackets in reply and then came to sit with Stella in the rose bower.
“We haven’t done this in ages!” Nancy exclaimed. “I love coming back over here.” Her face was bright, her big eyes the pale blue of forget-me-nots. She swung herself onto the ground inside the bower of roses.
When Stella told Nancy that she and Cat were teaching at Miles, at night, Nancy’s face wrinkled in concern. “I’m not a bit prejudiced. You know that. But it’s not safe.”
Stella just shrugged and smiled.
“I know you won’t listen,” Nancy said. “What does Aunt Krit say?”
“She doesn’t know. Not unless the birdies told her.”
“Stella Silver!” But Nancy wouldn’t scold.
NANCY LUXURIATED IN the beautiful summer day; her middle name was June, and she always loved this month, despite the ever-increasing fierceness of the heat. (Nancy didn’t want to argue with Stella, she just added, “I’m Cat’s friend, too, but I wouldn’t go out there at night, even with Jesus. It’s against the law, and, moreover, it’s just not safe.”) The sky was piled with clouds. Nancy knew they’d be hot after five seconds of play—the red clay court was baking in full sun—but she had brought a thermos of lemonade in the car. After they were tired of playing tennis, they’d talk, which was why Nancy came over anyway. They’d come back, sit under the roof of roses, sip lemonade, and talk.
Stella was wearing cutoff blue jeans, strings on the thighs, and a red T-shirt. Primary blocks of color. (Nancy was a student of color.)
The ball thunked and thunked between them (Nancy loved the sound of it), they called out the points Love! Love! (both of them were a little preoccupied), they swapped ends, they tolerated their sweating (they were girls again, not recent college graduates); they ignored the sunburning of noses, cheeks passing from pink to glowing red (huge puffs of white clouds crowned the summer day); and to Nancy’s surprise, she won. Usually Stella, who was thinner and quicker, won. Then to Nancy’s horror, she saw that Stella was going to run and leap over the heavy-gauge wire net to congratulate her.
Stella galloped like a colt, as hard as she could, but Nancy was afraid. She knew she herself could never clear the net. “Don’t! Don’t!” she yelled, but Stella, blocks of colors, red and blue, raced on. You’ll get hurt!
Stella raised her front foot and arched over the net. She landed still running.
“You won! You won!” Stella shouted, happy, waving her tennis racket in the air like a pennant. Happy to affirm her friend. Happy to lose.
LATER THEY SAT again in the bower of pink roses.
“This is it,” Stella said, “the heart of being alive. This beautiful flowery place.”
“And the sky,” Nancy added, nodding at the cloud puffs.
“I’ve never felt so strong or nice.”
“Is it being engaged to Don?”
Stella wrinkled her forehead, hesitated. “No. It’s now. It’s friendship. Feeling and action.”