Chapter 37

Shy girls don’t look at men the way the bold ones do. Shy girls steal camera-shutter-quick glances—time enough to capture the fan of eyelashes, the jut of a chin, lips.

Gwen didn’t have a shy bone in her body. She didn’t giggle behind her hand or blush like the other girls when the musicians’ admiring looks turned hard and probing.

Gwen enjoyed being leered at. Welcomed it. Provoked it.

During the warm-up exercises, all for the entertainment of the handsome guitar player, Gwen floated her arms extra-wide like a swan vying for a mate. She rested the heel of her foot atop the wooden rail, arched her back, presenting Harlan with the most exquisite view of her beseeching ass.

When Mary Bruce called for a five-minute break, Gwen joined the other girls around the water cooler. Amidst sips of water from paper cups, giggling, and gossiping, Harlan caught the music riding her tongue.

“Shit, she’s a West Indian,” he groaned.

The West Indians thought quite highly of themselves; those dark people from those hot islands viewed black Americans as vultures, hawks, dung beetles, and blowflies—Eh, you come along and fill your guts after someone else has done all the hard work—scavengers, born of slave stock. Lazy and worthless, just like the white man claimed.

But whether it took a day, a month, or a year, they soon learned that their pretty talk, high regard for themselves, claims of being children of Mother England, children of God, or both—here in the land of amber waves of grain, none of it mattered. If you were black-skinned, you were a nigger no matter where you hailed from.

All of that aside, Harlan still thought Gwen was very cute. So by the third rehearsal he was dropping praise at her feet like confetti.

“You look nice today.”

“What’s that scent? It sure smells good on you.”

“New hairdo? It really fits your face.”

Gwen looked through him.

The other musicians shook their heads in pity.

“Give it up, man, can’t you see she ain’t studying you?”

“Anyway, why you running behind a coconut when you got down-home ass right here under your nose?”

“And she ain’t even that good-looking!”

The other guys thought Gwen was easy on the eyes, but not drop-dead.

“Man, you’ll break your mama’s heart if’n you come home with a monkey on your arm.”

Monkey or not, coconut or peach, Harlan wanted her.