C H A P T E R • 19
There’s something wonderful about a rainy day on a Harlem row house block.
The house on the corner was for sale. The one across the street was in the advanced stages of renovation, backed by a downtown bank.
We are aptly named Strivers Row, except our block is not landmarked like the houses one block north. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs at the Miller’s house to look up at City College on the hill rising above St. Nicholas Park. Then I turned and walked up the stoop and used an ornate metal knocker to let Elizabeth Miller know I was there.
She was slightly overdressed for so early in the morning, in what I’ve heard described as good-walking-shoes. A brooch boasted an amber stone, the filigree repeated on her earrings. She wore an incongruous blossom of scarlet lipstick. But the makeup couldn’t cover the puffiness.
After we held each other, she asked, “How are you? Marcus told me Obsidian was shot last night.”
“The nurses tell me he’s stable this morning. But I came to see about you. Can I help you do anything? Take something off your to-do list today?”
“Let’s talk in the kitchen,” she said.
Her kitchen was a modern contrast to the stained glass and antique ornamentation in the parlor, and it had been painted a deep eggplant.
“I have time for one cup of coffee. But we are going to need more time than that,” she said.
“Yes,” I agreed. “I woke up this morning and started to feel who I was going to be in my world, in my story, without Cecelia.” I proceeded slowly, being careful of being clumsy with our shared grief. “Even though we were far apart, she was the best and dearest witness to my girlhood.”
She smiled a little smile. “I heard some music. It brought her to my mind when you all were I think 5 or 6 years old and you were both twirling like banshees so fast and your mother and I could not stop laughing. And last night, I saw a young woman walking and something about her made my heart stop.” Her voice caught but didn’t break. “Thank you. I like talking about her. But is that why you came this morning?”
“I came for two reasons, to see how you are, and also, if I can, to ask you some newspaper questions,” I said.
“It must be hard to sit in your father’s chair at the newspaper. Have you discovered any tools you can share with me about how to handle your grief?”
“I have a meditation practice. I’ve made myself sit down and been surprised by moments of acceptance. But now we’ve lost Cecelia and I’m feeling our grief all fresh again.”
“Yes. It is fresh and it is ours. Your father and I have been neighbors and friends forever.”
We took a minute to regroup, before I asked, “I wonder if you know why Cecelia would give Mister Bell bank secrets. Did he tell you?”
Elizabeth Miller had been avoiding direct eye contact, as if her attention was on some internal conversation, but then she linked eye-to-eye with me. “Yes. The bank has been receiving warnings this year from the Comptroller of the Currency and she felt the board was taking advantage of its vulnerability rather than supporting the bank.”
“Is that why she and Gary broke up?”
“She was calling attention to the bank’s trouble to arouse the community and move the board to take action. Gary does not think it wise to tell bank secrets.”
“I get that,” I said. “Bank board business needs to be secret.”
“There’s more to it than that. He’s playing for higher stakes than the souls of black folk now,” she said. “That kind of access can change a person. His father would be ashamed of him.”
“She gave some files to Mister Bell just before. I’m wondering if there’s more.”
Mrs. Miller went to the back door and took a heavy ring of keys from a hook. “These are Cecelia’s extra set of keys. Some are the ones to the house and these are to I’m not sure what all. Come back whenever you can. I’m on my way out and I’ll be out most of the day. Marcus wants to look around too. Maybe you two can look together when he gets here. He’s going to come and stay with me.” She smiled a small smile. “We haven’t lived together since Cecelia was growing up and he came to be her daddy.”
“I’ll probably take a few minutes now and come back later when Mister Bell is here. Would it be okay?”
“Of course. I have a lot to take care of today.” Her voice and attention trailed off.
I helped her gather her things and locked the door behind her.
∗ ∗ ∗
I walked up the stairs to sit in my friend’s space and to see what she might have been up to. On both sides of the staircase, paintings of musicians filled the walls in their separate frames. A framed front page of the Harlem Journal announced: HARLEM HISTORY REVEALED IN HOUSE TOUR. The Miller’s house was featured.
What I could see of the second floor sitting room displayed an air of over-upholstered calm.
On the top floor, a tall long-legged metal bird peered a welcome at me and seemed to be looking over the bedroom from the corner next to the fireplace. Out the window I saw the top of our ailanthus tree.
Cecelia had been reading a book of poetry, three weekly magazines and a romance novel and writing in a stenographer’s notebook that flipped from the top.
She was a woman who kept track of herself in a neat, tight, lefty script, and you didn’t have to be a handwriting expert to notice when the writing turned personal and into a scrawl: Damn. Damn. I do like a goodbye scene with words and pictures to chew on. Not these bits of sorrow and betrayal and the little nasty bits of greed.
When she worked herself up, she even wrote an occasional poem.
I put the notebook in my plastic Harlem History Week tote.