5
Mother Barnett, why on earth are you still here? I would have thought you’d be home resting your legs by now,” Shar said as she grabbed her purse and prepared to leave the church.
“Chile, didn’t I tell you that these old knees wasn’t bothering me today?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot.”
“I stayed to help these young girls put the sanctuary back to right while you was downstairs cleaning the kitchen. But I’m headed home now.” Mother Barnett held a smile that was as wide as the ocean.
Shar knew why she was smiling like that. Mother Barnett still believed that something good was going to happen that day. As Shar thought about that, she’d come to the conclusion that Mother Barnett had good reason to think like that. The old woman had only had two other no-pain days in the entire time that Shar had known her. On the first no-pain day, Pastor Landon had delivered his first sermon as the new pastor of United Worship Center. On the other no-pain day, Brother Wilson had stood up and testified that he and his family were about to be thrown out on the street because he didn’t have the money to pay his rent. But he’d found a crisp one hundred dollar bill lying on the street as if the Lord Himself had left it there just for him. The whole church rejoiced because Brother Wilson and his family wouldn’t be on the streets.
As they walked out of the church together, Mother Barnett told Shar, “I’m going home to put the light in the window for Herbert.”
Pastor Landon’s encouraging words had helped Shar to cheer up a bit after Thomas Dorsey left the church without so much as a wave good-bye. But, in truth, walking with Mother Barnett had helped her more. Because if she could still be putting a light in her window in hopes that old no-account Herbert Barnett would come back home after being gone so long, then who was she to be down in the mouth just because Thomas Dorsey didn’t take notice of her?
She was happiest when she sang praises to God. So if God intended for her to stay an apprentice at that beauty shop, shampooing heads and sweeping the floor during the week and then helping mama with the washing and ironing on the weekend, she would do it with a smile on her face, as long as she could open her mouth and sing God’s praises every Sunday morning. She didn’t need to be like Mahalia Jackson or Rosetta Tharpe, singing to hundreds and even thousands of people at a time. And anyway, she wasn’t special like that. All Shar really wanted right then was to earn enough money to get her mother to a doctor. Her mother refused to take money out of the household for frivolous things like having a doctor take a look at her. “I’d rather use my home remedies and keep my money to pay the rent,” Marlene had told Shar. But her mother’s made-up concoctions didn’t seem to be working for that cough.
“Hey, Shar, you looking mighty pretty today,” Rodney Oldham hollered out as she passed him on the street.
Shar just rolled her eyes. Rodney was a pretty boy who hung out on the streets with his good-for-nothing friends, doing nothing but gambling and getting into trouble. If she married him, Shar had no doubt that she’d be putting a light in her window just like Mother Barnett. So she ignored him and tried her best to stay out of his way, while she prayed that Landon would soon make up his mind about him and her. Shar’s Daddy had only courted her mama for three months before he knew that she was the one.
“I know you heard me, Shar Gracey. One day you gon’ take that nose of yours out the air and realize that you ain’t no better than nobody else,” Rodney said as he followed behind her.
“Never said I was any better’n you. I just don’t like you, and I wish you’d leave me be.”
“Oh, well excuse me for breathing.” Rodney waved his hand toward the street and moved out of her way. “Don’t let me stop you from gettin’ somewhere in life. But while you’re going, just remember that you just as poor as the rest of us.”
Rodney hadn’t told her nothing new. As far as Shar was concerned, she was born poor, and she would stay that way until the day she died. Her father had big dreams about going north. He promised them that things would be better, that she would be able to sing in Chicago and wouldn’t be restricted by nothing and nobody. Her mama told Shar that she was sure to find a husband with a good-paying job and then move on up in the world. But the only moving they had done was when they put their raggedy old furniture in their raggedy old house that sat right smack-dab in the middle of the Black Belt. And the only singing Shar had done was at church. Shar was tired of being mad about their plight in life. She kicked at a few rocks on the street . . . time to just accept things as they were and find happiness the best way she could.
At least that’s what she told herself as she opened the front door to her house and walked in. But when she saw her mom and dad sitting with Thomas Dorsey and Landon, Shar’s heart took a leap in the direction of hope again. “Wh—what’s going on?” she stammered.
Her father stood up and pointed at Thomas Dorsey. “He wants you to join his choir. Didn’t I tell you, gal? Didn’t I tell you that your day was a-coming?”
Her mama stood up and pointed at Landon. “Pastor Landon wants to marry you, chile. Don’t go running off, following no pipe dreams, when you got a man here that wants to make a life with you.”
Her mother had never had patience for all the music talk Shar and her daddy shared. Marlene couldn’t carry a tune, so she didn’t understand the dreams that Shar and her daddy had about making something of themselves in the music business. Marlene just wanted to make sure that Shar found a good and honorable man to marry, and she wasn’t about to let Johnny Gracey’s pipe dreams spoil that.
But Shar had been dreaming about singing and about marrying Pastor Landon for so long now, that she couldn’t hardly believe either dream was about to come true, let alone both. In the entire year that she had been courting him, Landon had never so much as hinted that he was thinking about marriage. He didn’t act like Rodney, making all his catcalls at her as she passed him by, or any of the other men who’d been interested in her. Landon had always treated her with kindness . . . like a lady. And now he was at her house, holding onto those flowers he’d promised her. She opened her mouth and timidly asked, “You want to marry me?”
Landon handed her the flowers. “I had hoped to be able to ask you myself, but yes. I do want to marry you.”
“But why? I mean . . . you never let on.” She had been dreaming about being with him for so long but never in a million years thought it would come true. Pastor Landon was an educated and well-traveled man, and why would he want to spend time with her?
Landon stood, hat in hand. “You’re pretty special to me, Shar Gracey. I’ve prayed about this. And you’re the one for me.”
Johnny waved Landon’s comment off and then said, “Mr. Dorsey thinks you’re special too. His choir needs someone with your strong vocals. And you could even make some money to help with your ma’s medical bills.”
Marlene’s eyes bucked as her hand went to her hips, “Johnny Gracey, you’re not fightin’ fair.”
Shar turned her attention to Thomas Dorsey. “You want me to travel? I thought your choir performed Chicago.”
“We do, but we also go on the road for extended periods of time. I will be leaving in three weeks and would love for you to come with us.”
With wonderment in her voice, Shar asked, “I would get paid?”
Thomas nodded. “Your pa told me that y’all need money to get your mama to the doctor. My choir members don’t get paid, but if you’re willing to sell my sheet music after each service, I can pay for that.”
Shar turned to her mother. “And you would go to the doctor?”
“I would make sure of it,” Johnny Gracey said, while giving his wife a look that dared her to defy him.
But Marlene wasn’t done matchmaking. “I’ve got home remedies, Shar. You don’t have to concern yourself about me. You just worry about getting yourself down the aisle. Every preacher needs a good wife.”
Blushing, Shar turned away from her mother to cast her gaze on Landon, the man she had been dreaming about marrying ever since that first day he walked her and her mama home. She turned to Thomas Dorsey and said, “Thank you kindly for wanting me in your choir, Mr. Dorsey. But do you mind if I speak with Pastor Landon first.”
Her daddy stepped closer. “What you gotta speak with him about? Didn’t I tell you that your sanging voice was gon’ take you places?” Johnny’s eyes misted as he added, “It’s the only thang I ever had to give you. But I’m mighty proud that you’ve got a chance to get out of here and see the world with it.”
Shar’s daddy and most of his brothers and sisters could sing like songbirds. He’d always reminded Shar that she got her voice from his mother and that she wasn’t gon’ waste her talent like the rest of the Graceys had. Shar had assured her daddy that she wouldn’t waste what the good Lord and Grandma Gracey had given her.
She turned back to Landon. He was so handsome and kind and everything she ever wanted in a man. At six feet, he stood taller than most of the men she knew. Shar always liked the way his trim mustache looked against his smooth chocolate skin. She wanted to marry this man like she wanted to breathe. But would Landon wait for her? Would he allow her to do this tour so she could earn enough money to help her family?
“Pastor Landon is not going to wait around forever for you, chile. You go running off to see the world because of some pipe dream of your daddy’s and you’ll miss out. Hear what I’m telling you, Shar?”
“Yes, Mama, I hear you.” She then asked her daddy, “Do you mind if I speak with Pastor Landon on the porch?”
Johnny waved them off. “Go on, but be quick about it. Mr. Dorsey is an important man, and he don’t have all day for you to be diddling around.”
Landon walked Shar out of the house. Once they had taken their seats on the stoop he said, “I didn’t know your dad was so set on you singing.”
“That’s all he’s ever talked about since I was a kid and he discovered I could sing. He said that his mama wanted to sing, but got beat so bad trying to save her youngest son from a lynching that she lost her voice.”
“You never told me that.”
“I don’t like thinking about Grandma Gracey having her beautiful voice beat out of her. I never heard her sing because I hadn’t been born when it happened, but my daddy said that the world lost something special indeed, when Grandma Gracey’s voice left her.”
“Do you really have to go, Shar? You already sing in the choir at church, and I’m sure you could find other churches in Chicago to sing at also?” Landon said.
“But Mr. Dorsey is going to pay me.”
“Is money so important, Shar? Don’t you care at all about the fact that I want to marry you?”
“You know I care,” Shar said quickly. “Any woman would be right pleased at the thought of being the wife of Pastor Landon Norstrom. I am mighty proud that you asked my parents for my hand.”
“Then stay here with me, Shar. I’d treat you like a princess. I can promise you that.”
Shar’s eyes became misty at Landon’s promise to treat her like a princess, but she didn’t respond.
Landon got the hint. “There’s more that you’re not saying, isn’t there? I need to know what I’m up against.”
She closed her eyes. Wishing that she wasn’t poor and colored and needing to decide between love and money. But she wasn’t Cinderella, and no matter how bad she wanted it, no princess fairytales was coming her way. She was Shar Gracey, the daughter of a woman who was too poor to go to a doctor. “My family needs the money. My mama is sick. I can feel it in my bones. But she won’t go to a doctor because we don’t have the money.”
“I know a doctor who I can get to check your mama out. He does house calls, and if I let him know what’s going on, he might be able to work out a payment plan.”
“What about the medicine, Landon? If she needs medicine, can you pay for that too?” She lifted a hand to halt his answer. “I can’t ask you to do that. My daddy wouldn’t take your charity.”
“We could take up a collection at the church.”
Shar shook her head. “Most of the folks at the church just as bad off as we are. I can’t see burdening them with our problems.”
Landon put his arm around Shar. As he touched his forehead to hers, they both let out a long-suffering sigh.
Tears slid down Shar’s face as she asked, “What are we going to do?”
“I can’t answer that for you. All I can do is love you and hope that you choose me.”
Shar pulled away from Landon and grabbed hold of the rail as she made her way down the steps. She didn’t know why life was so unfair to her, but life ain’t never gave a dang about what she wanted. “What kind of choices do I have?”
Landon didn’t get up, didn’t respond, just kept his eyes on her, looking and waiting.
Pointing toward the door, she said, “If I go in there and tell Mr. Dorsey that I’ll go on that tour with him, my daddy will be over the moon with joy and my mama will get the medicine that she needs. But then I lose you.” She paused for a second and took a deep breath. “But if I say no, I won’t go on the tour, I’ll stay right here and marry you. I’ll be happy, and you’ll be happy, but then my mama might die.” She turned away from him and whispered to herself, “How can I live with that?”
She thought about Mother Barnett saying that somebody was going to get some good news today. At that moment, she couldn’t help but wonder if her good news was sitting in the house talking to her parents about the tour or if he was directly behind her, waiting on an answer as to whether or not she would become his wife.