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Tina was bone tired. She’d gone into Plymouth with Johnny at the crack of dawn. He had dropped her off on Water Street near the newspaper office and gone on to his job at Weyerhaeuser Pulp Mill.
Unfortunately, the county seat’s newspaper wasn’t hiring and neither were any of the Plymouth department stores or drug counters.
She didn’t want to try any of the restaurants. The thought occurred to her that maybe being released from Tastee Freez was a sign that she should try another line of work. After getting turned away from so many businesses today, she questioned that line of thinking. At each establishment, she’d been told they were reluctant to hire her because she had no experience other than cooking at a restaurant.
After a day of pounding the pavement in Plymouth, she’d come away empty-handed. Her feet were throbbing and her back ached. She’d neglected to prepare anything for supper the night before, and Elaine’s bus would be home in half an hour. It would have to be a light supper tonight.
Tina kicked off her shoes at the front door and threw her purse in the armchair as she stood, sorting through her mail.
Nothing but bills. Disgusted, she threw the lot of them in the chair beside her bag. The dull pain between her eyes that had started around noon was now a full-blown headache.
Lord, she prayed, show me what to do. Show me how to make it through this trial. Please.
Her prayer was interrupted by a barrage of loud music spewing from the house across the street. Her neighbor Nero Goings would never play such music.
Devil music.
There was only one person who would do this.
She pulled her front door closed and marched across Newland Road and up Nero’s front steps.
Her head throbbed with the music as she pounded on the closed front door.
No answer.
She pounded harder. With a soft click, the door unlatched on its own and eased open. Through the crack, she saw Chas’s son sitting at the piano. He was propped up on pillows, playing the keys.
Nearby sat a turntable with a 33 twirling on top.
The singer on the record prompted people all over the world to join in the Love Train. The boy’s angelic voice blended with those of the recorded vocalists.
Love train indeed.
Infuriated, Tina pushed Nero’s door open wider and stepped into the living room. This had to be stopped. Such an influence on a small child was not good. Where was his father?
The record ended, but the boy kept playing. His tune became slower, mournful even. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. “Wade in the water,” he sang.
From the kitchen, a man called, “Good one, CJ. Nice. You found those keys quicker this time. You made Daddy proud.”
The boy continued to play and sing, soon his father joined in. The expressive tones of Chas’s singing voice arrested her heart. She stood in shock. Who was this man to sing in such a way? This was more than she could wrap her mind around.
The anger she had come into the house with had nowhere to go. As she thought of leaving, the boy stopped.
“What’s wrong, little bug?” Chas asked above the clatter of pots in the kitchen.
“I’m hungry, Daddy.”
“Almost done,” Chas said.
A gust of wind blew in through the open door. The boy turned toward it and seeing her said, “Hello, lady.”
When Chas’s ex-wife had dropped the boy off, the child had been asleep. She’d not seen his eye color until now. Though not as vibrant as those of his father, the boy’s eyes were striking.
“Who you talking to, son?” Chas asked.
“It’s a pretty lady, Daddy.”
Chas stepped into the room holding a large spoon. He stood and stared back as a teasing smile pulled his lips upward. “Hello, pretty lady. CJ, this is Miss Tina Lawrence. She lives across the street with the girl you saw getting off the big yellow school bus yesterday. Miss Tina, this is my son, Charles Jr.”
Tina dipped her head in a greeting. Little Charles was adorable. She stepped forward and offered her hand, and he shook it like a little gentleman.
“Nice to meet you,” she said.
“Nice to meet you too,” was his small reply. “I don’t like the name Charles.”
Chas chuckled. “Like father, like son. Is it okay if she calls you CJ? You can call her Miss Tina.”
“Yeah, CJ. That’s my name. I just turned five.”
Smiling, Tina released his small soft hand, and the boy returned to the keyboard.
“What brings you here today, Miss Lawrence?” Still holding the spoon high, Chas returned to the kitchen.
Tina followed. “It was the music that caught my attention.”
“From your tone, I gather you don’t approve of all of our music. My son likes different kinds of music.”
“Your son is only familiar to what you allow him to be exposed to.”
“Am I being judged as a bad parent because I don’t discipline him for playing the O’Jays’ Love Train? Sister, you got something against the O’Jays?”
“It’s secular music. And I would appreciate it if you would at least not play it so loud, especially around my daughter. If you choose to raise your son that way, that’s up to you.”
“I see. I am a bad parent. The second woman in a week’s time that’s told me that so it must be true.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“I know nothing.” Chas held his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender then went back to stirring a pot of beans on the stove.
“Daddy, more music?”
Chas yelled back. “Yeah, get the Chopin LP. Clair de Lune, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tina had never heard of this Clair de Lune. Was he making fun of her? Trying to make himself look more intelligent and experienced while making her out to be a country bumpkin. She had heard of Chopin though.
Or at least she thought she had until she heard the first notes. They were strange and yet pulled her in. She turned slightly and looked at the boy in the living room. He was playing with a car on the rug while he hummed and swayed to the music.
Her headache slowly drained away as she watched and listened.
Amazing.
“Is this bad music, Miss Lawrence?” Chas pulled her attention back from the living room. “There are no suggestive lyrics. Surely this isn’t the devil’s music, is it? Do you approve?”
She shrugged, not wanting to create a scene in front of the small child. “It’s very nice and calming. I wouldn’t say you could dance to it so...”
Chas placed the spoon in the pot and approached her. Taking her by the hand, he pulled her close and pressed his left palm against her back. The smooth yet forceful movement brought his right thigh against her left hip.
He shifted their weight to the left, then to the right and spoke softly in her ear. “This is dancing.”
It became difficult to breathe. “Charles... I... I...”
“Chas. Call me Chas.”
“I can’t. I shouldn’t be... dancing.”
“Just follow me.”
His movements, like the music, were slow and hypnotic. Peaceful and good. So why did she feel like she was doing something wrong?
She pushed back. “Please.”
He stopped and looked down into her face. He parted his lips as if he would speak, but no words came out. Tina felt afraid and exhilarated under his green-eyed gaze.
“Chas.” Using his nickname felt way too intimate, but she liked how it rolled off her tongue. The music came to an end, and she tried to break out of his trance.
“Thank you for dancing with me, Tina.”
He released her and stepped back a few inches but did not return to cooking. “Music is my heart. After Sonya and I got engaged, I allowed my parents to pressure me into giving it up for the financial stability of a career in academia. That career move forced me to abandon my dream of a career in composing.”
He pointed to the little boy on the rug in the living room. “My son is a natural. I never forced it on him. Even before he could walk, he used to pull up to the piano in our small apartment and bang out notes. As he got older, he would play notes that he heard me sing or notes that he heard on the radio. He has a gift, and I try my best to guide it and not expose him to bad influences. But I won’t do to him what was done to me.
“I went to school and got an education that I have no interest in using anymore. That is my life story. My Tragedy. Am I a lost cause, Miss Lawrence?”
She had no response. She had never met anyone like him. So accomplished yet dissatisfied with life. For some reason, she wanted to help him figure his life out. What did she have to give him that could help him find his way?
Jesus.
The answer came to her in a small voice in her head. He was a man of the world. He wasn’t the type of man who’d listen to God talk. She pushed the thought away.
The only noise in the house was the bubbling of the beans on the kitchen stove and CJ’s humming. Chas was quiet for a change. He pulled his attention from his son and turned toward her.
His quiet interest made her nervous. “So, what...what are you cooking?” She stammered as she tried to steady her breathing and divert her focus to something else, anything else but his presence. His touch had taken her mind and body to places she hadn’t been in years. “Did you hear me, Chas. What... What are you cooking?”
Chas snapped out of his state. “Pork and beans and toast. That’s all I really know how to cook.”
Tina stepped to the stove and took up the spoon. He lunged forward and pulled the spoon from her grasp. His eyes met hers. “Tina, you should go.”
“Little CJ should have more than pork and beans.”
“Go, please. I can finish this by myself. I don’t want people talking.”
Tina laughed. “I have a child but no husband, Charles. Folk been talking about me for thirteen years.”
Chas stared into the bubbling pot. “You’d be surprised what people think of you, Miss Tina Raye. You don’t need to be associated with me. Go home.”
“But, the boy... He’s hungry.”
“The boy is my concern. He’s my son.” He took a breath and let the spoon fall against the side of the pot. “Sorry, that didn’t come out right. Tell you what. Why don’t CJ and I bring our pot of beans to your house when Elaine gets home from school? We could have a potluck dinner. Combine our dinner with yours. A way for me to make up for the mess I made of our dinner the other night.”
Perhaps that was why she felt compelled to cook for him now.
“I’d like that. Part of the fault was mine too.” Tina said, leaving the kitchen. “I should get home before Elaine’s bus comes. I’ll see what I can stir up for supper. See you in half an hour.”
Chas followed. “Half an hour? So soon. Are you sure?”
“I love to cook. It’s no sweat.”
Tina returned home quickly and started a simple supper of leftover collard greens and cornbread. She found a few slices of frozen pound cake deep in the icebox behind some tomatoes that she put up last summer. She’d stir up a simple chocolate sauce and sprinkle powdered sugar on top. Hopefully, that would make a good dessert.
By the time she stood on her porch waiting for Elaine to get off the school bus, the cornbread was in the oven and the cake was on the sideboard thawing out. But her heart was still across the street thinking about what had happened in Nero’s kitchen.
Stop it, Tina Raye.
This was how she ended up pregnant and unmarried to begin with. Pining after a man. A man who had no reason to stay in Cherry, North Carolina. At least Calvin Norris had family in the area and a reason to stay, at least for a little while. But Calvin had returned from the war a wounded man, no longer the same in body or spirit.
The mailman had not delivered a letter from Calvin in almost a week, and truth be told, she felt a little guilty. If he was to walk into her house today, she’d be hard-pressed to show him much more than a little sisterly love.
Elaine bounced from the school bus and turned back briefly to wave goodbye to some friends.
Tina thought about her daughter’s relationship with Calvin often. In the ten years since he left, he had sent his child a birthday card here and there and an occasional Christmas gift, but he never called her on the phone. She thought it was strange that her daughter, now a young woman, had never heard her father’s voice. What did that really say about what he wanted from them?
“Hey, Mama.” Elaine greeted her mother with a tight hug. “You look sad.”
Tina squeezed back. Elaine was so trusting, but she’d matured a lot over the past year. She’d shared some of Calvin’s correspondence over the past decade. Should she tell her about all her father’s letters?
Strains of a familiar song floated from across Newland Road. It was the song she sung the morning her boss had called; the morning Chas found her weeping on the kitchen floor.
“Did you find a job today?” Elaine asked as they entered the house together.
“No, not yet.” Her daughter had been supportive and optimistic when she broke the news to her about being let go.
“I’m sorry. Maybe next time.” Elaine rummaged in the icebox. “What’s for supper? Smells good.”
Tina pulled the broom from its little spot in the pantry closet. “Check on the cornbread, will you? We’re expecting company for supper.” She called over her shoulder, “I’ll be out sweeping the front step, and don’t be eating that cake. It’s for dessert.”
Elaine groaned.
Sweeping a few leaves from the front step took all of a minute. Outside, the music from Nero’s house was louder. Tina stared at the house and sang the words quietly to herself. “Take me to the water. To be baptized.”
The song was being played with such abandon and flourish, Little CJ couldn’t be playing the song this time. She assumed it was Chas. Then she heard his rich tenor and added hers to the harmony of the next verse. “None but the righteous. Shall see God.”