Babylon Sisters (9 page)

19

Saturday I spent the morning looking for information on Miriam’s sister, but the trail, if there ever was one, was months old, and nobody had any leads at all. The afternoon was devoted to putting words into Sam Hall’s mouth, figuratively speaking, of course. He needed a speech for a ceremony honoring a group of Mandeville Maids who had earned their GEDs while working full-time. They were the flesh and blood at the heart of Ezola’s promise of a better life, and this ceremony meant something to her, Sam said, even if she wasn’t going to actually attend.

I had never written a speech for anyone else, but I think I was able to strike what I hoped was the right balance between informative and inspirational. I tried not to be corny. These were not kids finishing high school. These were grown women reaping the rewards of their own discipline and hard work, and they deserved a little
rah, rah
for hanging in there.

By the time I wrapped up everything it was sunset, and I hadn’t even been outside to get the mail. That’s the problem with working for yourself: there’s nobody to make you stop and smell the roses—literally. I couldn’t remember the last time I had enjoyed the pleasures of my own front yard. I grabbed the mail and took a deep breath of twilight. The woman across the street was watering her lawn while her husband played a game of catch with their son in the driveway. It looked like a scene out of some mythical small-town America, and that’s exactly what it felt like. I waved at my neighbor and she waved back. I had sent Phoebe away so she could understand the big picture, but something in me hoped she’d always appreciate the beauty of a snapshot as tiny as this one peaceful block.

Thinking about Phoebe must have conjured her up. An envelope that bore her name was on the top of the stack, and the return address said,
Smith College, Office of Admissions, Northampton, Massachusetts.
She was waiting for this letter. She had completed all the requirements for early admission, and her interview had been, according to her, a mutual admiration society. They had encouraged her to apply and spoken with her several times during the process to be sure she was still interested. It was her first and only choice. Without thinking, I went back inside and reached for the phone. She would want me to open it and give her the news immediately. She would want to share this moment with me. . . .

But I couldn’t call her. I didn’t have her number. I couldn’t forward it to her because I didn’t have her address, either. She was out there in the world, and the only way I could reach her was to call Louis. It hurt my feelings and it made me mad, but mostly it wore me out. It wasn’t my choice, but I had to live with it, and today it was just too much. I tossed the letter on the table and gave myself permission to think about it later. Amelia had invited me for a swim and I intended to take her up on it.

I shifted through the rest of the mail, mostly bills and pleas for money from one desperate group of do-gooders or another, and I say that with love. I’m a do-gooder myself, although I think I’m more pragmatic than most. Telling an employer on-site day care is the right thing to do is usually less effective than showing how much money can be saved with fewer late or absentee mothers.

There was one envelope that wasn’t a bill and didn’t seem to be a solicitation. The return address was a post office box in San Francisco. A lot of the young people who come through the Red Cross here go on to work on the West Coast, and I was famous for my glowing recommendations when they were job hunting. Probably somebody who needed a reference, I thought, tearing it open to see who needed me to put in a good word. No such luck.

Dear Ms. Catherine Sanderson,

I received a letter from someone claiming to be your only daughter. She wants me to take a DNA test to see if I’m her biological father.

Here we go again.
I sat down on the couch and read on.

She gave me this address as to where I should send a copy of the results, which is why I’m writing to you at my partner’s suggestion.

His partner?

I do remember you from choir, but I don’t think we ever had sex. I don’t even remember us being close friends. On the other hand, I was trying so hard to play straight back then, I probably groped more girls than Arnold Schwarzenegger. And with all the cheap wine and bad dope that was floating around, who knows?

I know,
I thought.
I know.

All that’s over now. I’m gay and married.

You gotta love San Francisco!

But if you think I might be the daddy and you want me to take the test, I will. My partner and I have a small design firm, and we’re not rich, but if she’s mine and you need some help, I’ll do the right thing.

Yours sincerely,

Jerome L. Pettigrew

20

“Of course I know him,” I said after I found Amelia and Louis in her yard and read them the letter aloud. “He was in the choir with me. He could really sing, so he was always trying to hog the solos.”

“Well, his partner was a lot more understanding than that other guy’s wife,” Amelia said. She had paused in the middle of her daily fifty laps to hear my late-breaking news, and she was treading water effortlessly over the mermaid’s tail. Louis wasn’t swimming. He was watching.

“I didn’t even know he was gay!”

“Don’t feel bad,” Louis said. “Back then, he didn’t either.”

“But everything turned out for the best,” Amelia said, gliding away from us.

“How do you figure that?”

“He moved to a gay-friendly part of the country and fell in love. That’s not too shabby,” she said, resuming her laps.

“So he’s doing fine and I’m trapped in some kind of past-lives limbo,” I said, flopping down on a chair beside Louis and realizing he was dressed in his Sunday-go-to-meetin’ black suit, a little formal for an evening by the pool. “Where are you coming from all dressed up?”

He sighed deeply. “I’ve been meeting with two possible investors.”

“How’d it go?”

“They want to run a ten- to twenty-page supplement in every issue with ads for strip clubs, escort services, and porno products of all kinds.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Welcome to Atlanta. The Amsterdam of the South.”

“I know Miss Iona ain’t havin’ that, so what are your other options?”

“I can close it down and go teach in a journalism school somewhere, or I can find a story we can cover the way we used to and make people remember what the
Sentinel
is all about.”

“I vote for option two.”

“You and me both. Now all I need is a real reporter and a great story.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Louis’s eyes were following Amelia up and down the pool as if he were afraid that one of these times she’d get to the other end and just keep swimming.

“Phoebe’s letter came from Smith today,” I said, trying to sound casual. Louis knew how much Phoebe’s heart was set on Smith. He turned away from Amelia and looked at me.

“Is she in?”

“I didn’t open it.”

He looked surprised. “Aren’t you going to?”

I shook my head. “Not the way things are. I think it would just piss her off.”

“Do you want me to tell her?”

I nodded. “I’ll bring it by tomorrow. You can read it to her or send it on. Let me know when you know, okay?”

“I will.”

We both sat there for a minute, watching our friend cutting her graceful path through the water and thinking about my daughter, stamping her little feet in frustration somewhere out in the world. I had underestimated her reaction to an obvious lie from the person she depended on most to tell her the truth—
me.
It was time to figure out how to face up to my own lesson in all this and admit to my child that I knew a lot more than I was telling, but not yet. I just wasn’t ready to let Burghardt Johnson back into my life if I didn’t absolutely have to. The last time I let him get close to me, I almost lost myself. But this time I stand to lose my daughter, and nothing is worth that.

“I just miss her,” I said.

Louis nodded. “I know.”

“What if I was wrong?”

He reached over and took my hand and patted it like a kindly uncle. “Wrong about what, my guilt-ridden friend?”

“Wrong about not telling her.”

“What about not telling
him
?”

“In spite of what seems to be the current consensus, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t wrong about that.”

Louis shrugged. “Sometimes a miss is as good as a mile, Cat.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that if I had a daughter as special as Phoebe is, I think I’d like to know.”

“You’re not B.J.”

“Not even close,” Louis said, trying to tease me out of my funk. “He’s a lot taller, but I’m much better-looking.”

“Yes, you are,” I said. “On his best day.”

“You might mention that to Amelia if you can work it into the conversation.”

“She doesn’t even know B.J.”

“I mean about how good-lookin’ I am.”

I laughed. “No problem.”

Amelia executed a perfect turn and headed back in our direction as Louis reached into his wallet and handed me a card with several phone numbers on it.

“What’s this?”

“I think you should call her.”

“Amelia?”

“Phoebe.”

“I want to,” I said. “I’ve never wanted to do anything more, but I can’t risk it. If she hangs up on me, I’ll have to catch a plane up there tonight and act like an old-fashioned black mother.”

“I’m going to give you the number anyway, in case you change your mind.”

“It’s her mind that needs changing, remember?”

“I think she’s sorry she ever sent those letters.”

That was music to my ears, but Louis had said
I think.
“Did she
say
that?”

“She said she missed you. Is that close enough?” He was still holding out that card like he was prepared to dangle it there all night. Louis was the eternal peacemaker.

“She gets her stubbornness from me,” I said, slipping the card in my pocket so we could move on.

“Third generation,” Louis said, glad he had made me smile, “but that’s okay. I like stubborn women. The meaner the better.”

I followed his eyes back to the pool. “Then what are you doing with Amelia?”

He turned back to me with that lovely lopsided grin. “You really want to know?”

I grinned back. “Absolutely.”

“I’m falling in love with her.”

21

After Amelia got out of the pool, Louis volunteered to serve the drinks, and we let him. I lay back in the chair next to my friend, who was wrapped in a fluffy white robe that made her cocoa-colored skin look like rich milk chocolate. She looked peaceful, and I couldn’t resist suggesting a reason why.

“So,” I said, “how long have you and my favorite editor been keeping company?”

She opened her eyes and had the nerve to blush. “Since the Sweet Honey concert.”

That was exactly when I had noticed the change. I congratulated myself on being so observant. They went out friends and came back soul mates. “What happened?”

She laughed a little and shook her head. “The hell if I know. I’ve always liked Louis, you know that, but we’ve got three divorces between us, and I’m not looking for complications in my life right now.”

We spend half our lives longing for love and the other half running from it. “Go on.”

“Well, you remember you said you couldn’t go, so I had an extra ticket. When Louis said he had never seen them and would love to go, it seemed like the perfect solution, except I wasn’t sure I wanted him to go.”

“Why? You two have been going to the movies for years.”

They like the big-budget Hollywood stuff like
Spiderman
that I wouldn’t see on a bet.

“Yeah, but movies, or dinner, or even another concert is one thing. Sweet Honey is different. It’s special. It’s completely and unapologetically and magically black and female. You know what it’s like! It’s a ceremony or a ritual or something with real power, and I wasn’t sure he could handle it.”

She was right about that. The annual visit of the famous a cappella quintet to Spelman College’s Sisters Chapel was a gathering of the tribe like no other. Amelia and I used to take Phoebe, and the three of us would dress up in our most celebratory colors and our most special silver bangles and earrings that hung to our shoulders so we could feel them swaying against our necks when we started dancing in the aisles. Then we’d head out into the night like the beautiful black birds we knew ourselves to be.

Sweet Honey will bring that out in you, and by the end of the concert, the sisterhood is so thick you can cut it with a knife. That much unadulterated
womanness
makes some men uncomfortable. They feel overwhelmed, intimidated, ill at ease. To compensate, they talk too loud or demand the attention of a sister who is still savoring a private moment or in some way impose their will when they should just relax. Amelia didn’t want to put Louis in a situation that would bring out the alpha male in him. Once you see a man act like that kind of an asshole, it’s hard to forget. You keep wondering when he might do it again.

“So he was all right?”

She grinned at me. “He got it, Cat. He totally
got it.
It was the same kind of energy
we
have at the Sweet Honey shows. In fact, it was as good as having you there, except afterward, we got to take it all home to bed.”

I laughed. “Well, I can’t compete with that. Guess I’ll have to find a new best friend. Two, actually.”

“Don’t even try it,” she said, smiling. “You’re going to have to be my maid of honor.”

I sat up and looked at her, gazing serenely at the pink blush of the evening sky. “You’re getting married?”

“Of course,” she said. “How many men can totally
get
Sweet Honey, make me laugh, and make me come all in one night?”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“As soon as he asks me.”

I was confused. “He doesn’t know yet?”

“Miss Iona said I don’t have to tell everything I know.” Amelia turned toward me with a grin. “Neither do you, by the way. I think it’s more romantic if he comes to it on his own.”

“He’s halfway there already,” I said. “Maybe a little closer than that.”

“He’s still playing catch-up then,” she said, as Louis stepped out of her back door with a bottle of champagne and three glasses. “I’m almost home.”