Jilo (25 page)

“All the same. I’ve got a son. I’ve got family to look after.”

“You say you have a son, but I don’t hear anything about you having a man.”

“Doesn’t having a son imply there’s a man in my life?” She wished the old truck would move more quickly. Still, she felt a touch of sorrow when she looked over to see that in spite of the way the beast was crawling along, Tinker had pressed the pedal all the way down. Looked like she’d nearly succeeded in pushing him away after all.

“Ah, now, we both know that ain’t true.” The truck jolted, then relented by putting on some speed. It sputtered and shuddered as they traveled south, giving up the ghost right where Kollock and Ogeechee intersected at the tip of the cemetery.

Tinker looked over at her, then leaned in toward her, his brow low, his eyes full of embarrassed anguish. “Just give me a second to look at her. I’ll get her up and running again right quick.”

Jilo shook her head and reached for the door handle, surprised to see it had been replaced with a homemade rope pulley. She tugged on it, and the door opened. “I’m almost home anyway.” She climbed out of the truck, nearly jumping as a large black bantam rooster perched on the cemetery fence cried out like he was greeting the last dawn the world would ever meet.

She turned back to the truck and retrieved her shopping bag from where it had been sitting by her feet. After the brief rest, the sack felt heavier. Just like her heart did after imagining—even for a moment—that this Tinker Poole might somehow know how to fix what had been broken in her. Tinker hopped out and ran around the front of the truck. Jilo felt certain he was about to offer to come along with her on foot, shouldering her burden as his own. She clutched the sack in both arms and shook her head. “There is no magic in this world,” she said again. “No magic whatsoever.”

She trudged down Ogeechee, making a turn onto the gravel road that would, after a long bend, lead to her own sandy drive. As she neared that drive, she looked up, and from across the field, she could see a sleek and shiny red convertible sitting in front of her house. She knew Binah would be doing her best to entertain this new, and obviously rich, client long enough for her to make it home. She picked up her pace, hoping to arrive before he, or possibly she, lost patience and sped away in that little red number.

She was sweating profusely, her turban growing damp and limp, as she made it around the bend and approached the front of the house. From a distance, she could make out Binah offering what looked like lemonade to a young man with a complexion as pink and as fresh as bubblegum, his hair almost as red as the car he drove. A wealthy buckra boy. What on earth could a fellow like that be wanting from Mother Jilo? What else, she answered her own question, than the key to some wealthy buckra girl’s heart?

As she drew a step nearer, Binah handed a glass to another man who leaned forward to accept it. Jilo stopped dead in her tracks. This man, with his dark complexion and wavy hair, she recognized instantly. “Guy,” she said his name, feeling the earth beneath her feet tremble, just like the world was ready to open up and swallow her whole.

FIVE

Her feet felt like they’d been replaced with anvils, each step requiring every shred of determination she could muster. “Binah,” she called out, holding the shopping out to her sister. Binah looked up, then ran down the steps and relieved her of the sack’s weight.

“He doesn’t know. He hasn’t seen him,” Binah whispered in her ear.

Jilo placed a hand on Binah’s shoulder and gave her a gentle push. “Take those inside,” she said, relying on Binah’s momentum to set her own feet back into motion.

“There she is, the muse,” the redheaded young man said, standing as she approached. Jilo had been so overwhelmed by the sight of Guy, she’d all but forgotten the white boy was there.

“Muse?” she said, incapable of either looking fully at or fully away from Guy.

“Yes,” he said, drawing closer to the edge of the porch. “You must know that you’re hanging, well, your image is hanging in galleries all over New York.”

“Well, the better galleries, at least.” Jilo froze at the sound of Guy’s voice. He kept his seat in the swing, not rising as the buckra had. She raised her eyes to take him in. Hoping she would hate him, certain that she would. But oh, how she had to fight not to run right up those front steps. Struggle not to throw herself in his arms. “The last one. The large painting I was completing when . . . well, the day . . .” His voice trailed off. “It sold to a private collector. For quite a nice sum.”

“Yes, but it isn’t about the money . . .” the redhead began.

“Spoken like someone who’s always had it,” Jilo found her tongue. “For the rest of us, it’s always about the money.”

The young man looked at Guy, and they both burst out laughing. “You’re right about this one, Guy,” the young man said, surprising Jilo by how he pronounced the name to rhyme with “my” rather than “me.”

“Listen,” Guy said, standing and coming forward, wrapping his arm around the young fellow’s broad shoulders. “Jilo, this is my friend, Edwin Taylor.” He nodded toward her. “Edwin, this is my ‘muse’—” He hesitated, almost like he was looking for a more precise word to describe her. “—Jilo.” Guy released Edwin, then padded forward to the head of the steps and held his hand out to her. “Or as I understand it is now, ‘Mother Jilo.’ ”

Jilo felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her.

“Yes, indeed,” Edwin said. “I was surprised enough to learn the vison in Guy’s paintings lived in my own hometown. Imagine my astonishment when I found she was also the rising star of Savannah’s magical community.”

“It’s just an act. To help make ends meet.” Jilo forced herself to look him in the eye. “There’s no such thing as magic,” she said, the well-rehearsed words shooting out like shrapnel.

Edwin, ignoring the rising bile in her tone, smiled and tilted his head to the side. “Is there not?”

“I met Edwin in the city,” Guy said, coming down the steps, taking her hand in his own. The sparks she felt at his touch nearly made her question her own disavowal of sorcery. “The other night we got to talking about my art. About you.”

“Of course, I’d heard of you,” Edwin said, slipping back into the porch swing. “All of Savannah knows about the amazing Mother Jilo Wills.”

“When we made the connection, we realized we had to see you . . . I,” Guy said, tipping her chin up so her gaze met his, “had to see you.” For a moment, Jilo felt the world around her fall away, leaving nothing beyond the feel of Guy’s gentle touch and the glimmer in his eyes. The old feelings, the good ones, rushed up, like a wave intent on carrying her out to sea.

“So,” Edwin spoke, stifling the inchoate spell that had only just begun to build. She turned to face Guy’s new friend. “We hopped into my car and drove pretty much straight through. It’s a long drive, but then again, I know a few shortcuts.” The way he spoke that last word made Jilo feel it held a different, or maybe enhanced, meaning to him that other people didn’t share. There was something odd about this boy; he struck her as being somehow strange and familiar at the same time.

“I’ve missed you, you know,” Guy said, putting his arms around her. Pulling her close. Pushing away her concerns about the Taylor boy. “I can’t get you out of my mind. I’ve drawn you from memory, painted you, every day. Carried on full conversations with your likeness.”

Jilo felt her heart weakening, but then her mind registered the gist of his last few words. She put both hands on Guy’s chest and pushed him away. “Yeah, ’cause the Jilo in your pretty pictures never talks back, does she?” A hell of a world she was living in, with one man, a stranger, imagining her as his ideal, borrowing her likeness to build his fantasy, and another, the man who’d held her heart, redacting her memory, tracing, erasing, and redrawing the lines until nothing was left of the real her. “Those weren’t conversations, Guy. You weren’t talking to me. You were masturbating.” She pushed around him and mounted the steps to the porch.

“When do you plan on telling me about that baby I heard crying in there?” Guy called after her, causing Jilo to spin on her heel to face him. “The one Binah and whoever the hell else that is in your house are hiding.” He drew near the porch, resting one foot on the steps, and leaned in toward her. “Is it yours?” he asked, watching her. She folded her arms over her chest, trying to look calm, unaffected. She held her tongue. “More importantly,” he said, shifting his weight and mounting the steps to stand before her, “is it mine?”

She tilted her head back, defiant, as if that might stop the tears brimming in her eyes from falling. “I don’t know,” she said. “Is he yours? Have you fed him? Have you clothed him? Made sure he had a roof over his head? Or did you just skedaddle off to the big city so you could play the big man?”

“Perhaps I should be going,” the redhead said.

“Yes, Mr. Taylor,” Jilo said, each syllable coming out barbed, “perhaps you should. And perhaps”—she nodded toward Guy—“you should take this one with you. Get him out of here before he gets pressed into anything so conventional as raising his own child.”

“That isn’t fair. You never told me. You didn’t give me a chance. I didn’t know.” He stood before her, his shoulders slumped, his hands extended palm up toward her, the look on his face wounded enough to convince anyone else in the world that he had been the injured party.

His words made her face flush. For a moment she stood there stammering, unable to find the right words to answer his complaint, but then the right words finally came.

“Bullshit,” she said, two years of anger and fear and hurt pride, yes, pride, boiled up, boiled over. “Bullshit,” she said again, backing away from him, till her backside bumped up against the house’s siding, sure that if she didn’t put some distance between them, she would slap the pained, innocent look right off his face. “You saw me, Guy, you saw me. You saw me grow, swell, and fatten as you painted your damned picture. You saw me sick in the morning. Sick at night. You saw me. You just didn’t want to see me. You didn’t want to know. You wanted New York, and you weren’t going to let anything get in your way.”

“That isn’t quite true.” His face flushed. He puffed up. Stretching to his full height, he leaned in over her, reminding Jilo of her own slight size, her own vulnerability. He reached out both arms and pinned her to the wall. The anger she felt shifted to fear. He seemed to realize he was frightening her, and when he spoke again, it was in a softer tone. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should’ve seen.” He stepped back, lowering his arms to his sides. “Hell, maybe a part of me did see. But still. You should’ve contacted me. At least to tell me the child had been born.”

“Contact you?” Jilo felt the fire inside her rekindle. “How the hell was I supposed to do that? Write you general delivery?”

“It’s a boy, isn’t it? I have a son?” he said, ignoring her frustrated jibe, and glanced over at the Taylor fellow like he intended to start handing out cigars.

Jilo saw his vanity shine through. He would never see their child as anything more than an extension of himself. A boy to carry on his name. Ensure his immortality. She hated herself for loving this man. Yes, even now. Even in this light, she still loved him. But her feelings for the father came second to her love for her son. “Yes, Guy,
my
child,” she said, pausing to make sure he registered her claim, “is a boy. His name is Robinson. Robinson Wills.”

Guy pulled back his shoulders and tossed out a laugh, one intended to save face in front of his rich buckra buddy. “But he can’t be a Wills. He’s my boy. He’s a Collier,” he pronounced the name like they would in New Orleans, bringing it out through his nose, the final “R” sound getting lost somewhere in the process.

“He,” Jilo spat out the word, “was born a Wills. He will live as a Wills. And in the long and distant future, Wills is the name they are going to chip into his tombstone.”

“Jilo,” Guy said, his shoulders slumping as he shook his head. “I’m the boy’s father. You have to let me be a father to him.”

“You haven’t been here.”

He took a step toward her. She held up her hand and pointed at him. “You have not,” she wagged her finger with each word, “been here.” Her face felt hot. Her hand felt cold. Her body trembled.

He took another step closer and reached out to grasp her hand. Gently bending the accusing finger toward her palm, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I am here now,” he said. She tried to pull away, but her back was still against the wall. “I am”—the words came out slow, measured—“here now.” He leaned in and pulled her into his arms. “And I’m not leaving again.”

SIX

August 1957

“Really, Guy,” Jilo said as she joined him in the front room, “it’s close enough to walk from here. No need for your fancy friends to drive us.” Edwin Taylor had pretty much become a fixture around her home ever since Guy had moved in with her. Jilo didn’t much cotton to the idea of having to make nice with Edwin’s sister Ginny now, too.

Guy sat in the haint-blue chair that had once again made its way from the haint-blue room into the main room. Guy felt it was the most comfortable seat in the house, so the day after moving in, he had dragged it to its current position and claimed it as his own. He waved his hand, making a signal to stand clear of his fan, but Jilo didn’t budge. “It’s hot out there, woman,” Guy said, his voice languid and nearly drowned out by the drone of the oscillating fan positioned so that its sweep would cover him with each pivot. “In case you didn’t notice. Besides, it isn’t about the getting there, it’s about the impression we’ll make arriving.”

Jilo grunted. Guy had been going on for weeks about that Taylor girl’s shiny new Continental Mark II. “There is nobody at the Boxcar Club I need to impress.”

“And it isn’t about us making a good impression, either. It’s about the Taylors, the impression Edwin and his sister want to make when they pull up with us riding in the backseat. We are their entrée into what for them is an exotic world . . . the Negro nightclub. Now scoot.” He waved again, and she obliged him by stepping aside. As the full breeze hit him, he stretched out his legs, leaning back and laying his head against the ancient tatted doily her nana had always cherished. She hoped his hair oil wouldn’t stain it, but held her tongue. It wasn’t worth the fight that would ensue. “The Taylors, they’re important people,” he continued. “Especially around these parts.” Guy spoke to her like she hadn’t grown up in Savannah, as if she could have possibly escaped knowledge of one of the wealthiest buckra families in her own hometown. Guy was right that they were an important family. What he didn’t know was that the gossip shared by maids who worked in Savannah’s finer homes made it clear that, though wealthy, the Taylors were always kept at arm’s length by Savannah’s other leading families. Everyone, regardless of their position in society, agreed that there was just something not quite right about the family. Perhaps if Guy’s infatuation with their wealth ever faded, he’d begin to sense it, too.

She stepped between Guy and the fan again, surprised by the sensation of the breeze blowing up against the trickle of cold sweat tracing its way down her spine. Now that the breeze of the fan couldn’t carry away his scent, she could smell the alcohol on him. She stared down at him, trying to see even a glimmer of the man she’d fallen in love with. When they first met, hell, even when he was making his plans to leave her, he’d been so filled with drive, with passion for his work. That passion seemed to have dissipated the second he began spending time with Edwin Taylor.

Guy had made a big show of bringing home fresh canvasses. And he must have spent a small fortune on fresh oils. But so far he hadn’t made a single brushstroke. No, he spent most of his days sprawled out right here, in front of the fan, lulled into a near torpor by its incessant drone and the Taylors’ cast-off bourbon. He rose at dusk, the sound of Edwin’s approaching convertible his reveille, and then the two would be off until the small hours. Some nights, Guy would return, all sweat and spirits, and clamber on top of her; other nights, he would pass out at her side.

Until his nightly return, Jilo would lie alone in the haint-blue room that she’d once again taken over as her,
their
, bedroom. Robinson continued to share a room with Binah. At first Willy had carried on sleeping on a cot in the front room, but lately he’d taken to staying in the back yard in an army surplus tent. He’d be okay out there for now, but she had to get things sorted out before winter.

She wore no ring on her finger; Guy was beyond such “bourgeois” conventions, and took every opportunity he could find, especially when Edwin was in earshot, to pontificate against society’s small minds. Still, these two freethinkers had driven Willy from the house, mocking him for his effeminate gestures and the way he carried himself. They insulted him with cruel names, half of which Jilo had never heard before, though “catamite” was the one that seemed to bring them the most mirth, eliciting peals of raucous laughter. Edwin got himself so liquored up one night that he grabbed Willy, spun him around in a rough dance, and forced a contemptuous kiss on the boy’s lips.

That night, there had been no choice but to intervene. Jilo had pulled the bruised and frightened Willy from Edwin’s grasp, and then, to her astonishment, Binah had dived forward and slapped the white man’s face, leaving a dark red mark on his rosy cheek. Jilo had expected trouble after that, but Edwin just flushed red and stumbled out the door. When she turned around to look for Guy, he was already passed out in her nana’s old chair.

“How could a woman fall in love with such a man?” Binah asked from behind her.

She couldn’t bring herself to turn to face her sister. “I saw a spark in him . . . once.”
At least I thought I did
, she said to herself. “And he is Robinson’s father. A boy needs his father.” She allowed herself a quick glance over her shoulder. Binah had a lost, faraway look on her face; her gaze was cast downward, and she was biting her lower lip. “Go on,” Jilo said. “Go see to Willy.”

Edwin had returned the very next night, and whether it was true or merely pretense, he seemed to have no memory of his actions the previous evening. A part of Jilo wanted to take him to task for his behavior, but she suspected that it would do no good. A man like that always sees himself as the hero. He’d find some way or other to excuse himself, and without a doubt, Guy would take his drinking buddy’s side. She had to get these Taylors out of their lives. They were a bad, disruptive influence. With Edwin out of the picture, Jilo would find a way to get Guy working. A way to get Willy back into his own house.

Jilo felt goose bumps crawl up her arm. “I don’t know, Guy,” she said, crossing her arms and trying to rub the gooseflesh away. “I know you like this Taylor fellow, but there is something off about him. I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel uneasy around him. And I’m not the only one. Ask anyone about the Taylors, and they’ll tell you there’s something odd . . .”

“And just who have you been asking about the Taylors?” Guy slid to the edge of the chair, suddenly alert. “Edwin. He’s my friend. How’s he going to feel if he finds out you been out shopping for gossip about his family?”

“I haven’t been gossiping. And I haven’t been asking anyone about the Taylors either. Not really. I’ve just been listening, whenever their name comes up. And their name comes up in casual conversation a whole lot more than any honest family’s name ought to.” Guy gave her a hard, long look before dropping his gaze down to the side, turning his head and lowering his chin, telling her without saying a word that he wasn’t interested in what she had to tell him. “People talk about the Taylors all the time. Most of it isn’t pretty.”

“Enough.” He met her gaze again, a hard look in his eyes. “They’re my friends. I can’t believe your lack of gratitude.”

“Gratitude?”

“If not for Edwin,” Guy said, slipping back into a more relaxed position, “we’d still be apart. It’s almost like he was sent to New York to bring us back together.” And there it was, the source of the uneasy feeling that had been lurking in her subconscious mind.
Could their meeting have been arranged?
The question had nearly risen up above the waters many times, only to be submerged anew as her conscious mind objected that the thought was utterly ridiculous. “It’s like it was fate. Meant to be.”

What if Guy and Edwin had never met?

“
The least you could do is show him a little kindness. Unless Mother Jilo,” he said her working name in a contemptuous tone, “is above such niceties.”

“You’ve been drinking,” she said. Her words came out sounding like an accusation, though she’d intended them as an excuse for his harshness. “Quite a bit, by the smell of you.”

“And the night is young,” he said, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “I got a lot more drinking to do. Now go get yourself prettied up, girl. Got a big surprise coming for you.”

“Bourbon. Ice,” Ginny called over her shoulder to her brother, two years her junior, according to Ginny. Then she turned back to Jilo, leaning in so that she would be heard over the music. “So nice to let the men fetch for us for a change, isn’t it?”

Jilo smiled, but didn’t respond verbally. She doubted this Taylor girl with her blonde brushed-under pageboy and soft hands ever did much of her own fetching anyway.

Jilo felt embarrassed by her own appearance. Her hair was a bit of a mess. She’d been wearing it covered in her Mother Jilo guise for so long now she’d stopped paying much attention to it. Binah had been encouraging her to try some of the new hair relaxers, but until Guy’s return, she hadn’t cared to put much thought into her appearance. After Guy’s return, she’d been faced with much bigger problems. Earlier, as she was dressing before her mirror, she had considered commandeering the wig Willy kept hidden in his small steamer trunk of belongings, but the day was too hot and sticky for a wig. She reached up, without realizing what she was doing, and patted the back of her head, like her subconscious mind felt a simple pat or two could fix the frizz.

“Your hair is lovely,” Ginny said, picking up on the gesture, if not her very thoughts. “So untamed and earthy. You blacks are just so much more in touch with nature than we whites are.” Jilo wondered for a moment if this coiffed and pampered young woman could be serious. The thought brought an actual smile to Jilo’s lips. Yes, she realized in flabbergasted amusement, the girl truly believed she had just paid Jilo a compliment.

Jilo felt her mouth gearing up, readying itself to tell this cotton-candy-pink confection of a woman just what she thought of her praise, but then she noticed Guy and Edwin pressing through the crowd, drawing near the table. Guy had two whole bottles of bourbon in his hands. Jilo prayed that Guy had swallowed his pride and allowed the young man with the deep pockets to pay for the liquor. Edwin followed on Guy’s heels, carrying a tray over his head like one of the fancy waiters Jilo had seen in the movies. On the tray sat an ice bucket and glasses.

“Your dress is beautiful,” Jilo said, offering a compliment of her own rather than the barb she’d nearly launched. What she said was true, if not entirely heartfelt. Jilo had made her best effort, managing to squeeze into one of her old Kingfisher Club favorites, a pale yellow, hammered-satin peg-top dress that, in spite of having been aired outside all day, still held a faint scent of naphthalene. She had no doubt that this was the first time Ginny’s dress had been worn. Its boatneck cut was demure, but it was sleeveless, so it displayed the young woman’s athletic yet feminine arms to their best advantage. The fabric was a pale blue satin with a pattern in a soft gold of what appeared to be leaves and vines looped through other less familiar shapes.

“Balenciaga,” Ginny said as if the word should hold some meaning for Jilo. She shifted as Edwin leaned over to place the tray on the table. “Father says it’s a shame to waste such a pretty dress on such a plain girl.” She reached over to grab one of the glasses. “But I say fuck him.”

Jilo’s mouth fell wide open, incapable of believing such language could come from such a pretty, young society lady.

Edwin laughed and clanked a still-empty glass against his sister’s equally empty tumbler. “Fuck the old man,” he called out, as if it were a toast. “C’mon, Guy.” He grabbed two cubes of ice from the bucket, using his fingers rather than the tongs provided for that purpose. “Get to pouring.”

“I’m sorry,” Ginny said looking at Jilo, shoving her own glass toward Guy. “I know with all the real problems in this world, such slights shouldn’t matter . . .”

“But you are a very pretty woman,” Jilo said, surprised to feel any level of sympathy for this debutante.

“And I thank you for saying that,” Ginny said, grasping her now-full tumbler and taking a good swig. “It’s only Father prefers a more delicate type, like our mother. When Father is feeling generous, he refers to me as ‘handsome.’ ”