X (16 page)

She has her arms coiled around that Negro’s neck, and a jealous fire flares in me.

I move right up to the sideline of the dance floor and stand where I’m sure she’ll see me. Our eyes catch within a matter of seconds. But she doesn’t move toward me or even unwrap her arms from his neck.

Shit.

What am I going to do? I can’t lose her to some black-as-midnight fellow who just happened along at the right moment. I can’t blow this shot.

She doesn’t make a move toward me. And I don’t know what kind of move to make on her.

So I just stand and wait. A long, long minute or two, while the song rages on and Miss Cream sways on, entwined with the man I’m planning to throw my fists at in a minute. The only thing holding me back is the memory of my last fistfight, which didn’t end so well. Not exactly the impression I want to make. But Miss Cream is rightfully mine, I figure. She came to me first. Danced with me first. And promised me a ride. Promised me the rest of the night.

She’s worth the fight.

The song winds down with a shivering vibrato on the cymbals.

I ball my fists by my sides. She unwraps herself from the man. Kisses him on the cheek. The blood in my veins is steaming hot. But I can’t make my feet move. He’s bigger than I thought, now that I’m closer. Now that Miss Cream’s gaze is no longer distracting me from a full view of him.

Her mouth moves near his ear. “Thanks.”

I grip the back of a chair. She winds her way through to me as the band pipes up with a fresh jiving number.

“You’re a patient man,” she says.

I raise one shoulder. No good reply comes to mind. So I don’t say anything. I’ve seen men whip a victory out of silence. When Papa was most angry, he’d just stand there, looking at us, and we’d fall into line. We knew that the next thing after the silence would be the strap, so the silence had some kind of power in it.

It cuts both ways, though. In the silence, in trying to re-create Papa’s strong silence, it could become all too easy to hear his voice again. I push the thought away, concentrating on the pulse of the music and the stirring blond beauty before me.

“I like that kind of confidence in a man,” Miss Cream purrs, curling against me.

“I like you,” I answer. “And I’ve got all night.”

“You wanna get out of here?” she says.

Boy, do I. We head for the coat check. She hands me her ticket, and I retrieve a stylish fur stole.

“It’s mink,” she remarks, offhand. The mink hugs her neck and shoulders as I usher her out into the night.

Every move I make, cats are staring. Surely thinking,
Who’s he to land that hot piece of contraband?

“What’s your name?” I ask her on the sidewalk.

“Sophia,” she says. Her car is parked right outside. A white convertible. Top raised.

I hold open the driver’s door for her. “They call me Red.”

“I know all about you,” she answers. Her voice drops to a low, sexy pitch. I still can’t believe she’s talking to me. Guys around the doorway are watching us leave. Every minute spent in Sophia’s company, my stock ticks up a couple notches.

She slides into the seat. I run around and hop in the front beside her. It’s easy enough to slide across the bench seat to get close.

“Wait until we park,” she says.

As far as I’m concerned, we are parked. But she puts the car into gear and pulls out. She drives us to a wooded area outside the city; it’s a spot she must know well, because despite the dark, the car glides into a space with ease.

The radio hums soft, sexy jazz. Sophia cuts the car engine off. Turns to me, all creamy warm. “You were saying?”

I slide across the bench seat and remind her.

Boston, 1941

I’d thought my sharkskin zoot and my swagger made me big stuff around Roxbury. Turns out, that was nothing compared to having a white woman on my arm — and it sure doesn’t hurt that she’s among the most stunning women any of us have ever seen.

I squire Sophia everywhere I can. Night after night, down around town. I take her dancing everywhere. Mostly I keep my hands on her, make it known to the world that she’s with me.

But it’s just as fun to watch her twirl and flirt. Negroes in the club swarm her like bees on honeycomb. If I step aside for a second, they come surging forward, tripping over themselves to ask her to dance. And she dances. But after a minute, I come back. All I have to do is stand next to her. She lets go of whoever, snakes her arms around my neck, and suddenly I’m king. The waters part around us, and we stand there, just the two of us, looking in each other’s eyes and knowing. Just knowing.

Sophia is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I guess this is what all the songs mean when they talk about love. I want to swim in her, swallow her, breathe her. I’ve decided it’s time I take her to the fanciest restaurant I can afford in Roxbury. She has money, and so she often pays for the things we do, but I’ve saved my tips so I can treat her to something nice for a change.

Sophia’s the perfect kind of woman. Fancy but not prissy. She never minds sliding to the underbelly of things, even though she deserves much better. Usually I take her to my favorite restaurant, a little hole in the wall that’s open all night. They serve everything fried, and they know us by name, and we lick grease off our fingers in the wee hours of the morning and relish the free life we’re living.

But here tonight, in the candlelight of a nice place with white tablecloths and heavy china, she looks like a goddess across the table from me.

“Do you like this place?” I ask her, just to make sure.

She nods. “Yes, I’ve been here before. It’s safe for us to eat here.” She leans closer to whisper: “But I can’t wait to hold you.”

I hold back a smile.
Safe?
Says the woman who comes to the Roseland on Negro night. “We’ll be dancing in no time,” I promise. “Until the sun comes up. I’ll never let you go.”

And she smiles at me, and I wish I could pour myself into her. Our hands entwine alongside the bread plate, and I’m weirdly grateful all of a sudden that my mother made a point of teaching us why they sometimes give you two different forks and how to behave in a nice restaurant, even though we learned it around the circle of our own dining table. I never actually thought it would be useful, knowing what a bread knife is and where to put it. But here I sit, hand in hand with Sophia. For a second, I feel kind of hopeful that maybe there really will be better days.

I call Sophia up at her house. “What time are you coming by tonight?” She always picks me up in her convertible.

“Not tonight, Red,” she whispers, like there’s someone to overhear. “Another night, maybe.”

She hangs up. In the silence, I hear the echo of it.
Maybe. Maybe.

Maybe?
I thought what we had going was getting to be a sure thing. We’re fun together. We’re downright hot together. All those steamy nights in the club, not to mention the equally steamy aftermath, stretched out on the seat of her convertible.

I hang up the phone. Resist the urge to dial her back, to ask,
What other night? When will I see you?
The idea of walking back onto a dance floor alone makes me cringe. I’m somebody now. She makes me somebody. I’m not about to go back to how it was.

Days pass without seeing her. I’m desperate to know where she’s gone, if it was all just a fluke. I’m going to have to find a way to show her I’m worth her while.

Shorty says jewelry is the quickest way to get and keep a girl. He takes me to a hole-in-the-wall shop he knows. The guy behind the counter knows Shorty, of course. They slap hands.

“This is my homeboy, Red,” Shorty says, by way of introduction. “He needs to impress a lady.”

“Sure,” the guy says. “We’ll take care of you. What sort of item are you looking for?”

“Umm . . .” The amount of jewelry in the glass counter is staggering. Through the top, I can see several large pieces laid out in half circles. Necklaces, I suppose. Scattered in between, some smaller items. Pins and things. Maybe earrings. I don’t know. I’ve seen plenty of jewelry on people but never laid out like this.

The vertical pane goes from my knees to my waist, three glass shelves of items piled on top of each other behind it. The heels of my hands land on the counter’s metal rim as I bend down to look at the spread. Gold and silver. Glittery and smooth. All kinds of looks to them. All kinds of colorful stones.

The guy goes on. “You thinking earrings? Necklace? Brooch? Silver? Gold? Any particular setting? Diamonds on it? Rubies? Amethyst?” He rattles off a list of words I swear I’ve never heard uttered.

“I don’t know what any of that is,” I admit once he stops to take a breath.

The guy shrugs. “Different stones.”

Shorty motions me aside. Puts a hand on my shoulder. “First time buying for a lady?” he murmurs.

I nod.

“Should have known.”

“Sorry.” Will Shorty ever get tired of schooling me? If he does, I’ll be lost. Probably fall into a sewer hole and die.

“OK. Earrings and bracelets are good for making up,” Shorty says. “Necklaces, you’re getting a little more serious.”

He points across the case. “Don’t
ever
ever buy a woman any kind of ring unless you mean her to stick around forever.”

“What, do I look like I was born yesterday?” I joke. Everyone knows not to buy a girl a ring.

Shorty laughs. Acts like he’s appraising me. “Not yesterday. Day before.”

I would laugh along with him, but I’m too distracted by the many, many shiny things glittering in my face. I can rule out the rings, at least. Keeping Sophia forever doesn’t sound like such a bad deal, but right now I’m just aiming for enough to get another couple of dates.

“How much are you looking to spend?” the jewelry guy asks. “That usually helps narrow it down.”

“Um . . .”

“Low end,” Shorty says. “What, Red, like twenty dollars?”

Twenty dollars seems like a huge amount of money to me, but Sophia is a fancy sort of woman. “I don’t know about that,” I say. “Can I get something nice for, maybe, five?”

The jewelry guy shrugs. “Sure.” He reaches behind him, grabs a rack the size of a shoe box stood up on end. Necklaces and things dangling from it. They sway as he lifts it over to the front counter and places it in front of me. “Any of these will run you three to five dollars.”

“Is it OK to touch them?” I ask.

“Sure,” the jewelry guy says. “They’re all different. Pull them out and look.”

“A necklace, I think.” I’m fingering a smooth golden locket. I imagine that gold will look nice with Sophia’s silken blond hair.

Then I look down into the glass case, with its big hefty padlock on it. All those things, all locked up, and then these just get handed to me. Three to five dollars must seem like peanuts to the jewelry guy.

The bell above the door jangles. My suspicions are confirmed when the guy walks away to greet the new customers, leaving the rack of jewelry in front of us. Unattended.

My fingers flit over the delicate chains. “Five dollars?” I tell Shorty. “I don’t know if I got it.” Five dollars is my weekly payment on my zoot suit. If I got the necklace, I’d have to miss a week, maybe. Or else cut back on something else.

“Just lift it, man,” Shorty whispers. “Who’s gonna know?”

A pause.

There are a dozen necklaces on the hook. All swinging slightly, from when I touched them. Anyone looks, they won’t notice one gone.

I reach for the locket I liked. Let my fingers rest on the back of it, feeling its heft. Not much to it, really. Very lightweight. Dainty, you might even say. Not the sort of thing that would bog you down.

Shorty watches the clerk over my shoulder. “He ain’t looking.”

“You gotta understand,” I tell him. “I can’t lose her.”

“I hear you, homeboy,” Shorty says. Blink of an eye. He reaches up and flicks the chain. So swift, I almost missed it.

The small gold circle falls into my palm, nice and easy, followed by the coils of chain, and I fist it up, fast. With my other hand, I trace a slow line along the cool metal lip of the counter. The line I’m crossing, maybe. I studiously gaze down into the case like I’m still considering something fancier.

Smooth
, I think. Like we’ve done it a thousand times. A hot rush surges through my chest, spreading outward. I slip my fingers into my coat pocket. The locket slides down, out of sight.

“Let’s go,” Shorty murmurs. “’Fore he comes back over.”

He doesn’t need to tell me. I’m already moving.

“Did you decide to go with the locket?” the clerk asks. He glances at the necklace tree we’ve left behind. I falter in my tracks. Hold my breath.

Shorty claps my shoulder. “Big decision, eh, homeboy?”

His cue prompts me that I ought to say something. I loosen my fists. Casual-like. Give the clerk a sad little shrug.

“I gotta save up,” I tell him. “Get her something real.”

“You got something in mind?” the clerk says, leaning in. “You pay half now, I’ll lay it away.”

“Naw, man.” I lean in to mirror him. My coat pocket brushes the counter display. I imagine a tinkling sound, the locket striking the glass, even though the fabric in between makes contact impossible. I conceal my cringe behind what I hope is a wry smile.