Playing by the Rules: A Novel (10 page)

Jeremiah held his breath, and he thought it was in his best interest to hide nothing. Instead of sitting, Jeremiah felt he should stand to present his case. “We share the same mother,” he began
nervously. “But we have different fathers.” He paused to give them time to react. “Our mother was a junkie and an alcoholic and liked men more than she loved her children.”

“Oh, no,” said Nana, Sadie, Theola, and Vernelle, all looking at each other. Everyone else in the room wanted to hear more before taking the time to react.

Jeremiah continued. “As I got older I ran away from home and when I got old enough, I joined the Army. Around that time, Mama gave Ruby Rose here to the state of Virginia.” He gestured toward Ruby Rose as if she were the evidence supporting his case. “And there was no record of us being brother and sister…and then our Mama died.”

“Oh, no,” repeated Nana, Sadie, Theola, and Vernelle. Everyone else in the room wanted to hear more before formulating a response.

After Jeremiah told them the truth about his family, their mother, and his sister’s foster care situation with Miss Molly Esther Reynolds, including the part about him now being wanted as a kidnapper by the law, their hearts went out to the Outsiders. They had never heard a story so sad. It cut through their emotions so deeply they could feel the stabbing of someone else’s pain. A situation like this would never happen in Lemon City. Lemonites were people who always took care of their own.

Sadie, Theola, and Vernelle were close to tears. Nana stayed steady and chose to hold on to her strength. Ole Miss Johnson was mesmerized by the tale. Louise was intrigued, and for the first time in Billy’s career he felt justified in not handing over a criminal to Beauregard Taylor, an old family friend at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. The way the Outsider stood up and told his story, Billy believed he was telling the truth, but he wasn’t going to let the Outsider know he could be taken so easily.

“Is that so?” Billy smirked. “Are you sure you’ve told us the real story, and there’s nothing more to add?”

“It’s the truth,” said Jeremiah. “I swear it.” Then he remembered he was face to face with the law and stammered. “Are you… are you going to arrest me?” Jeremiah was terrified and couldn’t believe his luck had gone from bad to worse.

“Not now … not yet,” Billy replied, still hedging, keeping the Outsider on his toes, not letting him feel too comfortable, admittedly receiving some enjoyment from being in a position of authority and watching the Outsider squirm. In spite of that, he decided to give the pair the benefit of the doubt and at the same time to keep a close eye on them both. Billy locked eyes with the male Outsider. “My grandmother seems to have taken a likin’ to your sister. As long as that continues, consider yourself safe for the time being.” Billy held his gaze on the Outsider to let him know he meant business.

Granddaddy and Nana looked at each other, giving themselves a knowing nod that the Outsiders should stay.

Walking to the mantle, Nana reached for Faye’s stocking and handed it to Ruby Rose. As tears of joy streaked down the girl’s face, Nana knew it had been a long time since anyone had given her anything.

Ruby Rose was grateful for the stocking, but it was the brown horn-blowing angel ornaments that she saw hanging on the Christmas tree that brought tears to her eyes. She had always wanted a real tree decorated like that. Miss Molly Esther Reynolds always had miniature artificial ones with a bulb or two, with hardly any presents underneath. Then she noticed the piano in the corner and thought there might be hope. If her fingers weren’t still frozen, maybe the lady they called Nana would let her play.

When the last guest left for the evening, Nana packed up two
bags of leftovers, handed them to Billy, then instructed him to take Jeremiah and Ruby Rose down to the cottage. At the last minute, Louise volunteered to go with them, with no regard for leaving Medford behind.

Surprised by her granddaughter’s rudeness, Nana yelled after her. “You make sure you stop by here tomorrow, ya hear? I got one more gift to give you. Ya hear me? Don’t forget…I’ll see you tomorrow.”

There was no response. Louise was long gone out the door.

The day after Christmas, Louise woke up wondering if she had dreamed about the Outsiders or if she had really encountered them in her grandparents’ living room. Like a camera lens coming into focus, her mind began to see a clear picture of Jeremiah and his sister walking down Tuckahoe Road to the cottage. Yes, it was true, there were Outsiders in their midst and on the premises, and she began thinking about the young girl’s big brother, remembering that he was kind of fine.

After pouring herself a glass of orange juice, Louise made breakfast before taking a shower. She had promised to see her grandmother today and then expected at some point to listen to what Medford had to say. Whatever it was, she had a feeling it wasn’t going to be good.

She couldn’t think about Medford without acknowledging their odd history. They first got together five years ago at the Soul Mate Auction at the Annual County Fair, which raised money for the Town Council’s charities. Since 1968, it became their tradition to have a yearly fling around auction time, until she got the
idea that she might consider something serious. That opportunity came after the big storm that blew straight through Lemon City the weekend before Thanksgiving Day. Medford chose to ride out the bad weather at her house, and the close quarters provided the perfect condition for intimacy and comfort in exploring a potential relationship. Although Louise was reluctant to let him into her life, she thought she might become open to the possibility and give it a try.

She’d had a bad experience about ten years ago back in high school, but it seemed like only yesterday. She fell in love with Carter Lightbrook, who was the first boy she surrendered to. It was love at first sight and she allowed herself to experience euphoria, but Carter eventually broke her heart. One day, she woke up with a couple of bug bites on her arm, which the doctor later told her was chicken pox. It just so happened that she’d kissed Carter after school that afternoon, and he came down with a dreadful case. The virus nearly killed him and he never forgave her for passing along the disease, never believed that she didn’t do it on purpose. He not only quit her; he stopped talking to her altogether and started spreading vicious rumors, telling nasty lies. Eventually Granddaddy had to speak to his parents to prevent Carter from tarnishing his granddaughter’s reputation. The Lightbrooks took the warning seriously and moved to the other side of town. The incident made Carter Lightbrook Louise’s benchmark for relationships. She’d learned early on that words could easily walk away, especially when it came to the subject of love. Even though that happened twelve years ago, whenever she thought about that time of her life, the pain was still sharp like a fresh wound that opened all over again. Some people got over that kind of thing quickly, but Louise guessed she was slow to recover. Trust was something she didn’t know if she would ever find again. For her, it
was an object as deep as buried treasure and she was doubtful if her shovel could expand long enough to reach it.

Now that she and Medford had been seeing each other for over a month and he was acting strange, Louise was beginning to think getting serious was a mistake.

She went to her drawer and pulled out her Afrobabies sweatshirt, the one with the short brown stubby cartoon character holding a talk sign that read “Keep On Trucking” on the front side, and the word “Peace” on the back. It was obvious that she and Nana had a different interpretation of what it meant to dress casual and if her grandmother thought that yesterday was informal, then she would probably describe today as being downright shabby. Sliding into a pair of Landlubber bell-bottom jeans, she thought about how clothes had never meant much to her except as a means of covering up her private parts and keeping warm. How anyone could make such a fuss about wardrobe other than for going to church was beyond her. She attributed her detached feelings to the fact that when she was twelve years old and her parents died in that horrible car crash, she’d had more important things to deal with than apparel. At an age when most girls were beginning to care about how they looked and what they wore because of boys, for Louise it just wasn’t a priority. At the time, death had become her obsession, and she was trying to manage the best way she could to handle the worst pain she hoped to experience in her entire life.

Standing in front of her bathroom mirror, Louise untwisted the four big braids in her hair that she made each evening to prevent it from getting tangled in the morning. Using a plastic pick with a Black Power fist carved into its wooden handle, she proceeded to comb her hair and spray on a little Afro Sheen to make sure all was in order. Then she headed over to Nana’s to get some
Christmas leftovers and whatever else Nana had in mind to give her.

She found her grandparents relaxing in the living room. Saint was curled up on the floor, taking advantage of the heat generated by Nana’s slippered feet. Nana was working with yellow yarn to complete the baby sweater and booties she was making to add to her hope-chest collection of clothes for the grandchild she was praying would come along one day. Knitting was what she did to take her mind off anticipation. In fact, with the variety of clothes she was creating in the event of a pregnancy, she felt she had enough inventory to easily maintain stock in the Montgomery Ward mail-order catalog. Granddaddy was reading
Black Scholar
magazine with
Ebony
and
Jet
stacked on the floor, dozing on and off, while the afternoon movie on the TV was playing in the background.

After kissing her grandparents on the cheek, Louise went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. As she began to place the large Tupperware containers with the leftover food on the counter, Nana came into the room.

Carrying a small hardcover book, Nana handed it to Louise. “I told you I had something for you. I found this on the bookshelf upstairs in your room. Now does it look familiar?”

Louise read the title on the cover. “
The Correct Thing to Do, to Say, to Wear
, by Charlotte Hawkins Brown.”

Nana pointed to the book her granddaughter was holding. “Charlotte Hawkins Brown was a famous teacher who founded the Palmer Memorial Institute for Negroes back in 1902. She was a woman with great pride in herself and her people. Because she was in education some folks say that she might have been related to us, but she was from North Carolina and they got the Great Smokies, not the Blue Ridge, but it’s all part of the same mountain chain, like one big long fence, and who knows the way every
body is all spread out and connected, we could have kin down there too.” Nana looked at Louise to make sure she was taking it all in, still pointing to the hardcover. “That’s her book on etiquette, on proper behavior, wardrobe, and manners.”

Louise groaned.

“It’s the first book of its kind for Negroes. I ain’t gonna lie to you, there are things in there that might be a little old-fashioned, but all you need is the general idea.”

“Nana, I really don’t think I need it.” Louise thumbed through the chapters, reading a few of the headings out loud. “‘Boy and Girl Relationships,’ ‘The Earmarks of a Lady,’ ‘Dress for Girls,’ ‘Grooming.’ Oh, Nana. This stuff is nonsense. You can’t be serious about me reading this.” Louise passed the book to her grandmother, but Nana shoved it back into her granddaughter’s hands.

“Yes I am. You did when you were young, and you need to refresh your memory. I said it might be dated, but the message in there still works and it needs to be delivered to you.” When Louise didn’t respond, Nana continued. “You don’t want to be as old as me and by yourself.”

“Being old and alone doesn’t scare me,” Louise responded. “Besides, I’ll always have you.”

“No you won’t. I’ll be dead.”

“Then I’ll have Billy and Elvira.”

“Who’s gonna put their arms around you at the end of a long day, after you done worked so hard and are tired?”

“I can’t worry about those kinds of details.” Louise found some aluminum foil and began the process of taking food from the containers and wrapping it up for herself.

“Who’s gonna cuddle up with you at night and make you feel safe and warm?”

“A security blanket.”

“Blankets don’t hug back.”

“Yes they do. They wrap themselves around you.”

“You use that fresh mouth around Medford? No wonder he gave you a Sunbeam blender; the motor’s probably loud enough to drown out your wisecracks.”

“Nana, I’m not worried and I don’t want you to be. I’ll find someone. But it doesn’t mean I’ll have to be married to him.”

“Oh, girl.” Frustrated, Nana threw her arms to the air. “It’s so easy for me to be through with you, but I ain’t giving up.” Then she softened her tone when she saw resistance leaving her granddaughter. “Dear, this book may help you think about dressing a little better so you can go on, get engaged, and get married, like you ‘sposed to.”

Louise’s eyes grew large. “I hope Medford won’t make a decision to marry me based on the clothes I wear.”