Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns (19 page)
I answered, “Well, yes. She is not married.”
Harriet turned maroon as she said, “Yes, nobody but me is going to be living here.”
He looked at me, then turned back to her. Said, “Well, Ms. Harriet, I’d like to ask you something. I don’t intend to be fresh, or bad-mannered, and try to break in on your plans, but . . . Well, Harriet, I get so tired of hotels and rented rooms, and carryin all the things I love everywhere, and every time, I go. Could I, please, ask you to rent me that extra room of yours? By the year? I’ll pay one hundred dollars a month. A year in advance. Just let me put my things in that room, and keep it empty . . . till I get here once a month for three or four days? I’m quiet. I’m clean. I know you like to be let alone; I won’t bother you. Would you, please, think about it?”
Harriet was speechless. She did not want a rooming house in her home.
So I answered, “Why certainly, Mr. Issy Evers. Harriet would like that.”
Harriet started shaking, so I told Issy, “You go on back, ahead of us. We’ll be right along.”
When he was gone, we both started talking at the same time. She said, “A stranger in here with me! No, mam!”
I said, “I told you, everybody is a stranger till you know em. Sides, that man is no stranger to you. He been a customer of yours for a long time and you always liked him before! Think about it, girl. That hundred dollars a month, paid in advance, for a person you will not see but three or four days out the month. You will have your house to yourself. And . . . you can almost retire, cause you have to sew aplenty for a hundred dollars a month.” I could see her thinking about that.
She squinched her lips all the way back to the hotel, but she didn’t say another word to me. And she wasn’t shaking. She hugged me when we said good-bye, though. I smiled all the way home.
The next time Issy Evers came to town he moved into his room at Harriet’s house. I smiled some more.
Well, bout another year went by. The first time Issy had come into town, Harriet had come over to my house to spend the night instead of staying at the hotel. Before she got that house, Issy had already started coming by to see me every time he came to town.
This time he looked worried. He frowned as he said, “Ms. Realer, I’m glad to have that room, but I don’t want to run Harriet away from her own house. Maybe I could pay you to find some little house like that for me.” We talked, but I didn’t really say nothing.
The next time Issy came in town, I suggested to him that we all go out to dinner for some Chinese food. Harriet liked Chinese food and, since I was going to be with em, she relaxed. She went to eat dinner with us. She didn’t shake. After that, she started staying at home. They went to different rooms, but they went to the same house.
After that first date, they started going out someplace, to have dinner or see a picture show, most nights he was in town. They went without me! Left me at home. (smile)
Harriet told me, “The prettiest things show up in the kitchen and the living room and my bedroom every time he comes to town. I got the most beautiful pictures on the walls. And, girl, he brings me the most beautiful material to sew things for myself with!”
I just smiled with her.
“I tell him to rest, after working all that time, but he won’t! He works that garden and is making that chicken-house a little bigger and stronger so nothing can get in it . . . after our chickens, you know.” (I heard that “our.”) “We got four now. Issy said that’s enough cause we don’t need but four eggs a day and we don’t always eat all of those. Besides, he likes to take me out so he can eat food he didn’t cook. I don’t let him cook for me either. Only sometimes, when he surprises me when I come home from work. But, I don’t work on the days he is in town no more. Ms. Poker takes care of things; ain’t that much to do noway.” She took a breath and brushed an invisible something off her lap. Then, “You know his name is Isaiah, and that’s why people call him Issy. When he’s in town on a Sunday, we are going to start going to church with you. I’m going to start going with you more when he isn’t here, too, Ms. Realer.”
She just couldn’t stop talkin, chile, tellin me how wonderful her life was. And I kept nodding my head, thrilled happy for her from my head all the way to my bottom sittin on that chair!
Now, I know about men, a little bit, pretty good. Issy was a nice man, a good man. And I have always liked men who have pushed-forward-lookin hips. (My husband was built that way.) I know what I’m talkin bout. I think. And I wanted something for my friend’s starved life and heart. Sex ain’t the most important thing in life, but if you’re gonna have some, my friend Harriet deserved the best she could get. See what I mean?
And I knew she liked him, because she didn’t shake much around him anyway. I didn’t know how they would ever get to make love. I know sex is exciting, sometimes, and Harriet might get excited and start shaking. She wouldn’t want him to see her shake. So how could they do anything? I didn’t think they had ever got to that part of life yet. Sometimes you don’t learn much sitting behind a desk, tryin to hide, for thirty years.
For the next two months, though, he had come in town and I hadn’t heard a thing on those days, from either one of them. I hoped nothing was wrong. They are fun to be around. I always see her, but I missed him, too.
Now . . . I have a key to her house, you know, cause she lives alone most of the time. She has a key to my house for the same reason.
I got that key out of my drawer and sat down in a chair, thinking. I studied that key to Harriet’s house a minute. Cause I ain’t no meddling woman. But I need to know if my friend is all right. She didn’t pass my house going to work, so . . . what are those two doing over there?
I got my coat and went walkin to Harriet’s, since it ain’t far. When I got there, I put the key in the lock, quietly, so I wouldn’t disturb nobody.
The door opened without a squeak. I guess oiling hinges was one of the jobs Issy had been doing to that house. Keepin things in working order.
I reached the middle of the living room and stood stark still, and listened. And I could hear something.
I heard bed springs springing to a steady rhythm. I could hear a moan or two between them squeaking springs. I heard Issy say in a low, mellowed voice, “Shake, baby, shake.” I heard Harriet’s soft, happy laughter, a laughter mixed in with moans, that sounded sexy. I thought to myself, “He can only go up and down . . . and when she is excited, she shakes.”
I backed up out of the living room, out the door, and went home. I was happy! For both of them, chile.
But I knew one thing that hadn’t been settled.
I waited long enough for them to be finished, a couple hours, then I went back and rang the bell.
I said to them, because I am the oldest and I am involved, don’t care what you think. I said to them, “I don’t know what all is going on here, but I don’t hear no wedding bells. I think it’s time you thought of that.”
Issy actually blushed, looking satisfied and happy. He said, “I got the ring; she just got to take it. I’m ready.”
I looked at him and thought to myself, “I’ll just bet you are.”
I looked at her and she just blushed, looking down at her lap, laughing that sexy sound again. And she wasn’t shaking. Too relaxed, I guess.
He took a month off of his job.
I gave the wedding at my house. Just a small one, people from the church and all like that. Star came, and brought a few of her friends. I could see some of them laughing, without sound, behind their hands. They were laughing at the mildly shaking woman in the beautiful satin, white wedding dress she had made with her own hands. They laughed a little at Issy as he stood stiffly, with his hand out, eagerly waiting for Harriet to walk to him.
Now, some of them didn’t have husband or wife, no ring, no house, no real future, and, most important, no love. But . . . they had the nerve to laugh at some real people with real love.
They didn’t laugh at that big diamond ring he put on her finger. And I saw the look Harriet gave Issy as they held hands. I saw the joy, the happiness, they gave each other. And they were going home to their
own
house that was full of their
own
love.
Sometimes, people say, for good luck, you have to catch a falling star and put it in your pocket. These two people, Issy and Harriet, had somethin better than good luck, they had a blessing. They had both caught a falling heart! And they were gonna take it home.
I looked life over as I was standing there, watching everybody. My plan had worked and two lonely, wonderful people were more happy. They were each other’s life! It was always up to them. And I was happy too. I actually shook with my joy and laughter. Shaking, chile, shaking.
J. California Cooper
WILD STARS SEEKING MIDNIGHT SUNS
J. California Cooper is the author of the novels
Some
People, Some Other Place
;
Family
; and
In Search of Satisfaction
, and of seven short story collections:
Homemade Love
, the winner of the 1989 American Book Award;
A Piece
of Mine
;
The Future Has a Past
;
Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime
;
The Matter Is Life
; and
Some Soul to Keep.
She is also the author of seventeen plays and has been honored as Black Playwright of the Year. She lives in Oregon.
ALSO BY J. CALIFORNIA COOPER
Some People, Some Other Place
The Future Has a Past
The Wake of the Wind
Homemade Love
Some Soul to Keep
Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime
In Search of Satisfaction
Family
The Matter Is Life
A Piece of Mine
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, APRIL 2007
Copyright © 2006 by J. California Cooper
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places,
events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress.
eISBN: 978-0-307-43026-7
v3.0