Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writing Part 52

He tilt his head back and laugh. Then he held out his hand. "Frederick Bailey."

I forgot I was wearing my good dress and wiped my hand on my skirt. "Anna Murray."

"Anna," he say. My name sounded like a jewel. he clasped my palm good and solid and made me feel like I'd made a friend. Not just a good time friend but a forever friend.

And, just as quickly, the word "dangerous" flashed through my mind. "A dangerous friend." Don't know where those words come from. They just sprung up. As soon as they did, someone struck a bell and this heavy-setlooking man come between us.

"Boy. Hear that bell? Work needs doing. Go on. Get."

"He needs his dinner."

"Don't tell me what he needs," the man turned angrily, causing me to back step As I did, Frederick made a move forward. I held up my hand, not wanting to cause him trouble.

"No, sir," I said. "I understand. I just brung chicken. My Christian deed. It's still warm. You're welcome to some. I be trying to get my spirit right. Do a little something for my fellow man. But, next time, I'll come earlier, so I won't interfere with work. Would that be all right? I can bring you chicken too. My mistake this time."

This foreman looked at me. His eyes squinting as if figuring if I meant what I said. He had a big bushful of hair on his head and face. But his eyes seemed flat, weighing me cold as if we did or did not have a bargain. Then he smiled crooked, spoke tickled yet also mean.

"You sweet on him? Won't 'mount to much. Him a slave and all."

"I know," I said as Mr. Bailey said, "We're acquaintances."

I felt anger flood me at high tide. But all mixed up 'cause I wasn't sure I was upset at just the foreman. "Acquaintances" sounded cold. Yet that was us. Barely met. Barely knowing each other.

"I'm simply doing my Christian duty. Seem like his master would want him fed." I knew I was pushing too far.

"I'm his master as long as he's working for carpenters, learning how to build ships. Go on, now. Get."

"Good-bye, Mr. Bailey," I said, bowing neatly. Just like at a dance. Suddenly, I felt embarra.s.sed.

"Good-bye, Miss Murray." He looked at me quizzing, like he don't understand me at all. Then, he bowed at the waist like he had all the time in the world.

"Boy. Come here, boy," somebody was already calling. Then, there was another cry from the opposite direction. "Boy. Over here. Brace this beam." The foreman was shoving Mr. Bailey along. I walked from the place real slow. I still held my baskets. One filled with old clothes. One filled with my best cooking.

I knew I'd return next Thursday. The sky was sheets of red, orange, yellow piled on top of one another. The clouds had turned slate gray. A storm be rolling in from the gulf, the Caribbean Sea. I felt happy and shy. Scared and nervous. My world was upside down.

How to be more than an acquaintance? How to get Mr. Bailey to think well of me? Few words exchanged on a year of Thursdays didn't add up to much. And even if it did-a free woman and a slave? Hah. Don't carry much future. I ain't so dumb I didn't know that.

But little things can add up to big. "Be special like you," Mam would always say. I just had to be patient. Take my chance when it comes.

That evening I looked for my cat. She come in late, purring. I turn my back and face the wall.

Thinking of Mr. Bailey, it be some time before I finally sleep.

Eva and Isaiah.

BY VALERIE WILSON WESLEY.

FROM Ain't n.o.body's Business.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20.

When all was said and done, Eva had to admit that any fool with two working eyes should have seen what was coming. It was bound to happen-and sooner rather than later, considering her state of mind. Yet it took her by surprise-just like everything else since that hot June night when Hutch had left. Isaiah Lonesome was more matter-of-fact about it.

"I knew the first time I saw you," he said. Although Isaiah rea.s.sured Eva that that first time was when he'd picked her up on the Garden State Parkway and not when Charley brought him home, and that his desperate search for a temporary home had nothing to do with where things ended up, Eva was still distressed by his words.

It all started out innocently enough, with a question about his music. Up until then, everything had gone as Eva had planned. So little seemed to have changed in her life, she hadn't even bothered to mention her new living arrangement to Charley or Steven. First of all, she was sure they would disapprove. Besides that, they were both preoccupied with living their own lives: Charlie with working and preparing for her October debut. Steven with Dana. Eva knew that one or the other was bound to stumble upon the truth at some point, and she'd do her explaining then. If she bothered to explain at all. Truth was, it felt good for once not to bother with what anyone-particularly her children-thought about her life. It made her feel free and completely independent.

As for her neighbors, they were neighborly enough to keep any questions they had about her new boarder to themselves. She spotted one or two giving Isaiah curious, appraising glances when he came home in the morning, but they were far too polite to ask her who he was or what he was doing there. Eva suspected that they a.s.sumed he was a college friend of Steven's, which was fine with her.

Things seemed to be going as Eva had planned. That first week they successfully avoided running into each other and that week established their pattern for the next two. Eva left at seven in the morning for the library just as Isaiah was coming home from the club in New York City. He left around seven at night, about an hour after she'd gotten home. She stayed in her room watching TV or he stayed in the guest room doing whatever he did until she was safely out of the house. When they ran into each other on the stairs or in the kitchen or garage, they would exchange a few pleasantries about the weather, the traffic or who would play in the World Series. He did all his laundry and made all of his calls from his apartment in Jersey City while his roommate and his new wife were at work. There were never dishes left in the sink or trash cans left unemptied. When Eva peeked into the guest room, she found that the bed was neatly made, the floor swept, and the guest towels in the small attached guest bathroom arranged on the towel rack in a tidy row. When she got home from work one Monday, she noticed that the lawn, which had begun to resemble hay, had been mowed and the newly repaired water sprinkler was shooting out rainbows of water. He paid two months' rent in cash when he moved in and always replaced any food that he took out of the refrigerator. There were times when Eva almost forgot he was there. But then she picked up his horn.

It happened on a Wednesday afternoon during the third week of his stay, almost two weeks before Labor Day. Because of a power outage at work, Eva's shift ended two hours early so she'd come home at three instead of six. She heard Isaiah's trumpet the minute she pulled into the driveway. The sound was so pure, she thought at first that it was a recording, but when he repeated the same phrase a dozen times with a new emphasis and a fresher line of sound each time, she realized he must be practicing. She opened the back door, pausing to hear the mellow tones that greeted her, and still holding her bag of groceries, was as lost in his music as she had been the first time she heard him.

He played scales, rapidly gliding through tones that were vaguely familiar, and then dashed off a riff. Transfixed, Eva sat down and listened as he settled into a sensuous, bluesy wail and then a haunting melody that made her feel wistful and melancholy. When he stopped playing, Eva anxiously waited for more. Then she put the milk in the refrigerator and headed to the sunroom, where he had been playing.

There were two entrances leading into the sunroom, which ran the length of the dining and living rooms, and as she stepped through one door he left through the other. Eva suspected that he'd heard her come in and was as anxious to avoid her as she was him. He'd left his trumpet, however, which lay in an open carrying case on a small side table.

The case was made of well-worn brown leather and lined in plush maroon velvet. The horn gleamed as if it were made of gold. Hesitating for a moment, Eva touched it with her fingertips, as if it posed some threat or would snap at her hand. Then she picked it up and examined it. It was heavier than she thought it would be, and she wondered how he could hold it as effortlessly as he did. As if in a trance, she put the instrument to her lips, curious about how it felt and where the sound came from, wondering what kind of skill it took to make music come from it like Isaiah did. For some odd reason, she expected it to be warm like skin.

"Why don't you try it?" Isaiah's deep voice coming from behind her startled her, and she nearly dropped the horn on the floor. She quickly placed it back in the case where it belonged and turned to face him, catching the scent of the lavender soap that she kept in the guest bathroom. She had bought the soap a year ago in Sag Harbor at a tiny perfume store that offered overpriced items for the "luxurious bath and bed" and had gone through her box in a month, showering and bathing with each bar until it was little more than a silver. Until this moment, she'd forgotten she had any more.

He was dressed in jeans and a royal blue cutoff T-shirt that showed off his smooth chestnut skin and his well-developed arms and shoulders. She noticed for the first time a jagged tattoo high up on his arm that encircled it like barbed wire. Eva hated tattoos but found herself staring at this one in fascination. His short black dreadlocks, which had curled up tightly from the moisture of his shower, still held tiny silver droplets of water, and one drop dripped down the side of his face like sweat. He wiped it away impatiently.

"Go ahead. Pick it up and try it."

"No. I don't think so."

"Go ahead."

Self-consciously, Eva brought the mouthpiece to her lips again, and cautiously blew through it.

"Did you blow?"

"Nothing happened."

"Try it again."

She blew again and a squawking sound, somewhere between a note and a grunt, came out. She handed the horn back to Isaiah.

"How do you do it?"

"It's all in the lips and the tongue and the way you work them." He took the horn and blew a few notes, followed it with a very fast riff and then something slow and moody. Captivated, Eva watched him, noticing how tenderly he held the instrument, almost as if it were alive.

"What were you playing earlier, before you went upstairs?"

"You could hear me?" He glanced at her sheepishly. "I hope it wasn't too loud. I don't want to freak out your neighbors."

"No. It's okay. n.o.body has said anything. What was it?"

"Well, uh, you know, I compose sometimes. Play it, then write it down later. The music you heard? It was something I wrote. I'll write it down or something when I go back upstairs."

"Will you play it again?" Eva wasn't sure where that came from, asking him to play what he'd played, but she was curious, even though she knew how artists were about a work-in-progress and their hesitancy about sharing it until it was finished. She knew how she had been. She also noticed the shyness that had come into his eyes. "Well, you don't have to play it if you don't want to," she quickly added.

"No. That's okay." He picked up the horn and blew the notes he'd played before, but they were shrill and rushed. Eva wondered if she had trodden into a place she shouldn't have gone. "It sounds different every time I do it," he said, apologizing.

"Where does it come from?"

He looked puzzled as he put the horn down. "Where does what come from?"

"Turning a thought into sound. Where does it come from?" She had wondered about that from the first time she'd heard him play, from the moment he'd stepped away from the band and blown that solo that had taken her and everybody else prisoner. He had what she had lost, that was for sure. It didn't have a name, and she couldn't see, feel or touch it, but she could hear it when he picked up his horn, and she knew she had had it once, but she didn't know where or why it had gone.

His eyes questioned her. "I don't know where it comes from. I just blow."

"But how?"

He looked perplexed. "I don't know how. I just do it."

As if explaining, he picked up his trumpet and played something short filled with riffs and short blasts of sound. Then he smiled, shrugged and handed her the trumpet.

"Try it."

"You know I can't play like you."

"Just try it. Hold your lips like this." He pursed his lips together. Eva wondered if he was trying to change the subject, but she did what he said.

"Like this?"

"No." He pursed his lips again, demonstrating, and Eva tried it until hers came close. "Now you put it to your lips." Eva timidly took the horn and held it against her lips. "Now hold it this way," he said, pausing for a moment as he turned her body away from his. His arms encircled her body as he showed her how to grasp the horn, gently touching her underarms and gliding past her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as he held her in an embrace that wasn't quite an embrace. Eva stiffened, and then allowed her body to shift into his. She caught her breath. She liked the way he made her feel, so fragile and in an odd way protected. She could feel his body moving closer to hers, and his smell, blending subtly with that of the lavender, was inviting and dangerous. She drew back, aware suddenly that maybe she was enjoying this too much. But it was too late.

He nibbled very lightly on the back of her neck, his lips gently traveling upward to the base of her scalp, and then slowly and evenly back down again as far as they would go until they were cut off by the top of her collar. He stroked the curve of her neck and her chin and then gently caressed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Eva lost her breath and collapsed against him with a sigh. He took the horn from her hands, dropped it into the case, turned her toward him and kissed her fully and deeply, his tongue touching hers. Eva, completely aroused now by his touch and the surprise of it all, felt the rumble of s.e.xual desire (which she hadn't felt in the better part of eight months) stir violently in the pit of her stomach. She pulled back.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know!" She could hear the panic in her own voice.

He smiled that mischievous smile that she was never quite sure what to make of and nodded toward the stairs.

It was as if they did some Star Trek transport thing, it seemed to her when she thought about it later. She remembered being in the living room surprised that he was kissing her, and next thing she knew she was lying in his arms, completely nude in the guest bedroom. She couldn't remember negotiating the stairs or opening and closing the door to the room. She vaguely remembered seeing and entering it. The room was small and oblong with two windows, a hanging rhododendron and a ceiling fan, which whirred softly. But strangely enough, it was as if the room wasn't part of her house. Although she'd changed the linen before he came and had obviously bought it, she couldn't remember ever seeing it before. The whole room seemed unfamiliar, as if she were in the middle of some erotic dream and had never picked out the cream-colored wallpaper trimmed with blue cornflowers or the blue fake Persian rug of the gla.s.s IKEA vase filled with dried flowers that sat on the bureau. She didn't remember taking off her clothes or crawling next to him between the cool sheets. She remembered hearing the whir of the ceiling fan and thinking how good it felt against her naked skin, and how nice that it was on, but she didn't remember the time of day or whether it was dark or light or day or if she'd locked the front door.

His body was thinner than she had thought it would be, but muscular, and Eva was momentarily self-conscious about her own. But her desire for him quickly outweighed any embarra.s.sment, and she realized she didn't give a d.a.m.n one way or the other how she looked. When he'd pulled back the summer quilt, a cream-and-lace-covered number a friend had given her as a wedding gift, she felt a twinge of momentary guilt, but then realized she didn't give a d.a.m.n about that either. She was too aroused to worry about anything but how good his smooth lean body felt next to hers. His obvious excitement was contagious, and she was over-powered by her need for him.

He opened her lips with his tongue again, kissing her fervently until she found herself with tongue in his mouth, wanting to touch and taste every part of him. His lips on her mouth and face, her eyelids, her neck, then all over her body, felt to her as if he were playing some long, sweet song. He followed the lines of her body with his hands, reading each piece of her with his fingertips and palms, as Eva touched, nuzzled, kissed every part of him that she could reach. He found new parts of her to touch or stroke-parts of her that she'd never known could be so quickly aroused-the small of her back, the tiny s.p.a.ce between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the slender area near yet not touching her public hair, and finally gently teasing her c.l.i.toris with his tongue and bringing her to the edge of o.r.g.a.s.m before he pulled away.

She wanted to devour him. She couldn't get enough of the salty taste of his neck on her tongue as it zipped down to his lips or the solid feel of his chest against the flat palm of her hand. Her fingertips slid over the muscles in his shoulders and upper arms. The ragged tattoo had fascinated her when she'd first spotted it and now she ran the bottom of her tongue down and across it, thrusting her face into his shoulders and arms, playing in the tight curly hair under his arms, around his belly b.u.t.ton, and gliding down finally to slide his p.e.n.i.s into her mouth as he buried his face into her stomach. And then finally, facing each other, pausing for a moment to gaze with stunned amazement into each other's eyes, as he thrust himself into her. Eva reached her first o.r.g.a.s.m effortlessly, and then had a smaller, less intense one before he rolled onto his side, exhausted. And it was better the second time.

But the first thought that came to Eva's mind when they finally lay quiet and still beside each other was, What have I done? She tried to get up. Isaiah pulled her back down beside him.

"What's wrong?"

"Stop asking me that!"

"Tell me."

"When I figure it out, I'll tell you."

"You don't regret this, do you?" He had read her mind.

"I don't know yet." It was an honest answer.

"Then let's do it again," he said with his mischievous chuckle, and they did, more leisurely this time, as if getting to know each other again in a less frenzied, more intimate way.

When it was over, they slept for an hour. Eva awoke to Isaiah climbing out of bed. Fascinated, she watched him move around the room. She had known each crevice and crease of his body with her hands and mouth and now she studied him with her eyes, noticing how completely at ease he was with himself. He glanced up at her and smiled his strange amused smile.

"Come on, let's take a shower."

"Giye me a minute." Eva, her pa.s.sion spent, was self-conscious again about the years between them, those little sags and wrinkles that would show up in the late afternoon sun that was streaming unfiltered through the window. How could I have done something like this? she wondered. Somewhere between the pa.s.sion when they first hit the bed and the first time they made love, she had reminded him to use condoms, and she now said a prayer of thanks for that presence of mind. Nevertheless, she felt like an irresponsible fool.

When she heard him turn on the shower, she grabbed her clothes from the floor where she'd stripped them off and dashed out of the room and up the stairs to the safety of her bedroom. She closed her door, buried the impulse to lock it and jumped into her shower. When the water hit her body, she thought about Isaiah again and desire for him tore through her body with the sharpness of pain. She turned on the cold water, letting it drip down her back and b.r.e.a.s.t.s, opening her mouth to it, letting it run down her throat, tasting it the way she'd tasted him. Then she dried off with a rough towel, slipped into a caftan and went downstairs.

Isaiah was sitting at the kitchen table, fully dressed, sipping a Sprite. When Eva sat down on the opposite side of the table, he offered her the can. Avoiding his eyes, she took a swig and handed it back to him.

"So where did you go?"

"Back upstairs."

"Why?"

"I wanted to shower in my own bathroom."

"Oh." He shrugged. "I was thinking about what you asked me before," he said solemnly after a moment.

"What did I say?" G.o.d knew what she'd screamed out.

"About how I play my music. How I create. Don't you remember?"

Eva thought for a moment, and then nodded. That conversation certainly belonged to another age.

"Well . . ." He paused. "I start with a note. One note. And I'll blow until it's as perfect as I can get it, and then I go back and blow another, and another, until finally the whole thing is done. Nothing miraculous. Just one note at a time. That's the way I do it."

Neither of them said anything for a while after that. They just pa.s.sed the Sprite can back and forth until it was empty. Then Isaiah glanced at his watch and said it was time to go to work, and he'd catch her later on that night. After he left, Eva sat at the table with her head in her hands and wondered what in the h.e.l.l she'd gotten herself into.