Freshwater Road (56 page)

"Oh, yeah?" Shuck had a dubious look on his face.

"I told him my daddy owned a bar. He was impressed." She might've
gone on about how she'd sat at that homemade bar bragging of her knowledge of Paradise Valley. Shuck, she knew, wouldn't take to that at all. To
say nothing of how many drinks she'd consumed. "He didn't have any of
your music on his jukebox."

"Too country, that's why." Shuck drank the last of his milk.

Celeste took their dirty dishes to the sink. Shuck grabbed a dishtowel
and stood in the middle of the kitchen waiting for her to wash them. He'd
dry them like he used to do, then make a neat stack to take back to Momma
Bessie's house with his bag of dirty shirts. "You probably should call your
mother and let her know you made it home okay. Don't you think?"

Celeste heard him but decided to ignore what he'd said, thought of
all those hard days washing dishes on Mrs. Owens's back porch using the
pump. She'd spent the summer arranging water-mineral spigot water, sulfur-smelling pump water, heating tin tub water for a shallow bath, throwing
dirty basin water in the outhouse, always running around that little plank
board house arranging for water.

"Did you hear me?"

She washed the two plates, the glasses, and the silverware slowly. "I
heard you."

"Well?" He leaned a little on the back of a kitchen chair, the dishtowel
hanging down.

"I don't want to talk to her right now." The anger in her voice came from
somewhere deep that she couldn't have camouflaged if she'd tried. "Not
tonight." She caught Shuck out of the corner of her eye looking at her like
she'd lost her mind. She was on shaky ground. She pretended to rinse out
the sink, kept her head down, then looked up at him. "I'll write her a note
in the morning."

"You'll write her now, and we'll take it down to the post office tonight. I
need to check on the club anyway." Shuck had put a toothpick in the corner
of his mouth, and he wasn't smiling, not his mouth and certainly not his
eyes. At that moment he looked like Matt's image of him as a gangster, as
a man who might wipe her off the face of the earth if he felt like it. "Get
going and while you're at it, tell her you're sorry for worrying the crap out
of everybody all summer long."

Without saying a word, knowing she dared not cut her eyes at him, she
turned on her heels and slogged up to her room, scrounged around in her
book-bag for Wilamena's orange-tinted letter, and sat on the floor near her
Mississippi pile. The flat sounds of the television came up through the quiet
house. Shuck waited for her, allowing the television to subdue his anger. She
looked at the cobbled-together snapshot of Wilamena and her husband. In
all the weeks since she'd received the letter, it had never occurred to her to
consider if Cyril Atwood might be her biological father. Was he the man
Wilamena had the affair with? She stared into the photograph, raced back
in her mind to the first meeting. She felt nothing special except that the
man didn't appear to be Negro at all. Cyril Atwood, Wilamena protested,
was Negro, just not very. Was this some new Wilamena game to be revealed
at a later date? Celeste had no intention of going through all this again. She
tipped into Shuck's room, took his magnifying glass from his dresser top,
and brought it back to her room. She held the glass over Cyril Atwood's
image. It enlarged and wavered then settled. She saw nothing of herself in his
face, though it was hard to tell from a small photograph. His skin was lighter
than her own. So was Wilamena's. No marked similarity of nose, eyes, lips.
She put the picture down. She balanced her notebook on her thighs and
leaned against the bed frame. Out the windows, the trees swayed against
the waning daylight, a gentle sweeping across the sky.

Dear Wilamena:

Shuck wanted me to write you and tell you I made it out of
Mississippi okay. Going back to school in a few days. My regards
to your husband.

Celeste

Already, she was going back on her word to never speak to Wilamena
again. At least she wasn't responding to that letter. She ripped the page out
of the notebook, enveloped it, put a stamp on it. Shuck wouldn't ask to see
it. Ed's letter waited for her on the small side table like the golden prize of
night, along with the glorious photos of New Orleans. She heard his soft
accent in her head telling her to "spread those stones." But, they were her
stones, and she didn't know if she could spread them. They were now a part
of who she was, the most potent thing that connected her to her mother.
Maybe that's what Wilamena intended all along, to enslave her with the
past, a past she had nothing to do with. Wilamena had recast herself, too,
as weightier, more important in her mind. More burdensome, for sure.

Shuck hustled her into the car, still twirling that toothpick in the corner
of his mouth, saying not a word, not needing to. They headed for the main
post office all the way downtown, she tapping the corner of the envelope
on her pant leg, her tongue licking her new tooth. She barely noticed the
city passing by, only that it seemed she'd been gone for a long time. Shuck
was too cool for comfort. He waited in the car as she jumped out to mail
the note. She could well have dropped it in the public trashcan nearby, but
didn't. He'd know. Somehow, he'd know.

"Time for you to start doing better by your own people, and I'm not
talking about a bunch of Negroes in Mississippi," he said as she climbed
back into the car. Shuck didn't say another thing to her until they got in
front of the Royal Gardens.

Celeste pouted out the window, his words a garble in her ears, thinking
he was being charitable using words like "your own people."

He relaxed in a slow drive-by of the club, the white Cadillac splashing its
reflection in the front windows, Shuck saying he needed to buy a grill gate
for the place if he intended to stay in this section of the city. Shuck U-turned
in Lafayette Street, then paused by the curb to lower the convertible top.
She wanted to go into the empty club, sit at the bar, listen to the jukebox,
have a drink. Shuck had other things on his mind. He reminded her of his New York dream of a swankier place down on the riverfront or out in
the near suburbs. If they had a place with a restaurant, they'd be open on
Sundays for dinner.

They skirted downtown, the Sunday evening city streets nearly deserted, and drove over East Jefferson to Belle Isle, where the picnic crowd
was thinning out and the air off the river felt breezy and fresh. The sky took
on a lavender hue as they parked and walked, found an empty picnic table
facing Canada, and watched the sailboats on the river in the evening light.
Even with the river breeze, the residue smells of outdoor grilling laid over
the small island.

She didn't know what Shuck wanted to talk about, but this was definitely his place for getting into serious things. They had come here when
the school plans were made-the plans she nearly ruined after her freshman
year when she got pregnant. Now, she held her breath waiting for him to
speak, praying it wasn't about Wilamena.

Shuck started in about her finishing college, about the promises that
were made. He said he didn't give a damn if not another Negro voted in
the entire United States of America, in the whole world, until the end of
time. All he cared about now was her finishing what she'd started. He said
she'd never deal with being Negro in America without a college education
as well as she would with one. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. After that, she
could do whatever she damn well pleased, go to the moon for all he cared.
Celeste nodded in agreement, Geneva Owens's words in her head. What's
that going to do to your daddy? You not finishing school right now?

"Anything you want to talk about? Now's the time. When we get back
in that car, I don't want to hear another thing except that you're going to
keep your promises." Shuck stared off across the river.

Celeste stumbled. "I'm going back to school. I haven't broken any promises. I was only gone for the summer." Still lying. Getting pregnant had
taken the prize for broken promises. And, if Mrs. Owens had allowed it, if
Wilamena hadn't tried to take so much from her, too, she'd still be down
there. Getting good at lying, and why not? According to Wilamena, her
whole life was a lie. Except her Mississippi summer. That was all hers.

He turned to her. "You went to Mississippi before you told me a thing
about it. I'm getting too old for surprises like that."

"I'm sorry." Quick rehearsals raced through her mind. Wilamena told
me. Is it true? Am I your daughter? Not a soul ever thought we looked alike, not really, but that happens. Is it true? What does it mean? Why did she tell me
that? "You're not old."

He ignored that, his eyes dancing with the anger he'd been holding in all
summer long. "You made it hard for me, and you worried your mother. You
worried everybody." Shuck quieted. "I didn't even tell Momma Bessie, afraid
she'd have a heart attack. What if you'd died down there? Then what?" He
released a deep breath like he'd finally gotten the worst of it off his chest.

She didn't know what. She'd been afraid the whole time she was there,
but it didn't stop her. And what if she had died down there? What if Sheriff
Trotter fired that gun? Would Wilamena track down the man who might
be her real father and invite him to her funeral?

"I had to go." Mississippi gave her life a higher meaning, shoved it to a different plane, separated her from the past like a soldier who goes to war and always
has that as his marker. It would be the same for everyone who'd been there.

"It's not just old people who die, Celeste." Shuck set his dark eyes on her.

"I know that. There were young people who died down there." She
avoided his eyes then submitted, terrified that he'd see Wilamena's truth
on her face like a neon sign.

"There's a way to do everything. Running off like a thief is not it." Shuck
looked back out to the river.

The words dug into her, gouged a space out and sat down. He was talking to Wilamena and to her at the same time, and she knew it.

"I was going anyway." She wilted inside. "I wrote you."

`After you'd already gone. Not good enough."

"I had to go." She repeated it, hoping he'd understand what it meant.
"Maybe I was just afraid you'd talk me out of it." She figured he did understand, but had to say the hard things.

A pressure built up in her head. She didn't want to do the things that
Wilamena had done, couldn't handle being more like her than she ever
thought. She was standing in the Pearl River County Administration
Building, Sheriff Trotter ready to pull the trigger, the cold barrel of the
gun pressed against her temple. Small river waves lapped on the shore. She
wished she could walk into the cold water, plunge into the currents, and
swirl away on a free ride to nowhere.

In her mind she was saying the dreaded words. Daddy, Igot a letter from
Wilamena. Her mouth couldn't come up with a lick of moisture. The words
stuck and clung to the inside, hollowing around, hiding in her throat, jump ing into her ears. She held her breath, reaching now for a life vest, water
sucking into her lungs against her will.

Shuck sat so still everything else seemed to be moving. She thought the
picnic table might just float off down the river, and they were firmly on dry
land. Tears coming into her eyes, dropping down her face. Mrs. Owens's
voice spoke in her head. You can't hide here, child. She wanted to hide somewhere. Crawl under the picnic table, peek out, needed something for herself.
If she let go of Shuck, she'd drown.

What does it mean? The voice in her head retreated to a child's place.
She wasn't so grown-up. Didn't want to do what Wilamena had already
done, drop a load on some unsuspecting person, trip them like an uprooted
pavement in the dark.

Shuck sighed, braced his arms on his thighs, his shiny brown shoes on
the picnic table seat, the two of them sitting on the tabletop. In the evening
light, the red hints in his summer-dark face glowed. He gave her his handkerchief. It smelled of Old Spice, reminding her of the days before these
demons scratched at their doors, when everyone was smiling wide. But that
was real, too, that Old Spice time. It was all she had of a past. She thought
she heard his heart thundering.

He put his arm around her shoulder. "You have to start thinking about
how it's going to feel to the other person. It's not just you in the world by
yourself."

"I know." The Wilamena truth retreated. Something in the way he
spoke, the way he chastised her for being so thoughtless. He was banking
on her not being totally in Wilamena's image.

Shuck's eyes stayed on the water, the currents in the river moving the
surface water fast, the last reflection of light laying flat on the river, or was
it now the moon? This sideways glance of faded light. "You know you're
going to have to go out to New Mexico, spend some time."

Not another tear fell from her eyes. It was the lie she'd told Mrs. Owens.
Going to New Mexico for Christmas to see my mother. She got caught every time
she lied. Now here she was stuck again.

"She's angry at me." She knotted her mind around the known reasons
for Wilamena's anger. Her refusals to go to New Mexico, her comradeship
with Shuck. They sat there, night bearing down, the twilight noises rising,
car horns honking on the evening air behind them, single waves slapping
the rocks nearby. Windsor's lights dancing.

"I think she's angry at me. She called here trying to find you. She shouldn't
have to do that. You gotta do better, Celeste." Shuck's head wagged from
side to side as if to say she'd better do better to get the pressure off him. He
needed that, too.

She wanted to ask why Wilamena was angry at him after all these years,
but she was afraid to open another box, let another tribe of demons fly free.
It was the answers to the simple questions that stumped you. "You're right.
You're right." Thinking she'd rather break a leg than go out to New Mexico.
"I guess I can go for Christmas."