American Blonde (39 page)

All this time, he’d been writing to me, and I’d stood by and let MGM tell everyone he was dead. And the letters—I would never have known about them if Bernie hadn’t given them to me. I wouldn’t have known that my daddy was out there in this world thinking of me.

I spent my last night in Los Angeles on Central Avenue at Jack’s Basket Room, playing my National steel guitar in a jam session with Butch and Johnny Clay and Sherman. The crowd thumped and jumped, the air so smoky you couldn’t see. At some point, Wardell Gray and Dexter Gordon climbed up on stage. And later, there came Clora Bryant, a beautiful colored girl who blew the trumpet so hot and heavy, you could see the steam.

We didn’t know each other’s songs and we didn’t talk about what came next. We just got up there and played, figuring it out as we went, and the crowd shouted for more.

Afterward, Clora said to me, “The only way you’re going to learn is to be a part of it. That’s what you have to do. You have to go out there and be a part of that.”

Early the next morning, my brother and Butch came to the house to help me pack the car. The sky was a soft pink-gold, and the sun was rising fast, as if it couldn’t wait to shine again. We propped the front door open and I showed them what stayed and what was going with me. Flora would move in for good soon with her daughter and son-in-law and grandbabies. The
California Eagle
reported that racial covenants around the city were lifting and blacks were starting to leave Central Avenue one by one.

I moved around Butch carefully. For years, I’d felt as comfortable with him as family, but now I found myself thinking about every word I said or look I gave him. As a result, I tried not to be alone with him, not yet, darting in and out and never landing in one place, like a butterfly or hummingbird in wild, erratic flight.

Even as he was carrying things down the walk, Johnny Clay said, “I still don’t see why you need to leave, Velva Jean. Why don’t you wait for Dawks and me? We’re not going to stay out here forever.”

“Because I’ve got to get going, Johnny Clay, you know that.” I wanted to ask him to come with me, but I was afraid he would—not that I didn’t want him to, but because I knew this was where he needed to be right now, and because this was a trip I needed to make on my own.

He said, “I love Helen.”

“Helen who?”

“Helen Stillbert. I should have told you, little sister.”

He walked on down to the car, leaving me standing on the lawn staring after him. When he came walking back to me, I said, “Does she—does she know?”

“She does.”

“Does she love you back?”

“She will.” He grinned. “Listen, I know I’m not the guy girls end up with. I’m the one they want before they settle down, you know, the one they have fun with. But I aim to be that guy for Helen.” Behind the grin, I could tell he was dead serious. “I’m thinking I might even go to school. Maybe get me an education. Now that would be something to see.”

Here was one more thing he hadn’t let me in on, just like playing the trumpet or coming out to California. But instead of being angry with him, I told myself: This is the way life goes. He’ll always be a part of me, and I’ll always be a part of him, but we can’t be every part to each other.

I said, “You don’t need to do another thing, Johnny Clay. She’d be lucky to have you.”

“You aren’t mad?”

“No. I guess we’re growing up.”

“I guess we are.”

Butch walked past, carrying my guitars. “You could always punch him in the jaw.”

Johnny Clay threw back his head and laughed.

An hour later, it was done. Johnny Clay said, “I’m going to ride with you as far east as I can, little sister, and then you drop me off before you leave Los Angeles and I’ll hitch my way back to Central.”

I handed him Daddy’s letters then, because whether he wanted to or not, I thought he should see them. He said, “Are these from him?”

“They are. I didn’t know he’d been writing me.”

“I’m not all that interested in anything he’s got to say.”

“You don’t have to read them.”

He glanced past me at Butch, and then told me he’d wait for me in the car while I said good-bye. He took the letters with him.

Butch leaned in the doorway of the house, hands in pockets, watching me. Suddenly, there was nothing left to do but say good-bye, and so I brushed past him until I was standing in the entryway. He followed me in, and then I walked into the living room. He followed me in there. When I started for the dining room, he said, “What are we doing, girl?”

“We’re making sure I didn’t leave anything.”

“Okay.” He led the way through each room, and we double-checked closets and cabinets and drawers. I suddenly wished for more rooms so we could keep checking. That way, I wouldn’t have to say good-bye.

Finally, we stood in the last room, Mudge’s room. I could still smell her perfume, still hear her voice.

“Time to go align those stars, Velva Jean.” Butch stood smiling that crooked smile, one hand against the doorjamb.

He was right. I’d checked every corner. There wasn’t any other place to look. No more delaying it. But there was something I was leaving behind that I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave behind.

I made one last turn of the room, and then looked at him straight on. “Will I see you again?”

“As long as I know where you are.”

“Most girls would stay.”

“You ain’t most girls. If you were, I wouldn’t want you to stay. You got to do this, Velva Jean. What’d I tell you years ago, back when we first met? If destiny don’t come to you, you got to go to it. You owe it to yourself.” I didn’t say anything, just nodded. “And what’d I tell you about a certain door? Anytime you want to open it and go down that road, I’m ready to go with you. You just let me know.”

My heart started skipping beats. “That’s true about the stars. You can’t always wait on them. Sometimes you have to align them yourself.”

We both seemed to freeze, as if time had stopped, and then we moved toward each other at the exact same moment. His eyes on mine, he brushed the hair out of my face, tucking it back behind my ears.

He took my face in his hands, gently, as if he was afraid it might break.

He leaned in, so close I could feel his breath.

His lips hovered, barely brushing mine.

I closed my eyes.

When nothing happened, I opened my eyes, making sure he was still there.

“Girl, I’m not going to kiss you only to send you off across the country. The first time I kiss you, it won’t be to say good-bye. It’ll be to say hello, I’m here, and I ain’t going anywhere. I’m not going to kiss you until I can keep on kissing you.”

Something inside me deflated like a balloon. We broke apart and moved away, and then I was leading him down the hall and down the stairs and onto the front stoop. I reached inside and flicked off the light switch and turned the key in the lock. Butch Dawkins and I walked side by side to the car.

“Well,” I said, my hand on the door. In the passenger seat, Johnny Clay was reading the letters.

“Well.”

Butch smiled. I smiled.

“I’ll be seeing you, Butch Dawkins.”

“I’ll be seeing you, Velva Jean.”

Johnny Clay rode with one arm out the window, checking himself out in the side mirror. He was talking a mile a minute, and I was glad because otherwise I might have turned around and gone right back to Butch and never left and seen what was ahead of me.

My brother said, “You could come down to Central Avenue, get you a room at the Dunbar, cut another record with us. We’re practically famous.”

He talked on and on, until finally I said, “‘If now is only two days, then two days is your life.’”

He got quiet, remembering. There was nothing he could say to this because it was something he’d once said to me.

But just in case he didn’t remember, I added, “If you’ve only got two days, you need to treat those two days like a lifetime. You’ve found your place, Johnny Clay. Now I need to find mine.”

I was three miles from the Arizona state line when I caught sight of the motorcycle in my rearview mirror. It was coming up fast behind me, and without thinking twice I eased off the gas even as I told myself it might be anyone.

In the left lane, cars passed me one by one, until I was barely crawling along. Thirty miles per hour, twenty-five, twenty, fifteen . . . Soon the motorcycle was on my tail, lights flashing.

I pulled over onto the dirt shoulder, my heart thudding hard and fast, so hard and fast that it took my breath. I got out of the car, the door standing open, one hand grazing the warm chrome side of it, keeping me steady. Butch Dawkins kicked off the engine and dropped the bike on its side so that it went skidding in the dust. He came striding toward me as I stood waiting, every step bringing him closer, closing the gap between us. I wanted to go to him, meet him halfway, to help him close it faster, but I couldn’t move.

And then he was there.

And the gap closed as if it had never existed at all.

I thought of a hundred things to ask him: What are you doing here? How did you find me? Why did you wait so long? But I didn’t say anything because he was there. No more gap. No more space. Just him and me. Me and him. Velva Jean and Butch. Butch and Velva Jean.