The Lost Songs (12 page)

This was not one of those songs.

It was a lament, with legs too tired to stand.

Until the end.

Then the song became rich with belief and glad with waiting. “Take me home, Lord,” said the song, absolutely sure that the Lord was on his way.

Doria did not have to hear music twice to have it in her memory. She had heard three of Lutie’s songs now and as soon as she was at her computer, she’d write them down. On the first pass, she’d write exactly what Lutie had sung: a line of notes, hanging below heaven. On the second pass, she’d add her own choice of chords. Just something for the songs to stand on.

Lutie’s voice soared out of the little yard, up into the wind. She was visibly connected to God, her hands stretching to reach his.

There has to be a video, thought Doria. Right here. Just like this. These are the songs Mr. Gregg wants. He’s never heard them. He doesn’t know for sure that they even exist.

But they do.

And he’s right.

Whoever owns these has a ticket out.

Lutie had a trembly feeling from being so close to God. Like people in the Old Testament who had to hide their faces from him or go up in smoke.

“Lutie, what a range you have,” marveled Doria. “And what a melody. I feel as if I’ve been waiting inside myself to hear that.”

Lutie was exhausted. She wanted to sweep everybody away,
including Mabel Painter. She said dismissively, “My grandmother’s grandmother wrote quite a few songs. I don’t sing them often. I can’t sing them for just anybody.”

Doria got flustered and looked away.

Lutie was sick of her. Why am I bothering with this limp excuse for a person? She’s your problem, God. I’m leaving her on a porch somewhere. Take her away.

Miss Elminah said, “Sing another one, honey bunny.”

“I’m done,” said Lutie sharply. “Those songs are too much. I can’t do them all in a row.”

“Lutie, do not be a prima donna,” said Miss Veola. “You are perfectly capable of singing all of them in a row, and your MeeMaw used to do just that, with you beside her. You are being difficult and mean.”

Lutie glared at her.

“You know the plans for our new church!” cried Miss Veola. “It will cost and cost. You could give a concert that would bring in people from all over the Carolinas.”

God was gone, if he had ever been here. No prayer stretched to the sky. Religion was nothing but a spell that had been broken.

“The Laundry List doesn’t belong to them and it doesn’t belong to you,” snapped Lutie. “Come on, Doria. We have to go.”

Doria turned to follow.

Standing by the fence that surrounded the little yard was Kelvin. Low rays of sun caught his dark skin, making him glow. Doria’s heart turned over. She wanted to touch him, to touch his arm and his hand, his cheek and his hair.

She wanted him to touch her.

“Hey, Doria,” he said, easy as summer, as if Doria hanging out in a rural slum in a black preacher’s yard were perfectly ordinary.

“Hi, Kelvin.” She loved saying his name. The “l” was fat and soft in her mouth, followed by that vibrating “v” and the half-humming “n.”

But he had already turned to Lutie. “Hey, Lutie. Heard you sing. It was beautiful.”

For a moment, there was no Miss Veola, no Miss Elminah, no little Waitlee boys racing around the yard. There was only Lutie, beautiful to Kelvin—and Kelvin, beautiful to Lutie.

“Thanks for that wonderful music, Lutie,” said Doria stiffly. “Thank you for tea, Miss Veola. Thank you for the lemon bar, Miss Elminah. I’ll be heading on.” She would practice. Practice lining up her fingers, her feet and her mind.

Doria turned her back, took one step and lost the lovely touch of God.

Her parents disapproved of emotional religion and now she saw why. You needed to keep things on a low level. You could not get overly involved with God. You should not get overly involved at school either. You’d always be in a state of want—wanting heavenly attention, wanting friends, wanting a boyfriend … wanting Kelvin. But you wouldn’t have them.

If you stood at a distance, though, at least you could enjoy what you did have, like music.

“I’ll head back with you, Doria,” said Lutie. “Doria’s going to practice the organ at her church and I’m going to Aunt Grace’s,” she explained to everyone.

“Sweet,” said Kelvin.

How smooth his face was. How much Doria wanted to touch it.

“Doria,” he said, “somebody told me you practice every single day at First Methodist. Is that true?”

This felt like something Doria should not agree with. Popular kids did not practice the organ every single day. “Church is where the organs are,” she said lightly. “Can’t practice at the gym.”

“If you’re alone, it’s a bad idea.”

They were all so annoying. Who exactly did they think was willing to sit on a pew for two hours every day while she practiced? “I’m not alone, Kelvin,” she lied.

“Just one moment, Miss Lutie,” said Miss Veola sharply. “What is your explanation for missing half a day of school?”

“None of your business,” said Lutie. “Hurry up, Doria.”

Doria could not imagine anybody being rude to Miss Veola. From Kelvin’s expression, he couldn’t imagine it either. Miss Veola
really
couldn’t believe it. But the pastor rallied. “Now don’t be a stranger, Doria,” she said.

Except I am a stranger, thought Doria. And now even my old friends Nell and Stephanie are strangers.

When Train brought DeRade the barbed wire he’d been ordered to cut, DeRade explained that he would truss Nate up like they did in cartoons, and Nate would have to inch down the street with his arms pinned to his sides, shivering and crying inside the wire. People would stare, laugh and unwrap him.

But it hadn’t worked out that way, or else DeRade had been lying when he’d described the plan. Nate had flailed around, screaming and jerking, and put out his eye all by himself.

Some nights Train was blind in one eye, too. Some nights it was his body that flailed and jerked.

Now Train was on fire thinking about that kid on fire.

Down the road, Lutie was singing another song from the Laundry List. Train left his house. Behind him the TV kept
blaring. He worked his way across the path that wandered along the top of the hill, behind the row of little houses, until he was above Miss Veola’s.

Kelvin was there. Kelvin, who had become a fat jerk who did nothing but sprawl on chairs and laugh. On whom teachers doted. Nobody wrote Kelvin off just because he did nothing. They embraced him.

Lutie and Doria were beaming at Kelvin, and so were Miss Veola and Miss Elminah.

The terrible heat coursed through Train. He felt as if he, too, had been doused with alcohol and set on fire. He hated them for being soft and happy and stupid and successful.

He didn’t know which one made him the craziest.

But he did know the easiest one to hurt.

L
utie stalked back to Tenth Street.

All these prayers, all this demand for song, all these plans for her future. Lutie could imagine it ending in disaster. Miss Veola would scoop Saravette up and throw her back in Lutie’s life, complete with lice and crystal meth and soiled sweaters. Saravette would contaminate the landscape of Lutie’s life.

She was trotting. Doria was panting to keep up. They reached the corner of Tenth and Hill. In the bushes beside the road, a mockingbird burst into song. It trilled wildly, as if it might run out of time and had to condense a life of song into a minute.

Lutie could see the First Methodist church spire. She didn’t have to walk any farther, just give Doria a push. She didn’t have any courtesy left. She didn’t like herself for being rude to Miss Veola, but the pastor kept cornering her. How many times did Lutie have to say no?

Doria said, “Thank you for a nice afternoon, Lutie. And thank you so much for the songs. I will cherish them.”

Why couldn’t Doria talk like a normal person? She sounded like a greeting card.

Lutie checked her messages. It looked as if people had accepted the music excuse for why she was with Doria, because nobody asked in their second text. But now Aunt Grace was on her case. It was fine for Lutie to communicate with everybody instantly, but totally annoying when the various severe ladies in her life did it. Skipping school felt like a hundred years ago.

“Mr. Gregg asked me to do something,” said Doria timidly.

Lutie hated timid people.

Doria wet her lips.

Lutie hated people who had to dampen their lips before they spoke.

“When he texted, we were at lunch, and Rebecca thought Mr. Gregg wanted to talk about his musical,” said Doria.

For years Mr. Gregg had been claiming to be almost done writing his musical. Lutie wasn’t sure there really was one. She thought it was more daydream than reality, and that broke her heart, because she loved Mr. Gregg.

“But in fact, Mr. Gregg asked me to get some family songs out of you, Lutie. He called them the Laundry List. When he saw you take me to lunch, he figured you’d give me your songs because of our friendship.”

The mockingbird was chirping wildly now, crazed with song. Lutie felt the same. How dare these greedy needy people trespass on her?

“I told him that you and I are not friends,” said Doria. “You’re just being kind.”

It was too true for eye contact. Lutie looked away.

“Those were the songs, weren’t they?”

Lutie shrugged.

“They are a treasure, Lutie. All the singing world would love to hear them. And learn them. And lean on them.”

“You selling me out?” she demanded.

“No,” said Doria, her voice solid and quiet.

I should give her a chance, thought Lutie. But it’s a shot in a hundred and I like better odds.

“Sometimes when I play Bach, Lutie, I think of the millions of people who have cherished Bach’s music. Hundreds of millions, I suppose, if you’re thinking of, say, ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.’ Over the centuries and throughout the world.”

Lutie wondered if Mabel Painter had ever heard Baroque music. Or any recorded music, for that matter. Had she been alive when record players were invented? When did radio begin? Lutie didn’t even know the dates of her great-great-grandmother’s life. She could ask Professor Durham. He would know.

Which offended Lutie. She said sharply, “So my great-great-grandmother’s music also belongs to hundreds of millions of people, and I need to give it away?”

Doria smiled. How beautiful her smile was. Transforming. “The last thing you should do is give those songs away. But you should perform them. Lutie, I can just see you on the stage of that new church, facing a thousand people who paid a lot to get in, and every one of them excited about being the very first audience to hear the lost songs of a lost time. I see you in some long spangled gown, walking out on that stage, a spotlight wrapping you in dazzle. Lutie, you would own any stage you walked on. I see the audience starting out skeptical, expecting little basic tunes that sound like any other basic tunes. Expecting an ordinary voice. And they’ll get you. And
they’ll get Mabel Painter, shouting to God. And their skin will prickle and there will be tears in their eyes.”