The Lost Songs (19 page)

Lutie frowned.

Since when had Train become a Boy Scout, helping old ladies cross the street and returning lost keys to ditzy girls?

Train put on his sunglasses. They were large and opaque. Half his face was hidden now, which was probably the point. “You maybe want to visit Miss Veola too, Lutie,” Train said. “She got a visitor come just for you.”

Lutie’s heart stopped. Saravette is here, she thought.

She put her own sunglasses on quick, and she and Train stood facing each other. They couldn’t see each other’s eyes.

He knows, thought Lutie. I can’t stand it that anybody knows! But why does Train have to be the one who knows? I wouldn’t trust him with a shoelace, never mind my life.

She walked away fast. She had to get to Miss Veola’s and do whatever damage control she could.

She was halfway there when she remembered that Train had held Doria Bell’s key chain before. He would have recognized that brass treble clef. He would have known it was Doria’s. He wouldn’t have had to ask who had lost it.

Miss Kendra had been right. Train had been trying to flirt with Doria.

Miss Veola was surrounded by a court of elderly ladies, plump, well-dressed and fussy. Behind them, the sun was setting. Gaudy pinks and purples with threads of gold exploded behind tinted clouds.

Doria ran into Miss Veola’s yard as if they were old friends.

“Good evening, Miss Doria,” said a voice from the shadows.

“Professor Durham?” she said incredulously.

There was that great smile, twinkly and carrying. “I’m working on my project, Doria. In my travels I heard about Reverend Mixton, and how she’s turning a movie theater into a church, and I had to stop.”

Doria had not known Miss Veola’s last name. An oddity of the South was that you might never learn last names.

“Hey, Dore,” said another voice.

“Mr. Gregg, you’re here too?”

“Miss Veola and I are buddies. She’s had at least one and sometimes a dozen kids from her church in my music program every year and she’s never missed a concert.”

“Which one is your church, Miss Veola?” asked Doria. You couldn’t turn a corner here without finding another church. They had the most romantic names. Liberty Freewill Baptist. Red Bluff AME Zion. Mount Tabor Holiness.

“It’s down the road a piece. People call it the pink church. I was just a slip of a girl when I founded it. My dear friend Eunice gave me the courage to do it. Eunice was Lutie’s MeeMaw.”

“I haven’t seen any pink church,” said Doria.

“Pink on the inside,” said Miss Veola. “Brick on the outside.”

The professor and the elderly ladies went back to exchanging family histories. Surely they were distantly related, or had once had next-door neighbors who were related, or at least had had Sunday-school teachers who had taught an in-law. They had reached the stage when they were determined: somehow they would come up with a cousin in common.

Professor Durham made his move. “I’m filled with hope that I am getting close at last to the lost songs,” he said.

The friendly ladies smiled and rocked and hummed. They sipped tea and stirred ice cubes.

They have to know, thought Doria. Last week they must have listened to Lutie sing, not to mention all the weeks and years before.

Miss Kendra, having served a half dozen plates, bustled into the yard. “I heard the news, Veola! I am so excited! Trees clap hands and sing!”

Doria was glad she’d had a lot of church exposure, so she knew a Bible quote when she heard one and didn’t have to worry about Miss Kendra’s sanity.

“What’s the news?” asked Mr. Gregg.

“We got an offer on the pink church,” Miss Veola told him. “Pastor Craig’s congregation is buying it. Now they can move out of their storefront and we can move into our new church even earlier than I was thinking.” Miss Veola nodded approvingly at the Lord.

“Praise the Lord!” cried Miss Kendra, and now all the ladies stood, praising God, all talking out loud at the same time. Doria loved the crossing voices and the jumbled words.

The professor did not pray but leaned back in his plastic chair, a researcher soaking up atmosphere.

When the prayers ended, Miss Kendra said, “How about plates tonight, ladies? I have such good food!”

“Honey, thank you, but I brought us a big pan of chicken to share,” said one of the old ladies. “I can fry chicken, if I do say so. And corn bread! Who wants some of my corn bread?”

The professor introduced himself to Miss Kendra. “Miss Veola’s been telling me about your hot meal ministry, and of course I think you’re good-hearted, but I am surprised that your actions are legal.”

Miss Kendra stiffened.

“In my part of the world,” said the professor, implying
that his part of the world was better and more sophisticated, “when serving the public, you are required to cook in a kitchen inspected by the state, not in somebody’s house where there could be any standard or no standard. You’d certainly have to have warming ovens in your van to keep the meals at a prescribed temperature. In fact, you’d have to be licensed.”

I bet he’s right, thought Doria.

Her heart sank. She thought of the happy children eating beans to get cookies. The man who had been so hungry he ate right off his paper plate, not even waiting for a plastic fork. The teenager who’d come back to get plates for his mama and sisters. The woman who had saved a piece of her own birthday cake to give Miss Kendra in return.

“By now,” said the professor, “in this heat, I don’t know but what that food hasn’t gone bad.”

“You plan to build a soup kitchen for us?” demanded Miss Kendra. “You plan to give me the money so we can serve our neighbors with the appliances you passed a law saying we have to have? I’ll take your check right now, thank you.”

Train followed Lutie toward Miss Veola’s.

Since there was nothing Lutie liked more than visiting Miss Veola, and since she was Mr. Gregg’s pet, Train had expected her to dance right up, sit right down.

Instead Lutie stopped short in the middle of the road, caught in long shadows.

A dude in a suit was yelling at Miss Kendra. A minute ago, Train had hated her for driving in here all white and show-offy:
You can’t cook your own food, you losers. You need me
. But now he liked her, yelling back at the man in the suit instead of being all prayer-y and Jesus-y.

Who was the guy? An inspector?

Train despised authority. If the guy was here to shut Miss Kendra down, Train just might have to slash his tires. He might do it anyway. He hadn’t done it in a while.

A silver Audi was parked by the corner. Definitely the suit guy’s car. It cried out for vandalism.

“I’m so sorry,” said the suit guy to Miss Kendra. “I did not mean to touch a nerve.”

Come on, you totally meant it, thought Train.

Raw nerves grated like crickets in the grass. Doria did not want this beautiful afternoon ruined. She would wait in Miss Kendra’s car. She eased back to the gate and put her hand on the latch. Down the tiny twisting lane, the sun slid away and children danced in the dust, watching their shadow selves cavort.

She thought of Miss Kendra’s prayer.
They want to walk worthy
.

So she walked back. “Professor Durham? I am proud to be allowed to volunteer for Miss Kendra. I didn’t do any work, I just put food on plates. But people smiled. I think dinner was just the right temperature. It was the temperature of—well—being neighborly.”

Rats. I have to be friends with her now, thought Lutie. Burden or not.

But she couldn’t move. Couldn’t join Doria and second the motion. Her relief that none of the visitors was Saravette made her flimsy.

If Miss Veola had produced the Laundry List for him, Professor Durham would not be discussing bacterial food poisoning. So the Laundry List still belonged to Lutie Painter.

In her pocket, her cell phone vibrated. She checked it. She and her girlfriends were in touch every few minutes.

But this was no girlfriend.

It was Saravette.

Stop it! thought Lutie. Don’t call me! I don’t want you. Not here or anywhere else.

Footsteps.

Hard-soled shoes, tapping evenly on the surface of the road.

Not a kid. Kids wore sneakers or Crocs or flip-flops.

A cop, thought Train.

He stayed motionless, well behind Lutie.

But it was only Kelvin, as big and noisy as any intruding adult. Well, he was intruding. Kelvin didn’t live in Chalk. His daddy moved out before he was even born, and Kelvin was slumming here, just like Doria. Just like Lutie, for that matter.

“Hey, y’all,” said Kelvin, his voice as fat and thick as his body. Probably still wanted to be a preacher and listen to his own voice all day.

“This is one of my baritones, Professor,” said Mr. Gregg. “Kelvin.”

Doria turned to greet Kelvin. The lowering sun gleamed on her pale face. Everything showed, as if Doria’s skin had come off.

That girl adored Kelvin.

What was it about stupid Kelvin?

Doria’s crush smothered her. But Kelvin hardly noticed her. “Well, hey there, Doria,” he said. “And Mr. Gregg!” He offered the music teacher a handshake.

How large his hand was. Doria changed her mind about shaking hands. She wanted to stick her hand out for the pleasure of holding Kelvin’s.

“Kelvin,” said Mr. Gregg, “this is Professor Martin Durham. He’s researching the Laundry List.”

“My daddy used to love those songs. Miz Eunice, she’d set on her porch and sing. I can sort of remember but not really. Mostly I remember my daddy talking about it.”

“Is your daddy a baritone too?” said the professor. “Can he sing the songs for me?”

Kelvin laughed. You could go swimming in a laugh as deep and warm as that. “Who would want my daddy to sing, when you’ve got Lutie? Lutie has the best voice in the whole wide world.”

“Lutie’s being contrary,” said Mr. Gregg.

“Oh,” said Kelvin. “I’m Lutie’s shadow, so I guess I’ll be contrary too.”

Miss Veola raised her eyebrows. “Lutie’s shadow?”

“When you’re as good at things as Lutie,” said Kelvin, “everybody is in your shadow.” He smiled at Doria. “Unless you’re casting a pretty big shadow of your own. Like Miss Doria.”

Doria wanted to hurl herself into his arms, but instead she gestured toward Miss Kendra’s car. “Do you want a plate, Kelvin?”

“No, thanks. I just went to Burger King. I’d take a cookie, but I know Miss Kendra’s rules. And I’m not in a vegetable mood.”

Doria decided to learn how to bake cookies. And ice them.