Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns (6 page)

Weldon had regained his sense and composure. “Well, I’ve been doing business with him a long time.” He said, without looking at his friend, “I thought she was rather attractive, but, well . . . you’re right.” Yet, when he thought of her a moment later, he remembered her beauty. And so it passed. He still wondered what had happened to him. Was something the matter with him?

On her walk home, Lily Bea was not thinking so much of him as she was of his shop. Why should she? She thought she was ugly, and was only embarrassed at her nerve to even talk to him. “But, he was a nice man.” She sighed. “I like going to that beautiful store to make the delivery.” By the time she reached the library, she could not remember a better day in her life. “Being free is everything. That’s what I want to be. Free!” She made a few free dancing twirls as she entered her favorite building.

When she reached her home, Maddy counted the money, saying, “I didn’t know he was gonna pay cash. Did you spend any ’a this money, Lily? Cause I need all the money we got comin round here! I’m gonna have to cut your mama down some, I can’t afford to keep her and you too! You done been to that library again! I told you we ain’t got time for all that readin you want’a do!”

Lily Bea didn’t answer. She went to her “room” and lay on the pallet. She smiled at the books she had gotten from the library, and opened one to read. When he hollered to her, she answered, “I’m tired. I’m goin to rest till it’s dinnertime, then I’ll cook. But, now, I’m going to read.”

In a few weeks, when the next bundle of items was received and completed, she delivered them. The owner, Mr. Forest, had specified what date they should be returned because he wanted to be sure he was in the shop when she came.

Time had dulled his memory, but he still remembered the last words his friend had said when Lily Bea had come. He, himself, remembered Lily as being unattractive, “but . . . there was something else about her. I can’t put my finger on it.” He didn’t know why, really, he hadn’t forgotten the thing. It wouldn’t come clear in his mind. “Was it her voice?” Then, “What am I thinking about? She works for me, for God’s sake!”

His boredom and his loneliness made any excitement important to him. Some sense in him remembered the thrill Lily Bea’s voice, smile, and touch had given him. He would shake his head in annoyance. “It is absurd that I would even think I had such feelings for a little black woman. A poor working woman, at that.”

He had, in the past, had a mistress or two, but it seemed to have added up to lust, not for him, but for his financial help. He was a generous man. But, as to love, he had never “loved” anyone except the woman he had married long ago. “But, these stir-rings . . . Just old age, I suppose.

“Maybe I need to take a trip somewhere. But, where? It’s all the same every place, no matter where.” After a moment’s pause, “I could always go back and spend a week looking around the Louvre again. I never see all of it.” He brightened a moment, then his dark mood returned. “But Wilhamena won’t want to go with me, and I don’t want to go alone again.” He shook his head, casting the thoughts out of his mind. “I must learn to be satisfied with what life has given me. Who could wish for more?”

The next order from Epitome Cleaners had been sent to the Clean Cleaners, and been completed by Lily Bea. It seems impossible, but she took even more care with the fragile things. “Now that they know it is my work, I want it to be perfect.” She also wanted another lovely free afternoon to herself.

Knowing Maddy, as she did, she did not act excited in any way about making the delivery. If he knew she wanted to, he would rub that leg down and make delivery hisself.

For the first time, Mr. Forest had specified when they must be returned. He didn’t want to be at the shop all day, so the date and the afternoon were specified. He remembered Lily’s face, vaguely, as unattractive, but he remembered her. There was something he could not put his finger on, exactly. He only knew he wanted to be there when, and if, she came.

Maddy’s leg, back, and feet really did ache, hurt, and discomfort him. Lily was acting like she didn’t want to go, but he would have had to ask her to go anyway.

Lily Bea took a book to read on the bus. She had started smiling in pleasure even a block away from Maddy; she loved the freedom, but she loved the ride across town just as much. The chance to see the better side of the city, the beautiful clothes, the grand homes that the bus passed. Her own dreams, fragilely thin as they were, fluttered, lifted. “Oh, not for me; never for me. But just to know all this beauty, this kind of life, is out here . . . for somebody.”

A shadow flickered across Lily’s face. “It is almost painful to have to travel back to that dim, dark, little, dingy, stingy, strange shop where my life waits for me.” She threw those thoughts from her mind so they would not ruin her day. “I have enough of that when I am there!” She opened the book of
World’s Art Treasures
she had brought.

Mr. Forest was standing at his wide windows, his arms crossed behind him and a frown on his face as he looked up the street toward the bus stop. He did not have to wait there long. He recognized her by the box she carried. He nodded in her direction, and wondered why he had been thinking of this woman. “She is not attractive, after all. My friend was right.”

Lily smiled, in more pleasure, at the man, and the shop, where she had enjoyed herself briefly. He saw that smile, and was transported again. He felt her presence again. He took the box from her, and setting it on the counter, turned back to her, saying, “And, so, you are back. How are you?”

Lily Bea stood there smiling. She even giggled a little, embarrassed or self-conscious, thinking, “He doesn’t want an answer.”

At her smile, her eyes, her little laughter, he was becoming entranced again. “You must wait to be paid.” He reached for her book. “What is that book you have?” She gave the book to him, with the same smile.

“Ahhhhh, art! You are interested in art?”

Lily Bea nodded, and began to speak about the book. She pointed to her bookmark. “I’m reading about Colombian art, but I think I love all art. I’m going to get a book on cathedrals, the ancient cathedrals and temples. I like to study old and strange architecture and art. But they had some special pieces in this book, so I took it out.”

Her voice, passed from her lips like misty, cultured pearls, went through his ears, encircling his brain, gently, marvelously. The sound quieted his nerves. They spoke, over the book, at length. Her voice hypnotized him. “She is beautiful,” he thought.

Weldon Forest wanted to give her something. (His heart was a generous one.) As he listened to her, he looked at her manner, her clothes. He thought, “Surely, a little Negro lady would like a lot of things. And this lady likes books, as well.”

He felt her powers, her gifts, though he did not understand his feelings. But, the next time he had things for the Clean Cleaners, he took them down his own self.

You may know there is a quality, a gift, some people have. It emanates from their heart and spirit. It imbues their body with an aura that issues from their mind, through their skin . . . to other people who have receptive hearts and minds: those who have beauty in their souls. Lily Bea’s mind was more innocent than some children. It was such a glowing gift. Ephemeral beauty . . . unseen, but felt, in certain people. By the right eyes, hands, and hearts. It must be God Who gives this gift. It is given to few, yet . . . Mystical. Magical. All the taunting, all the pain, in Lily Bea’s childhood caused part of her to huddle, far back, into someplace that was serene and beautiful. She’s still at home there; but her beauty comes out to you, if you have beauty in you.

Weldon Forest drove himself to take the next delivery, early, to the Clean Cleaners and Lily Bea. He saw Maddy, with the angry crippled leg propped up on a table, jump up on his crippled leg and grin, saying, “Ohhh, Mr. Forest, bossman! How come you to come down here? I coulda come and got those things! Or my wife, Lily here, woulda been glad to pick em up!”

Weldon Forest’s heart flinched and fell when he heard the word
wife
. He looked at Lily, who looked miserably embarrassed. Weldon saw none of the beauty. Her face was long and sad. Her eyes were of sorrow. She attempted to smile at Mr. Forest, but lost the effort because there was no light around him. It was vanquished by the dimness of her husband’s shop.

Mr. Forest looked at Maddy, saying, “Your wife? I didn’t know you had a wife.”

Maddy was ashamed to have someone ugly to be his wife. He laughed, a stingy, dirty little laugh, said, “Well, sometimes you take what you can get, Mr. Forest. She a good girl, though.”

Mr. Forest left, thinking, “A girl? Take what you can get? I was out of my mind.” But there lingered in his mind those little thrills, that voice. Then he remembered, Lily had said nothing. Hadn’t even smiled. He didn’t go back to his shop or to his house. He drove to some favorite place of his that was filled with mountains, trees, birds, sky, and clouds. He sat there a long time. His eyes filled with tears that never fell; they just dried, evaporated. Then he drove back to his life. “I don’t know what I was expecting.”

Lily Bea would not do any delivery again. Her life just continued as usual for the next three months or so. She started taking some of the money they took in, for herself. She took to getting her hair done. She kept it up, even when Maddy said, “We ain’t got no money to waste on your head!”

They did have money. She knew where it was hidden away. She began to take that bus ride, get off at a good place, and go in to buy things for herself. Little things, not too expensive. And she put some away for herself.

In her daily movements she noticed the pharmacist, the counterman, the meat-market man, just different men she had to talk to. She noticed they wanted to talk more, be nicer, liked to touch her. She didn’t seek these attentions, they just were. She began to feel a power, her power as a woman, however little. Lily did not understand the power, did not seek to use it. But this knowledge of herself cracked the door open to a freedom to like herself. To even love herself. To let herself be seen . . . a little more. Not by anyone in particular, just anyone.

Lily Bea, in her private, quiet moments, thought of Weldon Forest. “He is older, but he is very nice. Kind. The world looked different when I was around him. It looked . . . happy. I really like him.”

Doing her work around the shop, she was still called ugly. Always ugly. I knew that was the loop Maddy was hanging her with. I said little things to make her know that herself. As usual, she did not hate, or even despise, anything but her own (she thought) crooked body, and her husband who still grabbed her body in the nights, greedily, whenever he could. Often, he tried to sneak on top of her when she was on her pallet, asleep. She always woke up, screaming.

Lily Bea wanted to leave Maddy, was saving money to that end. But where to go? No place she knew, and she still didn’t have much money even if she did know. My house was full of grandchildren; I offered her my space, but she wanted her own space.

Now, life is strange, you know that already.

Lily Bea was on Weldon Forest’s mind. More than he thought was natural. But, he was still a man who felt few thrills or interests. His was a good wife, though she had long taken him, and life, for granted. She thought they would both always be there. He seemed invisible at home, until she gave a dinner or gathering. His son always wanted his dad to visit him in the East. But he didn’t want to pack a suitcase just for three or four days, and he couldn’t enjoy staying any longer.

So . . . he thought of Lily Bea. More than liking her so much; she could talk about interesting things, and she was a puzzle to him. When he thought of her, he felt just the slightest thrill-twinge in his mind and heart. Thoughts that gave him any kind of thrill or just reminded him of any thrill, were often on his mind.

Weldon divined that Lily Bea must be terribly unhappy in the old cleaning shop. There had not been a bit of happiness in her face, or even a hint of the beauty he had seen there in the past.

One morning Weldon decided, “I have to do something.” He called the Clean Cleaners and asked that Lily Bea be sent to pick up an order because he had a few questions to ask her about a new fabric.

Maddy had answered the phone. He said, “Oh, don’t worry bout her, Mr. Forest. I can take care of that all right. I’ll be right on over there to see bout things.”

Mr. Forest’s mind formed a plan without his permission or thought. He told Maddy, “Well, all right. But I am going to send a package of books to your place. I want you to give them to your . . . Lily Bea. They are about fabrics. I want her to read them. Then I want to talk to her about some new fabrics, and systems. Do you understand, Maddy? She has studied these things; she will know what I mean.”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“Maddy, does Lily still do all my work orders?”

“Yes, sir. I have taught her and she knows. I watch and see what she does. When they leave here, I know they right.”

“I’m sure you do. Still, I want Lily to come to my office so I can discuss some things with her. She can tell you when she returns . . . home.”

“Yes, sir. Sure will. Thank you, sir.” They hung up. Maddy grinned, proud of his business-self. Weldon to sit back in his plush grey leather chair, thinking. Under his breath, he said to God, “I never lied once.”

The order with two books was sent that day: one book on new European fabrics from France and Italy and their care; another on cathedrals, thick with pictures from France, Italy, and England.

Maddy called out to Lily where she was cleaning their house. “He done sent a order of work for you and a coupl’a books for you to read. You betta read them things. We in business to make money, and he the money-man. I’ll cook my own dinner or just heat somethin up.”

Lily Bea was drudging in the rooms behind the cleaning shop in the kitchen, which had no light of joy in it. She heard Maddy’s words and could hardly wait to see the books, but she didn’t want to appear excited to her husband. She moved into Maddy’s bedroom, hastily smoothed the covers, and turned quickly away from his bed. Maddy cared nothing for symmetry, or harmony of the furniture in the rooms. The “furniture” was mismatched pieces from secondhand stores or the dump.