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  “He’s refinishing a cobbler’s bench. He does it every night. If he has to study sometimes he stays at school. He takes my car.”

  “We can come and get you.”

  “Okay. I’ll come over soon. Maybe I’ll come tonight if he stays at school.” The waiter appeared with our grilled cheese sandwiches. We ate our lunch and Charles William told me stories about people we knew.

  “May Garth’s here,” he said. “She’s living with her father and she’s working in a bank.”

  “A bank! My God.”

  “She said she was only going to take about twenty dollars a day to start with and work up to larger amounts. She tells the greatest stories about it. She’s dying to see you. Oh, Dee, we’ve found this fabulous place to go. A black nightclub down in the section where the wealthy black people live. Passen Blanc, they call them in New Orleans. We’ve been three times. We saw Stan Getz the other night and they say Coltrane’s coming. If he does, do you want to go?”

  “A black nightclub? They let you in?”

  “Sure. Judge Sheffield’s a hero to them. If May Garth’s with us they let us right in. They gave us a ringside table at the Getz concert. You should have seen May Garth. She was dancing with the drummer at intermission. He was about a foot shorter than she is. It was hilarious, Dee. God, I wish you’d been there with us.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know if I could go to a black nightclub. I don’t think Malcolm would do it. I want to, though. I wish I could.”

  “Go with us. He doesn’t have to go, if he doesn’t want to. You don’t have your hand sewed to him, do you?”

  “I don’t know. I might. I can’t stand for him to get mad at me.”

  “Well, I wish you could go sometime. Davie’s been asking about you, by the way. He goes with us.” He paused, looked down, began to slip his napkin in and out of his fingers, folding it into a fan, then slipping it very very sensuously between his fingers. I took a package of cigarettes out of my purse and lit one. I began to smoke furiously. “I have to get back now,” I said. “I really have to get back to the store.”

  We paid the bill and walked arm in arm back down Peachtree Street toward the store. Malcolm wasn’t completely fucked up yet. He still could feel the excitement of the city and it was fun to be downtown with him. But it couldn’t compare to being downtown with Charles William. Charles William really knew how marvelous the city was. Charles William laughed at everything and hugged my arm into his arm and stopped and peered into store windows and stopped to inspect a pigeon on the sidewalk and added his gaiety to mine in a way that Malcolm never could. Malcolm was too worried to live fully on the sidewalks of a city. Malcolm was too worried to live fully anywhere. He was on his way to power and money and all the things fear swears will end fear. Fear lies, fear always breaks its promises. Fear feeds on fear and on the things we think will end it. Nothing can conquer fear but love. Charles William and I had loved each other from the moment that we met. When my hand was slipped into his arm there was nothing in the world but light and laughter. We walked slower and slower as we neared the store. A radiant world was all about us.

  At the revolving doors he took my hands and held them and kissed me on both cheeks as the French do. “Come and see us, Dee. We miss you. I want to show you the designs I did this summer, the photographs of Taliesin. Davie wants to see you and so do Putty and Irise. I’m sorry Malcolm doesn’t like us anymore but surely we can still see you.”

  “I’ll come tonight, if he goes to study and I can get the car. I’ll come over if I can. I really want to. I’ll try.” I put my arms around his big soft body and held him close to me. What did it matter if he kissed Davie? Why should anybody care? How could anyone stop loving Charles William? “Oh, Dee,” he said. “I love you so much. You’re so important to me. There’s only friendship in the world, you know. It’s the only thing that lasts.” We pulled away from each other then and I stood a long time in front of the revolving glass doors watching his fine ample back stroll away. His flat feet splayed out in front of him, his shoulders swayed, his big fine head with its thick wavy light brown hair was held at a bright angle. I thought of the first time I had seen him from the window of my bedroom in the chocolate-colored house. Of how sad I had been that day and how fast he and Irise had worked to salve my pain.

  I rode home that evening with Malcolm in the car. He did not speak except to curse other drivers as he moved his shoulders into the seat.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing. Look, are we going to have anything for dinner? I’m starving. Have you got something to cook?”

  “I don’t know. Stop by the store and get some French bread. We’ll make garlic bread and salad. Go to the Piggly-Wiggly in Maywood.” We turned off the highway and found the store and Malcolm went in with me and we bought bread and salad things and took them to the counter.

  “We’re spending too much money,” he said. “We can’t spend this much money every day.”

  “Yes, we can. Daddy doesn’t want me down here in Atlanta starving. Go get some ice cream. I haven’t had any ice cream in a week.”

  “You go get it if you want it. I’m tired, Rhoda. I’ve been studying all day when I wasn’t in class. I don’t want to spend all night in this store.” I left him in the checkout lane and went back to the freezer and found some chocolate ice cream. On the way back, I stopped in the liquor department and got a bottle of sherry. I can’t stand it, I was thinking. It’s terrible. All he does is fuss at me. I can’t stand it here. I’ve been working all day and now I have to cook dinner for him and he still won’t love me. He won’t even go get ice cream for me. He’s the most selfish person I ever met in my life. He never thinks about me. All he thinks about is himself. He thinks I’m his slave.

  I walked back to the checkout counter and added the ice cream and sherry to the things in the cart. “Oh, God,” he said. “Now you’re going to start drinking. It’s Tuesday night, Rhoda. We’re not going to start drinking on school nights.”

  “I just want a glass of it. I’m tired too, Malcolm. I’m worn out.” And suddenly I was worn out. I had been full of gaiety when I left the store. The excitement of being with Charles William had continued into the afternoon and I had sold three dresses to a pretty woman my mother’s age to wear to chaperon a fraternity party in the mountains. Now I was just a married lady arguing at the grocery store with her husband. The salesgirl totaled up our purchases and I wrote a check and then we left and got into the car and drove to our apartment. A skillet from three days before was in the sink. Plates and glasses and silverware from breakfast were piled on top of that. The ashtrays were full of cigarettes. The bed was unmade. Several tubes of contraceptive jelly were lying on the floor. “This place is a goddamn mess,” Malcolm said.

  “Well, help me clean it up.” I opened the bottle of sherry and poured some into a glass. I tied an apron around my waist and began to move things gingerly from the sink to the counter. I was still wearing a wool skirt and sweater I had worn to work that day and I was trying not to get them dirty. Another thing Malcolm and I had started arguing about was the cleaning bill. We both threw everything we wore down on the floor and once a week we picked it all up and took it to the cleaners.

  I drank the sherry. Then I began to try to clean the skillet. Three minutes went by. It was six o’clock. “Have you started dinner?” Malcolm asked. “Stop doing that and get the food in the oven.”

  “Do what?” I turned around and dropped the skillet on the plates in the sink. “What did you say to me?”

  “I said I’m starving to death. Get the chicken in the oven before you start on those dishes.” I reached behind me and untied the apron. I walked out of the kitchen. I could see the car keys lying on the coffee table. “You know how to do the chicken better than I do. Fix it and put it in the oven and I’ll do the rest. I want to go upstairs and take off these clothes. The salesladies said I’d ruin my feet if I wore shoes this hig
h all the time.” I started up the small narrow stairwell that led to the bedroom. I can escape from anywhere, I told myself. I am Dudley Manning’s daughter. No one can make me do anything. No one can conquer me. No one can keep me from getting into my own car and going to see my friends.

  “Okay,” Malcolm called from the kitchen. “I’ll put it in and then I have to study while you do the rest.”

  I stood in the narrow stairwell and finished my wine. I sat the glass down on the stairs. Then I walked into the living room and grabbed the keys and ran out the door. I had the ignition on by the time he came out the door behind me. I backed the car around and took off down the driveway at top speed. I turned out onto the street and started in the direction of Putty’s apartment building. I was exhilarated and I was terrified. I felt as though I had stepped onto another planet leaving behind the very air I breathed. Still, I had to get to Charles William. I had to get somewhere where someone loved me.

  I parked the car in Putty’s parking lot and looked around for the basement door. Down a flight of concrete stairs was a door painted Chinese red. The door handle was a huge brass elephant with a third eye in its forehead. Only Charles William would have such a door. I rang the bell and in a moment the door opened and there was Irise in a blue-and-white kimono. “Oh, Rhoda,” she said. “Come in. We were hoping and hoping you would come. May Garth’s here. Oh, May Garth, hurry up. It’s Rhoda. She’s here.”

  “I left him,” I said. “I hate him. I had to run away. Can I spend the night? Can I stay here with you? Oh, my God, this place is fabulous. What did you do?”

  “Of course you can. Come in. Come and see what we did.” She drew me into the room. It was a grotto. For seventy dollars a month Charles William had rented the entire downstairs of the building except for the furnace rooms. He had painted the walls red and covered the floors with cork squares and straw rugs. There were sconces everywhere, some holding candles and some holding lamps. Christmas lights were strung across the ceilings. Two wide black leather sofas faced a coffee table made of mosaic tiles. “It’s our grotto,” Charles William said. “Do you like it, Dee? What do you think?”

  “I love it. It’s divine. May Garth’s here? She’s here now?”

  “Here I is, Miss Rhoda.” She emerged from the kitchen wearing a pink kimono with red hibiscus on it. “You want to wear a kimono? We have another one. My aunt brought them back from Japan.” She giggled and held out her hands.

  “My God, May Garth, you’re thin as a rail. I heard you were working in a bank.”

  “I’ve got a prescription. Look at this. It’s called Dexedrine. I’ve got black ones and black-and-white ones. Which one do you want?” She reached into a pocket of the shorts she had on underneath the kimono and produced two bottles. “You can have some if you want them. I can get all I want. You want one now? You stay awake all night if you take them.”

  “Let me see.” I took the bottles from her and looked at them. They didn’t look like the pills I had taken that summer. Still, it might be the same thing. “I might take one. Which one’s the best?”

  “The black ones last longer. Take a black-and-white. Here.” She opened the bottle and handed me a pill. I walked into the kitchen and got a glass of water and swallowed it.

  “Let’s have a drink,” Charles William said. “I’ve got some fabulous scotch whiskey.”

  Three hours later we were still drinking scotch and talking. “I want to go to the Continental Club and dance with the band,” May Garth kept saying. “Rhoda has to see it. Just you wait, Rhoda. You never heard music like this in your whole life.”

  “I used to love a saxophone player,” I kept answering. “I still love him. I should never have married Malcolm. If Malcolm calls, tell him I’m not here. I’m never going back. All he does is yell at me. He thinks I am his slave.”

  An hour later I was dancing with a black musician in a black nightclub. We had been given a table on the edge of the dance floor. Black men in tuxedos came by the table and spoke to May Garth and held her hand. It was very powerful and strange in the room. It was the closest I would ever come to a revolution. I was in the center of the power base of black power in the American South but I was too drunk and high to register anything but fleeting images. Lights on the bandstand, a sweet pink drink in a tall glass, Charles William standing by the table laughing and joking with the men in tuxedos, elegantly dressed black women who never spoke to us, the small black man who led me out onto the dance floor and tried to dance with me. I could almost follow him but not quite. Every time I thought I had figured out what we were doing the step would change.

  Later I was lying on a sofa in the manager’s office and May Garth was fanning me. Later still I was in a car being driven to the “grotto.” Then I was sleeping in a soft clean bed with sheets that felt like the ones at my mother’s house.

  In the morning we ate breakfast on trays and told the stories of the night and May Garth called the bank and told them she could not come in. No one went to work and no one went to school. The night moved on into the day. I was among friends.

  At three o’clock that afternoon I returned to my apartment. I had no idea what was going to happen. I had never run away from a husband before or gone home to be forgiven. I was going to have to make it up as I went along. I took May Garth with me for a shield.

  Chapter

  19

  The apartment was empty when we got there. It looked as if it had been deserted for weeks. Now that I had been gone for a day the whole place had lost its charm. The gravel driveway seemed rutted and poor. The yard with its wildflowers seemed overgrown and tacky. The half-finished cobbler’s bench sitting in the yard seemed embarrassing. Who would be married to someone who refinished furniture in the yard? (Of course, if Charles William had been doing it, I would have thought it was artistic.) I opened the door, and May Garth followed me into the living room.

  “That’s our sectional sofa Momma bought us,” I said. “I used to like it but I hate it now. I hate that color green.”

  “When do you think he will be home?” She sat down on the sofa and began to play with her eyes. She had a brand-new pair of contact lenses, the first any of us had ever seen, and she seemed to take them in and out at least every other hour. “I think I better get these out. They’re starting to bother me.” I sat down on the other half of the sofa and watched as she dug around in her eye and finally retrieved first the left and then the right lens. She laid one on top of the other and put them on the edge of a crystal ashtray.

  “I ought to empty those ashtrays,” I said. “I have to clean this place up before he gets home, May Garth. You want to play some music while I do it? I’ve got a lot of records but no forty-fives anymore. I burned them up driving home from Vanderbilt. I won the freshman writing contest there, did I ever tell you that?”

  “There’s a car,” she said. “I heard a car.” She stood up and looked out the window. A dark blue Pontiac was pulling up beside my car. “Is that him? Is that Malcolm?”

  “Yeah. And his old roommate, Phinias. I guess Phinias brought him home.” Malcolm and Phinias got out of the car and came walking up the path. They were talking to each other with their heads bowed. I went to the door and opened it.

  “Where were you?” he said. “I thought you’d gotten killed.” I looked up into his face. With his old roommate beside him he looked like the boy I had loved such a short time ago. He looked like someone who was valuable and to be desired. He was my husband. Or, at least he used to be. How could anyone as terrible as I was deserve a man this fine? “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what came over me. Oh, God, don’t be mad at me. This is May Garth. Her father owns some banks. This is Phinias, May Garth. Phinias Kernodle, our friend.” I dissolved in tears and ran up the stairs to our room. Malcolm followed me, leaving Phinias and May Garth to amuse one another as best they could.

  Chapter

  20

  Nature does not waste such emotion. After we made up, and Phinias
and May Garth had left together, Malcolm made love to me and then he fussed at me and I apologized and begged to be forgiven. Then we made love some more and he asked me if I wanted to go to the mountains for the weekend.

  We left on Saturday morning. Malcolm and I and Avery and Mary Adair and Charlie McVey and his wife. The six of us in a Chevrolet, all the camping gear stuffed into the trunk of the car. THERE WAS ONLY ONE TENT.

  We drove all the way up into the mountains. It was almost dark when we got there. We built a fire and started cooking dinner and then we cut the cards for the tent. Malcolm reached out his hand and plucked the ace of spades from the deck and neither of us had remembered to bring a rubber.

  “Where are you going?” he asked. It was morning and I was pulling on my pants and boots.

  “I’m going to the bathroom. Let me up. Unzip the tent.” He reached above me and undid the zipper to the front of the tent and I climbed out and stood up and looked around. On three sides were tall granite cliffs. In front was a mountain lake. I struck off in the direction of the sunrise and soon had climbed a hundred feet above the lake. I found a large boulder and relieved myself and then I climbed another forty feet and sat down on the path to look down on the dark green tent and the sleeping bags that held our companions. “Well, I think I’m pregnant,” I decided. “I bet I am. I know I am.” I looked off into the distance. For once in my life I was content. I didn’t want a thing. I knew exactly where I was and how I fit into the scheme of things. I wasn’t hot or cold. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me or need me or tell me anything. I just wanted to sit there and look down on the lake and think about how absolutely hysterical it would be if I was pregnant. I thought it was hysterical. I thought it was the absolutely funniest and most amusing thing I had ever heard of in my life.