Solemn Read online

  Right after she met her mama looking for her, Stephanie started to always see that little girl—Solemn she now knew her name as. Matter fact, she had been seeing her all along. Matter more fact, the girl’s daddy skipped out the Hassles’ a few times. Then, the girl’s mama helped that poor woman move out. Much more attention than anyone else paid the Hassles. The little girl pussyfooted around a lot, lugubrious, usually by herself. Sometimes with a cat behind. Stephanie could never really figure out where she had come from or where she was going. She just knew she belonged. They had few places where they could feel like they belonged totally. Solemn was included by default.

  Stephanie set deviled eggs on the patio table. Bev Redvine was supposed to get there around four. Wound up being about five. So, the eggs were warmer than Stephanie would have wanted. But that was just her. Bev wore a nice teddy dress and some shining black flats with a curve. The girl was barefoot. They brought a mud cake (store-bought).

  “So, Stephanie,” Bev started, “thanks for having me by. I was getting worried when no one came by after my note, about what I was going to do.”

  Stephanie pulled out their chairs. She balanced her new Tupperware tumblers and a few linen napkins for them. She pulled her ribboned and straw sun hat down further.

  “No problem at all,” Stephanie said. They sat down with the sun behind the trailer. The Longwoods’ awning had gotten rusted and ornery over the hand-dug patio. The well seemed just a sideways glance away, keeping them from enjoying things.

  Bev elbowed the girl as unexpectedly as a booster shot. “Say hello, Solemn.”

  “Hi,” Stephanie heard. She scooped some deviled eggs on napkins and waited.

  “Well, Stephanie,” Bev said, “I’m thinking ’bout going to Magnolia Bible College. It’s gonna start soon this fall. And my oldest … well, his grades wasn’t good for college.”

  “That’s okay,” Stephanie told her. “I think I’ve seen him with your daughter.”

  “He liked talking more than school and sports, running off Klan, so he thought…”

  “I could’ve told him they’re here to stay.”

  “He realized that wouldn’t work when nobody gave a damn ’bout that baby throwed down this here well like that.”

  Bev pointed in the direction Stephanie never looked anymore.

  “Such a shame it was,” Stephanie said. They couldn’t have been related, then …

  “And he just had a son gonna need some taking care of,” Bev went on. “And his daddy took care of him, so he should take care of his. He’s off to the Army.”

  “Oh my.”

  They had bumbled back from the Gulf War by now, all around them, even now searching for a footing and reminding anyone who would listen that they were “Desert Storm”—looking for work, for homes, for new ears to put war stories into, for new women to love or the old ones they left behind. Supposedly they had a syndrome: depression, lethargy, listlessness, even rage. With no plans to upgrade to a bigger house anywhere and Landon not finding a full-time job at a store or the electronics plant, Bev put on a good barbecue for him—family mostly. He was set back home filling up on her suppers and Solemn’s company before basic training started.

  “Well, it is all over, isn’t it?” Bev asked. Bev saw Stephanie’s confidence and liked it, assumed it as her own, took its nice effect on her.

  “It is all over,” she repeated. “Good times just beginning. Cicadas on the way, next summer. Good luck.”

  “I suppose.” Stephanie smiled.

  She wondered how much the woman would offer to pay, or if she would even offer. Offer was payment enough. Although she planned to address her husband, in some way, on bleeding too much cash in Nashville. It started off as Percy Priest Lake catfishing trips, then derailed into feeding mechanical bulls and tan-going slots. The strait was far from dire. But still, Stephanie preferred surplus. The women skated around the subject of pay until the unspoken agreement became there would be none.

  Summer was ending. The lightning bugs came and left earlier by this time. Solemn walked on away from the table without asking or telling. Stephanie saw Solemn spot a lightning bug to run after. It hadn’t even lit up yet. Stephanie only saw what it was once Solemn caught it into her hands.

  “No one home anymore around time Solemn get off of school,” Bev continued. “And I might have to go to town with my husband some days to catch the right bus to the college. My husband sell stuff. He gotta drive our car into Kosciusko every day to see if the electronics plant need him. Gotta be there early. It’s been going all right these past few years. Guess more people needing TVs and radios and stereos and DVDs these days. World’s changing so fast…”

  “Sure is,” Stephanie said. “And yes, you wanna know if I could carry Solemn on to school when I go into town with my daughter and keep her after?”

  “That would be so helpful,” Bev said. “I would pay you.”

  Bev stared at Stephanie’s deviled eggs for quite some time. She chose one to try. She popped it into her mouth for one whole bite and swallow. She squished her eyes together and grabbed another. They were impressive.

  “Oh my goodness, these are so good. Taste different from ones I know.”

  “I put a little sugar and dill in mine,” Stephanie said.

  “Well, I’ll have to try that for myself,” Bev promised. She liked sitting next to the side of a trailer nearly half glass, a special door to special drapes to see how especially wide it was all inside. The new wood cabinets, not Formica or aluminum or tin even, in some she had heard. A few air conditioners. The sinks and faucets looked bright silver, not screeched and water-stained pink. The soft parquet floors had a grand design, like from a museum she had seen pictures of in school. She poured them some sassy water. Her fingers tipped a fair amount of lemon and lime bits and mint in both their glasses.

  “It’s no problem for me to take Solemn along, Mrs. Redvine,” Stephanie told her. “I’m going that way anyway. I just don’t know exactly where y’all are around here. Sometimes, you know, the mornings can be a bit rushed, and my daughter don’t want to go, and I’m trying to wash the breakfast dishes and it gets kinda busy, so…”

  “Oh no, no, no,” Bev said. “Call me Bev. And Solemn’d walk on over here, every day. Or me or her daddy drop her off. Solemn know her way around here better than I do. I’d be sure she got on out in time.”

  “Oh, okay. Uh, where is she, by the way?” And that would pretty much be the story with the girl from the time the arrangement started until it ended.

  Dear, dear Solemn, Solemn … It was a child and name and name and child the mama would never in her whole life be able to forget.

  * * *

  As eager as she was for her first day of classes at Magnolia Bible College, a real student she was now, Bev just dropped Solemn off at the Longwoods’ door. She only had to knock once. Stephanie was waiting, minutes early, tapping fingerprints in a tin of rosebud salve. Prompt and dressed. So was Stephanie’s daughter, ready, with just one of the many new stiff dresses she had for the year. Solemn had grown a bit, but the school clothes from last year still fit her, so she could wait until she grew out of her closet.

  “This is Solemn, Desiree.”

  The smaller girl seemed gobbled up by what looked like twice as much space—and almost was—as her own home. Stephanie’s knack for scrutizining and mastering light colors worked out this way. The girl sat cross-legged on a wraparound leather couch with her dress open and the thicker crotch of her white cotton tights in plain view. Hmph. Solemn could never sit like that, legs all opened. Especially not for company. But she didn’t know what to call herself here with these people. She wasn’t company. She heard she would be shuffled to them every day. No one even came to their home every day but Akila maybe. Now, and with her belly growing.

  “Hello,” the girl said.

  “Hi,” Solemn said back.

  “You the one gonna be staying with us?”

  “She’s not staying with us,�
�� Stephanie said. “And sit properly, would you please?”

  Desiree giggled, but she didn’t change. Solemn didn’t know why she was dropped off so early. It was only seven thirty. The ride to the school for eight thirty was only about twenty minutes at most.

  “She’s riding to school with you. From now on.”

  “I seen you before,” Desiree said.

  Solemn couldn’t recall her. But Desiree was a bit younger. The older kids didn’t look down much.

  “You got B lunch,” Desiree said, correctly. She had seen Solemn before.

  “You have B lunch,” Stephanie corrected. “You hear me? Desiree? Desiree?”

  The girl continued to stare at Solemn, entranced. Solemn sat on the couch right beside her, with her legs crossed Indian-style, too. Only there was a quarter-size hole in the tights. Between her thighs. Desiree paid this no mind. Solemn smelled toast, and the Nutella she saw Stephanie wipe across it. Then she smelled a banana, cut wide open, a swoosh of sweet green vines with them now. And the caramel goddess woman was before her and the girl with two light-green saucers and full, very full, glasses of juice.

  * * *

  Over at Stephanie’s house, where Solemn could sing. Or sang. Loud as she wanted to. She could even jump around and dance. Stephanie never yelled. Solemn had swing in her hips and Desiree had born rhythm in her arms. When they were famous, they would call themselves “Desi’s Child.” At her home, Desiree had control of the remote. Solemn had control of Desiree. If it wasn’t Beyoncé it was Mary J. Blige and Angie Stone. Michael Jackson and ’N Sync. Nelly and Juvenile. One night, Solemn got to stay over and up to watch the late movie. It was Boyz n the Hood. Solemn didn’t have to turn her head when the boys got the holes blowed through them in the alleys, or when the boys and girls did nasty stuff in the beds. Desiree, just nine, did not know it was nasty stuff yet. Solemn let Desiree in on the secret of Nashville, where the singers were. Along with the well, it was a new shared destination for them both.

  And we can make a routine to show everybody and maybe take it around town …

  When Landon disappeared for the Army, right after there were big explosions in America where she lived (so Solemn heard Oprah and others on the television say), in the place called New York, where Dick Clark did the American Bandstand on New Year’s Eve every year, while her parents drank frosted Corona beers with limes put in, as she watched her favorite stars sing in a place called Times Square, until a big ball dropped for a whole new year to change all the numbers. The explosions there sent women crying on television with firemen and policemen cradling the whole tragedy, and the white man President Bush on television having the gall to interrupt Oprah’s show.

  But Landon had already promised to be gone to fight, to be a black man with a legal gun and show to the whole world black men were brave—maybe in a place called “Afghanistan.” Solemn tried to pronounce it still. She heard talk about it. The Redvines were not sure. They just knew he was gone, it wasn’t good, life was fraught, it was war. In their America. They prayed for them in the trailer every night. They all emptied out from Landon’s unavailability with only the assurance he might send letters to fill them.

  Solemn watched her parents sulk, worry, fret, wonder, and frantically archive his belongings in storage compartments under the camper. Landon was eldest, the firstborn, the cement to them, the inconvenience who had prevented a turn-back. The Redvines’ readjustment included more attention to the child who was not there than the one who was. Solemn hung the five-by-seven uniform photograph of her brother on the door of her closet.

  Bev had something else to talk about and it impressed the church. Her first class was Religious Fundamentals.

  “But hell, I already know the Bible so good the professor like me,” she told Redvine and Solemn. She wrote it in her notes to Landon: “I’m a real good student…”

  Solemn thought it was funny to see her mother with homework. Still, it was better than hearing Bev tell her to do her own. She and Bev did it together. Redvine sometimes offered to cook, so Bev could look in her books stationed at the kitchen table from now on. On some secret times, she rode down the Oprah Winfrey Road in town with a white woman named Ruby—“for my head of hair Ma named me.” Ruby loved to have chocolate classmates around now to talk about how much she was never a bigot and she always had black friends—even when her ma and pa said they’d whip her for it. Ruby had three grown children in college. Plus, in the summer, she went twenty hours on Illinois Central Amtrak to Chicago for The Oprah Winfrey Show.

  “I told everybody in line, Bev, I was from here and they liked me so much,” Ruby repeated to Bev every time she gave her a lift home if Redvine forgot to show. Bev wrote it off. She had a good husband. And Ruby loved to help. Ruby told Bev Chicago was very, very integrated with everybody running the same streets to no division. Bev wondered what it would be like to see Chicago. Maybe take Solemn along, for a treat.

  The arrangements even provided a boost in the love lives, with Bev seeing Stephanie wouldn’t complain if she was a bit late. If both the girls went on Stephanie’s orders to scavenge for bottles and cans they came back with less than Desi would have on her own, but they stayed gone longer than she would have. The relief of their daughter having a partner in a lengthened venture gave the couple permission for foreplay.

  “The door locked,” Solemn would say.

  “No, you just ain’t doin’ it right,” Desi corrected.

  “Okay, you do better,” Solemn challenged. They wound up still outside and turning the key the Longwoods just kept in the car. The girls flopped about to the radio until Stephanie came out, fresh faced and claiming a nap. Solemn was quite eager for the job, since she kept most of the profits. According to herself, she was saving for a long trip out of town and would never come back. She was up to over $182 now, she could say.

  “How nice.” Stephanie smiled down at the eager, honey-colored gal. Then, she offered her chance to make more with more cans. Desiree came back one time hollering: a knot on her forehead and in her hands a tattered slingshot, a present from Solemn, she said. Stephanie made her bangs. Another time Desiree had a little tack stuck in her foot. She was inoculated, so it wasn’t much but a pain. Solemn always had a good story for it.

  Desiree was friendly, so Solemn took over her bike, standing up to push the pedals while Desiree rocked on the seat behind. They rode around the circle of Singer’s until they returned hungry and sweating. They shot stones at cans perched on four-by-fours they stuck in the dirt. One girl had to always ask to stay or go home with the other. Long dinners and visits through weekend errands were the best the parents could do with the little girls who pulled at their skirts or pants waists to ask favors. Stephanie drove them all in her Imperial on a voyage to Dillard’s in Jackson and then Boston Store in Biloxi. Less than a semester after Solemn first rode in the backseat of the van on to Bledsoe and Miller’s middle school, where just twenty whites were actually the minority, so it was fun, Stephanie had had to start cooking enough for five plates; Solemn ate enough for two.

  The girl had her advantages, but Stephanie soon tired of all the ongoing tall tales. And, she was kind enough to find and hide a note the principal sent home with Solemn about her behavior. To her, it was just like lying, so she said she wasn’t doing it again.

  “She told you what?” Stephanie said to the latest Solemn story: a giant man around Singer’s was looking for babies to chew up and spit out. “Girl, quit lying…”

  “She did!” Desiree insisted.

  A stray mix galloped toward the door. Where there was laughter, there might be scraps. But there was never anything near that one’s door. Stephanie never accumulated leftovers. Her strong point wasn’t reminders. Who wanted to unthaw or retaste a meal an argument or bad news had hovered over? She never knew which one of those would come around again; she only made enough for three and for one day. Then, Solemn just happened to start riding with them to Miller’s and coming along after school. Stephanie
only started to make extra food for Solemn’s lingering. She threw the rest out for scraps the mutts could tussle over. Had it not been for Solemn being part of the house now, the strays would have never come near. Just another consequence of the new child.

  Stephanie piled a few aluminum pans atop her breasts and toppled reminders out of the pans one by one. The dog outside groveled and bayed at the spilled potatoes, stringy pot roast, greasy carrots, and cabbage. Stephanie winced at the wretched slopping.

  “So, this man at the well walks around Singer’s in the middle of the night, and sleeps in Redvine’s trailer? That’s what Miss Solemn told you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Desi smiled.

  “And you saw him at the tent, and heard him in her trailer?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And he looks like Solemn’s daddy, who I hope you’re calling Mr. Redvine?”

  Desiree was not.

  “Desi,” Stephanie said, “I really don’t think there’s any men hiding in trailers or hanging round at night.” She knew Gilroy’s ass had thrown them off, all of them.

  She went on: “Doesn’t matter. You got no reason to go ’round there. Everybody gets our own water these days, from the faucet or the store. You see your daddy lugging the water coolers in this house every week. Appreciate it. It’s about time folks got less dependent on that well, even though we got the best drinking water in Mississippi. Somebody need to cover it. Out of respect. But there’s no one out there, sweetheart.”