When the Reckoning Comes, page 11
“Is that why you invited them?” Mira asked, not hiding her accusing tone. “You wanted to make them jealous? You think they’ll accept you now because you have more than they do? This is why the wedding is here too, isn’t it? Because of them. They used to treat us like shit and it’s like that doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Can’t people change? You’re judging them for who they were, but maybe if you gave them a chance, you’d see you’re wrong. They’re not so bad.”
“Yet because of them you’re having your wedding here. At a plantation, Celine.”
“It hasn’t been a plantation for over a hundred years, and it’s not like my family owned slaves.”
“What about its history? The suffering that built it. That’s never forgotten. It’s always there. Isn’t it always there?”
“If this is how you felt you shouldn’t have come.”
Mira could see the discussion was going nowhere and it was getting late. She stood up to go. Celine did not move from the bed as Mira walked to the door. Mira hovered as she contemplated what to say before leaving. This would be the last time they’d talk. Tomorrow was the wedding, and after—after, who knew if she’d get another chance to talk to Celine. A gulf stood between the two of them. They were strangers, tied together solely because of obligation for what used to be, out of an allegiance to what was.
If this was it, if they were to never see each other again, she wanted to offer her one last truth, one she knew none of the other girls would give. “You know you don’t have to go through with any of this, right? Who cares about any of them? The Celine I know wouldn’t. You can still change your mind. Tell them all to go to hell. Don’t do this if it’s not what you want.”
Celine’s lips pursed together before forcing a smile. “Who says it’s not?” she asked before briefly turning her gaze away. When she looked at Mira again her expression brightened. “Besides,” she said. “Isn’t that what divorces are for?”
Mira laughed and shook her head. This was the Celine she knew. “You’re right,” Mira said, softly smiling. “Sleep well, Celine.” She closed the door, but their conversation felt unfinished. She thought about opening it again and asking Celine to clarify her answer, but didn’t, hearing the sound of laughter from afar. It was the light, airy laughter of a child, and she whipped around to see to whom it belonged. The hallway was empty. No child anywhere. She could have been in one of these rooms, but to Mira’s knowledge all the guests Celine had invited were adults. Celine’s request on her invitations had read Adults Only, printed in a glittery script font. Whose child was it? If no children were here, where was the laughing coming from?
The laugh came again. Unmistakable this time, a playful giggle calling to her, asking for her to take part.
“Okay, where are you?” she answered, and waited. “Is this a game? I don’t know the rules. Can you come out and tell me?”
The laugh grew softer, fading, and Mira continued following the sound, curiosity having gotten the best of her over the possibility of a child hiding alone in the house somewhere, especially at this hour. She’d regret not checking if later she learned this turned out to be the case. She snuck up to each door along the hallway and listened, expecting to hear some family commotion to let her know her instincts were wrong, but heard nothing.
“I couldn’t have imagined it,” she said, confused. She spun around, played the waiting game as she fixed her attention on the empty hallway. Any second the child would give up and appear, either from one of the rooms or from some darkened corner Mira had missed, but as the minutes passed, no one came.
“Last chance!” Mira gave it one last shot in as upbeat of a tone as she could muster, but the laughter she’d heard had stopped. Deciding she’d done enough and not wanting to linger any longer, she left the house.
Outside, the weather had changed; the heat finally died down. The air was unnervingly cold considering how warm it had been earlier. North Carolina weather could be unpredictable, especially this near the coast. A fog was forming, unusual for this time of year. She wished she had brought the wrap. As she walked back to the cottage, she passed the structures she’d seen before, the smokehouse and laundry room and kitchen, now closed up. A quiet cloaked the land. Those staying on the property were already in their cottages. Couples making love in their air-conditioned rooms, settling off to sleep. Mira was the only one out roaming.
Seeing Jesse had sparked a reverie of remembering and she found herself roaming the grounds. She wanted to find the barn, to see if it was still here. The barn had been the last place she and Jesse had been before their lives fell apart. She let herself think of the feel of his hand as he’d gripped hers tight, leading her through the woods. The slow exhale as they found the barn and crept in. The creak from the springs of the wooden door as Jesse pulled it open. They’d stood inside an abandoned marker of history and it felt like a secret for them to keep.
Any action, however small, carried the weight to alter a life. What if she’d told him about her feelings then, in the barn? Part of her lingered in the fantasy. “Mira,” he would have whispered, moving close. His hand touching the small curve of her back, drawing her toward him. He would have kissed her, and nothing after would have happened in the way it did. Who knows how different it could have been?
The closer she got to the tobacco fields, the darker it got. Her heels dug into the soft earth with each step and after a while she gave up and pulled them off, walking barefoot the rest of the way. There were no light posts this far out past the main house. Her eyes had adjusted to the night but it was still hard to see. She relied on her memory of the layout from when she’d read the map earlier in the day.
The barn should be near here. Not far this way, only a few minutes more, she thought. She hugged herself against the crisp night air. What if she got lost and ended up wandering around the grounds until morning? She would never get through the wedding then.
Up ahead, in the tobacco field, Mira saw a figure, a woman, standing at the edge. Where had she come from? Mira hadn’t seen anyone else during her walk. The woman had appeared from nowhere. Was she lost like Mira seemed to be?
“Hey, where are you going? Do you need help?” Mira called out, but the woman didn’t move. The woman faced the fields and Mira was unable to see her expression. Whatever lay ahead had transfixed the woman. Dressed in all white, in the dark she looked like an apparition, a ghost roaming. Her hair cascaded down her back, and to Mira, she appeared to be an angel, not a ghost, something descended from the sky, something holy, something true, and Mira called out again, asking for her to turn around, but the woman wouldn’t listen. The woman took one step and then another, her bare feet gliding through the dirt and mud, dirtying her skin, getting closer to the edge of the fields, and as she got closer, Mira’s heart quickened. She called out to the woman in white once more before running toward her, to see who she could be, but when she got to the fields the woman was gone. Mira searched and searched but there was no one, not a single other person anywhere to be found.
IX.
MIRA WAS GRATEFUL for the comfort of her bed. She sighed from the feeling of the cool sheets hitting her skin. It had been a long time since she’d enjoyed a simple luxury like this. Her apartment did not have central air and the box air conditioner was constantly on the fritz. She was always hot. By now she’d hoped to have adapted, but she never got used to the damp feeling of the mattress wet from her sweat. She needed a new one; every morning she woke to a persisting ache in her lower back. In this bed her back didn’t ache. The cool air was a welcome reprieve. This, to her, felt decadent, and she relished it. Her muscles relaxed as she settled in and closed her eyes.
It was not instant, not a sudden pulsating rush of remembering, but instead a dull hum, a gnawing that grew as pieces of her evening with Jesse replayed themselves for her in the dark. How he looked. How he’d been. When he’d hugged her, she’d caught a subtle hint of cologne and was surprised he would wear it. She tried to conjure the smell of it again, tried to remember the feel of his body when they’d embraced before separating for the night. His hand had only grazed her waist, but the memory was enough to get her started. She thought of how he’d grabbed the railing surrounding the slave cabins, how his fists had tightened against the rail, and the muscles in his forearms had tensed. All that was left was her ache from longing. She pulled the covers up and over the rest of her body, pressed her head against the pillows.
Mira dreamed. She dreamed of a knife being lightly dragged across her skin. The blade was dull, not sharp enough to do any harm, but the feel of it made her itch. In her sleep, she reached for the places the knife touched, scratching so hard that unbeknownst to her she drew blood, the drops of it getting underneath her fingernails and smearing the sheets. Soon, it was not the knife but something else, insects—blowflies circling her mouth before landing, the feathery hairs of their antennae brushing against her skin, then ants that crawled around her, slowly moving their way onto her body, on her legs, moving up her thighs as they found their way into the depths of her. They were along her stomach, circling her belly button, moving around the slopes of her breasts, crawling on the most vulnerable parts of her. Then the flesh flies came. They were all over her, multiplying along with the others as her body began to bloat, their legs moving rapidly against her skin, going up her neck, tracing the line of her jaw, crawling across her chin and pausing at the curve of her lips, slightly damp from the lick of saliva. They rested atop her eyelids. They stood before the cavern of her nostril, tempting the path inward, the tickling itch of them hovering near her breath. It wasn’t enough to swipe them away. She batted one and another took its place. They multiplied, growing to cover every inch of her body. She swatted and shook in her terror, and finally woke to find herself wildly thrashing her arms in the dark.
Mira’s heartbeat thrummed in her ears. She was alone in the quiet of the cottage. The only sound was the humming of the air conditioner. The temperature was colder than she’d meant to set it to. The clock on the nightstand showed a few minutes after three. Mira had not been sleeping for long.
It was only a dream that had bothered Mira so. A bad one, but still, a dream. She looked at her arm and saw the marks from her scratching. Her fingertips glided lightly along the broken skin. She hoped tomorrow no one would notice what she’d done to herself.
Even awake, Mira could not shake the feeling something was after her, whether hiding amidst the folds of her sheets or caught in the tangles of her hair.
A pinprick. A blip of pain in the contour of her neck. Mira reached and felt for the mark. She pressed her fingers together, sat up in the bed to see. The smeared remnants of an insect lay between her thumbprint and forefinger. Mira flicked the fragments onto the floor.
X.
THE WEDDING WOULD be at noon, but it was not yet time. In the other cottages, guests slept. The sun had barely risen; the light had not completely erased the room’s fading darkness. There was still time to turn their backs to the sun, to pull sheets further around bodies, sleep a little longer until they too must slip on their dresses and their suits and leave for the ceremony. For now, they dreamed of the reception to come, of the free bar, the hors d’oeuvres and wedding cake they’d cram into their mouths. This was what they’d come for anyway—the party, one they knew would be in gloriously decadent excess, because they knew Celine’s desire to impress them with what she believed they wanted to see. Celine was beautiful, after all, had always been, was even more so now, and had managed to snag a man many either wanted or wanted to be. Phillip Hunnicutt of Honey Leaf Tobacco. Phillip Hunnicutt who once said he’d never marry. They’d all tried his cigarettes, for many their first, enjoying the mellow flavor as they inhaled. He was a name to them, a name that meant something. Never mind the rumors, because that’s all they managed to ever be.
Upstairs, in one of the rooms of the Woodsman house, a group of women gathered. Dressed already in their matching bridesmaids’ outfits, they went over the schedule of the day. Some of them stood barefoot, the straps of their high-heeled shoes dangling from their fingers. Some of them half listened as they snuck out their mirrors to reapply lipstick or make sure their mascara hadn’t feathered or their concealer hadn’t clumped on their skin. While the wedding wasn’t about them they’d be damned if they didn’t look perfect for it. Their dresses glittered and rustled as they shifted their bodies, as they finally got up together in search of the lady on whom they were waiting. It was time to get her and begin.
A knock followed by another. “Celine, dear, we’re all outside waiting for you. Open up,” one of the gathered called. She had practiced her voice, making it airy and light, just like she’d practiced her expressions, wanting to make sure she didn’t reveal her true feelings about this day.
“Please, sis,” Phillip had begged her. “Celine doesn’t have anyone. Can’t you do this? Can’t you do this for me?” She’d done this for Phillip, and after she’d said yes she’d given herself up to the obligation of it, but as she leaned against Celine’s door and waited for it to open she wondered why Celine hadn’t asked that black girl who was here to be in her place. The two of them had been friends once, so why wasn’t she standing here instead? The more she thought about it, the more unfair it became and the more incensed she was over the whole affair. Her knocking became banging, growing louder and faster with each passing moment Celine refused to open the door.
“She should be up, shouldn’t she?”
“Why isn’t she answering?”
“Do you think she’s there? She can’t possibly be sleeping.”
“Maybe we should call.”
They dialed the number of the room and listened outside the door as it rang. They did this two more times, listening in the hope of hearing the sound of the phone leaving its hook, a voice, groggy, tired, but still heard.
No one answered.
“Someone go to the front desk or find a cleaning woman to open the door.”
A bridesmaid scurried away, hurrying out of sight while the others continued to wait for her return. Each round of door taps grew with more force, more urgency. “Celine, honey, you need to answer now,” they called to the door. It had been a good half hour of this and they were late, everything veering off schedule because of Celine and her foolishness. None of them wanted to be here. All they wanted was to get through this day, to fulfill the request that had been asked of them, but to do that she needed to answer the door.
The front desk woman came, shuffling as she repeatedly apologized. She looked far too young, a tiny thing, barely eighteen probably, with the smoothest dark skin they’d ever seen. Blemish free without the slightest hint of makeup, and they stood beside her seething at her unaware beauty as she fumbled with the keys to open the door. “Can you hurry up?” they said with a sneer, and the girl stuffed the key in the lock and turned, opening the door for them all.
“Usually I don’t do this,” the girl cried after the fact, her voice shaky over having to make the decision to break with protocol. “It’s not our policy—”
None of them listened. They were already crowding inside, pulling on the sheets to reveal an empty bed. They checked the bathroom, opened the closets, and found nothing, nothing, nothing except the wedding dress on its single hanger, its fabric shimmering underneath the dim light of the room.
XI.
SCATTERSHOT SLEEP FILLED the rest of Mira’s night. She spent the remaining hours shifting her body from one edge of the bed to the other. When dawn came and Mira’s room filled with the morning light’s amber glow, she pulled herself out of bed to get ready. At least by the time she showered and dressed the restaurant would be open and she could get a little food and coffee in her system.
The restaurant was crowded by the time Mira arrived. She assumed most everyone she saw had been at last night’s party, and they’d managed to beat her here, filling the dining room and the bar in the hope of brunch cocktails before the ceremony. Mira stood at the entrance, waiting until an empty seat became available, and when it did, she sat down and asked for a menu.
“It’s packed,” she told the bartender, an older black man who had only enough time to smile back before he had to help other customers. He moved briskly from section to section of the bar, transitioning seamlessly from taking orders and charging credit cards to making Bloody Marys and mimosas. When he came back to her she ordered eggs Benedict, hoping a treat would make her feel optimistic about the rest of the day.
A man sitting on a nearby stool got up to go and he brushed up against her, putting a hand on her bare leg in the process. The touch of his skin against hers made her jump, but when she looked at the man expecting an apology, he looked at her as if he’d done nothing wrong, a smug grin on his face as he turned to go.
“Seriously?” she called after him.
He stopped, pivoted. He leaned into her, his face close enough to kiss her if he wanted. He put his hand on her shoulder, traced small loops on her skin with his finger. He rubbed his lips together before straightening again. “Someone should teach you some manners. You’re lucky I’ve got someplace to be, but maybe I’ll see you later,” he said, then walked away.
No one saw what he’d done. No one cared enough to catch a glimpse. Around her, customers continued getting drunk, paying no attention to her sitting at the bar alone. Aside from the bartender, Mira was the only black person in this restaurant and while she’d tried to ignore this reality before, the acknowledgment now filled her with fear. Fear told her to get up and go, head back to her cottage, and order room service. Fear made her want to ignore what just happened as well as last night, but she’d already ordered and the food would arrive soon. A scene would make the situation worse, and she feared leaving would cause one. He could still be watching her, waiting somewhere among the crowd for when she’d be alone. She couldn’t leave, and so did the only thing she knew to do—she crossed her legs and leaned across the counter, positioning herself in a way to make it seem like she deserved the space she occupied, but no matter how she arranged her body, no matter where she tried to focus her attention, she couldn’t let go of what he’d said. She could pretend, but pretending was not believing.
