It Came from the Garage!, page 11
The car stops beside me. From a distance, I couldn’t be sure even though the car’s top was down, but my initial hunch was right—a woman’s drivin’, and a colored woman, no less. I never seen a woman with skin black as hers. It’s just a few shades lighter than her car. She’s a thin woman, cut into sharp angles. Her light hair floats around her head like a halo.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” she says. She’s got some kinda accent I ain’t ever heard. She raises the hand hanging out the window to wave. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten a bit lost. You wouldn’t happen to know which way Atlanta is, would you?”
I’m the type of woman to blush at near anything, and now’s no different. She’s got an impressive air about her, like she could command crowds. I guess I’m a little jealous.
“It’s sorta complicated,” I say. “You got yourself real lost back here.”
When she smiles, my chest tightens, and I feel my blush grow deeper. A snap of thunder grabs our attention. A shower’s rollin’ in. I didn’t even notice the clouds darken. The wind rustles the buddin’ trees and grass, and the first drops of rain dampen my dress sleeves.
With a curse, the woman hops out of her car and pulls the front seats forward to access the trunk. I oughta be runnin’ for cover myself, but instead I watch her remove the soft top and start affixing it to the car. She must be from the city. Ain’t nobody around here that would dress like this—tight, high-waisted jeans and a cropped turtleneck. I can’t stop thinkin’ about how thin she is. Watchin’ her stretch and reach over the car makes it all the more obvious.
“Are you a model?” I ask.
God, am I stupid?
She laughs. “No, ma’am.”
She gets the top on the car just in time. As she checks that everything is secure, the clouds open up and start rainin’ in earnest. She gets back into her car quick, then looks at me expectantly.
“You just gonna stand out there?” She has to holler over the pelting rain for me to hear. “Get in!”
I run to the passenger’s side. There’s no handle, and when she sees me standin’ there like a fool, she reaches over and opens the door from the inside to let me in. By now, I’m half-drenched, and the top of my groceries have gathered small puddles of water. When I settle into the leather seats, however, I find some comfort. They musta been soakin’ in the sun, because I can feel their warmth through my dress.
“You all right?” asks the woman.
I look for the roller to put the window up, but there ain’t one.
“How do I roll the window up?” I ask.
“There’s no window. Sorry.”
No window? What kind of car is this? Still, only a few drops of water splash on my arm, which is much more bearable than standing out there beneath the storm’s full force.
“Thank you for letting me into your car,” I say. “That was mighty kind of you.”
“No worries. You woulda looked pretty sad out there if I’d just left you.” She smiles. “You live around here? I could give you a ride to your place if you don’t mind telling me how to get to the freeway.”
“Yes, I live about two miles from here.”
“It’s a good thing I happened to drive by then, huh? Otherwise you’d be in a heap of trouble.”
Her smile sure is contagious. Holding my grocery bag in one arm, I press my free hand into the seat’s leather at my side. The woman puts the car into first gear, and it hums to life as we set off down the road.
“You’re not from Splendor, are you?” I ask. “I know just about everybody, but I don’t recognize you.”
She smirks. “Just rolled in. Name’s Aziza.”
A strange name for a strange lady. I struggle with what to say next, not wantin’ her to get the wrong idea. She probably knows, right? She’s obviously not dumb. But I know I can’t, in good conscience, say nothing…
“I know you’re bein’ kind to me, but I feel like I should warn you—folks ain’t kind to your people out here. I realize that maybe you weren’t plannin’ on hanging around, but if you need gas or anything, I would try to wait ‘til you got outta Splendor.”
My voice shakes a little when I say it. I’ve been lookin’ ahead, but I try to peek at her from the corner of my eye to see if what I said upset her.
She don’t look mad at all. She looks more like Mama did back when I was a kid and I asked her if all girls had to get married when they grew up—a little amused, a little sad.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” she says. “Seems I’m having decent enough luck so far. I picked you up, didn’t I?”
As soon as I turn toward her, mouth open, she winks, and I gotta look away just as fast. I’ve always had a hard time with people sayin’ nice things about me. Still, if she’s tryin’ to make me feel better, it ain’t helpin’ a ton. Aziza don’t know ‘bout the awful things that happen around here to colored folk. She didn’t see what the local boys did to the Johnson house, and she don’t know how they talk once they get some whiskey in them.
“Are you from Atlanta?” I ask.
“What makes you say that?”
“You give off a city feeling. Just the way you dress and talk. The car’s too fancy for the country, and it ain’t like any I ever seen.”
“Do you like it?” Aziza asks. “Austin-Healey Sprite. Just came out last year.”
“It’s nice.” I rub my thumb against the smooth, warm leather. “Is it fast?”
Aziza bares a toothy grin, and before I can say anything else, we’re flyin’ down the road like bats outta Hell. The car slices through the curving back roads as we descend toward the river. Then we drive alongside it as the heaving storm churns it into a torrent. The sheets of rain are so thick I can hardly see where we’re going. Every twist of the road surprises me, and they’re accompanied by sharp squeals from the tires. But even when the car slips a few feet across the pavement and our speed throws me into Aziza’s shoulder, I’m not scared. As the rain dies down, Aziza slows to a stop at the edge of a vast field.
“Fantastic!” I laugh. “Wow. I don’t know if I’ve ever gone that fast.”
The sun is just startin’ to poke through the clouds, castin’ thick beams of light around us. Wild violets coat the field beside us, their bright purple petals glistening with raindrops. I ain’t ever seen violets so dense and widespread like this, and I half hang out of the window to marvel at them.
“Those are my favorites,” I say, pointin’ to the field. “I’ve always loved violets.”
We look out into the field in silence, enjoying the view. I can hear the earth around us settlin’ as the dirt drinks the rain and feeds it back to nature. But I can’t hear anything else—no birds, no wind-ruffled trees, no crickets or frogs. And suddenly I realize I don’t know where we are. I’ve walked along all the roads in this area; I oughta know this place, but I can’t say I’ve ever been here. I can’t even tell how long we’d been driving. The sun hovers directly above us, but I know for sure I left the grocery store near two-thirty. It should be lower in the sky.
“Can I ask you a question?” Aziza asks.
I jump and look back at Aziza. She wears a blank expression that holds no trace of the fun girl I’d seen before. Maybe it’s at trick of the sunlight, but her eyes have taken on a gold shimmer.
“Sure, what is it?”
“Why’d you try to warn me about the people around here?” she asks.
I think to myself: Ain’t it obvious? Then I say, “Cause I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I tilt my head while I think, not really sure whether I understand the question. “I mean, I don’t want nobody to get hurt. And I guess colored people are more at risk around here than anybody else. I’ve heard a lot of the boys around town talkin’ about that stuff on the news with desegregation and whatnot. I know I’m not very smart, but I still don’t think it’s right to be treatin’ your people like that.”
“Why?” she asks again, her tone still flat.
“Well, I guess part of it is that I don’t like the folks that have been sayin’ bad things about colored people to begin with. But also, I ain’t never been hurt by your people. And when I hear the boys talkin’ ‘bout y’all, their stories are always changing.”
A story comes to mind, and I can’t help a humorless laugh. “One day they sayin’ y’all are stupid savages that shouldn’t be allowed to vote or sit in the same places as white people. Next day, they’re out there sayin’ you’re super smart Soviet spies. It’s like they just make things up based on however they’re feelin’ that day.”
When I look at Aziza, I still can’t tell what she’s thinkin’. She’s starin’ ahead, almost like she don’t even hear me.
“Do you have any Klansmen here?” she asks, her voice even.
“Like those folks in the white robes? Oh, yeah. Course, they’re always being secretive even though they meet at Dan Williams’s house every week. Don’t know why they bother with the hoods when the police don’t care that they’re here. I don’t think Dan’s ever hurt nobody. He seems like a good man. Just a little misguided is all.”
“Is it misguided to chase people out of their homes and threaten them with violence?”
I hum for a moment. “I guess you’re right, there. It’s hard to think about the people you know as doing bad things. Maybe I’m just trying to justify it to myself, but it wasn’t ‘til Dan started hangin’ around that Rodney Birch that he started actin’ real ignorant.
Birch is always pickin’ fights. He makes fun of Karen, his wife, too. He curses at her and calls her stupid. And I can tell you for a fact that Karen ain’t stupid.”
At some point during my rant, my hands rolled into fists and started crushin’ my grocery bag. I take a breath to relax myself.
It’s always hard thinkin’ about Karen. Even if we don’t talk much anymore, she was my best friend back in high school. When we’d walk home together from school, she’d ask me how I thought flowers knew when it was spring or what made stars sparkle. I always figured that God had just done it, but then she’d tell me what she’d read in her daddy’s science journal that week.
She’s a remarkable woman to be sure. But since she married Rodney, we haven’t really seen each other except by accident. Truth be told, I hated Rodney from the moment I saw him chattin’ Karen up. It didn’t matter if he was handsome. I could sense he was rotten on the inside. And now that they’re married, sometimes I’ll run into Karen at the store or at church, and she looks like she’s had the life drained out of her.
Hurts my heart.
“Sounds like you’ve got good instincts,” says Aziza, “and a good soul. I’m sorry that the two of you have lost contact. Losing touch with a friend that way is very difficult.”
Did I say all that out loud?
“Thanks,” I mumble.
When she don’t respond, I look at her again. She seems so sad now. She stares off at nothin’ and purses her lips. The sight of her makes my chest ache a little more, and I wonder what she must be thinkin’ about that would change her mood so fast. Maybe the same thing that happened to me and Karen happened to her, too.
“I’m sorry to pressure you, but I think I ought to be getting home,” I tell her.
Whatever she was thinkin’ about, my voice seems to pull her out of it. She looks at me, and her eyes are dark again.
“Right,” she says.
The sun’s gotten low on the horizon now, sunk behind the fields of grass and violets.
“I’m a little embarrassed to say, but I don’t actually know this road,” I admit. “I’m not sure how to get back from here.”
“I remember the way.”
Sure enough, she does. It takes a quarter of an hour to get back to the spot where she picked me up. I try to trace the path in my head, but I can’t figure out for the life of me where these roads came from. When we’re back where we started, I direct her to my home. I’ll have to try to take the path on my own tomorrow.
In the meantime, I keep talking. I tell her about myself and Splendor and whatever else springs to mind. I even get her to talk a little bit. I learn that she was born in Africa, and she only came to the States recently. Even though she ain’t American, she’s been rallyin’ hard for civil rights. That’s why she’s headin’ to Atlanta.
My house is on a street with five others, each givin’ the others a wide berth. When Aziza stops in the driveway of the last house on the left, the sun’s gone and the crickets are chirpin’ like mad. The round moon shines bright above our heads, and the fireflies’ pulsing lights flitter through the grass.
How had we been gone so long?
I climb out of the car, then turn around to face it. Aziza looks both out of place and perfectly at home in her little Sprite, which continues to beam excitedly at me.
“Thank you again for the ride,” I say. My mind is desperate to find to a way to keep her here. Maybe it’s because I’ve gone so long without another girl to talk to. Married life seems to be like that. “Would you like to come in? I still need to make dinner, and I’m sure Henry wouldn’t mind havin’ you join us.”
“Thank you, but I think I’ll have to pass today.”
“Well, maybe, if you don’t end up too far off—come back tomorrow. I’ll bake something, to thank you.” You’d think I was trying to stall her from going off to war. “I mean it. I need to thank you proper, after all.”
Aziza smiles, and the Sprite’s engine purrs in response.
“I’ll see you around, Sylvia.”
She’s gone before I can ask how she knows my name.
* * *
“There you are.”
My heart sinks soon as I hear Henry’s voice. I set the bag of groceries down on the kitchen counter, and he follows me in.
“I was worried about you, Sylv. Worthington said you left his store hours ago, and Dan said he hadn’t seen you since the morning.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. The time just got away from me.”
I turn around and lean against the counter. Henry’s face makes it clear that he’s been worryin’ about me since he got back from the factory. He looks even more tired than usual, and his dark hair is mussed, most likely from running his hands through it all night.
“I was walkin’ home—you know how I like to take the long way. Then this lady drove up to ask me for directions, and it started rainin’, so she told me to get in her car, and then I guess we got lost…”
It’s not ‘til I’m sayin’ it out loud that I realize how silly it sounds. Henry don’t seem sure what to make of it, but eventually he sighs and accepts it.
“Well, I’m glad you’re safe,” he says.
I start putting the groceries away and ask him how his day went. I try to listen, but my mind keeps driftin’ to Aziza. I wonder if she’ll actually stop by tomorrow. I doubt it. I mean, I was the one who told her to stay out of town, after all. Not very fair of me to ask her to come back.
Henry peeks through the window by the dining table. The weekly ruckus of Dan’s meetings has started. After six months of these things takin’ place at Dan’s, we’ve almost gotten used to the yelling, but there’s always an air of fear hanging about. The Johnsons had been kind people, even if they’d mostly stuck to themselves. Henry and I don’t have a reason to feel that Dan and his friends would have any grief with us, but knowing what they did still makes me nervous. I’m glad Aziza dropped me off when she did. Even if she’s on her way out of town, I wouldn’t want any of those folks seeing her.
“Sylvia, can we talk about something?”
“Sure. What’s wrong?”
Henry leans against the wall with his arms crossed.
“I was talkin’ to Mr. Erikson today. He says he wants to take me outta the factory and put me on the sales team.”
My face hurts from the big grin spreading across it.
“That’s great!” I say. “Congratulations. You’re the perfect fit for that kind of work.” But his face don’t make it look like he’s excited. “Ain’t that good?”
“Yeah.” He rubs the back of his neck. “But it got me thinkin’, you know. That kinda job means I’ll be spendin’ time in an office, makin’ more money than I am now, hopefully. It’ll be a good, stable setup. Which makes me think that now might be the best time to start tryin’ for a baby.”
The nausea hits me immediately. If I wasn’t leaning on the counter, I surely would have fallen over.
“Oh.”
Henry looks anywhere in the room that ain’t at me.
“I know that you ain’t ever felt ready for us to… But we’re married. Mom’s been on me for two years askin’ when she’s gonna get a grandbaby.”
“Well maybe your mama should mind her own damn business,” I snap.
“She’s right, though.” His voice gets a little louder, and I instinctively shrink back towards the counter. He must notice, because he quickly lowers his voice and talks softly. “We can take it real slow. I’ll make sure you feel comfortable, okay? I love you. You know I don’t wanna hurt you. And you’ll be so happy once we got a baby. You’re always sayin’ how lonely you are here. Maybe having some kids runnin’ around will make it better.”
I start shaking my head.
“No, Henry,” I whisper, my voice crackin’ on his name. “I can’t. I can’t do it. I don’t even want a kid.”
“Hey now.”
Henry crosses the kitchen and pulls me into his arms, against his chest. I always feel safe when he holds me, and it’s no different now. Still, it doesn’t eliminate the fear chillin’ my bones. He runs his hand over my hair, and I cry openly into his neck.
“I know you’re scared, but it’ll be fine. And once I get my promotion all official, we’ll be able to afford a good doctor to make sure everything goes smoothly and there ain’t no complications.”
