Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(77)

Jilo froze. His words chafed her, but they struck her as the absolute truth. She’d been trying to sell candy in a box marked “soap,” and there weren’t many folk willing to believe it was candy on the inside. She needed to create a package that matched what she was selling. Jilo stood, pushing the swing back as she did. “So who is she then, this Mother Jilo?”





FOUR


June 1956



“It’s you. It is.” Jilo heard a voice call out from a shop she’d passed on West Broad. It didn’t even occur to her that the words might be intended for her. After finishing up a round of errands in town, she was focused on getting home to Binah and her boy.

She’d had to wait at the bank, so she’d been gone longer than expected. The colored service window had opened up an hour later than usual. No explanations. No apologies. Just a command for them not to lurk about before the bank was ready to receive them. Still, Jilo had been too happy about the fresh packet of cash she had ready to deposit to let herself focus on why she couldn’t just use the manned window where not even a single white person was waiting. No, she wasn’t going to let herself be bothered by that today. Things had started looking up for her, and she was going to hold on tight to each and every victory.

She struggled beneath the weight of her new nylon shopping bag, but she found she didn’t mind the effort. This bag wasn’t just full of needed groceries; no, there were a few things in there that her family simply wanted. Luxuries, which would have seemed like an impossible dream even a year ago. She wasn’t sure whose eyes she was more excited to see: Robinson’s at the sight of his new windup clockwork robot or Willy’s when he unwrapped the coral chiffon head scarf that she herself planned to borrow from time to time. For Binah, she had bought a book, featuring a red sun with gold and silver coronas on an otherwise black cover. Something dreadful about people blowing up the whole damned world, but Jilo felt certain Binah would like it.

Romance wasn’t her girl’s thing—Binah’s interests ran in just about every other direction. Jilo was proud that her girl seemed more interested in books than she was in men.

“It is!” The voice grew closer, accompanied by the clapping of leather-soled shoes along the tabby sidewalk. Jilo nearly dropped her bag when a strange man grabbed ahold of her arm, but the man reached forward to keep the sack from falling. “It’s you.”

She looked up into the stranger’s gleaming eyes.

He smiled. “I mean, you look different. You’re dressed different.” He leaned back as if to take her in from head to toe. “Real pretty, though.” She’d taken to wearing her Mother Jilo costume—kaftans in bright, eye-catching shades, mostly blues and purples, with wide-brimmed sunhats or turbans in opposite and equally blinding colors. After a lifetime of trying to blend in, her income had become contingent upon her ability to stand out. Whenever she walked down West Broad, voices would drop, and crowds would part before her as the name “Mother Jilo” trailed behind her like a wake on the water. It had taken a while to build Mother Jilo’s reputation, but now every outing was an opportunity to advertise.

Still, this man was a complete stranger to her.

“Mother Jilo, she sorry,” Jilo said. “But you wrong. Mother Jilo, she don’t know you.” She tried to make her tone sound final, if not severe. She was still in too good of a mood to want to scare the poor fellow. Shrugging him off, she began to walk away, but he circled around her, his movements so full of joy it resembled dancing.

“Why are you talking that way?” he asked, his face scrunching up with confusion.

So much for her good mood. She shook her head and glared at him. “Mother Jilo done say she don’t know you. Now scat.”

“No, you know me. Well, you met me once. On the bus.” He stopped directly in front of her, looking down at her as if he were sure she’d recognize him and fling her arms around him like a long-lost friend. She tried to squeeze past him, but he blocked her escape. “You know. In Atlanta. The bus. You had a suitcase. I talked too much.” His shoulders slumped forward. “I’m talking too much now. I’m sorry. You don’t remember me. Why should you? A beautiful woman like you must always have one fellow or another trying to catch her eye.”

Most days, she would have snapped the head off anyone who dared to say such a foolish thing, but it had been a long time since any man had paid her any attention, let alone called her beautiful. The compliment near took the wind out of her. Jilo stopped and gave the man a good once over, and to her surprise, an encounter she’d all but forgotten surfaced in her mind. An encounter that had evidently left its mark on this poor jabbering fellow.

“Poole,” she said, “Private First Class Poole.”

A wide smile set up camp on his beaming face. “Yes. That’s right. Poole. But just regular old Tinker Poole these days.”

“Tinker . . .” Jilo said, the name almost coming out as a question.

“Well, yeah, my real name’s Joseph, but everybody calls me Tinker, ’cause I’m always taking things apart that don’t work right and putting them back together again so that they do. That’s what I do. For money, that is.” He pointed to an open doorway. “That’s my shop. Right there.”

She glanced over her shoulder in the direction he was pointing. When she turned back, it struck her that he had leaned in, just a tad. Not enough to be threatening. Not enough to assume an intimacy between them. Still, it felt as if the air that surrounded him was caressing the air that enveloped her.