Out of the Easy(7)
And then he was gone.
FIVE
I sat on my bed staring at the check.
Forrest L. Hearne, Jr.
73 East Parkway Avenue North, Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis Bank and Trust Co.
His words seemed to whisper back at me. Decisions, they shape our destiny.
I went to my desk and pulled the yellowed sheet of paper out from its hiding place. I had started the list when I was thirteen with the name Tom Moraine, a journalist who had come to the bookshop. One day, when I was mad at Willie, I told her I had found my father and was going to leave. Willie laughed. She told me that Moraine wasn’t my father’s last name. It was the name of a gambler Mother had run off with when she was seventeen. The marital bliss lasted all of three months and then Mother came back. She kept the ring and the name.
Willie said fathers were overrated, that my father could be one of thousands, most likely some rotten crotch creep that loved clip-on ties. She said I should forget about it. But I didn’t forget about it. I couldn’t. So the game continued, and for years I added names to the list, imagining that 50 percent of me was somehow respectable instead of rotten. And creepy was certainly relative. After all, what was creepier, a man who loved clip-on ties or a girl who kept a log of fantasy fathers hidden in her desk drawer?
The red neon sign from Sal’s across the street blinked and buzzed, washing my curtains and desktop in a rosy glow. The volume outside increased as midnight drew closer. 1950, and the promised opportunity of the new decade, would soon arrive. I added the name Forrest L. Hearne, Jr., to the list, along with the few details I knew about him. I estimated him in his late thirties or early forties.
Football player. Memphis. Architect. Likes Dickens and Keats, I wrote.
Keats . . . He certainly wasn’t an average tourist in the Quarter.
He had asked me about college. I had graduated from high school last June but had packed college in mothballs and shoved it up into the attic of my mind, where I wouldn’t have to think about it for a while. High school was hard enough, but not because of the course work. That was easy for me. It was constantly trying to stay invisible that was exhausting. When people noticed me, they talked about me. Like the time Mother came to parent day in the eighth grade. She came only because one of Willie’s girls had said my history teacher, Mr. Devereaux, was handsome and a bit wild.
Mother showed up in diamond earrings and a full-length rabbit coat she said had “fallen off of a truck.” She was completely naked underneath.
“Don’t be such a prude, Josie. I was runnin’ late. No one’s going to notice,” she told me. “Besides, the linin’ feels so silky smooth. Now, which one’s your history teacher?” She had been drinking and had a hard time keeping the coat closed. All the fathers stared while their wives gripped and pulled at their arms. The kids stared at me. The next day, several students whispered that their mommas had called mine “that whore.” And then I felt naked and dirty too.
She must not have found my history teacher interesting. Mother never came back to school, not even for my high school graduation. “Oh, that was today?” she had said, dotting a fake mole on her cheek in front of the mirror. “Did you wear one of those ugly hats with the tassels?” She threw her head back and laughed the laugh I hated. It started innocent enough but then tightened in her throat, traveled up through her nose, and slithered out a cackle. I could see the ugly just pouring out of her.
Willie came to my graduation. She rolled her black Cadillac into the lot and parked in one of the spots reserved for administration. The crowd parted as she strode into the auditorium and took a seat up front. She arrived in an expensive tailored suit with matching hat and gloves, along with her traditional dark sunglasses—which she wore through the entire ceremony. Cokie came too and stood in the back with a large bouquet of flowers, smiling from ear to ear. People whispered about his toffee-colored skin, but I didn’t listen. Cokie was the only man I felt truly safe with.
Willie gave me a gorgeous sterling locket from Tiffany & Co. for graduation, engraved with my initials. “Engrave your pieces, Jo, and they’ll always find their way back to you,” said Willie. It was the most expensive thing I owned, and I wore it every day, tucked within my blouse. I knew if I took it off, Mother might steal it or sell it.
I wrote, Asked about college, in the margin near Mr. Hearne’s name and tucked the paper back in the drawer.
I heard commotion in the street below, along with voices in unison, “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . HAPPY NEW YEAR!!”
Horns honked, and people yelled. I heard glass breaking and rounds of laughter.
I took out my mirror and set to work on my pin curls. I wound my thick hair around my finger, pressed it tight to my scalp, and slid a bobby pin across each curl. New Year’s Eve was a mess. I wasn’t missing a thing, I told myself. Last year, a salesman from Atlanta decided to show off his riches for the girls at Willie’s by burning dollar bills in the parlor. They cooed and ahhed until one of Willie’s oriental chairs caught fire. The next day I had to drag the burned-out shell to the alley and got covered in soot. Mother laughed at me. Her bitterness increased with each year. Mother had a hard time getting older, especially among all the young girls in Willie’s house. She still looked to be in her twenties and lied about her age, but she wasn’t exactly a favorite anymore.