The House of Eve (72)
“Or at least they didn’t get caught.” She exhaled. “Rucker doesn’t live in our school district, but they accepted him because he plays basketball really well. Last year, he took our team to the state championship. All the girls liked him, but he picked me, captain of the cheerleading team.”
I could totally picture Loretta at the top of the pyramid, in a short skirt, her cheeks rosy.
“My mother was already mad as a wet hen that I had the nerve to take up with the darkest-skinned boy in school. She was so furious that she had refused to let me go to the prom with him. Rucker had sent his high yellow friend Harold to pick me up, otherwise she wouldn’t have let me out the house.” Loretta’s face pinched at the memory. “Months later when she found out that I had been with Rucker and that this was his”—she pointed to her belly—“she cried and locked herself in her room. The next day she told me to take her to him. My mother took one look at where Rucker lived, on the outskirts of town in a shotgun house, and turned the car around without even knocking on the door. Two days later, she told my daddy I had been awarded an internship in Washington, D.C. Then she brought me here. Said that I was to do as I was told, and when I returned home everything would go back to normal.”
Funny we were both in D.C. under the guise of prestigious internships, and that we had both fooled around with a boy from the opposite side of the tracks. “Maybe his letter got lost in transition,” I tried, but she just shook her head.
“On the drive up here, my mother told me to forget about Rucker. To get this done with so that I could focus on getting into Spelman College, just like her. They wouldn’t even consider my application if they got wind of this whole mess.” Loretta chewed on her fingernail. We were both quiet for a while and then she asked, “Is your guy still waiting for you?”
“Maybe, but it’s definitely over.”
“You love him?”
I nodded. “But it’s complicated. My guy is more like you and I’m Rucker.”
Loretta scratched the side of her ankle with the toe of the opposite foot. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I told Loretta about my time with Shimmy, how we met, fell hard for each other, and that it was his Jewish mother who brought me to the Gingerbread House and forbade me to see him again.
“A white Jewish boy?” Her bright eyes widened. “Girly! What did your mother say?”
My skin prickled. “We aren’t close.” I looked away, hoping she wouldn’t pry.
“Shimmy’s mom made me a deal. I come here, and she would ensure a full scholarship to Cheyney. I wouldn’t be able to go otherwise. My folks can’t afford it,” I said in a way that suggested that I had two parents and a family like her.
“At least you get something out of it.” Loretta hugged her pillow to her chest. I wasn’t sure if she was feeling sad for me or herself. Then I remembered the stamps that Shimmy gave me. I had no intention of writing to him; Mrs. Shapiro had made clear what would happen if I did. I reached into my bag and passed the sheet of three-cent stamps to Loretta.
“Maybe you should try to write him one more time. I’m collecting the next batch of letters by dinner. If he doesn’t answer this last letter, then move on.”
Loretta took the stamps and pulled a pad from under her cot, dried her eyes. “Thank you, Ruby. I’ll give him one last try.”
“That’s it and nothing more.” I patted her thigh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT EXPECTANT MOTHER
Eleanor
Eleanor gingerly ran her fingertips across the calendar that she kept in her top drawer. Today would have marked six months of pregnancy. Her feelings of loss still blistered, raw and tender. Although she had stopped crossing off days, she still kept track of the stages of pregnancy by reading the book Expectant Mother nightly.
She placed the calendar back in her drawer and then walked into her bathroom to prepare for another day. Bags had formed under her eyes, and as she stood in front of the mirror, she wished that her body had the decency to allow her to sleep. Eleanor woke up every morning around three to use the bathroom, despite no longer having a fetus resting on her bladder. Maybe her body was still adjusting, or she was experiencing phantom symptoms.
After splashing warm water on her face, she padded down the hall to her prayer closet for her morning ritual. Now when she put on her choir robe for daily devotion, it was for the baby that would be born of someone else’s womb. On the floor of the closet, Eleanor went through her routine, but lately her heart hadn’t been in it. When she raised up off her knees, she felt herself agonizing over if they’d be able to pull this off, and the thought of another woman carrying the child that she could not.
All that Mother Margaret disclosed about the young woman was that she was from a good family, that the girl was educated, pretty and unwed. As she moved down the steps to the kitchen, it wasn’t lost on Eleanor that if she had carried that first baby to term in high school, she could have been on the other end of this, turning her child over to a married couple who couldn’t give birth. She did feel grateful to be on the receiving end.
Eleanor set a pot of water to boil on the stove for her morning eggs. As she watched the water simmer and then bubble, she thought again about William’s ability to love a child that wasn’t genetically his. In the nearly two years she had known them, the Prides had always made such fanfare about their long lineage of educated, well-off, well-connected, light-skinned Negroes that she had a hard time believing that William and Rose could truly accept their bloodline ending because of her. Well, at least they had Theodore and his perfect fiancée. They’d probably have a baby without any problems.