For All Time Page 8

  “T! Not everyone is looking for some grand love affair,” she says with slight exasperation.

  “So you did have an affair with Kouki,” I prod, not willing to give in to her irritation. I don’t have much longer to be the annoying little sister.

  She leans back and draws in a deep breath, exasperated, but when she straightens up, she’s smiling.

  “Remember that weekend I spent in Aspen at the National Med Science Convention?”

  I nod.

  “I had to spend an extra day because of a blizzard.”

  “And?”

  “And I wasn’t snowed in alone.”

  Now the smile on her face cuts from ear to ear, wrinkling her nose and flashing her gums. It’s a smile I haven’t seen in years, one I’d almost forgotten. I want to call this Kouki right now and demand he return so that I can see this smile on her face again and again. It’s a moment, a shining one, and then just like a sun shower in the middle of a drought it fades. Her eyes fall on mine, and surprisingly there’s no regret there, just an easy happiness.

  “Sometimes great things end, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t great. I felt good with our goodbye. I still do.”

  Instinctively, I reach into my pocket, my fingers searching for the phone I just tossed in the trash minutes ago. My heart sinks with regret. I don’t feel good about my goodbye, and I know if I don’t get a chance to talk with Fay again, I won’t ever be. Now would be a great time to play something angry, and I think wistfully of my beat machine and saxophone, both packed up and mailed away this morning. No. This anger I’ll have to sit with for the rest of the day, possibly the rest of forever.

  16 Outside of Baltimore, Maryland, 1924

  TAMAR

  BACH’S CELLO SUITE NO. 1 is the best for when I’m feeling mournful, but I’m not mournful. I’m angry. For that I usually play Schumann’s Fantasiestücke’s third movement, but I dig into my papers and pull out a cello sonata from Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the Negro man who influenced Mozart. The composition is most likely a fake. Most of his original works have been lost, but it still holds a tiny place in my heart. I settle my fingers against the strings and cradle the instrument’s wide body between my thighs. Granny introduced me to the violin, though she called it a fiddle. I upgraded to the cello once I grew a bit older. The cello loves me. The cello never lets me down.

  The notes are a bit shy at first. I neglected her yesterday, and now my friend is jealous. The melody is harsh and unyielding, and the push and pull create something fiery that heats my small compartment to boiling. I don’t dare stop. I don’t dare open the door. I let the strings cry in a way I won’t ever let Daddy see me crumble. I let the strings scream, ripping the air into shreds, wild and untamed and oh so unladylike. My music is not staid or proper, pretty or respectable. It is not for the mother looking for a biddable bride for her son at church or for the son looking for a pretty housekeeper to call his wife. It is adventurous and weighty, loud and boisterous, fuming when it wants to be and despondent when it needs to be. It is unapologetically emotional in a way I am never allowed to be without consequence. My music is a girl who behaves like a boy: flat shoes and comfortable slacks, loudmouthed and ready to take on the world. My music is black in a place where black isn’t an insult: it’s shining, proud, and unworried. I let myself transform into wood and sound and vibration. I play for hours, settling into the rhythm and rock of the train tracks until my hollow stomach spurs me out of my room.

  I walk into the hall and make my way down the empty car to where Daddy is sitting with one of the three newspapers he reads everyday. Our porter, whose name I can’t remember or maybe he’s never said it, is clearing the dishes from lunch. I can see from the leavings that nothing was laid out for me.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Tamar,” the porter says brightly. He’s got straight white teeth and bright eyes framed by wispy lashes that curl up in the corners. He steps back so I can slide past him to sit. It isn’t a tight squeeze. He’s got that lanky frame all the porters have, tall and wiry, except he’s got a little bow to his legs. If my sister was here, she’d have laid herself out on the table as an offering, and if he saw her, he would have definitely obliged. Honey-tongued with a complexion to match, she’s hard to deny.

  “Good afternoon, uh…”

  “Fayard, Miss.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

  “No apologies needed. I’m just glad you didn’t call me George,” he says.

  “Why would I do that?” I ask, genuinely confused.

  “It happens more often than you think. I can’t say why, though,” he replies.

  Daddy clears his throat. “It’s an insult, a holdover from slavery, where the slaves were often called by the name of the slave owner. George Pullman started the railroad company, so many misguided people call his employees by his name, even long after his death.”

  “Do they call the conductors George too?” I ask.

  Daddy barks out a laugh that lets me know what I said was definitely not funny. Fayard’s smile dims a bit but doesn’t fall as he shakes his head. It was a bit of sarcasm, a joke for Fayard’s benefit, but I guess I’m not the comedian I thought I was.

  I look over the plates to see if there’s anything left I can filch for myself. There’s no way I’ll be able to make it to dinner without something to nibble on.

  “The kitchen isn’t closed yet. I can bring you a menu if you’d like to—”

  Daddy intercedes. He’s returned to his newspaper so he doesn’t have to look at me. “That won’t be necessary. We adhere to standard mealtimes in this family. Those who find themselves absent during those times don’t eat.”

  “But, sir, it really is no—”

  “That will be all, Fayard,” Daddy replies, the finality in his voice clear.

  I clench my jaw to keep myself from saying something that could find me back home and under his clutches again. With Mama gone and Patience married off, there’s no one to keep his dislike from boiling over bad enough to burn. Daddy was always mean, even to Mama, but I can feel his grief over her death curdling into something else.

  I glance up at Fayard. The disbelief on his face congeals into something less appropriate. It’s kind that he cares, but this isn’t any of his business.

  “Daddy’s right,” I say. I’m about to go into an explanation with a lie about how I’m not even hungry when another porter bursts into our car.

  “Doctor! We need a doctor! Big Ti—I mean Fayard, excuse me.” He turns to Daddy. “Sir, are you a medical doctor?”

  Daddy puffs out his chest. “Yes, I am.”

  “We’ve got a lady in the colored car. She’s carrying and she just passed out.”

  Daddy hops to. In a blink he’s got his medical bag in hand, and in a flash he’s out the door. And then I’m alone and not alone. I’m alone with a boy.

  17 FAYARD

  I KNOW THERE’S A GOD. Not ’cause Jesus came into my heart all of sudden or I had some revelation. No amount of soapbox preaching could ever get me in a church on a Sunday morning. No, I know there’s a God because my prayers have come true. I’m alone with an angel.

  I clear my throat.

  “Well, Miss Tamar, as your father is not here, might I interest you in some lunch?”

  “Do you often disobey the wishes of your passengers?” she asks.

  “When those wishes are meant to be cruel and mean-spirited, absolutely.”

  “Daddy is not cruel,” she says hesitantly.

  I take a chance and slip into the seat her father has just vacated. I feel a new rhythm of the train beneath me as her eyes fall on me. They flash for just a second, and her pretty lips part as if she’s going to give me the boot, but she doesn’t.

  “Things look different from my side of the table. Any man who denies his daughter a meal can be called strict, maybe even a disciplinarian. Some folks like that sort of thing. I used to go to a Catholic school where they liked to do things like that. But a man
who denies his child two meals in a day when he can afford it is definitely cruel.”

  “You don’t know anything about him,” she says with just a hint of censure, maybe even embarrassment.

  “No, I don’t. I’d rather get to know more about you.”

  “You’re bold,” she says, and her eyebrows rise and fall in a way that suggests she just might like that in a guy.

  “You have no idea.”

  “It’s gonna get you in trouble,” she says. I can’t tell if she really cares or if her comment is just a reflex. She’s wearing a small, sad smile and all I know is that I want to make that smile bigger and brighter.

  I almost don’t make it out of the seat in time when the door slides back open and Uncle Max glides in.

  “Good, you’re still here. Good afternoon, miss,” Uncle Max says, and tips forward a bit in greeting. When he rises, his gaze pins me to the spot like a specimen he’d like to dissect.

  Tamar dips her head to greet him. “Good afternoon.”

  “Did you find the lunch satisfactory?” he inquires politely.

  “I was just about to return to the kitchen for a roast beef sandwich,” I jump in. “Miss Tamar decided to take a later lunch this afternoon.”

  Uncle Max frowns and pulls out his pocket watch to check the time, even though he knows exactly what time it is. I bet his heart beats in rhythm to the thing. Our eyes lock for a second before the air in his chest deflates. I know then that he’s going to let the matter drop, and the relief feels like a cool breeze.

  “You’d better get a move on, then,” he says, and starts to place the remaining dishes on the service cart. “Lunch service ends in fifteen minutes. I’ll help you with the cart.”

  * * *

  With the cart stowed away and Charles working on the sandwich, Uncle Max takes the opportunity to lay into me, but not because I stole Sharp’s gig.

  “So, I hear you’re runnin’ game on my train,” he says, voice low, his eyes narrow and calculating.

  I try my damnedest to look shocked.

  “Uncle Max, you know me. I wouldn’t—”

  “You would. You most definitely would, and I’m telling you to shut it down and shut it down now!” he growls. His finger is digging into my breastbone, and it’s taking everything for me not to punch a hole in his chest.

  “They pulled Coleman off at the last stop. Said he was lifting from the kitchens. Now, we haven’t even restocked. How’d they know he was lifting?” he asks.

  It sounds like a question I’m not supposed to answer, but he waits, so I shake my head.

  “There’s a spy on this train,” he whispers.

  It goes quiet, and I realize the normal trash talk that goes on in the kitchen has disappeared.

  “I need everything on this run to be perfect! And I mean spit-shined! I know I’ve made my promises, but if you cost me my job, boy…,” he growls.

  His lip starts to quiver, and there’s a tick in his jaw as he looks at me up and down as if I’m for sale. He balls his hand into a fist and puts some distance between us before taking a deep breath. He then straightens his jacket and begins to head out of the kitchen, fully composed, as if this conversation didn’t even happen.

  “And I best not hear a word of fault from that doctor about you pushin’ up on his daughter!” he adds, his voice trailing off under the rumble of the train.

  Old Uncle Max. I didn’t think he had a good threat in him, but I’ve gotta say, I’m almost scared.

  Almost.

  “You best listen to your uncle,” Tall Jack says as he slices two oranges into quarters for the tray.

  “You best mind your business. I’m fine,” I huff.

  “Yeah, you say that,” he adds. “You seen Spark yet?”

  I shake my head.

  “Man’s been looking for you. Say you owe him for his hit on the bolita.”

  I cock my head to the side and bark out a laugh. The bolita is the last two digits of the lottery number. It doesn’t get you the full pot, but it does earn you a little something. “Spark didn’t put in on the bolita,” I reply.

  “So you say. He says different.”

  “There were at least ten other guys puttin’ in when he did. He didn’t hit. Nobody did,” I add. I don’t like liars, especially ones who waste my time.

  “Again, so you say. Maybe they remember, maybe they don’t,” he says lightly.

  I’ve had enough. “Just gimme my tray.”

  I wipe a finger smudge from the side and add an extra cloth napkin so that it drapes under the carafe of iced tea.

  Tall Jack whistles. “She must be pretty,” he says.

  “She must be one of the Whitman sisters with the polish he puttin’ on that tray,” Benny T pipes in.

  The guys bust out laughing as I slide out the door. If they’d seen her, they wouldn’t be laughing.

  I turn my back on them. The more time I stay in the kitchen, the less time I have to spend with Tamar.

  18 FAYARD

  TAMAR PUSHES THE SAUCER OF lemon cookies I brought for her toward me. It’s cut to resemble an upturned flower—a rose, maybe. It’s so thin it rattles a little on the tray but falls silent after a moment. My pleased reflection beams back at me from the polished table. Everything gleams here. From the wine-colored velvet bench seats to the chandeliers that hang in the private cars. Even the towels are embroidered with silk thread. I hadn’t spotted that before.

  “What?” she asks.

  “I was just noticing how this suits you. The train, I mean.” I bite back the compliment, not wanting to offend her.

  “You’re new. How do you like being a porter?” she asks, changing the topic of conversation.

  “I’m not sure yet. It’s very different from my last job. But I hear the work is steady, and it beats the steel mill. Even if I decide to stick with it, it won’t be permanent,” I say.

  “Why not? What did you do before?” she prods, genuinely interested.

  “I ran numbers,” I admit. There’s no sense in lying to her about who I am. Besides, it’s clean work, and the only people who don’t think so are the folks who want you to wash their drawers for a nickel and be proud about it.

  She chokes a bit on her sandwich at my admission and I pour her a bit more tea from the carafe.

  “Oh my. Went down the wrong pipe,” she says quickly. Her voice is laced with a laugh but still harsh and ragged. She’s got a smile on her face. “Do you think that’s something you should be telling people?”

  “I’m not telling people. I’m telling you. You’ve got an honest face,” I say. She doesn’t seem like the type of girl who judges people, but I could be wrong.

  She sits up a bit and straightens her back like the class pet on the first day of school. “Actually, I lie quite convincingly.”

  “Really?” I say, fighting the urge to smile.

  “Yes. For example, I was only being polite when I asked you to sit for lunch. I didn’t think you would accept the invitation, given our obvious difference in position,” she says in a level tone, her face inscrutable. There is a slight smile, but it’s the same smile the milkman gives you when he’s making his rounds: impersonal.

  I fidget a bit trying to find the hint of a joke on her face, but I can’t find one. In a last-ditch effort, I start to laugh, waiting for her to join me, but she doesn’t. Her smile remains polite and unreadable. My face heats up and my skin starts to feel too tight, like the hair on my arms can transmit the electricity in the air. How could I be this stupid?

  “My apologies, Miss Williams. I’ve been, uh… My apologies,” I say as I move to slide out of my place at the table. I keep my eyes down, trying to look anywhere but at her face. When she places her petal-soft hand on mine, I’m forced to look up. Tears are in her eyes, and a silent laugh is choking its way out of her throat.

  “I got you so good.”

  I nearly fall backward into the seat with relief.

  “Damn, you’re good. Oh, I mean… darn. Forgive m
y language,” I add with a slight sigh. I need to try harder not to slip up when I speak.

  “No, no, curse all you want. I prefer it. People choose their words too carefully around me and I hate it.”

  “You really are a good liar,” I say in disbelief.

  “I know. I’ve had lots of practice. Are you the brutally honest type?” she asks.

  “My job required it. On the street, you’re nothing without your word. People play their last dime for a chance at a win. You can’t play games with people’s dreams. They got to know that if they tell you a number, you gonna be straight with them and bring them their payout. Any runner can lie and say they don’t remember what you told them, keep the money themselves. But then you’re taking food out of babies’ mouths, rent from some poor mother whose old man left her. People are real funny about who they trust. They should be. There are a lot of sharks out there.”

  “So you’d rather be a dream maker than a shark?”

  “I would. As long as the money is good,” I reply.

  “Money isn’t everything,” she says.

  “Sounds like something somebody who’s always had it would say,” I add, trying to keep the judgment out of my voice.

  She frowns and looks out the window at the cornfields whipping by. “I don’t have money. My father has money,” she says, like her father is a stranger she’s spouting facts about.

  “Don’t daddies spend the bulk of their money on their daughters? I’ve only met a few who didn’t, and they were garbage in a hundred ways than that.”

  “Let’s not talk about fathers,” she says quietly.

  Her mouth is set in a line, and I’m missing the smile on her face from a few minutes ago. “Sure. Tell me where you’re headed. Got a fella in Atlanta?”

  “Do you know what Morehouse is?” she asks.

  “Tell me,” I say, more for the need to hear her voice and watch her lips move than for the information.