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  “It is the premier men’s college for Negro scholars. Founded in 1867, it is responsible for more Negro doctors, lawyers, and theologians than any other institution.”

  “La-di-da,” I reply in an airy tone.

  Her words stir something deep inside, and a memory floats to my consciousness. Mama’s face appears before my eyes. She’s weak, but she could still walk then. I’d just won the recitation contest for my class. I was thirteen and no one clapped harder than she did. Mr. Loudermilk had told her I was his brightest student. He suggested an alternate course of study to prepare me for college. He even offered to find me a sponsor because “a mind like his should not be wasted.” A week later Mama collapsed on the way home from the market. Two weeks after that I went to work for Fats.

  Tamar’s voice slices through my memory as she peels the rind from an orange slice and pops the flesh into her mouth. “You don’t seem impressed.”

  “I’m not. Is this where you’re husband fishing? The smoking lobby of some sissy college where they recite Plutarch and Lord Byron after tea,” I say, trying hard to cover a kernel of jealousy with heaps of disdain.

  She gives me a funny look. Surprise? Irritation?

  “Plutarch, huh? And you said you didn’t know what Morehouse was.”

  “Didn’t say that. I just told you to tell me more. I like to hear you talk.”

  She draws a deep breath in and holds it, eyes pinning me to the spot, but then she blows it out slow and wiggles in her seat a bit, her private thoughts a mystery to me.

  “Who said that I was going there to find a husband? I may not marry at all. No, I’m going to Atlanta to attend an all-girls’ school, Spelman College.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Why would a woman need college?” I ask, amazed.

  “To be a teacher. To be a doctor. To be whatever she chooses besides a wife and mother.” Her nose wrinkles a bit as she stabs a strawberry with her fork.

  I hold up both my hands in surrender. “I don’t mean to offend. It’s just most girls I know can’t wait to get married. If I had my choice, I’d love to be a girl. I wouldn’t have to worry about nothing but staying pretty and finding some sick dope to take care of me.”

  “You’d rather be told where to live, where to go, and what to do your entire life?” she asks, incredulously. “You would trade your freedom for a life of servitude and imprisonment, where your father and then your husband will be in charge of everything—from how much money you can spend on groceries for the week to what color dress you’re allowed to wear to church on Sunday?” She tilts her head, waiting for me to respond.

  “All a decent woman needs to worry about is how to make good cornbread and where to find decent cigars,” I reply. “You’d rather wonder where your next meal was coming from? You’d rather break your back on the docks for bread or troll the streets doin’ everything the devil likes doin’ just so the lights stay on at home?” I add. “No, you want to get your head cracked open in a card game some night ’cause a fella don’t like how you looked at him. A wife isn’t a prisoner; she’s a refuge. A mother ain’t a slave; she’s a saint. Men make it possible for girls like you to keep they souls clean,” I say, memories of my past rising to the surface.

  “Oh, sing me the song of the virtuous woman!” she cries with passion. “I’m not most girls. I won’t have my life defined by a man. I’d rather be free,” she says defiantly, and then finishes her sandwich in three quick bites. Gotta love a girl with a healthy appetite.

  “To be a doctor?”

  “Uh, no,” she says. “There are very few Negro women doctors. Even Daddy has trouble retaining work… at times. There aren’t that many colored hospitals, and if it weren’t for Grandmother Dawson, he might never have gotten placed at Mercy. I don’t want that kind of uncertainty. I could be anything.”

  At that I have to chuckle. “Anything? Girl, nobody gets to choose anything. Life doesn’t work that way. I think your pretty surroundings and that full belly got you a little blind to the real world. In the real world, a colored boy has three choices. One: scrape for white folks for big money, like the post office or what I’m doin’ now. I got a boss who might as well be my master, and if I don’t smile, I don’t have a job. Two: scrape for white folks for little money—that’s all the folks in the mills or on the docks breaking they back every day. And there’s three: do for yourself with a little hustle and probably get killed in the doing.”

  “That’s just not true,” she says, and starts in on the work of that Randolph guy trying to start a union with the porters, then something else I can’t catch.

  “Do you have to stare at me so?” she asks, a bit flustered. Tamar blinks hard and turns her head to the window again.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was staring. I’m just listening. Really.” She turns back to face me.

  I’m lying. I’m half listening. I’m so taken by the way this tiny hidden dimple appears and disappears when she smiles real wide, how her lashes curl back on themselves, fluttering like bird wings when she’s excited. Even when she’s irritated, she’s beautiful, maybe more so. She’s got some funny ideas about men and women, but I can’t begrudge her a dream. Fats says all the women have been dreaming a bit high for themselves since the war.

  “You’re not listening at all,” she says, calling my bluff.

  “I am,” I say, forcing myself to pay attention to her words and not her mouth.

  “Then what did I just say?”

  “Uh-uh…,” I stammer.

  “Exactly, you’re just like…” She’s scrambling to find the right word.

  “Your last boyfriend,” I finish for her.

  Her head snaps back in surprise. I’m finding I like to surprise her.

  “I-I’ve never had a boyfriend, not that it’s any of your business,” she replies tersely.

  “Daddy keeps tight control, then?” I ask.

  “Daddy doesn’t run my life. I already told you that. Have you considered that there is no one I’ve found to be worth my time?”

  “I have. I just thought it would be hard to turn down proposals from every man you meet. A girl as beautiful as you? I’m surprised you make it home every day,” I say, trying to sound sincere instead of unsavory.

  She laughs. “I enjoy compliments just like anybody else, but you’re being a bit ridiculous.”

  “No, I’m not. Skin smooth as velvet and dark as twilight. Smile as bright as fresh snow. Hair—I haven’t gotten a chance to touch, but I assume it’s soft, too. Not to mention…” I let my fingers follow the outline of her body from shoulder to hip to thigh.

  “Now you’re making fun of me?” she says, hurt.

  “What? I’m not!” I backpedal, trying to figure out what I said wrong.

  She slides her plate across the table and stands in a rush to get out of her seat. “Mr. Fayard, I think I am quite full,” she says formally, and snatches a book she’d set to the side of her that I hadn’t noticed: There Is Confusion by Jessie Redmon Fauset.

  “I—I apologize, Tam—” She fixes me with an icy glare, her fingers nearly vibrating with rage. “Miss Tamar. I am sorry if I offended you.”

  “Thank you for lunch. I’m retiring for the day. Please allow my father to make my dinner request.”

  And with that she’s gone.

  Stupid. I pushed too hard, and now I don’t know what I said.

  I jump up and rush the few steps it takes to knock softly on her door.

  “Miss Tamar?”

  Nothing.

  “Miss Tamar?”

  “Go away. I am reading and wish not to be disturbed. Isn’t it your job to follow orders?” she snaps.

  The way she says “job” stings in a place I usually don’t allow people to reach. Light spills from under the frame, and I can see she’s standing on the other side, my mirror image.

  “Please see that this is dropped in the post,” she says, so quietly I’m not sure I hear her correctly, until she slides an envelope un
der the door frame. Her feet disappear.

  I’ve been dismissed. Discounted. I want to knock again, plead my case, but I can’t.

  In the space of a breath, there is her father, returned from his work, dishes that must be removed, and a smile that I can’t let fade.

  19 TAMAR

  DADDY SLICES INTO HIS STEAK; blood and buttery fat pool on the plate. It looks delicious. I play with my spoon, moving it around the broth he’s ordered for me, as if I’m an octogenarian who can’t chew her food any longer. He’s trying to pick a fight. I’m ornery when I’m hungry and he knows it.

  A picture of Patience flashes in my mind, cutting Daddy’s steak before dinner, and a pang of regret hits me in my chest. He’s smiling up at her, no doubt seeing Mama’s face reflected back at him: heart-shaped, the color of coffee that’s more cream than anything else, albeit a bit pimply. I should have paid more attention to how she played him. I should have checked her the times she called me tar baby when she was mad, and then forgiven her right after instead of letting that wall grow thick as blackberry vines between us. There were things she could have taught me, things I needed to learn about how to be a girl in this world full of men who want to control you.

  There was one time—Mama was sick by then, getting sicker by the day—that Daddy had gotten so bad he’d started sniping at Patience, too.

  “Do you like boys?” she asked me later that day.

  We were doing the laundry, placing the sheets on the line the way Granny showed us so that we didn’t waste any space: pin left, pin right, smooth and pull.

  “Course I like boys. I guess. Just don’t have much time for ’em,” I said, keeping my real feelings close.

  “I mean, you never had a sweetheart, and you’re almost seventeen now.”

  “So? I’ve been busy. Why do you care anyway?” I asked, irritation lacing my words.

  “I don’t care. Just curious is all. Mama’s gettin’ sicker and Peter’s gonna ask me to marry him. I won’t be here anymore, and you’ll be in the house all alone with Daddy,” she said, like it was a to-do list instead of our future.

  Until that moment I’d thought she might adore Daddy as much as he adored her, but she looked at me straight on, letting the truth fill the gaps in our voices.

  “If you not thinking about marriage, it might be good for you to talk to Mama about college.”

  “What’s Mama gonna do?”

  “Mama can make things happen in her own way. It may not be your way, but it works just the same.”

  The conversation ended and we never talked about it again. A week later Peter proposed and Mama made Daddy promise to pay my way through Spelman. I didn’t give Patience enough credit then. I do now.

  “Nutrition! Medical intervention would hardly be necessary if these people would follow simple commonsense guidelines to eating and basic care. It all comes down to the correct amount of vitamins and minerals that are essential to a proper diet. Lean meats and good milk. Fresh vegetables, not all of that fatback and collard greens soaked in pig grease,” Daddy rambles.

  He’s excited, vacillating between moods, irritated one moment, energized the next. He’s been useful today. Anyone would think we were having the loveliest of dinners, but he’s not really talking to me—he’s talking to my sister’s substitute.

  “Daddy?” I lace my voice with honey like Patience would. “What was it like in the main car?”

  His eyes flick up from his steak and then back to his plate.

  He grunts as if he’s just realized I’m his sole dinner companion. “Claustrophobic. Odious. Filled to every corner with people talking too loudly or playing cards or checkers. Hardly anyone could be found in serious study of a book of some kind.”

  “Was there any music?” I ask, trying my luck.

  His jaw works harder to chew the bit of meat in his mouth, as if my question has somehow made the steak harder, less yielding to his machinations. He swallows and takes a sip of water. His eyes find me again, lingering longer than before, but still less than a few seconds. I have to wonder if he’s afraid of seeing himself reflected back at him or his mother.

  “Someone had a harmonica. Another a fiddle,” he adds.

  “Did they crack open a window to let the devil out?” I say, and laugh.

  It’s one of Granny Lou Ann’s old sayings. Even in the dead of winter she’d leave the door open in her place. She said too much of a good time could seep into your bones and make you turn away from work if you didn’t let a little out. The corner of his mouth twitches upward, but it doesn’t last. In fact, it backfires.

  “Why are you suddenly so talkative?” he asks.

  “I was just interested in your day. I’ve been cooped up in this car with no one to talk to,” I reply. Which is partly true.

  “Cooped up. Hmm.” He considers the phrase but doesn’t say anything else.

  “I was thinking that there might be people that I could talk to in the main car. There might be some other girls traveling as I am.”

  “No.” He bites off the word.

  “But—”

  “I said no. You’ll stay right here in this car until we arrive in Charlotte.”

  “Charlotte? But we’re going to Atlanta,” I say, confused. What would he want to do in Charlotte?

  “I’ve had a change of heart. I’ve received a wire from an old classmate to look out for a gentleman on our trip, a graduate from Allen University who is pursuing the medical field after a study of theology. We had a chance to meet in the main car. He has invited us to stay as guests at his home for a day or two. He was a great help to me as I tended to the woman.”

  “But classes start in a week. Why would we take time out of our traveling schedule to have dinner with strangers?”

  “No brother Alpha is a stranger. Besides, he says that he has a sister that you might get on with, not to mention his mother. She’s ailing and is in need of care; I’m sure you could help in that regard,” he replies.

  My stomach is in knots. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I can’t, but I can. I just never thought he’d stoop this low. I am so foolish. So completely naive. Any man who would disown his own mother would do anything to make his life easier.

  “You’re marrying me off,” I say in disbelief.

  “Now, now. Don’t get yourself into a tizzy. No one said anything about marriage. This is just a meeting. If you find that you and this boy suit, that would be a happy coincidence,” he says, like we’re discussing the weather and not the fact that he’s sealed my fate without even consulting me.

  “Will I have any say in the matter? Would I be able to pursue my schooling? My music?” I ask, the fury and pain building inside me.

  “No matter what you do, you can always pursue your music. There is a great need in the community for accomplished classical music instructors,” he says.

  My head swims, and every cell in my body is vibrating. I can feel the strands of hair on my head standing at attention. My heart burns with the effort of beating double time. This was a trap. He had no intention of keeping his promise to Mama.

  “No.” It comes out small at first, but the force of it grows within me and I have to say it again. “No!” I roar. I slam my fist on the table, rattling the plates and dishes so much that the carafe of water tips and spills onto the floor.

  “I will not marry a man I’ve never seen. I will… I won’t go! I’ll stay on myself and continue to Atlanta on my own,” I say, trying to control the tremble in my voice.

  “How dare you speak to me in that manner,” he growls. “You will do as I say and when I say it.” His voice is low, the anger snipping at the ends of his consonants.

  “I have my own mind. I will make my own decisions. I’m no longer a child. You don’t speak for me!” My voice is at shrieking level now. I’ve lost all control of it.

  He coughs, his version of a laugh, and rises to meet me nose to nose. “I speak for you and every woman in this family,” he says, his measured voice full o
f venom. “You have no status. You have no money. Your name is not even your own; it is mine. You should be grateful that any decent man would want you as his prize.” He puffs out a breath. “Do you think your music will earn you a husband?” he asks, incredulously.

  I don’t feel myself doing it; it just happens. My hands, my arms, have minds of their own. In their rage, they pick up the glass on the table and douse Daddy in a shower of iced tea.

  He’s slapped me before, for back talk and sass, but never this hard. My teeth rattle and I can taste blood in my mouth, metallic and sharp. His fingers dig into my scalp as he grabs my hair.

  My mouth is open in a small scream when the sliding car door opens. Every ugly thing about us, about me, is exposed.

  My eyes lock on Fayard’s for just a moment, a moment of relief that is crushed when Mr. Max quickly slides the door closed as if they’ve seen nothing at all.

  20 Columbia, South Carolina, Present Day

  FAYARD

  I WAKE WITH A JOLT and get that sinking feeling, like I’ve just stepped off a platform that was too high without realizing it. I was dreaming again. It’s happening more often now, but this is the first time it’s happened during the day. I yawn loudly and check my watch to make sure I haven’t lost too much time. A kid in a stroller in the food court gives me the evil eye. I slide out of the seat and stretch hard. It feels like I’ve been asleep for years, even though it’s been only a few minutes.

  Plan A involved romance, the big show with the band and a ring and an audience. But after running into Aabidah, I had to be honest with myself. Does Tamar want to be the center of attention right now? Did I ask? No. It’s what I want. I want the whole world to know how I feel, but really the only person who needs to know is Tamar, so on to plan B: saying goodbye.

  I buy the cheapest ticket out of the same terminal as T’s flight just so I can get through security and hope against hope that I beat her to the gate to say goodbye. I’m relieved to find that there are a few seats left open for waiting passengers, but she hasn’t made it yet. I settle in to wait. Keeping a watchful eye on everyone in the walkway.