Excerpt - Blues from Down Deep

Chapter one

 Regina Pearson had everything a forty-year-old woman could want. Everything, that is, except a feeling that she belonged to someone or in some place. That she was an intrinsic part of a warm, loving family. When she looked at the people and the place she’d known all of her life, she didn’t think: I’m a part of this; it’s me; it’s who I am. Even the sunshine that greeted her every morning and the ever-present scent of the tropical blooms the world loved seemed to her a foreign thing, and it always had. It didn’t mean to her what it meant to the people she knew best–the Native Hawaiians. Many of them worshiped the sun as a deity,just as they paid homage to Kanaloa, God of eternal hope and happiness, but Papa had admonished her that that was a form of paganism. It wasn’t her place, and the people around her were not her people. But they were all she had.

She sat with her best friend, Kalani-whose ancestors had lived for centuries on the island of Oahu-in her late father’s bedroom sorting out his belongings. Kalani didn’t think it proper to wade through a dead persons private dreams, goals, personal successes and failures and told Regina as much.

"It’s Papa’s wish, Kalani." Just one more of the numerous cultural differences between herself and the Hawaiian people with whom she had lived all of her life. Mainlanders tended not to socialize with the Native Hawaiians, though her father had intentionally settled among them.

"What about your people? None of them came to the burial." Kalani’s people didn’t have funerals.

"Papa never told me anything about his family or his life," she said, "just that he came from the southern part of the United States and never wanted to see the place again. I don’t even know why he left there and settled here." She hadn’t even known of her father’s considerable wealth; they certainly had not lived as people of means, and he never spoke to her of his finances. It surprised her that his will made her a wealthy woman.

"Didn’t he leave some relatives on the mainland?" Kalani asked her. "What about your mother, if you don’t mind my asking?"

"She died when I was two, and he never talked about her. If I mentioned her, he’d just look off in space and act like he didn’t hear me. I guess it hurt him to talk about her. When I would ask him about our kinfolk, he’d say we didn’t have any. Watching television and seeing African Americans on the screen, I used to wonder if any of them were related to me."

"Why? You can’t like what you see of them on TV and read in the papers; most of the time, they seem to be doing something bad."

"I know. Or stupid like in those sitcoms. Papa always said the media likes to show us in a bad light, and that’s as far as he would go on the subject. You know, Kalani, I’ll be forty April 26, and I don’t know hardly anything about myself. I wish I had some relatives, some people who look like me and who care about me. I’m tired of feeling like a freak."

Kalani tied a piece of cord around a box of clothing, and marked it for the Senior center. "Regina, we don’t see you that way. Besides, there are African Americans living in Honolulu and a lot of them visit here."

"Right. One in every two-hundred thousand, and they don’t go to my school, my community center, the local library and the other places I go."

"It’s too bad you didn’t insist on some answers from your dad. What are you going to do now?"

"I’ll get to that when I finish with… Look at this, will you?"

Kalani rushed to her. "What? What’s that?"

"It’s an envelope from somebody named Maude Witherspoon addressed to my mother, and it’s dated the year before I was born. I can’t make out the month and day. New Bern, North Carolina? Never heard of the place."

"What does it say?"

She pushed back the envelop flap. "Nothing. There’s no letter inside." Although she fixed a smile on her face, she couldn’t hide from her friend the sudden depression that spread over her.

Sensing Regina’s dampened mood, Kalani tried to cheer her. "Regina, why don’t you come to my family’s party next week? It’s our family reunion, and you’ll meet people from the states, Canada, Sweden, Japan and a lot of other places as well as Hawaii. We always have a luau, a Japanese tea ceremony, and a Texas barbecue. You’ll enjoy it, and maybe it will pull you out of the dumps."

How was the company of a hundred strangers supposed to make her feel better? The local customs dictated that she accept, so she thanked her friend and prepared herself for another experience of isolation in the midst of a crowd.

They lugged a dozen boxes to Kalani’s old station wagon, and left them at the senior center. "You should have buried your father’s precious things along with him," Kalani said, " "but you didn’t, so you should burn them."

"I have to do exactly what he asked me to do," Regina said, aware that she was contravening a sacred custom of Kalani’s people. "My father didn’t believe in wasting anything. He wanted poor people to have whatever I can’t use."

They said goodbye, and Regina headed for her own apartment on Huauni Place, taking the long route along Diamond Head Road in the direction of Diamond Head, the 761 foot peak that dominated the Oahu Island skyline before the advent of skyscraper hotels and which hovered above an extinct volcanic crater that was the site of an ancient Hawaiian burial ground. Diamond Head was the one thing, other than the Pacific Ocean, that she liked about Honolulu. She could count on it; after thousands of years in that spot, it never changed, and when she looked out of her kitchen window, she knew it would stand there, gazing at the Pacific’s enormous waves and swirling foam.

"Mustn’t get sentimental about the Pacific," she told herself, remembering that it took her mother.

Several days later, primed for a Hawaiian family reunion, she reached number 22 Kahoaa Street in heightened spirits, although she did not relish the company of so many people who were likely to wonder about her presence among them. She couldn’t know that that April day would mark a turning point in her life, that the warmth, love and friendliness with which Kalani’s scores of relatives greeted her would motivate her to find her own family.

"Sorry to hear about Miles." She swung around, knowing who she would see. "He had a rough time of it," Ken Pahoa, her former lover, a Native Hawaiian said of her father, "so we shouldn’t begrudge him his rest. What are your plans?"

"I haven’t made any yet."

"I suppose now you’re sorry you walked out on me. If you want to come back, we’ll have to have some ground rules. For one, you’ll accept that I’m head of the house and do as I say."

She laughed aloud. Not in amusement, but as a cleansing emotion that seemed to scrape itself from the bowels of her being. He grabbed her shoulders, but still she laughed.

"You’re hysterical," he growled. "Cut it out. I don’t see anything funny."

She brought herself under control. "I do. I left you because I couldn’t tolerate living with you any longer. What do you think changed in a month’s time? And I was laughing at myself for having been such a nitwit. Trust me, not having a man in my life is a blessed state compared to what it was with you the past months." Oh, how sweet it was to know she’d shaken his self-assurance, that she’d punched a hole in his ego. "I need you the way a car needs a flat tire."

His mouth twisted in anger, but she didn’t care. He hadn’t believed her when she told him he was out of her life for good.

"I hope you and Ken aren’t planning to get back together," Kalani said later, as they leaned against a bougainvillea tree, inhaling the scent of freshly mowed grass and sipping cold coconut milk.

"Not a chance. That’s all behind me now. I’ve had my fill of men–two of them as lovers, and my papa was no prize."

Kalani didn’t question her about that; asking personal questions wasn’t the way of her people. Instead, her raised eyebrow showed her bafflement.

"You don’t know how fortunate you are. A hundred and thirty some relatives all around you, embracing, swapping jokes, telling tales about each other and reminiscing about those who are absent. I’ve never had any of that. You know your background, your culture and where you fit in…" She waved her right hand…"among these people. You know who you are, but I can only guess at who I am."

"Please don’t be sad. With my family here, we’re supposed to be merrymaking."

Regina looked toward the vast Pacific. "I’m not one bit sad. I realize I’ve been making up my mind to leave Honolulu. Tomorrow, I’m going to begin searching for Maude Witherspoon. I want to know what it’s like to be a member of a family. If she knew my mother, she may know my mother’s relatives."

"But Regina, you said the envelope was postmarked more than forty years ago."

"When my mother got that letter, she was twenty-one years old, so some of her relatives are still living. I’m going to find them. I have to. You don’t know what it’s like to be alone. There are people around me, yes, but they don’t know who I am, and they don’t show me who they are. If you look at it closely, you’ll see that around here, I’m really a nobody."

 

#

 

From that day, Regina’s search occupied her mind every minute of her waking hours, interfering with concentration on her work as a publicist and event planner for Hawaii’s Mt. Royal Hotels. Hours of searching on the internet yielded no clues as to the whereabouts of Maude Witherspoon.

One afternoon, not long after Regina’s father died, Kalani stared at the Pacific from a window in Regina’s office at Oahu Royal Hotel and spoke with her back to Regina, a signal that her words would not bring pleasure."She may not be living. Maybe you just have to accept that you’re not going to find her. Anything can happen to a person in forty years."

"I can’t give up. She’s the only thread I have. I wrote the Chamber of Commerce, but haven’t gotten an answer. I may have to hire a lawyer or somebody in New Bern to look for her if I don’t find her in one of those 1990 census tract volumes I ordered through the university."

"Did you try the phone company?"

Regina looked to the ceiling as she had so often seen her father do when nonplussed. "First thing. `Please speak the address clearly’ was the reply I got from that digital operator. I hate those recordings. I don’t have an address, but tell that to the recorded voice."

She despaired of waiting for the census tract records, sent to New Bern for some newspapers and began searching them for a legal representative. Weeks passed, but she made no progress. Mountains that she couldn’t climb, rivers she couldn’t cross–insurmountable objects impeding her flight from danger–plagued her in her dreams, and she awakened night after night panting and soaked with perspiration. When a reply arrived from the Chamber of Commerce, she ripped open the letter in frenzied anticipation, only to yield to exasperation when she saw that it contained only a brochure.

But Regina refused to give up. Perusing the brochure, she found a telephone number, dialed it and stated her problem.

"Lots of Witherspoons around here," the woman in New Bern said. "One of them used to be a blues singer. She’s famous, but I can’t think of her name right now. Wait a minute. Maybe one of the colored women in here knows her."

Regina’s breath hung in her throat as she waited for what seemed like hours, but couldn’t have been more than two minutes.

"You’re looking for Maude van der Kaa," the woman said and gave Regina the address. "I wish you luck."

She hung up, reached for the receiver to dial the New Bern telephone operator and immediately withdrew her hand. She couldn’t risk causing the woman to have a heart attack, and a phone call might net her a snap judgment rejection. She wrote and rewrote a letter explaining who she was and inquiring as to the woman’s relationship to her mother. Finally, certain that she would probably never hear from Maude van der Kaa, she mailed it and returned to the unpleasant task of sorting out her parents’ effects. Her father hadn’t disposed of her mother’s personal things but had locked them in a steamer trunk and stored it in a crib beside the house.

It was a Saturday morning in late May when her gaze landed on a packet of papers enclosed in a plastic envelope and tied with browned string. She knew at once that the papers contained something of value to her and struggled with trembling fingers to untie the tightly knotted cord. Finally, she saw her mother’s handwriting in love letters to her father and then, a certificate of marriage naming Miles Pearson and Louise Witherspoon as the celebrants. She nearly choked on her breath as the realization hit her that the Witherspoons of New Bern were her mother’s relatives. She hadn’t known her mother’s maiden name, because she had learned as a small child that any questions to her father about her mother caused him to withdraw from her. As the years passed, she stopped asking questions.

Tears pooled in her lap as she stared at the treasure in her hands. She accepted them as tears of joy for having discovered something important about herself and of sadness because she knew no one who would understand what she felt. Still, she had a sense of relief that she no longer depended on an answer from Maude van der Kaa as the means of finding her family.

She ordered copies of more recent issues of New Bern’s daily and weekly newspapers and searched them for job possibilities, reasoning that nothing prevented her going there for a visit and staying if she found a job. A little over a week later, she received a letter from Maude, but her anxiety as to its contents was so acute, that hours passed before she willed herself to open it.

"I’m your Aunt Maude," she read, "your mother’s younger sister. We gave up hope long ago of ever hearing from her or anything about her. None of us knew where she and Miles went. I’m sorry to know they’re both gone. I want you to come visit me right away and stay a while."

She phoned Kalani to share her joy and excitement, then began looking in earnest for work in or near New Bern. In The Sun Journal’s classified advertisements, she found a job possibility, a chance to manage a hotel that was near completion. With trepidation she applied for the job and waited. She had given up hope when in late July, the hotel owner called, interviewed her by telephone and promised to get back to her. Three days later, the manager of the Hotel Hawaii told her that the owner of the Craven Hotel in New Bern had asked him to interview her.

"You’ll get the job," he said after talking with her.

 

#

 

On that August evening, one day before her scheduled flight to New Bern, she walked at sunset along Waikiki Beach for a last look at her beloved Pacific Ocean. As she strolled, she let her love of the ocean, the sand, palm trees and warm gentle breeze lift her out of herself and erase from her thoughts disquiet about what she might face the next day and the next. She sat in the sand with her back resting against a palm tree, removed her sandals and dug her toes into the warm white grains that, aeons earlier, had been fertile soil. Oahu Island had never given her a reason to love it, and she didn’t, but as the big red disc slipped into the ocean, she lamented it’s descent and the forty years of her life that seemed to vanish along with it.

"You can always come back here," Kalani said, as they waited in Honolulu International Airport for Regina’s American Airlines flight to the Raleigh-Durham airport. From there she would take a local flight to New Bern.

Hawaiians reserved gestures of affection for intimate family members, but as the reality of what she was doing took possession of her thoughts and the pangs of severing ties with her dearest friend became almost unbearable, Regina hugged Kalani. "I admit I’m scared leaving the only home, friends, people and way of life I know, but I have to do this." Trading all I have to search for a family, a bunch of strangers to whom I mean nothing, in hopes of finding that sense of belonging that I’ve never known. I wonder if I’m out of my mind.

Kalani tried to smile. "Go with the gods."

Without looking back, Regina stepped through the gate and headed for her future. She took her seat in business class, closed her eyes and made herself a promise. From then on, she would be assertive, stand up for herself, demand her rights and be independent. She wanted a family, but if she didn’t find one, she’d be the best hotelier in North Carolina and get on with her life.

 

#

 

Scared? Yes, she was scared. Not because it was her first flight or because she had never before left the island of her birth. Her fear stemmed from the growing awareness that achieving what she so badly coveted didn’t rest with her alone. Even if she found scores of kinfolk, she couldn’t make them like her or even want to be in her company. And as badly as she wanted a big loving family, there was one price she would not pay. Never again would she beg for love and affection and, if she spent every day of the rest of her life alone, she’d gladly do it rather that tolerate disrespect, unfaithfulness and physiological abuse from a man. Any man.

She would never forget the day she rushed home to tell her father that she had been elected class valedictorian. She had worked so hard, getting straight A’s all through school, to achieve that honor. At last, she had accomplished what would surely make him proud.

"Look, Papa. Here’s the principal’s list of class honors, and I’m the valedictorian." In her ebullience and without thinking, she threw her arms around his neck. "Oh, Papa, I’m so happy. I’m speaking at commencement."

He shifted from her embrace, looked up briefly from his paper, said, "Good. good," then continued reading.

She hadn’t meant to hug him, and she backed away, petrified, because he hated being touched. "I uh… I’ll need a cap and gown, Papa."

He used his finger for a marker, and with what appeared to be reluctance, dragged his gaze from his precious paper. "Of course. Just let me know how much money you need."

"Yes, Sir. I…uh… Papa, will you go with me to the party for parents of graduating honor students? Will you, please, Papa?"

He didn’t look up. "I don’t think that’s necessary. But if you want to go, ask one of your little friends." Always the same. Generous with money and stingy with himself.

He might as well have dropped a wrecking ball on her head, for she felt as if her whole insides had been smashed. But it was in her heart that she felt the pain. "I’ll never ask him to go anywhere with me again, she vowed as she fled the room fully aware that he didn’t know she’d left. She hadn’t bothered to cry; she was seventeen years old, and she had already cried enough for a lifetime because her father didn’t love her.

Six months later, then a freshman at the University of Hawaii, she fell for Helmut Neukirk, a graduate student with a ready smile who seemed unable to keep his hands off her. Older than she by eleven years, he quickly embroiled her in a sexual affair that she mistook for love. Hoping for the love she’d missed all her life, she moved in with him. But she soon learned that he was undemonstrative and unfeeling, that he touched her only when he wanted sex.

She gazed at the clouds through the window of the Boeing 747 that was roaring with her to the unknown and tried to clean all thoughts of Helmut from her mind. But the picture of herself in the orange and yellow dinner dress she bought for the office Christmas party would not leave her. She would never forget it.

"Do you like it?" she’d asked Helmut, swirling before him, modeling the dress.

He’d barely glanced her way as he chewed Pringle potato chips and watched the Cowboys lose to the Saints. "What do you want from me? It’s garish. You look like one of the Natives in that thing." She had stopped dancing. Suddenly she was seventeen again, begging her father to go with her to her high school’s party for parents of graduating honor students.

She had needed more than he gave but, thinking his behavior and attitude normal, she didn’t try to extricate herself from the affair.

One day after having seen an old movie, Gaslight, about a psychologically abused woman, one of her colleagues at work asked her, "What does your father say about you and Helmut?"

"Why, nothing. Why?"

"I’m surprised. Helmut is self-serving, mean, arrogant and overbearing. How can you love him?"

Stunned, she replied. "What do you mean?"

"I mean no man at all is better than that one." Her colleague, a Seattle-born caucasian girl, said. "You can do better, and you should."

What yardstick did she have for judging a man? After fretting over it for months and accepting that Helmut was the source of her unhappiness, she had severed ties with him. But could hardly bear the loneliness and eventually formed a liaison with Ken Pahoa, a Native Hawaiian, who offered love, affection and understanding. She would learn that, in matters of love and affection, Ken was even more of a charlatan than Helmut.

The smell of barbecued beef and heavily roasted coffee brought her back to the present. What’s done is done, and I’m not going to let it weight me down.

Eleven hours later, the tiny US Airways Express plane to which she had transferred at Raleigh-Durham rolled to a stop in Craven County Regional Airport, which served New Bern and nearby towns. With a thirst for the unknown and brimming with excitement, she walked down the steps and went to the cart for her hand luggage.

"Here you are, Miss." The voice belonged to a stocky black man who seemed to look right through her.

She thanked him, and when he didn’t respond, she picked up her bag and started toward the building. Half a dozen African American men performed various tasks around the plane and the entrance to the airport building, but none paid her any attention. Strangers had always taken a second look at her and, forgetting that she was no longer an anomaly, she found it disconcerting to be ignored. A stranger in another strange land.

 

#

 

In the waiting room, Regina looked for a red dress—Maude wrote that she would be wearing red—but at least half a dozen African American women wore that color. Her heartbeat accelerated when a tall, very attractive, dark woman of indeterminable age who wore a red dress and long gold earrings walked toward her.

"Are you Louise’s daughter?" the woman asked with something akin to a smile hovering around her eyes.

Regina nodded, and the woman opened her arms. "I’m your Aunt Maude. We hadn’t heard a single solitary thing from Louise since Miles took her from here. You can’t imagine how glad I am to see you." She picked up Regina’s bag. "We’ve got a lot of catching up to do."

On the drive from the airport, Regina learned that Maude didn’t make small talk. She paid no attention to the speed limit, either, and by the time they reached Maude’s red-brick bungalow, Regina surmised that she had personally slammed on the brakes a dozen times.

"You must be tired," Maude said, "so I’ll show you your room."

"I’m not tired." She didn’t know what she had expected, but she had a feeling of contentment as she walked through the attractive, modern home. "Aunt Maude." She repeated it, liking the sound and its meaning for her. "Aunt Maude, I’ve got so many questions that I hardly know where to start. I don’t know a thing about myself. Tell me something. Anything."

"You might as well relax. It’ll take forever to cover forty years of total silence. I want a beer. What would you like?"

The words, a glass of cold coconut milk, were at tip of her tongue when she checked herself. "Something…uh…cold."

Maude braced her hips with knotted fists. "I don’t believe in fencing. Say what you mean, honey."

"I’d rather not have beer, but I’d like something cold."

Minutes later, she sipped iced tea and stared in wonder as her aunt enjoyed a glass of Heineken beer and a Havana cigar. She hadn’t thought the ban against the importation of Havana cigars has been lifted, but as she would have done in Hawaii, she refrained from pressing the question. Working as a hotel event planner, she had imagined she’d seen about everything, but a woman puffing a cigar was something new. She asked her aunt whether cigar-smoking was common among African American women.

"Not that I know of. I’ve never cared what other people do, Regina. I do as I please." For a few quiet moments, she savored her beer. "The nights are getting cool. I hope you brought some real shoes ’cause your feet’ll freeze in those sandals."

"I knew I’d have to buy some things, and I’d appreciate any tips."

"Sure. Plenty good stores around here."

Regina leaned back and relaxed in the rocker–an apple-green color she disliked.

"Aunt Maude." How beautiful that sounded! "Aunt Maude, I hope I’ve got scores of relatives, and I want you to introduce me to every one of them and help me get them all together."

Maude’s stare nearly disconcerted her. "I sure hope you’re kidding. I don’t think I could stand being in the same house with them."

Regina felt her lower lip sag. "Why? It’s my dream to have a family, to be around my kinfolk, people who look like me and care about me."

"For goodness sake, don’t get carried away. Sometime you’re better off without a bunch of relatives hanging around." She jumped up from the low, rattan chair. "I’d better call Pop and tell him you’re here."

Regina sat forward. Tense. "Your father? My grandfather?"

Maude sauntered over to the wall phone beside the door leading to the hall. "One and the same. Abner Witherspoon." She dialed his number.

"Pop, this is Maude. Louise’s daughter is here with me." She leaned against the wall, listening. "No point in that, Pop. Let’s let bygones be bygones. She didn’t know anything about us until after Miles passed and she went through his things. Now, Pop. All right. All right, I’ll tell her."

"What’s the matter? You look as if…what is it?"

"He’s a stubborn man, and after forty years, he’s still mad with Louise and Miles for getting married. He was against it. Intractable."

The bottom dropped out of her belly and goose bumps covered her arms. It hadn’t occurred to her that her own blood kin wouldn’t want her.

With effort, she camouflaged the fear that snaked through her; nothing would stand in her way. She had it–the family she longed for–within her grasp, and she refused to be defeated. Then she asked Maude, "Is it here, as among Native Hawaiians, that the family usually does whatever the elder says?"

Maude took a slug of beer and puffed her cigar. "No indeedy. If that were the case, your mother never would have gone off with Miles Pearson. Pop was mad enough to raise a gun to her. He just stood on the front porch and watched her go, and as far as I know, he hasn’t mentioned her name in over forty years."

Regina told herself not to let it upset her, leaned back in the rocker and spoke calmly as if the experience of having her grandfather reject her was an everyday occurrence.

"Do you think he’ll change if I go talk with him?"

Maude cut the cigar with a pocket knife, relit it and puffed some more. "Child, Pop’s ninety-one. I left here thirty-seven years ago and hit just about every country in the Western Hemisphere. When I came back last year, Pop was still having half a grapefruit, wheat toast, two soft-boiled eggs, a slice of cheddar cheese, and one cup of coffee for breakfast. Pop is like the tree planted by the river of water, as the song goes. He’s not about to be moved."

Regina leaned forward, fighting off consternation as her heartbeat accelerated into a gallop. "Maybe we’d better start at the beginning. Why didn’t grandfather want papa to marry my mother?"

"He never would tell."

Maude’s right foot swung like a pendulum from her crossed leg. "I’ll tell you one thing. Your daddy’s people, the Pearsons, look down on all us dark-skinned folks, and the Witherspoons think all light-skinned folks descended from black women who slept around with white slave owners. The circumstances of that don’t bother them one bit. They don’t care that most of the poor women were forced, ravaged. When I got to Europe, I wanted to spread my wings and fly under my own power. Free of all this stupidity. In the twenty-some years I stayed over there, I didn’t encounter any of this foolishness about race and skin color. You want family? I wish you luck."

The phone rang repeatedly, and she watched in amazement as Maude took her time getting to it. If she doesn’t hurry she’ll miss the call, Regina thought, and could feel her face heat when Maude, seeming to have read her mind, raised an eyebrow in her direction. "The caller wants to talk with me, not the other way around," she said, "so why should I break my neck getting to the phone?"

"Maude speaking. How y’all doing this afternoon?" She listened for a few seconds. "Don’t even think it. I’m through with that. Listen, come over and meet my niece from Honolulu. None of that, Harold. Besides, she’s your first cousin, and she wants to meet her relatives. Day after tomorrow is fine. Supper." She hung up.

"Who’s Harold?"

"Harold Pearson. His daddy and yours were brothers. You’d better get some rest." She walked over to Regina. "You here for good?"

"Yes. Honolulu is behind me. I want a life with my own people."

She thought Maude looked skeptical, but she wasn’t sure. The woman’s face was anything but open. "Don’t expect too much, Regina. I got relatives right here in New Bern that I haven’t laid eyes on in the almost two years I’ve been back here. Don’t prime yourself for heartache."

"If you love people, Aunt Maude, they love you back. In a year, you and I will laugh about this conversation." She forced a smile. "And grandfather will get over his grudge."

"I take it you’ve got the help of the Angel Gabriel. We’ll eat supper around six-thirty." She went into the house and closed the door.

Regina sat there for a few minutes digesting Maude’s words and behavior. As for her brave words, she knew she would like her aunt, but wasn’t sure she hadn’t set her goal for a large, loving family too high?

She tossed in the bed for a few hours, excited, anxious to begin her new life. Her talk with Maude was the first intimate conversation she’d ever had with a black woman. She’d read about the sisterhood, and television had taught her that African American men called each other brother. She could hardly wait to become a part of the African American community and of the Witherspoon and Pearson families.

Propelled by her eagerness, she got up, dressed and went out to the garden where she found Maude gathering bell peppers."How do I get to the Craven Hotel?" she asked Maude.

"Why? It’s not open yet."

Regina explained about her job there as hotel manager and earned her aunt’s obvious admiration.

"Well I’ll be doggoned. You sure are resourceful," Maude said. She straightened up and braced the back of her right hand against her hip. "Darned if history isn’t trying to repeat itself. As far back as the twenties, first my granddaddy Witherspoon and then Pop owned and managed the only hotel in this town where our people could stay. It’s in your blood; you’ll do all right." She cut some chrysanthemums and laid them on top of the peppers. "Pop ran that hotel till he was eighty-three. Wait’ll I tell him about this." Her eyes sparkled with deviltry. "Boy, I bet that’ll shake him up."

 

#

 

Maude didn’t blame Regina for wanting what most people took for granted, but neither did she welcome a renewal of the dislikes, grudges and, especially the nasty whispers that Regina would stir up with her plans to bring the Witherspoons and Pearsons together. Not even all the Witherspoons could bear each other’s company, and putting the two families together could be like pitching a Molotov cocktail into a blazing furnace. She had battled the Witherspoon family herself from the time she was seventeen, and she got along with them now because she no longer cared what they thought of her.

Maybe she shouldn’t worry Pop with information about Regina, but Abner Witherspoon needed to learn the art of forgiveness. She dialed his number. "Pop you wouldn’t believe this. Regina, that’s Louise’s daughter, is going to manage the Craven Hotel, and she had no idea that, around here, the Witherspoon name is synonymous with hotels. Looks like she’s a chip off the old block."

"Humph. When you seen Robert? You brother acts like he doesn’t have a father. Hasn’t been around here in over a month."

Maybe you really couldn’t teach an old dog new tricks. Knowing that his strict rules about good manners would prevent his hanging up on her, she made a stab at creating a little remorse in her father. "Pop, suppose you get to heaven and the Lord won’t let you come in because granddaddy set old man Beidermeyer’s silo on fire and destroyed a year’s wheat crop?" His silence emboldened her, and she went on, "If you blame Regina for what her parents did…" She let him finish it. Stubborn though he was, she knew he had a conscience.

"Well, Pop?"

"I had three boys and two girls. My boys never talked back to me. You watch your mouth. You hear?"

In for a penny; in for a pound. "Pop, you know I don’t say everything I think. If I did, none of y’all would be speaking to me. Regina’s staying here with me at least for the time being. So remember that if you come over for supper before Wednesday night prayer meeting, you’ll have to eat at the table with her."

In her mind’s eye, she could see him purse his lips and let a frown darken his countenance when he said, "She can take a walk for an hour. A little exercise won’t hurt her, and I’m not giving up my Wednesday night chili and cracklin’ bread."

"Pop, I can’t ask Regina to leave home because her grandfather doesn’t want to meet the grandchild he’s never seen."

"Case is closed. I’ll be there Wednesday for my supper as usual."

He won that round, because he knew she wouldn’t deprive him of his favorite meal, and she had a feeling she’d been too hasty in encouraging Regina to come to New Bern.

 

#

 

The following morning, anxious for a look at the town she hoped would be her home, Regina rose with the sun, dressed quickly and stepped outside, but she hadn’t expected the frosty air and discovered that she didn’t tolerate it well. Nonetheless, she stood on Maude’s front steps, captivated by the quiet idyllic setting: houses of red or white brick set well back from the broad street among groves of pine, cottonwood and white birch trees interspersed with the Crepe myrtle and magnolia trees that would bloom in Spring. Yes, she would miss the Pacific Ocean, but she could be at home in New Bern. Her roots were there, and an inner sense told her she would find in that town of 30,000 people what she lacked and wanted most.

Around ten o’clock, armed with instructions from Maude, she struck out for Vanguard department store. "Do you have any more of these in size 3X, she asked a clerk as she held up a package of hosiery.

"Just what you see over there."

Taken aback by the clerk’s nonchalance, she said, "I didn’t see any more. Perhaps you have some in your storage room."

The woman stopped chewing her gum. "I said, just what you see over there."

Astounded by the clerk’s attitude and disinterest in her patronage, Regina walked around until she saw an employee who wore a large pin on which was written: service is our business; we aim to please. She approached the woman–who favored her with a luminous smile–and related her problem.

"Could you help me, please?"

"Just what’s over there in aisle three."

"But I looked, and this is all I could find."

The smile disappeared. "Lady, if you didn’t see it, it’s not there."

So much for the sisterhood. Sisters indeed! She finished her shopping and went home, considerably less ebullient that when she left.

"It’s nothing to be concerned about, honey. That’s just the way they act," Maude said when Regina mentioned it. "Service is out of fashion these days, so unless you go to a high-price shop, you gonna have to put up with ornery salespeople."

"But they were African American women, and I thought they’d be helpful."

Maude’s hands went to her hips. "You got some sentimental notions about black people, and you might as well get rid of that right now. We’re just like everybody else–nice when it’s convenient."

She didn’t like thinking herself naive, but in regard to black Americans, the term seemed to fit. "Where should I look for a place to stay?" she asked Maude.

"Plenty of room right here in this big house, so take your time. And don’t forget your Cousin Harold will be here for supper."

"What’s he like?"

Maude removed her glasses and gazed toward the ceiling. "Harold? He defies description. No way you can stick Harold in a pigeon hole. You have to know Harold."

Harold arrived promptly at seven. Maude ate at seven-thirty, a habit cultivated while in Europe, and made an exception only for her father who ate supper with her every Wednesday. Regina hadn’t prepared herself for Harold’s expansive welcome and embrace, nor for his seeming diffidence. She noticed that he walked with a slight limp and wondered if that accounted for his self-consciousness.

"Harold plays the saxophone."

"Yeah," he said, and she thought he stared at her as would one greatly perplexed. He shook his head and grinned, though his expression remained troubled. "I’m trying to get Maude to do a program with me. Regina, this woman is considered one of the great blues singers of our time."

Regina swung around and faced Maude. "You didn’t mention that to me. I didn’t know you were famous."

"She acts modest," Harold said, "but that’s wasted on me. If you got it, flaunt it. You good at something, admit it. Humility is tiresome. Truth is, most people don’t have anything to be humble about. What about it, Maude? Six-week run, three nights a week. That’s all I’m asking."

"I invited you to meet your cousin and to eat supper with us. That’s all. The blues are in the past."

Harold raised both eyebrows. "Don’t kid yourself, Maude. It’s in your blood the way music is in mine. I’ll bet you go to sleep nights hearing that applause. The first year back here, you were building your house and furnishing it, and the past six months, you’ve been enjoying it. You’re due for a good case of boredom. Then you’ll sing."

"Must be nice to know it all, " Maude said. "Come on. Let’s eat."

They sat down to supper, and she noticed that Harold hesitated and Maude began eating. She was about to emulate Maude when Harold rapped his glass with a fork. "Okay, you two infidels, I’m used to blessing my food before I eat."

She watched him say grace and wanted to ask him to write it down for her but didn’t. The less her relatives knew of her ignorance about their lives, customs, and beliefs, the better. She’d speak to Maude about it.

Not much to do around here, Regina," Harold said later, savoring apple pie a la mode as if it were a precious as gold bouillon. "Want to go with me to the Zanzibar sometime? You do like jazz, don’t you?"

He said it as if it were a given, causing her to wonder how far out of step she was. "I..uh..I’m not sure I understand it."

Harold positioned his fork properly on the side of his plate, folded his hands in his lap and stared hard at her. "What do you mean? You don’t bother about understanding it; jazz is something you feel all the way to the pit of your gut. It’s like great sex. Opens you up, makes you vulnerable, and rocks you till you feel like you’re flying. Awesome."

Her eyes widened, and she felt her bottom lip drop as she gaped at him. Native Hawaiians didn’t talk about sex and especially not in mixed company. Maude snickered, adding to her discomfort.

"I’ll have to inform myself," she said. "I take it you’re an expert when it comes to jazz." She figured that would get him off the subject of sex.

"I hold my own, Cousin. I can hang out with the best of them." He served himself another slice of pie. "I see I’m gonna have to educate you. You ever heard of the blues before tonight?"

"Don’t patronize me, Harold. When do we go to the Zanzibar?"

He looked directly at her then, a worried look clouding his dark eyes. "I hope Maude warned you that neither the Witherspoons nor my folks approve of me. It hurts, but I can’t change to suit them." He gave her his phone number. "Talk it over with Maude and let me know whether you want us to be friends."

Regina looked from Maude to Harold, but nothing in their faces hinted at the reasons for his odd remark. She was getting used to Maude’s complex personality and her penchant for plain speaking, but Harold appeared to relish playing catch with a person’s mind. She wondered if every relative she met would be a jigsaw puzzle.

"Regina wants to get to know her kinfolk. She feels she needs them around her, though I can’t imagine why."

"Me neither," Harold said, standing to leave. "If you’ve got one little thorn in your otherwise starry crown, they’ll find it, stick in you and make you bleed. And guess where every single one of ‘em will be at eleven o’clock Sunday mornings. You got it. Biggest bunch of hypocrites that ever breathed."

Regina angled her head to the side and took a good look at Harold. If there was anything wrong with him, it wasn’t obvious. "Let me know when you want us to go to the Zanzibar. And thanks for coming. I’ve a feeling we’ll be good friends."

He kissed her cheek. "Maybe what this gang needs is new blood, somebody who doesn’t buy into their prejudices and pretenses. I’ll call you next week."

After Harold left, Regina asked Maude, "Why do I get the impression that a friendship with Harold could amount to a big risk?"

Maude lifted her left shoulder in a careless shrug. "Not with me, it wouldn’t, but you’d tick off the Pearsons and the rest of the Witherspoons. If you’re trying to pull your families around you, hanging out with two social misfits won’t cut it."

A slow flush of dread seeped through her. "Who're you talking about?"

Maude stacked the desert plates and displayed an air of nonchalance. "I’m talking ’bout your Cousin Harold and your Aunt Maude. If our folks were passing out grades, I’d get a D and Harold would get an F. And if I was grading most of them, they’d get a double F."

Regina stared at Maude’s retreating back and prayed that she hadn’t jumped into a hornet’s nest.