She told him to meet her by the creek in two hours and bring some wine. He loved her, she knew it better than him. But he wouldn’t let that stop him. And she’d never pretended it would stop her.
She took him an hour outside of town, to a special spot by the old creek. They sat on the grass of the clearing and listened to the cicadas and drank a whole bottle of wine. The fireflies surrounded them, flew in and out of her hair. They were like buzzing green stars. They realized they could see the Milky Way. Then the clouds came in fast and the creek rose so high she wondered if they’d get caught. But they stayed and she sang to him. For the rest of her life she’d remember that. Singing Ellington in the charged air before a storm, holding hands with Clyde. The oracle part of her knew they might have a second chance because she changed the ending.
Clyde never forgot her; she’d made sure of that. The fireflies and the rain that never quite fell, singing at the top of her lungs out there where no one could hear her (Gracious, girl! Those pipes!)—the whole reason she had stuck in his heart like old gum for years after they lost track of one another.
She wanted him for a good long time, Tamara had thought, if he made it back. If you can stand to look him in the eye. If you can bear the thought of being happy after you sell her down the river.
Tamara sat up abruptly and went down to the kitchen. She couldn’t—if Phyllis knew what the cards were saying—Tammy could never tell her.
Lately Phyllis had a hard time keeping anything down, so Tamara had asked Mrs. Grundy to make something sweet to tempt her. She came back upstairs with two spoons and a tray of bread pudding that was the housekeeper’s first effort.
Phyllis took her time with that first bite, then smiled ruefully. “It’s good,” she said.
“I’m shocked,” Tamara said. “You should have seen her face, as though I’d asked her to make a feast for Gluttony himself.”
“And the other six deadly sins if she had a spare minute.”
They leaned into one another with their laughter.
“Poor Mrs. Grundy,” Phyllis said. “You can almost see her asking God what she did to deserve such indignity.”
“Got stuck with two Negroes with a sweet tooth.”
“Oh, you know she probably ate half of this pudding down there by herself.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Tamara, around another spoonful.
“So, that letter you got,” Phyllis said, while Tamara was laid out with ecstasy.
“This pudding tastes real good for you to go and ruin it.”
“Did you open it, at least?”
Tamara nodded.
“So what’d he say?”
“He broke up with me! That … that raggedy-ass, two-bit actor said that I shouldn’t ‘go to waste’ waiting on him! Like I were a goddamn apple pandowdy!”
“That can’t be all he said.”
“Why not?”
“Because I saw him. If that man don’t love you—”
“Sure he loves me. But that didn’t stop him! He said he misses me, he thinks of me all the time, when I’m in the back of that tank, with the guns pointing to the sky and the only thing I can see are the contrails and black smudges of those Zeroes, and if my hands aren’t steady it won’t just be me I’m killing but dozens of our men at the front, I think about you, and I find still waters.”
Tammy couldn’t continue. Phyllis was thoughtful for a moment, or maybe just hungry. She took four full bites before she responded. “He’s just young, baby. He’s trying, he’s got a good heart, I could see that, but he’s young enough to believe he can stop you from hurting. That he can love you and not leave a mark.”
“I’m just as young as that fool, and I don’t believe that!”
“Well,” she said, “you’re a woman.”
“He told the war office to send me notice if he dies.”
“His remains?”
“Go to his mama, thank God.”
Phyllis took a deep breath, thinking, most likely, of whatever Dev had written to her in that long letter riddled with black smudges from the censor’s edits.
“You got a smoke?”
“Phyllis, aren’t you supposed to be cutting back?”
“No more than five a day, the doctor said. I’ve only had four.”
Tamara sighed, lit up one of the last in her pocket, and took a drag before handing it over. Their breath clouded the air between them, and then drifted toward the snow-crusted window. Tamara and Mrs. Grundy had barely cleared the driveway from the last storm, but Mrs. Grundy said they were due another tonight. Was it normal for winter to last so long? In her three years in the city, she’d never felt a March like this one, colder than a Virginia January. Tamara didn’t want to complain. She had to seem strong enough to see this through. Phyllis would cut her in a minute; she’d send her home for her own good if it looked to her like she was cracking under the strain. And Phyllis didn’t even know why. What good was it to be an oracle if you couldn’t change a damned thing?
It would be okay. If the boiler broke down again she’d get Pea downstairs, in front of the fire. They could stay up half the night drinking and telling stories, playing a safe deck of cards.
Pea shifted against the pillows and swallowed. Tamara tensed, in case she had to help her to the bathroom, or a bucket.
“They’ve sent him to North Africa now,” Phyllis said. “I can’t tell what he’s doing because I swear a third of that letter had black lines through it.”
“Africa? What else did Dev say?”
“That his superior officers are idiots, overflowing with racial prejudice, he’s working with the Algerians, but he can’t say more about his duties. But at least he’s been transferred from ambulance detail.” She clenched her hands over her knees.
