Now Anne Marie’s complainin’ about her uncle. He’s always in her business, and now that he’s living in her house, he wants to act like he’s her second father. I tell her to stand her ground and not to let him intimidate her.
“Easy for you to say,” she says.
“Why?”
“Cuz nobody intimidates you,” she tells me.
“That ain’t true,” I say.
“Feels true,” she replies. I don’t know what she means. I get intimidated by people all the time. Only thing is I do my best not to show it. That’s the onliest difference between me and her.
“Well it ain’t,” I say. “I bet you good money if you let him know what’s what, he’ll quit botherin’ ya. He’s just actin’ like a big, dumb dog. Show him he’s in your territory.”
She nods but looks down at the ground. I’m probably sayin’ too much. Sometimes I do that. Besides, it’s always easy to give advice from a distance.
To change the subject, Leon starts tellin’ the cheesiest story about seein’ Wade Hampton’s ghost. We laugh. Nobody here believes him. I don’t, because I know what it is to see a ghost, and it ain’t like what’s he sayin’.
“Quit laughin’! Y’all weren’t there,” he protests.
“What was you doin’ in the General’s Woods anyway? That ain’t nowhere for us to be,” Clay says.
“That’s beside the point. Listen. I swear on my granddaddy’s grave—”
“That ain’t Christian,” Anne Marie points out.
Leon sighs in frustration. “Whatever! I swear on my own life then. Let heaven strike me dead right here if I didn’t see Wade Hampton’s ghost sittin’ on top a his horse in full Klan regalia at the top of a ol’ moss tree. You tell me how the hell he got way up there, and, more importantly, how’s Wade Hampton gonna be ridin’ his horse anywhere when he’s been dead a hundred years?”
“Sixty.”
“What you sayin’ now?”
“Wade Hampton the Third has only been dead for sixty years,” Anne Marie says. She’s always been a history wiz.
For a heartbeat all the fun and silliness desert us. It’s unsettling to think that South Carolina’s own Wade Hampton III—Confederate general and one of the KKK’s most loyal sugar daddies—died only sixty years ago. When we ain’t thinkin’ about it, somethin’ like that feels like forever ago. When we are thinkin’ about it? It was yesterday.
Not that it would matter much if he was still breathing. I’m sure he’d be pleased to know that the Klan is alive and kickin’ without his fat checks.
Leon finishes his story and promises to get proof if he sees him again. I can’t wait to see what kinda “proof” he’ll come up with.
Gets quiet for a couple minutes after that. I know why I get quiet. I can’t help but think about the wiry chocolate boy with girl’s eyelashes and giant eyes like a li’l baby deer’s who’s sittin’ just to my right and who keeps slidin’ closer to me. Maybe everyone has their own version of what I got goin’ on in my head in theirs. I look around our little circle and catch Leon starin’ at me. He clears his throat and looks away. Then I notice Bernadette looking at Clay like he’s a cool glass a water and she’s stranded in the Mojave. For the tiniest second, I think about twistin’ her head right off her neck, but I glance at Clay, and I don’t think he’s even noticed. If he did, I don’t think he cares. He ain’t lookin’ at nobody but me.
Anne lights a cigarette and inhales. I try to catch her eye, but she got one a them thousand-yard stares right now. I wonder if she’s gettin’ sick of us. Ready to put an end to the festivities.
“Y’all wanna hear the thing or not?” she asks.
“Yeah!” I pipe up first, and then the others do too. I don’t want her to think we totally forgot what we’re here to celebrate.
She takes another drag off her cig, reaches into her pocket, and pulls out a folded piece of paper, from which she reads aloud.
“ ‘The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer.’ ”
When she finishes, no one knows what to do at first. Clay looks at me like, Should we clap? Real quick I grab a cup of spiked punch, and I hold it up high.
“Here’s to absolute equality of rights,” I say. And then I add, “When that finally happens!” I was careful to say “when” and not “if.” In response, there’s a chorus of amens, hear hears, and yeses. Anne Marie smiles at me, and I can tell she’s already feelin’ better.
Bernadette gets loud again, talkin’ about this movie she saw, recountin’ every detail. Somethin’ about a man so afraid of bein’ buried alive that he opens his father’s tomb and has a heart attack right there cuz the tomb’s empty. I don’t care for horror flicks. They don’t get anything right.
I yawn, for the first time thinking about my early morning, when Clay gives my pinky a tug. I turn to him, and he tilts his head toward the road.
“This was so much fun,” I say to Anne Marie, interrupting Bernadette’s endless movie report, “but I gotta get up early.”
“Yeah, me too,” Clay says, standing up behind me.
“It ain’t that late yet,” Leon protests.
“Late enough,” Clay says with a smile. “I’ll walk Evalene home.”
“Bye, y’all,” I say, but they’re already talkin’ again. Anne Marie waves. Sad eyes again. I’ll call her later to make sure she’s all right.
Clay and I walk, his fingers interlaced with mine, and instead of heading to the main road, he gently points us
