Freshwater Road Read Free Page A

seat back. That woman had squirmed
back into her mind, in spite of her prodigious efforts to keep her mother
at bay. Her memories of Wilamena had a blurry quality. She didn't leave
Celeste's mind for long, though, like a touch of arthritis that flares and
subsides in an aging person's body (Momma Bessie called it her new friend,
"Arthur"), unannounced and unapologetic.
    The cabby caught her eye in his rearview mirror. A crooked smile emerged
on his turned-down mouth. She returned it, tight and small. Wilamena had
moved to New Mexico with Cyril Atwood, her second husband. When
they'd first gotten married, ten years ago, they'd lived in Chicago. Then
Atwood got tenure at the university in Albuquerque, with research perks in
Los Alamos. Away they went. She'd spent the years before her second marriage running in and out of town, more out than in, always with a suitcase
packed and ready. When she and Shuck divorced, Celeste and her brother
Billy stayed with Shuck. Since her remarriage, she'd never come back to Detroit, not even for Celeste's and Billy's high school graduation ceremonies.
    Wilamena never did like Detroit-too blue collar, too Negro, too much
of the blues underneath the city's swagger. She used to say Detroit had a
veil of soot that most people couldn't even see. Of course, she never tired
of asking her children to visit her in New Mexico, but Celeste pulled the
curtain down when Wilamena didn't show for the graduation. She had no desire to spend weekends in a cavernous house (as described by her mother
in one of her letters) making graceful conversation about weapons research
and Indian art. They wrote and talked on the phone from time to time, curt
little conversations that crunched rather than flowed. She sent turquoise
jewelry (that Celeste kept packed in velvet bags and rarely wore) and boxes
of etched stationery. Celeste figured it was her mother's investment in their
continued communication.

    Prickly Wilamena's escape to New Mexico suited Celeste fine. Now, she
could be Shuck's daughter and be done with it. No more rough ride with
Wilamena, not knowing whether she loved you or wanted to be rid of you.
Besides, what Negro person moves to New Mexico? But then, what Negro
person moves to Mississippi?
    "We's y'here." The old man aimed his taxi to the curb.
    Thank God, Celeste thought, shaking off her reflections. New people,
new meanings. It was all perfectly timed. J.D. gone to Paris, Wilamena
stashed in New Mexico, Billy living in New York, Shuck cool and easy in
Detroit. And she was in Mississippi, of all places.
    The cabby pulled in front of side-by-side storefronts on a commercial
stretch near downtown Jackson and Celeste leaped out, the lights of the
capital building haloing in the midnight sky a few blocks away, it seemed.
Two police cars were parked across the street, the officers sitting there
watching. Inside the well-lit One Man, One Vote office, heads and bodies
moved around behind windows plastered with flyers and posters.
    The old man carried her suitcase to the door. "Thank y'all. Thank y'all
fer comin' down y'here." He doffed his cap and smiled a broken-toothed
smile.
    Celeste paid and tipped him like Shuck taught her to do, then walked
in, the reflection of the police cars in the glass door, fear crawling into her
like vine tendrils creeping up the back fence in Momma Bessie's yard.

     

2

    Heat sizzles jitterbugged off the pavement on Lafayette Street. Shuck maneuvered his sleek white convertible Cadillac into his parking spot a few
steps from the Royal Gardens door. On Shuck's map this bar, as much as
he loved it, was just a mark in pencil, a stepping-stone to a New York-style
supper club. Women would sing blues and jazz with gardenias in their hair.
Men would blow heartbreak licks on burnished horns, feet tapping to the
beat. If he could fit Count Basie's whole band in there, he'd book them in
a New York minute. He flicked his cigarette to the