The Wedding Page 18

  Corinne Coles’s little finger absently swirled her vodka tonic. It had been an exhausting week, and her mind was a blank as she stared out into the twilight. She had not touched her drink in a while, although occasionally she would lift her finger to her mouth and suck on it pensively. She needed more ice; all of the cubes in her tumbler had melted. When the screen door to the kitchen banged shut, she turned her head sharply, in time to see Shelby running across the lawn, sandals in hand. Where was that girl going? Dinner would be ready before too long. She was glad in a way that the absence of Meade’s parents had allowed her to dispense with the custom of a rehearsal dinner. One less thing to worry about.

  Where was Clark? She’d barely spoken a word to him all day, what with all of the last-minute details that had to be attended to. He’d been surprisingly docile all week, even allowing himself to be pressed into service as chauffeur, but his patience might have worn thin, because he had been short with her today on at least two occasions. She mentally shrugged. Probably just impatient to see Rachel. It amused her to witness the hoops her husband jumped through every summer, the lies he spun about where he was spending the last two weeks in August. If the truth be told, she enjoyed the solitude, she told herself. Let him go off to be serviced by that whore. At the end of the day, he was still her husband. There was a time when Corinne hated Rachel; now she just pitied her. She only hoped she’d managed to keep her own various affairs more discreet: she knew that there could well come a time when the moral high ground would be a strategically important position to occupy. Lord knew it had been easy to be discreet these last few years. She liked her men young, and the older she got the harder it grew to find eligible playmates.

  As if she needed the fact of her aging underscored further, her daughter would be married in less than twenty-four hours. Now that all the preparing was over, she had a chance to let that fact sink in. Corinne leaned forward unsteadily and groped for the ice bucket on the tray in front of her. She plopped a few cubes into her glass and brought it to her lips. Whereas in her eyes Clark had treated the impending ceremony as if it weren’t altogether real, she had long ago resigned herself to Shelby’s choice. She smiled grimly. Perhaps she deserved credit as matchmaker: she had raised such bitter objections to Liz’s choice of mates that she could see Shelby’s choosing a white man as the lesser of two evils.

  Corinne actually didn’t mind Meade, it was just that she could never come to terms with the thought of a grown man playing a piano for a living. Shelby had tried to explain jazz to her often enough, but she still couldn’t quite take it seriously. In her experience, jazz was for illiterate men of no repute who bugged out their eyes and bared their teeth. If Meade couldn’t find a profession worth taking seriously, how could he take marriage seriously? Her lust for dark black men under cover of the night mirrored her repulsion during the day, and perhaps it was jazz’s open, even cerebral flirtation with the dark side, its willingness to let go and improvise with mind as well as body, that explained it, when for Corinne the two had always been sundered by a divide too vast to bridge. Or maybe Corinne was just a product of her conditioning—no more, no less. Whatever the explanation, she refused to concede a shred of inherent dignity to banging on a piano like a monkey while a bunch of liquored-up or smoked-up or hopped-up junkies thrashed around at a Harlem rent party, sweating on everyone and everything and howling at the moon as if all good sense had escaped them. Corinne took another long sip of her vodka tonic and leaned back in her chair. No, she just couldn’t see it.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The shadows were lengthening when Shelby stepped onto the beach. Squinting her eyes, she strained to see down to the nineteenth pole, where she could just make out the vague outline of a figure lying recumbent upon the packed sand close to the water. It had to be Lute. Shivering slightly against the high wind blowing off the water, she strode briskly toward him.

  No one was entirely sure how the nineteenth pole had become the accustomed meeting place of Shelby’s generation of colored vacationers. They were a blessed bunch, Shelby and her friends, the first generation of all the generations since slavery to have no self-consciousness about being colored and, having none, they had nothing but impatience for the peculiar change that came over their elders in the presence of people whose faces were often no whiter, whose incomes were often no greater, whose fears were compounded of the same insecurities and rumors of war, death, and taxes. They were the first to question their parents’ strictures, to chafe under the pressure of pursuing a career that came with a convenient, self-explanatory title, like M.D., or Esq., preferring instead to gather on this beach and talk of Africa, or of becoming engineers or diplomats.

  Lute turned his head as Shelby stepped deliberately around a piece of gnarled driftwood. He was stretched indolently on a plaid beach blanket, hands behind his head, shirt off, muscles rippling in the dying sun. He smiled brightly. “I’m glad you came,” he said softly. “Why don’t you sit down?”

  Shelby twisted her mouth into a grimace and self-consciously tugged down the tied-off ends of her gingham shirt. “I really can’t stay for very long.” Lute shrugged and turned over on his side to give her room on the blanket. Shelby sat down stiffly on its far corner, hands clasped unsteadily around her knees. Greedy gulls swung out over the beach, their shadows crossing on the sand in front of the two seated figures.

  Lute began to coax her into a conversation, talking about nothing at first—about his business, and Boston, and his three little girls—real things, surely, but it seemed to Shelby that he talked mostly to form pretty sounds with his mouth, soft liquid words that fell from his lips like a song. As much as she resisted, Shelby found herself lulled by his words, soothed by the way they blended with the low rumble of the crashing surf and the muted cawing of the gulls whirling overhead. Lute scooped up a handful of sand and made a fist through which, contracting and releasing, he pulsed thin streams down onto the blanket between them. Scoop, squeeze, scoop, squeeze, until he had formed a small pile. Shelby felt a strange tingle at the nape of her neck as she watched his long, thin fingers at work.

  How different Lute and Meade were, Shelby thought. Lute was a craftsman, a man whose life was dedicated to old patterns, old forms, forms he followed with remarkable precision—forms that Meade rejected out of hand. Meade was an artist, a trailblazer. He dreamed of the day when he would no longer need to work as a sideman in television studios and recording studios to support himself, the day when he could play in jazz clubs full time, clubs like the one in which he had first met Shelby, dragged against her will by her more adventurous friends.

  Lute talked on, seemingly satisfied with her occasional grunt of acknowledgment. Shelby often wondered at how relaxed Lute made her feel when he was around, even though his presence always came as a nuisance. She supposed it was his sugary flattery, the almost plaintive way he sweet-talked her. Safe in the knowledge that Lute was too far beneath her to be a threat or even a serious consideration, Shelby’s vanity could enjoy his absolute attention. Her mind wandered back to Lute’s run-in with Meade the month before. Meade had made two extended visits to the Vineyard that summer: on his first trip Shelby had introduced him to the owner of Oak Bluffs most popular night spot, and he had offered to let him play the next time he was on island. Meade had eagerly agreed. The fee was nominal, and Meade and his band were used to bigger venues in New York, but that wasn’t the point. On his next visit he brought a drummer and a bass player, both eager for the opportunity to cut loose and shake the kinks out before an audience less jaundiced, less blase than the ones they faced in the city. That night in the club—actually little more than a bar—Lute had approached Shelby, had sat down next to her while she watched Meade play. Then too she had refused to look at him, giving all of her attention to Meade. It was the beginning of the set, and he was playing his part in a soft conversation between piano, bass, and drums. He always played gently at first, having learned that it took crowds a little time to get used to t
he idea of a white man playing in an otherwise all-colored band, but Meade was on fire nonetheless—a cold, cool fire; it was the only way he knew how to go on. A man who knew once said that jazz was a woman’s tongue stuck dead in your throat, and Meade played as if to prove that man right.

  In Shelby’s friends’ eyes, he did, but to the older Ovalites, ragtime, even when it changed its name to the less egregious word jazz, was still a dubious profession that provided no fixed income. But a fixed income alone guaranteed nothing: the fact that Lute’s bankroll continued to increase did not increase his popularity with the older Ovalites who were the guardians of the past and the fierce protectors of the present. That his children were endearing was no saving grace for the other summer residents—unless his reputation for misadventures was full of holes, which they doubted. And indeed their misgivings were to be borne out.

  Lute had no idea that the man onstage at whom Shelby kept staring was her fiancé, but when he found out he assumed that explained her nervousness and her reluctance to talk to him. Between sets, Meade left his piano and came down to the table. He was clearly amused by Lute’s presence, a reaction Lute was not used to and found slightly unnerving, as if he were part of a joke that everyone else got but him. Meade and Shelby chatted briefly about the last set, and that made Lute uncomfortable too, unaccustomed as he was to the free and easy exchange of ideas between a man and a woman. In truth, Shelby was delighted to observe, Meade had shaken Lute’s self-confidence. Lute had competed with men for the attention of a woman on countless occasions, but never on a mental level.

  “Hey.” Lute reached across to Shelby and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand, jolting her from her reverie. “I don’t think you’re listening to me.”

  “Maybe you should make more of an effort to be entertaining,” Shelby snapped, irritated at his presumption.

  Lute threw back his head and chortled. “Oh, really? If I can’t be entertaining, at least I’ll be truthful.” Turning onto his stomach, he propped his head up with one hand and regarded Shelby seriously without saying a word. The silence drew on until, just when Shelby felt forced to say something, he spoke. “Shelby, I feel something funny in the pit of my stomach when I look at you. It’s a sort of hunger gnawing up at me.” He spoke slowly, drawing the words out. “What do you think that is?”

  Shelby stared straight ahead. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Would you like to?”

  Shelby pushed herself off the blanket, brushing the sand from her shorts. “I’ve heard enough cooing for one day, I think. You don’t know me, and you never will.” Shelby was amazed at the audacity of this man, this father of three who had to have better things to do than whisper sweet nothings into a woman’s ear the night before her wedding.

  Lute was unmoved. “I know you better than you know yourself. You think you know what you want, but you really have no idea. You think you’ve found what you’re looking for, but I look at you and I see a woman who doesn’t even know where to start. You’re on the brink of turning your back on your family, your community, your race, all for some white-bread fantasy you don’t half understand. You’re beautiful all right, a long, tall, beautiful high yella drink of water … set to pour itself out on a desert.”

  Shelby had to smile slightly at Lute’s cheekiness. “And I suppose you think you’re some vastly preferable alternative?”

  Lute shrugged playfully. “You could do a lot worse. Would you look at me? I’m tired of talking to the top of your head.”

  Shelby’s eyes remained locked on his waist. She would not look him in the eye. “Look at me,” he whispered gently. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  For the first time, Shelby looked him straight in the face. Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he rose slowly, in one sinuous motion, until he stood in front of her. She took a step back, but she could not tear herself from his gaze. “You’d be miserable in that all-white world, you know that, don’t you? You know what that piano man of yours is doing, don’t you? He’s slumming, that’s what he’s doing. He’s just looking for something exotic. Oh, he’s hot for you now, but once he has had his fill of your hot black blood he’ll cool, all right. You’ll see. Mr. Charlie’s been doing it to our women since slave days—what’s different now?”

  Shelby poked her index finger in Lute’s face, eyes flashing. “You’re one sad human being, Lute McNeil. Not everyone looks at women like you do, like they’re pieces of meat. Face it, Meade scares you. He’s a better man than you in every sense of the word, and you know it, so you try to bring him down to your level. Small chance.” Yet, for all Shelby’s anger, something in Lute’s eyes would not release her, and something in her skin denied her own words. She had willed her body to walk away from Lute a half dozen times, but each time she was snapped back as if on a short leash. She told herself she could not leave until she had told him off, until she had made him see how wrong he was, how myopic and self-hating, but something else pulled her back too, something darker. Lute was the first colored man she had met who treated her as if she were made of flesh and blood and not china. He was an experienced master, a man who’d had white wives and colored mistresses. He knew what women were made of. He knew the ground rules of intermarriage, and he knew what seeds of doubt to introduce, seeds that would germinate in evil flowers of regret.

  Sensing Shelby’s indecision, Lute pressed his advantage. He stepped closer to her, his lips inches from her brow, his bare chest heaving almost imperceptibly. The air had suddenly turned cool, and she felt goose bumps along her arms. It was as if the island had come to a standstill: the sound of waves crashing seemed to recede, and even the seagulls gliding overhead seemed to quiet their cawing, as if out of respect. The two bodies—one lithe, sun-blasted, almost bare, the other fair, willowy, trembling—stood frozen in place. “Open your mouth,” Lute whispered hoarsely. Despite herself, Shelby obeyed. Slowly, even gently, Lute raised his right index finger to her parted lips and traced their outline. Shelby closed her eyes, wanting more than anything to pull away but rooted to the ground as if stricken. Lute lowered his face and brushed her bruised, pouting lips with his.

  With a strangled cry, with some superhuman reservoir of will she did not know she possessed, Shelby wrenched her head away from Lute’s and shoved him back with the palms of her hands. “No,” she mumbled weakly, “I can’t. I have to go. My family’s expecting me.” Head throbbing, she turned away.

  Lute caught her arm and jerked her back around. “Wait. We need to talk.”

  “Let me go, damn you!” Shelby shrieked, her voice piercing the night air. She had lost her composure completely, and now more than anything else she wanted just to run away.

  Lute blanched and dropped her hand. “At least tell me you’ll see me again … maybe tomorrow?”

  “I … maybe.”

  “Just say yes. Tomorrow morning, eleven o’clock. Here. You have to give me that. You have to talk to me. You owe me that much.”

  “I don’t know … we’ll see.” Nodding her head vaguely, Shelby scooped up her sandals and moved backward, slowly at first and then faster. Finally she turned and ran up the embankment. She made it to the road without looking back.

  “So it’s agreed! I’ll see you here!” Lute cried out after her retreating form. She did not respond. He clapped his hands together and laughed, and the sound was picked up by the wind and carried far out onto the ocean.

  Della Connell (not McNeil, for by mutual consent Della and Lute had agreed not to live together openly until her mother died, knowing that if her mother found out about Lute she probably would die, but not before she cut Della off without a cent) stirred restlessly on a chintz armchair in the drawing room of her mother’s elegant Back Bay townhouse. She was tired. It was late, and the room, lit only by a small porcelain lamp resting on a blackamoor table in a far corner, was dark. Even shrouded in darkness, the room maintained a light, ethereal feeling, due in part to its high arched ceiling and in part to the walls, which were glazed
three shades of very pale lime green, toned in beiges, white, and faux marbre. She warily eyed the telephone that sat on the floor at her feet, beckoning her, challenging her, accusing her.

  Della was amazed herself that things had come to this pass. Just a few short months before, she would have said that she and Lute had never gotten along better. But then he left for Martha’s Vineyard with Barby, Tina, and Muffin, saying good-bye with promises to send for her once he settled in. First, the frequency of his phone calls, a veritable stream at his vacation’s lonely beginning, had trickled down to almost nothing, until finally they stopped entirely. She had never expected him to return her letters (he could barely write), but when her own phone calls were met with impatience, then irritation, then cold indifference, she began to fear the worst, and two weeks ago her fears had been confirmed. He had called her at night, drunk and cursing, to demand that she grant him an immediate divorce. She cried and wailed and begged him to tell her why, but he refused, saying only that he no longer loved her, that he wanted a clean break. Something in his voice gave lie to his words, though, and she resolved to learn the truth. Then last week Lute had called again, angrier than before, demanding to know why no divorce papers had been forthcoming. He lashed out at her brutally, ordered her to fly with him to Mexico, where they could be served divorce papers easily and cheaply. He threatened to reveal their marriage to her parents if she refused him, and she could tell he meant it. At that moment she realized how desperate he was, for in causing her to be cast out and disowned—and surely his revelation to her parents could have only one irrevocable result— he would eliminate any hope he might have of coming into her family’s money.

  Lute had pushed Della to the wall. He had come close to breaking her, closer than she would ever let him see, but she was determined to fight back. She did not know why he was so desperate for a quick divorce, but in her heart of hearts she thought she could guess. He had met a woman, she was sure of it, and he had told her that he was already divorced. Well, whoever this woman was, she would be disabused of that lie soon enough. Pride was no longer an issue; Della had already sacrificed every scrap of dignity she might have once possessed for this man who had so effortlessly turned her love into ashes. She would see herself damned in hell before she’d let herself be thrown over by some nigger bitch, but first she would ensure her damnation on this earth: she would fly down to Martha’s Vineyard and win Lute back from whatever woman was ensnaring him, for she had nothing if she did not hold him, the only man who had made her think beyond herself. She would face him, and remind him of the power she held over him. In the past, she had always found that she could hold on to Lute by keeping his nose pressed up against her world, giving him little glimpses of the sort of elevated life he had married into and would himself be privy to … in due time.