“Listen, listen—”
“You and Boukie both screwed her? So that’s why he thought—”
“Ailey, not at the same time! I promise, sweetheart! I swear to God . . .” He began explaining rapidly. He’d been with Rhonda the previous summer, but she wasn’t his girlfriend. Just somebody he was messing around with, and one night on the phone, she said she’d slept with Boukie, so she didn’t want David anymore. And that had been fine with him, because he didn’t want her, either.
But I screamed at him. I told him he could have that stank girl, if he wanted her. When I told him I had somebody back home in the City, and I bet he wouldn’t turn me down when I wanted to fuck, David started weeping. He hugged his naked arms and talked through sobs. Please. He loved me. He was so sorry, please, but I kept putting on my clothes. I reminded him it was after curfew.
When he drove me back to the house, I told him, don’t ever call me again. Don’t come by my granny’s house, either.
*
Uncle Root had taken over the center of the chessboard. One of my castles, both my knights, and half my pawns were gone.
“Go ahead and mate me,” I said. “I need to get back.”
“You have plans with David James?”
I made an ugly face. “No, I’m done with him. I told Miss Rose I would help her fill the preserve jars.”
He leaned down, squinting at the board. Sighed, then captured my other rook.
“What happened, Ailey? I thought you two were thick as thieves. Was he not a gentleman? Am I going to have to beat him to within an inch of his life?”
“No, he was fine, I guess.”
“And what about that other one? That Crawford fellow. There haven’t been any fisticuffs between him and David James over you? Because it’s clear you’ve evolved into quite the femme fatale.”
He made a silly face.
“Uncle Root, don’t make fun of me! I really loved David. I thought he was a nice guy, but he broke my heart.”
“I’m so sorry. What did he do?”
This old man was my friend. My only friend now, but he was an adult. There was no way I could tell him what had happened out at the creek. That I’d been naked when David and I had our falling-out. There was no way I’d tell him about what happened with Gandee, either. That all this time, I’d broken my promise to everybody. I wasn’t really a good girl. I never had been. I’d just pretended to make everybody else happy, and look where that had gotten me. I had a broken heart and I was still ashamed.
I moved a lonely pawn forward. “I don’t want to talk about it, Uncle Root.”
“All right, I won’t pry. Would you like to hear about the time I met the great W. E. B. Du Bois?”
“I know this story already. You met him, he was an asshole, and he slammed the door in your face.”
He lifted a finger. “But, Ailey, you haven’t heard the rest!”
“Fine. But please make this quick.”
“I will try. Now, Rob-Boy and I were standing there like the presumptuous young fools we were. Then, across the hall, another door opened and Dr. Du Bois’s friend and assistant, Miss Jessie Fauset, came out.”
I looked up from the board. “I know her!”
“Ailey, she’s been dead over twenty years. You can’t possibly know her.”
“I meant Nana gave me one of her books to read.”
“Really? From what your mother tells me, I had no idea the lady had such good taste. Which book?”
“Plum Bun.”
“Ah! That’s my favorite one! So back to my story. Miss Fauset invited us inside her room and a young lady was sitting there. She was a history major at Spelman College—very precocious; only sixteen—and had walked over to meet the great scholar. She didn’t say whether Dr. Du Bois had rebuffed her, too, but I suspected as much.
“Miss Fauset was taking tea. She’d already poured a cup for the young lady, and she left and came back with two other chairs and invited Rob-Boy and me to stay. After some wonderful conversation and some excellent cookies, we took our leave and began walking to the side street where Rob-Boy had parked. Yet across the yard, I heard the young lady calling, ‘Mr. Freeman! Mr. Freeman!’ I’d left my hat in Miss Fauset’s room, and the young lady was waving it high.
“The three of us walked to the car, and Robert drove her back over to Spelman’s campus. It was only a couple of blocks away, but already, we both were smitten with her. She’d memorized that entire page on double consciousness from The Souls of Black Folk! But I was more charming than Rob-Boy, if I do say so myself. I lied and told her I was a junior at Routledge and twenty, when I was a freshman and a year younger than she was. I found the nerve to ask permission to write her, and she consented. It was a three-year, long-distance relationship with no visits. After my third letter, I confessed my age. I was so afraid, but I didn’t want to lie anymore. She was very angry with me for several months, but somehow we worked it out. After graduation, we enrolled in graduate school up in the City at Mecca University. We truly were kids, but we knew what we wanted. And we married.”