She took another sip, then moved from the chair to the bed.
With her back turned to me she said, “Hold me.”
I wrapped my arms around her from behind. She leaned back and I felt a tremor, not knowing which of us it came from.
“I always carried a knife with me since I was eleven. My brothers taught me how to fight and Daddy taught me how to drink. Whenever I read a book, it was at the private library in Miss Donaldson’s garage because the Prims thought reading was for punks.”
“They’d beat you if you picked up a book?”
“Like an egg.”
I held on a little tighter.
She lifted my hand and kissed it.
“Anyway, I left Peanut and went to Lexington. Up there I figured out that I had to get outta the South before I killed one’a them white men. I wasn’t used to white people because my whole life was spent in a colored town. Up in Syracuse, around the university, I didn’t get so mad and I hunkered down on an education.”
I kissed the back of her neck and she leaned harder.
“By the time I met Alfie I was ready to say something. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“And he was ready to listen. Up until that time I was either in my mind alone or just physically in the world. Even in school. But when I met Alfie, even though I hated things about him, we could hear each other and understand.”
I pulled her even closer and breathed in the clean scent of her hair. We stayed quiet like that for five minutes at least.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
“You’re doin’ it.”
“Why did you send me that infinity symbol?”
“Isn’t that funny? It’s either infinity or a peanut.”
“Yeah. I was happy to hear from you.”
“Are you feelin’ this?”
I nodded and she turned to me.
The bed was too small but we made it work. There was something very wrong about what we were doing, but we dropped the guilt to the floor along with our clothes.
We kept the light on and watched each other do everything like teenagers discovering the power of adult connection. It was a first for me and maybe for her.
Sleep never felt so good.
33
Strong sunlight illuminated the shaded window. I didn’t remember opening my eyes.
“You awake?” she asked.
I turned and kissed her. She caressed my jawline with three gentle fingers.
“I hope I’m not pregnant.”
I didn’t have a reply.
“Don’t you?” she asked.
I sat up and looked down on her. She grinned.
“You’re a fool, King Oliver.”
“That why you like me?”
She climbed out of the bed. I watched her long brown body sashay toward the bathroom and sighed, the venal forest surrounding Mel’s country home a million miles away.
She came out of the bathroom and I went in. Then we reconvened on the bed, sitting in half lotus and facing each other.
“Is this what you came down here for?” Mathilda Prim asked.
“Hoping for this, but I had other intentions too.”
“Like what?”
“The answers to a few questions.”
“Let’s get dressed and go down for breakfast.”
“They serve this early?”
“For me they do.”
The breakfast room had twelve round tables, each with four chairs. We were the only customers and so sat in the far corner next to a window overlooking a stand of dogwood trees.
The waitstaff, made up of two women servers and a cook, all called Mathilda Miss Prim with great reverence.
“You own this hotel?”
“Alfie did. Now, I guess, it falls to me.”
“So you’re the one who told Big Wilma to come runnin’ after me?”
“She called the mayor because you mentioned him. Then she called me.”
The fare was simple enough. Soft scrambled eggs, bacon, biscuits, and black coffee.
“So, King, what else did you want?”
“I called your assistant looking for you.”
“And what did Minta have to say?”
“That you had disappeared and to tell her if I found you.”
“You didn’t, did you?”
“No. What’s her story?”
“She’d been seduced by Alfie’s earlier theories.”
“The three-fifths rule?”
“Uh-huh. That’s why she came to work for him. She’s much more on the side of the Men of Action than she is with me.”
“Then why would you have her as an assistant?”
“Her self-appointed job was to guard me and to keep an open eye. It was easier to let her and hers think I was oblivious than to try and make it on my own.”
“That’s playin’ a little close to the bone, ain’t it?”
Mathilda flipped her right hand, dismissing my question.
“Alfie set up a plan for me to get away from them when I got the message you sent.”
“How long ago did you come up with that?”
“When we were in Togo—”
“You were with him when he was running from the government?”
“We got together at least once a month.”
“You were there when the guy tried to poison him?”
“Yes.” Her expression turned hard, even unrelenting. “That white man was on the floor with the blood and buttermilk all over.”
“Damn.”
Mathilda had told me about her rough upbringing; this story cemented the tales.
“Okay,” I said. “What about the Big Nickel?”
She sighed and reached across the table to hold my hand.
“I know we have to talk about these things, that you have a job to do. But it was really wonderful to have a smart boyfriend and not have to rip out my heart over it.”
It was, I thought, a wonderful thing when, unbidden, a smile comes to your lips.
“I needed to be with you last night,” she said as an apology. “It’s been hard bein’ around those crazy hateful people hopin’ they could set Alfie free.”
“We can talk later if you want. I mean, my job was to find out why they had Alfred in stir. I haven’t got the full story on that yet, but that’s another thing. I just wanna know what’s goin’ on.”
“Like what?”
“All kinds of things. That big building, for instance.”
“The Big Nickel is a spider farm,” she said.
“That thing about their webs replacing steel?”
“More than that. The strength of the webbing plus their light weight makes a material that could be the new plastic. Space-age stuff. When Alfie told me he was going to build a factory I said I wanted it in my town.”
“I was under the impression that this town doesn’t like you very much.”
“Maybe not. But this is where I came from and so we built it here. Anything else?”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save your husband.”
Mathilda’s head reared back like a creature that felt threatened. Her eyes seemed to darken. There was definitely violence in that stare. And then, suddenly, it was gone. She smiled slightly and shook her head.
“We were living the kind of life that made about as much sense as an ostrich chick in a sparrow’s nest,” she said. “I mean, we were rich and knew all kinds of right-wing revolutionaries, bankers, and politicos. They didn’t like me, but Alfie could do anything and they’d just have to grin and bear it.”
“But all that changed,” I supposed.
“One time he went to a rally that the Men of Action and maybe half a dozen other groups held. I went. I mean, there was a smattering of Black and brown people there too. All of ’em thinkin’ that the problem was what they called the Left and the Deep State. I listened for a while, and then, when Alfie was headed for the stage, I left. Went out to California and got a job at a diner in Venice usin’ my cousin Bernice MacDaniels’s ID and social security number. I didn’t care about bein’ rich and famous. I didn’t need it if I had to listen to people bein’ fools.”