Chapter Seventeen Emma Baldwin
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Emma Baldwin
I’m bubbling with excitement as I approach the small Alabama diner, thankful I’m soon to see Malcolm again. A red neon sign buzzes above the entrance, casting a warm, nostalgic glow. Outside, the summer evening air is thick with the scent of honeysuckles and fried green tomatoes.
Malcolm is waiting by the door, leaning casually against the brick wall. When he sees me, a smile brightens his whole face. My heart thuds harder, anticipation growing with each step. He walks toward me, and the world feels right.
“Hey, Star,” he says, offering a warm hug.
His embrace is everything I needed, but it stirs something dark inside me.
As his arms wrap around me, I feel a familiar, gnawing hunger.
My fingers twitch, craving the feel of my hands slick with his blood.
I imagine the coppery scent of it filling my nostrils and his body broken on the concrete at my feet.
I shake my head, trying to clear away the violent urges. Clenching my fists and inhaling slowly, I focus on the good in him, willing the bloodlust to stay buried. “Hi,” I reply in a strained voice.
The curse’s evil impulses never bother me when I read his letters; they are gone when we are apart.
So I pray that they won’t rise and ruin the day we’ve planned today.
Malcolm deserves the best of me, not the monster lurking beneath my skin.
And we can’t solve any of our problems if we spend the day fighting.
He pulls back slightly, looking at me with concern.
Can he tell I’m struggling?
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod, forcing a smile. “Yeah, just tired … and happy to see you.”
He smiles, and the tension in my chest eases.
“I’m happy to see you too. Let’s head inside.
” Malcolm pushes the heavy wooden door open with a creak, revealing the diner’s dingy interior.
My body tenses. We enter the dim room. Cigarette smoke and the smell of stale coffee float through the air, mingling with the buzzing of neon lights and blaring country songs on the jukebox.
I nervously wring my fingers and dart my eyes around. We are the only Black people in this room.
Malcolm gives me a cryptic smile and grabs my hand.
“Colored section’s in the back!” a shrill female voice says from the shadows.
Colored section? I’d rather eat at home than give my business to a company that would segregate me or treat me like I am less than someone else. My heart pounds, knowing that we are not welcome here.
Malcolm leads me toward the back. “Come on,” he whispers, sensing my hesitation.
A wrinkled waitress with bleached-blond hair and an expression that looks like she’s been sucking onions all day glares at me. “You deaf?” she demands. “I said the colored section is in the room in the back.”
I’d be humiliated and angry at the venom in her voice, the way she looks at me like a rat, a pest that needs to be controlled—if I cared about anything stupid racist folks say. Luckily, I don’t.
“Trust me.” Malcolm smirks at the waitress, looking at the dusty floors, smudged windows, and ragged red booths lining the walls. “We don’t want to eat in your section.”
My heart throbs as Malcolm pulls me past her and heads toward the rear of the dimly lit room. “There’s better company in the back anyway,” he whispers to me.
What is he up to? I was so happy to see him again that I forgot how much I hate coming to the Jim Crow South in the fifties.
We pass a scowling man in a red hat who’s hooked over a plate with a biscuit drowned in gravy and a woman holding a greasy menu as she sits alone at one of the rickety wooden tables in the center of the room.
Most of the tables are scarred by graffitied hearts and names, but one table has a Confederate flag etched into the wood.
I think about all the statues of Confederate soldiers I saw on the way here and wonder why some people spend so much time worshiping dead traitors who were willing to go to war against our country, fighting and dying to keep my people enslaved.
Anger bubbles inside me when we pass a pissed-off couple with pale faces glaring at us as they shove greasy burgers in the caves of their mouths.
“Why meet here?” I hiss at Malcolm. My teeth are gritted, my eyes scanning for threats.
“Trust me,” he adds.
Trust him? My instincts scream, Run! Tension suffocates me. I stay away from sundown towns like this, where brown skin makes you a target. Danger lurks in every corner, and hate brings out the worst in people.
We step through the chipped doorframe at the back and into the colored section. The air shimmers and twists in a kaleidoscope of colors. My belly drops. The ground crumbles as we are sucked into a void of darkness.
Wind rages against my skin, yanking at my hair and clothes. My hand searches for Malcolm’s, but it’s like trying to grasp smoke. I can’t feel him. Is he still here? Panic splashes up to my throat. Then I hear Malcolm gasp, so I know he’s somewhere in the dark abyss that surrounds us.
A beam of light shines through the darkness. It grows, spinning into a dizzying blur of blinding light and vertigo-inducing motion. I close my eyes to steady myself. Everything stops.
When my lashes part, I find myself standing on marble floors. “Did we time-travel?” I ask.
Malcolm shakes his head no and motions over his shoulder.
I still see the people in the dingy white section of the diner behind us.
In front of us, opulent gold chairs surround a shiny blue countertop edged in gold.
Girls of all colors sit laughing at the counter wearing poodle skirts and saddle shoes, sipping Coke floats.
Boys wear rolled-up jeans and leather jackets as they surround the big red-and-white jukebox picking out songs and sneaking looks at the girls at the counter.
The scent of sugary treats flows through the air.
It’s like I’ve stepped into a dream—a luxurious soda shop straight out of a fairy tale.
The walls are cotton-candy blue with shimmering gold trim.
Crystal chandeliers dangle from the ceiling, refracting beams of light and casting the round gold tables sprinkled in the center of the room in extra shine.
The edges of the room are lined with royal-blue booths surrounding gleaming gold tabletops.
The space is alive with joyful chatter and smiling faces—some beige, some brown, some white—all united in laughter.
“H-how?” I sputter. “How is this possible?”
Malcolm takes my hand and leads me to one of the vinyl booths that hug the walls.
He says, laughing, “Welcome to the colored section.” He adds, “All the restaurants around here gave Black folks the less desirable parts of the building. They put them near the kitchen or bathrooms, or in some cases, outside the restaurant altogether.”
Malcolm slides into the booth opposite me.
“The white sections are always better equipped, usually cleaner, and more comfortable,” he says.
“That didn’t feel fair, considering that the Black folks in this town work harder than everybody else.
So my sisters and Charles and I combined our powers, like we do for shows, only this time we used magic to redecorate. ”
I laugh. Beaming.
“Do you like it?” he asks.
“I love it.”
“Cool.” A satisfied smile slides onto his face.
“The place is spelled so that racist people and people with ill intent can’t see or experience none of this.
They see the ragged furniture and substandard service that they think we deserve, and they get the bubble guts if they stay on our side too long, so they get outta here quick. ”
I laugh harder, imagining Klansmen in hoods racing for the bathroom.
“But,” Malcolm says, “in our section, we treat people like the kings and queens they are. It’s safe too.
Those that can see the beauty of this place are spelled so they can’t tell about it.
” A crooked grin lights up his face. “Black folks went through hell in the past. There’s not a time in history when America was great for us.
Therefore, as a time traveler, it feels like a privilege to spread a little joy to my people. ”
I look around. At the counter on a tall stool there’s a mother who lovingly glances at her precious daughter, a toddler with brown skin, bright eyes, and plaits on either side of her head.
She giggles, shifting in a yellow dress before licking a chocolate ice cream cone and happily kicking her shiny black shoes as they dangle below the counter.
Her innocence and infectious joy radiate, and her cuteness makes me grow warm with happiness inside.
Wait! She looks like—I feel a pang of sadness.
Is that one of the four little girls who are gonna die when the Klan bombs that church in Birmingham? “Is that…?”
Malcolm nods. He whispers, “She was one of the ones I couldn’t save. No matter how many times I tried. But at least we could make her smile before.”
My chest tightens. I want to hold her, shield her from a tragic fate.
This perfect child shouldn’t die before she’s even old enough to drive.
No one should. Moving backward in time hurts.
I hate knowing bad things are coming when some are impossible to change.
I wish my family would help people like this, but my parents fear changing the past because they think we’ll break the future.
“The fifties weren’t an easy time,” Malcolm says.
“Emmett Till is gonna be murdered soon … We tried, but we couldn’t change that either.
But this?” He knocks on the table with his knuckles.
“This we can do. We can give good memories, a little respect and joy to the poor and the people that need it most.”