Chapter 19 A Caledonian Fling
The first of Bernice Hutton’s two regrets in life was that she’d ever given a good goddamn what anyone thought. Now she was old—very old—and she could see just how little their opinions really meant. Sometimes she imagined herself standing on top of Troy’s big gaudy courthouse, looking down at the townsfolk scrambling around trying to outdo one another. All of them thinking the differences between them were important. Believing anyone would give a damn in a hundred years what model car they drove or who their granddaddy was. When they reached her age, and gained the perspective it offered, they’d come to know what she’d found out. The only thing that matters is who you’ve loved. Once they knew that simple truth, they’d wish to God, just like she did, that they’d figured it out while their life was ahead of them.
When you’re very old, people want to know—what’s the secret to a good, long life? Bernice would tell them: live and let live. Be true to yourself and let others do the same. It was good advice, but people never seemed to listen, which Bernice found depressing. That lesson hadn’t come easily, and she wanted to spare them the suffering she’d endured. But that’s not how humans work, she’d realized. We all have to find out the hard way for ourselves.
Bernice’s second regret, by far the biggest, was that she hadn’t run away with Samuel Yates when she had the chance. It was a complicated dream to lose herself in completely. Because if she had followed her heart back then, she wouldn’t have her children or grandchildren, and she loved them all very much. But when she looked at Sam now and felt her pulse surge just like it had when they were eighteen years old, she couldn’t help but think how wonderful it would be to go back in time and spend sixty years with him.
She still remembered with heartbreaking clarity the last time she’d seen him as a young man, standing below her window and telling her he had to leave. He’d begged her to come with him. They’d head up north, where things weren’t perfect but they might be a bit easier. Bernice had stayed in Troy for the very worst reasons. She was scared of the people in this pissant little town—of what they might think of her and what they might say to her father. Bernice’s cowardice cost her happiness. It had been a terrible price to pay.
In those days, the town’s eyes had been glued to them every time they spoke. Aside from the Lambert mill, the streets were the only spaces in Troy where white and Black folks ever mingled. The movie theater was off-limits to Sam. The soda fountain, too. Bernice and Sam went for walks in the woods, hoping they didn’t run into hikers or hunters. Even though they never did anything but hold hands, both knew all too well what could happen if they were ever discovered. They were only a couple of years younger than that boy, Emmett Till, who’d been brutally murdered at age fourteen after a white woman lied and claimed he’d whistled at her.
These days, Bernice and Samuel were old and no one gave a damn what they did. They could walk around arm in arm, invisible to all. Bernice’s husband died in 2019. Sam’s wife passed on Christmas Day a couple years later. Six months after that, once he’d put his affairs in order, Sam had driven eighteen hours to Troy from Milwaukee. He didn’t know where Bernice lived and he didn’t dare ask—for her sake, not for his. A lot of things had changed down south, but he wasn’t sure exactly which ones. So he sat on a bench in Jackson Square for hours each day, waiting for her to pass by. When she finally saw him, it was like they’d never been apart.
They talked about getting married, but decided against it. They’d both had the experience and felt no desire to repeat it. And neither of them had any use for another toaster. All they wanted or needed was each other. So they splurged on a cruise around the world instead of a wedding. Six months later, they settled down together in Troy.
Every evening (weather permitting) they returned to the bench where they’d been reunited. But on this night, it wasn’t a thunderstorm that kept them from observing their ritual. They found Jackson Square looking like Sherman himself had just marched through it. Someone had constructed a wooden stage right in front of the statue, but it now stood abandoned. A banner made from a painter’s drop cloth and two long dowels lay draped over a bench. Only two words written in red paint—descendants of—could be read. Cupcakes smashed into the cobblestones bore the shoe prints of a frenzied mob. But there was no sign of the crowd. Only a single woman remained in the square—a petite blond in a pretty summer dress. She was picking up litter and stuffing it into a kitchen bag.
“Beverly?” Bernice called out, and the younger woman looked up.
“Evening, Bernice.” Beverly Underwood pulled off one of her rubber gloves and walked over to offer a hand to Bernice’s companion. “You must be Sam. I’m Beverly. Welcome back to Georgia. I sure have heard a lot about you.”
Sam shot Bernice a droll side-eye as he shook Beverly’s hand.
“We both get our hair done at Val’s,” Bernice told him.
“Well, that explains it,” Sam said. “What happened out here tonight?”
Beverly sighed. “Lula Dean held a rally in support of the Confederate statue. I’d like to see it go—and apparently I’m not the only one who feels that way. Some young people came to protest and things got out of hand. Bella Cummings was injured.”
“Wilma Jean’s granddaughter?” Bernice asked. “She gonna be all right?”
“I think so. They took her to see Dr. Chokshi. I’m just cleaning up a little and then I’m going to head over to check on her.” Beverly paused for a moment while a question seemed to form in her mind. “Y’all notice anything different about Troy in the past couple of weeks?”
Bernice took in the state of Jackson Square. “Sure does seem like there’s something strange in the air.”
Beverly nodded. “I was talking to Wanda Crump, and she thinks that little library Lula opened might have something to do with all the things that keep happening,” she said.
“I wouldn’t be shocked,” Bernice said. “That woman’s an agent of chaos, God love her.”
“Well, would you mind taking a peek for me? Lula and I are both running for mayor, and I can’t really be seen loitering outside her house.”
“May I ask?” Sam spoke up. “Who’s this Lula Dean who’s been holding rallies and opening libraries?”
“Her maiden name is Lambert,” Bernice told him. “She’s Leonard’s daughter.”
“Y’all knew Lula’s father?” Beverly asked.
“Oh yes,” Sam told her. “The Lamberts were the reason my family had to leave town.”
Sixty years earlier, there had been another gathering in Jackson Square. On that day, Sam’s father had been at the front of the crowd. He wasn’t there to defend Augustus Wainwright, but to rally a group of mill workers—many of them descendants of the men and women who’d worked in the Wainwright fields. The Emancipation Proclamation was one hundred years old, but the area’s Black folks had never been fully free. Many felt like they’d gone straight from one form of slavery to another. The jobs at the mill were supposed to pay the minimum wage, but the checks they took home from the mill never added up. The days lasted sunup to sundown, just as they had before the war. They were expected to arrive early and leave late. There were no breaks or vacations. You prayed you never got sick. Those who were injured on the job were let go. Whole families could starve if a father broke an arm.
For over one hundred years, this was the way things were done. Exploiting the Black people in town—preventing them from ever getting ahead—well, that was as much a tradition as cornbread and greens. Samuel’s father had tried to change that. All he’d asked for was the same basic rights that workers in other places were given. For his impertinence, their house had been burned to the ground after the rally. A mob was searching for Samuel and his father the night he begged Bernice to leave. There was no point in calling the police for help. Some of the men hunting them worked for the local sheriff. The entire Yates family was forced to flee Troy, hidden in the back of a delivery truck.
For twenty years after that, things went back to the way they’d always been. Then a local lawyer sued the mill on behalf of the workers. Wilma Jean Cummings’s father had once worked for Leonard Lambert, and she knew exactly what kind of man he was. When she and the workers prevailed in court, Lambert was bankrupted. He’d been forced to sell the mill to an outside company. The new owners would never have been mistaken for socialists, but at least they let the workers take lunch breaks and paid them what they were owed.
It was a small step forward. But for many, the damage had already been done. Lives had been sacrificed. Others, like Bernice’s and Sam’s, had been ripped apart. Progress had arrived at last, but it had come at a terrible price.
Bernice’s eyes skimmed down the line from The Art of Crochet to Manhood. It had to be the most ridiculous selection of titles she’d ever encountered.
“These are the books your friend thinks might be changing the town?” Sam asked.
“Oh Lord,” Bernice said. “Look at this one.” She pulled out A Caledonian Fling. The cover showed a handsome Highlander in a kilt wooing a lass in a tartan dress while a herd of sheep looked on. “I haven’t seen this book since I was in grade school. I nicked it from my mother thinking it might be naughty. Damn thing bored me to tears.”
Sam reached out for the book and she passed it to him. He flipped to a random page and read.
“‘My secret vices are no longer secret and I no longer have to be clandestine or to hide the covers of the books.’”
“What?” Bernice said. “I don’t remember that part.”
Sam turned to another random passage. “‘We had one rhythm from the beginning. We didn’t need to practice, or tune our instruments. He would be astonished and proclaim his astonishment. I wouldn’t have time to share in his proclamations. My time was dedicated wholly to pleasure. I would fall silent. I would cling to his body and bury my face beneath his armpit and breathe his smell deeply into my chest.’”
Sam paused and whistled softly. “You were one jaded schoolgirl. This is some good stuff!”
Bernice playfully swatted Sam on the arm. “You’re making it all up!”
Sam laughed. “I wish I was capable. I’m just reading what’s right here on the page.”
“Lemme see,” Bernice demanded, and Sam turned the book to face her. She studied it for a moment. “Oh!” She peeled off the cover and stuck it back in Lula’s library. “There’s a different book inside.”
“‘The Proof of the Honey,’” Sam read from the book’s spine. Then he grinned. “Someone’s gone and switched Lula’s books.”
“You suppose this one’s real dirty?” Bernice asked.
“Only if we’re lucky,” Sam said, tucking the book under his arm and offering the love of his life his hand.