exotic, naked flower.
Edgar wasn’t yet over the first shock when he was rattled by the second. His heart dropped down into his gut when the brown-skinned girl appeared.
Edgar stood up and took a few steps forward. “What colored girl … ?” he mumbled to himself, and then realized it was his own daughter.
He didn’t even know he was running until the tunnel of wind he created tore his hat from his head.
Sissy was still trying to get her arm into the sleeve of her dress when she looked up and saw her father charging toward them.
“Sissy!”
Cole spun around and jumped protectively in front of her. His green eyes flashed, and Edgar stalled.
Edgar knew he could beat Cole with one hand, if he had to. He was a full foot taller and twenty pounds heavier, but there were shadows swimming in his blind anger, and the line that separated black from white coiled into noose; imagined or not, Edgar could feel the rough rope fibers brushing against his neck.
Edgar took a very deep breath.
“Sissy, come here.”
“You don’t have to go with him, Sissy!” Cole barked.
“She’s my child, Cole, you done enough. Lemme take her home.” Edgar’s tone was replete with disappointment and defeat.
Sissy dropped her head. She wiggled the remaining length of arm through the sleeve and stepped shamefully away from Cole.
“Daddy I—”
Edgar shook his head. He didn’t want to hear any of it.
What could she have said to him to make what she had done—had been doing—all right? That she was sorry? That she was—God forbid—in love with Cole Payne? No words she could speak would ever be powerful enough to change the fact that Cole was white and she was black and this was Mississippi, U.S. of A.
Edgar’s long, brown face was etched with sadness and when Sissy finally looked at him, it broke her heart to see that she had broken his.
She would have gladly taken a beating—a million beatings—if it would place the happy back onto her father’s face.
“Let’s go home,” Edgar said before turning and walking away. Sissy followed, weeping into her hands.
Edgar never uttered a word about the discovery to his wife or to God. He didn’t have to; Sissy never wanted to see her father look at her in that way again, and so the next time she saw Cole Payne—she didn’t see Cole Payne. And whenever Cole called down to her from his waiting place in the tree, Sissy held her head straight and hastened her pace.
It went on like that for some weeks, until Cole finally understood that it was over. He didn’t accept it though, and remained awake at night trying to figure out ways he could get Sissy back. The boy was so distraught, so out of his mind with longing, that he took to lying in the field beneath the afternoon sun dressed in nothing but his drawers. Why? Well, to get dark, of course!
He stupidly thought that if he was a darker shade of white, Sissy’s father might accept him. But all he got for his effort was sunburn and a slight case of sun poisoning.
Cole’s parents didn’t know what was wrong with him. His father told him that he’d take him out to the shed and beat the sense back into him if he didn’t shape up and stop acting crazy.
Turns out, Cole didn’t need a beating from his father, all he needed was to see Sissy strolling hand-inhand with Mac Gosling, and just like that his broken heart turned to dust. You know, dust barely has any feeling at all.
A few months after the sighting, Sissy and Mac Gosling married. Throughout the better part of her marriage, and certainly for as long as her father breathed air, Sissy did not dare allow her mind to run on Cole Payne. But I know that when Edgar passed away, and he lay serene and silent in his casket, unable to dish out penalty or retribution, Sissy did allow her mind to wander back to that amazing spring and loved-filled summer, and the memories raised a smile amidst her tears.
Cole, well, he let go of the idea of having Sissy as his wife, but try as he might, he couldn’t push the memories out of reach. Sometimes nostalgia got the best of him and he’d try to recreate the magic they had. It was despicable and embarrassing to watch him usher one white girl after the other to that fence.
He told them to laugh and say: Your mama made johnnycakes; they taste like a little piece of heaven.
The girls, they did as he asked.
Anything for Cole Payne.
“Your mama made johnnycakes; they taste like a little piece heaven.”
Again.
“Your mama made johnnycakes; they taste like a little piece of heaven.”
Again!
“Your mama made johnnycakes; they taste like a little piece of heaven!”
The melody was never quite right and the girls always cried when they saw the regret shining in his eyes.
Arthur Thompson owned the land that both Cole and Sissy’s family sharecropped. For years, Cole had witnessed Arthur come by once a month to collect the rent and part of the crop. He was a short man with red cheeks and sparkly blue eyes. He always counted the rent money aloud. Afterward, he’d swipe the bills across the leg of his trousers, before folding the stash in half and shoving it into his pocket. Cole took that as a slight. It was as if the sweat his family put into earning the money had soiled the cash, rendering it too dirty for Arthur’s pocket.
Other than that, Arthur seemed like a decent man. Oftentimes he’d sit on the porch with Cole’s parents, telling stories and crude jokes.
Arthur had two sons and a daughter. The girl, Melinda, sometimes rode out with her father on collection day. She would sit up front with her bare feet sticking out the window. Sometimes she wore shorts, other times soft skirts that fluttered in the breeze.
She always stayed in the truck, and Cole’s mother, Barbara, thought that it was rude how the girl never came out to speak to them.
“Would your daughter care for some lemonade?” Barbara ventured one day.
“Aww, she’s all right. She got a Coke in there if she get thirsty.”
“She don’t ever get out the truck. Is she shy?”
Arthur’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Shy ain’t the word. If she could live her life inside her bedroom, she would,” he whispered. “If I didn’t bring her out on my rounds with me, the child would never get any fresh air or sun.”
Cole’s mother huffed. “Well, that can’t be good. What she do in the house all day?”
“Read.”
“Oh.”
