A Solitary Blue

  Early in October, he was working out a song he’d heard on a record, trying to figure out how to keep the rhythm in his backup without losing the sense of flowing melody. It was a matter of balancing, of keeping things in proportion. He kept trying to get it right. “When first unto this country, a stranger I came, and I courted a fair maid and Nancy was her name.”

  About one second after the final bell rang, a kid came out through the doors. A kid with somewhere to go, Jeff thought, continuing to play. The kid wasn’t anyone he knew, a narrow head with ragged, dark hair, cut-offs, T-shirt, and long, skinny legs. What held his eye, as he sat playing his guitar in mild October sunlight, was the lift of the kid’s chin. That chin raised — not high, not angry. Brave maybe. Purposeful. He looked at the kid’s face. Even features and a straight nose, eyes dark and the mouth large. His hands played as his mind wandered.

  The kid turned in Jeff’s direction, as if the music were some kind of string winding around the long legs. Jeff kept his eyes down, watching at the periphery of his vision the awkward and reluctant approach, as if the long legs were trying to move away from him but moved instead toward him. He’d never seen more tired-looking sneakers in his life, he thought, and looked up into a pair of dark hazel eyes, brown shot with greens and golds — a girl? What did she want? An eighth grader, probably; she had no figure — especially in those clothes.

  “I never heard that song,” she said. She didn’t want to say that, she didn’t want to be drawn over to him, but she couldn’t do anything to stop herself. She couldn’t stop herself from coming over or from asking, even though she wanted to.

  Jeff sang the song, all the way through. Her presence affected his voice, which had settled down over the summer: she listened so intently he was confused; she stood so still he barely dared look at her. Or maybe it was her eyes he didn’t want to look at, because he had seen the way the music coiled around her and drew her to him, in her eyes, seen something helpless in her against music and melody. She stared at his hands playing and soaked in his song in a way that made him think — for the first time in a long time — of the island, of solitude and space and the waves tumbling up onto the broad white beaches. He finished the song and looked up at her. She had her hands jammed awkwardly into her pockets; the melody of the song still played behind her eyes, he was sure of it. He played a couple of chords so the thread of music wouldn’t be broken between them. “Have a sit, kid,” he said, himself awkward, and that broke the spell, and she was free because he’d said it wrong.

  She shook her head and turned abruptly away. He watched her back, her straight shoulders, the long-legged way she walked.

  About a week later, she marched back up to him, wearing a boy’s shirt this time, chin high, and demanded: “What are the words for that song.”

  Jeff didn’t know how to take it, and why she came up cross to ask a favor. He felt like smiling at her, but kept his face expressionless, because he didn’t know how she’d react. He recited the verses, without playing any music. He had all of her attention and he was willing to bet she’d remember the words. Her face and expression looked intelligent, alert. She didn’t thank him, just went to get on her bike and ride off.

  He saw her a couple of times in the hallways, always alone. He watched for her after school. He would cast out his song like a fisherman his line, and she’d get drawn in because she couldn’t help it. Finally he introduced himself. “My name’s Jeff Greene.” She nodded her head, her eyes wary. “What’s yours?” he asked. He kept on playing, not even a melody, just any music so she wouldn’t take off.

  “Dicey Tillerman,” she told him.

  He knew the name and remembered the old lady with the red boat. “You related to that old lady with the farm?” he asked. That was the wrong thing to say, he could see it in her eyes, in her chin. He held her with music. “What are you, a grandchild?” She nodded again. She wasn’t going to say anything: stubborn. Jeff kept himself from grinning: stubborn and prickly.

  “Listen, can you sing the melody for ’the Coat of Many Colors’?” he asked on impulse. “I want to try a harmony.”

  She didn’t want to, she didn’t sit down, but she started to sing. He kept the guitar soft, listening to her voice and trying to harmonize with half of his attention. She didn’t have a great voice, but it sang true notes. She sang the song plainly, her voice round and strong; he could hear in her singing how much she liked the song. He had her now, and he thought he’d say something she wanted to hear. “You sing pretty well.”

  “Not particularly. Just better than you.” Jeff didn’t know how to take that. He didn’t know what to say next. “My sister is the one who can really sing,” she continued. “You should hear her sing this song.” She liked her sister. And she wasn’t fishing for compliments — that was for sure — and she sure wasn’t trying to flatter him. He couldn’t imagine her telling a lie.

  He put a friendly expression on his face, “I’d like to.” He waited for her to ask him out to her house.

  “I gotta go now,” she said.

  Jeff was surprised. He felt things shift on him, like a shift in the tide. She was about to run away on him. “Why?” he asked. “I’ve got another song you might like”

  All she answered was, “I gotta go.”

  Well, he probably couldn’t stop her, he guessed. He bet nobody could stop her when she wanted something or had something she had to do. Probably that was what appealed to him, her determination; opposites attracted, they said. That, and the way he could hold her helpless with music. That and the way she didn’t act like most girls, saying one thing and hinting at another with her eyes. She just went her own way, in her own way — she didn’t ask or even want anything from him. She was as distant as the ocean, even when you’re up close to it. Independent, but he could pull her in with music.

  He saw her in the downtown grocery store, working there. So they must need money, her parents, because eighth grade was young for a job. She didn’t expect to see him, and her chin went up when she did, so he spent his time talking with the owner while Dicey stubbornly swabbed down the floors.

  One day, just before Thanksgiving, there was a story Phil told him, about how this squirty eighth grader had flattened Chappelle, something about whether or not she’d cheated on the character sketch essay. The kid, Phil said, delighted to be telling such a good story, had stood up to the teacher, and then Wilhemina Smiths had joined up with her and between them they’d reduced Chappelle to nothing. To a puddle of nothing on the floor. “You’ve got to feel sorry for the guy,” Phil said. Jeff heard the same story, with several variations, over the day and wasn’t surprised to see Dicey walking out of school that afternoon with the black girl. It was too cold to play the guitar outside, so he had to keep it in a case, but he tried greeting her anyway. “Hey, Dicey. I hear you put Chappelle into his place.” He waited to see how she’d react to the greeting, to the compliment.

  “That wasn’t me, that was Mina,” Dicey told him. “Do you know Mina?”

  Jeff looked into a pair of laughing eyes. She was as tall as he was. “Everybody knows Mina.”

  “Yeah,” the girl answered. “Everybody knows you too, friend.”

  “That’s what they think,” Jeff told her, thinking how nobody knew at all what he was really like, inside. She chuckled, amused, friendly. He relaxed.

  “So, was this essay as good as everybody says?” he asked Dicey. He watched her eyes, wondering how she’d react to a question not about music.

  She didn’t know what to say, and her eyes looked back into his, brown, green, gold, distant and close, both. “No, of course not,” she said, and he grinned at her. He knew she’d tell the truth. “But it was pretty good,” she said, to be exact. The two girls walked away from him, and he felt his face, smiling goofily, watching them.

  That afternoon he risked going back to the little store on purpose, because he had the car for their Thanksgiving shopping, which the Professor didn’t want to do. A little kid w
as with Dicey, a little blond kid with the same hazel eyes, only rounder and not as dark, and the same prickly attitude, her brother. Jeff made his purchases and offered her a ride home. It turned out she was taking her brother with her on her bike, so she was glad of the offer. Sammy, she called him. Jeff didn’t mind waiting. He tried some music on Sammy, who wasn’t glad to meet him, but who obeyed Dicey.

  “Does she always ride you home?” he asked the boy, after he’d played the longest song he knew and the kid had settled down.

  “Nope.”

  “How come today?”

  The kid shrugged. He didn’t want to answer the question. Jeff saw marks on his face and decided he’d been in a fight. He looked tough enough to be able to do well in a fight. Jeff tried another question. “You live with your grandmother?” He thought he’d say next how he lived farther out along the same road.

  “So what?” Sammy asked, a wave of anger coming at Jeff. But it was kid’s anger and he knew how to answer it.

  “So nothing,” Jeff said. “I’m innocent officer; I didn’t do nothing,” he teased.

  Sammy giggled. He wiped his hand across his cheek, still smiling. He sat cross-legged on the floor, a sturdy little kid in sneakers.

  “You and your sister have the worst-looking sneakers I’ve ever seen,” Jeff said.

  “Oh, yeah?” The kid was ready to fight again. Jeff changed the subject, puzzled:

  “What’re you in, third grade?”

  “Naw, second. I’ve got a sister in third.”

  “The one who sings?” At that his face changed again; he liked his sister a lot.

  “Yeah.”

  “Boy, do you remind me of Dicey,” Jeff said.

  Sammy looked at him for a long time, then nodded his head. “Goodo.”

  Dicey told Jeff it was all right, so he went to their house the next Saturday. He rode his bike over through unseasonally warm weather. He walked it up the driveway, trying to avoid puddles where Thanksgiving snow flurries had melted. He walked it up because he was nervous about getting there.

  The driveway went between two neglected fields and then under a stand of pines. At the front of the house, which looked like nobody ever went in that way, a big tree stretched out bare branches, held firm by thick twisted wires. The path went around the side, past a screen porch. Jeff didn’t see anybody around. He had his guitar slung across his back and he stood for a minute, looking around him, feeling awkward, thinking maybe he’d go home, noticing that they had a big garden out behind the house and a path through it that led down to the marshes. He considered just turning around and riding home, but he was curious about this singing sister. The door of the barn, its bottom rotted away in large pieces, had been braced open. He looked inside.

  Dicey had her back to him. She wore cutoffs and a T-shirt. She didn’t know he was there. She was scraping paint off the hull of a little boat, a sailboat he guessed from the deep curved keel, and he could see a mast laid on the ground over by some stalls. She moved like she was dancing, leaning into each stroke, her legs long, her shoulder blades outlined under the T-shirt. Her short raggedy hair shone dark in the warm sunlight. Except for the noise of the scraper it was absolutely quiet. “Dicey?” he said.

  She wheeled around and she was angry at him. He could feel it.

  “Whatcha doing?” he asked. He felt like saying I’m sorry.

  “I’m the one to ask that,” she said, anger in her eyes and in her face. She held the scraper like a weapon, up against him.

  Jeff looked over her shoulder to the stalls, then over her other shoulder to the worktable. Back and forth. Her feelings washed over him, like waves, and he didn’t know how he’d let this happen. He had been in this scene before, with Melody, with the anger and dislike attacking him and breaking him down. He could feel himself cracking, inside. He didn’t know why he kept forgetting what he was really like. He didn’t know it mattered so much to him. If he’d known that, he never would have come out here, he never would have wound her around with music. He’d been fooling himself. Again.

  Dicey stared at him and he could see in her face that she didn’t think much of him. He agreed with her, he wasn’t much. But she didn’t have to get angry. He didn’t understand women, girls, he never would; he didn’t even much want to. Except he hadn’t thought Dicey was like that. Kidding himself that he understood her. Thinking he had cast out his line of music, baited with glittering song, cast it out into the water and slowly reeled her in, so gently that she didn’t even know what was happening.

  “Look,” he said, keeping his voice expressionless, hiding everything about himself. “I thought I’d come out and see you, and I want to meet this sister of yours. If you’re busy, I’ll go. If you don’t like the idea” — he thought for the right, unemotional words — “of me being here — you just have to say so.”

  “No,” she answered quickly, her face relaxing, her hostility flowing away and out, like a wave, washing past and gone. “It’s not that. Come on in, I’ve only got a little more to do here. I was just surprised to see someone.”

  Jeff was surprised himself at how relieved he was to hear her say that. But if this was what she was like when she was only surprised, she would be a terror if she was angry. He leaned his bike against a post and came closer, cautiously. He took the guitar off his back. “If that’s the way you react to surprises, I’ll be careful not to surprise you again,” he promised her. It was, now that he thought about it, pretty funny, the whole scene.

  For a long time she kept looking at his eyes, and then she smiled at him, just briefly, because her smile disappeared as fast as it came, even though it stayed, somehow, bright behind her eyes. He was glad he’d stayed out her anger. Glad because of the smile and glad because he’d had the courage. Her smile told him she liked him for fighting back.

  When she asked him to play a song while she finished, he had to strum chords for a while and pretend to be tuning up until he settled down. He didn’t want her to see how unsettled he’d been by the whole thing. How unsettled he still was. He had thought he was the fisherman, but he saw now —

  She had pronged him, with a single stroke, pronged him through the heart and he was caught. Just like with Melody, caught. But this wasn’t Melody, Dicey wasn’t. And besides, he didn’t feel pronged, he felt — overwhelmed, out of breath, breathless.

  Dicey watched him, but he did not look up to meet her eyes: he had things to settle inside himself first, he thought, recognizing that he felt easy, at ease, and also alert, eager, as if he had just fought his way through some thick overgrown jungle to the ocean beaches beyond.

  CHAPTER 10JEFF’s LIFE that tenth grade year became suddenly crowded, with people he liked, with things he wanted to do. Sometimes he caught himself protesting to himself: life is too rich. Like one of the French meals Brother Thomas cooked for them, where when you concentrated on the taste of chicken you knew you were missing out on the sharp, winy sauce and the sweetness of onions or mushrooms sauteed so briskly that their musty flavor got locked inside each slice. Life is so rich, Jeff said to himself, gratefully.

  Much of this had to do with the Tillermans; especially Dicey, but — since you couldn’t separate her from her family, and Jeff didn’t even want to — the whole crew of them, individually and together. He spent a lot of time at the farmhouse after that first day. One way and another, he did a lot of work with them. That first day it was Maybeth who knocked him out. She was almost ten and so lovely Jeff had to be careful not to stare at her. Staring at her, he knew, would make her more shy. He could feel how frightened she was, of anyone strange.

  Her eyes were large and round, clear hazel, and looked right at him once she got her courage up. They were the kind of eyes that you could look all the way into and know there was nothing ungentle in her. At first she was shy and silent but, like Dicey, she could be looped in with music. He watched the way the songs and the singing won her over slowly. He watched how quietly she moved and how quietly she sat, her hands
still. He watched how her skin shone as if from within, like fine porcelain. All of her reactions were slow. When he asked her how she liked a song, or if she wanted to choose one, he had to wait for her answer while she looked at him out of clear eyes. You couldn’t hurry Maybeth, and he didn’t want to because he felt how that might hurt her. Once he caught on to her particular rhythm, the slowness didn’t bother him.

  Walking their bicycles down the driveway at the end of the afternoon, he asked Mina Smiths the question he didn’t dare ask Dicey. “Where are their parents?”

  Mina was tall enough to look him straight in the eye, a measuring glance, wondering if she could trust him. “Do you gossip?”

  “No.”

  “That kid can sing, can’t she?”

  “Yeah,” Jeff agreed wholeheartedly.

  Mina kept looking at him until she finally said, “I’ll tell you what I know. Their father’s been gone since before Sammy was born and never married their mother anyhow. Then, last summer, their mother went nuts. She’s in a mental hospital somewhere.”

  “So their grandmother took them in,” Jeff finished. “Poor kids.” He could see them, just the four of them standing alone in a hostile world.

  “You stupid, friend?” Mina asked. She was laughing at him. “You know how they got here? They walked. Dicey brought them, just the kids, just the four of them. There was some cousin in Connecticut, and that’s where they started if you want to look at a map. Dicey didn’t like it at the cousin’s, so they ran away and came down here. Mrs. Tillerman wasn’t going to let them stay — ”

  “Why not? She seems to like them.”

  “I think Dicey convinced her. I guess when Dicey wants something she gets it.”

  “They’re alike, Dicey and her grandmother, don’t you think?” Jeff asked.

  Mina hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe they are. That would be funny, because Dicey said their grandmother didn’t even know they were alive. They hadn’t even heard about her until Connecticut.”