“Hey Trent,” Rocky said, placing a plate holding his order of fries and a big BLT in front him.
“Hey Rock. How are you?”
“Busy. Real busy. And how are you, Lily? Been a long time.” Lily’s plate of salad was set down in front of her.
“Doing fine, Rocky. It has been a while.”
Rocky set down their two glasses of iced tea and added two straws. On the jukebox, Gladys Knight was singing “If I Was Your Woman” over the raised voices of the noisy crowd. “Anything else I can get for you two?”
“I’m good,” Trent replied.
“I think I am too,” Lily added, then said to her, “Bernadine said there was food in the freezers you wanted sent back?”
“Yeah, some of the stuff Florene ordered I’m not going to use.”
“E-mail me a list, or bring it by my office, and I’ll see if I can’t sweet-talk the suppliers into taking it back or making an exchange.”
“Sounds good. I’ll start on it tonight after we close.”
“Okay.”
“Well, if you two are all set, I’ll see you later.”
As she made her way back toward the kitchen, Lily forked up some salad and asked the tea-drinking Trent, “So, how long were you two bed buddies?”
Trent spit tea across the table and coughed until he thought his eyeballs might burst. His fit was noticed by the people sitting nearby, and so Bing came over and slapped Trent on the back a few times. “You okay? You know we don’t allow dying in the Dog.”
Trent gave him a look that drew a smile from the old farmer, who then went back to his seat.
Trent turned his attention back to Lily and finally said in a strangled-sounding voice, “That was so wrong, Lily Fontaine.” He wiped at his mouth with his napkin.
She offered him a smile and waited.
He eyed her. “On and off about six years.”
She shrugged. “Fine. That was before we hooked up again, so I have no problem with it.”
“That the truth?”
“You still have a thing for her?”
“No.”
“Then we’re good.”
“Can I eat now?”
“Bon appétit.”
He grabbed the bottle of ketchup and doused his fries.
“I love you, Trenton.”
“Tell it to the marines.”
He looked up, met her eyes, and they both laughed.
Meanwhile, over at the Paynes’ house, Sheila was dragging suitcases out of the closet while her marine colonel husband looked on with disapproval. “Where are you going, again?”
Sheila pulled another suitcase out of the closet and replied, “Chicago. I’m taking a vacation.”
“We just returned from vacation.”
“That was yours. This one will be mine. I’ll be leaving in the morning.”
“Do you want a divorce?”
“No.”
“Then you are coming back?”
“Of course.” She set the largest suitcase on the bed and unzipped the sides and top so that it would open. Inside were two Florida postcards purchased during the reunion but never used. She set them aside on the bed. “Unless you prefer that I don’t.”
His arms were tightly folded. “I prefer that you do.”
She searched his eyes. There was so much in her heart that she longed to say about all the things she wanted them to be, do, and share, but instead she said to him, “I talked with Bernadine and she sees no reason for this to affect Preston’s status with us.”
Just as she said that, Preston appeared in the doorway. He studied the suitcases and then Sheila. He asked coldly, “You pulling those out for me, right?”
“No, Preston,” Sheila said softly. “I’m going on a vacation, that’s all.”
“You two getting a divorce?”
Barrett glared, “Not your business.”
“The hell it’s not,” Preston countered. “If you two split, I get screwed again!”
Sheila gasped. “Preston!”
He snapped his mouth shut, then mumbled, “Sorry,” and left. The slam of his bedroom door shook the house.
“He needs to show more respect, Sheila.”
“Like the respect you showed me with that whore?”
Barrett’s eyes widened.
“Yes, Barrett, I said whore. Shall I say it again?”
He stared at her as if he’d never seen her before.
“Go talk to Preston. I need to figure out what I’m going to be taking.”
Preston was seated on the edge of his bed when a knock sounded on his closed door. “Come in.” Seeing the colonel didn’t help his sullen mood. “I suppose you want an apology?”
Barrett was still reeling from Sheila’s temper.
Preston stared suspiciously at the look on the colonel’s face. “What’s wrong with you?”
“She just said the word whore.” His face was filled with both wonder and confusion.
“To you?”
“Yeah.”
“Why’d she call you a whore?”
“Not me. Marti,” he offered, only half aware that he’d answered aloud.
“That the nurse at the reunion?”
That got Barrett’s full attention. “How’d you know?”
“The way she was all over you, Goofy could’ve figured that out.”
He went stock-still.
“You cheated on Mrs. Payne with a woman who still wears a Jheri curl? I didn’t know they let you do crack in the marines.”
Barrett paused, stared, and then, unable to help himself, laughed. “They don’t, but you couldn’t tell it by me, huh?”
“She’s hurting bad, isn’t she?”
Barrett sobered and nodded. “I think so.”
“That why she’s going away?”
Another nod.
“Did you ask her to stay?”
That tack had never occurred to him. “No.”
“Man.” Preston found that messed up, but he kept it to himself. “So, how long she gonna be gone?”
“A month, maybe six weeks.”
Six weeks! Preston sighed. “You want me to move over to Amari’s till she gets back?”
“Why?”
“So you don’t have to put up with me.”
“You think I just put up with you?”
Unsure how to answer, Preston shrugged and replied, “We get along sometimes, but not like Amari and his dad.”
“I see.” And for maybe the first time, Barrett saw Preston for what he truly was—a boy in search of a father. Barrett hadn’t had much of one either. The only affection Lamont Payne ever showed his wife and son, Barrett, involved beating them down with his fists. “I told you about my dad.”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s not like I have a good example to draw from.”
“I know.” Preston had had his share of beatings in his life so he understood where the colonel was coming from, but he kept that to himself too.
As they both mined their thoughts, there was silence for a long moment until finally Barrett said, “If you want to move to Amari’s, that’s up to you, but I’d prefer you stay here.”
Preston eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”
“I can’t learn to be a good dad if my son’s living next door.”
Preston wasn’t sure how to take that either. “You saying that just because you’re supposed to?”
“Preston, we may not know each other real well, but you know I don’t say anything just because I’m supposed to.”
“Right.” Preston looked away.
“So, what do you think? Shall we try it?”
“Being son and dad?” Preston kept his excitement masked.
“Yes.”
He shrugged, saying emotionlessly, “Sure. Why not?”
“Such enthusiasm.”
“Never done this before. Don’t want to invest in something that might not pay off.”
Barrett studied him. “I see.”
“It??
?s the truth.”
“Appreciate that. But you are willing to try?”
“Yeah, if you are.”
“May not be easy.”
“I know. Especially with you being kind of a hard-ass.”
Barrett smiled. “And proud of it. Still want to try?”
Preston nodded.
Barrett stuck out his fist, and he and Preston bumped knuckles to seal their pact. “Semper fi.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Always faithful. Be it to country, the corps, or family.” Preston thought that over. He liked the sentiment, and although his life had never had any Semper or fi, he tapped his knuckles to the colonel’s again, and echoed, “Semper fi.”
Outside in the hall, the eavesdropping Sheila smiled and quietly tiptoed back to her room.
Her men were going to be all right.
CHAPTER 10
As Preston and Amari rode their bikes out to Tamar’s later that afternoon, Preston told him about Mrs. Payne’s vacation and about the pact he’d made with the colonel.
“So you believe him about wanting to be father and son?” Amari asked.
“I guess. He sounded pretty for real but I’m trying not to get caught up on that hope thing, you know.”
“I feel you. Be great if it worked out, then we can all do stuff together. Me and my dad, and you and your dad.”
Preston, struggling with the exertion of the riding, nodded.
Seeing the difficulty his friend was having, Amari said, “Let’s stop a minute, man. Need to catch my breath.”
The ride from where they lived to where Tamar lived was a little over a mile. The unpaved gravel road hadn’t been graded by the county recently, so traveling was rough on both bike and rider. In truth, Amari could have made the trip in half the time had he been alone, but Preston was with him, and because of his asthma, they had to go slow.
“I know you’re stopping because of me,” Preston wheezed. He dug into his pocket for his inhaler and took a quick puff.
“It’s okay. You’re getting better. Last summer you couldn’t ride at all, remember?”
Preston nodded and welcomed the relief brought on by the inhaler’s medication a few minutes later. Once he felt able, he said, “Thanks, man.”
“Don’t want you dying on me. Who’d I hang with? Devon? Crystal?”
Preston grinned.
So for the next few minutes, they sat in the grass, took in the silence and sunshine, and watched the breeze rippling through the fields of wheat lining the road.
“Who’d’ve ever thought we’d end up here,” Preston mused aloud.
“I know. It’s cool though. No crackheads, no sirens, no only getting peeks at the sky because of all the houses and buildings. Never knew the sky was so big.”
“Yeah. You see places like this on TV and say, no way would you live there, but this ain’t bad.”
Amari agreed. “You think you could live here the rest of your life?”
“Only if Ms. Bernadine builds a college with a physics lab.”
“Or a NASCAR track.”
A big hawk circled lazily above them and the boys charted the flight with their eyes.
As it moved away and out of sight, Amari said, “Had a dream about a hawk. It was riding shotgun in a car I was driving.”
“Where were you going?”
“No clue.”
“I had a foster mother who swore by her dreams. Even had one of those dream books where you look up stuff so you know what three-digit number to play.”
“Seen those. No place to play a three-digit around here though.”
“Nope.”
Amari assessed Preston’s physical condition to see if they could resume their ride. “You ready?”
Preston nodded and both boys picked up their bikes.
“Let me know if you need to stop again, okay?”
“I will. And Amari?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for not dogging me out about my asthma.”
“No problem. We’re family, man. We’re supposed to look out for each other.”
When they reached Tamar’s place, she was seated on the porch in her rocker, reading and listening to her iPod. Lily had given her the popular music device last winter as a birthday gift, and with the help of Preston’s laptop, she’d loaded it with everything from Aretha to ZZ Hill. Upon seeing them, she closed her book, removed her headphones, and stood.
For Amari, Tamar’s height had to be one of her most intimidating features. She was six-foot-two, and standing next to her was like being towered over by a silver-haired tree. “Hey, Tamar. We came to see the old pictures, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure don’t. Come on in.”
She got the albums and they all took a seat on the sofa in her living room. Amari never tired of looking at the pictures of old Henry Adams. He liked the sepia-colored images of the dusty old streets filled with horse-drawn wagons and the buildings that no longer existed, like the Sutton Mercantile and the Liberian Lady Saloon. He also enjoyed studying the somber faces of the stiffly posed men with their thick mustaches and old-fashioned suits. “How come none of them ever smiled?”
“Photography was relatively new back then and people posed like they did when having their portraits painted. You ever seen a smiling portrait of anybody in the museums we’ve visited?”
Amari couldn’t say that he had. He carefully turned the pages of the album to the next set of pics. They looked like they’d been taken during some kind of celebration. One showed a crowd of men and women lining the old Main Street. They were wearing fancier old-fashioned clothing and a few people were even smiling. There were flags hanging from some of the buildings in the pictures’ background. Beside one of them someone from the past had written in swirly handwriting, August First. 1882.
Amari turned another page and studied the pictures. One showed a group of soldiers marching down Main Street. All the uniformed men were playing musical instruments, mostly horns.
Preston asked, “These pictures of some kind of parade?”
Tamar nodded. “It’s the August First parade. 1882.”
“What was so special about August First?” Amari asked. “Is that the day Henry Adams was founded?”
“No. On August 1, 1834, Great Britain ended slavery in the British West Indies. Free Black folks in America celebrated the date because it gave them hope that slavery would soon be abolished in the U.S. too.”
“Ah,” the boys said.
“Back then our people didn’t celebrate the Fourth of July. Didn’t make sense when the country had three million of us enslaved, so they did it up on August First instead.”
“I didn’t know that,” Preston said, sounding impressed.
“So what kind of stuff did they do?” Amari asked. “Did they barbecue, shoot fireworks, what?”
“Good question. Be something for you and Preston to look up.”
“Aw, Tamar. Come on. Why is it that every time we talk to you, we wind up having to look up something?”
“Because that’s my job. Do you want to be a July or not?”
He sighed audibly. “Yes.”
“I don’t.” Preston countered. “I got enough issues with the colonel.”
She ignored that. “This is part of the town’s heritage. Its history can only survive if someone’s around to tell the stories. You’re going to be the youngest July, Amari, so keeping the history alive falls on you now.”
Amari felt glum for a moment, and then an idea came to him that made him sit up and smile. “That project you said I had to do for Henry Adams. Can it be an August First parade?”
Tamar stilled. Realizing she might have inadvertently stepped into her own trap, she said warily, “I suppose.”
Preston looked at Amari. “You want to throw a parade?”
“Yeah. She said do something memorable. When was the last time Henry Adams had a parade, Tamar?”
She thought back. “Forty years, maybe.”
&nb
sp; “Perfect. We’re going to have us an August First parade, and it’s going to be off the chain.”
Preston looked confused. “But you don’t know anything about throwing a parade.”
“But I bet we can find out how on the Internet.”
“True,” Preston allowed.
“Will you help?” Amari asked him.
“Sure.”
“Then we’re good.”
Amari closed the photo album and stood. “Thanks, Tamar. You were right about the old pictures giving me some ideas.”
Tamar wasn’t sure if the town would thank her. Knowing Amari, some kind of disaster was undoubtedly waiting in the wings. “Make sure you get your dad’s and Ms. Bernadine’s permission.”
Preston agreed. “Yeah. We may need permits or something.”
“And horses, and bands,” Amari added excitedly.
Tamar’s mouth dropped.
Amari continued thinking out loud. “You think the colonel could get the Blue Angels to fly over, Brain?”
Preston blinked with surprise but before he could fit thoughts to words, Amari urged, “Come on, man. Let’s get back. We’ve got work to do.”
Tamar followed them outside. As she watched them ride off with Amari still spouting ideas, she stood on the porch and wondered why she felt as if she’d just unleashed the biblical whirlwind.
The town triumvirate, Bernadine, Lily, and Trent, were in Bernadine’s office putting together the final agenda for the town meeting when they were interrupted by an excited-looking Amari and a closed-faced Preston. Bernadine had no idea why warning bells were suddenly clanging in her head, but she asked calmly, “What can we do for you, gentlemen?”
“I want to have a parade,” Amari announced.
For all three adults, the world stopped.
Trent was almost afraid to ask. “What kind of parade?”
“August First parade.”
Trent knew about the history of August First, but what—“Okay, start at the beginning.”
So Amari did, recounting the visit to Tamar, the history tied to the date, and the idea he’d gotten from the old picture album.
“I think that is a great idea,” Lily said, impressed. “Be a good way to bring folks together as a community.”