Miss Kendra had been serving hot dinners in Chalk for a couple of years now, for no reason other than she felt like it. Back when she’d started, everybody figured she was part of a sting. It was too strange—this white woman driving around Chalk yelling, “Hey, y’all! Want some dinner?” DeRade had never taken a plate. DeRade would rather starve than let somebody think he needed something.
“Why, hello, Train!” said Doria, beaming at him. “How are you? It’s so nice to see you again.” She fixed him a plate and held it out.
The terrible rage that could sweep through Train for any reason or no reason charred his heart. Just the sight of her white fingers on her white plate, her white smile as she took an hour out of her white life to help poor pitiful Chalk set him on fire.
He hated all volunteers at that moment, and all do-gooders, and anybody who prayed. He hated DeRade for blinding Nate and he hated Nate for ratting on DeRade. He hated Chalk and school and his mama and God.
After the barbed wire incident, Train’s mama had stopped cooking. She had stopped being home, actually. Got a second job, worked all the time, kept the refrigerator and the cabinets full of food, but didn’t fix it. “I went to church,” she would say to him. “I took you. You and DeRade.” She wouldn’t cry. She’d just back away.
He was basically alone in the house with a lot of cereal boxes.
“That child blind!” Train’s mama would shout at him if they crossed paths.
“I didn’t do it!”
“You didn’t stop it!”
It was not true that your mother would love you no matter what. His mother had stopped loving Train. She, like his teachers at school, was waiting for him to go away.
Doria served more plates. A woman hugged her. “God bless you,” she said.
God had definitely blessed Doria.
But Train—no. God never thought of him.
He considered hurling the plate of hot food at Doria or Miss Kendra or the Ford Explorer and watching it spatter. It was a satisfying vision, and somehow enough. A little of the rage seeped away. Train took a bite of rice. It had a soft, spicy flavor and there was a bit of sausage along with the chicken and onions.
He saw that, around her waist, Doria wore one of those little hiker purses, a sort of zip pocket on a belt. The purse part had worked its way around her back. It was not all the way closed. The brass treble clef that held her keys was visible.
There was another volley from Quander’s house. Doria whirled toward the sound, banging her arm and the serving spoon against the car. Train lurched into her, spilling the contents of his plate on her arm and the back of the Explorer. He reached out to steady her and instead got hold of the slotted spoon, flicking bean water over them both.
“Sorry,” he said, taking her towel to mop up.
Miss Kendra was back from praying. Her eyes were narrow with suspicion, but she was not sure what to be suspicious of.
The inner burn that was stealing his flesh caught fire again. Remember, DeRade had said, you’re not going away. They can’t get rid of you. You’re in their face. You’ll always be in their face.
Train stood in Miss Kendra’s face.
“Hop in the car, Doria,” said Miss Kendra. “We’re ready to drive to the next block.”
Miss Kendra paused in front of a house that looked worse than any on the street. Debris poured out of it as if it were a garbage can, not a home. Two men sat on the porch, trash around their ankles. They were in shadow. Doria could barely make them out.
Doria wondered where Quander’s yard was, and whether Miss Kendra was driving out of range, or into it. She thought of all the kids who’d decided against volunteering in Chalk. She thought of things she would not tell her parents about volunteering in Chalk.
“Good evening!” called Miss Kendra in the direction of the dark porch. “I got a fine hot dinner here. Y’all want a plate?”
The men cursed her.
Doria flinched.
Miss Kendra said softly, “They always say that, but I pray every week that their hearts will soften. The angrier you are, the sadder you are. I hate to see anybody that sad.” She yelled out the window, “I baked the cookies myself. I iced ’em!”
The men said nothing.
Miss Kendra drove on. “Lord,” she said, as if he were in the passenger seat, “guide their steps in your word. They want to walk worthy, they just don’t know how to start. You help ’em out a little. If they can come get a plate, and know they have friends and neighbors, that would be a start. Wash their hearts, Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
Doria let the prayer repeat in her mind. She was beginning to see what Miss Kendra was up to. She was saying, I’m your neighbor. I’m glad to see you. Let’s have dinner.
Doria had not tried to show kids at Court Hill High that they were worth her time and she was glad to see them. She had been waiting for them to do it. She was the new person, right? It was their responsibility.
She watched Miss Kendra.
No, she thought. It’s always your own responsibility.
Train had never picked a pocket before. Or in this case, a purse.
He felt the weight of Doria’s key chain in the deep pocket of his sagging pants. Doria hadn’t noticed a thing. And Miss Kendra, narrowing those old eyes and believing she knew something. Well, she didn’t know anything.
It usually took Miss Kendra about two hours to work her way through Chalk, what with serving, chatting, praying, packing up and parking on the next street to do it all over again. Train figured he had an hour.
He changed his clothes fast. His mama hadn’t bought him Sunday best for quite a while, but he’d gotten so thin, he could wear the old ones. A minute later he had crossed Tenth and was strolling through the CVS parking lot where Miss Kendra’s volunteers would have left their cars. A person like Doria would be careful not to take up a slot meant for shoppers, so her car would be one of the three parked off to the side. And sure enough, there sat a Honda Accord, silver-gray, like half the cars in the lot. There on the front seat was Doria’s ugly yellow plastic case. Train unlocked the car, got in and drove out Hill Street. With his right hand, he opened the plastic case. It was filled with music. Louis Vierne, said the top one. Symphony No. 1 for organ.
Train decided there was not a big secondary market for organ symphonies. He closed the case.
Five minutes later, he was at Home Depot. He checked himself in the rearview mirror. Clothing was fine. Hair, not so much. Nothing he could do about that now. Speech was the ticket now. You talked like them, they figured you were like them.
Train waited for the poky automatic doors to let him in and he walked down the wide front aisle, past lamps and tiles, appliances and plumbing, shelving and ladders, all the time separating the keys on Doria’s key chain. He left the car keys on the ring. They weren’t going to copy car keys for him.
He stepped up to a high desk where a pleasant-looking man in a cotton shirt didn’t quite smile, wasn’t quite sure.
Train smiled broadly. It actually felt kind of good, stretching his face sideways and letting the anger lapse. “Afternoon, sir. May I please have a copy of each of these?” He handed over what he assumed were church keys and a house key.
Now the man felt comfortable. “Weather still nice out there? I felt a bit of fall in the air when I drove in this morning.”
“It’s beautiful out,” said Train, who never gave weather a thought and could not remember when he had last used the word “beautiful.” “My mama thinks we might get a freeze,” he added.
The man measured the keys against blanks, looking for matches. “My word. A freeze this time of year. I’m against it.”
Train chuckled.
When the man was finished, he handed Train the copies.
“Thank you, sir. Y’all have a good day,” said Train, smiling a second time, which was some kind of record.
Two male employees flanked the exit doors beyond the checkout lines. Train had not planned to pay but thought
better of it. Receipt in hand, he walked sedately out of the store. Then he replaced Doria’s keys on her key chain, started her car, drove back to the CVS, locked the Honda, trotted back to his house, yanked off his Sunday clothes, put his regular stuff on and jogged across Chalk toward Miss Veola’s.
Miss Veola had an interesting set of visitors.
Train took another detour, avoiding them.
Lutie joined the little kids crowding around the back of the big red Explorer. “Hey, Doria,” she said.
“Why, Lutie! It’s so nice to see you!” Doria beamed at her.
“I’ll have a plate, please,” said Lutie. Lutie could lay claim to a bedroom at Miss Veola’s, which was in Chalk, and she owned MeeMaw’s house, which was sort of in Chalk, just across the creek. But since she really lived with Aunt Tamika and Uncle Dean, in a handsome development of massive brick houses on tiny lots with three-car garages and a clubhouse with a pool, Lutie taking a free meal from a do-gooder was just the kind of thing that made donors grumpy.
But Miss Kendra didn’t care who ate what. It was like she was having a dinner party on the road and wanted company. “Lutie?” said Miss Kendra. Her deep accent turned it into Loooo-dih. “How you doin’ in school, Miss Lutie?”
“Yes, ma’am, school’s fine.”
“Detail!” demanded Miss Kendra. “You applied for that magnet school, I know you did. You get in? You still studying science? I never took those classes, I don’t even know how I graduated high school. I couldn’t do it now.”
“I didn’t go after all,” said Lutie, meaning the magnet school.
“What? Lutie Painter, I will have to follow this up. Why didn’t you go?”
Lutie just laughed.
“Lutie here is a science scholar,” Miss Kendra told Doria.
“Guess what,” said Lutie. “Doria’s ten times the scholar am.”
“My word! Doria! And you took time off study to help me serve? The Lord bless you and keep you.”
Lutie’s smile tightened. She had a bad feeling about this afternoon. And she didn’t trust the Lord to bless and keep Doria.
Train made it with time to spare.
Miss Kendra had reached the farthest block, and was now visiting Miss Elminah, who lived alone. She’d painted her windows shut for safety, making her place so musty she spent all her waking hours outside, calling “Hey” and hoping for visits.
It was getting dark.
In the dark, on a Saturday, when the men had been drinking and losing at cards and doing drugs, it was stupid for Miss Kendra to be here. Train figured she had lost track of how early it got dark these days.
Miss Kendra said, “Why, hello, Train. You come for seconds?”
“No, thanks,” said Train, who hadn’t said thank you in two or three years. He raised Doria’s key chain. “Found this in the road. Anybody here lose it?”
“Why, those are mine!” cried Doria. “Oh, my goodness. I didn’t think I was that careless. Thank you so much, Train! I’m so grateful!”
He set them neatly in her outstretched hand.
“We got one more street to visit,” called Miss Kendra briskly. “We got to see Miss Veola before it’s full dark. My team, get in the car now. Train, you flirt with Doria Monday in school.”
Train was horrified that anybody could think he was flirting with Doria. He almost fell over his feet backing up.
“We got to get to Peter Creek,” said Miss Kendra, bundling Doria into the backseat of the Explorer.
Half the roads around here were named for the creeks that ran through narrow gullies. The streams were shallow or dried out in midsummer, but there had been lots of rain this year, and they ran fast and full. It was Peter Creek that divided old Miz Painter’s house from Chalk. Miss Veola’s little pink church sat on a tiny gurgly branch of Peter Creek, which liked to flood and tear soil from tree roots and then settle back to a trickle.
“Who is Peter Creek?” asked Doria, getting in the car.
What a loser, thought Train.
Lutie frowned.
Since when had Train become a Boy Scout, helping old ladies cross the street and returning lost keys to ditzy girls?
Train put on his sunglasses. They were large and opaque. Half his face was hidden now, which was probably the point. “You maybe want to visit Miss Veola too, Lutie,” Train said. “She got a visitor come just for you.”
Lutie’s heart stopped. Saravette is here, she thought.
She put her own sunglasses on quick, and she and Train stood facing each other. They couldn’t see each other’s eyes.
He knows, thought Lutie. I can’t stand it that anybody knows! But why does Train have to be the one who knows? I wouldn’t trust him with a shoelace, never mind my life.
She walked away fast. She had to get to Miss Veola’s and do whatever damage control she could.
She was halfway there when she remembered that Train had held Doria Bell’s key chain before. He would have recognized that brass treble clef. He would have known it was Doria’s. He wouldn’t have had to ask who had lost it.
Miss Kendra had been right. Train had been trying to flirt with Doria.
Miss Veola was surrounded by a court of elderly ladies, plump, well-dressed and fussy. Behind them, the sun was setting. Gaudy pinks and purples with threads of gold exploded behind tinted clouds.
Doria ran into Miss Veola’s yard as if they were old friends.
“Good evening, Miss Doria,” said a voice from the shadows.
“Professor Durham?” she said incredulously.
There was that great smile, twinkly and carrying. “I’m working on my project, Doria. In my travels I heard about Reverend Mixton, and how she’s turning a movie theater into a church, and I had to stop.”
Doria had not known Miss Veola’s last name. An oddity of the South was that you might never learn last names.
“Hey, Dore,” said another voice.
“Mr. Gregg, you’re here too?”
“Miss Veola and I are buddies. She’s had at least one and sometimes a dozen kids from her church in my music program every year and she’s never missed a concert.”
“Which one is your church, Miss Veola?” asked Doria. You couldn’t turn a corner here without finding another church. They had the most romantic names. Liberty Freewill Baptist. Red Bluff AME Zion. Mount Tabor Holiness.
“It’s down the road a piece. People call it the pink church. I was just a slip of a girl when I founded it. My dear friend Eunice gave me the courage to do it. Eunice was Lutie’s MeeMaw.”
“I haven’t seen any pink church,” said Doria.
“Pink on the inside,” said Miss Veola. “Brick on the outside.”
The professor and the elderly ladies went back to exchanging family histories. Surely they were distantly related, or had once had next-door neighbors who were related, or at least had had Sunday-school teachers who had taught an in-law. They had reached the stage when they were determined: somehow they would come up with a cousin in common.
Professor Durham made his move. “I’m filled with hope that I am getting close at last to the lost songs,” he said.
The friendly ladies smiled and rocked and hummed. They sipped tea and stirred ice cubes.
They have to know, thought Doria. Last week they must have listened to Lutie sing, not to mention all the weeks and years before.
Miss Kendra, having served a half dozen plates, bustled into the yard. “I heard the news, Veola! I am so excited! Trees clap hands and sing!”
Doria was glad she’d had a lot of church exposure, so she knew a Bible quote when she heard one and didn’t have to worry about Miss Kendra’s sanity.
“What’s the news?” asked Mr. Gregg.
“We got an offer on the pink church,” Miss Veola told him. “Pastor Craig’s congregation is buying it. Now they can move out of their storefront and we can move into our new church even earlier than I was thinking.” Miss Veola nodded approvingly at the Lord.
“Praise the Lor
d!” cried Miss Kendra, and now all the ladies stood, praising God, all talking out loud at the same time. Doria loved the crossing voices and the jumbled words.
The professor did not pray but leaned back in his plastic chair, a researcher soaking up atmosphere.
When the prayers ended, Miss Kendra said, “How about plates tonight, ladies? I have such good food!”
“Honey, thank you, but I brought us a big pan of chicken to share,” said one of the old ladies. “I can fry chicken, if I do say so. And corn bread! Who wants some of my corn bread?”
The professor introduced himself to Miss Kendra. “Miss Veola’s been telling me about your hot meal ministry, and of course I think you’re good-hearted, but I am surprised that your actions are legal.”
Miss Kendra stiffened.
“In my part of the world,” said the professor, implying that his part of the world was better and more sophisticated, “when serving the public, you are required to cook in a kitchen inspected by the state, not in somebody’s house where there could be any standard or no standard. You’d certainly have to have warming ovens in your van to keep the meals at a prescribed temperature. In fact, you’d have to be licensed.”
I bet he’s right, thought Doria.
Her heart sank. She thought of the happy children eating beans to get cookies. The man who had been so hungry he ate right off his paper plate, not even waiting for a plastic fork. The teenager who’d come back to get plates for his mama and sisters. The woman who had saved a piece of her own birthday cake to give Miss Kendra in return.
“By now,” said the professor, “in this heat, I don’t know but what that food hasn’t gone bad.”
“You plan to build a soup kitchen for us?” demanded Miss Kendra. “You plan to give me the money so we can serve our neighbors with the appliances you passed a law saying we have to have? I’ll take your check right now, thank you.”