FOUR
June 1956
“It’s you. It is.” Jilo heard a voice call out from a shop she’d passed on West Broad. It didn’t even occur to her that the words might be intended for her. After finishing up a round of errands in town, she was focused on getting home to Binah and her boy.
She’d had to wait at the bank, so she’d been gone longer than expected. The colored service window had opened up an hour later than usual. No explanations. No apologies. Just a command for them not to lurk about before the bank was ready to receive them. Still, Jilo had been too happy about the fresh packet of cash she had ready to deposit to let herself focus on why she couldn’t just use the manned window where not even a single white person was waiting. No, she wasn’t going to let herself be bothered by that today. Things had started looking up for her, and she was going to hold on tight to each and every victory.
She struggled beneath the weight of her new nylon shopping bag, but she found she didn’t mind the effort. This bag wasn’t just full of needed groceries; no, there were a few things in there that her family simply wanted. Luxuries, which would have seemed like an impossible dream even a year ago. She wasn’t sure whose eyes she was more excited to see: Robinson’s at the sight of his new windup clockwork robot or Willy’s when he unwrapped the coral chiffon head scarf that she herself planned to borrow from time to time. For Binah, she had bought a book, featuring a red sun with gold and silver coronas on an otherwise black cover. Something dreadful about people blowing up the whole damned world, but Jilo felt certain Binah would like it.
Romance wasn’t her girl’s thing—Binah’s interests ran in just about every other direction. Jilo was proud that her girl seemed more interested in books than she was in men.
“It is!” The voice grew closer, accompanied by the clapping of leather-soled shoes along the tabby sidewalk. Jilo nearly dropped her bag when a strange man grabbed ahold of her arm, but the man reached forward to keep the sack from falling. “It’s you.”
She looked up into the stranger’s gleaming eyes.
He smiled. “I mean, you look different. You’re dressed different.” He leaned back as if to take her in from head to toe. “Real pretty, though.” She’d taken to wearing her Mother Jilo costume—kaftans in bright, eye-catching shades, mostly blues and purples, with wide-brimmed sunhats or turbans in opposite and equally blinding colors. After a lifetime of trying to blend in, her income had become contingent upon her ability to stand out. Whenever she walked down West Broad, voices would drop, and crowds would part before her as the name “Mother Jilo” trailed behind her like a wake on the water. It had taken a while to build Mother Jilo’s reputation, but now every outing was an opportunity to advertise.
Still, this man was a complete stranger to her.
“Mother Jilo, she sorry,” Jilo said. “But you wrong. Mother Jilo, she don’t know you.” She tried to make her tone sound final, if not severe. She was still in too good of a mood to want to scare the poor fellow. Shrugging him off, she began to walk away, but he circled around her, his movements so full of joy it resembled dancing.
“Why are you talking that way?” he asked, his face scrunching up with confusion.
So much for her good mood. She shook her head and glared at him. “Mother Jilo done say she don’t know you. Now scat.”
“No, you know me. Well, you met me once. On the bus.” He stopped directly in front of her, looking down at her as if he were sure she’d recognize him and fling her arms around him like a long-lost friend. She tried to squeeze past him, but he blocked her escape. “You know. In Atlanta. The bus. You had a suitcase. I talked too much.” His shoulders slumped forward. “I’m talking too much now. I’m sorry. You don’t remember me. Why should you? A beautiful woman like you must always have one fellow or another trying to catch her eye.”
Most days, she would have snapped the head off anyone who dared to say such a foolish thing, but it had been a long time since any man had paid her any attention, let alone called her beautiful. The compliment near took the wind out of her. Jilo stopped and gave the man a good once over, and to her surprise, an encounter she’d all but forgotten surfaced in her mind. An encounter that had evidently left its mark on this poor jabbering fellow.
“Poole,” she said, “Private First Class Poole.”
A wide smile set up camp on his beaming face. “Yes. That’s right. Poole. But just regular old Tinker Poole these days.”
“Tinker . . .” Jilo said, the name almost coming out as a question.
“Well, yeah, my real name’s Joseph, but everybody calls me Tinker, ’cause I’m always taking things apart that don’t work right and putting them back together again so that they do. That’s what I do. For money, that is.” He pointed to an open doorway. “That’s my shop. Right there.”
She glanced over her shoulder in the direction he was pointing. When she turned back, it struck her that he had leaned in, just a tad. Not enough to be threatening. Not enough to assume an intimacy between them. Still, it felt as if the air that surrounded him was caressing the air that enveloped her.
He bowed his head, the lids of his happy eyes lowering, lending his gaze a more serious look. “I’m real good at it,” he said, “fixing things what’ve been broken.” For a moment she was captivated by his tender black eyes, so dark that she couldn’t be sure where the pupil and iris met. For a moment, she felt as if he had plumbed the depths of her soul, uncovering every hurt, every loss, every crack in her foundation. Without laying a finger on her, he had touched her, brushing up against an old wound. This was much like her first meeting with Tinker Poole, the one she’d almost managed to forget, or at least convince herself that she’d forgotten.
She stepped back, angered, clutching her shopping to her chest. He looked at her with such familiarity, spoke to her as if they’d known each other all their lives. How dare he?
He read the language of her body. “Please,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ve said something . . .” He took two steps back. “Done something to offend you.” Shaking his head, he continued, “I sure didn’t mean to upset you.”
His voice soothed her. She felt her shoulders relax. “It’s nothing. It’s fine.” She remembered herself, that she was out here in the guise of Mother Jilo. It wouldn’t be suitable for folk to see her crumbling before this ridiculous—no, that wasn’t fair—this unusual man, this kind man. This inconvenient man. She raised her chin and pulled back her shoulders. “Mother Jilo, she gotta be getting on now.” She paused, for a moment letting her act fall away. “I wish you well with your business.”
She stepped around him, feeling his eyes on her shoulders, willing her back.
“You got far to go?” He came jogging up along her side. “I’m just asking, ’cause I got my truck out behind the shop. Be glad to run you home. That sack looks might heavy and all.”
“Thank you,” Jilo said, still moving. “Mother Jilo, she fine. She don’t need your help.”
“Listen,” he said, reaching out for her, but pulling back before he could lay hands on her. “I’m doing this all wrong. I know I’m doing this all wrong. And I’m sorry. I don’t do this all the time. Chase after women, I mean. Especially a woman who’s looking at me like she just wants me to go away.” He shifted from foot to foot, nervous, maybe embarrassed, too. “Do you want me to? Just go away?”
Jilo looked the poor man over. Her head said she should tell him to take off. But she hesitated, and in so doing, the moment for her to make a quick, decisive break slipped past her. Even if she told him to go away now, he’d know, deep down, just as she knew, deep down, that a part of her wanted him to stay right where he was. She held the bag out to him. “Don’t think this is more than a ride home,” she said as he pulled himself taller, tilting his head to the side and smiling. Jilo liked his smile. He took the bag from her. “Where’s that truck of yours?”
“So what is this ‘Mother Jilo’ bit?” Tinker asked, casting a cautious look her way as they drove south.
“Business,” Jilo said, not willing to offer more.
“Business,” Tinker echoed her. “All right, I respect that,” he said, his tone telling her he knew better than to push for more. His truck, an ancient Ford held together by not much more than baling wire and a good man’s faith, lumbered down West Broad toward West Gaston. Jilo kept her eyes fixed forward, but in truth her peripheral vision was focused on Tinker. The truck lurched forward and jerked, coughing out—Jilo felt certain without looking back—a plume of black smoke.
“She a good truck,” Tinker said, his tone wavering between pride and apology. “Took a bit to fix her up, but I picked her up for almost nothing from my friend Henry.”
Jilo couldn’t resist turning toward him as she made the connection between the name and the jalopy. “Henry Cook?”
Tinker looked at her, then let out a surprised laugh. “Yes,” he said, turning back to the road, “Henry Cook. You know him?”
“ ’Course. He used to court my sister Poppy. Years ago. Back when I was little girl.” She turned her focus to the storefronts they were lumbering past. “Didn’t end well, I reckon. Don’t know why. I was too young at the time, and well, it doesn’t seem worthwhile digging up old bones to ask.”
“Old Henry’s married now anyway.”
“So’s Poppy,” she said, happy to be able to say so, although she had never yet met her brother-in-law, Isaiah.
“Of course she is,” Tinker said, sounding so sure of himself Jilo turned back. He was looking at her rather than the road. “She’s a beautiful woman.”
“You’ve never seen her.”
“No, ma’am, I have not, but I’ve seen her sister.” He flashed her a big smile, and Jilo was surprised to feel the blood rush to her cheeks. Though she tried to fight the impulse, she found herself returning his smile.
She forced herself to look away. She was making a fool out of herself. She should just tell him to pull over. Let her out. She could walk the rest of the way home.
“I got a bit of a confession to make,” he said, interrupting her attempt to decide whether to give him the shove off now or in a location a bit closer to home. Folding her arms over her chest, she refused to look at him. She did not care to hear any revelations. “That night, after I saw you on the bus. I was supposed to go home, but I didn’t. I stayed on for a week, riding that darned bus back and forth every day, just hoping you’d get back on it. I talked to everyone who’d answer me, asking if any of them recognized you from my description. But no one did. So, I went on home. Tried to get settled. Tried to forget I’d ever laid eyes on you.”
He reached over and placed his hand near hers. They didn’t touch, but she still felt his energy once more. She turned toward him, transfixed by the slim space between them. “Oh, I know how it sounds. I sound like some crazy man.” She let her gaze drift up to his face, surprised to see his eyes fixed on the road before them. “But tell me. Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“Turn here,” Jilo said, pointing west as they approached West Anderson. “Then go south on Ogeechee.”
He did as he was told, but remained silent, evidently waiting for a response. She wasn’t sure she had a response to give, so she said nothing at first. She felt disappointment descend on him like a dark cloud. “Look,” she said, her tone heated, impatient. She took a breath and began. “What I believe is that it’s easy to imagine things about someone you don’t know. And what I know is you don’t know me.”
“You’re right. I don’t know you. I . . .” He paused, shaking his head a little side to side. “This is not how I planned this . . .”
“Planned?”
“Well, imagined. This isn’t how I meant it to happen. When I imagined getting a chance to see you. To talk to you.”
“And that’s the problem. You’re in love with your own imagination. Life just doesn’t work the way you’d like to believe,” she said, her voice nearly breaking. “There’s no magic in this world.” She coughed to clear the frog from her throat. “I’m not some angel like you’ve obviously imagined me to be.”
Tinker laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Oh, no, ma’am. I never imagined you to be any kind of angel. Remember, I’ve been on the receiving end of that temper of yours.”
“All the same. I’ve got a son. I’ve got family to look after.”
“You say you have a son, but I don’t hear anything about you having a man.”
“Doesn’t having a son imply there’s a man in my life?” She wished the old truck would move more quickly. Still, she felt a touch of sorrow when she looked over to see that in spite of the way the beast was crawling along, Tinker had pressed the pedal all the way down. Looked like she’d nearly succeeded in pushing him away after all.
“Ah, now, we both know that ain’t true.” The truck jolted, then relented by putting on some speed. It sputtered and shuddered as they traveled south, giving up the ghost right where Kollock and Ogeechee intersected at the tip of the cemetery.
Tinker looked over at her, then leaned in toward her, his brow low, his eyes full of embarrassed anguish. “Just give me a second to look at her. I’ll get her up and running again right quick.”
Jilo shook her head and reached for the door handle, surprised to see it had been replaced with a homemade rope pulley. She tugged on it, and the door opened. “I’m almost home anyway.” She climbed out of the truck, nearly jumping as a large black bantam rooster perched on the cemetery fence cried out like he was greeting the last dawn the world would ever meet.
She turned back to the truck and retrieved her shopping bag from where it had been sitting by her feet. After the brief rest, the sack felt heavier. Just like her heart did after imagining—even for a moment—that this Tinker Poole might somehow know how to fix what had been broken in her. Tinker hopped out and ran around the front of the truck. Jilo felt certain he was about to offer to come along with her on foot, shouldering her burden as his own. She clutched the sack in both arms and shook her head. “There is no magic in this world,” she said again. “No magic whatsoever.”
She trudged down Ogeechee, making a turn onto the gravel road that would, after a long bend, lead to her own sandy drive. As she neared that drive, she looked up, and from across the field, she could see a sleek and shiny red convertible sitting in front of her house. She knew Binah would be doing her best to entertain this new, and obviously rich, client long enough for her to make it home. She picked up her pace, hoping to arrive before he, or possibly she, lost patience and sped away in that little red number.
She was sweating profusely, her turban growing damp and limp, as she made it around the bend and approached the front of the house. From a distance, she could make out Binah offering what looked like lemonade to a young man with a complexion as pink and as fresh as bubblegum, his hair almost as red as the car he drove. A wealthy buckra boy. What on earth could a fellow like that be wanting from Mother Jilo? What else, she answered her own question, than the key to some wealthy buckra girl’s heart?
As she drew a step nearer, Binah handed a glass to another man who leaned forward to accept it. Jilo stopped dead in her tracks. This man, with his dark complexion and wavy hair, she recognized instantly. “Guy,” she said his name, feeling the earth beneath her feet tremble, just like the world was ready to open up and swallow her whole.