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Lupe looked hopefully to Ling. “How’s about it, Mary?”
Ling watched Jericho packing up the Harlem Haymakers’ instruments. She thought about his tragic start in life, and about his unrequited love for a girl he’d never have. Maybe Ling couldn’t make up for what he’d been through. But she could help that stubborn boy face the future.
“Well?” Lupe asked and bit her lip.
Ling let loose one of her rare, goofy grins. “No, Lupe. He does not.”
Night after night, Jericho and Ling watched the Harlem Haymakers turn the clubs, barns, lodges, and dance halls of America’s black vaudeville circuit into a sweaty, happy, stomping-and-clapping party. Some of the male territory bands and promoters wouldn’t take the all-girl orchestra seriously—until the Haymakers started to wail. And boy, could they wail! Lupe would keep perfect, can’t-stay-in-your-seat time while Dorothy let loose on the keys and Emmaline strummed the banjo. By the time Babe stood to take her sax solo and Sadie and Sally Mae joined in on trumpet, the whole place would be shaking. And, of course, there was Alma, who burned so brightly onstage. She was the perfect bandleader, singing and dancing and working the crowd into a joyful frenzy.
In the wings, Jericho tapped his foot in time to the music. He was a little off-beat, Ling noted, but he was so serious all the time that it was nice to see him loosen up. She found she was starting to warm to him. Being on the road together brought a forced intimacy. When you had to ride for hours on a bus together through all sorts of weather, experiences good and bad, when you had to share uncomfortable accommodations or withstand the stares of strangers, when there was time to notice the small things about a person, like how they came alive when passing a sun-drenched stretch of pastureland and you realized they saw that same beauty you did—these things opened that person for you. It made you see them.
On the dance floor of a barn-turned-nightclub on the outskirts of Yet-Another-Town, Arkansas, the Saturday-night patrons shimmied and Charlestoned and Black Bottomed, trying to shake off the cares of the week and the everyday blues of a nation that couldn’t ever seem to hold up its end of the bargain. Ling was jealous of the dancing. There was rarely a moment when she wasn’t having to work around the limitations of her body. Discomfort was a daily fact of life. Sometimes the ache was a nuisance. Other times, it was a storm that clawed and pulled and made it hard to concentrate on anything else. Mostly, Ling resented pain because it kept her from thinking, and thinking was what Ling did best.
And she needed to think just now. How were they going to stop the King of Crows? She and Jericho hadn’t been able to enter the land of the dead again after that one surprise night in Tennessee. Nor had she been able to find Henry in a dream since the last time. She wondered if he and Memphis had made it off the levee. She wished she could talk to Henry. He always made her feel better somehow with his corny jokes and spontaneous musical numbers.
I miss you, Henry, you annoying boy, she thought.
Nearby, Jericho watched Lupe, who, between numbers, would glance in his direction, a playful smile on her lips when she caught his eye. Jericho hadn’t said anything to Ling—nor did she want to know the details—but it was obvious to anyone with eyes that their romance was under way. Just that morning, Jericho had entered the bus whistling. Jericho. Whistling. It was as unfathomable as a talking giraffe. But she was glad that he had stopped moping and found some happiness at last.
Now if only Ling could figure out her own love life.
She’d thought being on the road with Alma would bring them closer together. Instead, they’d never seemed farther apart. Alma was polite enough, but that was just it—she was cordial to Ling in the same way she would be to any stranger. It hurt deeply. And who did she have to ask about it? Of the Haymakers, only Sally Mae liked girls, as far as Ling could tell, and she only knew that because she’d accidentally walked in on Sally Mae petting hotsy-totsy with a half-dressed chorine on the bus behind the Royal Theatre in Baltimore. “Knock next time,” was all Sally Mae said later.
And anyway, Sally Mae clearly had no trouble with sex.
Ling loved Alma, but when she thought of making that love sexual, it was like a wire that didn’t quite connect to a battery. It was more theoretical than actual. She liked kissing and cuddling, but she knew that alone wasn’t sufficient for Alma.
From the church Ling had received the message that sex was shameful. Over time and with much thought, Ling had come to see this indoctrination as unscientific and not in keeping with nature. It wasn’t shame Ling felt with Alma; it was frustration. Ling was alive in her mind and in her heart and even inside the multiple, swirling universes of dreams. Why wasn’t that enough?
Onstage, Alma crooned a heartfelt torch song about a woman who just couldn’t get over her man, no matter what he did. She sang the number with such conviction that it made Ling a little dizzy. She wasn’t the only one. A few women in the audience looked up at Alma with stars in their eyes. Ling tried not to be jealous but, just like the woman in the song, it was no use. How on earth was she going to help stop the King of Crows when she couldn’t even fathom her own heart?
After the show, the girls and Jericho boarded the bus. Doc had secured the Haymakers a night’s lodging at a motel friendly to folks on the circuit, according to word of mouth. The show had gone well and the Haymakers were in good spirits as they rehashed the evening’s best moments, with Alma leading the charge. Jericho sat with Lupe and Babe, smiling as he listened. Ling sat alone, staring out at all that dark.
As they exited the bus, Alma called Ling over. She held up a motel key. “I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just gonna come out with it. Got us our own room. If you
want to share it with me,” she said. “But you don’t have to.”
Ling’s stomach knotted. She knew what that meant. “No. I want to.”
Alma’s face brightened. “Okay, then.”
They lay in the small bed in the anonymous motel. It was the first chance they’d had since they’d been on the road to really be alone. Most nights, they shared a room with all the girls.
“Did you like tonight’s show?” Alma said, facing Ling.
“Yes. You were swell,” Ling said, happy to be beside Alma.
Alma brushed a strand of hair from Ling’s forehead. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed us.”
“Me, too,” Ling whispered.
Alma draped a muscular arm across Ling’s belly. She kissed Ling’s neck. Ling tensed. She wanted to be held by Alma, only held, and Alma’s kiss was an announcement of wanting more. Alma’s mouth moved to Ling’s shoulder. Ling stared up at the ceiling, trying to figure out how to get back to the moment they’d just shared. With a finger, Alma turned Ling’s face toward her own and kissed her with real passion. Ling liked the kiss very much, but she was afraid of what more might be expected. How could she make herself feel something she didn’t?
“I-I’m… I’m awfully tired,” Ling lied.
Ling saw the light dim in Alma’s eyes, and then Alma flopped onto her back and let out a sigh. Disappointment lived in the new space between them. Two hot tears leaked down Ling’s face and tickled her ears.
“I can’t b-be what you w-want,” Ling said, struggling to find the words. “I can’t be something that I’m not.”
