The Book of Harlan. Bernice L. McFadden

      Chapter 18

      The Greyhound bus arrived in the bowels of the Manhattan night. Country mice that they were, Emma and Sam couldn’t help but gawk at the throngs of people swarming along the city streets, lit bright by marquees burning hundred-watt lightbulbs.

      They were met by Lucille and her husband Bill—a tall, nut-brown man with a smile almost as stunning as Sam’s.

      Almost.

      After hugs and handshakes, the couples climbed into Bill’s late-model car and set off for Harlem.

      When they stepped into Lucille and Bill’s large home, Emma’s mouth dropped wide open. “This all yours?”

      “Well, me and the bank!” Lucille cackled as she toured them through rooms replete with chandeliers and miles of shining hardwood floors. “These rugs come straight from Turkey.”

      “Turkey?”

      They wandered beneath the fourteen-foot ceilings, past built-in bookshelves, into one of five bathrooms where Sam pointed at the sink and jokingly commented, “That faucet look like real gold.”

      “That’s because it is,” Lucille said with a smirk.

      Lucille’s parents and siblings were now living with her. “You got a house full,” Emma commented. “Me and Sam could get a room somewhere.”

      “Chile, please,” Lucille replied. “Even with all these folks up in here, I still got one empty bedroom.”

      A mixture of pride and awe for Lucille swelled in Emma’s chest, but then, rather suddenly, it was drowned in a sea of unworthiness. Her mood darkened; embarrassed, she feigned a headache and retired to a bedroom so lavish that she lay awake fighting back tears until dawn.

      * * *

      At breakfast the next morning, Lucille glanced up from her plate of pancakes and bacon to find herself in the crosshairs of Emma’s starry-eyed gaze. She calmly rested her fork on her plate, folded her hands beneath her chin, and said, “Emma Elliott, will you please, please stop looking at me like that!”

      Startled, Emma blurted, “Like what?”

      “Like you just now making my acquaintance. Like you only know me from my records. Like we ain’t come up together making mud pies.”

      A hush settled around the table.

      “Huh?” Emma offered quietly.

      “I’m just Lucille from down home, okay?”

      Emma’s cheeks burned. “Okay,” she murmured.

      Envy soon replaced that pride and awe, and in order to keep her feelings at bay, Emma had to drink three tall glasses of water swimming with bitters.

      Sam cocked his eyebrows. “Your stomach upset?”

      “A little.”

      “Maybe you pregnant!”

      “No, I don’t think that’s what it is.”

      * * *

      A week later, Lucille threw Emma and Sam a “Welcome to Harlem” party, attended by the black glitterati.

      Emma was too busy swooning to fully enjoy herself.

      No one would believe that she—little Emma Robinson from Macon, Georgia—was at a party, given in her honor no less, talking bread pudding recipes with blues singer Alberta Hunter. She’d be branded a liar if she told the folks back home that pianist Jelly Roll Morton had slipped her his number and pinched her bottom. And those same folks would just cut their eyes at her claims that country-blues guitarist Sylvester Weaver was as snazzy a dancer as he was a musician.

      “Sylvester, thank you so much, but I’m going to have to sit this song out, my dogs are barking!”

      “Okay, da-hling,” Sylvester said, dancing away.

      Emma spotted space on one of the four cushioned sofas, hobbled over, and sat down between two white women wearing brightly colored flapper dresses. The women were pointing and howling with laughter at Lucille’s father, who was toting an open bottle of gin, snake-hipping his way from one guest to the next, offering to top off their drinks.

      Emma slipped her feet from her shoes and pressed her burning soles against the cool wood floor. When she finally looked into the women’s laughing faces, she was stunned to find that she had sandwiched herself between blues songstress Marion Harris and actress-turned-singer Esther Walker.

      She was still reeling when Bessie Smith walked in, trailed by an entourage of the most beautiful men and women Emma had ever seen at one time.

      Lucille dragged the famous singer over to Emma, who didn’t know if she should bow or curtsy and so awkwardly combined the two, which raised more guffaws from Marion and Esther. Finally, grinning like a clown, Emma presented Bessie her trembling hand. “Very nice to meet you, Ms. Smith.”

      After an exaggerated eye roll, Bessie threw her fat arms around Emma’s neck and squeezed the breath out of her. “We hug here in Harlem!” she bellowed.

      The party didn’t end until every drop of liquor was gone and the sky was soupy with misty morning light.

      * * *

      As Sam and Emma climbed the stairs toward their bedroom, Emma laid her head on Sam’s shoulder and announced dreamily, “Harlem is definitely where I want to restart our lives.”