I try not to embarrass myself and eat too fast but I do. He twists off the metal cup on top of our flask, pours the wine in and offers it to me. “No, thank you,” I say.
He drinks it hisself, pours another. “Come on, Mimi. Just one sip.”
“I don’t want none.”
“You know I wouldn’t give you nothing to hurt you. It’ll help you relax.”
I shake my head. I never had a drink before.
“Come on, for me?” His eager makes me want to try. I pick up the cup, sniff the wine, cringe at the smell of off grapes.
“That’s it,” he say. “Taste it with your nose. Breathe in the aroma.”
“Aro. . what?”
“Just taste it, Mimi.”
I bring the cup to my lips, sip it, and spit it out, bitter.
He laughs at my coughing. “You all right? Was it that bad?” he say, taking the cup from my hand. He sips it. “No, that’s good.”
I keep coughing.
He sets the cup down next to him, says, “I thought you’d like it. It’s supposed to be the best around. Spent yesterday’s winnings on this bottle.”
I think I broke his heart.
I reach over his lap and pick up the mostly full cup and chug it all down in one go.
“Whoa, Mimi.” He takes the cup. “You ain’t supposed to gulp it like that. Savor it. Take a sip. Put it down. When the flavor’s gone from your mouth, take another sip.”
I blush.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed. Everybody mess up their first time. Here. .” He fills my cup again. “Now try.”
I take in a deep sniff of it. “Like that?” I say.
I close my eyes ’cause I think I can smell it better that way. Its scents breeze in me — pear, vanilla, a little cherry, maybe. I sip it and it runs in smooth, swishes between my cheeks, caresses my tongue, licks the roof of my mouth, and slides down my throat. The flavor seems to last forever. Better this time.
He say, “It was good, wasn’t it?”
I open my eyes.
“I always want to make you happy. Whatever you like in this world, I’ll give it to you.”
I feel my neck and shoulders warm from the drink and my eyes bulge. A drip of wine rolls down my lip. He kisses it off. I don’t stop him.
He say, “Was that funny?”
“No,” I whisper, floating limp like that fish did.
He lays me down and scoots himself close to me, rests his hand on my side and presses his lips on mine again, holds ’em there this time. He opens his mouth, a little. His tongue touches mine.
“Did that feel nice?” he say.
I nod and raise up to his lips this time, want him to taste me again. He slides his hand up my side, touches my breast, spiraling his fingertip around my nipple. It tingles me everywhere.
I stop him. Slide his hand over to center, hold it to my heart. I don’t want him touching me like that. No, Cynthia don’t want him touching me like that.
“Let’s go,” he say, and grabs my hand to pull me up with him to leave but I don’t get up. I keep his hand in mine and nudge him down ’til he kneels.
I want his touches.
I want to stay here with him forever.
He say, “I need to tell you something. I’ve kissed other women. . been with others. Done more than kissing. A few.”
I stop him talking. Kiss him open-mouthed the way he just taught me.
“Mimi. . you’re so innocent. You sure you want your first time to be with me?”
He’s asking too many questions.
“I don’t want to take nothing from you,” he say. “Except to take you from here. Keep you mine. We could get married. . well, not official, but. . we could live like husband and wife. I’d never take another. .”
“Yes,” I say. “I do.”
His face softens and every fine wrinkle in it goes. He’s like an angel to me. I say, “Be my first time. Show me what to do.”
23 / APRIL 1863, Tallassee, Alabama
BEFORE DAWN, I went looking for some body.
But bodies were mostly moving around this property in pairs, readying to work in the mill and seed the fields — tomatoes and beets — too soon for melons.
Some negroes were planning in secret — sowing turnips in the cow pen, burying silver spoons. While others were ’sleep or rousing, except for slaves like Charles and Josey who don’t sleep much. Those are at home, defeated and afraid. But I ain’t afraid. Not of the dark, not of taken-back freedom, and not of George.
I thought he’d come home last night. The pang of his arrival rose up in me a desperation. And fear. But it wasn’t fear of him. But because I don’t know how to kill him yet. How to touch the living with no hands.
I’m not ready.
That makes me afraid.
So I was looking for some body this morning.
Somebody to practice on. A weak vessel. A small animal. A fly. But I found Annie first.
The squeaking of her porch swing in the 5:00 a.m. darkness was like slow groaning breaths. Her rocking back and forth called me to her. And she was alone. Her hands were warming around her cup of tea and her thick blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, swallowing her whole body like a soft turtle shell. Except her legs dangled outside it.
I NEVER TRIED to step in nobody before.
It didn’t seem right to. Evil even. Possession. But I don’t mean to stay. I just need her for a while. ’Til George gets what he deserve.
I stood beside her as she rocked. Watched her, considered how I might do it. Then changed my mind at first. But remembering Josey strangled on the ground made me do what I did next: I stood in front of Annie as she rocked back, waited for her to rock forward again and I simply fell back onto her and waited to melt away inside.
But the pain came instant.
Like grabbing the handle of a hot pan, not knowing it was hot, then two seconds later dropping it ’cause your palm’s on fire.
I fell away. I don’t know what that was.
I was simmering after, but I was mostly fine. So I stood beside Annie again. . for Josey. If I could be inside Annie for two seconds, I could stay longer if I tried harder, if I made up my mind to.
When Annie stopped rocking is when I did it.
She crossed her legs under her blanket and sat there, still as dead, and stared out into the nothingness ahead of her, so I braced myself.
It should have been such a small thing, like a toe to a body. But it wasn’t. Or it was exactly. Like breaking a pinky toe on the corner of furnishings — a sudden, raging, tear-bringing pain, that takes your whole body to the ground. I fell inside her. I wouldn’t let go this time.
But every time she moved, it was like something was stepping on that broke toe, breaking it again. She coughed — a new break. She swallowed — a new break. She reached her arms out to set her cup down and tears warmed my eyes.
And this heat! Her body on mine is like a boiling wet towel placed all around me. Lesser, when Annie stops moving, but wrenching still.
I try not to move.
Don’t want Annie to move.
And when she does, I try to keep pace with her, move when she move. Move like she move. No rubbing against one another.
And now, through this heat there’s a peace. I can feel Annie’s skin as if it were mine. We rock on her porch swing together, in tandem, me and Annie, my form inside hers, the cold air sharp on her cheeks. But I’m still hot. Simmering.
I can hear her thoughts.
She’s trying to clear her mind of the strangers in her bed. A new couple. One of ’em, her husband. She’s lost now between her memories of him and the haunting sway of the skeleton-bare trees a ways off. “Empty,” is the word her mind repeats. Her husband Richard’s word. The word to describe their mantle. It comes to her first as an utterance—“Empty.” Then a question—“Empty?” Then finally, a revelation—“Yes,” she nods. “Empty.” Even the sky’s empty, she thinks. The only cloud in it is sliding out of sight.