“Othella.”
Oh, God. Is that Perry calling me, or have I imagined it?
“You g-gonna pay for t-this. You little bitch.”
Shit. Any second now, he’ll be on his feet and coming for me. Money or not, I’ve got to go.
I’m out the door a second later.
My day isn’t going as planned. After leaving Perry on the living room floor, I make a stop I should’ve skipped—the AME Fellowship Church and Reverend Nathan. I’ve known him for a long time and expected something different from him, but I end up leaving there quick and head to a juke jointa few blocks away. All the while, my mother’s voice is in my ear as if she’s standing next to me, reciting her old-world sayings: “If you’re around the insane, beware—the symptoms spread.”
I grip the handle of my tweed suitcase and squeeze my clutch purse under my armpit. It’s not a long walk, but I might collapse in this heat. If I do, I’ll be carted off by the police and thrown in a cell with wayward women, never to be seen or heard from again.
I wonder if that’s what happened to my mother—snatched off the street, with no chance to call home and check on me. But it no longer matters how or why she left—gone is gone.
Out of cigarettes, I spot a man across the street puffing on a smoke. I stroll over and ask if he can spare a couple. I think better with a cigarette in my hand. I put a sad look on my face, appearing quite desperate and girlie. He gives me a pack of cigarettes—bless him—and a handful of coins, all he can spare. He has a job, a wife, and he’s a churchgoing man. The only thing bulging in his pockets is a spare undershirt. He claims he likes to change into a clean shirt before returning home to his wife.
Now, that’s a nice fella. I wish there were more nice fellas in the world like him.
I step inside the juke joint and ask the owner, who I know from one of the nightclubs where I used to work, if I can use the horn to make a call. He nods, and I dial the only number I have for Tony Schaefer.
One of his goons answers.
“Can the boss spare some time for me this afternoon?”
The reply is a quick yes. The man on the other end adds that Tony mentioned me just the other night.
That might be a coincidence, bushwa, or whatever—it makes me no never mind. I couldn’t care less about the particulars as long as Tony gives me enough dough to catch that midnight train to Kenosha.
I have to tread carefully around him. During Prohibition, his occupation was bootlegging, and Perry was one of his drivers. I know that asking a bootlegging mobster for help shouldn’t be one of my first choices, especially if I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. But a gal must do what a gal must do. I excuse myself to the bathroom, rummage through my suitcase, and slip into a gold chiffon dress with a plunging neckline and a slit up the middle of my right thigh. It’s a bold outfit and hardly fashionable, but it will attract the attention I need. When approaching a man like Tony Schaefer for a fistful of cash, a girl has to be a hot mama—or she can forget about getting out of Chicago anytime soon.
CHAPTER 2
VIVIAN JEAN
Hartfield House, Bronzeville, Chicago
My home feels small, suffocatingly small—an odd notion because, to some, Hartfield House is a mansion. Yet, my modest 4,000-square-foot home lacks a butler’s pantry, a morning room, a veranda, or a gazebo—unlike the estates of Marshall Field or Robert S. Abbott. The founder of theChicago Defender, Abbott is one of the richest Negroes in the city, and lives just around the corner from us on 47th and Grand Boulevard. So, Hartfield House does have some of what it takes: a grand staircase, a second floor with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, a new library, and a live-in cook and housekeeper who has been with me since 1915, when she came to Chicago from Jamaica. I was ten years old.
We also have a parlor, which is where I am now.
I open the door and am greeted by a chorus of voices.
“Happy Birthday!”
My mother, Regina Thomas, sits stiff-backed and devilishly polite on the settee next to Katherine Dunham, my dearfriend and soon-to-be accomplice. But my first duty is to make the rounds. After all, I am the birthday girl—or birthday woman—because today I turned thirty.
On the other side of the room, in front of the mullioned windows, are my husband’s parents, Dr. Clifford Hartfield Sr. and his wife, Constance. I’m surprised to see them. They rarely come to the city. Retired and fed up with Chicago after my first husband’s death, they moved to Joliet.
My first husband was their eldest son, Clifford Jr., a doctor like his father, who made me a widow on December 10, 1933. My second husband is their youngest, Tobias “Tully” Hartfield. He stands across the room. I can feel his gaze on me, and I’m tempted to walk over to him, grab him by the shoulders, and shake some sense into him. But that’s something I’d never do. Like my mother, I am too damn polite for my own good. Or is it fear of confrontation that cripples us?
“Dr. and Mrs. Hartfield, I had no idea you would be able to join us.”
“We wouldn’t miss your thirtieth birthday celebration,” Constance Hartfield states in her usual monotone. A well-preserved woman in her seventies, she always sounds rehearsed, no matter which of her sons is my husband.
“You look divine.” Dr. Hartfield pulls me in for a hug. “I’m very proud of you and Tully. It has been a challenging eighteen months, and you’ve both been so brave. I am very glad you have each other to lean on.”
I return the embrace and hang on a moment longer than I should, but despite the awkwardness of it, the sincerity of his words is so heartfelt that I am deeply touched.
