Page 81 of The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter
Church members came to help, and ministers came by to organize. Everyone was motivated by the boycott’s success. Though I was an outsider, they drew me in, making me feel like a cog in a machine that was working its way to justice.
The best part of all was Gabby.
“All right then, favorite book?” I asked between calls.
She squinched her nose in a way that I’d come to know was her thinking face. “That’s not fair. How can you make me choose?” she said, shaking her head. “My favorite is whichever one I’m reading now.”
“So, which one?”
“Why in the world would you think I’m only reading one? I’m in the middle ofGo Tell It on the Mountainby James Baldwin,The Invisible Manby Ralph Ellison, and rereadingTheir Eyes Were Watching Godby Zora Neale Hurston.”
“Three books at once?” I said, entering the last address. “How do you keep them all straight?”
Gabby shrugged, eyes twinkling. “I read by what I need. Zora’s great when you want to remember who you are and seek a life with love. I call it my book therapy.”
“Zora is great, indeed.” I hid my smile at my friend’s name. I wondered how she was doing. I hadn’t seen her in years, not since those early days when she and Langston Hughes had gathered, working on stories. I knew she was still alive, but there was no point in trying to see her, as how could I explain appearing the same more than thirty years later?
Time felt liquid as I worked with Gabby, the hours fleeting. I craved more. That evening, I discovered that she was a widow with a five-year-old son named Winston. That she ate slices of cake upside down to leave the frosting for last. She hated heels and preferred to walk around the room only in stockings to feel closer to the earth. And she’d lost many family members in a fire set by the local KKK chapter, which had fueled her desire to do her part to change the American South and beyond.
I’d marveled at the number of folk doing the same I’d learned about—stretching themselves beyond every limit to try and make their part of the world a little bit better. If not for themselves, then for others. It took no effort at all to conjure thoughts of the great many people who would do the opposite, but somehow that only made Gabby’s efforts shine more brightly. Here she was, using her spare time and energy for a cause bigger than herself. I’d used my words ... but I’d always had to think about Death.
We worked late into the night, taking phone calls and planning for a rally at the Holt Street Church the next evening.
Emotions ran high, and the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and Women’s Political Council (WPC) leaders and ministers hoped to check in on the boycott’s effectiveness and help keep the masses under control. The slightest spark of violence could ignite all the work and planning into a conflagration.
I hung up the phone and sighed, exhaustion and exhilaration tugging at my bones. I watched Gabby on her last call of the evening, her stocking feet stretched across her desk and her red lipstick a little smudged along her mouth, as if she’d been kissed. The gorgeous huskiness of her voice, deepened by overuse, made me think of Eartha Kitt’s music, and I closed my eyes.
The warmth of hands on my shoulders made my eyes snap open. I gazed up to find Gabby staring down at me, her mouth a perfect rose and the dim overhead lights leaving angelic balls of light across her brown skin.
“You have a birthmark near your collarbone.” She rested the pad of her thumb there, her touch brief but electric, sending a pulse through me. “At least you don’t wear your heart on your sleeve.”
The joke tore from me a laugh I didn’t know I was capable of, shaking something loose within me. We both followed the way her fingers gingerly traced my collarbone to the neck bow on my blouse, like she needed an excuse to make physical contact. We stayed in that moment, bound by a connection bigger than ourselves that tightened the longer we were together. She stopped laughing first and gazed into my eyes, and I couldn’t remember another time when I was as happy to just exist.
A door slammed at the front of the room, startling us both and disrupting the energy between us.
I jumped up. How much longer could I surrender to these feelings? “I should go.”
“Did I do something wrong?” Her eyes pleaded with me for honesty.
I took her hand and squeezed it. “No, nothing at all. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I bade Gabby good night, pushing down my desire andtangled-up feelings about wanting to let the question ofwhat ifslide between us despite knowing how it would all end. The faces of William, René, Rohan, and Adam flashed through my brain. I walked back to my hotel buoyant and hopeful and nervous and electrified, all in one. It had been good work, hard work, just the type of thing that would serve as proof of humanity’s goodness, and the time with Gabby filled up the cracks left behind by lost loves. I knew that this all was for Death, but at that moment, in the quiet street with only the sounds of crickets for company, it was for me too.
I had forgotten that I couldn’t just look for what was wonderful in humanity. I had to feel the wonder myself. I walked up the stairs, comforted but praying for the boycott’s success. I’d write and file another story tonight. Only in the morning would we know if all our work and the boycott would be successful.
Twenty-Eight
Monday morning dawned, and I lit out of my hotel room first thing, returning to the church and finding Jo Ann.
The news of the boycott had leaked over the weekend, andThe Montgomery Advertiserled with bold headlines:Extra Police Set for Patrol Work in Trolley Boycott. Fear settled in my stomach, the mix bitter and noxious, for the safety of the boycotters and the movement. Far from the boycott being a secret, the white citizens of Montgomery were now aware of the plan, and the police had become involved. I handed the paper to Jo Ann. “Are you worried about it?”
Jo Ann scanned the article before snapping it shut. “Nope. It works out even better for us. Maybe it got out further to those who didn’t know about it. Now they know we’re serious.”
And she was right. They were serious.
The first yellow buses trundled by, empty of riders, as they took their usual routes, trailed by motorcycle police escorts. The thought was to prevent any interference from protesters, but their presence aided our cause, as it scared off anyone thinking of riding.
The word spread like wildfire, and the Black citizens of Montgomery heeded the call. On foot, by car, and some by cabs running fares of a dime, the population stayed off the bus. With over 75 percent of the riders being Black, mostly maids and other workers heading into town for their jobs in the morning and back home in the afternoon, this boycott would demolish the bus company’s bottom line.
I didn’t see Gabby that morning, as she had school to teach, and part of me felt disappointed without her presence, so I recorded stories. I interviewed the people walking, gathering their hopes and chronicling their ambitions for the boycott.
