The Lost Songs Read online

  Kelvin approached Miss Veola’s house from the side. Beyond the thick trunks of oaks and the fat green sprawl of untrimmed azaleas, he could see that Miss Veola had visitors. This was good. She was busy. Kelvin could say “hey,” and leave.

  Since Miss Veola was in the middle of a prayer, Kelvin leaned against an oak, waiting for the prayer to end before he walked up.

  Prayer didn’t bother Kelvin one way or another. He was touched when people seemed to believe that a prayer went somewhere. But he saw no evidence that it did or ever had. He remembered way back, maybe first or second grade, when he and Cliff Greene had wanted to be preachers. They used to pile crates up to use as a pulpit and shout “Amen!” That version of Cliff had vanished and there was no sign that it would ever return.

  Miss Veola’s prayer shocked Kelvin. He had not known that Miss Elminah had been discarded by her distant grandchildren, that they couldn’t even be bothered to bring their babies to meet her. He would tell his mother, who would come visit Miss Elminah.

  He did not know the name Saravette, but she was obviously a problem.

  Wait—Miss Veola was praying for Doria? Doria Bell? Doria was in Miss Veola’s yard too?

  He laughed at the idea that Doria needed God to guide her steps. Of course, Doria could use a little help in the social category, but she would grow into herself. There would come a day when Kelvin would brag: I was in school with her.

  Then Lutie began to sing, her voice a cloud floating in heaven.

  He did not know the song, but it had to be from the Laundry List. Those pieces were distinctive. His daddy talked about it now and then. “Old Miz Painter,” he’d say, meaning Lutie’s MeeMaw. “She was a piece of work. She’d sit on that little porch of hers, singing and singing. Her voice would carry over the fields and through the woods. She talked to the Lord like he was her teenage son and she had to bring him into line. We used to wait for lightning to strike.”

  This was not one of those songs.

  It was a lament, with legs too tired to stand.

  Until the end.

  Then the song became rich with belief and glad with waiting. “Take me home, Lord,” said the song, absolutely sure that the Lord was on his way.

  Doria did not have to hear music twice to have it in her memory. She had heard three of Lutie’s songs now and as soon as she was at her computer, she’d write them down. On the first pass, she’d write exactly what Lutie had sung: a line of notes, hanging below heaven. On the second pass, she’d add her own choice of chords. Just something for the songs to stand on.

  Lutie’s voice soared out of the little yard, up into the wind. She was visibly connected to God, her hands stretching to reach his.

  There has to be a video, thought Doria. Right here. Just like this. These are the songs Mr. Gregg wants. He’s never heard them. He doesn’t know for sure that they even exist.

  But they do.

  And he’s right.

  Whoever owns these has a ticket out.

  Lutie had a trembly feeling from being so close to God. Like people in the Old Testament who had to hide their faces from him or go up in smoke.

  “Lutie, what a range you have,” marveled Doria. “And what a melody. I feel as if I’ve been waiting inside myself to hear that.”

  Lutie was exhausted. She wanted to sweep everybody away, including Mabel Painter. She said dismissively, “My grandmother’s grandmother wrote quite a few songs. I don’t sing them often. I can’t sing them for just anybody.”

  Doria got flustered and looked away.

  Lutie was sick of her. Why am I bothering with this limp excuse for a person? She’s your problem, God. I’m leaving her on a porch somewhere. Take her away.

  Miss Elminah said, “Sing another one, honey bunny.”

  “I’m done,” said Lutie sharply. “Those songs are too much. I can’t do them all in a row.”

  “Lutie, do not be a prima donna,” said Miss Veola. “You are perfectly capable of singing all of them in a row, and your MeeMaw used to do just that, with you beside her. You are being difficult and mean.”

  Lutie glared at her.

  “You know the plans for our new church!” cried Miss Veola. “It will cost and cost. You could give a concert that would bring in people from all over the Carolinas.”

  God was gone, if he had ever been here. No prayer stretched to the sky. Religion was nothing but a spell that had been broken.

  “The Laundry List doesn’t belong to them and it doesn’t belong to you,” snapped Lutie. “Come on, Doria. We have to go.”

  Doria turned to follow.

  Standing by the fence that surrounded the little yard was Kelvin. Low rays of sun caught his dark skin, making him glow. Doria’s heart turned over. She wanted to touch him, to touch his arm and his hand, his cheek and his hair.

  She wanted him to touch her.

  “Hey, Doria,” he said, easy as summer, as if Doria hanging out in a rural slum in a black preacher’s yard were perfectly ordinary.

  “Hi, Kelvin.” She loved saying his name. The “l” was fat and soft in her mouth, followed by that vibrating “v” and the half-humming “n.”

  But he had already turned to Lutie. “Hey, Lutie. Heard you sing. It was beautiful.”

  For a moment, there was no Miss Veola, no Miss Elminah, no little Waitlee boys racing around the yard. There was only Lutie, beautiful to Kelvin—and Kelvin, beautiful to Lutie.

  “Thanks for that wonderful music, Lutie,” said Doria stiffly. “Thank you for tea, Miss Veola. Thank you for the lemon bar, Miss Elminah. I’ll be heading on.” She would practice. Practice lining up her fingers, her feet and her mind.

  Doria turned her back, took one step and lost the lovely touch of God.

  Her parents disapproved of emotional religion and now she saw why. You needed to keep things on a low level. You could not get overly involved with God. You should not get overly involved at school either. You’d always be in a state of want—wanting heavenly attention, wanting friends, wanting a boyfriend … wanting Kelvin. But you wouldn’t have them.

  If you stood at a distance, though, at least you could enjoy what you did have, like music.

  “I’ll head back with you, Doria,” said Lutie. “Doria’s going to practice the organ at her church and I’m going to Aunt Grace’s,” she explained to everyone.

  “Sweet,” said Kelvin.

  How smooth his face was. How much Doria wanted to touch it.

  “Doria,” he said, “somebody told me you practice every single day at First Methodist. Is that true?”

  This felt like something Doria should not agree with. Popular kids did not practice the organ every single day. “Church is where the organs are,” she said lightly. “Can’t practice at the gym.”

  “If you’re alone, it’s a bad idea.”

  They were all so annoying. Who exactly did they think was willing to sit on a pew for two hours every day while she practiced? “I’m not alone, Kelvin,” she lied.

  “Just one moment, Miss Lutie,” said Miss Veola sharply. “What is your explanation for missing half a day of school?”

  “None of your business,” said Lutie. “Hurry up, Doria.”

  Doria could not imagine anybody being rude to Miss Veola. From Kelvin’s expression, he couldn’t imagine it either. Miss Veola really couldn’t believe it. But the pastor rallied. “Now don’t be a stranger, Doria,” she said.

  Except I am a stranger, thought Doria. And now even my old friends Nell and Stephanie are strangers.

  When Train brought DeRade the barbed wire he’d been ordered to cut, DeRade explained that he would truss Nate up like they did in cartoons, and Nate would have to inch down the street with his arms pinned to his sides, shivering and crying inside the wire. People would stare, laugh and unwrap him.

  But it hadn’t worked out that way, or else DeRade had been lying when he’d described the plan. Nate had flailed around, screaming and jerking, and put out his eye all by himself.

  Som
e nights Train was blind in one eye, too. Some nights it was his body that flailed and jerked.

  Now Train was on fire thinking about that kid on fire.

  Down the road, Lutie was singing another song from the Laundry List. Train left his house. Behind him the TV kept blaring. He worked his way across the path that wandered along the top of the hill, behind the row of little houses, until he was above Miss Veola’s.

  Kelvin was there. Kelvin, who had become a fat jerk who did nothing but sprawl on chairs and laugh. On whom teachers doted. Nobody wrote Kelvin off just because he did nothing. They embraced him.

  Lutie and Doria were beaming at Kelvin, and so were Miss Veola and Miss Elminah.

  The terrible heat coursed through Train. He felt as if he, too, had been doused with alcohol and set on fire. He hated them for being soft and happy and stupid and successful.

  He didn’t know which one made him the craziest.

  But he did know the easiest one to hurt.

  7

  Lutie stalked back to Tenth Street.

  All these prayers, all this demand for song, all these plans for her future. Lutie could imagine it ending in disaster. Miss Veola would scoop Saravette up and throw her back in Lutie’s life, complete with lice and crystal meth and soiled sweaters. Saravette would contaminate the landscape of Lutie’s life.

  She was trotting. Doria was panting to keep up. They reached the corner of Tenth and Hill. In the bushes beside the road, a mockingbird burst into song. It trilled wildly, as if it might run out of time and had to condense a life of song into a minute.

  Lutie could see the First Methodist church spire. She didn’t have to walk any farther, just give Doria a push. She didn’t have any courtesy left. She didn’t like herself for being rude to Miss Veola, but the pastor kept cornering her. How many times did Lutie have to say no?

  Doria said, “Thank you for a nice afternoon, Lutie. And thank you so much for the songs. I will cherish them.”

  Why couldn’t Doria talk like a normal person? She sounded like a greeting card.

  Lutie checked her messages. It looked as if people had accepted the music excuse for why she was with Doria, because nobody asked in their second text. But now Aunt Grace was on her case. It was fine for Lutie to communicate with everybody instantly, but totally annoying when the various severe ladies in her life did it. Skipping school felt like a hundred years ago.

  “Mr. Gregg asked me to do something,” said Doria timidly.

  Lutie hated timid people.

  Doria wet her lips.

  Lutie hated people who had to dampen their lips before they spoke.

  “When he texted, we were at lunch, and Rebecca thought Mr. Gregg wanted to talk about his musical,” said Doria.

  For years Mr. Gregg had been claiming to be almost done writing his musical. Lutie wasn’t sure there really was one. She thought it was more daydream than reality, and that broke her heart, because she loved Mr. Gregg.

  “But in fact, Mr. Gregg asked me to get some family songs out of you, Lutie. He called them the Laundry List. When he saw you take me to lunch, he figured you’d give me your songs because of our friendship.”

  The mockingbird was chirping wildly now, crazed with song. Lutie felt the same. How dare these greedy needy people trespass on her?

  “I told him that you and I are not friends,” said Doria. “You’re just being kind.”

  It was too true for eye contact. Lutie looked away.

  “Those were the songs, weren’t they?”

  Lutie shrugged.

  “They are a treasure, Lutie. All the singing world would love to hear them. And learn them. And lean on them.”

  “You selling me out?” she demanded.

  “No,” said Doria, her voice solid and quiet.

  I should give her a chance, thought Lutie. But it’s a shot in a hundred and I like better odds.

  “Sometimes when I play Bach, Lutie, I think of the millions of people who have cherished Bach’s music. Hundreds of millions, I suppose, if you’re thinking of, say, ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.’ Over the centuries and throughout the world.”

  Lutie wondered if Mabel Painter had ever heard Baroque music. Or any recorded music, for that matter. Had she been alive when record players were invented? When did radio begin? Lutie didn’t even know the dates of her great-great-grandmother’s life. She could ask Professor Durham. He would know.

  Which offended Lutie. She said sharply, “So my great-great-grandmother’s music also belongs to hundreds of millions of people, and I need to give it away?”

  Doria smiled. How beautiful her smile was. Transforming. “The last thing you should do is give those songs away. But you should perform them. Lutie, I can just see you on the stage of that new church, facing a thousand people who paid a lot to get in, and every one of them excited about being the very first audience to hear the lost songs of a lost time. I see you in some long spangled gown, walking out on that stage, a spotlight wrapping you in dazzle. Lutie, you would own any stage you walked on. I see the audience starting out skeptical, expecting little basic tunes that sound like any other basic tunes. Expecting an ordinary voice. And they’ll get you. And they’ll get Mabel Painter, shouting to God. And their skin will prickle and there will be tears in their eyes.”

  Lutie’s skin prickled. She got tears in her eyes.

  After a while, Doria said, “Would it be okay with you if I wrote those songs down?”

  Lutie was sorry she had walked one step with Doria Bell, never mind a mile. The idea that a skinny loser Yankee white girl dared ask for the music of Mabel Painter made Lutie want to stomp her. “They aren’t songs. They’re prayers. They just happen to have melodies. Don’t call them property. They’re beyond that. They’re half heaven. No, you can’t write them down.”

  Lutie suppressed a shudder. If she had to sing the whole list, all in a row, there would be side effects. Lutie would teeter on the precipice of some dark century and have the hideous sensation of becoming Mabel, with Mabel’s endless labor and aching back. Mabel Painter had been close to slavery, and Lutie hated thinking about that grim slab of history. Sometimes when she read about it—or sang about it—she’d feel shackles on her ankles, feel herself being seized. Shipped. Sold. Becoming property. No different from a cow or a couch.

  If she became known for the Laundry List, it would be a chain binding her to Mabel. Lutie figured she had enough chains, being bound to Saravette. Because that was another side effect to presenting the Laundry List. Saravette might come.

  “I play a lot of Bach on the organ,” said Doria, “and of course he’s all God, all the time, but I don’t think of his works as prayer. Bach honors God, but his music doesn’t actually address God. You, though, you had to walk out under the sky and get visible, and talk to God with nothing in your way.”

  Doria gripped a subject as tight as Miss Veola did. They both seemed to think in straight lines, like fishing poles: reeling in thoughts, neatly winding them. Lutie’s thoughts were individuals; in fact, like laundry. Some damp, some dry, some folded, some dirty. Making sense of them would be a long hot task with a heavy iron. “What would you do with my songs if you wrote them down? Hand them to Mr. Gregg? Try to make money off them?”

  “Oh, no. It’s more that I feel them in my fingers. I need to pour the notes onto the keyboard and then I need to attach them to the page.” She held up her hands, fingers curved, as if she were about to play.

  “But they’re not yours! Here’s what Mabel Painter said to her granddaughter, my MeeMaw. ‘They can bring me their baskets of soiled clothes. I will scrub and starch and hang them up to dry. I will iron and sweat and earn nickels and dimes. I will be proud of how clean and smooth the laundry is. All the day long, to all the world, I will be nobody. And at the end of the day, I will sing. And when I sing, I, Mabel Painter, am a child of God. When I sing, he listens.’ ”

  Doria closed her eyes. “ ‘I, Mabel Painter, am a child of God,’ ” she whispered. “ ‘Wh
en I sing, he listens.’ ”

  Lutie had had enough. “Yeah. Whatever. You know where you are now? See the steeple?”

  In a moment, Doria was alone on the cracked sidewalk. Her heart ached enough that she could have taken a Tylenol. She didn’t have the energy to push the Walk button.

  Lord, I done give all I got to give, she thought. Don’t have to go friendless to school up where you live. Take me home, Lord.

  But away from Miss Veola, who was a tree trunk of certainty, Doria did not believe that she could set a chair on her porch and God would come by.

  Doria had self-discipline. She needed it now. She removed pointless self-pity from her mind and inserted the Bach fugue she was learning. Bach was particularly space taking. In her mind, she usually felt Bach inside out and upside down, from left to right and top to bottom. But not this time. Self-discipline was not there.

  She was just a loser standing on a corner, watching the world go by.

  If her mother and father knew she felt this way, they would be destroyed. They believed she had a good life, full of friends and achievements and activities. I should have told them more, she thought. I wouldn’t know where to start now.

  A storm was rolling in from the west, curling black and purple. The heat of the day had vanished, flattened by the coming change in the weather. Doria felt flattened too.

  From behind her a man’s voice said, “Hey, Miss Doria.”

  She was so startled that her body jerked and she whirled around. The man was tall and her eyes first met his T-shirt. She had to drag her gaze upward.

  It was Train.

  Train was handsome, a different brown from Kelvin or Lutie, more bronze. All of him was thin—face, mouth, body, hands. His hair was wild, half caught in a rag; his clothing mismatched and too large. He looked the way she felt. “Hello, Train,” she said.

  “You going to practice at your church?”

  How did people know so much about her? Doria never talked to anybody. Why would people bother to share such useless information? “I usually do, but I think it’s too late.” Although normally it was never too late for music. Normally it was always the right time for Bach. But right now, Doria felt as if something vital had broken inside her.