Deacon Yancey excitedly burst through the screen door holding a Mount Zion mug filled to the brim with tea. “Take a sip of this here and tell me it isn’t the best you’ve ever tasted.”
Angel took a short sip and tried not to grimace. It tasted like gritty green dirt. Inside of the mug were tiny bits of sticks and leafy flakes; he’d pierced the tea bag, emptying the contents into the liquid. It was irrationally disgusting. Easily the most horrible cup of tea Angel had ever had.
“Mmm.” She placed the cup on the small side table to her right. “I’ll let it cool for a few moments, but mmm!”
“Yes, goodness,” he said, still genuinely thrilled by his horrid cup of tea. “I think I just about have it perfect, like Mrs. Yancey used to.” He looked off after mentioning his late wife.
Angel had noticed it every Sunday since she’d passed. He had no idea how to manage himself without his wife’s help. Wrinkled, loose-necked shirts had replaced crisp, starched ones. He was scaly ankles, uncut hair, and bitter green tea now.
“How have you been getting along since?” Angel asked, not wanting, or having, to finish her unfinished sentence. He knew what she meant.
Worry came over his face—the look of a child lost in a boulevard. “Can’t figure how one woman made so much happen in a day is all,” he said, trying to smile but failing. “I didn’t know just how much. I thought, like the fool I am, that a house fixed itself back every morning. In the same way I thought food came home delicious and kids went straight to sleep and shirts got crispy right out the wash. But sometimes, Angel girl, you just can’t know how good you got it until it dies.”
Angel thought about this before speaking. Death was dangerously close to her home, hovering over her living room like an angry cloud. If it swooped in today and took away her precious father, would she sit alone on a porch swing forever, regretting not appreciating him? Would it eat her up—those things unsaid, unthanked, unacknowledged?
The firm answer was no. She showed her appreciation to everyone around her, even those who didn’t deserve it. She was a servant, put on this earth to help and love and caretake, just like Booker T. Washington was when he was alive. Deacon Yancey’s fate was that of a man who didn’t appreciate his wonderful wife until he lost her for good. Sad, heartbreaking, unfortunate, but not nearly Angel. She couldn’t comfort him, she realized. Any response would be a lie. She shifted her gaze to the two boys in the practice fields and changed the subject.
“Deacon Yancey?” she asked while she swallowed the last stick in her green tea. “You seem to know everybody in this town. What do you know about Isaiah Wilson? He came by Sunday school yesterday.”
Deacon Yancey let out a choking cough as if she’d asked about Satan himself. “Stay as far away from that boy as you can. I mean it.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, never daring question an elder.
She looked toward the bleachers again. Isaiah had walked closer to the fence and was staring directly at her. She caught his eye and quickly looked away. God had put her in this world to help people, not to stare back at mischievous follower Isaiah Wilson. She couldn’t be bothered with a phony bad boy who skipped class and smoked expensive cigars by the bleachers with his rich friends. It was cliché at best—good girl saves bad boy from himself. No way.
Then she sneaked a second look to see that he was still staring, this time with his hand frozen in a wave. When she waved back, his friend Muggy smacked Isaiah’s head from behind. Muggy didn’t approve.
“Don’t wave back, Angel. I forbid you. He’s trouble with a capital T, that one,” said Deacon Yancey, who didn’t approve, either.
ISAIAH
“What was that?” Muggy said before taking a long drag from his second cigar. “Angel’s been a bluenose since we were little.”
“I can’t wave at a girl?” Isaiah replied, snatching Muggy’s cigar for a puff. “And she’s not a bluenose. She’s a dancer.”
“A dancer?” Muggy frisked over to the fence to get a closer look.
“Don’t stare.” Isaiah covered his eyes with his hand. “Muggy, stop that right now, I mean it.”
Turning toward Isaiah, Muggy asked, “How the hell else am I supposed to get a good look at this dancer?” He looked up. “Oh, I know!” He grabbed ahold of a nearby tree limb and climbed atop.
Isaiah felt both anger and embarrassment running the length of his body. Though Muggy had done things like this since they were knee-high, he’d never experienced this feeling before. The undeniable instinct to physically fight his best friend.
Isaiah glanced over at Angel and Deacon Yancey, expecting them to be mortified by the idiot climbing trees and loudly disrespecting her, but they were deep in conversation. Squinting at them, Isaiah saw disgust on the deacon’s face. He looked to be talking about something (or someone) he loathed, maybe even warning Angel about it. She, however, looked just as she had the day before.
Sure, she wasn’t wearing a white gown; her clothing looked like she’d been dressed long before dawn—wrinkled, overlong navy skirt with a white shirt tucked underneath, and worn-out church shoes. Her hair was braided down into two chunky rows, and her face was completely free of makeup, greased down with one of the butters. She was hiding, he thought, effectively so, too. No one outside of Mount Zion Sunday school could ever imagine the music underneath. She was more than any other girls within Greenwood limits. Beyond more. And more by a lot. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before. Now that he’d seen her, the real her, stripped down, he would never be able to unsee her. After yesterday, she couldn’t hide from him if she tried.
“Isaiah!” yelled Muggy. “Have you heard a single word I said? You’re stuck on this girl, aren’t you? Wait just one damn minute,” Muggy said with a shocked smile. “Is Angel Hill the dame you’ve been daydreaming about? What kind of magic does this dancer have to make you fall so fast?”
As Muggy jumped down from the tree with one hop, Isaiah grabbed ahold of his forearm. Muggy was a notorious hothead who never made threats that he didn’t back up with action. He was born who he was, impulsive and mean, and for Isaiah to exist in his company, he had to transform himself into the same. That was the very nature of their friendship—Isaiah did as Muggy told him to do or else. Greenwood took care of its own, but even here, there was a social contract. And between Muggy and Isaiah, Muggy’s family wealth gave him the upper hand. Isaiah didn’t see any choice but to follow.
When Muggy wanted to blow up elderly Mr. and Mrs. Edward’s mailbox in fifth grade, Isaiah lit the fuse. When Muggy locked Scott Hall in the nasty stall in sixth, Isaiah helped him barricade it shut. And when Muggy decided that Angel was unattractive, boring, and too much of a goody-goody to spend time with, Isaiah wrote her off, but not completely.
The day of the talent show, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. The way she stood. Unaffected by him or anyone else, she stood. Caring not about winning or placing or receiving applause, she stood. She stood. Just like she had in the face of the white boys who tore up her property. Angel was a Black goddess standing unseen by blind eyes. Yet Isaiah, even silently, now saw her.