Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas - Maya Angelou [72]
The woman caught him directly after service and invited him to her home for late Sunday afternoon dinner. He accepted gratefully.
She rushed home, killed a chicken and put it on to fry. While the chicken cooked, Mrs. Scott took a small needle from her sewing kit, and putting on her bifocals, picked her way down the lane from her front door. When she reached a tree a hundred yards away, she stuck the needle in the bark and returned to the kitchen to finish preparing the meal.
When the young man arrived, they sat down to a tasty dinner (for Mrs. Scott was an excellent cook), and after they finished, Mrs. Scott invited the man to sit on the porch in the swing, to let his dinner digest. She brought out lemonade and sat with him. Dusk was falling and the shapes of things were blurred.
Mrs. Scott sat bolt upright and turned to the young man. “What on earth is that I see sticking in that tree?” She pointed down the lane to the oak, which was barely a shadow in the darkness.
The young man asked, “What tree, Mrs. Scott?”
“Why, that oak tree at the bottom of the lane.” She squinted and bent her neck. “I do believe that's a pin.”
The young man, squinting, tried to pierce the gloom.
“Mrs. Scott, I can't hardly see the tree. And you can see something sticking in it?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Scott had relaxed her scrutiny. “At first I thought it was a pin, but when I looked for the head it wasn't there—I saw instead a hole. So it's got to be a needle.”
The young man turned and looked at Mrs. Scott with admiration.
“You know, ma'am, when you left church this morning, some folks told me to be careful. That you were an old woman who loved young men. But I must say, if you can see the hole in a needle a hundred yards away after the sun has gone down, you're not nearly as old as they say you are.”
Mrs. Scott, proud of her compliments and forgetful of her subterfuge, said, “Well, thank you for that. I'll just go and get the needle and show it to you.”
She flounced up out of the swing and stepped jauntily down the stairs. When she reached the bottom step she turned to smile at the appreciative young man, and then continuing, she walked two steps and tripped over a cow sitting in the lane.
Yes, I was a success in Paris at the Mars Club. I would have been a fool to have thought the praise was all mine. Ben liked me because I was good enough, but appreciated me because the members from Porgy and Bess were likely to drop in and sing for free. Bobby liked me because I was good enough, and he had a chance to play music for which he seldom received requests. The audience liked me because I was good enough, and I was different-not African, but nearly; not American, but nearly. And I liked myself because, simply, I was lucky.
I gave thanks to Porgy and Bess, my good fortune and to God. I wasn't about to trip over a cow.
CHAPTER 21
Paris was changing the rhythm of that old gang of mine. Martha took a two-week leave from the company to give a Town Hall recital in New York City. Lillian had said to me often, “I'm so glad I wasn't born here, because I'd never have learned to speak this language,” but she had found new French friends and I seldom saw her after the theater. Barbara Ann's husband flew from the United States to be with her, and since they were newly married, they could spare little time for anyone beyond their tight circle of romance. Ned Wright and Joe Attles were bent on a ferocious discovery of Paris. After the final bow they raced from the theater as if an emergency call awaited them. They unearthed little-known restaurants and bars in obscure corners of the city.
From my third-floor (which the French perversely called second-floor) room, I assayed my value to Paris and its promise for me. I had accepted the Rose Rouge offer and become a typical Parisian entertainer. I sang a midnight show at the Mars Club, threw a coat over my sparkly dress, hailed a cab and rode across the Seine to do a second show at the Rose