CHAPTER 49 – Black Girl (2)

As a self-conscious home intruder, Eppie walked into the living room. The carpet was worn at the doorway, and an old armchair indicated where Denise might sit while the kids played. Everything was Antique USA or 80’s beige. The kitchen looked like something from a late-70s catalogue, with minimal updates. There was a cheap IKEA desk and chair against the wall, above which were workbooks, obviously Renée’s.

The kitchen was connected to the living room. There was a fridge, an old commercial model that looked like it had been salvaged from Mae’s. Cora’s drawings covered the lower half of the fridge, held with alphabet magnets, and from there had migrated to a full section of the kitchen wall. She recognised the well-drawn figures. They were of Simone, or was it Denise? Whatever the case, Cora had a way to go before she could match Armand Amar and earn Eppie’s recommendation to try her luck at the Met.

Eppie gave the room’s inhabitants her sincerest smile.

Renée was twelve and had the stillness of a girl who knew to keep her eyes peeled. She looked like a colt—long limbed and gangly. Her skin was dark chocolate, unlike her mother’s. She had fuller lips, a broad nose, flat across the bridge in an unambiguously West African way. Her hair was in braids, self-made and self-taught. The girl stood with her arms crossed, weight on the ball of her feet, ready to fight or flight.

Eppie would have had more time to read Renée were it not for the effluence of joy that was Cora, six years old, round-faced and gap-toothed, hair misaligned puffs, gripping Eppie’s arm as if she had just caught a shiny Pokémon. Unlike Renée’s cat eyes, Cora’s eyes were enormous and liquid brown, wide-set enough that Eppies’ body felt compelled to kneel and give her an enormous, heartfelt hug. Cora’s response was no less intense than a double strip of industrial-strength Velcro—the girl dug her face into Eppie’s shirt and seemed to inhale her, as Eppie might do to Mr Chin.

“EPPIE!” The girl screamed into her belly, traumatising her [Perfect Pitch]. “YOU CAME BACK!”

Back from the dead, was the thought floating through Eppie’s mind. Renée agreed.

“WANT TO SEE MY DRAWINGS?” Cora pulled her with a strength that put William to shame. “I drew you!”

Denise apologised for having to get ready for her next shift and left her with the girls.
The woman’s trust was utterly unnerving. Its sheer generosity was not something Eppie was mentally or emotionally prepared to accept.

She sat on the floor while Cora took out a shoebox and, from within, showed her pictures of her and Simone.

It was evident that the people in the crayon stencils were good friends.

She studied the room.
Opposite Cora, Eppie saw a portrait of the three girls, taken maybe a year ago. Simone with the light-hearted smile, Renée and Cora with the big ones. Denise had turned the TV down before she left for the bedroom. A recorded cartoon was playing. Around the TV and above it were Christmas decorations. A small tree, barely Cora’s height, stood near the window. The ornaments were cheap, the kind from K-Mart, but the heart was there.

“So… Renée.” Eppie wondered how she would break the ice.

“Not while mum’s here,” Renée said coldly. She did not sound like a twelve-year-old.

“Okay,” Eppie said. “Where’s your sister?”

“Work,” Renée replied. “She won’t be home until midnight. Later, sometimes. A Chinese man drops her off in a nice car.”

Eppie gulped. That did not sound like Simone was having a good time. A seventeen-year-old dancer, chauffeured by a Chinese man in a nice car? Just what the hell did William make her do? Eppie thought about it, then she regretted thinking about it.

“Is that your father?” Eppie pointed at another picture. A dark-skinned, African-American fellow in a suit with a flat nose, frozen in a moment of joy. It was a wedding photo, though Denise did not have a wedding dress.

“Yes,” Renée said.

“Tyrese?” Eppie took a wild guess.

“Darnell,” Renée’s tone remained unimpressed. “Dad’s in prison.”

Eppie wanted to slap herself. She felt the hair on her neck rise and fall. What a terrifying kid. “I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be. He’ll be out in a year, pending good behaviour.”

Eppie didn’t know where to put her hands. Should she perform a Laban exercise? She was here to corner Simone, but now she was being cornered by a twelve-year-old with an aura that made Valorie seem reasonable.

Against her hip, Le Galleria de Cora continued to exhibit its curated collection.

“Eppie!” Cora’s plosive sounds were escaping through her tooth gap. “Simone said you write songs now! Can you play the guitar? Can you?”

“I can.” Eppie nodded eagerly. She was thankful. Anything to get away from Renée.

Cora sprang from the floor, using Eppie’s calves as a trampoline. She returned five, maybe six breaths later, with a child-sized instrument. A ukulele. It had a pineapple motif. The pegs were tiny pineapples.

Cora looked at Eppie with expectant eyes.
Eppie looked at Renée.
Renée’s gaze cut like metallic guitar strings.

“Alright,” she took the ukulele and set it against her ribs. [Perfect Pitch] activated, and she sent the next minute tuning every string by ear until the nylon sang. It was good enough. There was a limit to a child’s toy instrument. “I only know a few songs, though.”

“I want to hear your song!” Cora gushed. “Do you have a CD?”

“Mine are digital mostly… this one is about a painter,” Eppie announced the song’s content to her audience of two. “A man who only sold one painting in his entire life. His name is Vincent.”

She found the sound with her slender fingers, surprisingly suitable for a child-sized fret. Her hands had played the song so many times that she didn’t even need the [System]’s help. With her knuckles, she set the pace, then her thumb rolled across the strings, once, twice, hitting the right tempo.

Starry, starry night—

Her private Met concert was intimate. More intimate than when she had sung for Armand. The room was small, the ceiling low. The beige was everywhere, and the wallpaper was peeling at the edges.

Cora sat completely still, mesmerised. Her fidgeting stopped, her excess energy finally tamed. She sat on the floor, hugging her knees, listening to the story of a man whose vision was never appreciated by the world until he chose to leave it. She did not understand the lyrics, but she understood the sentimentality. After all, Cora was also an artist.

Denise reappeared at the door.
The girls’ mother was smiling as she listened.
She had a new uniform on, not the whole thing, but enough to make changing in and out of the official one effortless.

The song was short, but Eppie extended it. She played the chorus three times.

“That’s beautiful,” Denise declared with a soft series of claps. “Simone’s right, you really are a whole new person. I am happy for you, Eppie.”

“I have a few more songs,” Eppie adjusted the strings. “Would you like to—”

“I really have to go,” Simone’s mother apologised. “You can stay with the girls as long as you like. There’s Chinese food in the fridge. Simone should be back in the evening.”

“I’ll wait for her.” Eppie smiled as best as she could, considering the circumstances. “Take care at work.”

Denise left, just like that.
There was no ceremony, no moment.
Work beckoned, and she needed to put food on the table.
In this house, four days before Christmas, there sat only two kids, a stranger, and a fridge with a surprising amount of Chinese food.

Renée walked to the corridor and slid the dead bolts home, then returned to the couch.

“Next song!” Cora wasn’t about to let her off the hook yet. “PLEASE?”

She looked to Renée at the threshold, the twelve-year-old with the demeanour of a twenty-year-old. Renée gave her permission to continue by turning the TV down to nothing.

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Eppie shifted her fingers up the neck, her [Instrument: Guitar], [Songstress], and [Perfect Pitch] doing the heavy lifting, with a bit of help from [Gospel]. The next song called for a different key—higher, bright, happier. It was the ukulele’s natural register.

Her throat opened to sweetness and tenderness.

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper, “I love you”
Birds singing in the sycamore tree

Dream a little dream of me—

Dream a Little Dream was a different beast on four strings. At the Gala, her song had been breathy and teasing. Without Zara, her simple playing conjured a different scene altogether. A scene of cheeky lovers at Christmas, kissing below the sycamore tree, lit by the amber string lights.

—Dream a little dream of me.

Cora crawled into her lap without asking.

The child in Eppie’s arms was skinny and warm, and she smelled like crayons, with a hint of spilt milk. There was also a scent of spice, Chinese spices, something like cumin and aniseed. Evidently, Cora had been hitting the five-spiced duck with gusto.

Eppie kept the song going. Her fingers, unlike those of other artists, did not tire.

Renée sat down on the sofa, her eyes dreamy. Finally, she was looking like a twelve-year-old should.