It’s a nice enough place to pass the time while I anticipate our usual meeting and his assessment of my latest writings.
Sunlight streams through the wide front windows, bathing the Parisian-themed café in a warm, pleasant glow. The bell jangles as new customers crowd in, decked out in crop tops, shorts, and flip-flops, drawn by the scent of fresh pastries and strong coffee.
They flock to the counter, their cameras out, diligently recording their authentic Savannah experience as they linger over tempting displays of rainbow-hued macarons,pain au chocolat, and fresh croissants. The place hums from their conversation and the soft music that floats from hidden speakers, mingling with the whir of the bean grinder and the gurgle of the espresso machine as it spurts smooth streams of richness into white cups.
I liftThe Savannah Tribuneand reread my latest weekly column, Dust Tracks, revisiting the hidden Black history in the city and surrounding area. It’s odd, this need to see the words in print, but I can never resist.
I look up every few minutes to eavesdrop on the tourists babbling about the antebellum mansions and cobblestone streets and the rumors about ghosts roaming the national historic landmark district. The noise of it all is a welcome distraction from the spirits chasing me.
This café is a good place to wait until I can face Death again.
And wait, I have.
I didn’t think it would be this long.
I’d thought Death would come see me the instant Winston died.
I imagined looking up from his bedside to find Death leaning against the hospital door, his head tilted, arms crossed, mouth smug, eyes glinting with the knowledge that he thought he’d won—that he might’ve been right all along.
He should’ve come.
Winston was my last person to lose. The last straw to break me, to make me write less and less.
But he didn’t.
Not then.
Not now.
Not for the three years, two months, six days, and sixteen hours since I left that hospital room. I’ve gone years without seeing Death, sometimes with more than a decade between visits. In the beginning, I used to fear him showing up, never knowing when he’d appear, uncertain if the words I’d published would be enough to please him and continue our eternal wager ... leaving my soul and the souls of all at stake.
Even with the momentousness of the task, I can’t deny that there have been perks, in the wondrous things I’ve experienced. I’ve watched Marian Anderson sing on Easter Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial, sat with Langston Hughes as he wrote “The Weary Blues,” detailing one of our nights out, and ridden with Ollie Stewart on the convoy behind Charles de Gaulle during the liberation of Paris in 1944. I’ve covered the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by Lyndon B. Johnson.
I’ve watched on a grainy black-and-white TV as men took the first steps on the moon and then written about it. I’ve gathered and recorded mountains of evidence attesting to humanity’s goodness—our miraculous wisdom and inventions and our redeemable nature—for more than two centuries. The task has always been difficult—cobblingtogether stories from all the people I’ve met and the places I’ve been, scrambling, hoping I’ve found enough proof to save everyone.
We’re two weeks from the 240th anniversary of our first meeting in the cabin. I wonder what he thinks of my latest little column. A tiny blip of a piece, in contrast to the travelogues and articles I used to write and the grandiose publications they appeared in. But writing for a Black newspaper has always felt bigger, as if my words might linger forever. I should be working on the next one, my deadline imminent, but I ignore my notebook.
My phone pings. A reminder. The lecture tonight. I flip back to the front of the paper and trace my finger along the black-and-white write-up of Dr. Sebastian Moore, historian of international journalism specializing in Black journalists. The headline haunts me:The Missing Voices—Excavating the Black Women of Historic Journalism Through the Work of Jimi Ireland and Beyond.
That name is a firework. One of the many iterations of myself. Even after all this time, it still startles me to see my past self in print.
I trace the four letters of my old name, so small, that lifetime so far away now, and I can’t resist the tide to return to a sliver of it. I’ve kept internet alerts for all my names in case they pop up in scholarly databases or online. Apparently, some overinflated academic decided my work was worth critiquing—in theNew Yorker, no less—with all the smugness of someone who’s never left their ivory tower. I intend to find out who, exactly, he thinks he is.
I check my phone for the hour and eye the thinning line at the register. I’ll have barely enough time for another cup if I’m going to make the lecture on time. I have to know what he plans to say about me and my work.
“Vivian!”
I glance up. I’ve been isolated for so long I’ve nearly forgotten this name, my current one. I push back my pen and notebook and scoot off the high stool, grateful for the distraction.
Ruby waves from the pickup counter, holding a to-go cup in my direction. She’s the closest thing I’ve had to a friend in the time since I moved back here, checking in as she fills my cup and asks about my work—always curious about what I’m writing next.
Perhaps it will be her. She deserves to be written about. The hardships she’s had to endure hidden beneath her beauty. Her sunny disposition radiates out, enveloping the customers in its glow, as she efficiently manages the café. There’s no hint that she’s picked up the pieces since the fire that took her mother’s life and nearly took hers, or the struggle of raising her brother. Ruby is one of those people, the redeeming ones who do things despite the challenges, still believing that life can be good. She reminds me a bit of myself.
“You must be a mind reader,” I say as I approach.
“Tough writing?” she asks, nodding to the open notebook back at my seat.
I shrug, taking the offered cup. “You know, one of those days.”
