Uncle Hammer said good night and Aunt Loretta said, “I’ll be down early to get breakfast on the table and fix some food for y’all to take. Now, Cassie, you leave those dishes where they are. I’ll get them in the morning.” Then she and Uncle Hammer headed upstairs.
Stacey started to follow them up, then turned back to me. “You made up your mind yet?”
“Not quite. I’ll tell you in the morning.”
“Well, time is short.”
“I know that.”
Stacey was silent, his eyes reading mine. He understood the difficulty of the decision I had to make. “All right then. See you in the morning.”
With the family upstairs, I sat alone in the quiet room and pondered my future. I was still there when Stacey, Christopher-John, and Man came down, ready to leave.
I told them I was not going back to Toledo.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
It was not easy saying good-bye to my brothers. “I guess you know what you’re doing,” said Stacey. “You’re giving up a good teaching job come fall.”
“Good teaching job maybe, but you know how I feel about that.”
Christopher-John frowned. He was concerned about my being alone. “No family down there in L.A., Cassie. Won’t you be lonely?”
“Probably so, but think on it,” I said, playfully tugging on his arm. “Los Angeles! It’ll be an adventure!”
“Adventure’s not always what it’s cracked up to be,” warned Man. “Don’t be too quick to jump into anything doesn’t feel right.”
I smiled. “Believe me. I won’t do anything you wouldn’t do.”
Little Man smiled back. “Well, that’s not saying a whole lot.”
Stacey hugged me. “Just make sure you keep yourself safe, Cassie. Keep yourself safe.”
As I stood in the driveway with Uncle Hammer and Aunt Loretta and watched the Mercury roll down the street, then turn the corner out of our view, I felt a new kind of loneliness sweep over me. My brothers were going, leaving me behind. I had been without them before, but this was new. Before they had been the ones going into the unknown. Each of my brothers had gone off on his own. I never had.
Now I was going into the unknown.
CASSIE’S LOVE STORY
CHAPTER I
(1947–1948)
I was on my own.
For the first time in my life I was without Mama and Papa and Big Ma and my brothers. Uncle Hammer and Aunt Loretta had driven the nearly four hundred miles down the coast to take me to Los Angeles and had stayed several days with the Stricklands, enjoying vacation time with them while I got settled. Before they left I had already started working at Mr. Strickland’s office on Central Avenue, where he and his partner, Rowland Tomlinson, ran their trucking, real estate, and insurance businesses. Like Farish Street in Jackson and Dorr Street in Toledo, Central Avenue, simply called “the Avenue” by many, was the main corridor of the Negro community. Businesses of all kinds, from auto repair shops to medical, dental, and law offices, clothing stores and grocery stores, records shops, restaurants and cafés, theaters, and nightclubs were on the street. Real estate and insurance businesses like Strickland-Tomlinson were also there.
Strickland-Tomlinson was a quiet office and pleasant enough. Everybody working at the agency was colored. That was the way Negro businesses were back in Toledo and certainly down in Mississippi. Black business owners employed other black people. Los Angeles was no different. I had never worked in an office setting before, but I soon learned my duties and I felt comfortable during those first few days while Mr. Strickland was in the office. But then a few weeks after Uncle Hammer and Aunt Loretta left, Mr. Strickland had a stroke, and things began to change.
Mr. Strickland’s stroke was severe. He was partially paralyzed, could not speak, and it was expected that he would stay that way. Full recovery seemed doubtful. With Mrs. Strickland already in a wheelchair, the Stricklands’ adult children decided to move their parents in with them. That left me without a place to stay, but then Rowland Tomlinson and his wife invited me to stay with them.
It seemed to be working out all right for me. Instead of taking care of an elderly Mrs. Strickland and helping with the housecleaning in exchange for room and board, I now was responsible for some light housecleaning on weekends and helping care for the Tomlinsons’ four children before they were off to school as well as some weekends. The children were all under twelve, and I enjoyed being with them. I liked Mrs. Tomlinson too. She was fair with me and gave me every other weekend off from household and child-caring duties once the house was cleaned on Saturday mornings. Then I was free to do whatever I wanted. It was seemingly a good arrangement, but there was one problem. I was not comfortable with Rowland Tomlinson.
A much younger man than Mr. Strickland, Rowland Tomlinson seemed nice enough. He was always polite and smiling, but both at the office and at home I often found his eyes on me, following my movements a bit too much. It was never anything he said, but I just had an uneasy feeling about him. I tried to dismiss it. There was no one I could talk to about how I was feeling, so I kept my thoughts to myself.
All of Mr. Strickland and Mr. Tomlinson’s businesses were located in one building, and there were two floor levels. On the first floor were desks for the individual insurance salesmen who walked throughout the neighborhood selling insurance and collecting payments, for two real estate agents, and for a receptionist. A set of stairs led to the second floor, which opened onto a balcony partially overlooking the lower floor. Two secretary desks were located in the balcony portion of the office. A hallway led from the outer office to the private offices of Mr. Strickland and Mr. Tomlinson. When I first came to work for Mr. Strickland, I was at a desk on the first floor working as a receptionist, answering the phone, greeting people as they came in, and handling paperwork for the newly formed trucking company. At first I was concerned that since Mr. Strickland had hired me and he was no longer in the office I might lose the job, but that turned out not to be the case. Although Mr. Strickland’s trucking venture was put on hold, I was given other duties, and one week after Mr. Strickland’s stroke, Mr. Tomlinson moved me upstairs to a secretary’s desk. The woman who previously had sat at the desk was moved to a desk downstairs.
The other desk in the balcony office was occupied by a woman named Justine Curry. Just one look at her and I could understand why Mr. Tomlinson had dared not move her. She had been Mr. Strickland’s secretary, had been with him more than ten years, and she looked formidable. Justine was square-built in size, in her mid-thirties. She was not friendly, actually rather gruff in manner, but Mr. Strickland had trusted her totally. She knew the insurance business inside and out. She never smiled, at least not while I was around. Sometimes I found her staring at me from her desk across the balcony, but she spoke not a word to me unless necessary.