Wherever There Is Light Read Online Free Page B

the Mason-Dixon Line at Eddie, Otis announced, “Edgecombe Avenue, Harlem, USA.”
    â€œSugar Hill. Julian and me used to go hear Cab Calloway play an after-hours joint up there—but we’re from Jersey.”
    â€œClose enough. I been cracking books here since September, and away-down south in Dixie ain’t nowhere for a rug-cutter from the shiny Apple, you dig?”
    Eddie pointed at the fifths of Jameson’s and Old Grand-Dad, and Otis said, “You swing, my man! Can I get a taste of that Irish, rocks?”
    As Eddie fixed Otis a drink, Julian saw Derrick pull back a chair for Kendall at the table. Derrick was so handsome that if he’d been white, some Madison Avenue sharpie would’ve stuck him in an Arrow shirt-collar ad. Yet Julian wasn’t without hope. You couldn’t miss the intelligence in Derrick’s face, but it was a face without guile, the face of an orderly man who Julian hoped would be a little too square for Kendall.
    Otis said to Julian, “My big bro thinks he’s in the clover ’cause he picked himself the high-yellow blossom of Lovewood. But any boy tangle with Kenni-Ann, he gonna wind up feeling like a one-legged man in an ass-kickin’ contest.”
    â€œThey getting hitched?”
    â€œWho knows? Kenni-Ann’s a senior, and Derrick copped his sheepskin last June. He’s down from DC to visit. He’s at Howard Law. Gonna practice with our daddy’s firm.”
    In the dining room, Derrick was seated across from Theodor. The two men were engaged in an animated discussion, while Kendall’s attention wandered until she noticed Julian staring at her. She smiled at him, her expression an enticing blend of curiosity and defiance, but before Julian could respond with a smile of his own, Kendall turned toward Derrick and his father.

    The seating arrangements were a problem. Garland was at one end of the table and to her left were Julian, Elana, and Theodor; to her right were Kendall, Derrick, Otis, and Eddie. Hence, Julian was across from Kendall and had to force himself not to stare at her. In addition, during the salad course, he had to look right at Derrick and listen to him and Theodor dissect Hegel. After ten minutes of Hegelian wisdom on the order of “All the rational is real and all the real is rational,” Julian excused himself and retrieved a bottle of Old Grand-Dad.
    After gulping three fingers of bourbon, Julian was feeling better, but then the butler, bearing a platter of baked chicken, stopped by his chair, and Elana piped up in the most maternal of voices, “My son likes the thighs.”
    Kendall smiled at his being treated like a five-year-old, and Julian felt embarrassed as the chicken was placed on his plate. Then Elana said to her son, “Doesn’t this look delicious?” and dipped a serving spoon into a bowl of string beans and heaped the vegetables beside his chicken. Staring at his food, Julian thought that his on-again off-again pal, gossipmonger Walter Winchell, would have a field day with this one, declaring in his nasal rat-a-tat-tat: Let’s go to press . . . Word has reached me that the big Jersey Rose, man-about-town and ex-giggle-water salesman, is his mommy’s baby boy .
    Julian dedicated his energies to emptying the fifth of Old Grand-Dad. He overheard Otis tell Eddie that he was going to take him over to the piano in the music building and show him how “One O’clock Jump” should be played, but Derrick was doing most of the talking. His topic was the national letter-writing campaign that he and other Howard Law students had organized to once again try to convince President Roosevelt to support federal antilynching legislation.
    Addressing Elana and Theodor, Derrick explained, “Down South, whites who lynch Negroes aren’t prosecuted, and Florida has the most lynchings in America. In Fort Lauderdale, when I was a sophomore here, a Negro man