When Angelina comes to invite you to a party at her house—relatives mostly, she tells your mamma—you almost don't get to go. But you beg and beg and, finally, when she invites your brother, too, your folks say you can both go for a while, since your brother is entirely responsible, a fortunate thing in this situation. You're late, and the party is in full swing when you arrive. Angelina is waiting with her sleepy brown eyes and a bow in her hair. The record player is playing and people are dancing to a song about the morning mist and two lovers kissing. Grownup people are holding each other tight and swaying to the music. You know that people dance like this, but it's a first for you to see ordinary mothers and daddies dancing this way. You and Angelina try it. Then you jitterbug to Chantilly Lace and you swing your ponytail side to side to the music. There are no boys except for your brother and Angelina's older cousin who is dancing with his girlfriend.

After that, you sit with Angelina on the couch and watch the party, and it is not quite the Blue Room, but almost. A man is kissing somebody beyond the doorway in the kitchen. Angelina covers her mouth and giggles. Your brother is standing off by himself staring at you and Angelina, and it seems like to you he is missing out on a lot of the action.

You watch the people dancing and drinking from their fancy glasses. It's not only mothers and fathers who dance together you notice—the partners change. Angelina's father is dancing with a lady with hair like soap bubbles—her mother is all the way across the room dancing by herself with a glass in one hand-on the record, Fats Domino starts singing about finding his thrill on Blueberry Hill—

That's when it happens. Angelina's mother starts taking off her clothes.

Copyright © 2004 Loranne Marsh Temple. All rights reserved.

Brother Honeywell led the way, straight and tall, thin as a fence rail, holding his hat against his chest—one after another they came and passed silently by the coffin and disappeared out the back door—mostly women folks they were, and children. All you could hear in the whole place was a little rustling sound like birds in the bushes as the folks turned around in their seats and the soft shuffling of shoes on the floorboards as they passed. I turned and caught sight of P.J.'s face across the aisle, fiery red and downright astonished, like he'd just turned around and somebody'd whacked him one right across the face. He looked at me and narrowed those eyes of his and set one hand on the pew in front of him like he was thinking about getting up and walking right out of there. I turned and looked at him straight on, and I shook my head real slow side-to-side one time, just so he'd remember that it was my mamma's funeral he was thinking of leaving. He stared at me for a second, and then he took his hand off the pew and settled back down.

And the colored folks just kept on coming in the door, down the aisle, and out the back. Loco and Jacksaw weren't there, but Fradette was, her hair whiter than I remembered, dressed in her black hat and white gloves and some old man with her. When she passed my pew with her head tucked under, her eyes flicked up real quick to catch mine and then back down again. I nodded to her, then looked over at Nell. Her head was straight ahead, her mouth a hard, thin line. Next thing I knew they disappeared as quick as they came. After that, even though lots of folks were still sitting there filling up the place, it felt like the breath of God had blown in with that long line and settled down over us. Like some kind of special stillness held everybody in their seats, waiting to move, or even to breathe.

Copyright © 2004 Loranne Marsh Temple. All rights reserved.