“My mother worked for Mr. Manners’s father when I was a little girl,” she said. She reached up to her throat and ran her fingers over her clavicle until they found the chain that held her medallion. She followed the chain to the pendant and rubbed her thumb and forefinger over the smooth brass surface while she spoke. “This would be Blitz’s grandfather. It was the ’60s and it was hard for a single mother to find work. Mama took odd jobs—laundry, cleaning, cooking, whatever she could get hired to do. She brought me with her to these jobs and a lot of people had a problem with that. Truth was, there was no place else for me to go.”
“How old were you?”
“Five. Blitz’s dad—Brody Manners—was a teenager at the time. He sure was popular. Girls were always around the house to flirt with him. I remember one time a couple of cheerleaders hung around while he washed his car. They said they’d wash it for him and he said no, that he wanted to teach me how to do it. They didn’t believe him. Truth? I didn’t believe him either until he handed me the hose and asked me to rinse off the bubbles. Imagine that—a rich white boy and a poor black girl washing a car together in 1965.” She smiled to herself more than to me, and I could tell the memory was one she cherished. “The whole family was like that. They treated me and my mom like we were no different than they were.”
“Where are they now?” I asked.
“They moved to Palm Springs after Brody graduated from college. That must have been ’72, I think. I was twelve. You know what Brody did? He gave me a set of keys to his Mustang. He told me to find him when I turned sixteen and he’d teach me to drive. I think he really planned to keep his word too.”
“But you didn’t seek him out,” I said.
Ebony’s mother had gotten sick when she was in high school. It was one of the reasons Ebony stayed behind in Proper City after her graduation. Her classmates moved away, and she started Shindig. Somewhere in the six years between Blitz’s father promising to teach Ebony how to drive and Ebony graduating from high school, her life had been turned upside down and nothing, not even the promise of being taught how to drive on a 1965 Mustang, was going to make it right.
“My mama taught me to drive. It’s one of the last things we did together before she got sick. She died two weeks after I graduated. I was officially on my own and nobody was going to take care of me but me. I did odd jobs myself and saved up what I could. I started Shindig when I had enough money.”
“And it’s a good thing too, because Shindig is the best party planning company in Nevada,” I said. “You have a knack for it.”
Ebony’s ringtone—the opening bars to “Shaft”—sounded from her handbag. She fumbled around inside her oversized hobo bag for it, glanced at the screen, and dropped it back into the bag. Almost as soon as the ringtone ended, it started again. This time she ignored it.
Conversation lapsed into silence. Even Ivory and Soot seemed to understand that we were in serious mode. I stared out the passenger-side window, wishing we were passing something interesting instead of miles upon miles of flat, brown desert, but that was the trouble with Nevada. Most Vegas-adjacent towns were either blinged out with garish casinos and neon signs or left as undeveloped stretches of dirt roads occupied by geckos and prairie dogs.
“I should have gone to the bathroom before we left the hospital,” Ebony said. “We’re going to have to make a pit stop.”
She took the next exit and glided into a fast-food restaurant at the first intersection. Before she got out of the car, I put my hand on her arm.
“Ebony, you don’t owe me any explanations. We don’t have to talk about any of this.”
“You’re right, we don’t have to talk about my bathroom break, but you might have gotten suspicious when I took the exit. You want anything from the restaurant? Chicken nuggets? Apple pie?”
“French fries,” I said. “And Ivory and Soot want to split a burger.”
Ebony grabbed her handbag and left me in the car. She had her phone in her hand before she reached the doors to the restaurant.
Bathroom break, my aunt Fanny.
I got out and stretched my legs. Ivory relieved himself on a rusted metal trash can. I checked the time on my phone and saw that I’d missed two calls from Bobbie. She left a message the second time that told me to call her as soon as I could.
Ivory extended the length of his leash to sniff around the exterior of the building. Inside the fast-food restaurant, Ebony was next in line. I kept an eye on her while I called Bobbie back.
“Margo! Jeez, where have you been? The store’s closed and you’re not answering your phone. I got scared that something happened to you.”
“Not to me, to my dad. He had another heart attack.”
“Is he okay?”
“For now.” Conversation with Ebony had effectively pushed concerns about my dad from my mind, but now the fear came rushing back. I dropped into the passenger seat. Ivory, sensing the tug on his leash, returned to the car. He jumped in and put his dirty paws on my knees. “He’s in a hospital outside of Proper City. Ebony and I drove out this morning. They think he’s going to be okay, but I’m still scared.”