“This is a little girl,” he said. “Someone’s child.”
Bernie watched it all from her hospital bed, and she woke the next day asking if there’d been any news. She worried over that missing girl for days, wouldn’t let anybody change the channel on the TV if the news was on, hoping for an update. Jay sat through it, fidgety and uncomfortable, staring into the hall, waiting on the next doctor or nurse to come in, listening for the soles of shoes squeaking on the linoleum outside. And when nearly a week went by with no answers, no happy ending, on TV or in that tiny hospital room, or in the pages and pages of her medical chart, Bernie finally said she thought it would be best if she were the one to talk to Ellie, their fourteen-year-old daughter, about what was happening to her mother, that she wasn’t coming home the way anyone wanted, and there were things she thought her girl needed to know to go on without her. Jay felt relieved and grateful at first, Bernie taking this off his shoulders, and then ashamed of himself, his bald cowardice. He excused himself and went out to the hall, where he leaned his face against the cold wall tiles to keep from puking.
Tina Wells was found the next day. She’d been fifteen, Ellie’s age now.
A car rolls up behind Jay and honks.
He’s been idling for a couple of minutes, blocking the intersection.
He waves an apology to the driver, then scoots his car along, heading toward the community center, where Arlee was when she called, and where Jay assumes tonight’s meeting is being held. The car behind him, a black Cadillac, honks again, just as the driver pulls alongside Jay. The rear window slides down. Sam Hathorne is sitting in the back passenger seat, alone.
“Follow me,” he says, before rolling up the tinted window.
The Cadillac picks up speed, zooming ahead of Jay. At the turnoff to the community center, Hathorne’s driver keeps going, and Jay follows, unsure where they’re heading until the Cadillac turns onto Norvic, pulling up in front of the Hathorne family homestead, a sprawling ranch-style house painted russet brown and set back from the street by thirty yards and twin magnolia trees shading damp grass. The driver steps out of the car first. Sam Hathorne opens the rear passenger door on his own. He comes out smoothing his suit jacket and holding out a hand for Jay. “Arlee told me you were coming.”
The two men meet at the start of the house’s brick walk.
“Sam,” Jay says, shaking his hand.
“I thought it’d be more comfortable if we met here.”
Samuel P. Hathorne, “Sunny” to a number of the old guard, men and women who’ve known him since ’49, who raised their children alongside his, is no more than five feet six in boots, a pearl gray ostrich pair on his feet now. He is barrel chested, with a torso that narrows to the tip of a V at his small, nearly birdlike waist. He wears wire-rimmed glasses, black across the tops of the lenses, and he keeps his silver hair close to the sides with a lift at the front, giving him an extra inch in stature. Sam moved his family into the first single-family home at Pleasantville’s founding, had, in fact, been the unofficial liaison between the Negro community and Mel Silverman and Bernard Paul, the developers who dreamed up the town. Sam, even way back then, decided who would benefit from his connections, who would get a home loan from his bank, Southern National–which he’d built over the years from a few thousand dollars to the premier black bank in the state–and who wouldn’t, who got to buy into the most coveted new community for black folks in the city and who didn’t. He was the unofficial “mayor” of Pleasantville, the man to see if you had a beef with a neighbor, or needed a reference for a job or a loan, of course. And if Sam Hathorne wouldn’t give you the money, he would tell you who would. He was one of the first to organize the new residents in their many fights with city hall over city services, spearheading that campaign for the elementary school, and he’s had the ear of folks in city government ever since. He is the funnel through which power flows, from city hall to the north side. A walking conduit for Pleasantville’s needs, he’s simply beloved in these parts. He still owns the house on Norvic, though most people know he doesn’t really live in it anymore, and most folks forgive him for it. A lot has changed in Pleasantville since 1949.
His driver, a fair-skinned black man in a navy suit, gray shirt, and tie, lights a cigarette as Sam leads Jay toward the front door of the house. Eighty now, he walks with a slight limp, favoring his right leg. He pats Jay warmly on the back and asks him what he’s drinking tonight.
Inside, there’s a fire going. But the mood is somber.
Arlee Delyvan nods to Jay when he walks in. She’s wearing black slacks and a gray sweater. Next to her on the Hathornes’ leather sofa are Ruby Wainwright, tall and lean like her husband, and Elma Johnson, a dark-skinned woman with a head full of finger curls. She sits stone faced, a gold-rimmed china cup resting on her lap. Trays of tea cakes and honeyed ham sit on the coffee table, untouched. The men in the room hover over a standing ashtray, curls of white cigarette smoke reaching up toward the ceiling.
Sam Hathorne pours himself two fingers of Crown Royal.